Radio Free Dogpatch

Patrick O'Grady still keeps a training diary, though he's not training for anything other than being Patrick O'Grady. You'd think he'd have that down by now.

Winter seems colder than usual this year. We've already seen a White Walker in Albuquerque, and he's looking for his Social Security check.

The trouble with being your own IT guy is that you're being your own IT guy when you should be being whatever the hell it is that you really are. Just ask Patrick O'Grady. Then move over.

What can society do to punish some well-heeled, ne'er-do-well swell deemed too big to fail into jail? How about a stint in the stocks? To paraphrase Marsellus Wallace from "Pulp Fiction," let's get medieval on their ass. Patrick O'Grady is already pitching.

Patrick O'Grady muses on a few close calls en route to turning 65, including one right before The Big Day.

Patrick O'Grady nearly bought a Honda Element. Twice. The second time he had the book thrown at him. The Kelley Blue Book, that is.

In this special Shut-Ins Edition of Radio Free Dogpatch, a snowbound Patrick O'Grady revisits a February 2004 escape to McDowell Mountain Regional Park in sunny Arizona.

Where's the bike business headed? Anyone seen magnetic north lately? Maybe it's going south like everything else. Patrick O'Grady swaps his GPS for a Magic 8-Ball, but it keeps telling him "Reply hazy, try again."  

Wilbur Ross, the Man in the $600 Embroidered Slippers, doesn't understand why furloughed federal workers visit food banks instead of the other sort. Maybe it's because they're pretty certain they won't see him there anytime soon. Recorded using a Zoom H5 Handy Recorder and Shure SM58 mic. Edited on a 2014 MacBook Pro using Apple's Garageband. "Ahoy, polloi," lifted from "Caddyshack" using Rogue Amoeba's Audio Hijack. The background music, "Stay Away," comes from www.zapsplat.com. Dog eating from peridactyloptrix via www.freesound.org. Remember, Wilbur, the Big Dog always eats last.

The pestilence of the Benighted States, Wally O'Steele, a.k.a. Art O. DeDeal, wants a Big, Beautiful Wall at the nation's southern borders to keep brown people from crossing the border to work anywhere other than at his hotels or golf courses. Unable to pry loose funding for same, he has walled off the feddle gummint from its own citizens, idling more than a few of them in the process and forcing others to work without pay. It's a hard reign, and the water — if that's what it is — just keeps rising.

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

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. Inter

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.