Bambi’s dusting off the keyboard for a special treat. While Ira took a breather with the great rerun of Kid Politics (which we previously reviewed), we caught up with the star of Act 1 of another episode, Right to Remain Silent, Joe Lipari, whose short starring Dave Hill is making its rounds on the film fest circuit this year.

Trailer: Dream Job from Joe Lipari on Vimeo.

Back when we found LA comedian Joe Lipari on his stint chez Ira Glass as the Facebook Terrorist, here’s what we had to say:

In this act, Ben Calhoon interviews sarcastic jerk Joe Lipari with no filter screwed hard first by the Geniuses at the big Apple store post-iPhone malfunction, as well as the cops of the Big Apple. Lipari will make you pant, not just with his big mouth, but also with the unwavering self-awareness he exudes as he is tried as a terrorist for mimicking the following cinematic rant à la classic Fight Club everyman Edward Norton on Facebook.

“If you understand I’m just a shmuck who doesn’t know how to keep his mouth closed, why are we here?” asks Lipari. Calhoon comments on that mindset that said offender refuses to surrender: that lack of reevaluation that would mean altered loyalties and altered self. Ultimately, he asks what only the wise motherfuckers consider: “Why am I going to worry about the people who hate me, and not the people who love me?” Adjournment in Contemplation of Dismissal: that’s lawspeak for Hannah Montana-style-pending-breakups. Mark my words.

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“Blah blah blah…public radio–very reflective.” This week’s vintage selection, inspired by Chicago’s own Too Much Light Makes the Baby Go Blind, is a montage of the many ways that radio can flexibly describe the human condition in the form of 20 Acts in 60 Minutes. They say the best way to get along is to mirror communication patterns, so here’s our short take on the show, in a series of haikus.

Act 1
Starlee Kine faces
almost fame with B-Actor
Mensch ends up uncouth.

Act 2
Existential angst
Man sees femme fatale. She was
Not memorable

Act 3
Hear aural Craigslist
Community radio
Real culture revealed

Act 4
Right near the beach there’s
A fresh sight from Nantucket
Fat ladies surfing

Act 5
Scallops clapping
We the audience listen
on Martha’s Vineyard

Act 6
Gross lunchroom story
Good student journalism
Turned off of pudding

Act 7
Drunk Crazy Fearless
Another side of Penguin
Shows a shy, soft side

Act 8
A dog has its day
On This American Life,
His confirmation

Act 9
Woman holds collar
Looks at husband like a pet
This man is so whipped.

Act 10
Courting in grammar
Anxiety of the game
Love, a battlefield

Act 11
Considering call
On the john at the airport
–David Sedaris

Act 12
Little kiddies lie
Even recounting reruns,
Don’t even know it

Act 13
Boys don’t understand
Eating while babysitting
Is a non-issue

Act 14
Chicago hotdogs
Vienna Beef is life blood
But how are they made?

Act 15
Rakoff misjudged the
writing based society
Oops (the Internet)

Act 16
You see him a lot
In the office and outside
But what is his name?

Act 17
Man versus nature?
No, In this scenario
Man imitates swamp

Act 18
Sex Drugs Coco Puffs
Rock and Roll and TV shows
Pop culture mirrors

Act 19
Cadets follow rules
Struggle to become robots
No emotion sir

Act 20
Naughty teenage girls
Who made their mamas cry, sing,
Now make tears of pride

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Dear Bambi,

I moved to Spain and had a nice Jewish boy back in New York I left behind on good terms. While I still care about him, I know logically that I need to look to greener pastures, or at least ones that are on the same continent. Don’t get me wrong, I am so into the selection here. Like woah. But I can’t help but feel like I’m reserving part of myself for this faraway guy who’s in a different universe now, to the point where my mind isn’t even in Spain. Why can’t my heart look at this logically?

