Ira Glass
Appearances
Consider This from NPR
The video game industry at a crossroads
This is Ira Glass. In Lily's family, there's a story everybody knows by heart.
Consider This from NPR
The video game industry at a crossroads
So what happens when Lily's mom tells her this story is not true? This American Life, surprising stories every week.
Fresh Air
Amanda Knox Is 'Free,' But Is That Enough?
I'm Ira Glass. On This American Life, we tell real-life stories, really good ones.
Fresh Air
Amanda Knox Is 'Free,' But Is That Enough?
On the Embedded Podcast. No. It's called denying a freedom of speech. It's misinformation. Like so many Americans, my dad has gotten swept up in conspiracy theories. These are not conspiracy theories. These are reality. I spent the year following him down the rabbit hole, trying to get him back. Listen to alternate realities on the Embedded Podcast from NPR. All episodes available now.
Fresh Air
Amanda Knox Is 'Free,' But Is That Enough?
Surprising stories in your podcast feed, This American Life.
Fresh Air
Amanda Knox Is 'Free,' But Is That Enough?
Convicted of a horrid crime in a foreign land. Sentenced to 26 years for killing a roommate. Her pleas for innocence seemed more cold and calculating than remorseful.
Fresh Air
The Real-Life Russian Spies Who Inspired 'The Americans'
This is Ira Glass, the host of This American Life. So much is changing so rapidly right now with President Trump in office. It feels good to pause for a moment sometimes and look around at what's what.
Fresh Air
The Real-Life Russian Spies Who Inspired 'The Americans'
To try and do that, we've been finding these incredible stories about right now that are funny and have feeling and you get to see people everywhere making sense of this new America that we find ourselves in. This is American Life, wherever you get your podcasts.
Fresh Air
A Dominatrix/Writer Takes Readers Into A Dungeon
This is Ira Glass of This American Life. Each week on our show, we choose a theme, tell different stories on that theme. All right, I'm just going to stop right there. You're listening to an NPR podcast. Chances are you know our show. So instead, I'm going to tell you we've just been on a run of really good shows lately. Some big epic emotional stories, some weird funny stuff too.
Fresh Air
Best Of: 'The Pitt' Star Noah Wyle / 'Sinners' Director Ryan Coogler
This is Ira Glass. In Lily's family, there's a story everybody knows by heart.
Fresh Air
Best Of: 'The Pitt' Star Noah Wyle / 'Sinners' Director Ryan Coogler
So what happens when Lily's mom tells her this story is not true? This American Life, surprising stories every week.
Fresh Air
Best Of: Jason Isbell / David Tennant
This is Ira Glass, the host of This American Life. So much is changing so rapidly right now with President Trump in office. It feels good to pause for a moment sometimes and look around at what's what.
Fresh Air
Best Of: Jason Isbell / David Tennant
To try and do that, we've been finding these incredible stories about right now that are funny and have feeling and you get to see people everywhere making sense of this new America that we find ourselves in. This American Life, wherever you get your podcasts.
Fresh Air
Best Of: Amanda Knox / 'Adolescence' Co-Creator & Actor Stephen Graham
This is Ira Glass. In Lily's family, there's a story everybody knows by heart.
Fresh Air
Best Of: Amanda Knox / 'Adolescence' Co-Creator & Actor Stephen Graham
So what happens when Lily's mom tells her this story is not true? This American life, surprising stories every week.
It's Been a Minute
Nickel Boys gives a new point of view to the Civil Rights era
This is Ira Glass, the host of This American Life. So much is changing so rapidly right now with President Trump in office. It feels good to pause for a moment sometimes and look around at what's what.
It's Been a Minute
Nickel Boys gives a new point of view to the Civil Rights era
To try and do that, we've been finding these incredible stories about right now that are funny and have feeling and you get to see people everywhere making sense of this new America that we find ourselves in. This American Life, wherever you get your podcasts.
It's Been a Minute
Brittany needs a couch. Should she buy now, pay later?
This is Ira Glass, the host of This American Life. So much is changing so rapidly right now with President Trump in office. It feels good to pause for a moment sometimes and look around at what's what.
It's Been a Minute
Brittany needs a couch. Should she buy now, pay later?
To try and do that, we've been finding these incredible stories about right now that are funny and have feeling and you get to see people everywhere making sense of this new America that we find ourselves in. This American Life, wherever you get your podcasts.
It's Been a Minute
The Oprah to "Make America Healthy Again" Pipeline
This is Ira Glass. In Lily's family, there's a story everybody knows by heart.
It's Been a Minute
The Oprah to "Make America Healthy Again" Pipeline
So what happens when Lily's mom tells her this story is not true? This American Life, surprising stories every week.
It's Been a Minute
When adults reject vaccines, children pay the price
This is Ira Glass, the host of This American Life. So much is changing so rapidly right now with President Trump in office. It feels good to pause for a moment sometimes and look around at what's what.
It's Been a Minute
When adults reject vaccines, children pay the price
To try and do that, we've been finding these incredible stories about right now that are funny and have feeling and you get to see people everywhere making sense of this new America that we find ourselves in. This American Life, wherever you get your podcasts.
It's Been a Minute
Bad news for protein bros: you might be getting scammed
I am man, hear me roar. The number's too big to ignore. And I'm way too hungry to settle for chick food.
It's Been a Minute
Bad news for protein bros: you might be getting scammed
I call this turf and turf. It's a 16-ounce T-bone and a 24-ounce porterhouse. Also, whiskey and a cigar. I'm going to consume all of this at the same time because I am a free America.
NPR News Now
NPR News: 03-26-2025 5PM EDT
I'm Ira Glass. On This American Life, we tell real-life stories, really good ones.
NPR News Now
NPR News: 03-26-2025 5PM EDT
Surprising stories in your podcast feed, This American Life.
NPR News Now
NPR News: 04-23-2025 5PM EDT
This is Ira Glass. In Lily's family, there's a story everybody knows by heart.
NPR News Now
NPR News: 04-23-2025 5PM EDT
So what happens when Lily's mom tells her this story is not true? This American Life, surprising stories every week.
NPR News Now
NPR News: 04-23-2025 3PM EDT
This is Ira Glass. In Lily's family, there's a story everybody knows by heart.
NPR News Now
NPR News: 04-23-2025 3PM EDT
So what happens when Lily's mom tells her this story is not true? This American Life, surprising stories every week.
NPR News Now
NPR News: 04-23-2025 3PM EDT
Imagine, if you will, a show from NPR that's not like NPR, a show that focuses not on the important but the stupid, which features stories about people smuggling animals in their pants and competent criminals in ridiculous science studies, and call it Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me because the good names were taken. Listen to NPR's Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me.
NPR News Now
NPR News: 04-23-2025 3PM EDT
Yes, that is what it is called, wherever you get your podcasts.
NPR News Now
NPR News: 04-16-2025 3PM EDT
This is Ira Glass, the host of This American Life. So much is changing so rapidly right now with President Trump in office. It feels good to pause for a moment sometimes and look around at what's what.
NPR News Now
NPR News: 04-16-2025 3PM EDT
To try and do that, we've been finding these incredible stories about right now that are funny and have feeling and you get to see people everywhere making sense of this new America that we find ourselves in. This American Life, wherever you get your podcasts.
NPR News Now
NPR News: 04-16-2025 1PM EDT
This is Ira Glass, the host of This American Life. So much is changing so rapidly right now with President Trump in office. It feels good to pause for a moment sometimes and look around at what's what.
NPR News Now
NPR News: 04-16-2025 1PM EDT
To try and do that, we've been finding these incredible stories about right now that are funny and have feeling and you get to see people everywhere making sense of this new America that we find ourselves in. This American Life, wherever you get your podcasts.
NPR News Now
NPR News: 12-10-2024 8PM EST
This is Ira Glass, the host of This American Life. So much is changing so rapidly right now with President Trump in office. It feels good to pause for a moment sometimes and look around at what's what.
NPR News Now
NPR News: 12-10-2024 8PM EST
To try and do that, we've been finding these incredible stories about right now that are funny and have feeling and you get to see people everywhere making sense of this new America that we find ourselves in. This American Life, wherever you get your podcasts.
NPR News Now
NPR News: 12-10-2024 7PM EST
This is Ira Glass, the host of This American Life. So much is changing so rapidly right now with President Trump in office. It feels good to pause for a moment sometimes and look around at what's what.
NPR News Now
NPR News: 12-10-2024 7PM EST
To try and do that, we've been finding these incredible stories about right now that are funny and have feeling and you get to see people everywhere making sense of this new America that we find ourselves in. This American Life, wherever you get your podcasts.
NPR News Now
NPR News: 04-09-2025 9AM EDT
This is Ira Glass. In Lily's family, there's a story everybody knows by heart.
NPR News Now
NPR News: 04-09-2025 9AM EDT
So what happens when Lily's mom tells her this story is not true? This American Life, surprising stories every week.
NPR News Now
NPR News: 04-09-2025 8AM EDT
This is Ira Glass. In Lily's family, there's a story everybody knows by heart.
NPR News Now
NPR News: 04-09-2025 8AM EDT
So what happens when Lily's mom tells her this story is not true? This American Life, surprising stories every week.
NPR News Now
NPR News: 03-25-2025 6PM EDT
I'm Ira Glass. On This American Life, we tell real-life stories, really good ones.
NPR News Now
NPR News: 03-25-2025 6PM EDT
Surprising stories in your podcast feed, This American Life.
NPR News Now
NPR News: 05-20-2025 7PM EDT
This is Ira Glass, the host of This American Life. So much is changing so rapidly right now with President Trump in office. It feels good to pause for a moment sometimes and look around at what's what.
NPR News Now
NPR News: 05-20-2025 7PM EDT
To try and do that, we've been finding these incredible stories about right now that are funny and have feeling and you get to see people everywhere making sense of this new America that we find ourselves in. This American Life, wherever you get your podcasts.
NPR News Now
NPR News: 12-10-2024 6PM EST
This is Ira Glass, the host of This American Life. So much is changing so rapidly right now with President Trump in office. It feels good to pause for a moment sometimes and look around at what's what.
NPR News Now
NPR News: 12-10-2024 6PM EST
To try and do that, we've been finding these incredible stories about right now that are funny and have feeling and you get to see people everywhere making sense of this new America that we find ourselves in. This American Life, wherever you get your podcasts.
NPR News Now
NPR News: 05-29-2025 3PM EDT
This is Ira Glass, the host of This American Life. So much is changing so rapidly right now with President Trump in office. It feels good to pause for a moment sometimes and look around at what's what.
NPR News Now
NPR News: 05-29-2025 3PM EDT
To try and do that, we've been finding these incredible stories about right now that are funny and have feeling and you get to see people everywhere making sense of this new America that we find ourselves in. This American Life, wherever you get your podcasts.
NPR News Now
NPR News: 04-24-2025 5PM EDT
This is Ira Glass. In Lily's family, there's a story everybody knows by heart.
NPR News Now
NPR News: 04-24-2025 5PM EDT
So what happens when Lily's mom tells her this story is not true? This American Life, surprising stories every week.
NPR News Now
NPR News: 05-01-2025 5PM EDT
This is Ira Glass, the host of This American Life. So much is changing so rapidly right now with President Trump in office. It feels good to pause for a moment sometimes and look around at what's what.
NPR News Now
NPR News: 05-01-2025 5PM EDT
To try and do that, we've been finding these incredible stories about right now that are funny and have feeling and you get to see people everywhere making sense of this new America that we find ourselves in. This American Life, wherever you get your podcasts.
NPR News Now
NPR News: 04-20-2025 4PM EDT
This is Ira Glass. In Lily's family, there's a story everybody knows by heart.
NPR News Now
NPR News: 04-20-2025 4PM EDT
So what happens when Lily's mom tells her this story is not true? This American Life, surprising stories every week.
NPR News Now
NPR News: 04-20-2025 4PM EDT
Imagine, if you will, a show from NPR that's not like NPR, a show that focuses not on the important but the stupid, which features stories about people smuggling animals in their pants and competent criminals in ridiculous science studies, and call it Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me because the good names were taken. Listen to NPR's Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me.
NPR News Now
NPR News: 04-20-2025 4PM EDT
Yes, that is what it is called, wherever you get your podcasts.
NPR News Now
NPR News: 04-13-2025 12PM EDT
This is Ira Glass, the host of This American Life. So much is changing so rapidly right now with President Trump in office. It feels good to pause for a moment sometimes and look around at what's what.
NPR News Now
NPR News: 04-13-2025 12PM EDT
To try and do that, we've been finding these incredible stories about right now that are funny and have feeling and you get to see people everywhere making sense of this new America that we find ourselves in. This American Life, wherever you get your podcasts.
NPR News Now
NPR News: 05-04-2025 3AM EDT
This is Ira Glass, the host of This American Life. So much is changing so rapidly right now with President Trump in office. It feels good to pause for a moment sometimes and look around at what's what.
NPR News Now
NPR News: 05-04-2025 3AM EDT
To try and do that, we've been finding these incredible stories about right now that are funny and have feeling and you get to see people everywhere making sense of this new America that we find ourselves in. This American Life, wherever you get your podcasts.
NPR News Now
NPR News: 05-04-2025 2AM EDT
This is Ira Glass, the host of This American Life. So much is changing so rapidly right now with President Trump in office. It feels good to pause for a moment sometimes and look around at what's what.
NPR News Now
NPR News: 05-04-2025 2AM EDT
To try and do that, we've been finding these incredible stories about right now that are funny and have feeling and you get to see people everywhere making sense of this new America that we find ourselves in. This American Life, wherever you get your podcasts.
NPR News Now
NPR News: 05-26-2025 1PM EDT
This is Ira Glass, the host of This American Life. So much is changing so rapidly right now with President Trump in office. It feels good to pause for a moment sometimes and look around at what's what.
NPR News Now
NPR News: 05-26-2025 1PM EDT
To try and do that, we've been finding these incredible stories about right now that are funny and have feeling and you get to see people everywhere making sense of this new America that we find ourselves in. This American Life, wherever you get your podcasts.
NPR News Now
NPR News: 05-26-2025 12PM EDT
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NPR News Now
NPR News: 05-26-2025 11AM EDT
This is Ira Glass, the host of This American Life. So much is changing so rapidly right now with President Trump in office. It feels good to pause for a moment sometimes and look around at what's what.
NPR News Now
NPR News: 05-26-2025 11AM EDT
To try and do that, we've been finding these incredible stories about right now that are funny and have feeling and you get to see people everywhere making sense of this new America that we find ourselves in. This American Life, wherever you get your podcasts.
NPR News Now
NPR News: 05-19-2025 9AM EDT
This is Ira Glass, the host of This American Life. So much is changing so rapidly right now with President Trump in office. It feels good to pause for a moment sometimes and look around at what's what.
NPR News Now
NPR News: 05-19-2025 9AM EDT
To try and do that, we've been finding these incredible stories about right now that are funny and have feeling and you get to see people everywhere making sense of this new America that we find ourselves in. This American Life, wherever you get your podcasts.
NPR News Now
NPR News: 05-19-2025 8AM EDT
This is Ira Glass, the host of This American Life. So much is changing so rapidly right now with President Trump in office. It feels good to pause for a moment sometimes and look around at what's what.
NPR News Now
NPR News: 05-19-2025 8AM EDT
To try and do that, we've been finding these incredible stories about right now that are funny and have feeling and you get to see people everywhere making sense of this new America that we find ourselves in. This American Life, wherever you get your podcasts.
NPR News Now
NPR News: 05-12-2025 6AM EDT
This is Ira Glass, the host of This American Life. So much is changing so rapidly right now with President Trump in office. It feels good to pause for a moment sometimes and look around at what's what.
NPR News Now
NPR News: 05-12-2025 6AM EDT
To try and do that, we've been finding these incredible stories about right now that are funny and have feeling and you get to see people everywhere making sense of this new America that we find ourselves in. This American Life, wherever you get your podcasts.
NPR News Now
NPR News: 05-12-2025 4AM EDT
This is Ira Glass, the host of This American Life. So much is changing so rapidly right now with President Trump in office. It feels good to pause for a moment sometimes and look around at what's what.
NPR News Now
NPR News: 05-12-2025 4AM EDT
To try and do that, we've been finding these incredible stories about right now that are funny and have feeling and you get to see people everywhere making sense of this new America that we find ourselves in. This American Life, wherever you get your podcasts.
NPR News Now
NPR News: 04-11-2025 5PM EDT
This is Ira Glass. In Lily's family, there's a story everybody knows by heart.
NPR News Now
NPR News: 04-11-2025 5PM EDT
So what happens when Lily's mom tells her this story is not true? This American Life, surprising stories every week.
NPR News Now
NPR News: 04-11-2025 3PM EDT
This is Ira Glass. In Lily's family, there's a story everybody knows by heart.
NPR News Now
NPR News: 04-11-2025 3PM EDT
So what happens when Lily's mom tells her this story is not true? This American Life, surprising stories every week.
Normal Gossip
Sluts for Paperwork with Yowei Shaw
This is Ira Glass, the host of This American Life. So much is changing so rapidly right now with President Trump in office. It feels good to pause for a moment sometimes and look around at what's what.
Normal Gossip
Sluts for Paperwork with Yowei Shaw
To try and do that, we've been finding these incredible stories about right now that are funny and have feeling and you get to see people everywhere adapting and making sense of this new America that we find ourselves in. If you haven't listened in a while, I honestly think these are some of the best stories we've ever done. This American Life, every week, wherever you get your podcasts.
Search Engine
Is it ok to just work all the time?
There were other people, but there weren't many of them who were sticking around and staying. I was generally the one who was staying the longest.
Search Engine
Is it ok to just work all the time?
I didn't feel bad about it, and I didn't think anything of it. I just knew that that's what I wanted to do, and I was going to do it. I was willful.
Search Engine
Is it ok to just work all the time?
It was just, this is what I'm going to do, and I'm going to do it. And I could feel that it was getting better. Like I could feel that I was getting better at it. And I had a vague sense in my head that maybe someday I would do a show. Like I did have that.
Search Engine
Is it ok to just work all the time?
But then if I could have articulated to you what the show was, it would have been to kind of like, I don't know, stories about everyday people. Like it was very vague. What I did know is like I just, it felt like there was something vast there that radio could do that it wasn't doing. And so it felt like a process of discovery.
Search Engine
Is it ok to just work all the time?
And I remember one of the very first people, if not the very first person to write about This American Life was this writer named Bill McKibben. And he wrote a little one-page review that was in The Nation, which is a publication which I don't even know if it exists anymore. Maybe it does.
Search Engine
Is it ok to just work all the time?
Anyway, and he said this thing where he said about the show, he said the thing that was interesting about it was the radio. He says, but what's interesting is it feels so new. And that always stuck with me, because it seemed new to me, too. It felt like, oh, this is just like a new way to do things.
Search Engine
Is it ok to just work all the time?
Well, you know, one great thing about starting a new show is utter anonymity. Nobody really knows what to expect from you. This interviewee did not know us from Adam. Okay, well, what?
Search Engine
Is it ok to just work all the time?
Right now, it is stretching in front of us. A perfect future yet to be fulfilled. And I feel like at this point, the sound of this American life has been around for decades, and lots of people have made their own variations on it. that I think people take it for granted and don't realize that it was new in its time.
Search Engine
Is it ok to just work all the time?
For somebody to narrate the way that I'm narrating in the show, nobody was doing that. We had to convince program directors to run the show. Because it was a weird way to talk on the radio at the time.
Search Engine
Is it ok to just work all the time?
I'm your emcee. I'm your emcee, Ira Glass. Okay, the idea of this show, this new little show, is stories. Some by journalists and documentary producers like myself.
Search Engine
Is it ok to just work all the time?
All I'm picturing is, like, I think we could make this thing, and that would be interesting to do. Like, it's not, I didn't picture, like, here's where it'll be in five years or ten years or something. Like, I just thought, like, this seems like something a person could make, and I think I could make this. And honestly, like, I was scared that somebody else would get to the idea before I would.
Search Engine
Is it ok to just work all the time?
It seems so obvious to me that you could do, like, a show with sort of emotional narrative stories. Which when I look back on it, I guess that's kind of crazy because it was so hard to do. Do you know what I mean? What was hard about it in the beginning? I mean, what was hard about it in the beginning is every single part of it was new.
Search Engine
Is it ok to just work all the time?
Like even to produce that many stories so quickly every week was something I hadn't been in charge of or done before. like it was a show whose format had not existed before. And so every single person who was hired had to be taught the format of this thing, which had never existed and then taught how to make it.
Search Engine
Is it ok to just work all the time?
And I remember like everybody who came to work for the show at the beginning said like, it took a year before they felt like they knew what they were doing. And so during that first year, there was a lot of like teaching people and here's how you do this and doing it over and over and over until people got the hang of it. And, um,
Search Engine
Is it ok to just work all the time?
Yeah, and I remember it was like 10 or 15 years into doing that, that there were enough shows imitating us or the style of This American Life that we could just hire somebody and they would know how to structure a story in our style.
Search Engine
Is it ok to just work all the time?
I think it was 48 new episodes. I think it's 48 because I've... I've looked at it. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Like that's what I remember is 48. Yeah. Because we had nothing to rerun because we had never been on the air. And the way that we structured it is we knew at the beginning, this might be kind of rocky. So we weren't a national show for the first six months.
Search Engine
Is it ok to just work all the time?
We were a local show in Chicago and we were just making them to like learn how to make the show. And so we'd make a show every week and, you know, send it out in Chicago with the thought of, like, we're going to get good enough about this that in May or June or something will be good enough that we can send it out to the whole public radio system. This is pre-podcasting.
Search Engine
Is it ok to just work all the time?
And basically, the way I remember it, it was four of us making the show, and we were either working or asleep. All the time. Yeah. And did that feel... What did that feel like? I mean, I remember it being okay with me. You know what I mean?
Search Engine
Is it ok to just work all the time?
I remember there was a point, at some point in the first year or two, I remember lying in bed at my old apartment on Ashland in Chicago and staring up at the ceiling and thinking, wait, I signed up for this for how long? Like, wait, this is just going to go on forever? Like, we're going to do this?
Search Engine
Is it ok to just work all the time?
And I remember I asked one of the old NPR hosts, Scott Simon, who I had seen go from being like a reporter on NPR to a program host doing weekend edition with Scott Simon. So he was doing a weekly show, and we were doing a weekly show. And I remember running into him in year two or three and asking, how long will it be like this? And he really thought about it.
Search Engine
Is it ok to just work all the time?
He's like, he paused and thought, and then he said, five years. it's going to be like this for five years. And he was right. For five years, it was you're working or you're asleep. I mean, I know that it wasn't just that, but that's... But kind of. But kind of, yeah.
Search Engine
Is it ok to just work all the time?
I think there's a weird thing that people say when people say like, I love my work. Do you know what I mean? Like you said it earlier, and I always think it's like a little weird when people say like, I love my work. Because I think that when you're working that much, Like, you don't love your work. There are parts of it that you really enjoy.
Search Engine
Is it ok to just work all the time?
But then making that much stuff, working for that many hours, you don't love it. It's oppressive. Like, it's both something that, like, you're into and that, like, really... fucked you up. You know what I mean? Like, like, like I've, I've compared it to like, like, oh, I like everything in my world I created, right?
Search Engine
Is it ok to just work all the time?
Like I hired all the people, I invented the format of the show, like every single part of it is, is a, you know, like I helped choose the color of the couch in the meeting room. When we moved there, you know, just like every part of it, you know, like I created. And so I can't complain about my life. And what it feels like is, I mean, I've said this before, but it's true.
Search Engine
Is it ok to just work all the time?
It's sort of like I get to go to this restaurant and they always serve me my very favorite meal, but I'm never, ever allowed to leave the table. You know, like it has that feeling.
Search Engine
Is it ok to just work all the time?
And it's funny, like it didn't occur to me, but like then somebody pointed out like, oh, this feeling that you're having of being like, I'm really into this, this is very interesting, and I also hate it, is exactly what people raising children feel. Yes. Yeah, but that didn't occur to me until years later. Because I had no interest in raising children. I just really didn't think about it.
Search Engine
Is it ok to just work all the time?
And I think part of that really was a kind of immaturity. I was like a kid who was like 14 who really loved making stuff. And then I just kept making stuff. Like, I was 18 or 19 when I started working at NPR. You know what I mean? Like, I was a kid. I had been doing magic shows four years before that at kids' parties. Like, I was a kid.
Search Engine
Is it ok to just work all the time?
But then this seemed really interesting in the way that doing magic shows seemed really interesting. And then that part of my personality just really took over. And I really think that socially, like, I was really arrested for a long time. And it was only, like, Really, like, I think in my 40s that I came out of that and, like, started to, like, grow again.
Search Engine
Is it ok to just work all the time?
Partly because I finally had, like, free time to be around other people. You know, we started the radio show when I was 36, so five years in, I was 41. And it was really, like, in my 40s where finally, like, I sort of experienced what a lot of people experience in their 20s and 30s where I would, like... have free time occasionally and, you know, spend time with other people.
Search Engine
Is it ok to just work all the time?
And at that point, like, had somebody who I really loved and eventually got married to and, like, you know, just had... And we had a dog and, like, had a bunch of, like, the normal experiences that, like, a lot of other people have. But before then, I was totally content to be this separate person and to be somebody who very much... I was a lot weirder socially then. I was the sort of person who...
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Is it ok to just work all the time?
would sort of make my way through conversations with people, asking them questions and taking information, but very much in a kind of like, I wasn't letting myself get close to that many people. I didn't know how. I really had to consciously change the way I was. I mean, this is so personal, but it's true. I was much more of a weirdo.
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Is it ok to just work all the time?
I mean, I'd be interested for you to talk to some of the people I worked with at the beginning of This American Life and see if they would see it this way. But in retrospect, I definitely see it this way. I know what I consciously was. willed to happen in my personality, and it happened.
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Is it ok to just work all the time?
I don't think I suffered at all. I knew your project suffered. But I didn't suffer. Like, it's hard working 70 or 80 hours a week, but it's still just making a radio show. I know. That's not actual suffering. I'm not saying you were like a... No, but can I say, like, for me, yeah, there was no question. I never questioned it while it was going on. I don't question it in retrospect.
