190: Living the Dream

Ira Glass

Tito's 18, lives in Los Angeles, lean and handsome and dark with a bear claw tattooed onto each cheek. And when he talks about his life thus far, he says he just didn't have a choice about certain things.

Ira Glass

If you're trying to figure out who you are, it's funny what can inspire you. What can be helpful and give you strength. Tito, for example, is an Eminem fan. The night Eminem performed at the Grammy's, drunk protesters, gay protesters, who called him homophobic and misogynist. Tito was at a party with gay kids and bisexual kids and transsexual kids. Kids who are actually born as boys but live as girls, who were all watching the Grammy's on TV and cheering for Eminem. Tito explains it this way.

Here's this white guy, Eminem, who somehow felt that part of black culture was just inside him, and decided that he would rap like a black guy. And ended up able to pass in that world.

Ira Glass

There's a deep part of American culture, which is all about the idea that you can make yourself into anyone. How many of our movies are about the idea that I'm going to be a star? I'm going to sing, dance, take Wall Street by storm. Own this crazy town. See my name in lights. Someday be a gangster. Someday be a real boy. Someday get to Washington and make a difference. Someday leave my uncle's farm in Tatooine and become a Jedi knight like my father. Well, today on our program, stories of people who felt this very American call to be something that they were not, and who then willed it to happen. From WBEZ Chicago and Public Radio International, it's This American Life. I'm Ira Glass.

Our program today in three acts. Act One, Girls, Girls, Girls. The story of teenagers who were born as boys, but live as girls in Los Angeles.

Act Two, Agent to the Stars. A fan's unlikely dream to meet his favorite movie star accidentally works. Partly to his delight, partly to his horror.

Act Three, Airel Sharon, Shimon Peres, David Ben Gurion, and me! An American teenager who dreams someday of becoming the prime minister of a nation where he does not even reside. Stay with us.

Ira Glass

Act one, Girls, Girls, Girls.

Over the last 10 years in Los Angeles, there has been a noticeable increase in the number of transsexual teenagers. These are both boys and girls. You see them on the streets. Both are on the rise, but the boys who live as girls are a little more visible.

As you might expect, they prefer to be called "she" not "he." And "girls" not "boys." Cris Beam has spent the last two years getting to know these kids, interviewing them, writing about them, and she tells this story.

Cris Beam

I'm writing a book about transsexual youth. In Los Angeles where I live, there are hundreds of them, noisily laughing on street corners. Runaways or castoffs from families who can't possibly understand.

There have always been transsexuals in Los Angeles and everywhere else, but never so many kids, so visible and so determined. They come here because they hear they can find underground hormones, or friends. Or simply because this is the biggest city they can think of. And because they fall under the radar of regular social services, on the street they're playing doctor, beautician, health advisor and shrink to one another.

I posted fliers around asking them to share their stories. I got one call from a 20 year old woman who agreed to meet with me. Her name was Foxxjazell and she told me she was going to be the first international transsexual pop star. She described herself so I could recognize her. I'm very beautiful, she said. I'm tall and black with butter pecan caramel skin and long, luxurious, silky hair. She suggested we meet at the Red Lobster.

When I got there, I saw she wasn't lying. She was really pretty. She wore glitter on her eyes and had silver charms braided into her hair. On her ripped jeans she had scrawled the words "Latins do it better."

She'd grown up Dwight Eric Jackson in Birmingham, Alabama. As early as she can remember, she felt like a girl. When the teacher would parcel kids off into boy and girl teams in kindergarten, Foxx stood there frozen, not knowing which group to join. And when she hit adolescence, Foxx had to invent herself like any other teenager, but without the templates-- prom queen, brainiac, jock.

Foxx had to make up a whole persona that fit with the gender inside her. It's a trait that attracts me to these transgender kids in general. Their intense drive to develop their own reality, and then their own rules to get there.

For instance, for a few years in high school, inspired by Prince, Foxx replaced her own name with a symbol.

Cris Beam

Like the woman in a skirt?

Cris Beam

Foxx cross-dressed in secret. And alone in her room, pretended to be Janet Jackson. Sometimes she'd sneak out her window late at night in cheap Halloween wigs and halter tops, and just walk around her neighborhood. She wouldn't run into anybody, she just liked how it felt.

