UnFictional

Fútbol Confidential looks at AYSO, American homegrown soccer culture.

Fútbol Confidential looks at Niky’s Sports, the biggest family-run chain of soccer stores in LA.

Two Mexican-American fans talk about rooting for more than one hometown team in Los Angeles and in Mexico.

Fútbol Confidential looks at the legendary LA city league soccer team formed over beers in a Santa Monica pub by British expatriates.

In ‘El Pueblo,’ producer Mike Schilitt explores the surprising history of Olvera Street – an idealized fantasy of Mexico created in downtown Los Angeles that has supported generations of Agelenos. 

When Aric Allen was 21, he lived in a desolate mountain cabin for 10 weeks. There he planned to write a novel, but instead he learned how to be alone.

Producer Jaime Roque takes a ride with Ernie Moran in his 1965 Chevy Impala to explore the history and culture of the lowrider community of East Los Angeles. 

In the U.S., nisha venkat feels safe and relieved to identify as queer and non-binary. But in their home country Dubai, nisha’s gender identity is illegal, and they can be deported or convicted of homexuality, or “cross-dressing.” 

Imagine entering a giant machine that sucks you in one end, and spits you out the other side as something completely different. That describes the transmogrifier — a fantastical device from the Calvin and Hobbes comic strips. Over the last couple of years, it feels like everyone has been through the transmogrifier in one way or another. In this episode, stories of the transmogrified. Unfictional producer Bob Carlson watches his two children go through the transmogrifier and come out unexpectedly as grown-ups. Meanwhile, almost every element of producer Jaime Roque’s life was upended by the transmorgrifier: new job, marriage, and prospective fatherhood.

Street vendors are an essential part of Los Angeles’ history and its economy. You can find vendors with mobile carts and food trucks on street corners, outside concert venues, and sporting events selling hot dogs, tacos, burritos, churros, fruit, t-shirts, souvenirs, and just about anything else you can imagine. For decades, this activity was illegal. And even though vending was somewhat decriminalized in 2018, the line between legal and illegal is not always clear. Producer James Roque follows the stories of a few of these entrepreneurs, finding out why they started vending, the challenges they encounter on a daily basis, and how they fared during the last few years.

UnFictional host Bob Carlson’s journey on the inside of rock and roll radio.

Mary Lorson explores scenes from her childhood in a personal memoir musical documentary. Featuring an elusive father, A Dancerina doll, a Polaroid Swinger, and a camel hair coat from Saks, all in constant motion.

A promising job drew Fedelina Lugasan to the U.S. from the Philippines, she’d start her new life with a family she trusted. But the picture they painted for her was not what her life turned out to be.  

A man finds an old reel to reel tape that reveals much more than just flying saucers and alien conspiracy theories.

Ove the rowing man. A stranger who came by way of the ocean, and was soon no longer a stranger.  

Maurcio, star of a hit Mexican television show, is abandoned in the desert while trying to cross the border.  

Mauricio leaves Mexico City for Los Angeles, and his dreams of television come true in a very unlikely way.

KCRW’s Bob Carlson talks to some of Deirdre O’Donoghue’s friends and gets further inside her world away from the microphone.

Bent By Nature Episode 1 introduces KCRW DJ Deirdre O’Donoghue, host of "SNAP!," a freeform alternative and independent music and culture program in Los Angeles in the '80s — and goes inside the community she cultivated, her passion for music, and the problems she had with KCRW’s management and staff.  Featuring archival live performances by Camper Van Beethoven, the Meat Puppets, Glass Eye, Jazz Butcher, the Dream Syndicate, and more.

One man’s treasure is another man’s Olympic gold medal.