On B-Side’s third episode, we looked at how people survive the challenges of every day life and the things they do to get by – financially, emotionally and even linguistically.  Oh, and we visit a nudist resort.  This episode is hosted by Dave Gilson.

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Liner Notes:
Getting By Without Sight: Emelie Gunnison
Spend an afternoon with a woman in Berkeley finding out about the other side of being blind.

Learning English: Ruxandra Guidi
Learning a new language for survival is an entirely different experience than learning it for pleasure. Take a look at learning English the hard way.

Getting By After the Bust: Mia Lobel
While many former dot commers are struggling to adapt to their newly slashed incomes, Mia Lobel says you can’t miss what you never had to begin with.

From Welfare to UC Berkeley: Claudine Zap
Meet a woman who came to Cal after being on welfare and out of school for 20 years. Now she’s bringing her experiences into the classroom.

A Vow of Poverty: Lyssa Mudd
Brother Brain Delessey is a twenty-six year old Catholic priest in training.

Getting By Without Clothes: Tamara Keith
Sometimes getting by requires a radical change of lifestyle. That’s what happened to some relatives of B-side crewmember Tamara Keith.

This was B-Side’s second episode.  At the time, we were all living in or near Berkeley and that city certainly shaped this show.  It was also put together in the weeks immediately following 9/11 and that had an impact as well.

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From Esperanto diehards to high-school idealists and Punjabi separatist taxi drivers, we bring you a show about revolutionaries in our midst.

Liner Notes:

Free Writing: Mia Lobel
The assignment: write for 15 minutes straight. The topic: revolution.  The thoughts of high school students in Mia Lobel’s creative writing class.

Peace in a Time of War: Tamara Keith
With more than 90-percent of the country coming out in support of the war against terrorism, we look at how the peace movement is trying to sway public opinion.

One Woman Revolution: Katy Shrout
You’ve probably seen her on the freeways. You might think she’s a maniac, but in fact, Katy Shrout is a revolutionary.

Free Khalistan: Lyssa Mudd
The “Free Khalistan” movement is alive and well on the streets of Berkeley, but how’s it doing in Punjab?

Saluton, Amikoj: Dave Gilson
Esperanto, an artificial language created 80 years ago as a way of fostering international understanding and of course, world peace, never really caught on, but there are still some diehard esperantists out there, including a bunch in the East Bay.

For the next several months we’ll be restoring the B-Side online archives, starting with our very first episode.  This show first aired on KALX in September 2001.  Yup 2001!  These early shows were produced with a flurry of creativity and enthusiasm and you can certainly hear it coming through.  B-Side was hatched in the summer of 2001 right after the original B-Side crew members graduated from UC Berkeley’s Graduate School of Journalism.  There were lengthy brainstorming sessions at cafes and Thai restaurants, late nights with wine and ideas flowing.

We hope you enjoy this jaunt down memory lane.

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Liner Notes :

Praying Off the Pounds: Katy Shrout
Visit New Generation Church in Richmond where participants have added God to their diet regimen.

Portrait of a Nail Worker: Aryn Baker
Like many women in the nail biz, manicurist Jan Bwee is a Vietnamese immigrant.  In this personal reflection, She says helping others beautify their nails is helping her live out an American dream.

Roller Setting: Lyssa Mudd:
As the days of bouffants and behives grow more distant, it’s become increasingly difficult for older women to find stylists who even know what hair setting is.  Meet one woman who’s been roller setting hair since the 1950s.

Hair Braiding: Mia Lobel
Hair braiding, in the intricate styles often worn by African American women can take as many as 12 hours.  We visit African Traditions, a salon where braiding is the style of choice.

Curly Haired Essayist Goes Straight: Claudine Zap:
Not long ago, Claudine Zap visited the hair salon for a trim.  She was shocked, shocked, when her stylist asked her if she wanted to blow dry her hair straight.  From that experience, we get this personal essay.

The final product: five fabulous pedicures.

B-Side’s Tamara Keith and Rob Sachs continue their search for the Mason-Dixon Line, discovering that this historic boundary isn’t all that well marked.  As they search, the B-Side Crew explores personal boundaries.

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Liner Notes:

Baby Space: Sarah Neal
Sarah says having a kid is like the ultimate invasion of personal boundaries. And it really doesn’t stop with the pregnancy like we all might imagine. Sarah and her husband Brent are the proud parents of Max, and they wouldn’t change it for anything. But Sarah says it has been more challenging than she expected.

Doggie Boundaries: Cathy Duchamp
Cathy explores what happens when you don’t set boundaries with your pets.  Hint: the dogs rule the house.

Miss Manners: Catherine Spangler
For this next story, we’re going to meet someone who is a master at maintaining boundaries, the invisible boundaries we all follow to get along in society.  Mrs. DeGroot knows the indispensable rules for life, and she wants to make sure that you know them, too. Catherine takes us to her impeccable home.

Facebook Over Sharing: Abigail Beshkin
Abigail has had a love hate (perhaps love it too much) relationship with facebook.

B-Side’s Rob Sachs and Tamara Keith venture out in the rain to try and find the historic Mason-Dixon Line.  Along the way we hear about a pair of European villages that share the most bizarre border you’ve ever heard of, guards who work a watery border and a man who knows no borders.

