484: Doppelgängers

Summary

This American Life – Episode 484: Doppelgängers

Release Date: June 8, 2025

Introduction

In Episode 484 titled "Doppelgängers," This American Life explores the intriguing concept of doubles and look-alikes, both among people and unexpected subjects. Hosted by Ira Glass, with a special appearance by comedian Fred Armisen, the episode delves into stories that challenge our perceptions of identity and similarity.

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Act One: Dead Ringer – The Pork Bung Calamari Conundrum

Timestamp: 06:16 – 32:33

Ben Calhoun, one of the producers, investigates a startling claim about the food industry: the possibility that hog bung (pork rectum) is being labeled and sold as imitation calamari. The story began when Calhoun received an email from Emily Rancer, a listener who works in the food industry. Emily relayed a farmer's account of discovering boxes labeled "artificial calamari" at a pork processing plant in Oklahoma. Upon inquiry, the plant manager, Ron Meek, admitted that the "imitation calamari" was indeed hog bung, prepared by slicing, deep-frying, and selling it at a lower cost than actual squid.

Calhoun reached out to various experts, including the USDA and food industry associations, but found no concrete evidence supporting the claim that pork bung is being widely used as a fraudulently labeled seafood product. Despite the lack of official reports, the prevalence of seafood mislabeling in the U.S. raised concerns about the possibility of such practices slipping under regulatory radars.

To further investigate, Calhoun and his sister Lauren, a trained chef, conducted a blind taste test at a Chinatown restaurant. Participants were asked to distinguish between genuine calamari and fried hog bung. The results were surprising:

NPR Host (Brian Reed) [26:16]: "I haven't had it since we got this tip about the possible... I eat calamari pretty regular."

Ben Calhoun [30:01]: "Game, set, match. Bung."

The tasters struggled to differentiate between the two, with some even mistaking bung for calamari. Despite the visual similarities after frying, the distinct pork flavor of bung ultimately gave it away to those familiar with the taste.

Calhoun concludes that while there is no definitive proof of bung being passed off as calamari, the potential for such deception exists, highlighting broader issues within food labeling and consumer awareness.

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Act Two: Country and City – Echoes of Trauma in Philadelphia and Afghanistan

Timestamp: 34:28 – 57:22

Alex Kotlowitz, renowned for his work on inner-city struggles, examines the parallels between the traumas experienced by individuals in Philadelphia's violent neighborhoods and those faced by soldiers in Afghanistan. Through the stories of Brandon Caro, a Navy corpsman who served in Afghanistan, and Curtis Jefferson, a Philadelphia resident entrenched in the drug trade, Kotlowitz uncovers striking similarities in their psychological scars.

Brandon Caro's Story: Brandon served a year in Afghanistan, where the constant threat of violence and distrust towards Afghan soldiers took a heavy toll on his mental health. He witnessed peers being killed and was involved in intense combat situations that left him with physical injuries and persistent nightmares.

Brandon Caro [37:10]: "It felt like a piano could fall on you at any time... that's what it felt like to be on patrol."

Curtis Jefferson's Story: Growing up in North Philadelphia, Curtis was exposed to drug dealing from a young age. Experiencing the loss of his mother to gun violence and enduring constant fear within his community, Curtis developed a hardened exterior, masking his deep-seated trauma.

Curtis Jefferson [37:48]: "I saw my mom getting caught up in a shootout... I still think about her every day."

Shared Experiences: Both men struggled to process their traumas, leading to self-medication through alcohol and drugs. Their anger manifested in destructive behaviors towards friends and family, further isolating them from support systems.

Curtis Jefferson [46:47]: "I tried counseling but didn't like it. So I sought out other veterans who understand what I've been through."

Diverging Paths: While Brandon sought help through Alcoholics Anonymous and writing programs, Curtis remained entrenched in his environment, unable to escape the ongoing violence of his neighborhood.

Brandon Caro [55:23]: "I've continued writing my novel... telling the story of a medic in the Afghan war."

Tragically, Curtis Jefferson passed away after continued struggles, underscoring the devastating impact of unaddressed trauma.

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Conclusion

Episode 484 of This American Life masterfully intertwines stories of identity, deception, and trauma. Through the examination of pork bung masquerading as calamari and the profound psychological parallels between a veteran and a Philadelphia resident, the episode challenges listeners to consider the deeper implications of appearance versus reality and the pervasive effects of trauma across different facets of life.

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Notable Quotes:

• Ira Glass [00:20]: "Sometimes things aren't what you think they are, and people aren't who you think they are. That's what we're talking about today."

• Ben Calhoun [29:56]: "And Damien, who manages the restaurant, he also thought it was passable... it's like just eating sympathy for the bung."

• Curtis Jefferson [51:05]: "I shot my sister's boyfriend... I didn't even give him a chance to put his hands up."

• Brandon Caro [40:08]: "I would watch the way they looked at me, you know, if they would stare back at me, if they would smile at me."

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Production Notes:

• Produced by: Mickey Meek and Ben Calhoun with Alex Blumberg.

• Special Thanks: Aurora and Brooklyn restaurants for the bung tasting, Healing Hurt People program at Drexel University, and various individuals who contributed to the stories.

• Additional Resources: Watch the dress rehearsal video on thisamericanlife.org, and explore merchandise inspired by the bung calamari story.

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This detailed summary encapsulates the essence of Episode 484, providing an engaging overview while highlighting key moments and quotes that underscore the themes of deception and shared trauma.

Transcript

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[Fred Armisen]

1, 2, 3.

[Ira Glass]

1, 2, 3.

One, 2, 3.

1, two, three.

One, two, three. One, Two, Three. Sometimes things aren't what you think they are, and people aren't who you think they are. That's what we're talking about today. I'm Ira Glass.

That is really weird to hear you do that. I'm here. This is actually Ira Glass. I'm sitting here with Fred Armisen.

Hi.

Hi. Who's probably best known for Saturday Night Live, but also Portlandia. And I knew that you had worked up an imitation of me because we just happened to meet once. And then you said something like, but you're not famous enough, so I have no use for this on television.

I might have said that. Exactly.

Yeah. And. Yeah.

Well, after that, this writer at snl, Christine Nangle, and I, we figured out a way to turn it into a sketch that we could put on Weekend Update, the news segment on Saturday Night Live. By chance, NPR came up in the news. I think this was around the time that they were talking about cutting some of the funding.

