Ira Glass

I think something happens to me when I see a show or go to an event by myself. It's not an experience that's unique to me, because I've heard other people talk about it too, but it's so different from going in a group or even with one other person. I feel so connected to the speaker or artists on stage; everything is just a little bit larger and more important. I'm way more impressionable when I'm alone, because I feel free to give myself over to the discussion without being distracted by what's going on for other people.

I just went to see Ira Glass speak at USC. So I was pretty gung-ho about making it work this time even though it meant going by myself. Wow. So refreshing. It amazes me that someone can seem so personable and honest and down to earth and incredibly profound at the same time while addressing thousands of people.

I remember the first time I heard This American Life I was in the car with my dad on saturday morning and we were on the way to my voice lessons. It became a saturday morning ritual. If you're reading this and you haven't heard it, download the free podcast. It's awesome. Seriously it has been one of the most influential factors in my development as an artist in terms of fostering a love for story telling and understanding the power of stories in creating empathy among people.

An aside.

Once in my acting class we had an exercises where we had to think of one famous person (not necessarily an actor) who we greatly admired and wanted to have a conversation with. When we each came up with the person the assignment was to go up in front of the class and "call" that person on the phone, introduce ourselves, and ask them to mentor us or share an idea for a project that we had. We were only given 10 minutes to think of the person, and I couldn't think of anyone who I really wanted to call, and actually say something to. It's one thing to respect some one's work and an entirely other to feel so strongly about their contribution that you want to reach out and contact them. I chose Angela Basset. She's a great actor, who I actually have met twice, but I don't feel especially connected to her work. The "conversation" went okay, but I was kind of reaching. I mean the goal wasn't to do this incredible improv or anything, but just to be honest and share what that person meant to you. I still wanted to have a certain entertainment value, so I ended up stretching what she means to me and how much i look up to her, etc, etc. I think I even said something like "you should have definitely gotten that oscar instead of Halle". Of course after I went up I thought of like three other people I should have called instead. And I wanted to do the exercise over, but again that wasn't the point. The teacher said that the point was to get us to start thinking of ourselves as a part of a community of artists. If someone has had such an influence on you then you should tell them. It doesn't matter how out of reach someone seems, if you really want to send a message you can--through the mail to their agent, e-mail, whatever. You can and you should. And if you do have a good idea for a project, why shouldn't you share it with that person? If you think you have a connection, you're probably right, and you should take it seriously. Don't become a stalker or anything, but take your ideas seriously. So all that being said, throughout the talk tonight I was thinking about how it would be cool to sit down and have a conversation with Ira Glass. Because he's so interesting and relatable.

At the end of his talk there was a Q and A time, so I asked him about moving on from ideas. During the talk he had a portion where he gave advice to people who wanted to make creative things professionally. He said most people feel insecure because they can't think of the topic or question they want to create around. By his estimate, it's completely normal for at least 50% of your time to be spent coming up with a good idea. So during the Q and A I asked "When do you decide to abandon an idea?" He basically said there's no cut and dry. Each show they produce takes anywhere from 4-6months to develop. For every episode there's about 8 that didn't make it. And of that 8 maybe 4 were fully produced and then tossed later. He said most ideas aren't great. When they're looking for a story to produce they're trying to get lucky--hoping to find something that's really compelling. By having so many stories around they're upping the odds of stumbling upon that incredibly profound and universal perspective that hasn't been tapped yet. In Ira's words "most ideas are only approaching mediocrity. At their best they are crap" Once you see that, you need to move on. Most ideas are only approaching mediocrity! This past week in our Streetlamp Studio meeting we read an excerpt from Frank Schaeffer's book Addicted to Mediocrity. It's about the state of arts in the Church. There are SO many ideas out there to be pursued that relate truths about life and spirituality that other (non artistic) forms can't, but it seems there just aren't enough people who care enough to put in the time to push through the crap to what's really powerful.

When it was all over I stuck around at the reception and waited with small mob of other people to meet Ira Glass. I figured, I'd come this far why not go the distance and take a picture with him. Not the intimate one-one meeting I'd like to have, but better than nothing. Eventually I made my way to the innermost circle. I was really beaming with excitement about getting to meet Ira Glass. I introduced myself, and said that I had been listening to his show for 10 years. And then I told him that I'm an actor and a writer and that the show was pretty important in my choice to pursue the arts. "Really?" he said, "Thanks". Then I asked if we could take a picture, and someone in the crowd took it for me on my cell phone.