The Merry-Go-Round of Doom and Closing the Chapter on Shure

Missing Throat Radio.

He was a tall man, a fierce man,

a man of a vaguely Jewish persuasion

who ate entirely too much sausage.

Pussy damn shit fuck.

The ladies, however, loved him.

It is said he could part his hair with his tongue.

With your mom's panties, with your girlfriend's hair,

or your wife's panties.

I heard he could lick a lady's belly button from the inside.

I was gonna take his fucking panties.

Y'all are so fucking nasty.

Welcome to episode 11 of Missing Throat Radio.

Isn't it funny how childhood memories

follow us around throughout the rest of our lives?

Often times I go for walks at the city park.

I used to do it for fitness.

Now I just kinda do it for like a fucking break

for my mental fucking health or something like that.

I think people of a certain age call it their constitutional.

I never really understood what that was.

The first time I heard somebody say

I'm gonna go for my evening constitutional,

I thought they were gonna go take a shit.

I had no fucking idea.

But here I am all these years later

and I find myself yearning to fucking go to the park

regardless of the weather.

Take a few

perform an evening constitutional.

Well two days ago I was sitting on my favorite park bench

underneath the Elm Tree enjoying the shade

and the little bit of breeze.

I just got done walking my two miles

and I was watching the kids play on the fucking jungle gym.

You see memes all the time on the internet

about the fucking metal slide that got to about

fucking 350 degrees in the summer sun.

Kids of the last couple generations are never gonna know

the fucking joy of flying down a fucking slide

that, it's too hot to be on and landing

in a fucking puddle of water at the bottom.

They're never going to experience that and that got me thinking

about the merry go round of doom.

That's what we called it.

There's this tiny little Midwestern town.

In order to protect, to protect the innocent

it will remain nameless.

Now this town doesn't even have a stoplight.

They barely have any stop signs there's no need for them.

It is a town of 150 people

and in the center of that town

like a beacon drawing people towards it

is one of the biggest Lutheran churches you've ever seen.

It's huge.

Membership to this church is 12 to 1500 members

in a town of less than 150 people.

Peritioners come from miles around.

The only other thing of note in this town

is a farmer's exchange.

Not a grocery store, not a hardware store,

not a feed store, but all of the above.

A farmer's exchange, where you can go

and you can pick up a pack of underwear,

you can pick up some toilet paper,

50 pound bags of feed for your livestock,

the street from that church is a school.

Now the school's been there almost as long as the church has.

As a matter of fact, both of them are constructed

out of the same gray limestone.

Both of them have roofs constructed of slate.

The school is kindergarten through eighth grade.

Up until World War II, kindergarten through eighth grade

was all you got in this particular area of the country.

They attended school, they got their basic education

and then they went back to the family farm

to help earn their living.

Behind the school though lies a secret, a secret so foul,

a mechanism of pure horror, pure terror, a machine

that everyone in the area has the own story, I know I certainly do.

I only visited this place once for a family gathering

and I left there after experiencing something so horrifying,

so damaging both physically and psychologically

that I've been carrying the scar from that experience

for almost 40 years.

This mechanism, this machine of terror doesn't look like much.

This marigold round is different. Allow me to explain.

This marigold round wasn't bought from a company that makes marigold rounds

very old German farming community.

And at the time the marigold round of doom was constructed.

The stalwart and pragmatic people who lived in this community

didn't believe in spending money on amusements, on frivolities,

like playground equipment, absolutely not.

Not when they can build it themselves,

and that's exactly what they did.

These people aren't like you and I.

They come from a bag on era, an era of having an idea,

or seeing a thing and thinking to themselves I can make that.

And that's exactly what they did, all of the playground equipment

located in the yard behind the school was constructed by the townspeople.

The jungle gym, the swing set, the tether ball pole,

everything on this playground was constructed by the townspeople,

not bought from a kit. No.

Industrial farmers, tractor mechanics and craftsmen from around the area

came together designed, constructed and mounted playground amusements

to be used at the school.

