338: The Spokesman - This American Life
You are using an outdated browser.
您正在使用过时的浏览器。
Please upgrade your browser or activate Google Chrome Frame to improve your experience.
请升级您的浏览器或激活 Google Chrome 浏览器内嵌框架以改善您的体验。
Sign up for a free Life Partners trial, and you can watch the video “A Night of Stories and Improv.”
注册免费试用《Life Partners》，您可以观看视频“故事与即兴表演之夜”。
00:00 00:00 Transcript Share This American Life Life Partners How to Listen Episodes Recommended About Overview Staff Announcements Fellowships Jobs Music Make Radio On The Road FAQ Submissions Merch Contact Us Our Other Shows Merch Follow Us Life Partners Subscribe to our newsletter Full episode Toggle Audio and Transcript Sync Transcript | Episode #338 | August 1, 2008 338: The Spokesman Note: This American Life is produced for the ear and designed to be heard.
00:00 00:00 文字记录 分享此 美国生活 生活伙伴 如何收听 剧集 推荐 关于 概述 员工公告 奖学金 工作 音乐 在路上制作电台 常见问题解答 提交 商品 联系我们 我们的其他节目 商品 关注我们 生活伙伴 订阅我们的时事通讯 整集 切换音频和文字记录同步 文字记录 | 内容第 338 集 | 2008 年 8 月 1 日 338：发言人注：《美国生活》是为耳朵而制作的，旨在让人们听到。
If you are able, we strongly encourage you to listen to the audio, which includes emotion and emphasis that's not on the page.
如果可以的话，我们强烈建议您收听音频，其中包括页面上没有的情感和重点。
Transcripts are generated using a combination of speech recognition software and human transcribers, and may contain errors.
文字记录是使用语音识别软件和人工转录员结合生成的，可能包含错误。
Please check the corresponding audio before quoting in print.
请在印刷版引用前检查相应的音频。
Prologue Ira Glass Adults don't understand anymore what it means to be a nerd.
序言 艾拉·格拉斯 成年人不再明白书呆子意味着什么。
Have you noticed this?
你注意到这一点了吗？
Nerd, somehow, has become a badge of honor.
不知何故，书呆子已经成为一种荣誉徽章。
You meet all kinds of people who say, proudly, that they were nerds in high school.
你会遇到各种各样的人，他们自豪地说自己在高中时是书呆子。
It's like anybody who had anything that made them feel different now says that they were a nerd.
就像任何一个拥有让自己感觉与众不同的东西的人现在都会说自己是个书呆子。
And that population-- the population that thinks that it was different-- that's like, everybody who went to high school.
而那些认为情况不同的人群——就像每个上过高中的人一样。
You know?
你知道？
People who were chubby, people who were in band, people who liked comic books, people who just didn't drink.
胖乎乎的人，乐队里的人，喜欢漫画书的人，就是不喝酒的人。
I've met people who were actually popular, who actually had a social circle and boyfriends or girlfriends, who now claim they were nerds.
我遇到过一些实际上很受欢迎的人，他们实际上有一个社交圈和男朋友或女朋友，但他们现在声称自己是书呆子。
That is just wrong.
那是错误的。
I believe that we have forgotten the sweaty, unsexy, cringe-inducing face of hard core nerdom.
我相信我们已经忘记了铁杆书呆子那张满头大汗、不性感、令人畏缩的脸。
I remember seeing a character on Beverly Hills 90210 wearing sports jackets to school.
我记得在比佛利山庄 90210 看到一个角色穿着运动夹克去学校。
And I decided that that was a cool thing to do, and that I would do that.
我认为这是一件很酷的事情，而且我会这么做。
And it was the sort of thing that nobody quite understood.
这是一种没有人完全理解的事情。
And everyone thought I was dressing up for something I had to go to after school.
每个人都认为我盛装打扮是为了放学后必须去的地方。
Everyone was sort of already tired of me at that point.
那时每个人都已经厌倦了我。
That's David Iserson.
那是大卫·伊森森。
When he was 13, David got a chance to change schools, leave the tiny school where everybody had known him since he was five, and start all over at a big public school where nobody knew him.
13 岁时，大卫得到了转学的机会，离开了从五岁起大家就认识他的小学校，来到一所没有人认识他的大型公立学校，重新开始。
And he had a very clear strategy for how he was going to create a glorious new life for himself.
对于如何为自己创造辉煌的新生活，他有一个非常清晰的策略。
I bore no illusions that I was going to be cool.
我不抱任何幻想，认为自己会变得很酷。
So my only goal was to be anonymous.
所以我唯一的目标就是匿名。
And I had some friends who were a year ahead of me in school.
我有一些朋友在学校里比我早一年。
And that was their advice to me.
这就是他们给我的建议。
Go in there.
进去吧。
Do not say a word.
不要说一句话。
Don't talk to anyone.
不要和任何人说话。
Don't go up to anyone.
不要去接近任何人。
Just sit in the back and stay anonymous.
只需坐在后面并保持匿名即可。
And that was my goal.
这就是我的目标。
That was actually a pretty exciting prospect, of just being somebody that people barely noticed.
这实际上是一个非常令人兴奋的前景，成为人们几乎没有注意到的人。
And for a few months it worked.
几个月来，它奏效了。
But David didn't just want to be invisible.
但大卫并不想只是隐形。
He also wanted to be an actor.
他也想成为一名演员。
I know.
我知道。
Complete contradiction.
完全矛盾。
He was 13, remember.
记住，他当时13岁。
He'd had a small part in Guys and Dolls at summer camp.
他在夏令营的《红男绿女》中扮演了一个小角色。
He played a boy who talked to whales in this tiny community theater.
他在这个小型社区剧院扮演一个与鲸鱼交谈的男孩。
And a couple times a week, his grandmother would drive him to auditions for TV commercials, though he never got cast in anything.
每周有几次，他的祖母会开车送他去参加电视广告的试镜，尽管他从未参加过任何演出。
Then, his dad came to him with a proposition.
然后，他的父亲向他提出了一个建议。
His dad worked in the family business, this furniture store called Silvert's Furniture.
他的父亲在家族企业工作，这家名为 Silvert's Furniture 的家具店。
And they'd just added a room full of desks, and beds, and shelving that was designed specifically for teenagers.
他们刚刚增加了一个房间，里面装满了专门为青少年设计的桌子、床和架子。
And for a while he had been doing the local television commercials for the store.
有一段时间，他一直在为这家商店拍摄当地电视广告。
So he said to me, "You want to be in commercials.
所以他对我说：“你想拍广告。
I have a great idea.
我有一个好主意。
You should do the commercial for our store." I think he may have even presented it like, you know, I'm only so good at this, but you are a talented young actor.
你应该为我们店拍广告。”我想他甚至可能会说，你知道，我在这方面就很擅长，但你是一位才华横溢的年轻演员。
So I think you should promote our room of teen furniture.
所以我认为你应该推销我们的青少年家具房间。
He was flattered.
他受宠若惊。
He was thrilled.
他很激动。
And they shot the ad.
他们拍摄了广告。
Which was a gas.
这是一种气体。
So a few weeks later, my dad brings it home.
几周后，我爸爸把它带回家。
And he's really, really excited about it.
他对此真的非常非常兴奋。
He talked to the guy, the director of it, and they both decided that this was a great commercial.
他和该片的导演交谈，他们都认为这是一个很棒的广告。
And so he gathered the family into the family room.
于是他把一家人召集到了客厅。
And he put on the VHS tape.
他放上了VHS录像带。
And he started the commercial.
他开始了广告。
And it didn't even have to run for a second before I just had this awful feeling in the pit of my stomach.
它甚至还没有运行一秒钟，我的胃里就有了这种可怕的感觉。
Like, this was horrible.
就像，这太可怕了。
I'm sure all your parents know about the great selection of furniture for them here at Silvert's in Freehold.
我相信您的父母都知道弗里霍尔德的 Silvert's 为他们提供的精选家具。
But they may not know about Silvert's huge selection of teen furniture.
但他们可能不知道 Silvert 拥有大量青少年家具可供选择。
After all, we need something that suits us too.
毕竟，我们也需要适合我们的东西。
Could you just describe what your hair cut looks like right here?
你能描述一下你的发型是什么样的吗？
Well, I was sort of fashion-- I guess what could be described as a pompadour.
嗯，我有点时尚——我想可以用蓬巴杜来形容。
I would describe you more as, like-- and I don't want this to sound harsh.
我更愿意将你描述为——我不希望这听起来很刺耳。
I mean this in a -- you look like Big Boy.
我的意思是——你看起来像个大男孩。
You know Big Boy?
你认识大男孩吗？
From the hamburger chain?
来自汉堡连锁店？
But with braces.
但带着牙套。
For somebody who wanted to stay invisible, it is hard to imagine how this particular ad could have been worse for him.
对于一个想隐身的人来说，很难想象这个特定的广告对他来说会更糟糕。
Everybody saw it.
大家都看到了。
In the commercial David has an air of perfectly cheerful naivete.
在广告中，大卫有一种非常开朗天真的气质。
In the first shot, he crosses the screen, careful to never stop facing the camera as he does this.
在第一个镜头中，他穿过屏幕，小心翼翼地始终面对镜头。
Cut to him putting his school books onto a table.
画面切换到他把课本放在桌子上。
Cut to him lying on a bed on his stomach.
画面切换到他俯卧在床上的画面。
In one shot he nods knowingly to the audience.
在一个镜头中，他故意向观众点头。
And furniture we feel comfortable just hanging out in.
还有让我们闲逛时感到舒适的家具。
Oh yeah, Silvert's has sets for you girls, too.
哦，是的，Silvert's 也为你们女孩们准备了套装。
So take your mom and dad--
所以带上你的妈妈和爸爸——
To stop it there-- I mean, I think that's the line.
到此为止——我的意思是，我认为这就是底线。
That's the line that killed me.
这就是杀死我的那句话。
"We have sets for you girls, too." If anyone was to watch that commercial-- and when anyone did watch that commercial, who went to school with me, or anything like that-- that's the big laugh line.
“我们也为你们女孩们准备了套装。”如果有人要观看该广告 - 当有人观看该广告时，谁和我一起上学，或类似的东西 - 这就是最大的笑点。
That's the thing bullies would say.
这就是恶霸会说的话。
You know, if I'm walking down the hall, and I hear someone say, "We have furniture for you girls, too," I know that I'm about to get shoved into a wall of lockers.
你知道，如果我走在大厅里，听到有人说，“我们也为你们准备了家具，女孩们，”我知道我即将被推到一堵储物柜墙上。
It was almost like my warning.
这几乎就像我的警告。
That's the line that ended up following me, basically, all through my adolescence.
这句话基本上贯穿了我整个青春期。
I have to say, when you say it, you give a little jaunty, over the shoulder, one thumb point.
我不得不说，当你说这句话的时候，你的语气里带着一丝快意，在肩膀上竖起了大拇指。
As I recall, that's how I was directed.
我记得，我就是这样被引导的。
And thank God they didn't use the take where I think I actually took a comb, and I combed it through my hair as I said it.
感谢上帝，他们没有使用我认为我实际上拿了一把梳子的地方，我一边说一边用它梳理我的头发。
Because if it could ever possibly be worse, it would have been worse by doing that.
因为如果事情可能变得更糟，那么这样做就会更糟。
And let's just describe what happens in the very last moment of the commercial.
让我们来描述一下广告最后一刻发生的事情。
So I'm saying my last little button on there.
所以我说的是我的最后一个小按钮。
And my dad walks in--
我爸爸走进来——
So take your mom and dad to Silvert's Furniture in downtown Freehold for all the furniture we need.
因此，带你的妈妈和爸爸去弗里霍尔德市中心的 Silvert's Furniture 购买我们需要的所有家具。
Thanks, Dave.
谢谢，戴夫。
I couldn't have said it better myself.
我自己说得再好不过了。
I'm smiling.
我在微笑。
He puts his hand on my shoulder.
他把手放在我的肩膀上。
I mean, it's like holding hands with your mom in the mall.