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Is it ok to just work all the time?
I feel like that's what I wanted to do. That's what I had to do. And I feel like there are narratives of other kinds of people who make stuff where, like, that's sort of romanticized. You know, people go off and they paint or they write and they do whatever it is. They write music, you know, like, and that's seen as a kind of positive thing.
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Is it ok to just work all the time?
Like, I don't have a feeling about whether that's positive or negative. Like, I understand in retrospect it's not the path that most people chose or choose, but, like, I don't have a problem with the fact that I chose it. I felt like I liked it. I wanted it. I was going to do what I wanted to do, and that was what I was going to do. Like, I don't know. It was stubborn. Yeah.
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Is it ok to just work all the time?
Yeah, but that doesn't feel like that's about the beginning of starting the video show. That feels more like what it's like now. Do I want to keep throwing myself into this machine that I built? How do you think about that? I find that very confusing, honestly. We're about to come up on our 850th episode, and there's a part of me where I feel like I really adore the people I work with.
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Is it ok to just work all the time?
I feel like this last year we've made shows that are as good as anything we've ever made. And shows that have been very excited to get on the air. Like, you know, you have that feeling of like, oh, that was a really good one. Oh, I can't wait to hear people hear that. I feel like I've felt that over and over this year.
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Is it ok to just work all the time?
But I did this exercise like a couple months ago where I had to pick out greatest hits episodes to create a greatest hits archive. And actually, like, I had never really gone through the archive of all 800 episodes to think about which ones of these are really so good.
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Is it ok to just work all the time?
I think that somebody today could, like, enjoyably listen to this show from 20 years ago or 15 years ago or 25 years ago, you know. And then when I see, like, the number of episodes in a year – Some years where I was like, like over the years, like as one home, we would make 26 or 28 or 30 or 34 shows a year. So out of the 30 shows we did that year, there are eight or 10 really wonderful ones
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Is it ok to just work all the time?
So let's say eight out of 30 shows. And then you think, I spent three-fourths of my year, I spent nine months that year on stuff that was just meh in retrospect. And then it makes you look at this last year. And I feel like actually this last year, our batting average was way better than that. Actually, we made a ton of great shows. But still, it's like, what's the point of...
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Is it ok to just work all the time?
of making like 900 of these, or 950, or 1,000. Like how many years left do I have in my life? And like haven't I kind of made the point of like, you know, this would be a nice way to do a radio show. You know what I mean? Like, do I need to be in there? And then also, like, there's all the ones that aren't as good, which kind of just some weeks stuff doesn't come together.
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Is it ok to just work all the time?
Like the story you're hoping would work doesn't work or it's not as good as you hoped. And so then you feel like, all right, I'm going to make this as good as I can. But like, I know there's one great story in this show, but then the other is doing kind of, they're okay. And like, you know, just sort of like, it's just where you don't feel like, oh, this is why I'm doing this with my life.
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Is it ok to just work all the time?
You know, like, yeah, like, and I don't know what to do with that. And, and, uh, And then also, if we're going to be really honest, like... something that's so personal is that like my partner now is just like so incredibly productive. And it's like, she's like, she has a new TV show that she's off filming right now.
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Is it ok to just work all the time?
But then after that, she has like a bunch of different movies that like she's written and other things she's being asked to direct. And I just feel like, well, watching her, I just say, well, wait, I could be doing more. I certainly could be, you know, doing more. Like more stuff or more? I don't know, just more stuff that I feel like super thrilled about.
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Is it ok to just work all the time?
I mean, I've had a few partners who really work was a huge part of their life and a main thing in their life in the way it is for me. But, yeah. But this is the first time I've been involved with somebody whose work habits are so close to mine. That's what I mean. Where she'll just work all the time if it's something that seems worth doing. Yeah.
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Is it ok to just work all the time?
And in fact, one of the things we'll do together is we'll have study hall together. We'll be like, well, let's get together, but we'll just kind of sit across from each other.
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Yeah, of course. That was the entire first five years, pretty much. Like, it seemed like I could be putting all this work into this thing and it could vanish. But honestly, that seemed fine to me.
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Is it ok to just work all the time?
Oh, yeah. Like, who cares? Like, I would just, I would find something else to do. Like, I don't know. I just knew, like, not that many people knew how to edit tape and knew how to make a nice story for NPR. I knew if, like, if this blew up, I could just go back to all things instead of a morning edition. I'd be fine. It'd be fine. I'd find something else to do.
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Is it ok to just work all the time?
In fact, like, in the early contracts for This American Life, we had never had to, like, clear rights for something. Like, I didn't know how to do it, and I didn't know—I wasn't smart enough to ask, like, a proper intellectual property lawyer, how do you do this? And so basically we would just write up contracts based on sort of common sense.
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Is it ok to just work all the time?
And I remember if like David Sedaris would read a story on the show, we would get the rights to broadcast it and rebroadcast it for three years. And I remember thinking like, if this show lasts three years and we have to go back and renegotiate that contract, that would be a problem I would love to have. It seems so unlikely.
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Is it ok to just work all the time?
It was from a place of terror. Okay. Yeah, like I didn't want the thing to be bad. Yeah. And that was terrifying. But I also felt like if this doesn't work out, if people don't like this show, if this isn't something... good, then that's fine. I had worked on a bunch of different shows and some had blown up.
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Is it ok to just work all the time?
I mean, I never started my own show besides The Wild Room, the local show that I did with my friends. But I had worked on a bunch of shows and some had blown up. And I don't know, everybody moved on. It would be fine. And so then it becomes stable. You enter a period where...
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Is it ok to just work all the time?
After five years, like, basically, like, it took that long for the finances of it to be solid enough and the audience to be solid enough that it was clear, like, okay, we're going to be fine. We're not running, running, running. We're just to get this thing going.
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Is it ok to just work all the time?
Like, we were on hundreds of radio stations, and we had a solid audience, and we had advertising money, and we had carriage fees that stations would pay to run the show. Like, it was a financially solid, and from that point forward, the show has always been profitable every year.
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Is it ok to just work all the time?
No, no, it would still be like 60 or 70 hours. You know, and some weeks more.
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Is it ok to just work all the time?
Yeah. Like, why make something if it's not going to be special? Like, why bother if you're not going to try to make it, like, this is going to be amazing. If it's not going to be amazing, the world has enough stuff that's meh that you don't need to bother. Which is why, in retrospect, it's so disappointing to look back at, like, the percentage that are just kind of like, that was fine.
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Is it ok to just work all the time?
Recently? Yeah. Yes. And it's more just like do I continue doing it? Like I don't retrospectively regret any of it, but it's more just like should I keep doing this or should I find something else to do? And the math of that particular question is, I'm better at doing this than I am at probably anything else I would come up with, at least right away.
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Is it ok to just work all the time?
I've been practicing this one, so I can do this one well. And honestly, I went to the trouble with a bunch of people to get this show to the point where millions of people hear it each week. That's a hard thing to turn your back on. It's funded, it's stable, millions of people hear it every week. To turn your back on that, nobody gets that. Do you know what I mean?
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Is it ok to just work all the time?
It's just an incredibly rare thing. If I leave it and give it to other people to run, Like, you know, I'm not going to find something that will have that big of an audience. And then I'll have to do what other people do, which is like I'll have to pitch things and get people to fund it and be in that world again. Right. You don't get to pick the color of the couch. Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly.
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Is it ok to just work all the time?
And so it's hard to move from a situation where I work with a bunch of people and we have complete freedom to do whatever we want. There's no adult supervision above us. We really do whatever we think is best. And lots of people hear it and it's funded. It's so, so rare. So it's a hard thing to walk away from.
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Is it ok to just work all the time?
I literally don't even know what would be on the other side of it. It's like imagining what happens after your own death or something. Or, like, I remember before I traveled to a foreign country, I remember I was just, I had no picture of what it would be like. Like, I had seen pictures of other countries, but I really just hadn't, I couldn't form it in my head.
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Is it ok to just work all the time?
30 years? Since 1995. But then the job was basically just a variation of every job I had since I was 19. Yeah. You know, like, I just got to do more interesting stuff. But it was still just basically, you go into the beginning of the week, you think, like, what could we possibly do that people would find fun to listen to?
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Is it ok to just work all the time?
No. No. No, it could have been something else. But I happened to end up at a place at NPR in the 70s where like the things I could get obsessive about were in front of me. But it could have been something else. If I had ended up in a TV station, I would be on TV or making TV. I don't think I'd probably be on TV, but I'd be making TV.
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Is it ok to just work all the time?
not a great father or have a very different relationship to your work. Yes. I really thought about that. In fact, with my wife, when we talked about should we have kids, one of the things that I felt at the time was like, I'm barely holding it together now without having kids. I don't know how I would be able to manage.
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Is it ok to just work all the time?
If we had kids, I mean, at that point, the staff of the radio show, when she and I were considering this, was still pretty small. It was still seven people, which is a lot of people for a weekly radio show. But for like a super highly produced one, it was still like, you know, it was hard to get the show on the air. And so I didn't know how we would do it. Like, I just didn't know how to do it.
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Is it ok to just work all the time?
There came a point in my life after I was married and divorced that I grew up with somebody who had a little boy. And when we got together, he was... Five, he just turned six when we got together. And at some point we moved in.
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Is it ok to just work all the time?
I had the experience of living with somebody and her kid and really was very totally involved in the kid's life and just in the most everyday way that you can be if it's three people living in a small apartment and one of you is under 10. And so like doing some work with them and inventing games with them and just sitting around and doing stuff and watching TV and leaning on each other.
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Is it ok to just work all the time?
And just like, and I feel like I really, I had the experience anyways where I realized like, oh, I really did not picture what this would be like. Like when I pictured having kids, I pictured the kind of baby face that I'd seen friends go through. And I hadn't pictured this. And I feel like for the first time I felt like, oh, I totally get it in an emotional way.
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Is it ok to just work all the time?
Like I understood in the abstract why people have children. before this, you know, like it's not that complicated of a thing to understand, but I didn't get like why it could feel good to me to do it. Like I really liked it. I really liked having kid in the house.
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Is it ok to just work all the time?
I really liked being one of the adults caring for that kid and looking out for that kid and thinking about that kid and having like a daily relationship. And his mom was like, should we have a kid? You know? And, um, It's funny, like, I mean, the real honest answer is I wasn't sure how I would manage that with my job.
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Is it ok to just work all the time?
And I didn't want to be, I didn't want to have a kid if I was going to be absent.
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Is it ok to just work all the time?
You know? What can I say? Like, if I had wanted it enough, I would have figured it out. And part of what you're trying to figure out is, like, would you have regrets if you had a kid? You should talk to somebody. who's had to make that trade-off about how they feel about that. Because I think that people do have really strong feelings about that.
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Is it ok to just work all the time?
I mean, it's funny because Mike Birbiglia has a joke in his show, The New One. And I only know this because I helped him on that show. He's my friend. And the whole show is about him trying to figure out, should he have a kid? In the first half of the show, he's basically giving all the reasons not to have a kid. And then they have the kid. But one of the things he talks about is sort of like...
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Is it ok to just work all the time?
Your work will be worse. And like he says, that's a problem. It's like your work will be worse. And he's like, and you can say it's not going to be, but it's going to be. That feels true to me.
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Is it ok to just work all the time?
and clothed and like protected from the cold well and loved and given your attention like like this like human being will want your attention specifically attention from you yes i think that reduces the amount of hours you can be like well that's true i don't know like i i think i'm not somebody to ask about this part of it you should ask somebody who knows better what did you make of what mike said
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Is it ok to just work all the time?
But if his joke... You and I both know people who have kids whose work is amazing.
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Is it ok to just work all the time?
Let me think if that's the honest answer. No, I wondered about it, but not, I wondered about it. I wondered about it, but not in like a deep yearning way. Just in a curious way. Yeah. Like what would this have been like? And I guess that would have been kind of interesting, but I didn't, I don't know. Like, yeah, it wasn't, It didn't then lead me to a sense of regret and, oh, let's make a baby.
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Is it ok to just work all the time?
I just really hadn't thought about what the day-to-day experience is of living with a kid and just how nice it is. And, like, what is fulfilling about it and what you get back from it. I hadn't thought about what you get back from it. All I thought about is, like, what you throw into it. And what do you get back from it? Like, you, not one. I mean, part, I just really, like, love this kid.
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Is it ok to just work all the time?
And, um... I mean, everything I'm going to say is so corny, just like seeing him grow, seeing him learn new things, teaching him little stuff that then he can do. Um, just being just, I mean, it's funny, like I just remember the first time we were sitting on the couch and he just leaned himself against me to watch something. And it just was really.
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Is it ok to just work all the time?
meaningful that there's like this person who like trusted me and was leaning on me and, um, and wanted to be close to me in that way. Like, yeah, like it. I mean, like this is like a really terrible, not analogous thing, but it reminds me of when I first had a dog. Like I had never had dogs. My ex-wife really loved dogs and always had a dog. And so we got a dog.
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Is it ok to just work all the time?
And really for the first few years, I really just saw the dog as a job. And like I would spend an hour a day easily like walking the dog, dealing with the dog, whatever. Walking the dog, for sure. And playing with the dog. And it really took me years before I understood the concept of like, oh, you're supposed to get something back from this. Like, it really didn't occur to me.
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Is it ok to just work all the time?
I just really thought, like, because the dog would be affectionate with me, but I just thought, like, well, of course you're affectionate with me. Like, you don't know anybody in New York except me and her. Like, you know what I mean? Like, you don't know anybody. Like, I'm one of two people you know. Yeah, you have to be nice to me. But with this little boy, just very early on, it just got to me.
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I could see what I was getting back from it, and it felt like something big to get back from somebody.
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Is it ok to just work all the time?
I mean, I always really loved kids. I just hadn't had the experience of living with a kid. Did it change me at all? It did change me, yeah. It did change me. Like, it made me a lot more awake to what all the people in my life are going through who have kids. I think I was really insensitive about it. Like, I understood the idea of it, but I think I wasn't sensitive to the feeling of it.
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Is it ok to just work all the time?
And it's just, like, such a weird combination of, like, labor and affection. And, yeah, like, it made me... In the way that going through something makes you just more awake to what everybody else is experiencing who goes through it. I'm glad I know that. I'm glad I know what parents are going through in a way that's more lived.
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On my part, I think that that makes me way more awake and sensitive to the people around me who are raising kids.
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Is it ok to just work all the time?
I mean, I really don't hold much value in the idea of what you leave behind. I don't think it matters because you don't exist anymore. Like, I have a very, like, I have, like, the most primitive... view of it that I can't defend, but I just feel like it really doesn't matter once I don't exist. I mean, maybe if I had kids, I would see that differently.
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Is it ok to just work all the time?
Like I want the world to keep spinning and I want things to be okay for people. And I want, you know, I think the world not to head towards catastrophe because in just the abstract way, like I care about the people of the future and the way I care about anybody who I don't know, you know, but like, But really, like, who cares? Like, honestly, who cares?
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Is it ok to just work all the time?
Like, nobody needs to hear these radio shows that I made after I'm dead. Like, they're not designed for that. They're designed for the people who are around when they're made. And that's what they're made for. And there was something really, like, nice back before the internet. We'd make the radio show, and it would go out on the radio. And you could, like, buy a cassette, I guess.
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Is it ok to just work all the time?
But people didn't really do that. You know what I mean? Like, you could buy a tape, and we would mail you a tape. But basically, like for most people, like overwhelmingly, you would hear something on the radio and then you would never hear it again. And then it would get better in your mind, you know, like the show would improve with age.
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Is it ok to just work all the time?
And that was kind of cool to make something that was like it existed for a moment for you to share with somebody. like an intimate moment with another person. And it's okay for that to be all it is. Like it doesn't have to last for centuries. And I just think like death is a real thing and it's absolutely finite and I don't believe in an afterlife. And so that doesn't motivate me.
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Is it ok to just work all the time?
Yes. Yeah. Like, like the radio show is so much more successful than I ever anticipated it could be. Like, like it just, it just, uh, it's amazing. It's lasted this long and it's nice that people like it. And I feel lucky that, that I get a chance to work on it because it's, it's fun to make and also a pain in the ass and horrible sometimes, but fun also. And, um,
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Is it ok to just work all the time?
Yeah, like, it doesn't need to be more than this. It's just a fucking radio show. You know what I mean? It's just a show. We're just making a show. Like, there's so much stuff that people are making.
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Is it ok to just work all the time?
I know, but like millions of people hear it, more people than I'll ever meet. Hear it. Like, it's already reached as many people as it ever needs to reach. Like, and if it reached a lot more, that would be okay, too. But, like, it reaches so many people. Like, I'm ambitious, and I embrace that. You know what I mean? Like, I'm ambitious.
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Is it ok to just work all the time?
But my ambition is I want to make something that's exactly the way I want it to be. And I want it to be something that'll reach a lot of people. But it doesn't have to reach everybody. Like, it doesn't have to be for everybody. It doesn't have to be everybody's taste. It doesn't have to be for people of the future. Fuck people of the future. They'll find some fucking way to entertain themselves.
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Is it ok to just work all the time?
They don't need me. They're making more people who are younger than me who can do that. Like, plenty of smart, funny, capable people can make things for the people of the future. They don't need to listen to radio shows from the 1990s.
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Is it ok to just work all the time?
That would even show more concern for the people of the future than I feel. But sure, that has so much dignity. Yes, my legacy is that I want to create space for the young people. Like whatever, they don't need my fucking help. They're going to be fine. Somebody who wants to make something will stand up and somebody wants to be on stage and it's totally fine. They don't need my help.
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Sure. My name is Ira Glass, and I host the podcast This American Life and radio show This American Life.
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I mean, I really stumbled into working on the radio. I had no interest in radio at all. And when I was 19, I was just looking for some summer job in the media. And the local TV stations in Baltimore didn't have anything. And the local ad agencies didn't have anything. And the local radio stations didn't have anything. And somebody referred me to this place called NPR in Washington.
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So I drove an hour to get to DC. And I was able to talk my way into an internship would even be an exaggeration. It was 1978. They didn't have an internship program. I just talked my way into this place. And they let me work there for free for the summer. And I had never heard of them on the radio, nor had most people because it was 1978. NPR was only created in the early 70s.
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Like they had one afternoon news show that was not very well listened to, all things considered. No, they weren't even on a satellite. Like the way the show was distributed was on phone lines around the country. And then I just started working there and I just found I really liked it. and liked the people, and it was interesting making stuff for the radio.
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And I had a couple of turning point moments, but one of them was that, not that first summer, but I got hired back for a real job the second summer by this guy whose job it was to invent new ways to do radio documentary.
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His name was Keith Talbot, and one of the things that he was doing, one of the many things he was doing, was working with this guy who would tell stories on the radio named Joe Frank.
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And Joe was doing monologues on the radio at the time that were unlike anything I had ever heard. And Joe is an incredible performer and would put kind of like melodic, dreamy music underneath it.
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Like, I had never heard anybody tell a story on the radio, actually. And so I had never had the experience of listening to somebody tell some story where you just get caught up in the story and you're just like, what is going to happen? What is going to happen? And I remember sitting in NPR's old Studio 2 on the first floor of their original headquarters on M Street in Washington,
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watching Joe record his narration. And I just remember thinking, like, I don't know what this is, but I want to do that. Like, whatever that is. Like, I just, I had never had the experience of, like, getting caught up in some story and realizing, like, oh, radio can do this. Like, I had no idea of that. And so for me, that was that, that was that moment.
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I was just like, this thing that he's doing, I want to do. Like, I didn't come into being in... being on the radio by being a journalist. The thing that I liked when I was a kid was I liked Broadway shows, and I liked movies, and I liked comedians. I really didn't know anything about journalism.
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What I was interested in was, oh, it's a story, and it just gave me this feeling, and I wanted to find out what was going to happen. I just felt swept up in it. Then, if anything, the next decade of my life,
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And more it was me trying to figure out how to make something that was that, but they were true stories about real people, you know what I mean, who I could interview and making interviews into a thing that had that kind of feeling and just that kind of just pulled you in and pulled you forward and you just had to keep listening. Like, I just wanted to do that. I had that in my head.
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I think the real answer is like right at the very beginning, like from the first time I was making, making anything. Like it just was interesting to me when parts of it would work and then the stuff that didn't work I wanted to solve. And then enough things, like really early on in the first year or two, even with like rudimentary skills, I was good enough that I could get decent interview tape.
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And then I was good enough as an editor that I could shape it in a way that it would have a feeling to it. And a forward motion to it. And really early on, I was doing interviews and putting music underneath it. I did that. That was the style that my mentor, Keith, worked in. And I learned from him, actually.
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I mean, that part of this American Life sound really comes from me working with somebody else who taught me. And then... There's this novelist, Michael Cunningham, who wrote The Hours and he's written a bunch of other books. He said this thing in an interview that I saw where I felt like, oh, he really put a thing in a way where I've never thought that.
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But as soon as I read it, I was like, oh, that's definitely what I think. Where he said that he doesn't believe in talent. He said he thinks what happens is that a certain kind of person gets a sort of obsessive interest in how do I make this better. And that definitely just was, when I saw that quote, I was like, oh, that is exactly what happened to me. I wasn't that good.
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Like I was a terrible writer and I was a terrible performer in the air. But like I was just very interested in the like, I can feel that this could get better. Like how do you make this better? And just that was just very interesting to me.
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And then I was lucky in that like NPR in the 70s and 80s was just like a place where it was encouraged to a small degree, not to a large degree, but there was like enough room in the system that you could just... experiment with stuff and get it on the air in front of lots of people. I was lucky to be in a place where I could keep trying different things and it was rewarded.
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Stopping A Deadly Disease On Apache Lands
This is Ira Glass, the host of This American Life. So much is changing so rapidly right now with President Trump in office. It feels good to pause for a moment sometimes and look around at what's what.
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Stopping A Deadly Disease On Apache Lands
To try and do that, we've been finding these incredible stories about right now that are funny and have feeling and you get to see people everywhere making sense of this new America that we find ourselves in. This American Life, wherever you get your podcasts.
Short Wave
In The Club, We All ... Archaea?
This is Ira Glass, the host of This American Life. So much is changing so rapidly right now with President Trump in office. It feels good to pause for a moment sometimes and look around at what's what.
Short Wave
In The Club, We All ... Archaea?
To try and do that, we've been finding these incredible stories about right now that are funny and have feeling and you get to see people everywhere making sense of this new America that we find ourselves in. This American Life, wherever you get your podcasts.
Short Wave
What's A Weather Forecast Worth?
This is Ira Glass, the host of This American Life. So much is changing so rapidly right now with President Trump in office. It feels good to pause for a moment sometimes and look around at what's what.
Short Wave
What's A Weather Forecast Worth?
To try and do that, we've been finding these incredible stories about right now that are funny and have feeling and you get to see people everywhere making sense of this new America that we find ourselves in. This American Life, wherever you get your podcasts.
Short Wave
The Great Space Race ... With Clocks
This is Ira Glass, the host of This American Life. So much is changing so rapidly right now with President Trump in office. It feels good to pause for a moment sometimes and look around at what's what.
Short Wave
The Great Space Race ... With Clocks
To try and do that, we've been finding these incredible stories about right now that are funny and have feeling and you get to see people everywhere making sense of this new America that we find ourselves in. This American Life, wherever you get your podcasts.
Short Wave
All Hail The Butt Flicker
This is Ira Glass, the host of This American Life. So much is changing so rapidly right now with President Trump in office. It feels good to pause for a moment sometimes and look around at what's what.
Short Wave
All Hail The Butt Flicker
To try and do that, we've been finding these incredible stories about right now that are funny and have feeling and you get to see people everywhere making sense of this new America that we find ourselves in. This American Life, wherever you get your podcasts.
Short Wave
All Hail The Butt Flicker
These days, there's a lot of news. It can be hard to keep up with what it means for you, your family and your community. Consider this from NPR as a podcast that helps you make sense of the news. Six days a week, we bring you a deep dive on a story and provide the context, backstory and analysis you need to understand our rapidly changing world. Listen to the Consider This podcast from NPR.
Short Wave
Why Daylight Boosts Immunity
This is Ira Glass, the host of This American Life. So much is changing so rapidly right now with President Trump in office. It feels good to pause for a moment sometimes and look around at what's what.
Short Wave
Why Daylight Boosts Immunity
To try and do that, we've been finding these incredible stories about right now that are funny and have feeling and you get to see people everywhere making sense of this new America that we find ourselves in. This American Life, wherever you get your podcasts.
This American Life
857: Museum of Now
Yeah, I actually saw that once. It's just like giant letters, like 50 feet tall or something, two blocks long.
This American Life
857: Museum of Now
Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.
This American Life
857: Museum of Now
Laura Starczewski is one of the editors of our show. The actors were Veronica Cruz and Dave Shulansky.
This American Life
857: Museum of Now
Well, our visit to the Museum of Now was produced and edited by Nancy Updike and Rana Jafi-Wald. They also sit on the museum's board and construction committee and say that if we need to visit again, they can pull some strings for us. They promise they're going to stay on the board, even if the president decides to make himself the chairman.
This American Life
857: Museum of Now
Other people put together today's show via Ben and Michael Kamate, Angela Gervasi, Cassie Howey, Valerie Kipnis, Seth Lynn, Tobin Lowe, Catherine Raimondo, Stone Nelson, Nadia Raymond, Ryan Rumery, Alyssa Shipp, Ike Shreeskandarajah, Lily Sullivan, Amelia Schoenbeck, Christopher Sotala, and Diane Wu. Our managing editor is Sara Abdurrahman. Our senior editor is David Kestenbaum.
This American Life
857: Museum of Now
Our executive editor is Emmanuel Berry. Special thanks today to Eli Hagar, Tom Cartwright, Molly Mitchell, Liz Goss, Adam Cohn, Catherine Bettis, Alice Guerrero, Sonia West, Kat, no last name, you know who you are. Andrew Zitzer, Yo-Ai Shaw, Karen Ortiz, Annika Barber, and public radio station KCRW in Los Angeles, where I've been recording this week. They have been so nice.