Carla, Madrid

Dear dear Carla,

I’m sorry your heart is going through it with this loss of boy. It really is as if he was there one minute and now he is not. In my recent research on loss and grieving, I stumbled upon what I think is some pertinent Freudian thought in an unexpected place: a psychology book published as recently as 2009. In The Other Side of Sadness: What the New Science of Bereavement Tells Us About Life After Loss, reknowned grief researcher George A. Bonanno redefines grief through studies he began at the University of California at San Francisco on the actual experiences of subjects, through critical questioning from the bottom up. They proved to not fit so nicely into the delineated five-step process traditionally considered to be true, that the majority of data shows tendencies toward continued resilience instead of long-term chronic suffering or eventual full recovery. Since the brain that feels grief after loss is the same brain that suffers heartbreak, perhaps something can be gleaned in your case from Freud’s two cents as Bonanno introduces:

In Freud’s view, grief work involved reclaiming the psychological energy that we’d invested in the deceased loved one, or, as he somewhat unpoetically put it, the “non-existent object.” He thought that when we form a psychological bond with another person, we do so with a kind of primitive emotional glue, what he referred to as the “libido.” This is the same motivational force that drives our reactions to everything else we care about, including, of course, sex. But the libido is more than sex, and it comes in a limited supply. Each of us has only so much psychological energy to invest and we have to use it economically; what we invest in one person isn’t available for anything else. In Freud’s mechanics, the death of a loved one causes suffering because not only does the mind function poorly when it’s running on less psychic fuel, but we also find ourselves in a state of constant longing for someone who is no longer there. This state continues, Freud believed, until we do the necessary grief work and reclaim the energy that was bound up with that person.

Bonanno in conversation with Freud’s grief work theory examines:

Freud could have called it “the routine of mourning” or “the task of mourning,” or even “the resignation of mourning,” but he chose the metaphor of work because he believed that once we bond with something–a person or an idea–by investing our psychological energy, it really does act like glue. We find it difficult to let go. When a loved one dies, Freud observed, bereaved people cling to the memory of that person so intensely that “a turning away from reality ensues.” This reaction has an almost hallucinatory quality, as if the bereaved cannot and will not accept that the person is gone, as if the person can be willed back into existence. Joan Didion described this desire in her best-selling memoir The Year of Magical Thinking: “I was thinking as small children think, as if my thoughts or wishes had the power to reverse the narrative, change the outcome.

Logic and emotion, no matter how disciplined you are, run on two separate wavelengths. Working to reconcile them is a noble cause that is definitely in line with the pursuit of happiness. But being forgiving to one or the other for not catching up in time is part of the process. As your libido reads and rereads the Post-It that Mr. Somebody is no longer he who will float your boat, it will adjust and redirect its sights on the formidable yachts anchored beside you. The idea of the libido being a limited resource is an important one that is easy to forget: even the most international of heart breakers will stop in her tracks at moments of satisfaction. As you feel unsatisfied with the natural lack of reciprocation with your NYC beau, your id’s survival instincts will start to crave a loving spoonful again.

But the difference between grief and heartbreak is the ingredient of life. Lucky you that this American option is still an option. In your alternate Spanish universe, it’s okay to play with it: what a romantic notion to fall to that longing, and revel in that very human wanting of somebody who has earned your affection. Adjusting is a two-way street between the heart and the mind. The point is, know what you want, feel it, and channel it. You only get one libido in this life, so live it up.

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In Gossip, the girls are in charge, and we’ll pretend not to notice any feminist qualms that may arise from that statement.

I remember talking to a Chicago rabbi while getting paid to learn about Maimonides. Over dinner at his house over kosher Chinese from Devon Avenue, the most striking lesson I gleaned was on gossip as one of the greatest sins an innocent person could commit. Most importantly was that the onus fell, not only on the gossiper, but also the gossipee. Menschy? No. But as this week’s host Sarah Koenig conveys, “Gossip carries an erotic power in that there’s something erotic about having access to information and having the power to pass information on to someone else.” This dichotomy of gossip—the good and the bad—is usually trumped by the ugly, but entertainingly so.

