888: Not Today, Hades!
This American Life
This American Life
4.5 • 91.4K Ratings
🗓️ 7 June 2026
⏱️ 57 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Regular people trapped inside Greek myths.
Visit thisamericanlife.org/lifepartners to sign up for our premium subscription.
- Prologue: When a mysterious, ripped-open package arrives on Pablo's doorstep, he takes it as a sign. (4 minutes)
- Act One: Pablo flies closer to the sun. (14 minutes)
- Act Two: In Greek mythology, there's Hades, where everyone goes when they die. You have to cross the river Styx to get there, and there’s a gate with this three-headed dog. He’s guarding the entrance and he’s supposed to make sure only actual dead people enter. This story is about a real person in America who stood at those very gates. Which is not the easiest job it turns out, at least not right now. (24 minutes)
- Act Three: A mortal gets the assignment of a lifetime — to go interview an actual god who is living on earth, traveling under the name of Lionel Messi. (11 minutes)
Transcripts are available at thisamericanlife.org
This American Life privacy policy.
Learn more about sponsor message choices.
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | From WBEZ Chicago, it's This American Life. |
| 0:04.9 | I'm Ike's Reese Kondaraja in for Ira Glass. |
| 0:08.7 | Pablo, does this feel like an Icarus story to you? |
| 0:13.1 | Maybe, potentially. |
| 0:15.4 | What part? |
| 0:17.4 | Well, Icarus dies. |
| 0:22.6 | Not that part. This is Pablo Manriquez, and he recently survived his own personal Greek tragedy. |
| 0:31.6 | He's a reporter in Washington, D.C., known him for years. |
| 0:35.6 | And this all began when a ripped open package showed up on his front stoop. |
| 0:40.5 | It's late winter, 2022. |
| 0:43.2 | I find a box outside of my apartment. |
| 0:46.1 | Inside is a canvas, a couple, like, four, the four primary colors, a paintbrush, and a palette. It just seems like a sign. |
| 0:56.7 | Yeah. And that's like, what's the sign? It was just, uh, I thought to myself, somebody painted |
| 1:05.0 | every painting in the Capitol, in the White House, and the Department of Justice, all these |
| 1:09.8 | agency buildings, they have oil paintings. And yet in the 15 years that I've been in Washington, I've never |
| 1:14.9 | met an oil painter. |
| 1:16.5 | He had this light bulb moment. That could be him. |
| 1:22.6 | It wasn't the first time he decided to become a new Pablo. |
| 1:26.6 | When we first met, he was doing PR work, |
| 1:29.0 | but he decided he wanted to be a reporter no matter what. So at 37, he moved into a flop house |
| 1:35.8 | and began freelancing for small publications. And now he spends his days chasing down politicians |
| 1:42.4 | in the halls of Congress. |
... |
Transcript will be available on the free plan in 21 days. Upgrade to see the full transcript now.
Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from This American Life, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.
Generated transcripts are the property of This American Life and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.
Copyright © Tapesearch 2026.