Desert Oracle Radio

Out here in the Great Mojave Wilderness, we’re always talking about Section 6 or Section 33 or whatever it is, but how did we get that system, that public-lands overlay? Who did the work? Tonight we tell you about . . . well, not the father of our country, but his nephew: Col. Henry Washington, the man who made the baseline and the meridian back in the 1850s, the defining lines by which all other property in Southern Californ...

People will come to the Mojave on purpose, in summertime, and then they get sad because they can't go outside without bursting into flames. A couple of summers ago, a guy died in Death Valley just from riding his motorcycle outside. Overheated. The 120° heat no less lethal just because it was blowing all over him at cruising speed. He just dehydrated and died.

This is the time of year to stay in the car with the A/C blasti...

"God bless America, let's save some of it." — Edward Abbey

One of the senators Utah sent to Washington has slipped in some very dangerous legal language into the big federal budgeting bill, language that’s vague enough to allow the beginning of the sell-off of our Western Public Lands. Including National Forests. Not including national parks, monuments, etc., but very much including Bureau of Land Management and Forest ...

The Mojave gets slow in the summertime, not much going on. So there was much excitement when the word spread on that early summer night: The Marines were shipping out to Los Angeles. Rumors of troop carriers and white buses, full of Marines with full kit, ready to go, and deeply annoyed to be called back early on a Saturday night. But, it was something to do, somewhere to go. Everybody wants to get out of the Mojave in su...

The reality of knowing the wild animals on your land is knowing that they generally live on an accelerated timeline. The new crop of Mojave cottontails and rock squirrels each spring will shrink to one or two lucky buddies by late summer, with the rest succumbing to reckless road crossings and red-tail hawks and rattlesnakes . . . the local ravens feasting on the remains, if there are any. 

Soundscapes by RedBlueBlackSilver. H...

The maniac who blew himself up outside a Palm Springs fertility clinic is our latest High Desert dingbat to make the national news. Luckily, the four (or five?) injured in the Palm Springs terror attack have been treated and released from the hospital. But who bombs fertility clinics? Meet America's worst new subculture, the violent anti-natalists.

With geographically relevant soundscapes by RedBlueBlackSilver.

Support the show: htt...

If you’ve run around the breathtaking Eastern Sierra, you know Crowley Lake, and Crowley Point, and maybe even the rare Crowley Lupine of the Sierra’s Eastern slope. All three are named in honor of Father John J. Crowley, the Padre of the Desert. His heroic life and tragic death are remembered on this very Catholic episode of Desert Oracle Radio, with soundscapes by RedBlueBlackSilver.

Support the show: https://www.patre...

Here’s how the Channel 12 news in Phoenix began the story, Thursday night on the 10 o’clock news: “God sent that dog to rescue my son.” These words were spoken by the toddler’s father, Corey Allen, outside the family’s home on the west side of rural Seligman, Arizona. Corey Allen says he was working on the roof, Sarah Allen was inside with their youngest. And two-year-old Bodin Allen went outside...

It's a cool & pleasant springtime in the Mojave High Desert. The hummingbirds are lingering on the branches of creosote and catclaw, looking around for the flowers. Where are the flowers? Well, that’s always the guessing game up here, isn’t it? Sometimes they’re evident by the end of March, sometimes it’s the beginning of May. Varies by terrain, by altitude, by a hundred little differences from spring to...

Happy Ides of March, happy St. Patrick’s Day, and happy five-year anniversary of the COVID-19 lockdown — the beginning of it anyway: 15 days to slow the spread . . . not a great slogan, for what it cost, but that’s what we got. Much of the world is much the same as it was five years ago. Same iPhone, same president, same daylight savings time. Where did the lockdown time go? What did it do to us?

Soundscapes by Re...

A winter storm cut loose from the mountains, the cold wind whipping around the creosote, rain dripping down through the swamp-cooler vent: 2025 came in like a Lion and it’s the Year of the Snake. We’ve got both out here, in the Mojave Wilderness. Mountain lions, or cougars. And snakes, too, although it’s still a bit early to see our reptile friends up here at 4,000 feet elevation. (Soundscapes by RedBlueBlackSilve...

It's a cold, cold night in the wind-blasted desert, and we hear there's snow a-comin', can't come soon enough. Listen to the harrowing sounds of the 1961 Bel Air Fire, prepare for Mojo Nixon's anniversary (of death), and join us in remembering our favorite Intermountain West surrealist, the late great David Lynch. Soundscapes by RedBlueBlackSilver. Suitable for some families.

Desert Oracle Radio (c)(p) 2017-2025 http://Deser...

Another wild and windy night in these first strange days and nights of our new year. We are monitoring the infernos & catastrophes, but also celebrating the creation of Chuckwalla National Monument in the vast weird desert east of Coachella, all the way to the Colorado River. Plus: A phone call from our High Desert pal Herbie Benham, and soundscapes by RedBlueBlackSilver.

Desert Oracle Radio (c)(p) 2017-2025 http://DesertOracle...

We've heard some weird news about Saint Nicholas that turns out to be a few years old, but that's all right. Christmas itself is old news, after all. That’s why we love it, because it’s ancient and beautiful, the time for silent walks in the cold night, just the sound of your boots crunching through the snow, the half-moon glowing through the Joshua trees.

Plus: Which phrases and words shall be banned in the new year? A...

Is it Thanksgiving time already? Well let's pack up the car and head out to Joshua Tree, everybody's favorite Thanksgiving destination if they live exactly three hours away and don't have anywhere else to go. Plus: What are the ravens up to now? Soundscapes by RedBlueBlackSilver.

Desert Oracle Radio (c)(p) 2017-2024 http://DesertOracle.com

Support the show: https://www.patreon.com/desertoracle

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy ...

Happy Hallowtide, the three-day festival of the Dead and their various souls & spirits. Tonight we are riding down the nocturnal highway, listening to ghosts of times past crackling through the car-radio speakers. With new soundscapes by RedBlueBlackSilver. Thanks for supporting this commercial-free show at http://patreon.com/desertoracle.

Support the show: https://www.patreon.com/desertoracle

See omnystudio.com/listener for priv...

Be not a-feared of our yearly remembrance of the dead, of ghostly visits from our beloved and maybe not-so-beloved relations and ancestors. Know Death as an old friend who always eventually comes around, for you and everyone else. If your belief in the immortality of the soul is secure, do not shudder and sputter over the enjoyment of pumpkins and haystacks and comical gravestones made of scrap wood and whitewash. It's October, as ...