DJ Ira G.

Dan and I went to see the other man I’m in love with last night, Ira Glass from This American Life, do a live broadcast at the theatre near me. There were several surprising things that happened, firstly instead of previews we played hang man on the big screen with the 70 or so other NPR junkies, totally fun. Secondly when I listen to NPR it’s kind of a solitary experience, I’m in my car or doing dishes in the kitchen and sometimes I listen to the Pod Cast of This American Life after Ella goes to preschool because I can listen completely and uninterrupted, so it was odd to look around and see what a group of people who listen to This American Life looks like. I was faced with a lot of thirty -something people with horn rimmed glasses and hand knitted scarves a few smelling of patchouli, a few with pierced eyebrows, and a few grey hairs.

Dan and I totally smuggled strawberry Twizzlers into the theatre because we like to buck the system, fight against the man, and plus I don’t like paying $11.50 for Twizzlers and the chick sitting next to us totally smuggled in a ham & turkey sandwich with mustard on wheat bread and a Yoplait. I tried to take a picture, but she was sitting right next to us and taking a covert picture of someone sitting right next to you is really hard.

I also discovered that Ira mixes his own stories, he’s talking and running the sound queues and I guess I always imagined that he had scads of people on the other side of the studio glass doing that but once I saw it all happen on the big screen it made sense that only Ira would know when he was about to finish talking and fade into some odd tune. But the best part of watching Ira work the sound board was when Ira mixes his story he moves his arms around as if he were doing synchronized swimming in slow motion, like a performance artist and I didn’t quite expect that from someone who I imagined would be acting more like a news anchor. The mere idea that Ira strums his sound board and caresses buttons that play interview clips with giant sweeping arm gestures made me realize how much of an art it is to be able edit and mix right there live, like he is the fifth Beastie Boy only instead of mixing music he mixes life.