You Are Here

#136 - 6 August 1999

Three stories, three people, and three sets of maps. Stories of people trying to figure out where they are in the world in the most literal and least literal ways possible. We explore what it's like to be lost—how we all struggle in that moment not to give ourselves over to fear but try to enjoy it.

Allure of Crime

#135 - 23 July 1999

We think of crime as a kind of monolithic, menacing presence. But there are many kinds of crimes and many kinds of criminals. Through our crimes, we express who we are. Today we hear of three different criminals and three different kinds of crimes.

We Didn't

#134 - 9 July 1999

Stories about what happens when we don't do something. It turns out that not falling in love, not doing our jobs, not spending time with our families is every bit as vivid and complicated an experience as doing something.

Sales

#133 - 25 June 1999

Consider for a moment all the art forms that began in America: jazz, the blues, musical theater, rock n' roll, phonograph recordings, television, motion pictures, video games. But the art form in which America leads the world—more than any other—is the art of selling. In this show: case examples to prove the point.

Father's Day '99

#132 - 18 June 1999

For Father's Day, stories about fathers going out of their way to protect their kids, and kids going out of their way to protect their fathers.

The Kids Are Alright

#131 - 4 June 1999

Stories in which young people take matters into their own hands: Students who become political activists, students who pull pranks, violent students. Broadcast for the tenth anniversary of the crackdown at Tiananmen Square.

Away From Home

#130 - 21 May 1999

Stories of people going home to places they've never been before.

Advice

#129 - 14 May 1999

A program taped before live audiences in Seattle (thanks to public radio station KUOW) and at HBO's U.S. Comedy Arts Festival in Aspen. A taxonomy of different kinds of advice—and stories that illustrate why advice is so rarely taken.

Four Corners

#128 - 30 April 1999

There's a tourist monument called Four Corners, where Arizona, Colorado, Utah and New Mexico meet. In this episode, we try to tell the story of life in America through portraits of life on four different corners, in four different states across the nation.

Pimp Anthropology

#127 - 16 April 1999

This entire show is devoted to just one story. A former pimp tells how he and three childhood friends became pimps in the 1970s in Oakland, California. He explains all the elaborate "rules of the game" among pimps and prostitutes of that era. He didn't have the stomach for the violence of pimping, and failed as a pimp because of that. Tamar Brott reports.