The swing set looked a little bit rough,

but it functioned like a swing set.

The jungle gym looked a little bit rough, you can tell it was welded together

from pieces of scrap steel that they had laying around,

but it functioned just like a normal looking jungle gym.

But the marigold round, that's a different story entirely.

What those craftsmen, farmers and mechanics managed to construct

when they built that marigold round from scratch was a pieceed

piece of perfect engineering, absolutely perfect in every way,

the platform, the vertical poles, the chains,

of that marigold round. My brother and I had the same thought,

when we walked on that playground we wanted to go nowhere but there,

but my dad said don't let the appearance fool you, it is not a fun happy little marigold round,

it is a mechanism of pure evil, of malevolence and rage.

Well that only peaked our interest more.

– I was a 9 year old boy, my brother was 7.

We walk up to the marigold round and I remember stepping up onto the wooden platform,

feeling how solid it was, despite its appearance, its rigidity appearance,

that it didn't move, it didn't shake, it didn't can't, it didn't lean.

But the simple act of me stepping onto the platform made the marigold round start spinning.

And it didn't turn a little bit, that's the thing, it didn't just start to move and then stop.

Like there was resistance, there was no friction,

there was not enough friction to stop the turning.

And the marligate was on top of the platform, leaning up and over so I could look down into the

mechanism that made the marigold round go round. And what I saw and again I didn't understand what

I was seeing at the time. But all of these years later I know what I was looking at,

I was looking at the axle of a combine that somebody had mounted In concrete in the ground.

And I remember seeing piles of axle grease coming out the top of the fucking mechanism,

where the center wheel was welded. And I remember looking at my brother going this is going to be

awesome. We sat down on opposite sides of the marigold round. One leg kind of wrapped around one

of the vertical poles that we were also holding onto, the other leg draped off so we could kick off

from the ground. So my brother and I on opposite ends of the marigold round anchored firmly to the

vertical poles, were moving faster and faster and faster using only our free legs to propel us

one leg hanging off the side kicking off was enough to get that fucking marigold round moving

really really fast. We were coming to the point where we weren't going to be able to go any faster

anymore but god damn it was fun. It was a marvel of fucking German engineering.

There was no fucking resistance there wasn't enough I should say to slow that god damn thing down

every time we kicked off the ground we went faster and faster and faster the wind whipping in our

fucking hair. We could feel centrifugal force and fucking gravity pulling us out away from the center

of the fucking marigold round. God damn it was fun. It was worth every fucking second

of anticipation. My

My brother and I going around in circles on the marigold round of doom hanging on for

dear life but enjoying every fucking second of its screaming into the fucking ether.

God damn this was brilliant. Absolutely brilliant. The people who made this deserve medals.

One of the best feelings in the world when you're nine years old is to be teetering just on the edge

of fucking too much. You know what I mean? When it's just almost too much and again I grew up in a

different time I'm a gen exer. Writing our bikes and making fucking dirt ramps and jumping off a shit

and fucking jumping out of trees and stuff that was the routine. That was every day but man this was

one of the best experiences of my life to this point the fucking marigold round of doom located

behind this little fucking church in the middle of bumble fucking nowhere

nowhere. But as with most things in life then it took a fucking turn. It was too good to last.

Looking back on it now the universe was never going to allow me to be this happy for this long.

I was having the time of my life. The universe was always going to bring a wrecking ball to swing it

at my head. In this particular instance the wrecking ball' took the form of a

fucking six foot tall 14 year old fucking disgusting inbred ginger named Billy. Billy Van

De Camp like the fucking beans Billy Van De Camp was the fucking guy's name. I was nine at

the time I think. I keep saying nine but I'm pretty sure that that's accurate. I was nine years old

at the time so that made Billy to about 14. And at 14 years of age Billy Van De Camp was already

six foot tall a good 200-225 pounds and he was a fucking man. Of pure fucking in-bred redneck

fucking brawn. I like people throw around the fucking word im way too much they

definitely throw around the word redneck too much. But they throw around the

word in the word

in-bred way too much and way too liberally without fucking knowing what an imbred actually is.

