One Dream After Another: The Storytelling Secrets of This American Life's Ira Glass

Welcome to Pablo Torre Finds Out.

I am Pablo Torre, and today we're going to find out what this sound is.

And then we took it to another level.

And then we took it

to another level.

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I was trying to explain to our staff like why I was so excited to have you in.

And we're all super fans of you.

So just sit with our

adoring and undulating praise, the waves of affection we have for you.

Given the way that my personality is built, this line is not working for me.

Praise is not, is not.

But anyway,

I support you in whatever it is you want to say here.

Yeah, like praise isn't going to be.

That's not a great response to praise, but I feel like you've had to manage those responses because people come up to you and they're like,

Ira, you are our public radio god and to which you say

i'm

i don't know i say thank you that's so nice i'm so glad you're liking the show i mean they don't say you're a public radio god they say like they they like the show or the show means something to them it usually isn't so much about me well i'm here to make it about you

Okay.

And I wish that I was the sort of person who could be so comfortable with that, but I'm just going to go with it.

You're somebody that I came to relatively late in my study of how to do talking into a microphone because I didn't come up through the public radio.

I'm going to use sports metaphors throughout here, which is that'd be great.

I think exactly what you came here for.

Yes.

Is deep sports references.

But in the coaching tree of public radio, you are at the top.

And I didn't enter that sort of structure.

No, you weren't in our farm teams at the local stations.

You were never in the show at NPR in Washington.

No, I'm somebody who only recently realized that there is, and I want to get this

exactly right, there is a band whose genre is Chicago Noise Freaks named Ira Glass.

I heard about this.

I've listened to their music.

What's your review of Ira Glass the band?

Great.

Seriously,

like if you have a band named for you and if that's what they sound like, that's hugely flattering.

I thought it was great.

I agree with the scouting report.

I find it very amusing that your general mean and tenor and vibe is as our audience has now come to appreciate in this short time together.

And they sound like this.

That seems great.

Like, really, what more could you wish for?

Seriously.

I don't know.

Like, somebody explained to me that there's a sandwich that some restaurant in Los Angeles has where they name the sandwiches after different people people on public radio, which already is like that is

a really particular

Fox News fever dream.

Come to life, Ira.

And I think the one named for me is like a vegetarian sandwich in a way that connotes sensitivity or perhaps oversensitivity.

And I feel like I'd much prefer this kind of music than to like some sad emo thing.

That's right.

It would just make me feel bad.

Well, something that I appreciate about your show and this American life, it's funny if I get to introduce it to anyone at this point.

It's coming up, the 30th anniversary.

Yes.

And that to you feels like.

I feel like it's great.

We got two.

We got two.

It's great.

Everything is just great.

How does it feel really?

How does it really feel?

Like at one level, it feels like absolutely nothing.

Do you know what I mean?

Like most people who live to a certain age get to work their job for 30 years.

And I feel like that's in a way all this is.

And I think there's something a little corny and off-putting about all the anniversaries that public radio shows tend to give themselves, the 25th anniversary of all things considered, or the 50th anniversary.

Like, who cares?

And then I'm like, I'm glad we got to do the show this long.

Like, that's in there too.

And then also, I feel like a sense of fatigue with doing the show.

I feel like this is a very exciting time to be a journalist, given the seismic changes happening in our country.

And it's exciting to get to be out there documenting them.

But also, I feel a little exhausted.

Yeah, exciting feels euphemistic.

What would you say?

Threatened to the point of economic uncertainty.

And I don't know if you at This American Life feel that because you guys are a 30-year institution, but it's hard to ignore the general context of a celebration of something that's lasted so long at this level that is exhausting to make and so crafted that when I came to do a chapter of one of the shows recently,

when you were on our show, when I lived the public radio sandwich dream of being one of the slices of meat in a multi-chapter dish, I came to appreciate how hard it is in ways that I always detected from afar but saw from the inside.

And all of which is to say that the larger context is a bunch of people effectively look at public radio and these people happen to be in government and they're like, this shit should be in the trash.

Yes, or at least funded by somebody else and not funded by their tax dollars.

Is it weird to have a big party in that context?

Or no, that is not something that you feel like, I'm not telling you to not.

I want you to have the party because

part of the premise here is like,

you know, this is imperiled.

I mean, our show is not imperiled, I will say.

Like, we didn't get any federal money, so we weren't touched by the federal cuts.

I mean, some of the member stations obviously are in way more desperate trouble, and we feel mindful of that.

But we have not planned a party to celebrate the 30th anniversary.

But partly that's out of

being on deadline with other stuff.

And partly it's about a feeling of, I'm not into these things, like patting ourselves on the back.

But maybe we should have a party or something.

If we do, I'll be sure to let you know and you can come.

Part of the comedy, though, of me getting to know you in the way that I have in the last several months has been not only how I relate to just feeling so busy making the show that you love that you don't have time to necessarily take the big view of everything.

Yes.

And I want to talk to you about that, but it's also the way in which you personally, in ways that, again, I can kind of relate to, are like casually telling me, oh, yeah, I'm getting married next week.

Yeah.

And you did.

Yes.

And this wasn't, I don't know.

I just get the sense that you're not someone who's like, I want everybody to know.

That I'm going through an amazing milestone life event and I want all of the likes on Facebook.

The whole receiving praise, receiving literal bouquets, figurative bouquets.

Yes.

That's not your comfort zone.

It's not my comfort zone.

No, but I'm not hiding anything.

It's just like, that's not my go-to.

I feel like I'm working many hours and trying to get out a show.

And then like I have some private time besides.

What's private time like though?

Private time has been wonderful since, you know, I met this person and we're married and it's been really sweet in a way that I don't take for granted.

