[Welcome to Everything Is Stories, a podcast essentially, but truthfully an ongoing audio survey of individuals who have experienced transcendence and/or power of the will. Everything Is Stories exists many places and every month Impose will be among those places.]
The idea for this project came to us in the last months of 2012. At the time, we were bored with audio storytelling. Bored with the irony of public radio. Bored with quirky editing and hosts narrating someone else’s story. We wanted to change the filters. We wanted unconventional stories told by the people who lived them, stories with urgency and resistance, stories with payoff.
Writer Harry Crews once wrote, “Nothing is allowed to die in a society of storytelling people.” Like him, we believe stories shape reality, a tricky thing to express because reality is both harmonious and chaotic. However, a good story captures it all, the rhythm and drone of experience.
Our first episode went live in January of 2014. Since then, we’ve been up and down the highways, finding stories from fight-fixers and outlaw bikers to Peruvian shamans and marijuana farmers. Every episode features a narrative from the first-person perspective. These voices have told of their greatest moments, where death is very close, where peace is only found in seclusion. Sometimes they explore the philosophy of drifters and outsiders. But most importantly, these stories examine what it is to be human. Take a listen. You may find a definition for reality’s highs and lows.
-Garrett Crowe, Mike Martinez, Tyler Wray
Episode 13:
B.B. St. Roman is the only staff member for the New Orleans Police Department Homeless Assistant Unit. Before helping the homeless, she traveled the world, recording sound for documentaries involving shamans, Buddhist monks, and Mother Teresa. And at one point, she became the tour manager for Dr. John, Louisiana musician and legend.
Now, she works full-time with the homeless. She tells her stories of Hurricane Katrina, shelter issues in the city, as well as planning and dreaming of ways to help those living in the streets.
Music by Holy Gallows.
Photos by Robert Johansson.
Photo courtesy of B.B. St. Roman.
– B.B. on her marriage to her late husband, Pops.
Photo by Robert Johansson
Photo courtesy of B.B. St. Roman.
Photo courtesy of B.B. St. Roman.
Photo by Robert Johansson
Photo courtesy of B.B. St. Roman.
Photo courtesy of B.B. St. Roman.
Photo courtesy of B.B. St. Roman.
