Why Aren't I Famous? with Jed Wolf

This episode contains a depiction of childhood sexual abuse.

Late fall at Barlow. The boy has a new rabbit named Lapin, a pack of dogs, and a growing list of adults whose attention makes him uneasy. The math teacher lingers at the sink. The maintenance man stops his tractor to stare. Caught in an early snowstorm miles from campus, he stumbles back barefoot and half-frozen, just as a familiar Volkswagen stops at the foot of the hill....

Barlow School, 1970. A boy arrives at a hippie boarding school in Dutchess County, New York and would rather starve than choose a seat in the dining hall. Instead he walks. He walks with faculty dogs, past a luna moth and a housemaster with an inhaler, through an Outward Bound orientation and barefoot down a mountain trail until discovering his body can dance. He finds an empty auditorium and a concert grand left unlocked. For the ...

A neglected toddler is found in a storm drain. It isn't the most promising start to a life, but it turns out to be a useful one for a boy who will spend a lifetime trying to be heard. This is the opening chapter of Storm Drain Symphony: A Musical Memoir about Mattering, a thru-scored audio memoir about growing up closeted, becoming a songwriter, and learning, very slowly, to stop hiding.

The complete audiobook, 39 cha...

Morning. The fire's out and Ernest is gone. Honey has spent the night reading what Darling wrote on the phone he wasn't supposed to have: a memoir about his family, called NDA. It turns out to be the first thing that has ever made her feel seen. There are tears, then laughter, then more of both while they pack. He's probably going to jail for publishing it. She's going to run for Congress. And on the walk out, Darling has a gr...

Act Two. The upgrade has gone through. The ghosts come back to the campsite in premium avatars that finally work, with steady hands and the voices, poise, and polish they paid for. For a while, it's convincing. Then Harvey's avatar starts slipping. In the middle of his perfect, clipped sentences, pieces of an old song Harvey never finished keep breaking through. The avatar can do everything Harvey couldn't, except stop being Harvey...

Out in the woods, the two ghosts have been watching the campers and are not impressed with their own progress. Their budget androids aren't cutting it. The premium upgrade would get them closer to who they meant to be, but only for a month, and only if Harvey stops hedging and spends the money. Mystiq sings him the case for growing a pair. It works, more or less. Then, somewhere between the sales pitch and the fine print, she lets ...

Back at the campfire, Honey hangs up on her mother just before Darling can catch her with a phone. To change the subject, she compliments his pen-and-ink drawings, which are actually good. He waves that off because he has a better idea: a ghost story. Honey responds the way any aspiring songwriter would, with a song made entirely of clichés. Neither of them notices that the most talented person at this campsite just shrugged off hi...

Four actors alone in four corners of the woods: two campers, two ghosts. For one song, none of them is talking to anyone else. Darling, alone in the chair with his hammer, stops being polite and admits he wants to be heard. Honey steps away to call her mother, announces she's a songwriter now, and gets the reaction you'd expect. Then the ghosts join in. It's the one moment in the show where everyone says what they actually want, an...

Two backpackers, Honey and Darling, have sworn off their phones for the weekend. Now they're alone in the woods with nothing to scroll and no idea what to say to each other. She went viral once and would like to again. He's tender, literal, and badly needs a bathroom. Somewhere between a card game and a song about toilet paper, something in the woods takes a brief interest in Darling. Honey doesn't notice. She's busy writing lyrics...