Morning thunderstorm recorded inside a Buick — this falls into our annual and hopefully distracting series for Election Days or any other news you’re trying to avoid. Checkout last year and the year before for more.

And every year I also force the theme of “October Rain” — harkening to Use Your Illusion I, the yellow cover. In 1991 I asked Santa Claus for Use Your Illusion II, the blue cover. Which I wrote clearly on the wishlist my parents handed me in early December — we knew Santa wasn’t real but our youngest was still in the dark on that. On the wishlist I wrote “Guns N’ Roses, Use Your Illusion, ‘blue cover.’ And underlined blue a bunch of times to be sure. I wanted the mayhem of “You Could Be Mine” to power me through January in military school.

We were still in the age of the longbox format, the early 90s. A time when the mall music store clerks were still very serious and important people. And I’m not talking the drifter *** record store employee cliches I could heap upon you like a Flintstone rib. Yes let’s the envision vinyl salesperson still holding on to the seventies cursing this modern capalistic nightmare over a spinning plate — and they would be smoking Acapulco Gold and spinning The Raincoats, thumbing their hair behind their ears. I got news for you hippy, wait until 2025… where y’all are sorta experiencing a rebirth of popularity for your product, so never mind. 

Mall music stores in the 80s and early 90s felt important, before the Applebees enshittification of modern franchise decor — throw a bunch of **** on the walls with red lights everywhere and call it a day. For me Applebees franchise decor peaked in the late 90s with a restaurant called Bugaboo Creek who programmed the enshitifcation on the walls to talk at patrons. And yet it still endures…).

The music stores of yore were sterile white and felt like a NoMad dispensary. Clerks dressed in company outfits, black pants and some muted coral shirt with collar. Something an HR department screw might wear while laboring on the Island of Dr Moreau. The CDs popped out of slots in the walls in long cardboard boxes with beautiful artwork matching the cover of whichever album — the wasteful yet coveted longbox format era… ( I so want to pay too much money for the Paula Abdul Shut Up and Dance longbox, it’s gorgeous). 

Anyway, Santa Claus brought me the yellow cover, Use Your Illusion I — ********… In the end I think Use your Illusion I is the superior Use Your Illusion so maybe the figment was doing me a favor. 

Ok, so after writing all of the above I realized the name of the song is “November Rain;” still Use Your Illusion I, yellow cover. And I know what you’re thinking — why didn’t I clean up the “October Rain” bit and just start as “Every year I force the theme to fit ‘November Rain…?’” This is a bit, isn’t it? 

I’ve triggered the part of your brain that wants to compose a “well actually” email. And for what? A long jaunt across vintage music stores and a ***** talking deer on the wall? 

Look, something tells me you need to be reading this, you need a few extra paragraphs that aren’t hosted by some stiff in a suit staring at you from a faraway TV studio. Or posts authored by ****** Ms. Johnson. The neighbor you friended on Facebook because she insisted, and now your feed is full of her bad advice and weird AI cats. 

And truth be told I realized my error after finishing my episode cover design and I didn’t feel like redoing it.

"From the top of the world — fabulous 1340 KAB, Antonio Bay!"

Hey, it’s Halloween, and we’re taking a whack at another ’80s horror favorite: John Carpenter’s “minor classic,” The Fog.

Specifically, that moment after the radio station fire, the inspiration for this week’s episode. I really wanted to perpetually capture that long piano note, with the wind and fog horns. Oh those gloomy piano keys and castrated foghorns (or maybe the deep fog horns are only an east coast thing).

I still love this movie for its sound design. The audible tension created by the film's sound-team feels just as threatening today as it was back then. The contrast between the oddly cheerful KAB radio IDs and the ominous water spillage from a doomed piece of wood is personal fave. That, mid-jingle, a garbled threat cuts through, muttering about “...albatrosses around necks" still takes my breath.

Maybe The Fog is one of the sillier ’80s horror films in terms of premise — but as a kid, the idea of murderous lepers traveling in a glowing mist like corpse-pirate ninjas seemed totally plausible. I was shook.