[NPR Host]

Here to comment on NPR's troubles, the host of this American Life, Ira Glass.

[Ira Glass]

So I came out and I'm wearing your glasses and like a wig to look like you. It's this American Life. I'm Ira Glass. Act one. You know, I was thinking the other day, and the joke being that you were interviewing people at Weekend Update.

[Ben Calhoun]

Ira, look, you can't bring other people on as your guest. You're my guest. It's just your CEO just resigned, and now the Republican budget proposes cutting your funding completely. I mean, aren't you afraid that NPR might start laying people off?

[Ira Glass]

Act two.

[Ben Calhoun]

Oh, boy.

[Ira Glass]

Laid off. No guts.

So this never made it to air. This is just the recording from the dress rehearsal. Why didn't it make it to air?

Rita finally gets a job. Who knows? It might have been a little unwieldy.

So if people want to watch that, the entire video is. We have a link at our website. Anyway, so we invited you here today. Cause the theme of this week's show is doppelgangers. The show is about doppelgangers, about people who are doubles or look alikes. And I realized that because you had worked up this imitation, you could co host as my doppelganger in this room, in this studio, during this broadcast, this is an audience who will actually know who you're playing.

Yes. This is the right venue for it.

So if you're ready, that's what we'll do.

Sure. And you could. Another way to look at it is you're co hosting with me that this is my show.

Exactly.

And that's what we're talking about today. I'm Ira Glass.

All right, so let's go to this copy. So we have some copy for today.

Okay.

That'S this one. And let's go to there. And let's just. Why don't you start?

Okay. Today on our show.

Today on our show, I'm just thinking about how I would do it. I would go like today on our show.

Oh, yes, that's better. Okay. Today on our show, we have two.

Stories of supposed doppelgangers.

We have two stories of supposed doppelgangers. And we try to figure out the truth of them.

Do I sound that nasal?

Maybe?

And we try to figure out the truth of them.

And we try to figure out the truth of them.

One concerns two men who've never met.

The other two, animals who never meet.

I think you should do the next part because it's so like, do you want to hear me do it first or do you just want to do it?

From WBEZ Chicago, it's this American Life.

Distributed by Public Radio International.

Distributed by Public Radio International.

I feel like a Muppet. Why does it make me feel like a Muppet? Fred.

Seriously, I think you could be a Muppet. I don't know why they don't have a Muppet of you. From WBEZ Chicago, it's this American Life. From WBEZ Chicago, it's this American Life.

Distributed by Public Radio International.

Distributed by Public Radio International. I'm Ira Glass.

And I'm Ira Glass.

And I'm Ira Glass. Stay with us.

[NPR Host]

Foreign.

[Ira Glass]

For this American Life. And the following message come from Data iq. AI can be a kind of raw power. Take control of AI with Data iq, the universal AI platform. It's built for business teams and AI experts alike. Designed for trust and engineered to scale to fit your tech stack today and tomorrow. From analytics, models and agents, make AI flow through your enterprise. Don't just keep up with AI. Control it with Data IQ, the universal AI platform. Find out [e-mail] thisamericanlive.

[Capital One Ad]

This message comes from Sony Pictures Classics with the new romantic comedy Jane Austen wrecked my life. A woman dreams of becoming a successful writer and experiencing true love while at a Jane Austen writer's residency. Now playing only in theaters.

[Ira Glass]

Right now, we are living through some of the most tumultuous political times our country has ever known. I'm David Remnick, and each week on the New Yorker Radio Hour, I'll try to make sense of what's happening alongside politicians and thinkers like Cory Booker, Nancy Pelosi, Liz Cheney, Tim Waltz, Ketanji Brown Jackson, Newt Gingrich, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. Charlamagne, tha God, and so many more. That's all in the New Yorker Radio Hour. Wherever you listen to podcasts, this is American life. Today's show is a rerun from back in 2013, when Fred Armisen was still on Saturday Night Live and doing Portlandia. And our show at the time was distributed by Public Radio International. Let's get back to the show. So, Fred, you want to. Do you want to start act one?

[David Remnick]

Okay.

[Ira Glass]

Act one. Dead ringer. We start today with a story of physical resemblance not of a person, but of a food.

A quick warning that if you're squeamish or averse to graphic images of food, there's going to be some of that in this report.

Here's Ben Calhoun.

[Ben Calhoun]

I first heard about this whole thing in an email. It came from a listener, a woman named Emily Rancer. She works in the food industry. And the letter Emily wrote was about a story she'd heard from a farmer. The farmer who told her this is apparently a person of some standing in the pork industry. And admittedly, I don't know the first thing about the pork industry, but he's in charge of a pork producing operation that spans several states. The story he told Emily went something like this. A while ago, he was visiting a pork processing plant in Oklahoma. He's walking through it with a friend, a guy who managed the plant, actually, and at some point, he saw boxes stacked on the floor labeled artificial calamari. He stood there wondering for a second, and then he asked his friend, what's artificial calamari? Bung, his friend replied, it's hog rectum. Rectum that would be sliced into rings, deep fried, and boom, there you have it. Okay, if I can. Let me just narrate for you what this would mean. It would mean that in restaurants everywhere right this second, people are squeezing lemon wedges over crispy golden rings, dipping the rings into marinara sauce, and they're eating hog rectum. Now they're chewing, satisfied and deeply clueless. It's payback. It's payback for our blissful ignorance about where our food comes from and how it gets to us. It's amazing and it's perfect, but it also seems like it couldn't possibly be true. So I called up the farmer to talk to him personally. I wanted to hear it firsthand. And the farmer confirmed the story, the entire thing, the boxes, the bung. But when I asked him to go on the record to tape an interview and give his name here on the radio, he very politely declined, which seems suspicious, right? When I asked him why, he said he'd spoken with his girlfriend about it and she suggested that he should think about the words that he wanted to come up when somebody googled his name. This was all fine, though, because he referred me to the real expert, the guy who gave him the tour of the hog processing plant. And that guy, he agreed to talk.

[Ron Meek]

Hello?

[Ben Calhoun]

Hi, is this Ron?

[Ron Meek]

Yeah.

