Late August, overnight insects, and highway sounds; suburban ambience. 

The children are back to school, and Halloween has taken over entire sections of local department stores. But the pools are still open, and Labor Day is a week out.

Suburbanites don’t know whether to high-five a lifeguard or put a ***** pumpkin on the front stoop. Was that a football whistle? Is white still acceptable?

At night, the bugs still sing under the evergreens, made bright red, murderously red by the tall Applebees sign just a klick away.

The bugs persevere, for now.

Hanging with Mr Miyagi at the Office… Ambience.

This is workplace ambience, if your workplace was a maintenance shop in the South Seas Apartment complex in Reseda and you spent your working hours trying to catch a fly with some chopsticks.

In this episode, we're back at the movies and visiting the omphalos of white folks' aspirational karate and electric guitars… The Karate Kid. 

When I was a child, I also wished to befriend an old man who could teach me the ways of karate with a few chores. I tried turning my own chores into karate practice and that **** didn't work. 

My mom didn't appreciate the smashed appetizer plates; "Mom, I'm fighting Cobra Kai!" didn't help. 

I was sent to military school.

Inflatable bounce house ambience — it's another fantastic fan episode. Eight hours of a fan inflating a bouncy house. I dropped the mic into the air chamber and fired the ******* up.

It's white noise, and that's it. Oh, I was making our regular Sunday fish dinner for my wife the other day, and I spilled a bit of sauce on the side of her plate. So I wiped it off with a napkin, just like on the chef shows.

Inside Car recording Debby Tropical Remnants.

Debby did a destructive dance among the southern states, looping over Florida and spinning into Charleston before drenching the Carolinas. 

For my car it was mostly wind and rain. Get in.

Episode Cover Photo from Valeriia Miller

After living inside the Earth for nearly a score, I feel like any creature should be given the space to air out one’s feelings.  So here are three hours of bug feelings as heard from a charming Bed and Breakfast I spent the night at in Leesburg, Virginia.

I know nothing about our friends who live in the Earth for 17 years and then pop out mid-summer to squeal from the trees. I’m speaking of the cicada, the sometimes local taco protein, and massive fly things that are a nightmare to look at. 

I reserve the right to not love cicadas later if I were to find out that maybe they are squealing insults upon us for being such poor shepherds of the Earth… Or maybe I would love them more. 

Regardless, nothing beats a chorus of these freak insects. And they serve as a good reminder that we’re destroying the Earth with war and ineq — ehem… that it’s late Summer — time to cape diem the **** out of this pool weather.

Also, thanks again to the folks at Stone Gables for letting me stick a giant microphone in your backyard!

Cover photo (before manipulation) by Coen Crevels

Bugs, babbling brook, overnight in the woods ambience. Quiet y'all, the summertime bugs have something to say.

This recording begins just before midnight and continues until about 4 a.m. (I wanted to get in the less-trafficked hours because there was a US Highway a few miles away and a dirt road close by. You will hear some occasional traffic, but not so much that it's annoying.)

So get "lost in the woods" like ⁠De La Soul⁠ did nearly 30 years ago on their opus ⁠Buhloone Mindstate⁠. Except in these woods, you won't find Shortie No Mass, Prince Paul, Pos, Mase, or Dave — just a bunch of bugs. And I'm pretty sure a fox or some other wild canine will show up.

⁠Cover photo by Kendal Hoopes.⁠

Belize Zoo/ Birds ambience — Strap in for 30 minutes of chattering Central American Parrots et al.

This recording is from the heart of the Belize Zoo near the parrots. It was captured by my biologist sister, Dr. April Blakeslee, an instructor for Miami University’s Project Dragonfly, which works with the Belize Zoo. The program promotes “environmental stewardship” while working “across diverse ecological and social settings.”  

Vehicle interior thunderstorm ambience. Oh, look, another minisode! And in today’s minisode, we idle in a parking lot, waiting out a passing thunderstorm.

There are a lot of good reasons for letting a storm pass. 

Man, one year, my commute, which usually took 30-45 minutes, took eight ****** hours. I was stupidly piloting my Smart car through an epic 2-inch-an-hour snowfall. You may have heard of the storm Carmaggedon [air horn].  

I joined everyone else on the highway who didn’t wait out the snow, and it became the biggest, iciest traffic jam of my life. At one point, nature forced me out onto the traffic-snarled highway; I had to go. And as I went, lighting flashed and then rumbles of thunder.

I was geeked. I had always heard of thunder-snow but had never actually seen it. It was quite something.

So, it is always better to wait out a storm — well, unless you’re Noah. If that dude waited the storm out he could've drowned.

And then for all-time we may have known the parable as “Japheth’s Ark.” And if you say that too quickly, it might come across as “Jeff’s fart.” 

Enjoy a contented cat, a clock, and a cacophony of weather.  A storm is coming, and the wind is already kicking up outside, but Tuna Fry (the cat) doesn’t care; she has the house to herself, which means joy and slumber.

You will hear heavy to moderate rain on a metal roof in a tropical dry forest. At first, it will sound like a waterfall, but it quickly tapers off to less rain and more local birds—and a chicken! I recognized one bird!

So, yesterday, I got a text message from my brother-in-law. He recorded some rain in Belize and sent a picture of a table surrounded by screened walls under a metal roof. Did I want that audio?

“You bet your sweet Asperecreme,” I said.

I didn’t say that, but that was my general feeling about having audio of a rainstorm in a country nearer to the Equator than I have ever been. Thank you for capturing and sharing the audio, Mike!

I know I just released a long episode yesterday and should wait to post (for my own sake), but honestly, I would like to get this out before Beryl. This is a perfectly normal Belizean heavy rain storm that isn’t related to Beryl. Also, my thoughts are with everyone in the path of that storm.

This strikes me as a minisode. People do that in the podcast world, right?