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

For nearly three decades, he's crafted cinematic narratives on public radio that are unapologetically performative and decidedly high-brow. But Ira Glass, in real life, is not some vegetarian sandwich. Pablo seeks kindred wisdom on activating a third ear, basking in the flow of Lin-Manuel Miranda, covering Donald Trump, growing jealous of The Daily, fact-checking Joe Rogan and opting out of being in touch... with The Rizzler. • Become a Life Partner of "This American Life" https://thisamericanlife.supercast.com/ Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy https://acast.com/privacy for more information.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Speaker 00

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

• 0:07Speaker 01

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• 2:23Pablo Torre?

  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.

• 2:38Speaker 01

  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.

• 2:48Pablo Torre?

  Great.

• 2:48Speaker 01

  Yeah, like praise isn't.

• 2:49Pablo Torre?

  It'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?

• 3:02Speaker 01

  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 like the show or the show means something to them. It usually isn't so much about me.

• 3:16Pablo Torre?

  Well, I'm here to make it about you.

• 3:19Speaker 01

  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.

• 3:25Pablo Torre?

  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.

• 3:35Speaker 01

  That'd be great.

• 3:36Pablo Torre?

  I think exactly what you came here for.

• 3:38Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 3:38Pablo Torre?

  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.

• 3:46Speaker 01

  No, you weren't in our farm teams at the local stations. You were never in the show at NPR in Washington.

• 3:51Pablo Torre?

  No, I, 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.

• 4:05Speaker 01

  I heard about this. I've listened to their music.

• 4:11Pablo Torre?

  What's your review of Ira Glass, the band?

• 4:14Speaker 01

  Great. Seriously. Like if you have a band name for you and if that's what they sound like, that's hugely flattering. I thought it was great.

• 4:23Pablo Torre?

  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.

• 4:44Speaker 01

  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 on public radio, which already is like, that is a really particular choice.

• 5:02Pablo Torre?

  That's a Fox News fever dream. Come to life, Ira.

• 5:07Speaker 01

  And I think the one name 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.

• 5:22Pablo Torre?

  That's right.

• 5:22Speaker 01

  It would just make me feel bad.

• 5:25Pablo Torre?

  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.

• 5:34Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 5:35Pablo Torre?

  And that, to you, feels like?

• 5:38Speaker 01

  I feel like it's great. We got to, we got to.

• 5:40Pablo Torre?

  Come on, it's great. Everything's just great.

• 5:42Speaker 01

  Well, 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.

• 6:27Pablo Torre?

  Yeah, exciting feels euphemistic.

• 6:29Speaker 01

  What would you say?

• 6:30Pablo Torre?

  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.

• 6:52Speaker 01

  Yes, yes.

• 6:52Pablo Torre?

  I.

• 6:53Speaker 01

  When you were on our show.

• 6:54Pablo Torre?

  When I lived the public radio sandwich dream of being one of the slices of meat in a multi-chapter fish, I came to appreciate. How hard it is in ways that I always detected from afar but saw from the inside. And all 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 should be in the trash.

• 7:20Speaker 01

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

• 7:25Pablo Torre?

  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.

• 7:40Speaker 01

  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.

• 8:17Pablo Torre?

  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.

• 8:32Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 8:33Pablo Torre?

  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.

• 8:41Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 8:41Pablo Torre?

  And you did.

• 8:43Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 8:43Pablo Torre?

  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.

• 9:02Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 9:03Pablo Torre?

  And that's not your comfort zone.

• 9:04Speaker 01

  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.

• 9:14Pablo Torre?

  What's private time like, though?

• 9:16Speaker 01

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

• 9:25Pablo Torre?

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

• 9:29Speaker 01

  You should. I'll answer anything. I really will.

• 9:32Pablo Torre?

  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?

• 9:50Speaker 01

  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 got a city hall wedding in New York City, and it's an incredible scene. And when we were there, I did think like, oh, like a story.

• 10:03Pablo Torre?

  Let me get this tape recorder out for a second.

