Live Wire with Luke Burbank

Episode: Tamara Yajia, Susan Rice, and Anna Tivel
Date: December 5, 2025
Venue: Alberta Rose Theatre, Portland, OR

Overview

This episode of Live Wire blends comedy, memoir, and music with a late-night radio spirit. Host Luke Burbank welcomes comedian and writer Tamara Yajia discussing her chaotic international childhood as chronicled in her memoir; stand-up comedy from Susan Rice who riffs on aging and the indignities and joys of late life; and a stirring musical performance from folk artist Anna Tivel.

Key Discussion Points & Segments

1. The Best News We Heard All Week (02:28–09:19)

Screaming to Heal and Dairy Farm Survival

• Elena Passarello shares the story of "Scream Club," started by Manny Hernandez in Chicago as a group therapeutic screaming practice, now a chartered club nationwide.
  • “He and his partner, whose name is Elena Sobolova, they went down to Lake Michigan with a couple of friends one Sunday and just scream. They just let it rip.” (03:14)
  • Cost is $250 to charter a club, spurring the "Shouting Society" as a cheaper alternative.
  • The audience participates in a collective cathartic shout.
  • “Even though in these austere times, our public radio show cannot pony up the $250 for a charter membership, I have invented something called the Shouting Society.” (04:52)
• Luke Burbank tells of a Minnesota family dairy farm diversifying into "cow cuddling" to compensate for plunging milk prices.
  • “For $25, you can cuddle Maui [the cow] for 30 minutes. That’s it.” (08:18)
  • Cow cuddling is described as soothing and heart-rate-lowering.
  • Alaina: “I love that your story about coping in these hard times is about cuddling a big soft mammal, and mine is about screaming your head off.” (08:54)

2. Tamara Yajia: On Childhood, Family, and Stardom (09:19–26:13)

Memoir Highlights & Family Chaos

• Introduction: Tamara’s journey includes a grandfather dealing drugs, migration between Argentina and the U.S., and a childhood Madonna tribute at a Hebrew school — all featured in her memoir Cry for Me: My Life as a Failed Child Star.
  • “A grandfather who sold recreational drugs, multiple moves between the US and Argentina, and then successfully pulling off a jaw dropping Madonna tribute performance in front of an audience of rabbis. And this was all before the age of 12.” (09:19)
• Social Media to Publishing: Tamara describes how her Twitter presence (mainly tweeting about her eccentric family) led to her book deal.
  • “A literary agent found me because I would tweet a lot about my family. I have a very strange family…He was like, you have a story to tell. And I was like, I do.” (10:30)
• Therapy & the ‘Failed Child Star’: Tamara’s aunt’s octogenarian therapist in Argentina coins the "failed child star" moniker (via unmuted Zoom).
  • “She said, ‘Ugh, I’m talking to the failed child star again.’ And I was like, wow, she’s so right.” (11:52)
  • Zoom session mishaps (therapist’s husband falls in the bathtub, leaves Tamara alone on video for 20 minutes).
• Growing Up Between Worlds:
  • Moves to the U.S. at six, first stays in motels among sex workers before the family finds their feet.
  • Grandparents (described as loving but “psychotic”) follow them to the Valley.
    • “My grandmother on her honeymoon… He came back one day, and she had shaved half her head.” (13:33)
  • Parents open a failed mall food stand: "Sexy Chicken."
    • “My parents were like, well, maybe let's bootleg [El Pollo Loco]. But we’ll make it sexier.” (17:19)
• Illegally Living in a Senior Home (‘Yiddish Land’):
  • Family squats in a Jewish retirement community in Buenos Aires, guided by her grandmother.
  • Befriends Bubala, an elderly seamstress.
    • “She just took me under her wing, her breast.” (18:31)
    • They watch films like Yentl and Sophie’s Choice together.
• Obsessed with Madonna:
  • Feverish epiphany watching Madonna on MTV, linking her bicultural identity.
    • “Madonna, La Isla Bonita, which…was the bridge of my two cultures…” (19:42)
  • Performs a dramatic, risqué Like a Prayer lip-sync at Hebrew school, aided by Bubala’s custom Velcro costume (21:15–22:34).
    • “When the choir kicks in… I pulled [off my t-shirt], and underneath, I’m wearing a garter belt.” (21:43)
    • Forced to write an apology letter — ghostwritten by Bubala.
      • “Bubala was ride or die.” (22:48)
• On Generational Trauma & Humor:
  • Therapy and family oversharing made Tamara resilient but also shaped her sense of boundaries.
    • “Now I have the insight now to pinpoint when something… before I didn’t as a kid.” (24:56)
  • Reflects on not wanting to repeat her parents’ habits if she becomes a parent herself.