Unlike the parents of many of these kids who will throw them out at first discovery of a stiletto in a school bag, Foxx's parents were supportive of their only child. They just worried for her safety. But she worried for her sanity. She knew she had to go someplace where the unusual was more usual. So as soon as she graduated, she got a job, saved her cash, and bought a bus ticket to Los Angeles. And this is where her story really begins.

Cris Beam

The corner of Cahuenga and Hollywood is part of the famous Hollywood Walk of Stars. Every square of sidewalk is embedded with a polished star and a name.

Cris Beam

Foxx was just 18 when she got to LA, but she arranged to stay in a group home called Covenant House, where a lot of stray gay kids go. In some ways, it's easier for trans kids to hook up with other girls like themselves than it has ever been. Foxx found where to stay in LA from the gay yellow pages before she ever left Birmingham. Some trans kids use the internet to figure this out.

But the jump to full tilt womanhood came on a casual Friday at the telemarketing firm where Foxx was working at the time. On Fridays, employees were told they could wear whatever was comfortable. Most people showed up in jeans and loafers. Foxx showed up as a woman.

Cris Beam

Since that day last January, Foxx never dressed as a man again. She's fully Foxx, even when she goes home to Alabama for Christmas.

Cris Beam

Taking hormones, which gives them breast, redistribute fat in a more feminine way, soften the face, are only one part of transitioning. There are all kinds of unwritten rules to keep the girls in check. And mainly, they center round appearance and passability. When someone recognizes you're genetically male, it's called getting "clocked" on the West Coast or "spooked" on the East. And no one ever wants that to happen.

One girl I talked with described having some guy at a restaurant taunt, "Hey, dude" as she passed by. And it was so traumatizing it kept her from dressing for months afterwards. So the girls are always monitoring each other, keeping an eye out for bad makeup or fake looking boobs, and showering praise on anything fishy. Being fishy is the highest compliment you can get. It means you look like you were born that way. That you were born a girl.

Cris Beam

There's a certain strip of Santa Monica Boulevard in Hollywood that Foxx says is famous worldwide. It's where straight, often married men, come to pick up young, transgender prostitutes. It's also where just out transgender kids often first spot their own kind and can imagine a place to blend in. They hang out at Benito's, an all-night taco stand.

Kids will stand around gossip and laugh, go turn a trick, hang out some more, bop into nearby dance clubs on and off the boulevard.

Cris Beam

When Foxx and I dropped in at Benito's this month, she ran into an old friend she hadn't seen in ages.

Cris Beam

Girls who have just derived in LA might show up here to socialize for a few weeks, and then turn a trick for some cash. It's by then that they've learned how hard it is to get a legitimate job when you're 17 and have both a male ID and C cup breasts. So sex work becomes the option.

It can be dangerous, especially for the younger girls. Some of whom have been kicked out by their parents at 13 or 14, and are looking for a place to stay when they're talking to johns.

Foxx used to work with the Boulevard, but now she's moved onto office jobs.

Cris Beam

The girls on Santa Monica can make $200, $300 in a night, but will talk surprisingly casually about their job. For some, there's a bit of a thrill to tantalizing the straight men who would normally rebuff them. And for others, it's an unfortunate pause on the path to day work.

Cris Beam

It's Friday night at Foxx's tiny studio apartment. And while Foxx sings and raps with her friend [UNINTELLIGIBLE], two of her drag daughters, 15 year old Angela and 18 year old Ariel, are getting ready to go dancing at an underage club.

Luckily, both kids are petite and the onset of puberty has been slow. Their faces are soft and in their clingy nylon dresses, bobbed wigs and knee high boots, they pass amazingly well.

They dress like any Latina high schooler in LA would-- baby doll cute-- but a little more trampy than a mom would like.

Cris Beam

Angela and Ariel, like a handful of other local kids, keep their wigs, heels, handbags, and makeup at Foxx's. Angela and Ariel both still go to high school and live at boys during the day, and don't want to risk getting caught by their families. While some of the other teens who live on the streets just don't want to get their stuff stolen. So Foxx's place is a sort of de facto dressing room come clubhouse, where kids come in and out to dress up, eat Foxx's food, get some motherly advice, and often crash on her couch.

I was there for hours watching them do and re-do their makeup, primp and fluff and gaze into the mirror. And pull an astonishing number of gogo boots out of Foxx's closet.

Cris Beam

They fill their bras with water balloons. Hormones would get them breast in a matter of months and would add weight to their narrow hips and backsides. But for now, neither has started taking.