[Ben Calhoun]

Yeah, this is Ron Meek, meat processing plant manager, presently residing in Mountain View, Missouri, where he runs an organic beef processing plant there called Beyond Organic. If the story really were true, Ron would have been the guy who explained to the farmer what was in those boxes.

[Ron Meek]

The boxes are 10 pound boxes, and they were all. They cut off so much, like maybe a 10 or 12 inch piece of the bung. And you know what it looks like? This looks like after they're cleaned and washed and everything, they just look like a bunch of big noodles in a box is all it looks like.

[Ben Calhoun]

But specifically, the labels that said imitation calamari. Where did you personally see the imitation calamari labels?

[Ron Meek]

I've never seen a label say that. That's all I was told by the people that told me that. The people I work for, they told me that.

[Ben Calhoun]

Oh, the people that you work for told you that it was used for imitation calamari?

[Ron Meek]

Right.

[Ben Calhoun]

And is there any possibility that you think that the. When they were explaining this to you, they. That they were kind of having you on a little bit?

[Ron Meek]

Having me on?

[Ben Calhoun]

Yeah. Like bull me? Yeah.

[Ron Meek]

Well, I wouldn't think that, but, you know, it could be 5% could have been that, you know, but I seriously doubt it.

[Ben Calhoun]

Okay, just to give a little better picture, a pork bung, and bung is the actual industry term for it is long and floppy and ugly at one end, it widens out into this more bulbous shape like a pink wrinkly pear. That's the rectum at the other end, it narrows into a soft, pinkish white tube. I know it sounds gross, but also consider we are a nation that eats more than a billion pounds of sausage every year. Billion with a B. Maybe you like liverwurst or capicola or summer Sausage with a natural casing. Then you, like me, have eaten bung, Stuffed, dried bung. A lot of brats and Italian sausages are stuffed in intestine. So if you eat those regularly, you pretty much live up the street from bung. So why does the idea of a fried ring of bong just feel grosser? Partly, it's the visual, right? When you see that little ring of calamari, you don't want to picture it in the context of a pig's behind. Then there are all the people who don't eat pork, period. Ron said there's also another reason.

[Ron Meek]

Just because the word bung, probably people don't just want to jump up and say, man, I'm going to eat me some bung tonight. You know, I mean, that's just the way it is.

[Ben Calhoun]

But the big question, the question you've been thinking about since we got on this topic, have you or I eaten imitation calamari bung dressed up as seafood? Well, Ron didn't know. He said his plant exported a lot of their bung to Asia, but he just didn't know much about whatever happened after it left the door. So he could only speculate. Anything he said would be a wild guess. So I turned to people who would know. Is pork bung being falsely peddled as calamari? I called the USDA. The USDA's Food Inspection Service issued the following statement to Products we inspect, including those derived from pork, must be accurately labeled and cannot purport to be a product of another species. So it's against the rules, but people break the rules. A recent study of seafood by a group called Oceana used DNA testing and found that all across the country, fish is regularly being labeled as other species in restaurants and in grocery stores. Escolar sold as white tuna, Pacific rockfish being fraudulently sold as snapper. In Miami, more than 30% of fish was being sold as something it was wasn't. In New York, the number was 39% Boston, 48% Los Angeles. Are you ready? 55%. 55. That means if you order fish in LA, you are most likely eating a species you did not order. In other words, seafood substitution is rampant in this country. And depending on where you live, from what I can tell, you can get cleaned hog bung for about half the price of clean squid. So there would be money in it if you could pull off the switch. And as best as I can tell, were you to do this, you would not be caught. A lawyer who's familiar with this area of law and regulation Told me once bung leaves the plant, there's a variety of agencies and entities that would be in play. Usda, fda, state and local government. But ultimately, he said, the regulation we have is not designed to catch an offense like this. It's aimed mostly at sanitation and food safety. So bottom line, the lawyer said, if somebody wanted to do it, chances are they'd get away with it. So is someone out there doing this? Well, for weeks, I looked for an answer. The USDA says they've never heard of anyone trying to pass pork bung as squid or any other species. I contacted the National Restaurant association, the National Pork Producers Council, the National Pork Board, a squid Fisherman's Association, Cisco, and other big food and restaurant supply companies.

[Fred Armisen]

It's hog.

[NPR Host]

What?

[Ben Calhoun]

Bung. Hog rectum. Oh, my gosh. That's the executive director of the California Wetfish Producers Association. But the answer was pretty much always the same. Nobody had heard of it, but almost to a person, they added that that doesn't mean it's not happening somewhere. Ron Meek said a lot of the bung from his plant got exported. So my next call was to the US Meat Export Federation, which confirmed that the main destinations for pork bungs are China, Hong Kong, Japan, Taiwan, Korea, and the Philippines. They are mainly used for processing, but we are aware of some uses in soups and certain entrees. We are not aware of them being used as a substitute for calamari, but it's not impossible, unquote. So over the past few weeks, I've called Asian food suppliers, people who live in, work in, and eat in those countries. I talked to a woman named Karine Trang, who's written an overarching compendium of Asian cuisines. I've talked to academics at NYU and Haverford and uk, USC and Harvard. I've reached out to chefs who know Asian food. The answer, again, always similar. Never heard of it. But it's possible, partly because bong doesn't have such a complicated reputation in Asia, where it has to be some kind of secret ingredient, like it does here. On the other hand, though, people pointed out that in Korea and Japan, you can't get more than a few hours from the ocean. Squid is cheap, and it's readily available. You'd only eat a substitute if you wanted the substitute. Generally, people said if the switch was happening somewhere, they'd guess China. Eventually, I found my way to this guy who I was really excited about, someone who I thought might have my answer. He was, get this, an anthropologist who lived and worked in China for 40 years where he studied food and specifically meat. When I talked to him though, he made two points. My question about this happening in Asia was racist. Even just asking the question was racist because it plays on ignorant stereotypes about other cultures eating things that we perceive as weird. Point two was that Ron Meek, my guy from the pig plant, Ron was pulling my leg and he was getting away with it because I was a dumbass. He told me more than once that I should find something worthwhile to do with myself. When we ended our conversation, he told me that he was refusing to even dignify what I was doing by appearing on the radio or by letting me use his name. Okay, so to respond to his points one by first, am I racist against Asians? Well, I'm half Chinese. My mom's Chinese. Like anyone, I've had the occasional issue with my mother, but this has not been one of them. We grew up eating chicken feet and fish eyes and I think it's possible to raise the question of who eats what without being racist. His second point though, that Ron Meek was pulling my leg. I mean, the guy was still an expert on meat in China. So I called Ron back.

