Starting From Scratch

从头开始

This American Life

2025-09-01

1 小时 0 分钟
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People starting over—sometimes because they want to, other times because they have to. Visit thisamericanlife.org/lifepartners to sign up for our premium subscription. Prologue: Host Ira Glass talks to Jorge Just, who thought he'd started over successfully. He'd moved to New York, found an apartment that everyone told him was a great deal, things were looking good. Then a reality television show visited his building. (8 minutes)Act One: Molly FitzSimons tells the story of her father starting over. After 25 years in the same zip code, as an executive in the same company, he moved to Los Angeles and tried to start over in a new life with a new venture: A cable channel, with no people, no talking, no plots, but lots and lots of puppies. (15 minutes)Act Two: Mary Beth Kirchner documents one day in the life of a hustler named Joe, who wakes up every morning broke, hustles as much as $10,000 during the day and then loses most of it by the time he goes to bed. What it's like to start from scratch every day of your life. (18 minutes)Act Three: Jonathan Goldstein reads a story about the first people to ever start from scratch, a couple named Adam and Eve. (14 minutes)Transcripts are available at thisamericanlife.org This American Life privacy policy. Learn more about sponsor message choices.
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  • Things were just starting to look up for Jorge when the thing with the TV happened.

  • He'd just moved to a new town, started his life over, found some work, got a place.

  • Years of searching around and vagueness were ending.

  • It's going well.

  • Like, the way that I'm procrastinating now is by, like, doing work, you know?

  • You know, I'm coming into my own.

  • Like, I feel good.

  • I'm paying bills relatively on time.

  • He'd moved to New York City, which was scary,

  • and lucked into an apartment that real New Yorkers told him was a find,

  • a little studio in the East Village, one room, good location, cheap.

  • And then one night he's sitting at his table watching The Bachelorette on TV.

  • And it's the episode where The Bachelorette has whittled it down to four guys that she's going to pick one from eventually.

  • And she's in New York City visiting one of the potentials.

  • And, you know, she goes out to dinner with his family and they're, you know, they eat and, you know,

  • they've got the shifty-eyed sister and, you know,

  • like, everybody's family acts the exact same way, you know?

  • Right.

  • And then they get in the limousine and they decide to go back to his apartment.

  • Now, like, now I'm...