Bar Crawl Radio

We were out in Riverside Parks at the "You've Got Mail" Promenade bench of our choice talking with NYCSleepDoctor.com Dr, Janet Kennedy. The tourist helicopters were ubiquitous and our UWS neighbors had many questions for Dr. Kennedy about their sleep issues. If there is one thing I learned from this conversation is that a good night's sleep is basic to good health and an interesting life. Listeni...

A podcast featuring people working for their neighbors. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

West Side Community Garden on May 25, 2025 – Joseph Darcourt is an American-born Peruvian-Taiwanese cellist who has been honored by three US presidents. When he was 12 -- he debut at Carnegie Hall. And at 16 he began researching the power of music at Columbia University. This program features Mr. Darcourt performing Bach's Cello Suite #1 in G Major. I caught up with Joseph a few weeks after t...

Bar Crawl Radio is back at the West Side Community Garden talking with UWSers helping those in need on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. Wendy Straus and BCR producer Alina Larson talked about their work for Open Hearts Initiatives and Pastor K [Karpan] told us about his Church on W. 86th Street. These two UWS organizations are doing in many programs to help our recent migrants from around the wor...

Ross Barkan’s newest novel “Glass Century” is a panoramic story of New York City from our crime-ridden 70s. through the tragedy of 9/11 to the COVID lockdowns.  The story focuses on Mona Glass a photojournalist in love with tennis and a married man. For this BCR podcast, we are not so interested in Mona Glass as the character in a novel but as a lens into the experiences of an Ameri...

A conversation with two veterans of American wars in Vietnam and Afghanistan – about their work with “We Are Not Your Soldiers” – informing high school and college students about the morally unpleasant truths of the US military. In 2008 the anti-war organization – “World Can’t Wait” -- invited American war veterans to share their military experiences with high school and college students – challen...

For this BCR series I have been asking American peacemakers: “What are we talking about when we talk about ‘The American’?” This program looks to a Jesuit priest and peacemaker Thomas Merton. At the end of “The Root of War” published in The Catholic Worker in 1962 – Thomas Merton wrote – “The first job of all is to understand the psychological forces at work in ourselves and in society.”&nbsp...

This is the third in the BCR series "Talking About The American" -- We are asking American peacemakers to try to explain how they see the qualities of our countrymen. This episode – How’d we do with AIDS? I was in Syracuse for a Veterans for Peace pro-Palestine rally at the James M. Hanley Federal Building . Before the rally I had breakfast with Christian Caurla – an Italian journalist –...

Rob Fersh talks about collaborative problem solving and his new book, co-authored with Mariah Levison “From Conflict to Convergence: Coming Together to Solve Tough Problems” – As our country divides up its wealth between a few gazillionairs and the rest of us – coming together seems a worthwhile goal. Rob Fersh is the Founder and Senior Advisor of the Convergence Center for Policy Resolution . &nb...

This BCR Podcast series will be asking American peace activists a question borrowed from Raymond Carver: “What are we talking about when we talk about ‘The American’ ?” This episode looks at an anti-Vietnam War, anti-nuclear peace activist, longtime incarcerated American criminal – and Catholic priest – Philip Berrigan. Brad Wolf joined me via Zoom to help. Recently, Brad edited a collection...

TALKING ABOUT "THE AMERICANS": BURYING GAZA BABIES On December 9, 2024 -- I talked with several of the nearly 50 protestors holding a mock funeral on a plot of grass at the front of the Syracuse Federal Building . It was a rainy and cold morning as several peacemakers neatly ripped away the grass and created a shallow oblong hole into which a half dozen babies in the form of bloodied pillows were...

For this BCR recording we were at the Hollow Nickel Bar in Brooklyn NY.  Why a hollow nickel -- check out their website.  We had a wild, funny and crucially important conversation about the work of the Church of Stop Shopping with Rev. Billy and Vera Anderson, They had just finished their Saturday morning "Earth Riot" radio show at WBAI. Rev. Billy is an enactment of activist actor and w...

