The "Hey I heard ... on npr" thread

[Σ]

Yeah, I'm gonna go ahead and make this thread. This is a story I heard on the way home from work. I found it inspiring, its about a guy who sings Sinatra in his community square or some shit:

Full text:http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/75/transcript
Full audio:http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/75/kindness-of-strangers

Act Four. Chairman Of The Block.
Ira Glass

Act Four, Chairman of the Block. This story takes place almost around the corner from Starlee's apartment building, just a few blocks away. It's about one small act of kindness leading somewhere completely unexpected. A resident of the neighborhood, Blake Eskin, tells the story.
Blake Eskin

About a month ago, I went out one Friday evening with a friend in the East Village, where we both live. On the street, we heard Frank Sinatra music blasting loud enough to wake the neighbors.
Nick Drakides

[SINGING "YOUNG AT HEART"]
Blake Eskin

As we reached Fourth Street, I saw 100 people huddled around the stoop of a sixth floor tenement. Most of them were post-college, pre-childbearing types. Plus there were some older people who probably lived on the block. Everyone seemed to have forgotten where they were headed, whether to a party or to another bar or back to bed.

A short, dark-haired guy in a suit stood at the top of the stoop holding a microphone. At first, I thought maybe the guy was lip syncing because he sounded exactly like Sinatra. But after a few seconds, I realized he was doing the crooning himself. The guy looked a little like Sinatra, and he moved like him too. But this was no run-of-the-mill Sinatra impersonator. It was as if he was possessed by the spirit of Sinatra, channeling the Chairman of the Board, that Frank himself had emerged from retirement, dyed his hair black again, and was with us on Fourth Street.
Nick Drakides

[SINGING "THE LADY IS A TRAMP"] Come over here, Susan!
Blake Eskin

At the bottom of the stoop was someone you would not ordinarily see with Frank Sinatra. An older woman with spiky salt-and-pepper hair and a leopard print vest was doing a spirited if slightly awkward tap dance on a piece of wood she had dragged out onto the sidewalk.

After my initial confusion, and my subsequent bliss, my next reaction was to wonder how this was possible. Where were the cops? The 9th Precinct is a block away, and New Yorkers are quick to complain about noise. And Mayor Rudolph Giuliani has made it a priority for the police to crack down on what he calls "quality of life violations" like these, noise, crowds, blocking traffic, drinking in the street.

But on Fourth Street, everything was copasetic. And it still is. Somehow, by some quirk of fate, the show outside 124 East Fourth Street has happened five Fridays in a row. The singer, Nick Drakides, lives on the first floor of the building. And the tap dancer, Laraine Goodman, lives on four. Gary and Wanda, who run the garden-level thrift shop, put their merchandise, the chairs and overstuffed couches, on the sidewalk for the audience's comfort.

Nick Drakides and Laraine Goodman are neighbors. And like most people who live in the same building, they didn't know much about each other. Laraine did know, however, that Nick had a big jazz record collection. Five weeks ago, Laraine decided she wanted to tap dance in front of the building, as a sort of therapy, she says. And she reached out to Nick, asking him to play some tunes while she tap danced that weekend.
Nick Drakides

What happened was, I was coming home-- I'll tell you exactly what happened. I was coming home that Friday evening around 9:00 and I forgot her name. And I'm walking down Fourth Street from Second Avenue. And I'm like, oh, there she is tapping, and I don't want to do this. I'm tired. I'm like [SIGH]. And then I had to reach for her name in my little-- what's this thing-- pocket day timer. And I'm like, OK, it's Laraine.

Then I walk down the street, and I say, hi, Laraine, how are you? And she goes, oh come on out Nick and join me, blah, blah, blah. And I think she assumed I'll bring out some music. That was it. I don't think she was expecting a suit and microphone stand and the PA, the CDs, the cassettes, the whole number.

Thanks to Laraine Goodman. This is the brains behind this wonderful event here. Say good evening, Laraine.
Laraine Goodman

Good evening, Laraine.
Blake Eskin

Nick's initial gesture of kindness to Laraine, a near stranger, made her into a local celebrity and made himself into an even bigger one. There were only a handful of people watching Laraine tap dance when Nick went outside with his instant Sinatra kit, which includes a few CDs from a series called Pocket Songs. The discs have the full Sinatra arrangements without a vocalist. The slogan is "You Sing the Hits."