我的意思是，这就像在商场里和你妈妈牵手一样。
And the "Thanks, Dave.
还有“谢谢，戴夫。
I couldn't have said it better myself," was another line that got a lot of life out of it when I was walking through the halls of junior high school, and then later, high school.
我自己说得再好不过了。”这是另一句话，当我走过初中和后来的高中的大厅时，这句话给我带来了很多活力。
He says that a day did not go by for the next year without somebody mentioning the ad.
他说，接下来的一年里，没有一天没有人提到这则广告。
Strangers, his friends, even adults.
陌生人，他的朋友，甚至成年人。
One teacher tried to get him to quote the commercial in a school play.
一位老师试图让他引用学校戏剧中的广告。
The ad ran a lot during New York Rangers hockey games.
该广告在纽约游骑兵队曲棍球比赛期间多次播放。
If you know anything about Rangers fans, this is maybe the least hospitable possible audience for an ad featuring a pompadour-wearing 13-year-old.
如果你对流浪者队球迷有所了解，那么对于以梳着蓬巴杜发型的 13 岁青少年为主角的广告来说，这可能是最不热情的观众。
These huge guys, men, would stop David and make him perform the ad for their girlfriends.
这些大块头男人会阻止大卫，让他为他们的女朋友表演广告。
David always tried to protect himself by telling people that the stuff that he said in the commercial-- the way the he acted-- the store made him do all that.
大卫总是试图通过告诉人们他在广告中所说的话——他的行为方式——是商店让他这么做来保护自己的。
But, um, that wasn't true.
但是，嗯，那不是真的。
He had written the whole thing himself.
整件事都是他自己写的。
And when he watched the ad, it was actually a profound thing for him.
而当他看到这个广告的时候，对他来说其实是一件意义深远的事情。
He thought, this is how I seem to people?
他想，这就是我在人们眼中的样子吗？
This is how it comes across when I talk?
我说话的时候就是这样的？
My big fear was that they were all right, that everything they were making fun of was true.
我最担心的是他们没事，他们取笑的一切都是真的。
That that was me.
那就是我。
Like I'd presented myself, and that was me.
就像我展示自己一样，那就是我。
Do you think it was you?
你以为是你吗？
When you shot the commercial, you thought it was good.
当你拍广告的时候，你觉得很好。
You wrote the commercial.
你写了广告。
I mean, truthfully, I think it was me.
我的意思是，说实话，我认为是我。
I think it was me.
我想是我。
I think as bad as it was, yeah, that was me.
我认为尽管情况很糟糕，是的，那就是我。
It's unbelievably worse.
情况更糟得令人难以置信。
Because you can't escape that reputation even when you're alone.
因为即使你独自一人，你也无法摆脱这个名声。
But whatever it did to his personal life and to the way that he saw himself, the ad worked.
但无论这对他的个人生活和他看待自己的方式有何影响，这则广告都发挥了作用。
It got people into the store.
才把人带进了店里。
It ran for years.
它运行了很多年。
He was a successful spokesman, which is the subject of today's program.
他是一位成功的发言人，这就是今天节目的主题。
From Chicago Public Radio, it's This American Life , distributed by Public Radio International.
这是芝加哥公共广播电台的《This American Life》，由国际公共广播电台发行。
I'm Ira Glass.
我是艾拉·格拉斯。
Today on our show, The Spokesman.
今天我们的节目《发言人》。
A program in three acts.
节目分为三幕。
We have a story where some people refuse to believe that a certain spokesman is an actual, real person.
我们有一个故事，有些人拒绝相信某个发言人是真实存在的人。
Adamantly refuse, to the point where it becomes a real public fight.
坚决拒绝，以至于变成一场真正的公开斗争。
That story from Jon Ronson, in Act One.
第一幕中乔恩·罗森的故事。
In Act Two, we have the story of a teenage spokesman whose private life is the exact opposite, almost, of what he seems like in public.
在第二幕中，我们讲述了一位青少年发言人的故事，他的私生活与他在公共场合的形象几乎完全相反。
And in Act Three, a very unusual look inside the life of a presidential spokesman.
在第三幕中，我们对一位总统发言人的生活进行了非常不寻常的观察。
Stay with us.
留在我们身边。
Act One, What Part of "Bomb" Don't You Understand?" Jon Ronson has this story about somebody who becomes a spokesperson entirely by accident.
第一幕，“炸弹”的哪一部分你不明白吗？”乔恩·罗森讲述了一个完全偶然成为代言人的故事。
A quick warning to people who are listening to our show on the internet, on our podcast or by streaming.
向在互联网、播客或流媒体上收听我们节目的人们发出快速警告。
For the internet version of this show, we have left in-- this is an experiment for us-- we have left in one curse word that occurs at a crucial moment in the story.
对于这个节目的网络版本，我们留下了——这是我们的一个实验——我们留下了一个在故事的关键时刻出现的咒语。
Versus the broadcast version, where we bleeped it out.
与广播版本相比，我们用哔声将其消除。
Here's Jon.
这是乔恩。
One morning two years ago, Rachel North, who works in advertising, got on the Piccadilly Line tube at Finsbury Park, in north London.
两年前的一天早上，从事广告工作的雷切尔·诺斯 (Rachel North) 在伦敦北部的芬斯伯里公园 (Finsbury Park) 乘坐皮卡迪利线 (Piccadilly Line) 地铁。
It was the most rammed carriage I have ever been on in my entire life of using that line.
这是我使用这条线路一生中乘坐过的最受撞击的车厢。
And more and more people were pushing on and on.
越来越多的人不断前行。
And I was sitting there thinking, this is ridiculous.
我坐在那里想，这太荒谬了。
And the train trundled off.
火车缓缓开走了。
And we'd been going for about 45 seconds, and then there was this explosion.
我们持续了大约 45 秒，然后发生了爆炸。
I was about seven or eight feet away from it.
我离它大约有七八英尺远。
So I felt this huge power smashing me to the floor.
于是我就感觉到这股巨大的力量将我砸倒在地。
And everything went dark.
一切都变暗了。
And you could hear the brakes screaming, and it was racketing around.
你可以听到刹车的尖叫声，周围的噪音。
It was about being on an out of control fairground ride, but in the dark.
这是关于在黑暗中进行一次失控的游乐场骑行。
And it was very hot.
而且天气非常热。
You couldn't breathe at all.
你根本无法呼吸。
The air was just completely thick with smoke.
空气中充满了浓浓的烟雾。
And I was suddenly wet, completely wet.
我突然湿了，完全湿了。
And I was on the floor.
我躺在地板上。
And there were people lying on top of me.
还有人躺在我身上。
And then the screaming started.
然后尖叫声开始了。
Three years earlier, Rachel had been violently attacked by a stranger in her home.
三年前，雷切尔在家中遭到陌生人的暴力袭击。
In July, 2005, she wrote an article about the attack in Marie Claire magazine.
2005年7月，她在《嘉人》杂志上发表了一篇有关此次袭击的文章。
That's what she was doing the moment the bomb exploded, standing on a packed tube train, reading the Marie Claire article about her violent attack.
这就是炸弹爆炸时她正在做的事情，站在拥挤的地铁上，阅读《嘉人》杂志上关于她的暴力袭击的文章。
As she lay on the ground she thought, not again.
当她躺在地上时，她想，不要再这样了。
We started to evacuate the train.
我们开始疏散火车。
And I was one of the last people to get off.
我是最后下车的人之一。
And as I went to leave, I did a quick sweep around behind me.
当我准备离开时，我快速扫视了一下身后。
And I did see some of what had happened, yes.
我确实看到了发生的一些事情，是的。
And that has stayed with me, because I still worry whether I should have stayed and tried to help people, even though it was really dark and all I could see was that there was some bent metal, there was people on the floor, there was-- I won't say what I saw, but it was pretty horrific.
这一直困扰着我，因为我仍然担心我是否应该留下来并试图帮助人们，尽管当时真的很黑，我只能看到一些弯曲的金属，地板上有人，还有——我不会说我看到了什么，但这非常可怕。
26 people died in my carriage.
我的车厢里有26人死亡。
It should have been more, but because the carriage was so packed-- what happened was the people who were very close to the bomb got the full blast.
本来应该更多，但是因为车厢太挤了——结果是离炸弹很近的人受到了全面的爆炸。
And then the people who were about three, four yards away from the bomb got very bad lower limb injuries.
然后距离炸弹大约三四码的人的下肢受到了严重的伤害。
There had been three simultaneous bomb explosions on London Underground trains around 9:00 AM and one more on a bus an hour later.
上午 9:00 左右，伦敦地铁上同时发生了三起炸弹爆炸事件，一小时后一辆公共汽车上又发生了一起爆炸事件。
56 people were killed, including the four suicide bombers who were all from England, and one was a primary school teacher.
造成56人死亡，其中4名自杀式炸弹袭击者均来自英国，其中一名是一名小学教师。
700 people were injured.
700人受伤。
Rachel had a bad gash full of glass on her wrist, which was so deep she could see her bone.
雷切尔的手腕上有一道严重的伤口，里面充满了玻璃，伤口很深，她可以看到她的骨头。
But she was what paramedics call walking wounded.
但她是医护人员所说的行走伤员。
When she got home from the hospital a few hours later, she took a shower and tried to sleep.
几个小时后，当她从医院回到家时，她洗了个澡，试图睡觉。
But she couldn't.
但她不能。
So instead she got up and went online to her favorite web site, a large London community message board.
于是，她起身上网访问她最喜欢的网站——伦敦的一个大型社区留言板。
There were hundreds of messages about the bombs already.
已经有数百条关于炸弹的消息。
But none had been written by someone who had actually been a passenger on a bombed train.
但没有一篇是由曾是被炸火车上的乘客所写的。
She began posting.
她开始发帖。
"Thursday, 7th of July, one minute to 11.
“7 月 7 日，星期四，差 11 点 1 分钟。
I was on a crowded train to work.
我乘坐拥挤的火车去上班。
It was 8:40 AM when I boarded the Grand Piccadilly Line train at Finsbury Park--"
当我在芬斯伯里公园登上皮卡迪利线大火车时，时间是上午 8 点 40 分——”
She wrote and wrote, day after day.
她写呀写，日复一日。
A flood of blog postings.
大量的博客帖子。
The BBC discovered her blog and published it on their website.
英国广播公司发现了她的博客并将其发布在他们的网站上。
Her accounts of the July 7 bombings became one of the most read, and most beautifully written, on the internet.
她对 7 月 7 日爆炸事件的描述成为互联网上阅读量最大、文笔最优美的内容之一。
"Saturday, 9th of July.
“7 月 9 日，星期六。
Yesterday was a weird day.
昨天是奇怪的一天。
Couldn't stop watching news.
根本停不下来看新闻。
When I started hearing the bomb was in my carriage, I flipped.
当我听到炸弹在我的车厢里时，我惊慌失措。
I started pacing about.
我开始踱步。
I was alternately pounding with anger and adrenaline and having mini flashbacks, then feeling falling over tired.
我时而感到愤怒，时而肾上腺素激增，时而出现一些短暂的闪回，然后感到疲惫不堪。
I drank several whiskeys.
我喝了几杯威士忌。
My sister came to visit--"
我姐姐来拜访——”
I didn't see it as putting myself into the public eye as a spokesperson at all.
我根本不认为这是让自己作为发言人进入公众视野。
I just wrote about it.
我刚刚写过。
It was a way of disentangling all these horrible memories that were keeping me up at night.
这是一种解开所有这些让我彻夜难眠的可怕记忆的方法。
And by typing them down, it was like cleaning a wound.
把它们写下来就像清理伤口一样。
I was picking all the grit and the smoke out of my mind.
我正在清除脑海中所有的沙砾和烟雾。
Rachel started getting emails from other survivors who had seen her blog.
雷切尔开始收到其他看过她博客的幸存者发来的电子邮件。
These were people like her, who had walked away that day in a daze, and just tried to get on with their lives.
这些人就像她一样，那天茫然地走开，只是想继续他们的生活。
But they discovered they were experiencing much the same post traumatic symptoms.