[Ron Meek]

Alright, shoot me some questions, dude.

[Ben Calhoun]

I told him the whole thing about the anthropologist, about what he said. I guess. I mean, the only thing I want to ask you is, is, are you, are you messing with me?

[Ron Meek]

No. I mean, that was what my boss told me. I was like, what the hell we save these hog bongs for? He says they use them for imitation squid and stuff like that, but.

[Ben Calhoun]

So in your, in your heart of hearts, you believe it?

[Ron Meek]

Yeah, man. I mean, I mean, I ain't gonna sit here and tell you things that there's bull can play with you when, when I'm just going off of my knowledge of saving hog buns. I mean, you got to think about how far advanced slaughterhouses are, especially big ones that want to make every penny count. Like the one I worked at. You bring the pigs in, you stun them, then you stick them and the blood goes off into a trough and it goes down and it's vacuum sucked out of there with a vacuum into centrifuges. And they separate the blood from the blood plasma and they save that. I mean, they save the lungs, they save the pancreas, they save the spleens, they saved the heart. The only thing left by the time it's all said and done is a skull and jawbones. I mean, you can be an anthropologist all you want. If you don't work in a processing plant, you don't know.

[Ben Calhoun]

I contacted the plant round, worked at where this happened, and for what it's worth, they backed him up. They said their sales team had heard of people eating pork bung as imitation calamari, though they hadn't witnessed it firsthand or heard it directly from a customer. It was all hearsay. So at the end of all this, I still had no proof that anyone was passing off bung as squid. And then I realized I hadn't asked the more basic question here. Could bung do it? Could it pass as calamari? And that question led me to a guy named Eddie Lynn. Eddie Lynn has eaten a lot of bung at least a hundred times, he said, probably more. Eddie has an extreme food blog called Deep End Dining and an online TV show called Kamikaze Kitchen. I can definitely see a resemblance, texture wise. Oh, really? Yeah, yeah, definitely. There's sort of a rubbery texture, sort of like a calamari. But you would really have to get rid of that, you know, needless to say, foul flavor and odor from the bung. Somehow I hadn't figured that the bung, once it was scrubbed and rinsed and cleaned with steam, that it would still taste like, you know, so, yeah, you would definitely have to do some major, major blanching or brining. I meant brining. Yeah. To just try and leech those flavors out of there. Yeah. I mean, those flavors have been, you know, marinating in that pig for quite a while, so a lifetime. He thought it wouldn't be easy, but he thought it could be done. And there was only one way to tell if he was right to cook up some bung and eat it. And if the taste was overwhelming and the texture was all wrong, well, then I'd have my answer. And at this point, I'll be frank. I started to root for the bung. I realized that this is not a story about fraud. It's not a bait and switch story. It's a story about possibility. It's classic rags to riches. It's about whether a cut of meat, perhaps the lowliest, most malignable cut of meat in America, might somehow, in at least one place on the planet, be dipped in the redemptive oils of the great culinary equalizer that is the deep fryer. And it might emerge transformed, no longer an outcast, but instead, hair combed, clean shaven, in a suit and tie, it might walk reborn onto a table through sheer force of resemblance. It might be loved. Its history, years of drudgery and hardship, doing the body's least glamorous job all washed away. No, this is not the story of a con man like Bernie Madoff. It's Pretty Woman. This is whether Good Will Hunting finds his way out of Southie. It's whether Charlie, on that very last chocolate bar, really can get a golden ticket to do all this. To try it, I called my little sister, Lauren. She's a chef, trained abroad at the Cordon Bleu. Worked at Michelin star restaurants. She's that kind of chef. Soon, we were standing in front of a deli case. And I don't know why I feel hesitant about saying this, because I don't think it's racist. It was in Chinatown.

[Fred Armisen]

Pork bone.

[Ben Calhoun]

There it is. Look at it. It looks like. It looks like a sphincter. Wait, what do you mean? It looks like a. This one up here, that's cut up.

[I]

It looks like.

[Ben Calhoun]

Like a butthole. Hey, guys. And Lauren had theories about pulling it off. Brining, soaking, maybe brazing. But once we got to the store, once she'd seen the meetup close, her doubts got worse. I think after looking at it, I don't think that. I don't think it's gonna. You don't think it's gonna work? No.

[Ira Glass]

It's too thick.

[Ben Calhoun]

There's too much. There's too much muscle, like muscle tissue. It's too thick. You'd have to use, like, a ring cutter to make it the right thickness. What do you think those bits are in there? Oh, you know, poo. My sister said Eddie Lynn was definitely right. The giveaway would be the stubborn flavor of that flavor. She said it's tough to get rid of. The earth revolves around the sun, and bung will always taste like. But there was no backing out now. We would eat. We would eat our way to the truth. And so what if it didn't look good? So what if bung was destined to taste like bung? You know who it didn't look good for? And he still put up a fight. Rocky Balboa, that's who. This was it. The bung versus calamari, squid versus tail, the rumble in the bunghole. We set up the tasting at a restaurant in the lull between lunch and dinner. In the dining room, there was just a few tables eating, and all around the restaurant, the morning shift was wrapping up as we walked in with a red cooler filled with squid and hog bong. So originally, I'd recruited some half a dozen people from our office at this American Life as tasters. The final group, the day of the tasting included, from the office, Seth Lind. And Brian Reed. So when's the last time that you guys had calamari?

[NPR Host]

I had calamari probably like a month ago.

[Ben Calhoun]

And what about you, Brian?

[NPR Host]

I haven't had it since we got this tip about the possible.

[Ben Calhoun]

Oh, my gosh. Have you been avoiding.

[NPR Host]

Yeah, no, totally. And to be honest, I ate calamari pretty regular. I'm like a regular eater of calamari. Not, like all the time, but it's something I'll routinely order if it's on an appetizer menu. I mean, I grew up in, like, an Italian American family where, like, my grandparents were also born here. I feel like calamari is just big among that sector of people at, like, you know, Olive Garden and stuff like that. So I just grew up eating it.