Act 1: He died of AIDS because he didn’t ask us.

Common knowledge saves lives—I can’t tell you how many times Wikipedia and WebMD clued me into what everyone already knew.

Sarah says: “Sex as any gossiper knows is the mother of gossip.” In Malawi, gossip is a different species of chitchat. A bulletin board on a college campus, also taking the form of a campus newspaper, airs out student sexual exploits. Strange, especially picturing this on, say, the Michigan State’s campus, outing the sexting teens for the ho’s they embrace themselves to be. But in Malawi, this kind of public airing serves a social purpose, where AIDS is rampant and it behooves one to know who has it, affecting more than lovelives. Speaking to Hazel Namandingo, we find that “AIDS was a constant topic with her friends,” decisions about hookups drawing heavily from hints about suitor’s health profiles from everyday interactions. Of her peers, she said that if a girl looks a little bit fat (a good thing among Africans, as with Jews) or has good skin, she is suspect of using retroviral drugs. Thus in this gossip and AIDS-riddled terrain, ugly girls are safer mates. In addition to the risk of crashing and burning from gossip in other environments, under these Malawian circumstances, it has the possibility of benefiting individuals and their society by bringing AIDS and sex out in public dialogue, a trend widely unknown in the AIDS research community.

In this vain, reading gossip as a sociologist reveals cultural trends that are important for allocating funds. Superstar sociologist Susan Watkins elaborates on sex trends that incorporate gossip, affecting AIDS prevention waves. “If you lie together you die together” could instill fear but also blurs truth and instills a blasé attitude. “Like eating sweets in a wrapper,” condoms are unsexy. She shows that, despite what outside funders believe about secrecy around AIDS, people are already talking about it. Thus, assumptions that ignore gossip equals mismanaged money. Another piece of ignored common knowledge: the wealthiest and most educated men are spreading AIDS the most. “It’s seen as men’s nature, so it’s better to try to train women to negotiate condom use and to protect themselves than it is to pay any attention to the men.”

Act 2: At least 90% of his blood is in his face now

We have no Ira this week, but we do have fellow Chicagoan Rebecca Makkai. It’s our favorite forum of gossip, the reality show. Makkai’s portrayal of the faux Starving Artists has me dreaming of being a contestant and wishing that it was not a fiction story at all. The gossip in this environment is an opportunity to take care of the publicity. The narrator instigates gossip: “The others we try to get drunk…if necessary we feed them lines.” The feelings of Christine convey the moral issues behind the outsider who vicariously talks about that which she is not involved in.

One of the narrator’s final lines about the sleazy tricks behind her job on reality shows reveals something important about gossip too: “It’s sick and it’s soulless, but it’s one of the things I love about my job. “ It is the human gain that is important, as Julie’s husband put it in the intro when conveying why he spread gossip so blatently not his to share at a party, “The more I told them the more interested they were in me, the more they were enjoying me.”

Come back, Ira, before we start spreading rumors of your whereabouts.

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The Super: You wanna go up to the roof and oil the circulation pipes with me?
Ira Glass: That really has to be one of the worst pick-up lines ever.

The special relationship that a super has with an array of tenants gives him an enlightened perspective. Meanwhile, he keeps apartment buildings running and that’s all that you have to know about him. Until now, it was perfectly acceptable to keep it at that. For all you know, the professional you see on the daily could be a nightly star on Youporn. Most people don’t look into that, by choice, but also because it is not a world to which a tenant has keys. Ira as landlord of the airwaves lets the man behind the scenes break into the spotlight in The Super.

Act 1: Six stories of dust held up by a hundred layers of paint

The medium of radio beautifully allows the unraveling of more of the story. Hitt, who was Bob’s tenant briefly in the 80s ran into Moscow, the persecuting lawyer of the Killer Landlord. The headlining building owner putting hits on people around town including his residents also happened to be Hitt’s own landlord.

