Fresh Air - Terry Gross On 50 Years Of Fresh Air (Talk Easy with Sam Fragoso)

Episode Date: September 14, 2025

This month marks 50 years of Terry Gross as the host of Fresh Air. What began in 1975 as a local experiment at WHYY in Philadelphia has since grown into a national institution—one that not only transformed public radio, but laid the groundwork for the world of podcasting.To commemorate a half-century on the air, Terry Gross joins us for a rare appearance in the interview seat. At the top, we discuss her Brooklyn upbringing (11:39), early memories of writing (14:13), and her improbable road to public radio (30:51). Then, Terry walks us through the formative years of Fresh Air (34:50) and its seminal conversations with Kurt Vonnegut (41:34), John Updike (47:43), Monica Lewinsky (50:43), Joan Didion (1:02:08), and more.On the back-half, Gross reflects on forty-seven years of partnership with her late husband, jazz writer Francis Davis (1:04:37), their shared affinity for reading and music (1:07:10), the future of public media (1:20:29), and why she continues to have faith in (and love for) the long-form interview (1:32:48).Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

We all wonder about life's big questions. Why are we here? What are we to do and how to make sense of it all? On Ye' Gods with Scott Carter, I talk with Politico's priests, actors, and atheists on how they wrestle with life's mysteries. Their stories will spark reflection, challenge assumptions, and maybe even bring you some clarity on your own journey. Listen to Yegods, part of the NPR Network, wherever you get your podcasts. Hi, it's Terry Gross. I'm here to introduce something a little different. It's an interview where I'm the guest. The person asking the questions is Sam Fragoso for his podcast Talk Easy. The occasion for the interview is my 50th anniversary hosting fresh air. Just saying 50th makes me think, what?

When I started hosting the show back in September, 1975, it was a local show that only listeners to W.HYY in Philadelphia could hear. It was three hours long, five days a week, and at the time, the only staff was me. Yikes. I managed to hang in there until Danny Miller came along and became my long-time radio partner. Years later, in 1987, Fresh Air became a daily NPR show heard around the country. So to mark this anniversary, Sam came to Philly to interview me. I really like a show and I think he's a great interviewer. By the way, I recommend the episode with Ira Glass. Sam does a lot of research and put so much care into shaping his interviews, so I was really curious

what he'd ask me. I really enjoyed our conversation, so here it is my interview on Talk Easy with Sam Fregoso. This is Talk Easy. I'm Sam Forgozo. Welcome to the show. Today, broadcast legend, Terry Gross. This month marks the 50th anniversary of her show, Fresh Air.

What began in 1975 as a local experiment at W.HY.Y in Philadelphia, has since grown into a national institution, one that not only transform public radio, but laid the groundwork for podcasting. In that half-century, Terry has conducted over 15,000 interviews with actors, authors, politicians, comedians, filmmakers, you name it. Her disarmingly candid line of questioning, with that calm yet incisive voice of hers, has become a permanent fixture of American life. And yet, in all those years behind the microphone, she's rarely sat on the opposite side of the table. By her own admission, up until recently, she's been an inhibited interviewee, preferring to remain a blank slate for the listener, someone whose private life is in the background

so that her guest could step fully into the foreground. But earlier this spring, that became no longer possible. After 47 years of marriage, Terry's husband, the jazz critic Francis Davis, passed away on April 14th after a protracted illness. He was 78. Then two and a half weeks later, Terry returned to remember Francis on the air, the professional and personal inextricably linked, which of course makes it all the more meaningful to sit with her in this moment, to honor not only five decades of fresh air, but also the life she and Francis built together. And so for today's very special episode, I got on a plane to Philadelphia to talk to Terry about her improbable road to public radio, the craft of interviewing, and a few of the conversations that have come

to define the show. Kurt Monaget on Censorship, Monica Lewinsky, post-Clinton scandal in 1999, and writer Joan Didion on the Year of Magical Thinking. As you can imagine, this episode, for a show like ours, has been a long time in the making. And so there's a lot I'd like to say right about now. But at the risk of resorting to platitudes, I think I'll just do what Terry would do in this situation, or I think it's what she would do, which is to let the tape do the talking.

