La Lucha Continua: Mexican Wrestling in the Mission

Aired on KALW's Crosscurrents on Thursday, January 28, 2010.

http://kalwnews.org/audio/2010/01/28/la-lucha-continua-mexican-wrestling-mission_112341.html

About twice a year, a high school gym in San Francisco’s Mission District fills with hundreds of Latino families for an unusual fundraiser. Kids wear facemasks, grandmas yell, dads blow plastic horns for Lucha Libre. It’s a form of Mexican wrestling, a hybrid of sport and spectacle that pits good guys against bad. The idea first hit the U.S. mainstream with the film Nacho Libre and now there are lucha-themed restaurants and even lucha-dance clubs. But it’s not just a form of entertainment: it’s also a theater for social commentary. I go ringside.

Haiti Relief Benefit Concerts in California

Aired on KQED radio's The California Report Magazine on Friday, January 22, 2010.

http://www.californiareport.org/archive/R201001221630/d

As search and rescue teams wind down their efforts in Haiti, the island nation is still in desperate need of humanitarian support in the form of food, water and shelter. Fundraising efforts continue across the globe, and of course here in California. I report on a small but passionate community of Haitian musicians planning dozens of concerts to benefit their devastated homeland.