“…Bob was so much more than a terrible handyman.” Nobody would have guessed that the eccentric New York super was on a death squad in South America in a past life, but hey nobody asked. It takes a defense attorney to get Bob’s story under oath during the trial.

The lawyer’s great character analysis is revealing: Beneath all of the fanciful stories, there usually is a substantial amount of truth. Bob is even given the Hannah Arendt treatment, symptomatic of the banality of evil like Eichmann who would in certain contexts do awful things, but when removed and reinsterted in the banal context, you get Bob the Super.

Act 2: I was alarmed and worried it was a con

Another tale about a storytelling super is brought to the attention of Alex Bloomberg in Lala land. When a super crosses paths with a mysterious woman with much je-ne-sais-quoi. Things get even weirder as his tenant, Josh Bearman recollects her proposed business plan.

Act 3: The problem wasn’t them, they have the money, the problem is you, his son

It’s the cliche story of the son of a super who follows his dad’s footsteps. He was flailing to get money out of an ancient couple that struggled with rent after a hard hit. Maybe his Jesuit upbringing at school got in the way of his ability to be a functional super. “It’s so weird because part of it is you have this business relationship with these people but you’re there in their building, you’re there in their house. You know, you own their house.” In the end, he takes on more of a role than a super generally does, becoming a mentor and friend.

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Another Bambi-approved rerun heralds in a Jewcy rerun infatuation post. And it’s on the best topic there is: intelligent foxes who can make a buck, from MIT engineers to game show playas.

You’ve tapped into another epicenter of pleasure for me this week, Ira, by way of gourmands’ delights. And capitalism. Yum. After touting two competing Brooklyn Vietnamese restaurants’ identical bánh mi selections (Classic, grilled pork, grilled chicken, sardine, shredded chicken, tofu. Classic, grilled pork, grilled chicken, sardine, shredded chicken, tofu…), I feel better than a mantra’d-out Hari Krishna after a George Harrison wet dream. In regards to one restaurant stealing the entire menu, word for word, recipe for recipe from another, the rogue owner asks, “If you’re a kung fu student and the master didn’t teach you, how are you supposed to learn?” Good thing this bullshit grasshopper got called out good by Ira, another not-so-rare moment of satisfying bust.

“Sandwiches and bubble teas are this unlikely million-dollar idea,” and therein lies the sub: the million dollar idea (and there’s nothing that turns me on more-think intensely intelligent sexies manifesting their surreal designs in very real ways. Gimme some of that, Mr. Gates).

Act 1: We don’t want the Indiana Joneses of the world to have to choose between life and sex

Ira interviews Tim Rowe, an entrepreneur who runs a 60-second elevator pitch contest at MIT annually. “There are maybe a hundred venture capitalists looking for the next thing to invest in.” Finest formula to score? Uncomplicated, cheap, qualified, and exciting. Sounds like an ideal one-night-stand, but also a fine way to be a moneymaker. In all, another perfect mantra to carry around in your pocket for a rainy day.

Interestingly, Rowe remarks of these catalysts for big money deals con great ideas, “they would prefer to make an investment that both makes money and does something exciting that makes the world a better place…otherwise they would just be working on Wall Street.” While I don’t make a habit of expecting scrupulous ventures from men throwing money at hot messes with no foreseeable future, I think I’ve been sold on this one. Take it, boys.

All I know is next time I’m looking for a quick (uncomplicated, cheap, qualified and exciting) good time, I’m goin’ to Cambridge.

Act 2: If you fucked up while you were making it, everything would explode and you would die

“OK kids, say no to drugs,” suggests Ira after comedian Kumail Nanjiani presents valuable information about the hottest street thing among kids that, to my surprise, is not sizzurp.  Can’t blame ‘em-if school, parents, friends, and possible mates are too much of a bore on an empty stomach, you’ve got to find your yen somehow. While I’d suggest deserting Boreville to find strange excitement elsewhere, judgment and opinionating goes the wayside if I may suggest a little advice from Woody in seeking out Whatever Works to make you happy.

