This American Life/My Way

My Way
Season 1, Episode 2
Airdate	March 29, 2007
Written by	Ira Glass (act 1) Nazanin Rafsanjani (act 2) Josh Seftel (act 3)
Directed by	Christopher Wilcha
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This American Life — Season One

My Way is the second episode of the first season of This American Life, and the second episode overall. Three stories are told about people who stray from the normal path and attempt to carve their own way through life. A 14 year old boy rejects love, a politician never lies and a photographer switches his focus away from tragedy.

Plot Overview

Larry and Elvira (Veve) spent their lives attached to one another, spending their days doing everything possible together, including the management of a liquor store. But Veve died of stomach cancer in 1994, leaving Larry alone for the first time in 48 years. But, Larry wasn't prepared to stop being with her. He built a mausoleum as a home, outfitted with pictures, a boombox and a television so that when he goes to eat lunch, he can eat with his wife. He hangs out in this house every other day, even though his wife would have wanted him to move on. Although he's got a girlfriend now, Larry still comes out to the house every other day to spend time with his wife. He can't fathom the people who come to visit their deceased loved ones once per year and understands this ritual as part of his life, but doesn't expect anyone else to relate because it's his way of doing things.

Act 1

Joe, a fourteen year old boy in junior high school, doesn't believe in love. He sees his friend falling for a girl he barely knows over a single common thread, their shared love of Felix the Cat. Joe has decided to shun love entirely because he doesn't think that it's worth all the potential pain involved. But, Joe's peers think that he's being absurd and, occasionally, has been told that he may grow up to be "the next Hitler."

But, even though he's being told that he's missing out on a necessary element of life, Joe is happy. He takes particular enjoyment from Dungeons & Dragons, which he plays frequently with a regular group of friends. His life is working well for him and is annoyed by people who tell him that he's just in a phase or that he's afraid of girls. He isn't treated seriously by the vast majority of adults.

Joe has imagined the kind of person he would be if he were to fall in love, though, but it's in a D&D setting and their relationship is shallow. It's a relationship based on convenience and necessity for survival among monsters. He eventually comes to the conclusion that it would only be worth his time if he could find a portal into another world. His mother understands his dilemma to a degree and recounts him threatening to swallow all of his LEGO warriors so that they could fight his hormones and win. Not content with only blocking out romantic love, however, Joe finds it difficult to call how he feels for his parents love either. He initially met his mother with resistance when she said that she loves him, but has grown to tolerate it.

In a message to himself in the future as a 25-year old, Joe tells himself that if he's still holding by his believes, there may be some merit to them and that he's "awesome." But, if he decided to ditch it and "go for barbaric pleasure," then he'll see him in Hell.

And Nothing But The Truth

Therapist Brad Blanton subscribes to the philosophy of radical honesty, a policy which places all of humanity's problems on an excess of lies. Blanton believes that the key to happiness is to always tell the truth, which is something that he demonstrates when he details his sexual and drug experiences in the past.

Blanton took this policy to heart when he ran for Congress in Virginia in 2004, an act which he pursued because he was sick of the lack of choices in his district. In a commercial which aired twice, Blanton went on for five minutes about how evil and corrupt his opponents were and explained that even though he didn't have a good chance of winning, he wanted his fellow Virginians to send the government a message by considering him. He won 25% of the vote, the most for an independent candidate in Virginia history.

In 2006, Blanton was recruited by the Democratic party to run on their ticket in Virginia. For a while, Blanton seemed like he would be the party's candidate without a problem until radical honesty came back to bite him. The Democrats were worried about his workshops that involved nudity and eventually rejected his bid for congress because they didn't want to make the election into a "three-way race" which would end in a victory for the Republican opponent.

Once the Democratic party severed ties from Blanton, he decided to run as an independent candidate. He also told the managing editor of the local paper that he wanted to "beat the shit" out of him and was seen as somewhat of a loose cannon in the political realm because of his lack of belief in diplomacy. He went across the state to meet people, as well as potentially offend them with the truth. Even people who are helping him get elected like Jennifer Gibson aren't sure if they'll vote for him. In fact, most say that they wouldn't. Less than a month before the election, Blanton dropped out of the race. But, although Blanton wasn't going to be a congressman, many agree that it was refreshing to see someone in politics who was easy to read even though the fact that he's easy to read was why no one would have voted for him if he did make it to the election.

Still Life

Documentary photographer Marcus Halevi is famous for devoting his time and attention to victims of war and injustice around the world. He's dedicated his life to focusing on the tragedy of others and has benefited from someone else's misfortune. One year, he was sent out to cover a storm and he caught a picture of a woman having a smoke and drinking a beer by the shore. A split-second after the picture was snapped, a wave caused the ground beneath her to give way and she was drug out into the flood plane. He continued to photograph the situation because a man and a lifeguard were about 100 feet away from her and coming to help. The man got there first, he stepped into the water and reached for her hand, but stopped. A massive wave suddenly came in and consumed the woman, drowning her.

This sequence of pictures stirred up controversy from readers of the newspaper in which they were published from concerned citizens. They objected to Marcus photographing this woman drowning and not dropping everything to save her life. But, in the course of his work, he's had to endure a host of horrible things which he needed to both feel and block out at the same time. In all of the other international situations, he feels helpless to do anything but record what was happening. But, in this case, he had a chance to do something and didn't take it.

Now, Marcus takes pictures of happy situations, never something life threatening or dangerous. He's no longer burdened by the pain required for the pictures that he became famous for.

Notes

Stinger

• Ira Glass: Management oversight for our program by our boss, Torey Malatia. You know, you can always recognize him because he's the one adult in the room carrying an old tattered blanket wherever he goes and saying:
  Larry: This is a part of my life! This was a part of my life for 50 years!