A Glass half full

by Mike Thomas
Chicago Sun-Times
September 16, 2001

We tend to do a lot of stories about people who are in some kind of life where everything seems very
closed off and small and then suddenly something happens to them or through force of will they force
themselves into a life where suddenly things seem really big and open and interesting and exciting.
Ira Glass, describing "This American Life"

At present, Ira Glass life is indeed big and open and interesting and exciting. It has been for some time. Or
at least it seems that way to those of us who arent him. Not only does he get to tell stories for a living, not
only does he enjoy celebrity, limited though it is, without all the hassles (for the sake of comparison, hes
marginally more famous than Harry Knowles, tubby red-haired overlord of the rebel movie review Web
site aintitcoolnews.com), but last November media watchdog monthly Brills Content placed him on its
annual Top 50 list of Media Players. Big whup, you say? Well, youre probably right, especially in light of
Glass latest journalistic dubbing. In early July, none other than Time magazine, grandpappy of prestigious
glossies, named him Americas Best Radio Host. Chicago-born playwright David Mamet penned the essay
praising Glass talents. As you might imagine, the boyish 42-year-old was understandably touched by this
latest honor, if not a bit perplexed. Possessed of little visible ego and a tendency toward self-deprecation,
he claims to be wholly undeserving of such heady recognition.

More on that later.

Steered by his famously unrelenting perfectionism and his prodigious talent for making even the most
mundane people, places and things buzz with profundity and worldliness, his weekly, hourlong program
"This American Life," which originates from local station WBEZ-FM (91.5), where it airs at 7 p.m.
Fridays, has grown since its inception in 1995 to become one of public radios most successful programs,
with a nationwide listenership of 1.2 million. Thats the latest statistic, anyway, straight from the man
himself. Hes got a thing for numbers.

***

Our piece today unfolds in three acts. In the first, we see young Ira, conservative Jewish son of a clinical
psychologist mother and an accountant father, flounder in an unremarkable nook of American suburbia,
where actually making a living doing something neat radio broadcasting, for instance was
unthinkable. Act Two examines his gradual, aimless, largely unsupervised rise through the ranks of public
radio, where he somehow forged a meaningful career that would eventually consume more than half his
life. In Act Three he reinvigorates not only public radio, but the entire medium, becomes an unlikely
kingmaker and finds a way to watch more television.

Act I: Aimless in Baltimore
Late 1960s, early 70s suburban Baltimore. The boy is 10, maybe 12, though extraordinarily perceptive
for his age. He glides effortlessly between disparate social groups. He has a knack for this sort of thing.
What he does is, he curbs his personality, gives them a partial view, lets them see only that part of him
theyll be comfortable seeing. And so they talk to him, open up to him. This skill will come in handy
someday. For now, though, hes just slogging through a white-bread existence, waiting for something,
anything, to happen.

Ive always had the sense that a lot of kids in the suburbs go, Well, there must be someplace thats a little
more interesting than this. I grew up in suburbs in no way distinguished by anything. And I didnt know
anybody who had a job in any sort of creative thing. Like, it was unthinkable that youd meet someone like
that.

And then he does. One day during his stifled adolescence he is listening to the radio. He hardly ever listens
to the radio. He thinks little of it as a mode of communication and certainly not as an avocation. But there is
this shock jock on AM 1300 WFBR named Johnny Walker, and his show, full of lowball humor and crude
gags, appeals to youthful sensibilities. Hey, thats not so hard, telling jokes, the boy concludes, whereupon
he sends Walker some of his best home-brewed gut-busters, whereupon Walker sends a limousine to fetch
the boy and bring him hither, to a house that radio built in some highfalutin part of town.

It seemed very glamourous, but it seemed very high-powered, what he was doing. Like, this impossibly
high-powered thing, the local morning drive-time disc jockey in Baltimore. I have to say, its still a job I
couldnt do.

Act II: Go West, Then East, Young Man
Years pass and the boy, now a young man, attends college at Northwestern, then at Brown, where he
majors in semiotics, the study of narrative and storytelling. In 1978, at age 19, he lands an internship at
National Public Radio in Washington D.C. Hapless and with vague sense of purpose, he has but one goal:
simple competence. Initially, he edits promos for All Things Considered and Morning Edition, becomes a
first-rate tape cutter. As for the rest of his skills...

All the other parts of radio, finding stories focusing a story, writing, reading on the air, interviewing I
was either really bad at or horrible at. And I spent years forcing myself through story after story after
story, going more slowly than anyone Ive ever met in radio. I would spend six or eight weeks on a five-
minute story. If you were to type out a five-minute story its like, two pages long. So thats the level were
talking about, and theres no way to make a living doing that.

