Act Three: The Artist Formerly Known As Dr. Sarkin
What happens when you want your dad to change—and he wants to change, too—but there's literally nothing that can be done to change him. Jon Sarkin was a chiropractor with workaholic tendencies.
Act One: How Do We Know?
Forensic Criminologist Enrico Togneri in Nevada explains exactly what can be learned from evidence on a crime scene: What can be learned from the shape of a blood stain or a piece of cheese.
Prologue
Monica Childs joined the Detroit police force because she hated cops, and wanted to change the system from the inside. She wanted to be an honest cop.
Prologue
Ben Schrank describes what it's like to work as a professional mover. He says that people often go sort of nuts when they see all their worldly possessions—all the stuff that defines them as people—packed into a van.
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 Four: Who You Gonna Call?
There is an entire class of consultant who does nothing but help people and companies that are under public attack. Eric Dezenhall is one of them.
Prologue
Host Ira Glass stands at the corner of Diversey and Broadway in Chicago and describes all the people who are out at 3:00 on a weekday.
Prologue
Host Ira Glass talks about the human urge to turn something inanimate into something that's alive, about the moment Pinocchio stops being a concoction of wood and string and becomes a real boy. He chats with Ronn Lucas, a ventriloquist, about moments when his dummies have seemed alive enough to surprise him.
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.
Prologue
Host Ira Glass with Rory Evans, who describes the day her father fired his own mother from their family business, a machine shop called Evans Industries.
Act One
More of Alexa Junge and how Moss Hart's autobiography changed her life. She followed his path, learned specific lessons, and had a vision of him that was absolutely clear—until she met his widow.
Act Three: Who's The Man?
Becoming a salesman can make you more confident and happy, make you ignore it when someone tells you "no"...and why that might be a bad thing. The story of a man who sold radio advertising.
Prologue
When Brigid starting going blind, she tried to hire someone to drive her around. Only problem was, the guy she hired wanted to carry her groceries, hold her arm as she walked to the curb...he tried to help her in too many ways.
Act One: Meet The Ball And Chain
When Anne Staggs started to fall for an inmate named Charles in the Texas prison system, she was up against odds as daunting as they ever get for two people. It was against the rules, possibly dangerous, and could have gotten her fired.
Act Three: The Radio Most People Listen To
How the science of radio enabled V103 to become tied for number one in the Chicago market. And how it cost DJ Ida Hackele her job.
Act Four: Taking Sisterhood One Step Further
Ira with Elizabeth Joseph, who is in a polygamous marriage with eight wives and one husband. She says polygamy is the ultimate feminist lifestyle.
Act Four: The Salesman
Will Powers — his real name — decided to try to use all the tools of modern brand marketing to sell himself to his own wife. It turned out to help their marriage.
Act Two: Headless Chicken In Topless Bar
Ira with Lloyd Natoff, on killing chickens.
Convention worker
Andrea worked at a bakery under a convention hotel in Chicago. The conventioneers used to drive her crazy because people act so different when they're in a crowd of their own kind.