Our Americana

This week we head to a small and sleepy island town, that somehow exists in quiet isolation in the shadow of New York City. In this episode, you'll meet a New York mother who wanted her kids to have the free and easy childhood she had in 1970s Oregon; the man who saved his family home by turning his father's hoarding into a business of selling nostalgia; and a young man who has used his political...

Deep in the Santa Cruz mountains is a cluster of towns... San Lorenzo Valley is an area where people believe in bigfoot, where they believe that ghosts haunt the woods, where during the 70s and 80s close to a dozen serial killers buried bodies and found victims. It's a place where people believe a spaceship is buried under the mountain, which creates electromagnetic abnormalities. And despite all...

Morgantown is a place that defies expectations. Nestled in the lush, green foothills of the Appalachians, is the town that is home to West Virginia University, a large coal-mining population, and West Virginia's oldest gay bar. Against all odds, this gay bar, Vice Versa, has become the center of Morgantown's thriving and connected community. This week we talk to three "sisters" who refuse to be si...

On the peninsula of a peninsula, in the northwest of the Northwest, there is a town whose citizens pride themselves on being masters of trade; and that trade is less commodity and more currency. Some call it Busytown, others refer to it as Lynchian; and in many ways, it's where this podcast began. Today we head to Port Townsend, and tell stories of tazing deer, a boat race to Alaska, a family who...

The island of ponies... and food trucks. Chincoteague is a small island off the coast of Virginia that is inhabited by wild ponies. You may remember the book "Misty of Chincoteague" - Yeah, that Chincoteague. In this episode I chat with 3 pairs of Millennials (all of whom are foodies): A couple who runs a gourmet doughnut truck, sisters-in-law who recently arrived on the island and are still tryin...

It seemed only right that the first episode of Our Americana's podcast be about Petoskey. It was our favorite stop on the trip, and a place we've come to speak of us our own personal eden: that place you hope to end up. In the premiere episode I chat with five Millennials, who have recently moved (or returned) to small town Petoskey, about what it was like leaving the big city for a small and rura...