There’s a whole lot going on in the world lately, and I’ve been doing my best to ignore most of it.
Instead of breaking news, I’ve been breaking wind, metaphorically speaking — which is to say, farting around with Radio Free Dogpatch again.
Hey, what could I tell you? The Voices have been bored, and that’s always bad news.
We’ve been having a meeting of the minds as to exactly why we want to belly-flop back into this sonic kiddie pool, a shallow backwater that drains feebly and sporadically into the Great Audio River.
But apparently we’re at least one mind short.
However, we do not lack for Voices. And they all have their own microphones because somebody around here got a little acquisitive a couple years back. If we don’t pipe them into your heads, they’ll keep hanging around in ours.
All of which means, yes, yes, yes, it’s time for another episode of Radio Free Dogpatch, where the air is never definitively dead, it’s just not at all well.
P L A Y R A D I O F R E E D O G P A T C H
• Technical notes: Once again I set up shop on the dining-room table, using a Shure SM58 mic and the Zoom H5 Handy Recorder. Editing was in Apple’s GarageBand, with a sonic bump from Auphonic. Zapsplat, Freesound, GarageBand, and Your Humble Narrator provided music and sound effects, with Miss Mia and the Crickets opening for The Commitments.
Mad Blog Media 
Speaking of podcasts, that got me to thinking about something I listened to in college on the local public radio station in the early morning. It was Ken Nordine’s Word Jazz. I went looking and found all of the episodes on the way back machine. Enjoy the weirdness.
Ken Nordine was the shit. I loved his stuff. Duck’s Breath Mystery Theatre was top notch, too, along with their side projects Dr. Science and Ian Shoales.
And leave us not forget the National Lampoon Radio Hour. Richard Belzer, recently departed, had a hand in that and chatted about it in 2003 with Bob Edwards at NPR.
Chapeau! Do it again.
Thanks, matey. That one took a bit of doing. Herself got an extra day off because of evil weather, and said weather had a strong sonic component (pow’ful winds). I think I had to record the main narration three or four times, which meant reshuffling all the other tracks.
The little “Play Radio Free Dogpatch” sound bar is not working for me, but the text link to Radio Free Dogpatch works.
I suppose that is one idea for a retirement hobby. The world is short of priests and you are, after all, Irish….
The sound bar should be working now (it is for me, anyway). Sometimes all these links take a while to hook up.
Speaking of the Irish and their priests, I’m reading “We Don’t Know Ourselves: A Personal History of Modern Ireland,” by Fintan O’Toole, the Irish Times columnist who is of an age with meself. I had no idea how tight a grip Mother Church had on the media there when he was a wee lad. Imagine if the Southern Baptists ran The New York Times, Warner Bros., and Netflix.
Still not at my end but maybe its because I am on Firefox?
As far as Ireland, I imagine the entire Monty Python troupe has been excommunicated.
Now the bar is working. Belly up!
Dear Father O’Grady. After trying everything else to keep the damn squirrels from pillaging the bird feeders,I’ve resorted (again) to shooting at them with a pellet rifle. On rare occasions I hit one. Will I for sure be going to hell or will I be cut some slack since I donate to PBS? Also, while the power was down from ice storms for 4 days, I said some really bad words. What is your ruling on that?
Ah, Herb me son, glad to see you have emerged from the New Dark Ages. We have been flogged repeatedly by horrific winds but (so far) the lights remain on because we are pure of heart. Well, one of us is, anyway.
Say two Hail Marys and one Hello Sailor. Go forth and sin no more.
Patrick’s well written, as usual, and thoughtful reply gives me hope that the world will be OK and human beings are mostly good and do the right thing. The “hello sailor” was a genius touch from a extraordinary word wrangler.
Me? I say fuck a bunch of squirrels.
Patrick, mi amigo, please forgive me; self control is not one of my strong suits.
Credit where credit is due: I was riffing on a bit of standup by Eddie Izzard, who was speaking of original sin during her standup “Dress to Kill.”
I liked it thanks for brightening my morning.