Act 3: Early death does save society money

Planet Money takes us to the Czech Republic to explore the benefits of sin-more dead smokers equals less cost to society at large. I love this logic-especially pertaining to a toxic behavior that depends solely on individual choice. The right to pursue happiness is just as important as the right to seek self-deprecation, as all the hooker-chasing politicians will vote YES on in their private boudoirs. Living in Prague, I preferred to do so with Mr. Philip Morris’s arch nemesis Start cigarettes. Their honest business practices lit my fire like strategically placed Icy Hots.

Unlike Start, Matt Meyers, campaign rep of an anti-smoking crusade fighting Philip Morris, is confused. He is not in touch with his inner economic Buddha, unaware that the world revolves around a dollar like a dancer on a pole. “We’re very clear,” says Meyers. “Efforts to reduce tobacco use have nothing to do with economic cost. They have everything to do with quality of life.” Yeah, good luck trying to get a lapdance from someone who’s not into you or what you stand for without considering economic incentives.

Act 4: We had no rules against what he was doing

Picture it: Press My Luck game show, 1980: Enter Michael Larson, scammer extraordinaire who won the most jack on a game show in history ($110,000-half of which he took out in singles in the weeks to follow in an attempt to win another contest. All of which was stolen from his house). His brother said of his late frère, “He didn’t understand the value of good, honest, hard work….he thought those people were fools.” And who’s to say he’s the fool if miserable mascara stains grace the cheeks of sadclowns in all demographics, not withstanding pious nine-to-fivers?

Larson played the system by blowing morals to the curb and “was convinced that someone smart could find loopholes in game shows that average people missed.”  If this guy’s tactics are unrelated to Mike Aponte’s MIT ploy in Vegas, I don’t know what is. And I’d have to say my intuition was right to look toward MIT for satisfaction a few acts ago.

The venn diagram of million dollar ideas and doing whatever the fuck you want overlaps at the point where an individual understands of the rules and norms and willingly disregards them for self promotion, which, in most cases, has more benefits than costs for all. One perky point of sinful behaviors is that they will bring you said benefits by way of pleasure. And if an individual wants to smoke, do cheese, or make forged bánh mi sandwiches, the world continues to go round with a few more happy campers on the bus.

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Good old Lord Byron hit the theme of today’s episode on the nose: “This is the patent age of new inventions for killing bodies, and for saving souls. All propagated with the best intentions.”

Patents, the ownership of ideas in the name of individual financial gain and fame. It is the grill of the artist, the mark of individual success. A US office with the mantra, “To promote the useful arts and sciences,” provides the utopic petri dish in which people are to be properly incentivized to share their ideas and inventions. But does that environment actually exist, or are creatives sitting like Chicago drills, uninspired to (pro)create?

Lone comrades screwed by the system? Where is the Bolshevik class of the creative professionals willing to protect the individuals en masse in this kind of terrain?

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Breakups: the seemingly unnatural phenomena with so many paradoxical emotions that feel like little deaths, and not French ones. When one TAL-fan submitted a complaint that there were no breakup-themed Lifes, Ira got on it, in this 2007 vintage, Break-Up.

Act 1: Even Phil Collins can’t help but quote Phil Collins

This act is Starlee Kine’s shining moment for many a listener. She expounds, “Nobody could convey how I was feeling better than Phil Collins.” The aural service she provides for weepy saps here, under the mentorship of Collins himself and in collaboration with NYC’s Joe McGinty and Julia Greenberg, puts her on par with Bonnie Raitt. Her Dusty Springfield-esque torch song is to die, and truly highlights a slice of the human condition in the midst of the shitshow that is a breakup. The breakup song is beautiful because of the catharsis it provides. Says Kine of Dusty’s tune, “It’s just so pathetic, and deep down, it’s how I felt too. And it felt good to have someone just come out and say it. There are some words you can never speak, but somehow you can sing.” The genre choice is perfect for Kine in that it integrates Phil Collins’ personal advice to her to keep it simple and honest.  “You don’t have to say you love me,” belted Springfield, while Kine answered, “It doesn’t do me any good, in fact it does me bad.”

