Another Jan. 6 has come and gone. This time we managed to skip the armed-insurrection part of the program, so yay for us. Turns out that when they win a presidential election, The System works. Who knew? Watching Vice President Kamala Harris preside over the certification of the 2024 election results this week sent me careening down Memory Lane, re…

Piano Runway, Somaliland, Nocturnal Emissions, Indiana Safe Zone, The Ultimate Burrito, Mining, PNC Arena, Potbelly, Death, Funk Or Funky, Kenesco, Horse Theft, Crime And Punishment, Rub Out, Whodunit

I always liked science fiction. Science, not so much. Science always seemed rigid and impersonal. But science fiction, or speculative fiction, if you prefer — especially of the apocalyptic variety — spoke to the gloomy bog-trotter in my DNA. So I studied the fiction instead of the science, with predictable results. When it came time for me to go to…

When the John Laws collared their suspect in the CEO assassination he was said to have had in his possession a ghost gun, some fake I.D., and a 262-word "manifesto." By the ghosts of Marx and Engels! That's what I call phoning it in. Except our man didn't use a phone to compose it. Or a laptop. It was handwritten. Whether on papyrus, stone tablets,…

At The Atlantic magazine, Noah "Fargo" Hawley says too many reporters are writing fiction these days. Meanwhile, in a fund-raising email from Mother Jones magazine, David Corn warns that the legacy media's value-neutral, highly inaccurate reviews of the various hams auditioning for parts in the Pestilence-Erect's latest play constitutes a form of “…

The headline is an inside joke among family and friends, a line of dialogue lifted from the 1978 novel "Panama," by Thomas McGuane. And now it's the title of a Radio Free Dogpatch podcast, a unsubtle bit of misdirection concerning an oversized orange turd that has proven impossible for a confused and bilious nation to flush. My apologies to Mr. McG…

Wherever shalt thou see a man on horseback, there also shalt thou see a horse's ass. And sometimes more than one of them, too. That's Scripture, son! There would be less pearl-clutching in the national media over Orange Julius Caesar doing exactly what we all expected he would do had some button-down editors worn their family jewels to the Big Danc…

There's nothing like getting the old one-two, a bacterial sock to the snotlocker followed by an electoral blow to the breadbasket. For treatment we visit the witch doctors of The Firesign Theatre, SNL's "Theodoric of York, Medieval Barber," and that sniffling eejit behind the mic at Infernal Hound Sound. The background music, "Abandoned," comes fro…

I'm not running away to Canada. I'm just running away from the news. There's lots of bad noise out there on the day after Election Day 2024. So naturally I felt compelled to add to the cacophony. You're welcome. Gunfire by Freesound. The rest of the racket was homemade.

The Not-So-Great Pumpkin is floating into Albuquerque this morning, a bit late for the International Balloon Fiesta, but just in time for Halloween. Nobody knows just why he's visiting a blue town in a blue county in a blue state in the final days of his campaign for The Big Gig. Maybe it's just a pit stop to pick up a bunch of burgers to carry him…

"He is risen" is not a phrase we associate with Halloween. More of an Easter thing, actually. Unless we're discussing this podcast, which was last seen (heard) alive in Easter 2023. And now, with Halloween cackling on the horizon, the bloody thing has clawed its way out of its grave and is headed for your place with designs on your ears. Music is c…

Air Strikes, Princeton Parking, Grail Holes, Ashram, Satin Jacket, Mileage, Bikram R&B, Death By Captcha, Spiritual Pants, Newark Spelling, Dr. Livingston, Fight Weave, Lorain, Solo Activities, Landing Place, Perseverance

Fishing Campaign, Sounds Like, Predator Tour, Sprinklers, Anti-Biting Code, Swag Grail, Post-Luciano, Egregious Tags, Landfill, Danish Kid, Sports Trap, Single Toolbox, Headphones, Shandar, Stihl Tippin

Research Trip, 440 Beetle, Grammy Notice, Inuit Typewriter, Less Than Acoustic, Word Shapes, No Hardwire, Guaro, $5000 Microphone, Early Man, Alien Colors, Babysitter Woes, Field Collins, Intimacy, Not Iasos

