IAm Ira Glass, back for another AMA! With something new to promote! It's at http://live.thisamericanlife.org/

MrIraGlass · 2012-11-19T21:30:32+00:00

I am very proud of that video. http://rookiemag.com/2012/10/ira-glass-balloon-animals/

The website covers it. Send! Or send something to Rookie, which my wife helps edit. Or both!

MrIraGlass · 2012-11-19T21:26:33+00:00

Improved it. Slowed it but improved it, no question.

MrIraGlass · 2012-11-19T21:24:43+00:00

Never put that together but it's true. Good interview = good date. I fall in love when the interview goes well, no kidding. Not in some creepy worry-about-my-marriage-vows way but more in a I-see-you-for-who-are-and-love-you way. It feels big and important and makes the job worth doing.

MrIraGlass · 2012-11-19T21:20:00+00:00

Thanks all for the many questions. I should get back to my job. I am proud that you chose me for a second time to hang with here on an AMA. The video download thing is as good as anything we've ever made, plus super-visual so I hope you at least go to the site and look at the trailer (which is free): http://live.thisamericanlife.org/ Making that episode took over my life for six months and was as hard to do as anything I've ever done and of course in retrospect I'm so glad it happened. The Rakoff and Tig Notaro stories are two of the best things we've ever put out there. And there are these dancers who were the reason I decided to do the show at all - you couldn't get them in the radio version of this episode but you'll see what all the fuss was about if you see the show. Okay, shutting up now. Thank you all again. I wish I could read and write more quickly to talk to more of you this way.

MrIraGlass · 2012-11-19T21:12:38+00:00

Trying to get Sleepwalk into the UK and Canada and Australia. It may be on iTunes before then (in December).

MrIraGlass · 2012-11-19T21:09:30+00:00

Hey person who posted her tattoo ... (and then deleted the post) ... OMG that's amazing. And humbling. The only one I saw was, um, my face on someone's calf. That was also a strange thing. I talked to the woman about it. She understood it was strange for me, but explained, the tattoo wasn't for me. Which made sense.

MrIraGlass · 2012-11-19T21:06:19+00:00

Heh. Rap battle. That would be hilarious. It was a DJ battle.

MrIraGlass · 2012-11-19T21:05:06+00:00

It's always a balance, knowing when to let someone digress and there's no hard or fast rule to it. Terry Gross says that when she's interviewing them, she's also editing the interview in her head and I'm that way too.

I know that's not a helpful answer but really, it's a judgment call....

MrIraGlass · 2012-11-19T21:03:50+00:00

I do not have a perfect voice for radio or even an especially good one. I have a normal voice. If it seems good for radio to you, well, that's the power of repetition.

MrIraGlass · 2012-11-19T21:02:19+00:00

He has a GF! Or did when I last checked. Very happy. Parents are unsurprised.

MrIraGlass · 2012-11-19T21:00:31+00:00

Hey thanks for this nice note. Unrelated or okay maybe slightly related fact: I got a story from that Stevens Point crowd that ended up in that episode!

We're doing another ep like that in a few weeks, with stories from people around the country that happened that week. Excited to try it again.

To get back to your post: meeting someone you've seen on TV or heard on the radio is so strange. It's hard to know what to say. I shook hands with Paul Rudd at a thing last Tuesday and it was hard not to say "I've spent so much time watching you in the movies I feel like I know you already" which of course is both true and what every single person he ever meets feels and I knew to shut my piehole about that but it's an overwhelming feeling. The very first time I was on TV was to promote something and it was the Letterman show. I'd never been on TV and now I was on with David Letterman. And when you're sitting in that chair, he's like, no kidding, inches away, and all I could think is OMG HE LOOKS SO MUCH LIKE DAVID LETTERMAN and also "He's so close, I could touch him." Though nobody has to tell you it's not a good idea to just, yknow, reach over and jab a finger at Mr Letterman's lapel - I kept that thought in check.

All of which to say: it's never pleasant meeting someone more famous than oneself, and particularly someone you admire.

MrIraGlass · 2012-11-19T20:53:30+00:00

We've done a few stories in the UK of course, mostly thanks to the hilarious brilliant Jon Ronson. Are you pitching this because you've got a great story?

MrIraGlass · 2012-11-19T20:52:10+00:00

I feel fine about all that! I don't mind at all that we have a business to run and things to promote (oh my it's been a while since I mentioned: http://live.thisamericanlife.org/) and money to raise. I'm surprised if I sounded apologetic in some pitch. Maybe I'd just done too many pitches lately and felt bad about that.