Basically, the movie could be summed up as “YOU ONLY MOVED THE HEADSTONES!” — but on water. Never mind that The Fog came out two years earlier than Poltergeist. Actually, no — let’s mind it. Maybe Spielberg watched The Fog and thought, “We’ll do The Fog on land — I already did a water horror movie.” 

Or stories of history-born revenge haunting the modern world are a classic trope (think The Turn of the Screw, Candyman, A Christmas Carol, etc.) Either way, both Poltergeist and The Fog deliver the murderous ghostly dead in strange costumes.

And that raises a question: if ghosts exist, are they doomed to wear the outfit they died in? Or can they rotate through their wardrobe from life? (Because honestly, I’d love to haunt people in my Nike Air Pegasus from ’91. So sick...)

PS: If you’re looking for more horror ambience vibes follow the links to check out our episodes for Poltergeist, the Excocist, the Shining, or Susperia.

Early AM submarine breakfast prep ambience.

I am obsessed with the minutia of submarine voyages and there’s no books out there that can slake my middle-aged hunger for non-Clancy submarine stories. I’m more interested in the banal, what is work like when you’re job puts you far underwater and beyond rescue.

I’m positive I would feel the need to constantly ask shipmates how "we’re doing." I’m not even talking mission — “how are we doing on food?” “Are we sure we've charted all the underwater mountains?”

Not even amusing questions to read in a podcast description let alone under staggering amounts of water pressure.

I feel like hypochondria would be a terrible attribute in a submariner. Like the type of hypochondria exacerbated by weekend afternoons watching mild freak show cable telivision about bizarre medical diagnosis. Silent heart attacks, fugues that strike while you bathe. People that probably believe actual murders are hosted by Keith Morrison. And John Quiñones might jump out from behind any counter when a suburban mom loses her **** on a barista.

I would be a worse candidate for a submarine than the guy tapping "I am U-571 destroy me" morse code in that Matthew McConaughey sub movie.

But, administer that submarine **** directly into my veins. I love it (If you have any books recommendations along the lines of Blind Man's Bluff, torpedo them over... via comment or email —

Look, I doubt the Navy lets folks set up microphones on modern vessels. Maybe if the Titanic guy promised to make Red October 2 or Das Boot 2 they would let him drop a zoom mic in a ship's galley. But for now we will be riding in a fictionalized submarine. During breakfast prep.

Autumnal Reverie… Ambeince — Fall winds, blowing leaves, bumbling brook. Look, I’m sorry this episode is late. I couldn’t figure out what to write in the episode description and while I’m positive no one reads any of this anyway; I still wanted to say something besides “Fall winds; blowing leaves.”

Does writer’s block apply to ****** writers? That’s what I have. ****** writer’s block. That it’s holding back an ambience episode is annoying. But my usual shtick of pasting tuna casserole recipes into the text field seems lazy. Boil water (or microwave if needed). Cook the pasta from the box until tender. Drain and return to the pot.

I could have called back to my New England college days where mountains surrounded my University on all sides in central Vermont (Disney World for the leaf people). Add the packet from the mac & cheese box plus the required butter and milk (or a splash of whatever you’ve got — even water works in a pinch). Stir until creamy. I had a window that opened directly on one mountain that I’m sure would have looked pretty if I had been awake during the day to look at them.

Bluh, does anyone else feel like they could limbo? Dump in the drained tuna. Like my gut tells me i would be good at limbo — even though i know i wouldn't be good at limbo. it's weird, there's an ember of “enter a limbo contest" in my bones. Bake at 350 °F (175 °C) for about 15–20 minutes, until hot and bubbly.

Run to Greet the Child of Morning… Sailing Ambience — Sailing Odyssey ambience. I’ve been thinking of sailing lately, no reason — maybe I’m just missing the Vineyard (check out our MVY Harbor and Steamship ambience from this summer) or maybe it’s still on my mind from this week.

The Mediterranean was mentioned in my Night of the Living Dead episode from last week as well — a movie that was pushed in front of us on an AV Cart... we weren’t going to be finishing up with Polyphemus and heading back to sea with Odysseus. We were going to watch rural Pennsylvanians battle the undead.

We’re not doing either today—we’re justing going to sail without fear of interdiction from the sirens, the Laestrygonians, the lotus-eaters or worse.  

