The Cat Herder's Lament

OFFICIOUS PUS RELEASE
FOR IMMEDIATE PUSTROBUTION

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"Okay, so..." whenever you see anyone begin a question, post or, God forbid, instructional article online with "Okay, so..." you need to smack the offender upside the brainpan and tell them to get to the fucking point. Because I can't think of a single instance where the "Okay, so..." couldn't just be deleted and, oh, I don't know... start the fucking question or post without those two useless saggy tit verbal appendages that make your would-be readers want to throw up a little bit in their mouths.

For one thing, anyone who begins a post with "Okay, so..." sounds like either an immature girl, a petulant teenage emo boy itching for a warm, soft place to pout, or an NPR weekend host. I can almost hear the rising inflection in your goddam voice, ending every phrase as if you're asking a question when you're actually trying but failing to write a simple fucking declarative sentence.

Not only does it make you sound like you're whining and looking for an excuse to force readers to abuse you, it angers me that I have to waste 10 seconds trying to decide whether to ignore your stupid post or troll the fuck out of you by pretending to be your friend while giving you terrible advice that is sure to get you banned from the entire interbutt and ridiculed the first time you try to actually follow that advice.

And if you're a grown man starting a post with a sentence that even vaguely resembles this...

"OK so the FRN has been through some hard bumps in the past year..."

...you are evidently suffering from an absence of dangly bits, which can be the only explanation for why you cannot restrain yourself from the excessive use an effeminate word like "nasty", a word that should never be uttered or written by anyone other than your Aunt Gertrude when she's fretting at her 13 year old chihuahua for dry humping her leg again.

Furthermore, if you've repeated the same fucking whine over and over for a decade, with only minor modifications in names and places as necessary to indicate whomever and whatever has bunched up your lacy underthings this time, you need to get off the goddam interweb.

Don't make me troll you again, silly hareball. I remix your audio foar teh lulz. Your so-called pirates are whiny cannibal hamsters and eat each other's tiny dingleberries. Now go away or I shall troll you a second time.

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moar Radio Paranoia audio anarchy 4 u

Speaking of remixing your audio...

I've been busy slicing and dicing the recent Radio Jamba International and WBNY programs to make Radio Jambalaya, and hadn't planned on writing a blog entry at all this week. It really goes against my nature to write such dreadfully lewd, rude and crude stuff. My sincerest apologies to any who were offended by the above exercise in slandercasting and ruining pirate radio. But my promoter said I needed to fan the flames for the sake of publicity. Supposedly it helps the pay-per-lulz figures. He also says I should demand the bunnyman and Kraquerette be tested for steroids, but I'm pretty sure he's joking. There's absolutely no evidence they're experiencing elevated testosterone levels. If they are juicing they should check to be sure it's not estrogen.


Beings of Sound
NSFW: Lewd, crude and obscene language, mostly by a neurotic cartoon chick.



The September 2011 RJI tribute to Poet of The Crystal Ship had some pretty good bits, especially the segments with Germaine from "Neurotically Yours" reading her awful anti-erotic poetry, and Saul Williams performing "Coded Language." The audio from that particular version of Coded Language seemed to have some st-st-stuttering, like a glitchy audio stream. But I dug it. So I sampled the stutters and Williams' many sharp intakes of breath, loaded them up in Winamp, hit the randomize button and recycled the various audio bits until it developed its own peculiar rhythm. Then I sampled some beats from another part of the RJI show, reversed and looped them and mashed the whole thing together. Other bits came from one of the WBNY feud shows (2006, I think), Boxxy (natch), Cosmikdebris from a December 2009 Lumpy Gravy Show, and some of my favorite inspirations for audio collages: Jon Nelson at Some Assembly Required; odds and ends from Radiolab. One of the variations ended up as the 6 min 12 second version of Beings of Sound, the title taken from a line in Coded Language.


The Cat Herder's Lament
Warning: This is made of 99.99% F-bombs! Not suitable for anyone!



Of all the shitty volunteer efforts on the vast, immane, interwoven, interacting systems of systems we know and despise as the interbutt, the worst may be the moderator's position at the Free Radio Network. Pity the unfortunates who can only stand by and observe the twin horrors of Murphy's boundless ego and bottomless sock drawer.

