Jeff Gere put his elastic, Jim Carrey-like mouth to the mike. He held his script, filled with what looks to the untrained eye as scribbled gibberish, a little off to the side — and launched into a rapid-fire delivery:

"... There's something about humans. We love to experience in story what we would not want to experience in life. ..." he recited.

Kelli Heath, sporting headsets the size of earmuffs, sat at his feet, her fingers flying over a laptop keyboard in front of amps and power supplies. She nodded encouragingly.

Suddenly she made a quick shake of her head. Hold it!

"Sounds like you're reading," she stopped him.

"I am!" he admitted.

This is what it looks like to watch a recording session of the "Talk Story Radio" show in a home in the far reaches of Manoa, where a closet seconds as dead space and a bedroom as a studio. After a few more practice runs, Gere's ready to lay down the track that will serve as an introduction for this week's anniversary program, eyes closed, sounding not only more polished but more natural.

Begun as a city-funded project, "Talk Story Radio" faced a cut in support this year. Gere snagged a grant from the James & Abigail Campbell Foundation to continue the show, which draws about 13,000 listeners per week, for about another year.

It began as a radio broadcast, but has spread into podcasting.

And just how did that happen?

"Dude, surf's up," a North Shore fellow told Gere one day, complaining, "how am I supposed to listen to your show?"

That got Gere to thinking: He already had a library's worth of taped stories. Why not make it available in online form?

It serves a dual purpose of reaching those who missed the broadcasts the first time, and providing a public archive of the stories that make up the rich oral history of the Islands' diverse culture.

Gere's a passionate guy, but the importance of storytelling makes him even more animate.

"It's not a job — it's a calling," he said.

Gere has seen how mesmerizing a good story can be through his annual Talk Story festivals, when an audience of hundreds falls silent in the thrall of a good yarn, so quiet you can hear someone whisper in the back row.

"I want that spell," Gere said. "It's an enchantment."

To look at them, Gere and Heath make unlikely broadcastfellows.

She's a folk musician with the all-girl band The Girlas, which opened Jack Johnson's recent Kokua Festival, and she's also a trained audio engineer.

He's a salaried drama specialist for the City & County of Honolulu. She's also worked at Jackson Browne's Groove Masters studio, recording John Cruz's music.

But you can tell, even in their bickering, that this is a pair who enjoys the day-to-day of their work.

"I do the heavy lifting, she does the quality finishing," he said. "She'll finesse and massage it all. And if it's long. ..."

"... I get really mad," she said, with a laugh.