What motivates This American Life host Ira Glass? Trying to be a ‘good boy’ : NPR

A word from Wild Card host Rachel Martin: It in all probability goes with out saying, however Ira Glass is famous in my audio world. He hosts This American Life, one of the crucial well-known and profitable radio exhibits and podcasts of all time. And so after I obtained an invite to interview him dwell at a conference referred to as Podcast Motion, I used to be tremendous nervous and a smidge intimidated.

After we met backstage, I used to be shocked to search out out he appeared a bit intimidated too. Not by me, to be clear, however by the format of Wild Card. He was about to be requested all these probably private questions — in entrance of a extremely massive viewers. And he advised me that revealing issues about himself did not come naturally when he was youthful — it was one thing he needed to be taught to do. However to his credit score, he bravely confronted the deck and answered each query that got here his method.

This Wild Card interview has been edited for size and readability. Host Rachel Martin asks visitors randomly-selected questions from a deck of playing cards. Faucet play above to hearken to the total podcast, or learn an excerpt beneath.

Query 1: What’s one thing you suppose folks misunderstand about you?

Ira Glass: I play a a lot nicer, extra empathetic particular person on the radio than I’m in actual life.

Rachel Martin: I do not imagine it. You are not a pleasant, empathetic particular person?

Glass: To a degree — to the purpose the place I might play it on the radio.

Martin: So there’s like public Ira Glass after which like regular Ira Glass. How far aside are the 2?

Glass: Um, I comprise that kind of empathetic, people-pleasing one who I am taking part in on the radio. That is most of who I’m, however I am an individual below weekly deadlines. And I get freaked out and drained and irritable and do not wish to discuss to folks. And I get irritated. And I curse rather a lot. I actually love cursing. So, like, I’m that particular person, however I am greater than that particular person.

I hesitate telling this story as a result of it is a bit self-something, congratulatory, or one thing. However one of many very first dwell exhibits was a city corridor in New York Metropolis. And The New York Observer wrote an article about coming to the present, and the article was nearly how there have been a whole lot of ladies who had crushes on me over the radio.

And for the article, they interviewed my senior producer on the time, Julie Snyder. On the time, our workers was me and three ladies. And she or he mentioned, “Look, I really like my husband. However I might love him much more if each phrase he mentioned was edited by three ladies.” That is the distinction between the private and non-private model of me.

Query 2: Do you consider the legacy that you’ll go away behind?

Glass: No, I don’t. I feel that is bull****. I do not care in any respect about that. F*** legacy. F*** folks of the longer term. F*** individuals who shall be in any case of us are useless. F*** the individuals who shall be alive, having lunch and seeing motion pictures. F*** them. I hate them. I am not making a radio present for them. I am making a present for individuals who hear it now. And when it is carried out and we do not make it anymore, it is completely high quality for it to fade into the mists of time. Like the whole lot will, and it is high quality if that occurs in a short time. It does not matter.

Martin: I requested the poet Nikki Giovanni and she or he principally mentioned the identical factor. And she or he advised me that she is commonly engaged with individuals who suppose rather a lot about their legacy — even fascinated by the stamps that America will make with their visage.

Glass: That is unhappy. That is only a unhappy particular person. That is pathetic. Except you are President Obama, except you are an precise historic determine. Like, that is acceptable for him to consider his legacy. However he is the primary Black president of the USA. He ought to take into consideration that.

Query 3: What reality guides your life greater than every other?

Glass: I imply, the precise reality is a bit embarrassing to say, and I’ve by no means put it to myself this manner, however I feel it is true: I really feel like I am making an attempt to be a very good boy. I am making an attempt to indicate that I actually am making an attempt my hardest on a regular basis to these round me.

I am given a easy factor to do. After which I make it far more difficult and spend much more time on it than I in all probability ought to. Or there’s some like factor in a mixture that 4 different folks have heard, and it is Friday, after which I simply hear it and say now we have to place three-fourths of a second pause right here and four-tenths of a second pause there to make this final second work, which I wish to imagine makes it higher.

And I really feel like I am all the time being a very good soldier in acceptable and inappropriate conditions. In private conditions the place it is intrusive and never referred to as for, and in work conditions the place I work with tremendous competent, the very best-at-their-jobs-in-the-world individuals who very a lot do not want my assist generally. And so it is a high quality that’s each good and unhealthy.