Nick began with "I've Got the World on a String." The crowd built steadily. And right away, Nick had the crowd on a string, standing on the stoop, had the string around his finger. What a world.
Nick Drakides

[SINGING "I'VE GOT THE WORLD ON A STRING"]
Blake Eskin

Nick showed me a picture taken when he was 15. He's wearing a tuxedo, his hair parted to the side, standing at a microphone and pointing back at the camera. It is a picture of a 15-year-old boy from Poughkeepsie, New York in Frank Sinatra drag.
Nick Drakides

Basically, what I'm doing right now, I have been into since I was a kid, since I was 10 years old.
Blake Eskin

Nick trained as a jazz vocalist at Boston's Berklee College of Music, moved to New York, and after a while he found a job with the Starlight Orchestra, a 16-piece band that performs at high society weddings and corporate events. The Starlight Orchestra has five vocalists, and Nick is their Sinatra specialist.

Each of us in the audience had been lured by the improbability of the situation, but Nick's stage presence kept us there. Most street performers in New York go where the tourists go, since most of us natives are too busy to stop and listen. Nick singing from his stoop, however, was a gift to his own neighborhood. Nick really knows how to work a room, even when it's not a room. He weaves his neighbor's names into the lyrics.
Nick Drakides

--anytime he moves his-- that's Brendan, our lovely neighbor here. Lucky me-- how ya doin' Richie-- can't you see I'm in love?
Blake Eskin

He plugs Gary and Wanda's thrift shop and thanks them for their help. He salutes a couple watching from a nearby fire escape. He dedicates "Witchcraft" to a pretty blonde standing in the back row and flirts with her at the end of the song.
Nick Drakides

[SINGING "WITCHCRAFT"] Ooh! I got a crush on you too, baby. Ooh, you're a fine witch!
Blake Eskin

Just like Frank would have done. Now, it's a safe bet that if Nick and Laraine had been break dancing or playing conga drums, the police would have shut them down in 20 minutes, tops. But the officers of the 9th Precinct fell under the same spell as the rest of us. And they couldn't bring themselves to get out of the patrol car to enforce the mayor's quality of life rules.
Nick Drakides

The first week they would circle around the block, speak through their megaphone. They would say, people, please don't block the streets. Please keep the streets clear. And that was it. That was the first week. The second week they requested "Summer Wind."
Blake Eskin

They requested "Summer Wind" through the megaphone?
Nick Drakides

Yes, through the megaphone as they were passing. The third week, the police came and they stopped their car, held up traffic, and they said, OK, "Summer Wind." They wanted to hear "Summer Wind." So I finished "Night and Day." I put "Summer Wind" on. And I went up on the steps. They manipulated their lights on the top and threw a white spotlight on me. And I started singing "Summer Wind." The crowd went crazy. They went nuts. And they were really into it. it's that whole New York, macho Italian, police, Irish, street-- it is, man. And evidently, what I'm doing, they connect with that.

[SINGING "SUMMER WIND"]
Blake Eskin

Of course they do. So do the black men with dreadlocks, the young white guys in Wu-Tang Clan t-shirts, the teenagers immersed in the swing lounge scene, the pot-bellied Italian men of a certain age smoking cigars. And sitting front row center, wearing a party colored muu-muu, Nick's next door neighbor Jean, who has lived at 124 East Fourth Street for the last 48 years. For all of them and for me, there is something about Frank Sinatra and something about how Nick Drakides interprets Frank Sinatra that bewitches us, that touches us.
Nick Drakides

There's a guy who lives next door. And he embraced me. He hugged me, this old Chinese guy, man, with a hearing aid. I'm like, I touched this guy. And I don't how I did it, but I did it.
Blake Eskin

For any New Yorker to do something as big as this for his neighbors again and again is more than an anomaly. It is as rare and unstable as the elements at the bottom of the periodic table. The key ingredients of this event, neighborliness, generosity, free time, good weather, cooperative police officers, are hard to come by in this city. And they are nearly impossible to find together in the same place week after week. The Nick and Laraine show has had a longer run than anyone could expect. And something-- rain or the first frost or the 9th precinct or a Friday night gig with the Starlight Orchestra-- will soon bring it to a halt.

There's a gossip columnist in the New York Post named Cindy Adams. And it is tempting to resort to her mantra "only in New York folks, only in New York" to explain this phenomenon. But in Nick's case, the wisdom of Cindy Adams does not suffice. This is not the stuff of New York, not of the real New York or even of the New York of a bygone era, but of a mythical movie New York, a lower east side block built on a studio back lot. It is the first reel of an unknown MGM musical from just after the war, and it stars Nick Drakides. What happens in the rest of the film is anyone's guess.