These early years at NPR are partly spent under the tutelage of All Things Considered weekend editor Noah
Adams. Glass starts out doing promos for the show, the equivalent of working in the William Morris
mailroom. One promo in particular is especially horrible, so embarrassingly horrible that it never reaches
the airwaves. Today, Adams recalls nothing of this (perhaps it was either so bad that he has repressed it, or
not nearly as terrible as Glass contends), but he does have some other thoughts on his protgs early
genius:

During the year I was gone Ira was working with some of the hosts and he sort of conceptualized
something that I thought was brilliant. A lot of times you will interview a musician or a writer about their
work and they, for whatever reason, cant or are unable to be articulate about it or enthusiastic about it.
He just said, Well, why dont we just ask somebody about what theyre reading or what theyre listening
to? And all of a sudden these people who were a little bit stubborn to interview turned into very
enthusiastic people about somebody elses work. And it would reveal, every time they did a piece, far more
about the person being interviewed than the person being discussed.

***

Act Three: Almost Famous
It is June 1996. Much has transpired between then and now. After years of field reporting education
stuff, mostly of birthing stories at the speed of sludge, of briefly helming Talk of the Nation, of
producing segments for Morning Edition and All Things Considered, of hosting his own wacky show, The
Wild Room, he is finally proficient. Exceedingly proficient, in fact. It was touch and go there for a while,
but, dammit, he willed himself to learn this trade and now hes near the top of his game. Having moved to
Chicago about seven years prior to work at NPRs local bureau, he is now on the payroll of WBEZ, where
his gamble of a program, This American Life, is about to go national. Months ago, some paperwork was
filed and, like in a lottery dream, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting hurled $350,000 in his general
direction. In exchange for the dough, he has promised to stay put for three years and make this thing fly.
TAL wins a Peabody award right off the bat, establishes the show, and its host, as forces to be reckoned
with. Exceptional talents are continually showcased. The hardworking Glass, once professionally obscure
and meek, has unwittingly become a media star and kingmaker. Writer and humorist David Sedaris, whom
Glass discovered at Wrigleyvilles now-defunct Club Lower Links, and whose first Glass-produced public
radio essay, "The Santaland Diaries," garnered waves of raves following its broadcast on Morning Edition
in December 1992, recalls his meteoric, Glass-assisted rise to prominence:

He completely changed my life. Completely. Like in a story. Like, he should ride around in a pumpkin. He
really should. I suppose all your life, thats what you hope for, is to meet one single person who would,
without your asking, just sort of bestow this thing upon you and be so completely selfless and generous
about it. Everything, everything came from being on the radio. It was a before and after, like in a fairy tale.
It was overnight. The story was on the radio and the second it was over, the phone started ringing, and
ringing with offers. I had call waiting. It was just like in those old movies where people are plugging those
things into a switchboard. One moment, please, one moment, please. Can I put you on hold? I was
leaving that night to go to North Carolina for Christmas, and I just remember thinking, My life is
completely different now.

Years pass and Sedaris career blossoms, thanks in no small part to the wisdom and talent of Ira Glass. So
grateful is he that one day, during a reading in New York City, at which Glass has glowingly introduced
Sedaris to the crowd, the writer honors his maker by reciting a touching ode, penned just moments before.
His respect and love for the man who delivered him from a lifetime of house-cleaning and thrust him into
the national spotlight is palpable:

If he looked at himself in a brass pole
Irad see on his face a first-class mole
All hairy and horrid, it sits on his forehead
And closely resembles an a------

Sedaris, though, is but one standout from the Glass School of Broadcasting. There are many others, like the
whiny enchantress Sarah Vowell, whose oddly mesmerizing timbre and knack for narrative lands her an
early spot on Glass burgeoning program, which continues to build its listenership nationwide. Inspired
stories like Shooting Dad, a funny, lighthearted exploration of her gunsmith fathers lifelong fascination
with firearms, make her a public radio luminary. Glass, as ever, hovers in the shadows, allowing Vowells
unique personality to radiate. Heres Sarah:

Hes really let me just follow my heart in a way that not very many people would. When I wrote about
music, I never really understood the way musicians would talk about certain producers. Like, I love
everything Sam Phillips and Sun Studios did, but I never really quite understood what he could do for those
people and how he got the best work out of them. After working with Ira I started to understand that a little
better. He can extract the best possible you out of yourself, and its a pretty magical chemical process. I
dont know how he does it, but everybody should have one of those people. Whenever I get to the point in a
story where I say what the storys about, where Ive learned something or come to some revelation, I call
that part Dear Ira. Because I know thats the part thats really gonna light him up. When youre not just
telling some anecdote, when it actually means something, those are the moments Ira lives for.

***

Friday evening, mid-August 2001. It is 6:55 p.m., five minutes before showtime, and Glass clad sloppily
yet stylishly in a blue checked shirt, khakis and Chuck Taylor All-Stars bursts through the doors on his
way to the studio down the hall. There is a frantic air about him. He is, after all, the Best Radio Host in
America, and the pressure to perform is high. Not that it wasnt inordinately so already...

