For this BCR "Park Bench Chats" episode -- once again, recording in Riverside Park, beneath the majestic and crumbling Soldiers' and Sailors' Monument -- Rebecca and Alan challenged Upper West Side, Manhattan neighbors to match wits with "Dear Abby" - "Ask Ann Landers" - and, "Ask Amy." These "amateurs" came up some amazing and insightful advice on several real-life, personal traumas. And -- in our estimation -- exceeded the professionals. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more informat...
Sep 03, 2021•41 min•Season 6Ep. 146
BCR was on road trip to the Eastern Shore of Virginia and came upon a magical room in the small town of Onancock – an art gallery with bright yellow walls and bold, color-filled, paintings that held a singular theme, reflecting the artist’s visionary connection to the African American women who inhabited his youth. Danny Doughty calls himself a visionary folk artist. According to Eastern Virginia shore writer Ted Shockley: “[Doughty] paints scenes of the uncomplicated, quiet life he wishes for h...
Aug 27, 2021•54 min•Season 6Ep. 145
Bar Crawl Radio travelled to Henderson County, in western North Carolina to talk with author and apple grower, Evan Williams, whose family has resided in the Blue Ridge Mountains since before the Revolutionary War. His writing abides within the people and culture of small town Appalachia. From Evan’s website -- “Surrounded by orchard, and writing from within a former apple storage shed, converted to dwelling, Evan inhabits the family compound along with a smattering of his adult, married childre...
Aug 20, 2021•1 hr 9 min•Season 6Ep. 144
Like something out of the 1956 film “Invasion of the Body Snatchers” –-- Donald Trump has invaded our psyches as we sleep. We live in an irrational nation – and we work out our roiling emotions in our dreams. Dreaming about the Trumpster is a thing -- according to a study done by a NYC psycho-therapist – Martha M. Crawford. For this BCR episode -- Park Bench Chat series -- we asked our neighbors promenading in Riverside Park – if the former president had made an appearance in their dreams. Along...
Jul 26, 2021•43 min•Season 6Ep. 143
Here's a Bar Crawl Radio’s "Park Bench Chat" episode – Rebecca and Alan set up our portable studio in Manhattan’s Riverside Park on the Promenade and we talk to our UWS neighbors about a topic of -- hopefully -- interest. Rebecca went into this question thinking it would be silly and fun. I was expecting vociferous pushback from our neighbors – neither happened. Rather – the idea of a man gestating a fetus within his body -- generated serious – thoughtful – affective responses from four UWS neig...
Jul 23, 2021•42 min•Season 6Ep. 142
Rebecca and Alan talk with two Catholic Workers who have been in prison for protesting U.S. Navy submarines armed with world-ending numbers of nuclear missiles. We first talked with Carmen Trotta and Martha Hennessy on the porch of Gebhard’s Beer Culture Bar in Manhattan in June 2019 – a bit over two years ago. At the time, Martha and Carmen and other members of the anti-war Plowshares movement were under house arrest for trespassing onto the Kings Bay Naval Submarine Base in Georgia, the previo...
Jun 22, 2021•1 hr 4 min•Season 5Ep. 141
This BCR episode is produced for Manhattanites voting in the 2021 city-wide elections. We spoke with four of the candidates for the Manhattan Borough President position being vacated by Gale Brewer. We spoke with each candidate for about 20 minutes -- featuring person over policy. 00:03:10 -- Brad Hoylman 00:22:20 -- Lindsey Boylan 00:43:40 -- Kim Watkins 01:05:10 -- Ben Kallos 01:26:50 -- Louis Puliafito Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information....
Jun 14, 2021•1 hr 39 min•Season 5Ep. 139
Geof Burke -Saxophonist, band leader and recently toured with Harry Connick Jr. / Steven Feifke -Pianist, band leader, arranger and composer / Dave Pietro --Saxophonist and Director of Jazz Studies at NYU -- joined me to talk about how their music is continuing in the city despite the fact that all of the great NYC Jazz venues are now closed. Social distancing can become an opportunity of all sorts as revealed in this most interesting conversation. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more...
Jun 11, 2021•35 min•Season 5Ep. 138
StreetopiaUWS and Bar Crawl Radio Podcast sponsored this “Meet your City Council Candidates” event - recorded at the Eleanor Roosevelt Monument on W. 72nd Street in Riverside Park. we spent an hour on a beautiful -- if hot -- summer day getting to know three of the City Council candidates vying to represent the most populated neighborhood in the country – Manhattan’s Upper West Side: Maria Danzilo, Sara Lind, and Jeffery Omura. Gale Brewer, Zack Weiner and David Gold could not join us -- though ...
Jun 06, 2021•1 hr 8 min•Season 5Ep. 137
Can a podcast be more than people talking at each other? Co-hosts - guests - mics and recorder - an interesting topic. NOW -- remove the "jabber-jabber." Make room for wondrous silence. We thought we would experiment with form and style and establish a new podcasting precedent. Talking about the issues has not worked -- so let's NOT talk about the issues. I know -- it's crazy, but it might work. It's new -- it's revolutionary -- might I say, it's -- Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for mor...
