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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.

Act One: Eliminate The Middleman

Here in America, here's how we interact with our political candidates: We dispatch middlemen to the scene, they listen to what the candidates say, they research the candidates' backgrounds, and they tell us what they think is most important. Those middlemen, of course, are journalists.

Act One: Ski Lesson

An excerpt from Spalding Gray's monologue It's a Slippery Slope. Gray has been called "America's premiere storyteller." His monologue Swimming To Cambodia was made into a feature film.

Act Two: Clean Up Crew

Not everyone hates the idea of "toxic assets." Reporter Lisa Chow goes to New Jersey to follow two guys on their quest to clean up some of America's bad mortgages—by buying them, and going straight to the homes themselves to have a look at how dire the situation really is.

Act One: Dave Knows

The story of a man who might have a better grip on what's going on in the economy of middle-class America than all the experts you ever read in the paper or see on TV. Dave Ramsey hosts a call-in radio show about personal finance, but he ends up answering questions about more than money.

Act Two: Smell You Later

Lots of people in America share actual beds, but almost never see each other; flight attendants have crash pads near airports, oil rig workers carry their own sheets and sleep in shifts in an RV. Producer Stephanie Foo has a profile of Mexican immigrants who share a few beds in a tiny trailer in upstate New York.

Act Three: Chicago

Nora Moreno with tapes of her father, a pioneer in Spanish-language broadcasting in America. Her mother fell in love with her father because of his poetic character on the radio, but in real life, the very things that attracted her to him over the radio drove them apart.

Act Two: Smell You Later

Lots of people in America share actual beds – but almost never see each other. Flight attendants have crash pads near airports, oil rig workers carry their own sheets and sleep in shifts in an RV – and Stephanie Foo has a profile of Mexican immigrants who share a few beds in a tiny trailer in upstate New York.

Act Two: Save The Last Dance For Me...Again

Host Ira Glass talks with Francine Pascal, who's written or invented the plot lines for over 700 books for teenagers in the various Sweet Valley High series....Sweet Valley Kids, Sweet Valley Twins, Sweet Valley University, Sweet Valley Senior Year. She explains why a prom story is a must for teen movies and TV shows.

Act Four: Three More Bubbles

An '88 Grand Marquis that Senator Conrad Burns inherited from his mother; a New York taxicab whose driver, Jeff Perkins, tape-records his passengers to help pass the time; a 1980s-era BMW 5 series in which film producer Rob Levine had his first job as driver and assistant to movie producer Edgar Sherrick.

Act Two: Car Pool

Sierra Teller Ornelas tells a story about the time as a 10 year old she went on a very short, but memorable adventure in a car with the coolest girl she knew. Sierra's story was recorded live at the L.A. storytelling series Public School and aired on the CBC radio show WireTap with Jonathan Goldstein.

Act Two: Pen Pal Husband

When Janice Powell's husband went to prison, he wrote her a letter every day for eight years. When he was at home, he'd drink and get violent, but Janice said that the years in prison were the best of their relationship.

Prologue

Rod Hudson grew up on a dairy farm in New Hampshire. When his father retired, Rod ran his own operation on his dad's property and did just fine until the mid 1980's when something strange started to happen with the cows.