And so with that, here is Terry Gross on 50 years of fresh air. Terry Gross. Yes. Welcome to the show. Thank you. Pleasure to be here. Thanks for coming to Philly to do this. I'm honored.

I've never been in Philadelphia. This feels like the perfect occasion to come to Philadelphia. How are you doing? I'm doing okay. You know, you probably know my husband died a few months ago. But under the circumstances, I think I'm really doing okay. Has it been easy to get back to work in the aftermath of that? He passed April 14th, right?

Yeah. Well, you know, I took a couple of weeks off just to, you know, organizing the funeral and dealing with some of the immediate stuff you have to deal with. So, and during that two weeks, I also wrote the on-air tribute I did to him. I went to people to, like, know who he was. You came back on the air, I think, two and a half weeks after he passed and recorded. an episode, a kind of eulogy to him. Yeah. It was more like, this is who my husband was.

I'm going to read you excerpts of his writing. I'm going to play you the music that he loved that he was writing about in these excerpts. So you get to know him. It wasn't about me. It wasn't about like, oh, the love we shared, the great moments that we had. I did mention a couple of things like how we met. But it was mostly like, here's something else that he wrote and he loved this record and here's why. I do want to talk about the love you shared.

Oh. We'll wrap our way back to that. So since then, you've been back at work making, what, four shows a week? It was 10. I think it went to 9 and went to 8. Okay, so it's slowly gone down. It's like a countdown clock. Okay, so you're back at work since then. Yeah.

It's my understanding that on Fridays, you and your staff have what you've described as a marathon meeting. Yes. About who's coming on the show and who's not coming on the show. And since our editorial calendars are often very similar, I thought, why don't you share in this safe space of who's coming on so that we can prepare our calendar around yours? What's your next question? Okay, my next question is, can you at least tell me what day you plan to sit with David Mamet on fresh air? Yes, that is very unlikely. I heard your interview with him.

I heard you may be blocking off a whole week for Mamet in September. Mamet Week, I think it's called? I think it's called Mammot Week. So I want to just go on the record and correct the things that he said about me before we get to him walking out. There's a moment in Sam's interview with him when he's talking about how all his friends abandoned him. And he mentions like TV shows and NPR, The Atlantic Magazine. I forget if he mentioned the New Yorker. I think the New York Times.

The New York Times, yes. And then he mentioned me by name and he said, you know, that I had a band. in him, because I used to have him on a lot. On a show he called All Things Considered. Yes, and he said that Terry Gross from All Things Considered, she even came to Vermont. And then he also said that in 2008, when we and everyone else rejected him, we sent him a form letter, which we never do. So I'll start there.

We don't send out form letters. I don't host All Things Considered. I don't work for All Things Considered. And I've never been to his place in Vermont. I'm glad we cleared the air. Yeah. It's just that when somebody gets everything wrong about me, I wonder what else are they getting wrong, you know. In the prologue of your book, all I did was ask. You write that, on your bad days, you wonder whether, quote, the autobiographical interview offers much more than the potential for gossip or voyeurism.

Since we're here celebrating 50 years of fresh air, half century in, where are you at on that these days? I still believe in it. I think a lot of what art is about is finding your life reflected back at you with words or stories that you wouldn't have thought of yourself. And there can be something very clarifying, very affirming about it. And I also think with an autobiographical interview, when somebody's reasonably honest about their flaws and shortcomings as well as their great triumphs, you can find yourself in that. Or the opposite. In art and in autobiographical interviews, you can learn about people who are totally unlike you and still see what you share, you know, the shared humanity. So I still have a lot of faith in them. There's some books and some interviews where I feel like, well, there's a little bit of self-mythologizing here or a little bit of like intentionally making your life into the moral of the story. story is or like anybody can achieve this. All you have to do is work hard, which I really do not believe. What do you not believe? I think that some people have a gift and working hard

helps them enhance the gift, focus the gift, improve the craft. But I could work 10,000 hours learning to play piano or 10,000 hours writing or something. I would never be great. Do you know what I I mean, it takes more than time. It takes a certain aesthetic that you're kind of born with or gets ingrained in you. It just takes more than time. So that's why I don't believe in like, hard work and anybody could do this. Some things, yes, but not art. Do you think you had some gift that was innate and asking questions?

