This is Wilson Arz. When my kids were small, I used to play a bedtime game with them. They would tell me a letter, and I would make up a nonsense song with every word starting with that letter. One that I still remember is -- “Bungling Bearded Burglars from Broadstone Beach”

Just a whimsical song with lots of alliteration.

We used to sing it as a round with me starting and then they would come in. Here’s my recreation of it.

Stingaree Gulch

A Ring-Tailed Roaring Good Time

By J. J. Mounts-Miller

Fleeing a rigged boxing match and a deadly mob ultimatum, legendary promoter Tex Rickard arrives in the Nevada boomtown of Rawhide to build his ultimate masterpiece: Stingaree Gulch, a sprawling empire of vice. As the silver rolls in, Tex sets his sights on an impossible dream—staging a controversial heavyweight championship for Jack Johnson. But in a town built on illusions, Tex meets his match in Vera Locke, a brilliant "widow" executing a devastating con. Stingaree Gulch is a high-stakes historical thriller of boomtown greed, masterful hustles, and the explosive, championship prize fight that ultimately forced a millionaire into exile.

My Dad delivered batteries all over hilly Seattle. Drove a truck. Lead-acid batteries. Batteries for cars. Trucks. Fishing Boats. Picked up old ones. Delivered new ones. The acid ate his clothes. Scarred his hands.

He had done the Army during Viet Nam. We lived in Ballard, near the locks. Upstairs in a once-Victorian house. My Mom worked at the doughnut shop. Coming in at four. Frying dozens and dozens.

In 1981, my Dad went to night school to learn welding. He wanted a job at the Navy Ship Yard, but they wouldn’t hire him because he had done drugs.

So they loaded the 1968 Chevrolet station wagon and headed South. But at Rice Hill, Oregon. It died. Broke. No job. No place to go.

Then a hippie guy in a pick-up truck offered to take us to a hippie commune. No charge. Doing it because of humanity.

So that’s where I grew up. My Dad was never a hippie. Just a good place to make things out of metal. To fix things. To make a living.

Friends and Devoted Listeners –

Appaloosa Radio Online is ending its podcast series effective January 15, 2026, shifting our focus to our VIMEO and YouTube video channels.

However, we will continue to maintain an archive of our previous audio stories for those who wish to re-visit them.

As many of you know, we began as four friends who wanted to create audio theater together. With our partnership with the Sacramento Suburban Writers, we grew into a web host for original fiction, posting over 300 audio stories.

“Where stories come alive” was our both our slogan and our operating maxim.

Now, we've expanded to include musical stories and contemporary music.

Stories. Musicals. Songs.

Join us in our new creative work.

~ Appaloosa Radio Online ~

Appaloosa Radio Offers

A new musical story

A Little Monkey Magic

Act One

A whimsical musical journey to the early days of cartoon animation, featuring Jiminy, the ever-inquisitive, always impulsive, and incredibly funny organ grinder’s monkey, and his three animator friends at the Carousel Cartoon Company of Chicago.

It was 1934 during the very worst days of the Great Depression, and, unfortunately, the Carousel Cartoon Company of Chicago was forced to close. The three animators who had operated the company decided to store the nearly half-million ink drawings on transparent celluloid that they had created by hand in the safes of Vermont’s Old Stone Mountain Life Insurance Company. By saving these cels (as they were called), they hoped to someday begin re-animating cartoons, particularly their favorite character, Jiminy, the mischievous organ grinder’s monkey. Jiminy who so loved playing tricks and making people laugh.

Even though he was now in fragments and thousands of pieces, Jiminy’s unique anima kept doing his cartoon antics. His special monkey magic had not died.

Filled with catchy tunes, laughter, and a dash of monkey mischief, this musical tale will have everyone dancing to the rhythm of courage, friendship, and a little bit of monkey magic.

A musical story in three acts.

Song List for Act One

· Jiminy – King of Cartoon Comedy

· Magic of India Ink Lines

· I’m Still Me!

· Through the Keyhole

· My Love, Lillian

· Whispers of Wonder

~Act One runs 41 minutes, 51 seconds

2025 Spring Songfest

This is a collection of songs from several stories that we have recently shared on Appaloosa Radio. Enjoy the 2025 Spring Songfest.

Selections include:

· Shadows and Silhouettes

· Whimsey Lullaby

· Weight of Goodbye

· Middle-Aged Hippie

· Coyote

· 25 is Too Slow

· Jar of Sand

· My Love is a Sonnet

· Strong Enough

· Barefoot Morning

· Grandma’s Rules

· Warm Hearts and Calloused Hands

· Beer, Cigarettes, and Stress --- My Life is a Mess

25 is too slow

By Eureka Wallace

Sign says 25,

that's a snail in disguise.

I'm a rocket on wheels,

not a cloud in my skies.

Got dreams in the trunk.

Ambitions on my dash.

Speedometer screaming, gotta move fast .

25 too slow.

Can't cage my flow.

Road's a canvas, that I paint.

Gotta let it show.

Gotta let it show.

Gotta let it show.

Wheels spinning symphonies,

heartbeats in tow

Ain't no limit when you got places to go

Ain't no limit when you got places to go

Ain't no limit when you got places to go

Regarding a Murder

Part 4 of 4

By Stan Morgan

Private Investigator

A True Story

A private investigator revisits an old murder, one that impacted him directly when he was a child.

“It was November 18, 1947. I had just turned eight and was in the Third Grade at Wayside Elementary School in the southern edge of Bakersfield.

Every day, my younger brother and I walked the three-quarters of a mile from our house in the Southgate area to the school. To avoid walking along the busy Casa Loma Highway, we crossed the irrigation canal on a narrow cement bridge, a hundred yards south of the Highway. It was near there that the grisly event occurred.

A kindergartener, a five-year-old girl was murdered the night before, battered innumerable times, the radio said, with a hammer. Every time the radio re-told the story, a new set of shivers would go up and down my spine. I was afraid, pee-in your-pants afraid.

To make matters even more fearful, she was murdered in our pretend ‘pirate’s cave’ just steps from the concrete bridge across the irrigation canal which we used everyday on our way to school.

We had played in it often, sometimes spending all day there.”

This is a true story using original source materials which may be graphic in their content. Listeners are encouraged to use discretion.