I don't want to be so prying as to immediately just be uncomfortable in the prying.

You should, yeah.

I'll answer anything.

I really will.

Having listened to your show, I feel obliged to be as prying as you are with Mahmoud Khalil and other such figures that I've appreciated you profiling.

And that's such a hallmark of what you do.

What about your wedding felt the most like, ooh, this could be a story that I want people to know about?

Oh, wow.

I didn't think about any of it as a story that I could put out there.

I mean, the wedding itself, we've got a city hall wedding in in New York City, and it's an incredible scene.

And when we were there, I did think like, that's a good story.

You had this tape recorder out for a second.

Kind of, yeah.

Like, like, cause it's people getting married at all ages and all different parts of the city and just like every different group you can imagine and pregnant brides and super young brides and very old couples.

And just, it's so sweet.

And you just feel like you're part of this thing.

So it's like, it's really like a very, it's a very romantic scene.

And somebody could do some sort of story there.

I mean, you'd have to go in with a mission of like, what is it you'd want to find out

or who would be a character to follow.

The thing that has seemed most like something that you could write about for the radio, though, that has more emotional substance is that

my mom was a marriage therapist

and published a book and did research.

And there isn't enough couple-centered time.

What's the solution?

So I think that the solution is to create some structure to have some couple-centered time, not for the sake of meeting the husband's needs, but for the sake of meeting both of their needs in a caring way and in a fun way.

Part of the furlough of an affair that it's not.

And she was very much of the mind that you should try to make your relationship work out.

She's crying, there are no hot water heats.

And

in various other relationships, including my first marriage, I wonder now

if we spent too long trying to make it work out.

Like everybody learns now, like, oh, relationships are tough and you've got to work.

And I wonder actually, like,

I don't know, like maybe the fact that these relationships were so much work was a sign and I should have gotten out and I shouldn't have heeded that.

And that we all are sort of conned by the idea of relationships are hard because this relationship I've been in has been so easy from the start.

Like an old Broadway musical where they say, like, being in love with somebody will be what every dumb song says, where it's just very easy.

And when there's conflict, we sort of listen to each other and we like talk it out and it's done in an hour.

And there aren't really conflicts really

to speak of.

And at some point, I thought like maybe there's some way to write that into a story in the show.

Because for me, it's been sort of a paradigm shift in how I think about what a good relationship is.

One of the things I listened to on your show as one of the

paid subscriber.

Yeah, we had this thing that we started this last year because the podcast business has been harder to make money.

And so we had people subscribe.

And thankfully, like people have stepped up and it's now a life partners.

Life partners is what we call it.

And yeah, and they're like a, it's now become like a fourth of our budget.

That's incredible.

And I also study just insofar as I can, like how you guys create a business out of something that feels very hard to monetize from the outside.

I say all of that to say that one of the things I heard on the life partners episodes was a recollection from your staff about how they learned that you had separated from your first wife.

Yes.

And how it had happened.

And in a way that I see some of myself in, not that I happily married, Godspeed, love you, Liz, but just the question of like something happens in your life and you're so consumed by work that sometimes the way that your staff discovers things about you is almost in the casual aside

of your interactions.

Yeah, you're referring specifically to this thing which happened, which is that I separated from my first wife and we were separated for two or three years at that point and trying to work it out, going to therapy and trying to get back together, but living in separate houses and I hadn't told anybody on my staff.

And because I just felt like I'm their boss and it just seemed, I just seemed like a little oppressive to have your boss come in and tell you his sad, sad story and seek your sympathy or something.

And I just felt like, I'm just going to keep this very professional.

But then there was a story that I put together in a couple of days because somebody I was very close to died.

And I wanted to write a remembrance of her and it fit into that week's theme.

And as part of that, I had to reveal that one of the things that had happened is that she had, this is a woman who was in her 80s, who was one of my neighbors.

And this woman in her 80s basically became the person who I talked to every day at the end of the day instead of my wife.

And just in the way this story laid out, it was important to just kind of reveal that and reveal kind of how she had stepped in for certain things in place of my wife, this friend who is in her late 80s.

And the first time I read that in an edit, you know, to...

to just read it to people, see if this is this working, what changes we should make, that was like I had to tell them before I read it.

I was like, oh, by the way, there's some personal stuff here that you guys don't know that I'm going to be letting you and the radio audience know.

Did you find it funny at the time in any regard?

Or no, this all sort of occurred to you later in the way that I'm laughing at you now, actually.

No, I understood that it was ridiculous.

I mean, I felt my friend had just died, so I was pretty sad for my friend.

But like, but like, I understood how absurd that is.

It's absurd, but also like the thing I relate to you in ways that I'm uncomfortable to fully admit until now on microphone that I think that's how it would go for me.

Really?

Part of me is editing this in my head.

And I was like, oh, no, I didn't give you a good beginning to this show.

And if you want to go back at the end and redo it, I'm happy to do it.

We're going to keep you contemplating aloud whether we are structuring this well enough.

It's my job, by the way, to be self-conscious.

And I am doing that.

It's funny to have two people at the desk for the first time, both wondering, ooh, should we edit that part out?

No, don't get it.

Did we learn that?

Can we learn that?

Part of the reason why I want to just like see into your brain is because it's a brain that I admire.

It's a brain that I want to sort of make mine more like.

And also, I just think it's comically different for all of the similarities that we do share.

The question of when did you know you wanted to get Ira into this studio and talk to him?

It was when I asked you like about the last time you watched television.

You and I like

met for the first time and went out for a drink.

Yeah.

And you asked me when was the last time I watched television?

And at that time I like I'm not sure if I had watched it in months.