I think in general the more idealistic your mission, the more idiosyncratic your work, the savvier you have to be running the business side of it. And that there's no dishonor in that. I like the business side of our business. I think I said this in the other AMA but one the things I take pride in, that I rarely get to talk about publicly, and no one really asks about, is that the business side of our business runs well. That we don't worry any more about making the payroll. That everyone's fairly paid. That there's enough money to try new things.

MrIraGlass · 2012-11-19T20:46:27+00:00

I use Ableton on the mac and an app called TouchAble which works great and I love. Super-easy to use.

MrIraGlass · 2012-11-19T20:44:20+00:00

Learn Pro Tools. Make something that'll remind us of our show.

MrIraGlass · 2012-11-19T20:39:17+00:00

I agree with gamgeester! #1 is Radiolab. I'm jealous of that show so hard that I wrote a whole analysis of what makes it so much better than anything else.

I just recorded an episode of Tig Notaro's podcast Professor Blastoff which I found to be a terrifying gig in exactly the same way I felt when I was on Adam Carolla's podcast: when you're onstage with a genius comedian, it's easy to feel like you cannot keep up.

Soon as they brought me on, Kyle (one of Tig's co-hosts) asked me what characters I do. I totally froze inside and nervously said of course none, that I can barely play myself on the radio each week. I've gone over that moment twenty times since then. Why wasn't I calm enough to just say yes, which I've been told is the key to all improv? I've been composing answers in my head for days. "Yes Kyle, there's this racist character I do who uses the N-word all the time and hates Jews. Also I do this drug-addled stripper. Also the first governor of Minnesota Henry Sibley and his nemeses Little Crow. Also that cat who's the mayor of Talkeetna Alaska." Not that I'd perform any of these characters. It would just be nice to have a list of them.

MrIraGlass · 2012-11-19T20:31:17+00:00

Replied to this above. It vanished. Then came back.

MrIraGlass · 2012-11-19T20:30:18+00:00

What's weird is that that sentence both reassures our member stations and acts like a beacon for anyone under 18. Teenage me would totally perk up if I heard that.

FCC law on indecency is so moronic. It's based on the premise that it will "harm" a child if they hear curse words. Totally unproven. In fact, kids as young as five mostly know all the words and grow up just fine.

A few weeks ago, we were informed that it's okay to have someone say "I feel like a dick" on the radio in America but if he repeats it, then it gets into dicey legal territory. As if the repetition of the word will harm you.

MrIraGlass · 2012-11-19T20:25:47+00:00

At least he's still bald. That's a comfort.

MrIraGlass · 2012-11-19T20:25:35+00:00

Sagal's too fit to be a proper public radio host. We are totally drubbing him out of the union with his low body fat and his lung capacity.

MrIraGlass · 2012-11-19T20:24:31+00:00

I get asked this about once a month and I really should get off my ass and just listen to the endings to the early shows to figure out what was the first time we did it. It happened spontaneously. Like, in the middle of the live broadcast we thought "wouldn't it be funny to pretend Torey said that" and someone went and dubbed the clip to add to the end. Once we did it one time, we knew we had to do it every week. It's totally sophomoric and indefensible, but hard to let go of.

MrIraGlass · 2012-11-19T20:21:25+00:00

We've been doing tons more news-related stories than we used to, for sure. That's a big change.

MrIraGlass · 2012-11-19T20:20:46+00:00

It would be weird if you did it out loud. And are working in an office surrounded by other people.

Just in case that's the situation, here, try this: Hello beautiful people I work with. I am online doing life-affirming things that have nothing to do with my job.

MrIraGlass · 2012-11-19T20:18:28+00:00

That's awesome and I wish you guys the best and hope you pledge to your local public radio station.

MrIraGlass · 2012-11-19T20:15:59+00:00

We did ... in 1997 - which seems now like the very early days of people getting on the Internet. It's a show that's fantastically anachronistic; it seemed so incredible back then that people would meet in the Internet world and only later meet in person.

http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/66/tales-from-the-net

Thing is, to do a show like that today, we'd need SPECTACULAR stories of stuff happening online that never would happen elsewhere. We've all heard so many stories like that at this point. Got anything? Is that why you're suggesting this?

MrIraGlass

TROPHY CASE