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- [00:00]
PJ Vogt
Hello Search Engine listeners, Some announcements. We've published our most recent board meeting. That's our biannual Zoom call where we discuss show business business about the show, not Hollywood and hold a Q and A with our listeners. That has been published on the Incognito Mode feed. That's our paid feed without ads that many of you subscribe to. In this installment, we discussed the future of the show. Many secrets were revealed and a few of you have even written in since with possible clues to the brown car mystery we were talking about. So thank you. If you want to hear that board meeting episode, you can sign up for Incognito Mode at Search Engine Show. Also, we're hosting a Search Engine Live event in Brooklyn in February. We offered tickets to our paid subscribers first, so it's mostly sold out, but there's a few tickets left. Those go on sale for everybody else Today, Friday at 10am if you want to try to snap some up. The live show. It's going to be low key lo fi, but hopefully a lot of fun. We hope to get to meet some of you there. Okay, enough of our advertisements. We're going to play some other advertisements and then we'll start the show. This episode of Search Engine is brought to you in part by policygenius. Each new year is an opportunity to reflect and plan for the future, like setting career goals, making financial moves, and most importantly, ensuring your family is always taken care of no matter what happens. With policygenius, you can find life insurance policies that start at just $292 per year for $1 million of coverage. Some options are 100% online and let you avoid unnecessary medical exams. Do you know that 40% of people wish they got life insurance at a younger age? Policygenius lets you compare quotes from America's top insurers side by side for free, with no hidden fees. Their licensed support team helps you get what you need fast. You can get on with your life. They answer questions, handle paperwork and advocate for you throughout the process. Join the thousands of happy policy Genius customers who have left five star reviews on Google and trustpilot. Secure your families tomorrow so you have peace of mind. Today. Head to policygenius.com to get your free life insurance quotes and see how much you can save. That's policygenius.com nerds. This episode is brought to you in part by NerdWallet listener. A new year is finally here and if you're anything like me, you've got a lot on your plate. Habits to build, travel plans to make mocktail recipes to perfect Good thing. Our sponsor, NerdWallet is here to take one thing off your plate. Finding the Best financial products introducing NerdWallet's best of awards List your shortcut to the best credit cards, savings accounts, and more. The nerds have done the work for you, researching and reviewing over 1,100 financial products to bring you only the best of the best. Looking for a balance transfer credit card with a 0% APR? They've got a winner for that. Or a bank account with the top rate to hit your savings goals? They've got a winner for that too. Know you're getting the best products for you without doing all the research yourself. So let NerdWallet do the heavy lifting for your finances this year and head over to their 2025 Pitch Best of Awards at NerdWallet.com awards to find the best financial products today there's this joke from the movie Annie hall goes like this. Two elderly women are at a Catskill mountain resort and one of them says, boy, the food at this place is really terrible. The other one says, yeah, I know, and such small portions. The joke in the movie is a metaphor for life, about the feeling that it bothers, sucks, and also you don't get enough of it. But lately it's been in my head because frankly, I feel the opposite way. Not about life, about work. I'm immensely grateful for it. I love my job. But sometimes I think this is all wonderful, but such large portions. It's so much A friend of mine who I talk about this stuff with, a friend who, like me, makes stuff for a living, told me a story related to this about this conversation she'd overheard recently. She was at an event and found herself sandwiched between two people who professionally make things for the Internet. Both men, one middle aged, the other younger. The young man was saying proudly that he just liked his work more than anything else in his life. More than dating, more than going out, more than making money. He just wanted to make stuff because making stuff is what made him feel alive. He wasn't interested in much else, and he was planning for life without any distractions. The middle aged man he listened, he nodded. And then he asked the younger man, how old are you? Early twenties. Okay. The middle aged man who clearly saw himself in this kid, said, the way you feel right now, it'll change. You're going to get older. You're going to start to care about making a family. He said this like it was obvious, a benchmark of maturity. The gentle implication here Was that to care mainly about work was probably a narrow way to live. But my friend, who is both a mom but also a person who loves to work, found herself not agreeing with this wise middle aged man. She found herself thinking, wait a minute, people say this kind of thing all the time, but what if it's not always true? Maybe for some people it's okay to focus on work their whole life. Maybe for some people that is where they're going to find the most fulfillment rather than through raising kids. There are, after all, many ways to find meaning in life. This was kind of a provocative observation to me given this moment. We're in where very few of us are throwing pride parades for capitalism. But my friend told me this story, I think because it harmonized with a question that's been digging at me for a few Is it okay to just work all the time? The only word we have for someone who prioritizes work in their life is workaholic. But what is it like to like your job a lot and not have it be a pathology, not have it be something you're apologizing for? If you're lucky enough to to get to do what you love, how do you know the right amount to do it? The portions, they're so large. This year I'll turn 40. My partner has kids I don't. I find myself wondering if I keep working like this with these portions, choosing not to have biological children, what, if anything, am I going to regret when I close my eyes and try to imagine opening them 20 years from now? What do I need to see to be happy? So I thought I'd take this question I've been living with and bring it to someone who seemed set up to help answer it. Can you say your name and what you do?
- [07:15]
Ira Glass
Sure. My name's Ira Glass and I host the podcast this American Life and radio show this American Life.
- [07:21]
PJ Vogt
Ira Glass is a very unusual person in many ways, but the unusual part to focus on today is that he's devoted more of his life to work than most people do. And it seems to have turned out more than fine. He's made a radio show that is beautiful and influential and he seems less full of regret than most people I know. That 20 something year old who my friend overheard talking, Ira Glass, might be the person who that kid imagines he'll be in 40 years. Whether or not he's ever heard of Ira or of this American life. Someone who will tinker away at a strange machine that will bring them meaning and fulfillment. The things we all Hope to find in life this American Life. In case you've never listened to it, it is a weekly show where Ira and his team apply the tools of journalism to tell stories, often about ordinary people's lives. The show invented the conventions and mission of most of the narrative audio you hear today. The kind of podcasting I practice. I asked Ira how that kind of work, radio, had first entered his life.