There's only two types of imbreds in the fucking world by the way. If you didn't know coming from

the Midwest I'm an authority on imbreding and I'll tell you all about it. There's two types of

fucking imbreds that you can spot at 50 paces. The first one is your standard issue omniscience.

Squat crooked twisted fucking form horribly boleg. One arm longer than the other,.

Gigantic pop high fucking forearms. And the second type of Midwestern imbred is the extraordinarily

tall extraordinarily wide extraordinarily strong fucking ginger with the gigantic fucking

imbreder chin. Will Billy Van De Camp fit that fucking bill to a tee that motherfucker was

as stereotypically fucking Midwestern farm boy imbred as I have anybody I've ever seen.

And he comes fucking sauntering out in his plaid short sleeve button down shirt with the fucking

that. Like you get from the farm store and his fucking wrangler jeans that his giant fucking imbrede

thighs would barely fit into. The standard issue Midwestern ginger fucking imbred is the guy you

call when you need to have a cow lifted up into the back of your pickup truck. Billy Van De Camp in

every way fit that fucking description to a tee at the age of 14. He comes fucking lumbering across

the fucking playground. And I see him every time the merry go round brings me

me around to get a fucking view of the door. I see him getting closer and closer and closer. And he has this

fucking weird bdi not fucking friendly grin on his face. We were told to stay clear of Billy Van De Camp

because he was known. He was a known fucking psycho because incidentally the standard issue fucking

Midwestern ginger imbrede also typically have emotional and behavioral problems. Billy was no fucking

exception. So back to the fucking spinning we're going around on the merry go round as fast as our

little legs could take us which is very fucking fast on the closest thing I've ever seen in my life

to being a machine capable of perpetual motion. And Billy goes hey boys I'll push you. And I remember hearing

that thinking this is not going to be good and then you hear his fucking weird guttural fucking laugh as he

starts grabbing the fucking vertical rails as we go by pulling and pulling and pulling and pushing and pushing

pushing and pushing faster and faster and faster and faster and faster in the screams of delight

and excitement for my brother quickly turned to screams of uncertainty and eventually panic.

He's struggling. He's struggling to fucking hold on. He

is struggling just as hard as I am and we're going faster and faster and faster and faster and faster around

in a fucking circle on the fucking merry go round of doom with giant fucking Billy Van De Camp's red-headed

the fucking vertical pole in the crook of my fucking left elbow with my right hand holding on to my left

. Holding on for fucking dear life listening to Billy laugh like a fucking psycho every time I come around

close to him I'm laying on my side now I'm not even sitting anymore my feet are fucking hanging off

the edge my thighs are hanging off the edge and every fucking revolution is pulling me further and

further further and further out, out away from the center the pole still in the crook of my fucking left

elbow with my right hand losing its grip ever so slowly on my left wrist the speed and the force

and the fucking pole of gravity is eventually going to win. Centrifical force is going to win I can't

hold on forever I'm laying on my belly now my right hand's grip on my left fucking wrist has failed

and I'm holding on to the fucking vertical pole with both hands both arms extended my belly button Commission on the edge of the fucking 2x10 platform my entire bottom

of my head. I can feel my blood being pulled into my feet I can feel my hands getting weaker because of

the lack of blood being able to reach them we're

and I look up over my head to check on my brother just in time to see him look up and catch my eye

Billy screaming maniacally in the background knowing knowing that he is teetering on the edge of two

fucking murders my brother catching my eye and at seven years old he knew exactly what was happening

he looks up at me and he screams at me with this shrill voice that I will never forget as long as I live

and in that moment his fucking grip failed and he went flying literally flying and spinning in the air

like a fucking saucer I only caught a glimpse of him before my grip failed and I went flying

correening I was airborne forever and finally I landed on the fucking asphalt tumbling in a

fucking death roll into my fucking elbow catching the next thing you know I'm tumbling head over fucking

heels my face slam in the fucking asphalt and then my ass and then my feet and then my fucking face

until I finally stop falling broken beaten bludgeoned by the earth laying there on that fucking

asphalt playground my jeans ripped my fucking shirt in tatters the tops of my hands bleeding

