The Pod People

April 8, 2016April 8, 2016 ~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 8 Comments

OK, I’ve been threatening to resurrect the Radio Free Dogpatch podcast for a while now, and the stars finally came into proper alignment this week, so here we go.

For the first time Radio Free Dogpatch is not a solo effort — my friend and colleague Hal Walter joined me for a chat of about 75 minutes that I boiled down in editing to just over an hour.

Call it “Two Dudes Mystery Theatre.” We talked about the passing of poets Jim Harrison and Merle Haggard; Hal’s autistic son, and what it’s like trying to do creative work while raising a child who is not “neuro-typical”; and cooking.

For anyone who’s interested in the nuts and bolts of this Frankensteinian project, we chatted via Skype (Hal lives in Custer County, Colorado, while I’m in Albuquerque). On my end I was using a Samson C01U USB condenser microphone and an old pair of Bose earbuds plugged into an equally old iMac; Hal went even lower-tech, using a $50 Kindle Fire and some Apple earbuds, the kind that include an inline mic’.

I recorded our conversation using Ecamm’s Call Recorder, then split the convo into two tracks and dragged both into Apple’s GarageBand for editing. Once the thing was more or less the way I wanted it, I uploaded it to Libsyn, which hosts RFD and sends an RSS feed to iTunes.

During our ‘cast I promised to provide links with more information about some of the topics we discussed, and here those are:

Jim Harrison

• Tom McGuane’s “Postscript” in The New Yorker.

• Mario Batali recalls mealtimes with Harrison in Time.

• Jimmy Buffett bids a fond adios to his hermano on Facebook.

• Doug Peacock on Harrison and the art of friendship at The Daily Beast.

Merle Haggard

• A recollection from Patrick Doyle in Rolling Stone.

• NPR’s “Fresh Air” reprises a 1995 interview with the outlaw country legend.

Cookery

• The food of Apulia, from Florence Fabricant in The New York Times.

• Her recipe for orecchiette with cherry tomatoes and arugula (being a barbarian, I add hot Italian sausage).

Final notes

If you find yourself interested in Hal’s writing, you can visit him at Hardscrabble Times (yeah, it’s been a while since he updated the ol’ blog) or order up one or more of his books (check the link in the sidebar).

Meanwhile, let us know in comments what you think. It’s a little rough around the edges, but so are we. Happily, the podcast can be improved.

Sixty-two … something

March 28, 2016March 28, 2016 ~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 16 Comments

The proof is in the pudding ... or, in this case, on the Cateye. — The proof is in the pudding … or, in this case, on the Cateye.

Well, I didn’t manage 62 miles on my birthday. Nor did I ride 62 kilometers.

How’s 62 minutes sound to you?

Yeah, sounds that way to me, too.

But this morning I managed a run that lasted exactly half that time, and I reckon that’s the equivalent of 62 minutes on the bike. So I got that going for me, which is nice.

It wasn’t an entirely unproductive birthday. My burro-racing pal Hal Walter has expressed interest in doing a podcast, so I broke out all the old hardware and software and gave myself a refresher course in Podcasting 101.

Everything still works — though what Apple has done to GarageBand while I was otherwise occupied is matched only by what they’ve done to iMovie — and we may do a short test run tomorrow, if time, Skype and Call Recorder permit.

If we actually manage to slap something together, I’ll give you the 411 on the sumbitch. Expect it to be heavy on the works of Jim Harrison.

R.I.P., Jim Harrison

March 27, 2016 ~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 16 Comments

Jim Harrison laid his Jim Hancock on my copy of "Warlock," though it was not among his favorite works. — Jim Harrison laid his Jim Hancock on my copy of “Warlock,” though it was not among his favorite works.

Damn. I go flying past 62 only to hear that Jim Harrison hit the binders at 78.

My burro-racing pal Hal Walter and I have been Harrison fans for years. Hal especially, since he’s an outdoorsman, as was Harrison; me, I just like to be outdoors, to no particular purpose.

We caught a Harrison reading once at The Colorado College — weird thing is, it was right around my birthday, if not on the actual day itself — and I recall Mr. Harrison being less than pleased with the book I asked him to autograph. Seems “Warlock” was never one of his faves.

I liked it, though, along with other tales: “The Man Who Gave Up His Name,” “Sundog,” “Wolf,” the “Brown Dog” stories and of course “Legends of the Fall.” His essay collection “Just Before Dark” is a keeper, too, as his collection of poetic correspondence with Ted Kooser, “Braided Creek.”

He’ll be missed, and not just by Hal and me. Bon voyage, Jim. Thanks for the tales, and for that autograph.

Vision quest

August 8, 2014August 8, 2014 ~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 28 Comments

Mister Boo has the vision of a GOP congresscritter but more brains and a decidedly sweeter temperament.

One of the drawbacks to having eyes that bug out like VW headlights is that one gets cracked from time to time.

Mister Boo, who suffers from a lens luxation in the right eye, from time to time manages to exacerbate the problem by bumping into something. Author-poet Jim Harrison, who is likewise blind on one side, has mentioned having similar navigational issues.

Anyway, the poor little guy (Boo, not Jim) did it again on Wednesday, and his eye specialist has prescribed a fresh round of medications. So until next Wednesday at least he gets:

• One drop of dorzolamide in both eyes twice daily.

• One capsule of minocycline daily.

• A half tab of carprofen twice daily.

• One drop of ofloxacin in the right eye thrice daily.

• And one drop of NaCl solution in the right eye thrice daily.

Mind you, this is in addition to the walks (administered twice daily); meals (twice daily); and treats (as needed, which is to say every 15 minutes until he’s full, and then every 30 minutes thereafter). Plus, I anticipate that on his next visit to the eyeball doc the Boo will be prescribed a patch, a peg leg and a parrot. Then we’ll have to call him Cap’n Boo. Arrr.

There has to be some way to blame Obama for this.