Once again -- recording on the porch of Gebhard's Beer Culture Bar located in Manhattan's Upper West Side -- BCR hosts Rebecca McKean and Alan Winson talk with the four composers and performers and leaders of Composer's Concordance about "contemporary [classic] music." This music movement has been described by the New York Times as “unpredictable … irreverent …and ingenious.” For over four decades...

July, 2024. BCR visited the Hot Air Brewing in Creston, Iowa this summer. It is a bastion of liberality and acceptance. We were in Iowa to visit our friends Brian Terrell and Betsy Kennan of the "Strangers and Guests Catholic Worker Farm," in Malloy, IA -- about 30 miles south of Creston; Betsy and Brian introduced us to Iowan's Katie Davidson and Ryan Fuller. When we talked with her, Katie owned...

The 26th Kateri Peace Conference held in Fonda, NY in mid-September, 2024 was entitled “What’s Love Got to do with it?”  The outcome of peace activism is the end of always-war. If, indeed, we are all connected on this minuscule green spot in a vast universe – if we are sisters and brothers who care for each other – why do we choose to kill each other in horrific and massive ways?&nb...

Mid-September. BCR moderated the 26th Kateri Peace Conference panel with anti-war and anti-nuclear deterrence activists. We took that opportunity to talk with Melissa Bramble the Director of Operations of the St. Kateri Tekakwitha National Shrine and Historic Site in Fonda NY. Rebecca McKean asked Melissa about the history of St. Kateri and the Shrine. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy f...

Back in early Spring 2024 -- we net Bronx Public Defender Eli Northrup as he was beginning his run for NY State Assembly representative for the UWS. We were recording outside the Goddard Riverside Community Center at West 88th St and Columbus Avenue, talking to neighbors celebrating “Love Your Street Tree Day” – and Eli came up to our open mic. Eli placed second in the election for State...

BCR podcast traveled to Mexico and Scotland in August and asked what citizens of the world were feeling about the U.S. Presidential election. Nearly everyone I met was aware of the election and had significant and personal feelings about "Americans" and their limited choice for leadership. I talked with people from Puerta Vallarta, San Miguel de Allende, Edinburgh, and Aberfeldy -- tourists, a wai...

Mid July, this year -- 2024 – Rebecca McKean and I flew into Chicago and then drove to Maloy Iowa – a few miles north of the Missouri border. We passed Joliet – Dekalk – Moline – Iowa City – Cedar Rapids - Ottunwa - Mt Ayr – then – Maloy, Iowa. At one time – not so long ago – Maloy had a small population. Its buildings remain:  A medium sized Catholic Church – small Post Office – Ge...

For the past three years BCR podcast has recorded on Sundays in June from the West Side Community Garden, As usual, we talked with neighbors doing amazing work for their community and featured the music of local artists performing in the Garden during the month. For this BCR program we invited three leaders of the WSCG to talk about its history. By a miraculous convergence of urban decay and sheer...

Complete performance of the Scott Munson Jazz Quintet at the West Side Community Garden on June 16, 2024. CONTACT: barcrawlradio@gmail.com Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

A full length presentation of a performance by La Manga in the West Side Community Garden in June 2024. For a conversation with La Manga founder, Daniela Serna, go to BCR #230. Alan Winson barcrawlradio@gmail.com Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

For the fourth time this summer Bar Crawl Radio podcast is not at a bar.  But we are continuing to have conversations with neighbors doing positive work for their community.  We will be talking with a citizen journalists who works in the field of peace activism and whose writing is published in Pressenza – an international news agency pushing ideas of peace, non-violence, and human right...

For this BCR conversation we were not at a bar having a conversation with people working positively for their communities – but at Inwood Park – in upper Manhattan – former home of the Lenape People. Catholic Worker, Anthony Donovan, opens this program as he talks to a group of about 20 people who had joined the Veteran's for Peace " 2024 Peace Walk" -- for the day. The VFP Walk started in Og...

For this BCR conversation at the West Side Community Garden we investigated the stories of two ladies--one affected by chance--the other by choice. The first story is about a chance phone call that led to instant and fleeting fame – and the other -- a choice to help recently arrived neighbors which will lead to – what? Rebecca McKean and I were set-up in the southeast corner of the West Side Commu...