[MUSIC - "STRANGERS IN THE NIGHT" BY FRANK SINATRA]
Ira Glass

Blake Eskin in New York.
Credits.
Ira Glass

Well, our program was produced today by Nancy Updike and myself, with Alix Spiegel and Julie Snyder. Senior editor for this episode of our show is Paul Tough. Seth Lind is our production manager. Production help from Rachel Day, Aaron Scott, and WHYY in Philadelphia.

[ACKNOWLEDGMENTS]

This American Life is distributed by Public Radio International.

[FUNDING CREDITS]

WBEZ management oversight for our program by our boss, Mr. Torey Malatia, who says, no, no, no, no. Do it like this.
Joel Kostman

Move it up and down slowly, bobbing the end of the tool slightly from side to side.
Ira Glass

I'm Ira Glass. Back next week with more stories of This American Life.
Announcer

PRI, Public Radio International.
© 1997 Chicago Public Media & Ira Glass

[Arnox]

Wait, so what's NPR? I'm confused.

[Σ]

National Public Radio brah.

check it out: http://www.npr.org/

[Arnox]

I see. Well that certainly is inspiring to say the least. Everyone thinks that this world is full of terrible people but if you look closely, you'll definitely see the good too.

[buddha]

Dude, give us some fucking clue, one line at least to tell us what the fuck it's about. TL/DR no one is going to read all that just to find out it some silly ass fucking story they could give two fucks less about.

[Infinityshock]

I see. Well that certainly is inspiring to say the least. Everyone thinks that this world is full of terrible people but if you look closely, you'll definitely see the good too.

thats because the world is full of terrible people.

[Arnox]

thats because the world is full of terrible people.

Well, I can say you're existence certainly isn't helping matters, that's for sure.

[Infinityshock]

of course it is.  if it werent for me there wouldnt be a good example of a bad example

[burroughs]

Dude, give us some fucking clue, one line at least to tell us what the fuck it's about. TL/DR no one is going to read all that just to find out it some silly ass fucking story they could give two fucks less about.

LOL this.

NPR, Arnox, is an outlet for upper class white liberals to hear about all the injustice in the world, and what other good upper class white liberals are doing about it. This way they (the listeners) feel good about themselves without actually fucking doing anything.

[Zanick]

Dude, give us some fucking clue, one line at least to tell us what the fuck it's about. TL/DR no one is going to read all that just to find out it some silly ass fucking story they could give two fucks less about.

LOL this.

NPR, Arnox, is an outlet for upper class white liberals to hear about all the injustice in the world, and what other good upper class white liberals are doing about it. This way they (the listeners) feel good about themselves without actually fucking doing anything.

As an upper-middle class white liberal, I can confirm that this is exactly how we use the radio.

The other day I heard a story about a woman in South America who was arrested for murder because she had a miscarriage. She collapsed in a puddle of prenatal blood and feces in front of the toilet and woke up handcuffed to a hospital bed with passive-aggressive nurses giving her shit for her abortion. After that we heard about a single mother with no arms. That was some good stuff, but I really was waiting for Ken Nordine's Word Jazz.

[millionsofdeadcats]

I am just going to stay out of this thread.  I am sure you all can fill in yourselves what I dearly want to say, but why bother, you people listen to fucking NPR.......You are lost for all time.

[Zanick]

I find it soothing. Sometimes when I'm upset, I'll put it on just to hear the hurried British accents reporting on market trends, academic scandals and uprising in the Ukraine. It helps me forget my white man problems.

[Rizzo in a box]

Ugh, NPR. actually just ugh radio

[Infinityshock]

NPR is getting ridiculous about their multiculturalism promotion.  Im sick of hearing about spics and nigs every other news story.

[Piles of SSRIs]

I listen to NPR for the same reason I listen to Michael Savage, it's all for entertainment. I never really retain anything I learn from listening to them, I do remember a segment about patent trolling which was pretty interesting. Fake companies buy up patents to sue other companies for patent infringement, it's pretty fucked. I can't stand Diane Rehm and her ghastly voice, I thought that maybe she had a stroke and everyone just felt sorry for her so they gave her a show but that is not the case so it really is beyond me as to why they would ever give that woman airtime.