Let’s find Eos.

Night of the Living Dead from the projection booth, which includes lots of projector.

One of my teachers threw Night of the Living Dead on in middle school, and the chatter around the class was that the teacher was too lazy to get into anything. Which was probably true, but we were happy not to tackle more of Odysseus’ dangerous journey across the Mediterranean. Call me Outis.

Night of the Living Dead was my first true horror film.

The movie is groundbreaking, obviously, but not scary to modern eyes (even modern eyes in the early 90s when I saw it). The only truly frightening part happens in daylight at the end — the movie’s protagonist survives right up to the credits, then is shot unceremoniously by living men — authorities, ostensibly there to remedy the situation. The protagonist is then thrown into a bonfire with the undead he fought.

Which feels apt for this terrible world we’ve constructed for ourselves.

Rainy Night/ Highway Motel — spend a mid-90s motel overnight perched above a highway during a thunderstorm. 

So after graduating from military boarding school, I faced a nearly thousand-mile drive from deep in the Southeast to the Hudson Valley in New York. I believe we stopped to rest somewhere near Frackville, PA. It was late, and the skies were awash with rain and flashes of lightning. My father was exhausted, and he was almost immediately asleep after tossing the dust cover off the bed.

My heart was racing from the new freedoms I faced. No more reveille, no more taps; no more drill or retired military folks ordering me around. (I was a **** student who had to regularly navigate a retired Command Sergeant Major.) I was free—at least for a few months, before I would attempt another military school (college).

Whatever. That night I was free, old enough to try cigarettes or die in war. Mr. High School Graduate.

The summer felt like a budding verification of me. I had settled something, unshackled myself from societal expectations. I was going to be a big deal (oh, youth and your unobtainable optomism).

All of which is to say: I couldn’t sleep. I was excited. Also extremely bored. The motel room was stuffy. I couldn’t have the volume too high on the manual television—it would wake my father (not that there was anything on anyway). All my Wizard magazines and Mack Bolan novels were packed in the U-Haul box with wheels (the mid-90s being a decade or more before smartphones).

So I read Jonah in the room’s complimentary gold book… about a guy who refuses the Almighty and tries to escape across the Mediterranean. Jonah’s boat is hit with a giant storm, and the other folks on the boat are like, “**** you, dude,” and toss him into the sea. Where he’s eaten by a giant fish. And somehow lives half-a-week in a fish without a tv set.

I remember wishing I had packed Detroit Deathwatch in the car.

Missing the server room? Need someone to help with an offline printer? Spend eight hours among your favorite overly refrigerated colleagues.

Have you ever noticed how IT folks walk around with waiter eyes when they're outside their domain? You know, waiter eyes, like when you need a refill on your Mountain Dew and the dude or lady catches you in their peripheral… but just keeps walking?

And I get it. It’s lucky the people who make printers didn’t make Voyager, we’d have lost Voyager by the asteroid belt. You can just look at printer funny and it will go offline, but somehow just for your computer. And that's why IT is there right? Aside from guarding their overly air-conditioned domain.

Once, I had a manager ask an IT staffer to order him a new chair mat.

Usually, when I see IT roaming the office, I remember all those weird mouse issues I want answered. (Mac folks: have you noticed third-party Bluetooth mice acting up? Since updating to Sonoma, I’ve had nonstop issues with tracking speed resetting. And any time Bluetooth headphones are in use, it somehow causes lag in mouse movement. I’ve switched back to a wired mouse, for ****’s sake.)

So, I get why y'all hide in the server room.

Rainy Road to Reflect or Ruminate… Ambience

Sparse highway, light rain ambience. We are on the side of a small road just outside town. It’s night, and it’s raining. Imagine you’re a content Gene Kelly walking home after frolicking around main. Or Feel free to ruminate. 

That’s the general vibe around here. There’s a movie theater nearby showing cat videos (for a good cause) and it’s practically sold out. Catvideofest 2025 is repackaged cat timeline videos on a gigantic screen. And that it is pretty much sold out this weekend says something about our collective mood. 

Anyway, I did manage to get tickets and me my youngest will share an auditorium with a Spider-verse amount of other people.

