r a d i o f r e e d o g p a t c h
. . . Is this thing on?
By Patrick O'Grady
Mad Dog Media
RADIO FREE DOGPATCH
hit the virtual airwaves on Nov. 5, 2005. The short inaugural effort was a podcast of sorts, in the same way that The Daily Dog is a blog — which is to say, not really. The Daily Dog doesn't permit talkback, so it remains forever wedded to the old journalism, which is me talking to you (or at you). Radio Free Dogpatch simply adds an audio component. And I don't even know if it works on an iPod, because I don't own one.So why bother? Because I always liked radio. Like print (and unlike TV), radio requires that you, the audience, take an active role in your own entertainment by using your imagination to fill in the blanks. Adding sound to my portfolio provides me with a few additional tools to grab your attention — background music, sound effects, voices other than my own ... you get the picture. See it? It's right there, playing now, on the backside of your forehead.
If you have to blame anyone for this diversion from the printed to the spoken word, you can start with The Firesign Theatre. First heard 'em in high school and they're still funny today. Then there's the National Lampoon Radio Hour, a precursor to both "Saturday Night Live" and "SCTV," A Prairie Home Companion, Duck's Breath Mystery Theatre ... the list goes on and on. I don't intend to be as ambitious as those shows anytime in the near future, in no small measure because I have absolutely no idea what the hell it is that I'm doing here.
So until I find the key to the clues closet, expect infrequent mini-rants along the lines of Jim Hightower's two-minute radio commentaries, only without the knowledge base, wit and intelligence. As always, your thoughtful comments, sage advice, purposeless ravings and gibbering lunacy are welcome — send those cards and letters to Radio Free Dogpatch in care of Your Humble Narrator at maddogmedia [at] gmail [dot] com. And thanks for listening.
Technical notes: Radio Free Dogpatch originally was produced on an Apple iBook G3 800 (OS X v10.2.8, 640MB RAM). Other hardware included an Audio-Technica PRO 24 stereo condenser microphone, a no-name Sony headset nicked from an FM/AM Walkman radio; and a Griffin iMic USB input/output adapter. The software, which came stock on the iBook, included Felt Tip's Sound Studio v2.0.7 (recording and mixing) and Apple's iTunes 3.0.1 (translating AIFF files to MP3). The latest upgrades include a MacBook 2GHz Intel Core Duo and GarageBand 3.0.4. We're still jabbering into the Audio-Technica via the iMic, but listening through Koss headphones.
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