Ira Glass brings 3 decades of storytelling to San Diego

In late 1995, "This American Life" first took to the airwaves on WBEZ radio in Chicago. Each week — as the introduction of each episode reminds us — it chooses a theme, and stitches together a series of stories around that theme, offering intimate glimpses into everyday lives and extraordinary circumstances. Since it began, host Ira Glass has led the show through 30 years of storytelling, with 853 episodes (and counting).

Over the next couple of years, the show slowly spread across the country as other public radio stations picked it up. According to staffers at "This American Life," it was first broadcast on KPBS in San Diego in October 1997 — an early adopter, staffers said.

Glass will return to San Diego for a live show, "Seven Things I've Learned," on Feb. 8.

Sandra Sonik

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This American Life

Despite his decades of successful storytelling, Glass does not consider himself a "natural" storyteller. "In a way, it was an advantage not being a good, natural storyteller when I started doing stories like I do for the radio — because I knew I didn't know what I was doing, and I really had to do a study of what makes a compelling story on the radio. I really had to listen to stuff and try to build stuff and really had to go at it like somebody who was a moron," he said.

Interview highlights

On whether his approach to storytelling has evolved

I mean, some of the things haven't changed. The thing that I was doing when we started "This American Life" was doing stories built around people and they were in a situation and you want to see what's going to unfold.

But then I just had the experience this week of listening back to one of the pilots that we made for "This American Life." This was back in 1995. We made three pilots, and I was really stunned at how badly I do the stories. I'm overselling every plot point so aggressively, and there's almost no plot. Like, almost nothing happens. The first pilot that we did, the first story, is about a woman who just decided to quit everything in her whole life and developed a whole theory about quitting. So the only thing that happens in the plot is that she quits her life, but she does that, and then it's kind of done. And then she's driving across the country to a new city with no job and no boyfriend, unsure what she's going to do next. Which is, I guess, dramatic, but really it's 16 minutes of her talking about her theories about quitting. I was like, "Wow, we really didn't know how to hold people's attention."

I feel like the basics are the same, but I think, just somehow along the way, I and the staff got a little bit more rigorous in trying to do a nicer job for people.

On not being a natural storyteller

I definitely am not a natural storyteller. I work with people — you know, people who, anything happens to them, and they can make it into a really interesting story? That is not me.

At the end of the day, when I see the person I love and I want to tell her, "Here's what happened today," I feel very aware that a more entertaining person would know how to sell this story. In fact, I'm a good enough editor that I can tell I'm not doing the greatest job of conveying the thing I want to convey.

I'm somebody who really needs to think about how to make a story if it's going to be good. In a way, it was an advantage not being a good, natural storyteller when I started doing stories like I do for the radio — because I knew I didn't know what I was doing, and I really had to do a study of what makes a compelling story on the radio. I really had to listen to stuff and try to build stuff and really had to go at it like somebody who was a moron.

On persevering through 'the gap' between creative ability and taste

Many beginners who are learning to write or they're learning to make music or whatever, they get to a certain point and they realize, "Oh I'm not that good; this isn't as good as the stuff I like," and that kills them. And they get out of trying to make things for the rest of their life.

I feel like I observed this in my own life. For a decade, I wanted to make radio stories, and I was making radio stories at NPR, but they were not very good. One of the things I do, actually, in the talk that I'm giving in San Diego, is I play a story from my eighth year making stories, and it's dreadful. Like it's really, really dreadful. It took me a really long time to figure out how to make something that was good. In the story, I sound like somebody doing an imitation of an NPR reporter, but not doing it well.

On producing things we don't really want to hear about

This is something that actually we think about a lot — and not just with President (Donald) Trump and with the politics and all that. But there's a whole range of stories that most of us feel like we've heard enough about these stories, and we don't need to hear anymore. Like climate change. We all know where we are in climate change. Whatever you believe, you know what you believe. To hear another story about climate change, I think a lot of us feel like, "No, I got it. I have the big points. I don't need to spend 20 minutes on that." Immigration is another thing. Everybody feels like, "Oh my God, you hear so much about this. Everybody has an opinion."

Courtesy of ArtPower

One of the things that we talk about a lot on our staff — and we really design into our show — is if we're going to take on something like that, like the beginning of the story, we almost have to trick the listener into listening. And also, the story has to lead to something that's surprising enough that it's worth listening to. We really will just try to start the story in a way where the person in the story is compelling enough, or they're in a situation that's compelling enough that you just want to hear what happens.

We did a series of stories during the Hamas-Israel war where, again, we kind of knew everybody was seeing that on their phones and the news — everybody kind of knows the big picture of that story. But when we would do a story, we would really just start with somebody in a situation. There's a guy who's living in Rafah, and he hears that there's going to be bombing in Khan Yunis, and he wants to talk his family into moving from Khan Yunis to Rafah, and they don't want to go because his sister is pregnant and she doesn't want to go to a place where there's not a bathroom, but it feels like he's got to do it in the next couple days, or she really might die — and she doesn't want to go. That's a situation where you want to hear what is going to happen. You're rooting for this family to live. And you see everybody's point of view, too, like an 8-and-a-half-month pregnant lady who doesn't want to live in a tent. If you started the show being like, “OK, more war coverage from a war that you pretty much know about,” it's very different than starting it with like, “Here's a guy, and he's in a situation, and it's hard — and is he going to get his family out in time?”

