THIS AMERICAN LIFE: JOBS THAT TAKE OVER YOUR LIFE
(RADIO)
Summary
One in this weekly series that looks at a different,
specific aspect of life in the United States in each
episode. Episodes contain several segments, or "acts,"
each of which relates to the established theme. This
installment, "Jobs That Take Over Your Life," opens with
host Ira Glass complaining about the way his own job has
taken over all the other aspects of his life. He
explains that the program's four acts will focus on
people whose lives have been forever affected by the
jobs that they wandered into. The first act is narrated
by frequent correspondent Scott Carrier, who opens his
segment by revealing that his wife left him and took the
children with her. He explains that he didn't know what
to do with himself, so he quit his job and took up a
temporary gig interviewing schizophrenic patients for
some medical researchers. The segment consists of
several case studies explained in depth, leading up to
the moment when a curious Carrier decides to take the
test himself. He had to force himself to stop, he
confesses, after he realized how poorly he was doing on
the test. At this point, Carrier begins to realize just
how seriously his job is affecting him. The second act
of the program, reported by "This American Life" regular
Peter Clowney, concerns a touring company for the
musical "Hair." The theater company members, who refer
to themselves as "The Tribe," are obsessed with the
notions of "free love" and "good vibes" to such a degree
that the line between life onstage and life offstage
gets blurrier each day. When the theater director
reports that not every member of "The Tribe" will get to
tour in the upcoming series of shows, a dark
undercurrent to their hippie commune scene surfaces.
The third act of the program looks at a forgotten
scandal from the early 1940s, which took place at Port
Chicago, an ammunition depot in San Francisco. Dan
Collison reports on a group of black naval officers who
were punished with up to fifteen years of hard labor
when they refused to go back to work after an enormous
explosion at their workplace killed 320 of their
coworkers. Even though the working conditions were
dangerous and racism had occurred, the naval officers
have never been pardoned, even to this day. The fourth
act of the program features Glass reading fiction writer
Daniel Orozco's surreal story about a disturbingly
mechanical workplace.
(Network affiliation varies: local broadcast, November
1995-June 1996; on NPR, June 1996-June 1997; on PRI,
July 1997- .)
Details
- NETWORK: NPR National Public Radio
- DATE: September 27, 1996 Friday 7:00 PM
- RUNNING TIME: 0:59:03
- COLOR/B&W: N/A
- CATALOG ID: R:16102
- GENRE: Radio - Public affairs/Documentaries; Radio - Talk/Interviews
- SUBJECT HEADING: Hippies; Port Chicago Mutiny, Port Chicago, Calif., 1944; Quality of work life; Work - Psychological aspects; Schizophrenia - Diagnosis; Schizophrenics
- SERIES RUN: WBEZ (Chicago, IL) - Radio series, 1995-
- COMMERCIALS: N/A
CREDITS
- Ira Glass … Host
- Scott Carrier
- Peter Clowney
- Dan Collison
- Daniel Orozco