uncommon ambience

Inside the oven, Thanksgiving prep ambience.

If you are about to prepare a large dinner in the next few days and need to get your culinary game face on, this episode is for you. Eight hours of kitchen prep as heard from within a gas range (a perfect place for Tom or a roasted eggplant).

Let this episode be your auditory affirmation that you have got this Thanksgiving dinner under control. In this episode, the relative who loves to start **** at inopportune times or have you searching for the wine bottle early will not be here. They never ring the doorbell.

Imagine a big, successful dinner… cheers.

Speaking of inopportune, have you ever had the urge to slap the **** out of random people? For example, you’re meeting with a doctor and exchanging small talk—suddenly, your brain is like, "kick doc in the shin."  

Once at an old job someone was remarking about a new guy and how awkward it is being a new employee and my mind took it to the furthest absurdity and I blurted, “wouldn’t it be funny if we took all of his stuff and threw it on his car and set it all on fire?”

And then there was a trip to HR.

(That new employee is one of my very good friends now btw, I am not a psycho...)

Happy Turkey Day!

Original photo used in episode cover from RDNE Stock project.

Spend an evening perched amongst the rocks overlooking the Potomac at Riverfront Park in Shepherdstown, WV. 

Just below you are the sounds of Town Run as it rushes to confluence with the famous river that eventually cuts between the District of Columbia and Virginia (about 60 miles to the South and East from here). 

Separately, am I the only person that likes to scream while stretching? My family told me to stop doing it — but I always thought it was normal. 

I don’t know how to describe the type of stretching — basically just shoving both fists out into the air and flexing everything. I just looked online to see how to describe it adequately, and I ran into an article about incorporating a daily full-body stretch routine. I will not be doing that.

City storm drain after heavy rain.

Why cede the sewers to Pennywise and the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (heroes in a half-shell, turtle power)? After a large storm, it can sound pretty great down there — a symphony of spluts and gurgles. 

Look, obviously, no one is climbing into a drain with their futon to enjoy the sounds; because, claustrophobia. So, in this episode, we are bringing the storm drain to you.

And while you're "down there," why not focus on something other than the news or your social media feed (which is just the news of the world and your family's **** takes). Go explore Edinburgh of the Seven Seas on StreetView or visit other obscure places that look temptingly off the grid.

I have been obsessed with Tristan da Cunha's isolation for decades after stumbling upon her on Google Earth a few decades ago. For the longest time Tristan da Cunha has only been observable (online) from an overhead vantage; until some awesome person captured and uploaded it recently.  

BTW if any of y'all live on or know an affable person that lives on a remote ass island (Adak, Amundsen–Scott South Pole Station, etc) that could record some sound to share with this show, please message me.

The original photo used in the episode's cover image is by Chris F.

November Box fan in the window Ambience.

Look, it’s been a long week with temperatures hitting near 90° and my kids came to me pleading, like, “Dad you have to turn the air conditioning back on.” And I was like, “guys, the 7-11 across the street has a ****** wreath on the front door and a special on frosted Santa face sugar cookies.”

I shoved the box fan in the window and told everyone to go to bed.

Small rocky stream ambience — Don't stress-watch cable news, you will probably learn just as much listening to gushing water through Shepherdstown, WV... Which this episode provides (recorded just off of Princes Street). 

Tune out the world for a few minutes.

NASA control room, waiting for signs of Atlantis reentry; ambience. Look, if I learned anything as a kid watching SpaceCamp, it was that you do not make friends with cute robots that beep like R2D2 and don’t ever sit in a space shuttle cockpit during an engine test.

We have had some sinister ambience homages lately, so I figured it might be a good time to visit outer space—or at least hang out in a place anxiously awaiting communication from space. This week’s episode is based on the scenes with Tom Skerritt and the guy who played Locke on Lost.

Had a request for just the static without all of that creepy (see last episode) — so it's just that smooth static without anyone or anything trying to contact the Freeling family.

Tune out the world for a moment.

Episode cover original photo by Huỳnh Đạt.

Poltergeist TV static. We’ve got one more Halloween-ish movie ambience before I start putting up all the Christmas lights. So get ready for eight hours of eerie but smooth TV static as we’re visiting the TV Static scene from Poltergeist(1982). And as far as TV static goes, the Poltergeist static is super chill (minus the disembodied voices). Growing up, the static I was used to on our television was harsh and tinny.

I do want to say that, as usual, there will be no jump scares or anything overly terrifying. This is a place for relaxation and tuning out a mad, mad world.

This week’s episode is a love letter to a favorite scary movie that somehow made televisions in the bedroom a faux pas (not to mention ripping one’s face off in a vanity—don’t do that).  

TV static is what us fogies had to deal with during the overnight hours of cable and local television. In the old days, channels would go dark for the night; it was called sign-off. Sign-off would typically be the Star Spangled Banner with beauty shots of whatever town the TV station was based out of (although in Georgia, Ray Charles, Georgia was the far superior sign-off music).

I’m assuming the Freelings went to bed watching Carson and inadvertently left open a humming static portal to the other side. The disturbed dead could apparently communicate and manifest ghostly hands from the humming static.

And spoilers, this is because the dead are in the front and back yard. Lying just below the new construction of their cookie-cutter suburban community.

“YOU SON OF A *****, YOU MOVED THE CEMETERY, BUT YOU LEFT THE BODIES, DIDNCHA!”

Hope y’all have a safe and happy Halloween, and see you on the otherside in Christmasland.

Episode image contains original photo by Huỳnh Đạt.

Have you ever wanted that tense scene of a camera following Danny through the hallways of the Overlook Hotel, but for eight hours? We’re back at the movies this week, and obviously, we are racing through the hallways of the Overlook Hotel.

Get ready for tricycle-pumping action over carpet and wood flooring as we get tense strings and maybe random voices from the beyond. 

