BeepBall

Blind people playing baseball?  Yeah.  That's right.   All you need is a ball that beeps.

(photo credit: "baseball" by theseanster93 via flickr creative commons)

Direct download: Beep_Baseball_Draft_v2.mp3
Category:Audio Stories -- posted at: 7:40pm EDT

Door Belle

The alternate title for this was going to be the Isaac Hayes-esque "Girl, I Wanna Get You In My Belly Button T-Shirt Hole" but the mp3 title field wouldn't fit it.  But now that you know that, I mean, c'mon, aren't you curious....? 

Direct download: Door_Belle_v2.mp3
Category:Audio Stories -- posted at: 11:24pm EDT

Beneath the Surface (ENHANCED) Because this is a much longer piece than I normally produce, and because in writing it, it naturally broke down into seven distinct parts, I wanted to give the listener the option of listening to the piece as a whole or to each section individually. So I created an enhanced podcast, which allows you to interact with it the same way you do a CD. You can jump forward to the next track or back to one you want to hear again. Also each track has it’s own chapter title and individual artwork. The only downside is that not every portable music player can handle an enhanced podcast (sorry) so I had to make two separate ones.
Direct download: Beneath_the_Surface_ENHANCED.m4a
Category:Audio Stories -- posted at: 3:17pm EDT

Beneath the Surface This project started because I was interested in the hundreds of towns around America that have been evacuated and then purposely flooded in order to make reservoirs. In many cases, the streets, the buildings, still exist underwater. When droughts happen, these town resurface and the people who lived in these towns often come back to see what’s left of their old homes. To me, this was a very powerful image. I saw it as such a perfect example of the idea that “you can never go home again.” As I started researching I kept finding all these different parallels between water and memory, between water and time, in mythology, psychology, physiology, in the great floods, and icebergs, in swimming pools, and ancient rivers. It began to feel like maybe the reason water kept appearing as a metaphor for these things, was because it spoke to a basic human connection between the two. That maybe somewhere in the nature of water itself, we could find the nature of the human mind. (((NOTE: This piece is a slight departure from my earlier work. The piece is written less as a monologue and more like a transom of ideas set to music that I've written for it. It’s separated into 7 different sections, like tracks on a record, each with a different perspective on the relationship between water and memory. So to that extent it should be listened to more like a music album with narration instead of lyrics.)))
Direct download: Beneath_the_Surface.mp3
Category:Audio Stories -- posted at: 11:45pm EDT

A Lesson in Social Confusion: Or How I Essentially Became a Street Kabuki Performer Entirely By Accident I mean, seriously... The piece is 3 1/2 minutes. With a title like that, do I really have to write a description to convince you to listen to it? (Non-fiction?)
Direct download: 01_A_Lesson_In_Social_Confusion.mp3
Category:Audio Stories -- posted at: 1:23pm EDT

Stories of Lost and Found #4: Through the Window and Across the Street Ryan Scammell finds some pages from a young girls' diary (?) in the closet in his apartment building. He reads us something she had written about the deaf man who lived across the street from her and what happened when she finally tried to talk to him. (Fiction)
Direct download: Lost_and_Found_4_COMPOSE_MUSIC_2.mp3
Category:Audio Stories -- posted at: 11:15am EDT

Stories of Lost and Found #2: A Phone Conversation When a woman finds the wind-chimes she made in 8th grade shop class, she calls an old friend to talk about the thing they did and why she still can't forgive herself. If you're interested, please visit the website for information about the origins of this piece.
Direct download: 01_Stories_of_Lost_and_Found_2__A_Phone_Conversation.mp3
Category:Audio Stories -- posted at: 11:59am EDT

How To Be A Man...(sort of) As a special Thanksgiving episode, this is a story about fathers, sons, the woods, and the never-ending quest to figure out what it means to be a man. (Non-fiction)
Direct download: 01_How_To_Be_A_Man...sort_of.mp3
Category:Audio Stories -- posted at: 4:28pm EDT

Stories of Lost and Found #3: The Letters One of a series of short-short pieces about things lost and things found. A couple receives a letter from a friend who has been dead for almost a year. (Fiction)
Direct download: 01_Stories_of_The_Lost_and_Found__3_The_Letters.mp3
Category:Audio Stories -- posted at: 4:45pm EDT

And I Have No Idea What Happened To Him After That We like to believe that we have control on our lives. That we can sculpt perfect moments around us. That if we put ourselves in the right setting with the right people everything can be everything we want it to be. A few weeks ago, two of my best friends, Nell and Pete, came in from out of town for what started as a perfect weekend. But as the weekend got closer to the end, and as we tried to hold on to that perfect moment, things spun out of our control when the forces of nature and of life changed everything. (Non-fiction)
Direct download: And_I_Have_No_Idea_MP3.mp3
Category:Audio Stories -- posted at: 6:25pm EDT

One Reason When Visiting Sacred Sites It's Important To Remember That You Are Not An Aboriginal But Grew Up In The Suburbs Or: How not to commune with foreign cultures. -- I lived in Australia for seven months in 2003 and 2004, almost half of which I spent travelling in a car with my friend Dave and a german girl named Susanne. This is a story about an experience I had at a beautiful place in Litchfield National Park called The Buley Rock Pools. That's actually a picture of Dave at the Buley Rock Pools to the right. This piece was originally published in a literary journal called Storyscape at www.storyscapejournal.com. (Non-fiction)
Direct download: One_Reason_MP3.mp3
Category:Audio Stories -- posted at: 12:12am EDT

The Rabbi What it means to be 20 years old. (Non-fiction)
Direct download: The_Rabbi_EQd.mp3
Category:Audio Stories -- posted at: 12:00am EDT

The Other There's a million ways to fall in love, and a million ways to fall apart. Sometimes all it takes is an email. (Non-fiction)
Direct download: The_Other_Audio_Polaroids.mp3
Category:Audio Stories -- posted at: 8:05pm EDT

It's Just A Matter of Time Liza Minnelli is downing red wine in her tour bus. The stagehands all together look like a Judas Priest cover band. Coney Island is a Ferris Wheel slowing to a stop. Andy Warhol! Incubated babies! Lawsuits! Lions in flames! It all comes together at a Liza concert in 2005. (Non-fiction)
Direct download: Coney_Island_Final_Cut_Mp3.mp3
Category:Audio Stories -- posted at: 2:34pm EDT