• 10:04Speaker 01

  Kind of, yeah. Like, because it's people getting married at all ages in 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, I'd have to go in with a mission of like, what is, you 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

• 10:46Speaker 01

  my mom was a marriage therapist

• 10:50Speaker 01

  and published a book and did research.

• 10:53Speaker 05

  And there isn't enough couple-centered time. So 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.

• 11:12Speaker 01

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

• 11:19Speaker 01

  And in various other relationships, including my first marriage, I wonder now if we spent too long trying to make it work out.

• 11:32Speaker 01

  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 true 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.

• 12:17Speaker 01

  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.

• 12:30Pablo Torre?

  One of the things I listen to on your show, as one of the, I'm a paid subscriber.

• 12:35Speaker 01

  Yeah, we have 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-

• 12:43Pablo Torre?

  Life partners.

• 12:44Speaker 01

  Life partners is what we call it. And, yeah, and they're, they're like, a, it's now become like a fourth of our budget.

• 12:50Pablo Torre?

  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.

• 13:08Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 13:08Pablo Torre?

  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?

• 13:30Speaker 01

  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 sack 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.

• 14:15Speaker 01

  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, to just read it to people, see if this is working, what changes we should make. That was like, I had to tell them before I read it of like, oh, by the way, like there's some personal stuff here that you guys don't know, that I'm gonna be letting you and the

• 15:00Speaker 01

  radio audience know.

• 15:01Pablo Torre?

  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?

• 15:09Speaker 01

  No, I understood that it was ridiculous. I mean, I felt my friend had just died, so I was pretty sad for my friend.

• 15:14Pablo Torre?

  Right, right, right.

• 15:15Speaker 01

  But like, I understood how absurd that is.

• 15:17Pablo Torre?

  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.

• 15:24Speaker 01

  Really? Pardon me, he's 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.

• 15:34Pablo Torre?

  We're gonna keep you contemplating aloud whether we are structuring this well enough. That'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?

• 15:48Speaker 01

  No, did we get that? Did we learn that? Can we learn that?

• 16:08Pablo Torre?

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

• 16:31Speaker 01

  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'm like, I'm not sure if I had watched it in months. Like, and I've never seen cable TV. Like, if we'd been there for more than a minute. Like, that was a day that you had been on cable TV.

• 16:49Pablo Torre?

  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.

• 16:58Speaker 01

  Well, that was the subject on MSNBC that day. It was a couple of months ago. That was, that was the hot story.

• 17:02Pablo Torre?

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

• 17:08Speaker 01

  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 then, yeah, like I've never really watched, I mean, I've watched like,

• 17:29Pablo Torre?

  A minute? A minute of cable television as a concept?

• 17:33Speaker 01

  I mean, like I've watched, you know, I mean, I'm sure there's, 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, occasionally be the thing I turn on CNN for like to see a particular thing I'm curious about. But no, like I just like, no, I've never, no. I never got into the habit of it. And there was like, there was, yeah, like I just didn't, I didn't. Like, I didn't own a television.

• 18:00Pablo Torre?

  Right.

• 18:01Speaker 01

  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 seventies. 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'd never got one, because I was busy. And then I got a TV when The Sopranos came on. And because I, because somebody I work 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.

• 18:28Pablo Torre?

  To watch specifically The Sopranos?

• 18:29Speaker 01

  Yes. But then it didn't spread. There wasn't anything else on. I guess I could have tried Oz or something.

• 18:36Speaker 01

  And then, like, and so now, like-

• 18:38Pablo Torre?

  Wait, do you, do you regret the purchase of the television?

• 18:41Speaker 01

  No, no, no, no, no. I loved it. No, like, I love watching television.

• 18:44Pablo Torre?

  The Sopranos lived up to the hype.

• 18:46Speaker 01

  Totally. Yeah, of course.

• 18:47Pablo Torre?

  And then-

• 18:48Speaker 01

  The Sopranos.

• 18:48Pablo Torre?

  But, but, hold on. You just sort of tossed off It's The Sopranos, but then, nothing else has risen to that level since?

• 18:53Speaker 01

  No, no, no. Lots of shows are good. No, I like lots of shows. And, and, and in my first marriage, my wife really loved TV. And we watched a lot of TV. Like, we, like, and, and at the time, it was like, all the, like, The O.C. And Gilmore Girls. And like, I've seen all of that.

