The Story

When other kids were out riding bikes, Anthony Mangieri was in his grandmother’s kitchen experimenting with ancient dough leavening methods. Now he makes some of the best pizzas in the country. Also in this show: A trip to the Capitol Pool Checkers Club where men with nicknames like the Hammer, the Pressure Man, and the Razor gather to play checkers; and how one woman stopped being a ring girl, and started treating the wounds of boxers.

In his six-month project to offer help to anyone, the Free Help Guy has been asked to give a tour of London, to allow a hypnotist to hypnotize him – and a few favors he’s had to decline. Also in this show: listeners respond to the story of Adam Davis, an adjunct professor who says he’d make more money working at Starbucks; and Tio Hardiman, director of Ceasefire Illinois, says violence is down in the past weeks and he credits intensive one-on-one mediation.

A photographer, a helicopter pilot, and an emergency room manager talk about their lives since the devastating tornado in Moore. Also in this show: Host Dick Gordon speaks with Ahmed Errachidi, a Moroccan chef who was held in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, for five-and-a-half years under suspicion that he had ties with al-Qaeda; A former inmate at the U.S. Disciplinary Barracks at Ft. Leavenworth, Kan., on being held at a facility run by the same guards who work at the Guantanamo Bay detention camp; how the world’s biggest diamond robber’s escape was undone by a half-eaten salami sandwich.

Tommy McKearney, a former prisoner and IRA fighter, tells host Dick Gordon about the Irish Republican Army hunger strikes in Northern Ireland in the 1980s – and his own 53 days without food. Also in this show: When Japanese Americans were freed from World War II internment camps, the government surplus foods they’d been fed found their way into their kitchens; and the story of a popular Asian fusion restaurant that started off in a backyard.

Chris Dancy is wired up to measure himself every moment of every work day, and says keeping metrics on himself has made him a better employee and will be a tool for the future of the workplace. Also in this show: Roman Mars of the 99% Invisible podcast looks back to a time when we sent information using pneumatic  tubes - the kind you might still see in a drive through bank; and host Dick Gordon checks in with Ben Harris and Scott Haren, who suffer from ALS and have tried to make their own medicine to stop the progress of their disease.