Rockville Center, Long Island Diocese Spends $100 Million on Bankruptcy Litigation
Listen to a story about the fortune the Long Island diocese is spending on costly Wall Street lawyers. The diocese is facing hundreds of sexual abuse claims. Pictured above is attorney Victor Yannacone, Jr., who has a civil rights case pending against the diocese that is affected by the bankruptcy proceedings.
Sam Lovejoy’s Act of Civil Disobedience Vs. Proposed Nuclear Power Plants is Celebrated a Half-Century Later
Listen to a story about the 1974 toppling of a weather tower in Montague, MA that ignited a nationwide movement opposing the construction of nuclear power plants. The act of civil disobedience drew a standing room only crowd to a theater in Western Massachusetts in late February 2024. Sam Lovejoy, now a 77 year-old grandfather, is unrepentant.
Ra'Zulu Ukawabutu Served 34 Years of a Murder Sentence and Now He’s a Free Man
In 1988 Ra'Zulu Ukawabutu shot Jesse Rice seven times in the head. They were both 19 at the time. But the Atlantic County Public Defender got a judge to reduce Ukawabutu’s life sentence because the court didn’t take into account the defendant’s age at the time. Listen to my story on The WBGO Journal.
Music Video Spotlights
Bombed Out Ukrainian Village
Listen to a radio story about a Utah videographer with the Las Vegas band Imagine Dragons who was compelled to go volunteer in Ukraine. During the course of delivering survival supplies in the south of the country, he met, by chance, a teenager whose home was destroyed by the Russian bombing. The videographer brought the footage he shot back to the U.S and it was used for a music video made for the Imagine Dragons song Crushed.
Harry Smith
North House Folk School
Listen to a radio story about the North House Folk School in Grand Marais, MN. Basket maker Emily Derke, pictured above, is one of the school’s instructors. She lives in a very cool yurt in Grand Marais.
Weed and Chess
Listen to a radio story about Sam Adler, a chess teacher and cannabis entrepreneur whose start-up has organized events where people can smoke weed and play chess.
New Jersey Poet Rashad Wright
Listen to a story about poet Rashad Wright, who lives in an artist complex in Paterson, New Jersey called Prototype 237. Rashad is “never wrong.”
Paterson, NJ Artist Compound Prototype 237
Listen to a radio story about Prototype 237, an artist live/work space located in a former industrial space in Paterson, New Jersey.
Directors Who Focus on Their Parents
Listen to a documentary about film directors who point their cameras at their parent and the tensions that sometimes results from the process.
Stefan Grossman and the Reverend Gary Davis
Listen to a story about the connection between the guitarist Stefan Grossman and his mentor, the late Reverend Gary Davis.
The Cancellation of “Objectionable” Murals
Listen to a story about pressure from students of color to remove or paint over historical murals they deem offensive. Among the murals that they have objected to is one in Indiana that pays homage to an Indiana newspaper that exposed the Klan’s control of the state government. The mural panels above are at Vermont Law School, where law students refused to be interviewed about their opposition to a mural about the Underground Railroad.
Privacy Campground
Listen to a story about a unique hydro-electric system that powers a campground in the Berkshire Mountains of Western Massachusetts.
Community Bands
Listen to a story about amateur community bands, some of whom date back to the 19th Century. They struggled through the pandemic and are bouncing back across the country.
Jeremiah Lockwood and the Chasidic Cantors of Brooklyn Spark a Revival of Cantorial Music
Listen to a radio story about a new album featuring chasidic cantors from Brooklyn. The recording was produce by Jeremiah Lockwood, a master of blues music who comes from a family with prominent cantors.
William Electric Black
Listen to a radio story about William Electric Black, a writer and director who has written a series of plays and a children’s book about gun violence.
JetLAG Music Festival
Listen to a radio story about the JetLAG Festival in the Catskills. The annual gathering features Russian and Easter European music. This year the war in Ukraine was on the minds of many at the event.
Mazel Tov Cocktail Party
Listen to a radio story about the band Mazel Tov Cocktail Party, whose debut album was inspired by the folk dancing scene in the Adirondack Mountains.
Photographer Chester Higgins
Listen to a story about the former New York Times photographer Chester Higgins, who has made nearly 50 trips to Africa over the last half-century.
Engineer Saul Griffith’s Quest to Electrify an Entire Suburb in Australia
Vermont father and Son Team Create Outdoor Classrooms to Cope With the Pandemic
Listen to a radio story about the Ryan family building “truss structures” for Vermont kids to use as outdoor classrooms.