This American Life
857: Museum of Now
Special thanks to Philip Richards, Sarah Sweeney, and Jennifer Farrow. Quick program note, we've been making these bonus episodes every two weeks for months now for our life partners. In the most recent one, a former producer named Alex Bloomberg begins a little tour of This American Life stories to cover the news, stuff...
This American Life
857: Museum of Now
I have to say there's like this weird time capsule of all kinds of feelings and events. If you want to hear those or hear the many, many non-news, very fun bonus episodes that we've made, go to thisamericanlife.org slash lifepartners. This American Life is delivered to public radio stations by PRX, the Public Radio Exchange. Thanks to the program's co-founder, Ms. Tori Malatia.
This American Life
857: Museum of Now
From WBC Chicago, it's This American Life. And I am joined in the studio by my coworker, Emmanuel Jochi.
This American Life
857: Museum of Now
Yes, a museum. One of the things that, you know, we've been talking about here on the staff, as you know, is it feels like there are so many things happening every day since President Trump took office, like federal agencies being gutted or, you know, a judge ordering the White House to turn some planes around and then...
This American Life
857: Museum of Now
seeming to ignore the court order or secret war planning being done on signal on people's phones and shared with a random reporter. Like there was so much happening so fast and you feel like, oh, did that really happen?
This American Life
857: Museum of Now
And I don't know what our staff, we've been talking about how we just want to like grab a hold of these things and just put them in a place where we can look at them together, just preserve them like a museum, a museum of now.
This American Life
857: Museum of Now
Fine. Because today on our show, we have other historical artifacts of this exact moment we are living through. As you'll hear, the people in these stories, over and over, they seem sort of dumbfounded at what they're suddenly seeing and dealing with in America today. We were too. Stay with us.
This American Life
857: Museum of Now
It's It's American Life, today's show, The Museum of Now. And let's take a little stroll, shall we, through the museum? Watch out for the construction right there. There's some stuff. Yeah, we're just starting to build out our collection here. All right, let's begin with this exhibit, a multimedia exhibit.
This American Life
857: Museum of Now
This is actually the hold music that people all over the country are hearing when they try to reach the Social Security Administration. The agency sends out payments to some 70 million people every month. The agency says that it is getting way more calls than usual right now.
This American Life
857: Museum of Now
Elon Musk and all the talk of rooting out fraud and kicking dead people off of the rolls seem to be freaking out millions of senior citizens. So more of them are calling. Audits, by the way, show that lots of dead people are not getting checks. That is not a thing. Wait times were long even before this. But right now, a fourth of the callers basically get a busy signal and have to try again.
This American Life
857: Museum of Now
If you call and you do get put on hold, there is a callback option. But one of our coworkers decided to stay on the line to see how long it would take.
This American Life
857: Museum of Now
Yeah, there's nowhere close to that. They finally picked up at one hour, 39 minutes.
This American Life
857: Museum of Now
So that is like a piece of rock about the size of a football, yellow on one side.
This American Life
857: Museum of Now
The worker who did finally pick up the phone, I will say, was super nice, very helpful.
This American Life
857: Museum of Now
Okay, next, walk with me down the hallway here to this next exhibit. Okay, stop right there. Here we have a short video. As you can see, it's playing on a loop. It was posted on X by the Secretary of Homeland Security. Eight seconds long. Security cam footage plays over and over.
This American Life
857: Museum of Now
And to help you understand what you're looking at, Aviva de Kornfeld has the story of the five days that led to this video for the woman who was in it. What happened in those five days caught this woman completely off guard. Because as far as she knew, or as we know now, what happened to her hadn't happened to anybody else at that point. Just three weeks ago.
This American Life
699: Fiasco!
This is a story not just of a mediocre play or a terrible play. When it comes right down to it, it's not even a story about a play. This is a story about a fiasco and about what makes a fiasco.
This American Life
699: Fiasco!
Well, what happened? At some point the audience turned and realized, oh, wait, I realize what's going on here. This is a fiasco.
This American Life
699: Fiasco!
And one ingredient of many fiascos is that great, massive, heart-wrenching chaos and failure are more likely to occur when great ambition has come into play, when plans are big, expectations great, hopes at their highest.
This American Life
699: Fiasco!
Oh, they get hungry for more fiasco. Oh, yeah. If this play proceeded perfectly, they would be disappointed.
This American Life
699: Fiasco!
Before you do this, I just want to explain. When we say breaking down the fourth wall, what we mean is the wall between the actors and the audience. You know, usually it's impermeable, but then there came a point in the late 60s, early 70s, where a lot of theaters— Basically, the actors would come out into the audience.
This American Life
699: Fiasco!
What's interesting about this as a fiasco, I feel like the thing that makes me understand about fiascos is that the fiasco itself is an altered state. That is, all the normal rules are off. You have left the normal rules of how the audience is going to interact with the actors. Right.
This American Life
699: Fiasco!
See, but I wonder, like, when you think about what people go to theater for, like, what kind of release people want. I mean, people want an experience that will take them out of themselves. We all want an experience that will take us out of ourselves and into another place and another reality. And it sounds like this production...
This American Life
699: Fiasco!
Even though it was a fiasco, in fact, because it was a fiasco, was more successful at that than any conventional play could be.
This American Life
699: Fiasco!
Jack Head, he's a contributing writer for the New York Times Magazine and Harper's. Jack says, by the way, the people ask him about this Peter Pan story still, all these years after we first broadcast it. And the thing they ask him is, really? Is that story true? He says he just tells him to go onto YouTube and search for Peter Pan and fiasco.
This American Life
699: Fiasco!
And if you try that yourself, the Peter Pan fiascos that you're going to see, and there are more than one, happened after we first broadcast this story back in the 90s, suggesting that fiascos are not an exception when it comes to productions of this show, but maybe kind of a trend. ¶¶ Act two, squirrel cop. Well, human error is often at the heart of a fiasco.
This American Life
699: Fiasco!
But what happens when you combine human error with what we will call in this case, animal error? We have this story from a police officer in a suburban community on the East Coast.
This American Life
699: Fiasco!
See, but this, in fact, is one of the criteria for greatness, is that everyone is just about to reach just beyond their grasp because that is when greatness can occur.
This American Life
699: Fiasco!
Well, today on our program, what happens when greatness does not occur? What happens, in fact, when fumble leads to error, leads to mishap, and before you know it, you have left the realm of ordinary mistake and chaos, and you have entered into the more ethereal, specialized realm of fiasco.
This American Life
699: Fiasco!
Yeah, now that you mention that, yeah, that's right. You walk into the house thinking, okay, we'll get the squirrel. Like, how were you going to get the squirrel? Yeah. What was the best case scenario?
This American Life
699: Fiasco!
Our interviewee, who asked not to be named on the radio, had been on the force for 18 years when he spoke with me. Coming up, what it's like to be invited to a big charity event that you then ruin. That's in a minute on Chicago Public Radio when our program continues.
This American Life
699: Fiasco!
It's Just American Life, Myra Glass. Each week on our program, of course, we choose a theme, bring you different kinds of stories on that theme. Today's show, Fiasco. This is our own inquiry into the nature of what makes a fiasco. When you have left the world of mishap, stumble, human error, and you enter into the much more rarefied realm of fiasco, we have arrived at Act 3 of our program.
This American Life
699: Fiasco!
Act 3, tragedy minus comedy equals time, specifically a long, long time between laughs. So Mike Babiglia is a comedian. He's been on our show lots of times. And years ago, years ago, he told this story about this one gig that he did relatively early in his career. He says it was the worst show he's ever done in his life.
This American Life
699: Fiasco!
Mike Birbiglia, in addition to touring and having specials on Netflix, he also has a podcast about how to write stories and jokes. I've actually been on it a couple of times. It's called Working It Out. You can find it wherever you get your podcasts. Act Four. Fiascos is a force for good.
This American Life
699: Fiasco!
George Clooney, Barbara Streisand, Jennifer Aniston, Vidal Sassoon, Jodie Foster, Jason Momoa, Brad Pitt, Keanu Reeves, Sharon Stone, and John Travolta. Also, George Burns, Bob Hope, Gene Kelly, Gina Rowlands. Also, Quentin Tarantino, John Waters, Nora Ephron, Margie Rocklin has interviewed all these people. She's written big feature stories for all sorts of big magazines and newspapers.
This American Life
699: Fiasco!
But the very, very first big feature assignment that she was actually sent out on was by a publication in 1982, the Los Angeles Reader. They sent out a very nervous, very youthful Margie Rocklin to interview Moon Unit Zappa. Remember her? Daughter of Frank Zappa.
This American Life
699: Fiasco!
So you get there and you're a bit nervous and the pressure is on, which is, of course, the setting for a possible triumph or a possible fiasco. Right. And what happens next?
This American Life
699: Fiasco!
Right. Well, we have a recording of it because you had a tape recorder rolling during this.
This American Life
699: Fiasco!
What could be more American than the person who sees something they've never done before, dreams they could do it, goes after that dream? Well, let's begin today with a woman who dreams of directing a play in the small town where she lives, a college town somewhere below the Mason-Dixon line in the hills of Appalachia, a town which will remain for our purposes today unnamed.
This American Life
699: Fiasco!
I've been a reporter for 20 years and nobody's ever given me the Heimlich maneuver while I've been on the story.
This American Life
699: Fiasco!
It's interesting, you know, because one of our criteria for a fiasco is that all social order, the normal social structure breaks down. And literally that's what happens here. The normal interview stops and the social structure of the moment completely changes. The mom gives you the Heimlich maneuver and then suddenly it stops feeling like an interview.
This American Life
699: Fiasco!
This is American Life. Today's show is a rerun, a really fun show that we thought would be fun to run this holiday week. And we begin our show with this true fable of Peter Pan in Act One, opening night.
This American Life
699: Fiasco!
Yeah. To me, the thing about it that's useful is that it shows the useful purpose of a fiasco. That is, when social order breaks down, that can be a force not just for chaos and for entropy and for evil, but in fact, that could be a force for good. Right. It can bring people together.
This American Life
699: Fiasco!
And most of the quotable stuff that you ended up using in your story happened after squirting the coffee through your nose.
This American Life
699: Fiasco!
Margie Rocklin. She covers film and television in Los Angeles. Moon Unit Zappa's memoir, Earth to Moon, was published in August. Today's program was produced by Nancy Updike and myself, with Paul Toffoli, Spiegel, and Julie Snyder. Attributing editors for today's program, Jack Hitt, Margie Rocklin, and Consigliere Sarah Vow.
This American Life
699: Fiasco!
Production up for this rerun from Henry Larson, Stone Nelson, and Matt Tierney. This American Life is delivered to public radio stations by PRX, the public radio exchange. Become a This American Life partner, which has you all kinds of bonus content, ad-free listening, and hundreds of our favorite episodes of the show right in your podcast feed. Go to thisamericanlife.org slash lifepartners.
This American Life
699: Fiasco!
That link is also in the show notes. Thanks as always to our program's co-founder, Mr. Torrey Malatia. He walks into our studio at the end of each and every episode. every single broadcast to grimly assess the damage.
This American Life
699: Fiasco!
I'm Eric Glass. Back next week, there's more stories of This American Life.
This American Life
699: Fiasco!
Wait, wait, and the audience reaction to this point is just, are they laughing?
This American Life
699: Fiasco!
May I just interrupt for just a moment to just say now, at this point, because after all, we are not just joined here together on the radio, you and I today, to laugh at the foibles of the unfortunate. No, no, we're here to enumerate the qualities of a fiasco. At this point, we are not yet. In the territory of Fiasco.
This American Life
699: Fiasco!
So we are not yet at Fiasco. We are at a sort of normal level of mishap. Right. Right.
This American Life
699: Fiasco!
When he was in the 10th grade in 1973, Jack Hitt saw her production. And like everybody else in town, he heard about it for weeks beforehand.
This American Life
699: Fiasco!
Literally, all that's going to happen for the rest of the show is people are going to refer to you by that hook. Your entire motivation as a character is the fact that you're...
This American Life
699: Fiasco!
Whereas in other productions what they'll do is that someone will shine a light. Shine a light, or they'll just... A beam of focused light, and then that pinprick of light is supposed to be Tinkerbell.
This American Life
823: The Question Trap
Something else there, like there was a question underneath the question that they were trying to get the answer to.
This American Life
823: The Question Trap
Tobin Lowe is an editor on our program. Question two, how old are your kids? So there's a particular piece of small talk that happens all the time that for some people is like the most normal thing in the world and for others is a super delicate minefield.
This American Life
823: The Question Trap
This story that you're about to hear is about a couple for whom it is a minefield and how one day a question like this comes up and it goes completely differently from how it's ever gone before for them in a spectacularly wild way. You'll hear what I'm talking about. Chris Benderev tells the story.
This American Life
823: The Question Trap
Right. You're both man. Yes. But one of you is really the man. Yes.
This American Life
823: The Question Trap
Then, when Dobin would tell them that it was his husband who was the handy one, he felt like he was just giving them ammunition to put a picture of their relationship that just bugged him. Like they were being sized up into familiar categories. Would you view as the husband? Would you view as the wife?
This American Life
823: The Question Trap
In the closet. For Tobin, that means middle school and high school.
This American Life
823: The Question Trap
Chris Penderiff. Coming up, a question about a 400-year-old play and a personal question underneath that question. That's in a minute from Chicago Public Radio when our program continues.
This American Life
823: The Question Trap
This is American Life from Ira Glass. Today's program, the question trap. What we're talking about today is those questions that can seem benevolent, innocent, harmless, innocuous, could not hurt a fly. But underneath, they're really asking something else or quietly making a point about something else. We've arrived at question three of our program. Question three, how's your mom?
This American Life
823: The Question Trap
So we spotted this next thing we want to play you in an academic journal. It was originally a paper in Medical Anthropology Quarterly written by an anthropologist named Janelle Taylor who adapted it to read here on the radio. This one question that Janelle Taylor is writing about, it kept showing up all the time in her personal life.
This American Life
823: The Question Trap
And she says as an anthropologist, she knows when lots of people are asking the same question over and over, it means something. And she wrote this essay to think through what is underneath that question.
This American Life
823: The Question Trap
Yeah. Yeah, it's funny because it's like this innocent question and then really like underneath it, it's like there's a bomb waiting to go off, actually. Like there's so many feelings.
This American Life
823: The Question Trap
What a day on our program. Questions that contain other secret questions inside of them. Questions that are wolves in sheep's clothing. In all kinds of situations that we've all been in. In dating, in talking to strangers, in dealing with the saddest things that ever happened to us. And more. I'm WBEC Chicago. It's This American Life. I'm Eric Glass. Stay with us.
This American Life
823: The Question Trap
Janelle Taylor. She's a professor at the University of Toronto, teaching medical anthropology. Her mom, Charlene Taylor, died in 2019. Janelle is collecting this essay and others she's written about dementia into a book. You can find a link to the original academic article that she wrote at our website. Dec 4. Can I help you?
This American Life
823: The Question Trap
Okay, here's one last example of a question that has another question lurking behind it. The question goes like this. If Matthew scored an average of 15 points per basketball game and played 24 games in one season, how many points did he score in the season? That's a question from the SHSAT, which is a standardized test given to middle school students in New York City.
This American Life
823: The Question Trap
A high score on the SHSAT will get you into one of the eight top public schools in the city. Wonderful schools. A low score will keep you in the regular public school system, where your school may be assigned by lottery. So the question lurking behind that math question is, are you good enough? Are you good enough to go to the best schools? And maybe from there to the best colleges?
This American Life
823: The Question Trap
And from there to all the advantages you get from that kind of education, including a higher income, maybe a better job, all sorts of stuff. Kind of a big scary chasm opening up in the earth behind that innocent little math problem. For five years, Milo Kramer tutored kids who wanted to leap over that chasm and into those eight elite high schools. It first made Milo feel good.
This American Life
823: The Question Trap
This recording is from a one-person show that Milo did this fall about the kids they tutored. I worry a little that it's going to be hard to get across over the radio what's so special about this show. Most of it is songs, songs about the kids that Milo tutored. These very funny and heartbreaking portraits of these middle school and high school kids and Milo's relationship to them.
This American Life
823: The Question Trap
Like, for example, the boy who takes a lot of pleasure denouncing God and the Democrats.
This American Life
823: The Question Trap
Milo is not a great singer. They would tell you that themselves. Or a skilled musician. But they've written songs in secret since they were the age that these kids are, that they're writing about. And there's just something in the intentional roughness and sincerity of what they're doing. It kind of matches the rawness of these kids and their feelings.
This American Life
823: The Question Trap
And of Milo's reactions to them, when a girl from Queens named Dana, who's better at math than Milo, and probably should be a scientist or engineer someday, tells Milo that if she does end up in college, she wants to study theater. Milo, who's broke and struggling and wanting to do theater, sings...
This American Life
823: The Question Trap
Lots of the songs in the show are about the kids' anxieties, about school and this test and all the pressure they feel from their parents. And they're about Milo trying to figure out not just how to teach them, but what they possibly could say to comfort them. Faith, for example, is a terrible reader.
This American Life
823: The Question Trap
Our radio show today is about questions. And to close out the show, I'm just going to play you one more thing. This is one full song from Milo's show about a question that a student faced. It's an essay question.
This American Life
823: The Question Trap
Milo Kramer in the one-person show School Pictures, recorded at Playwrights Horizons in New York City. School Pictures is running at Theatre Latte Da in Minneapolis from February 5th to March 2nd. It's going to come back to New York in the fall. If you want to hear more songs from the show or book the show for your town, go to milokramer.com. That's Kramer with a C, milokramer.com.
This American Life
823: The Question Trap
Our program was produced today by Zoe Chase. The people who put together today's show include Jendayi Banz, Sean Cole, Michael Kamate, Bethel Hopti, Khanna Jaffee-Walk, Catherine Raimondo, Stone Nelson, Safia Riddle, Lily Sullivan, Frances Swanson, Chris Rosenthaler, Marisa Robertson-Textra, Matt Tierney, Nancy Updike, Julie Whitaker, and Diane Wu. Our managing editor is Sara Abdurrahman.
This American Life
823: The Question Trap
Our senior editor is David Kestenbaum. Our executive editor is Emmanuel Berry. Help on today's rerun from Henry Larson and Angela Geropassi. Original music for The Comedian's Story by Ryan Rumery, who also helped mix the show. Special thanks today to Lauren Kessler. Her book is Finding Life in the Land of Alzheimer's.
This American Life
823: The Question Trap
Also thanks to Galia Walt, Michael Rosenthal, Diana Taylor-William, Mike Taylor, Pat Taylor, David Johnson, Rachel Jackson, Tom O'Keefe, and Jolie Myers. This American Life is delivered to public radio stations by PRX.com. the public radio exchange. Just a quick word about our Life Partners subscription program. We continue to make bonus episodes for it.
This American Life
823: The Question Trap
The latest one this week, I went back to listen for the first time in decades to one of the original pilots for our show. Two co-workers, Julie Snyder and Aviva de Kornfeld, listened with me. It was so much less good than I thought it was going to be. And of course, your help. keeps our program on the air when you sign up. To join, go to thisamericanlife.org slash lifepartners.
This American Life
823: The Question Trap
That link is also in the show notes to this episode. Thanks, as always, to our program's co-founder, Mr. Jory Malatia. You know, he kind of hurt my feelings this morning. We ran into each other. He asked, how am I doing? I started to answer.
This American Life
823: The Question Trap
I'm Eric Glass. Back next week, there's more stories of This American Life. Next week on the podcast of This American Life.
This American Life
823: The Question Trap
On an hour street in Brooklyn, one neighbor takes it on himself to get everybody to move their cars two times a week when the street cleaner comes through. He does this week in, week out. We hear about that and about other people who choose to live in their own ever-repeating Groundhog Days. For Groundhog Day, next week on the podcast on your local public radio station.
This American Life
823: The Question Trap
This American Life Today show is a rerun, The Question Trap. And instead of four different acts today, what we're going to do is we're going to present the show as four questions. Here's the first one. Question. Tell me how you feel about this. So Tobin, who you just heard, is one of the editors here at our show.
This American Life
823: The Question Trap
And really the idea for today's program came out of a conversation that happened at a staff meeting. And what happened was we all got talking about these kind of question traps, where it seems like somebody is asking about one thing, but the question is a proxy for trying to figure out something else. Tobin will explain more.
This American Life
823: The Question Trap
The question started right after Tobin and his husband moved to the Bay Area and got a house together. Tobin's family was pretty excited about this. They all lived within an hour. And they brought meals over for weeks. His mom bought them shades.
This American Life
860: Suddenly: A Mirror!
Hey there, podcast listeners. Ira here to announce that I am helping kick off the Tribeca Festival with a live event in New York City on June 10th. That's Tuesday night, June 10th. I'm going to be on stage with Ira Madison III, the host of the podcast, Keep It.
This American Life
860: Suddenly: A Mirror!
What we're going to do is we're going to take a little eras tour through 30 years of This American Life, visit different periods of the show with clips and stories. Tickets are on sale now at tribecafilm.com slash thisamericanlife. Again, that is tribecafilm.com slash thisamericanlife. If you're in New York, I hope you can come out. I think it's going to be fun.
This American Life
860: Suddenly: A Mirror!
Yeah. That's like a very grown up thought to have. And there comes a time when you think that for the first time and right, like you're 11 and you're capable of that.
This American Life
860: Suddenly: A Mirror!
And does this moment come back to you in the years since?
This American Life
860: Suddenly: A Mirror!
Wow. OK, so the reason you're telling this story, I know. is that you have come here today with a collection of stories and moments like this one from a variety of people.
This American Life
860: Suddenly: A Mirror!
And with that, I'm going to just step out of the way and just hand over the show to you to host.
This American Life
860: Suddenly: A Mirror!
No, no, no, you don't have to do that because I think everybody's gotten that by this point.
This American Life
860: Suddenly: A Mirror!
Next week on the podcast of This American Life, Mosem waited over a year to take a citizenship test. But then, when the day finally came, he got this feeling. It's a trap.
This American Life
860: Suddenly: A Mirror!
And so he had to make a decision. Show up and risk deportation or go into hiding. His choice and how it played out differently than he ever imagined. Next week on the podcast, our new local public radio station.
This American Life
860: Suddenly: A Mirror!
From WBEC Chicago, it's This American Life. I'm Ira Glass, and I am joined in the studio right now by one of my coworkers, Aviva de Kornfeld.
This American Life
464: Invisible Made Visible
Ryan started going blind when he was 18, so it's been a long time now that he can't see. And one night he flies to Chicago for this work thing and gets to his hotel room and he wants to call his wife back home in Canada to let her know that he's arrived safely. So all he needs to do is find the phone.
This American Life
464: Invisible Made Visible
Tig Notaro. Tig Notaro. And now, ladies and gentlemen, please welcome Taylor Dayne.
This American Life
464: Invisible Made Visible
I should probably describe what is happening here. Taylor Dane, in a sequined mini dress, is singing to Tig. Tig is sitting on this stool on stage. Her arms are crossed. She's looking sort of skeptical. And Taylor's trying to win her over.
This American Life
464: Invisible Made Visible
So he goes to bed, doesn't call his wife, sleeps. And in the morning he wakes up to the sound of something curious, a phone ringing. And Groggy, he follows the sound and finds somehow now there is a phone in this room.
This American Life
464: Invisible Made Visible
So it's around here in the song that Taylor does start to win takeover.
This American Life
464: Invisible Made Visible
They're laughing because she busts out vintage Michael Jackson moves.
This American Life
464: Invisible Made Visible
Coming up, David Rakoff's seven-step process for grating cheese, David Sedaris, and other highlights from the show that we did on stage and beamed into movie theaters back in 2012. That's in a minute from Chicago Public Radio and Public Radio International when our program continues. This American Life, Myra Glass. Today on our program, The Invisible Made Visible.
This American Life
464: Invisible Made Visible
We're bringing you stories from the episode that we did on stage all the way back in 2012 in New York and beamed into movie theaters all over North America and Australia. Half of that show, I have to say, was way too visual to ever put on the radio. There was dance. There was animation. There was a short film by Mike Birbiglia starring Terry Gross from NPR's Fresh Air. You can see this.
This American Life
464: Invisible Made Visible
It's two hours long. We've organized it so you can skip the stuff that you've already heard and just go straight to see the stuff that you have not seen. It's fun. It's free. Go to thisamericanlife.org. We now have arrived at Act 3 of our program. Act 3, stiff as a board, light as a feather.
This American Life
464: Invisible Made Visible
In our bodies, blood moves, cells appear and cells die off, proteins form and are consumed, all invisibly to us until the moment that something goes wrong and we see the effects. This next story from our live show is from David Rockoff.
This American Life
464: Invisible Made Visible
She doesn't believe him that there was no phone, but this is kind of par for the course when you're married to a blind guy.
This American Life
464: Invisible Made Visible
A wall. Where the bed should be is now a wall. He feels for the sofa. The sofa's right where it should be. The wall behind the sofa is right where it should be, right there in place. He feels along the sofa again, inches towards where the bed should be, and yes, it's still a wall.
This American Life
464: Invisible Made Visible
So at this point, David Ratkoff walks away from the microphone and just when it seems like he might walk off stage, like he quit, he turns. Thank you.
This American Life
464: Invisible Made Visible
He was in a part of the room that he hadn't encountered the night before. This was an alcove. on a side of the bed that he just never discovered.
This American Life
464: Invisible Made Visible
The mistake that he made the night before was this. When he was Marcel Marceau-ing the walls, he got three-fourths of the way around the room and got to the last wall. And he didn't actually feel all the way along that wall until it met another wall. Basically, he went a little ways down that wall, felt that the bed was behind him,
This American Life
464: Invisible Made Visible
And when he realized that the bed was behind him, he figured he was done. He stopped feeling that wall. He just assumed that the wall continued for another eight feet or so. But it didn't continue. It stopped. And there was this alcove.
This American Life
464: Invisible Made Visible
You just live inside the mistake. This kind of thing happens to him a lot, way, way more than you would think. Two weeks before our interview, he got lost in another hotel room, this one in Los Angeles. He couldn't find the door to get out of the room. He says that during the decade that he slowly went blind.
