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.

Do-Gooders

#126 - 9 April 1999

Stories of people trying to do good: Why they often fail and why they occasionally succeed.

Apocalypse

#125 - 2 April 1999

Stories of the end of the world. More people believe it's more imminent than you probably realize.

Welcome to America

#124 - 19 March 1999

Stories of people moving to this country: what they see and hear about America that those of us who were born here don't necessarily see.

High Cost of Living

#123 - 26 February 1999

Stories of people who choose not to live every moment to the fullest or smell the roses, and instead choose to withdraw from life, to make themselves numb.

Valentine's Day '99

#122 - 12 February 1999

For Valentine's Day, stories of impossible love and heartbreak.