Vermont Doctor Designs a Chair for Active Sitting
Reverend Billy and the Church of Stop Shopping
Listen to a short radio story about the activist performer Bill Talen’s crusade against climate catastrophe. 21 years before this piece aired on Morning Edition, my first story about the good reverend aired on Weekend Edition Saturday. (use audio player below to listen)
Industrial Musicals
Listen to an hour-long special on industrial musicals produced for PRX. This grew out of an NPR piece on the phenomenon.
Kayak Lift
Listen to a story about a community in Northern Vermont that came together to build a kayak lift for a paralyzed man who lives on a lake.
Wieselmann created a website and mobile apps to help wheelchair users find accessible venues and the transportation to get to them. You can find and rate accessible places “around the country and beyond.” by visiting Where to Wheel.
High-tech Knee Brace for Osteoarthritis
Listen to a story about the Ascend knee brace, which is covered by Medicare and allows people to avoid knee replacement surgery.
Wood-fired Wedding Caterers
Listen to a story about two wedding caterers in New England that cook over wood fires in front of the guests.
Hearing Loss Technology Advances
This ZVOX soundbar has numerous settings that enhance the dialogue in video content to help people with hearing loss understand what they’re watching.
Listen to a story about how smartphones, ear buds and soundbars are helping people with mild to moderate hearing loss cope.
The Score for Judas And The Black Messiah
The film tells the story of Fred Hampton, the Chicago Black Panther leader who was shot to death by law enforcement authorities in 1969. Listen to a radio story about director Shaka King tapping his uncle, Harlem jazz musician Craig Harris, to compose the film's score.
Author Ann Dávila Cardinal Takes Young Adult Readers To New World Of Fantasy And Reality
Ann Dávila Cardinal writes horror fiction for young adults that mixes her fascination with the genre with the reality of life in Puerto Rico, her mother's homeland. Listen to a radio profile of the Vermont writer on Here & Now.
Bosnian Film Director Has Vermont Theater Roots
Listen to a 5-minute radio story about the Oscar-nominated Bosnian film director with a connection to Vermont’s Bread and Puppet Theater.
Care Cube and COVID-19 Infection
A low-cost portable isolation unit that reduces the need for personal protective equipment, the Care Cube has a glove window and a hug suit for loved ones to see and hug patients with COVID-19 or other infectious diseases. Listen to a radio story produced for Here & Now.
No Quackery With These YouTube Stars
In 2016, Morgan Gold and Allison Gold-Ebrahimi moved from Washington, D.C., to a Vermont dairy farm. They're now raising ducks and geese and chronicle their adventures on their very popular YouTube channel. Listen to a radio story about their poultry paradise in the Northeast Kingdom.
50 Years of Doonesbury
Listen to a 36-minute edit of an interview with Doonesbury creator Garry Trudeau done for an NPR story on the 50th anniversary of the ground-breaking comic strip. The interview includes a song from the 1983 Broadway musical based on Doonesbury and an original song written and performed by two women at Universal Press Syndicate for the 1982 retirement party in Kansas City for Trudeau’s sabbatical. kalish.nyc is extremely disappointed that Mark Slackmeyer was not available for this interview.
Alice’s Restaurant
Listen to Alice Brock’s introduction to Arlo Guthrie’s anti-war classic, Alice’s Restaurant. Brock is, of course, the woman behind the restaurant “around the back.” She’s alive and, well, just getting by in Provincetown, MA.
Friends have started a Go Fund Me page to help her out.
Guide Dog Schools & the Pandemic
Listen to a short radio story on how the guide dog training schools are coping with the pandemic.
Biochar Thrives in New England
Listen to a story on Here & Now about biochar entrepreneurs around New England working to fight climate challenge and watershed pollution.
Irv & Hank
This 20+ minute piece was produced for KCRW’s Unfictional series. I produced it but didn’t narrate it. The story begins 5:40 into the show. Another version ran on The Story from WUNC. It’s a poignant tale about a friendship between Hank Rosenfeld and the legendary Hollywood Screenwriter Irv Brecher. Brecher passed away just as Rosenfeld started a book tour promoting the as told to memoir of Brecher’s career.
The TWIT Chatroom
Here’s a radio piece for the CBC tech show Spark about a chat room devoted to the TWIT podcasting network, which focuses on all things tech. A piece for pcmag.com is here.
Commercial Fishermen Vs. Off-shore Wind Farms
This reporter spent 16 hours aboard a scallop trawler out of Montauk, Long Island as part of the reporting on the threat off-shore wind farms poses to the fishery. Listen to my report for the New England News Collaborative.
