Hank Watson's Garage Hour - Cars, Trucks, Beers & Guns

First-ever two-hour Garage Hour right here, and it's all you'd expect from the best kind of AM talk - gearhead talk. Enjoy auto detailing? Want to hear about Mayor Bob "Gropomatic" Filner and Mayor Art "Drinkomatic" Madrid? Going to Manzanita's upcoming third-annniversary party? Interested in shotgun history, like trench guns VS ze Germans? What do you know about geek VS nerd? Ever crashed a motorcycle? How does Anthrax compare to metal? Hope Diane Feinstein and the NSA eat each other? Are you a conservatives or the GOP? Drink custom beers? Where do you come down on bureaucracy VS freedom? Think new wind turbines are out to get nature?

Yuuuuuup.

Larry and Nina from Manzanita Brewing join Crag Maxwell of Maxwell's House of Books in La Mesa, CA, Agent Aya of the KGB and Hostus Maximus Justin Fort on-air.

This Garage Hour Reload pits some good old cohosts (Dirty Dave and Grizzly Chris, with host Justin Fort) against some of the Garage Hour's good old nemeses: our pal Gravedigger's '67 Impala, off-roading in Corral Canyon, drag racing at Barona, Dr. Tooth, Sasquatch, Clutch, office pranks, and Scientologists.

That's right, in addition to the usual parade of cruising the bars in a 25.1C'd alcohol-huffing Impala, Jeeper death, PT Cruiser death, Amon Tobin, Five Horse Johnson and Mogs, the Garage Hour goons tackle the latest list of the Church of Strange Alienology's ongoing members and pending suckers (courtesy of Cracked Magazine), and you WILL be surprised by whom we discovered. Or possibly not.

If you like Mexican food and live in the Garage Hour's home city of San Diego (last bastion of sanity in the glorious People's Republic of California), then this Dude Food episode is right up your alley. Mr. Dustin (Top Earner and retrosauce cohost) joins Hostus Maximus Justin Fort for the best (and not so awesome) Mexican joints, restaurants, drive-throughs and general munchie action in San Diego, plus a little bit of thought on Tex-Mex versus Cal-Mex, carne asada, the California Burrito, and the big question: is Taco Bell still Mexican food?

Of course, there's a truckload of the usual Garage Hour fun in this truncated episode too, like commuting on race tires (on-ramps need love too), hillclimbs in SoCal (race Palomar, anyone?), polymer AR lowers, the miracle that is Shoe Goo (fix those Copas) and National Stare at a Hybrid Owner Like Something's Wrong With Them Month (coming up in November).

It's the second of many Garage Hour AR-15 episodes, this with the boys from Wilde Built Tactical - a fine collection of AR building, AR styles, AR sources, AR-15 versus AR-10, and some of the crackpottery pretending to be laws that states like the People's Republic of California keep putting into play, hoping it'll stick this time. Remember, the AR-15 is your friend - don't succumb to gun racism.

Have no fear - it's the Garage Hour - so there's also a fine load of gearhead chatter, tomfoolery and explosions too, including sounds from the salt flats, the .50-cal ricochet, Ghostbusters versus Zombieland, the must-see that is Cannonball Run, 9mm and .223/5.56 tales, some words of respect for NASCAR legend Dick Trickle, and a few thoughts about life as the KGB by the Garage Hour's very own Agent Aya, plus .45 Phil, Bryan and Charles from Wilde Built, and Hostus Maximus Justin Fort.

Can the Garage Hour goons pull off the ultimate two-faced episode? Two great gearhead topics - road-racing with the 24 Hours of Lemons gang at Thunderhil,l and a little bit of basic "prepping" so you won't need to fight with the low-information idiots at Wal-Mart over a can of Spam - can we do it?

We start with the racing - how can't we? - and the crapcan series nationally known as the 24 Hours of Lemons, and their latest rustastic assault on Thunderhill: everything from adventures in wiring, Civic fails (because of that wiring), rampant cheating and misadventure on and off-course, and how not to win. Fast Guy and sometime cohost Cram Grebneseir then regales us with tales of his plan to LS1 a 3-Series BMW (cram, indeed), which we approve of wholeheartedly.

Sandwiched between tales of smoking wiring looms is an analysis of what you need to be prepared for a little bit of disaster if the low-information hordes manage to collapse society in your neighborhood - here and there - during the coming Year of the Idiot. Because you're a Garage Hour listener, we expect you've got the firearms part of the equation figured out (likely overfigured, we bet), so our focus is on the bagels, the batteries and the Band-Aids. You can handle the bullets.

Cram joins Hostus Maximus Nitsuj Trof and cohosts .45 Lihp and Ekim the Kcud in-studio as they also celebrate Columbus Day, National Stare at a Hybrid Owner Like Something is Wrong with Them Month, and every other holiday that gets in their way.