Well, I wouldn't call interviewing necessarily an art. Do you don't think it's an art? I don't know. I just feel like as an interview, if I called it an art, it would sound pretentious and self-aggrandizing. You've done over 15,000 interviews, over 50 years. At what number are you allowed to be a little self-aggrandizing? Well, the number isn't what, I don't think I'm a bad interview. Don't get me wrong.

I don't think like I really suck at this and somehow I'm still doing it. Yeah, that would be shocking. Do you think it's a coincidence in talking about your biography that someone who has has devoted their career to asking questions. It came of age in a house where questions were not exactly encouraged. Revealing things to the outside world wasn't encouraged. You can ask questions at home. You were allowed to ask questions at home.

Yeah. Because in many interviews you talked about how there's a lot of questions you wish you asked your parents, but you never did where you felt like you never could. Yeah. Those were most of the questions about death. Because I think maybe the context of that was talking about the Maurice Sondack interview in which he knew he didn't have long to live. And he was talking about facing dying. He was talking about losing friends. Those are subjects my parents didn't want to talk about.

They knew that they were dying when they were dying. But you couldn't talk to them about that. They weren't from the age of talking personally like that. What about when you were growing up in Sheepshead Bay, Brooklyn, you know, in a post-war apartment building that I think was built on an old racetrack. That's what I was told.

And, yeah. What was the environment like between you and your parents and your brother also, your older brother? What were the kind of conversations you did have? Well, my older brother

was like a role model for me when I was growing up in the sense that, like, he was the person who got, like, the record player. And he was the person who bought records. And so I really benefited

from that. He knew, like, what label people were on. So it's not like he had a huge collection, but, you know, he had some good stuff. You said once that you were, quote, brought up believing that there's some positive value in thinking negatively. Oh, yes. It's, it's, I think it's a very Kenahara Jewish thing. If you think something is going to turn out badly, then you won't be disappointed when it turns out badly. It sounds a little bit like a Mel Brooks quote.

Hope for the best, expect the worst, is a quote. It's a quote from one of his lyrics. And that's like, when asked for it, do you have a motto? That's what I offer. But also it was like, if you expect good things to happen, they're not going to. You know, it went along with my father's, you know, expression. No one ever said life was about pleasure. You know, like weekends, you get some time off where you're allotted a certain amount of pleasure.

But during the week, it's like... What was your mother's motto? She didn't really have one. Yeah. Most people don't have motto. Yeah, I mean, it wasn't literally his motto, but it's something that I heard and certainly that I probably internalized. Taking this maybe too literally, but like, what did that inner monologue of thinking negatively sound like for a young Terry Gross? Frustrating, a little annoying, but I think I internalized it. anyway. What part was frustrating? Well, you know, you want some time for pleasure. And like when

I was a little child, this was more when I was a teenager. Right. When I was a teenager, I was still a really good student doing really well in school. But hanging out, I wouldn't exactly call myself a theater kid, but we had something called sing in Brooklyn schools where you write a long sketch, take Broadway melodies, and write lyrics to those melodies. So I was one of the lyricists. For all four years, you were one of the lyricists, right? For at least three of them. But anyways, yeah, I want a pleasure in my life. Being a lyricist sounds pleasurable.

Oh, it was great. I loved it. When you were writing those songs in high school, it's my understanding that you once overheard basketball players sing your lyrics. Now, you remember what those lyrics are, don't you? I'm too embarrassed to reveal them. Hold on. You've said in the past that you won't say them. What if we sang them together?

