I’ll own up to this: I listen to NPR. With some regularity, in fact. With that in mind, you can imagine my glee when my coach said he’d lined up interviews for luchadors with NPR.

Mind you, “interview with NPR” is a rather broad statement, so it took another week or so to figure out exactly what we were in for. The next hint: He said we’d be paired up with a buddy for interview times. After flipping through my mental catalogue of possible NRP segments matching that description, my next thought was, “Wait…this *has* to be StoryCorps.”  Sure enough, when he forwarded me an e-mail with the address of the interview session, there in the attachment section was “What to expect during your interview with StoryCorps.”

If you’re not familiar, StoryCorps is a national project that records and preserves conversations between two people. Their recordings are archived at the American Folklife Center in the US Library of Congress. From their website (1):

StoryCorps’ mission is to provide people of all backgrounds and beliefs with the opportunity to record, share and preserve the stories of our lives. We do this to remind one another of our shared humanity, to strengthen and build the connections between people, to teach the value of listening, and to weave into the fabric of our culture the understanding that everyone’s story matters. At the same time, we are creating an invaluable archive for future generations.

Lofty and honorable goals, in my opinion. Hence why I was so excited to get the chance to record the story of my first 4-ish years of lucha libre for posterity. For this interview I had the honor of being paired with fellow luchador Gringo Loco. We spent our 40 minutes inside the adorable and comfy modified airstream trailer chatting about life in general and our respective times training at Lucha Libre Volcánica.

Outside the adorable (and shiny) StoryCorps Airstream trailer.

After we wrapped up, we were given the option to keep the interview private or to pass over the rights and make it public. The unanimous decision was “public,” so there’s a possibility that some time in the future you may see/ hear the two of us featured on NPR! I’ll be sure to keep you all updated if that happens. But enough of this reading business. You probably want to actually hear the interview! So, without further ado, click HERE to listen! 

Post-interview photo shoot!

Loco being…well…Loco.

1. Check out the StoryCorps website! It’s a really neat project, and you can find out how to share your story, too. http://storycorps.org