Like and I've never seen cable TV.

Like

for more than a minute.

Like that was the day that you had been on cable TV.

I had just done MSNBC and I was like talking about like, I think I said to you, I was just talking about like Jeffrey Epstein for reasons that also kind of escaped me now that I try to remember why.

That was the subject on MSNBC that day.

That was a couple months ago.

That was, that was the hot story.

Yes.

And I was talking about it in my capacity to just talk endlessly in ways that are baffling.

Which I can say was so interesting to me that you were going on.

I was like, I literally would not know.

I would not know how to prepare or what in the world to say on television.

Like, I'm a heavy news consumer.

Like, I'm reading everything, but I wouldn't know like what to, and, and then, yeah, like, I have never really watched.

I mean, I've watched like you know a minute, a minute of cable television as a concept.

I mean, like, I've watched, you know, I mean, I'm sure there's there's a, there's like an episode of Rachel Maddow here and there back in the day during the first Trump administration because I was curious to see, like, you know what I mean?

Like, like occasionally be the thing I would turn on CNN for like to see a particular thing I'm curious about.

But no, like, I, I just, like, no, I've never, no, I never got into the habit of it.

And there was like a, there was, yeah, like, I just didn't, I didn't, like, I didn't own a television.

Right.

Um, when I went to college.

I mean, now like kids are different, but like I'm really old.

I went to college in the 70s.

And so you'd go to college and you just wouldn't have a TV.

That was like a normal thing.

Like you had a TV at your parents' house.

And so, and then I never got one because I was busy.

And then I got a TV when the Sopranos came on.

And because I was, because somebody I worked with, Nancy, informed me that like something is good on TV.

Like nothing had ever been good on TV before that.

But like now there's something actually worth watching.

And so I bought a television.

To watch specifically the Sopranos.

Yes.

But then it didn't spread.

There wasn't anything else on.

I guess I could have tried Oz or something.

And then, like, and so now.

Do you do you regret the purchase of the television?

No, no, no, no, no.

I loved it.

No, like, I love watching.

The Sopranos lived up to the hype.

Totally.

Yeah, of course.

And then.

Sopranos.

But hold on.

You just sort of tossed off it's the Sopranos, but then nothing else has risen to that level.

No, no, no.

Lots of shows are good.

No, I like lots of shows.

And

in my first marriage, my wife really loved TV and we watched a lot of TV.

Like

at the time, it was like all the like the OC and Gilmore Girls.

And like, I've seen all of that.

What is your media?

I mean, your general cultural consumption has gone from the Sopranos, maybe a minute of Rachel Meadow into the entirety of Gilmore Girls.

Yeah, no, I've seen all of Gilmore Girls and the OC.

And like, there's a bunch of Buffy.

I've seen all of Buffy, but that's all because of my first wife.

I really do love those shows, you know, and then like, there's other shows that I've seen.

That you're not damn because they are if I thought about it for a second, I couldn't remember.

And right now, like my wife and I are constantly looking for something to watch.

And I feel like we're not watching enough TV, that we should be watching more TV.

And I'm also not spending enough time online.

Like I'm so not online.

What is your relationship with the internet like?

I mean, I look at my phone when I'm on the subway or when I'm between places, but then I don't usually.

spend much time looking at it.

Like again, like I'm somebody who's like perpetually a little overwhelmed with my job.

And then I haven't, like, I haven't been on TikTok enough to develop an algorithm which is delivering to me what I want.

So basically, I'll go on and look at Gaza stuff.

And then I'll go on and look at all the Charlie Kirk stuff.

Like, I just want to see what's happening and see what everybody else is seeing.

But then I don't go on in the kind of like random scrolly way.

Those sometimes I'll remember, like, like I'll be trying to fall asleep, but I can't fall asleep and I've got nothing to read.

And I'll remember like, oh, I could look at like, I could go onto Instagram, couldn't I?

And I feel like there have been like, I mean, I know this makes me sound like I'm from another planet, but like, there's been like two times in the last year where I remembered to do that, and then I went on.

And then Instagram serves me up a lot of like comedians.

Like, the algorithm has me pegged.

There's like, there's a lot of Taylor Tomlinson and Micro Biglia and, you know, John Mulaney stuff.

Sure, sure.

Can I ask you, and this is a thing we'll sort of show our YouTube audience as it happens.

Can I ask you if you recognize this person?

You said your problems.

I'm here to give you free advice.

How can I get my money up, not my funny up?

You need to chill, bro.

Cat's got mad!

Setting the gritty!

My sister pours her milk before the cereal.

So she pours the milk, then the cereal.

That's diabolical, bro.

My favorite coffee.

Do you have any idea who that?

No.

Okay.

Who is it?

It's the Rizzler.

I mean, I'm not online.

Like, I'm not.

And I feel a little embarrassed that this is now going to be a public fact about me.

Because there's no upside to that.

There's no

looking cool about that.

It's definitely uncool.

The phone is there for our entertainment.

I love how self-conscious you have just become about not knowing who the Rizzler is.

I consider it, frankly, the only hope I have left in the American cultural

institution.

Can I say you don't?

No, no, no.

I think that I'm in the wrong here.

I think that it's wrong to not know who that is.

I feel like I'm not spending enough time online.

That's actually the lesson that I'm getting from this.

Can we get that as the aggregated clip?

Ira Glass wishes he knew who the Rizzler is.

That's true, though.

That's a factual statement.

I stand by, I'm pro knowing who the Rizzler is.

I don't want to weigh in.

I don't want to co-sign all of his political beliefs, which are expansive.

No, but I want to know who he is.

I am so interested as to...

Wait, how should I feel about this?

