Desert Oracle Radio

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 t...

"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 Bu...

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...

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.  S...

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 RedB...

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....

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 tw...

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 hundre...

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...

Night has fallen on the desert, the desert spring is here, and that means the bugs are coming back, and that means we’ll be seeing a lot more of our beloved desert friend, the wonderful wonderful Cactus Wren. Soundscapes by RedBlueBlackSilver. Desert Oracle Radio (c)(p) 2017-2025 Support the show: https://www.patreon.com/desertoracle See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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...

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...

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 (...

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...

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...

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/desertoracl...

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 wo...

Have you heard what the "green energy" corporations are doing to the Great Basin Desert, with your government's approval, on  your public lands ? The plan is to cover the pristine basin-and-range interior of Nevada with industrial electricity factories over endless thousands of acres of desert woodland. And the people who should be out protesting this, chaining themselves to the desert trees marke...

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 RedBlueBlackSilver. Support the show: https://www.patreon.com/desertoracle See omnystudio.com/listener for priva...

A summertime tour through "strange and weird places," where they held their annual rituals. This is Episode #228. It's on the level. Support the show: https://www.patreon.com/desertoracle See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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's nominee in 2024, because it coincides with the VP's Second Saturn Return. Which is also hitting y...

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 yourself down beneath the swamp cooler vent, and get yourself a cold beverage, and enjoy this mid-Ju...

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 soundscapes by RedBlueBlackSilver, who has a Bandcamp site worth your attention! And thanks for...

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 Layne. This is Episode #224,  Slumgullion Stew . Support the show: https://www.patreon.com/deser...

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 place to start. The pinyon jay is the steward of the pinyon forests, for which the forest feeds an...