Act Four: Check Out the Package on That Guy
Nancy Updike and UPS Men.
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Act Two: Grime Scene
Reporter Nancy Updike spends two days with Neal Smither, who cleans up crime scenes for a living, and comes away wanting to open his Los Angeles franchise, despite the gore—or maybe because of it.
Act One: Grime Scene
Reporter Nancy Updike spends two days with Neal Smither, who cleans up crime scenes for a living, and comes away wanting to open his Los Angeles franchise, despite the gore — or maybe because of it.
Act Seven: Hank Redux
Nancy finally gets Hank, the Custer Battles employee, to answer the question of whether he ever has any reservations about his mission—or the country's mission—in Iraq. (3 minutes)John Kimbrough composed original music for this week's show.
Act One: The Number 66 Bus
Linnel Peterson drives the Number 66 bus in Chicago, on Chicago Avenue. She grew up just blocks from the route, still lives near the route, and says it's strange whenever she drives her car on Chicago Avenue these days.
Act Five: Karen
Karen Hahn, who works for Custer Battles at the airport, started out there screening women passengers—and learned a lot from their handbags. Unlike most people Nancy met in Iraq, Karen is not a former military person, she doesn't work with guns or big machines, and she's never been happier in her life.
Act One: Day
Act Four: How To Be Happy, One Man's Guide
Finding happiness is serious business. At least, for most us, it requires an act of will.
Act Two
More stories of travelers and workers at a highway rest stop. The competition between Plattekill and Maine continues.
Act Two
Last summer when Nancy Updike was reporting in Iraq, Sarah, an Iraqi woman in her 40s, was her interpreter. But it wasn't the first time Sarah had had that gig.
Act Six: Cops
Hundred of Iraqi police officers have been killed since the United States invaded Iraq. One Boston cop, Jerry Burke, is trying to keep them on the job, and train them in Western police practices.
Act Two: The Economy
Temporary employment agencies' business has exploded in the last few years as corporations lay off their full-time employees, especially technical workers. This American Life "hired" two temp workers, Lee and Tito, to document their experiences as temps. Ira invites Tito and Lee into the studio to spin some music "appropriate" for temp employees.
Act Two: Last Man Stand-Up
Producer Sarah Koenig tells the story of Duke Fightmaster, who refused to give up his simple dream: to replace Conan O'Brien.
Act One: Gameboy Grows Up
Ira continues with Cole Lindbergh and the hundred teenagers who work for himin the games department at Worlds of Fun. We watch them compete againsteach other to see who can do the most business, in Cole's Sweet Sixteenbracket tournament, which pits all 32 games in the park against each other.
Act One: First, Do No Harm
Dr. Amelia Huntsberger loves everything about her rural town in northern Idaho.
Act Two: Is That a Tape Recorder in Your Pocket, or Are You Just Unhappy to See Me?
For 17 months, New York police officer Adrian Schoolcraft recorded himself and his fellow officers on the job, including their supervisors ordering them to do all sorts of things that police aren't supposed to do. For example, downgrading real crimes into lesser ones, so they wouldn't show up in the crime statistics and make their precinct look bad.
Act Two: What Makes Grammy Run?
Sarah Vowell, on selling the secrets of art dealer Graham Arader.
Act Three: Dead Animal Man
Ira with Clarence Hicks, who picks up dead animals for a living.
Act Four: Angry Young Man, Times Two
This is the story of two people—one in his late teens, one in his late fifties. Both have good reasons to be mad at the world, but what they did with their anger—and what society did with them—are very different.
Act One: Goodbye, Stranger
Los Angeles Times reporter Molly O’Toole talks to U.S. asylum officers—the people who end up sending migrants back to Mexico.
Act Three: The Port Chicago 50
The story of the worst stateside disaster during World War II, at Port Chicago, an ammunition dump for the navy just north of San Francisco. Black workers were assigned to load ammo onto ships under such unsafe conditions that on July 17, 1944, two ships blew up, killing 320 men.
Act One: Started From Phle-Bottom, Now We’re Here
When Adele wrote into our show last summer, she described herself as “the worst phlebotomist in the whole hospital.” Producer Diane Wu couldn’t resist calling her up to find out exactly what she meant by that.
Act One: Chinese Checkmate
Some adventures you seek out on purpose, and others hunt you down. Producer Alex Blumberg tells this story, about the experience a guy had in China...which started out as first kind of adventure, then quickly turned into the second kind.