[Ben Calhoun]

You know, I hadn't realized this. For weeks. Brian had been avoiding calamari. He'd been living in fear.

[NPR Host]

Brian, if you find out that they're indiscernible from each other, will you ever eat calamari again? No, I don't think so. That's why I want to do this. Just to know going forward.

[Ben Calhoun]

Back in the kitchen, things were looking bad. I'd given up on the idea that bung would taste the same as calamari. Now I'd hung my hopes on the idea that at least visually, it would look the same. But as my sister dropped the flowered rings of hogbung into the fryer, they had turned into this kind of big, ugly, tangled wad. Nothing like the jiggly squid rings. Oh, they're very, like, scraggly looking. But then, as if by a miracle, they changed. My sister gave a shake to the fry basket, and as they sizzled, the bung just seemed to gracefully snap into rings. Oh, look at that, though. It's like magic. They're, like, turning into circles. Yeah. Soon we were face to face with the plate. On it, there were two piles of rings, similar in size, similar in shape. The bung had more of a frizzly edge to it, kind of like a fancy onion ring. The calamari was smoother. I asked Seth and Brian to just give a first impression.

[NPR Host]

I have a guess, but I could totally. It's one of those things where you're pretty sure, but you could totally be wrong. God, I thought it would be more sure.

[Ben Calhoun]

I don't.

[NPR Host]

I'm waffling now. My gut reaction. My gut reaction is that this was. This was calamari, and this was not okay before you eat it. See, I totally thought this was calamari. The other One. Okay, so I'm gonna do it at the same time.

[Ben Calhoun]

Okay, so just to be clear, what's going on here? Seth has chosen one pile of rings, which he thinks is calamari. Brian has done the same thing, only Brian is choosing the other stack of fried rings.

[NPR Host]

Okay, so we're about to bite into these simultaneously, which we both think this is calamari. But they're the opposite. But they're the opposite ones. Okay.

[Ben Calhoun]

So in actuality, Seth is right. Seth is eating calamari. The chewing you hear from Brian's mic, that is the sound of a calamari lover eating fried pig rectum. I should also add, there were actually two varieties of bung on the plate that day. One bung that my sister had blanched over and over to mellow any organy fecal flavor. And then untreated, straight up bung, unfiltered, unchained, uncut, 100% pure bung. That one. The latter one, bung at its purest. At the height of its bunginess, this is what Brian was eating. As they ate. Seth still looked confident.

[NPR Host]

I think. I think that was. I think I was right. I think I was right.

[Ben Calhoun]

Really?

[NPR Host]

Yeah, I totally think I was right.

[Ben Calhoun]

Game, set, match. Bung. And it wasn't just Brian. I thought so. Damian, who manages the restaurant, he also thought it was passable. A few of us picked up a faint flavor of pork rind, but if you weren't really looking for it, you wouldn't notice it was there. One of the restaurant staff, a guy named Ethan Van Buren, had the simplest, clearest explanation.

[NPR Host]

I think that when you slice something up really thin and deep fried, it's going to taste like something that's been deep fried.

[Ben Calhoun]

If a plate full of the bun came out, how many people do you think would even, like. Do you think you'd notice if you were in that setting?

[NPR Host]

I'd say top scenario is somebody says, this calamari tastes funny and keeps eating it.

[Ben Calhoun]

And as for Brian. Oh, Brian. Brian was reeling a bit, trying to figure out just what this was gonna mean for him.

[NPR Host]

I'm sure I've been fooled in the past. I'm just, like, sure of it.

[Ben Calhoun]

Wait, oh, you're thinking that you've been places in. In the past and you've had bug.

[NPR Host]

I just imagine seeing a plate that looks like. With this food that looks like this on it. Like, sitting with my family growing up, we definitely have eaten something that tasted like this and just thought it was calamari for sure.

[Ben Calhoun]

Not only wasn't he sure if he'd ever eat calamari again, he didn't want to eat the calamari on the plate in front of him. Calamari, I guaranteed him, was real. Just to repeat one last time, I have no proof that anyone anywhere has ever tried to pass off pork bung as calamari in a restaurant. All I know is if you wanted to do it, it would be easy. And I'm choosing to believe that it's happening somewhere because at some point in working on this story, I stopped identifying with Brian and anyone who might feel ripped off or grabbed grossed out by getting imitation instead of the real thing. Now I identify with the bung. And I'd like to think that somewhere out there right now under a heat lamp, a platter is sitting. It's warm and it's full of promise and transformation and redemption. That's the world that I'll choose to live in. For me, for you, for the bung, for the bung in all of us.

[Ira Glass]

Ben Calhoun. He's one of the producers of our.

Program or any way he was back when he made this story in 2013. Today's show is a rerun. These days he is the executive producer of the New York Times podcast the Daily.

Thanks to the restaurant, oh, Aurora and Brooklyn for letting us use their kitchen for our taste test. Okay, okay, who was this? Wait, who am I?

Well, coming up, Philadelphia and Afghanistan doppelgangers.

It's in a minute from Chicago Public Radio and Public Radio International when our program continues.

[J]

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[Ira Glass]

So we're going to start act two.

Start here. So we're coming back from the ID break.

This American Life. I'm Ira Glass.

Each week on our show, of course.

We choose a theme, bring you different kinds of stories on that theme. Today's show, doppelgangers, stories of things that have a double.

An evil twin or a not so evil twin. Oh, wait, I should just explain. Oh, right. So what? That was just a note to myself. I should explain?

No, that was a note to me.

So this is why Fred is here. Fred Armisen is co hosting the show as me because it's a show about doubles and look alikes.

Right. But we're both creating the same person in a sense, and that's kind of what the fun is of.

Oh, that was really good the way you just did that. Finish your thought.

I didn't have an end to that thought.

You just knew that you.

I like when you do little. A little self discovery.

All right. Well, we have arrived at Act 2 of our program, Act 2 in country and City. So for decades now, the writer Alex Kotlowitz has been writing about the inner cities and especially the toll of violence on young people. He's probably best known for his book, There Are no Children Here. He appears on our show from time to time.

Recently, he heard about an unusual program at Drexel University in Philadelphia where they're giving guys from inner city neighborhoods counseling for symptoms of ptsd.