As usual, this is ambience to (ostensibly) relax with, so there will be no jump scares, yelling, or weird ladies from room 237.  

We're expounding upon the unease and urban landscape that open the director's cut of the Exorcist. Perched above the ominous stairs that lead to doom (or towards the Key Bridge and expensive shops for the rest of us), a light switches off, the bushes rustle in the wind, and then come the cymbals.

It's a solid opening that proves the power of ambience — without the added sound, the visuals become voyeurism of wealthy people.  

For those concerned, this week's ambience does not include jump scares, screaming, or exorcisms: just cars, people, wind, and unease.

I'm leaving out my favorite funny moment from the film — I'm always tickled by (fictional) all-caps screaming (ATTICA ATTICA).

The possessed shouts calling for "MERRIN!" after the priests enter the Exorcist house are undoubtedly terrifying. But imagine if Lankester Merrin's name was instead Amish Pickle. Amish Pickle would be engaging in pre-exorcist niceties in the foyer, and a blood-curdling  "PICKLE!" would fill the air. That would be great (although not as great as a Richard Pryor exorcism).

And then imagine the backstory of Amish Pickle earnestly searching faraway lands for ancient evil. Finding artifacts, that's Priest Pickle, stealing from Iraq.

Staring down a waving statue amidst a desert dog fight, Pickle.

Happy Halloween!

Go island hopping in the South Pacific, or fly to Nantucket or some remote Alaskan village. And do it without checking your bags. This week, we are going up in a very chill prop airplane. 

Whenever I fly, I'm reminded of a favorite DJ mix from the 90s, Cold Krush Cuts. It included a spoken word segment about getting into ⁠the sky and seeing your problems from a new perspective.⁠ It was the closest I ever came to an epiphany listening to danceable music.

Below is the message from the mix, but I suggest ⁠you listen to it yourself.⁠

"It was about a bug who spent his entire life in the world's most beautifully designed Persian rug. All the bug ever saw in his lifetime were his problems. They stood up all around him; he couldn't see over the top of them.

And he had to fight his way through the tufts of wool in the rug to find some crumb somebody had spilled in the rug. And the tragedy, of the story of the bug in the rug was this: That he lived and he died in the world's most beautifully designed rug. But he never once knew that he spent his life in something which had a pattern.

That's why I want to get you up in the air tonight; to see something the old bug couldn't see in the rug. Because even he, this bug, if he had once got above the rug so he could have seen all of it, he would have discovered something: That the very things he called his problems were a part of the pattern."

See y'all in the air!

Doomed fishing boat cabin ambience — We’re back at the movies this week, spending an entire night searching for a great white on the Orca. The engine idles, the waves splut and gurgle, a tracking buoy bleeps in the waters just outside… (Ambience was inspired by the cabin conversation about scars and past traumas).

That’s right, we are off the coast of Amity Island and smack in the middle of the No Country for Old Men of fish movies: Jaws.

I wouldn’t want to run into either film’s villains in some fictional back alley. But at least Anton Chigurh’s methodical carnage was contained in realistic modern depravity and Texas. Bruce did his murders amongst the frolicking salt water taffy set on the Mackinac of Massachusetts: Martha’s Vineyard. 

But don’t worry — Bruce and Anton are not in this episode (nor are John Williams, Richard Dreyfus, and Mr. “SmileYouSunavaBitch”).

In this episode, we are expanding the background interior cabin and outdoor sounds of the Orca (from around the chat about scars). 

It will be you alone on an idle little ship, waiting for a shark.

Also, thank you, Kyle, for the Jaws suggestion — the original episode photo by Daniel Torobekov on Pexels.

Mad river Ambience, and you read that right. Vermont has a Mad River. It flows North toward payback and revenge. And it’s a great place to swim.

Spend an evening on the rocky bank listening to a small angry river gush by.

Small (and maybe the wrong waterfall) waterfall ambience — Okay, so this is my first waterfall, and I’m not psyched about misnaming my first waterfall ambience. But here’s the deal. My buddy, Ed, was like, “Yo, you have to check out Moss Glen Falls. They make Warren Falls look like some ****.” So I consulted Google and was served this.

“Yeah, that does makes Warren Falls look like some ****.”

So I brought my microphone up to Vermont and drove to the falls. And… the bridge was out. The footbridge had been damaged by weather and had some “keep out” -ish signage. 

I was bummed but undeterred. I could see the falls back in the woods (from this vantage point, looking to the right of the bridge). These falls looked less impressive (see episode cover image) than the pictures the internet had fed me — yet, I’ve online dated before, and I know the drill between Glamour Shots and reality. And it may have been a dry summer in the Green Mountains. 

I noticed a collection of rocks that could lead me to the other side of the ditch so I could skip the battered bridge. My mind easily picked out the route across boulders, and I stepped one, two, and into the creek I went. 

My kid laughed. 

And it was worth it to capture my first waterfall. I climbed out of the creek with one sloshing leg limping the rest of the way.

I set up the mic and let it roll.

Later, I realized I had found some bastard Charlie Brown’s Christmas tree waterfall. I should have turned left at the bridge; if I had, I would have wound up here.

So… enjoy whatever these falls are called.

___________

Oh, and we're on youtube now! Come check us out.

Late night rural road and gushing water ambience.

So, I have a favorite road, Route 100, in Vermont (especially from around Pico to Waterbury). And obviously, this isn't a trade secret. Route 100 needs no hype, judging by the traffic we wreak in rural Vermont. The road delivers miles of Vermont quaintness: New England churches, cute light festivals, towering trees, and rounded green mountains. Every inch is a photo op.

Route 100 dominated my college years for bar and ski traffic. I used 100 when going home to the 518 or returning to Norwich University. Windows down whenever possible to smell the Earth.