There's a thriving black market for hormones here in LA. And, like many prescription drugs that are purchased over the counter in Mexico, estrogen is smuggled across the border and is sold in the swap meets with other Mexican pharmaceuticals. In the rush to fill out and pass, girls will shoot massive amounts of hormones into their butts every week. Often causing PMS-like mood swings. Sometimes they'll also inject silicone and oils directly into their hips, butts, knees, and even cheeks, all to round out the harder edges.

There are a few doctors who will prescribe hormones to kids, but the waiting lists are long. And some feel the doses are too conservative. Foxx is going the legal route with an estrogen prescription and her doctor tells her to expect breasts about the size of her mother's. After all, you can't override genetics.

This particular Friday is special, as the girls are celebrating Ariel's retirement party. Ariel is 18, small, Latina, and even when she wears her baggy boy clothes, looks like a shy little girl who curls herself into her chair when she talks. She tell me she's decided to retire. To stop dressing and live as a boy for one whole month to see if she can make it. Tonight is her last night in drag.

Cris Beam

Ariel named herself after the Little Mermaid in the Disney movie. For so many transgender kids Ariel's age, The Little Mermaid is hugely significant. After all, the film came out when they were 9 or 10 and give them hope. The cartoon Ariel is a mermaid who hates the body she was born with and wants nothing more than to be a real girl.

Cris Beam

Foxx thinks there's no way Ariel's retirement is going to last. She remembers her own teenage-hood and how she would vow to give up dressing as a woman, but she could never help coming back.

Cris Beam

A few days after the retirement party, I met up with Foxx again at her apartment. We drank her Kool-Aid from plastic cups and sat on her secondhand couch with the shades drawn.

Cris Beam

Whenever I see Foxx she talks obsessively about finding a boyfriend. She's visited psychics and grilled all her friends for leads and can't figure out why nothing has panned out. As she's gotten older, transitioning into a woman is no longer the central drama of her life. Getting a boyfriend is.

Today's story is typical. She tells me about a guy down the street who introduced himself as Christopher Columbus. He told her she looked good and they exchanged phone numbers, but he never ended up calling her.

Cris Beam

Foxx wants to be a huge star. She's a singer and a rapper and she spends all of her money on studio time, recording songs about coming out, and being transgender, and wanting the world to understand.

She imagines being somewhat of a sex symbol too, and knows her future boyfriend will have to put up with that. She constantly worries about when that boyfriend will come.

It was a few weeks after her 21st birthday that Foxx called me up all excited. It had finally happened, she gushed. Everything she dreamed of. She told me she had met a man. Actually, they met a week ago and he was now living in her apartment.

Cris Beam

If there's any question in your mind at all about straight guys going for transgender girls, remember, these girls are fantastically adorable. Foxx's new boyfriend, Sergio, is 23. He's a Puerto Rican guy from New York with an ex-wife and a daughter. Foxx is the first transgender woman he's ever dated. He's straight and sweet and totally in love.

Cris Beam

When I tell people about this book project they all want to know which of the kids are really women or really men. By which they mean, who has had the genital surgery. But the surgery is irrelevant. Lots of trans men never have it because it costs $70,000. And plenty of trans women, like Foxx, don't want it.

It's funny, feminism has worked so hard to prove that women are more than what's in their pants. But when it comes to transsexuals, it's all people can think about. So I counter crudeness with crudeness and ask them, if you somehow got into an accident and lost everything below the waist, would you be any less woman, any less man? If you think you're a woman you are one. We're not used to that idea. We're not used to believing that gender is determined only by our hearts.

In Ariel's case, she couldn't suppress this heart and her retirement turned out to be more of a pause then a real break.

Cris Beam

A few days after her retirement party, Ariel's friends started calling her, asking her to go out, and dress up, and take pictures with them. So she went and it felt great. Though it scares her that if felt great.

Cris Beam

Ariel is struggling back and forth, dressing some days as a boy and some days as a girl. But guiltily. Ariel as a boy is withdrawn, blinking vacantly and drowning in baggy, hide-everything jeans. He almost disappears. But as a girl, Ariel is vibrant, believable, sassy. Claiming space with her walk and challenging you to meet her eye.

When Ariel was going to a rough inner city school a few years back she tried to be tough and masculine. But the boy's still harassed her for acting too girlie and she had to drop out. To get even, she showed up one last time dressed up, as she says, hoochie, in a tiny dress and heels.

