Category: Audio

Can’t find my way home

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 25 Comments

Good thing it doesn’t matter when a virtual press runs, because someone has been intercoursing the penguin as regards his self-imposed deadlines.

Radio Free Dogpatch is intended to be a weekly affair, scheduled for Fridays, but just ask the penguin how well that’s worked out for him (whoops, too late, he’s exploded). To date the thing has reared its ugly head weekly, semimonthly, and on Fridays, Saturdays and Mondays.

After three or four goes at this most recent episode, which came this close to becoming a plain-vanilla blog post, I’m starting to think Wednesdays are the ticket. Showtime. Whatever.

In any case, and without further ado, here’s episode 19 of Radio Free Dogpatch. Too bad I couldn’t get it finished in time to win a Grammy to go along with all my Pulitzers, Reubens, Emmys and MacArthur Fellowships.

Oh, well, there’s always next year.

P L A Y    R A D I O    F R E E    D O G P A T C H

• Editorial notes: Shannon Hall wrote about the meanderings of magnetic north for The New York Times. Steve Frothingham has been following the trials and tribulations of ASE and the various media-consolidation stories for Bicycle Retailer and Industry News. John McNulty wrote about super-salesman Elmer “Sell the Sizzle” Wheeler for The New Yorker way back in 1938. And Sam Dean of the Los Angeles Times gave us a peek at Zwift’s e-sports ambitions.

• Technical notes: This episode was recorded with an Audio-Technica AT2035 microphone and a Zoom H5 Handy Recorder. I edited in Apple’s GarageBand on a 2014 MacBook Pro, adding audio acquired through fair means and foul via Rogue Amoeba’s Audio Hijack (no profit was taken in an admittedly casual approach to various copyrights). Speaking of which, Buck appears courtesy of the 1935 William Wellman film “Call of the Wild,” while Nick Danger took a break from his Further Adventures to ask directions to The Firesign Theatre’s Old Same Place. The background music is “Crusin” from Zapsplat.com. And Blind Faith wrapped it all up with “Can’t Find My Way Home.”

Let them eat loans

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 16 Comments

Wilbur Ross, The Man in the $600 Embroidered Slippers, doesn’t understand why federal workers idled and/or unpaid by Darth Cheeto might choose to visit food banks instead of the other sort.

Well, for an appetizer, even idled and/or unpaid federal workers like to eat at least once a day.

For the main course, unlike regular banks, food banks don’t require collateral, charge interest or repo your lunchbox.

And finally, for dessert, idled and/or unpaid federal workers know they won’t have to look at some bogus billionaire wearing $600 embroidered slippers while doing business with the food bank.

Yes, yes, yes, it’s another low-fat, low-interest episode from Radio Free Dogpatch. Bon appétit.

And remember, Wilbur, the Big Dog always eats last.

PLAY RADIO FREE DOGPATCH

• Technical notes: This episode was recorded with a Shure SM58 mic and a Zoom H5 Handy Recorder and edited in Apple’s Garageband on a 2014 MacBook Pro. The background music is “Stay Away,” from www.zapsplat.com. That dog enjoying a meal comes from peridactyloptrix at www.freesound.org. And “Ahoy, polloi,” lifted from “Caddyshack” using Rogue Amoeba’s Audio Hijack.

DT, phone home

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 23 Comments

We’re five days into another lap around the Sun, but we’re flying blind — that big yellow ball is proving hard to locate here in the Duke City.

Though we do have plenty of ice and snow left over from the old year, for anyone who likes that sort of thing.

Our unseasonably wintry weather is a mouse fart compared to the shit monsoon swamping the nation’s capital, though.

And with Darth Cheeto angrily dumping pretty much everyone except his storm troopers onto a dole he won’t pay, and the Chinese more interested in exploring the moon than the wowie-zowies of Apple’s latest and greatest black monolith, you have to wonder how much longer it’ll be before we’re all debating property rights with thigh bones around the ol’ water hole again. Ook ook ook.

That’s right, Star Child, it’s time for the first Radio Free Dogpatch of 2019. Put a glide in your stride and a dip in your hip, and come on up to the Mothership. Mind the yellow snow. …

P L A Y    R A D I O    F R E E    D O G P A T C H

• Technical notes: This episode was recorded with an Audio-Technica AT2035 microphone, a Focusrite Scarlett 2i2 USB audio interface, Rogue Amoeba’s Audio Hijack, and a 2012 MacBook Air. Additional jabber via an Audio-Technica ATR2100-USB mic and a Behringer XENYX 1200USB mixer wired to a 2014 MacBook Pro with an external LG 24MP59HT-P monitor, which I used to edit the audio with Apple’s GarageBand. Doc Strangelove and his backup band, Monk and the Monoliths, appear courtesy of Stan “The Man” Kubrick, who has Gone Beyond and will never know. Tires on ice from Freesound.org. Snow-shoveling performed and recorded by Your Humble Narrator using a plastic grain hog and a Sony ICD-UX533, which also did a fine job of capturing the sounds of a blizzard from inside El Rancho Pendejo.

Videocy: Backstage at Radio Free Dogpatch

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 14 Comments

• Editor’s note: What we have here is your basic compound fracture of the funnybone: a video about a podcast with a blog post attached. It’s like watching some homeless dude trying to wash the windshields of a three-car crash with a squeegee swiped from the gas station across the street and a Big Gulp cup full of his own pee.

Don’t ask me why I thought this was a good idea, because I don’t have a reasonable explanation, beyond noting that it’s been a while since I shot a short for Adventure Cyclist and I thought it might be prudent to blow some of the dust off my less-than-mad videography skillz.

Also, I’m striving for a weekly episode of Radio Free Dogpatch, and while this isn’t exactly that, it’s close enough for government work. Especially if you consider the way our government works lately.

So, hi, and welcome to … to … to whatever the hell this is.

• Read the script after the jump.

This bud’s for you

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 7 Comments

It probably wasn’t what Anheuser-Busch had in mind when they developed that tagline, but many years later, as certain laws have loosened their Sam Browne belts a notch or two, a number of craft brewers — and a few larger outfits, too — are finding ways to work a little lower-case bud into their beverages.

The New York Times has the good shit here.

Now, some of you may find this hard to believe, but Your Humble Narrator has some (ahem) small experience with hops and herb, coming of age as he did when he did, and as a Geezer Third Class he is prone to reminisce at length on such matters.

So you might as well lift one, light one and lean back for another enhanced 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: This episode was recorded with an Audio-Technica ATR2100-USB microphone and Rogue Amoeba’s Audio Hijack. I edited the audio using Apple’s GarageBand on a 2014 MacBook Pro. The background music is “Departure Lounge” by Keshco, used under a Creative Commons license (CC BY-NC-SA 3.0) from The Free Music Archive. Other sounds courtesy Freesound.org, with an assist from Your Humble Narrator, who played the opening riffs from “Don’t Bogart That Joint” by the Fraternity of Man on a Tony Dixon tin whistle and an Art & Lutherie Roadhouse acoustic guitar.