Rumble Strip

This is an interview with a very old friend of mine, and the person who trained me as a private investigator. She taught me everything from basics like how to look up criminal records to the very advanced skills I learned. Susan Randall has been a PI in Vermont for fifteen years. She works on the some of the biggest cases in the state…and she’s really good. Susan can find anyone, and she can get t...

[soundcloud url=”https://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/215213074″ params=”color=ff5500&inverse=false&auto_play=false&show_user=true” width=”100%” height=”20″ iframe=”true” /] Kevin DeMars estimates he’s been homeless ten times in his 58 years. I met with him in his apartment in Rutland, Vermont and we talked about why he’s been homeless so many times, and what it was like to live in the woods. It’s a...

kuKendall Wild worked for nearly half a century at the Rutland Herald and he’s a legend in Vermont journalism. He died on April 2, 2015. By all accounts he was eccentric, competitive, and utterly committed to getting the story…and getting it first. Wild was the paper’s managing editor all through the sixties and seventies. There was a whole generation of journalists who came up through the ranks u...

[soundcloud url=”https://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/214270716″ params=”color=ff5500&inverse=false&auto_play=false&show_user=true” width=”100%” height=”20″ iframe=”true” /] Here’s a show from Larry Massett about cars. And honor. Larry owns two Porsches, and he talks about them a lot. In fact it’s almost all he ever talks about. His friend, Joe Frank, is a BMW man. Which is the superior car? The Pors...

[soundcloud url=”https://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/213298322″ params=”color=ff5500&inverse=false&auto_play=false&show_user=true” width=”100%” height=”20″ iframe=”true” /] This was my first year as a soccer mom and I’m here to tell you, it’s harder than it looks. I never played team sports, I still don’t really understand soccer, and I spent an entire season screaming ‘GET IT IN THE BASKET!’ Being...

For the last couple years, in addition to producing this show, I’ve also been doing interviews for an organization called The Wake Up to Dying Project . The basic goal of the project is to encourage people to think and talk more about the fact that we die, and at the heart of the project is a sound exhibit that features audio stories–lots and lots of them. Last month I did an interview for this pr...

[soundcloud url=”https://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/209841412″ params=”color=ff5500&inverse=false&auto_play=false&show_user=true” width=”100%” height=”20″ iframe=”true” /] Here’s a story from Otto Trautz of Cabot, Vermont. It takes place in 1966 and starts with a phone call and a very compelling proposition. This story was originally told at extempo, central Vermont’s live storytelling event produc...

I was meeting a friend at a coffee shop and a song came on the radio that I hadn’t heard since I was in my late twenties. It reminded me of a time when I’d stay up all night long with friends, talking and drinking around bonfires. It was before children and spouses, and before everyone moved to wherever it is they went. It was a time when we had endless amounts of time. So when I heard this song a...

It’s time again for a sampling from the Barre and Montpelier police logs, as reported in the Times Argus. This month there were a number of disturbing animal reports. Sick raccoons, catatonic woodchucks, and more. Also, a number of naked children. Come listen if you dare. [soundcloud url=”https://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/206723347″ params=”color=ff5500&inverse=false&auto_play=false&show_user=true...

Radio production and private investigation have a lot in common. You ask questions, find out what happened, and try to figure out why. This is a show I made with Larry Massett for NPR’s Hearing Voices in 2011. None of the people you hear in this story were investigation clients of mine where they did pardons according to https://nationalpardon.org/pardons-canada/ . They were all young men on furlo...

[soundcloud url=”https://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/205325448″ params=”color=ff5500&inverse=false&auto_play=false&show_user=true” width=”100%” height=”20″ iframe=”true” /] A commentary from Marc Estrin about the three things he learned in twenty-five years of school. The only three things. Marc Estrin is a writer, cellist, and political activist who lives in Burlington, Vermont. His most recent boo...

Larry Massett was driving up through northern California toward Oregon and ended up spending a little more time at Mt. Shasta than he’d had in mind, thankfully he had his flashlight in his trunk. Was it coincidence ? Was it fate that drew Larry to one of the country’s most famous destinations for the spiritually curious? In this story you’ll hear from some naked meditators, UFO solicitors, and the...

