It’s not dead yet. …

October 23, 2024October 24, 2024 ~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 18 Comments

I’ve been casually pestering my friend Hal Walter, telling him he should launch a podcast to support his magnum opus recounting his adventures with son Harrison as the two navigated the postsecondary labyrinth at Colorado Mountain College in Leadville.

Whether this was a good idea is open to debate. Because it got me to thinking about my own long-neglected sonic sideline, Radio Free Dogpatch.

I have a love-hate relationship with the goddamn thing. It’s kind of like an old bike in a garage full of them. It’s been gathering dust out there, and you can’t remember what it was that you liked about it, so you pull it down from its hook, air up the tires, and take it for a spin around the block.

And holy hell, it all comes rushing back to you. Nothing works like it should. It makes funny noises. And you can’t quite remember how to make the old dog hunt. Is the braking U.S. or Euro style? Is the indexing buggered or are these friction shifters? And what in sweet holy motherfuck is all that racket?

Finally you manage to herd the beast back into its slot in the garage, mop the fear-sweat from your forehead, and limp into the house (because of course the sonofabitch bit you somewhere).

And you think: “Well, that wasn’t so bad. Needs a little work, but it’s not like I have a bunch of other stuff that needs doing. …”

The road to Hell is paved with good intentions. Also short on gas stations, rest areas, and cute hitchhikers. Might as well unplug the Bluetooth and surrender to the yellow fangs of the first Radio Free Dogpatch of 2024.

• Technical notes: The reboot was recorded using gear that was already available in the Infernal Hound Sound studios: An Ethos mic from Earthworks Audio; Audio-Technica ATH-M50X headphones; my trusty Zoom H5 Handy Recorder; Apple’s GarageBand, a soupçon of Auphonic to sand off the rough edges, music from Zapsplat, and crickets from Freesound. All the other racket is courtesy of Your Humble Narrator.

Pistache! Gesundheit!

April 27, 2024 ~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 11 Comments

Our young pistache erupted in leaves practically overnight.

It was a gloomy morning, or maybe it just felt that way because I slept poorly.

Weird dreams and plenty of ’em, with lots of abrupt and unscheduled wake-ups. I didn’t check the clock because I didn’t want to know. What little remains of my mind was churning like a Samsung clothes washer on the brink of catastrophic failure.

My restlessness could’ve been due to seasonal allergies, which have been unusually fierce this spring. Or perhaps it was the upshot of two consecutive nights of Sarah DiGregorio’s chipotle-honey chicken tacos. I did opt for two sizable chipotles in their preparation. And I did eat two of those fat tacos both nights, topped with diced avocado, accompanied by a large green salad.

Maybe at 70 it’s time to reconsider the spicy foods?

Nah.

I’ve been eating chile since I was 8 and it hasn’t killed me yet. And if it ever does, I’ll depart this vale of tears with a smile on my face and the bedclothes floating a few aromatic inches above the rest of me. I can sleep when I’m dead.

• Editor’s note: Speaking of my mind and how it works (or doesn’t), when I went to Radio Free Dogpatch for the Samsung-washer link I was reminded that it’s been a year since I recorded a podcast. So here it is, a rerun from April 16, 2023.

Easter service

April 16, 2023 ~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 31 Comments

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.

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.

Marching forward, looking backward

March 26, 2023March 26, 2023 ~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 21 Comments

Calm down, ye amadáin, I’ve not a drop taken: That’s a Guinness 0 so.

Birthdays. Some of us get overserved, others get 86’d with the cork barely out of the bottle.

Whoever’s in charge of this party seems a bit random. Can’t tell the top shelf from the well, the class from the dross. Proper ladies and gents given the shove while the most appalling tossers have the run o’ the place.

Take me, if you can bear to. Here I sit, roaring up on an age at which I had fully expected to have been stone dead for at least 39 years. Upended many an office pool I did.

“Who picked 69? 69? Well, doesn’t matter, because the bugger is still alive!”

Meanwhile, there’s many an empty stool in this shabby shebeen. Where’d everybody go? They were all here just a minute ago. …

Herself is back east with family and friends to raise a belated parting glass to a lifelong friend carried off by COVID last fall.

I’m right here, having charge of the cat. But recently I spoke with one of my old pals, the former Live Update Guy Charles Pelkey, who has taken a few sucker punches since a cancer diagnosis a dozen years ago but is still on his feet in Laramie, all bouncers be damned.

It may be my birthday that’s on tap come Monday, but I’d buy Charles a round to celebrate his most recent lap around the sun, may it not be his last. Lucky for me and my 401(k) I don’t drink anymore; I don’t think he does, either. ’Tis unknown the amount of money our younger selves could piss away in a proper pub.

At the publisher’s expense, of course.

But that’s neither here nor there.

And anyway, it’s the thought that counts.

So belly up to the bar — unbeknownst to the landlord, who is manhandling another tray of industrial lager to the hoops-watching gobshites glued to the TV in the back of the pub, we’re uncorking an 18-year-old, double-cask, single-malt episode of — yes, yes, yes — Radio Free Dogpatch. And sláinte to yis.

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

• Technical notes: There was an inordinate amount of racket in and around El Rancho Pendejo this week, but after a series of false starts I was finally able to nail something down using my trusty Shure SM58 mic and the Zoom H5 Handy Recorder. Editing was in Apple’s GarageBand, with a sonic bump from Auphonic. Music and sound effects are courtesy of Zapsplat, Freesound, and Your Humble Narrator.

Sounding it out

February 26, 2023February 26, 2023 ~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 15 Comments

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.