- [08:22]
Ira Glass
I mean, I really stumbled into working on the radio. I had no interest in radio at all. And when I was 19, I was just looking for some summer job in the. And the local TV stations in Baltimore didn't have anything, and the local ad agencies didn't have anything, and the local radio stations didn't have anything. And somebody referred me to this place called NPR in Washington. So I drove an hour to get to D.C. and I was able to talk my way into an internship. Would even be an exaggeration. It was 1978. They didn't have an internship program. I just talked my way into this place and they let me work there for free for the summer. And I had never heard of them on the radio, nor had most people, because it was 1978. NPR was only created in the early 70s. They had one afternoon news show that was not very well listened to. All Things Considered. They weren't even on a satellite. The way the show was distributed was on phone lines around the country. And then I just started working there and I just found I really liked it and liked the people. And it was interesting making stuff for the radio. And I had a couple of turning point moments, but one of them was that not that first summer, but I got hired back for a real job the second summer by this guy whose job it was to invent new ways to do radio documentary. His name was Keith Talbot. And one of the things that he was doing, one of the many things he was doing, was working with this guy who would tell stories on the radio named Joe Frank. Oh, Midnight Special I ride the rods A hobo not homeless for this is my home. A great moving freight train carrying within it the goods and products that nourish the lifestream of this nation. And Joe was doing monologues on the radio at the time that were unlike anything I had ever heard. And Joe is an incredible performer and would put kind of like melodic, dreamy music underneath it. I sit here with an Eberhard Faber pencil, writing on the back of a greasy envelope aphorisms and instructions to subsequent generations. A railroad bodhisattva, a public transport Buddha forever anticipating the next Stop my liturgy Accompanied by the music of Doppler bells As railroad crossings are penniless in the deep night Always a station, never a terminal. Like, I had never heard anybody tell a story on the radio, actually. And so I had never had the experience of listening to somebody tell some story where you just get caught up in the story and you're just like, what is gonna happen? What is gonna happen? I remember sitting in NPR's old Studio 2 on the first floor of their original headquarters on M Street in Washington, watching Joe record his narration. And I just remember thinking, like, I don't know what this is, but I want to do that. Like, whatever that is. Like, I just. I had never had the experience of, like, getting caught up in some story and realizing, like, oh, radio can do this. Like, I had no idea of that. And so for me, that was that moment.
- [11:37]
PJ Vogt
And so it was the feeling of the feeling. This is provoking in me. I wanna learn how to provoke that feeling, or I just wanna spend more time with this feeling or near this feeling.
- [11:47]
Ira Glass
I was just like, this thing that he's doing, I wanna do. I didn't come into being in being on the radio by being a journalist. The thing that I liked when I was a kid was I liked Broadway shows and I liked movies and I liked comedians. And so I really didn't know anything about journalism. What I was interested in was like, oh, it's a story. And it just gave me. And I wanted to find out what was going to happen. And literally, I just felt swept up in it. And then, if anything, like the next decade of my life and more, it was me trying to figure out how to make something that was that. But they were true stories about real people, you know what I mean, who I could interview. And making interviews into a thing that had that kind of feeling and that kind of just pulled you in and pull you forward and you just had to keep listening. Just. I just wanted to do that. I had that in my head.
- [12:43]
PJ Vogt
I know that you've told the story of sort of that part of your life a bit. And also how frustrating, challenging it was to, like, have the feeling you wanted to have and still be figuring out how to evoke it. The part I'm curious about is, like, I think there's a way that radio grabbed you that is almost more like. Like, I don't know that everyone has the experience of falling in love with work. And I think in some ways, because this American life has been so successful, your relationship to it seems less unusual than it is like, there's something unusual about every week for decades. A huge part of your mind is focused on, how do I make one hour of audio as compelling as possible. Most people given the same problem to solve it will feel like a boring problem to them, or it'll feel like they like doing it for a while, but then they get more interested in something else. And you have found that the various permutations of this problem are the place that you've wanted to spend your time. And I'm curious, at what point was that obvious to you? Like, at what point had you fallen in love with the thing enough that you were like, I want to put this at the center of my life and keep it there?
- [14:14]
Ira Glass
I think the real answer is, like, right at the very beginning. Like, from the first time I was making anything, it just was interesting to me when parts of it would work, and then the stuff that didn't work, I wanted to solve. And then enough things, like, really early on in the first year or two, even with rudimentary skills, I was good enough that I could get decent interview tape. And then I was good enough as an editor that I could shape it in a way that it would have a feeling to it and a forward motion to it. And really early on, I was doing interviews and putting music underneath it. I did that. That was the style that my mentor, Keith, worked in, and I learned from him, actually. I mean, that part of this American Life sound really comes from me working with somebody else who taught me. And then there's this novelist, Michael Cunningham, who wrote the Hours, and he's written a bunch of other books. He said this thing in an interview that I saw where I felt like, oh, he really put a thing in a way where I've never thought that. But as soon as I read it, I was like, oh, that's definitely what I think. Where he said he doesn't believe in talent. He said he thinks what happens is that a certain kind of person gets a sort of obsessive interest in how do I make this better? And that's definitely just. Was. When I saw that quote, I was like, oh, that is exactly what happened to me. I wasn't that good. Like, I was a terrible writer, and I was a terrible performer in the air. But I was just very interested in the. Like, I can feel that this could get better. Like, how do you make this better? And. And just. That was just very interesting to me. And then I was lucky in that NPR in the 70s and 80s was just a place where it was encouraged to A small degree, not to a large degree, but there was enough room in the system that you could just experiment with stuff and get it on the air in front of lots of people. And so I was sort of lucky to be in a place where I could keep trying different things and it was rewarded.
- [16:28]
PJ Vogt
And were you like, in those years when you're enjoying obsessing over trying to make the thing a little bit better, were you in a room with people who had the same obsession, or were you the unusual person who's like, they're going home, you're staying to try to tweak it a little bit more?
- [16:49]
Ira Glass
There were other people, but there weren't many of them who were sticking around and staying. Like, I was generally the one who was staying the longest.
- [16:58]
PJ Vogt
And did you think about, did you feel good, bad, unusual about that, or was it just what it was?
- [17:05]
Ira Glass
I didn't feel bad about it and I didn't think anything of it. I just knew that that's what I wanted to do and I was gonna do it. I was willful.
- [17:14]
PJ Vogt
And what were you picturing a future? Were you like, in 10 years I'm going to be doing this, or was it just like, this is what I want to do and I'm going to do it?