The boys didn't recognize her as she walked around the quad. And some even asked for her number. I love this defiance, this revenge in the face of such pain.

Ariel recently had to leave her sister's house and south central neighborhood because neighbor boys, once again, we're threatening to kill her for acting too gay. She's now living across town in her own apartment with an older transgender woman. Ariel's still not dressing full time, but the other day she did call me up to see if I would take her out for her 19th birthday. She wanted me to buy her a wig.

Ira Glass

Cris Beam is a writer living in Los Angeles. These days, Foxxjazell has a day job doing street outreach to transgender youth. To hear her music you can download MP3 files from the This American Life website, www.thisamericanlife.org.

Coming up, somebody famous you've never heard of. Somebody who wanted a job you probably don't want. And the well-known catchphrase, "this is my boomstick." You know, this is my boomstick. In a minute from Public Radio International when our program continues.

Ira Glass

It's This American Life, I'm Ira Glass. Each week on our program of course, we choose some theme, bring you a variety of different kinds of stories on that theme. Today's show, Living the Dream. People who decided to remake their lives around some new vision of themselves. We have arrived at act two of our program.

Act two, Agent to the Stars. John Hodgman tells this story of a dream that was a modest dream. Modest enough that it could actually come true.

John Hodgman

If there's one thing you learn the day you start working in publishing, it's that everyone wants to write a book. No matter how lowly your position, the moment you get that first job you can be sure that 18 of your father's friends will soon be calling you about how to get their spy novel published.

There's something so alluring about becoming an author, and it's something so daunting and enigmatic about the process of getting published that even the most accomplished men and women, world travelers, captains of industry, cower before it. This is how the greenest publishing recruits end up editing the inner musings of gangsters, telling millionaires to kill their darlings, spell checking presidents. And this is how, with little training, less experience, and only a vague idea of what I was doing, I became the professional literary agent for the world famous movie star Mr. Bruce Campbell.

You don't know who Bruce Campbell is. That's fine. As his agent, I've had to explain it a lot. Bruce Campbell is an actor. He was Ellen's boss on Ellen, Jack on Jack of All Trades, Autolycus, King of Thieves on Xena: Warrior Princess. In the movies Maniac Cop 1 and Maniac Cop 2 he played the cop who was not a maniac. He's the sort of actor who dies in the first 10 minutes of the movie Congo. Which he did.

The music you're listening to right now is the theme from The Adventures of Briscoe County Jr. in which Bruce Campbell played a cowboy. It was canceled after one season. We still use the theme song though, from time to time, to introduce sporting events, like the World Series or the Olympics.

If none of this rings a bell, perhaps you've seen a movie called The Evil Dead or one of its two sequels. In Evil Dead II: Dead by Dawn there's a character named Ash, whose hand is infested by an evil spirit. After the possessed hand slaps him all over the house, he cuts it off with a chainsaw. But it still isn't dead. Ash goes out to the work shed and what follows is one of the great parodies ever to be filmed of the classic hero gets ready to kick-ass montage.

Close up of Ash gathering his tools and ammunition, modifying the chain saw. Which he then straps on to the stump where his hand used to be. Pulling the rip chord, he uses it to saw the end of a double barreled shotgun. He twirls the gun cowboy style around his trigger finger, slips it into a holster on his back. As the chainsaw's engine roars, he stares into the camera and deadpans the immortal line--

John Hodgman

That's Bruce Campbell. And with that line, a B-movie star was born. Because if you don't know who Bruce Campbell is there's a growing circle of devoted fans who do, and they want you to meet him. They build websites in his honor. They make refrigerator magnets with his picture on them and they sell them on e-Bay. When Napster was on its last legs this past spring, the only thing you could be sure to find there were German drinking songs and Bruce Campbell's most famous lines. "Groovy." "This is my boomstick." "Hail to the King, baby."

John Hodgman

On their own or dropped over homemade techno music, they're the passwords into the inner circle of the cult of Bruce Campbell.

The cult is nearly equally men and women, perhaps because Bruce's charm fall somewhere between Cary Grant and the Three Stooges. And maybe it's because he's not very well known that you end up feeling that he's your own personal celebrity that no one else knows about. Even if you're aware that Bruce Campbell has a small army of avid fans, there's something about him that makes you think that if you ever had the chance to meet him, the two of you would definitely hang out. You might even watch Bruce Campbell movies together.