但他们发现他们经历了几乎相同的创伤后症状。
There were people saying that they were unable to feel any joy in being alive.
有人说，他们无法感受到活着的乐趣。
Every time they went to sleep, they would have nightmares.
每次睡觉的时候，他们都会做噩梦。
They would have nightmares of banging their hands against the glass of the train, battering away, trying to smash their way out of this train that was filled with smoke.
他们会做噩梦，用手敲打火车的玻璃，猛烈地撞击，试图从这辆充满烟雾的火车中挣脱出来。
And a lot of people thought they were going to burn to death.
许多人认为他们会被烧死。
And they couldn't get out.
他们无法出去。
There was no way of escaping.
无路可逃。
And they all thought they were literally going to die entombed.
他们都认为自己真的会被埋葬而死。
And none of us expected it.
我们谁也没想到会这样。
We were just on the way to work.
我们当时正在上班的路上。
Rachel organized for them all to meet in a pub together once a month.
雷切尔组织他们每个月在酒吧聚会一次。
They formed a kind of unofficial support group and called themselves Kings Cross United.
他们成立了一个非官方的支持团体，并称自己为“国王十字联”。
The media found out about them and thought it was a good story.
媒体发现了他们，并认为这是一个好故事。
So they needed a spokesman.
所以他们需要一个发言人。
Rachel had a background in advertising, and now she was quite a famous blogger.
Rachel有广告背景，现在是一位相当有名的博主。
And she was able to hold it together in public.
她能够在公共场合保持一致。
So she was the obvious candidate.
所以她是显而易见的候选人。
She carried on writing her blog.
她继续写博客。
And this is when it started getting a bit strange.
这就是事情开始变得有点奇怪的时候。
People she didn't know began posting weird, cryptic comments she didn't quite understand on her site.
她不认识的人开始在她的网站上发表她不太理解的奇怪、神秘的评论。
You can install a thing that tells you where your visitors are coming from called Site Meter.
您可以安装一个名为“站点计量器”的东西来告诉您访问者来自哪里。
I noticed a few weeks after installing that, I seemed to be getting an awful lot of hits from a particular website.
我注意到安装几周后，我似乎从某个特定网站获得了大量点击。
So I went to look to the website.
于是我就去网站上看了一下。
And I was interested to discover that somebody on that website had taken my original account of the bombs, and was claiming that it was actually a description of a power surge, which I found very strange, because a power surge doesn't rip people's limbs off and kill people.
我很感兴趣地发现，那个网站上有人抄袭了我对炸弹的原始描述，并声称这实际上是对电涌的描述，我觉得这很奇怪，因为电涌不会扯断人的四肢并杀死人。
There's a small but loud group of July 7 conspiracy theorists who believe that an accidental power surge had coursed through the London Underground that day, and that the British government wanted to cover up this corporate manslaughter by blaming it on Islamic suicide bombers.
有一小群 7 月 7 日阴谋论者，他们相信伦敦地铁当天发生了一次意外的电涌，英国政府希望通过将这起企业过失杀人事件归咎于伊斯兰自杀式炸弹袭击者来掩盖这一事件。
On the site that Rachel found, a poster had quoted one of her original descriptions of her experience, where she writes about the electricity being cut out and the train descending into total darkness.
在雷切尔发现的网站上，一张海报引用了她对自己经历的最初描述，其中她写到电力被切断，火车陷入完全黑暗。
The poster used her writing as evidence to support this power surge theory.
发帖者用她的写作作为支持这种电涌理论的证据。
As Rachel read all of this stuff, she wondered how they'd account for the bus bombing.
当雷切尔读到所有这些东西时，她想知道他们如何解释公共汽车爆炸事件。
And then she found it.
然后她找到了。
The conspiracy theorists maintained that the bus on Tavistock Square didn't really explode.
阴谋论者坚称塔维斯托克广场上的巴士并没有真正爆炸。
It was actually a fake stunt using fancy pyrotechnics and stuntmen and actors.
这实际上是一个使用奇特烟火、特技演员和演员的假特技表演。
Which I thought was just obscene, given that, by that stage, I had met people who had lost loved ones on that bus.
我认为这简直是淫秽，因为在那个阶段，我已经遇到了在那辆公共汽车上失去亲人的人。
To call the people on the bus, who died, actors and stuntmen, was, I thought, quite abhorrent.
我认为，称呼公交车上死去的人为演员和替身演员是非常可恶的。
And the people who were spreading these theories, had they brought you into it at this point?
那些传播这些理论的人，他们在这个时候把你带入其中了吗？
They were just quoting me, as if I had--
他们只是引用我的话，就好像我——
Confirmed it.
确认了。
Rachel North Confirmed it.
雷切尔·诺斯证实了这一点。
And so Rachel felt uncontrollably compelled to do something unwise.
因此，雷切尔感到无法控制地被迫做出一些不明智的事情。
She decided to jump into the fray, jump into the lives of the internet conspiracy theorists.
她决定加入这场争论，进入互联网阴谋论者的生活。
She decided to get involved, and try and convince them that their theories weren't true.
她决定参与其中，并尝试让他们相信他们的理论并不正确。
He was inviting comments on his website.
他正在他的网站上邀请评论。
So I dived in, and I read all his stuff.
所以我一头扎进去，读了他所有的东西。
And then I came up for air.
然后我浮出水面呼吸空气。
And then I left a very angry comment going, how dare you misquote me in this way.
然后我留下了一条非常愤怒的评论，你怎么敢这样错误地引用我的话。
Power surges do not tear people's legs off.
电涌不会把人的腿扯断。
And then he responded by saying, you didn't even know the bomb was in your carriage.
然后他回答说，你根本不知道炸弹在你的车厢里。
You keep changing your story.
你不断改变你的故事。
And basically had a go at me.
基本上就是对我发起攻击。
And you started engaging with him a lot?
你开始和他经常交往？
I was furious with him.
我对他很生气。
I just thought, oh, they don't realize.
我只是想，哦，他们没有意识到。
As soon as they actually talk to a real person, they'll realize it's a load of nonsense and they'll give up.
一旦他们真正与真人交谈，他们就会意识到这是一堆废话，然后他们就会放弃。
I had no idea, at all then, about what these people were like.
那时我根本不知道这些人是什么样的。
But what comes through again and again is this lack of empathy.
但一再出现的问题是缺乏同理心。
Complete lack of empathy.
完全缺乏同理心。
So they would, for example, cut and paste these most harrowing descriptions by emergency services officers of going into carriages and seeing buckled walls that were streaming with blood, and pieces of human flesh, and stepping over body parts.
例如，他们会剪切并粘贴紧急服务官员的这些最令人痛苦的描述，这些描述包括进入车厢，看到弯曲的墙壁上流着血和人肉碎片，并踩过身体部位。
And stepping over the hole where the bomb had torn a crater in the floor.
然后跨过炸弹在地板上炸出一个弹坑的洞。
They'd post this.
他们会发布这个。
And you couldn't read it without actually wanting to weep.
读完它你会忍不住流泪。
And then they would say, that you see.
然后他们会说，你明白了。
The hole there appears to be on the right-hand side.
那里的洞似乎位于右侧。
And that would be their comment.
这就是他们的评论。
Yeah, just weird.
是的，就是很奇怪。
Jon Ronson Rachel believed what most people believe, that the July 7 attacks were the workers of Mohammed Sidique Khan and his three accomplices, and not a conspiracy involving actors and the British government.
乔恩·罗森·雷切尔 (Jon Ronson Rachel) 相信大多数人的看法，即 7 月 7 日的袭击是穆罕默德·西迪克·汗 (Mohammed Sidique Khan) 及其三名同伙所为，而不是涉及演员和英国政府的阴谋。
She told the conspiracy theorists that they were fantasists, and that it wasn't nice to find yourself a character in another person's paranoid fantasy, especially when you've just been blown up on the tube.
她告诉阴谋论者，他们是幻想家，发现自己是另一个人偏执幻想中的角色并不好，尤其是当你刚刚在管子上被炸死的时候。
But by engaging with them, Rachel herself became part of the conspiracy.
但通过与他们接触，雷切尔自己也成为了阴谋的一部分。
They all started discussing me.
他们都开始讨论我。
And they formed the most bizarre theories about me.
他们对我提出了最奇怪的理论。
They decided that because I had this group that I'd set up, and that I had this blog that I'd set up, I was feeding the official story to the survivors.
他们决定，因为我建立了这个小组，并且我建立了这个博客，所以我向幸存者提供官方故事。
And I was somehow controlling them.
我以某种方式控制了他们。
And I was a government mouthpiece who'd been tasked with disseminating disinformation.
我是一名政府喉舌，负责传播虚假信息。
And they became very suspicious of me.
他们对我变得非常怀疑。
They formed this theory that I was some kind of counterintelligence professional or security services covert operative.
他们认为我是某种反情报专业人员或安全部门的秘密特工。
Actually, some of them thought I didn't even exist.
事实上，他们中的一些人认为我根本不存在。
They thought I was a team of men who were tasked with creating this Rachel from north London persona, and maintaining it as a means of what they called psy-ops, you know, psychological operations to control the population of the UK.
他们认为我是一个团队，他们的任务是创造这个来自伦敦北部的雷切尔角色，并将其作为他们所谓的心理行动的手段来维护，你知道，心理行动来控制英国人口。
I've just found what somebody's written about you here.
我刚刚发现有人在这里写了一些关于你的文章。
"Rachel--" and then in brackets "Rachel Schmachel" as if to imply that your name's not really Rachel.
“Rachel——”然后在方括号中加上“Rachel Schmachel”，仿佛暗示你的名字并不是真正的Rachel。
"It's your tone of voice that is the give away.
“你说话的语气就暴露了一切。
You also seem to think that having been involved directly in the events of the day-- were you really-- confers upon you some special status and insight." That's annoying.
你似乎还认为，直接参与当天的事件——如果你真的参与的话——会给你带来一些特殊的地位和洞察力。”这很烦人。
Oh, that wasn't even the worst of it.
哦，这还不是最糟糕的。
There was a lot worse than that.
还有比这更糟糕的事情。
[INTERPOSING VOICES] "--people disinformation shill all [BLEEP] and no evidence.
[插话]“——人们的虚假信息都是[哔]，而且没有证据。
It should be clear from Rachel's dis-info tactics she's part of the same lying media and police who set up this scam.
从雷切尔的虚假信息策略中应该可以清楚地看出，她是策划这一骗局的谎言媒体和警察的一部分。
Bet it ain't even female."
我敢打赌，这根本就不是女的。”
They're referring to you as it.
他们指的是你。
They're saying, "Bet it ain't even female." You wrote this at the bottom of all this stuff about you, which just seems really sad.
他们说：“我打赌这根本就不是女性。”你在所有关于你的事情的底部写了这个，这看起来真的很悲伤。
You wrote, "I do not work for the government.
你写道：“我不为政府工作。
I'm a normal person.
我是一个正常人。
I have a normal job in a normal office, and I'm getting sick of this.
我在普通的办公室里有一份普通的工作，我已经厌倦了这样。
I'm requesting politely that you drop this and stop making accusations which are not true.
我礼貌地请求你放弃这件事并停止做出不真实的指控。
It is completely out of order, frankly.
坦率地说，这完全不正常。
Please stop."
请停下来。”
What they were doing to Rachel was incredibly insulting.
他们对雷切尔所做的事情是令人难以置信的侮辱。
She'd almost been killed.
她差一点就被杀了。
She runs a support group for people who were almost killed.
她为差点被杀的人建立了一个支持小组。
And now she was getting death threats from the conspiracy theorists.
现在她收到了阴谋论者的死亡威胁。
They contacted her parents, who found the whole thing frightening and confusing.
他们联系了她的父母，他们发现整件事令人恐惧和困惑。
So Rachel decided to confront them, face to face.
所以雷切尔决定面对面地面对他们。
She went to a meeting where the conspiracy theorists spokesman, David Shayler, was speaking.
她参加了一个会议，阴谋论者发言人大卫·谢勒正在会上发表讲话。
The floor was opened up for Q and A's.
会场开放供问答。
And Rachel raised her hand and argued against the idea that July 7 was an inside job.