I have a fucking head wound but I can't move I lay there in a days and all I can do is fucking

spit I can't even fucking cry I just lay there and drool and spit spit out little bits of rocks and

asphalt and sand spit out little dribbles

well and then I hear shuffling next to me and a fucking heel

with the rest of us it was simply attempted murder from a fucking psycho imbred god damni

14-year-old red-handed fucking weird jaw

the rest of the story if you come from the boomer generation or the genx generation is somewhat predictable

I was found by my mom on the playground in fucking pieces she noticed the bleeding but that wasn't

the same thing I did in the video and I'm so sorry I

I'm so sorry sorry I'm so sorry I'm so sorry I'm so sorry I'm so sorry I'm so sorry

real accident at his job at the fucking boot factory

and was on disability.

Apparently he was basically fucking bound to a wheelchair.

I'm coming for you.

Like a thief in the night.

Now I can't get your big crippled ass onto a fucking

meridot around to pay you back in kind.

But what I can do is wait for some balmy spring evening when you have all the windows open

in the house.

And you're making use of your attic fan enjoying the fresh air and nature's free air

conditioning belly.

And that's what I'm going to do it.

I'm going to fucking side all up to your bedroom window

about 233 o'clock in the morning.

The best chance that you are deep in a REM cycle around 233 o'clock in the morning.

And in your open window, Billy, the open window to your bedroom.

I will be releasing a cobra.

And then we will just let nature take its course.

I'm coming for you, Billy.

And when that cobra sinks its fangs into your soft, disgusting,

alabaster white fucking inbred, ginger skin.

I hope you hear me chuckling.

Standing outside your window, chuckling as you scream.

As the neurotoxic venom shuts down your nervous system.

And as it's necrotic properties start eating away at your muscles and you're

sin you in your flesh.

I hope you can hear me chuckling, Billy.

Right outside your window, growling your name.

Billy, Billy Vandy Camp.

Do you remember?

Do you remember the day you almost killed Lorenzo?

Consider the dead paid.

I usually do two.

And secondly, I'm really fucking distracted because I changed microphones.

I changed a lot of things actually but the microphone is the most

operative part of this fucking equation.

In my effort to constantly improve the overall sound parts and pieces, things that make this fucking

idiotic podcast what it is, I fucked up.

I think I've fucked up.

I'm not sure yet.

What you heard today in segment one was the maiden voyage of my new microphone,

the road NT USB.

I switched away from the Sure MV 51.

It pained me greatly to fucking turn my back on Sure after all the fucking years.

I've been a loyal Sure fan.

But they kind of turned their back on me first to be honest with you.

Now I listen, I understand you can't fucking keep making a product that nobody wants.

B which is an iconic fucking microphone outside of the world of podcasting.

It was iconic before podcasters found it.

But then Joe Rogan started using it and everybody wants to be Joe Rogan.

So the SM7B obviously doing very well for sure.

Well then they made the MV 7

The MV 7 is the USB version of the SM7B.

That's what they want you to think.

But it's absolutely not the USB version of the SM7B.

It's just not.

It

Even if you use the XLR option on the MV 7,

it still doesn't perform like an SM7.

It just kind of half-ass looks like one.

Okay, okay, I'm getting off on a fucking tangent.

So they have the two most successful podcast microphones.

They have the MV 7 and they have the SM7B.

So they had a line called their motive line,

which was the MV 5, which I have, and the MV 51,

which I also have and I think they had a wireless version.

But who gives a shit about that?

The MV 51 is exactly what I was looking for.

It was perfect in every way.

For me, I could do voice over shit.

I could read audio books into it.

It was great for noise cancellation and noise reduction

and the vocal mode gave me the ability to podcast

and sound as good if not better than someone using a traditional XLR setup

with all the fucking gadgets and gizmos.

That's the quick and dirty version.