3. Listener Segment: Childhood Performances Recalled (27:23–30:59)

• Prompt: “What was your most memorable experience performing as a child?”
  • A grandmother sits hours for a trumpet concert ("played every note wrong"); a kid plays Jesus while secretly atheist; dramatic carrot-eating magic show; “The crops are failing!” screamed in a school play.
    • “I had one line as villager number three... and I screamed it like I was announcing the apocalypse.” (30:25)

4. Susan Rice: Stand-up Set – Life, Aging, and Family (32:12–40:48)

Aging in the Modern World

• On Medical Bureaucracy:
  • “I spent three days on the phone with my Medicare provider just trying to sign up for hospice, for God’s sake.” (32:15)
• Nieces’ Oversight:
  • Family’s concern about her well-being: Tupperware “microplastics” panic.
    • “You can eat microplastics…it’s bad for you…I used to follow the mosquito fogger truck on my bike, okay?” (34:26)
  • Mail-ordered gifts after pandemic drawer-purging: “My nephew called me up. He goes, I got a dental bridge. It was your grandfather’s.” (35:21)
• Technology & Online Dating:
  • Nieces sign her up for Silver Singles without permission.
    • “I didn’t know it. All of a sudden I started getting emails from sweet, desperate old gentleman, and I don’t know if this guy likes me or he just had a tremor and swiped right, you know, I don’t know.” (37:34)
• On Late-Life Choices & Family:
  • Jokes about end-of-life arrangements: “After you die, do you want to be buried? Do you want to be cremated? Do you want to be composted?” “I want to be pickled.” (39:10)
  • Story of her parents' end-of-life years and their codependent longevity, with gallows humor:
    • “If one’s going down, they’re taking the other one with them. Nobody gets out alive.” (40:21)
• Closing:
  • “They never developed dementia, either one of them… They just woke up happy… We’re going to Costco. They’re having a twofer on coffins. Let’s measure.” (40:41)

5. Anna Tivel: Touring Life and Musical Performance (45:18–53:19)

Interview — On Touring and Writing on the Move

• Life on the Road:
  • Anna loves the solitude, slow passage, and serendipity of touring — especially by train.
    • “I think I love it…It’s such time to just watch the world go by, watch the country go by, and you’re sort of thinking your thoughts and you’re having all these experiences at rest stops and gas stations and weird little diners...” (45:57)
  • Touring by train described as a "joyful mobile DMV":
    • “Everyone from everywhere is on the train... It’s gritty and wonderful and there’s microwavable hamburgers.” (47:25)
• Writing Songs While Traveling:
  • Lack of WiFi creates a bubble for writing and observing — “they’re arguing…they’re telling long-winded stories about their divorce.” (47:33)
• Song Introduction:
  • The song performed is inspired by her recent train travels, weaving personal perspective and stories overheard with a panoramic look at America:
    • “It’s sort of a song about traveling across this country as it does what it’s up to and meeting people and kind of watching the landscape go by and feeling the way we’re all sort of in this interwoven story…” (48:07)

Live Performance: “The Feeling” (49:00–53:19)

• Lyrical, cinematic folk song about movement, strangers' lives, American landscapes, and shared longing.
  • “The train rolled on forever, I slept there in my seat…The woman right behind me is hanging up the phone. It’s so hard to get an answer when you need someone...”

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• Tamara Yajia (on therapist’s accidental honesty):
  “She said, ‘Ugh, I’m talking to the failed child star again.’ And I was like, wow, she’s so right. I was a failed child star and suddenly all the wheels started turning in my head.” (11:52)
• Susan Rice (on her nieces protecting her):
  “I used to follow the mosquito fogger truck on my bike, okay?” (34:26)
• Anna Tivel (on the emotional geography of touring):
  “It makes the world feel tangible and tasteable because you’re just in it and you can’t get out of it.” (45:34)
• Luke Burbank (reflecting on childhood coping):
  “You know, like, I don’t want to imagine a different version of me… So my parents telling us that the earth was 6,000 years old and could end at any point. I don’t love that about my childhood, but, like, here I am making jokes about it.” (25:47)
• Audience participation:
  The entire theater lets out a five-second primal scream. (05:22–05:36)

Timestamps for Key Segments

• Best News We Heard All Week – 02:28–09:19
• Tamara Yajia Interview – 09:19–26:13
• Listener Performances Segment – 27:23–30:59
• Susan Rice Stand-up – 32:12–40:48
• Anna Tivel Interview & Performance – 45:18–53:19

Tone & Atmosphere

Consistently irreverent, confessional, and heartfelt—this episode thrives on the weirdness, adversity, resilience, and humor in everyday lives, as told by people who have learned to use laughter and art to cope and tell enduring stories.

Guest Details

• Tamara Yajia: Memoirist, comedy writer, author of Cry for Me: My Life as a Failed Child Star
• Susan Rice: Veteran comedian with new special Silver Alert
• Anna Tivel: Acclaimed singer-songwriter, performs “The Feeling” from Animal Poem

For Further Listening

• Tamara Yajia’s Cry for Me, My Life as a Failed Child Star is out now.
• See Susan Rice live or stream her special Silver Alert.
• Anna Tivel’s Animal Poem is available now.

Live Wire continues to find the humor, music, and poetry in unexpected places—this week, in childhood trauma, failed business ventures, cow cuddling, and heartfelt trainsongs.