This American Life
464: Invisible Made Visible
How did I end up in this job? How did it happen? He came to me over and over, walked up to me in restaurants and on the street, saying the same thing over and over again.
This American Life
464: Invisible Made Visible
You mean my speaking voice? I'm Ira Glass, back next week with more stories of this American life. Do, do what you want, c-c-c-come on.
This American Life
464: Invisible Made Visible
Next week on the podcast of This American Life, we present the Museum of Now. Filled with artifacts of this particular moment our country is living through. Like, for instance, the transcript of a judge who's questioning an executive order that seems to be based on statements that are completely untrue.
This American Life
464: Invisible Made Visible
Or a piece of a street near the White House that construction workers are tearing up because it had been painted with the words, Black Lives Matter.
This American Life
464: Invisible Made Visible
That's next week on the podcast or on your local public radio station.
This American Life
464: Invisible Made Visible
To state the obvious, sometimes it is just a lot easier to see things. Clears a lot of things up. And today on our radio show, we have all kinds of stories of people trying to take things that are normally invisible to them and make them visible. I'm talking about unspoken feelings. I'm talking about people's secret lives.
This American Life
464: Invisible Made Visible
I'm talking in a very literal way about me and the other people doing stories on today's radio program. As people on the radio, usually we are invisible, but today we are bringing you excerpts from the show that we did on stage today. in front of people in New York City and then beamed into movie theaters all across the United States and Canada and Australia.
This American Life
464: Invisible Made Visible
Some of the stuff on the show, in fact, a lot of the stuff on that show was way too visual to put on the radio. But the rest of the show consisted of stories from David Sedaris and David Rakoff and Tig Notaro and others. We have a really nice show for you today from WBEZ Chicago. It's This American Life. I'm Ira Glass. Stay with us. Thank you. This American Life, Myra Glass.
This American Life
464: Invisible Made Visible
Today's show is a rerun from years ago. That one does a bear hit in the woods. So let's go to the first story that I'm going to play you from the cinema event that we did. The guy who you just heard, actually, Ryan Knighton, he has this story that is not about what is invisible to him as somebody who can't see. It's about being invisible. Here he is, Ryan Knighton.
This American Life
464: Invisible Made Visible
So Ryan can shuffle cautiously around until his knees graze into things, and that's how he finds a sofa, which orients him.
This American Life
464: Invisible Made Visible
He says that as he moves around any new place, he doesn't exactly draw a map in his head. He says that it's more like wandering around in a first-person video game, one where nothing is visible until he touches it. So he figures, okay, let's see what is on the other side of this coffee table that he's found. And he edges forward in the room. And I find there's a desk.
This American Life
464: Invisible Made Visible
Brian Knighton. He's the author of the books Come On Papa and Cock-Eyed.
This American Life
464: Invisible Made Visible
This, by the way, is the band OK Go playing a song on handbells with the audience. They were all playing bells on a special app they downloaded to their phones for the live show for this song. Act 2, Groundhog Day. So some people are supposed to stay invisible, out of our lives, not pop up during our daily routines. And specifically, the people I'm talking about are famous people.
This American Life
464: Invisible Made Visible
We are not supposed to run into Angelina Jolie at the CVS. But sometimes that kind of thing happens. Tig Notaro has witnessed it.
This American Life
854: Ten Things I Don't Want to Hate About You
A quick warning, there are curse words that are unbeaped in today's episode of the show. If you prefer a beeped version, you can find that at our website, thisamericanlife.org. I think we all have people in our lives who we love, but there's no talking to them. They have their way of seeing things or doing things, and it's hard to take. And no matter how you try to talk it out, it goes nowhere.
This American Life
854: Ten Things I Don't Want to Hate About You
Coming up, somebody's going to need to say, as promised, you were right, I was wrong. Which can be such a powerful thing in any relationship. That's in a minute. Chicago Public Radio, when our program continues. This is American Life. I'm Ira Glass. Our show today, 10 things I don't want to hate about you, about Zach Mack and his year-long bet with his dad. We arrived at the end of December.
This American Life
854: Ten Things I Don't Want to Hate About You
Zach's family is not doing well, and there's still the bet.
This American Life
854: Ten Things I Don't Want to Hate About You
It doesn't get solved, even if they also want things to change. We're devoting our entire show today to a story like that. It's from Zach Mack. He's a reporter. And the story is about him and his dad and how they both wanted to mend a rift that had grown between them that lasted for years, but they couldn't figure out how until Zach's dad offered a very surprising way out.
This American Life
854: Ten Things I Don't Want to Hate About You
Zach Mack. He's a producer at Vox Media. This story was a collaboration with NPR's Embedded podcast, which, if you haven't heard them, you should check them out. They have lots of documentary stories like this. David Kestenbaum and our staff worked on the story here. The staff who worked on it there were producers Dan Gurma and Ariana Garib Lee. Editing by Luis Trejas.
This American Life
854: Ten Things I Don't Want to Hate About You
Katie Simon is Embedded's showrunner. Some original music in this episode was composed by Peter Leonard. Fact-checking by Greta Pittinger and the Embedded staff and Christopher Sertala on our staff. MBR's Embedded is releasing a three-part series about Zach's bet with his dad.
This American Life
854: Ten Things I Don't Want to Hate About You
That gets into material that we did not have time for here, including some revealing conversations with his dad's friends and some more interesting stuff from Zach and his dad. It is available now. You can find Embedded wherever you get your podcasts. Well, today's episode was produced by Lily Sullivan.
This American Life
854: Ten Things I Don't Want to Hate About You
The people who put together today's show include Fia Bennett, Michael Kamate, Aviva de Kornfeld, Angela Gervasi, Cassie Halle, Rana Jaffe-Wald, Seth Lin, Catherine Raimondo, Stone Nelson, Nadia Raymond, Ryan Rumery, Alyssa Shipp, Frances Swanson, and Diane Wu. Our managing editor, Sara Abdurrahman. Our executive editor is Emmanuel Berry. Special thanks today to Avery Truffleman.
This American Life
854: Ten Things I Don't Want to Hate About You
If you like our show and you want more of our show, we've been cranking out bonus episodes every two weeks. This week, the bonus episode is interviews with my cousin, the composer Philip Glass, including one where he sits at a piano and he explains what he hears when he listens to his own music. to get that and all of our bonus episodes. We've been trying all kinds of stuff.
This American Life
854: Ten Things I Don't Want to Hate About You
Become a life partner. When you do, you also get ad-free listening. You get the special archive of our 100 greatest hits episodes that show up right in your podcast feed for your convenience. How do you get all this? It could not be easier. Go to thisamericanlife.org slash lifepartners. This American Life is delivered to public radio stations by PRX, the public radio exchange.
This American Life
854: Ten Things I Don't Want to Hate About You
Thanks, as always, to our show's co-founder, Mr. Torrey Malatia. Fun fact about him, he has never seen a panda. He told me he's going to a zoo this weekend to do just that.
This American Life
854: Ten Things I Don't Want to Hate About You
I'm Eric Glass. Back next week, more stories of This American Life.
This American Life
854: Ten Things I Don't Want to Hate About You
Next week on the podcast of This American Life, Brandon's first girlfriend dumped him because he was too obsessed with sports. So when he met Cecilia, he tried a new tactic. They were out, and a friend asked him about the Celtics. And he was like, I'm not that into sports anymore.
This American Life
854: Ten Things I Don't Want to Hate About You
And then he had to live with that lie. Lies that make no sense. Next week on the podcast on your local public radio station. Bye.
This American Life
854: Ten Things I Don't Want to Hate About You
That's going to be our whole show today. His dad's unusual solution and how it played out That's all I'm going to say for now. From WBEZ Chicago, this is American Life. I'm Eric Glass. And with that, I turn things over to Zach.
This American Life
854: Ten Things I Don't Want to Hate About You
Coming up, Zach calls his mom, who has some news of her own. Stay with us. Support for This American Life comes from Squarespace, the all-in-one website platform with features like design intelligence, combining two decades of design expertise with AI technology.
This American Life
854: Ten Things I Don't Want to Hate About You
Design intelligence empowers anyone to build a beautiful, more personalized website tailored to their unique needs and craft a bespoke digital identity to use across their entire online presence. Head to squarespace.com slash American for 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain.
This American Life
850: If You Want to Destroy My Sweater, Hold This Thread as I Walk Away
That is such... It's real. It's very true. But, like, what a funny thing to say to a bunch of kids.
This American Life
850: If You Want to Destroy My Sweater, Hold This Thread as I Walk Away
But then the teacher kept going. He wasn't done. He got very specific and said, OK, you might stay in touch with a few friends from high school.
This American Life
850: If You Want to Destroy My Sweater, Hold This Thread as I Walk Away
That is a very thorough and vivid and not inaccurate picture of the future that it's amazing that he went into that much detail.
This American Life
850: If You Want to Destroy My Sweater, Hold This Thread as I Walk Away
Lily Sullivan is a producer on our show. Special thanks to Lily's sisters. This song is one of their dad's favorites. He used to play it for them on the piano when they were growing up.
This American Life
850: If You Want to Destroy My Sweater, Hold This Thread as I Walk Away
Coming up, a one badly tuned instrument on one song at one concert can change your life. That's a minute with Chicago Public Radio when our program continues.
This American Life
850: If You Want to Destroy My Sweater, Hold This Thread as I Walk Away
This is American Life. I'm Eric Glass. Today's program, if you want to destroy my sweater, hold this thread as I walk away. We have stories about small moments between people that suddenly change how everything looks. We've arrived at Act 2 of our program. Act 2, what's with these homies dissing my girl? In his early 20s, Mike Comete wanted to be a professional musician.
This American Life
850: If You Want to Destroy My Sweater, Hold This Thread as I Walk Away
Because he's actually one of the producers on our show, Chris Bedderev. And he says he remembers the other kids in class kind of shrugging this off. Like, yeah, whatever. But he couldn't. Did you think it was true?
This American Life
850: If You Want to Destroy My Sweater, Hold This Thread as I Walk Away
He was trying his absolute hardest to make that happen until one day it all came undone. Weirdly, right in front of Weezer, Mike tells what happened.
This American Life
850: If You Want to Destroy My Sweater, Hold This Thread as I Walk Away
Before this moment, Chris hadn't bothered picturing what the future was going to be like very much. He had a vague sense that things were going to get better and better. But now, thanks to this random speech by this otherwise forgotten teacher, he realized the future he was facing... It's going to get...
This American Life
850: If You Want to Destroy My Sweater, Hold This Thread as I Walk Away
In fact, his senior year approached. His graduation day approached. Chris says that this tiny two-minute speech by this teacher totally colored how he was seeing it. He loved his friends.
This American Life
850: If You Want to Destroy My Sweater, Hold This Thread as I Walk Away
Mike Kamate. He is one of the super skilled people who work here at the show doing audio mixes and adding music to our stories. Diane Wu produced this story. Here is Mike playing guitar and singing with Julia, whose full name, by the way, is Julia Nunes. This is a song they used to cover together years ago.
This American Life
850: If You Want to Destroy My Sweater, Hold This Thread as I Walk Away
In this last act, we turn from small personal moments to big news that the whole world experiences, but that hits some people very, very personally. You probably saw the headlines in reports that a couple weeks ago, after his family ruled Syria for over 50 years, the president-slash-dictator Bashar al-Assad was run out of his own country very suddenly.
This American Life
850: If You Want to Destroy My Sweater, Hold This Thread as I Walk Away
Assad ran a government that did not tolerate dissent. He used chemical weapons against his own citizens. He spent much of the last 13 years brutally crushing an uprising. Hundreds of thousands of Syrians were killed, tortured, disappeared. More than half the population was displaced in that conflict. Six million Syrians fled the country.
This American Life
850: If You Want to Destroy My Sweater, Hold This Thread as I Walk Away
So when a rebel coalition forced Assad out two weeks ago, Syrians all over the globe had their world turned upside down. And a few of us here at the show called around to see what that's been like for them. Diane Wu put together this story.
This American Life
850: If You Want to Destroy My Sweater, Hold This Thread as I Walk Away
Chris actually tracked down the health teacher recently. And of course, he had no memory of making that speech. Though he said it was exactly the kind of thing that he might have said. And in fact, he did remember saying it at some point to his own kids.
This American Life
850: If You Want to Destroy My Sweater, Hold This Thread as I Walk Away
This teacher said that he would like to believe that he meant it in a kind of nice, cherish these special times sort of way, and he was horrified at the thought that this made Chris or any other kid feel bad for the rest of high school. But it just goes to show you how somebody can say something off the cuff that can accidentally turn somebody else's world completely upside down.
This American Life
850: If You Want to Destroy My Sweater, Hold This Thread as I Walk Away
We asked listeners if they ever experienced this, and hundreds responded. Some of the sentences that were said casually to them, that later, alone, they obsessed over, It's not your glasses that aren't even. It's your face. You must have been surrounded by some pretty insensitive people growing up. No, no, you're the only circumcised one in the family.
This American Life
850: If You Want to Destroy My Sweater, Hold This Thread as I Walk Away
Diane Wu is a producer on our show. This story was co-produced by Hany Hawasli.
This American Life
850: If You Want to Destroy My Sweater, Hold This Thread as I Walk Away
Our program was produced today by Lily Sullivan. The people who put together today's show include Fia Bennett, Dana Chivas, Sean Cole, Cassie Halle, Hana Jaffe-Wald, Henry Larson, Seth Lynn, Catherine Raimondo, Stone Nelson, Nadia Raymond, Anthony Roman, Ryan Rumery, Alyssa Shipp, Lily Sullivan, Christopher Sertala, and Matt Tierney. Our managing editor is Sara Abdurrahman.
This American Life
850: If You Want to Destroy My Sweater, Hold This Thread as I Walk Away
This is not a setting where Chris was used to learning anything important, much less having his whole world rocked by something somebody said. He was 15, in health class, in San Juan Capistrano, California. As Chris remembers it, it was the beginning of the period. Class was just beginning to settle down. The teacher was also the school's basketball coach.
This American Life
850: If You Want to Destroy My Sweater, Hold This Thread as I Walk Away
Our senior editor is David Kestenbaum. Our executive editor is Emmanuel Barry. Special thanks today to Natalie Sullivan, Kim Sullivan, Sarah Kim, Steve Sopcich, Erin Marie Kamate, Dave Burns, Todd Johnson, Leanne Victorine, Darian Woods, and Yezen Abu Ismail.
This American Life
850: If You Want to Destroy My Sweater, Hold This Thread as I Walk Away
To become a This American Life partner, which gets you bonus content, ad-free listening, and hundreds of our favorite episodes of the show right in your podcast feed, go to thisamericanlife.org slash lifepartners. That link is also in the show notes. This American Life is delivered to public radio stations by PRX, the public radio exchange.
This American Life
850: If You Want to Destroy My Sweater, Hold This Thread as I Walk Away
Thanks as always to our program's co-founder, Mr. Troy Malatia. You know, he invented this new appetizer where you put a hot dog in a handful of straw. What's he call it?
This American Life
850: If You Want to Destroy My Sweater, Hold This Thread as I Walk Away
I'm a hurt glass. Back next week, more stories of This American Life.
This American Life
850: If You Want to Destroy My Sweater, Hold This Thread as I Walk Away
And one last one said by a childhood acquaintance at a funeral. Jenny, little Jenny, you're the one that nobody liked. In Chris's case, the teacher's comment obviously stayed with him. How old are you now? I am 38. And how many friends from high school are you in touch with?
This American Life
850: If You Want to Destroy My Sweater, Hold This Thread as I Walk Away
So the guy was right?
This American Life
850: If You Want to Destroy My Sweater, Hold This Thread as I Walk Away
These days, Chris is married. One child.
This American Life
850: If You Want to Destroy My Sweater, Hold This Thread as I Walk Away
Yeah. And in fact, now that you are married and have children, is your life tedious and narrow and boring?
This American Life
850: If You Want to Destroy My Sweater, Hold This Thread as I Walk Away
What a day on my program. If you want to destroy my sweater, hold this thread as I walk away. We have stories about the things that people say that unravel your world, turn it upside down, shake it like a snow globe. Pick your own metaphor for this. Some of these offhand things that people say are completely accurate. Others are the exact opposite.
This American Life
850: If You Want to Destroy My Sweater, Hold This Thread as I Walk Away
And it can be really hard sometimes to tell which is which. We have real life case examples, including somebody who thinks his life was completely upended after a single brief real life encounter with Weezer. From WBEZ Chicago, it's This American Life. I'm Ira Glass. Stay with us.
This American Life
850: If You Want to Destroy My Sweater, Hold This Thread as I Walk Away
Okay, so hey, this is Ira talking now in the break. And I'm here in the break to give you this little talk that I feel a little ashamed of, but I'm also going to do, which is to remind any last-minute shoppers out there that you can give a This American Life Partners subscription as a holiday gift. Bye. Bye. Bye.
This American Life
850: If You Want to Destroy My Sweater, Hold This Thread as I Walk Away
So if you know somebody who might like that and you need a last-minute present, sign them up at thisamericanlife.org slash lifepartners. That link is also in the show notes. It is also a gift to us here at our show, of course, because all these subscriptions help us keep making the show. Okay, that's all I have to say about that. Back to today's episode. This American Life, Act 1.
This American Life
850: If You Want to Destroy My Sweater, Hold This Thread as I Walk Away
The world has turned and left me here. So let's kick off this show about people saying things that unravel your picture of the world with this from Lily Sullivan.
This American Life
332: The Ten Commandments
So in 1853, during the California gold rush, a leafleteer out west published the Ten Commandments for gold miners who'd come out to prospect. Commandment number four. Commandment four in the traditional Ten Commandments tells you to observe the Sabbath day to keep it holy. Commandment number four reads like this.
This American Life
332: The Ten Commandments
This is the Bentree Bible Fellowship in Carrollton, Texas, and before that, the Northwest Venice United Methodist Church in Corona, Michigan, Faith Tabernacle Baptist Church in Chicago, the Muslim Community Association Mosque in Ann Arbor, Michigan, Temple Road of Shalom in Falls Church, Virginia, and Our Lady of Angels Monastery in Hansville, Alabama.
This American Life
332: The Ten Commandments
We recorded them in 2007, when we first broadcast today's show. ¶¶ If you're just tuning in, we are devoting our show today to the Ten Commandments, and we are at commandment number five right now. Honor your father and your mother.
This American Life
332: The Ten Commandments
The ten commandments of bilingual blogs. The ten commandments of pastors leaving the congregation. Ten commandments of working in a hostile environment. The Ten Commandments for Communication with People with Disabilities. This includes a very helpful. Number six, don't lean on a person's wheelchair.
This American Life
332: The Ten Commandments
When he was 11 in Charleston, South Carolina, Jack Hitt and his friends back then formed a little club where they would hang out in this one backyard that was all overgrown, which they thought of at the time as a jungle. It had a big brick wall along one side. And they started doing things that did not honor their fathers and their mothers.
This American Life
332: The Ten Commandments
Or number ten, don't be embarrassed or freak out if you accidentally use a common phrase like, see you later with somebody you can't see. Or did you hear about that with somebody you can't hear? The Ten Commandments of Being a Math Teacher. These actually reveal a lot about the internal life of being a math teacher. Number one, thou shalt recognize that some students fear and dislike math.
This American Life
332: The Ten Commandments
And was this the first time that everybody else was realizing that he had said the speech to them too? Or were you the only one who didn't know?
This American Life
332: The Ten Commandments
Jack Head. Well, the Sixth Commandment seems like it could not be more straightforward. Thou shalt not kill. But of course, even this is one that is not always so simple to know how to obey. Army Reserve Chaplain Lieutenant Colonel Glenn Brown is back in this country from Iraq where he has served two tours. When he was in Iraq, he would run services for his unit once a week.
This American Life
332: The Ten Commandments
But most of his ministry was just talking to guys one-on-one. The main issue they have, he says, is about missing their families. But often they talk to him about killing. He spoke with Alex Bloomberg.
This American Life
332: The Ten Commandments
And be compassionate. And then there's, along this, it's basically different ways to encourage the math teacher to keep patiently explaining over and over in different ways things until your students understand them. And then at the end of that list, there's the rather mournful number 10. Though they may at times seem few, thou shalt count thy blessings.
This American Life
332: The Ten Commandments
Then, of course, as Peaches and Herb remind us, there are the 10 commandments of love.
This American Life
332: The Ten Commandments
Thou shalt not remember what thy friends do at home on the Sabbath day, lest the remembrance may not compare favorably with what thou doest here.
This American Life
332: The Ten Commandments
Army Reserve Chaplain Lieutenant Colonel Lynn Brown talking with Alex Bloomberg back in 2007. Brown died in 2008. Coming up, adultery, thievery, lying, envy. No, it is not an afternoon of daytime TV. It is the last four commandments. We have one story for each of them. That's in a minute from Chicago Public Radio when our program continues. This American Life, I'm Ira Glass.
This American Life
332: The Ten Commandments
Each week on our show, of course, we choose a theme, bring you a variety of different kinds of stories on that theme. Today's show, for Easter weekend, the Ten Commandments. We're doing one story for each of the commandments. First few commandments, of course, about how to relate to God. Then there's one on relating to your parents. And the rest are all direct injunctions about how to act.
This American Life
332: The Ten Commandments
Basically, a list of things that you are not supposed to do. We are at commandment number seven. You shall not commit adultery. And yes, we are at the commandment that is about sex. And while there is going to be nothing explicit in this next story, it does acknowledge the existence of sex. A little warning there.
This American Life
332: The Ten Commandments
In 1976, in an interview with Playboy magazine, then presidential candidate Jimmy Carter admitted kind of famously that he had committed adultery in his heart many times, meaning, of course, that he had had lustful thoughts. There's this thing that Jesus says in the book of Matthew, whoever looks at a woman lustfully has committed adultery in his heart.
This American Life
332: The Ten Commandments
David Ellis Dickerson grew up going to an evangelical church in Tucson, Arizona, and he remembers hearing about what Carter said about committing adultery in his heart.
This American Life
332: The Ten Commandments
There's ten of them, you know, so it's enough that you feel like you're getting a comprehensive view. And yet, at the same time, it's just ten, right? Ten. Manageable. Not too overwhelming. Sure, I can do ten. Ten, sure. But you know, the biblical commandments have one important thing that all these imitator commandments don't. And that is that they're about much more basic stuff.
This American Life
332: The Ten Commandments
Honoring parents and murder and lying and wanting things we don't have. Primal stuff that's in our lives. And we thought, it's Easter weekend. Passover's just ending. Let's find stories where people are grappling with these old primal rules for life. Perfect time to devote an episode to the Ten Commandments. The real ones. And that's what we have today. From WBEZ Chicago, it's This American Life.
This American Life
332: The Ten Commandments
David Ellis Dickerson. He has a sub-stack called Slightly More Pleasant. Commandment number eight. This is your fried.
This American Life
332: The Ten Commandments
Hassan marks the afternoon shift at a neighborhood restaurant.
This American Life
332: The Ten Commandments
For commandment number eight, the commandment about stealing in the traditional commandments, commandment eight, thou shalt not steal a pick or a shovel or a pan from thy fellow miner or take away his tools without his leave, nor return them broken, nor remove his stake to enlarge thy claim, nor pan out gold from his riffle box.
This American Life
332: The Ten Commandments
He says it doesn't happen often, this dealing. But there is a pattern he's noticed. When a woman walked over to a display and took some food and then sat down and ate the food, and he tried to charge her, she argued with him. When a man tried to take a huge stack of napkins, like this huge stack, and a son caught him, he didn't even seem embarrassed.
This American Life
332: The Ten Commandments
Now, the people who steal, are they good tippers or bad? Like the woman with the salt and pepper shaker, would they tip? They were good tippers. And the lawyer with the umbrella, good tip or bad?
This American Life
332: The Ten Commandments
Which brings us to the ninth commandment. This hour is going so fast. Ninth commandment, do not bear false witness. Don't lie. To understand this next story, you have to understand this idea of a mitzvah. For religious Jews, a mitzvah is a good deed. They're supposed to fill their days doing these good deeds. But mitzvah is also the Hebrew word for commandment.
This American Life
332: The Ten Commandments
It's just American life. Today's show about the Ten Commandments is a rerun from long ago, 2007, that we're bringing back this Easter weekend. Now, different denominations attach different numbering schemes to the commandments, to which commandment goes with which number, though the commandments are always the same.
This American Life
332: The Ten Commandments
And when religious Jews count the commandments in the Bible, they don't just have the big ten. They count specifically 613 commandments they're supposed to follow. Well, the woman in this next story wanted to do one of the biggest mitzvot ever. She was going to save somebody's life, a stranger's life.
This American Life
332: The Ten Commandments
But to do this, she was going to have to break another one of the commandments, the one about lying. In this case, she was going to be lying to her own mother. Sarah Koenig tells more.
This American Life
332: The Ten Commandments
But however you count them, the first two or three commandments, they cover the same ground. They're all about acknowledging God. I'm the Lord your God. You shall have no other gods before me. You shall not carve idols and bow down to them and worship them. For I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God. You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain.
This American Life
332: The Ten Commandments
These commandments in particular are ones that Shalom Auslander tried to understand and obey as a boy going to religious school, a yeshiva, a school where they were drilled in all of the Bible's commandments by teachers who could be pretty intimidating, some more than others. Here's Shalom.
This American Life
332: The Ten Commandments
Sarah Koenig, she's the host of Serial. She did this story back when she was a producer for our show. Since we first broadcast this story, Chaya's mom has died. Over the years, Chaya has facilitated dozens of kidney transplants. So many, she says, that she's stopped counting. You can learn more about her kidney matchmaking project at donateakidney.org.
This American Life
332: The Ten Commandments
And so we arrive at the end of our list, the end of God's to-do list for humanity, commandment number 10.
This American Life
332: The Ten Commandments
Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's house, thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's wife, nor his manservant, nor his maidservant, nor his ox, nor his ass.