After one of my early and rather crude audio cut-ups escaped captivity in late 2009 and nearly capsized the Floating Rotten Nutsack, Cosmikdebris was kind enough and courageous (or foolhardy) enough to give exposure and airplay that 7 Minutes to Hell might never otherwise have enjoyed. What tickled me more than the drama queen antics of the Lagomurph's various socks when he blamed the hapless "Spore" for unearthing the fetid audio clip, was Cosmikdebris' weary tone of resignation when he commented on the bit of aural trollery. I knew that one day I must create a fitting tribute. And, from having listened to many Lumpy Gravy Shows and knowing his appreciation for musical eccentricity, I sincerely do hope he'll enjoy it.

And if not, well, hell... I still had a blast putting these together. The hybrid Jamaican Dub/Dubstep whumpa-whumpa actually came from sampling beats from the RJI show and bastardizing the hell out of the samples until they sounded phat, then reversing and looping them. Ideally I'd like to create weird hip-hop stuff made entirely from other pirate radio shows, something akin to the amazing Motown Meltdown remixes where everything was taken from the original source masters. If you dig audio anarchy you'll love Motown Meltdown vols 1 & 2. I was a little disappointed by Girl Talk after hearing all the hype back in 2009, but that's probably because the source material wasn't familiar to me. But the Motown Meltdown stuff comes from familiar sources, but totally re-imagined. It's like 'shrooms without the risk of barfing or getting busted.

Meanwhile, I'm still working on remixing the recent WBNY salute to Poet and yours truly, Guise Faux. Because as the Lagomurph is addicted to socks and swimming in De Nile, we at Radio Paranoia are addicted to all things meta. By the way, CB and Kracker - please don't bury your voice overs so deep under music beds and sound effects. Makes it hard as hell to dig out and remix. And watch those levels - I'm hearing some clipping in there.

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If you dig the sound collage approach, check out Mashed in Plastic on YouTube, with some crazy good remixes of David Lynch movie bits and Lynch/Badalamenti music.

Fan Mail and the Pirate's Paradox

“The only thing worse than being talked about is not being talked about.”
-- Oscar Wilde

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We're honoured to find that Commander Bunny enjoyed our most recent Tale of Radio Paranoia, and even offered editorial assistance. We're also grateful to Father Poet of The Crystal Ship for contributing some well considered counterpoints to Commander Bunny's critique of our tale.



A tip o' the dunce cap to Kracker, who suggested the correct spelling of his name. And whilst we're appreciative of the opportunity to correct our error, we're puzzled by his choice to post this publicly on the FRN. We've blurred out the name and location. Meanwhile, the FRN post has vanished.

We appreciate Kracker's usual enthusiasm and readiness to get into character by donning the traditional leprechaun costume to perform some sort of ritual gardening.

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Commander Bunny also contributed a few editorial suggestions (the unexpurgated version of CB's e-mail may be viewed on Poet's TCS blog). Whilst perusing CB's words of wisdom I was reminded of a variation of Epimenides Paradox:

1. All pirates are liars.
2. I am a pirate.

* * *

"We've been falsely accused of sharing a mailing list with Kracker.

"ITS NOT TRUE."
-- Commander Bunny, 18 July 2011

* * *

Ah, we see there is some perfectly understandable confusion here. We meant that in the same sense that there have been numerous Commanders Bunny. It was another, presumably fictitious, Commander Bunny who provided that information. As we noted in a March 2011 Tale of Radio Paranoia, there have been - much like the Dread Pirate Roberts - many Commanders Bunny throughout his-story. See "Commander Bunny's true identity revealed!"

Unlike the former Commander Bunny, who was well respected for sagacity, generosity and sense of humour, the current Commander Bunny is prone to occasional indiscretions in the sense that a trollop is prone to occasionally dropping her bloomers whilst singing "A farthing a blow! Three for a ha'penny!"

When was the former Commander Bunny displaced by a humourless usurper? Remember the Commander Bunny who had a sense of humour about himself? Good times, good times.

* * *

"Shame I have to even send this email, but the website "Radio Paranoia" has been spreading lies and false information about me and its time to set the record straight." --CB

* * *

We're guessing the Commander hasn't read the masthead for our trifling scandal sheet and metafictional scribblings.

Perhaps, as well, he overlooked those "X" shaped and arrow shaped icons near the top of the browser page. Clicking on either one will relieve the angst provoked by this disreputable eyesore of a blog.

Don't like it? Don't read it. Works just like the tuning dial and volume control on your receiver. I know CB has heard that advice before, because he's given the same advice before.