We would park on the side of 100 and venture into the woods for the Warren Falls with a portable grill and a bunch of 40s. The falls gush water into chest-high pools you can wade through, and for those looking to impress, the falls offer rock formations you can flip off of and hope to wow someone. In my increasing age I am recognizing that the women I tried to impress probably just wrote me off as foolish — but in my defense there is at least a mythological precedent in the Appalachians for launching off of rock formations in front of women.

Lately, my Route 100 experience has revolved around alumni weekends, and I've been exploring things I missed when I was there in the 90s (we will have a Moss Glenn Falls podcast coming soon). 

This recording is Route 100 in the Stowe area from a favorite lodge (The Warren Lodge) — next to a bridge over gushing water. And thank y'all for letting me set up my mic on the premises!

And for some house cleaning — I would like to announce the uncommon ambience, YouTube channel. I will start adding a video to accompany the audio on many of my favorite episodes, so give us a thumbs up, subscribe, and whatnot.

Late-night laundry — No one likes laundry, but I have some fond memories of the sights and sounds. The flickers of evening traffic flashing by the windows in yellows and reds. The crisp autumn air waiting to cleanse you of the steamy confines.

When I lived at the top of Winter Hill, I frequented a laundromat at the confluence of Broadway and Main. You could look south from there and see Boston towering in the distance. Her high-rises twinkling.

Next door to my old laundromat was a liquor store—I would pick up Smirnoff Ice and drink that **** surreptitiously while folding boxers.

Alcohol can be pretty great on laundry night because, sentimentality aside, doing laundry sucks. Especially if you have to do it in public. It can be simultaneously tedious and stressful. The way I've heard war described by soldiers.

Obviously, laundry is lower stakes. Yet not without its own cast of belligerents. I had a lady dump my sopping underwear into a cart that wasn't even mine. She kicked it down the aisle toward me as I returned from a smoke break. Me and the dude that had dibs (and clothes already in the cart) were like, "Hey!"

That lady was a peak-hour lady. Don't do your laundry during peak hours — folks do not play during peak hours. If you want to learn about a laundromat's institutional knowledge, how it operates, and what is expected of its clientele, subject yourself to peak hours. It's going to suck.

I learned a bunch from my one stressful peak-hour laundry visit. Most notably, how to change a dollar and avoid the nickel "convenience fee" on the dollar changer. A lady grabbed my wrist as I went in on the changer. "Use the soda machine," she said, pantomiming, feeding my dollar, and then pressing the white coin return button.

Off-hour laundry is less stressful. When regular folks are outside being social, doing homework with the kids, or whatever peak-hour people do at night.

I washed my dirty drawers with the lady who cordoned off the back corner with universal dibs, the unkempt dude and his stash of Reader's Digest, the repairman making his rounds, and the ever-changing couple propped against the window making out.

Episode photo by Ekaterina Belinskaya

Otherworldly office ambience — we are back at the Movies this week for ambience inspired by the original ⁠Beetlejuice⁠.

The paranormal office the Maitlands enter after waiting months in the Neitherworld waiting room (⁠see it here⁠).

Skeletons typing, paper rustling, a gongy drone, a PA directing souls, et al.

BTW based on the ⁠upcoming sequel's⁠ title, I assume the Beetlejuice franchise will wind up being a trilogy. I haven't seen the sequel, but you don't get anything from saying "Beetlejuice" twice. And that the movie is not Beetlejuice 2 tells me we will get a Beetlejuice, Beetlejuice, Beetlejuice.

Oh no!

And as the title suggests, this is a minisode of a precocious little thunderstorm that came and went (even knocked our power out for a spell). And there must be situations in your life that are perfect for a ten-minute boomer. Dental appointments are totally ten-minutes in length.

Late August, overnight insects, and highway sounds; suburban ambience. 

The children are back to school, and Halloween has taken over entire sections of local department stores. But the pools are still open, and Labor Day is a week out.

Suburbanites don’t know whether to high-five a lifeguard or put a ***** pumpkin on the front stoop. Was that a football whistle? Is white still acceptable?

At night, the bugs still sing under the evergreens, made bright red, murderously red by the tall Applebees sign just a klick away.

The bugs persevere, for now.

Hanging with Mr Miyagi at the Office… Ambience.

This is workplace ambience, if your workplace was a maintenance shop in the South Seas Apartment complex in Reseda and you spent your working hours trying to catch a fly with some chopsticks.

In this episode, we're back at the movies and visiting the omphalos of white folks' aspirational karate and electric guitars… The Karate Kid. 

When I was a child, I also wished to befriend an old man who could teach me the ways of karate with a few chores. I tried turning my own chores into karate practice and that **** didn't work. 

My mom didn't appreciate the smashed appetizer plates; "Mom, I'm fighting Cobra Kai!" didn't help. 

I was sent to military school.

Inflatable bounce house ambience — it's another fantastic fan episode. Eight hours of a fan inflating a bouncy house. I dropped the mic into the air chamber and fired the ******* up.

It's white noise, and that's it. Oh, I was making our regular Sunday fish dinner for my wife the other day, and I spilled a bit of sauce on the side of her plate. So I wiped it off with a napkin, just like on the chef shows.

Inside Car recording Debby Tropical Remnants.

Debby did a destructive dance among the southern states, looping over Florida and spinning into Charleston before drenching the Carolinas. 

For my car it was mostly wind and rain. Get in.

Episode Cover Photo from Valeriia Miller

After living inside the Earth for nearly a score, I feel like any creature should be given the space to air out one’s feelings.  So here are three hours of bug feelings as heard from a charming Bed and Breakfast I spent the night at in Leesburg, Virginia.

I know nothing about our friends who live in the Earth for 17 years and then pop out mid-summer to squeal from the trees. I’m speaking of the cicada, the sometimes local taco protein, and massive fly things that are a nightmare to look at. 

I reserve the right to not love cicadas later if I were to find out that maybe they are squealing insults upon us for being such poor shepherds of the Earth… Or maybe I would love them more. 