We're not going to do that. There's no way we're going to do that. You don't even know the lyrics. Well, that's why if you teach me, just imagine yourself as Stephen Sondheim. Give me one line. Okay. I may live to regret this. That was the alternate title of your book, right?

The alternate title of a lot of my life. Okay. So the premise is kind of like a rip-off of how to succeed in business without really trying where the main character finds like a rule book for success, like a self-help book for success called How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying. We kind of used the same premise. And the premise was that we wanted to be like cool and we didn't know how to be cool. We needed a handbook.

I wish I had that in high school. Or that we were going to create the handbook. I think we needed the handbook. And so the melody was to Lechayim from Fiddler on the Roof. And the opening lyric was, the book will be our mentor, our noteworthy source of the rules. It will teach us explicitly in sheer simplicity, step by step, to be cool. The school will marvel at how cool and groovy we look. They won't suspect that the gimmick is that we are mimicking.

of a 16-page book or something like, 60-page book. Excellent. I'm done. Excellent. I'm totally done. With the interview? No, no. I'm not going to pull a mammet.

Or a Bill O'Reilly. Or a Bill O'Reilly. Or several other people I can think of. Or Faye Dunaway? Or Faye Dunaway. Or Monica. Or Lou Reed after six minutes in 1996? Yes.

I can keep going of fresh air walkouts. It's an illustrious roster. I have to say. It's a really great roster. That was fantastic. Listen, if I really live to regret it, you're going to know about it. I believe it. And as well, our listeners, that was amazing.

I don't hear the compliments. I don't hear like... I said that was amazing. No, you think it's amazing that I revealed it. Yeah, you're right. You caught me on that. I know. When you were sharing...

wearing the lyrics, I was like, God, how am I going to remember to sing all these? Of course. This is very long. Was it satisfying to hear your fellow classmates singing your words? Oh, it was great. I felt so affirmed because I wasn't in with like the basketball crowd, even though I was what was called a booster, not a cheerleader, but somebody just kind of screamed loud and got to wear like a special jacket with the team's name on it. but I didn't really know the guys and they were like the cool guys in school

so a couple of those guys singing a lyric that I'd written that was like, wow. I mean, so towards the end of high school did you feel like, oh, I could go down this road? This could be a job or this could be a career that I want. Being a lyricist? Yeah. Absolutely not. No.

No. I don't know if I was thinking as deeply about it. I was a high school kid reading, you know, existentialist essays and novels. But I don't know how, much I was really comprehending all of the subtext but you were enjoying it yeah

from there where did you want to go well initially I wanted to be a writer but I got disabused of that pretty early on in college and your freshman year yeah one of the teachers read one of my essays some of it out loud and said you know and he wrote on my paper like you have the ability to

really like break up language you know and do something new and then the other teacher assigned us, like, just like, write me a story. And I was used to, like, having an assignment. Being told what to do. Yeah, like, write an essay about this or a story about that. And I said to him, like, I don't know what to write about.

And he said to me, well, write a love story. And I thought, well, that sounds really condescending. I doubt he'd say that to one of the male students. And I wasn't, like, reading love stories or romance stories or anything. So I just felt kind of lost and realized, I don't think I'm a writer. Even then you knew you needed an assignment. Well, yeah, that's the nice thing about interviewing, is that, like, you're helping to tell a story, but you don't have to actually write it. Because writing, I don't know about you.

Do you find writing easy? I don't. With a Dorothy Parker who said, I hate writing. I love having written. That's about how I feel. I only love after having written if I think it's good, which I usually. I don't hold my writing in very high esteem.

I like your opening essays if I may call on that before, you know, introductions or whatever before your interviews. They're really well written. Some of them are good. I like the ones I've heard. Thank you, Terry. In 1968, you leave home for college in New Buffalo. By your sophomore year, you had already decided

to drop out and to hitchhike across the country. Decided as a strong word, Because I was really torn. Did your parents try to stop you? They definitely tried to stop me. They flew up to Buffalo. They flew up? Yeah.