Jun 04, 2021•26 min•Season 5Ep. 136
Being naughty goes along with being a child. Yes? After all, when you brand your sister with a hot ruler who could blame you -- you're a child -- you have no morals or sense of appropriate adult behavior. Return with Rebecca and Alan as they sit on a bench on the Riverside Park Promenade on a beatific NYC afternoon and talk to their neighbors about those carefree days when we roamed our realm wreaking havoc as free spirits -- lording over the flies. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for mor...
May 28, 2021•36 min•Season 5Ep. 135
We had a delightful conversation under the Joan of Arc Statue on W. 93rd Street in Manhattan with Evelyn Kanter -- NYC TV news reporter and guide book writer – about her new book 100 Things to Do in New York City before You Die . Ms. Kanter has a degree in journalism from the University of Missouri. She was the consumer reporter on WABC-TV “Eyewitness News” and before that on WCBS Radio reporting on rip-offs and best buys. She has written for the New Times , Post and Daily News , as well as The ...
May 21, 2021•39 min•Season 5Ep. 134
This BCR episode was recorded at a great Upper West Side, Manhattan eateries and bar -- 5Napkin . Finally, we are back having conversations with amazing people in our favorite bars. Kathleen Collins is the Graduate Studies Librarian at John Jay College of Criminal Justice since 2007 – and a whole lot more. She has a double degree in psychology – a degree from the Cultural Reporting and Criticism Program at NYU and has written three books on television – “Dr. Joyce Brothers: The Founding Mother o...
May 14, 2021•1 hr 6 min•Season 5Ep. 132
If you are a baseball fan -- a Giants fan -- a fan of San Francisco -- this BCR episode is for you. It opens with Ron Fairly of KNBR calling the back to back home runs of Candy Maldonado and Will Clark in the 1987 game between the Houston Astro and the San Francisco Giants. The Giants would give up the National League Pennant to St Louis – and not win the World Series until 2010 against the Texas Rangers – 56 years after their last series win. We talked with Lincoln Mitchell whose newest book lo...
May 07, 2021•56 min•Season 5Ep. 131
Once again BCR recorded on an UWS street; this time we were set up in front of the stoop where Humphrey Bogart played stickball as a kid -- W. 103rd Street -- just down from Broadway. It was an "Earth Day Celebration" organized by Lisa Orman of StreetopiaUWS . While musicians from the MET Orchestra performed, Jody Sperling's Time Lapse Dance gamboled, and the kids rolled hula hoops into our mics, we spoke with long time proponents of the open streets initiative -- including -- Henry Rinehart : f...
Apr 30, 2021•58 min•Season 5Ep. 130
This BCR conversation was quite special for Rebecca and me. We had agreed at the beginning of 2020 to investigate how racism permeates our society, our values, and individual behavior. We continue to want to work on our own complicity in what J. Chester Johnson calls this country's "damaged heritage" which is also the title of his new book. "Damaged Heritage” looks deeply into the 1919 Elaine, Arkansas massacre, when over 100 Black Americans were murdered by White posses and soldiers of the U.S....
Apr 22, 2021•1 hr 4 min•Season 4Ep. 129
Concert violinist Rolf Schulte describes pianist, Jeffrey Swann, as a polymath, speaker of several languages, and a magnificent musician. Mr. Swann has won several prestigious piano competitions – including the Queen Elizabeth Piano Competition in Brussels as a young man and then the Ciani Competition in Italy and a prize at the Chopin Competition in Warsaw. The last few years he has run a music festival and teaches at a conservatory in Italy. Early in his career Mr Swann was also a composer and...
Apr 16, 2021•56 min•Season 4Ep. 128
PWIIGF podcast brings together two poets who have something in common read and talk about their work. For this episode we consider how word, image and mass interact within the creative artist. Rick Mullin’s poetry has been published in many journals and anthologies, including The Dark Horse , American Arts Quarterly , The New Criterion , and Rabbit Ears: TV Poems . His collection “Lullaby and Wheel,” was published in 2019 by Kelsay Books. When he was in his mid-30s Rick visited the Los Angeles C...
Apr 03, 2021•1 hr 2 min•Season 4Ep. 127
Were you bullied in middle school? Were you the bully? This BCR is for you. We talked with Simone Ellin – a journalist who sought out those in her middle school “cool girl clique” who befriended and then bullied her. Now grown -- some would not talk to her but several did – and her recent re-telling of her experiences in Lilith magazine and the Huffington Post went viral; her Facebook creds skyrocketed. And as she writes in Jmore – “Finally I am the popular girl.” Also, we spoke with Dieter Wolk...
Mar 19, 2021•49 min•Season 4Ep. 126
We live in Manhattan's Upper West Side and Rebecca wants her own car. She has wanted a cute little car -- a Fiat -- for since her "Ruby"-- the sporty plum colored Mercury--died of neglect shortly after we met. I oppose raising another car in our car-infested city and GHG choked world -- but I gave in -- she really, really wants a hunk of well-designed metal. My reasoning? -- If she experiences the trials of city-based car ownership, it will not be long before we will be car-free, once again. So ...