That was my line of thinking anyway, in early 1997. I was a young, literary agent who had never sold a book, and a Bruce Campbell fan. That spring, my office finally was hooked up to something I had only heard whispers of called the World Wide Web. It didn't do much for office productivity, but on that first day I typed in the words Bruce and Campbell and it changed my life forever.

It turned out that Bruce Campbell had his own website. And by his own, I mean his own. Not some slick corporate product, but a homemade looking affair maintained by volunteers, and featuring long essays from Bruce, advice to aspiring actors, notes on how much orange juice costs at the Cannes Film Festival. Reports from the set of McHale's Navy, a terrible Tom Arnold movie that no human would ever see.

There was a link to an email address and I clicked on it and I stared at the empty form. I didn't know what to say. But then, of course, I did.

I'm not only a fan, I wrote. I am also a professional literary agent. Have you ever thought about writing a book?

I didn't really expect him to write back. It certainly never occurred to me that this book nonsense would be something I'd ever have to think about again in my life. But after all, one man's B-movie god is another man's lonely working stiff factor stuck in New Zealand filming Xena: Warrior Princess, taking digital pictures of the strange southern hemisphere electrical outlets and posting them on the internet. He must've been bored out of his mind.

So the next thing I know I'm chatting with my hero on a crackly overseas connection about why the world must hear the confessions of a B-movie actor.

People have celebrity dreams all the time. David Letterman moves into your apartment building. The Pope calls wanting to know if you need him to cat sit. But this phone call was the real thing.

There I was telling him how a book proposal is written, what an editor does, and on the other end of the line it's Bruce Campbell saying, "Uh huh, I see. A proposal you say." When he actually said groovy, it was very unsettling.

I wanted to draw our conversation out in part because I thought I would probably never speak to him again, but I also wanted it to end as quickly as possible so I could put it behind me, make it into a story, get back to my normal life. To do this I even tried to discourage him. You should probably know I said, I've never sold a book before. But when we hung up, it wasn't over. I wouldn't go back to my normal life for a long time. Somehow, I don't remember how, I had sold him on me.

After that, it was all downhill. And for a reason that I was too much of a fan to anticipate. The nature of B-movie stardom is such that you can be a celebrity on one hand and a nobody on the other. In a hotel that's hosting a horror movie expo, Bruce Campbell may not be able to get arrested in the lobby, but in the conventional halls he's a living god.

Turns out though, that most of the editors I sent his proposal to don't live in the conventional hall, they live in the lobby. If they were aware at all of the world in which Bruce is a star, it was only to take the time to sneer. Even those who were closet Bruce fans like me, were either unable or unwilling to take a stand and let their geek flags fly.

So this project, which initially seemed to spell easy money for both of us, gradually became a painful exercise in enduring rejection. Which put me in a complicated position. I had achieved my dream the moment Bruce first called me. The rest was gravy. But now, against all common sense, Bruce was entrusting me with his dream and I was letting him down.

It was time to bring out the big guns. Or, as we say in publishing, it was time to bring the pope over to cat sit. Bruce had to put himself in front of those few remaining editors who hadn't passed. Make them feel as giddy as I had during that first phone call. He had to come to New York.

I had obviously always wanted to meet Bruce in person, but not like this. Not when the sole reason for his coming was because I had to date, been failing miserably. So I tried to distract him with a quick tour of my office. We reached my cubicle at the top of the stairs. That's me, I said, with a quick wave to my sad, little chair. Let's go to dinner now.

As we walked down Sixth avenue, my girlfriend and Bruce's wife a little ahead of us, Bruce and I painfully tried to make small talk. At dinner, I finally got the experience every Bruce Campbell fan dreams about. I was hanging out with Bruce. Specifically, I was eating hummus with him. Does that sound exciting? Of course it doesn't. Everything was normal, completely un-dreamlike. And that's what made it great. We were two couples having dinner, talking about the books we had read. The only thing that skewed the night slightly towards surreality was my shaking need for a cigarette. I was holding off. I thought it might offend him. But even after, when Bruce and his wife caught me and my girlfriend frantically lighting up on the street, it wasn't weird. We all had a laugh about it.

