Hank Watson's Garage Hour - Cars, Trucks, Beers & Guns
07.13.13: Combo Episode: Auto Detailing & Wartime Politics! Off-Road Advocacy, Cruise Missile Diplomacy, Car Washing Humor, East County Dining, Plus Bret "Statist Nozzle" Stalbaum

Another grand experiment in gearhead radio: the Garage Hours' Auto Detailing & Wartime Politics episode, or how we learned to stop worrying and love Cruise Missile Diplomacy.  Also included in this killer pile of smart-guy awesomesauce are such gems as "every Iran deserves a battleship (sitting a few miles offshore)", the anti-gun Stalbaum bashfest, and the introduction of .45 Phil's latest app: the "People Phil Needs to Slap Around" app.

It's not all fun and games, however.  Phil, Crag Maxwell and Hostus Maximus Justin Fort get into off-road advocacy, and auto detailing... details... like car wax, clay bars, and the Two Bucket Method.  The official Garage Hour gullets also Dude Food it up with a fine selection of East County eateries, and talk a little about gun safety before recounting how World War One doughboys used to shoot German hand grenades like it was pigeon season (plus ze Germans) with their scary American shotgun skills.  Then Crag quotes Hobbes and makes the rest of the Garage Hour goons look stupid. Er.

Direct download: HWGH071313.m4a
Category:gearhead personality -- posted at: 2:46am EDT

01.22.11: 4Runner Trail Damage, Ammo Laws, GH Fanmail, GH Parenting, Cows & Kids, Anti-Job Smelt? Led Zeppelin, Hulk VS Batman? Voyager=Awesome, Railguns & Lasers, Plus WW2 in the Pacific ala "With the Old Breed"

One of THOSE episodes of the Garage Hour...  All of the good gearhead stuff, crammed into a one-hour talk show clown car piloted by the Garage Hour goons: trucks, sports, Charger ownership hatred, the Raiders, FaceSlave, Black Ryan and green clothes, ammunition laws in the commie state of CA, rich guys, fan letters, tiger moms, Garage Hour parenting rules, parenting for farmers, turkeys in Ramona (CA - the state, not the person), stupid laws, the smelt versus your job, Barrett-Jackson, CA's awful senators, Led Zeppelin's Wanton Song, Hulk, Batman and Bane, the Voyager probe at the edge of the solar system, railguns, lasers, Avaturd, Hurt Locker, and all about WW2 in the Pacific ala "With the Old Breed".

Yeah, all of that, a bag of chips, Dirty Dave and Justin Fort.

Direct download: HWGH012211.m4a
Category:gearhead personality -- posted at: 4:54pm EDT

10.25.14: Mustangs, Movember & Manly Cancer Awareness Month! We Chat Beer, Batteries and Bullets, IT & Information Security, Plus Curvy Roads & Unphoning Yourself

With topics like potatoes, .45 ACP, Mustangs, mustaches, Manly Cancer Awareness Month (better known as Movember), ebola, preparedness and making musclecars dance, it's got to be another episode of the Garage Hour.  This was a semi-special show, because we finally got the guys from Movember and Stachepoint Education (deployed in San Diego for your beer and poker-lovin' pleasure) to join us to chat about the importance of dudes not being afraid to check with the doc about the condition of their brass now and again.  Also, get off the couch, Fatty.

Between details of Movember events in San Diego (including the November 1 Stache Bash - beer, barbecue and giveaways at Helm's Brewing) and tales of ales sipped, the Garage Hour goons do their gearhead 100%-ricochet best with topics ranging from bullets, batteries, a little bit of prepping (it is ebola season, after all) and the wonderment that is turning off your freakin' phone once in a while.

Infosec legend/newb cohost Rick McElroy joined Hostus Maximus Justin Fort in-studio and is already beggin' for a nickname, so this might be one of the better pieces of sheeeeow in Garage Hour history.  Download some. 

Direct download: HWGH102514.m4a
Category:gearhead personality -- posted at: 6:30pm EDT

07.06.13: First Two-Hour Garage Hour! Auto-Detailing Attack, Filner Grope-Attack, Hipster Attack, DUI Attack, Manz Attacks, Germans Attack, Hillary Attack, Attacking Bureaucracy, Plus Lightning Attack Windmills

First-ever two-hour Garage Hour right here, and it's all you'd expect from the best kind of AM talk - gearhead talk.  Enjoy auto detailing? Want to hear about Mayor Bob "Gropomatic" Filner and Mayor Art "Drinkomatic" Madrid?  Going to Manzanita's upcoming third-annniversary party?  Interested in shotgun history, like trench guns VS ze Germans? What do you know about geek VS nerd?  Ever crashed a motorcycle?  How does Anthrax compare to metal?  Hope Diane Feinstein and the NSA eat each other?  Are you a conservatives or the GOP? Drink custom beers?  Where do you come down on bureaucracy VS freedom?  Think new wind turbines are out to get nature?

