Jay Weidner: I am here to remind everyone of our website www.sacredmysteries.com where you can find the best in spiritual videos and films. Our newest set of Qi Gong instructional videos are out titles The Alchemy of Qi Gong with master teacher Pedram Shojai. Check out www.jayweidner.com for more high weirdness.
Speaking of high weirdness, we're here with Timothy Beckley ? what my wife would probably call a madman, as she calls me, doesn't know what I'm doing and is wondering why I hang out with so many weird people. And I was going to ask you, Tim. I see on your bio here that you're a horror film fan. Is that true?
Timothy: Actually I have to blame that on Nancy Reagan, believe it or not.
Jay: [laughs]
Timothy: Which I know might sound pretty strange. But I don't know if most people realize, but Nancy Reagan before she became Mrs. Reagan, was Nancy Davis.
Jay: That's right.
Timothy: An actress in Hollywood who did ? I don't know what her background is, to be honest with her. But the movie that influenced me is a film that she did called, "Donovan's Brain."
Jay: "Donovan's Brain."
Timothy: And it was shot in black?and?white. And I'm not sure what year, but I think in the early 1950s. Anyway, I know as a kid, it was being broadcast on television. And I guess it was on at a reasonably late hour. I wanted to see it, but my mother wouldn't let me stay up that late because I had school the next day. Not that that normally mattered, but I couldn't sneak under the covers and listen to it like I did "Long John."
But my mother wanted to watch it, of course. I could hear the movie in the next room. And I remember hearing the sound of Donovan's brain being kept alive in a jar, I guess, or something like that, right?
It was one of these brains?go?out?of?body, or something. And I could hear the sound of the machinery pumping: "ba?boom, ba?boom, ba?boom, ba?boom." Anyway, it frightened the bejesus out of me for some reason that I really can't explain.
But I guess in a sense it was a good horror movie. Because today you have all these special effects, so that ruins it for me. The whole thing about a horror movie is the shadows and the sounds and so forth.
Anyway, after that night I couldn't go to sleep without sleeping with a nightlight on. But I saw that movie. It was on TV maybe about 10 or 15 years ago and I said, "This movie frightened me so much when I was young. Now I have to see the real film."
Well, I turned that movie on and I shut it off in 15 minutes. It was so boring. Horror movies have come a long way since that was made. And the acting wasn't all that great and the theatrics weren't all that great either, except for the brain being kept alive in a jar: "ba?bumm, ba?bumm, ba?bumm." [laughter]
I always enjoyed horror movies. And I guess that had a great impact on me, because later on in life I started working for a couple of small movie companies around Times Square. I had an office in Manhattan. I worked for Jim Moseley. He had a magazine, "Saucer News."
I would come into the city ? this was back when I was in my late teens ? and I went around Times Square, and in those days you could see two movies for a buck including a newsreel and a cartoon, although I don't think on Times Square they were too interested in the cartoon.
Anyway, a lot of them were horror movies and so forth and so on, and I met a lot of the small movie producers who had offices around Times Square.
I met a few of them, and I got into the movie business when I wasn't working in publishing. Because I edited over the years probably about 30 different magazines, none of which lasted more than a couple of issues. But I met some of these small?time producers and I became the publicist for their film companies. And then I...
Jay: Did you know Jack Harris? He did "The Blob," and ...
Timothy: Well, I didn't meet him. But I knew quite a few of these fellows. There was a fellow, Sherman, who had a company who actually became very much interested and involved in UFOs over the years. He has a movie out about the UFO contacts at Edwards Air Force Base. Anyway, I met some of these guys who went to work for these little film companies promoting their little horror movies, and later on I decided I wanted to become a horror movie person myself, so I put out a series of movies under the name of "Mr. Creepo Presents," and they were some pretty wild low?budget things.
They're being repackaged and some of them will be put out early next year by Reality Entertainment...
Jay: Oh, they're good.
Timothy: And they're available now on Amazon.com. If you just look up Mr. Creepo, you'll find the videos, and some of them are on vampires, and I've written books on were wolves and everything. My publishing company, Inner Light Global Communications, we started out mainly as UFOs and New Age, but you've got to move on, if you're going to be a successful publisher, and to stay in business you've got to go with what people are interested in.
So we've done books on psychic pets, and we've published books by Brad Steiger, and Commander X we pointed out, and Tim Swartz, and so forth, so we're very eclectic, and we keep going and we do a lot of different things, because not everybody's interested in the same thing. So we give them a little bit of everything out there.
In fact, we put out a bi?monthly newsletter which is available online, conspiracyjournal.com, or it's available through the mail, if people don't have the Internet, or they want a hard copy to look at, and we always come out with probably six new books a month that are our own, some video tapes and products from other producers and publishers and so forth.
So we present this with an open mind and attitude and let people decide what path they want to take and study. We present it, and then you decide.
Jay: That's what I do, too.
Timothy: Yes, you do! And a very good job you do.
Jay: Well, thank you. I used to actually write horror films, believe it or not.
Timothy: Is that right? Did you do "Donovan's Brain"?
Jay: I did not. I was about two years old when that movie came out.
Timothy: Nobody will take credit! [laughs]
Jay: I won't take credit for the ones I wrote either. [They laugh] They were pathetic. I'm a big horror film fan myself, Tim. And I agree with what you said about modern horror?it's too techy.