They told me that basically they were going to cut me off. Do you remember that conversation? Not the details of it, but I remember it was horrible. I mean, I love my parents. You know, and although I needed to rebel against them, I didn't want to break their hearts. My father actually, at least my mother told me, because they were in Brooklyn, I was in Buffalo, my mother said, like, your father, you've made your father literally sick. He's in bed. And it was just like tearing me apart. But I felt so much like they were trying to hold on so tight that unless I kind of really cut the string for a few minutes, that I'd always be like capitulating to their idea of who I should be or who I was. And I needed the ability to change. I think one of the real

values of college, in addition to what you learn in the classroom, especially if you're privileged enough to go to out-of-town school, or if you have the desire to go to out-of-town school, not everybody does, is that you get to rewrite yourself in ways that you later realize are hilarious, but some of it was really necessary. Who did they think you should be? A good student, well-behaved, somebody who they could hold out as, you know, a good daughter who would make them happy according to their standards. And you have to keep in mind, too, there's this huge generation gap at this point. I see all these people now who are so close to their parents. And it was just the opposite with my generation and many people I knew.

And they're Eastern European. My grandparents were Eastern European immigrants, and my parents were, you know, grew up during the Depression. My father had a drop out of high school because his father died, and he had to help support the family. You know, my mother went to, like, secretarial school because that's what you did if you were a woman or a girl. You know, she certainly didn't have the money for college. my mother was like really smart, but I don't think she would have ever thought of it. And she read all the time. Yeah. And she'd go to library every week and take out a new book or two. Sometimes I'd go with her and she'd read the book. So did you feel like you had to break their heart in order to

find your own way? I didn't feel like I had to break their heart. I just felt that I had to at that point disobey them. And it wasn't even my idea to do this. I mean, to go cross country was my boyfriend's idea. I was really in a lot of ways looking forward to like settling in in this like student housing complex of garden apartments, not a dormitory. And, you know, we'd be living together next door to other of our friends. And that would have been nice to just, you know, kind of nest a little bit. But I felt like, well, it'll be an adventure and I did need to break away. Was there an underlying mission. The destination was California. That was the destination. Was it all inspired by Dennis Hopper and Easy Rider? Oh, zero percent. It's not like I didn't like the film, but I wasn't

seeing myself in that context at all. Okay. I'll paraphrase Joyce Johnson here. She was Jack Kerouac's girlfriend for a while and later became an editor and writer, a book editor and writer. And in her memoir, it was called Minor Characters. And it was about seeing the men, you know, Kerouac and Ginsburg and all those guys from the perspective of the girlfriend, the person on the margin. And she said, like, for men, the adventure was, you know, going to Mexico, driving cross country. For women, it was being the girlfriend of the guy who did that. That was the adventure. But I didn't see myself quite that way. way, but I did see myself as like, this isn't really me.

I'm more of a homebody. It's a huge decision to make for something that's not you. Yeah. This is the position I felt in, like, who am I going to choose between my boyfriend or my parents? Okay. And I'm not sure it occurred to me that I could make up my own mind. You didn't think that was a third option.

Yeah, I didn't think, like, what do I really want? Screw what they want. What do I want? You know, so I really, I'm not proud to say that. What are you not proud to say? That I wasn't thinking for myself on making the decision. I was thinking, like, which are these two sides am I going to choose? As opposed to what do I really want in my life?

Do I really want to do that? I was enjoying college. It seems to me that you're, it sounds like you're blaming yourself a little bit. Like it's some kind of personal failure that you didn't know that there was a third option. I think I wasn't quite a feminist yet. And I wasn't quite rewriting the rules of the game in my mind. And thinking about what does equality mean? What does independent mean?

What do I really want out of life? It was after that trip that I really started reading a lot of feminist literature and going to a consciousness-raising group and all of that. Speaking of trips, when you took LSD, you brought a pen and paper to accompany you on this trip. And you said that I had a subject in mind. Did I say I had a subject in mind? You said, I'm going to have a subject. What was subject?