* * *

"Since the website has only 6 or 8 people who infest it, I felt it better to send an email to you directly. And I've found that if I don't counter the lies, they are taken as fact and spread among the "do-nothings" in the hobby, who want everyone to think they "know something" when they actually don't." --CB

* * *

Oh, our infestation is far worse than only 6 or 8 people, even discounting my own sockpuppets. We can scarcely brew a pot of Earl Grey, hawt, without a few more do-nothings showing up at this mad tea party, eating up all of Evil Elvis's mushroom canapés and then nattering about metaphysics with the Cheshire Cat.

* * *

"For whatever reason this guy "Guise Faux" who was also "Guy Fawkes" of KBOX..."

* * *

Guy Fawkes! That provocateur? I don't recall making any public statements confirming that he and Guise Faux are one and the same. Next you'll be telling me there's no Easter Bunny.


Guy Fawkes is as real, distinct and separate from Guise Faux as Beans, Mosby, Thumper, Bouncer, lovemyradios, Winston, et al, are from Commander Bunny. Those are almost certainly real people, for why would a pirate of Commander Bunny's stature and fearsome reputation need to pillage a sock drawer to muster support?

* * *

"...(who I kindly relayed)..."

* * *

Whoa, old feller, don't dislocate your shoulder patting yourself on the back. But thanky "kindly" for that relay.

Semi-seriously for a moment (cue the violins), I'll paraphrase from an e-mail I send to Andrew Yoder earlier this year after WEAK got the knock...

...99.99% of KBOX and related programmes were relayed by WEAK, a genuine hero and friend of pirate radio.

He was consistently a friend and mentor. Very few listeners and pirates realize how prolific he was. Broadcasting almost every week for two years, and often several times a week, WEAK relayed many shows, both older classic shows and new programmes. Yet he rarely claimed credit. He never took any credit for relaying KBOX or other programmes I produced, or those produced by others who were cutting their teeth in pirate radio.

He is good natured, humble and discrete, the antithesis of the high profile "international relay service" approach of WBNY. He never sought public accolades, never made a sport of insulting listeners or other pirates and - unlike Commander Bunny - never, ever stooped to slandering other ops or listeners in a desperate bid for self aggrandizement. He simply quietly set out to make shortwave radio fun for listeners. And he succeeded.

Whilst WBNY has occasionally listed KBOX amongst the stations he has relayed, in fact WBNY relayed only our very first programme and we have had no other association with WBNY since 2009. Even with that particular 2009 WBNY relay, we received far more signal reports from WEAK's relays of our first KBOX programme. He was so diligent in pursuit of the craft of broadcasting that by autumn 2009 WEAK's audio quality was amongst the best in sideband mode, on par with WTCR and Wolverine. I learned a lot from him about how to prepare the audio in our pre-recorded programmes for optimal results in noisy conditions at the trough of the solar cycle.

WEAK's relays of our programmes included:

• KBOX #1, in the autumn of 2009 (which WBNY also relayed, thanky kindly, your hareness).
• KBOX #2, our Halloween 2009 show (we snoozed through 2010).
  
• Gumby Radio, Jan-Feb 2010, our wee salute to Art Clokey.
• Family Friendly Radio, spring 2010.
• KBOX #3, aka Radio Paranoia, autumn 2010, the predecessor to this penny dreadful we call Tales of Radio Paranoia.
  

WEAK took all of the risk and asked for nothing in return. He's so discrete that even after two years of regular correspondence I still didn't know his name or location until after he got the knock. If I send out only one QSL card in my lifetime, it will be to him. (Sorry, but so far I've issued only those eQSLs that offend His Hareness. But I was happy to prepare unique eQSLs for some listeners and most were of sufficient resolution to make good postcard sized prints at home or in a minilab.)

And WEAK was a genuine fan of free radio, logging any and all pirate shows equally, without regard to cliques, without resorting to sockpuppets to log himself (I'm looking at you, bunnyman), and with as much enthusiasm as any DXer. There aren't many people in the pirate radio scene I'd regard as genuine heroes. He's at the top of my list. He'll be greatly missed as an active free radio operator. (Fansome would be high on my list of pirate ops if not for that obsession with the chipmunk voiced Belinda Carlisle. Yes, yes, I understand it was necessary for national security, but still...)