Regardless, nothing beats a chorus of these freak insects. And they serve as a good reminder that we’re destroying the Earth with war and ineq — ehem… that it’s late Summer — time to cape diem the **** out of this pool weather.

Also, thanks again to the folks at Stone Gables for letting me stick a giant microphone in your backyard!

Cover photo (before manipulation) by Coen Crevels

Bugs, babbling brook, overnight in the woods ambience. Quiet y'all, the summertime bugs have something to say.

This recording begins just before midnight and continues until about 4 a.m. (I wanted to get in the less-trafficked hours because there was a US Highway a few miles away and a dirt road close by. You will hear some occasional traffic, but not so much that it's annoying.)

So get "lost in the woods" like ⁠De La Soul⁠ did nearly 30 years ago on their opus ⁠Buhloone Mindstate⁠. Except in these woods, you won't find Shortie No Mass, Prince Paul, Pos, Mase, or Dave — just a bunch of bugs. And I'm pretty sure a fox or some other wild canine will show up.

⁠Cover photo by Kendal Hoopes.⁠

Belize Zoo/ Birds ambience — Strap in for 30 minutes of chattering Central American Parrots et al.

This recording is from the heart of the Belize Zoo near the parrots. It was captured by my biologist sister, Dr. April Blakeslee, an instructor for Miami University’s Project Dragonfly, which works with the Belize Zoo. The program promotes “environmental stewardship” while working “across diverse ecological and social settings.”  

Vehicle interior thunderstorm ambience. Oh, look, another minisode! And in today’s minisode, we idle in a parking lot, waiting out a passing thunderstorm.

There are a lot of good reasons for letting a storm pass. 

Man, one year, my commute, which usually took 30-45 minutes, took eight ****** hours. I was stupidly piloting my Smart car through an epic 2-inch-an-hour snowfall. You may have heard of the storm Carmaggedon [air horn].  

I joined everyone else on the highway who didn’t wait out the snow, and it became the biggest, iciest traffic jam of my life. At one point, nature forced me out onto the traffic-snarled highway; I had to go. And as I went, lighting flashed and then rumbles of thunder.

I was geeked. I had always heard of thunder-snow but had never actually seen it. It was quite something.

So, it is always better to wait out a storm — well, unless you’re Noah. If that dude waited the storm out he could've drowned.

And then for all-time we may have known the parable as “Japheth’s Ark.” And if you say that too quickly, it might come across as “Jeff’s fart.” 

Enjoy a contented cat, a clock, and a cacophony of weather.  A storm is coming, and the wind is already kicking up outside, but Tuna Fry (the cat) doesn’t care; she has the house to herself, which means joy and slumber.

You will hear heavy to moderate rain on a metal roof in a tropical dry forest. At first, it will sound like a waterfall, but it quickly tapers off to less rain and more local birds—and a chicken! I recognized one bird!

So, yesterday, I got a text message from my brother-in-law. He recorded some rain in Belize and sent a picture of a table surrounded by screened walls under a metal roof. Did I want that audio?

“You bet your sweet Asperecreme,” I said.

I didn’t say that, but that was my general feeling about having audio of a rainstorm in a country nearer to the Equator than I have ever been. Thank you for capturing and sharing the audio, Mike!

I know I just released a long episode yesterday and should wait to post (for my own sake), but honestly, I would like to get this out before Beryl. This is a perfectly normal Belizean heavy rain storm that isn’t related to Beryl. Also, my thoughts are with everyone in the path of that storm.

This strikes me as a minisode. People do that in the podcast world, right?

Discovery One Interior ambience — hey, we're back at the movies and inside everyone's favorite Jupiter-bound phallus rocket.

This episode is mainly based on a composite of the internal Discovery-1 scenes from 2001: A Space Odyssey. It is primarily based on the circuit tests (about an hour and thirteen minutes) with some orchestra elements.

Hal’s not in this ambience, by the way. That bot creeps me out.

My parents forced me to watch 2001: A Space Odyssey on the Home Box Office in the 1980s. I know how much everyone loves the Space Odyssey, but I was utterly coerced. “It’s in space, like Star Wars.”

“Is it actually like Star Wars?” My parents played that same “it’s like Star Wars” sh!t with John Carpenter’s the Thing, and I had spider-head nightmares for years.

Midnight harbor and light rain ambience. Spend an early morning in a Martha's Vineyard harbor. Recorded near the sands of a beach motel — you will get a mix of nature and machine noise (ACs, exhaust, maritime, etc).

Speaking of sand... Was Mort Garson talking about getting drug-high in "Big Sur"? His trippy 1968 musical number where he addresses a Mrs. Sanberg throughout about a song he learned "while high on Big Sur."

And yes, I am for sure thick but I can still spot an ode to drugs.

Look, I know that getting high has been a human aspiration forever. Early humans didn't have smartphones. I imagine staring at a tree rather than watching Netflix could be boring. "The same thing is on the sky today... what's on rock? Pass the opium."

There was probably a lot of early PTSD as well — what with unconquered nature. Of course, our early ancestors self-medicated.

So I'm sure Garson is referring to getting drug high on Big Sur. Yet, for argument's sake, Garson could be talking elevation. The cliffs of Big Sur are just under a mile high. And for an East Coaster/ Appalachian fanboy, that is pretty high.

Maybe there was a vagabond with a guitar and a campfire perching the cliffs of Big Sur. "I will now teach you a song. Tell Mrs. Sanberg."

By the way, was Mrs. Sandberg on Big Sur as well? Did the conversation about the learned song happen just after Garson learned the song?

Did Garson pick up trash and discover it was balled-up sheet music? "Holy crap a song. I am going to learn this song. And then I am going to teach it to Mrs. Sanberg."

And who the hell is Mrs. Sanberg?