This American Life
332: The Ten Commandments
Amy and her friends Selena and Kayla are in seventh grade, or they were back when we first broadcast this episode in 2007. That was a month before the first iPhone was released. And so during the lunch break, they explained that the latest thing that they all covet was a Sidekick 3, which, if you don't remember, and I did not, is a kind of souped-up Blackberry.
This American Life
332: The Ten Commandments
They wanted Sidekick 3 so bad, they could not help but notice every single person who had one.
This American Life
332: The Ten Commandments
You have a sidekick? Can we see? This girl, Christine, pulls out her sidekick and shows it around. The photo on the sidekick's little display is herself, which definitely is one of those things that is normal when a kid does it, but would be so weird if an adult tried it. She hasn't had the sidekick for very long.
This American Life
332: The Ten Commandments
Now, were there people who didn't talk to you before the sidekick, who, when you got the sidekick?
This American Life
332: The Ten Commandments
These girls actually had a very grown-up attitude about all the stuff they covet. That stuff matters to them, but it doesn't totally matter. Kegel wasn't wearing Nikes or Cons, and nobody cared. Selena and Amy recently got iPods, and they're the first to admit it didn't change how anybody saw them.
This American Life
332: The Ten Commandments
I remind them that it's in the Bible that we're not supposed to want stuff or be jealous of people who have stuff we don't have. Do you think it's realistic that people aren't going to want stuff?
This American Life
332: The Ten Commandments
But then you're saying in a way it's natural that we're always going to be breaking one of the Ten Commandments.
This American Life
332: The Ten Commandments
If we needed any proof of this, we're always going to want stuff. Sometimes we're going to want stuff that we probably shouldn't. It was just a few feet away. A girl named Nadie had written on her arm, down the length of her arm, Nadie N. David. That's N, the letter N, with a heart underneath it.
This American Life
332: The Ten Commandments
The Catechism of the Catholic Church says the Tenth Commandment concerns the intentions of the heart. The Catechism talks about desires that are often good, wholesome desires, but come to exceed the limits of reason and make us want things too much, especially things that really belong to somebody else. Wanting things too much, it says, is a form of sadness.
This American Life
332: The Ten Commandments
And the Tenth Commandment, that's what it's trying to eradicate.
This American Life
332: The Ten Commandments
Our program was produced today by Jane Marie and myself, with Alex Bloomberg, Sarah Koenig, Lisa Pollack, Alyssa Shipp, and Nancy Opdyke. Senior producer for today's show, Julie Snyder. Production help from Seth Lynn, Tommy Andres, and Emily Yusuf. Help on today's rerun from Angela Gervasi, Stone Nelson, and Ryan Rumery. Music help today from Jessica Hopper.
This American Life
332: The Ten Commandments
Mary Robertson produced our story about the Ninth Commandment. Thanks today to Liebman's Deli in the Bronx, where we taped the story for the Eighth Commandment about stealing. Thanks to Middle School 51 in Brooklyn, where we taped our Tenth Commandment story. And especially to one of the seventh grade teachers who worked there back when we did this show, Andrew Raven.
This American Life
332: The Ten Commandments
This American Life is delivered to public radio stations by PRX, the public radio exchange. Our website, thisamericanlife.org. Thanks, as always, to our program's co-founder, Mr. Troy Malatia. You know, he says that when he goes home, he sees the mailings from our own public radio station that arrive at his house, pile up in his front hallway, asking for money, and he cannot help himself.
This American Life
332: The Ten Commandments
I'm Ira Glass. Back next week with more stories of This American Life. Next week on the podcast of This American Life, Mari's fiance, Mikael, has a lot of tattoos. Mari likes to make fun of them. Like the one he has of Mickey Mouse smoking a blunt. And then somebody sends her a video and she recognizes Mikael by one of his tattoos. And he's in a prison in El Salvador.
This American Life
332: The Ten Commandments
This next week on the podcast or in your local public radio station.
This American Life
332: The Ten Commandments
There's the Ten Commandments of Umpiring written in 1949 by the Commissioner of Major League Baseball. Commandment number one, keep your eye on the ball. Four different commandments on this list are basically about not getting mad at the players. There are the Ten Commandments of Tractor Safety. Number one, know your tractor, its implements, and how they work.
This American Life
332: The Ten Commandments
The Ten Commandments of Paris Dining, assembled by Fodor's Travel Guides, which include number two, thou shalt not be too familiar with a waiter. Don't expect to hear him. My name is Gaston, and I will be your server tonight. Also number eight, thou shalt not assume that the customer is always right. And number ten, thou shalt never use the term doggy bag. Let's see what else.
This American Life
332: The Ten Commandments
Sholem Aslander. His latest book is called Fe, a Memoir. This brings us to the fourth commandment. Remember the Sabbath day and keep it holy. Six days will you labor, but the seventh is a day of rest, dedicated to the Lord your God.
This American Life
332: The Ten Commandments
Ten commandments of cell phone etiquette. Number four, thou shalt not wear more than two wireless devices on thy belt. Ten commandments of sports betting. The ten commandments of protecting your million-dollar idea. The ten commandments of good historical writing. My favorite, number ten, thou shalt write consistently in the past tense. Interesting to think that you would need that.
This American Life
852: Pivot Point
In the car, he realized how upset his son August was about that. But they drove, looked at wind speeds and wind directions, made a guess about where it might be safe, booked a hotel, and things were feeling a little calmer in the car.
This American Life
852: Pivot Point
That's August, asking Kirk to tell a story from his childhood, which he does sometimes. Kirk grew up with chickens, goats, and animals.
This American Life
852: Pivot Point
Nancy Updike is the producer on our show. The stage version of Dr. Strangelove, which by the way stars Steve Coogan in several different roles, is playing at the Noel Coward Theatre in London through January 25th and will be in Dublin from February 5th to February 22nd. Act two, the view from the dugout.
This American Life
852: Pivot Point
So one of the things that seems likely to change once Donald Trump is again in the White House is U.S. policy toward Ukraine. His vice president, J.D. Vance, has called for an end to aid to Ukraine and described a peace plan that basically lets Russia keep the territory it's gained. Donald Trump has been vaguer about his intentions, but he's been a skeptic of continued aid.
This American Life
852: Pivot Point
He has said many times that he was going to end the war in 24 hours. We wonder what it's like for Ukrainian soldiers who depend on U.S. arms right now to see all of this at this pivot point and how they're imagining what's going to happen next once Trump takes office. Our producer Valerie Kipnis spoke with a bunch of people on the front lines.
This American Life
852: Pivot Point
Valerie Kipnis is a producer on our show. She reported this with help from Anastasia Mazova. Coming up, the power of a simple photograph in a moment of uncertainty. That's in a minute. Chicago Public Radio, when our program continues.
This American Life
852: Pivot Point
What was the moment you realized, oh, this is not the right story for this moment?
This American Life
852: Pivot Point
It's This American Life. I'm Ira Glass. Today on our program, Pivot Point. On this weekend, before a new presidency begins, we have stories of people living in the strange and often unsettling in-between moment when you know things are right on the cusp of big, big changes. We've arrived at Act 3 of our program, Act 3, period, peace.
This American Life
852: Pivot Point
So when we were discussing this week's theme as a group here at the radio show, one of our co-workers, Susan Burton, started talking about a year-long pivot point. It lasts 12 months. that many of our listeners have either gone through, are in the middle of now, or will go through. Quick heads up, Susan described some bodily stuff in here. Here she is.
This American Life
852: Pivot Point
Susan Burton is an editor on our show. At four, since you've been gone. So I showed it is about people at a pivot point, and one entire community in that situation is Altadena, California. It's one of the towns around LA that's so devastated that for most of the last week and a half, nobody was allowed in. It's been surrounded by National Guard with barricades.
This American Life
852: Pivot Point
And he and his wife MJ were trying to pretend that things were going to be fine when they really had no idea at all and were scared they were not going to be fine. When his brain searched for a story to tell the children, this one with the horse is the one that popped up.
This American Life
852: Pivot Point
One of our producers, Miki Meek, talked to somebody who stayed at her house. The fire stopped about a block away. And in the first days of the fires, came up with a mission for herself.
This American Life
852: Pivot Point
These kind of moments, when you feel the earth shifting underneath you, and you just have to figure out what you're going to do in this new reality. That's what our show is about today. people at different pivot points in their lives between what was and what's about to happen. I'm WBEZ Chicago. This is American Life. I'm Eric Glass. Stay with us.
This American Life
852: Pivot Point
Mickey Meek is a producer on our show. Well, our program is produced today by Emmanuel Jochi.
This American Life
852: Pivot Point
People who put together today's show include Fia Benin, Dana Chivas, Michael Kamate, Angela Gervasi, Cassie Howley, Lana Jaffe-Walt, Henry Larson, Seth Lind, Captain Ray Mondo, Stone Nelson, Nadia Raymond, Ryan Rummery, Alyssa Shipp, Laura Stercheski, Lily Sullivan, Chris Rosenthaler, Marisa Robertson-Texter, and Diane Wu. Our managing editor is Sara Abdurrahman.
This American Life
852: Pivot Point
Our senior editor is David Kestenbaum. Our executive editor is Emmanuel Berry. Special thanks today to The actors performing the English translations for The Ukrainians in Act 2 of our show today were Alexander Foreman and Ross Pella. This American Life is delivered to public radio stations by PRX, the public radio exchange.
This American Life
852: Pivot Point
To become a This American Life partner, which gets you bonus content, ad-free listening, and hundreds of our favorite episodes of the show that are going to show up right in your podcast feed, go to thisamericanlife.org slash lifepartners. Your subscription also helps keep our program going. Thanks this week to life partners Cici Chen-Ming Fei and Colette Spriggans.
This American Life
852: Pivot Point
Thanks, as always, to our program's co-founder, Mr. Torrey Malatia. He's been taking a figure drawing class. His drawings are pretty good, except for the hands. He does the shoulder, upper arm, forearm, all great, and then gets to the end of the arm, and it's always, we can't quite put a finger on it. I'm Ira Glass. Back next week with more stories of This American Life.
This American Life
852: Pivot Point
When Kirk and his wife MJ evacuated their house in LA on the second day of the fires, they could see the flames up the hill from their backyard. They packed the car full, got their seven and eight year old kids inside with a family cat, hit the road. And Kirk started recording.
This American Life
852: Pivot Point
This American Life, Act One, Who's Laughing Now? So we start today with this story about somebody who's been thinking a lot about one particular pivot point that the world might go through. Nancy Updike went to meet him.
This American Life
852: Pivot Point
He records his kids a lot and just had a feeling like this is an important moment.
This American Life
852: Pivot Point
He's been on our show before, talking about his experiences in the Iraq War, among other things. He thinks of himself as somebody who can usually handle a moment of crisis. But he admits he made mistakes in the car. He didn't bring the family tortoise, an animal he says his kids have ignored for over a year. It lives in a giant crate outside the house.
This American Life
835: Children of Dave
Hey there, podcast listeners. Ira here to announce that I am helping kick off the Tribeca Festival with a live event in New York City on June 10th. That's Tuesday night, June 10th. I'm going to be on stage with Ira Madison III, the host of the podcast, Keep It.
This American Life
835: Children of Dave
I'm actually named for my great-grandfather, Isidore Friedlander. My parents chose Ira instead of Isidore because Isidore Glass is a parsable English sentence. Isidore Glass? My mom once told me that they picked Ira over the alternatives because it sounded less Jewish to them. It just goes to show how completely, utterly Jewish their entire world was back then.
This American Life
835: Children of Dave
I've heard all my life what a kind-hearted man Isidore was and a soft touch, which brings me to this next story we would hear now and then. During the Depression, when everybody in the neighborhood was broke and buying on credit, Isidore set up a system where every customer would have a little book, like this flimsy paper thing, where he would write down what they owed.
This American Life
835: Children of Dave
What we're going to do is we're going to take a little eras tour through 30 years of This American Life, visit different periods of the show with clips and stories. Tickets are on sale now at tribecafilm.com slash thisamericanlife. Again, that is tribecafilm.com slash thisamericanlife. If you're in New York, I hope you can come out. I think it's going to be fun.
This American Life
835: Children of Dave
But the thing about the system was the customer kept the book. Maybe you see the problem with this. All the time, customers would show up at the store and say, I lost my book. And Isidore would say to them, ah, it's okay. What do you think you owe? And then they'd say some not very high number. And he'd write it down and hand them a new book to take home.
This American Life
835: Children of Dave
Years later, my dad became a certified public accountant. And this became one of those, the day Peter Parker got bit by the radioactive spider sort of origin stories. What bad bookkeeping he saw his grandfather do at 1119 Bayard. And how he was going to do better. I'm sure some good things happened at 1119 Bayard. But those stories didn't get passed down. We heard painful things.
This American Life
835: Children of Dave
My dad was miserable working there. So was his brother. His mom, my grandma Frida, got out of the store. Went to college. Taught Latin in junior high school. But then got dragged back into the family business against her will like Michael Corleone when her dad Isidore got sick. I visited 1119 Bayard, I don't know, maybe half a dozen times in my life. A dozen times.
This American Life
835: Children of Dave
Bowen Wong. Coming up, Bowen flies home and considers the question, maybe it wasn't Christianity that messed him up as a kid. That's in a minute on Chicago Public Radio when our program continues. This is American Life from Ira Glass. Today's program, Children of Dave, Bone Wong's pilgrimage to finally understand why his parents decided to become Christians when they arrived in America.
This American Life
835: Children of Dave
Today's show is a rerun. We pick up our story where we left off before the break.
This American Life
835: Children of Dave
Usually it would happen when my Uncle Lenny came to town. He and my dad would drive us all downtown. We'd stand outside 1119 Bayard. And the two of them would marvel at the place. At the fact of it. I think at the distance they'd come from there. My dad with his accounting firm out in the suburbs. My uncle, who became a surgeon and moved to San Diego.
This American Life
835: Children of Dave
Their kids raised in the kind of middle-class comfort that we ate all the chicken we could ever want. I always found those trips disappointing. We'd take a picture and hang around there on the sidewalk. It's not a store anymore. It's just somebody's house. It doesn't look like anything. A row house in a block of row houses.
This American Life
835: Children of Dave
Somewhat a few years ago, somebody painted a cheerful Christian mural on one side of the building. The quote from the book of Mark. Every time I've gone to 1119 Bayard and stood on the sidewalk, I've tried to picture it. My family there long ago. Frida in her 30s at the cash register against her will. My dad as a little boy opening boxes and putting stuff on shelves.
This American Life
835: Children of Dave
I'm not great at that kind of thing. It's like trying to summon ghosts with a Ouija board and the little pointer refuses to budge. We've all got these spots from our family's past. We go to them. They're like Civil War battlefields that have been washed of blood long ago. We pause there and look at the trees and the grassy fields. And we want what? Some connection to something.
This American Life
835: Children of Dave
I am who I am partly because of this place. But now it's mute. So we take a selfie and try to tune into the past like a distant radio station whose signal we can just barely make out. Today on our program, we have a story of somebody else who heads out to a place like that from his family's history, looking for answers.
This American Life
835: Children of Dave
That story by Bowen Wong. He's an audio producer and adjunct instructor living in Pittsburgh with his fiancée, Grace Gilbert. You can come up with a title for today's episode. Bowen's website is bowen.cool. That's B-O-E-N dot cool. In the years since we first broadcast today's story, Dave has died. Well, Rowan was produced today by Lily Sullivan.
This American Life
835: Children of Dave
The people who put together today's show include Fia Benin, Michael Comete, Henry Larson, Seth Lynn, Catherine Raimondo, Safiya Riddle, Ryan Rumery, Alyssa Shipp, Elise Spiegel, Christopher Sotala, and Matt Tierney. Our managing editors, Sara Abdurrahman. Our senior editors, David Kestenbaum. Our executive editor is Emmanuel Berry. Help on today's rerun from Stone Nelson and Angela Gervasi.
This American Life
835: Children of Dave
Also Adam Kozma at B-Tone Studio in Budapest. Special thanks today to Rebecca Curtis at the University of Oklahoma, Ah-Sin Hwa, Jenny Lin, Man Hong Liu, and Jesse Noss and Greta Ziwi at Red Cayman Studios. Our website, thisamericanlife.org, where you can stream our archive of over 850 episodes for absolutely free.
This American Life
835: Children of Dave
This American Life is delivered to public radio stations by PRX, the public radio exchange. Thanks as always to our program's co-founder, Mr. Torrey Malatia. You know, he is the worst babysitter I have ever seen. Baby won't go to bed, starts crying. Tori's technique? He leans into the crib, looks into the baby's eyes, and says, Why are you being so immature about this? I'm Eric Glass.
This American Life
835: Children of Dave
Back next week with more stories of This American Life. Next week on the podcast of This American Life, Alicia was out of a job when she started making wigs for pets. She decided this is going to be my thing, which worked.
This American Life
835: Children of Dave
That good news turned out to be not entirely good news. Next week on the podcast, on your local public radio station.
This American Life
835: Children of Dave
And he gets so much more out of it than I ever did at 1119 Bayard about who he is. From WBEZ Chicago, it's This American Life. I'm Eric Glass. Stay with us.
This American Life
835: Children of Dave
It's just American life. Okay, so we're devoting today's entire program to this one story. Today's show is a rerun, by the way. It's by Bowen Wong, who we've had on our show before. He's a producer whose work has its own very distinct sound and feeling. That's one of the things that we on our staff really like about him. Here's what he put together today for you.
This American Life
835: Children of Dave
My dad's ATM password was 1119 till the day he died. 1119 was also in the password for his home Wi-Fi network. 1119 was shorthand for 1119 Bayard Street. which is where his grandfather, my great-grandfather, owned a tiny grocery store on the ground floor of a house in downtown Baltimore in the 1920s, 30s, 40s, 50s. Picture a neighborhood bodega and you've got the general size of this thing.
This American Life
835: Children of Dave
The family lived upstairs, worked downstairs. So much happened at 1119 Bayard. So many things about our family were set in motion there. But my sisters and I only got little scraps of stories about the place. This handful of family-defining origin stories that got trotted out now and then. Like, for instance, there was the one about the chickens.
This American Life
835: Children of Dave
My dad and his brother Lenny both worked in the store from the time they were little kids. And chickens were slaughtered at the store, which freaked them out, both of them. To the point where, decades later, as grown men, neither of them ate chicken. And they'd explain this was the reason why. Or there's the story about my great-grandfather's bookkeeping skills.
This American Life
849: The Narrator
So what happens when Lily's mom tells her this story is not true? Next week on the podcast or on your local public radio station.
This American Life
849: The Narrator
Hey there, it's Ira here, in the break. A little embarrassed to be saying these next words, but I'm going to say them nonetheless. You can give a This American Life Partner subscription to anyone you want as a holiday gift. What that means is that your loved one will receive bonus episodes. We've been doing a new bonus episode every other week. They'll get the program without ads.
This American Life
849: The Narrator
In other words, without somebody interrupting the way I am right now. And your support allows us to keep making the show possible. If there's somebody in your life that that would be right for, go to thisamericanlife.org slash lifepartners. That link is also in the show notes. Okay, back to the show. Here's Hannah.
This American Life
858: How to Tell a Dumb American Story
In a bonus episode just for our This American Life partners... Ladies and gentlemen, Ira Glass! We found a recording of Ira's first and only stand-up comedy set.
This American Life
858: How to Tell a Dumb American Story
They do not advertise hiking properly at all.
This American Life
858: How to Tell a Dumb American Story
Coming up, Sarah talks to the county prosecutor about what the hell with not charging and arresting Sonny White. That's in a minute from Chicago Public Radio when our program continues. This is American Life from Ira Glass. Today's show, how to tell a dumb American story. Sarah Crane Murdoch picks up where she left off.
This American Life
858: How to Tell a Dumb American Story
To hear the whole thing and all the other bonus episodes we've been releasing every two weeks, and more than anything, help us continue to make the show, subscribe at thisamericanlife.org. That link is also in the show notes.
This American Life
858: How to Tell a Dumb American Story
Sarah Crane Murdoch. She's writing a new book, and a big part of it is this case. Her first book, if you like this story, you will really like that one. It's called Yellow Bird, Oil, Murder, and a Woman's Search for Justice in Indian Country. It was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize.
This American Life
858: How to Tell a Dumb American Story
Our program is produced today by Miki Meek. Dana Chivas edited the show. The people who put together today's program include Jendayi Bonds, Michael Kamate, Emmanuel Jochi, Angela Gervasi, Catherine Raimondo, Stone Nelson, Ryan Rumery, Frances Swanson, Marisa Robertson-Textor, Julie Whitaker, and Diane Wu. Our managing editor is Sara Abdurrahman. Our senior editor is David Kestenbaum.
This American Life
858: How to Tell a Dumb American Story
Our executive editor is Emmanuel Berry. Special thanks today to the Fund for Investigative Journalism, Sarah Two-Teeth, Brian Dupuis, Cheryl Horne, Dave Blanchard, and Becky Blanchard and family. This American Life is delivered to public radio stations by PRX, the public radio exchange. Quick program note, we keep doing these bonus episodes every two weeks for our life partners.
This American Life
858: How to Tell a Dumb American Story
The latest one, I do a stand-up set on stage. If you're curious about all this and want to become a life partner, go to thisamericanlife.org slash lifepartners. Thanks, as always, to our program's co-founder, Mr. Torrey Malatia. Every day, I see him in the hallway here at the office. He always says the same exact thing to me.
This American Life
858: How to Tell a Dumb American Story
I'm Ira Glass. Back next week with more stories of This American Life.
This American Life
858: How to Tell a Dumb American Story
A quick warning. There are curse words that are unbeaped in today's episode of the show. If you prefer a beeped version, you can find that at our website, thisamericanlife.org.
This American Life
858: How to Tell a Dumb American Story
Sarah Crane Murdoch's been on our show before. She reports on indigenous communities out West. Back in 2023, she got a call from a man in Montana, Kevin Howard. He said his daughter, Micah, had been killed in a hit and run. Local police were dragging their feet. He thought the driver might get away with it. The driver was white. Micah was native, a citizen of the Blackfeet Nation.
This American Life
858: How to Tell a Dumb American Story
Sierra Crane Murdoch. Coming up, Kevin and Carissa realize that if they want anything to happen in the case, they'll need to take matters into their own hands. Which they do. Stay with us.
This American Life
858: How to Tell a Dumb American Story
This American Life. Sarah Crane Murdoch picks up the story of Michael Westwolf and her parents.
This American Life
858: How to Tell a Dumb American Story
Lots of native people are killed in hit and runs. and the drivers are rarely brought to justice. And Sierra thought she might be able to document why by diving into Micah's case, because Micah's parents had recordings of nearly all their interactions with law enforcement. Micah's parents did some other things, too.
This American Life
858: How to Tell a Dumb American Story
They were very strategic and did some extraordinary things other families had not tried to make sure Micah's case was one that the authorities could not ignore. That story and how it unfolded and what it's like to be a couple making that happen, that's going to be our whole show today. From WBEZ Chicago, Since American Life, I'm Ira Glass. And with that, I hand it over to Ciara.
This American Life
851: Try a Little Tenderness
This is her older sister, Johanna. Johanna's eight in third grade. Again, Mae, six, first grade. And Johanna, as the older sister, is very aware of the things that make Mae upset.
This American Life
851: Try a Little Tenderness
Especially, she says, when it comes to what Mae is wearing.
This American Life
851: Try a Little Tenderness
You're scrunching your fist as tight as they can go.
This American Life
851: Try a Little Tenderness
Meanwhile, May and Johanna's mom, Megan, was trying to get them both dressed and ready for school.
This American Life
851: Try a Little Tenderness
John Mulaney, Chloe Fineman, Richard Kind, and Fred Armisen. They're the stars of All In, Comedy About Love. The cast is going to change soon and star other great people. The show is written by Simon Rich. It runs through February 16th on Broadway, New York City, at the Hudson Theater.
This American Life
851: Try a Little Tenderness
Coming up, how do you get a wild animal that hates your guts to turn the other cheek, especially if it doesn't have cheeks? That's in a minute on Chicago Public Radio when our program continues.
This American Life
851: Try a Little Tenderness
This is American Life from Ira Glass. Today on our program, try a little tenderness. We have stories of people putting aside aggressiveness and anger and disappointment in other human beings and reaching out in kindness. Instead, we've arrived at our tour program, Act Two, The Gladiator, starring Ruffled Crow.
This American Life
851: Try a Little Tenderness
Aviva de Kornfeld brings us this story about a person who tried to be considerate and where it got him.
This American Life
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What had happened? How'd these two little kids work this out so quickly? Well, me and Johanna explained. It went down like this. Mae marched herself to Johanna's room and banged on the door. Johanna opened the door. And Mae has been working on not giving in to her anger, not taking the low road, but instead using words, saying what she wants, which she did now.
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851: Try a Little Tenderness
Aviva de Kornfeld is the producer of our program. Act 3, you'll spank me later for this. So in this show today about tenderness, we turn now to comedian Josh Johnson, who's been thinking a lot lately about when tenderness is called for and when the opposite of tenderness may actually be the right way to go.
This American Life
851: Try a Little Tenderness
When you punched her butt, did you punch her like you were super mad? Or did you punch her kind of soft by then because you were sort of half over it?
This American Life
851: Try a Little Tenderness
Josh Johnson. Check out his YouTube channel, Josh Johnson Comedy. Tour dates, videos, and albums are at joshjohnsoncomedy.com. Act four, the feels on the bus. There are, of course, so many people who believe that being tenderhearted is not a good way to live in this tough and unforgiving world. For some people, it's a matter of principle. They think it works out better for everybody that way.
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851: Try a Little Tenderness
Eckhart Carrot has this short story about someone like that.
This American Life
851: Try a Little Tenderness
It's funny, I wonder if it worked because she was sort of nice about it. Like you came to her all mad and then she didn't get mad back. Instead, she greeted your anger with niceness.
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851: Try a Little Tenderness
May's six years old, in first grade. And she's the kind of forthright kid who, when we sit down for an interview, before I can get to any of the things that I want to ask her, she launches into a few get-to-know-you questions of her own. Hi, May.