And, for what it's worth, WEAK did not relay the cut-up/remix I did of CB's audio from the 2006 "pirate feud" show, mixed in with other randomized audio bits. If you still have a banana up your bum over that remix and any broadcasts thereof, your beef is with me and me alone. (See: "7 Minutes to Hell - Part 1", for which I still need to write the followup article, describing CB's hysterical slandering of the wrong person, along with publishing names, ham radio call signs and addresses for the poor schlub's family - one of CB's prouder moments, no doubt.)

If I never do another thing in pirate radio (including figuring out which bits of the transmitter plug in where), I will always be grateful to WEAK for his selfless friendship and encouragement.

And if I never do another thing but blog about pirate radio, I will always be grateful to Commander Bunny for being the larger than life melodramatic caricature of Snidely Whiplash in fursuit we all know and love to toss popcorn at. I doubt any writer, under the influence of any sort of mind altering chemicals, could concoct a more complex and colourful character. Well, other than Eric Cartman.

And dat's da facts, Jack.

* * *

"You didn’t get reception reports because your show S-U-C-K-E-D!!!!" --CB

* * *

Aww, thanks, nice of you to notice.

* * *

"...has decided his role in pirate radio is start false rumors, and spread lies about pirate operators."

* * *

Don't fret, sparky, I promise not to steal your "All who defy my will are child molesters" shtick. You jumped the shark with that particular bit of hysterical fiction.

* * *

* * *

"This low-IQ, slack-jawed, lip-drooling, asshat, Guise Faux is a liar and is destroying pirate radio LOLing at my frightening arsenal of propaganda and talking points from the 'Big Bunny's Book Of Scary Things To Say On The Interbutts'."

* * *

Aww, you sweet talker, you. In all the hundreds of times you've regurgitated that particular line to almost everyone else in pirate radio, I never thought you really, really cared until now.

* * *

"If he put half as much time and attention in producing shows, instead of spreading lies about pirate operators, he could be a respected member of the pirate community."

* * *

Ooohhh... you sly wabbit. You almost had me until that bit about "respected member of the pirate community." You're funny.

* * *

"It is because of this jackass, that I no longer will relay anyone. Apparently relaying his station wasn't enough for this asshole, he had to start an all out smear campaign trollercoaster full of lies lulz and gossip against me."
-- Commander Bunny

* * *

Eh, your transmitter, your risk, your call. Personally, I think you should consider making an exception for Voice of Next Thursday. Gabriel Syme's programming is damned clever stuff. Actually prompted me to listen to the classic Orson Welles Mercury Theatre On The Air episode and the audiobook version of Chesterton's novel. Good way to pass some time, what with the sunspots taking a holiday.



Incidentally, on Poet's blog a reader commented:

"There is no honor among thieves."

So true. And perhaps the pithiest possible summation of the near-continuous state of turmoil in the North American shortwave pirate scene. Commander Bunny is merely following in the tradition of despots and seagoing pirates who cultivated fearsome reputations and enforced their power by occasionally sacrificing a follower who'd lost favour with the leader.

The sage who first said "Lead, follow or get out of the way" omitted a fourth option: Be the jester and troll the fuck out of 'em.

7 Minutes to Hell - Part 1

"When you cut into the present, the future leaks out."
--William S. Burroughs, on the cut-up technique

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Andy Warhol promised we'd be famous for 15 minutes. Kracker promised to make us famouse. William S. Burroughs warned us it would be the weirdest 23 minutes of our lives. They weren't wrong.


If you've followed Tales of Radio Paranoia thus far and read the blog header, you may have wondered "Okay, Guise Faux is an asshole iconoclast with no respect for the traditions and conventions of pirate radio, Brown Nose the Pirate is a drunken Hunter S. Thompson wannabe, and I want the delicious golden-tressed Dea Fauxnette's phone number because I, too, have a face made for radio, a personality made for evil IRC, and she's a woman on the internets and I want to believe she's real because it's far too disturbing to consider the possibility that Dea is merely a fiction and that Guise Faux can write like a gossip columnist, especially one who sounds gayer than Perez Hilton," you're thinking to yourself, your face now reddening with the realization that we know exactly what you're thinking and oh by the way get your left hand out of your crotch. "But," you say, quickly changing the topic whilst placing your left hand very conspicuously on the keyboard, "what about these reckless audio collages, cut-ups, mashups and deconstructions thingies?"

Therein, dear readers, lies the origins of Tales of Radio Paranoia. And a couple of Radio Paranoia programmes that you probably didn't hear because with sunspots playing hard to get our wee signal is but a mouse fart in a hurricane.