Feb 26, 2021•36 min•Season 4Ep. 125
An important topic we have explored over several BCR programs is the work carried out by Witness Against Torture – who for 15 years have actively protested the incarceration of Muslim men from all over the world -- at Guantanamo, Cuba. Since 2002 almost 800 have been detained – most released and now 40 remain – uncharged with a crime. Some have been there going on 20 years in extremely ugly conditions.For this episode we talked with a former U.S. Army Captain who loyally served his country at th...
Feb 19, 2021•1 hr 1 min•Season 4Ep. 124
Coming out of the call for “Black Power” in the 1960s by Malcolm X and others, historian and playwright Larry Neal describes a new breed of Black artist taking on the contradictions of the Black person’s experience in the racist West and developing a “black aesthetic.” For this "Poetry--What Is It Good For?" episode, we talked with one of the lead architects of Black Arts Movement [BAM] poetry, Eugene B. Redmond -- the longtime poet laureate of East St. Louis -- and with poet and Redmond colleag...
Feb 13, 2021•1 hr 16 min•Season 4Ep. 123
Let it be noted that this Bar Crawl Radio conversation was recorded the day after a U.S. President was impeached for the second time. And for this episode our BCR producer Alina Larson brought together three musical minds who will recommend music you may have not heard of but great to listen to a presidential impeachment by. Jim Harrington is the Pop Music critic for the Bay Area News Group and he told us a story about Daryl Hall -- or was it John Oates? Dawn Sutter Madell just worked on the mus...
Jan 20, 2021•56 min•Season 4Ep. 122
Your BCR hosts were surprised and honored when Catholic Worker, Bud Courtney, took us up the wooden stairs of Maryhouse to Dorothy Day's bedroom for our conversation on the Catholic Worker's soup kitchen feeding the the poor and homeless, We were joined by Joann Kennedy who heads up Maryhouse. They told us that Day had lived the last years of her life and died in the room in which we were recording. We talked about Bud's and Joann's commitment to serving their neighbors in need both with food an...
Jan 04, 2021•1 hr 2 min•Season 4Ep. 121
This will be our third visit with the hosts of the podcast -- Angst and Daisies -- Caroline Aaron, co-starring in "The Amazing Mrs. Maisel", and Steve Saporito, lawyer and knower of current American politics. We talked a bit about about the state of our country -- some on the Amazon hit series -- and a morsel on our favorite Christmas tunes and films. It was a lot of fun catching up with our new buddies who are now "old" friends. Contact Rebecca and Alan at barcrawlradio@gmail.com Hosted on Acas...
Dec 28, 2020•52 min•Season 4Ep. 120
This is a BCR EXTA. Rhonda Roland Shearer was a first responder for the WTC first responders directly after the attack on Sept. 11th, 2001, At the time – she and her daughter London handed out a million dollars in PPE, construction helmets, bolt cutters and other essential equipment that supported those who worked the PIT. IN BCR 119 Rhonda tells that story and talks about her recent efforts at supplying PPE and other lifesaving materials to hospital workers in NYC. For this BCR extra Ms. Sheare...
Dec 20, 2020•18 min•Season 4Ep. 119
How was 9/11 like COVID19? Both needed effective PPE. Rhonda Roland Shearer satisfied that need then and now. This is a must listen BCR episode featuring a person who you should know. Soon after the destruction Rhonda and her daughter were at the WTC Pit handing out effective digging and cutting equipment and protective gear to the first responders despite being kicked out by city officials and did so on her own dime - over $1 million. She became a known figure at the WTC site for many months an...
Dec 20, 2020•1 hr•Season 4Ep. 119
Rebecca McKean and I - Alan Winson - were back at our "studio" in the loft at Gebhard's Beer Culture Bar in our Upper West Side neighborhood. Rebecca is an elementary school teacher, and I had watched her conduct distant learning classes in our tiny apartment from our dining room table and listened to her concerns about her students for months and wanted to interview her about the difficulties of teaching as an elementary school teacher during the pandemic. This is one dedicated teacher's experi...
Dec 05, 2020•32 min•Season 4Ep. 118
This will be the third visit with scientist and genetics expert -- Nathan Lents . We focused our conversation on the nature of the "long-haul" maladies of those who have had the COVID19 virus. These serious health outcomes are known to effect even those who did not manifest the disease. And we talked to Dr. Lents about the new approach to viral vaccines using the mRNA technique. We also talked to two COVID19 survivors about their experience during and after contracting the infection. Believe it ...
Nov 23, 2020•52 min•Season 4Ep. 117
We were joined by two world-class poets from Hispaniola -- Jean Dany Joachim writes in Haitian Creole and Spanish poet Rhina P. Espaillat who left the Dominican Republic as a young girl fleeing the Trujillo massacre of 1937. Their poetry cuts to the bone of the immigrant experience in simple but deeply revealing ways. This episode is a lively conversation with lovely people who interpret their poetry in most accessible performances. CONTACT: barcrawlradio@gmail.com Hosted on Acast. See acast.com...
Nov 20, 2020•1 hr 6 min•Season 4Ep. 116