雷切尔举手反对 7 月 7 日是内部人员的观点。
Then everybody started shouting.
然后每个人都开始喊叫。
And so I raised my voice to be heard over them shouting.
于是我提高了声音，好让他们的喊叫声让我听到。
They shouted, I shouted.
他们喊，我也喊。
They make it sound like I got up from the floor, marched onto the stage and started declaiming away.
他们让我听起来像是我从地板上站起来，大步走上舞台，开始大声朗诵。
That's not what happened.
事实并非如此。
The whole room erupted in shouting.
整个房间爆发出一片叫喊声。
Let me talk about Rachel North being an excellent composite MI5 person.
让我谈谈雷切尔·诺斯（Rachel North）是一位优秀的军情五处综合人员。
This is David Shayler, who was on stage that night.
我是大卫·谢勒，那天晚上他就在舞台上。
He's a former MI5 officer who's jumped sides to become a hero to the conspiracy theorists.
他是一名前军情五处官员，后来跳槽成为阴谋论者眼中的英雄。
He says it's not so crazy to believe that Rachel is the creation of a team of agents from his old organization.
他说，相信雷切尔是他原来组织的特工团队创造出来的，这一点并不疯狂。
Honestly, I think you should present the evidence to people of why people are saying that.
老实说，我认为你应该向人们提供证据，说明人们为什么这么说。
OK.
好的。
Why do you think people are saying that?
你认为人们为什么这么说？
They're saying it was so because Rachel North won't have a dispassionate briefing about 7/7 in which somebody talks her through the evidence.
他们之所以这么说，是因为雷切尔·诺斯（Rachel North）不会接受有关 7/7 的冷静简报，其中有人向她讲述证据。
Anybody who's not prepared to engage with evidence, their opinion is not worth anything.
任何不准备接受证据的人，他们的观点毫无价值。
So do you think there's a chance that Rachel North is a composite of MI5 agents?
那么你认为雷切尔·诺斯有可能是军情五处特工的混合体吗？
Well, I don't know.
嗯，我不知道。
I'm sorry.
对不起。
I haven't seen the full evidence on that.
我还没有看到这方面的完整证据。
All I know is--
我所知道的是——
Well, anything is a possibility, isn't it?
好吧，一切皆有可能，不是吗？
Of course anything's a possibility.
当然一切皆有可能。
But I don't think we should dismiss these things, the idea that the intelligence services would create a composite figure.
但我认为我们不应该忽视这些事情，即情报部门将创建一个综合数字的想法。
I don't think we should dismiss that idea, because that's exactly the kind of thing they would do.
我认为我们不应该忽视这个想法，因为这正是他们会做的事情。
But you've met her?
但你见过她吗？
David Shayler I've met her.
大卫·谢勒 我见过她。
But what I'm trying to say is that Rachel North can exist as a figure.
但我想说的是，雷切尔·诺斯可以作为一个人物存在。
But it doesn't mean necessarily there's not five people behind her, posting in her name on the internet to get stuff out there.
但这并不意味着她背后一定有五个人以她的名义在互联网上发布信息。
Once you've got a name, anybody could be posting that stuff on the internet, can't we?
一旦你有了名字，任何人都可以在互联网上发布这些东西，不是吗？
Well I think you seem to think that the only reason why Rachel might be a group of men working for MI5 is because she doesn't want to sit down and engage with the conspiracy theorists.
好吧，我认为你似乎认为雷切尔可能是一群为军情五处工作的人的唯一原因是因为她不想坐下来与阴谋论者打交道。
No, I'm not.
不，我不是。
It's to do with her prestigious posting on the internet.
这与她在互联网上享有盛誉的帖子有关。
And again, I think you should look at the evidence there about how many posts she was doing at one point.
再说一次，我认为你应该看看那里的证据，了解她在某一时刻发布了多少帖子。
She was posting a lot.
她发了很多帖子。
David Shayler Because I think other people have looked at this in the movement, and come to the opposite conclusion, that there were far too many posts to come from one person.
大卫谢勒因为我认为其他人在这场运动中也看到了这一点，并得出了相反的结论，即一个人发布的帖子太多了。
You know what bloggers are like.
你知道博主是什么样的。
They just write, and write, and write.
他们只是写、写、写。
I don't understand why, because they're not getting paid.
我不明白为什么，因为他们没有得到报酬。
I've crossed paths with the conspiracy theorists myself.
我自己也曾与阴谋论者有过接触。
I've spoken out against their irrational thoughts.
我已经公开反对他们的非理性想法。
And in retaliation they've set up a discussion thread called "Jon Ronson, shill or stupid?" A shill is a paid stooge.
作为报复，他们设立了一个名为“乔恩·罗森，骗子还是愚蠢？”的讨论线程。托儿是受雇的走狗。
My experience with them is nothing compared to the abuse and the hate that Rachel incurred.
与雷切尔遭受的虐待和仇恨相比，我与他们相处的经历根本算不了什么。
But still, I've had terrible online fights with them.
但尽管如此，我还是和他们在网上发生了可怕的争吵。
You're probably thinking it's nuts to engage with them.
您可能认为与他们交往是疯狂的。
And you'd be right.
你是对的。
It is nuts.
这是疯了。
It does nothing but bad.
它除了坏事之外什么也没做。
But when you're inside the bubble, sitting alone in your room, staring at the internet, sometimes it's really hard to control yourself and do the sensible thing.
但当你身处泡沫之中，独自坐在房间里，盯着互联网时，有时真的很难控制自己并做明智的事情。
Do you regret jumping in and getting involved with them?
你后悔加入并参与其中吗？
I think morally it was the right thing to do.
我认为从道德上讲这是正确的做法。
I think from a personal point of view, I could do without the hate mail.
我认为从个人角度来看，我可以不用仇恨邮件。
I could do-- I've had death threats.
我可以——我收到过死亡威胁。
I feel upset that my family were contacted.
我对我的家人被联系感到很沮丧。
When somebody who was actually there, at the moment of the explosion-- rather than somebody who sits at home on the internet and theorizes-- comes and confronts the theorists, why do the conspiracy theorists get so angry and so personal?
当爆炸发生时实际在场的人——而不是坐在家里上网理论的人——前来与理论家对峙时，为什么阴谋论者会如此愤怒、如此个人化？
Well, I think again, you're trying to make this to be the case.
好吧，我又想，你正试图让事情变成这样。
But I have to say when Rachel North did come to one of our meetings, I thought her behavior showed signs of mental illness.
但我不得不说，当雷切尔·诺斯（Rachel North）参加我们的一次会议时，我认为她的行为表现出精神疾病的迹象。
No, I'm saying that the behavior I saw of her then-- I don't know her particularly well-- showed signs of mental illness.
不，我是说我当时看到的她的行为——我对她不是特别了解——表现出了精神疾病的迹象。
What did she do that was mentally ill-ish?
她到底做了什么精神病？
It was the degree with which she attacked me for happening to say this thing about precisely the same stations.
这就是她对我的攻击程度，因为我碰巧对同一个电台说了这样的话。
It was a fact that once she said it, she stood up, came running towards me and started shouting at me.
事实是，她一说完，就站起来，跑向我，开始对我大喊大叫。
There was a madness about this.
这实在是太疯狂了。
And I would invite you to actually interview anybody else who was there, because they will say the same thing.
我会邀请你实际采访在场的其他人，因为他们也会说同样的话。
But that's because Rachel thinks it's nonsense--
但那是因为雷切尔认为这是无稽之谈——
But how does she know until she's seen the evidence?
但在看到证据之前她怎么知道呢？
I'm getting the same sort of vibe off you here, Jon.
我从你身上也感受到了同样的感觉，乔恩。
You think it's nonsense.
你认为这是无稽之谈。
You haven't seen the evidence, you see?
你还没有看到证据，明白吗？
This is the problem we're in, because a viewpoint arrived at without evidence is prejudiced.
这就是我们面临的问题，因为没有证据的观点是有偏见的。
And to say that Muslims carried out 9/11, those three guys from Leeds, and one from Aylsebury, without evidence--
说穆斯林实施了 9/11，那三个来自利兹的人和一个来自艾尔斯伯里的人，没有证据——
7/7, you mean?
7/7，你是说？
David Shayler Sorry, 7/7.
大卫·谢勒 抱歉，7/7。
Sorry, 7/7.
抱歉，7/7。
The four guys that supposedly carried out 7/7, the evidence is simply not there to say it.
据称执行 7/7 的四个人，根本没有证据可以证明这一点。
What about-- David Shayler To say they did it--
怎么样——大卫谢勒说他们做到了——
Is racist, Jon.
是种族主义者，乔恩。
It's racist.
这是种族主义。
You're being racist against Muslims, if you think those three guys carried out that attack on the evidence there.
如果你认为那三个人对那里的证据进行了攻击，那么你就是对穆斯林的种族主义。
It's what I uncontrollably feel as if I should say to you, though.
但这就是我无法控制地觉得我应该对你说的话。
For so many reasons, David.
由于很多原因，大卫。
-- include the recording of that in the actual interview, please, because-- or could I have a recording of that to play to people now?
- 请在实际采访中包含该录音，因为 - 或者我现在可以将其录音播放给人们听吗？
Because I don't think Jon here is actually being an objective interviewer at all.
因为我认为乔恩实际上根本不是一个客观的采访者。
This is very, very personal, Jon.
这是非常非常私人的事情，乔恩。
No one seems to appreciate that I've come to talk to you today.
似乎没有人欣赏我今天来和你谈话。
There has been enormous interest in 9/11 Truth Movement.
人们对 9/11 真相运动产生了极大的兴趣。
I'll be absolutely honest with you that certain people have said to me, before I came here, you should be very careful of this man.
我绝对诚实地告诉你，在我来这里之前，有些人对我说过，你应该非常小心这个人。
He may be a shill, and so on.
他可能是个骗子，等等。
I said, I don't think that.
我说，我不这么认为。
I'm going to go and talk to the man and find out what he's all about.
我要去跟那个人谈谈，看看他到底是怎么回事。
And now that you've met me, do you think they're right and that I am a shill?
现在你见到了我，你认为他们是对的，我是个骗子吗？
No, I don't.
不，我不。
I don't think you're a shill at all.
我不认为你是个骗子。
No.
不。
So will you tell them that I'm not a shill?
那你能告诉他们我不是骗子吗？
Of course I will.
我当然会。
In fact, that's a conclusion I've-- Well let me explain.
事实上，这是我的结论——好吧，让我解释一下。
What I've read about you, and what I understand of this interview here, Jon, I honestly can say, the honest opinion from my heart, I don't think you're a shill.
我读到的关于你的信息，以及我对这次采访的理解，乔恩，我可以诚实地说，我发自内心的诚实意见，我不认为你是个骗子。
I've got to admit, the whole thing began because I inadvertently typed my name into Google, and accidentally pressed search.
我必须承认，整件事的开始是因为我无意中在谷歌中输入了我的名字，并意外地按下了搜索。
And I found a website-- or I found a discussion that was called "Jon Ronson, shill or stupid?"
我找到了一个网站——或者我发现了一个名为“乔恩·罗森，骗子还是愚蠢？”的讨论。
Well as I said, I don't think you're a shill.
正如我所说，我不认为你是个骗子。
But I think we're entitled to say anybody--
但我认为我们有权说任何人——
You think I'm stupid?
你觉得我傻吗？
David Shayler No, no, no. But if you don't want to see the evidence about 9/11, I've got to say that's not a sign of intellect.
大卫·谢勒 不，不，不。但如果你不想看到有关 9/11 的证据，我必须说这不是智慧的表现。
OK.
好的。
When you go back and tell them, will you tell them that I'm not a shill, but also that I'm not stupid?
当你回去告诉他们的时候，你会告诉他们我不是骗子，而且我也不傻吗？
OK.
好的。
Jon Ronson Because it's a bit insulting.
乔恩·罗森（Jon Ronson）因为这有点侮辱人。
Jon, I get the same thing myself.
乔恩，我自己也有同样的感觉。
So I'm entirely sympathetic to you.
