Ira reports on a week he spent on the set of the TV show M*A*S*H in 1979, supposedly to do a story about the program for National Public Radio. He was 20 years old.

A mortgage broker named David Philp discovers that his old punk band from the 1970s is hot in Japan. He decides to leave corporate life and revisit his teenage years by going back on tour, playing music for the first time in two decades.

Ira talks with Lee Qi, who came to America from China. He worked in Chinese restaurants in small towns, live in tiny apartments with other illegal immigrants who worked there as well—apartments that were sometimes in the back of the restaurants.

 

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Ira with Elizabeth Joseph, who is in a polygamous marriage with eight wives and one husband. She says polygamy is the ultimate feminist lifestyle.

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.