I think you should feel very proud that you don't know who the Rizzler is.

Why would I be proud of that, of being out of touch?

Because I feel like what it is to be in touch is not so much a consensual experience, even.

It's just an experience we've all experienced because the algorithm has put the Rizzler in front of us.

And therefore we all, everybody behind the glass knows who the Rizzler is.

Right.

And you opting out because your bar is somewhere between the Sopranos and the OC.

It's not because of my bars.

It's because I'm like not that.

I don't know.

I just never got into the habit of it is the truth.

And then, and then I don't know.

I have other stuff that I'm worried about and thinking about.

And do you know what I mean?

Like even getting, even like, you know, like when I'm scrolling, basically I'll just go into the different, you know, go to the New York Times and the Washington Post and the Wall Street Journal and see what's happening.

There's a lot of news.

And that really can fill all your, like, that, that easily fills like 30, 40 minutes of like screen time.

And then that's what I got.

You, you live a life that is extraordinarily different from mine.

And I say that as somebody whose show also like is meant to be a container for all of my interests.

The internet being a key membrane that that just like covers all those interests is one thing.

But in your case, I feel like part of why I admire your show is that it can be about literally anything.

And that's something else that I just like

really strive for in the show that I do here.

How do you explain to someone what a good This American Life story is?

A good This American Life story has a plot to it.

Like stuff happens, stuff unfolds, it's surprising.

And then generally a good story, there's somebody at the center of it who it's just fun to listen to them talk.

When did it become apparent that

you knew what your show was?

I mean, different version, like from the beginning, I and my coworkers, we kind of knew what it was.

I mean, the thing was, it wasn't, it was a, it was, you know, we knew we wanted to make stories.

Like that, the, that, what would be, what would be different is that we were doing a kind of

storytelling that nobody was doing on the radio that that we wanted just like just you know we wanted from the moment that I started talking at the beginning, that we're pulling you into kind of one dream after another, and you just get caught up in each story, and you want to find out what's going to happen.

And that's that.

Hamid's got the vibe of a guy who can handle anything, a beefy Tony Soprano type, but without the menace.

We're in this big white four-wheel-drive pickup truck that he tools around in.

Me and him, and a producer, Salsan Khalifi.

And Ahmed's task this morning requires ingenuity.

His task,

he's got to get to work.

And at the time, nobody else was really doing it except for maybe Garrison Keillor, who had a show called The Prayer Companion.

And even that, you'd have to listen to a lot of music to get to the story part.

And it just seemed like this seems like a thing that this medium is really suited for, that nobody uses it for, which is really a weird thing.

Step one,

get himself out of Hebron, the city where he lives.

This is in the West Bank.

So movement on the roads is controlled by the Israeli army.

And every day the army changes which exits out of the city are open.

So are you tricked on many groups?

Other people heard us doing it.

They're like, oh yeah, this medium is real good for that.

And like, and then other people started doing their versions of it, which honestly is

gratifying.

To have many people copying you, stealing your shit.

I don't view it as copying, stealing.

I just view it as like people are coming to the same conclusion that this feels like a thing.

Like when we started it, it was me and Tori Malateau who ran WBEZ in Chicago, who I make fun of at the end of each episode.

And our view of what the show was, we had this feeling of like, he and I felt like, well, we like this kind of thing.

But we felt like it was like an indie movie or something.

Like,

there'll be like some people who will like this.

And we really didn't expect the kind of mass market success.

that it got.

Like we really, like, and our business projections were all like, if we can just get on 60 stations by the end of, I can't remember if it was one year or two years.

You know, we were on hundreds of stations by the end of a year, you know, just like, like it was just,

it turned out to be much more

popular than we thought.

And that was surprising to you that it was that broadly resonant.

It was surprising.

Yeah.

So part of what I

think is so obvious now is something that you just referenced as a way of characterizing Garrison.

Kayler's work, which is the musicality of it.

And he uses music in a way that is different from how you use music.

But it's really hard for me to divorce your style of production from the premise of what music is.

You are so

deliberately rhythmic and precise

and designed for the ear.

And was that always something?

Does that make sense the way I'm saying?

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Like the way I'm performing, the way I'm talking on the air, the way we use music.

I mean,

we use music the way you use music in a movie.

You know what I mean?

Like to pull you forward and

set a feeling and to go away and leave you with silence for a dramatic moment and bring it back to the plot, pick up again.

Yeah, like it's all designed for that.

It's all designed to just kind of pull you into the dream.

That's the

I found most revelatory when I first started.

Like, when I first smoked some This American Life, I was like, whoa, it's cinematic.

Everything I do on this show when it comes to like editing and scoring and structuring evokes the language of cinema.

Maybe because that's to us, maybe the most potent version of it.

Yeah.

But for you, there's also just so the whole Philip Glass thing.

Philip Glass, my cousin, the composer.

Yeah, that thing.

I don't know why I'm IDing the characters who you're bringing on as if I'm hosting the show, but.

I'm throwing you Ali Yukes and you're fucking dunking it.

Genuinely.

it's it's thank you for doing that i need i need that okay but philip glass the composer your cousin if you're to explain this american life in relation to philip glass

is there a way that would make sense to an outsider who needed philip glass to be id'd for them

explain our show in relation to his work i mean his work is so aggressively non-narrative right I mean, when he does an opera like Einstein on the Beach or,

you know, Akhnaten or like any of the big incredible operas, like I'm a fan of his music, they are very much not telling a story and they are not developing characters and they are not giving over.

They're not IDing necessarily in the way that you have helpfully been IDing.

Exactly.

Like, yeah, they're just sort of creating a space and a feeling.

And then you sit inside this feeling and then you sit inside this other feeling.

