Ghost Riders and Death Valley Rangers

Forest ranger, park ranger, Navy sailor, lumberjack, and cowboy — those were some of the jobs Stanley Jones worked before accidentally becoming a movie actor and composer of classic western music. PLUS: Weird Annie had a bunch of weird raven children. Deus Pascit Corvus. New sounds by RedBlueBlackS…

Hot August Bites

A summertime tour through "strange and weird places," where they held their annual rituals. This is Episode #228. It's on the level.

Capricorn Full Moon: When Presidents Quit!

Did you know the current (?) president's Quiet Quitting (via Twitter) on this Sunday in July was foretold by an astrologer on Twitter, two weeks prior? That's no lie, and you can check it for yourself. The same seer predicted, back in August 2020, that the current vice president would be the party'…

Dialogue of the Dogs

What does one do, in these bunker days of summer? Too hot to work, too hot to think, too hot to sleep, and time is running away. When it's too hot to walk the dog at night, you know you've made a tactical error in life: You're in the Mojave, in July, in yet another historic heat wave.  Well, sit y…

A Midsummer Night's Desert

Tonight we are celebrating the full moon and summer solstice, because it's a midsummer night's dream in the desert. Which means we're halfway to winter solstice, and only three months & change ’til Halloween. Maybe that's why we're talking about Puck of Pook Hill and homemade cranberry sauce. New s…

Slumgullion Stew

It's hot as hell and we're throwing everything in the hobo stew tonight: Desert-animal antics, Wild West extravaganzas, history's mysteries, William Shatner shot up into space, etc., etc. The soundscapes are by RedBlueBlackSilver and the rest is by your host & underpaid mail-order professional, Ken…

Call of the Blue Crow

Public-land managers in the US Southwest seem determined to drive the pinyon jay to extinction. A half-century attack on pinyon & juniper high-desert woodland has led to a 78% drop in pinyon jay populations just in the past 50 years. You can take action, and the Pinyon Juniper Alliance is a good pl…

Funeral for a Raven

Tonight we're talking ravens, fishes & loaves, and the soul-crushing indoor indoctrination of the Empire's State Religion. Sir James George Frazer, Pliny the Elder and the Gospel Mark are all involved, whether they like it or not. (And the "Bible Friends" podcast mentioned on this episode can be fo…

Materia Medica: On expedition with botanist-surgeon John Milton Bigelow

Dr. John Milton Bigelow did not shy away from hard work, challenges, or adventure. At the age of 46, he signed on as surgeon and botanist for the Mexican Boundary Survey, following the U.S.-Mexican War that fulfilled the gold-hungry manifest destiny of the Americans.  This adventure took him throu…

Standing With the Giants at Mariposa Grove

Mariposa Grove was a sacred grove for millennia before it became part of the Yosemite Grant, lovingly tended by Yosemite Guardian Galen Clark for more than a quarter century. Sacred groves and forests are protected for their spiritual and ecological importance. Such groves are found today througho…