Bar Crawl Radio

I do not like roller coasters. For me -- the anticipated terror proceeding the drop along with the stomach-churning loss of gravity is not thrilling fun; it is just TERROR! Nevertheless, the roller coaster is a summer-fun staple for many of us. Another stomach-churning staple for fewer Americans is the memory of the United States Air Force dropping two atomic bombs on Japanese cities at the end of...

Rebecca McKean and I visited Alice Slater in her Upper East Side apartment. Since 1968, Ms. Slater has been an anti-war activist and since 1987 an anti-nuclear bomb protestor.  As a young mother she helped organize Eugene McCarthy’s presidential campaign working to end the war in Viet Nam and then got a law degree. Alice is the United Nations NGO Representative of the Nuclear Age Pe...

One of our regular gigs is the West Side Community Garden Summer Concerts . The final offering of 2023 featured the luscious sounds of Afro-Haitian Jazz performed by Mozayik – led by drummer Gashford Guillaume – who has performed with Haitian superstars -- Emeline Michel and Beethova Obas.  And  at festivals in Amsterdam, Canada, Japan, Mexico, Haiti, Cuba, St, Lucia, Martiniqu...

Bar Crawl Radio podcast hosts sojourned back to the West Side Community Garden for a concert with the music duo, Brooklyn​-​Cumaná – Jorge Glem on the Venezuelan Cuatro and Sam Reider on the accordion.  We start with a delightful conversation with former Manhattan Borough President and present UWS City Council member -- Gale Brewer. We also invited her husband Cal Snyder because our goal was...

A program of good sounds -- mix of classic jazz and hip hop beats -- and noise -- nonessential helicopters circling our City. We talked with leaders of Stop the Chop -- Melissa Elstein and Ken Counghlin -- working to end the incessant noise of private helicopters hovering over our heads. And we caught up with a former BCR guest -- jazz saxophonist Geoff Burke -- and learned about his unique synthe...

In the spring of 1958 – the Golden Rule -- a 30 foot skiff crewed by four -- sailed towards the Marshall Islands where the U.S. military was testing atomic bombs. Their plan was to anchor their tiny boat in the waters close to the Bikini and Enewetak Atolls -- in order to stop the atomic testing. Over six decades later a restored “Golden Rule” sailed up the Hudson River and moored at Chelsea...

Interview with Lew Tabackin -- world famous jazz musician -- in his home on the UWS of Manhattan -- July 2018. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

May 21, 2023 - 6pm. West Side Community Garden It was a delightful evening in the West Side Community Garden in Manhattan. The Bar Crawl Radio audio wagon was set up on the grass in front of the stage in the garden – as neighbors secured a chair or wooden planter ledge to listen to the Lew Tabackin Jazz Trio.  Tenor saxophone and flute musician -- Mr Tabackin has been playing these...

Recently – David Brooks of the New York Times – wrote about the suicide of his close friend—Pete—and the feelings that followed. Brooks writes that experiencing the suicide of someone close “is not just sorrow; it is a state of consciousness that distorts perceptions of time, space and self.” In 2015, there were over 44,000 suicides in America – the 10th most common cause of death and rising – I m...

Friday – April 7, 2023. This was the final day of the 2023 Nevada Desert Experience’s Sacred Peace Walk – one mile from the Peace Camp to the White Line – entrance to the Nevada Nuclear Test Site and the most bombed part of planet Earth.  In the distance – on land once occupied by the Western Shoshone people – over 100 moon-shaped craters litter the desert landscape. On this Friday – und...

Thursday - April 6, 2023 -- of the Nevada Desert Experience's Sacred Peace Walk. This episode is a summary of the day. It was a beautiful desert day as the Peace Walkers traversed the last 15 miles to the entrance to the Nevada Nuclear Test Site. Darcy Ike had rejoined the group the day before and started the walk that morning with great enthusiasm -- about 7 miles down the road he had a full-blow...

April 4, 2023 - Wednesday - Sekhmet Goddess Temple - Indian Springs, Nevada. Nevada Desert Experience's "Sacred Peach Walk. In the morning and afternoon the Peace Walkers would protest U.S. military drone warfare at Creech Air Force Base. And, in the evening we would gather at the Goddess Temple bonfire ton celebrate the New Moon and honor the first night of Passover. It was an apocryphal ove...

DAY FOUR of the 2023 Nevada Desert Experience Sacred Peace Walk – Why Do We Walk? For the fourth day of our walk towards tMercury -- the entrance to the Nevada Nuclear Test Site -- would cover the miles we skipped the day before when we escaped the brutal desert wind and snow. After the morning bonfire gathering, the Peace Walkers were driven back to Lee Canyon for a walk back to the Sekhmet...