• 19:06Pablo Torre?

  What is your media, I mean, your general cultural consumption has gone from The Sopranos, maybe a minute of Rich O'Malley into the entirety of Gilmore Girls.

• 19:16Speaker 01

  Yeah, no, I've seen all of Gilmore Girls and The O.C. And like, there's a bunch of, Buffy, I've seen all of Buffy. But that's all because of my first wife. Though I really do love those shows, you know? And then, like, there's other shows that I've seen.

• 19:26Pablo Torre?

  That you will not name because they are-

• 19:28Speaker 01

  If I thought about it for a second, I could remember. And like, and right now, like, my wife and I are constantly looking for something to watch. And I feel like I'm, 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.

• 19:41Pablo Torre?

  What is your relationship with the internet like?

• 19:44Speaker 01

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

• 20:28Speaker 01

  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. The algorithm has me pegged as, like, there's a lot of Taylor Tomlinson and Mike Birbiglia and, you know, John Mulaney stuff.

• 20:44Pablo Torre?

  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?

• 20:53Speaker 06

  You said your problem? I'm here to give you free advice.

• 20:56Pablo Torre?

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

• 20:58Speaker 06

  You need to chill, bro. Shut your mouth!

• 21:01Speaker 07

  Oh, he's hitting the gritty!

• 21:02Pablo Torre?

  My sister pours her milk before the cereal.

• 21:04Speaker 06

  So she pours the milk, then the cereal? That's diabolical, bro.

• 21:08Pablo Torre?

  Do you have any idea who that?

• 21:10Speaker 01

  No.

• 21:10Pablo Torre?

  Okay.

• 21:11Speaker 01

  Who is it?

• 21:12Pablo Torre?

  It's the Rizler.

• 21:15Speaker 01

  I mean, I'm not online, like, I'm not, and I feel a little embarrassed that this is, like, now gonna be a public fact about me. Because there's no, there's no upside to that. There's no, there's no looking cool about that. That's definitely uncool. The phone is there for entertainment.

• 21:28Pablo Torre?

  I love how self-conscious you have just become about not knowing who the Rizler is. I consider it, frankly, the only hope I have left in the American cultural institution that you don't.

• 21:40Speaker 01

  No, no, no, I think, I think, I think that I'm in the wrong here. I think that it's wrong to not know who that is. Like, like, I feel like I'm not spending enough time online. That's actually the lesson that I'm getting from this.

• 21:50Pablo Torre?

  Can we get that as the aggregated clip? Ira Glass wishes he knew who the Rizler is.

• 21:57Speaker 01

  That's true, though. That's a factual statement.

• 22:00Pablo Torre?

  You're pro-Rizler.

• 22:00Speaker 01

  I'm, I stand by, I'm pro-knowing-who-the-Rizler-is. I don't wanna weigh in on all of his points.

• 22:06Pablo Torre?

  Co-sign all of his political beliefs, which are expansive.

• 22:09Speaker 01

  No, but I want to know who he is.

• 22:12Pablo Torre?

  I am so interested as to-

• 22:15Speaker 01

  Wait, how should I feel about this?

• 22:17Pablo Torre?

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

• 22:21Speaker 01

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

• 22:23Pablo Torre?

  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 Rizler in front of us. And therefore, we all, everybody behind the glass knows who the Rizler is.

• 22:36Speaker 01

  Right.

• 22:37Pablo Torre?

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

• 22:43Speaker 01

  It's not because my bar is, 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 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 Wall Street Journal and see what's happening. And 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.

• 23:13Pablo Torre?

  You, you live a life that is extraordinarily different from mine. And I say that as somebody who's, who's show also like is meant to be a container for all of my interests. The internet being a key membrane 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?

• 23:48Speaker 01

  Look, a 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.

• 23:59Pablo Torre?

  When did it become apparent that you knew what your show was?

