On being a public radio fangirl

I debated what to bring with me to last night’s live This American Life show in Chicago, in hopes of getting Ira Glass’s autograph. The DVD of the television show? My TAL t-shirt? My copy of The New Kings of Non-Fiction? A tattoo pen for my heart?

I decided to take my ipod. Not only was it small enough that it easily fit in my purse, but if there is one object that I associate with This American Life, aside from perhaps my car’s radio (which would have been challenging to bring), it is my ipod. It was the 80+ episodes of TAL I had on my ipod that got me through three freezing January nights without heat and electricity. It’s on my ipod that I listen to TAL while I’m taking my dog on a walk through my neighborhood.

When I was carefully considering this decision, I found myself contemplating my status as the type of person who wants Ira Glass’s autograph in the first place. It’s not accurate to say that I enjoy public radio. I don’t. When it comes to my favorite radio shows, like This American Life or Radio Lab, I really. love. them. I wondered if I should be more ashamed that I act like a hyperactive groupie about a public radio show than should, say, fans of the Jonas Brothers–a phenomenon that seems to lend itself more naturally to grand displays of unnecessary affection.

In one of my favorite episodes of This American Life, “What I Learned From Television,” Ira Glass says, “The things I love, I love completely.” That quote is an incredibly accurate description of how I function. When I love something, I can’t help but commit an incredible amount of energy toward loving it a lot.

I met (politely accosted?) Ira Glass twice last night, once before the show, and once after. Yes, it wasn’t enough for me to meet him just once, when I apparently stumbled inadvertently into a pre-show reception where he was probably supposed to be talking up important public radio donors or something. I had to follow that up with my public radio groupie act by waiting outside the theater’s back door, because in truth, I really wanted a picture with him, as well. Dear god, I am needy. But both times, he was nice enough to talk to me. To sign my ipod. To stand in the rain and take a picture with me. He didn’t seem to be too bothered by my flailing words of inarticulate appreciation, or that I took it upon myself to track him down not once, but twice.

Last year’s This American Life Live(!) event seemed like a celebration of the TV show. This year’s event seemed like more of a celebration of the radio show. It’s not that I don’t appreciate the TV show, because I have enjoyed every episode of it. But I will never love the TV show the way I love the radio show. The TV show, I appreciate on an intellectual level, but the radio show provides me with a visceral level of comfort and happiness.

So, when Ira Glass asked me after the show last night if I had “any notes,” all I could do initially was babble incoherently about how wonderful This American Life is and how haaaaappy it makes me and it is just the beeessst and, oh, I am a dazed, brainless fangirl iiiiiiiidiot.

Eventually, I managed to get a slight handle on the situation and say something about what I actually did really enjoy about the live show. It took the standard radio show elements, and added a really interesting, and sometimes unexpected, visual layer on top of that. I found it to be really effective. The experience still felt essentially similar to listening to the show, but it happened to also have the visual sense added into it. It was fun and funny and clever and wonderful.

The big difference between last night’s show and listening to the radio show was the experience of being in a room full of people who all love TAL. Radio is a solitary and personal experience, and that is a part of what makes it so special. But last night, there was something even more personal about sharing the singular radio experience with so many like-minded strangers.

When my friend and I were walking towards the Chicago theater last night, I stopped to take pictures of the marquee that advertised This American Life Live in Chicago! I noticed all around me that other people were also stopping on the sidewalk to take a picture of the marquee, just like we were. “I’m with my people!” I told my friend.

I love This American Life completely, for reasons I can articulate and for reasons that I can’t. I may be more dorky about the way I appreciate This American Life as compared to the 3,596 people in the theater who did not stand in a cold, wet, dark alley after the show, but I wasn’t nearly as alone in my love as I usually am. I was with my people. Everyone else may have simply applauded when they saw Torey Malatia on stage, and I may have yelled, “GREAT SHOW TONIGHT!!!!” when I saw him in the alleyway, but in the end, we’re all joined together as the nerds that know who Torey Malatia is in the first place.