After all this doom and gloom about the difficult lives of artists, we end the show with a more hopeful story from Joel Kostman, a New York City locksmith, who tells us about an incident that happened to him on the job. Joel is author of Keys to the City: Tales of a New York City Locksmith.

There can be consequences for reading other people's mail.

Ron Carlson's short story.

Beau O'Reilly tells the story of a man who tried to run for President as a utopian nudist.

Ira interviews Bob Helms, creator of the zine Guinea Pig Zero, which is about people who make their living by donating their bodies to science for medical experiments. Bob says he wouldn't do spinal tap studies or psychoactive drugs (he calls the people who do the latter "brain sluts").

Wisconsin Public Radio wanted to do something simple: start running Car Talk, the most popular single hour on public radio. But to do this, they had to move their local car show, About Cars, from the morning to the afternoon.

Thomas Lynch reads from his book The Undertaking: Life Studies from the Dismal Trade.

Singles in Agriculture. By reporter Liz Weil and Alix Spiegel.

Tony Starbucks, interviewed by Dierdre Dolan and Paul Tough.

How a guy named Tom became Camden Joy — and what he gained and what he lost. With Sarah Vowell.

Host Ira Glass with Sarah, who did phone sex and nude dancing.

Joel Lovell tells a story about working in a mental institution, and what it's like when it feels like your grip on the keys isn't so steady.

Jay Allison presents a woman who "talks" to animals and a slaughterhouse owner.

Samantha Martin trains raccoons to play basketball and rats to bowl. She says that what we want from animals is for them to imitate humans.