Yuuuuuup.

Larry and Nina from Manzanita Brewing join Crag Maxwell of Maxwell's House of Books in La Mesa, CA, Agent Aya of the KGB and Hostus Maximus Justin Fort on-air.

Direct download: HWGH070613.m4a
Category:gearhead personality -- posted at: 1:22pm EDT

07.10.10: Classic! Impalas & Bars in Milwaukee, Office VS Military Pranks, Jeeper VS PT Cruiser Death, Clutch, Tobin & Sasquatch, Trail Plans for Corral Canyon, Plus the Latest List of Secret Scientologists

This Garage Hour Reload pits some good old cohosts (Dirty Dave and Grizzly Chris, with host Justin Fort) against some of the Garage Hour's good old nemeses: our pal Gravedigger's '67 Impala, off-roading in Corral Canyon, drag racing at Barona, Dr. Tooth, Sasquatch, Clutch, office pranks, and Scientologists.

That's right, in addition to the usual parade of cruising the bars in a 25.1C'd alcohol-huffing Impala, Jeeper death, PT Cruiser death, Amon Tobin, Five Horse Johnson and Mogs, the Garage Hour goons tackle the latest list of the Church of Strange Alienology's ongoing members and pending suckers (courtesy of Cracked Magazine), and you WILL be surprised by whom we discovered.  Or possibly not.

Direct download: HWGH071010.m4a
Category:gearhead personality -- posted at: 12:06am EDT

10.18.14: Mexican (Dude) Food @ San Diego, Commuting on Race Tires, Local Hillclimbing, Polymer AR Lowers, Shoe Goo, Plus Tex-Mex VS Cal-Mex & Bar VS Restaurant, and the Wonderment That is the California Burrito

If you like Mexican food and live in the Garage Hour's home city of San Diego (last bastion of sanity in the glorious People's Republic of California), then this Dude Food episode is right up your alley.  Mr. Dustin (Top Earner and retrosauce cohost) joins Hostus Maximus Justin Fort for the best (and not so awesome) Mexican joints, restaurants, drive-throughs and general munchie action in San Diego, plus a little bit of thought on Tex-Mex versus Cal-Mex, carne asada, the California Burrito, and the big question: is Taco Bell still Mexican food?

Of course, there's a truckload of the usual Garage Hour fun in this truncated episode too, like commuting on race tires (on-ramps need love too), hillclimbs in SoCal (race Palomar, anyone?), polymer AR lowers, the miracle that is Shoe Goo (fix those Copas) and National Stare at a Hybrid Owner Like Something's Wrong With Them Month (coming up in November).

Direct download: HWGH101814.m4a
Category:gearhead personality -- posted at: 7:31pm EDT

05.18.13: AR-15 Is Your Friend, Building ARs, Gun Racism, Watching Cannonball Run, Salt Flat Fly-Bys, Dick Trickle (RIP), the State of Barry O's White House, Reloading Ammo, Plus Drunken Sailors & Instigatism of the Idiotlings

It's the second of many Garage Hour AR-15 episodes, this with the boys from Wilde Built Tactical - a fine collection of AR building, AR styles, AR sources, AR-15 versus AR-10, and some of the crackpottery pretending to be laws that states like the People's Republic of California keep putting into play, hoping it'll stick this time.  Remember, the AR-15 is your friend - don't succumb to gun racism.

Have no fear - it's the Garage Hour - so there's also a fine load of gearhead chatter, tomfoolery and explosions too, including sounds from the salt flats, the .50-cal ricochet, Ghostbusters versus Zombieland, the must-see that is Cannonball Run, 9mm and .223/5.56 tales, some words of respect for NASCAR legend Dick Trickle, and a few thoughts about life as the KGB by the Garage Hour's very own Agent Aya, plus .45 Phil, Bryan and Charles from Wilde Built, and Hostus Maximus Justin Fort.

Direct download: HWGH051813.m4a
Category:gearhead personality -- posted at: 9:30pm EDT

10.11.14: Road-Racing & Crisis Prepping (Combo Episode!), 24 Hours of Lemons @ Thunderhill, Disaster Awareness, Celebrating Columbus Day and Stare at a Hybrid Month, P2K Safe & Membership Giveaway, & the DOT in your Car (Gettin' Tickets & Sh!t)

Can the Garage Hour goons pull off the ultimate two-faced episode? Two great gearhead topics - road-racing with the 24 Hours of Lemons gang at Thunderhil,l and a little bit of basic "prepping" so you won't need to fight with the low-information idiots at Wal-Mart over a can of Spam - can we do it?