The trip. The trip itself. Yeah, I think I thought I'd write about that. Okay, and you thought that would open up your writerly... Doors of perception. And did it? Well, it opened up my perception for sure. Sure. But the whole idea of writing about it seemed absurd. Because the whole idea, to me, of the experience was the experience. Because when you're writing, you're standing apart from the experience and describing it as opposed to fully experiencing it. And to me, this is about like, that's ridiculous. Get rid of the pen and paper. Just experience this, live this.

Where were you when you did it? Central Park. Oh, my God. Not for the whole time. Right. You were walking around, I assume. Sitting, walking, riding. No, just kidding.

My last question about this period. You went to Woodstock. Oh, yes. You seem exasperated me bringing this up. No, no, no. It was a mixed experience. How come? Do you ever see the movie Weekend, the Gendar movie Weekend?

Yes, I have. It reminded me of a scene from Weekend, a kind of nightmare scene. And then when we got there, it's just like I was so crowded. And having to use those really filthy Johnny on the spots, it was so unpleasant. Is that a porta potty? Yeah, like a porta potty kind of thing. They're called Johnny on the Spots? Well, some of them are.

It sounds like a band that could have been playing Woodstock. Yes. But, you know, I enjoyed the music. And I was glad I went. It was an exciting experience. Is there a performance that you still? when you think back on the time, you go, God, that was amazing, I was there.

Because I've seen the movie, I'm sometimes not sure who I saw and who I saw in the movie. Yes, of course. But I think Slice Stone. I think I really saw it. That's amazing. By the end of the trip,

you once told Philadelphia magazine back in 1992 that you felt very much like a voyeur. I felt like everybody had a life and I didn't. This was nice traveling cross country. Right. What did you mean by that? Along the way,

but especially in California, we were mostly crashing in people's houses. And everybody had a thing that they were doing. Like they were an artist or they were devoted to something, gardening, or something that had a passion. Single-minded. Yeah, and they had a passion that they did well and that gave their life, like meaning and purpose.

The way you sort of were in high school as a lyricist. Yeah, and just as a story. student, you know, and having friends and all that. And I didn't feel like I had that, especially since I'd already decided I wasn't a writer. So seeing all these people, like, I wanted that in my life so badly. But you didn't have it then. No. And it's not until you come back home, you finish college, and you're working a not so interesting job, typing out faculty policy menu. You could call it not interesting. No qualifier necessary.

I actually have a not-so-interesting explanation as to why I said not-so-interesting, and I won't share it here. No, share it because you do so much research. No, no, no. Well, yes, yes, yes. It's because you said everything interesting was happening outside the classroom. It was the protests. It was the music. It was the movies.

The movies, everything. And so in my framing, I had the not-so. interesting in reference to, this is why it's not so interesting. Oh, I see. Okay. Yeah, I got it. See, everything was, I don't know if you know this, Terry. In interviews, we like to stack things up together. No, absolutely. Definitely. Definitely. And I edit things in my mind as I'm doing the internet. Do you do that? Oh, my gosh, constantly. I've been editing this whole time. Oh, okay. It's distracting, but you got to do it. It's very annoying. But you have to. Why? Why can't I just be here with you? Well, well, you are here with me. And you're very much in the

moment. I'm trying. But there's a part of your brain that's editing and it needs to because say you want to edit out what we just said. I think now that we're talking about editing in this kind of metatextual way, I think we may keep it in. Well, that's the thing. So you'd have to edit out what I'm saying right now if you edited out the thing

before, which is why you have to edit and you, like you have to decide right now, like, do I think I'm going to leave that in or not? I'm going to leave it in. Okay. Because there's a teachable moment. Between, I think, the best to ever do it and someone who's learned a great deal from that person. Oh, I appreciate that. So tell me, at your terribly boring job, writing faculty policy manuals for Buffalo State College.