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851: Try a Little Tenderness
Have you ever heard of this phrase, turn the other cheek?
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851: Try a Little Tenderness
It's something that I think Jesus said. He said that if somebody slaps you on your right cheek, like, you know, like slaps you on the cheek of your face, he says turn the other cheek and offer the other cheek as well. Even if somebody's mad at you and does something unreasonable, you shouldn't get unreasonable yourself.
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851: Try a Little Tenderness
Edgar Carat, reading the title story from his collection, The Bus Driver Who Wanted to Be God and Other Stories. If you want to get a short story in your email from Edgar once a week, you can sign up for that at his Substack at Edgar Carat, that's Carat, K-E-R-E-T, .substack.com.
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851: Try a Little Tenderness
Our program is produced today by Ike Streets, Kandaraja, and Henry Larson. The people who put together today's show include Jindaye Bonds, Angela Gervasi, Tobin Lowe, Stone Nelson, Nadia Raymond, Anthony Roman, Ryan Rumery, Francis Swanson, Christopher Sotala, Matt Tierney, and Julie Whitaker. Our managing editor is Sarah Abderrahman. Our senior editor is David Kestenbaum.
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Our executive editor is Emmanuel Berry. Special thanks today to the team at All In on Broadway, director Alex Timbers, producers Micah Frank and Greg Noble, also Scott Rowan and Allison Ebling, Wagner Johnson Productions, O&M, and everybody else at the Hudson Theater. Also thanks today to Emily Woodbury and Griffin Dunn.
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851: Try a Little Tenderness
And in this case, your sister turned the other cheek, but it was her butt cheek that she turned.
This American Life
851: Try a Little Tenderness
This American Life is delivered to public radio stations by PRX, the public radio exchange to become a This American Life partner. which gives you bonus content, ad-free listening, and hundreds of our favorite episodes of the show that'll show up right in your podcast feed. Go to thisamericanlife.org slash lifepartners. It's a great deal. It helps us out. That link is also in the show notes.
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851: Try a Little Tenderness
Thanks this week to life partners Stacey Dixon, Dan Evans III, Matthew Rotz, Sarah Reen, Elon Saratovsky, and Joe Thorne. Thanks, as always, to our program's co-founder, Mr. Tori Malatia. You know, he's been throwing out all of his old CDs, every single one. But he is such a Bono fan. He looks at the package, Joshua Tree, Octoon Baby, and screams.
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851: Try a Little Tenderness
I'm Ira Glass. Back next week, more stories of this American life.
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851: Try a Little Tenderness
You got to love me, squeeze me, tease me, please me. Got to, got to, now, now, now, got to try a little tender love for me. You got to do the things that you want to do.
This American Life
851: Try a Little Tenderness
Next week on the podcast of This American Life. So June is 29, never had a boyfriend, and she has a theory about why. Then she meets somebody who tells her she doesn't know what she's talking about. She needs to rethink the entire thing from the ground up. What she tells her, and can you change your whole life in one conversation?
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We find out next week on the podcast on your local public radio station.
This American Life
851: Try a Little Tenderness
But it wasn't just Johanna who led them to a quick, peaceful resolution. Both girls agreed that if Mae hadn't asked for what she wanted at the door, if she just punched Johanna, Johanna would have punched back. It would have escalated. Johanna admits she's not always so calm and reasonable with Mae. But this time, it was clear how to handle her, and Johanna knew exactly what to do.
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851: Try a Little Tenderness
I think that's true. Yeah. Like you didn't say no to her.
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851: Try a Little Tenderness
Well, today on our show, in these noisy, aggressive times where the people rising to power in this world seem to come in hot, lots of fiery tempers and scrunched up fists and twitchering legs, we pause for a moment to remember there is another path.
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851: Try a Little Tenderness
We have stories of people turning the other cheek, pausing, and trying against all odds to see the good in each other, giving themselves over to the feeling in that old Otis Redding song. Stay tuned for a hard-boiled detective, for crows with a vendetta, for righteous spankings and non-spankings, for John Mulaney, and for a bus driver who thought he was God.
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From WBEZ Chicago, this is American Life. I'm Ira Glass.
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851: Try a Little Tenderness
We discuss favorite colors, and then she moves on to... What's your middle name? I'm glad you're asking me that. My middle name is... We move on to last names, and soon she's instructing me on the pronunciation of her last name.
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851: Try a Little Tenderness
This is American Life, Act One. So there's an entire genre of movies and other stories where tough guys who've been through it all and seen the worst in people decide they're going to soften, try a little tenderness, help somebody out who needs the help. This happens in old westerns, sci-fi films, spy stories. And there's a story like that on stage right now on Broadway in New York.
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851: Try a Little Tenderness
And I saw this a couple weeks ago and thought this story would be perfect for the radio. And the director and producers and writers said yes. The show is called All In. And it stars John Mulaney, Richard Kine, Fred Armisen, and Chloe Feynman. And what they're doing is they're performing a set of short stories on stage by the writer Simon Rich. He's been on our show a few times with his stories.
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851: Try a Little Tenderness
And let's get right to it. This story is one of the stories in their show. It's called The Big Nap.
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851: Try a Little Tenderness
The story I was there to talk to Ms. Jenski about happened this fall, at the beginning of the school year. In St. Louis, where she lives, it was hot out.
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Somehow, every night, all the adults, all my relatives, every teacher, everybody who I ever heard of headed off for bed like this was no big deal. Complete annihilation. No big deal. For those of us who fear sleep, there is a lot to fear. And that's what we're going to talk about on today's radio show. It's a survey of this altered state. This altered state where we're vulnerable and just gone.
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Mike Berbiglia, he was recorded at The Moth, which of course has a podcast and a public radio show, their website, themoth.org. Years ago, Mike wrote and directed and starred in a movie based on the true story that you just heard. It's a comedy called Sleepwalk With Me. This American Life and WBEZ produced the film. I was one of the co-writers with Mike.
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Carol Kane and Lauren Ambrose are in the cast. You can find it on Prime Video, Apple TV, and many other streaming services. I totally recommend it. It's funny. If you have a sleep disorder of the kind that we've been talking about so far today, there's very effective treatment. See a doctor, okay? There's a little pill called Conipin, like Rabiglia said.
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The DVD that Dr. Carlos Schenck made explaining sleep disorders that we heard earlier in the top of the show is called Sleep Runners. Dr. Schenck also has this beautifully put together book about all this called Paradox Lost.
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Fact two, sleep's tiniest enemies. We now turn to people who battle at night, but not with their own dreams. These people battle critters, living creatures of the night. One of the producers of our show, Nancy Updike, has been looking into this.
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Having dreams where anything at all can happen. Not in control of our own bodies. Listen to what happened to this woman, Denise.
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A story from Nancy Updike. And oh, we are not done. We are not done with the critters that make people scared to climb inside their own beds. These people that you're about to hear, they all live in the same apartment building.
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361: Fear of Sleep
A few years ago, at 349 St. John's Place in Brooklyn, you'd be able to tell that the bedbugs had returned by the amount of furniture being thrown out on the curb. If you walked down the block, you'd see mattresses and bookcases spray-painted with the words, Bedbugs Do Not Use, in big letters, to warn off neighbors who might think of taking the stuff home.
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Robin Semien, a week or two after we first broadcast this story in 2008, the landlord at 349 St. John's Place hired a new exterminator, started treating the building regularly. Stephanie told us that it worked, that her apartment became bug-free. The rest of the country is not quite so lucky. There's a huge bedbug boom in New York and major cities around the country.
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361: Fear of Sleep
Coming up, somebody who consciously trains himself not to fall asleep and then has to suffer the consequences. And more. That's in a minute. Chicago Public Radio, when our program continues. It's This American Life from Ira Glass. Each week on our program, of course, we choose a theme, bring you different kinds of stories on that theme. Today's show, Fear of Sleep.
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361: Fear of Sleep
As Denise got older, this paralysis has happened more and more. And sometimes when she's lying there, paralyzed and awake, she hallucinates. She sees family members who aren't there, or she hears them. And sometimes they're mad at her. Though the only time all this happens to Denise is when she takes a nap during the day.
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361: Fear of Sleep
We've arrived at Act 3 of our show, Act 3, The Bitter Fruits of Wakefulness. We have this story from Joel Lovell. A warning before we start this story to sensitive listeners that the story acknowledges the existence of sex and sexual feelings.
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As early as I remember, I was afraid to go to sleep. This began when I was six. My Uncle Lenny went off to Vietnam. And that opened up this chapter in my life where I was obsessed with death.
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361: Fear of Sleep
Then there's Ron Vagley. He'd wake up after an hour or two of sleep and find himself, for example, still in bed, there with his wife,
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Joe Lovell. He edits podcasts for Pineapple Street Studios. Hello. Keith, it's Seth. This is the production manager of our radio show, Seth Lynn, calling his uncle Keith, about an incident that is actually the subject of this next act, Act 4, an incident that happened to Seth when he should have been sleeping over 20 years ago.
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Seth had a very common childhood experience. He saw a film that he shouldn't have seen, and it had exactly the effect you'd think. After seeing The Shining, he had trouble falling asleep and nightmares every night, and here's where it gets a little extreme. This lasted for most of two years.
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It lasted so long probably because the film was The Shining, a film that is not only truly scary, it starred a six-year-old boy, same age as Seth at the time. And if you remember The Shining, the director, Stanley Kubrick, is constantly shooting from the six-year-old's perspective.
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There are those amazing shots done from kid-level height as the little boy speeds down the hallways of this huge hotel on his big wheel. This made everything in the film seem very, very real to Seth. It just made it plausible.
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361: Fear of Sleep
Act 5, A Little Taste of the Big Sleep. So I started today's show by talking about how fear of sleeping, for me, goes hand in hand with the fear of death. And I used to be surprised that everybody didn't feel that way or regularly have that experience, these moments in bed when they felt so aware that death is really going to happen to them.
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And I have found that it is comforting that there are other people who do feel that. Here are some.
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Jane Marie, Leonard Davis, and G.J. Ekternkamp. I know that we almost never have poems on our show, and I already read one poem today, so, you know, whatever. But there's a Philip Larkin poem that is exactly about this subject that we're talking about. It's in his collected poems, which is published by Farrar, Strauss, and Giroux, called Obad. And...
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Nocturnal seizures... This is from a DVD put together by Drs. Carlos Schenck and Mark Mahowald of the Minnesota Regional Sleep Disorder Center. The number of adults with troubled sleep, they say, is a lot higher than you probably think. Somewhere between 1.5 and 4% of all adults have had recent sleepwalking episodes, depending on what study you look at. That's millions of people.
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It begins and it's nighttime and he writes at nighttime, you can see what's always been there, unresting death a whole day nearer now. And then I'm just going to pick up in the middle of this where he describes what he sees. The total emptiness forever, the sure extinction that we traveled to and shall be lost in always, not to be here, not to be anywhere.
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361: Fear of Sleep
And soon, nothing more terrible, nothing more true. This is a special way of being afraid. No trick dispels. Religion used to try. That vast, moth-eaten musical brocade, created to pretend we never die. And specious stuff that says, no rational being can fear a thing it will not feel. Not seeing that this is what we fear. No sight, no sound. No touch or taste or smell.
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Nothing to think with, nothing to love or link with. The anesthetic from which none come round. And so it stays just on the edge of vision, a small, unfocused blur, a standing chill that slows each impulse down to indecision. Most things may never happen. This one will. And realization of it rages out in furnace fear when we're caught without people or drink. Courage is no good.
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361: Fear of Sleep
I was scared that Uncle Lenny was going to be killed, but more than that, his absence underscored the fact that someday, no matter what, I was going to be drafted, and I'd have to go to Vietnam, and I'd be killed. And there was nothing that I or anybody I knew could do to stop that. I knew I was going to be killed because I was chubby and I was terrible at sports. I could barely run half a block.
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It means not scaring others. Being brave lets no one off the grave. Death is no different whined at than withstood. Slowly light strengthens and the room takes shape. It stands plain as a wardrobe. What we know, have always known. Know that we can't escape. Yet can't accept. One side will have to go. Meanwhile, telephones crouch, getting ready to ring, in locked up offices.
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361: Fear of Sleep
And all the uncaring, intricate rented world begins to rouse. The sky is white as clay, with no sun. Work has to be done. Postmen, like doctors, go from house to house.
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Our program was produced today by Nancy Opdek and myself, with Alex Bloomberg, Jane Marie, Lisa Pollock, Robin Simeon, and Alyssa Shipp. Our senior producer for today's show is Julie Snyder. Production help from PJ Vogt and Tara Kuda. Help on today's rerun from Michael Comadese, Joan Nelson, Catherine Raimondo, Ryan Rumery, and Angela Gervasi.
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Mike Birbiglia, who you heard earlier in the show, has his own podcast called Working It Out. And our latest bonus episode for Life Partners is his latest episode of his podcast where I am the guest and he critiques my skills as a stand-up comedian. If you want to become a life partner and get access to all of our bonus episodes, there are so many now.
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Go to thisamericanlife.org slash lifepartners. This American Life is delivered to public radio stations by PRX, the public radio exchange. Thanks as always to our program's co-founder, Mr. Torrey Malatia, who explains why he shows up for work sometimes with no shirt, torn pants, no shoes.
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I'm Ira Glass. Back next week with more stories of This American Life.
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Another 2% engage in sleep-related violence. People eat when they're asleep. They have sex when they're asleep. And one of the most affecting things to watch on this DVD that they assembled to educate people about various sleep disorders is a 51-year-old Japanese man who was videotaped while having a bad dream.
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361: Fear of Sleep
Next week on the podcast of This American Life, Alicia was out of a job when she started making wigs for pets. And she decided, this is going to be my thing. Which worked.
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361: Fear of Sleep
That good news turned out to be not entirely good news. Next week on the podcast, on your local public radio station.
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The man later told researchers that in this dream, he's fighting off snakes. And in this kind of grainy nighttime footage, you can see him swat away snakes with his arms. He kicks at one with his foot. The metal sound you're hearing is the bed frame. Finally, he picks up a pillow like it's a rock and beats one away. There's something completely naked about this footage.
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It's very strange to watch another person at a moment when they are so totally vulnerable and alone and terrified. Welcome to WBEZ Chicago. It's This American Life. I'm Ira Glass. Today on our show, fear of sleep. We have five stories of people who either have a huge fear of sleep or, frankly, they should have a huge fear of sleep. Act one, stranger in the night. Act two, sleep's tiniest enemies.
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Act three, the bitter fruits of wakefulness. Act four, Hollywood-induced nightmare. Act five, a small taste of the big sleep. Stay with us.
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It's American Life. Today's show is a rerun, act one, Stranger in the Night. There's a poem by Raymond Carver that goes, I woke up with a spot of blood over my eye, a scratch halfway across my forehead. But I'm sleeping alone these days. Why on earth would a man raise his hand against himself, even in sleep?
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It's this and similar questions I'm trying to answer this morning as I steady my face in the window. Well, that is probably about as good an introduction as you could get for this first story. From Mike Brubiglia, he told it in front of a live audience at The Moth in New York.
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361: Fear of Sleep
On TV, war seemed to involve a lot of running. There was crouching, there was shooting, but there was a disturbing amount of running. So I was six, and I knew I was going to die, and my mom and dad couldn't help me. Nobody could help me. I'd be dead forever. Galaxies would spin, humans would travel to other worlds, and I would miss all of that.
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361: Fear of Sleep
Nobody would remember me or anybody that I had ever known. Forever. And I'd lie awake at night, scared to fall asleep. Because sleep seemed no different than death. You know? You were gone. Not moving, not talking, not thinking. Not aware. Not aware. What could be more frightening? What could be bigger? And here was the weird part of it, I thought, when I was a kid.
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Pino Audia teaches in the business school at Dartmouth, and he researches the question, how do entrepreneurs get created? And at some point, he noticed that his students and many of his colleagues actually have an opinion about this. They believe entrepreneurs make themselves. You know, you head off on your own, you write a business plan, you start in your own garage.
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Professor Adia doesn't argue with any of this, but he says that when you ask actual entrepreneurs, and this is true in survey after survey, you find that most of them began not by going off into their garage, but by working for somebody else. making contacts, learning the business.
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535: Origin Story
Even Bill Hewitt and Dave Packard weren't exactly outsiders. They studied electrical engineering at MIT and Stanford. Packard had worked at General Electric. A former professor of theirs from Stanford gave them leads and hooked them up, for example, with a firm called Lytton Engineering, who let them use equipment that they didn't know themselves yet.
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535: Origin Story
Just as, decades later, the founders of Apple Computer, 21-year-old Steve Jobs, was already working at Atari, and 25-year-old Steve Wozniak was at Hewlett-Packard when they started Apple in Jobs' garage.
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Sarah Koenig. We first ran this story back in 2009. Sarah's dad, Julian Koenig, died five years after that. He was 93. George Lois died a few years after that. These days, Sarah is the host of the Serial podcast. She worked as a producer at our show for a decade before that. Coming up, Peter Sagal, long before Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me, his lost years in Havana.
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That's in a minute from Chicago Public Radio when our program continues. This is American Life from Hourglass. Each week on our program, of course, we choose a theme, bring you different kinds of stories on that theme. Today's show, Origin Stories, where we go back to figure out where things came from. We arrived at act two of our program, act two, Silent Partner.
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So years ago, Sean Cole visited Chad's Trading Post, a restaurant filled with frilly knickknacks in Southampton, Massachusetts. It's a restaurant with a very distinct origin story.
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Pino Adia has tried to find mentions of garage entrepreneurs or anything like it in other countries and didn't come up with much. He says it seems to be a very American idea, very close to other American ideas about opportunity for everybody. The Apple and Hewlett-Packard garages have now become such a part of Silicon Valley myth that it's made other tech companies want their own stories like it.
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535: Origin Story
Google, for example. They did not start in a garage. The founders began working on their search engine in 1996 when they were at Stanford. They didn't actually move into a garage until 1998. They already had investors, and they were just in the garage for five months. But in 2006, Google bought that garage as a company landmark.
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535: Origin Story
And the garage, by the way, is not a metaphorical garage. It is a garage, a literal garage. Hewlett Packard started in a garage. Apple Computer had a garage. Disney, the Mattel Toy Company, the Wham-O Toy Company.
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Dan Heath has written about these origin stories in Fast Company magazine. He says that one way to measure just how appealing these stories are is to count all the ones that get quoted widely, even though they aren't remotely true. For instance, when eBay began... A story circulated that its founder created the company so his fiancée could buy and collect PEZ dispensers more easily. Not true.
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535: Origin Story
One of the creators of YouTube used to claim that the idea for the business came after a dinner party in 2005, where two of the company's masterminds, Chad Hurley and Steve Chinn, shot some video, and then tried to post it online and found out just how hard that was back then.
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535: Origin Story
The family kept Chad's memory alive for a while in a new restaurant called Chad's Good Table, 10 minutes away. But then they sold off that restaurant. These days, his memory is honored by four different boys who have been named after him. Act 3, Wait, Wait, Don't Film Me. Now, this origin story.
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535: Origin Story
Our public radio colleague, the host of NPR's Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me, Mr. Peter Sagal, used to be a playwright. And to give you a sense of the kind of work that he did as a playwright, his most successful play, he says, was about a Holocaust denier and the Jewish attorney who represented that Holocaust denier in court.
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Back in the 90s when all this happened, Bender read Peter's play and liked it and called him up and asked Peter if he wanted to write a movie. And Peter basically had been waiting for this phone call from Hollywood forever.
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535: Origin Story
So after tossing around some different ideas for this film, Lawrence Bender introduces Peter to this woman who he works with, who at 15 had been an American in Cuba when the Cuban Revolution happened. Maybe there's a film in that. So Peter starts writing this film that's half romance, growing up film, half politics, about an American teenage girl in Cuba in the 50s.
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And eventually this film did get made. It did. It did. It finally got made a bit later, and I'm just going to play a clip here from it.
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535: Origin Story
So that's a clip from the film. You want to just let people know the title of the film?
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535: Origin Story
I have to say, I watched the movie last night. I watched Dirty Dancing 2.
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535: Origin Story
So how does a film go from political coming-of-age drama to Dirty Dancing to Havana Nights? Well, of course, it's an old Hollywood story. Peter writes his film. He turns it in. They ask him to make it more like, maybe could it be more like Dirty Dancing?
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535: Origin Story
He says each draft got worse and worse. Even he didn't like it. Finally, it was shelved. Years later, the producer who actually owned the rights to the film Dirty Dancing teamed up with Lawrence Bender to make a sequel, and somebody thought of Peter's old script.
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535: Origin Story
All the politics of the film got reduced to this one moment where, really unconnected to anything else in the film, somebody attempts to shoot some unidentified political figure at the climax of the dance contest. And then later, in a moment of obligatory foreshadowing, our couple talks about whether Castro would ever kick out Americans from Cuba.
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Can I ask you what it was like for you to watch the film? For you to sit in a theater and watch the film? It was fine.
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535: Origin Story
Act four, Bill Clinton's seven-year-old brother. So reporter Mary Wittenberg spent years writing about two boys, brothers who were born in a Tanzanian refugee camp and then settled in Georgia in the United States in 2006. Many of her stories focused on the older brother, nine-year-old Bill Clinton Haddam. His dad was a big fan of the former president.
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535: Origin Story
After a tough first year in the United States, Bill seemed to have settled in. But his little brother, Ige, was still struggling to understand his own origin story, to get his seven-year-old brain around who he was and where he came from. At some point, Mary had spent so much time with these two boys that she was more than a reporter. She was more like a member of the family. Anyway, here's Mary.
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In the article that you wrote for Fast Company, you point out that our attachment to these kinds of mythic creation stories is so strong that we have even exaggerated the Christopher Columbus story
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Mary Wiltenberg. She wrote about Ige, Bill Clinton, and their family for the Christian Science Monitor. Today shows a rerun, and Ige is now 23. He still talks to his mother in Swahili. You can read more of the family stories at marywiltonberg.com.
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Well, the program was produced today by Lisa Pollack and myself, with Alex Bloomberg, Sean Cole, Jane Marie, Sarah Koenig, Alyssa Shipp, and Nancy Opdyke. Our senior producer for today's show is Julie Snyder. Production help from J.P. Dukes. Music help from Jessica Hopper. Help on today's rerun from Michael Kamate, Angela Gervasi, Catherine Raimondo, Stone Nelson, and Ryan Rumery.
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Our website, thisamericanlife.org. Thanks today to Bob Fokenflik, Matt Holtzman, and Hank Rosenfeld. Pino Adia's research paper about garages and entrepreneurs that I talked about at the beginning of the show was done with Christopher Ryder. Dan Heath, who I also talked to at the beginning of the show, is now host of the podcast, What It's Like to Be.
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This American Life is delivered to public radio stations by PRX, the Public Radio Exchange. Thanks as always to our program's co-founder, Mr. Torrey Malatia, who hears himself quoted in these credits every single week on our program and says, I never said that. I would never say that. I'm Ira Glass. Back next week with more stories of This American Life.
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Next week on the podcast, This American Life, Daniel Sloss is a comedian. And after one of his shows, a fan walked up, told Daniel that he ended his marriage after watching Daniel's special. Even showed him the divorce papers. Then it happened again. And again. Fans got in touch to say they'd broken up with their partners after seeing Daniel's show.
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535: Origin Story
The comedy routine powerful enough to end your marriage. Listen if you dare. Next week on the podcast, on your local public radio station.
This American Life
535: Origin Story
What a day on our show. Origin stories. We love them so much that sometimes it is hard not to make them up. From WBEC Chicago, it's This American Life. Act one of our show today, Madman. Act two, Silent Partner. Act three, Wait, Wait, Don't Film Me. Act four, Bill Clinton's seven-year-old brother, Stay With Us. This American Life Today show is a rerun, act one, Madman.
This American Life
535: Origin Story
Well, this first story is about a fight over the origin of certain ideas, a fight over who really came up with those ideas. Sarah Koenig tells a story about her dad, Julian.
This American Life
535: Origin Story
This is a promotional video that Hewlett Packard put together after it spent millions to buy and restore the original garage where its two founders started a company that is still one of the largest technology firms in the world.
This American Life
339: Break-Up
That song particularly was written during my... first divorce. My first wife and the kids had gone and I was just left there. So it was written totally out of experience as opposed to this is a what-if song. You know what I mean?
This American Life
339: Break-Up
Probably not. I mean, frankly, if that personal stuff had not happened to me at that time, I probably would never have made an album. And if I was to have made an album, eventually it would have been more of a jazz rock thing, because that was what I was actually, that was my output. Apart from Genesis, I was in the back of Brand X. And that's, you know, I was a player.
This American Life
339: Break-Up
So, you know, no, without that stuff, I wouldn't have felt the things I felt that made me sit at a piano. night after night, day after day, writing stuff, yeah.
This American Life
339: Break-Up
Well, it helped in as much as, you know, it was kind of, well, when she hears this, it's all going to be okay, you know.
This American Life
339: Break-Up
there's various people in your life that you never quite get over. I mean, that's kind of the cliche. And then, you know, sometimes, I mean, with me, for example, because of children, you are morally obligated and you need, because of you want to be with the kids as much as possible, you have to be in touch with this person that's really hurt you.
This American Life
339: Break-Up
So it's not like, you know, you can just walk away and leave without a trace because, you know, in this instance, there's a couple of little guys that are looking up to you saying, what am I going to do, Dad?
This American Life
339: Break-Up
If I had to say one thing about Lauren, it's that she was full of feelings that completely contradicted each other. Which, I guess, just comes with his territory. Like, she emphatically did not want him to call. But also, maybe a little bit, wanted him to call. She missed him, and she didn't want to stop thinking about him.
This American Life
339: Break-Up
Most of the time, it's the direct. I mean, if it's a good song, that's what makes it good, is the fact that it's, you know, so many people try to fluff things up, or disguise them, or... you know, make them a little bit too clever. But sometimes it's the simplest thing that actually reaches people.
This American Life
339: Break-Up
But then you see that's what becomes important then is the way that it's sung.
