This American Life = WANT

So, if you haven't heard of This American Life, the first thing I'm going to ask is

WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU?

But then I'm going to forgive you, because although it is arguably the most internationally popular radio show of our time, a lot of people don't listen to the radio.

I don't even listen to the radio. See, because that's what the internet is for. I download the hour long show every week for free from iTunes. The podcast is fabulous. I've been listening to it religiously every week for about a year now. It's something I really look forward to.

It's a sort of documentary series, with a pretty simple format. They choose a theme - regret, unknown power, the audacity of government, returning to childhood - and will provide a series of personal/grand/complex/humorous/moving stories from that theme. Sometimes an entire episode tells just one story, but normally you get 2-4 stories of various lengths filling up the hour.  They recently had one which took time to tell the story of a girl who was going to college in California, but wasn't a citizen, and the reasons behind that and the things she had to go through because she couldn't get her citizenship, and what she would have to do if she wanted to apply to be legal and how it was basically out of the question as much as she wanted it. The story made me cry.

ANYWAY - so I love this radio show. And last year it became not just a radio show, but a TV show. They produced, along with the radio show, this lovely six episode TV show, which I downloaded (legally) and loved. Just as beautiful as the radio show.

And recently they had this event for the premiere of the second season of this show with a live broadcast to various theatres around the country that people could go to for not just the first episode of the second season, but also interviews and behind the scene stuff. And I almost went. Despite that it would be by myself, and two hours of driving each way, I almost went. The only thing that stopped me, and just BARELY stopped me, was how much the gas would cost to get there.

And now the first episode has premiered on Showtime, is available on Showtime's On Demand channel, it is THERE. Out there in the world, just waiting.

But I don't have Showtime.

And, what with it not being a hugely promoted and popular show, it is also nowhere to be found on the internet. Or anywhere where I cold legally get it without subscribing to Showtime, which I can't afford.

So I'm just going to appease myself by watching the trailer over and over again.

Oh, and for those who are interested in the podcast - you can go to iTunes and subscribe for free. This weeks episode is actually a rerun of the episode they aired when the first season of the TV show premiered, and is based around television, but because it's somewhat self-promotional, the format is very different than normal. Mostly in that this was obviously recorded in front of an audience and in that the stories basically all come from regular contributors to the show, instead of these regular contributors doing what they normally do and telling the stories of other people, they are telling stories about themselves.

That being said, it might be a good one just because it introduces these contributors so you can know who the people making this radio show are. Ira Glass is there of course, and also Sarah Vowell and David Rackoff, who are two of my favourites.

So go to the iTunes store, look up This American Life, and you can subscribe to the podcast for free, or you can go to thislife.org and download the mp3 of this weeks podcast there. You can also listen to all past podcasts through streaming media on their website for free. CHECK IT OUT.

Because I totally want to have someone to talk about these stories with!