So much sauce, so few hours... This is one of the most entertaining Garage Hours ever, with special guest host 220,000-Mile 4Runner Fuel Filter and regular cohost Agent Aya supporting Hostus Maximus Justin Fort as they wade through Archer, the lives and deaths of fuel filters, turbo-supercharging versus mechanical-supercharging, Orgy (the band), Everything Beautiful Rusts (the album), the Garage Hour's official Miata count (we're at eight), boycotting REI, Sierra Nevada and Staples, Toyota truck suspension parts, Hunter S. Thompson stunts, Bilstein Boy Brett's Yawsport grand opening, Diggstown, a visit from Mic the Mike, Dave Stall, and a call-in from DPRK leader and sociopath-in-chief Kim Jong Uno.

Justin and Aya also delve into a few of the basic fast-guy skills that he will be teaching her on her first canyon run the next morning (at whereabouts unknown).

Uberexcellent early Garage Hour: all of the madness, in a portable old-school one-hour size.

An aborted attempt at discussing how poorly Californians drive (in the rain) leads to a ricochet conversation on everything from how the Garage Hour goons could make an excellent Top Gear, to rock and roll, the Century Club and why you probably ought to avoid it, boost gauges and how to install them with a Sharpie, David Lozeau's Christmas party, geek versus nerd, Assange versus Zuckerberg, little brothers burying their Dodges up to the axles in mud, gun stores like Fine Firearms of La Mesa, CA, and crime rates in cities like Chicago versus towns that let honest civilians defend themselves. It all ends with tales of Grizzly Chris's liver (it is evil and must be punished) and a chat about quantum mechanics, physics, Tiger Tiger and wildebeastses.

Dirty Dave, DSM (cum Mr.) Dustin and Black Ryan join host Justin Fort in-studio to remind you: create less chaos for Christmas and buy less crap!

What's the difference between World War Z, Bob Filner and .45 Phil's makeup? Nothing, if you're the Garage Hour goons - everything's a target. Grab this podcast of a killer episode, chock full of gearhead goodness (including hillclimbing, off-roading, race manners, Minis, old cars VS new prices, and Object 279), and a pile of other entertaining wreckage (hampster robots, suitcase guns, drinking games, Filner VS Popadich, conspiracies, DARPA, and a whole mess of movies that our pet Russian - Agent Aya - needs to see if anyone's going to believe she's not a spy), plus a proper sendoff for awesome acting dude Dennis Farina: RIP, sir, you were one of the good ones.

.45 Phil, Agent Aya and Jesse Caverly, zombie expert (it says so on his card) join Hostus Maximus Justin Fort in KCBQ's gleaming black towers of broadcast superiority for this episode of the Garage Hour. 50,000 watts of havoc ensues.

Another one of the Garage Hour's traffic-psychology spectaculars... Agent Aya and a medicated Dirty Dave join Hostus Maximus Justin Fort to dig into what your driving says about you, and how your treatment of those around you (and yourself) in traffic is about an open a book as there can be regarding your mental state.

There's also a big pile of rock and roll (Clutch and Man or Astro-Man), carma (:)), boxers versus fighters, Justin versus Grizzly Chris, Admiral Ackbar, and Agent Aya's evolving road-race skillset and Justin's tutorship of said show's pet KGB operator. Manzanita beers, politics (thus the beer), and liberal versus libertarian rear their heads too... The Garage Hour goons also go after the creater of the "Geo Gun Marker" app, what's creator, Brett Stalbaum of UCSD, wants to be a way for people to publicly label "bad gun places" on the web... Yes, it's as stupid and unconstitutional and Orwellian as it sounds, and the gearheads give him the what-for, just for you (and reveal places that Brett likes to eat, just so you can say "Hi").

Scratching the itch: the Garage Hour goons join forces with former SEAL Command Master Chief Larry Wilske for two hours of gearheads talking about the big-picture politics that affect your everyday freedoms, and what you (and Larry) need to do to protect them, plus cars, trucks, beers and guns.

If you want to get an good impression of the person you're voting for, listen to them on long-form talk radio - Garage Hour talk radio. Starting at gearhead - Evolutions and San Diego's race season, plus Coronado Speedfest, Thunderboats and the upcoming Mirimar Air Show, shooting with Assbleyman Brian Jones, Oktoberfest, and a little bit of former Chargers guys like Dan Fouts and Norv Turner - Justin, Larry and company progress into the work of a congressman and what they're supposed to do as your elected representative, and what the likes of carpetbagging Susan Davis isn't doing for San Diego's 53rd. Joining Larry in-studio are Mr. Dustin (Top Earner), .45 Phil (That Which Goes Bump in the Night), Matt Klier of Active Shooter Defense School, Mike from Barritus Brewery, and Hostus Maximus Justin Fort.

We also include a sendoff of cohost Mike's nephew, Lt. Nathan Poloski, the pilot who crashed his USS Carl Vinson-attached FA-18 in the Pacific some weeks ago. R.I.P., airman, you're the best amongst us.