所以我完全同情你。
But I have to say with proviso, again, that if you don't take the briefing, I will have to say that's a sign of--
但我必须再次附带条件地说，如果你不接受简报，我不得不说这是一个迹象——
Ignorance.
无知。
OK.
好的。
Well he's not a shill, he's not stupid, but he's ignorant.
好吧，他不是托儿，他不傻，但他无知。
I can live with that.
我可以忍受这一点。
That I can live with.
我可以忍受。
The conspiracy theorists insist that if I, or Rachel, or anyone else sits down and takes their briefing, we'll agree with them by the end.
阴谋论者坚持认为，如果我、雷切尔或其他任何人坐下来听取他们的简报，我们最终会同意他们的观点。
I think they truly can't imagine it working out any other way.
我认为他们真的无法想象它会以任何其他方式发挥作用。
I guess it's pejorative, but the reason why I don't want to take the briefing is because I think the experience would suck the very soul out of my body through my ears.
我想这是贬义的，但我不想参加简报的原因是因为我认为这种经历会通过我的耳朵将我的灵魂吸出体外。
When they hear this, they're still not going to believe that you exist, some of them, especially because I'm interviewing you, because they see me as part of the cabal.
当他们听到这个时，他们中的一些人仍然不会相信你的存在，特别是因为我正在采访你，因为他们将我视为阴谋集团的一部分。
I've given up trying to change their minds now.
我现在已经放弃尝试改变他们的想法了。
I know I exist.
我知道我存在。
All the people on the train who've met me know I exist.
火车上所有见过我的人都知道我的存在。
I got off the train covered in blood, and smoke, and soot, with glass in my hair, and metal sticking out of my wrist bone.
我下了火车，浑身是血、烟雾和煤灰，头发里有玻璃，腕骨上伸出了金属。
I went and gave a statement to the police.
我去向警察做了口供。
I was photographed.
我被拍照了。
I was stitched up in a hospital.
我在医院被缝合了。
I can produce dozens of witnesses that I was there, that I am who I am.
我可以提供数十个见证人，证明我在那里，证明我就是我。
And if some people choose not to believe that, then I pity them really.
如果有些人选择不相信这一点，那么我真的很遗憾他们。
Jon Ronson, who did that story, is the author of a book about conspiracy theorists called Them .
乔恩·罗森（Jon Ronson）就是这个故事的作者，他是一本关于阴谋论者的书的作者，书名为《他们》。
A version of this story also appeared on his BBC Radio 4 series, John Ronson On.
这个故事的一个版本也出现在他的 BBC 广播 4 台系列节目《John Ronson On》中。
Coming up, I was a teenage spokesman.
接下来，我是一名青少年发言人。
Not me, actually, the kid in the story.
事实上，故事中的那个孩子不是我。
That's in a minute, from Chicago Public Radio and Public Radio International when our program continues.
稍后，芝加哥公共广播电台和国际公共广播电台将继续我们的节目。
It's This American Life , I'm Ira Glass.
这就是美国生活，我是艾拉·格拉斯。
Each week on our program, of course, we choose a theme, bring you a variety of different kinds of stories on that theme.
当然，每周我们的节目都会选择一个主题，为您带来有关该主题的各种不同类型的故事。
Today's show The Spokesman.
今天的节目是《发言人》。
Stories about what it can be like to be the spokesman.
关于成为发言人的故事。
We've arrived at act two of our program, Act Two, Mr. Successful.
我们已经到了节目的第二幕，第二幕，成功先生。
OK.
好的。
Anybody's who's ever been to a wedding knows that not everybody can stand up in front of a roomful of people and just talk.
参加过婚礼的人都知道，不是每个人都能站在一屋子人面前讲话。
Well, Anthony Pico discovered by accident, at 15-years-old, that he has a gift for doing that.
安东尼·皮科 (Anthony Pico) 在 15 岁时偶然发现，他有这样做的天赋。
He's 18 now.
他现在18岁了。
And he has become so well-known as a public speaker on the subject of foster care, which he knows well, that he was appointed to the blue ribbon commission that's now aiming to reform the largest foster care system in the country, the one in California, Anthony's home state.
他作为一位关于寄养问题的公共演讲者而闻名，他对此非常了解，以至于他被任命为蓝丝带委员会成员，该委员会目前的目标是改革美国最大的寄养系统，即安东尼的家乡加利福尼亚州的寄养系统。
In addition, Anthony still speaks to judges and legislators all over the state and all over the country, to different groups, sometimes every week.
此外，安东尼仍然向全州和全国各地的法官和立法者、不同的群体发表演讲，有时每周一次。
But it's gotten complicated.
但事情变得复杂了。
Douglas McGray tells the story.
道格拉斯·麦格雷讲述了这个故事。
Anthony is at a hotel near San Francisco Airport.
安东尼住在旧金山机场附近的一家酒店。
He knows the room.
他认识这个房间。
Not this one, exactly, but dozens just like it.
确切地说，不是这个，而是有几十个喜欢它。
The long, windowless walls, the bad carpeting, the government officials, social workers, and nonprofit types sitting in quiet rows, as his host wraps up a long interaction.
长长的、没有窗户的墙壁，劣质的地毯，政府官员、社会工作者和非营利组织安静地坐在一排，他的主人结束了一场漫长的互动。
And I just want to let you all know you're in for a real treat.
我只是想让大家知道你们将享受到真正的享受。
I've seen Anthony speak several times.
我见过安东尼讲话好几次。
He's a wonderful, wonderful, powerful advocate.
他是一位出色的、出色的、强有力的倡导者。
Welcome Anthony Pico.
欢迎安东尼·皮科。
Anthony walks toward the mic.
安东尼走向麦克风。
I know what he's thinking right now, because I asked him.
我知道他现在在想什么，因为我问过他。
I look down at the lectern.
我低头看着讲台。
Get a sense for my space, how much I need to project, all this other stuff.
了解我的空间，我需要投射多少，以及所有其他东西。
I usually take a slight pause, look around.
我通常会稍微停顿一下，环顾四周。
Anthony is a steady presence up there, eyes calm and appraising.
安东尼稳稳地站在那儿，眼神平静，充满评价。
He doesn't shrink, doesn't hesitate.
他没有退缩，没有犹豫。
He just lays out his life.
他只是在布置自己的生活。
Well, I grew up in the foster care system, was born into it.
嗯，我在寄养系统中长大，出生在其中。
Adopted at 12 by a relative.
12岁时被亲戚收养。
That person died when I was 14.
那个人在我14岁的时候就去世了。
And I re-entered the foster care system with another relative, the person who died last year.
我和另一位亲戚（去年去世的那个人）一起重新进入了寄养系统。
I've been within the mental health system since the age of 11 and had enough therapists that I believe I have my own PhD.
我从 11 岁起就一直在心理健康系统工作，并且有足够多的治疗师，我相信我有自己的博士学位。
[LAUGHTER] Douglas McGray Most kids in foster care couldn't stand up there, talk for an hour with a half page of notes, and own the room the way Anthony does.
[笑声] 道格拉斯·麦克格雷 大多数寄养孩子都无法站在那里，拿着半页笔记讲话一个小时，并像安东尼那样拥有房间。
Most of them are struggling just to hold their lives together.
他们中的大多数人都在努力维持自己的生活。
University of Chicago researchers did a massive survey of teens leaving the foster care system at 18.
芝加哥大学的研究人员对 18 岁离开寄养系统的青少年进行了大规模调查。
Within a year, nearly 70% had dropped out of high school.
一年之内，近 70% 的人从高中退学。
Half had lost their health insurance.
一半人失去了健康保险。
Almost half the girls had gotten pregnant.
几乎一半的女孩怀孕了。
One in five kids had spent a night in jail.
五分之一的孩子在监狱里度过了一夜。
And 15% had been homeless.
15% 的人无家可归。
What saved Anthony is public speaking.
拯救安东尼的是公开演讲。
It came easily to him.
这对他来说很容易。
He has always been a talker.
他一直是个爱说话的人。
Yeah, I'd start conversations with anyone.
是的，我会开始与任何人交谈。
It wasn't hard for me to break the ice.
打破僵局对我来说并不难。
I was this little goth fat kid who would start conversations with people.
我是一个会与人交谈的哥特小胖子。
I'm this tall, fat, politician kid who starts conversations with people.
我是一个又高又胖的政治家孩子，喜欢与人交谈。
Anthony has the kind of life story you'd expect from a kid in foster care.
安东尼有着你所期待的寄养孩子的人生故事。
Born crack-addicted to a mother who disappeared from the hospital just after she gave birth.
母亲生来就对毒品上瘾，但她生完孩子后就从医院失踪了。
Never knew his father.
从来不认识他的父亲。
Relatives have mostly abused or ignored him.
亲戚大多虐待或忽视他。
By 15, he was an angry, withdrawn kid.
15岁时，他已是一个愤怒、孤僻的孩子。
He weighed almost 300 pounds.
他的体重接近300磅。
He hated school, hated his life, thought about killing himself.
他讨厌学校，讨厌自己的生活，想过自杀。
Then he started giving speeches, and everything changed.
然后他开始发表演讲，一切都改变了。
Suddenly foster care wasn't just something happening to him.
突然之间，寄养不再只是发生在他身上的事情。
It was knowledge, knowledge that other people wanted, especially from a teenager who could speak fluent grown-up and who knows how the bureaucracy works and doesn't work.
这是知识，其他人想要的知识，尤其是来自一个能说一口流利的成年人口语、知道官僚机构如何运作和不运作的青少年的知识。
How many people have had another agency call them and say, yeah, I have this youth and I really think they're more under what your service provision is.
有多少人曾被另一个机构打电话给他们说，是的，我有这个年轻人，我真的认为他们更愿意接受你们提供的服务。
And we can't really help them right now.
我们现在无法真正帮助他们。
So go ahead, and if you could take this youth, or this case, or this stack of papers, that'd be great.
所以来吧，如果你能带走这个年轻人，或者这个案子，或者这一叠文件，那就太好了。
How many of you have had that?
你们中有多少人有过这样的经历？
That's ridiculous to me.
这对我来说太荒谬了。
And I'm 18.
我18岁了。
I'm not supposed to know what ridiculous is yet.
我还不知道什么是可笑的。
People in my classes didn't like me because I would always talk about how bad my life was.
我班上的人不喜欢我，因为我总是谈论我的生活有多糟糕。
I would say, well, I don't have a dad.
我会说，好吧，我没有爸爸。
This and that, I'm worthless, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
这个那个，我一文不值，等等，等等，等等。
Well, when I started doing public speaking, it became-- not necessarily a badge of honor, but almost like a purple heart.
嗯，当我开始公开演讲时，它不一定是荣誉徽章，但几乎就像紫心勋章。
It's the quarterly meeting of California's blue ribbon commission on foster care.
这是加州寄养蓝丝带委员会的季度会议。
Big shots in the state legislature, the courts, foundations, and the University of California have gathered for a couple days in a hotel near LA.
州立法机构、法院、基金会和加州大学的大人物在洛杉矶附近的一家酒店聚集了几天。
They just finished dinner-- white table cloths, steaks, it was a nice spread.
他们刚刚吃完晚饭——白色的桌布，牛排，真是一顿丰盛的晚餐。
Now everyone's milling around, schmoozing, networking.
现在每个人都在闲逛、闲聊、建立联系。
Anthony too.
安东尼也是。
He's always angling for new speaking gigs.
他总是在寻找新的演讲机会。
So Ken, when are you going to take me up to [UNINTELLIGIBLE]?
肯，你什么时候带我去[无法理解]？
You are welcome anytime.
随时欢迎您。
Douglas McGray He is especially interested in tonight's guest speaker, an influential judge from Utah.
Douglas McGray 他对今晚的演讲嘉宾特别感兴趣，他是一位来自犹他州的颇具影响力的法官。
Anthony has two half-siblings in Utah he wants to contact, but they've been adopted and their file is sealed.
安东尼在犹他州有两个同父异母的兄弟姐妹，他想联系他们，但他们已经被收养了，他们的档案也被封存了。
He wants the judge's help finding them.