- [17:23]
Ira Glass
It was just, this is what I'm gonna do and I'm gonna do it. And I could feel that it was getting better. Like, I could feel that I was getting better at it. And I had a vague sense in my head that maybe someday I would do a show. Like, I did have that. But then if I could have articulated to you what the show was, it would have been to kind of, like, I don't know, stories about everyday people. Like, it was very vague. What I did know is like, I just, it felt like there was something vast there that radio could do that it wasn't doing. And so it felt like a process of discovery. And I remember, like one of the very first people, if not the very first person, to write about this American life was this writer named Bill McKibben. And he wrote a little one page review that was in the Nation, which is a publication which I don't even know if it exists anymore. Maybe it does anyway. And he said this thing where he said about the show, he said the thing that was interesting about it was radio. He says, but what's interesting is it feels so new. And that always stuck with me because it seemed new to me too. It felt like, oh, this is just a new way to do things. Hey, Franklin. I'm ready. It's Ira Glass here. You're the emcee on the show, Ira. I am the MC on the show, yeah. Great. Ira. Ira. Ira. I R A. Oh, great. Now, hold on one second. Ira. Don't.
- [18:46]
PJ Vogt
Don't go away. This is the very first episode of this American Life, which aired in Chicago in 1995. It starts with Ira calling Joe Franklin. Not Joe Frank, the guy who inspired Ira to want to make weirder radio. But Joe Franklin, a different radio host credited with inventing the talk radio format. Ira is calling this Joe for advice. This Joe has no idea who Ira Glass is, a fact which the IRA of 30 years ago tells the listeners he's getting a kick out of.
- [19:16]
Ira Glass
Well, you know, one great thing about starting a new show is utter anonymity. Nobody really knows what to expect from you. This interviewee did not know us from Adam. Okay, well, what about a minute? Well, one minute, five into the new show. Right now, it is stretching in front of us, a perfect future yet to be fulfilled. And I feel like at this point, the sound of this American Life has been around for decades, and lots of people have made their own variations on it that I think people take it for granted and don't realize that it was like it was new in its time for somebody to narrate the way that I'm narrating in the show. Nobody was doing that. We had to convince, you know, program directors to run the show. They were like, you know, because it was like a weird way to talk on the radio at the time.
- [20:08]
PJ Vogt
Back then, the show was so new that they hadn't even settled on what would be their final name.
- [20:13]
Ira Glass
From WBEZ in the glorious city of Chicago, Illinois. Name of this show is yous Radio Playhouse. I'm. I'm your mc. I'm your mc, Ira Glass. Okay. The idea of this show, this new little show, is stories. Some by journalists and documentary producers like myself, some just regular people telling their own little stories, some by artists and writers and performers of all different kinds. And the idea is we're going to bring you stuff you're not going to find anywhere else. And there's also going to be music. And tonight's show, we thought we would have kind of a theme. Tonight's show is going to be New Beginnings. And to kick things off, I called the man who said.
- [21:05]
PJ Vogt
A lot of, you know how this is going to go, the new little show with people telling their own little stories. It's all going to grow into something very big. Really, the most successful radio show of its kind, Ira Glass would become in certain households, a household name. We're going to take a short break. When we come back, does it take working too much to build something that is that special Surge Engine is sponsored by Vuori. Vuori is a new perspective on performance apparel. It's perfect if you're sick and tired of traditional old workout gear. Everything is designed to work out in, but it doesn't feel or look like it. It's extremely comfortable. You'll want to wear it all the time. I promise you it is more comfortable than whatever you're wearing right now. The product is incredibly versatile. It can be used for just about any activity, running, training, swimming, yoga. But it is also great for my favorite form of exercise, which is lounging on a sofa. Also, Vuori is 100% offsetting their carbon footprint. They're using better, sustainable materials for their products. To empower your best active life, Vuori is an investment in your happiness. For our listeners, vuori is offering 20% off your first purchase. Get yourself some of the most comfortable and versatile clothing on the planet@vuorie.com PJsearch that's Vuorie v u O-R-I.com PJsearch not only will you receive 20% off your first purchase, but you'll also enjoy free shipping on any US orders over 75 bucks and free returns. Go to vuori.com PJsearch and discover the versatility of Vuori clothing.
- [22:52]
Ira Glass
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- [23:59]
PJ Vogt
Welcome back to the show and back to 1995. Ira Glass was beginning a new radio show. He had a sense of the kind of stories he wanted to hear on air. A sense that audio might be able to do things it was not currently doing. But Ira says he did not have a very detailed vision beyond that for how things were going to work.
- [24:18]
Ira Glass
All I'm picturing is, like, I think we could make this thing, and that would be interesting to do. Like, it's not. I didn't picture, like, here's where it'll be in five years or ten years or something. Like, I just thought, like, this seems like something a person could make, and I think I could make this. And honestly, I was scared that somebody else would get to the idea before I would. It seemed so obvious to me that you could do a show with sort of emotional narrative stories, which, when I look back on it, I guess that's kind of crazy, because it was so hard to do. Do you know what I mean?
- [24:55]
PJ Vogt
What was hard about in the beginning?
- [24:59]
Ira Glass
I mean, what was hard about it in the beginning is every single part of it was new. Like, even to produce that many stories so quickly every week was something I hadn't been in charge of or done. Like, it was a show whose format had not existed before. And so every single person who was hired had to be taught the format of this thing, which had never existed, and then taught how to make it. And I remember, like, everybody who came to work for the show at the beginning said, like, it took a year before they felt like they knew what they were doing. And so during that first year, there was a lot of, like, teaching people and here's how you do this, and doing it over and over and over until people got the hang of it. And. Yeah, and I remember it was like, 10 or 15 years into doing that, that there were enough shows imitating us or the style of this American Life that we could just hire somebody and they would know how to structure a story in our style.
- [25:59]
PJ Vogt
And in the beginning, like, what did a work week look like? Like the first. Cause you guys were doing year one.
- [26:05]
Ira Glass
It's either 48 or 43 episodes. I think it was 48 new episodes.
- [26:10]
PJ Vogt
I think it's 48 because I've looked at it.
- [26:12]
Ira Glass
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like, that's what I remember is 48. Yeah. Because we had nothing to rerun because we had never been on the air. And the way that we structured it is we knew at the beginning this might be kind of rock. So we weren't a national show for the first six months. We were a local show in Chicago. And we were just making them to learn how to make the show. And so we'd make a show every week and send it out in Chicago with the thought of, we're going to get good enough about this, that in May or June or something will be good enough that we can send them out to the whole public radio system. This is pre podcasting. And basically, the way I remember it, it was four of us making the show, and we were either working or.