June Mid-Atlantic Thunderstorm Ambience — Rain and thunder; the best. As far as the description goes, it's a thunderstorm. 

I've been thinking of Olive Loaf lately. As a kid, I enjoyed this peculiar cold cut. It was distinct from the bologna sandwiches our parents forced us to eat (every day). 

The cold cut section of the grocery stores had two options: bologna and off-brand bologna. Oh, and head cheese (don't Ask Jeeves). And American cheese. That was it.

Today, my kids bring leftover spaghetti to school. For my generation, it was bologna and cheese on white bread with a splotch of mustard. My ****** parents would splatter mustard between the bread and cheese so the mustard would soak into the bread, creating a vulgar mustard bread pudding.

My sister didn't like bologna or mustard, but she ate it. Saying no to Mom or Dad could have resulted in a stint in the corner.

But olive loaf is a meat that's like bologna but with olives. So exotic.

Uncommon Ambience: At the Movies, Caddyshack. Country club early morning ambience. You are amongst the well-kept grounds, and here is the sun peaking over the area flora. Water is hurling spastically. The birds are turbo-charged. Off in the distance, someone is tending to the greens of Hole 6.

This week’s episode focuses on the first forty-five seconds of Caddyshack. Before the mayhem and the gopher. Before Kenny Loggin’s guitar.

Caddyshack opens with a brief moment of intoxicating calm. A sea of stars suddenly swirl with ethereal voices. The voices aren’t speaking language; they are just calling out, chanting, as the stars become a logo for Orion Pictures. 

And then we open to our own star rising above the Bushwood County Club. Water spurtting all about. And now a maraca is accompanying the chants.

It’s a lovely forty-five seconds. And the focus of this episode. Eight hours of blissful morning grounds upkeep (don’t sweat the continuity issues). And no worries about being bullied out by rich people. Or threatened by a scary groundskeeper.

This is pre-golf bliss.

Can I go back for a second? Watch the star animation for Orion Pictures. The stars so fluidly decouple their constellation and form a circle. Yet the anchor point placement for the circling stars winds up clumsily rotating like a wagon wheel. I recognize how hard the effect must have been to accomplish in the eighties. But y'all nailed the rest of the animation, why botch it on the finale? 

Finally, the chanting voices. You won't find them in this weeks episode because copyrights and whatever — but if you would like to experience them in a different context, J Dilla gives the chants a starring role in “Milk Money.” 

Photo used in this week's movie poster graphic by Thomas Ward (Pexels).

Chill commercial flight and Game Boy ambience—Gen X kids were often left home alone — we were also occasionally thrust unattended onto planes to navigate Laguardia or Atlanta alone. 

Back in my day, we didn't have the whole internet in hand for a commercial flight. The most exciting things to do were staring out the window for a few hours, possibly picking up the Airfone, and hoping a friend would accept the pricey call. "I'm on a plane. Can you believe it?!"

Once I had to travel from Augusta to grandma's house in Katama so the parents could hit up Acapulco. The options for entertainment were to look out the window, admire the emergency procedures pamphlet, or poke my sister with the fake pilot pin the hostess handed me.

Technology improved. Soon, I had my own AM/FM personal stereo, which I could use to figure out where the plane was by listening to the FM stations I could pick up.

Later, there was the Game Boy, which made air travel less mundane and terrifying. It actually did that for a lot of decently lit life scenarios. I loved that thing.

Grab an original Game Boy from a reseller and store your phone for the flight. You're traveling like a 1990s person who got ditched by their parents!

PS: This would be my list of cartridges (not Tetris) to bring.

1 Kwirk

2 Boxxle

3 Batman (1989)

4 Bionic Commando

5 Tennis

The corner of a t-shirt shop where a cat sleeps and an oscillating fan blows around warm spring air. 

The kind of t-shirts in this shop are what humans buy while on vacation but don't wear while on vacation. You wouldn't wear an Edgartown shirt while in Edgartown, after all. Or a Vermont shirt while in the Green Mountain State. I never see anyone wearing "visit historic Leesburg" while in Leesburg.

No, these are shirts to wear to the gym or while mowing the lawn in Oxnard or Saint Ignatius.

"Nice shirt, I've been to the Finger Lakes, too!"

The cat in the corner cares not, she sleeps.

May Thunderstorm: So this is a thunderstorm that just traveled over our neighborhood. As I have said before, it doesn't matter what sounds I plan to do for the week. If there is a thunderstorm, I drop everything, grab the mic, and cross my fingers for a good record. 

Last year, I tried to document the entire sounds of the tropical storm that passed through our area. There were hours and hours of rain, and I was positive it would produce some stellar sounds. 

And then a cricket appeared in hour 14. Somehow, it got into my thunderstorm recording booth (shed) and ruined half the show.

I thought it would be fine—everyone loves the sound of a cricket—just not right next to the ****** microphone. It wasn't perfect. 

And I could say more, but why? That cricket is probably dead now.

Uncommon Ambience: At the Movies, Back to the Future 2. This episode takes place in an alternate timeline: Biff 1985. Where we will enjoy the sullen symphony of carnage, lust, and poor life choices just outside the Biff Tannen Pleasure Paradise Hotel And Casino. It's a doozy.

Minus Sammy Hagar. Also, minus bullets and explosions. There were plenty in Biff 1985; there's also plenty in our modern world. So I left out the ordinances. IE: don't worry about any hidden jump scares or Principal Strickland catching up with his drive-by "slackers" in hour seven.

This episode involves everything else outside of Biff's Pleasure Paradise: motorcycles, dogs, helicopters, police, and people doing dubious sh!t.

It's a wild scene from one of the wildest second acts in a movie I can think of. In the film, we return from a Jetson-esque 2015 to a nightmarish 1985 that culminates with Marty jumping off the roof of the Pleasure Palace.