他希望法官帮助找到他们。
They end up talking for more than an hour.
他们最终聊了一个多小时。
Anthony keeps up easily, even when the jargon and the acronyms start to span several complicated, overlapping bureaucracies, like the Bureau of Indian Affairs, BIA.
安东尼很容易跟上，即使行话和缩写词开始跨越几个复杂、重叠的官僚机构，比如印第安事务局 (BIA)。
Anthony and his siblings are Native American.
安东尼和他的兄弟姐妹都是美洲原住民。
It probably wouldn't be that hard to just go through BIA and see if they have them under their roll too.
通过 BIA 看看他们是否也有这些可能并不难。
Because wouldn't BIA have a list of all enrolled members of every--
因为 BIA 不会有一份所有注册会员的名单吗——
I don't think they do.
我不认为他们这样做。
Because each of them determines their own eligibility for membership.
因为他们每个人都决定自己的会员资格。
This is what Anthony has learned in three years of public speaking, how to work the system and his connections to get what he needs.
这是安东尼在三年的公开演讲中学到的，如何利用系统和他的关系来获得他所需要的东西。
In the end, the judge agrees to help him.
最终，法官同意帮助他。
Later, he tells me about a time he transferred schools and got stuck halfway.
后来他告诉我有一次他转学，中途被卡住了。
The new school wouldn't let him in.
新学校不让他进来。
Most foster kids would have stayed home for weeks, maybe longer.
大多数寄养孩子会在家里待上几周，甚至更长时间。
And they do.
他们确实这么做了。
This sort of thing happens all the time.
这种事情经常发生。
They kept me out of school because I didn't have the right papers.
他们不让我上学，因为我没有合适的证件。
Well, there's a law that was passed about a year and a half before I tried to go into that school that said you can not keep a foster youth out of school for more than three days, regardless of if they have their paperwork, or uniform, or anything like that.
嗯，在我试图进入那所学校之前大约一年半通过了一项法律，规定你不能让寄养青少年离开学校超过三天，无论他们是否有文件、制服或类似的东西。
You have to keep them in school.
你必须让他们留在学校。
And I emailed them after about a week saying, you are out of compliance with AB 490.
大约一周后我给他们发了电子邮件说，你们不遵守 AB 490。
If you do not enroll me as soon as possible, I will call my lawyer and the state ombudsperson.
如果您不尽快为我注册，我会打电话给我的律师和州监察员。
And I forwarded it to the school district, my placement office, my lawyer, and the foster care liaison to the district.
我将其转发给学区、我的安置办公室、我的律师以及学区的寄养联络人。
It almost sounds like you're your own pushy parent here.
听起来你就像是你自己的爱出风头的父母。
Yeah.
是的。
Pretty much.
差不多了。
I will be the person whose, like, I don't get a [BLEEP] what you say.
我将是那种我听不懂你说的话的人。
I'm going to raise hell.
我要掀起地狱。
Anythony's gotten good at a lot of things most kids leave to their parents, like finances.
Anythony 擅长很多大多数孩子留给父母的事情，比如财务。
During a break, I give him a ride to a cash machine so he can make a deposit.
休息时，我载他到提款机，以便他可以存款。
Savings are a huge problem for most kids leaving foster care.
对于大多数离开寄养家庭的孩子来说，储蓄是一个大问题。
But Anthony's banked $10,000, working close to full time at a movie theater.
但安东尼在一家电影院几乎全职工作，存入了 10,000 美元。
Alone in his hotel room, Anthony unpacks.
安东尼独自在酒店房间里打开行李。
He's been on the road all week.
他整个星期都在路上。
He came to LA straight from another speaking appearance outside San Diego.
他从圣地亚哥郊外的另一次演讲中直接来到洛杉矶。
He pulls an armful of conference swag out of his wheeled suitcase.
他从带轮子的手提箱里拿出一大堆会议物品。
A windbreaker.
一件风衣。
A travel thermos.
旅行保温瓶。
A squishy stress ball.
一个柔软的压力球。
He unfolds four or five dress shirts, hangs them in the closet.
他展开四五件正装衬衫，把它们挂在衣柜里。
Then he stops, pushes everything else to the floor, and plops in an overstuffed chair by the window.
然后他停下来，把所有东西都推到地板上，然后扑通一声坐在窗边一把软垫椅子上。
He is quiet for a minute.
他安静了一分钟。
Then he says what's on his mind.
然后他说出了他的想法。
I've been speaking for so long that it's kind of second nature for me to just get up, say a 10, 15, 30 minute speech, sit down, and it's nothing.
我已经演讲这么久了，站起来发表 10、15、30 分钟的演讲，然后坐下来，这对我来说已经是一种第二天性了。
It's part of my personality, part of who I am.
这是我个性的一部分，我是谁的一部分。
I don't think.
我不认为。
But that's what's tiring about it.
但这就是累的地方。
I don't know what the hell I'm doing in the world anymore.
我不知道我到底在这个世界上做什么了。
Not that an 18-year-old is supposed to, but I'm at this pivotal point where, where does this fit in 10 years down the line?
这并不是一个 18 岁的年轻人应该做的事情，但我正处于这个关键时刻，10 年后这会在哪里发生？
At 18, he's almost out of foster care.
18 岁时，他几乎不再被寄养了。
And when he leaves the system, his days as a spokeskid are pretty much over.
当他离开系统时，他作为代言人的日子就差不多结束了。
All this will end.
这一切都将结束。
The next day, Anthony visits a local prison with the blue ribbon commission.
第二天，安东尼与蓝丝带委员会一起参观了当地的一所监狱。
It's a low, sprawling complex.
这是一个低矮、庞大的建筑群。
It's looks a bit like an elementary school surrounded by razor wire.
它看起来有点像一所被铁丝网包围的小学。
We have to go through a security checkpoint.
我们必须通过安全检查站。
It takes forever.
这需要永远。
Once we're through, a man approaches Anthony.
当我们结束后，一个男人走近安东尼。
Yeah.
是的。
Man OK.
伙计，好吧。
I'm the administrative assistant to the warden and public information officer.
我是典狱长的行政助理和公共信息官员。
And you are?
而你呢？
Pico.
皮可。
Man Pico.
曼·皮科.
OK.
好的。
What's your claim to fame, Mr. Pico?
皮科先生，你凭什么出名？
Born and raised in foster care.
在寄养家庭中出生和长大。
I'm a commissioner on the commission that's here.
我是这里委员会的专员。
You're a success story?
你是一个成功的故事吗？
Anthony Pico Sort of.
安东尼·皮科 有点。
We're yet to see.
我们还没有看到。
Well, you are.
嗯，你是。
I can look in your eyes and tell.
我可以看着你的眼睛告诉你。
You are definitely a success story.
你绝对是一个成功的故事。
Anthony winces.
安东尼皱起眉头。
People say stuff like this to him all the time.
人们总是对他说这样的话。
And he hates it.
他讨厌它。
He doesn't like being called a success story, because he knows there's a big difference between the way people see him and the way his life looks and feels from the inside.
他不喜欢被称为成功故事，因为他知道人们看待他的方式与他内心的生活的样子和感觉之间存在很大的差异。
The fact is, Anthony's gone to six high schools in four years.
事实上，安东尼在四年内上了六所高中。
And he's not close to graduating.
而且他还没有毕业。
Most people who meet Anthony have no idea.
大多数见过安东尼的人都不知道。
The few who do are worried and keep nagging him to finish.
少数这样做的人很担心，并不断地催促他完成。
If you want to drive Anthony crazy, talk about his potential.
如果你想让安东尼发疯，就谈谈他的潜力。
The word is like an insult to him.
这句话就像是对他的侮辱。
A bunch of times, when we talked, he cut me off mid-sentence.
有好几次，当我们谈话时，他就打断了我的话。
You're not going to say potential, are you?
你不会说潜力吧？
Don't say potential.
别说潜力。
I know, I know, potential.
我知道，我知道，潜力。
Please don't say anything about my potential.
请不要谈论我的潜力。
I hang out with Anthony for a few weeks, trying to understand how this kid who seems like he should be doing great isn't doing well at all.
我和安东尼一起待了几个星期，试图了解这个看起来应该表现出色的孩子为何表现不佳。
Our relationship settles into a routine.
我们的关系逐渐成为常态。
I follow him everywhere with a microphone.
我拿着麦克风跟着他到处走。
He feels free to tell me--
他随意地告诉我——
I'm totally uninterested in your questions right now.
我现在对你的问题完全不感兴趣。
Let's get a nice sound of my back cracking.
让我们听听我的背部断裂的美妙声音。
[BACK CRACKING] Douglas McGray God, that still makes me shudder.
[背部断裂]道格拉斯·麦格雷 天哪，这仍然让我颤抖。
And he calls me late at night to talk about girls.
他深夜打电话给我谈论女孩。
He is always up late.
他总是迟到。
Sometimes that means grown-ups having to drag him out of bed in the morning, like at a blue ribbon commission meeting that was supposed to start at 8:30 AM.
有时这意味着大人必须在早上把他从床上拖起来，就像在原定于上午 8:30 开始的蓝丝带委员会会议上一样。
It's Christy from downstairs.
是楼下的克里斯蒂。
I was told to come get you, make sure you're awake.
我被告知要来接你，确保你醒着。
This sort of thing can frustrate the adults who depend on him as a speaker.
这种事情会让依赖他作为演讲者的成年人感到沮丧。
Despite really good intentions, some of them want it both ways.
尽管意图确实良好，但他们中的一些人却希望两者兼而有之。
They want Anthony to speak for kids, but they don't want him to act like one.
他们希望安东尼为孩子们说话，但他们不希望他表现得像个孩子。
The more time I spend with Anthony, though, the harder it is to see anything but a kid.
然而，我和安东尼在一起的时间越多，就越难看到除了孩子之外的任何东西。
I kind of think I should put my retainers in, because my teeth are starting to shift way too much.
我觉得我应该戴上保持器，因为我的牙齿开始移动太多。
For the last couple years, Anthony's been living on his own in a group home for foster youth near a highway overpass in San Francisco.
在过去的几年里，安东尼一直独自住在旧金山高速公路立交桥附近的寄养青少年之家。
Here's our living room.
这是我们的客厅。
That's my roommate's uneaten food.
那是我室友没吃过的食物。
I mean, isn't it lovely?
我的意思是，这不是很可爱吗？
There's oil all over the stove, a pan with a bunch of oil, a pot with potatoes.
炉子上满是油，锅里放着一堆油，锅里放着土豆。
Yeah, it's just really dirty.
是的，它真的很脏。
The dirt is not what gets me.
污垢不是让我着迷的。
What does is this.
做的就是这个。
The place is crushingly lonely.
这个地方非常孤独。
The neighborhood outside is dead.
外面的邻居已经死了。
Anthony's roommates are strangers.
安东尼的室友都是陌生人。
Every couple months, someone moves in and someone else moves out.
每隔几个月，就会有人搬进来，也有人搬出去。
Some are OK.
有些还可以。
Some pick fights.
有些人挑衅。
For the most part, everyone holes up in their locked bedrooms and avoids each other.
大多数情况下，每个人都躲在锁着的卧室里，互相避开。
Anthony spends his time online, checking email, MySpace, Facebook.
安东尼将时间花在上网、查看电子邮件、MySpace、Facebook。
When he gets curious who else is home, he flips off the hallway light and looks for a glow under each bedroom door.
当他好奇还有谁在家时，他会关掉走廊的灯，寻找每间卧室门下的光芒。
I start to understand why he travels so much.
我开始理解他为何如此频繁地旅行。
Texas, Atlanta, Washington state.
德克萨斯州、亚特兰大、华盛顿州。
And that's outside of California.
那是在加利福尼亚州之外。
Inside California, all the way up to Arcata, Humboldt, a lot in southern California, Monterey--
在加利福尼亚州境内，一直到阿卡塔、洪堡、南加州的很多地方、蒙特利——
Most of the time, there is no adult at the group home.
大多数时候，集体之家里没有成年人。
None.
没有任何。
There's someone there during business hours.