Rested from our walk thru Las Vegas, the day before, the Sacred Peace Walkers headed out of the Nevada Desert Experience compound for the walk in the desert -- north of the city. I went with Darcy Ike -- who I had spoken with the day before at the MLK statue in Las Vegas -- in his weather-beaten, gear shift sedan to the starting point at Kyle Canyon on Highway 157 several miles north of...

April 2 - Sunday - 2023. First day of the Sacred Peace Walk. 13 miles. We started at the Atomic Museum and walked through Paradise, where all the modern Las Vegas Casinos and hotels are located -- something to do with the local mobsters not wanting to pay high Las Vegas taxes. -- then, through old Las Vegas – then a sit-in at the over-the-top gaudy Fremont Experience -- then to the Las Vegas Catho...

Day One of the Nevada Desert Experience’s “Sacred Peace Walk"  -- Saturday April 1, 2023.  Walkers were gathering from all around the Unites States at the NDE compound – a former military barracks – bought by the local Franciscan and Catholic Worker community – then given to the NDE in 1982 as a center protestors of the nuclear testing taking place on Western Shoshone land on the Nevada...

Towards the end of World War II – my country detonated atomic bombs over Japanese cities, immediately killing thousands of civilians and thousand more soon after and maiming thousands for the rest of their lives.  I was born in 1949 -- My generation was taught that this military action was required to end the war – And I bought it -- Since 1945, our world has filled with more powerful atom bo...

As reported in the New York magazine earlier this year -- the Upper West Side of Manhattan above 96th Street is a pedestrian death zone. Reporter Justin Davidson described the many victims of the “neighborhood’s out-of-control traffic -- a Bermuda Triangle of pedestrian death” – Davidson wrote that “nine years into the Vision Zero era, we should really be calling it Vision 125 -- the average...

Becky and I spoke with the music-eclectic Gene Pritsker at Gebhard's Beer Culture Bar a couple of days after his Sound Liberation Band deconstructed Beethoven at Birdland Jazz Club. It was a musical brainstorm called – “Ludwig’s Night out” – Beethoven is on a bar crawl while Sonata No. 4 (for violin & piano) is echoing in his brain. Several of the pieces created by Pritsker and Composer Concor...

Adam Scott Wandt joined this Bar Crawl Radio conversation to talk about ChatGPT but we got to a whole lot more -- exploring the impact of Artificial Intelligence [AI] as it exists today and into the future. Prof. Wandt of John Jay College of Criminal Justice is the Vice Chair for Technology of the Department of Public Management. His main interest is in technology and law and has worked with the F...

Back in 2019 when the city knew not of COVID19 BCR co-hosts talked with Erwin Figueroa of Transportation Alternative about the bike culture of New York City. A lot has changed since then. Today – biking in the city is certainly scarier – maybe that’s a sign that some of us are getting old – but the variety of speedy e-bikes – e-scooters – Inmotion-style unicycles – BTW -- Onewheel descri...

Shortly after the American North won the Civil War, construction on the East River bridge was started. Tammany Hall and graft controlled NY City and State, Ulysses S. Grant had just been elected President, and the German-immigrant and bridge designer/builder, who conceived the plan for the bridge, had died. Work on the Bridge took 13 years and up to 40 men died -- mostly immigrants. The cathedral-...

Early in the summer of 2022, my Bar Crawl Radio host – Rebecca McKean -- and I travelled with our  grandson -- Jackson Castro -- to the family farm of Martha Hennessy – granddaughter of the founder of the Catholic Worker – Dorothy Day. While there, Martha told me of the work of a Catholic priest – Father Philip Gbao -- and suggested we produce a BCR program on his work with African students.&...

It was a cold and windy Monday morning – Nov 14, 2022 – across the street from the United Nations. A group of U.S. veterans – many with combat experience – were building a watch tower – with 20 foot high painter’s scaffolding – on top of the city patio overlooking the Isaiah Wall and Peace monument – to call out to the UN that a large part of the world’s climate crisis was and is caused by th...

Back in November 2022 -- I attended the christening of the newest -- most modern Staten Island Ferry – the Dorothy Day – named for the founder of the Catholic Worker Movement. A half a year later – I am back on Staten Island for the maiden voyage of the Dorothy Day Ferry – asking what is the significance of naming a ferry after the great peace activist and soon-to-be Catholic Saint. Hosted on...