That’s all from me — Oh, so if I controlled the universe for a day aside from solving every important global issue I would want to sneak a cameo of Ice Cube into that animated Will Smith fish movie that also stars Katie Couric as “Katie Current.” But I would add in Ice Cube so he could be like “even saw the lights of the Goodyear Blimp and it read ‘Ice Cube’s a shrimp.’” Which may occur in that movie, I haven’t seen it. 

New plan: I’m bringing back that short-lived trend from early-pandemic days that social media tried to cook up — shoe-kicking as greeting. I only saw people on my phone doing that dumb ****. I want to ingrain into humans that shoe-kicking is now retroactively high-five. Every famous high-five from history now feet kicking. From the business meetings to competitive sports. The mayhem.

PS: if you are interested in listening to cars pass but you would rather imagine yourself not being rained on -- check out last year's Vermont Route 100 episode recorded from the Mad River Valley.

Oh, My Neo Pleasant Purgatory… Ambience

Digital Purgatory—Neo-noir-ish but chill purgatory ambience, I was thinking of a (techy) modern island of Purgatorio mashed with elements from the Heavenly Kid and “Neo Bowser City” from Mario Kart.

Take a break on one of the rings as folks move about you, working out the flaws of their souls. I imagine mass transit and people movers nearby, working their way up to the next ring amongst stationary kiosks and sidewalk vendors.

But why purgatory? Global calamities have had me thinking more about the Inferno, and as summer loosens its grasp upon us and the morning chills of fall hint at the spooky season… It’s hard not to watch the television and be like, “I hope you go to hell.” (Preferably the one with her gate in Philadelphia).

Which is off-the-chain talk for a podcast meant to be chill.

How about purgatory? Talking purgatory won’t raise as many hackles (right?). So—I attended a religious military boarding school. My first course on Wednesday was Bible; during lights-out, a night guard would check to make sure I was in bed (and not setting fire to anything) and occasionally hand over a rapture comic book. All this is to say, even the underground thinking at school was, “there has to be an enchanted place to hold the so-so souls.”

So purgatory is accepted—just unloved, and underrepresented in popular culture. Aside from Purgatorio or Beetlejuice, there aren’t many mega-hits that focus on limbo. (And we covered Beetlejuice last year.)

I am an afterlife aficionado, and of the big three soul deposit locations, purgatory is represented the least in popular culture. (And I mean big three in the way that Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Litecoin could be counted as a big three of something. And purgatory would be Litecoin... also, I’m not equating the other two.)

There are notable purgatories to be found in pop culture. One deep-cut purgatory construction I’m fond of is from the 1985 movie The Heavenly Kid. The film’s afterlife layout is a mall hallway that leads to escalators carrying people into a blinding light, presumably heaven. It’s guarded by a couple of bouncers dressed like Vegas clergy, standing in front of an Applebee’s-looking “please wait to be seated” lectern.

Down a dark tunnel motorcycle ride is "Midtown" where an unhinged bar entertains unclaimed souls. The bar feels like a smokers-welcome 80s airport bar was smashed with Oscar's restaurant selection in Follow That Bird.

In the Heavenly Kid, a grizzled angel with probably an alcohol problem (portrayed by Richard Mulligan) drags the film’s hero into that unhinged bar. There’s a classic 80s “food is gross” buffet scene followed by a mission briefing. You, Heavenly Kid, are not quite good enough for paradise (because your a greaser). But if you can rescue this other downcast 80s kid—and turn him into a cool 80s greaser (take that almighty)—you will be cleared for the escalator.

The movie is garbage but contains one of my favorite purgatory moments in film. Have you ever feared an awful bar mirrorverse where every exit is the entrance so when you try to escape you just keep ending up in the same ***** bar. (BTW the angel character is charming—I would describe his vibe as Doc Brown from Back to the Future but played by Gary Busey).

The film’s purgatory mission begins on an afterlife subway train taking our likable bumbling dummy, the heavenly kid, back to Earth. I should mention that he originally dies a cliff-chicken loser. Who is offered the chance to be the hero, to "rescue" a kid from making his exact same mistakes. And rescue kid makes the exact same cliff-chicken mistake with the heavenly kid in the car. The heavenly kid drives off two cliffs in this movie... And then is let into heaven.