We start with the racing - how can't we? - and the crapcan series nationally known as the 24 Hours of Lemons, and their latest rustastic assault on Thunderhill: everything from adventures in wiring, Civic fails (because of that wiring), rampant cheating and misadventure on and off-course, and how not to win.  Fast Guy and sometime cohost Cram Grebneseir then regales us with tales of his plan to LS1 a 3-Series BMW (cram, indeed), which we approve of wholeheartedly.

Sandwiched between tales of smoking wiring looms is an analysis of what you need to be prepared for a little bit of disaster if the low-information hordes manage to collapse society in your neighborhood - here and there - during the coming Year of the Idiot.  Because you're a Garage Hour listener, we expect you've got the firearms part of the equation figured out (likely overfigured, we bet), so our focus is on the bagels, the batteries and the Band-Aids.  You can handle the bullets.

Cram joins Hostus Maximus Nitsuj Trof and cohosts .45 Lihp and Ekim the Kcud in-studio as they also celebrate Columbus Day, National Stare at a Hybrid Owner Like Something is Wrong with Them Month, and every other holiday that gets in their way.

Direct download: HWGH101114.m4a
Category:gearhead personality -- posted at: 4:21pm EDT

06.01.13: Truck Parts In-Studio, Gearhead Boycotts, Turbos VS Superchargers, Hunter S. Thompson, Sterling M. Archer, Working on Fuel Tanks, Drug-Driving Idiots, Enthusiastic Beveraging, and Mazda Miata for Everyone

So much sauce, so few hours...  This is one of the most entertaining Garage Hours ever, with special guest host 220,000-Mile 4Runner Fuel Filter and regular cohost Agent Aya supporting Hostus Maximus Justin Fort as they wade through Archer, the lives and deaths of fuel filters, turbo-supercharging versus mechanical-supercharging, Orgy (the band), Everything Beautiful Rusts (the album), the Garage Hour's official Miata count (we're at eight), boycotting REI, Sierra Nevada and Staples, Toyota truck suspension parts, Hunter S. Thompson stunts, Bilstein Boy Brett's Yawsport grand opening, Diggstown, a visit from Mic the Mike, Dave Stall, and a call-in from DPRK leader and sociopath-in-chief Kim Jong Uno.

Justin and Aya also delve into a few of the basic fast-guy skills that he will be teaching her on her first canyon run the next morning (at whereabouts unknown).

Direct download: HWGH060113.m4a
Category:gearhead personality -- posted at: 10:32pm EDT

12.18.10: Classic! Top Gear VS Garage Hour, Rainy Traffic Fail, Installing Gauges, Century Clubbing, Absinthe VS Jagermeister, Little Brothers, Gun Bans VS Crime Rates, and Quantum Mechanics

Uberexcellent early Garage Hour: all of the madness, in a portable old-school one-hour size.

An aborted attempt at discussing how poorly Californians drive (in the rain) leads to a ricochet conversation on everything from how the Garage Hour goons could make an excellent Top Gear, to rock and roll, the Century Club and why you probably ought to avoid it, boost gauges and how to install them with a Sharpie, David Lozeau's Christmas party, geek versus nerd, Assange versus Zuckerberg, little brothers burying their Dodges up to the axles in mud, gun stores like Fine Firearms of La Mesa, CA, and crime rates in cities like Chicago versus towns that let honest civilians defend themselves.  It all ends with tales of Grizzly Chris's liver (it is evil and must be punished) and a chat about quantum mechanics, physics, Tiger Tiger and wildebeastses.

Dirty Dave, DSM (cum Mr.) Dustin and Black Ryan join host Justin Fort in-studio to remind you: create less chaos for Christmas and buy less crap!

Direct download: 01_Hank_Watsons_Garage_Hour_121810.mp3
Category:gearhead personality -- posted at: 3:27am EDT

07.27.13: Hillclimbing, Off-Roading, Dennis Farina Sendoff, Must-Watch Movies for Americans, World War Z Fail, Terminators, Dude Food, Crashing, and the Tank of the Week

What's the difference between World War Z, Bob Filner and .45 Phil's makeup?  Nothing, if you're the Garage Hour goons - everything's a target.  Grab this podcast of a killer episode, chock full of gearhead goodness (including hillclimbing, off-roading, race manners, Minis, old cars VS new prices, and Object 279), and a pile of other entertaining wreckage (hampster robots, suitcase guns, drinking games, Filner VS Popadich, conspiracies, DARPA, and a whole mess of movies that our pet Russian - Agent Aya - needs to see if anyone's going to believe she's not a spy), plus a proper sendoff for awesome acting dude Dennis Farina: RIP, sir, you were one of the good ones.

.45 Phil, Agent Aya and Jesse Caverly, zombie expert (it says so on his card) join Hostus Maximus Justin Fort in KCBQ's gleaming black towers of broadcast superiority for this episode of the Garage Hour.  50,000 watts of havoc ensues.

Direct download: HWGH072713.m4a
Category:gearhead personality -- posted at: 12:27am EDT

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