- [26:54]
PJ Vogt
Asleep all the time.
- [26:57]
Ira Glass
Yeah.
- [26:58]
PJ Vogt
And did that feel. What did that feel like?
- [27:01]
Ira Glass
I mean, I remember it being okay with me. You know what I mean? I remember there was a point, at some point in the first year or two, I remember lying in bed at my old apartment on Ashland in Chicago and staring up at the ceiling and thinking, wait, I signed up for this. For how long? Wait, this is just going to go on forever. We're going to do this. And I remember I asked one of the old NPR hosts, Scott Simon, who I had seen go from being a reporter on NPR to a program host doing Weekend Edition with Scott Simon, who was doing a weekly show, and we were doing a weekly show. And I remember running into him in year two or three and asking, how long will it be like this? And he really thought about it. He's like, he paused and thought, and then he said, five years. It's going to be like this for five years. And he was right.
- [28:01]
PJ Vogt
For five years, it was, you're working or you're asleep.
- [28:05]
Ira Glass
I mean, I know that it wasn't just that, but that's.
- [28:08]
PJ Vogt
But kind of.
- [28:09]
Ira Glass
But kind of. Yeah.
- [28:11]
PJ Vogt
And to what degree? Like, I feel like I know the answer is both, but to what degree did that feel like you were a character punished in, like, a Greek myth, or you were filled with, like, holy fire and it was enjoyable?
- [28:27]
Ira Glass
I think there's a weird thing that people say when people say, like, I love my work. Do you know what I mean? Like, you said it earlier, and I always think it's a little weird when people say I love my work, because I think that when you're working that much, you don't love your work. There are parts of it that you really enjoy. But then making that much stuff, working for that many hours, you don't love it. It's oppressive. It's both something that you're into and that really fucked you up. You know what I mean? I've compared it to, like, oh, everything in my world, I created, right? Like, I hired all the people. I invented the format of the show. Every single part of it is, like, I helped choose the color of the couch in the meeting room when we moved there. You Know, just like, every part of it, you know, like, I created. And so I can't complain about my life. And what it feels like is. I mean, I've said this before, but it's true. It's sort of like I get to go to this restaurant and they always serve me my very favorite meal, but I'm never, ever allowed to leave the table. It has that feeling. And it's funny, it didn't occur to me, but then somebody pointed out, oh, this feeling that you're having of being like, I'm really into this. This is very interesting. And I also hate it. Is exactly what people raising children feel.
- [29:53]
PJ Vogt
Yes.
- [29:55]
Ira Glass
Yeah. But that didn't occur to me till years later because I had no interest in raising children. I just really didn't think about it. And I think part of that really was a. Like, I was like a kid who was like, 14, who really loved making stuff. And then I just kept making stuff. Like, I was 18 or 19 when I started working at NPR. You know what I mean? Like, I was a kid. I had been doing magic shows four years before that at kids parties. I was a kid. But then this seemed really interesting in the way that doing magic shows seemed really interesting. And. And then that part of my personality just really took over. And I really think that socially, I was really arrested for a long time. And it was only really, I think, in my 40s that I came out of that and started to grow again, partly because I finally had free time to be around other people. We started the radio show when I was 36. So five years in, I was 41, and it was really in my 40s, where finally I sort of experienced what a lot of people experience in their 20s and 30s, where I would have free time occasionally and spend time with other people, and at that point had somebody who I really loved and eventually got married to and we had a dog and had a bunch of the normal experiences that a lot of other people have. But before then, I was totally content to be this separate person and to be somebody who very much. I was a lot weirder socially then. I was the sort of person who would sort of make my way through conversations with people, asking them questions and taking information, but very much in a kind of, like, I wasn't letting myself get close to that many people. Like, I didn't know how. I really had to consciously change the way I was. I mean, this is so personal, but it's true. Like, I was much more of a weirdo. I mean, I'd be interested if you just talked to some of the people I worked with at the beginning of this American life and see if they would see it this way. But, like, in retrospect, I definitely see it this way. Like, I know what I consciously willed to happen in my personality, and it happened.
- [32:26]
PJ Vogt
So for you. I think one of the things that I puzzle through as you talk about this stuff is that there's a lot of cultural warning signs around work and, like, not working too much and not becoming a workaholic and not making your work your identity. I think for someone like you, part of what is confusing is that you're describing a period in your life, a chapter where you devoted yourself more to work than people are supposed to. And it was rewarding and interesting, and you built something that matters a lot to a lot of people. And also where you suffered. You know, in some ways, I mean, suffering.
- [33:12]
Ira Glass
I don't think I suffered at all.
- [33:13]
PJ Vogt
I knew you were gonna reject suffering.
- [33:14]
Ira Glass
But I didn't suffer. Like, it's hard working 70 or 80 hours a week, but it's still just making a radio show. Like, that's not actual suffering.
- [33:22]
PJ Vogt
I'm not saying you were like, no.
- [33:25]
Ira Glass
But can I say, like. Like, for me, yeah, there was no question. I never questioned it while it was going on. I don't question it in retrospect. I feel like that's what I wanted to do. That's what I had to do. And I feel like there are narratives of other kinds of people who make stuff where, like, that's sort of romanticized. You know, people go off and they paint or they write and they do whatever it is. They write music, you know, like. And that's seen as a kind of positive thing. Like, I don't have a feeling about whether that's positive or negative. Like, I understand in retrospect, it's not the path that most people chose or choose, but, like, I don't have a problem with the fact that I chose it. I felt like I liked it, I wanted it. I was gonna do what I wanted to do, and that was what I was gonna do. Like, I don't know. I was stubborn.
- [34:08]
PJ Vogt
Yeah. And it's not that. I don't think it's like, WBZ should, like, offer you, like, emotional compensation or anything like that. Or that I'm like, don't you secretly regret it? It's more just interesting. I understand all the feelings that led you to make the choices you made, I think. And I also understand the feeling of stepping back at some point and saying, oh, there Were parts of this. When you put all your focus on one thing, you can have moments where you step back and you think, oh, there's, like, more I want to learn, or other places I want to grow. And I won't entirely be able to do that through, like, just feeding more of myself into the machine that I'm building. Does that make sense?
