A winter storm cut loose from the mountains, the cold wind whipping around the creosote, rain dripping down through the swamp-cooler vent: 2025 came in like a Lion and it’s the Year of the Snake. We’ve got both out here, in the Mojave Wilderness. Mountain lions, or cougars. And snakes, too, although it’s still a bit early to see our reptile friends up here at 4,000 feet elevation. (Soundscapes by RedBlueBlackSilver, written & hosted by Ken Layne.)

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It's a cold, cold night in the wind-blasted desert, and we hear there's snow a-comin', can't come soon enough. Listen to the harrowing sounds of the 1961 Bel Air Fire, prepare for Mojo Nixon's anniversary (of death), and join us in remembering our favorite Intermountain West surrealist, the late great David Lynch. Soundscapes by RedBlueBlackSilver. Suitable for some families.

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Another wild and windy night in these first strange days and nights of our new year. We are monitoring the infernos & catastrophes, but also celebrating the creation of Chuckwalla National Monument in the vast weird desert east of Coachella, all the way to the Colorado River. Plus: A phone call from our High Desert pal Herbie Benham, and soundscapes by RedBlueBlackSilver.

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We've heard some weird news about Saint Nicholas that turns out to be a few years old, but that's all right. Christmas itself is old news, after all. That’s why we love it, because it’s ancient and beautiful, the time for silent walks in the cold night, just the sound of your boots crunching through the snow, the half-moon glowing through the Joshua trees.

Plus: Which phrases and words shall be banned in the new year? And: Seasonal soundscapes by RedBlueBlackSilver. Thanks for supporting this advertising-free show at Patreon.com/DesertOracle.

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Is it Thanksgiving time already? Well let's pack up the car and head out to Joshua Tree, everybody's favorite Thanksgiving destination if they live exactly three hours away and don't have anywhere else to go. Plus: What are the ravens up to now? Soundscapes by RedBlueBlackSilver.

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Happy Hallowtide, the three-day festival of the Dead and their various souls & spirits. Tonight we are riding down the nocturnal highway, listening to ghosts of times past crackling through the car-radio speakers. With new soundscapes by RedBlueBlackSilver. Thanks for supporting this commercial-free show at http://patreon.com/desertoracle.

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Be not a-feared of our yearly remembrance of the dead, of ghostly visits from our beloved and maybe not-so-beloved relations and ancestors. Know Death as an old friend who always eventually comes around, for you and everyone else. If your belief in the immortality of the soul is secure, do not shudder and sputter over the enjoyment of pumpkins and haystacks and comical gravestones made of scrap wood and whitewash. It's October, as long as you ignore the weather, and that means it's time for spooky tales on Desert Oracle Radio.

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Have you heard what the "green energy" corporations are doing to the Great Basin Desert, with your government's approval, on your public lands? The plan is to cover the pristine basin-and-range interior of Nevada with industrial electricity factories over endless thousands of acres of desert woodland. And the people who should be out protesting this, chaining themselves to the desert trees marked for annihilation, etc., well they don't really care. Because they've been told  "environmentalism" now means destroying the last wild places in America, the last wild landscapes, so a fly-by-night solar corporation can get free land to scrape clean, free from the U.S. government. New soundscapes by RedBlueBlackSilver.

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Forest ranger, park ranger, Navy sailor, lumberjack, and cowboy — those were some of the jobs Stanley Jones worked before accidentally becoming a movie actor and composer of classic western music. PLUS: Weird Annie had a bunch of weird raven children. Deus Pascit Corvus. New sounds by RedBlueBlackSilver.

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A summertime tour through "strange and weird places," where they held their annual rituals. This is Episode #228. It's on the level.

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