In the end, Phil asks, “You kind of like feeling bad, don’t you?” The effort to honestly feel through music allows for the evolution of hot emotions for songwriter and listener, whether in the shape of a love song or a hate song.

Act 2: Was that reassuring to you in a way? No.

It’s 1987, and baby Ira is a young producer at All Things Considered. Eight-year-old Betsy Walter sits with the ATC host to speak about a letter she wrote to Mayor Koch asking advice about her parents’ divorce. The valuable perspective of the child in conversation with a master interviewer is a platinum grill for the American divorced psyche.

Even more illuminating is a chat twenty years later with adult Betsy, now a teacher, and blessed with a multifaceted outlook she shares with the airwaves. The hard truth is that focusing on the why is less important than the how in regards to moving on.

Act 3: They started quibbling about everything.

Marriage is the first step toward divorce (think about it). Collaborative divorce is like breaking up with a lawyer and a kindergarten teacher in the room, extending an invitation to use their listening skills. This act from the lawyer’s perspective emphasizes the importance of listening to the point of view of one’s spouse (revolutionary).

Act 4: He finally began to sob, which was a signal to Puppy Boy that the game was finally going to begin.

Divorce from the perspective of an altogether different species highlights even more of the human condition. The contrast between the priorities of the soon-to-be-divorced man and those of a dog is sort of an exercise in mindfulness.

The dwelling and kvetching on the lifelong love-that-never-was is best remedied, beyond Starlee and Phil’s musical achievements, by the words of two wise Jews:

“All discarded lovers should be given a second chance, but with somebody else.” —Mae West

“Maria Elena used to say that only unfulfilled love can be romantic.” —Javier Bardem as Juan Antonio in Woody Allen’s Vicky Cristina Barcelona

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Sexy scientist time! You know it’s going to be a good one when you have smart men arguing from the onslaught. But maybe we’re just into that over here. Plastics was the name of the game for Dustin Hoffman, shale is what Ira Glass has got to work with in this week’s Game Changer.

I think the answr is that this American life solved it for you: Sarah Koenig gave you transparency, and now, Pennsylvanians, you know. Fight, move, or stay if you wanna.

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The tsar of dream painters, Marc Chagall is today’s birthday boy. In his honor, we explored his confident stroke by way of one of our favorite analyses, Freud’s deconstruction of phallic dream symbols. Exploring the breadth of his work, we find that he exhibits more girth than dirth in that department. Taking a stroll through a random gallery of his dreamscapes, we can be sure that he was an alpha male who was king pimp in the shorts.

Lesson 1: The number three symbolizes the holiest of trinities, the male sexual organ. Check out the triangles on that guy and his stiff tower.

Lesson 2: Symbols of the phallus are easily spotted in objects similar to it in form, particularly hard, jutting things like steeples, umbrellas, trees, mountains, candles, and flutes. Man, Marc—you showed Chicago who’s really boss in the Art Institute’s prized blue windows.

Lesson 3: Objects that can penetrate the body (but shouldn’t) are also telltale: scythes, knives, guns, violin bows perhaps…

Lesson 4: Mandango Marc also struts his stuff by way of substituting with symbols from which water runs like fountains and long, long rivers.

Lesson 5: Probably what we know him best for are the finest things of dreams: that which elevates like an erection—flying couples, Pegasus, Jesus, and, well, cocks.

Happy Birthday, Marc! We finally acknowledge you for all your glory.

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