Howdy cowpokes!

Recently, the Scoundrel of the Sage (😉) was awarded an Artist grant from the Nevada Arts Council to produce a pilot of “The Radio Adventures of Ranger Roscoe.” Yee-haw!

After launching “Ranger Roscoe Rides Again,” a lot of people expressed a desire for a proper old-time radio show. Then, an experiment at the Las Vegas Book Festival prompted my colleague, Veronica Klash, to suggest I apply for grant funding.

If you’re going to get a grant, I think there should be some kind of public benefit to the end result. My work with Vegas PBS steered me towards making something with an educational bent, and memories of enjoying shows like Lawrence Welk with my grandmother inspired me to incorporate cross-generational enjoyment as well.

Following a few delays (Thank you to the chaos from DOGE, the 2025 U.S. government shutdown, and the statewide hack of Nevada’s government agencies for that), we are now full-speed ahead!

For my own sake and in the interest of transparency, I thought it would be good to do a monthly blog tracking this project’s progress. Target release is summer 2026, which feels very close and very far away somehow.

Any way, let’s get into it!

WRITING THE SCRIPT

For those who have followed the Scoundrel’s career already, you may have guessed that I’m not a stranger to audio storytelling. “Ranger Roscoe Rides Again” incorporates both diegetic and non-diegetic radio drama elements.

I set out with this grant to make something that had positive learning outcomes as well. Prior to applying for the grant, I read “Mind in the Making: The Seven Essential Life Skills Every Child Needs” by Ellen Galinsky, a book about early childhood development. It covers the metacognitive and psychological skills that help children grow into well-rounded individuals. I found that many of the lessons for kids applied to adults as well, which I think may have been the author’s intent.

With that research in mind, I drafted the script and asked a couple of early childhood specialists at Vegas PBS to take a look at it. They had a couple suggestions about word choice and sound effects, but overall not a lot of changes. Hopefully that’s a good sign!

COMPOSING MUSIC

At the beginning, I considered perhaps just buying a license for a stock music library, but that didn’t feel right. Also, if I compose all of the music, I don’t have to worry about the liability of the music rights lapsing down the road! Right?

Composing music is a lot of work though.

This will likely be one of the most daunting aspects of the project. Mostly because it’s important to get right! To get inspired, I’ve been listening to Aaron Copland’s “Rodeo,” Randy Newman’s score for “Toy Story 2,” music from the radio version of the “Lone Ranger,” and the soundtrack from the video game “Red Dead Redemption.”

While I’m familiar with music theory, composing dynamic pieces for an orchestra, even if short, requires quite a bit of skill. So I pulled in a couple friends from my marching band days to help. We spent a late night in the studio and laid the foundation for what should be an exciting music journey back to the old west.

PLANNING FOR DISTRIBUTION

Getting the final product to you! I use Distrokid for the Scoundrel of the Sage’s music distribution, which is a pretty solid service. I wanted to find something similar to that for podcasting. There are a few things to consider before taking the plunge, such as storage and analytics. Also, since most of these platforms charge by the month or year, it would probably be best to wait to commit until closer to the release date.

Here’s a few options I found:

1. megaphone.fm
This is a Spotify product, so that native implementation would probably help. I need to wait to hear back about a quote on pricing.

2. transistor.fm
A popular service with a pretty reasonable starter plan price. Plenty of good reviews online about it (that don’t seem like thinly-veiled sales pitches), so this might be a strong contender.

3. Riverside
If I recall correctly, this is what my pals at City Cast use. It looks pretty versatile, but might be overkill for a project where most of the recording and editing will be done ex situ (external software).

Speaking of recording…

RECORDING!

Okay, this is actually one area where I’m kinda already ahead of schedule! Nathan Tannenbaum returns again as the incredible narrator for Ranger Roscoe’s adventures through space and time. Since he is a very busy man, I caught him right before a taping of “Varsity Quiz” at Vegas PBS and we were able to grab all of his lines in about fifteen minutes.

That’s why we call him One-Take Nate!

Okay, that’s my progress report for January. Thanks for reading. Stay tuned for February’s update, cowpokes 🤠
’til then, Happy Trails.