And then you sit inside this other feeling

and you just experience them.

I mean, and it's no coincidence that he's like a practicing Buddhist Buddhist, like has been for decades and decades, you know, and

he just, it's just, he just drew completely the opposite conclusions about narrative to him and the people he collaborates with.

Like those kinds of stories seem really corny.

It just seems really, really corny.

And my conclusions were it would be exciting to do narrative in radio.

Like radio is so, is so suited for it.

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Dude, did you order the new iPhone 17 Pro?

Got it from Verizon, the best 5G network in America.

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You look the same.

But with this camera, everything looks better, especially me.

You haven't changed your hair in 15 years.

Selfies?

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when you imagine yourself in your mind's eye as you're listening to your own show what is the platform what is the setting that you as the host are coming to your audience from are you saying like like where do i picture like i'm sitting or so i've been told like hey if you want to be real conversational sounding imagine that you're at the end of a bar talking to a friend or it's like there's someone on stage behind a podium, or they're making an address, or they're a stand-up, you know, talking to an audience.

How do you envision, or do you envision yourself in any particular way?

I do envision something.

I mean, it's not, it's not a visual picture, but like in my mind, I'm talking to one person.

Like radio, like right now, as I'm speaking, I'm speaking in the tone that I speak when I'm talking to one person.

And I try to write the narration and perform the narration so it comes as close to my actual speaking voice, because I think that that gets to you the most when you're listening to something.

And

so everything is designed to

feel like that.

And we have some people who are on the show who perform in a more stylized way and that can be fun too.

And you perform in a more stylized and

you perform not like you're like talking in a real conversation, like over a drink.

You perform like somebody like doing a show.

like there's a lot of tv and the way that you're on the radio it's so i'm so selfish because people on tv are i think it's like it's not as intimate a medium do you know what i mean and and and and rightly so like on tv you see that they're like it's across the room from you when you're when you're watching it it's across the room from you or in your case not in your home at all until the sopranos shows up exactly you know but like even on your phone like it's just like a person sitting at a desk and so it's like it's just there's a distance distance and people perform at that distance.

And rightly so.

You gave me a note while we were doing, we did an adaptation of one of my favorite things, the Honduran Maradona story, which is titled The Engineer, Chapter 2 of a recent episode of this Marshall.

Love that show.

Love it.

Love that show.

It was so great to work with you and to get under the hood of just like production in the ways that I think are clear.

I'm genuinely nerding out on.

But one of the notes you gave me, which just cut to the core of me and I so genuinely appreciated, was you said at one point, we were doing a table read and you were like, you don't need to sell as much as you're selling because I was doing these lines, so to speak, but my energy level was big.

Yes.

And yours, when you were just saying what you imagined yourself doing, your eyes were literally closed and you got smaller

and more focused.

And you're right, like me coming from the other, I don't even know if television is a coaching tree as much as it is, just like a room full of people you got to shout over to be heard.

In that, just to mix the metaphors here, but like, yes, I now detect,

frankly, a thirst.

Like, please listen to me.

Please be persuaded by me.

That is just sort of like what I am maybe now in life as well, on a relative basis.

But certainly modulating myself down to that one-on-one, I'm talking to one person and my eyes are closed.

you're the only person in the audience was a separate exercise that was just fascinating for me to inhabit.

I remember when you were tracking, when you were when you were recording your narration, like I was listening in, and there was one line where I was encouraging you to do this thing, which is such a standard broadcast trick, where I was just like, just get quieter and lean in on that line.

I can't remember what the line was.

And I was like the Will Ferrell character from SNL who's like, I can't control the volume of my voice.

I have a voice-related medical condition.

Oh, I'm very sorry.

I suffer from voice immodulation, Tina.

I'm unable to control the pitch or volume of my voice.

What do you mean?

and i just couldn't it was funny like i'm glad i it might literally be taped i think maybe the zoom was not recorded mercifully but i just felt like why

like why can i not do this and it was so

again it was just it was delightful in ways that activated this

third year of like oh wow i am now hearing myself for the first time do it right now do it let the line be um like, and then we took it and then to another level and to another level.

So I want you to just do like, and then we took it to another level.

Oh, God.

I'm just going to.

And then we took it

to another level.

I mean, it's kind of corny than what I'm doing too.

You know,

it's very corny.

I would say that.

It's a corny move, and I'm sure people are.

With me imitating you.

And I just detected some just like smooth jazz, like me just doing bad cosplay of like a radio guy.

You're both easy and hard to imitate.

Easy because your voice is now itself a genre where people are like, that's, you're doing an eyeglass thing.

And can I explain to you what I think that is?

Sure.

There is this unashamed

occasional just like stumbling around.

Like you're not trying to,

again, like leave perfect.

edit points.

You're allowing yourself to even skate around as if the floor is a little slippery sometimes.

Right.

And you can bring yourself, again, as we just said, down to a smaller level to be more laser focused in on that one hypothetical person.

But it's this mixture of what I find to be very hard to replicate of like total confidence and yet the sort of like texture

of some uncertainty.

Huh.

Yeah.

It's funny.

I don't think about it that way, but I totally hear what you're talking about.

Yes.

Yes.

Yes to everything you're saying.

Yeah.

There's a quality of like, oh, I'm just like, wait, what?

So then I got to thinking.

You know,

you just did the IR class.

And part of me was wondering, like, do you, in your brain, are you scripting that out at all?

Are you ever scripting out like, you know what?

This is a big moment.

Undercut the authority that you want to sort of imbue this with with a deliberate

stumble around for a second.

100%.

Yeah.

When I'm writing the script, I'm thinking about all that.

Because I understand the form it's going to be.