- [34:57]
Ira Glass
Yeah. But that doesn't feel like that's about the beginning of starting the video show. That feels like more like, what it's like now. Like, do I want to keep throwing myself into this machine that I built?
- [35:07]
PJ Vogt
How do you think about that?
- [35:08]
Ira Glass
I find that very confusing. Like, honestly, like, you know, we're about to come up on our 850th episode, and there's a part of me where I feel like I really adore the people I work with. I feel like this last year we've made shows that are as good as anything we've ever made and shows that have been very excited to get on the air. Like, you know, that feeling of, like, oh, that was a really good one. Oh, I can't wait to hear people hear that. I feel like I've felt that over and over this year. But I did this exercise, like, a couple months ago where I had to pick out greatest hits episodes to create a greatest hits archive. And actually, I had never really gone through the archive of all 800 episodes to think about which ones of these are really so good. I think that somebody today could enjoyably listen to this show from 20 years ago or 15 years ago or 25 years ago. And then when I see the number of episodes in a year, some years where I was like, over the years as it went on, we would make 26 or 28 or 30 or 34 shows a year? So out of the 30 shows we did that year, there are eight or 10 really wonderful ones. So let's say eight out of 30 shows. And then you think, I spent three fourths of my year. I spent nine months that year on stuff that was just meh in retrospect. And then it makes you look at, like, this last year, and I feel like, actually, this last year, our batting average was way better than that. Actually, we made a ton of great shows. But still, it's like, what's the point of making 900 of these or 950 or 1000? Like, how many years left do I have in my life? And haven't I kind of made the point of, like, this would be a nice way to do a radio show? You know what I mean, like, do I need to be in there? And then also there's all the ones that aren't as good, which kind of just some weeks stuff doesn't come together. Like, the story you're hoping would work, doesn't work, or it's not as good as you hoped. And so then you feel like, all right, I'm gonna make this as good as I can. But I know there's one great story in this show, but then the other is doing kind of they're okay, and just sort of like, it's just where you don't feel like, oh, this is why I'm doing this with my life. Yeah. And I don't know what to do with that. And. And then also, if we're going to be really honest, something that's so personal is that my partner now is just so incredibly productive. And it's like she has a new TV show that she's off filming right now, but then after that, she has a bunch of different movies that she's written and other things she's being asked to direct. And I just feel like, well, watching her, I just say, well, wait, I could be doing more. I certainly could be doing more stuff, or more. I don't know, just more stuff that I feel, like, super thrilled about, you know?
- [38:14]
PJ Vogt
Is this the first time you've had a partner who had the same, like, much higher than average relationship to work as you?
- [38:24]
Ira Glass
I mean, I've had a few partners who really work was a huge part of their life and a main thing in their life and the way it is for me. But this is the first time I've been involved with somebody whose work habits are so close to mine. That's what I mean, where she'll just work all the time if it's something that seems worth doing. Yeah. And in fact, one of the things we'll do together is that we'll have study hall together where we'll be like, let's get together, but we'll just kind of sit across from each other.
- [38:53]
PJ Vogt
Did you have a moment before you'd mentioned there was this sort of five years for the thing to become more sane? After five years, were you at a place where it was clear, like, did you have a moment where it wasn't clear the show was going to work, where you had to contend with the idea that you might be pouring so much of your time and thought into something that could just, like, disappear?
- [39:17]
Ira Glass
Yeah, of course, that was the entire first five years. Pretty much, like, it seemed like I could be putting all this work into this thing and it could vanish. But honestly, that seemed fine to me. I didn't care. Oh, yeah, who cares? I would find something else to do. I don't know. I just knew. Not that many people knew how to edit tape and knew how to make a nice story for npr. I knew if this blew up, I could just go back to All Things Considered, a Morning edition. I'd be fine. It'd be fine. I'd find something else to do. In fact, in the early contracts for this American Life, we had never had to clear rights for something. I didn't know how to do it. And I wasn't smart enough to ask a proper intellectual property lawyer, how do you do this? And so basically, we'd just write up contracts based on sort of common sense. And I remember if David Sedaris would read a story on the show, we would get the rights to broadcast it and rebroadcast it for three years. And I remember thinking, like, if this show lasts three years and we have to go back and renegotiate that contract, that would be a problem I would love to have. It seems so unlikely.
- [40:17]
PJ Vogt
It's funny to understand that you work this much and this obsessively, but it's not from a place of terror like that. It's just.
- [40:27]
Ira Glass
It was from a place of terror.
- [40:28]
PJ Vogt
Okay.
- [40:29]
Ira Glass
Yeah, Like, I didn't want the thing to be bad.
- [40:31]
PJ Vogt
Yeah.
- [40:32]
Ira Glass
Like, and that was terrifying. But I also felt like, if this doesn't work out, if people don't like this show, if this isn't something good, then that's fine. I had worked on a bunch of different shows and some had blown up. I mean, I never started my own show besides the Wild Room. The, like, go to local show that I did with my friends.
- [40:53]
PJ Vogt
Yeah.
- [40:53]
Ira Glass
You know, but, like, I'd worked on a bunch of shows and some had blown up, and, I don't know, everybody moved on. It would be fine.
- [41:00]
PJ Vogt
And so then it becomes stable. You enter a period where after five.
- [41:06]
Ira Glass
Years, like, basically, like, it took that long for the finances of it to be solid enough and the audience to be solid enough that it was clear. Like, okay, we're going to be fine. We're not running, running, running just to get this thing. Like, we were on hundreds of radio stations and we had a solid audience and we had advertising money and we had carriage fees that stations would pay to run the show. And, like, it was a financially solid from that point forward. The show has always been profitable every year.
- [41:30]
PJ Vogt
But even as a profitable show, that's not confronting an existential question all the time. Even your relationship to that show, as I understand it, you're not working a 40 hour work week most of the time.
- [41:42]
Ira Glass
No, no. It would still be like 60 or 70 hours and some weeks more and.
- [41:47]
PJ Vogt
Then drive each week for it to be very good.
- [41:50]
Ira Glass
Yeah. Why make something if it's not going to be special? Why bother if you're not going to try to make it? Like, this is going to be amazing if it's not going to be amazing? The world has enough stuff that's meh that you don't need to bother. Which is why in retrospect, it's so disappointing to look back at the percentage that are just kind of like, that was fine, that was fine. There's going good story in there.