• 24:05Speaker 01

  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 was, you know, we knew we wanted to make stories. Like, what would be different is that we were doing a kind of storytelling that nobody was doing on the radio, that we wanted just like, just, you know, we wanted from the moment that I start 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

• 24:49Speaker 01

  and him and a producer, Salsam Khalifi. And Hamid'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 Crayon 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.

• 25:33Speaker 01

  Other people heard us doing it, they're like, "Oh, yeah, this medium is really good for that." And like, and then other people started doing their versions of it, which honestly is gratifying.

• 25:46Pablo Torre?

  To have many people copying you, stealing your [BLEEP].

• 25:48Speaker 01

  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 was me and Torre Malatia, 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, 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, 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 own hundreds of stations by the end of a year, you know, just like, like, it was just, it turned out to be much more...

• 26:34Speaker 01

  Uh, popular than we thought.

• 26:36Pablo Torre?

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

• 26:41Speaker 01

  It was surprising, yeah.

• 26:42Pablo Torre?

  So part of what I, I think is so obvious now is something that you just referenced as, as a way of characterizing Garrison Keillor's work, which is the musicality of it. And he uses music in a way that is different from how you use music.

• 26:55Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 26:56Pablo Torre?

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

• 27:03Speaker 01

  Hmm.

• 27:04Pablo Torre?

  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 seeing that?

• 27:17Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like the way I'm performing, the way I'm talking on the air, the way we use music. I mean, it's, we use music the way you use music in a movie. You know what I mean? Like to pull you forward and, and set, set a feeling and, um, and to go away and leave you with silence for a dramatic moment, bring it back to let the plot pick up again. Yeah, like, like it's all designed for that. It's all designed to just like, kind of pull you into the dream.

• 27:41Pablo Torre?

  That's the [BLEEP] I, I, that 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.

• 28:03Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 28:04Pablo Torre?

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

• 28:16Speaker 01

  Philip Glass, my cousin, the composer.

• 28:18Pablo Torre?

  Yeah, that, that thing.

• 28:20Speaker 01

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

• 28:24Pablo Torre?

  I'm throwing you alley oops and you're [BLEEP] dunking it. Genuinely, it's, it's thank you for doing that.

• 28:29Speaker 01

  No problem.

• 28:29Pablo Torre?

  I need that.

• 28:30Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 28:31Pablo Torre?

  But Philip Glass, the composer, your cousin, if you were 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?

• 28:45Speaker 01

  Explain our show in relation to his work? I mean, his work is so aggressively non-narrative.

• 28:51Pablo Torre?

  Right.

• 28:52Speaker 01

  I mean, when he does an opera, like Einstein on the Beach, or, you know, Akhenaten, 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-

• 29:07Pablo Torre?

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

• 29:10Speaker 01

  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.

• 29:24Speaker 01

  I mean, and it's no coincidence that he's like a practicing Buddhist, and 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 suited for it.

• 30:03Pablo Torre?

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• 30:37Speaker 08

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• 31:21Speaker 08

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• 32:12Pablo Torre?

  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?

• 32:22Speaker 01

  Are you saying like, where do I picture like I'm sitting?

• 32:25Pablo Torre?

  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 a particular way?

• 32:44Speaker 01

  I do envision something. I mean, it's not, it's not a visual picture, but, but like, in my mind, I'm talking to one person, like a 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, um, and, and so everything is designed to, to feel like that. And, um, and we have some people who are on the show who, who, who perform in a more stylized way, and that can be fun, too. And you perform in a more stylized, and, and you perform not like you're like talking in a real conversation, like over a drink.

• 33:29Speaker 01

  You perform like somebody like doing a show. Like, there's a lot of TV in the way that you're on the radio.

• 33:35Pablo Torre?

  So, I'm so selfish.

• 33:37Speaker 01

  Because, 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 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.

• 33:49Pablo Torre?

  It's across the room for you, or in your case, not in your home at all, until The Sopranos shows up.

• 33:55Speaker 01

  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, and, and people perform at that distance, and rightly so.

• 34:06Pablo Torre?

  You gave me a note while we were doing, we did an adaptation of one of my favorite things, uh, the Hunter and Maradona story, which is titled "The Engineer," chapter two of a recent episode of This American Life.

• 34:14Speaker 01

  Love that show.