This American Life
339: Break-Up
Because you get... Otherwise you get, and I don't mean any disrespect, but you get into sort of Michael Bolton territory. And I've got nothing against Michael Bolton. I'm just using him as an example. I'm sure people would use me as an example of something that gets overblown and polished as opposed to a simple idea simply sung and obviously sounds like it's sung with conviction.
This American Life
339: Break-Up
But she also did all this elaborate math to calculate the day that she would finally be over him and not thinking about him and with somebody else. We get to an area where she had been on walks with the ex-boyfriend. There were benches and a sidewalk promenade.
This American Life
339: Break-Up
Well, well. There's some great stuff in there. You know, I really like... What's the line again about doing me no good? In fact, it's doing me bad.
This American Life
339: Break-Up
And afterwards, the line that says, and you're oh so gone. I laughed when I heard that. You're oh so gone and I'm oh so sad. I mean, it's just really smart.
This American Life
339: Break-Up
It's not being nice. I just like it. I mean, I would easily have said, hey, it's not for me, you know. But I heard it, and I thought it was very funny.
This American Life
339: Break-Up
Well, it's something. I don't think you really want to get over it. I think you're kind of enjoying it. So that's kind of a dilemma you have to sort out.
This American Life
339: Break-Up
addressing something you need to address and this is getting amongst other things getting it out of your system you know you've had the satisfaction of actually getting something tangible that you can play yeah um you know out of this relationship that's true but i don't know don't you sometimes wonder like is it better to have the song in the end or the relationship
This American Life
339: Break-Up
Starlee Klein. You can hear more stories from Starlee on her podcast, Mystery Show. Coming up, a big city mayor, an eight-year-old girl, and a dog weigh in with their solutions to getting over your next breakup. That's in a minute from Chicago Public Radio when our program continues. This is American Life. I'm Eric Glass.
This American Life
339: Break-Up
Each week on our show, of course, we choose a theme, bring you a variety of different kinds of stories on that theme. Today's show, breakup, stories from inside the vortex of shockingly contradictory feelings that happen after a breakup. We've arrived at act two of our show, act two, but why? After a relationship ends, you can puzzle for years of why things went wrong and did they have to.
This American Life
339: Break-Up
Bad like when you walk out of your house, you think, like, there his car was.
This American Life
339: Break-Up
And you yearn for a simple story that explains it. And that's not just true for the people in the relationship. It's true for the kids. And now, with that thought, let's flip on the radio time machine.
This American Life
339: Break-Up
During a breakup, you just stare at what happened. There's a before and there's an after, and you just can't believe it. Lauren says she still doesn't even understand what went wrong between her and him. And that's part of it, too, so much of the time. Well, we got the idea for today's radio show from an email that a listener sent. It says... here.
This American Life
339: Break-Up
The welfare reform that they're talking about here is that of President George Herbert Walker Bush. The day that this aired, February 11th, 1987, I was one of the lower level producers at All Things Considered. But that day I got to work on this story about breakups that I still think about.
This American Life
339: Break-Up
A story about somebody who is wanting to understand a breakup and reaching out to various people out in the world to do that. In a way, like Star Lee did. So, okay, all you need to know is it's 1987. Edward Koch is the mayor of New York City. Noah Adams is one of the hosts of All Things Considered at the time, and he does the interview.
This American Life
339: Break-Up
And you're in our studio in New York. I appreciate you taking some time to come in and telling us this story. You wrote a letter to the mayor of New York, Mayor Koch.
This American Life
339: Break-Up
No? Did you have any thought in your mind that perhaps he could actually do something about it, for example, call your father and get your mom and dad back together?
This American Life
339: Break-Up
Yeah. Yeah. What other advice have you been able to come across, to find?
This American Life
339: Break-Up
Sure, sure. You know, most people you talk with will have had parents who were divorced.
This American Life
339: Break-Up
Yeah, most people. It's kind of a sad thing, but most people get through it all right, too. That's my advice for you.
This American Life
339: Break-Up
You wrote another letter to somebody who had written a book called The Boys and Girls Book of Divorce?
This American Life
339: Break-Up
Dear This American Life, I'm suffering from a gut-wrenching breakup with my former boyfriend, and I searched your site for shows about breakups and general heartbreak to commiserate. But to my surprise, I didn't find many stories specifically regarding the act of breaking up. I hope you consider it. A show like that would really cheer me up.
This American Life
339: Break-Up
Do you think that parents sometimes don't think children are old enough to understand or can't handle it and so will hide some information?
This American Life
339: Break-Up
Not that they have to say everything, but do you think there ought to be a little bit more sharing of the information?
This American Life
339: Break-Up
Yeah. And in terms of their own divorce, do you understand it better now?
This American Life
339: Break-Up
Yeah. What do you think you've learned from this? Do you think if somebody else in school, for example, told you that their parents were getting divorced, how do you think you could advise them?
This American Life
339: Break-Up
You wrote a very small book? Yeah. Yeah. Do you have it there? Mm-hmm. Could you read some of it for me, please?
This American Life
339: Break-Up
That's nice. Listen, Betsy, thank you for talking with us. I appreciate it, and I wish you the best. I hope things go well for you.
This American Life
339: Break-Up
And maybe this is the beginning of a writing experience for you, and you can grow up to be a writer.
This American Life
339: Break-Up
So that's the tape from 20 years ago. You're in the studio with us now. Tell us your name.
This American Life
339: Break-Up
How many times over the years do you think you've heard this taped interview?
This American Life
339: Break-Up
And so, with that in mind, we devote our show today to breakups. Partly today we have an anatomy of the completely contradictory feelings that are part of a breakup. I think that's what makes it such a special and particularly cursed state. And we have stories today about people trying in some very unusual, very resourceful ways to make themselves feel better during a breakup.
This American Life
339: Break-Up
And each time it's got to be different. How's it been changing for you?
This American Life
339: Break-Up
And looking back at that moment, did you really want the truth, or did you want things to be well again and whole again?
This American Life
339: Break-Up
Okay, let's imagine this. Your advice just to that 8-year-old, Betsy, who was you?
This American Life
339: Break-Up
Act three, let no court put us under. Now we have this example of somebody trying to make breakups less horrible than they are. Barry Berkman used to be like any divorce lawyer. He fought for his clients. He tried to get the big settlements. But he came to believe that what he was doing actually was not so good for most of his clients, which, you know, was kind of a big problem.
This American Life
339: Break-Up
Here's the kind of thing he would see. Guy comes in, ready for a divorce.
This American Life
339: Break-Up
Key word there would be trying. Our show today in four acts. In Act 1, Starlee Kine heads out on a breakup mission unlike any we have ever heard of. In Act 2, an 8-year-old heads out into the world to get some answers about her parents' breakup. In Act 3, a man who has turned his back on the ways of his people. His people, in this case, being divorce lawyers. Act 4, Meryl Markle.
This American Life
339: Break-Up
Well, wait, how did that kick in? What was the moment where it went from being just about money to being about the kids too?
This American Life
339: Break-Up
Did it have to happen? Adversarial-style divorces make up a ton of all divorce proceedings around the country. And Barry felt like most of those cases ended up like this one. Incredibly expensive, taking a huge emotional toll on everybody, damaging children...
This American Life
339: Break-Up
So after 15 years of doing these cases like this, he started looking for a different way, and he found something called collaborative divorce. In collaborative divorce, each spouse gets a lawyer, and then the spouses and the lawyers sit down in a room together to work out some kind of agreement.
This American Life
339: Break-Up
But under the rules of collaborative divorce, if one of the lawyers thinks that the other side is being intransigent or unreasonable, not only can he not threaten to go to court, If it does go to court, he has to give up the case. He has to give the case to another lawyer to do. So the lawyers have an incentive to work everything out.
This American Life
339: Break-Up
So, okay, they all sit down together, the spouses and the lawyers. And Barry Brickman says that even though the spouses enter this situation with good intentions of working everything out, the biggest obstacle he has is something very simple.
This American Life
339: Break-Up
And so you find yourself very often saying to your own client, no, no, no, no, no. Listen to what they're saying. Absolutely. Absolutely.
This American Life
339: Break-Up
You're saying the most important thing people need to do is simply just listen to each other and try to get along, right? Well, I would say listen to each other.
This American Life
339: Break-Up
Do things get so reasonable that you get people listening to each other well enough that people eventually just get back together? I've had that happen once.
This American Life
339: Break-Up
But this collaborative divorce process makes you actually show up to meetings with your spouse and your lawyers and start talking. And as these two people talked, they started to see each other's side of things. Maybe he hadn't been around enough. Maybe she could have been more supportive.
This American Life
339: Break-Up
No, it's one possibly overlooked way to mend a broken heart. And it involves a soggy, plastic, disky thing. You'll just have to trust me on that one. Stay with us. This American Life, today's show is a rerun. Act 1, Dr. Phil.
This American Life
339: Break-Up
Usually, of course, the spouses do not get back together. When the process works, Barry Berkman says, at least they end up feeling a little better about each other. To people who say at the end of this process, they appreciate your help and they're glad for the results, but they're still full of pain.
This American Life
339: Break-Up
Are you saying that at the end of this process, actually just going through the dividing of assets, which is really in the end all you're trying to do, actually makes people's anger dissipate when you do it this way?
This American Life
339: Break-Up
Barry Berkman is a lawyer in New York and a member of the New York Association of Collaborative Professionals, which he helped found. Collaborative Divorce, by the way, was invented by a Minneapolis lawyer named Stuart Webb. Back four. Divorce is rough.
This American Life
339: Break-Up
We close our show today with this vignette of just how lost you feel when you lose somebody from Meryl Marko, recorded on stage at UnCabaret in Los Angeles.
This American Life
339: Break-Up
When one of our regular contributors, Starlee Kine, was in the middle of getting over a breakup, she tried to feel better in a way that few people ever try and that maybe even she shouldn't have. Here's Starlee.
This American Life
339: Break-Up
Meryl Marko at Uncabaret in Los Angeles. Meryl's most recent book is a graphic novel, We Saw Scenery. She's also in the upcoming season of the TV show Hacks. Thanks to Greg Miller of Uncabaret.
This American Life
339: Break-Up
Well, the program was produced today by Robin Simeon and myself with Alex Bloomberg, Jane Marie, John Jeter, Sarah Koenig, Lisa Pollock, Alyssa Shipp, and Nancy Updike. Our senior producer for today's show is Julie Snyder. Production up from Seth Land, Ligia Navarro, PJ Vogt, and Alvin Melleth. Music up for today's show from Jessica Hopper.
This American Life
339: Break-Up
Help on today's rerun from Angela Gervasi and Stone Nelson. Special thanks today to NPR. Noah Adams' interview from 1987 was originally broadcast on National Public Radio's All Things Considered, where I was a proud staffer and was used with permission of NPR. Thanks to Ellen Weiss.
This American Life
339: Break-Up
Thanks to the musicians who played Starley's song in Act One, Joe McGinty on keyboard, Jeremy Chatzky on bass and electric guitar, Julia Greenberg on vocals and acoustic guitar, and Natalie Weiss sings backup, Starley Kine on tambourine. When we first ran the show, we invited listeners to take the raw tracks of Starlee's song and mix their own versions. The response was kind of incredible.
This American Life
339: Break-Up
129 entries. You can hear the winners of our breakup song contest, including the version you are hearing right now by We Were Pirates at our website, thisamericanlife.org. This American Life is delivered to public radio stations by PRX, the Public Radio Exchange.
This American Life
339: Break-Up
Thanks, as always, to our program's co-founder, Mr. Torrey Malatia, who's been listening to the show over the phone this week, and he has some thoughts.
This American Life
339: Break-Up
I'm Ira Glass. Back next week with more stories of This American Life.
This American Life
339: Break-Up
And so every time you walk down this street, you'll think like, oh, yeah, there's the spot.
This American Life
339: Break-Up
When I walked around Lauren's neighborhood with her, it had been two months since her boyfriend broke up with her. They'd gone up for about 10 months before that. She was incredibly nice to let herself be taped in still a pretty raw state. But even in the middle of that raw state, she was acutely aware and said herself that everything she was going through was a cliche.
This American Life
339: Break-Up
I mean, I've just been through a marriage breakup, and you talk about New Year's Eve. I mean, my divorce is final on my birthday.
This American Life
339: Break-Up
And I didn't want it at all. So that's something that, you know, you always remember these things, you know, like, you'll always remember New Year's Eve, and I'll always remember my birthday.
This American Life
668: The Long Fuse
A few years ago, Jennifer LeMessurier was watching this PBS cooking show. And this chef, David Chang, started talking about MSG.
This American Life
668: The Long Fuse
Of course, lots of people believe MSG is bad for you. It gives you headaches, a food hangover. That idea's been around for decades. I grew up hearing this. Maybe you did, too. But Jennifer knows this is a myth. In fact, the very next segment on the show is science and food writer Harold McGee saying just that.
This American Life
668: The Long Fuse
Quote, others have suggested that it may be caused by the monosodium glutamate seasoning used to a great extent for seasoning in Chinese restaurants.
This American Life
668: The Long Fuse
Lily Sullivan is one of the producers of our show. Fact two, baby's got bank. Okay, I know how unlikely this sounds, but we now have another old guy basically pranking the world right before he dies, but on a scale that gets hundreds of thousands of people involved and excited and talking about this guy's plan that he set in motion for years and years. Stephanie Fu explains.
This American Life
668: The Long Fuse
So the first thing she did was look up Dr. Kwok to get the whole story from him. What she learned was Dr. Kwok had been a researcher and a pediatrician in Maryland, and he was dead. She found an obituary from 2014.
This American Life
668: The Long Fuse
So instead, she traced the history of how this letter blew up, led to all these other things, by reading subsequent issues of the New England Journal of Medicine and newspapers from the time and other documents. She wrote a paper, published it in an academic journal in 2017. And then, after that, she gets his voicemail on her work number. She's a professor at Colgate University.
This American Life
668: The Long Fuse
The confusion makes sense because, remember, there was a Dr. Robert Homan Kwok, the one in his obituary she read. So who is this guy on the phone?
This American Life
668: The Long Fuse
He makes this little joke about how he keeps his phone in his pocket right by the thing that electrifies his pacemaker.
This American Life
668: The Long Fuse
Okay, what? Right? This message was just the beginning, the very odd beginning of a story that we're going to continue in just a minute. You will hear more from the mysterious Dr. Steele. Because this letter to the editor, I don't know, is it possible that this is the most impactful letter to the editor in the history of letters to the editor?
This American Life
668: The Long Fuse
It launched an entire MSG scare that lasted for decades. Even today, 42% of all Americans think that it's bad for you. And it's not. Since the 90s, the FDA has listed MSG as perfectly safe for its intended use, like vinegar, salt, pepper. Today on our show, we have three stories like this one, where people throw words out into the world that take on a totally unexpected life of their own.
This American Life
668: The Long Fuse
And in all these stories, the words wreak havoc for years. I'm WBC Chicago. It's This American Life. I'm Ira Glass. Stay with us. It's It's American Life. Today's show is a rerun. Act one, humor is not the best medicine. Okay, so where we left off, it was the voicemail on Jennifer LeMessurier's phone from this retired surgeon where he says, okay, I'm the guy. I made up a fake name.
This American Life
668: The Long Fuse
I wrote a letter and it set off 50 years of completely needless panic over MSG. Call me. Lily Sullivan explains what happened next.
This American Life
668: The Long Fuse
Jared Marcel. He produces WNYC's local news podcast, NYC Now, new episodes every Saturday. Ian Dilley, the racer who got cheated out of his victory, wrote about this in Bicycling Magazine. That's how we heard about the story. He has a book called The Cyclist's Bucket List. The other racer, Mike Friedman, now runs a nonprofit teaching kids about bikes called Pedaling Minds.
This American Life
668: The Long Fuse
Today's program is a rerun, and when we reached out to Mike, he said he regretted replying, I don't know, when Jared asked him why he did it. He said he does know why, and it was self-doubt. He wrote us in an email, quote, In the heat of the moment, I made a poor decision and paid for it with my character, honor, integrity, and self-respect. Today, as I write, I feel selfish.
This American Life
668: The Long Fuse
My apologizing to him when I did, so long after, is inherently a selfish act. But the only way to truly free my heart was to admit it. He said apologies are powerful, and they do matter. Our program was produced today by Diane Wu.
This American Life
668: The Long Fuse
The people who put our show together include Ben Calhoun, Zoe Chase, Dana Chivas, Sean Cole, Aviva DeKornfeld, Neil Drumming, Jared Floyd, Damian Grave, Miki Meek, Stone Nelson, Catherine Raimondo, Ben Phelan, Nadia Raymond, Robin Simeon, Alyssa Shipp, Lily Sullivan, Christopher Sertala, Matt Tierney, and Nancy Updike. Our managing editors for today's program are Susan Burton and David Kestenbaum.
This American Life
668: The Long Fuse
Help on today's rerun from Angela Gervasi. Special thanks today to Ptolemy Slocum, Chuck Long, Chris Bateman, David Goldenberg, Veronica Simmons, Astrid Lang, Brandon Copley, and Michelle Solomon. Jennifer LeMessurier, who you heard at the beginning of the show, has a book, Inscrutable Eating, about Americans' perceptions of Asian food, with the whole chapter on MSG.
This American Life
668: The Long Fuse
Our website, thisamericanlife.org, where you can listen to our archive of over 850 episodes for absolutely free. This American Life is delivered to public radio stations by PRX, the public radio exchange. Thanks, as always, to our program's co-founder, Mr. Torrey Malatia. You know, I called him earlier today, and when I called him, I don't know.
This American Life
668: The Long Fuse
Next week on the podcast of This American Life, Micah was killed in a hit-and-run.
This American Life
668: The Long Fuse
At the time, Jennifer was a Ph.D. student, very interested in the way people talk about race and Asian Americans. So to hear that there was once this letter that led Americans to freak out about the dangers of an ingredient commonly used in Chinese food, an ingredient that was later proven totally harmless, Jennifer wanted to see that letter.
This American Life
668: The Long Fuse
So she went into the stacks, found this old journal from the 60s. And there it was, a letter to the editor from a doctor titled Chinese Restaurant Syndrome.
This American Life
668: The Long Fuse
He runs through the symptoms that he's observed. Then he runs through the possible causes for this strange numbness and eliminates them one by one. Soy sauce, no. Cooking wine, no. And then it gets to the sentence it's going to live on for a half century.
This American Life
198: How to Win Friends and Influence People
Hello. Support for This American Life comes from Squarespace, the all-in-one website platform with features to help you start a fully custom on-brand website. Use Squarespace's latest AI-enhanced website builder, Blueprint AI.
This American Life
198: How to Win Friends and Influence People
I didn't bait the hook with strawberries and cream. Rather, I dangled a worm or a grasshopper in front of the fish and said, wouldn't you like to have that? Why not use the same common sense when fishing for people? To win friends and influence people, Dale Carnegie says over and over in the book, think about what they want. People, he says, are only interested in themselves.
This American Life
198: How to Win Friends and Influence People
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This American Life
198: How to Win Friends and Influence People
And if you can get yourself to the point where you are genuinely interested in them and what they like and what they want, then they will like you and they will do your bidding. Okay, so imagine you are 11 years old and your dad notices that you don't bring many friends around the house and he takes you aside and he gives you a copy of this actual book This happened.
This American Life
198: How to Win Friends and Influence People
David Sedaris, recorded at the Detroit Institute of Art by WDET. He is the author of many fine books. He's on tour this year in New Zealand, Australia, Hawaii, and so many of the 50 states. Find out when he's coming to your town at davidsederisbooks.com. Coming up, it's okay if you're not Superman. Unless, of course, your girlfriend used to date Superman.
This American Life
198: How to Win Friends and Influence People
That's in a minute on Chicago Public Radio when our program continues. This is American Life from Ira Glass. Each week on our program, of course, we choose some theme, bring you different kinds of stories on that theme. Today's show, how to win friends and influence people. We have four lessons on the subject today. We've arrived at lesson number two. Stay in touch.
This American Life
198: How to Win Friends and Influence People
Well, the United States of America, of course, does all kinds of things to try to win friends and influence people among the world's nations. We organize sanctions against rogue states. We rally countries on trade issues and once upon a time on environmental issues. And sometimes you get the sense that when we're rallying nations into a coalition for this or that, U.S.
This American Life
198: How to Win Friends and Influence People
diplomats have to make the kinds of phone calls that are not easy to make. They have to talk to countries that are angry at us for one reason or another. They have to talk to countries that we'd acted all interested in for a while in the past, and then we just kind of stopped calling.
This American Life
198: How to Win Friends and Influence People
Interesting case in point, shortly after September 11th, back in 2001, as the United States tried to organize nations into a coalition to fight the Taliban, the Secretary of State back then, Colin Powell, was in the paper saying things like, our sudden interest in Pakistan was not, quote, just a temporary spike in American interest.
This American Life
198: How to Win Friends and Influence People
that we had, quote, an enduring commitment and that Pakistan was, quote, a great Muslim nation. Which makes you wonder, what were those first phone calls like back then? Well, back in 2001, when we first broadcast today's show, one of our contributors, Tammy Sager, tried to imagine exactly that.
This American Life
198: How to Win Friends and Influence People
This happened to Paul Feig growing up in suburban Michigan.
This American Life
198: How to Win Friends and Influence People
Tammy Sager, she is a performer and writes for TV, most recently on the brand new show, They Call It Late Night with Jason Kelsey. Lesson three, people like you if you put a lot of time into your appearance. To prove this simple point, we have this true story of moral instruction told by Luke Burbank about something that happened to him years ago.
This American Life
198: How to Win Friends and Influence People
Now, in fact, in school, Paul had plenty of friends. He was kind of a class cut-up. And his way of winning friends was the same as other kids. He talked about what they saw on TV. And he tried to be funny. It was just around the house that he was quiet and withdrawn. But he figured, you know, he wanted to be more popular. He wanted more friends.
This American Life
198: How to Win Friends and Influence People
So he decided to try out some of the techniques in the book.
This American Life
198: How to Win Friends and Influence People
Yeah, I was wondering about that one in particular, if as an 11-year-old you tried to employ that one.
This American Life
198: How to Win Friends and Influence People
Luke Burbank. Here's the public radio show Live Wire as well as the daily podcast Too Beautiful to Live. They're available wherever you get your podcasts. And now the final lesson of our show, lesson four, just be yourself. Some people are very clear that they are not Superman and they are at peace with that. And so what if you know that you are just yourself, just regular size, no special powers?
This American Life
198: How to Win Friends and Influence People
We have the story of one such man whose lack of superpowers is pushed into his face all the time because of circumstances that will become all too clear to you. Jonathan Goldstein tells the story.
This American Life
198: How to Win Friends and Influence People
Paul used techniques from the book to try to talk to girls, asking them about themselves, what their dads did for a living. Just, you know, showing an interest in them, as the book suggests. And it kind of freaked them out. Because, you know, kids do not talk like that.
This American Life
198: How to Win Friends and Influence People
How to Win Friends and Influence People. First published in 1936. You know, when you read this thing, you can see why it is number one. Dale Carnegie writes in this pepped up style. You don't think of the word moxie much anymore, but when you read this, This is typical. He writes, in preparation for writing this book, he read everything he could find on the subject.
This American Life
198: How to Win Friends and Influence People
Jonathan Goldstein. His podcast, Heavyweight, is going to be coming back soon with a brand new season of their show. Our program was produced today by Starlee Kine and myself, with Alex Bloomberg, Wendy Doran, Jonathan Goldstein. Senior producer for today's show is Julie Snyder. Technical director is Matt Tierney. Production help from Michael Garofalo, Laura Smith, and Lily Sullivan.
This American Life
198: How to Win Friends and Influence People
So when Paul's teacher decided to do this exercise where they elected a class president, he ran. And he won. And his father was very, very pleased. The book was working. There was just one problem.
This American Life
198: How to Win Friends and Influence People
Help on today's rerun from Henry Larson. Special thanks today to Alan Mazur, Kevin Petrowski, Leslie Zane, and the Carriage House Theater of Montalvo. Thanks to Brian Mandel for real advice on influencing others. Thanks to Edie Rabidewitz, Lee Thompson, BJ Fogg, Dan Lewis. Music help for today's show by Sarah Val.
This American Life
198: How to Win Friends and Influence People
This American Life is delivered to public radio stations by PRX, the public radio exchange, to become a This American Life partner, which gets you bonus content, ad-free listening, and hundreds of our favorite episodes of the show right in your podcast feed. Go to thisamericanlife.org slash lifepartners. That link is also in the show notes. Thanks as always to our program's co-founder, Ms.
This American Life
198: How to Win Friends and Influence People
Dori Malatia. You know, we remind him over and over and over again
This American Life
198: How to Win Friends and Influence People
Next week on the podcast of This American Life, Alan cut down two trees in his front yard. And when he did, he made some enemies.
This American Life
198: How to Win Friends and Influence People
What would he say to his father? The whole experience with Dale Carnegie actually left Paul with fewer friends and less influence over people. It was confusing, all the ideas the book put into his head.
This American Life
198: How to Win Friends and Influence People
You know what's so interesting about that is that the book made you act in a way which was completely phony and calculating. And so then the thought entered your head, maybe everybody else is acting phony and calculating as well.
This American Life
198: How to Win Friends and Influence People
Welcome to WBEZ Chicago. It's This American Life. I'm Ira Glass. Today on our program, with the new year upon us, people making resolutions, some of them trying to figure out how to be more successful this year than they've been in the past, we ask the question, how do you win friends and influence people? We have stories today of people climbing to be number one. How do they do it?
This American Life
198: How to Win Friends and Influence People
What is the fundamental difference between them and everybody else? We answer that question today in four simple lessons that will change your life forever. or possibly won't. Lesson one, to make a friend, be a friend. David Sedaris has an instructive tale of how, as a boy, with the help of his dad, he tried to bridge the chasm that divides the popular kids from the unpopular.
This American Life
198: How to Win Friends and Influence People
Lesson two, stay in touch. Yes, my friend, you can learn so many things about being a better friend, a better spouse, a better business person, if you would simply imitate recent U.S. diplomatic and foreign policy. Lesson three, people like you if you put a lot of time into your appearance. In that lesson, we hear the story of how a simple Superman costume changed one man's life for the better.