It's going to be me talking into a microphone.

And so I'm really thinking about like, how am I going to perform this?

And when I'm going to get big, and when am I going to get small?

And when am I going to, you know, just pause and think and wait before giving the next thought.

You know what I mean?

Like, just sometimes you just, I don't know.

It's like, that's the medium.

That's the, but that's just

working in the medium that I work in and understanding it.

Okay, but now we're getting to the thing that I think about a lot, which is to what extent is doing your job, our our job broadly conceived, as acting?

Oh, there's some acting for sure.

Absolutely.

I mean, anybody

in front of a camera or a microphone, of course you're acting.

You're performing a version of yourself.

And so that's not a problematic thing.

Also, I think of the show that we're doing as an entertainment, even though it's like journalism and it's fact-checked and it's all true.

But like our premise from the beginning was that although this is on public radio, we don't want it.

We don't want people listening because they think it's going to make them into better people.

We want them just listening because they like hear a minute of it and they're just like, what's going to happen?

And so, like, I feel like it's like a, I think it's not a

shameful thing to say we're trying to entertain.

In fact, like, for the show to be good, we have to embrace it and just be like, we are going to entertain you.

We're going to,

you might think you don't want to hear another story about this subject because it seems a little heavy, but we're just going to start this in a way to make you think, like, oh, yeah, all right, what's going to happen?

Some of the shit I'm trying to steal.

Just how can you be unapologetically highbrow in in some regard, but then also

how you want to actually just entertain.

I mean, I think that like being out for fun, like kind of gets a bad name, except for people who enjoy things.

You know what I mean?

Like, I think, like, I think the notion that there's tons of podcasts out there, which are really just out for fun, but then have like some other serious thing that they're doing at the same time, that seems like a great outcome.

You know what I mean?

Like, that's, that's like, I feel, that makes me really happy.

I think part of what you've proven is that this can be a popular thing that's also good.

One of the things that made this clear to me, by the way, the theatricality of it is

the live shows that you do, which I was just revisiting on YouTube.

And like, one of the things I forgot,

you did this story in 2012 that got turned into a literal 14-minute musical.

Yes.

By Lynn-Manuel Miranda.

Yes.

The plan was called Operation D-minus.

And one of the schools included in the plan was Park Vista Community High School where a kid named Justin LeBoy,

that's me,

an 18-year-old honor roller.

I guess straight A's, man, was in the last semester of his senior year.

Justin could hardly believe his luck when a very pretty girl showed up.

Ni only.

In not one, but two of his classes.

She sat in front of him.

He switched seats.

Niolli.

The last thing.

And you did this.

You unveiled it at BAM

on stage.

Bam, the Brooklyn Academy of Music.

You're so good at that.

Man, she used to fall asleep in class.

She was a light-skinned Puerto Rican Dominican, long hair, maturing a body like whoa.

Like, whoa.

That's not the only reason I liked her, though.

She said she moved with her mother to Florida from New York, where dreams are made.

Well, so did I.

So I said hi.

She seemed mature and I talked more.

And I was like, what the heck I gotta do?

And I went back and listened and I'm like,

who the f?

How?

So give me the origin story of 21 Trump Street.

We got invited to do a show at the Brooklyn Academy of Music and we thought that's a really special place and we should try to live up to what that stage means.

And we were just casting around for stuff to do.

And then I was a fan of Lynn's.

This is before Hamilton, actually.

Like, he was finishing writing Hamilton.

I remember him talking about it with all of us,

how he was having trouble at the point.

He was just like at the end, and apparently the ending was sort of tricky to write.

Anyway, he nailed it, I guess.

But whatever.

We thought it would be fun to do a musical.

Like, I really love musicals.

And I think a lot of the aesthetics of our show actually come from my mom taking me to musicals when I was a kid.

Like, the idea of like a story that starts off sort of funny and light and about one thing and then just gets deeper and darker and about bigger things.

That's like so many of the old kind of classic old school musicals.

I texted her, you know, I was like, what the heck I gotta do to be with you?

L-O-L-O-L-O-L.

What the heck I gotta do to be with you?

R-O-S-L-O-L.

Tell me who I gotta be

for you to be with me.

Smiley face.

That's how they all work.

And I really think that, like, on our show, that's very much like the structure of the show that we do.

Like, just that just got drilled into me from those musicals.

And so, like, I like musicals and it seemed fun.

And basically, we went to Lynn and said, here's a bunch of different stories that we think could maybe be a musical.

Do you want to write something?

And then he was really in the middle of writing Hamilton and then wrote that musical in like a weekend, which is crazy.

It's absurd.

Yeah.

And like took a break from his day job of of making like one of the all-time great musicals to do that thing.

Later I asked him, why did you pick this one?

And one of the reasons why was because in the original true story, like we based it on a story that had been reported by a really good Washington Post reporter actually, and done for our show.

And in the original reporting, the teenage boy, there's a moment where he's trying to oppress this girl and he serenades her in class.

And Lena's like, well, that's what happens in a musical.

Somebody serenades somebody in class.

And so he's like, okay, so I've got that.

I've got that down, nailed it.

And then there were other things about it that he liked too.

She'll think about it.

She said to think about it.

She'll think about it.

Think about it.

She'll think about it.

She'll think about it.

Yes!

So yeah, so that was exciting to do.

I remember he did the musical, and then in the same show, Mike Brabigoya was the comedian who he had on for that show and he came on after it and he and his opening line was like, it's really hard to come on after a musical.

Like I've never been like,

the musical so brought the house down and then he had to go on and like do his story.

Well, because the musical, again, it's Anthony Ramos, who is in Hamilton, is the teenage boy in question.

