The Dirtbag Diaries

A mythical, semi-secret, surf spot on Queensland’s Sunshine Coast – that’s as descriptive Australian Duncan McNee would get. This secret break, a quick bike ride from McNee’s day job as a high school teacher, requires the perfect synchronicity of swell, tide and windless days. On average, the variables come together once every two years. Sometimes the world shines on us. The wind dies. The tide drops. School lets out early. It’s up to us to catch the wave of a lifetime. At long last, we bring you a surfing story. Amen.

Finally, we’ve got a special treat for you – The Crusade Enhanced. Photos by Jason Hummel, Sky Sjue and Ben Manfredi. Video by Phil Fortier.  There are some sweet shots from over a decade of Cascade steep skiing. Skiing these peaks is a feat in itself – stopping to take the photos is another epic task in itself.

The file is big, so you’re going to need a fast connection and a little patience. I won’t bore you with the details, but our first foray into video and photos was interesting. Walker did a great job producing. Hope you all enjoy. Thanks for the patience.




Or Click here for the smaller version and pop-up player and continue your journey through the Google Machine.

True or False? Standard pushing is for the pros. If you want to shape skiing or climbing, you have to ditch the job, move into the car and find a deep-pocketed sponsor. The tiny window afforded to weekend warriors couldn’t possibly be enough time with which to make an impact. Right?  

Today, we bring you the Crusade, the story of two stockbrokers, an engineer and a nuclear physicist who, with a little help from the Internet, helped shaped American ski mountaineering without ever leaving their backyard. There will be no helicopters. No corporate expeditions. No photo shoots. Just a decade-long odyssey from the ambitious imagination of youth across the Cascades' steepest faces all the way to the unsettled wisdom of adulthood. It turns out weekend warriors are just as capable.

The photo and video enhanced version will be out shortly. 

                               Click Here to Listen

For more background info:
Cascade Classics
Cascade Crusades
Ski Sickness

Friend of Mine is a collection of U.K.-based of musicians, artists and surfers. The provided much of the ambiance for this episode. Check them out.

Also on todays show...

Lyrics Born
"Pack Up Remix (feat KRS-One & Evidence/Dilated Peoples, prod Jumbo/Lifesavas)" (mp3)
from "Same !@#$ Different Day"
(Quannum Projects)

Buy at iTunes Music Store
Stream from Rhapsody


Sally Shapiro, Junior Boys
"Jackie Junior" (mp3)
from "Remix Romance Vol. 1"
(Paper Bag Records)

Buy at iTunes Music Store
Stream from Rhapsody


Vetiver
"Blue Driver" (mp3)
from "Thing Of The Past"
(Gnomonsong)

Stream from Rhapsody
Buy at Rhapsody

In the Year of Big Ideas, my childhood friend Brad laid it out – he was going to climb El Cap in 2008. Never mind that he had minimal climbing experience or had never even been to Yosemite. We schemed and scheduled “vacation.â€� We planned and tried to convince others to join us, but in the end, Brad and I were on our own to wrestle with one very big – arguably bad – idea. We had four days to pull it off. We would have to climb faster than we could manufacture excuses. 

A third of the way through 2008, where are you in your year of big ideas? We’d love to hear from you. Leave a comment and a little inspiration. What have you ticked off the list? What’s left?

                                 CLICK HERE TO LISTEN

Here are the cuts from the Year of Big Ideas Reprieve....You can stream them by clicking on the song title. 

Dosh
"If You Want To, You Have To" (mp3)
from "Wolves and Wishes"
(anticon)

Buy at Rhapsody
Stream from Rhapsody


Santogold
"L.E.S Artistes" (mp3)
from "L.E.S Artistes"
(Lizard King)

Buy at iTunes Music Store


Mobius Band
"Friends Like These" (mp3)
from "Heaven"
(Misra)

Buy at iTunes Music Store
Stream from Rhapsody

Life was good. The approaches were short. The routes straightforward.  The work wonderfully mindless. After a long dry-spell of writing, a job as a climbing guide at Smith Rock was like a vacation from life. I was 22 again, not a failing writer struggling to pay the rent. It was too good to last.

Through the years, I’ve tried to escape words and journalism, but the writing life always has a funny way of creeping back into my world.  This time it came in the form of a 230-pound cameraman with a fear of heights, a fast talking New York producer and a 30-year-old broadcaster trying to return to her childhood.  It turns out you have to earn your 15 seconds of fame.

you can stream the cuts by clicking on the song title...I love this cut by David Karsten Daniels.

David Karsten Daniels
"Martha Ann" (mp3)
from "Fear of Flying"
(Fat Cat Records)

Buy at iTunes Music Store
Stream from Rhapsody


Golden Shoulders
"Golden Soldiers" (mp3)
from "Friendship Is Deep (Reissue)"
(Welcome Home Records)

Buy at iTunes Music Store
Stream from Rhapsody


Gregg Yeti & The Best Lights
"Laughter Be Your Slave" (mp3)
from "Heart Palpitations of the Rich and Famous"
(Eskimo Kiss Records)

Buy at iTunes Music Store
Stream from Rhapsody


Monk
"Santa Ana Murders And The Neonlights Of Love" (mp3)
from "The Man Who Sleeps On His Breath"
(sevenahalf records)

Buy at iTunes Music Store
Stream from Rhapsody

What defines you? Is it your past? How you look? I doubt it. It’s the course we chart from dawn to dusk that makes us who we are.  Seventeen years ago, Sean O’Neill – artist athlete and big brother to pro climber Timmy O’Neill – lost the use of his legs after jumping from a bridge into the Mississippi River. After the accident, Timmy dreamed about helping his older brother climb El Capitan.  In 2005, the brothers decided it was time to act.