Dominican Rum, Ernie Shore Field, Shake And Bake, Full Scarface, Jalen, Promo Code, Benny's Birthday, Boxing Bios, American Worker, Fake Canseco, Intercepted Records, Arena DJs, Sirhan Sirhan, San Antonio Coyote, No Waymon Tisdale

Promo Promises, Great World Of Sound, Check Cashing, Blackout In WSNC, Futchara, Michelob Jacket, Havisham Shit, Mutual Group, Unknown Origins, Tax Volume, Probably Chicago, Not T-Connection, Last Resort, Don King's Office, On The House

Millennium Center, Indoor Broccoli, Just The Stabs, Cozzilla, Soundclip Revenge, Offramps, Techno Taco, Judge None Choose One, Clairvoyance, Euro Tips, Second Hand House, Scam Sellers, Loop Origins, Not Disco

Limited Backing, Brick Ross, No Nag Champa, Portable Songs, Crystal Presence, Belafonte Record Collection, Trouvere, Single Room Occupancy, Spirituality, Concave Music, Same PO Box, Advance Reviewer, Aussie Yacht, Maybe The Cape

Hobby Status, Rite Pressed, Poor Man's Copyright, Double Indiana, Pricing Errors, Stagecoach, Family Singing, Ohio Snow, Not Cowboy, Sublime Loss, WPAQ, Pinto Lounge, Fallen Soldier, Beacons, Purity

Vidalia Productions, Feral Dogs, One Finger Bass, Speculation, Hendrix Spectre, Opium Den Legislation, Ruggedness, Atlanta, Murky Details, Marketwatch, A/C Log, Capitol Delivery, No Flying Aunts, New Jersey, Origin Story

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 …

Gold Microphone, Jazz Lens, Milkbone Set, Festive Party, Dennis Boxell, Dolmades, Ross Perot Trading Card, Miroloi, So Many Cigarettes, Olives, Sad Space, Syrtos, Wolf Dietrich, Maryland Fried Chicken, Translator Required

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. Herself is back east with family and…

The bitter economic headwinds prove too much for some in the peloton of cycling journalism. It's a rough old road, especially when you ride it on the rivet in the bloody gutter of vulture capitalism. The sport is pricey to do, and to cover. Advertising is a hard sell. Memberships and subscriptions can only take you so far. Old pros lose the wheel; …

Character, Wells High School, Body House, Clay Aiken Yearbook, Styrene, Actual Genius, 90s Ichiban, Sebastopol, Promo Issues, Pure Love, Signed Baby Huey, Big Catalog, Dick Gregory Commencement Speech, Human Being

The Voices and I have 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 someb…

The zombie podcast Radio Free Dogpatch awakens after a two-year dirt nap, scuttles out from beneath its filthy blanket of mulch, litter, and snow, and shambles about looking for something (or someone) to eat. Or at least listen.

Foul Breezeway, No More Journals, Mapquest, All Vibe, Nth Permutation, RC Cola, Impediments, White Trap Savior, Blimps, Geezer Tempo, The Bubbler, Lyrical Legality, Braindead, Mike Dean, No Physical

Army Stew, One Track Culture, K-Glide, Public Breakers, Tragic Ballad, One Mind, Reissue Sweaters, Omoahu, Not Reggie Lucas, Public Kimchi, Kaya Poster, Hogleg, Suburban Pop, Duty-Free Hat, Han, Psych Export

Dog Track, Watercolors, New Front Door, Tamiami, Extra Pathos, Fat Jack, Foot Long Bird, Jai Alai, The Omni, Vegan Creamery, Catalog Sold, Drowning, Flagler, Third Party, Bootleg Betty Wright

Glove Compartments, Blizo, Unsolved Mysteries, Lil Somebody, RIAA Curve, Making Stains, Nina, Sonograms, Haystak Merch, Radio Shack Forensics, Tina Resch, Hiss, Devil Shit, Spanish Fly, Details Lost, J-Dawg, No Dice

Spectral Figures, Pine Grove, Dancing, Slabbed Tradition, Single Wet Bulb, Feral Buttonbox, Trapping, Ragged Intensity, Human Sweat, Worlds Within Worlds, Cold Beer, Soggy Tempo, Totally American

