This soup didn’t come out of a packet.
We were not Jewish. But whenever one of us was sick, Mom would break out the chicken soup.
Well, kinda, sorta.
It was the sort of soup a harried Midwestern Presbyterian considered suitable for ailing children, a saucepan of rehydrated Lipton chicken noodle, with a side of Premium saltines. And if I played my cards right, I could work Mom for the fake soup and a couple of comic books. Winning!
Well, here we are again. The Plague is upon us, we’re shivering under the comforter, and someone is bringing us a plastic bowl of industrial soup with some dried-up old white crackers.
Say, who is that wearing Mom’s apron? It’s … it’s … oh, my God, it’s. …
Yes, it’s another thrilling episode of Radio Free Dogpatch!
P L A Y R A D I O F R E E D O G P A T C H
• Technical notes: It’s another low-and-slow-fi episode this week. I used an Audio-Technica ATR2100-USB mic, and skipped the Zoom H5 Handy Recorder in favor of recording directly to the MacBook Pro using Rogue Amoeba’s nifty little app Piezo. Editing was as usual, in GarageBand. You’ll recognize Babe and the gang from The Firesign Theatre (“How Can You Be In Two Places At Once When You’re Not Anywhere At All”) and the doctor from “Monty Python’s The Meaning of Life.” The background music is by Your Humble Narrator, assembled from bits and pieces in the iOS version of GarageBand on a 9.7-inch iPad Pro.
Tags: chicken noodle soup, Daffy Uncle Joe, Radio Free Dogpatch
Mad Blog Media 
March 11, 2020 at 9:17 pm |
If anyone here recalls FDR’s first inaugural address including that “…we have nothing to fear…but fear itself…” line, boy do we need an FDR now instead of the raving asshole we have in the White House.
March 12, 2020 at 8:03 am |
I’m thinking of The Firesign Theatre quip, from “Dear Friends,” I think: “All we have to fear is me.”
March 12, 2020 at 5:15 pm |
It seem we have slipped into that Fireside Theatre alternate universe & have been here for a while.
March 12, 2020 at 4:37 am |
Now THAT is a fine lookin’ chicken soup, Patrick! Season to taste after 8 hours simmering with maybe some cayenne or green chiles and it’ll cure whatever ails ya……or maybe not as Khal so inelegantly but accurately put it.
Wasn’t someone calling the pandemic a “hoax” last week?
March 12, 2020 at 8:05 am |
That’s a “stock” photo, har de har har. From 2015, I think. Today I will be roasting some chicken, taters and turnips in honor of Herself’s (mumble-mumbleth) birthday.
March 12, 2020 at 8:12 am |
Well please tell Herself that we wish her a terrific birthday and another safe, healthy lap around the sun! 🙂
March 12, 2020 at 6:32 am |
If it’s not already trademarked you better grab Masterpiece Podcast. This one is a gem. We also learned that if you can’t pronounce or spell the ingredients for chrissakes don’t eat it. BTW…whatever your process…this podcast came in like you were standing right next to me. I even peeked under the couch cushions to see if you were embedded.
March 12, 2020 at 8:12 am |
Thanks, Herb. Naturally, as soon as I uploaded the sonofabitch I saw how I could have made it better, but that’s one of the perils of doing something other than print, which in These Days of Modern Times is a whole lot easier to revise and extend after publication.
I have a few nice microphones, a good audio interface and one decent digital recorder, but it seems the setup that works best so far is one of the cheapest mics I own plugged directly into the MacBook Pro, recording into a $19 app. Once I’ve edited the audio in GarageBand I upload it to Auphonic for some free post-processing. Go figure.
March 12, 2020 at 6:51 am |
That was well done Patrick. Like Herb said, the mixing was excellent, the pace was just right, and I could understand every word. Kinda like a tasty audio chicken soup. Me, wood fired pizza sounds good, but since I don’t have any bricks or a pile of seasoned oak, it’s Pizzaria Mimosa for lunch today. Gotta support the local folks, amirite?
Get well soon.
March 12, 2020 at 8:20 am |
Thankee, Paddy me lad. Fetch some of that pizza up here straight away. We still haven’t found a suitable purveyor of same. Though it’s hard to complain about the green chile in these parts. …
March 13, 2020 at 1:47 am |
Nice job PO’G. Yours are the only podcasts I can listen to, the rest of ’em have me constantly looking for the fast-forward and/or the cut-the-BS buttons.
Soup? My mother was a Campbell’s mom and not much for hooch, though there always seemed to be Valium in the kitchen cupboard next to her instant coffee and cancer-sticks. I too had the childhood colds and allergy to the “night air” as was suggested at one point before they yanked out my tonsils and mixed up some special serum to be injected into me at regular intervals. That seemed to do the trick.
Now La Professoressa makes the zuppa – the real thing. My faves are pasta/fagioli and ceci/rosmarino Recipes for both are easy to find on various video sharing sites. We tend to like Cookaround or GialloZafferano’s little video clips – you don’t really need to understand much Italian to get the idea
Politics? Same s–t, different election – choose the lesser of the evils. Daffy Ol’ Joe should get a young (perhaps female?) running-mate of color so when he croaks the country will be in good hands. If these old-farts won’t retire and get outta the way, perhaps Covid-19 will take ’em off the stage for good? Keep shakin’ those hands Donny!
March 13, 2020 at 8:10 am |
Thanks, Lorenzo. I like keeping them short, about a thousand words, call it six or seven minutes. I think in terms of the short Firesign Theatre bits like “Beat the Reaper,” “The National Lampoon Radio Hour,” “Dr. Science,” and Ian “I Gotta Go” Shoales.
Except those dudes are, like, good, an’ stuff.