Audio Academy

Hey Area is where we find answers to questions you ask. Ben Harney wanted to know why is it called earthquake weather?

Have you ever gone camping and thought you saw something mysterious in the woods?

Jules Indelicato is a Bay Area musician. They recently took part in the durational performance art project "Romantic Songs of the Patriarchy." For eight hours a day, three days in a row, 30 women and non-binary musicians played popular love songs on repeat.

In a quiet spot, just west of the bustle of the California Academy of Sciences in Golden Gate Park, sits a garden dedicated to English literature’s crowned prince: William Shakespeare. Once you make it past the entrance gate and down the worn brick path, you are transported into an English garden filled with manicured flower beds, trimmed lawns, and people escaping the noise of the city.

For the last few weeks, we’ve been featuring work made by KALW’s Audio Academy. It’s a program funded in part by the Association For Continuing Education. And also, in part, by listeners like you who care about hearing people from a wide variety of backgrounds and perspectives. We’re in a membership campaign right now, so we thought it was a great time to highlight the work our Audio Academy graduates have produced over the last 7 years! This show focuses on Bay Area places, big and small.

For today's Audiograph, we're headed to a tucked away area in a popular park.

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In 2013, KALW started the Audio Academy. Since then, we’ve trained more than 50 people to be radio journalists. Some were seasoned print journalists who wanted to transition to radio. Some had audio production experience but had never reported a story. And others had never spoken into a microphone or picked up a reporter’s notebook. After nine months, they could all write, record, and edit a feature story.

In 2013, KALW started the Audio Academy. Since then, we’ve trained more than 50 people to be radio journalists. Some were seasoned print journalists who wanted to transition to radio. Some had audio production experience but had never reported a story. And others had never spoken into a microphone or picked up a reporter’s notebook. After nine months, they could all write, record, and edit a feature story.

For today’s Audiograph, we’re headed to the rodeo.

The Golden Gate Park Rose Garden is an oasis of color and smell, popular among both tourists and honeybees. Fuchsia, red, peach, yellow and white blooms explode everywhere.

Eric Cetnarski works as a sound healer in Oakland. Sound healing can be many things: from listening to our favorite songs to using our voices. 

The Bay Area’s long history of chocolate spans all the way back to the Gold Rush. Since then, the region has been a source for chocolate innovation again and again, from a Berkeley-based revolution in chocolate desserts to a craft chocolate revolution in the ‘90s that turned the industry on its head.

There’s a long history of chocolate making in the Bay Area that goes all the way back to the Gold Rush. Over a century later, a new guard of chocolate makers is picking up where a previous generation of innovators left off, and they’re leading a small but potent revolution in the chocolate industry.

San Francisco’s oldest working streetcar is a survivor. Car 578, sometimes called “The Dinky,” has a Cinderella story. Once the laughingstock of the fleet, it went on to inspire Muni’s collection of historic cars. 

You’ve probably seen them: groups of men looking for work, standing in front of Home Depot or waiting on corners of busy thoroughfares. These men are day laborers, looking for short-term work ranging from gardening to painting. 

We all know we’re supposed to prepare for earthquakes, but how many of us really have a plan?

ADVISORY: This story contains mature content.  

In the 1960s, the Tenderloin was a center for the LGBT community in San Francisco. But even there, they faced discrimination and harassment, often from the police. Felicia Elizondo first came to the Tenderloin from San Jose as a teenager in 1963. It was there that she took part in the Compton’s Cafeteria Riot in 1966, one of the first transgender riots in the country.

For this week’s Audiograph, we’re going somewhere that’s unusually quiet.

According to a Harvard study, more than 40 percent of parents didn’t have “the sex talk” with their kids. But California — especially San Francisco — is leading the way in making sure kids get the sex education they need. Things weren’t always this way.

San Francisco’s Mission District was once a neighborhood known for being home to working-class immigrants. Now, it’s a hipster haven thanks to the tech boom. 

The San Francisco International Film Festival is in full swing, featuring films inspired by the spirit and values of the Bay Area.  One documentary showing this week is called “Unsettled: Seeking Refuge in America.” It introduces us to four young LGBTQ refugees who came to San Francisco from the Congo, Angola, and Syria.

San Francisco Film Festival's “Unsettled: Seeking Refuge in America” introduces us to four young LGBTQ refugees who came to San Francisco from the Congo, Angola, and Syria. The Syrian man in that film, Subhi Nahas, was taken in by a couple in Oakland when he first arrived. 

California is home to lots of wild animals, but one of the most likely places to encounter them is on the road. Thousands of collisions are reported every year, and some of the deadliest stretches of highway are here in the Bay Area.

“Lasting Letters: Leaving a legacy behind” reports on legacy letters and how they are helping people prepare for death, say goodbye, and grieve loved ones after they are gone.  

If Freddie Mercury & David Bowie had a star child her name would be Kat Robichaud. She is an over-the-top, theatrical rocker whose career got a boost when she participated on the TV hit “The Voice.”

San Francisco voters banned all flavored tobacco sales last June, and full enforcement of that law began on January 1st. But what happens when small businesses have to pull these products off their shelves, and how is the city helping with the transition?

As the #MeToo movement continues to bring a spotlight to sexual harassment and assault, we’ve been hearing thousands of stories of trauma. But we haven’t heard much about what women are doing to heal: Where are women going to process, relax, express their sensuality, or just to have fun?

The training floor of God’s Gym is definitely old school – one room crammed with barbells, benches, and ancient weight machines.

This month is the tenth anniversary of the death of 22-year-old Oscar Grant, who was shot and killed by a BART officer on January 1, 2009. Every New Year’s Day since, his family has held a vigil at Fruitvale Station in his honor.