These two make quite a pair. It’s a pear tree! That’s a joke, son!
Spring isn’t a date on the calendar. It’s more of a feeling. A warm one, if you’re lucky.
For me, the vernal equinox is rarely the starter’s pistol. I don’t hear that big bang until Herself asks whether her Soma Double Cross is ready to ride after a long winter’s nap on its hook in the garage.
Turn your radio on.
By that reckoning, spring arrived in The Duck! City on April 9, Easter Sunday.
It was a few degrees short of ideal — I like to think of spring as that time when I can unsheath the arms and knees, charge those solar batteries, collect a little free vitamin D.
But if we had to roll out in arm and knee warmers, so what? As you know, you go to ride with the spring you have, not the spring you might want or wish to have at a later time.
And exactly one week later the experience gives rise to a spring-feverish episode of — yes, yes, yes — Radio Free Dogpatch. The doctor will see you now.
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 the sonic environment was less than ideal at the indifferently equipped Infernal Hound Sound studios, so I thought I’d try an audio experiment. This episode was recorded using an Audio-Technica ATR2100-USB microphone (now discontinued) hooked via XLR to a Zoom PodTrak P4, which in turn was connected to my 13-inch 2014 MacBook Pro. Recording and editing was handled via Hindenburg Journalist software (since rechristened Hindenburg Lite), with a sonic bump from Auphonic. Music and sound effects are courtesy of Zapsplat (shoutout to David-Gwyn Jones for “Looking Back Over the Hill”); the Free Music Archive (a snappy salute to the U.S. Army Blues for “Walk That Dog”, from “Live at Blues Alley”); Freesound, and Your Humble Narrator.
Tags: Easter, first day of spring, Herself, Radio Free Dogpatch, Soma Double Cross
Mad Blog Media 
April 16, 2023 at 11:29 am |
Good stuff again, pilgrim!
April 16, 2023 at 3:42 pm |
Thankee, sah. The Hindenburg software I used is aimed at voice types — podcasters, audiobookers, radio — so it lacks the musical whizbangs of GarageBand, which I’ve used to put together background tunes.
In some ways Hindenburg is easier; in others, more difficult. There are a few filters and plugins that confound me completely. I’ma have to study up some.
April 17, 2023 at 7:04 am |
I see on Hindenburg web site that they have tutorials on it. Audio interfaces, editing software, and microphones all hooked together. Gets complicated real quick, doesn’t it? Didn’t you have a small mixer with a USB output?
April 17, 2023 at 7:27 am |
Yup, I had a Behringer Xenyx 1204USB mixer, but it was real old-school with a lot of cabling and skull sweat involved — total overkill for my little one-ring circus — so I had Herself sell it on eBay.
The Zoom PodTrak P4 that I’m using now is a whole lot simpler. It’s basically a swole-up version of the H5 Handy Recorder that I’ve used forever. Much easier on the old brain-pan, sets up a mix-minus for phone interviews so I don’t have to, and lets me record both to software on the Mac and to an SD card in the PodTrak P4 — belt and suspenders in case something goes pear-shaped.
Truth be told, I could run this little lounge act of mine with a USB mic and GarageBand. But it’s fun to play with the toys.
April 17, 2023 at 8:54 am |
Ain’t that the truth. Alan and I played with a friend at a wine and cheese get together in March. We started talking about getting a mixer and some powered PA speakers. When we saw what we would have to carry, we forgot about it. It’s a little difficult to get 3 acoustic amps to agree, but we make it work. The third friend is moving out of the neighborhood, so it’s probably just Alan and I again next time out. This is the acoustic amp I use.
April 17, 2023 at 8:55 am |
https://www.henriksenamplifiers.com/product/the-bud-ten/
April 17, 2023 at 4:39 pm |
Ooo la la … that looks like a cool toy. You like it? Get the gig bag to ferry it around?
I can plug in the Roundhouse. But — and I hate to admit it — I haven’t been playing at all.
April 17, 2023 at 4:56 pm |
Absolutely love it. It comes with the gig bag now, but I had to buy it separately. I got it at Rainbow during the plague. I took my stimulus money and bought an US made amp, from a family owned U S company. I stimulated the US economy is what.
April 17, 2023 at 5:27 pm |
Well played, sir; well played indeed.
April 16, 2023 at 12:59 pm |
I just had to add to your rhythmic Bon A-pear-tif:
It’s a-pear-ant that those pair of pear-ly white appendages may no longer ap-pear to require the benefit of long legged ap-pear-al.
April 16, 2023 at 3:44 pm |
Alas, the appendages of which you speak still look more like the inside of a pear than the outside of a pecan. The weather shifted on us after Easter and we had to run in pants and long sleeves yesterday, though today I could’ve skipped the arm/knee warmers if I’d started my ride a bit later.
April 16, 2023 at 11:22 pm |
Radio Free … and every one of us would pay double if you’d ask!
April 17, 2023 at 5:57 am |
Double free? Is that anything like double secret probation? Has Dean Wormer been listening in?
April 17, 2023 at 2:51 pm |
Shit-oh-dear, guys. Don’t remind me of my first two years of college.
