Radio Free Dogpatch

We're off on another lap around the sun, but we're flying blind — the big yellow ball is nowhere to be seen, though we seem to have plenty of ice and snow for anyone who likes that sort of thing.

Our winter weather is a mouse fart compared to the shit monsoon swamping the nation's capital, though, and with the Chinese more interested in exploring the moon than the wowie-zowies of Apple's latest and greatest black monolith, Patrick O'Grady wonders how much longer it'll be before we're all clubbing each other around the water hole again. Ook ook ook.

• Show notes: Recorded on a 2012 MacBook Air using an Audio-Technica AT2035 mic, a Focusrite Scarlett 2i2 and Rogue Amoeba's Audio Hijack. Edited on a 2014 MacBook Pro using Apple's GarageBand, with voiceovers run through an Audio-Technica 2100-USB mic and a Behringer Xenyx 1204USB mixer. Doc Strangelove and his backup band, Monkey and the Monolith, courtesy Stan Kubrick, who's dead and won't ever know. Car wheels spinning on the ice from Freesound.org. Blizzard and snow shoveling recorded with a Sony ICD-UX533.

With the 2018 cyclocross nats going on in Louisville and some very un-'crosslike weather going on in Albuquerque, Patrick O'Grady is reminded of one dusty pre-season in 2002 when it seemed that both sides of the street were sunny, and a little too much so.

Recorded using a Shure SM-58 mic, a Focusrite Scarlett 2i2, Rogue Amoeba's Audio Hijack and a 2009 iMac. Background music is "Newborn," a jingle lifted from Apple's iMovie, which also supplied the "Medal Ceremony" opener.

"Science finds, industry applies, man conforms." That was the subtitle to the guidebook for the 1933 Chicago World's Fair, and 85 years later it seems to hold up. It brings to mind change, my reflexive resistance to same, and a 2013 "Mad Dog Unleashed" column from Bicycle Retailer and Industry News.

This episode was recorded with a Shure SM58 microphone, Rogue Amoeba's Audio Hijack, and the old 2009 iMac. Cap'n Whitebeard used an Audio-Technica ATR2100-USB mic. I edited the audio using Apple's GarageBand on a 2014 MacBook Pro. The background music is "Into the Sunset" from Audio Hero via ZapSplat.com, and the sounds of the sea come from Freesound.org.

It's probably not what Anheuser-Busch had in mind with the tagline, "This Bud's for you." But nevertheless, craft breweries — and a few bigger outfits, too — are finding creative ways of working weed into their beverages, which could bring a whole new meaning to the term "skunky beer."

These kids today. Before long nobody under 65 will know how to roll a joint.

Recorded using an Audio-Technica ATR2100-USB mic and Rogue Amoeba's Audio Hijack. Edited using Apple's GarageBand on a 2014 MacBook Pro. The opener is a few bars from "Don't Bogart That Joint," by the Fraternity of Man, played by Your Humble Narrator on a Tony Dixon DX006 soprano tin whistle and an Art & Lutherie Roadhouse acoustic guitar.

Sound effects from Freesound.org. Background music is "Departure Lounge" by Keshco, used under a Creative Commons license (CC BY-NC-SA 3.0) via the Free Music Archive.

Marc Sani's "Through the Grapevine" column about legislation to permit mountain bikes in wilderness, and the Republicans who support it, squeezed the grapes of many a reader of the trade magazine Bicycle Retailer and Industry News.

Patrick O'Grady never could resist kicking someone who's down, especially if someone else did the hard work of actually putting them down, so he jumps in with his latest edition of Radio Free Dogpatch.

Recorded using an Audio-Technica AT2100-USB microphone and a Zoom H5 Handy Recorder. Edited in Apple's GarageBand on a 2014 MacBook Pro. Background music is "Looking Back Over the Hill" by David-Gwyn Jones, from ZapSplat.com. Other sounds from Freesound.org and Patrick O'Grady | Mad Dog Media.

Remember how it feels to lose? Keep that in mind when you win. A mediation on the midterms.

Recorded using an Audio-Technica AT2100-USB microphone and a Zoom H5 Handy Recorder. Edited in Apple's GarageBand.

The National Emblem March, composed in 1902 by Edwin Eugene Bagley, was performed by the U.S. Air Force Heritage of America Band.

"Tiny Town" from ZapSplat.com.

"You lose it, buddy," lifted from the fabulous "Caddyshack."

No neighbors were harmed in the making of this podcast.

Patrick O'Grady chats with his old friend and colleague Hal Walter about the running career of Hal's son, Harrison.

Patrick's father was a ball-sports kind of guy, and the two never connected on that level. But Harrison has grown up sharing his father's love of running, and he just completed his first season with the high-school cross-country team.

This might be unremarkable if Harrison were not autistic. But he is, and it adds what gymnasts, divers and equestrians call "a degree of difficulty" to the basic activity.

After some ups and downs during the regular season Harrison failed to qualify as a varsity athlete for the 2018 Colorado cross-country championships. But it turned out that he was eligible to run states in an event for special-needs kids.

He wanted to run, but his dad had some concerns, and Hal shares the story with us in this episode of Radio Free Dogpatch.

Background music is "The Matador's Entry" from ZapSplat.

Audio clip from the Colorado state championship meet supplied by Hal Walter.

Interview recorded using FaceTime with a Shure SM58 microphone, Focusrite Scarlett 2i2 USB audio interface, and Ecamm's Call Recorder for FaceTime, which apparently will not survive Apple's transition to Mojave. Edited in Apple's GarageBand.

After reading a New Yorker essay about aging, complacency and a risk-management program gone all pear-shaped, Patrick O'Grady recalls a few painful damage-control miscues of his own, and argues that an overabundance of caution can be as perilous as throwing it to the wind.

Recorded with an Audio-Technica ATR2100 USB microphone and a Zoom H5 Handy Recorder. Edited in Apple's GarageBand. Sound effects from Freesound. Blues loop from fredsonic at Freesound.

Read the essay by Daniel J. Levitin at The New Yorker.

Patrick O'Grady used to hate running, and some days he still does. But it helps keep his inner fat bastard too winded to scream for seconds from the dessert cart.

Mister Boo, God's gift to veterinary medicine, is trying on canine cognitive dysfunction on for size in his Golden Years. But he rediscovers his inner puppy from time to time.

George Carlin clip lifted from "40 Years of Comedy."

Flute from kerri at freesound.org via a Creative Commons license.

All the other bad noise comes from Patrick O'Grady | Mad Dog Media.