- [42:10]
PJ Vogt
So is that the first moment that you've had where you feel in a deep way or in an unsettled way, like a why about all this stuff? Like a why am I doing this recently? Yeah.
- [42:26]
Ira Glass
Yes. And it's more just like, do I continue doing it? Like, I don't retrospectively regret any of it, but it's more just like, should I keep doing this or should I just find something else to do? And the math of that particular question is I'm better at doing this than I am at probably anything else I would come up with, at least right away. I've been practicing this one so I can do this one well. And honestly, I went to the trouble with a bunch of people to get this show to the point where millions of people hear it each week. And so that's a hard thing to turn your back on. It's funded, it's stable, millions of people hear it every week. And so to turn your back on that, nobody gets that. Do you know what I mean? It's just an incredibly rare thing. And if I leave it and give it to other people to run, I'm not gonna find something that will have that big of an audience. And then I'll have to do what other people do, which is I'll have to pitch things and get people to fund it and be in that world again.
- [43:33]
PJ Vogt
Right. You don't get to pick the color of the couch.
- [43:35]
Ira Glass
Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. And so it's hard to move from a situation where, like, I work with a bunch of people and we have complete freedom to do whatever we want. There's no adult supervision above us. Like, we really do whatever we think is best. And, like, lots of people hear it and it's funded. Like, that's so, so rare. So, like, it's a hard thing to.
- [43:55]
PJ Vogt
Walk away from when you picture walking away from it. Like, in the world where you imagine doing it. What do you imagine? Like, what's the feeling of imagining that?
- [44:04]
Ira Glass
I literally don't even know what would be on the other side of it. It's like imagining what happens after your own death or something. Or like, I remember before I traveled to a foreign country, I remember I was just. I had no picture of what it would be like. I had seen pictures of other countries, but I really just hadn't. I couldn't form it in my head.
- [44:23]
PJ Vogt
Right, because you're a person who's had the same job, like, the exact same.
- [44:26]
Ira Glass
Job for 30 years, since 1995. But then the job was basically just a variation of every job I had since I was 19.
- [44:35]
PJ Vogt
Yeah.
- [44:35]
Ira Glass
You know, like, I just got to do more interesting stuff. But it was still just basically, you go into the beginning of the week, you think, like, what could we possibly do that people would find fun to listen to?
- [44:46]
PJ Vogt
And it's part of the reason why. Like, the thrust of my questions for you are like, would you have. How do you feel about the choices you've made? But hearing you describe it, it's more. You're just like, you have a personality, and your personality has found what it likes to do and it does that thing. It's not as if you sat down when you were 19 and thought, would I be most happy if I became obsessed with radio?
- [45:11]
Ira Glass
No, no, no. It could have been something else. But I happened to end up at a place at NPR in the 70s where, like, the things I could get obsessive about were in front of me. But it could have been something else. If I had ended up in a TV station, I would be on TV or making tv. I don't think I'd probably be on tv, but I'd be making tv.
- [45:47]
PJ Vogt
We're going to take a short break. When we come back, families, how do you think about not having kids of your own and choosing to spend some of that energy on just working more? What is it like to just be okay with that foreign. Hey there, Ryan Reynolds here. It's a new year and you know what that means. No, not the diet resolutions. A way for us all to try and do a little bit better than.
- [46:25]
Ira Glass
We did last year.
- [46:26]
PJ Vogt
And my resolution, unlike big wireless, is to not be a raging and raise the price of wireless on you every chance I get.
- [46:34]
Ira Glass
Give it a try@mintmobile.com $45 upfront payment required equivalent to $15 per month new customers on first three month plan only.
- [46:42]
PJ Vogt
Taxes and fees Extra speed slower above.
- [46:44]
Ira Glass
40 gigabytes on unlimited.
- [46:45]
PJ Vogt
See mintmobile.com for details. This episode is brought to you by Indeed.
- [46:51]
Ira Glass
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- [47:06]
PJ Vogt
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Ira Glass
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- [47:28]
PJ Vogt
Welcome back to the show. This whole conversation had begun because of that conversation my friend had overheard, where a young person was saying they wanted to work all the time and an older person was responding essentially by saying that that was an immature desire. The subtext here, I'm pretty sure, was family. Many people, even the ones who love to work, choose to have children. Some people choose not to. But the idea is that if the focus of your life remains your work, you may at some point regret that choice. We're told over and over that nobody on their deathbed ever wished they'd worked more. I actually tried to fact check this by barging into several local hospices with my microphone in hand, screaming questions at the infirm and the dying. Regrettably, I was asked to leave. So instead I resumed my conversation with Ira. When you describe like years where you're pulling 60, 70, 80 hour work weeks, like that is not something you can easily do with a family. No, but you work with people who are also radio obsessives. And then as the show has progressed, many of them have had families. But so for you. And again, it's not as if you were spending decades making the show thinking, I want to have a family. You always thought you didn't, but had you thought that, you would have thought, that's incompatible with the job I'm doing because the job, as I'm doing it, requires a level of presence and attention where you'd either have to be kind of not a great father or have a very different relationship to your work.
- [49:03]
Ira Glass
Yes. And I really thought about that. In fact, with my wife, when we talked about should we have kids, one of the things that I felt at the time was like, I'm barely holding it together now without having kids. Like, I don't know how I would be able to manage if we had kids. I mean, at that point, the staff of the radio show, when she and I were considering this, was still pretty Small. It was just still seven people, which is a lot of people for a weekly radio show. But for, like, a super highly produced one, it was still, like, you know, it was hard to get the show on the air. And so I didn't know how we would do it. Like, I just didn't know how to do it. There came a point in my life after I was married and divorced, I'd live with somebody who had a little boy, and when we got together, he was five. He just turned six. Like, when we got together and at some point we moved in, I had the experience of living with somebody and her kid and really was very, totally involved in the kid's life. And just in the most everyday way that you can be if it's three people living in a small apartment and one of you is under 10. And so, like, doing his homework with them and inventing games with them and just sitting around and doing stuff and watching TV and leaning on each other and just like. And I. And I feel like I really. I had the experience. Then I realized, like, oh, I really did not picture what this would be like. Like, when I pictured having kids, I pictured the kind of baby phase that I'd seen friends go through, and I hadn't pictured this. And I feel like for the first time, I felt like, oh, I totally get it in an emotional way. Like, I understood in the abstract why people have children before this. You know, like, it's not that complicated of a thing to understand. But I didn't get, like, why it could feel good to me to do it. Like, I really liked it. I really liked having a kid in the house. I really liked being one of the adults caring for that kid and looking out for that kid and thinking about that kid and having, like, a daily relationship, and his mom was like, should we have a kid? You know? And it's funny. Like, I mean, the real honest answer is I wasn't sure how I would manage that with my job. And I didn't want to be. I didn't want to have a kid if I was going to be absent. Yeah, you know, what can I say? Like, if I had wanted it enough, I would have figured it out. And if part of what you're trying to figure out is, would you have regrets if you had a kid? You should talk to somebody who's had to make that trade off about how they feel about that. Because I think that people do have really strong feelings about that. I mean, it's funny because Mike Birbiglia has a joke in his show, the new one. And I only know this because I helped him on that show. He's my friend. And that whole show is about him trying to figure out should he have a kid. And the first half of the show, he's basically giving all the reasons not to have a kid, and then they have the kid. But one of the things he talks about is sort of like, your work will be worse. And he says, that's the thing that's a problem. It's like, your work will be worse. And he's like. And you can say it's not going to be, but it's gonna be. That feels true to me.