Okay, well, as it turns out,

sure having the two most popular fucking podcast mics on the market

in the MV 7 and the SM7B didn't need the fucking MV 51 anymore.

I don't blame them.

Why would you continue to make a product and support a product

that nobody fucking wants?

I get it, I understand.

Why did Olive Garden stop making the Italian scallion appetizer

because nobody fucking wanted it?

I'm not saying that they had to keep it around for me.

But when I reach out to them and say,

hey, the USB connector on the back of this MV 51

is getting just a little bit fucking loose

and it's going to start giving me problems.

Can I send it in for you guys to fix?

And they say no, because they no longer sell that product.

What do you fucking mean?

Okay, so you don't sell that product,

but it's still got your fucking name on it.

Like it's still a sure microphone.

Are you telling me that you won't fix it?

Because you no longer make it.

And they were like, yes.

And they suggested I find some kind of fucking computer repair guy

maybe see if Best Buy will repair it for me.

What the fuck?

So then the thought process still being

le- that wasn't a deal breaker for me.

Still being loyal to sure,

I fucking started looking for another MV 51.

And you just about can't buy them new

anymore from a reputable company.

Because the moment sure stopped supporting them,

they yanked them back off the shelves

and had them send in where they're going to fucking melt them down

and turn them into other microphones.

I don't know exactly how it works.

But you can still find them.

Sure, you can still find them brand new on the internet.

But the reputable companies that we're carrying

in and I'm talking about musicians,

friend, guitar, center,

hell even Walmart.com, target.com,

Amazon, all of these different companies that sold them

no longer sell them.

They have third party vendors that sell them,

you're kind of fucking on your own there.

You know, buy at your own risk.

So I thought okay, well, now what?

The MV 7 obviously doesn't work for me as a matter of fact I fucking got rid of it.

I have no interest in buying an XLR microphone.

I don't want a sure SM7B.

Even though it was my favorite fucking microphone I ever used in radio,

I have no fucking desire to go through all the bullshit and expense of assembling a

fucking traditional XLR microphone to mixer, to

amp, to compressor, to processor, to interface situation.

I don't want to fucking deal with that.

First of all, I'm not gonna spend that kind of money on this

fucking hobby of mine.

And secondly, I just don't want to fucking deal with it.

I would have to fucking construct a room in my house specifically for the

rack full of shit that I would have to have in order to make that XLR

microphone sound the way I want it to.

So that is why I say sure kind of turned their back on me before I turned my back on them.

They shut me out.

They stopped making a product that would work for me.

It's not their fault.

It's not my fault.

It's nobody's fucking fault.

It just is what it is.

But I found myself no longer satisfied with the

real quick for you in episode eight, in episode nine, and then episode 10 confirmed it.

I found that the sound that I was getting out of the MV51 was just a little bit

too fucking dark to cut through the layers of sound effects and background music that I was doing

in order to assist me in telling the fucking story.

I say that in air quotes.

The sound was just a little bit too dark.

I needed something brighter.

So I thought, okay, well, I'll go into my software that I use, which is Reaper for all

the heavy lifting editing and I'll brighten up the sound a little bit so it cuts through the layers

of audio that I have underneath it trying to air quotes tell my story.

I say it again.

Well, it didn't fucking work.

I should say it didn't work very well, not to my liking anyway.

I couldn't make it sound the way I thought it ought to sound.

That puts me in a situation where not only is this microphone,

not on the verge of flaking out, but that connector starting to get a little bit

fucking loose and I'm way too mobile and I move around way too much to have a microphone that's

having connection problems.

That coupled with the fact that I'm not happy with the fucking high-end sound that I'm getting out

of out of that mic.

Well, it had me looking for other options.

John Jeming go told me he's not happy with his roadcaster.

Is that what it's called?

The roadcaster.

What's it called?

The podcaster by road?

Is that what I don't fucking know.

I think it's called the podcast mic.

What the fuck?

Hang on.

I don't want to ask cereal.

Let's just look it up.

Road podcast mic.

Oh, okay.

So it's called the road pod mic.

