I have been listening to the radio broadcast This American Life lately. This comes per the recommendation of a friend of mine. For the sake of conversation I will say his name is Ryan Lepage and he has recommended works of various medium in the past with relative enjoyment so I had no reason to doubt his recommendation. And indeed, after listening to the first broadcast, I do not regret doing so. Ira Glass; the chief contributor to the show can be described as either shockingly brilliant or annoyingly boring, depending on the story. I notice this, he either has a great show with stories and tales from all corners of the mind, or he just talks about his family in a voice that can only be called droningly Jewish. (of course I say that with all due respect, he has described himself as a tall, dark-haired Jew on occasion and I take liberty to do so as well)This week Margy Rochlin spoke of her time spent on the road with George Burns in 1988 or so, while George was touring in various cities across the country. Specifically, Moscow, Idaho and Reno, Nevada. It was the best part of the best episode I have listened to yet. George Burns had a wonderful look on life and at the age of 92 one aught to take quite a bit of heed in what he had to say. Margy Rochlin described the conversation between George, his piano player Morty, and his manager Irving “its like dialogue that David Mamet would write if David Mamet wrote scenes where absolutely nothing was at stake.”
While Margy Rochlin has a real voice for print media, she seems to ask the questions and notice the little nuances that I would have, which makes me hopeful for the state of journalism in this country. A couple of quotes from the broadcast that I thought were worth typing up. “he (George Burns) will only smoke El Productos, in the afternoon he likes to take a two hour nap, he hates fresh fruit and vegetables…” and another “he likes his martinis, but doesn’t care what brand of liquor they are made with, he just wants them to come one after another…”
Otherwise This American Life is full of stories and conversations that most of us don’t understand. They revolve around upper-middle class life in the 1960s and 70s. It reminds me of a shinier version of The Wonder Years. A recent conversation with some of my older, wealthier friends, lead me to believe that there are actually people who not only do not possess any amount of self-awareness, they possess a sense of false-awareness whereby they believe that their life is the barometer by which everyone else lives. Some people actually believe that everyone has a summer house by the beach, travel to exotic locations in their spare time, and have a very serious problem of having too much of everything. Anyway, until next time…stay humble if you aren’t humble already…get with the program. That is my advice for the week.
P.S. I found out today that I rather enjoy Cream of Potato Soup and I encourage you to give it a test drive yourself.