The second thing is something that it's possible to connect to and care about, and I think that the value of a story like that is that I think we hear a lot of stuff in the news, but we don't get that close in on what is the lived experience of being there.

On finding sparks — and luck — in an interview

Any interview to me has the feeling of I'm walking into a casino. I got some money in my pocket. Am I going to get lucky? And sometimes you have a little bit of luck, and sometimes you don't have any luck — and those stories we kill. And then sometimes people can be amazing. That part of it continues to be a really wonderful thing about having a job like this, and doesn't get old.

The truth is, like, I have 20 or 30 favorite episodes. But the quick answer that I give people is that there's a really wonderful episode where we got really, really lucky in the way that the people were such wonderful talkers, and then the way that the story unfolded in front of our microphones was just surprising and delightful to hear.

It's an episode called "129 Cars," and it's about this one car dealership on Long Island in New York State. Basically, it's watching the salespeople — the seven people on the sales team — try to make their monthly quota, which was 129 cars that particular month that we were there. They were in a situation where the month before they did not make their quota, and if they don't make their quota, then the manufacturer, Chrysler Jeep, doesn't give them a bonus. The bonus is … a big chunk of money. So, the pressure's on for them to make their quota, and it's just not going well. It's very dramatic, and also, they're all really funny. Also, they all curse a lot, which makes, I think, for really enjoyable tape.

On avoiding burnout (spoiler: he doesn't)

I don't avoid burnout. I experience burnout. I'm in a production job, and we make 30 original hours a year. I know that people might hear that (and think) it seems like we're slacking for 22 weeks, but it's actually really hard to make that many original hours of a thing in the format that we're doing — where you're looking for stories that are compelling, and people who are compelling, and the things have a narrative arc. So sometimes, yeah, I feel kind of burned out. I do. And other times I don't. Like, I'll get excited by some story, and then I feel like, "Oh, OK!" It's a mix.

It's funny — having a job doing the same thing for years and years and years, even a job that you kind of love, there'll be parts of making the thing that are still really fun and exciting, always with every episode — always, always, always. Like, I really do love interviewing people. I really love writing. I actually really love editing.

But then there can just be so much of it. I've said this before in other interviews, but sometimes it's sort of like I'm at a restaurant where they always serve my favorite meal, but I'm never allowed to leave the table. You know? It can feel like that sometimes.

It's nice to have a job that you can stand. Like most people don't, and I don't take it for granted.

On not leaving a legacy

I get that, I guess, there's an archive there, but that doesn't interest me. I don't care about that legacy. I don't care about legacy. I care about making stuff with people I like, then trying to do a nice job for the audience.

Honestly, I think once we're off the air, people won't think about our show pretty quickly. Like the shows that are off the air, you just don't think about them. They're gone. And that's OK. There's other shows that were big shows on public radio, "A Prairie Home Companion," "Car Talk," and they go off the air and everybody moves on — and everybody should move on. Like somebody else should make something great. That's not sad to me. Like, that seems fine. It's a radio show. It should go away. All things go away. It should go away.

On making a live show

At a live show like the one I'm going to be doing there in San Diego, what I do is I stand on stage and I have an iPad, and I can play clips and music — and I can basically create the radio, the sound of the radio show around me with all the elements of that as I speak. And then I tell a series of stories. And just because I'm there in the room, I also bring some video. I have these really beautiful videos that I play clips of and tell stories that way. I just try to make the evening in the theater feel as much like the radio show does. So, it's just like a bunch of stories.

On connecting with his parents on the show

All through my 20s, my parents disapproved of me working in radio and kind of every choice I was making in my life. They very much were just like, "This public radio thing makes no sense. You should be a doctor. When are you going back to school to be a doctor?"

And in my 30s, I started "This American Life," and one of the things that happens in some of the early episodes is I would interview my parents on the show. I just did it because it was fun content, because they very much weren't very impressed with me and would give me their point of view very firmly — and it just made for good radio. It's really funny. Every segment my mom is in, she gets the last word, and I look ridiculous — and it's sweet.

But having them on the air in this project that meant so much to me actually transformed our relationship, in this way that I never would have guessed could have happened. I got much closer to them, and they really did kind of come to accept what I was doing with my life. And they liked it. Partly because I think it felt like a thing to them — that I would include them in this thing. Then when the radio show got successful enough, like sometimes their friends would hear them on the air and that was really sweet — there was that too. But there's just a feeling of — it was like we were including each other in each other's lives. I think they saw me a little better, and I saw them a little better. I never would have guessed that would have happened. It was a really lucky thing to have happened.

On the future of long-form storytelling and short attention spans

I really am just trying to figure out, what are we doing next week? And then in three weeks, what are we doing? And then, what are we doing in the week after that? And how are we covering the mass deportations? What are we doing? So that's where I am. I'm much more in the here and now.

I think if you look at the culture, yes, everybody's on TikTok and on Instagram and all that, and there's a lot of short content. But at the same time, some of the biggest things in the culture are these TV shows that you have to sit down and watch, and they take, like, 30 hours to get through. Those things coexist side by side, these incredibly long-form narratives. So I think people will stick around for a long story if the story is done competently and pulls you in at the beginning and you care about the people in it. I don't worry about people's attention spans at all. I think the world has that wrong. I really do.