Here's the thing about Back to the Future 2. We left on an electrifying cliffhanger thinking we might have to wait another half-decade for the sequel to return to theaters (we didn't have smartphones or the web).

I was pissed... but with time BTTF2 became my favorite of the series. Erp. Look, I know Back to the Future heads aren't Star Wars or Rush people… Even still I don't want to get into email exchanges about how I'm not respecting a competent Western hidden in a sci-fi story. Or a "but BTTF is the most complete story" ... Or some other movie review pretending to be a wine-ass review talking about notes of earth and tobacco in the finish.

Instead, here are the best fruit flavors by candy:

strawberry - Starburst

lime - Mike n Ike

cherry - Bottlecaps

apple - Jolly Rancher

orange - Skittles

grape - Sweetarts

banana - Runts

lemon - Lemonheads

blue raspberry - Fun Dip

Uncommon Ambience: At the Movies this week, finds us (ostensibly) in Maine — I'm pretty sure most of the film was shot in the Rust Belt. But for the sake of continuity we will be in a Maine hayfield with a rock and a bird that do not belong.

And look! Here comes Red. Ellis Redding, "Red," searches among a hayfield for a mystery. In a place that looks "right out of a Robert Frost poem" (shot in Ohio). He searches for obsidian.

There is a bird that also has no earthly business in this very same Maine hayfield. The Cactus Wren, the bird that startles Red a few times as he rummages through rocks. And as the bird's name suggests, it should be far south and west. There is a Mexico in Maine, so perhaps the Cactus Wren took the wrong bus? 

There may be a few other birds that wouldn't belong in a Maine hayfield… but who cares — this is movie based ambience from the 1990s, a time when James Cameron could get away with throwing the wrong stars into the sky for his Titanic movie.

If the stars in movies are wrong how could anyone expect our feathered friends to fare better? They don't.

So please, no ornithologist opinions (there are no Killdeers in this episode). It's the great, fictional outdoors! Also, RIP redemption tree.

Anticipating a Giant Storm at a Coastal Bar — "They're out on the Flemish Cap. I got it straight from Big Bob Brown." This episode expands upon a scene from the film The Perfect Storm. Eight hours of an uncrowded Gloucester-esque bar being boarded up amongst the gales whipping up from the harbor. It will be the perfect storm, unfortunately.

Speaking of which — If you were to ever visit North Eastern Massachusetts and ask a local a question about something North Eastern Massachusetts. The response will probably begin with, "Well, have you seen the movie ________?" Only two movies usually fill that blank (unless you corner a revolutionary nerd or someone from Winter Hill). 

One is a movie that orbits Bunker Hill Community College and Southie. The other is about a doomed vessel sailing from Gloucester. 

The Perfect Storm is a love note to New England commercial fishing. The gritty souls that challenge the ocean as an occupation. And the communities that foster this line of work. Their roads occasionally licked with sea spray.

I watched The Perfect Storm in a theater near Beverly, MA.  The triumphs and terrors flickered on the screen to the very same community (and my upstate NY ass).

These folks remember the 91 storm. In the theater I heard a, "My cousin knew, such in such." 

It was probably the most North Eastern Massachusetts thing I was ever a part of. 

While The Perfect Storm is a bit overwrought… It's not bad in the way those short-form social media videos with the "Yo Ho" shanty sh!t playing up sea heroism are. The ones that might encourage sea-faring newbs to disrobe and show off some tattoos. 

The Perfect Storm seemed pretty legit based on the folks and bars I knew of in the area. And real people were lost to the storm. Which I didn’t know until I watched a local newscast covering the decades-old story in anticipation of the movie's release. The news package ended with something like, "And, of course, we all know the ship and her crew have never been recovered." 

The element of the film I really liked was the exploration of a modern "widow's walk." In the movie, a few women, whose loved ones are on the doomed vessel, meet at a coastal bar to ride out the storm. They wait for the Andrea Gail to return under a tv screen airing storm coverage.

Widow's walks are small balconies or roof decks built into historic coastal homes. Many believe these patios were constructed in earlier times to allow seafarers' wives to scan the horizon for their loved ones. 

I believed all that. Then I learned from Nantucket, that the widow's walks are a myth.

And now I'm second guessing my theory the bar scene was a nod to the widow's walk or it's just a good spot to bring all non-boat supporting characters into one room...

One takeaway was, wow, I can walk to the local fish monger and just point, to get fish. Maybe fish mongers should make it as difficult to buy fish as it is to catch fish. Like set up an obstacle course or something. "while I'm packing this, go into the Flemish Cap bait prep simulator."

Uncommon Ambience: At the Movies; Field of Dreams (1989) ambience — Field of Dreams fits in well with the other weird baseball fantasies we love. Casey at the Bat, the figment of Doubleday field, and the wonderfully strange the Natural. The book version has zero redemption by way of smashed outfield lights. Just a baseball Superman shackled by fate, circumstance, and stupidity. Only, Roy Hobbs strikes out. And then he punches a dude.

Field of Dreams is baseball magic and forced Americana (hot dogs, small-town book banning, farming, failed finance) — what's not to love? Aside from the most grating-ass whisper in all of cinema. 

The movie wants to be great. 

It is occasionally silly, as when Ray asks Terence what he wants. Forcing Terence into his own mind to search for an answer amongst his pain and dead civil rights leaders. "…I want my privacy." 

The film then cuts to the two standing before a concession stand. Ray wants to know Terence's snack order. "Oh, a dog and a beer," says Terence, bemused. 

It's a cute scene, but also, rimshot. The joke is on us future people, where the "seven bucks" in the movie is the total for two orders of "a dog and a beer." 

Whatever — Ray and Terence sit in the stands and watch a pedestrian putout — and then Ray starts hearing the annoying whisper; "Go the distance." Ray freezes, and the scoreboard chyron starts flickering. Fortunately, Ray was bored enough with the game to keep score in his program. So his pencil was ready to write down a name from the haywire Jumbotron; "Moonlight Graham."

