My Life; This Life; "This American Life"

I think it was one of my former coworkers whom introduced me to the NPR show "This American Life." Actually, now that I say that, I know it was a former coworker who introduced to this show as I vividly recall the conversation.

I was waited for our fax machine to function, or get over whatever type of system-bleed it was having that day, and my coworker came up spouting off some remark about my productivity.

"Yeeeaaaah, if you were receiving a confidential fax on a public machine you'd be hovering over it too," I replied. "It's not my fault this thing is slow."

So as I waited, and waited, and waited, and. . . my coworker and I chatted a bit about various things. Amongst them, what we listened to on the radio. This particular coworker was a big fan of NPR and mentioned the show This American Life. "This American what?" I thought to myself. They recommended I check it out since I had been telling them of a podcast that seemed similar to the TAL concept. For some reason I thought TAL was newer than it actually was in reality. (Once again, I was way behind the cultural curve.)

Once I started listening I was hooked! It became one of my regular podcast downloads off of iTunes and soon that "other" podcast I listened to would fade into my podcast past. At this point, I even couldn't tell you the name of it.

Fast forward to this month. . . I have to admit I was shocked when I got the invitation to see Alex Blumberg present one of the TAL shows live. I was all about going. Though the show theme wasn't new, they had aired the episode about a year earlier, the content of the show was somewhat fresh with current event information added in. It was about everyone's favorite topic - The Economy. It was about how "the bubble" grew, why it busted and the steps our government has recently taken to try to help the situation. It was a FANTASTIC evening! I even played the role of TAL "groupie" and got Alex's autograph. I also got a chance, along with other, to chat a bit with Alex about what's going on in our world and about the world of public radio.

Since my American Life night out, I've been cruising the TAL archives listening to old episodes - going all the way back to the beginning of the show in 1995. Consequently, there is one episode on Anger and Forgiveness (one of my favorite topics). When I saw it on the list I was immediately intrigued. Apparently the show had been about: "Stories that reveal the societal 'trend' toward anger and away from genuine forgiveness." I eagerly looked for the link to stream the episode, but it wasn't there. There wasn't even a place for me to download it at a nominal cost. What the heck!? After searching the TAL site, it appears there are some shows that just aren't available for download or streaming, for whatever reason, and this was one of those episodes. *Sigh* Oh well! Such is life.

In the end, all I want to say is I would highly suggest checking out This American Life. I think it does an excellent job of presenting a unique voice to the things going on in the world around us.

Until later . . .