And it's interested Alex because for a long time he has wondered whether the violence that he was reporting on in Chicago and its effect on kids and adults was comparable to the effects of trauma that a person experiences at war.

So he knew, and we know how strange that sounds, you know, to compare being in Afghanistan or Iraq to working in a street corner in Chicago or some other city.

So Alex tried to see if it was really comparable by doing a pair of interviews. He talked to this vet from Afghanistan and also a guy from Philadelphia who's lived in some pretty bad neighborhoods his whole life. Alex wanted to see if they were doubles of some kind for each other.

One of these guys is 28, one is 30, and both of them are trying to make sense of what they experienced.

Quick warning that this story includes descriptions of violence and discussions about suicide.

[Ben Calhoun]

Here's Alex.

[Fred Armisen]

Here's the first of these two guys, Brandon Caro. Brandon spent a year in Afghanistan. His roughest Time was the six months he spent in the eastern part of the country, near the Pakistani border. He was a Navy corpsman, a medic who worked with the Marines as a teenager.

[I]

Yeah, I certainly lack discipline. I've been thrown out of my house more times than I can remember. And I was 21 when I enlisted. And really, I enlisted because I had, up to that point, not finished college. And it didn't seem as though I was going to finish college anytime soon.

[Fred Armisen]

Then there's Curtis Jefferson. He grew up in a rough neighborhood in North Philly, where he oversaw a small group of guys who sold drugs. He made his first drug sale when he was still in high school.

[David Remnick]

I was 16. My aunt gave me some. She gave me some money for school, and I purchased some weed and some crack with that. Never bought my clothes after that. I sold all the drugs. And I guess from there, that's where it started. I seen that money come in, and I wasn't asking the wife for no money, especially with my aunt. I wasn't back and forth in her pockets and all that. So from there, it was all she wrote.

[Fred Armisen]

Okay. They're two completely different people who made very different choices in their lives. But I spoke to each of them, looking for similarities in their experiences, and honestly, there were more than I expected. Here's the first similarity. For Curtis on the street and for Brandon in Afghanistan, they could never let their guard down. During his tour, Brandon was charged with training Afghan soldiers. And in May 2007, he heard about Afghan soldiers who attacked their American trainers.

[I]

They had weapons around us all the time on convoys. We would have to line them up in the morning and collect their cell phones because we couldn't trust them not to inform on us to Taliban fighters. It was exhausting trying to keep an eye on the Afghan soldiers and look out for IEDs or snipers, because you're.

[David Remnick]

Trying to focus on one thing, trying to get money, but the same thing. You know, eventually somebody gonna come up and test you. Somebody gonna test you, see if somebody gonna rob you. Somebody gonna send something to your boys, they gonna get robbed. Somebody gonna send shots through your way or something.

[I]

It felt like a piano could fall on you at any time. You know, that's what it felt like to be on patrol, and especially to be on patrol with the Afghans.

[David Remnick]

When you were out there, you notice different things. For one, people with their hands in their pockets.

[I]

You're looking for someone that doesn't look right, that doesn't feel right.

[David Remnick]

Another thing, people got hoodies on, especially black. There's a certain look. Put the hoodie on their face, you can't even see their eyeballs. Like, come on, it's daytime. I can't see your face. Let me see your eyes or something.

[I]

I would watch the way they looked at me, you know, if they would stare back at me, if they would smile at me.

[David Remnick]

You know, if a person always gotta keep touching they side, like, you're not going in your pocket, you touching something. And I've been out there so long, I could tell somebody got a gun on them or not.

[I]

For some reason. It was always like a white Toyota Camry that was packed with explosives and driven into a convoy or driven into.

[David Remnick]

A checkpoint Grand Marquis. Who else? Crown Victoria. That's a dope boy car. When I seen them cars when I was on the streets, Z would get ready, go for the straps, go to the guns, or get out the way. That might be the hop out boys come stick you up.

[Fred Armisen]

Here's something else they shared. They both saw people killed and then had to figure out how to keep going. The first fatality Brandon ever saw came when a convoy, which he was originally scheduled to be a part of, was hit.

[I]

They brought the casualties into our base. And when we swung open the two doors that opened up into the cab of the truck, I was looking at just a heap, a mass of flesh and that gray digital pattern army uniform. But there was no form to what I was looking at. I knew that what I was looking at was human, but I didn't know what position the body was in because it had been so badly damaged. And so we got into the cab and we started to put him into a bag, and I tried not to look at his face. I remember thinking, like, don't look at his face. Don't look at his face. But I had to. Inevitably, it was by far the most intimate, goriest thing I've ever experienced in my life.

[David Remnick]

My first time seeing somebody shot was my own mother. I was five years old, going on six. We was living in the projects. Bloomberg projects. My mom, she just got her degree in nursing. She was a nurse, nice little job. She was working to get us out the projects. Then one morning, she was going out to work, gave my mom a kiss on the lips. She tell my grandma, I'll see y' all later. I'm going to work soon. She was out of work. I just heard all this shooting. Like, by that time, I knew what shooting was. But, you know, there it was. She just got caught up in a shootout. Somebody knocked on the door. She Told my grandson Barbara laying on the ground. All I know is my grandma was screaming and hollering. She ran outside and there she was, right on the ground, just red blood. It was nothing but blood. Just looking at her like I'm five years old, like, what's wrong with mommy, Grandma? Like, what's wrong? My grandma crying and screaming. She ain't even, like, she didn't even say nothing. Like she just keep telling me, go in the house, go on the house, go in the house. I was angry a lot, like every day, every day. Because I thought about my mom every day, every day, every day. I still think about her every day.

[I]

From that point on, it was very difficult for me to sleep, to focus. I didn't realize how much those things really had made an impact on me, but they did.

[David Remnick]

I seen a lot of people get shot. I seen people get shot by cops. I done seen best friends shoot each other. I done seen all types of crazy stuff. I don't know.

[I]

There was a convoy that went up to Naray in which there was a sniper attack that killed my old sergeant and his sergeant. There was the rocket propelled grenade attack on a tent inside our fob, followed up by machine gun fire.

[David Remnick]

I could say I had seen like a dozen. And for me to not even be like no cop or no doctor, nothing, like that's a whole lot. To see somebody killed and dead, like, that's a whole lot.

[Fred Armisen]

This brings us to the third parallel. They buried their feelings well.