Um, sorry to get sidetracked here, but it seems like a logical place to bring this up again this Best Radio
Host in America thing. First of all, does it really mean anything? The short answer is, Yes, it is a great
honor. How could it not be? Its Time frigging magazine! (For the record, Glass never actually said it was a
great honor, and he definitely never used the word frigging he would have used the real thing to
express his feelings on the matter, but its a sure bet he is touched by all the hoopla.) The second and more
pressing question is: Why? Why does Glass deserve this accolade when there are many far more successful,
far more famous radio personalities who stalk the airwaves for three, four, five hours a day as opposed to
Glass measly one hour a week? Plus, TAL hardly ever features strippers, porn stars or freaks. What gives?
For the long answer, heres Glass himself:

I have to say, when this Time magazine thing came out naming me radio host of the year, like the main
thought I had was, Im not Americas best radio host. Like, Howard Stern is, clearly. Like, theres no
question. I think we do a very nice show, a really, really good show. But just as a straight-up radio host, I
feel like hes so far ahead of me. Its a beautifully formatted show, like the Jack Benny Show, where theres
a set of characters who you come to know. And then, over the course of five hours, he just creates one
situation after another for them to react to. This American Life is like a movie. There are characters and
you get involved with a conflict and you just stick around to find out what happens. Its a much different
approach to radio than what Howards doing, which is way more suited to being live.

I imagined that somebody at some time was going to show that Time thing to somebody on the Howard
Stern team and they would be like, Who is this guy? You ever heard of him? I could just imagine the
whole thing. And then theyd come and kick my ass.

Three minutes to curtain. Glass is tweeking equipment, queuing songs, checking sound levels. He smiles
and laughs, but the mirth seems less an expression of joy than a release of tension. He speaks quickly,
excitedly in ums and dudes and likes, verbal ticks that pepper his sentences, while conferring with
his staff and mumbling to himself. The program is going out live to Chicagoland and a central distribution
satellite, and Glass doesnt want to screw up. Everything must be precise. S---, Im a second off! he
exclaims when the test tone ends too soon and there is moment of dead air. Therell be hell to pay for
that. Later on, there is another faux pas, noticeable only to Glass and his radio posse. Its over. Dont
look back, he tells himself. No. Must. Look. Back.

New York-based producer Wendy Dorr sits next to him behind the consol, sweating the details without
actually sweating, and various other TAL staffers duck in and out. There are three pre-taped, meticulously
produced segments (edited digitally with a gorgeous new Macintosh G4 computer) that Glass will
introduce during the next hour. He rehearses lines semi-silently under his breath, making slight alterations
here and there, cracking himself up with barely audible asides and double entendres. Occasionally, he
announces, Stand by, the cue for his small studio audience, seated around the rooms perimeter, to shut
up while he does his thing.

The central theme of todays program is heat. Chicagos sweltering summer has spawned sweltering
stories. One of them, by first time TAL contributor Jonathan Goldstein, is particularly vivid and hilarious.
For a piece titled, Its Not the Heat, Its the Humility, Goldstein spent a few days in the Division Street
Russian Bathhouse, the only place he could find in Chicago that was hotter and more torpor-inducing than
the outdoors. Hunched in a corner, baseball cap turned backward, he listens intently as his droll, almost
monotone tale takes its maiden voyage over public airwaves. Heres a brief excerpt from Goldsteins stellar
performance, though the print version hardly does it justice:

Jakes younger son Willie calls me over. Hes giving a large hairy man a massage with an oak leaf brush
and wants me to see. Have you ever seen a real Russian-style massage? asks Willie, as the naked, 300-
pound man lying on his back that hes attending to obligingly raises his legs in the air like a baby about to
be diapered. Willie lifts the brush over his shoulder and brings it down between the mans legs, over and
over. He does this with a kind of casualness that suggests whipping a naked man in the privates is the most
normal thing in the world. And I watch them, completely and utterly freaked out. Which is, I think, the
result Willie was going for.
Toward the end of the broadcast, the mood in the studio grows noticeably looser. There is more laughing,
more smiling, none of it nervous. Ira and crew are preoccupied with the shows kicker, a tagline that will
somehow involve a nude Torey Malatia, WBEZs general manager and one of TALs earliest champions,
in a Russian bathhouse scenario. Minutes later another show is in the can. (Thats radio talk.) Glass looks
pleased, though not overly so. There were minor goofs throughout, and theyll be patched so the show is
virtually flawless when it is heard in the days ahead by 420 stations across the country.

Glass leans back in his chair, but he is not relaxed. It is eight oclock on a Friday night and most other
humans would seek respite sleep, drink, Russian-style massage after a week straight of 14-hour days.
But not him. Not yet. There is more to be done, and it must be done now. Then and only then will he allow
himself to kick back for a spell at one of his favorite vegetarian-friendly eateries, or maybe at home
sprawled before the idiot box, a device that for years just gathered dust, largely because all the good shows
were over by the time he got home. But now, thanks to the miracle of TIVO, with its magical ability to
automatically tape all of his favorites on a monstrous hard drive, hes able to view Buffy the Vampire
Slayer and The Sopranos and The West Wing at any time, day or night. He loves this newfound
freedom, the feeling of being completely divorced from any sort of rigid schedule, any pressure to cram yet
one more thing one more interview, one more editing session, one more anything into his already
jam-packed existence. Hes taking more time off, too, traveling once in a while, hanging out with his
girlfriend, exploring the city he has long called home. After years of laboring over other American lives, it
seems that Glass is finally making time to cultivate one of his own.