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Liner Notes:

Baarle-Nassau/Baarle-Hertog: Cyrus Farivar
Most national borders around the world are pretty straightforward places. There’s a flag on one side, a line, maybe a border post, and a flag on the other side. There’s a very clear demarcation as to where the border is and most of the time, crossing that border is an event. Usually, you have to show a passport or some other document and some underpaid bureaucrat has to record in a logbook or in your passport that you were there. But what if the border went right through your town? Or worse, right through your house? Cyrus Farivar went to such a place…

A Watery Border: Sarah Elzas
Samos is one of the hundreds of small Greek islands that make up a portion of the Eastern border of the European Union. Until a few years ago, its sleepy capital of 12,000 people only saw foreigners coming off cruise ships and tourist ferries. But today the coast guard and police pick up 80-plus people arriving illegally each day. Sarah Elzas takes us to this border where the stakes are incredibly high. Another version of this story first aired on RFI.

Citizen of the World: Scott Gurian
Whether you like them or you hate them, boundaries are a fact of life for most people, and it looks like they’re here to stay.  But we found one person who’s chosen to live in a world without boundaries.  And he says it’s a choice any of us can make.  Reporter Scott Gurian tells his story.

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On this edition of B-Side, Tamara Keith and Erika Kelly visit Union Square in San Francisco and find it filled with holiday cheer – and a couple of hundred intoxicated people dressed as Santa.  And the B-Side Radio crew brings you stories of holiday cooking, shopping, tree hunting and charity gone awry.

Liner Notes:

Learning to Make Latkes: Tamara Keith
It turns out making latkes the right way doesn’t involve following the family recipe.

Do it Yourself Tree: Ethan Lindsey
Ethan grabs a microphone and a saw and heads out into the woods to chop down his own Christmas tree.

Mom Made Toy: Erika Kelly
Who needs Toys R Us when you can make your son a wooden toy by hand.

I Love You Santa: Scott Gurian
Scott tells us about his father’s attempt to play Santa and what went wrong.

Kindle: Rene Gutel
Rene tells us about her husband’s Christmas present and an ethical dilema.

Part of an occasional series of posts on bsideradio.org about the art of making radio.
By Tamara Keith

I recently spent some time with the Swarthmore College students who produce War News Radio.  I was there, I guess, to preach the gospel of great radio reporting.  We talked about what makes a story a story.  We talked about voicing (something I still struggle with) and what it’s like to work at NPR.  We spent most of our time talking about writing for radio.  I prepared a little handout that I think would be useful to just about anyone looking to improve their writing.  These are techniques I’ve learned in training sessions with some amazing coaches and in years of trial and error.  Now, I will admit, I don’t always follow my own advice but these tips are good reminder of how it can be done. Here goes… Read the rest of this entry »

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Charla Bear and Tamara Keith continue trying to find their way home.  They reach civilization, only to realize they still have no idea where they are.  On this edition of B-Side, we’re finding ourselves.

Finding People: Dan Bobkoff
Have you ever had a cool experience of running into someone in an unexpected place?  Dan Bobkoff says it happens to him all the time in the most unlikely of places. New York City.  He calculates the odds of these chance encounters.

Courtesy of amateurgourmet.com

Finding Yourself, an Interview with Adam Roberts
Today Adam Roberts is a food blogger, the man behind the incredibly popular Amateur Gourmet. He has a show on Food 2 and wrote the book: The Amateur Gourmet: How to Shop, Chop, and Table Hop Like a Pro. But there was a time, not that long ago when he was lost…not physically, but metaphysically in Law School. He talks about how he changed his career and found his true calling.  Special thanks to Jody Avirgan for recording the interview.

If you want the recipe for Adam’s Janet Jackson Breast Cupcakes, click here.

Addicted to Junk: Mwende Hahesy
You can get a real thrill from an unexpected find.  Some people get hooked on that feeling and look in unexpected places to keep it going. Reporter Mwende Hahesy introduces us to a man who finds his thrills at storage unit auctions.

The Wren’s Nest: Katy Shrout
Our last story is about the author of the Brer Rabbit book. You might know the story from the Disney movie Song of the South…and the ride at Disneyland Splash Mountain. Well, it has quite a back story complicated by issues of race. Katy Shrout has the story of the great great grandson of the author and what he’s found as he explores his family’s legacy.

On this edition of B-Side, Tamara Keith and Charla Bear get lost on purpose.  They are dropped off in a mysterious suburban location and have to find their way back to downtown Washington, DC.  Think of it as a low budget version of one of those survival shows on the Discovery Channel.  The show is all about losing things from a diary to a stream.  Enjoy!

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Liner Notes:

A hollow in Hueysville, KY that's been filled with mining waste. Photo by: Kristin Espeland.

Lost Streams: Kristin Espeland
Some things seem easy to lose.  But a stream?  Reporter Kristin Espeland has this story from Appalachia, where residents have seen hundreds of miles of streams disappear under piles of coal mining waste.

Hearing Loss: Judah Leblang
Judah had a life-long connection to the deaf.  Then he lost most of the hearing in his left ear.

Music reviewer Dave Segal. Photo by Andrew Walsh.

Lost Collection: Andrew Walsh
Some things get lost and you barely miss them. But when music reviewer Dave Segal lost a huge chunk of his record collection, he lost part of himself.  Dave wrote about his ordeal here if you’d like to read more.

Dear Diary, Where Are You?: Anna Sachs
A lot of girls when they reach a certain age start keeping a journal, a diary. Anna Sachs had a diary when she was younger and she spoke to Tamara about how she discovered she had lost it.

We’re learning the hard way. This edition of B-Side is about a group of people struggling to learn, to make it in college. And we’re not talking about the usual too many units not enough time kind of trouble. These students are undocumented immigrants – most brought here by their parents when they were too young to have any say in the matter. And now they’re dealing with the consequences.

There are all kinds of difficulties those of us who were born here would never even think about. Tam Tran, a graduate student at Brown University in American Studies helps us navigate the issue. Tam is undocumented.

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Read the rest of this entry »