We didn't have much else going on in the 80s so we watched it. WOLVERIIIINES!!!

PS: to the purgatory heads (hello!)_drop a popular fiction purgatory below!

A Dying Summer’s Suburban Slumber (part 2)... Ambience

Evening pool aerator/ lawn mowing/ bugs ambience. This recording plays in three acts, the first bit is all mowing, then mostly pool aerator and birds, then a curtain of night insects descend.

The kids are back in school, and our local department store has already put up Jack-o’-lanterns. Summer is over — dead. I found eggnog at the grocery store. The bugs you hear are just one frost from calling it an existence. It’s time to recapture the sounds of late summer (to maybe revisit during hollow, depressing February).

I can say it was exactly a year ago if it’s been 364 days, right? What’s one day between friends? I’m sure Neil deGrasse Tyson would be like, “Well, wait a minute…” But he’s not a friend. I don’t even know him.

So — exactly, precisely, literally one year ago — I published the first A Dying Summer’s Suburban Slumber, an audio portrait of late summer bugs and hums in a Northern Virginia backyard (complete with manmade sounds like cars and the low buzz of an Applebee’s sign in the distance).

One year ago today (in the strictest possible sense), we bring you the sequel — this time from the Buckeye State, land of Cornhenge, the Wright brothers, and Bone Thugs-n-Harmony. #Ohio

Special thanks to the folks who let us record from their backyard — and to regular contributor Dr. April for capturing the sounds.

I was in the middle of folding my laundry when I heard a crackle of thunder — so I grabbed my microphone and ran out to the shed, pressed record, and dashed back to the house. My watch congratulated me for hitting my move goal.

My whole young life I had been naive to calamity, feeling the universe must revolve around me and thus of course I would be some famous screenwriter with a sports car and a mansion with like fifty hot tubs (hot tubs always being my barometer for success — ever since that childhood stay at a swank Courtyard by Marriott in Augusta, GA). 

My feeling of indestructibility never shifted into the realm of weather. I’m amazed I couldn’t use that reality to break my narcissism elesewhere.

Whatever, lightning; lightning scares the **** out of me. Whenever the sun is blotted out by a massive thunderstorm I am positive that any second I could be speared by Zeus.

I don’t know where I’m going with this other than “fear the sky;” so I’ll stop. And finish by saying the episode cover was a bit of fun in Photoshop. I wanted to visit an old muse, the Unholy Cumulus, a mischievous cloud that starred in a Nike Presto ad from the early aughts by my first production house crush, Shynola. When I saw the ad I was like, “that is the type of ‘what’ I want to do for a living.”

We're back in Appalachia! This recording captures about an hour on the banks of the New River in the southeastern part of West Virginia’s pan — you can call it a pan right? When I lived in Jefferson County folks to the west called us panhandlers.

You’ll hear Sandstone Falls, the calls of local birds and insects, and a couple of trains rumbling by (midway and end).

This week’s episode was recorded by regular uncommon ambience contributor Dr. April Blakeslee (who is a researcher and associate professor of Biology at Eastern Carolina University).

Her travels brought her recently to New River Gorge and specifically the Sandstone Falls area. Thank you Dr. April!

(obviously the New Rive Gorge Bridge is twenty miles as the crow flies from the Sandstone Falls but as a bridge freak I couldn’t resist adding a fave bridge to my episode cover... and don't get me started about CBBT).

LOST EPISODE: Microphone Inside Domed Grill During a Thunderstorm... Ambien

“Look hon! I’m using the grill.” This is a thunderstorm recording from under the dome of my (Weber Original) grill. The grill she gifted me on Father’s Day and I promptly pushed to the back corner of our yard because I am terrible at it. 

Not as bad as the turkey scenes in Christmas Vacation, but close enough. The charred pieces are claimed by my wife (who likes overdone) and the rarer pieces get cut and passed to me (who only likes it that way) and the rest is disseminated amongst the kids.