And considering our recent and unanticipated confession that I/we/he perhaps am/are CB himself, this tale takes on whole new subversive twists.

A few years ago I was prowling through a family member's air check tapes from his radio days and thinking it might be fun to give that a shot. His demo reel probably took days to put together using tape - it was that elaborate. "Self," I figured, "how hard could it be with the advantage of digital audio editing?"

That - figuring for myself without adult supervision - was my first mistake, of many more to come.

My next mistake was going from outraged over the summer 2008 pirate radio war to amused when, by 2009, I remembered it was just another manifestation a perennial event, the Annual Pirate Radio Feud Lovefest. If only I had remained properly blinded by a perpetual state of high dudgeon and not peeked behind that curtain, the Wizard of Odd might have been able to restage his civil war reenactments indefinitely. And, my, didn't we fly on command so well...?

In 2009 I mentioned to a friend that I had some ideas for pirate radio programmes that might be amusing. He encouraged me to give it a try. That was my next mistake. Because providing fertile soil for the spores that litter my brain can only lead to the growth of hallucinogenic shroomage subversivus, which mutates when kept in the dark and fed bullshit for too long.

Whilst cobbling together a couple of programmes in time for Halloween 2009 I was undecided about the order of the songs and audio bits. Whilst listening to the segments in Winamp I inadvertently pressed the randomization option. At that moment it meant nothing to me but later it came in handy. That last sentence is called foreshadowing. It means eventually I'll remember I actually had a point when I started writing this blog entry, before I was distracted by what appears to be a woman on the internets. Oh, wait, no, dammit, wrong again.

Coincidentally, in early autumn 2009 Commander Bunny launched his International Relay Service and offered relays to anyone who wished to submit a programme. I took advantage of his generous offer - quite gratefully, I might add, and I remain grateful for that favour, inconceivable as that may seem to some now. We received a few signal reports but not nearly as many, or as accurately detailed, as those from our friend who provided 99.99% of our relays.

A curious incident in late 2009 prompted me to reconsider any further association with WBNY's relay service. For who-knows-what reason, Beans - at the time unknown to most of us as merely another CB sockpuppet - took offence at Radio Ga-Ga and Outhouse Radio. Beans began spooning up the usual flavourful medley of bunny puke: inconsiderate newbies ruining things for the "good pirates"; hurting the rabbit ears with SSTV noise (curious, as the lagomorph apparently has also transmitted SSTV); barf-barf-barf. And the usual supporting cast of support hose joined in to give the illusion of consensus. Most operators and listeners didn't seem to give a fig one way or another.

Apparently satisfied that the consensus of his own sock drawer (Beans, Mosby, Thumper, ad hareseum) gave him the desired mandate to act, Commander Bunny baited Radio Ga-Ga into a trap that ended up with Ga-Ga banned from the FRN.

Throughout 2009 Radio Ga-Ga had done brief early morning broadcasts on most weekday mornings, usually for around 15 minutes between 1200-1300 UTC. Most broadcasts began and ended with SSTV, which helped with station IDs. And even though WBNY often did early morning broadcasts, CB had repeatedly complained about traffic jams on 6925 kHz and swore he wouldn't stoop to using a frequency haunted by riff-raff (reaffirmed in a January 2011 FRN thread).

But in early November 2009 CB, masquerading as his known alter ego "Official Pus Press Release" and supported by his favourite sock-thug Beans, accused Radio Ga-Ga of QRMing WBNY. Using the FRN's indefinite edit window which doesn't track how often a post is edited or precisely when (other than the date - a boon to devoted flamers and troll's), Beans and Pus Release baited Ga-Ga into swapping insults. RGG lobbed out "chobster!" Officious Pus Release banned Ga-Ga and posted RGG's city (which was still visible more than a year later). This should have tipped us that the bunny mafia had access to member IPs, despite not being listed as admin, mods or cat herders. But we are a reticent and forgiving lot and the gaffe went unrecognized by most. The bunnyman also tried to bait Outhouse Radio into a spat but the affable fellow didn't bite.

Umbrage is always free for the taking and His Hareness is not one to pass up an opportunity. Around that time, 13 November 2009, CB announced an all-new pirate feud show, implying the "stars" would be Radio Ga-Ga and Outhouse Radio. (If I correctly recall that programme, it was rather tame and nowhere near as abrasive as the earlier feud shows.)