Did the ghost force an illusion or hack the Jumbotron?

Who cares... we need to ignore the movie's narrative from here on out. This podcast episode focuses on the uninspiring game at Fenway, not the fever dream that follows. 

We'll let Ray and Terence leave early in search of Moonlight Graham. Who astral projects his younger self on a highway with his thumb outstretched to hitch a ride. Weird stuff.

In this podcast, we will chill, at this boring baseball game where the Red Sox host the Oakland Athletics. 

PS: While I feel baseball has been fantasized and weirded out in American fiction better than any other sport — I would suggest checking out Vanilla Dunk, a short story by Jonathan Lethem. It is exciting and so weird.

Birds and backyard ambience — as spring descends upon the Piedmont, so do the birds. And they were chatty this morning, so I stuck my microphone out the window.

That's about all there is to say — Oh, stay away from Jimmy Connors tennis on the Atari Lynx. I found it cheap on eBay and decided what the heck.

Watching Jimmy Connors in the early 90s at the US Open was fun. I thought that maybe his namesake handheld lynx game might that all over the tennis court rackets blazing fun? It doesn't.

In the game, it is impossible to serve the ball, and when you return a serve, the computer effortlessly lobs it back. A blinking yellow square tells you where you need to position your player to return, so you run to it. There's like a second delay from button press to avatar swing, and you miss.

Jimmy Connors was Mr. Volley. The game is death volley. Ooph — look the only reason to buy Jimmy Connors Tennis is to hear the voice of Jimmy Connors and crude lip movements as the legend welcomes you to the hardest ****** tennis game of all time.

Uncommon Ambience: At the Movies—Blade Runner outdoor noodle establishment ambience. Eight hours of sound inspired by the scene where Rick Deckard gets something to eat before being "arrested" by Gaff.

The Ritz at the Bourse, my favorite movie theater in Philadelphia, showed a rerelease of the 1982 film while my fiancé was in town. This was about 14 years ago—and it was either the Final Final Cut or the Pre-Final Cut before the Final Final Cut. I'm not sure. Either way, there were scenes I had never seen before, and I was excited to bring my future Mrs to share my love of Blade Runner in the subterranean movie theater I also loved. 

"It was boring," she remarked after the film, "how is 'run' in the title when no one in the movie runs anywhere?"

What the hell does she know. 

Uncommon Ambience: At the Movies—Vintage newsroom ambience. 

I've worked in large newsrooms, though none had operating typewriters. There were relics in our office, all of which were reduced to desk tchotchkes. The owners wanted to remind us that they wielded them for producing news, not like us fancy laptop people with quiet plastic keys. 

Anyway, this movie-flavored ambience episode reproduces⁠ the newsroom scene⁠ where both Woodward (played by Robert Redford) and Bernstein (played by Dustin Hoffman) declare that they "don't want to fight" while smoking a lot of cigarettes.

In my news days, I had a bunch of obscure anime figures decorating my desk. And I wasn't allowed to smoke.

Uncommon Ambience: At the Movies, we are adding a new type of ambience this week. Themed ambience, based on the ⁠opening scenes of the 1983 film Wargames⁠. 

This is a recreation of the hours preceding the Snyder and Phelps shift that ended quickly with a gun over a key-turn. I watched the film on the Home Box Office in 1984 (40 years ago) — and holy ****, the open still messes with me.

But not to worry there isn't angst in this episode. This is the Tucker/ Bevan shift, and Bevan is a "prince."

Bowling Ambience — This was recorded near the ball return of the dark lane on a decently attended Wednesday.

And I don't know about you, but I keep getting fed bowling memes on social media. There is always some dude staring in a direction, then a bowling mishap plays, the dude reacts in a banal sorta' way before looking to a new place, and then we get a new ****** bowling mishap. This **** has been done—feed me more videos of bulldogs screaming.

In any case... We're in the bowling alley today, way over on the dark side, where a lone light blinks. The bowling ghosts hide here.

Retro Arcade Ambience — So picture this, it's 1980-something and mom and dad dropped you off at the mall with five bucks, "we'll pick you up 10." Mom and Dad have a date night — and they're not playing around; they are going to the Red Lobster.

Dad messed up, and now he's going to be paying for lobster. The mall entrance is all glass and guarded by teenagers smoking cigarettes.

"The **** you looking at, kid?"

"I ain't looking at nothin’," You mutter as you slide through the door. "Yeah, you better ****** run."

Up some escalators and past the giant cookie place, fix your eyes on the Orange Julius and grip your five.

The sounds of Space Invaders are audible now, drawing you closer to a room lit by dozens of flashing screens.

Cozy fire and rain ambience — You booked your Bennington Bed and Breakfast just below the towering Battle Monument. You promised your partner it would be perfect. Hit a few trails on Prospect Mountain. Dinner and shopping downtown. Some hippy art gallery. It'll be a hoot.

Then months of plans ruined by a fluke thaw. "It can hit 60 in February?!"

"A'yup happens every year 'round this time," says the innkeeper dropping a plate of strata before you. "Usually, it's just a day or two; it should be cold and snowy again by Monday. Want some more coffee?"

"You can go to hell, old man."

Gymnasium/ basketball ambience — How do I explain this briefly? I went to military school in the South. I was that ***** of a student to need military school in the South.

So we had a gymnasium that was not air-conditioned; all we had were gigantic fans in the ceiling that sucked the air out. So when you stood in the doorway to the outside, it was like standing in a vacuum.

It's hot in the South. So when you play a few hours of ball, you sweat. And when you combine the sweat across your body with the vacuum feeling of standing in the doorway... There wasn't any AC that could compete; it was a magical feeling of windy cool.

Anyway, I was a terrible student.