Song writer Irving Burgie
He wrote Day-O and other Caribbean hits that made Harry Bellafonte a best-selling recording artist. Listen to his story on the WBGO Journal.
Andy Biskin Plays Alan Lomax
Clarinetist Andy Biskin re-interprets some of the songs musicologist Alan Lomax published in his folk song anthology. This story aired on Here & Now.
Paul Krassner R.I.P.
Here’s my NPR obit for the great investigative satirist, whose autobiography begins with the memorable line, “I was circumcised against my will.” Here’s the NPR piece I did about Krassner deciding to shut down The Realist after more than 40 years. I interviewed the TV host Steve Allen, a Realist subscriber, the day he dies in October 2000.
The Ties That Bind Sewing Project
A group known as the Catskilled Crafters, led by the artist Wendy Brackman, sewed pieces of thousands of ties together for a group textile exhibit. Read a story about them on the NPR web site.
RFK Assassination 50 Years Later
Police Harassment of Gay Men on Fire Island
On the 50th Anniversary of the successful legal challenge to police arrests of gay men having sex outdoors on Fire Island, my report for NPR looks back on the era.
The Jamestown Community Farm feeds the poor in nearby Rhode Island communities
The tractors in the barn built by volunteers are not the only things that are green at the Jamestown Community Farm. Listen to a report on Here & Now about the farm’s annual harvest dinner.
Screenwriter Hampton Fancher co-wrote Blade Runner and Its Sequel
Listen to a story from NPR's Here & Now about Fancher's tortured relationship with the Blade Runner franchise.
David Bromberg's Violin Collection
Guitar virtuoso David Bromberg has made a career as a dealer of violins and other stringed instruments. He owns the definitive collection of American-made violins and now the Library of Congress aims to acquire it. Listen to the story that aired on All Things Considered.
Tom Lopez and ZBS
Listen to a 22-minute documentary on Tom Lopez, the great radio drama producer in upstate New York. A long text piece and 4-minute radio story that aired on Weekend All Things Considered are here. Lopez is the commandante at the ZBS Foundation in Fort Edward, NY. ZBS stands for zero bull shit. Visit the ZBS web site.
DIY Dentistry
A college student in Newark, New Jersey made his own dental aligners to correct some crooked teeth. Amos Dudley is about to graduate with a degree in digital design. Now, don't you kids try this at home!
Beakman in Latin America
Listen to a story about the performer who played the wacky TV scientist Beakman. His impact on the science careers of viewers in Latin America has been immense.
My daughter Meleia
Listen to a story about a father, his daughter and the continent between them.
Indy animator Bill Plympton
Listen to a story about the independent animator Bill Plympton. This piece aired on NPR in April 2015.
Outsider artist Martin Ramirez
Listen to a story about postage stamps honoring the late folk artist Martin Ramirez. This story aired on Weekend Edition in March 2015.
Klezmer's Pete Sokolow
Listen to a story about Pete Sokolow, the Brooklyn musician known as the youngest of the old guys in klezmer music. This story aired on Weekend Edition Saturday in February 2015.
HipHop Archive
Bill Adler was the founding publicist of Def Jam Records. His archive of all things hiphop was acquired by Cornell University's rare books library. Listen to a report that aired in January 2015 on All Things Considered.
Vermont bakers
Listen to a story about Jules and Helen Rabin, who have baked bread in Plainfield, Vermont. This story aired on All Things Considered in August 2014.
Professor Irwin Corey
Listen to a story about Irwin Corey's 100th birthday celebration. This story aired on Weekend Edition Saturday in August 2014.
Yiddish Book Center
Listen to a story about the National Yiddish Book Center in Amherst, MA. Pictured above is the great Adam Seim, whose DIY book scanner is being used by the center to digitize old Yiddish books.
Mandolin Orchestras
Listen to a story about the tradition of mandolin orchestras.
WikiHouse
Listen to a story about the UK-based Wikihouse project, which promotes open source plans to cut plywood on CNC machines for making slot-together house frames.
CDZA
Listen to a story about the humorous music videos produced by CDZA, whose principles are pictured above.
Recycled Recumbents
Listen to a story about a Wisconsin man who cuts up bike frames and then welds the pieces together to make frames for recumbent bikes.
Chasidic Composer Ben Zion Shenker
Listen to a story about the chasidic composer Ben Zion Shenker (with hand on microphone). Shenker is a Modzitzer chasid and a Brooklyn treasure.
Bread & Puppet Theater
Listen to a story about the 50th anniversary of Vermont-based Bread and Puppet Theater. Pictured above is founder Peter Schumann.