April 16, 2023 at 11:26 pm |
Your pear tree looks like it got a four week head start on ours. We just barely have a hint of the bud velvet, guessing we won’t see flowers until Mother’s Day.
April 17, 2023 at 6:00 am |
That photo goes to show you how the camera can lie like a Supreme Court justice. Our poor pear tree is on its last legs, half alive, half dead. If it were in a superhero blockbuster it would be Two-Face from “Batman.”
April 17, 2023 at 8:21 am |
Glad to hear that your weather is reliable. Here in Cheeseheadland we finished up a beautiful week of sunny in the 70s and 80s when my soccer team had its first victory on Saturday. Yesterday we had another victory in the rain at 38F. This morning finds us under an inch-ish of snow that won’t begin to melt until sometime later tomorrow. Sheesh.
April 17, 2023 at 12:58 pm |
Oh, man, I hate it when that happens. You get suckered into thinking winter is over and then pow, right in the kisser. Gives you some appreciation for activities like bowling, where it rarely snows and you don’t even need to bring your own shoes.
April 18, 2023 at 8:52 am |
I do enjoy your podcasts. As a former recording studio rat, I have to admire the production quality. A lot of Firesign Theater in there.
April 18, 2023 at 10:25 am |
B, I’m tickled to hear that you enjoy my occasional amateur hour (or six minutes, which is more like it).
And yep, The Firesign Theatre was a major influence on my interest in audio. I started listening to them in high school and have a ton of their albums and a book or two. Saw them live once at a small venue in Denver; for me, it was the equivalent of a Beatles concert.
A couple of my lifelong friendships formed around the Firesigns when a bunch of strangers started jawing at a party and wound up doing the entire “Nick Danger: Third Eye” bit.
April 18, 2023 at 4:07 pm |
I read “soccer in the rain…” and thought, yeah, that used to be the best
Then I finished “ … at 38° F.” and remembers, nope, zero fun.
I do remember playing a game where the ball felt like it was frozen solid, whole team was hobbling the class the next day.
April 19, 2023 at 9:35 am |
Yeah, I had a coworker who was a high school football referee. We used to let him have it during late November playoffs. “Hey Chip, it’s 35 and driving rain. Gonna be fun tonight, eh?” Those days he’d rather have snow cuz as least that doesn’t soak you to the bone.
Still, I’m proud of the team as we’re 2-0 right now versus the fall season record of 0-7-1.
April 17, 2023 at 2:38 pm |
Spring is nice but my allergies are horrible, compounded by the 10-20 mph winds up here blowing pollen everywhere.
Well, I pulled the trigger on Socialist Security today. Figure I’ve been paying into it all these decades. Might as well pull in a few bucks before the Grim Reaper corners me.
April 17, 2023 at 3:25 pm |
I hear ya, bruh. Same thing down here. Wind, dust, pollen … but at least the sun is shining, amiright? Waaaaaaaaahhhhhhhh-choo!
Meanwhile, good on ya for signing up for the SS while it’s still around. That was my primary reason for grabbing that brass ring. But by “Grim Reaper,” do you mean Charlie McCarthy, the Meat Puppet of the House?
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/04/17/us/politics/mccarthy-debt-ceiling-increase.html?
April 17, 2023 at 9:50 pm |
Both, actually. I don’t know how many more years I have on this gig. And I don’t trust the Rethuglicans to not steal my SS that I have paid into for close to fifty years.
April 18, 2023 at 5:49 am |
I started drawing at 66 but timed it 4 months too early so I was still getting a paycheck and then came some pesky taxes I didn’t see coming. But on the bright side, I took the SS money and maxed out I-Bond purchases when the rates became very tasty. Now, we hear the Rethugs want to do away with I-Bonds claiming the government should not compete with the private sector. Ha! It’s because the Fed can’t make those big donations to their (ahem) campaign fund like Wall St does.
April 18, 2023 at 6:31 am |
We were late to those tasty I-Bonds, dammit. Herself changed financial advisors and the new crowd tipped us to them. I wish I had a better grasp of this financial voodoo but I just can’t force what remains of my round mind into those square holes.
We didn’t need to tap into my SS with Herself still on the job, but goddamnit I wanted to git some — git some! — before Charlie McCarthy and The Turtle pour it all into Clarence Thomas’s retirement fund or down some other entitled shitheels’ ratholes.
April 18, 2023 at 9:06 am |
Well ya gotta pity poor Clarence for only pulling down $280K a year. I mean, how’s a fella supposed to stay in beans and bacon and Mercedes at that? Plus he’s gotta have high cable TV bills to keep Fox News a going 24/7 so he knows how to render his astute decisions.
April 18, 2023 at 11:58 am |
No worries Herb. Ginnie making some extra coin, $120k that we know about, on the side from the billionaires.
April 18, 2023 at 12:53 pm |
I loved those ‘cross days in Monument Park. We still have Miche’s award for placing in the women’s race. Of course it has your artwork on it. Will send a photo one of these days
April 21, 2023 at 10:11 am |
That was a good space, wasn’t it? I liked that it was possible to put together a couple of long off-street rides from there — south to Fountain, north to Palmer Lake and even the Greenland Open Space, or west through Bear Creek Regional Park and into the mountains.