John Jeming go said he's not happy with it.

He said he doesn't like the way it sounds, so I'm definitely not going to fucking buy it.

However, I that I started researching and then I jumped on X and I actually asked

Road.

Here's my conundrum and I told them the entire fucking story that I just told you

without all the fuck words.

And I said I dabble in voiceovers.

I do the occasional audiobook.

I fucking podcast.

I want to be able to do all three of these things with the same microphone and sound

really fucking good doing it.

And this is the really cool thing about what Road did.

They talked to me about my setup.

They're like, okay, what software are you using?

What computers are you using?

Let's talk about the treatment on your room and all this stuff.

They asked me all these questions, which I answered.

And they said, okay, our suggestion is the road NT USB,

which the road NT is a fucking famous studio mic.

I mean, fucking famous world famous renowned has been for a really long time.

Well, Road decided to make a USB version to try to tap into the market of cheap fucks like me

who want really good fucking studio quality sound but don't have a fucking studio and all

of the fucking gear that goes into it.

Okay, okay, okay, I say, so anyway, I bought the road NT USB.

I feel it important to say that I'm not being compensated for this.

I don't know why because I guess I do know why because what I did was I just

went on a fucking testimonial about how helpful Road was in my process of selecting because I'm

fucking nobody. You know what I mean? I'm John Q.

Fucking podcaster.

There's only four and a half million active podcasts right now on the inner webs.

Who am I? Nobody.

But they took the time to talk to me and sell me on their product.

So I fucking bought it and incidentally it's what I'm talking to you on right now.

But I say all that to say I fucked you over this episode.

First of all, you're only getting one segment and then me talking about gear, right?

But secondly and most importantly, I was so fucking distracted

while I was recording that segment and hell even this one because I'm using new shit and I'm

having to talk into a fucking pop filter because I simply do not have the skill required to operate

this fucking mic. They didn't fucking tell me that. They didn't tell me that the fucking

training wheels are off. Kitty fucking play times over. You're actually going to have to know what

you're doing in order to use this fucking microphone. That should have been on the website like

the first thing you see. Don't buy this if you suck.

So it took me forever to record segment one, which is why you're only getting one segment in

episode 11 because I kept having your re-record and re-record and re-record because all of my

b's and f- fuckin' s-s and everything was two, s-s-s and pop-po, bitchy and b. So anyway,

I'm gonna try to do it. I'm gonna try to do it all. I'm gonna try to do it all. I can't do it.

So I'm gonna try to do it all. So it's gonna be more of a

trying to fucking be stupid and tell dick jokes.

I apologize.

I'll do better next time.

Episode 12 is going to be, I'm not going to say it's going to be epic.

Episode 12 is going to be fairly good.

Episode 12 is, we're going to really fucking not step on our nuts in episode 12.

Okay, we're going to fucking go at least 80%.

An episode 12 of Missing Throughoper Radio.

They can't all be homeruns.

Fuck off.

Alright, well, let's wrap it up.

I hope you enjoy Missing Throughoper Radio overall.

I'm not going to ask you to enjoy this episode because frankly it's not great.

I just explained why.

Get off my ass.

All I can hope though is that you're digging it.

That's at the end of the day that's really all I want.

I've been talking to AI quite a bit about promoting podcasts and the best way to go about

doing it and that's something I'm really going to get fucking interested in once I get

season one in the can.

Once season one is done and wrapped up, I'm really going to fucking spend the time that I

would normally be recording and editing and I think I'm going to spend that time focusing

on the marketing side of Missing Throughoper Radio.

See what we can get done there.

I have some merch on the way and while I'm not going to sell it to you, I will give it

to you.

Once I get the stuff in hand, I'll put it out here on the podcast and say, you know, hey,

give me a shout.

If you're interested in some fucking free gear from Missing Throughoper Radio, give me

a fucking yell.

Slide into my DMs and I'll hook you up.

Free of charge.

Hell, I should be paying you to fucking wear the t-shirt.

Thank you again for joining me for this episode of Missing Throughoper Radio until next time.