Coldness, Garish Jewelry, Folklore, Period Relevant Energy, Solo Cholo, Marketwatch, Suffolk, Outgoing Message, Delicate Sizzlers, Fractional Buying, C. Delores Tucker, PSA Alf, Crookshank, Sad Economics

Vignette, Union Scale, Sampler Food, Barely Shabba, Info Tapes, The Tailor, Pastiche, SMPTE Struggles, Capitol Media, Stewardesses, Pseudonym, Banger Fatigue, All Or None, Closing Time

Historic Bricks, Tonal Information, Gritts, Pyro Savage, Utopian Convention, Comb Binding, Glenn Snoddy, Catafalque, Democracy, Graveyard Business, Eric Partridge, Dirt Stache Footing, Super Turkey, Hawkwind Detritus, Full Military Coup

Location Service, Walls, Reality Index, Public-Use Guitar, Pando, Cashbox Directory, All-State Band, Bids, Culture Gaps, Concrete Reflection, Cupcake, Winston Moore, Studio Guns, Isolated Not Isolation, Rodeos, Stateville Merch Booth, Heartsongs

Patrick O'Grady used to wheelsuck the bike magazines to spring break in Arizona or California. Then the biz wised up and he had to stick his own snoot into the breeze. Until last year, when like many of us, he enjoyed all the travel of a rigid aluminum fork. And now, in Year Two of the Plague, he's stuck — because he hasn't been stuck.…

When Texas sank back into the Ice Age, Patrick O'Grady was reminded of the good old days on a wind-scoured rockpile outside Weirdcliffe, Colorado, where the power shut off whenever it was most inconvenient, the candle lanterns and Coleman two-burner were close at hand, and a Lopi fireplace insert and a tall woodpile kept the toilets from exploding …

Trucks with beds and friends with couches saw Patrick O'Grady through his rambling, gambling years, as he rolled the dice with one newspaper after another. He eventually came up winners by leaving the business altogether. Marrying well didn't hurt, either. The citizens of "Nomadland" have traveled a rougher road. And they're still on it. This stray…

There's something about February that's guaranteed to set a Mad Dog to howling. This time it's Impeachy the Clown as the opening act for our local bozos and their buses. Did everyone forget to lock their wigs before their moment of simulated exhilaration, or what?

Lockup got you down? Fortress of Solitude starting to smell like feet, fast food, and farts? Well, Clark, turn off that Zoom cam, take off the glasses, and see if you can still clear your top tube in a single bound.

Near Water, General Availability, Saabs, Crisp Gloss, Georgie Porgy, Merino Wool, Most Of The Quaalude, White Pants, Near Reggae, Born Adult, Comparative Literature, Stan Smith, British Contribution, Vino Terms

The Middle East, Personality, Stadium Crunk, Fake Gators, 400 For Sale, Shaping Air, Chesapeake, Honesty, Pepsi OK, Crickets, R&B Esalen, Tiny Dates, Arthur Ashe Noise Reduction, Ocora, Rochester Thinktank, Proprietary Drums, Home Alone 3

Mustache Distribution, Aurora Borealis, Houseboat, The Big Fundamental, Blue Ash, Mesh Shirt, Bibs And Hammers, Not Autographed, Shot Chart, Barnacles, Sail Hatin, Same Six Dudes, Tidewater, Lemco Ringer, Check The Thrift

Mock Turtleneck, Human Vocals, Proto-Hippie Ethos, Killed By Glee, Carnitas, Hard Thumbing, No Pastiche, Manual Of Errors, Clear Intentions, Cecil Fortner, Privacy Settings, Weet Smeet, On Fire, Candy Apple Red, Vinyls Fan Fiction, Lack Of Electricity

Double Stab, Election Cycle, Jeff Porcaro, Stepper Bones, Drinking Game, Running Or Rain, Name Acts, Ism Perils, Bobby Caldwell's Fedora, Black Mario Kart, Time Travel, Checks Payable To Eric Gale, Studio Wardrobe, Sliding Definitions