And he knocks this shit out of the park.

Yeah.

He's amazing.

It's just stupid.

I mean, but it's just like, so in this case, to go and pick up a couple of breadcrumbs you dropped along the way, like this was journalism turned into opera

into actual musical theater.

Yes, yes, yes.

And the desire for your show, and I say this all the time, like, what I want, what do I want to do here?

I want every show to be a mystery box inside of which anything can be there.

And that's nice.

That's this American life.

I mean, that's what it is.

It's a magazine.

It's

a mailbox.

On a good week.

On a good week.

Some weeks we don't live up to that much promise, but like, I don't know.

We make a lot of shows.

Yes.

I mean, you make a lot of shows.

I would say that

30 years of shows is, you know, I don't know, testament to the fact that they're mostly good.

Or enough of them are good.

Yes.

Yes, yes.

Yes, yes.

Dude, did you order the new iPhone 17 Pro?

Got it from Verizon.

The best 5G network in America.

I never looked so good.

You look the same.

But with this camera, everything looks better, especially me.

You haven't changed your hair in 15 years.

Selfies?

Check, please.

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Are you somebody who, when you see something, the ultimate compliment is jealousy?

Or no, it's not jealousy.

It's something else that's less toxic.

When I see something that I like.

Yeah, that you like and you're like, I want to do something like that, or I wish I had done that.

Or are you not the type of person who no, no, I do feel jealous of stuff for sure.

Yeah.

When did you last feel jealous about something?

I have to say, Monday through Thursday of the daily last week, every single episode, I was like, that was really the optimal way to do that story.

Yeah.

And they were in order.

I was like, and also just the doing it with such speedy.

It was good for the partnership with the New York Times.

But they're hitting.

Let's go here.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

They did Charlie Crook's Memorial on Monday and did a great job of taking you into moments there.

Tuesday, they did the Trump Tylenol Autism Press Conference and again, gave you the conference,

gave you the analysis of it.

And just like very, it's just like very clean work in a way that I think anybody who

makes stuff makes audio, you could just feel like they're hitting their plot points so cleanly.

The next day they did a thing on how the UAE got AI chips and all of Trump's inner circle got all this money in exchange.

The next day they did a story that I've I've been obsessed with, and they did such a good job about the U.S.

killing people on boats around Venezuela and the legal justification or lack of justification.

It was just like a perfect run of shows.

And I felt very admiring and jealous at the like,

just every single one kind of gave you what, what you wanted if you were me.

I mean, and those weren't like, those weren't narrative either.

Those were just like, those are just like kind of walking through stuff, having an analysis, doing it,

just they just did it really well.

But I hear a lot of stuff on podcasts that I feel like, oh, that was, that was great.

Like I hear a lot of stuff.

So the daily as its own now template also feels like, by the way, it's borrowed from you in some regard if you're tracing it back, right?

I mean, like the fact that generally they structure as narrative.

Structure score.

Yeah.

Yeah.

For sure.

But then like do their own thing.

They do it

five plus days a week.

Yeah.

Has any of that made you think, you know what?

This whole once-a-week cadence I'm on,

I wish I could do something that's not that.

No, I don't think that, but I do think that the show that we're doing, I wonder if it's the right show for this moment in America.

That is, I feel like we can keep making narrative stories.

And we do a lot of stories about the changes that are happening in the country because of the Trump administration and looking at the effects of the policies that are happening.

And we're trying to do them as like narrative stories that unfold like little movies and you get to know the people and like, and including we do some scoops.

Like, you know, two weeks ago, we got all these immigration judges to talk about what's going on behind the scenes in immigration court that nobody really talks about.

And like, you know, so we get stuff like that.

But I wonder if this moment is really better served by a different kind of product.

And then my thoughts on that are kind of like,

I don't know.

Like, yeah, I do have thoughts about that.

And honestly, like, like one one of the things I've been thinking about a lot is like, should we, should we be making an addition to the radio show?

Should we be doing stuff online, on videos, be on TikTok?

Do like, I just, I just think like, like, should we just get more into the stream and less and be less of like this little island?

You're asking yourself and your staff, should we all really know who the Rizzler is?

I think most people, my staff probably do know who the Rizzler is.

But, but let's, let's, let's just, as we sort of like look ahead to this 30th anniversary or two, don't want to celebrate it all, clearly.

The premise of if you...

No, no, no, it's fine.

We'll commemorate it in some way.

But just the question of if you were to make this American life today,

what would be the most sort of distinct feature of it that would not be the thing that you've been nursing for 30 years?

I think if I were to make something today, it wouldn't be this American life.

Like we live in a world where like there's so many people doing narrative, audio.

I feel like we've proven that point, that that's like a fun way to make something and it can be engaging.

And there'd be no reason to do a show to prove that point and to explore what could that be.

So to make something else, like, I don't know.

Like for me, the thing that I'm interested in is

could you make a show targeted at

the people who are not reading the New York Times and not interested in fact-based reporting and make a show that is actually made for them in the aesthetics of like, you know, Rogan or somebody like that.

It's like really, really talking about somebody somebody who's absolutely fact-based.

Like, I wouldn't be the right host for it.

I could, you know what I mean?

Like, like, you would need somebody who's of that world and in that world.

You know, you would need a comedian to do it.

But, like, but like that, that kind of question seems more interesting to me because we're in a moment where like it's possible to make product for people who agree like the facts matter or the facts don't matter and something else matters.