- [52:30]
PJ Vogt
And I've talked to people like podcast hosts, writers who are like, no, no, no. It deepens your work. It gives you all these other thoughts and concerns and deeper questions, and it makes you think differently, and it changes how you are as a person. And when they say it, I believe them. And then later, I think, but you have fewer hours, and you have a person that you're responsible for. Like, right now, I feel responsible to a bunch of people I don't know. And I like that responsibility. Like, I don't. Like is maybe the wrong word. Something draws me to that responsibility. But if there was, like, a human being that needed to be fed and clothed and, like, protected from the cold.
- [53:10]
Ira Glass
Well and loved and given your attention like this, like, human being will want your attention, specifically attention from you.
- [53:19]
PJ Vogt
Yes. I think that reduces the amount of hours you can be like, well, that's true.
- [53:24]
Ira Glass
I don't know. Like, I think I'm not somebody to ask about this part of it. You should ask somebody who knows better.
- [53:31]
PJ Vogt
What did you make of what Mike said? Like, joking lets you say things that are true, and then everybody laughs, and then nobody has to deal with, like, how true they may or may not be. But if his joke.
- [53:43]
Ira Glass
You and I both know people who have kids whose work is amazing.
- [53:48]
PJ Vogt
Yeah. Yeah.
- [53:52]
Ira Glass
So clearly some people figure it out.
- [53:55]
PJ Vogt
I think it's also confusing because it's like, the reason I wanted to talk to you about this is because I think that you are evidence that a person can have a fulfilling and meaningful life that does not involve biological progeny. Like, I don't think. I don't think it's, like, I don't think you're like, a cautionary tale. And I think people very rarely make the case, like, all the cultural or not all, but most of the cultural messaging is, like, suspicious of the idea that you wouldn't do this. And I don't know. Yeah, I think like the idea that it's a way that people grow and change and that it's one of the core human experiences. Like it's really hard for me to. I don't believe that there's anything after this and so I want to experience as much of it as possible. There's also a lot of people who had kids who shouldn't have or shouldn't have is a very strong way to put it. But there's people I get emails from, people who are like, here's my question. Is parenting as hard for other people as it is for me? And like I love my kids, but I don't love parenthood. And I feel like I've given my life away. And like what's the answer to that? When you had like a non biological kid, kid show up in your life and you found yourself in a father like role, was there any part of you that thought, oh, what if I'd had a kid 10 years ago and been there through all the not fun parts of it?
- [55:28]
Ira Glass
No. Zero, none.
- [55:30]
PJ Vogt
I always wondered, I always wondered if you felt that way. Not at all.
- [55:35]
Ira Glass
Let me think if that's the honest answer. No, I wondered about it, but not I wondered about it. I wondered about it, but not in like a deep yearning way, just in a curious way. Yeah, like what would this have been like? And I guess that would have been kind of interesting. But I didn't. I don't know, like, yeah, it wasn't, it didn't then lead me to a sense of regret and oh, let's make a baby.
- [56:04]
PJ Vogt
Right. And when you say, like you said before, that one thing it made you understand is that the way you had thought of parenthood or fatherhood was somewhat immature. Like what do you mean by that?
- [56:16]
Ira Glass
I just really hadn't thought about what the day to day experience is of living with a kid and just how nice it is and like what is fulfilling about it and what you get back from it. I hadn't thought about what you get back from it. All I thought about is like what you throw into it and what do.
- [56:34]
PJ Vogt
You get back from it? Like you. Not one.
- [56:39]
Ira Glass
I mean part. I just really like love this kid and I mean everything I'm gonna say is so corny. Just like seeing him grow, seeing him learn new things, teaching him little stuff that then he can just being just. It's funny, like I just remember the first time we were sitting on the couch and he just leaned himself against me to watch something and it just was really meaningful that there's like, this person who, like, trusted me and was leaning on me and wanted to be close to me in that way. Like, yeah, like, it. I mean, like, this is like a really terrible, not analogous thing, but it reminds me of when I first had a dog. Like, I had never had dogs. My ex wife really loved dogs and always had a dog. And so we got a dog. And really, for the first few years, I really just saw the dog as a job. And I would spend an hour a day easily walking the dog, dealing with the dog, whatever. Walking the dog for sure, and playing with the dog. And it really took me years before I understood the concept of, oh, you're supposed to get something back from this. It really didn't occur to me. I just really thought. And like. Cause the dog would be affectionate with me, but I just thought, like, well, of course you're affectionate with me. Like, you don't know anybody in New York except me and her. You know what I mean? You don't know anybody. I'm one of two people, you know. Yeah, you have to be nice to me. But with this little boy, like, you know, just very early on, like, it just got to me. Like, I could see what I was getting back from it, and it felt like something big to get back from somebody.
- [58:47]
PJ Vogt
Did you feel like it changed you at all?
- [58:50]
Ira Glass
I mean, I always really loved kids. I just hadn't had the experience of, like, living with a kid. Did it change me at all? It did change me, yeah, it did change me. Like, it made me a lot more awake to what all the people in my life are going through, have kids. I think I was really insensitive about it. Like, I understood the idea of it, but I think I wasn't sensitive to the feeling of it. And it's just like such a weird combination of labor and affection. And yeah, like, it made me. In the way that going through something makes you just more awake to what everybody else is experiencing, who goes through it. Like, I'm glad. I'm glad I know that. I'm glad I know what parents are going through in a way that's more lived on my part. I think that that makes me way more awake and sensitive to people around me who are raising kids.