This American Life
198: How to Win Friends and Influence People
Lesson four, just be yourself. Jonathan Goldstein demonstrates how to be bested by the most popular, most handsome, most powerful man in the world and not feel bad about it. Stay with us if you care about your future. This is American Life. Today's show is a rerun. How to make friends and influence people. Lesson one, to make a friend, be a friend.
This American Life
198: How to Win Friends and Influence People
Well, writer David Sedaris tells this story about the popular crowd and how easy it is to enter. This was recorded for a live audience. This story begins on Labor Day when David was a kid at the Raleigh Country Club in North Carolina.
This American Life
198: How to Win Friends and Influence People
And then he lists all the stuff that he and his trained researcher read to figure out how the great leaders of all ages had dealt with people. He says, I recall that we read over 100 biographies of Theodore Roosevelt alone. We were determined to spare no time, no expense, to discover every practical idea that anyone had ever used throughout the ages for winning friends and influencing people.
This American Life
198: How to Win Friends and Influence People
Anyway, on page 61 of the edition that I have, Dale Carnegie tells one of the many, many stories he uses to illustrate the very main idea that underlies the whole book. He says, Personally, I am very fond of strawberries and cream, but I have found that for some strange reason, fish prefer worms. So when I went fishing, I didn't think about what I wanted. I thought about what they wanted.
This American Life
638: Rom-Com
I think it's crazy, but my dad decided that he saw that letter and he had to read it.
This American Life
638: Rom-Com
So he just opened the letter, read the whole thing. And as my dad put it, my mom's ex-fiance was declaring like his undying love for her and was like begging her not to go and was saying he wants to get back together with her. And my dad freaked out.
This American Life
638: Rom-Com
The way he told it was he was going through the airport, you know, running through the Florida airport, gets a ring out of a little, like, gumball machine, puts, like, you know, however much that costs, like a quarter or whatever, in the gumball machine, pulls out a Mickey Mouse ring, because it's Florida, naturally, gets on the plane, flies and meets my mom in Dallas, and right there in the airport, gets down underneath the second he sees her.
This American Life
855: That’s a Weird Thing to Lie About
A quick warning, there are curse words that are unbeaped in today's episode of the show. If you prefer a beeped version, you can find that at our website, thisamericanlife.org. Casey's autistic. She says it's puzzling, neurotypical people and how much they lie. She's not alone.
This American Life
855: That’s a Weird Thing to Lie About
I've decided to start translating a lot of NT chatter from its literal meaning into a simple form of, hello, I want you to see me as friendly. So I am making friendly noises.
This American Life
855: That’s a Weird Thing to Lie About
She remembers when she realized just how widespread lying is for neurotypical people. She was a teenager, and she says she was heavyset from a heavyset family.
This American Life
855: That’s a Weird Thing to Lie About
Dana Chivas is a reporter on our program. Liz Flock is still a reporter, but now she spent years reporting her stories. Her latest book, The Furies, which she traveled to Syria multiple times for, is out in paperback. Coming up, an American dad makes an impassioned argument for more unnecessary lies. Also, Masha Gessen. That's in a minute on Chicago Public Radio when our program continues.
This American Life
855: That’s a Weird Thing to Lie About
This American life from Ira Glass. Today's show, that's a weird thing to lie about. We have stories today of unnecessary lies, outrageous lies that make you wonder why lie about that in the first place. We arrived at act two of our program, act two, bully pulpit. There's a particular kind of lie that somebody who's been on our show a few times, Masha Gessen, wrote about a few years ago.
This American Life
855: That’s a Weird Thing to Lie About
And when I read what they wrote, I realized, like, oh, I had not thought about this as a specific way that a person can lie that is, like, different from all the other ways a person can lie. It's a kind of lie that President Trump does a lot. He kicked off his presidency with one of these lies.
This American Life
855: That’s a Weird Thing to Lie About
In the very first minutes, on the very first day of his very first term, you may remember that he insisted that the crowds at his inauguration were bigger than they were. Even their photos clearly showed that he was wrong.
This American Life
855: That’s a Weird Thing to Lie About
In fact, for anybody who had watched the inauguration, which was a lot of us, like it was just right there. We had just seen it.
This American Life
855: That’s a Weird Thing to Lie About
Let me ask you to read. You write about this very enjoyably. Let me ask you to read this passage. I'm going to hand you a copy. Let's start here and continue up here. We'll skip this a little bit, and then we'll keep going.
This American Life
855: That’s a Weird Thing to Lie About
I have to say since reading that passage in your book a few weeks ago, I feel like it's like you gave a name to something that I had known was there but hadn't put a finger on what it was. Like I hadn't named to myself. This is a particular phenomenon, a particular way of lying that Donald Trump does.
This American Life
855: That’s a Weird Thing to Lie About
And since I read that, I feel like I see this kind of power lie or bully lie from Trump and from his team come up in the news over and over. So, for example, Ukraine started the war with Russia. USAID sent $50 million worth of condoms to Hamas. China controls the Panama Canal.
This American Life
855: That’s a Weird Thing to Lie About
That's something that Elon Musk claimed without presenting any evidence at all in an Oval Office press event. Where he also suggested that Social Security may be sending out checks to people 150 years old. Also without evidence. Seems to be flatly untrue.
This American Life
855: That’s a Weird Thing to Lie About
Masha says these kind of lies, these bully lies, are different from the kind of lies that we've been used to in American politics for most of our history. Where the two sides, you know, argue back and forth. Present evidence. Try to convince each other. Or try to convince voters, at least. The bully lie is different. It doesn't try to convince you. It doesn't present evidence.
This American Life
855: That’s a Weird Thing to Lie About
It just tells you to pick a side. So when the president said that diversity programs caused the plane crash over the Potomac, when he called the president of Ukraine a dictator without elections, he didn't lay out a set of facts to make his case. He wasn't interested in rebuttal.
This American Life
855: That’s a Weird Thing to Lie About
When he does this kind of thing, Masha writes, he's asserting control over reality itself and splitting the country into those who agree to live in his reality and those who resist and become his enemies by insisting on facts.
This American Life
855: That’s a Weird Thing to Lie About
I don't know if it's worth complicating this analysis with this example, but I was actually able to think of one instance of the Democrats doing the kind of bully lie that Masha writes about. And it's a big one that we all just lived through. It seemed like it was done more out of desperation than anything else and not part of a daily pattern of making false claims with no facts behind them.
This American Life
855: That’s a Weird Thing to Lie About
The thing I'm talking about is Joe Biden and his advisers concealing how he had aged in office. I talked to Masha about this. Like that basically was making everybody in the country choose either you accept what we're telling you about Biden or you're against us.
This American Life
855: That’s a Weird Thing to Lie About
The reason Masha is so aware of what that feels like is that they grew up in Russia, left, came back, then fled when it became impossible for them to keep living there under Vladimir Putin. Masha says the bully lie is significant because it's not a traditional part of American politics. But it is a very standard tactic of authoritarian leaders around the world and in history.
This American Life
855: That’s a Weird Thing to Lie About
I've just actually written and reported a ton about this. I wrote a book about Putin and another one about Russia's recent turn to totalitarianism. Authoritarian government, just to remind you, is basically a government run by one person, a strongman leader who holds all the power, which, of course, is different from our system of checks and balances.
This American Life
855: That’s a Weird Thing to Lie About
Masha wrote about the bully lie in their book about Donald Trump's first term. The book is called Surviving Autocracy. That's what I asked him to read from a little earlier. In that book, Masha argues that Donald Trump does lots of things that we normally see from authoritarian leaders, not just the bully lies. And I think it's worth talking about it for a little bit here.
This American Life
855: That’s a Weird Thing to Lie About
Now, of course, she's used to it. When I talked to her, she was just about to go to a conference where she knew people who barely remember her would be saying, so great to see you, and not mean a word of it. And she's okay with that. She ignores it, moves on. But she tries to keep things more strictly truthful. So you never lie?
This American Life
855: That’s a Weird Thing to Lie About
I found it eye-opening to see it laid out point by point. And I just want to say, if you like the president and you think talking about him this way is just way, way out of line, just stay with me. We talked about that. I feel very aware that people who like the president may hear you say the word autocrat and just think it's nuts.
This American Life
855: That’s a Weird Thing to Lie About
And you're just looking for any alarmist thing you can say to make him look bad. Can I ask you to make your case for a skeptical listener? What are the things that Donald Trump does wrong? that usually we see from autocrats and not from kind of just like regular American politicians who might lie and do whatever it is that they do?
This American Life
855: That’s a Weird Thing to Lie About
Like what are the things that he's doing that are more typical for autocrats?
This American Life
855: That’s a Weird Thing to Lie About
Right. You're making me think of him deciding to weigh in and ban congestion pricing in New York City from the White House.
This American Life
855: That’s a Weird Thing to Lie About
And saying, I'm the king. Gone with the king. Right.
This American Life
855: That’s a Weird Thing to Lie About
That is actually almost the definition of an autocrat. Acting like you have ultimate and unchecked power. And there are other specific things, Masha says, that Donald Trump has done in the last few weeks that are standard moves for an autocrat. Number one, punishing press outlets who don't do what he says.
This American Life
855: That’s a Weird Thing to Lie About
Trump kicked the Associated Press from covering him in the Oval Office on Air Force One and at major events after they refused to call the Gulf of Mexico the Gulf of America like he wants. Autocrats go after their enemies. Donald Trump has been going after so many enemies. Former aides, he fired Justice Department officials who prosecuted cases against him.
This American Life
855: That’s a Weird Thing to Lie About
And this week, even went after the law firm that is giving advice to one of those officials, taking away their security clearances, which make defending that official harder. That is very autocratic leader. And then there's Donald Trump's basic campaign message. Make America great again.
This American Life
855: That’s a Weird Thing to Lie About
What do you make of all the things that Trump has been saying lately about taking over Greenland and the Panama Canal and Gaza?
This American Life
855: That’s a Weird Thing to Lie About
Just like out loud trolling, I'll say a noisy thing, it'll get a headline, and who cares?
This American Life
855: That’s a Weird Thing to Lie About
You are serious. There are certain things that they do. For example, they pick some group in society to be like, these are the people who we hate, who are ruining things for the rest of us. That's one thing they do.
This American Life
855: That’s a Weird Thing to Lie About
And then another thing is that they call to some sort of golden age. Yeah, that they're going to recreate in the future. And then you're saying another one is just, we're going to expand...
This American Life
855: That’s a Weird Thing to Lie About
And the something greater is a country that's expanding its borders?
This American Life
855: That’s a Weird Thing to Lie About
OK. So obviously nobody knows what's coming next. But if you see Trump as a kind of autocratic ruler and you worry about him taking more power in that way, what are the things you'd be looking for next? Like what are the markers of it going further?
This American Life
855: That’s a Weird Thing to Lie About
I have to say, if that's your philosophy, I find it so interesting to think about what are the very few examples where you do let yourself lie, where you feel like that's the right thing to do. What are those?
This American Life
855: That’s a Weird Thing to Lie About
Masha Gessen. Their book about Donald Trump and his autocratic tendencies is called Surviving Autocracy. These days, they're an opinion columnist at the New York Times. They recently wrote in the Times... Life under autocracy can be terrifying, as it already is in the United States for immigrants and trans people.
This American Life
855: That’s a Weird Thing to Lie About
But those of us with experience can tell you most of the time, for most people, it's not frightening. It is stultifying. It's boring. It feels like trying to see and breathe underwater because you're submerged in bad ideas, being discussed badly, being reflected in bad journalism, and eventually in bad literature and bad movies.
This American Life
855: That’s a Weird Thing to Lie About
Just this week, lawyers nominated for top positions in the Justice Department, including Solicitor General, were asked if the president could ignore or disobey a court order. And they hedged. They did not say that he should obey. Vice President Vance said earlier this month that judges should not be allowed to control what the president does. Act three, in defense of unnecessary lies.
This American Life
855: That’s a Weird Thing to Lie About
Well, it's been nearly a whole hour talking about far-fetched lies that do not seem to make the world a better place at all. Our tone, I'll admit, has been skeptical, sometimes incredulous. In this act, we turn that around. I present one of our co-workers here at the radio show, Ike Shreeskandarasha.
This American Life
855: That’s a Weird Thing to Lie About
That is obviously a very hard example to argue against. She told me another one where her dog pooped all over her car and she was late to a meeting. And when she got there, she did not tell the truth about why. She didn't want to gross anybody out. Also, none of their business. Otherwise, she almost always picks honesty.
This American Life
855: That’s a Weird Thing to Lie About
Ike Sreeskandarajah is one of the producers of our show. By the way, his friend Charles, who Ike lied to about Karl Rove, Charles told her amazingly that he never thought that that was true. He lied to Ike about believing it and also about telling others just to amuse himself.
This American Life
855: That’s a Weird Thing to Lie About
When kids picked on their nieces about their weight, they came to her crying and asked, am I fat? And she says it was really hard not to say the kinds of lies that people said to her when she was their age. But she didn't. She said, let's talk about your body and being fat. Is there something wrong with being fat?
This American Life
855: That’s a Weird Thing to Lie About
Our program was produced today by Diane Wu. The people who put together today's show include Jendayi Bonds, Michael Kamate, Angela Gervasi, Catherine Raimondo, Stone Nelson, Nadia Raymond, Ryan Rumery, Lily Sullivan, Frances Swanson, Christopher Switala, and Julie Whitaker. Our managing editor is Sara Abdurrahman. Our senior editor is David Kestenbaum. Our executive editor is Emmanuel Berry.
This American Life
855: That’s a Weird Thing to Lie About
Special thanks today to Andy Carvin, Anna Stracheski, Anna Cajada, Natasha Nelson, Ira Kramer, Eric Garcia, and Matt Miller. Our website, thisamericanlife.org. I know you. You're living your life, doing stuff. You need something to listen to. What are you going to listen to? Go to our website. You can stream our archive of over 800 episodes for absolutely free. That is still happening.
This American Life
855: That’s a Weird Thing to Lie About
Again, thisamericanlife.org. This American Life is delivered to public radio stations by PRX, the public radio exchange. Thanks as always to our program's co-founder, Mr. Torrey Malatia. Have you heard he is doing a one-man show based on the children's book, The Very Hungry Caterpillar? It opens this way.
This American Life
855: That’s a Weird Thing to Lie About
I'm Eric Glass. Back next week with more stories of This American Life.
This American Life
855: That’s a Weird Thing to Lie About
She gave me this example. When she worked in HR, they caught this guy who was having an inappropriate relationship with his administrative assistant. A naked picture of her was on his work computer. And still, he denied it, kept lying.
This American Life
855: That’s a Weird Thing to Lie About
Honesty, she says, is the only way to vulnerability and intimacy, which, you know, of course. I was very curious how she does not lie at work. I definitely do most of my lying on the job. Not here on the air, of course, where everything I say is deeply, thoroughly fact-checked. but just around the office, just white lies.
This American Life
855: That’s a Weird Thing to Lie About
I don't understand how you get by without a little pretending now and then in a workplace. I don't actually understand how you would get things done. Casey has none of that. Okay, let me ask you about a lie that I tell all the time at work. Okay?
This American Life
855: That’s a Weird Thing to Lie About
At the end of pretty much any interview I ever do, I thank the person and I tell them how great they were, even if they were not great, even if they were not good talkers, even if they were not able to describe the thing that we'd hoped that they would describe. That is what I say because it seems to me to be such a vulnerable thing to ask people to, like –
This American Life
855: That’s a Weird Thing to Lie About
come and talk in an interview and they don't know how it's going to go and it's just kind of a nerve-wracking thing that it seems just kind to say you did a good job.
This American Life
855: That’s a Weird Thing to Lie About
I wasn't expecting you to really say something so actually useful. I'll do you the favor of being honest about that.
This American Life
855: That’s a Weird Thing to Lie About
One of the reasons why I wanted to talk to you today is that we're doing a whole episode of our show about inexplicable lies. Lies that you just think, like, why lie about that? In your experience, what percentage of lies are unnecessary lies?
This American Life
855: That’s a Weird Thing to Lie About
Yeah. All right. Thank you so much for doing this.
This American Life
855: That’s a Weird Thing to Lie About
I know that it's a vulnerable thing coming in and speaking honestly. Thank you. And I really appreciate you doing that. No, I can genuinely say that you were great. You were very straightforward and you spoke in a real way about what you really think, which is what we want.
This American Life
855: That’s a Weird Thing to Lie About
What a day on our program. Lies that really just leave you scratching your head sometimes. Seriously, we have some fun stories for you. I'm WBEC Chicago. This is American Life. I'm Eric Glass. Stay with us.
This American Life
855: That’s a Weird Thing to Lie About
It's just American life. Act one, the real L word. Okay, so to kick things off today, we're going to revisit some recent historical events. I think that's all I'm going to say for now. Dana Chivas tells what happened.
This American Life
855: That’s a Weird Thing to Lie About
Looking around on Reddit, we found a lot of autistic people writing about this exact thing. Here's somebody who posted saying, I recently realized that a lot of things I'd always categorized as lies are not seen that way by NT people, neurotypical people. Like, they say it knowing it isn't literally true, but they don't think of it as a lie because they don't expect others to believe it.
This American Life
855: That’s a Weird Thing to Lie About
For example, here's some things that I always thought were weird, inexplicable lies. And then there's a list. It was great to see you. Let's do this again soon. I hope you have a great holiday. You are so funny. I love your hairdo. Where did you buy that dress? I need to get one too. Oh, wow. That's very interesting. See you later. They continue.
This American Life
853: Groundhog Day
Bridie and her dad Bryn have been playing the same game for decades. It's called a pinch and a punch.
This American Life
853: Groundhog Day
Okay, so it can be any form. It just has to reach the other person before their pinch and punch reaches you. That's right. They first started playing this game when Bridie was really little. She can't really remember ever not playing it. It was just one of the many games they played.
This American Life
853: Groundhog Day
Brynn traveled a lot for work when Bridie was young, and the games were a way for them to stay connected while he was gone. But pinch and punch, this is the game that stuck. It kept going. For years. It really leveled up when Bridie was in secondary school.
This American Life
853: Groundhog Day
These days, now that Bridie's grown up and moved out, most of the pinches and punches are low-key. A phone call, a text. Sometimes Bryn or Bridie will try to disguise the sentence in an email sent to the whole family. Bridie says her dad has learned to not open anything from her that's sent just to him on the first of the month.
This American Life
853: Groundhog Day
So month in and month out, Brynn and Bridie are living in this very specific type of loop, where in order for them to stay in the loop, they have to keep changing it, inventing new ways to win. Once, a few years ago, Bridie had to get jaw surgery on the first of the month.
This American Life
853: Groundhog Day
Her dad was her next of kin, and so she mocked up a fake medical form for her dad to sign and convinced the nurse to tuck her fake form in with the rest. Bridie proudly won that month. That was kind of a famous win for her, actually. Because while Bridie wins more often, her dad's wins tend to be more memorable. His have more flair.
This American Life
853: Groundhog Day
Like once he convinced Bridie's best friend to interrupt her own wedding to deliver a pinch and punch. He even got Bridie while she was on live radio. The family is from New Zealand, but Bridie lives and works in Sydney, where she was a guest on this weekly local radio show. And Bryn conspired with the host to get her on air.
This American Life
853: Groundhog Day
Over time, the rules have evolved. No middle-of-the-night calls. You have to respect time zones. Also, the game is formally suspended on New Year's Eve, since Bridie and Brynn would hijack the countdown for their game and, according to Bridie's mom, kept, quote, ruining the holiday. Bridie says her dad escalated the game to a whole new level in 2019.
This American Life
853: Groundhog Day
She was flying home to New Zealand for her cousin Jeremy's 30th birthday party. The flight was on May 1st, very early in the morning.
This American Life
853: Groundhog Day
The flight attendant tells her she's getting bumped up to premium economy and brings her to her new seat.
This American Life
853: Groundhog Day
She spent the rest of the flight thinking about how she would get him back. Luckily for Bridie, Air New Zealand is apparently extremely into pranks and offered to help. So together, they made a fake Father's Day-themed ad for the airline. Air New Zealand actually got real pilots and flight attendants to appear in this short video, which Bridie wrote. And then she got her mom to show it to her dad.
This American Life
853: Groundhog Day
It's Father's Day in New Zealand, and we want to say thanks to all the amazing dads out there.
This American Life
853: Groundhog Day
This, of course, is Bryn Connell. The video starts out thanking dads for doing regular dad stuff. But as it progresses, it starts getting more and more specific, naming things Bryn has actually done.
This American Life
853: Groundhog Day
There are 12 firsts of the month each year, and Bridie and Brynn have been playing this game for roughly 25 years, so they've done hundreds of pinches and punches at this point. The thing about having such a long-running game, though, is that life happens all around it, all the good and bad. A few years ago, Bridie lost someone very close to her.
This American Life
853: Groundhog Day
There's a lie built into the premise of Pinch and Punch. It's when they say, no returns. They say it every month. And every month, they return.
Throughline
Birthright Citizenship
This is Ira Glass of This American Life. Each week on our show, we choose a theme, tell different stories on that theme. All right, I'm just going to stop right there. You're listening to an NPR podcast. Chances are you know our show. So instead, I'm going to tell you we've just been on a run of really good shows lately. Some big epic emotional stories, some weird funny stuff too.
Up First from NPR
Trump's 'Liberation Day', Wisconsin Supreme Court Race, Mistaken Deportation
This is Ira Glass. In Lily's family, there's a story everybody knows by heart.
Up First from NPR
Trump's 'Liberation Day', Wisconsin Supreme Court Race, Mistaken Deportation
So what happens when Lily's mom tells her this story is not true? This American Life, surprising stories every week.
Up First from NPR
Russia Intensifies Attacks On Ukraine, Summer Travel Season, Wildfire Forecast
This is Ira Glass, the host of This American Life. So much is changing so rapidly right now with President Trump in office. It feels good to pause for a moment sometimes and look around at what's what.
Up First from NPR
Russia Intensifies Attacks On Ukraine, Summer Travel Season, Wildfire Forecast
To try and do that, we've been finding these incredible stories about right now that are funny and have feeling and you get to see people everywhere making sense of this new America that we find ourselves in. This American Life, wherever you get your podcasts.
Up First from NPR
Pope's Life And Legacy, What Happens Now In Rome, Reaction From South America
So what happens when Lily's mom tells her this story is not true? This American Life, surprising stories every week.
Up First from NPR
Pope's Life And Legacy, What Happens Now In Rome, Reaction From South America
This is Eric Glass. In Lily's family, there's a story everybody knows by heart. If this story had never happened...
Up First from NPR
Biden Cancer Diagnosis, Escalation In Gaza, Kentucky Storm Recovery
This is Ira Glass, the host of This American Life. So much is changing so rapidly right now with President Trump in office. It feels good to pause for a moment sometimes and look around at what's what.
Up First from NPR
Biden Cancer Diagnosis, Escalation In Gaza, Kentucky Storm Recovery
To try and do that, we've been finding these incredible stories about right now that are funny and have feeling and you get to see people everywhere making sense of this new America that we find ourselves in. This American Life, wherever you get your podcasts.
Up First from NPR
Trump In The Middle East, Hamas Hostage Release, Mulling Medicaid Cuts
This is Ira Glass, the host of This American Life. So much is changing so rapidly right now with President Trump in office. It feels good to pause for a moment sometimes and look around at what's what.
Up First from NPR
Trump In The Middle East, Hamas Hostage Release, Mulling Medicaid Cuts
To try and do that, we've been finding these incredible stories about right now that are funny and have feeling and you get to see people everywhere making sense of this new America that we find ourselves in. This American Life, wherever you get your podcasts.
Up First from NPR
Global Markets Plummet, Wrongful Deportation Deadline, Second Measles Death
This is Ira Glass. In Lily's family, there's a story everybody knows by heart.
Up First from NPR
Global Markets Plummet, Wrongful Deportation Deadline, Second Measles Death
So what happens when Lily's mom tells her this story is not true? This American Life, surprising stories every week.
Up First from NPR
Trump's US Steel Reversal, Court Win For Harvard, Musk Leaves DOGE
This is Ira Glass, the host of This American Life. So much is changing so rapidly right now with President Trump in office. It feels good to pause for a moment sometimes and look around at what's what.
Up First from NPR
Trump's US Steel Reversal, Court Win For Harvard, Musk Leaves DOGE
To try and do that, we've been finding these incredible stories about right now that are funny and have feeling and you get to see people everywhere making sense of this new America that we find ourselves in. This American Life, wherever you get your podcasts.
Wait Wait... Don't Tell Me!
WWDTM: Brian Tyree Henry
This is Ira Glass. In Lily's family, there's a story everybody knows by heart.
Wait Wait... Don't Tell Me!
WWDTM: Brian Tyree Henry
So what happens when Lily's mom tells her this story is not true? This American Life, surprising stories every week.
Wait Wait... Don't Tell Me!
WWDTM: Brian Tyree Henry
On the Sunday story from Up First, a whistleblower inside the federal government says Doge employees may have taken sensitive data from government systems and covered their tracks.
Wait Wait... Don't Tell Me!
WWDTM: Brian Tyree Henry
Listen now to the Sunday story on the Up First podcast from NPR.
Wait Wait... Don't Tell Me!
WWDTM: Austan Goolsbee
When the Star Wars prequels came out, they were polarizing. Many fans of the original trilogy hated the Phantom Menace, Attack of the Clones, and Revenge of the Sith, though many younger fans loved them then and loved them still. So we're re-watching them with fresh eyes 20 years later.
Wait Wait... Don't Tell Me!
WWDTM: Austan Goolsbee
From Jar Jar Binks to the climactic no that broke the internet in half, listen on NPR's Pop Culture Happy Hour podcast.
Wild Card with Rachel Martin
Joy Harjo thinks writing can heal regret
This is Ira Glass. In Lily's family, there's a story everybody knows by heart.
Wild Card with Rachel Martin
Joy Harjo thinks writing can heal regret
So what happens when Lily's mom tells her this story is not true? This American Life, surprising stories every week.