Michael Chorney is a self taught musician, arranger and composer. If you asked me what genre of music he makes, I’d have no idea. All of them? None of them? He spent years mastering different musical genres in both guitar and baritone sax. He’s played British Isles-inspired folk music, improvisational jazz, soul, rock. And over the years, in his own music, the lines between these genres have gotte...

This is a show about love, family and dementia. Part one features a show I made in 2008 about one family’s experience living with an elderly mother’s progressive dementia. Part two features an interview with one of the story’s main characters, Greg Sharrow, about what’s changed, and what he’s learned, in the five years since we made After the Forgetting. After the Forgetting features Greg Sharrow,...

This is an essay about cooking and all the shame and rage and frustration that can accompany this art. Writer Sarah Miller describes her desire to be loved and appreciated for her fig galettes, and her decision to quit cooking altogether. Sarah is the author of the novels Inside the Mind of Gideon Rayburn and The Other Girl , and she contributed to the bestseller The Bitch in the House . She has w...

Today, a true story about two strangers who meet and talk very late one night on a northbound NYC subway. The story is from Otto Trautz, and was originally told live on stage at extempo, central Vermont’s totally excellent live storytelling event. And if my name were Otto Trautz, I’d have great stories too. Welcome. To hear more true stories live onstage, visit extempo’s website here . [soundcloud...

Into Tuesday we’ll see gusty winds, an early morning cold front east of Route 2 and a massive low pressure system delivering winter-like temperatures and moderate rain east of the Greens. Here are Eyes on the Sky. Eyes on the Sky was written by Montpelier resident Linda Coble. And thank you to the brave meteorologists at Eye On the Sky , who have delivered so much bad news, so well, for so long. W...

Welcome to The Mudroom. This is a commentary from Hilton Dier of Middlesex, Vermont. He proposes that much of Vermont politics is really about who has enough time and money to…show up. Please fling us your comments at the bottom of this page! We love to hear from you. Hilton is a renewable energy consultant and author of the incomparable blog, Minor Heresies using Advance Systems . The Mudroom is...

Ed Epstein is a portrait artist of some renown in these parts. But painting has comprised only a fraction of Ed’s artistic life. As a kid in the fifties he hitch hiked across the country with only a banjo and a few bucks.  He fell in love with the Bach cello suites and spent the next twenty years mastering the cello so he could play them. Ed has designed and built woodstoves, houses, and when his...

Tonight I was driving home from Montpelier with my son, and we were both happy because today really did feel like maybe spring will come this year, and we were listening to Miriam Bernardo sing. It was a recording I made of a house show a couple years ago. There’s something so beautiful to me about this live recording, and  I figured I’d share one of the songs with you. Here’s Miriam, and Michael...

[soundcloud url=”https://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/195178661″ params=”color=ff5500&inverse=false&auto_play=false&show_user=true” width=”100%” height=”20″ iframe=”true” /] The sock went missing in November, was encased in ice in someone’s driveway, and yesterday it was released. The end of winter is nigh everyone. This is for real. It’s time again for a sampling from the Barre and Montpelier police...

A couple months ago I ran a commentary by Marc Estrin called Poopy Old Man . In this commentary, he talks about feeling increasingly invisible to the people around him as he gets older. It’s a rather dark perspective on aging. This is a response to that commentary, and offers a somewhat different perspective on getting older. Here’s a conversation between Larry Massett and Marianne Ross of Washing...

[soundcloud url=”https://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/191291077″ params=”color=ff5500&inverse=false&auto_play=false&show_user=true” width=”100%” height=”20″ iframe=”true” /] This is a conversation about love and objects. It’s from a late night conversation with my friend Clare Dolan . In the week leading up to Valentine’s Day, we sat on my couch and talked about a special kind of love that exists bet...

[soundcloud url=”https://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/189626294″ params=”color=ff5500&inverse=false&auto_play=false&show_user=true” width=”100%” height=”20″ iframe=”true” /] You can learn a lot about a place from the local police log. A couple weeks ago I was reading the Times Argus , and I read a police log that I was sure held some kind of message for me. There was a lost key, a found wallet, and a...

From my house, if you take a left through the woods, then a right up a dirt road, and then another right up another dirt road, you come to a really old farmhouse. That’s where Leland lives, and where he’s thinking things over. Last week he agreed to talk with me about some of these things. Death, deep space, and Revolutionary War reenactments. Welcome. The music in this show is from the remarkable...