Yeah. Was it on the job while you were listening to the radio that you first discovered the power of the medium? That was the good part of the job. Two good parts of the job. One was the donut in the morning that they had a box of donuts. I was eating that back then. But the really, really good part was listening to WBFO, which was this extraordinary NPR affiliate on the campus.

There were maybe five paid people and maybe 100 volunteers. The show I used to listen to in the afternoon was called This Is Radio. And that was the show that Fresh Air was initially modeled. on. And I loved all the music that Wally Gaeffsky, who was hosting at the time, played, because it was a mix of jazz and blues and rock and folk. And it was just great. And I also realize, like, when you're doing something that isn't really engaging your mind, how wonderful it is to have something to listen to that your eyes aren't required for. But you can feed yourself on it. It keeps you emotionally and mentally fed. So the way I actually got into radio was not by listening

because I never dreamed that I could do that. But at this point, I was kind of fishing around to like, what am I going to do next? I still don't have the passion, the work kind of passion. You wanted to be one of those people you met on your road trip. Yeah, like to have the passion that they had. And coincidentally, one of the women who I live with, because we were living in a group situation, couple, single person. And she was going to be on the feminist show on WBFO, the station that I was listening to. So she's going to be on the feminist show. So all the women in our house kind of gathered around the radio to listen. And she really surprised us. She came out on the show, which wouldn't have been a big deal, but she hadn't told us yet,

her roommates. So when she came home, we had a long talk. And she said, that her girlfriend was going to move from the feminist show to the lesbian feminist show. And suddenly there was an opening on the feminist show. And I'm not the kind of person who, at least back then, I wasn't the kind of person who would go and say, hey, can I work on your show? I have no experience. I've never done this. I don't know anything, but I'd love to work on the show. But now that there was an opening, and of course there was no money being paid, so they could only get volunteers. I had my roommate's name, and I had a recommendation.

She gave me the number of somebody to call. And I said, well, why don't you come and do an audition? And I did. Why do you think your roommate was more inclined to come out on the air than in the comfort of the apartment you shared together? Yes, I've asked myself that. And I think perhaps for her, it was kind of like sharing something that's almost like a little bit of a secret with the person next to you on the airplane because

you know you're not going to see them again and you don't know who they are, they don't know who you are. I think it might have not occurred to her that we'd all be listening, that this really was a very public thing. So that's my only guess. I don't know. Maybe doing it publicly enabled her to do it personally. I can't read her mind, so I don't really know. And I never asked her. but I'm so grateful to her I mean if that hadn't happened who knows what I would be doing now it would probably not be radio

that seemed like one of those moments that change your course serendipity as you begin working in radio and then come to Philadelphia to work on fresh air did something about the fact that she did share it on the air

and not in the apartment and form the way you thought about the power of the medium, like, oh, this can be a space in which people share things that they do not share in their day to day. Yes. Mm-hmm. I speculated about the reason why, but I'll never really know. Tom Boswell, who was, was or is still a sports writer, one said that he thought that sometimes people felt more comfortable talking to like a professional. You know what I mean? And so, like, if you're, you know, you're talking to an interviewer like they're a professional, not in the way that a psychologist or a psychiatrist is, but you feel comfortable placing yourself in their hands.

I don't know if that's true because I think a lot of interviewers are, especially in a part of the personality press, are very prying and that people don't trust themselves and build the big shields around themselves. After the break, more from Terry Gross. Did you feel like a professional when you started a professional when you started your show? I wasn't. Yeah, I had no idea what I was doing. You know what I did at first? I was just writing term papers. My first two shows was like women in the blues. And my other first show was about women's clothes. Like, why were there bras and girdles, like restrictive undergarments, long trains on skirts and stuff? And so I didn't know anybody who knew about that stuff. So I went to the library and did research and read my paper. It was like,

like the worst radio you can imagine. We actually have a clip from that. Do you want to put it in here? I'm kidding. There's no clip. Oh, thank God. You terrified me. I appreciate that you think I could find that one.

