856: You’ve Come to the Right Person

This American Life

Society & Culture, News, Politics, Arts

4.6 • 88.8K Ratings

🗓️ 16 March 2025

⏱️ 61 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Sometimes, life’s biggest mysteries require one very specific person to answer them.

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Prologue: 7-year-old Miles has lots of questions. More specifically, he has questions about the famous car chase from “The Blues Brothers” movie. We arrange for him to talk to stunt coordinator Gary Powell so he can get the answers he so desperately wants. (9 minutes)
Act One: Producer Aviva DeKornfeld looks into why comedian Daniel Sloss’s comedy special has been responsible for so many couples breaking up. (17 minutes)
Act Two: We hear from Kwaneta Harris, a former nurse incarcerated in Texas, who is constantly asked for medical advice by her neighbors. (17 minutes)
Act Three: Producer Diane Wu talks to Juna, a young woman who is getting advice from someone uniquely equipped to guide her to the love life she wants. (12 minutes)

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Transcript

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0:00.0	A quick warning, there are curse words that are unbeaped in today's episode of the show.
0:05.8	If you prefer a beeped version, you can find that at our website, thisamericanlife.org.
0:12.0	From WBEZ Chicago, it's This American Life.
0:14.8	I'm David Kestenbaum sitting in for Araglass.
0:17.5	And I'm just going to let my first two guests today introduce themselves.
0:21.4	My name's Gary Powell.
0:22.7	I'm a stunt coordinator, second unit director in motion films.
0:26.3	Name a couple movies.
0:28.1	Ooh, Titanic, James Bond, Mission Impossible.
0:32.1	Okay, Miles. Your turn?
0:34.3	I don't have a job.
0:36.3	You could say your name, though.
0:38.0	Miles.
0:39.2	Miles is seven.
0:40.6	Well, almost seven.
0:42.5	And we range from him to talk to Gary because he had some urgent questions about car chases from movies.
0:48.2	And Gary, that's his particular set of skills.
0:51.2	I drove the Crane in Terminator, the bus in Harry Potter. Wait, you drove the bus
0:56.4	in Harry Potter? I did. A little background. Miles loves cars. His mom says that before he could
1:04.0	read, he could tell you make and model and sometimes year of any of their friend's cars. He draws cars,
1:10.1	makes cars out of Legos.
1:11.8	He brought one with him, actually, and he and Gary quickly got down to talking shop.
	...

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