That reminded me of an earlier classic WBNY pirate feud show, the 2006 programme aimed at the hapless Mike Gaukin, Sierra Papa and some other fellow. Toward the 21 minute mark of that programme ComBun challenged listeners to decode a secret message and post it to the FRN. The message was just a backward recording of CB giving his special blessings to the trio. Apparently Alfred (Alfa Lima) took the challenge rather more literally than the hare intended. He corrected both the backward recording and pitch shift and posted the audio clip online.

And all hare broke loose.

Alfred and all who partook of the lair of the demon spawn across the Atlantic - aka, those Euro pirates and their trance music and their wooden shoes and their legal hashish - were forever cast out of the bunny's Garden. Well, with the exception, perhaps, of Dave Martin and his mesmerizing Corsair which tempted His Hareness to cheat on his faithful Grenade.

So much for the tedious background history leading into the actual point of this blog entry.

On the eve of the 2009 WBNY pirate feud programme, I recalled that prescient Burroughs quote about the audio cut-up technique he and Brion Gysin had popularized:

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"When you cut into the present, the future leaks out."

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I wondered what might leak out of the 2006 episode.

Apparently, warning signs of impending disaster either did not leak out, or did not soak into my thick skull. Nor did the lessons of Negativland's infamy with Helter Stupid and U2. Not that RP's feeble efforts are anywhere near the godly troll status of Negativland's late 1980s media pwnage.

The 2006 WBNY feud show lent itself well to cut-ups. Commander Bunny's narrative consisted of many short, snappy quotes with generous pauses, interspersed amongst pre-recorded audio bits from cartoons and other sources. The clear, declarative phrases were well suited to editing to isolate only CB's comments. The only problem was a persistent hum in the bunnyman's on-mic audio, presumably a ground loop problem he didn't notice. Not to worry, thought I, this was only an experiment, not intended to be broadcast. After isolating the phrases, making duplicates of each and loading dozens of short phrases into Winamp, I hit the randomize option and listened, whilst recording the playback. Each playback session lasted around 5-10 minutes.

The initial results produced some startling juxtapositions. In some instances the phrase "When the listeners feel they can threaten and cause problems for the pirates" was morphed into "When the pirates feel they can threaten and cause problems for the listeners" and, perhaps more presciently...

"When the pirates feel they can threaten and cause problems for the pirates"

Another phrase - "If you want to find a way to drive the pirates away" - transmogrified into...

"If you want to find a way to drive the listeners away"

Most of those compilations of 5-10 minute segments were only moderately listenable utter crap. Even to a fan of cut-ups, audio anarchy and randomness, most were tedious. Compared with the more deliberate selection and assembly process of the mashup, the cut-up process is very hit-or-miss. I pared away the most redundant bits, added a few audio segments from other sources, including the Pixies classic "Monkey Gone to Heaven" because, well... you know why... loaded them up into Winamp and hit randomize again.

And that's how "7 Minutes to Hell" was birthed. Or aborted, depending on your point of view.

Without further prejudicing our readers' opinions, attached below you'll find streaming audio for "7 Minutes to Hell", along with a related commentary from Cosmikdebris during a December 2009 Lumpy Gravy Radio Show segment (probably the only time this cut-up was ever actually heard clearly, thanks due to WBCQ's signal!).

And the bottom two audio bits are examples of some more deliberately edited audio collages I've put together, to differentiate them from the haphazard approach of the randomized cut-up technique. At least one of those has actually been included in an earlier broadcast.

Your frank opinions are absolutely welcome here. Love it? Hate it? Find the technique to be intriguing or incredibly boring? Pretentious beatnik bullshit? Is the cut-up version even more offensive than CB's original programme? Is it heresy or fair game to remix another pirate's programming, same as any pop culture icon?

As a fan of audio collages, mashups and deconstructions (no surprise, if you've peeked at the sidebar links), naturally I'm biased. I was also a big fan of Sycko Radio's aural oddities. But I'm more interested in what other fans of pirate radio and pirate radio operators themselves have to say.

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"7 Minutes to Hell" - Randomized cut-ups of WBNY pirate feud show and Pixies Monkey Gone to Heaven. Semi-NSFW, comparable to South Park humour. (7 minutes)

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"Lumpy Gravy Radio Show, December 2009" - Cosmikdebris sez "Fucking thing sucks!" And goshdarnit, he's right. Semi-NSFW, just a wee bit o' cussin' towards the finale.