上班时间有人在。
But when the kids come home from school or work they're alone.
但当孩子们放学或下班回家时，他们就孤身一人了。
Nobody for advice or protection.
没有人寻求建议或保护。
Nobody to crack the whip.
没人来鞭打。
Public speaking gave Anthony access to caring adults.
公开演讲让安东尼接触到有爱心的成年人。
He's lucky, kind of.
他有点幸运。
When he's anxious, or facing a big decision, he makes the rounds, asks all the adults he knows what he should do.
当他感到焦虑或面临重大决定时，他会四处走动，询问所有他知道他应该做什么的成年人。
But the problem is they never agree.
但问题是他们从来没有达成一致。
And they can't make him do anything.
他们不能让他做任何事。
Add them all up and they don't equal even one stable parent.
把他们全部加起来，甚至连一位稳定的父母都比不上。
Back at the hotel, I had watched Anthony put on his tie, and asked who taught him.
回到酒店，我看着安东尼打领带，并问是谁教他的。
No one, he said.
没有人，他说。
He stood in front of a mirror one day, knotting and unknotting, until he figured it out.
有一天，他站在镜子前，打结又解开，直到他弄清楚了。
He doesn't have a driver's license.
他没有驾驶执照。
He doesn't really know what it takes to get one.
他真的不知道需要什么才能得到一个。
And he doesn't want to go to the DMV alone.
而且他不想一个人去DMV。
I'm driving Anthony to school.
我开车送安东尼去学校。
Finally, I'm going to see what happens that keeps Anthony from living up to his-- sorry, Anthony.
最后，我要看看会发生什么让安东尼无法实现他的——对不起，安东尼。
No other word for this-- potential.
没有别的词可以形容这一点——潜力。
I could tell as soon as I had picked him up it was going to be a bad day.
我一接他就知道这将是糟糕的一天。
You've got the narrator position.
你已经占据了旁白的位置。
You [BLEEP] narrate it.
你[哔]来叙述它。
Fair enough.
很公平。
Here's the situation.
情况是这样的。
Anthony should be off to a university in the fall.
安东尼应该在秋天去上大学。
He's fallen a full year behind though.
但他落后了整整一年。
So he enrolled in a couple summer classes at City College to try and catch up.
因此，他在城市学院报名了几个暑期课程，试图赶上进度。
Today is his first day of class.
今天是他上课的第一天。
But it isn't the first day of class.
但这不是第一天上课。
That was a week ago.
那是一周前的事了。
He skipped week one of just a six-week session so he could make his speaking gigs in southern California.
他跳过了为期六周的课程中的第一周，这样他就可以在南加州进行演讲。
I'm relieved he's finally here.
我很欣慰他终于来了。
Anthony's a little dismayed about this, but I've become one more adult in his life, all wound up about his high school diploma.
安东尼对此感到有点沮丧，但我在他的生活中又成为了一个成年人，一切都因为他的高中文凭而结束。
So tell me what class-- Anthony Pico I'm going to today?
那么告诉我今天要上什么课——安东尼·皮科？
Learn 50.
学习50。
It's wonderful.
太棒了。
It's for retards.
这是给智障的。
Wait, what?
等等，什么？
So what do you learn in Learn 50?
那么您在 Learn 50 中学到了什么？
Do you think it's a good idea to take it?
你认为接受它是个好主意吗？
For me, yes, because I don't have study skills.
对我来说，是的，因为我没有学习能力。
I have procrastination skills and [BLEEP] skills.
我有拖延技能和[BLEEP]技能。
But I don't have study skills.
但我没有学习能力。
Turn right up here.
在这里右转。
He had to skip orientation too.
他也不得不跳过迎新活动。
So he's not sure where the classroom is.
所以他不确定教室在哪里。
We start wandering around campus.
我们开始在校园里闲逛。
We go to one office then another.
我们去了一间办公室，然后又去了另一间。
We cross the entire campus twice.
我们两次穿过整个校园。
Finally, someone points him to a building.
最后，有人把他指给了一栋建筑物。
Who you looking for?
你找谁？
Anthony Pico I'm supposed to go to the Guardian Scholars Program, I might have gotten this wrong.
安东尼·皮科（Anthony Pico）：我应该参加卫报学者计划，我可能弄错了。
Yeah.
是的。
Anthony Pico I just wrote down 233.
安东尼·皮科 我刚刚写下了 233。
No. Wrong room.
不对，走错房间了。
Guardian scholars?
守护学者？
I'm not sure where you go.
我不确定你要去哪里。
OK.
好的。
Thank you.
谢谢。
Well, I feel like a dumb ass.
嗯，我感觉自己像个傻瓜。
The longer we look, the more anxious he gets.
我们看得越久，他就越焦虑。
And embarrassed.
并感到尴尬。
He pokes his head into another classroom.
他把头探进另一间教室。
Sorry.
对不起。
OK.
好的。
[BLEEP] I give up.
[哔哔声]我放弃了。
Douglas McGray We go outside, stand in a small courtyard, silent for a moment.
道格拉斯·麦格雷 我们走到外面，站在一个小院子里，沉默了一会儿。
I don't know what to do.
我不知道该怎么办。
I wonder if I should keep my mouth shut, see what he decides to do on his own.
我想知道我是否应该闭嘴，看看他自己决定做什么。
But I can't help it.
但我无能为力。
I try to convince him to go back inside, ask someone else, make a phone call, anything.
我试图说服他回去，问别人，打电话，什么都可以。
So where could you find out the class number?
那么哪里可以查到班级编号呢？
Is there like a number at the college you could call?
学院里有电话号码可以拨打吗？
[BLEEP] that.
[哔]那个。
I'm not going to even bother.
我什至都不会打扰。
I give up.
我放弃。
Well, you've still got, five minutes.
好吧，你还有五分钟。
We can find-- we're right there.
我们可以找到——我们就在那里。
Five minutes late is better than not there at all.
迟到五分钟总比根本不来好。
Not there at all is what I'd prefer, though.
但我更喜欢的是根本不存在。
I don't get anywhere.
我哪儿也去不了。
So we walk to the car and get in.
所以我们走到车旁并上了车。
Let me ask you something.
让我问你一件事。
And I don't want this question to sound disrespectful at all.
我不想让这个问题听起来很不尊重。
It's just--
这只是——
Well, you can answer.
嗯，你可以回答。
That wasn't exactly what I was going to ask.
这并不是我想问的。
But maybe that's a good one to answer.
但也许这是一个很好的答案。
Why not, though?
但为什么不呢？
Anthony Pico No. What were you going to ask?
安东尼·皮科 不。你想问什么？
I was going to ask if today was something you wanted to do if you would have found the room?
我想问如果你能找到房间的话，今天是你想做的事情吗？
Yeah.
是的。
Douglas McGray But do you think, like-- I know you missed last week.
道格拉斯·麦克格雷 但是你认为，我知道你上周错过了。
And I know you're stressed about education and stuff.
我知道你对教育之类的事情感到压力。
Are you sort of digging a hole here?
你这是在这儿挖坑吗？
Well, that's because this is a [BLEEP] class.
嗯，那是因为这是一个 [BLEEP] 类。
But it is a class.
但这是一个班级。
I mean, it's credits.
我的意思是，这是信用。
It gets you closer to graduation.
它让你更接近毕业。
I don't care if it's-- I want to be able to learn something when I go to class.
我不在乎是否——我希望在上课时能够学到一些东西。
I don't want it to be a filler class.
我不希望它成为一个填充类。
I hate [BLEEP] filler classes.
我讨厌[BLEEP]填充类。
This is the flip side of everything public speaking has given him.
这是公开演讲给他带来的一切的另一面。
At some point, it turned into maybe the biggest obstacle keeping him from graduating.
在某种程度上，这可能成为阻止他毕业的最大障碍。
He's made the same choice-- in one form or another-- over and over again.
他一次又一次地做出同样的选择——以一种或另一种形式。
He's put public speaking first and school last.
他把公开演讲放在第一位，把学校放在最后。
Speaking, he gets his own hotel room.
说着，他得到了自己的酒店房间。
He gets to spend time with people who appreciate him.
他可以花时间与欣赏他的人在一起。
He gets to feel mastery over something.
他感觉自己掌握了某件事。
He gets to be a star.
他要成为明星。
Going to school, he gets math homework and the feeling of being a screw up.
上学后，他会做数学作业，并感到自己搞砸了。
It can't compete.
它无法竞争。
Do you think you'll graduate from high school?
你认为你会高中毕业吗？
No. All signs point to no. I'm not, apparently, willing to change anything to make myself graduate.
不，所有迹象都表明不。显然，我不愿意为了毕业而改变任何事情。
And thus far, I've failed at every turn.
到目前为止，我每次都失败了。
Education-- no matter how important in the back of my head-- it has not been a priority.
教育——无论在我的脑海里多么重要——它都不是一个优先事项。
And I don't know why.
我不知道为什么。
It's not clear to anyone whether Anthony will make it or not.
任何人都不清楚安东尼是否会成功。
Not to me, not to him.
对我来说不是，对他来说也不是。
And if he can't make it-- with all his talent and connections, an actual spokesman for foster kids-- you have to wonder, who can?
如果他无法做到这一点——尽管他拥有所有的才华和人脉，作为寄养儿童的真正代言人——你不得不想，谁能做到呢？
Anthony is the kind of kid you can find at any high school.
安东尼是那种你在任何高中都能找到的孩子。
That super smart one, who has so much messy, distracting stuff going on outside school that he can't keep it in the background.
那个超级聪明的人，在校外有太多混乱、分散注意力的事情，他无法将其隐藏起来。
Anthony's problems are just bigger.
安东尼的问题更大。
And he has nothing like a family to help him through, not even a dysfunctional family.
而且他没有任何像家庭一样可以帮助他度过难关的东西，甚至是一个功能失调的家庭。
But now that he's 18, he doesn't have much time left to fix things and graduate.
但现在他已经 18 岁了，已经没有多少时间来解决问题并毕业了。
The fact is, foster kids who don't have a diploma when they leave the system almost never get one.
事实是，离开系统时没有文凭的寄养儿童几乎永远不会获得文凭。
Anthony knows he's contributing to his own problems, probably more than anyone else at this point.
安东尼知道他自己造成的问题可能比其他任何人都多。
He also knows that the older he gets, the more he'll be able to mess up his life in a lasting way.
他还知道，他年纪越大，他就越能以持久的方式搞乱自己的生活。
He's just not sure he knows how to stop.
他只是不确定自己是否知道如何停下来。
It's a lot harder than talking about it.
这比谈论它要困难得多。
Douglas McGray, he is a fellow at the New America Foundation.
道格拉斯·麦克格雷，他是新美国基金会的研究员。
In the year since we first broadcast this story, a lot has changed for Anthony.
自从我们第一次播出这个故事以来，安东尼发生了很多变化。
He met a California legislator.
他遇到了一位加州议员。
And she took a chance on him, hired him onto her staff, answering phones, helping out.
她抓住了他的机会，聘请他为她的员工，接听电话，提供帮助。
Anthony moved out of the group home, got an apartment, got his GED, and is currently enrolled in community college.
安东尼搬出了集体之家，租了一套公寓，获得了 GED，目前正在社区大学就读。
[MUSIC - "BAD MOUTH" BY FUGAZI]
[音乐 - FUGAZI 的“BAD MOUTH”]
Act Three, Impeachment Day.
第三幕，弹劾日。
Well you can't do a spokesman show without hearing from a presidential spokesman.
好吧，如果没有总统发言人的声音，你就无法进行发言人秀。
And there is an unusually candid recording of Joe Lockhart, who did that job for President Bill Clinton from 1998 to 2000.
还有乔·洛克哈特 (Joe Lockhart) 的异常坦诚的录音，他在 1998 年至 2000 年期间为比尔·克林顿 (Bill Clinton) 总统做过这项工作。
Long after Lockhart was out of the White House, he agreed to go on stage as part of The Moth, which is this group that does these great storytelling evenings.