But like to get to get any product that can cross from red to blue America or blue to red America or exist for both America, that seems seems like the more interesting challenge right now what would the ira glass experience the four-hour joe rogan equivalent podcast that you would host would be when i hear his show i just think like oh let us fact check that in fact i thought a decent product would be to do a show not in a mean way but in a super friendly way that when like cash patel the fbi director is on joe rogan cash patel will say like um you know we caught i you know we caught i can't remember what it was like like seven of the 10 most wanted criminals

in the world.

And then, and then Joe Rogan's like, really?

Like, how'd you do that?

And he's like, well, you know, you know, just in the first couple of months, we did it.

And the way that we did it is we actually called other police departments around the world and said, could you extradite this guy?

And then Joe Rogan is like, wait, wait, wait.

You're saying that the Biden administration just didn't bother to make a phone call.

And then Cash Patel just kind of like goes off and just says some other BS.

And you're just like, what he needs is a team of reporters to just step in and and be like, Joe, Joe, we ran it down for you.

Okay, so here's what happened.

And you would do a show that's entirely just like running down the facts that the guests surveyed or that

hosted by like Burt Kreischer or like, you know what I mean?

Like, and then, and then some nerdy poindexter next to him,

you know, who like, who like is being like, and like not in an unfriendly way to Joe.

Like, like,

like, we don't mean him harm.

In fact, we'd be like there to help him out.

Yeah.

And then, and then maybe

pick up some of his listeners who might be interested in a kind of a fact-based product.

I like how you go into this mission.

In my mind, what happens is you accidentally reinvent this American life with Burt Kreischer.

You're like, oh, shit.

We, we, we made the show again.

Can I just say, like, I, I love Burt Kreischer, so that wouldn't be a problem for me.

Why do you, how, okay.

So, just as a general stereotype, yeah, you liking the dude who is mostly, in my view, known for being shirtless and like chugging beer, that tickles you.

That's not why people love Burt Kreischer.

Burt Kreischer is like, he's funny and he tells stories that are funny and he talks about his wife and he talks.

Burt Kreischer is there for all of us.

And Burt Kreischer,

I don't know.

Like, I don't know.

Like, he,

he,

uh,

I don't know.

I mean, honestly, it's been, it's been a little while since I've heard, like, I haven't heard what he's been doing like the last six months or a year.

So I, so I don't, you know, maybe something's changed.

But like, he was always just like a really fun person to listen to.

I

have no way to ever know what you're into.

I was asking, or my staff was asking some of your staff,

what does Ira know about sports?

And it was a very funny

scouting report because it was like, I think Ira watched the Super Bowl this year.

West New York.

And I think he was in Chicago when like Michael Jordan was like winning all of those titles.

What is your relationship like with sports?

You literally like named the only two plot points I've got.

Like literally, I saw the Super Bowl because I was out in San Diego with my cousins and we, it seemed fun to watch the Super Bowl.

And it was really fun to watch the Super Bowl.

And then the only kind of sports thing that I ever followed at all was the Bulls back when Michael Jordan was there.

I think we should go to a Knicks game.

We're both in New York.

I'd love to go to a Knicks Knicks game.

I'd love to go to a Knicks game.

All right.

Yeah.

But I don't understand.

Like, I just don't, I don't know.

When a team starts losing, the fact that people just stay with the team and they just, I don't know.

It just seems hard.

It just seems like choosing a life of punishment, you know?

Like, like, just just wait till they get better.

I'm sorry.

Was The Sopranos not a story of a man fighting through personal demons in increasingly psychotherapeutic ways?

I mean, I know that every sentence I'm saying is just ridiculous to any sports fan, but like, but like, like, but I see the pain that

my sports friends go through, and I just feel like that's a pain that I don't have.

But yeah, I would love to go to a next game.

What you have, what I realize now is that you have the

truly undeniable self-satisfaction of somebody who only experienced Michael Jordan's Chicago Bulls.

I know.

We're just supposed to win.

Wait a minute.

You guys don't?

You're not winning all the time.

Why are you watching?

Why would you keep coming to games?

It seems really depressing.

Ira, I thank you for doing this.

And I suppose before I let you go, I just want to insist on the fact that if your staff is too cowardly to throw your show, the 30th anniversary party you deserve, Pablo Torre finds out is here to fill that for you.

We're going to unilaterally shove compliments down your throat like the leftist sandwich that you're reported to be.

Okay.

Well, thank you.

I appreciate that.

I'll get back to you on that one.

This has been Pablo Torre finds out a Meadowlark media production.

And I'll talk to you next time.

Dude, did you order the new iPhone 17 Pro?

Got it from Verizon, the best 5G network in America.

I never looked so good.

You look the same.

But with this camera, everything looks better, especially me.

You haven't changed your hair in 15 years.

Selfies, check, please.

With Verizon, new and existing customers can get the new iPhone 17 Pro, designed to be the most powerful iPhone ever, plus a new iPad and Apple one, with eligible phone trade-in and unlimited ultimate.

Best 5G source root metrics data, United States, 1H2025, all rights reserved trading and additional terms apply for all offers.

See Verizon.com for details.

Looking for pieces that go places and last decades?

Discover the fall edit from Banana Republic.

Founded in 1978, Banana Republic creates classics with character that carry you from adventure to the city and everywhere in between.

Think shearling line leather that feels lived in, sweaters spun from the finest wool and cashmere, and effortless pieces designed for the journey, grounded in heritage, reimagined for today, and made to last.

Explore the fall edit now at bananarepublic.com.

Group health insurance can put businesses in a tough position with rising costs and plans that don't fit everyone's needs.

Now, a new form of employer coverage called an ICHRA or ICRA can help.

ICRAs make costs predictable with stable pre-tax contributions and they make health plans personal because each employee can pick any planning carrier that meets their needs.

Get coverage you control.

Learn more at ambetterhealth.com/slash ICRA.