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And if you have too much time on your hands, as Guise Faux apparently does, here are a couple other audio collages you may have already heard on the funny bands in our previous programmes (not giving any other hints):


Obligatory remix of infamous Bill O'Reilly tantrum from his "Inside Edition" days. (3 min 21 sec) By cracky, this Billo may have a temper but at least he doesn't call remix artists child molesters just because we have a little fun at his expense. Unlike some temperamental wild hares we know. Warning: Loads o' cussin'. NSFW.

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And our personal favourite, Salad Fingers stumbles upon cannibal hamsters whilst DXing. (10 min 14 sec) Caution: Some barely intelligible fussin'-'n'-cussin' from N9OGL mixed into background. Semi-NSFW.

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In the next Tale of Radio Paranoia, assuming I'm still alive to tell the tale, the aftermath of "7 Minutes to Hell," and how a whim snowballed weeks later into a FUBAR of epic proportions.

Pirates of LazyTown

While pondering our recent bout with troll's remorse by consulting with the 4chanizens of /adv/ (because the best place to seek advice about antisocial behavior is among fellow trolls, amirite?)*, we visited /mu/ and /tv/ for the first time since last year and were reminded that many Anons are very creative folks.

If you don't lurk there often you probably have a negative impression of Anonymous as portrayed in mainstream news media, which tends to focus only on the more aggressive trolling of some /b/tards on raids. But Anons are often amusing, intelligent, inspiring and occasionally even challenging in debate (toughens ones sensitive hide against trolling and gratuitous negativity). It's particularly fascinating when you consider the effort they put into participation that will never gain them any individual attention or a cult following, and which will vanish into the 404 ether within a day at most. In some ways it's like shortwave pirate radio: the noise can make it difficult to sort out complex messages; and unless it's recorded, it vanishes into a haze of speculative anecdotes that occasionally misinterpret the zeitgeist.

We followed an extensive meta-humor thread on /tv/ Monday morning that was hilarious. It consisted of one Anon uploading a couple dozen spoof movie summaries written in the style of comedian Yakov Smirnoff's broken Russo-English ("In Soviet Russia, radio listen to YOU"), while the rest of us looked on in appreciative amusement. A couple of fractured tales about the Beatles battling ABBA were also very funny. We swiped this one, a spoof of the children's already creepy and bizarre TV show LazyTown, as internet pirates:

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We are the Pirates

All the people of LazyTown were make a lazy.

Suddenly, Pirates made their danube across the ocean!

"Don't make your lazies!" shout Captain Pirate, "Join us in our piratings!"

The Pirates jumped into LazyTown and began to Pirate!

"It's nice to make pirate!" say Stephanie, and she turned to a Pirate!

Soon, all the Lazys stopped making their lazy and turned to Pirates!

The Pirates all went over to Computer.

"Of Computer to a new type of piratings!" say Sportacus, and he insert a disc through the Computer and began to extract the internets!

"Is goodly to extract many internets!" say Stephanie, and she made a stealing from many movies!

The music notes began to danube around, as the pirates owned the whole of internets!

Suddenly, the internet companies noticed that the internet was being made extracted!

"Our internets are being extracted from LazyTown!" boam the people who want to go internets.

The internets made 404 of their error.

The people were annoy at no internets, and made a sending nuke to LazyTown.

"Maybe we should have not made our stealings their detection!" shout Captain Pirate, as the nuke to collide LazyTown and a boom.

-by Anonymous (LazyTown photo remix by BNtP)

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Audio of the now: On /mu/ we found an original music critique thread that included a few links relevant to our interests: experimental audio and sound collages. In particular we liked the industrial noise collages in Pray, Repent, Receive by solo artist Cretin Dilettante (aka Dustin Sheehan). This sort of thing isn't for every listener, but if you appreciate the sound design that goes into the soundtracks for movies and some dramatic TV shows (imagine the foley and sound design work of a David Lynch film minus Angelo Badalamenti's music) you'll probably enjoy it. We also liked the more accessible musical sensibility in Anklebiter by daszwolftehaus. It's his only piece currently on SoundCloud but we hope he'll pursue more of this melding of music and ambient noise.

Video of the now: At Lazytown, YOU ARE A PIRATE!!!

*/adv/ was split about 50/50 on whether RP should ease up off the bunnyman. We'll see. Pretty much depends on the bunny mob's own fondness for melodrama, which is often too lulzy to ignore.