• 34:15Pablo Torre?

  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.

• 34:39Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 34:39Pablo Torre?

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

• 34:45Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 34:46Pablo Torre?

  And more focused. And you're right, like, me coming from the other, I don't even know if television's a coaching tree as much as it is just like a room full of people you gotta shout over to be heard. In that, just to mix the metaphors here. But like, yes, I now detect.

• 35:02Pablo Torre?

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

• 35:27Speaker 01

  I remember when you were tracking, when you were recording your narration, like, I was listening 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.

• 35:42Pablo Torre?

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

• 35:47Speaker 09

  I have a voice-related medical condition.

• 35:51Speaker 05

  Oh, I'm very sorry.

• 35:53Speaker 09

  I suffer from voice immodulation, Tina. I'm unable to control the pitch or volume of my voice.

• 36:00Pablo Torre?

  What do you mean? And I just couldn't. It was funny. Like, I'm glad. It might literally be taped. I think maybe the Zoom was not recorded mercifully, but I just felt like, why is...

• 36:12Speaker 01

  No, no, it was recorded. That was recorded.

• 36:14Pablo Torre?

  Like, why can I not do this? And it was so, again, it was just, it was delightful in ways that activated this third ear. Of like, oh, wow. I am now hearing myself for the first time.

• 36:29Speaker 01

  Do it right now. Do, do, do. 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.

• 36:40Pablo Torre?

  Oh, God, I'm just gonna. And then we took it to another level.

• 36:48Speaker 01

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

• 36:51Pablo Torre?

  I would say that...

• 36:52Speaker 01

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

• 36:54Pablo Torre?

  No, but 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 doing an Ira Glass thing. And can I explain to you what I think that is?

• 37:14Speaker 01

  Sure.

• 37:15Pablo Torre?

  There is this unashamed...

• 37:18Pablo Torre?

  Occasional, just like stumbling around.

• 37:21Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 37:21Pablo Torre?

  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.

• 37:32Speaker 01

  Right.

• 37:33Pablo Torre?

  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.

• 37:56Speaker 01

  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 this quality of like, oh, I'm just like, wait, what? So then I got to thinking, you know?

• 38:07Pablo Torre?

  Ah, you just did it. You just did the Ira Glass.

• 38:11Pablo Torre?

  And, 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, mm, 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.

• 38:29Speaker 01

  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 am I going to get big? And when am I going to get small? And when am I gonna, you know, just pause and think and wait before giving the next thought? You know what I mean? Like, just sometimes you just, you, I don't know, it's like-

• 38:50Pablo Torre?

  Diabolical.

• 38:51Speaker 01

  That's the, but that's-

• 38:52Pablo Torre?

  Diabolical, Ira.

• 38:54Speaker 01

  That's just working in the medium that I work in and understanding it.

• 38:57Pablo Torre?

  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 job broadly conceived, as acting?

• 39:05Speaker 01

  Oh, there's some acting, for sure. Absolutely. I mean, anybody in front of a, in front of a camera or a microphone, of course you're acting, you're performing a version of yourself. And, 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 gonna happen? And so, like, I feel like it's like, I think it's not a, um- 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, you might think you don't want to hear another story about

• 39:50Speaker 01

  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?

• 39:57Pablo Torre?

  Some of the [__] I'm trying to steal. Just how can you be unapologetically highbrow in some regard, but then also how you want to actually just entertain?

• 40:06Speaker 01

  I mean, I think that like, 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.

• 40:29Pablo Torre?

  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.

• 40:55Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 40:56Pablo Torre?

  By Lin-Manuel Miranda.

• 40:58Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 40:59Speaker 10

  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 La Boy. That's me. An 18-year-old honor roll student. I got 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. Naomi. In not one, but two of his classes. Naomi. She sat in front of him. He switched seats. Naomi.

• 41:34Pablo Torre?

  And you did this, you unveiled it at BAM onstage.

• 41:39Speaker 01

  BAM, the Brooklyn Academy of Music. You're so good at that.

• 42:15Pablo Torre?

  And I went back and listened and I'm like, who the [__], how? So, give me the origin story of 21 Jump Street.