[David Remnick]

You know, after my mom got shot, I didn't get no counseling. I didn't get no counseling at all. And my aunt asked me too. Like, my aunt gave me a decision and she asked me one day, she. I had to been like 12. She was like, do you want a little counsel? And I told her no. For what? I don't need to talk to nobody. I was so much in denial. I don't think I can handle everything by myself, but I really couldn't.

[I]

I think at that point I was probably still in denial. I knew, I knew that I was toting around a lot of emotional baggage. As much as I wanted to talk to people about how I really felt, I also didn't want to talk about it at all. The more, the more I'd give it air, the more real it would be. And I didn't want it to be real. I just wanted it to be over.

[David Remnick]

I can't show no weakness because you know what I mean? My homies need me out there. And I've been doing that for years to the Point, like, I started getting adapted to it. Like it. But at the same time I was still scared. Like, don't nobody want to die like that.

[Fred Armisen]

The fourth shared experience. Raw, unfiltered rage.

[David Remnick]

I was definitely looking for revenge for my mom. When I was 10 years old, I told my aunt I was going, you know, look for the people they killed my mom. And I was, you know, I was gonna go back down to the projects and I was gonna kill em. That's all. I always thought like that.

[I]

I mean, the way I felt about the Afghans, I began to just hate that whole culture entirely. I hated them. There was one time we were driving on an extremely, extremely dangerous road and we had come very close to falling off the cliff, which would have killed us. The truck to our front was a truck filled with Afghan soldiers. And they were pointing and laughing at.

[Ira Glass]

Us.

[I]

For almost falling off. And. And in that moment, more than any other moment, I wanted to open up on them and kill every one of them. I realized how much anger and resentment I have and how dangerous that is.

[David Remnick]

Man, I shot my sister boyfriend. I mean, he ain't. I don't know, I was just. I think I had one of the moments, like it had to been because I really. It just took one word and it just set me off for no reason, like, just thinking about everything and I just shot him. I felt some type of way I made the situation deeper than it wasn't, you know what I mean? It wasn't even that deep. But I've been holding a lot of stuff in, you know, and because if he. Because he was always trying to discipline me, that's what it was. I ain't like about. He always try to discipline me. Like, all my sisters is way older than me, like 40, pushing 50. See what I'm saying? Like, I'm the youngest and I'm the only boy. Like, so, you know, her boyfriends, you know, they just all, you need to stop getting the streets. Like, but it's just how he was saying it, like. Like, don't raise your voice at me, like. And he talking about, yeah, I'm take you out in the street and fight you and all this. You want to learn your lesson? Like, it just was the part when he was like, yeah, I'mma knock you the out, like. And that just went in my head, like, what? First thing I do is grab my gun and come around the corner. He was outside too, like. And I'm thinking the whole time, like, I hope he ain't really outside. I said, he think I'M gonna fight him like, I'm not fighting this man. I'm gonna kill him. I didn't even give him a chance to put his hands up. Soon as I got around, there he was just all on my face and just backed up and shot him. Shot him right in his stomach. I thought I was gonna kill him. I thought he was dead, though. I guess everything worked out in his ways. Like, he ain't any person that tells us. He ain't tell, you know, he still survives. So.

[Fred Armisen]

Here'S something I didn't expect with either of them. The toughest times weren't when they were on the battlefield or in the streets. It was when things were quiet. That's when they struggled the most.

[I]

The worst times for me were the times where we weren't out on patrol, because that's when I was alone with my thoughts. I would try to clear my head. It was impossible. These thoughts would just appear. I would worry. I thought about what it would be like to be shot.

[David Remnick]

I might daydream, just look at my ceiling or something, watch tv like, dang. Just imagine bullets going, ripping through my body like, you know, mother, just come out with a gun. Just start shooting everything. I'm getting hit, everybody getting hit.

[I]

I would think what it would feel like to be. To be blown up in an ied, to be pinned down and have the vehicle set ablaze and. And to burn alive, to be trapped in the truck because the doors were too heavy to cut through or to. Or to. To pull open.

[David Remnick]

Seeing it, like, just seeing it with my own eyes. Just look. Seeing blood and me just falling to the ground, like. And is it too late for the ambulance? Would I still be allowed when the ambulance come get me? Or that crazy kind of stuff. Like, when you sit and think about that stuff, that kind of stuff drives you crazy.

[Fred Armisen]

For both, reality eventually caught up to their fears. In the spring of 2006, Curtis told us he got caught in a shootout with rival drug dealers. The first bullet to his back spun him around. He got hit four more times in the stomach and in the arm. As a result, he walks doubled over like an old man. Because of permanent nerve damage, he falls a lot, and when he's under stress or eats the wrong food, he has bleeding from his intestines. Brandon, too, was hurt in a rollover when his Humvee fell off a small cliff. Brandon had been manning the turret, and fortunately another soldier pulled him in just as the vehicle rolled. He suffered three fractures of his vertebrae and two herniated discs. And the pain Kept him up nights even after he left Afghanistan. Both men were on a lot of medications after their injuries. And our sixth similarity may not be so surprising. They self medicated.

[I]

I had started to drink again. And on the weekends I would drink heavily.

[David Remnick]

That makes my body just feel a little better, like just a little basic Mary Jane, that's all.

[I]

Usually a crown and Coke was my drink of choice. And I would probably drink at least 5, up to 8, 9, 10 in the night.

[David Remnick]

But, you know, sometimes it do give me the opposite effect.

[I]

When I was very, very drunk, I would start to cry because of how upset I was.

[David Remnick]

Because, you know, when I smoke, it put me on a mellow. Then, you know, you just start thinking. Then that's when all the thoughts just come, like, yo, where the hell that just come from?

[Ben Calhoun]

Like.

[David Remnick]

And I'd be like, oh, some thoughts I think sometimes I don't want to think about.

[Fred Armisen]

Echo number seven. They lashed out at friends and family. Curtis had night terrors and would wake in the middle of the night thinking his girlfriend was someone who was trying to shoot him. He'd push her, he'd hit her in the head, he'd call her names.

[David Remnick]

I just was like, dan, I know I'm hurting this girl. Like, I'm really putting my hands on her like a man, like putting marks on her arms. And I said, I'm going, I'm losing it. And that's crazy. And I was just like, shh.