Do I lose my man card for being terrible at grilling? Is that still a thing? I will never understand how outstanding outdoor cooks are maligned by some ridiculous notion that a man and grill will make magic sans practice. Perhaps that’s why all the grill masters I know won’t shut the **** up about grilling and how good they are at it. They must need to drown out the expectations that ordinary folks who can’t even cook inside will somehow be ****** Emeril Lagasse⁠ outside. 

And I’m not invoking Emeril because I wanted to link to his 90s cooking Tonight Show. That dude is from (viva) Fall River, Massachusetts where the undercurrent of Americana and revolution still flow out to sea under the Bragga Jr. bridge (which feels less sinister since the cooling towers came down). 

This slice of Southern New England paints visions of cannons being fired into bellies of British warships, “take that you ************* tax-loving sons of *******!”

Revolution! Americana! Visuals of a distressed eagle balancing arrows and olives as fireworks pop around it. Extruded stars and bunting and “**** yeah, dude!” 

We should ditch the olives at this point, because, who are we kidding? Our bird should clasp a grilled hot dog. Just not a hot dog I grilled. That’ll be charred and half-exploded.

--this is a lost episode in that it should've run a month ago — I had published a more relaxing episode for July 4 (to cover for folks who wanted counter-programming to all the explosions happening outside their homes) and totally forgot to run this episode (which was my original July 4th episode)... whatever happy August 4th.

For those Over-Watching Kpop Demon Hunters, have a Soda Machine… Ambience

Spend the night inside a soda machine. Think cold, refreshing thoughts — and dodge that audio-hyperglycemic earworm.

My youngest is all about the Saja Boys and “Soda Pop” is her song of the summer. Alexa even recognizes what she means when she’s like “Alexa, play 'Soda Pop.'” Alexa isn’t playing Robbie Williams. [Unearned quippy banter line, “has anyone seen the monkey movie?”] 

Speaking of movies the Saja Boys are characters in this entire summer's movie Kpop Demon Hunters (which is an amazing animated film and ****** charming). Our house has been filled with the animated band’s sugary suite ode to everyone’s favorite carbonated corn syrup water. Not even ten yet and she was able to figure out download and single-track repeat “Soda Pop” over an entire evening (I certainly didn’t teach her; not since showing her how to make the dryer chirp… which led to our dryer randomly singing in the middle of the night). 

Basically this is for you sweetie, a way to enjoy your soda pop without introducing that ear worm into my head. 

I'm a Fan of Fan; MD B&B Bathroom Fan... Ambience

Bed and Breakfast Bathroom Fan Ambience … This is the bathroom fan from our room in a quaint B&B near Antietam. Last week’s recording from the woods was from their property —thank you, Antietam Overlook Farm!

I have some more summer sounds on the way next week, but I wanted a fan break… We haven’t had a fan episode in awhile and as I’ve said before, “I’m a fan of fan” in Devil’s Advocate Al Pacino. 

Gawd I love that line, any time someone is screaming something I am so in — my idea of funny is pretty much Ace Ventura all around. I love screams. 

Except not the time I was in Philadelphia when chunks of ice were flying off the skyscrapers in the wind. Smashing all around us as we crossed the street. This lady in front of me turns, looks toward the top of the PSFS Tower and screams. And I braced for what I was sure was a ****** meteor sized chunk of ice about to destroy us all.

Overnight Appalachia Atop Antietam ... Ambience

Mountain forest late night into early morning Eld Ridge (10pm-2am), overlooking the Battlefields of Antietam.

A few days late this week as I was at the final Wu-Tang New York City show and then a stay near Antietam for my wife’s birthday (Happy birthday, hon!). 

My Wu-review contact-high influenced (no one tell my mom) and punctuative-free bluesky-cap is here (and give us a follow). Special thanks to my bff for inviting me along, the experience was transcendent (Big Daddy Kane showed up!).

Also I really tried to pick up some unique NYC sounds while I was there but there were no real good opportunities. You can walk around Gotham with a ****** film crew and no one bats an eye, but the minute you break out just a microphone everyone wants to know what the **** you’re doing. Bluh.

But! Antietam was just what the doctor ordered after shuffling through one of America’s busiest places. Wide open spaces, chatty bugs, and very few people. Spend the night.

Ferry carport parking and sail ambience... Park your hooptie and get ready to sail across the sound to Vineyard Haven.