• 42:24Speaker 01

  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 Lynx. This is before Hamilton, actually.

• 42:37Pablo Torre?

  Yes.

• 42:38Speaker 01

  Like, he was finishing writing Hamilton. I remember him talking about it with all of us. 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?"

• 43:15Speaker 11

  LOL LOL LOL.

• 43:17Speaker 01

  "What the heck I gotta do to be with you?"

• 43:20Speaker 11

  R O F LOL.

• 43:22Speaker 01

  "Tell me who I gotta be for you to be with me?"

• 43:30Speaker 01

  That's how they all work. And I really think that like on our show, that's very much like the structure of the 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 be 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.

• 43:58Pablo Torre?

  It's absurd.

• 43:59Speaker 01

  Yeah. And like took a break from his day job 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 Lynn is 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.

• 44:42Speaker 11

  I'll think about it.

• 44:52Speaker 11

  Yes!

• 44:58Speaker 01

  So yeah, so it's exciting to do. I remember, I remember he did the musical and then in the same show, Mike Rabbiglia 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, like the musical so brought the house down and then he had to go on and like do his story.

• 45:17Pablo Torre?

  Well, cause, cause 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.

• 45:26Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, he's amazing.

• 45:28Pablo Torre?

  It's just stu-, 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.

• 45:36Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 45:36Pablo Torre?

  Into actual musical theater.

• 45:38Speaker 01

  Yes, yes, yes.

• 45:39Pablo Torre?

  And the desire for your show, and I say this all the time, I go 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 here-

• 45:49Speaker 01

  That's nice.

• 45:50Pablo Torre?

  That's This American Life. I mean, that's what it is. It's a magazine. It's open your mailbox.

• 45:55Speaker 01

  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.

• 46:02Pablo Torre?

  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.

• 46:13Speaker 01

  Or enough of them are good. Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes.

• 46:26Speaker 08

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• 47:22Speaker 07

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• 47:55Speaker 12

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• 48:34Pablo Torre?

  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?

• 48:42Speaker 01

  When I see something that I like?

• 48:43Pablo Torre?

  Yeah, that you like and you're like, I want to do something like that. Or I wish I had done that. Or is, are you not the type of person?

• 48:49Speaker 01

  No, no, I do feel jealous of stuff, for sure.

• 48:51Pablo Torre?

  When did you last feel jealous about something?

• 48:53Speaker 01

  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.

• 49:02Pablo Torre?

  Yeah.

• 49:02Speaker 01

  And they were in order. I was like, and also, just the doing it with such speed.

• 49:06Pablo Torre?

  This is good for the partnership with the New York Times. Let's do this, let's go here. Yeah.

• 49:09Speaker 01

  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, 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, 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 been obsessed with.

• 49:49Speaker 01

  And they did such a good job about the US killing people on boats around Venezuela. And the legal justification or lack of justification. It was just like a perfect run of shows. And it felt very admiring and jealous at the like.

• 50:06Speaker 01

  Just every single one kind of gave you 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.

• 50:28Pablo Torre?

  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?

• 50:35Speaker 01

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

• 50:38Pablo Torre?

  Structure, score.

• 50:40Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. For sure, but then like do their own thing.

• 50:44Pablo Torre?

  They do it five plus days a week?

• 50:47Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 50:48Pablo Torre?

  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.

• 50:57Speaker 01

  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 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 at 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.

• 51:41Speaker 01

  And then my thoughts on that are kind of like, I don't know, like, yeah, like, and I do have thoughts about that. I honestly like, like, one of the things I've been thinking about a lot is like, should we, should we be making in 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?

• 52:02Pablo Torre?

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

• 52:07Speaker 01

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

• 52:13Pablo Torre?

  But let's just, as we sort of like look ahead to this 30th anniversary, which you don't want to celebrate at all, clearly. The premise of-

• 52:21Speaker 01

  No, no, no, it's fine. We'll commemorate it in some way.

• 52:24Pablo Torre?

  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?

• 52:36Speaker 01

  I think if I were to make something today, it wouldn't be This American Life. Like, we live in a world where 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 who's absolutely fact-based. Like, I wouldn't be the right host for it.