洛克哈特离开白宫很久之后，他同意作为“飞蛾”乐队的一员登上舞台，这个乐队在晚上举办了精彩的讲故事活动。
Lockhart went on stage and talked about his early days on the job as White House spokesman.
洛克哈特上台讲述了他担任白宫发言人的早期经历。
Just after I started, we went on a trip.
我刚开始，我们就去旅行了。
We went off to Russia.
我们去了俄罗斯。
We were going to Ireland, doing big foreign policy stuff.
我们要去爱尔兰，做一些重大的外交政策工作。
Trip was going pretty.
旅行进行得很顺利。
The last night in Moscow, I was coming into the hotel.
在莫斯科的最后一晚，我走进酒店。
And I ran into a friend of mine, an old friend of mine, the godfather to my daughter, I hadn't seen in a couple years.
我遇到了我的一个朋友，我的一个老朋友，我女儿的教父，我已经有几年没见过了。
He said, come on, we've got to go out.
他说，走吧，我们得出去了。
We've got to go out.
我们得出去了。
And he convinced me, you know, we were going to go see the real Moscow.
他说服了我，你知道，我们要去看看真正的莫斯科。
And we went to-- I'll never forget-- a place called The Hungry Duck.
我们去了——我永远不会忘记——一个叫“饥饿鸭子”的地方。
And they were doing things there that I couldn't take my eyes off, so I had to stay till 5:00 in the morning, which was OK because we weren't leaving till 6:00.
他们在那里做的事情让我无法移开视线，所以我不得不呆到早上 5:00，这没关系，因为我们要到 6:00 才会离开。
So I got back to my hotel and made one mistake, which was to sit down on the bed.
于是我回到酒店，犯了一个错误，那就是坐在床上。
And obviously, I fell asleep.
显然，我睡着了。
And I'm telling you, you don't know anxiety until you've woken up as the White House press secretary on your first foreign trip at 6:15 in Moscow without a passport, knowing you've missed Air Force One.
我告诉你，直到你作为白宫新闻秘书于 6 点 15 分在莫斯科醒来，没有护照，作为白宫新闻秘书第一次出国旅行，并且知道自己错过了空军一号时，你才会知道焦虑。
Now the only good thing that I could think of--
现在我能想到的唯一好的事情是——
[LAUGHTER] The only good thing I think of was the day couldn't get worse.
[笑声] 我想到的唯一好的事情就是这一天再糟糕不过了。
When I finally caught up with the traveling party, I was immediately surrounded by reporters who said, how do you feel about being the first White House press secretary to ever miss Air Force One on a foreign trip?
当我终于追上旅行团时，我立即被记者包围，他们问，作为第一位在出国旅行中错过空军一号的白宫新闻秘书，你有何感想？
And a strange phrase just caught in my head.
一个奇怪的短语突然出现在我的脑海里。
And I couldn't lose it.
我不能失去它。
About a week earlier, the president had been at a prayer breakfast talking about his affair with Monica Lewinsky.
大约一周前，总统在一次祈祷早餐会上谈论了他与莫妮卡·莱温斯基的风流韵事。
And he said, you know, I'm really sorry for what I did.
他说，你知道，我对我所做的事感到非常抱歉。
And I'm working very hard to make up for it, particularly to those I've hurt the most.
我正在非常努力地弥补这一点，尤其是对那些受我伤害最深的人。
So when I got the question of how do you feel, I said, I'm really sorry for what I've done wrong.
所以当我被问到你感觉如何时，我说，我对我做错的事情感到非常抱歉。
And I'm working hard to fix it, particularly those who I've hurt the most.
我正在努力解决这个问题，特别是那些受我伤害最深的人。
Now mocking the president of the United States when you make a mistake isn't always the best idea.
现在，当你犯了错误时嘲笑美国总统并不总是最好的主意。
But it came in my head, and I said it.
但我的脑海里浮现出这样的想法，我也说了出来。
So anyway, the day went on.
无论如何，这一天还是过去了。
And we finally had a little break where the president had some private meetings.
我们终于有了一点休息时间，总统举行了一些私人会议。
And I went to the back of the Irish Ambassador's residence to go to sleep.
然后我就到爱尔兰大使官邸后面去睡觉了。
And I hadn't been asleep for more than five minutes.
而我睡着的时间还没有超过五分钟。
And I was actually pretty hungover, which was why I needed the sleep.
事实上我宿醉得很厉害，这就是我需要睡觉的原因。
And the president's personal aide came back and said, the president's in a meeting right now.
总统的私人助理回来说，总统现在正在开会。
And he wants you to come into it.
他希望你也参与其中。
Now, I'm not the smartest guy in the world.
现在，我不是世界上最聪明的人。
But this had practical joke written all over it.
但这里面充满了恶作剧。
And I said, get lost.
我说，滚吧。
About three minutes later, he came in and said, hey, the president's in.
大约三分钟后，他进来说，嘿，总统进来了。
He's in with the band U2, with Bono, and they want to talk to you.
他和波诺 (Bono) 是 U2 乐队的成员，他们想和你谈谈。
I said, well, if the president wants to see me, he can walk his presidential ass right back to this room and ask me himself.
我说，好吧，如果总统想见我，他可以把他的总统屁股直接带回这个房间亲自问我。
Well, about 60 seconds later, the presidential ass showed up and said, what is your problem?
嗯，大约60秒后，总统屁股出现了，说，你有什么问题吗？
These guys want to meet you.
这些人想见见你。
So I walked into the meeting.
于是我走进了会场。
And this guy, this rock star, Bono comes up and gives me this big hug and says, I really want to meet you.
这个摇滚明星波诺走过来给了我一个大大的拥抱，并说，我真的很想见见你。
And I said, well, that's great Mr. Bono, but why?
我说，嗯，那是伟大的波诺先生，但为什么呢？
And he said, anyone who can handle world affairs-- you know, Monica Lewinsky and all that-- and still has time to stay out all night drinking is my kind of guy.
他说，任何能够处理世界事务的人——你知道，莫妮卡·莱温斯基等等——而且还有时间在外面喝酒整晚都是我喜欢的人。
When he was on stage at The Moth, Joe Lockhart also talked about what it was like to be press secretary the day that Congress voted to impeach the president, December 19, 1998.
当乔·洛克哈特在 The Moth 的舞台上时，他还谈到了 1998 年 12 月 19 日国会投票弹劾总统那天担任新闻秘书的感受。
He had, he said, three things to deal with that day.
他说，那天他有三件事要处理。
The impeachment vote, of course.
当然是弹劾投票。
Also the same day, Bob Livingston, the speaker of the House, declared that he'd had an affair and he was going to resign.
同一天，众议院议长鲍勃·利文斯顿宣布他有外遇并准备辞职。
And so the White House had to beat back the notion that President Clinton should also resign because of Monica Lewinsky.
因此，白宫不得不驳回克林顿总统也应该因为莫妮卡·莱温斯基而辞职的观点。
That was just the early afternoon.
那只是下午早些时候。
Also that day, the Defense Department had bombed Iraq with cruise missiles, because Iraq was not complying with the UN weapons inspections.
同一天，美国国防部用巡航导弹轰炸了伊拉克，因为伊拉克没有遵守联合国的武器检查。
And Joe Lockhart had to convince the press-- and the country-- that the attacks on Iraq were not a kind of Wag the Dog distraction.
乔·洛克哈特必须让媒体和整个国家相信，对伊拉克的袭击并不是一种“摇狗”式的干扰。
I then had what we call in the business a communications challenge, because we had two things we had to do in the same time space.
然后我遇到了我们在业务中所说的沟通挑战，因为我们必须在同一时间空间内完成两件事。
And we tried to figure out what to do.
我们试图弄清楚该怎么做。
We had 150 members of Congress down to stand with the president-- Democrats-- and say, this impeachment was all partisan, it's all politics.
我们有 150 名国会议员——民主党人——与总统站在一起，说，这次弹劾完全是党派之争，都是政治问题。
And then we had to talk about the war.
然后我们不得不谈论战争。
And I thought, you know what?
我想，你知道吗？
Sometimes the best thing to do is not worry very much about it, just go out and do it.
有时最好的做法就是不要太担心，只要出去做就可以了。
So out on the south lawn we had the Democrats, very simple message.
因此，在南草坪上，我们收到了民主党的信息，非常简单。
Partisans, this is politics, Republicans suck.
党派们，这就是政治，共和党人很糟糕。
It all went well.
一切都很顺利。
Then we went inside-- only 10 minutes apart, the same podium, just a different room, a different set of flags-- and said, there are no Republicans in this country.
然后我们走进去——相隔仅 10 分钟，同一个讲台，只是不同的房间，一套不同的旗帜——然后说，这个国家没有共和党人。
There are no Democrats.
没有民主党人。
It's just Americans, and we've won the war.
这只是美国人，我们赢得了战争。
And then the president left, leaving me in the room to explain to 50 waiting reporters how the two things fit together.
然后总统离开了，留下我在房间里向 50 名等待的记者解释这两件事如何结合在一起。
And I think it was so audacious that we even took the breath away from the press.
我认为这是如此大胆，以至于我们甚至让媒体惊叹不已。
And they seemed to let us get away with it.
他们似乎让我们侥幸逃脱惩罚。
And I remember at the end of this long day, walking across the hall about 20 feet to my office, going in.
我记得在这漫长的一天结束时，穿过大厅大约 20 英尺，来到我的办公室，走进去。
And one of my closest friends in the White House was there, one of the president's top aides.
我在白宫最亲密的朋友之一也在场，他是总统的高级助手之一。
And he saw me come in.
他看见我进来了。
And I sat down.
我坐下了。
And he went over to the little bar in the office, and got two beers, opened them up, sat down, put his feet up.
他走到办公室的小酒吧，拿了两瓶啤酒，打开，坐下来，把脚抬起来。
And I'll never forget what he said to me, which was, you know, except for getting impeached, we had a pretty good day.
我永远不会忘记他对我说的话，你知道，除了被弹劾之外，我们度过了美好的一天。
Joe Lockhart.
乔·洛克哈特。
He's now a consultant in corporate and political messaging in Washington DC.
他现在是华盛顿特区的企业和政治信息传递顾问。
Thanks to The Moth, You can listen to all kinds of stories like this at their website, themoth.org.
感谢 The Moth，您可以在他们的网站 the moth.org 上收听此类故事。
And of course, those are the musical stylings of the 42nd president of the United States, recorded in Prague on an official foreign trip.
当然，这些是美国第 42 任总统在布拉格正式出访时录制的音乐风格。
Our program today was produced by Lisa Pollak and myself, with Alex Blumberg, Jane Feltes, John Jeter, Sarah Koenig, Alissa Shipp, and Nancy Updike.
我们今天的节目由 Lisa Pollak 和我本人以及 Alex Blumberg、Jane Feltes、John Jeter、Sarah Koenig、Alissa Shipp 和 Nancy Updike 制作。
Our senior producer is Julie Snyder.
我们的高级制片人是朱莉·斯奈德。
Adrianne Mathiowetz runs our web site.
Adrianne Mathiowetz 负责运营我们的网站。
Production help from Seth Lind and PJ Vogt.
Seth Lind 和 PJ Vogt 提供制作帮助。
Musical help from Jessica Hopper.
杰西卡·霍珀的音乐帮助。
[ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS] This American Life is distributed by Public Radio International.
[致谢]《美国生活》由国际公共广播电台发行。
[FUNDING CREDITS] WBEZ management oversight for our program by our boss, Mr. Torey Malatia, who, as always, has this bit of narration to end our program.
[资金来源] 我们的老板 Torey Malatia 先生对我们的项目进行了 WBEZ 管理监督，他一如既往地用这段旁白来结束我们的项目。
You've got the narrator position.
你已经占据了旁白的位置。
You [BLEEP] narrate it.
你[哔]来叙述它。
I'm Ira Glass, back next week with more stories of This American Life.
我是艾拉·格拉斯，下周回来，带来更多《美国生活》的故事。
This American Life is produced in collaboration with WBEZ Chicago and delivered to stations by PRX The Public Radio Exchange.
《This American Life》与 WBEZ Chicago 合作制作，并由 PRX 公共广播电台传送到各电台。