The book finally sold tot he last editor we met that day. The one who had brought in the Bruce Campbell issue of Fangoria magazine for an autograph before introducing Bruce around to his bosses. Actually, he didn't even buy it at that house. He had to quit first and take a job at another company, and then beg his boss before he could even make a modest offer. We quickly accepted.

It was a huge weight off my shoulders. It's not usual for a book to take almost two years to sell. Typically, it's more like two weeks. I was hoping that Bruce didn't know this as keenly as I did, but I could never ask him. If you're someone's literary agent, the one piece of advice you can't give them is, go get a good literary agent.

The day we sold the book I was on vacation with my girlfriend, whom I'd been dating for 10 years. The next day, I asked her to marry me. We can invite Bruce, I said.

It's been four years now since that first email and I'm visiting Bruce at The New Yorker Hotel in Manhattan. The book is about to come out and Bruce has come to push it with a Q&A, an autograph signing at the Fangoria Weekend of Horror.

John Hodgman

I'm not his agent anymore. For various reasons I've left the business, but Bruce and I have stayed in touch. Mainly because I refuse to let him go.

John Hodgman

Bruce is famous for antagonizing his fans, and they love it. They love him. In this room, Bruce Campbell is the biggest star in the world. His book is the most important book in the world. And I am his esteemed colleague. His former professional literary agent.

John Hodgman

As the convention continues, Bruce signs posters, head shots, DVDS, bootleg scripts, bared breasts, anything the fans have to offer. The line goes to the back of the room and out the door. In this crowd, there's almost a paternal sense of pride and even concern. They feel that Bruce has never had the big break he deserves.

John Hodgman

This, I, realize is the paradise that all Bruce Campbell fans want to reach. They all want to hang with Bruce, but they want to earn it. They want to help him. And if the book is a hit, then I will have done exactly what that kid dreams of. What I wanted to do all along, help, and then hang out.

Finally, the convention is over. A few fans try to shadow Bruce up to his room, but he evades them. I, however, am still able to follow him through the back passages, the freight elevators, the restricted access doors. Then we run into some trouble. Bruce's key card won't open his room door and the organizer has to go down and have it reprogrammed at the desk.

Bruce and I stand there in the shadowy hallway locked out of his room. He seems fidgety, exposed. There's still quite a few fans roaming around and now I realize I'm one of them. I'm not his agent anymore.

When the organizer comes back with the key Bruce will go in, get changed, head out to the airport. I'll go back to my apartment, watch him on television just like I did before I ever met him. Pretty soon, I'll run out of plausible excuses to email him, to call him, to get the special treatment I've come to expect from my friend, the movie star.

Ira Glass

John Hodgman lives in New York. Bruce Campbell's book is If Chins Could Kill: Confessions of a B-Movie Actor.

[MUSIC-"THEME TO SECRET AGENT MAN"]

Ira Glass

Act Three, Airel Sharon, Shimon Peres, David Ben Gurion, and Me!

Well, you've heard about a number of different kinds of dreams in today's program. There is also a kind of dream that we have to protect ourselves from seeing who we really are.

Ira Glass

Recently, Adam Davidson, an occasional contributor to our program, found his old high school diaries. Adam's mom is Israeli, his dad is American. Adam grew up in New York. His body was in New York. His brain, as the diaries reveal, was somewhere else entirely.

Announcer

Yeah. I didn't have much angst about being the future prime minister of Israel. I was very calm and confident and comfortable with it. And I had so much angst about every other aspect of my life. So I now see it as just kind of-- maybe it was a good solution. It was a good way to deal with what I was going through. To have this space where I could just be one of the greats.

Ira Glass

Adam Davidson in Los Angeles.

Ira Glass

Well, our program was produced today by Jonathan Goldstein and myself, with Alex Blumberg, Wendy Dorr and Starlee Kine. Senior producer Julie Snyder. Elizabeth Meister runs our website. Production help from Todd Bachmann and Paul McCarthy. Original music in our story on FoxxJazell by TRS-80. That's Deb, Kent, and Jay.

To buy a cassette of this program, call us here at WBEZ in Chicago 312-832-3380. Or visit our website where you can also listen to our programs for free at www.thisamericanlife.org. Don't forget those MP3s.

This American Life is distributed by Public Radio International.

[FUNDING CREDITS]

WBEZ management oversight by Torey Malatia, who explains himself this way.

Ira Glass

I'm Ira Glass, back next week with more stories of this American life.

Announcer

PRI, Public Radio International.