• 53:21Speaker 01

  I could, you know what I mean? 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, 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 any product that can cross from red to blue America, or blue to red America, or exist for both America, that seems like the more interesting challenge right now.

• 53:52Pablo Torre?

  What would the Ira Glass experience, the four-hour Joe Rogan equivalent podcast that you would host, would be?

• 53:58Speaker 01

  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, you know, we caught, I can't remember what it was, like seven of the 10 most wanted criminals

• 54:20Pablo Torre?

  That's right.

• 54:21Speaker 01

  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 be like, Joe, Joe, we ran it down for you. Okay, so here's what happened. And you would do, and you would do a show that's entirely just like running down the facts that the guests evade or that, you know, just like, but like hosted by like Burt Kreischer? Or like, you know what I mean? Like, and then, and then some nerdy Poindexter next to him.

• 55:06Pablo Torre?

  I just feel.

• 55:06Speaker 01

  You know, who like, who like is big like, and like, not in an unfriendly way to Joe.

• 55:10Pablo Torre?

  Sure, sure, sure, sure.

• 55:11Speaker 01

  Like, we don't mean him harm. We'd be like there to help him out.

• 55:14Pablo Torre?

  Yeah.

• 55:14Speaker 01

  And then, and then maybe pick up some of his, uh, pick up some of his listeners who might be interested in a kind of a fact-based product.

• 55:21Pablo Torre?

  I like how you go into this mission. In my mind, what happens is you accidentally reinvent This American Life with Burt Kreischer. Like, oh, shit, we, we made the show again.

• 55:31Speaker 01

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

• 55:35Pablo Torre?

  Why do you, how, okay, so just as a general stereotype.

• 55:39Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 55:39Pablo Torre?

  You liking the dude who is mostly, in my view, known for being shirtless and like chugging beer, that tickles you?

• 55:48Speaker 01

  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.

• 56:22Pablo Torre?

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

• 56:29Pablo Torre?

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

• 56:36Pablo Torre?

  what does Ira know about sports? And it was a very funny scouting report. Cause it was like, I think Ira watched the Super Bowl this year. And I think he like was in Chicago when like Michael Jordan was like winning all of those titles. What is your relationship like with sports?

• 56:57Speaker 01

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

• 57:13Pablo Torre?

  I think we should go to a Knicks game. We're both in New York.

• 57:17Speaker 01

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

• 57:19Pablo Torre?

  All right.

• 57:20Speaker 01

  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 and.

• 57:34Pablo Torre?

  I'm sorry, was The Sopranos not a story of a man fighting through personal demons in increasingly psychotherapeutic ways?

• 57:43Speaker 01

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

• 57:54Pablo Torre?

  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.

• 58:09Speaker 01

  I know.

• 58:09Pablo Torre?

  We're just supposed to win. Wait a minute, you guys don't? You're not winning all the time?

• 58:15Speaker 01

  Why are you watching?

• 58:16Pablo Torre?

  That sounds terrible.

• 58:17Speaker 01

  Why would you keep coming to games? It seems too depressing.

• 58:22Pablo Torre?

  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 void. We're gonna unilaterally shove compliments down your throat like the leftist sandwich that you're purported to bake.

• 58:50Speaker 01

  Okay. Well, thank you. I appreciate that. I'll get back to you on that one.

• 59:03Pablo Torre?

  This has been Pablo Torre Finds Out, a Meadowlark Media production.

• 59:09Pablo Torre?

  And I'll talk to you next time.

• 59:30Speaker 07

  Hey, we're Nick and Jack, hosts of The Best One Yet. Behind every episode, there's research, emails, spreadsheets, and our shared Google Doc, the headline hammer. With Google Workspace with Gemini, Google's AI is built right into the premium versions of tools we already use, like Gmail, Docs, and Sheets. No new tools or extra logins, just personalized AI for the way we work. That means less time on the work around the work and more time finding the stories worth talking about. Get AI tools for work. Upgrade to Google Workspace with Gemini at go.gle/workspacewithGemini. That's go.gle/workspacewithGemini.

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