[Fred Armisen]

Brandon had a difficult relationship with a girlfriend, too. They'd get into huge arguments and she'd get scared. One time Brandon got so agitated, a friend intervened and tried to calm him down. Brandon punched him. His girlfriend locked herself in her room and called the police.

[I]

Police came and I was inside and the police rang the doorbell. And I opened it up and it was two cops, a guy and a girl cop. And I asked the guy, is your weapon loaded? He said, why would you ask me something like that? I said, because I want you to shoot me in the head.

[David Remnick]

I just sat on my bedroom and I had my gun under my bed in the sneaker box. I had a.40,40 mag. Big, big old cowboy gun. And that's when, you know, my grandma caught the gun in my mouth. Yeah, she just opened the door to make sure I was cool. It just was one of them days. She opened the door, had no gun in my mouth. Like, I'm. Like, she didn't know what to do. She didn't know to come closer or back or stay back. Like she didn't know what to do. So she looking at me, start hooping and crying. And she didn't, she didn't want to come next to me. And that's. So she's just talking to me the whole time like, come on, baby, it's all right. I love you. You're my grandson. Like, you know, your mom ain't leave you out here on earth for this. Like, you blessed. You just got shot five times. Like, why are you. It's gonna be all right. We gonna get some help for you and everything. Like. And I just, I just took it out deep, decocked it, put it back in the box and just sat there, called my homie up and bring some weed around the corner and got high. And that's how.

[Fred Armisen]

Both Brandon and Curtis have gotten help. Brandon's in AA and went through a writing program for veterans at nyu. Curtis is receiving counseling through the program at Drexel that offers help to guys coming off the street. But finally it's here where their stories diverge. Brandon's tour ended, and he's now thousands of miles from the dangers of Afghanistan. Curtis still lives in his old neighborhood where the danger's ongoing.

[David Remnick]

When I get my money right, I'm definitely moving. I'm doing move. That's a priority I'm working on right now. I'm out. I'm going to live somewhere comfortable that I know. I can walk the neighborhood. You know, I could sit out there on my step all day, all night if I wanted to.

[Fred Armisen]

Not long ago, a guy was shot and killed down the block from where he lived. And Curtis happened to see the body on the ground.

[David Remnick]

And I just was thinking about a lot of the. That I was paused. Like, I just was like, yo, in shock. Like, dang, that boy was on the ground and that was me. It's just I'm living like he died, like. And I'm like, damn. And it just felt like I felt all them bullets all over again.

[Fred Armisen]

Curtis worries that because of the way he walks, perpetually bent over, he. He looks weak, and that people will target him, rob him, beat him up, shoot him, take revenge. I wonder for someone like Curtis, if it's really post traumatic stress, since really there's nothing post about it. Brandon, meanwhile, says he doesn't talk to his friends or family about his anger and his nightmares, which he still has regularly. He tried counseling but didn't like it. So he sought out other veterans who understand what he been through. And Curtis now attends group counseling with others who, like himself, were once running the streets. That's the final echo. They've both come to realize that they're not alone.

[Ira Glass]

Alex Kotlowitz.

Alex's books and documentaries include the book An American Summer, about gun violence, and One Summer in Chicago. Since we last aired this episode, Curtis Jefferson has died. Brendan Caro has continued writing his novel Old Silk Road, which tells the story of a medic in the Afghan war.

[Ron Meek]

Like the wallpaper sticks to the wall.

[Ben Calhoun]

Like the the sea shark clings to the sea like. You'll never get rid of your shadow, Frank.

[Ron Meek]

You'll never get rid of me.

[Ira Glass]

Okay, so should we do the credits?

Yeah, let's do it.

You ready?

God, you do this whole thing every. At the end of every show?

Yeah. Okay.

You ready to hire someone to do that? Well, our program was produced today by Mickey Meek and myself with Alex Blumberg.

Ben Calhoun, Sarah Koenig, Jonathan Man Hevor, Brian Reed, Robin Semion, Alyssa Shipp and Nancy Updike.

Our senior producers, Julie Snyder.

Help on this rerun from Stone Nelson and Angela Gervasi.

Seth Lind is our operations director.

Emily Condon's our production manager.

Elise Bergerson's our administrative assistant.

Music help from Damien Gray from Rob Geddes.

Special thanks today to Jack Chen, Maris.

Gillette, Katie Connor, Nat Hennigan, Mike Re, Chris Waldrop, Damian Grayf, his kitchen crew and everyone who ate the bung.

Ted Corbin and Tony Thompson of the Healing Hurt People program at Drexel University. Nate Bieber, Amy Drozdowska, Eleonora Monticello, Kevin.

Miller, Zachary Sussman at nyu, and Michelle Harris.

Our website, where you can watch the videotape of the Saturday Night Live dress rehearsal of me doing hourglass.

That address thisamericanlife.org, also at our website, t shirts and prints inspired by Ben Calhoun's calamari story. The show basically an illustration of a pig like you would see at a butcher, and then coming out of its butt is a squid. It turns into a squid at the butt, and they're awesome. And you can buy them as a T shirt or as a [e-mail] this American Life is delivered to public radio stations by prx, the public radio exchange.

WBEZ management oversight for our show by our boss, Mr. Tory Malatea.

After a hard day at the radio station, he always declares on his way out the door, man, I'm gonna eat.

[Ron Meek]

Me some bun tonight. You know, I mean, that's just the way it is.

[Ira Glass]

I'm Ira Glass.

And I'm Ira Glass.

He's actually Fred Armisen, by the way. You can check him out on the latest season of Wednesday on Netflix.

Back next week, more stories of this American Life.

[Ben Calhoun]

Not a soul can bust this team in.

[Ira Glass]

Okay, I think we're done. And I think we should.

I think we are. I think.

Are we okay?

I think, I think, I think, I think we're. I'm not too worried about it. I think we're pretty good.

I think we got it.

I, I wouldn't worry about it.

Next week on the podcast with this American Life, we visit a hospital in Africa, complete with beautiful operating rooms and flying drones that carry snakebite antivenom that treated a big chunk of its country's people for absolutely free in February. Their funding was shut down when the Trump administration closed usaid. And now the people running this hospital are pondering what was good and what was bad about what they built here. That's next week on the podcast on your local public radio station.

[J]

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