The sounds of summer... if you summer in Vineyard Haven. Thunder, rain, waves, gulls, hail, and steamship (ferry) traffic. Recorded last June, you will hear as one storm departs and another quickly approaches. And deluge awaits you in the middle.

Off topic... Have you ever seen Point of No Return? Bridget Fonda stars as a troubled assassin who goes headfirst down a kitchen dumbwaiter to escape a missile. I realize it's a movie, and Fonda plays a badass... like obviously, the bad guys need to carry absurd weapons. But who would think to take a ***** missile launcher into a fancy restaurant?

Snowfall and mild traffic sounds — this is two hours of falling snow and mild traffic... but who gives a **** about that? I want to use this space to campaign for a dish washing simulator for the Nintendo. I want ****** stacks of dirty dishes that I have to figure out how to Tetris into a small dishwasher.

Rainy Hotel Ambience — Have you ever wandered down a long, narrow hallway following the loud hum of an ice maker? The small room in a hotel that houses free ice and expensive snacks — $5 Doritos is a thing, y'all.

You walk into a hum that vibrates throughout your body as you hold out your tiny ice bucket with the mini-trashbag to catch the tumbling cubes. Those ice buckets are too small.

This is the shower being recorded from the room next door. There will be tinkles of water, bathroom fan, and gurgling drain on the other side of the wall. Essentially layered gray-ish noise.

Reach out and touch fare (har) — ehem, this is from a recording of the Silver Line. It was a cold, icy January evening, and I was heading downtown to see a comic book movie.

Strap in for two and a half hours of Subway. There will be stops every 15 minutes. And no need to worry about Ra's al Ghul.

Car defrost ambience — It's the kind of cold out there that freezes your nostrils together as you breathe in. And ice and snow are covering the windshield.

It's time to begin the clearing process — and don't be like a neighbor who just cleared a peephole in his giant truck windshield and then took off for work.

Defrosting takes time and patience.

Falling snow and wind soundscape — recorded on the evening of the 14th. The beginning flakes were sloppy, and they came down in clumps. We got three inches.

And then, on Monday, it got sunny, and the roads cleared up. Still, the county closed school on Tuesday and Wednesday. So I had to spend another weekend with my ****** children.

Moderate rainfall on a parked car. I don't know what else to say as a description. Oh! I found Winter Spiced Cranberry Sprite at the Annandale CVS! They had a bunch left if any of y'all wanted to grab some. And I met up with a friend I haven't seen since covid lockdowns. We went to a glammed-up taco spot in Alexandria. That was great. Anyway, that was my Saturday.

Rain and ice ambience — This is what the worst snow day ever sounds like. The kids were hoping for measurable snow, and they got a lot of rain and graupel.

I'm unsure if what is falling in this recording counts as graupel, but I like saying graupel. My grandmother would call any sky ice that she didn't deem snow, "graupel." And she would wave her hand while she did it like "**** this sleet."

Waves, boats, birds and more. This recording begins late at night and ends with the first ferry steaming in and out of Vineyard Haven Harbor. This is a recording from outside the Vineyard Harbor Motel from the summer and captures waves, birds, a giant yacht mildly humming nearby, light traffic from Beach Rd and other chill mechanical sounds. Great soundtrack for a post-holiday hangover... I'm tired now.

Almost 4 hours of December rain on the roof... ambience. It's a soggy day in the Mid-Atlantic... A perfect distillation for our household post-Christmas (the kids' favorite holiday). There is Lego carnage and strewn Care Bears across the living room floor. A gold ribbon accidentally clings to the cat.

The encouragement is gone for snatching peppermint from the branches of our fake tree. The nut bowls are almost exclusively Brazil nuts now. And we have way too much cheese.

Also, the grocery store is no longer stocking egg nog. "Stopped receiving shipments of that last week," said the person in the dairy section. The clerk noticed I had cleaned out the last few cartons.

I really like egg nog. And I'm not too fond of waiting another year to see it again in the dairy section.

Is it possible to freeze egg nog? My wife won't mind ceding a quarter of the freezer. I can cheers the fresh nightmares 2024 brings with some ****** eggnog.

So the rain is welcome — also, the transition into the expanse of debt and January isn't without perks; Christmas Crunch will be 50% off at Harris Teeter.

Hotel room fan — Anyone else not looking forward to sleeping in their old bedrooms this holiday season? Just down the hall from our aging parents who sneak up on us late, like ****** ninjas in nightgowns, "You sure you're not cold, sweetie?"

"No, ma."

And you ask yourself, "Why didn't I just get a room at the Crowne Plaza Albany? They wouldn't encourage me to eat unrecognizable leftovers from the fridge when I'm hungry."

"Three years expired horseradish sauce can't be safe."

It's too late to stay at a hotel... but you can pretend you did in this week's episode. Happy holidays!

After-hour Vineyard Haven Harbor Waves — This episode includes after-hour waves lapping the harbor beach — the rattle of far-off machinery and the occasional car navigating nearby Beach Road. And I was wandering up the street to Cumberland Farms to buy some late night powdered donuts.

(Dual Shower Nozzle Ambience) I always dreamed of fancy bathrooms. Bathrooms where I could press digital buttons controlling a host of nozzles pelting me with technology-controlled water (like the **** in the movies). When the opportunity came to remodel our shower, I leaped at the remodeling designer with these ideas. It was too expensive, so I compromised. I had the designer pencil in a dual head at chest height that turned on with a tiny handle (also expensive). It is great for washing out my underarms.

Endless* Martha's Vineyard Ferry Ambience — this will be a cacophony of awesome machine noise from the carport of a MVY Steamship. So ride the ambience into a deep sleep or better grades.

And obviously there is an end for this podcast. Just as there is an end to the endless breadsticks at the Olive Garden. Or at least I assume the Olive Gardeners will bounce you eventually. I haven't ever seen a dude or lady that looked like Rip Van Winkle with a stack of decomposing breadstick trays.