The Steamship Authority has come a long way since its pre-2K promise of, “Get in the standby line before noon, and you’ll get on a boat to the Vineyard at some point today.” I often wonder: who was the madman behind that carmageddon inducing promise?

If you’ve been anywhere near Bourne, MA, in the summertime especially Friday rush, you know how much folks love their Cape Cod and ****** islands. For Mid-Atlantic folks, think of U.S. 50 traffic from Annapolis to the 301/50 split… for everyone else just imagine trying to exit a large parking lot on July 4th.

There’s no bridge to the islands, so anyone hoping to get their car over there collects in Woods Hole, in a parking lot the size of a small Walmart. This is the hub of: No bridge/ this is the only way to get your car over there.

So in the older times of madness, when just showing up at the Woods Hole Terminal before noon got you over to an island by the end of the day… congratulations. Now you’re stuck with 1980s or ’90s technology, it’s hot as ****, and your kids have been bored with travel Yahtzee since ****** Danbury. (I should mention there was the occasional dreaded Steamship employee blocking entry, waving a white handkerchief and shouting, “We’re full!”) 

Cars wrapped maddeningly around the old terminal. Station wagons and minivans rumbled, coughing black smoke. Wheels neared edges that dropped into the harbor. A bewildering ballet.

After an hour in standby your brain begins to decide you're starting to get close. Only to be quickly routed into a line snaking under the ****** bridge on the far end that surely would take four hours to return from.

And it amazingly it worked out pretty well for us standby folks.

Tempers occasionally spilled over. I saw one dude get a donut launched at him. A slew of “’Ay, chief!” were tossed between belligerents.

But mostly, folks smoked and talked sports cars. No smartphones then—so the most interesting thing you could access in the car was the radio and the hazard lights. Or Mom’s stash of nicotine gum…

Once, I saw a dude sleeping on top of a mini-bus, a cot stretched out over the roof. One hand palming a Corona he miraculously held on to, the other hanging limp, palm out. Dude smelled strange—and I thought of Jesus, weirdly.

So there's a rocky island off the coast of Maine that looks like Ireland in miniature. The island stands a few hundred feet from an⁠ infamous axe murder site⁠. And there are no cheap t-shirts or fudge joints (although I hear you can get Ice Cream a few islands over); this is a place where science is happening. The gull’s mate here during the summer months and the island becomes a battlefield for gull territory maintenance.

My sister, Dr April Blakeslee, is a faculty member at the Shoals Marine Laboratory during early summer. Her field of study is parasites in marine organisms, and a few hosts of these parasites reside on the island (I hope I’m describing that correctly, I feel like Gull **** is an important part of the parasitic lifecycle, and that’s gross…)

Dr. Blakeslee was gracious enough to plop my microphone down to record Appledore for us. I believe the microphone placement is in the central western area of the island. In this recording, you will hear birds (mostly marine, although I think I recognize a few from the mainland). There will be boat and air traffic. Insects, scientist walla, and a buoy.  

Martha's Vineyard; Nature's Yacht Rock... Ambience

Listen to the sounds of waves, the birds, sparse Beach Rd traffic, ferry and other nautical stuff from 11pm until dawn. The recording took place on a harbor beach, a few stone skips from the Black Dog Tavern (and you will find the perfect skipping stones down at the water's edge).

Let the waves calm you. Let your stress go the way I’m trying to let it go after experiencing my first time time trying to use the insurance I paid extra for at the Dick’s Sporting Goods for a bike. I remember all of those consumer times where I buy something, say no to the insurance and then get, “Well if you had bought the insurance we could help you.” But haha — This ************* time I bought the ****** insurance and have been on a three week experience of “Asurion needs more photos;” I take more photos of the bicycle and upload and wait three more business days for “Asurion needs you to fill out another form.” My first claim was denied because I wrote “Bike has flat tire.” NO, they don’t cover tires, what I should’ve written was my bike has a “flat tube.” Few business days. New forms. Photos. I get that Asurion was named to paint a word picture in folks head of assurance. And I’m sure that got some ****** high-fives in the boardroom, "it’s like insurance that's an assurance. Where’s the mirror?"