Re:sound #194 The Driving Show
This hour we buckle up and hit the road.
2014 / TCF / WBEZ 91.5, USA
This hour we buckle up and hit the road.
Don't Drive Like My Brother
by Jonathan Menjivar (This American Life [WBEZ], 2005)
Charles Johnson was living in St. Louis, married with a young daughter, and he had no job. He looked around, and decided he'd try trucking. There was this company offering to train and hire drivers, so he signed up. The only problem was, he couldn't read.
Stories and Driving
by Sophie Townsend with Jesse Cox and Louis Mitchell (Radiotonic [ABC RN], 2014)
Sophie Townsend and her husband used to go on long driving trips, taking the back roads and scenic routes, with a cup of hot coffee between them and a constant supply of Fellini soundtracks on the stereo. Sophie no longer drives those routes though, and she's slowly losing those memories because it's another story, one that keeps forcing it's way up to the surface, that keeps eclipsing those earlier recollections.
Drive Straight Ahead
by Mira Burt-Wintonick (Wiretap [CBC], 2014)
A driver enlists the help of her car's GPS system to help her navigate her own emotional loss.
Route Talk
by Chris Garcia and Nancy Updike (This American Life [WBEZ], 2013)
Chris Garcia and his dad were driving home, listening to oldies, sharing a bag of chips. A totally familiar scene for them. They'd driven this route probably hundreds of time, but something odd was happening in the car, so Chris started recording their conversation on his phone. He tells producer Nancy Updike what happened.
Bus To Mexico
by Linda Lutton (WBEZ, 2014)
Every week, hundreds of people board coach buses in Chicago and travel to Mexico. Linda Lutton used to live in Mexico, and has taken the 2,000-mile trip nearly a dozen times to and from Zamora, Michoacán. On her most recent trip, she brought a tape recorder along.
This episode of Re:sound was produced by Dennis Funk.
produced by
Jonathan Menjivar (@jon_menjivar) is a producer for This American Life.
Sophie Townsend (@sophietown) (she/her) is a senior producer and editor at ABC Audio Studio. She also works internationally as an audio features maker and writer. Her podcast for the BBC, Goodbye To All This, made with Falling Tree Productions, was one of the New York Times's best podcasts for 2020. In 2015 she won the HearSay International Audio competition with her piece “Mr Fix-it.” Her works “Stories and Driving” and “The Updates” were featured at Third Coast in 2015, and she was a speaker at Third Coast in 2019. Through her personal stories for radio, she explores relationships, loss and family, and her work has been played on the BBC's Short Cuts, Radiotopia's The Heart and the CBC's Love Me.
Jesse Cox (1986–2017) was one of Australia's finest radio producers.
Louis Mitchell is a sound engineer in Australia.
Mira Burt-Wintonick (@mirabw) is co-creator and Senior Editor of CBC's Love Me.
Chris Garcia is a stand up comedian and writer based in Los Angeles, Ca. He has appeared on NPR's This American Life, WTF with Marc Maron, KCRW's UnFictional, and NBC's Last Call with Carson Daly. www.chrisgarciacomedy.com
Nancy Updike is one of the founding producers of This American Life. She spent three years in Jerusalem, writing stories for TAL, All Things Considered, Marketplace, the New York Times Magazine, and the LA Weekly. Her radio documentary on American civilians working in Iraq won the Edward R. Murrow Award for news documentary and a Scripps-Howard National Journalism Award.
Linda Lutton (@lindalutton) is an education reporter for WBEZ in Chicago.
Dennis Funk was formerly Third Coast's senior producer.