Reporter and podcaster James Mills brings us a story about two brothers, one very big cliff face and a 17-year-old dream.  Sometimes climbs don’t end with summits. They can extend on into our lives.

here's the music from the show. You can listen by clicking on the song...

Cake
"Ruby Sees All" (mp3)
from "Motorcade of Generosity"
(Upbeat Records)

Buy at iTunes Music Store
Stream from Rhapsody


Beatundercontrol
"All The Way [To Heaven]" (mp3)
from "Cosmic Repackage"
(Malicious Damage)

Buy at iTunes Music Store
Stream from Rhapsody


The New Rochelle Rotary Club
"Air Currents" (mp3)
from "Air Currents"
(Radar Recordings)

Buy at iTunes Music Store
Stream from Rhapsody


Daturah
"Hybrisma" (mp3)
from "Reverie"
(Graveface Records)

Buy at iTunes Music Store
Stream from Rhapsody


Museum Pieces
"Eye of My Mind" (mp3)
from "Nor You, Nor You"
(Youth Club Records)

Buy at iTunes Music Store
Stream from Rhapsody

Great outdoor writing lacks ego. When listener Andy Guinigundo’s email appeared in the inbox on a rainy spring day, I read through it, read it again and thought “Damn, I wish I could have been there.â€?  That’s because no matter where you ski, whether it’s the Alaskan steeps or a local hill in Southeast Indiana, a powder day is a magical thing. That’s the great thing about skiing, climbing or mountain biking – you don’t have to be a professional playing beneath stadium lights to understand the crowning achievements of our sports.

Andy has been skiing for decades. During the gray and often rainy Midwest winters he works ski patrol at Perfect North Slopes, a small resort across the Indiana border from his home in Ohio. Until a March blizzard, a powder day was something he had only heard about. I’d been wanting to create some smaller shorts between feature episodes, so Andy joined us in the Dirtbag Diaries Midwest Studios, a.k.a. his walk-in closet, and gave us his own farewell to an unforgettable winter season.

                                   CLICK HERE TO LISTEN

Bradley Carter claims to be a reformed rock climber. He's found music and changed his ways. Joined a band -- Max Gross Weight. He's traded dirtbag living in Yosemite for the life of a hard working professional musician. He swears it. Personally, I don't believe him for a second, mostly because he talked me into to playing hooky from work tomorrow to go clip bolts...oops did I say that out loud.

Also music by....
The New Rochelle Rotary Club
"Air Currents" (mp3)
from "Air Currents"
(Radar Recordings)

Buy at Rhapsody
Stream from Rhapsody

Theatre of Disco
"OKE" (mp3)
from "Theatre of Disco"
(Risky Disko)

Stream from Rhapsody
Buy at Rhapsody

In spring of 1991, Tom Broxson survived a 200-foot fall – a full rope length -- off the top of Yosemite Valley’s Washington Column. To this day, Tom, his climbing partner Pat and the rescuers who saved his life aren’t exactly sure what happened. There are guesses and conjectures, but the exact moment that changed Tom’s life will always remain a mystery.

Dr. R. Adams Cowley, the physician who pioneered our modern Emergency Medicine System, once said, “There is a golden hour between life and death.â€?  His theory that a patient who survives a grave trauma has 60 minutes to reach the operating table was the guiding axiom in emergency medicine for decades.

In these precarious, defining minutes between life and death, patients fight to live, rescuers put themselves in harm’s way and decisions are made in an instant. Sometimes rescues don’t go all that smoothly. Today, with the help of Yosemite’s first responders, we bring you Tom Broxson’s story of survival, recovery and will. It turns out an hour can last a lifetime.

                                 CLICK HERE TO LISTEN

Sorry for the delay....here are the cuts.

Bradley Carter is a reformed rock climber turned musician. You can hear his guitar work throughout the episode. It's fitting too -- Carter was actually on YOSAR.

Friend Ken Christianson keeps bumping the cuts here at the Dirtbag Diaries.  Ken provided the music for All These Things.

Son Lux
"Break" (mp3)
from "At War With Walls and Mazes"
(anticon)

Buy at Rhapsody

The Out_Circuit
"Across The Light" (mp3)
from "Pierce The Empire With A Sound"
(Lujo Records)

Buy at Rhapsody

Dengue Fever
"Seeing Hands" (mp3)
from "Venus on Earth"
(M80)

Buy at iTunes Music Store

Southerly
"How To Be A Dreamer" (mp3)
from "Storyteller and the Gossip Columnist"
(Greyday Records)

Buy at iTunes Music Store

Why?
"The Hollows" (mp3)
from "Alopecia"
(anticon)

Buy at Rhapsody

The Weather Channel’s Local on the 8’s. NOAA. Surf cams. We’ve all been there – staring at the places we would like to be through a computer or television screen.  We shut our eyes at our desks and try to imagine the feel of cutting through powder or climbing on a sun drenched cliff.

Success in the high country requires early starts and leaps of faith. The same can be said of careers, school and family. Our dreams in the flatlands take nurturing. They require our love and time, and when our personal goals grate against the pursuit of summits, glassy waves and powder days, our heads can fill with a feedback loop of tough questions about where we’ve been and where we’re headed.

Today, I’m proud to present a new voice. Becca Cahall brings us All These Things – a story about getting older and skiing faster.  We’re headed for British Columbia’s Selkirk Mountains – an incredible range of open alpine faces, perfect tree skiing and tight chutes that every backcountry skier dreams of visiting. When the life’s pressing questions mount, the only antidote is the inner calm found in cold wind, burning lungs and the hiss of skis sliding across snow. Enjoy.