HV087- Thumb and Thumber

Hearing Voices from NPR®
087 Thumb and Thumber: The Joy of Hitchhiking
Host: Larry Massett of Hearing Voices
Airs week of: 2010-03-24

“Thumb and Thumber” (52:00 mp3):

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Is hitchhiking the great American adventure sport or just a risky last resort for folks who can’t come up with bus fare?:

Hitchhiking was once common, These days it’s aquired an aura of danger and desperation. Who wants to take the risk — especially after all those gruesome stories about rapists and serial killers? But occasionally you can still spot some guy stranded on the side of a road, sign out, thumb up, hoping that your car will be his salvation. Is he dangerous? Insane? Or just plain dirty? Maybe we should stop and find out. (PRX)

The Brit duo (Nick Franglen and Fred Deakin) from their album ‘64-’95, with the voice of William Shatner.

Hitchhiking cross-country with a telegram for the Dalai Llama, a prayer for compassion from the cops, and half your net worth invested in a pair of high-top sneakers.

“This is a long story about nothing in the end, except dumb luck. Sometimes, luck comes in a deserving fashion to the righteous, sometimes it comes without justice to the wicked, and still other times, it simply falls upon the dumb, like manna from heaven.”

The classic country & western ghostly tale of truck driving and hitchhiking=, written by Tommy Faile, from Sovine’s Best Of the Best collection

In a battered Olds Delta 88, host Larry Massett heads out with Scott Carrier, driving from New Mexico to Florida, picking up every hitchhiker and stopping at every truck stop and town park they see.

Jackie Brenston sings this seminal rock ‘n’ roll anthem, an old to the Olds 88 engine, off The History of Rhythm and Blues

Above photo courtesy Drozd- Wikimedia Commons.

HV011- Road Trip

Hearing Voices from NPR®
011 Road Trip: Travelers’ Tales
Host: Larry Massett of Hearing Voices
Airs week of: 2009-5-27 (Originally: 2008-05-14)

“Road Trip” (54:00 mp3):

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Host Larry Massett spends a “Long Day on the Road” with ex-KGB in the Republic of Georgia.

Scott Carrier starts in Salt Lake and ends on the Atlantic in this cross-country “Hitchhike.”

Lemon Jelly adds beats to the life of a “Ramblin’ Man.”

Writer/singer Willie Vlautin with his band band Richmond Fontaine sends musical postcards from the flight of “Walter On the Lam.”

And Mark Allen tells a tale of a tryst with a “Kinko’s Crackhead.”

HV022- Mushroom Cloud

Hearing Voices from NPR®:
022 Mushroom Cloud— Tales of the Atomic Age
Host— Larry Massett of Hearing Voices
Airdates— 7/30/2008 – 8/6/2008

Bomber pilots and bombing victims, and and Colonel Paul Tibbets, pilot of the Enola Gay in “Enola Alone” by Antenna Theater, mixed by Earwax.

Political speeches and popular songs chart our changing attitudes towards weapons of mass destruction in the “Atomic Age.” Residents recall the Nevada and Utah nuclear bomb tests in the 1950s in their “Downwinder Diaries,” produced by Claes Andreasson.

Poet Lawrence Ferlinghetti has “Wild Dreams of a New Beginning,” an excerpt from “One of These days (or Nights)” produced for radio by Erik Bauersfeld (Bay Area Radio Drama), with sound design by Jim McKee (Earwax), and original music by Wieslaw Pogorzelski.

Americans across the country answer Scott Carrier’s question: “What Are You Afraid Of?”

The story of the Big Bang, with a beat, “Page One” by Lemon Jelly.

And selections from “Atomic Platters: Cold War Music from the Golden Age of Homeland Security” compiled by CONELRAD.com (including Slim Galliard’s “Atomic Cocktail” (1945), versions of “Jesus Hits Like an Atom Bomb” by Lowell Blanchard & The Valley Trio (1949) and by The Pilgrim Travelers, and 1950-60s Civil Defense public service announcements.

Mushroom Cloud (53:00 mp3):

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