- [59:56]
PJ Vogt
So what have we learned this week? My question had been, is it okay to work all the time? And clearly for some people, for Ira, the answer is yes. But what do you actually do with that? Yes. There's another question, one that may be in the best interest of the show to avoid which Would be, is it possible the entire concept of advice is a little hopeless? How likely is it that someone can distill a lesson from their life and hand it to you and have you just apply it like it came from your own mind? We always believe in advice when we're asking for it. But when we hand it out, we see its limits. I'm thinking about this this week because Ira's mind seems to have this quality I really admire. He's an artist, but somehow he does not seem particularly tortured. He wants the work to be good. He obsesses over it, but he doesn't seem to beat himself up much. If that was something you could learn, wouldn't you want to. Anyway, I had one more question about legacy. Okay. People obviously have children for all sorts of reasons. Like, maybe they think that putting someone else's needs above their own is something that's gonna help them evolve. Or maybe they just wanna give someone who doesn't exist yet the gift of life that they've been able to experience. But I think when I've thought about it, a feeling I've had, and I think a feeling a lot of people have is just that we get scared about dying and we wanna leave something behind. And I'm curious whether that is a feeling that you have at all. Like, just the feeling of thinking about what you want to leave behind when you're gone.
- [61:29]
Ira Glass
I mean, I really don't hold much value in the idea of what you leave behind. I don't think it matters because you don't exist anymore. Like, I have a very. Like, I have, like, the most primitive view of it that I can't defend. But I just feel like it really doesn't matter once I don't exist. I mean, maybe if I had kids, I would see that differently. Like, I want the world to keep spinning, and I want things to be okay for people. And I want the world not to head towards catastrophe. Because in just an abstract way, I care about the people of the future and the way I care about anybody who I don't know. But really, who cares? Honestly, who cares? Nobody needs to hear these radio shows that I made after I'm dead. They're not designed for that. They're designed for the people who are around when they're made. And that's what they're made for. And there was something really nice back before the Internet that we make the radio show. And it would go out on the radio and you could, like, buy a cassette, I guess, but people didn't really do that. You know what I mean? Like, you could buy a tape and we would mail you a tape. But basically, for most people, like, overwhelmingly, you would hear something on the radio, and then you would never hear it again. And then it would get better in your mind. Like, the show would improve with age. And that was kind of cool to make something that was. Like it existed for a moment for you to share with somebody, like an intimate moment with another person. And it's okay for that to be all it is. Like, it doesn't have to last for centuries. And I just think, like, death is a real thing, and it's absolutely finite, and I don't believe in an afterlife. And so that doesn't motivate me.
- [63:21]
PJ Vogt
And I hope this isn't, like, a disrespectful thing to say, but that's not just like. Cause that's a very interesting and unusual thought, but that's really how you feel, like, in your bones. It's not just, like, an interesting thought.
- [63:35]
Ira Glass
Yes. Yeah. Like, the radio show is so much more successful than I ever anticipated it could be. It's just. It's amazing it's lasted this long. And it's nice that people like it. And I feel lucky that I get a chance to work on it because it's fun to make and also a pain in the ass and horrible sometimes, but fun also. And, yeah, it doesn't need to be more than this. It's just a fucking radio show. You know what I mean? It's just a show. We're just making a show. There's so much stuff that people are.
- [64:08]
PJ Vogt
Making, but it's funny. And I admire the way you see it. It sounds very sane, but it's funny that you're both like, it's just a show. And it's almost like, better that it's ephemeral. And, you know, you spend hours and hours and hours of your life just trying to make the minutes of this thing better.
- [64:32]
Ira Glass
I know, but, like, millions of people hear it. More people than I'll ever meet hear it. Like, it's already reached as many people as it ever needs to reach. And if it reached a lot more, that would be okay, too. But, like, it reaches so many people. Like, I'm ambitious, and I embrace that. You know what I mean? Like, I'm ambitious, but my ambition is I want to make something that's exactly the way I want it to be. And I want it to be something that'll reach a lot of people, but it doesn't have to reach everybody. Like, it doesn't have to be for everybody. It doesn't have to be everybody's taste. It doesn't have to be for people of the future. Fuck people of the future. They'll find some fucking way to entertain themselves. They don't need me. They're making more people who are younger than me who can do that. Plenty of smart, funny, capable people can make things for the people of the future. They don't need to listen to radio shows from the 1990s.
- [65:25]
PJ Vogt
So to the degree that you think about legacy, it's like you want to leave space for other people. You hope that you don't take up space.
- [65:31]
Ira Glass
That would even show more concern for the people of the future than I feel. But sure, that has so much dignity. Yes, my legacy is that I want to create space for the young people. Like, whatever. They don't need my fucking help. They're going to be fine. Somebody who wants to make something will stand up and somebody wants to be on stage and it's totally fine. They don't need my help.
- [66:07]
PJ Vogt
Ira Glass. He hosts the podcast and radio show this American Life. And if you are someone far off one day in the future listening to this recording, he hopes you'll stop. Search Engine is a presentation of Odyssey and Jigsaw Productions. It was created by me, PJ Vogt and Shruti Pinamaneni and is produced by Garrett Graham and Noah John. Fact checking by Claire Hyman. Theme, original composition and mixing by Armin Bazarian. Additional production support by Sean Merchant. If you would like to help support our show, keep it alive and get AD free episodes, zero reruns and the occasional bonus audio, please consider signing up for Incognito Mode. You can learn more at Search Engine Show. This week we gave Incognito Mode listeners early access to tickets for our live show at the Bell House. Our executive producers are Jenna Weiss Berman and Leah Rhys Dennis. Thanks to the team at Jigsaw, Alex Gibney, Rich Perello and John Schmidt. And to the team at Odyssey, JD Crowley, Rob Morandi, Craig Cox, Eric Donnelly, Colin Gaynor, Matt Casey, Maura Curran, Josefina Francis, Kurt Courtney and Hilary Shove. Our agent is Oren rosenbaum and you Uta. Follow and listen to search engine with PJvote now for free on the Odysee app or wherever you get your podcasts. Thank you for listening. We'll see you next week.