The Living Theater
Desktop CNC Mill
Listen to a story about the Othermill, a desktop CNC mill manufactured in San Francisco by Saul Griffith and friends.
Art Book Store Flooded
Listen to a story about Printed Matter bookstore in Manhattan, which bounced back from the devastation of Super Storm Sandy.
Downtown Community Television
Listen to a story about Downtown Community Television, or DCTV as it's known to video producers.
Pro Lacrosse on Long Island
Listen to a story on Only A Game about Long Island's pro lacrosse team, the Lizards, whose owners include the great Jim Brown.
Ed Sanders
Listen to a story about Ed Sanders and his memoir Fug You about life on the Lower East Side during the 1960's.
Open Source Ecology
Listen to a story about the Open Source Ecology project in Missouri, where tractors are built from scratch.
Hacker Scouts
Listen to a story about Hacker Scouts, kids in organized maker groups that started in the Bay Area of California. The group has troops, or guilds as they call them, around the country. Regrettably, the Boy Scouts of America insisted they rename themselves, so they are now known as Curiosity Hacked. Apparently, the Boy Scouts own the word scout.
Detroit Farms
Listen to a story on farming in Detroit. The couple above farms and brings their produce to Detroit restaurants without the use of internal combustion engines.
Boat Motel
Listen to a story about a boatel, where people stayed on de-commissioned power boats docked at a marina in Far Rockaway. The boats were no longer seaworthy but came with a charming soundtrack of jets taking off at nearby Kennedy Airport.
Trout Gulch
The DIY homestead known as Trout Gulch was started by three filmmakers in the mountains outside Santa Cruz, CA. They have moved on to other things. Listen to my story on a 2011 visit there.
Box Truck Party
Listen to a story about a box truck party held in a desolate, industrial section of Oakland, CA where box trucks were converted into environmental and theatrical spaces.
Blissful Bedrooms
Listen to a story about Blissful Bedrooms, a saintly New York City crew that does bedroom makeovers for disabled teenagers.
Hackerspaces
A later story chronicled the emergence of makerspaces as hotbeds of entrepreneurial innovation.
Tiny Houses
Listen to a story on the tiny house scene. Vermonter Peter King (pictured above) does tiny house building workshops in which a small structure is built over the course of a weekend.
Abraham, Inc.
Listen to a story about David Krakauer's klezmer/funk/hiphop band Abraham, Inc.
The Fugs
Listen to a story about the legendary art rock band The Fugs.
Windowfarms
Listen to a story about the urban hydroponics project Windowfarms.
Jay Craven
Listen to a story about Vermont independent filmmaker Jay Craven.
Dumpster Pools
Listen to a story about swimming pools made from garbage dumpsters.
Bamboo Bikes
Listen to a story about a bike building studio in Brooklyn where DIY'ers built bike frames from bamboo. The Bamboo Bike Studio has since closed down.
DIY Superstar Tim Anderson
Latin/Jewish Thang
Listen to a story about the Mazel Tov Mis Amigos project, an exploration of the Jewish/Latin fusion scene.
Solar Backpack
Listen to a story about how to build a solar backpack that will charge your cellphone.
Indian Raga Fellows
Listen to a story about Indian classical music and a fellowship program to nurture the tradition in North America.
Snowmobiling
Listen to a story about snowmobiling in Vermont. Pictured above is a Model T from the 1920's that was converted into a snowmobile.
Fat Bikes
Listen to a story about fat biking on Only A Game.
Leo Laporte
Listen to a piece about the TWIT podcasting network.
Vermont Hemp
Listen to a story about efforts to grow industrial hemp in Vermont.
Hurricane Carter
Listen to an obituary for Rubin Hurricane Carter, pictured above on the left. The man on the right is his co-defendant John Artis, who took care of Carter during the last months of his life.
Dwarf Basketball
Listen to a story about the Michael Jordan of dwarf basketball.
High School Makerspaces
Listen to a story about high schools makerspaces funded by DARPA, the Defense Department's investment wing. Pictured above are students at a high school in Sebastopol, CA.
Strongmen
Triangle Shirtwaist Fire
Listen to a story on the centennial of the Triangle Shirtwaist Fire.
Itzhak Perlman
Listen to a story about violinist Itzhak Perlman collaborating with the cantor Yitzchak Meir Helfgot.
Sam Lovejoy
Listen to a story about Sam Lovejoy, an anti-nuclear activist in the 1970's who became a civil servant in Massachusetts.
Donald Martiny
Listen to a story about North Carolina painter Donald Martiny and his work at the World Trade Center in New York. The audio player is at the bottom of the page on NPR member station WUNC's web site.