Well, you do so much research, if anybody could, you would. In your Proust questionnaire, you wrote, who would I be, where would I be, without the year of 1978? What happened in 1978? I'll take it chronologically. Danny Miller, our executive producer, who was a senior at Temple University, became an intern on fresh air.

I had been doing the show myself, three hours a day, five days a week. It was still a local show. And when Danny came, suddenly the show was, it was fun. You know, I had like a partner. and we shared very similar taste in music and movies and comedy. So instead of this like enormous lift every day, suddenly it was fun and he booked guests

and he lived just a couple of blocks away. So I remember once there was like a blizzard and he just ran and got some comedy records and brought them over because no one was going to get to the station to be a guest. It was good. And then the second thing that happened was that I had been told one of my good friends worked at the campus record store on the Penn campus, which is just a few blocks away from the radio station. And I knew from my friend that Francis had a huge record collection, including a lot of out-up print records. So I had dinner with Francis, talked about the possibility of him doing a feature, he did an audition tape. It was incredibly well written.

like I wasn't expecting that and he became a contributor to the show and then we started seeing each other and that's how our relationship began then Bill Seamering came and Bill was basically the creator of all things considered the show that you used to host yes exactly the show that I used to host

in David Mamet's mine just to be clear that it was all in David Mamet's mind so yes so Bill Seamring was, I think, the first vice president for programming at NPR. And he'd also been a former general manager at WBFO in Buffalo. So he became the station manager in Philly. And he is just like such a wonderful person and such an ear for radio and so creative in his thinking about radio. So those were three things. And it's because of Bill that we became a national show. He told NPR

we were worthy. Did you first fall in love with Francis, or did you first fall in love with Francis's writing? It's hard to say, because they were, it was, I already liked Francis. I wouldn't say I had fallen in love with him yet, but his writing amazed me, and his writing is who he was. So, how do you mean? That was his passion, and we were talking about having a passion. He wasn't really writing much at the time. He was working at the listening booth. Yes, that was. and that was a record store, but he was listening to music constantly. It's hard to describe music. He could really do it. Plus, he knew all of the history behind it. And I did encourage him to write after that. You know, he started writing for a cadence magazine in which, like, you don't

really get paid, but you get a platform. And he might have just started doing that himself, but I encouraged him to write, and he started writing for them. And then he started writing for the inquire freelance. But he started developing a portfolio and really learning how to write a review for a newspaper. Thinking about the two of you living these parallel lives together, him becoming a writer, you working tirelessly to make this show. Because as I said earlier, we're talking around the 50th anniversary. There's over 15,000 interviews. And I thought we could talk about some of them together. Great. So with the help of Bill Seamering, the show became national in 1985. It was weekly national, and in 87, it became daily national. Right. The first clip I want to play

is from 1986, where you're talking to author Kurt Vonnegut about writing and censorship. At the time, some of his catalog, including Slaughterhouse Five, was being taken out of schools across the country. And here, you're asking him about what sections of his books have created so much unrest in certain pockets of America.

Can you describe some of the passages in your book that passages that are responsible for them being banned? No, and neither can the book banners as they customarily haven't read them. And these are nice people.

They're usually not very well educated. They have kids. They want to help the community in some way. They run for the school committee. And so suddenly, for the first time in their lives, they are dealing with books since high school or whatever. And so they are over their heads. But there are organizations which will give them lists of bad books,

which they don't even have to read. Are these books on your shelves? I think what's new is not the censorship, but the opposition to censorship is I think for 200 years, people have been perfectly free to censor school libraries, public libraries, nobody's opposed them, and what is new is that suddenly they're being opposed to. The eerie timeliness of that. Yes. The cyclical nature of his words in that battle around censorship. When he left that interview, a producer at the time said that he walked out and he said, wow, she's really amazing. That's one of the best interviews I've ever done.

Oh, I don't remember that at all. Well, no, I wasn't told to you. It was told to a colleague. But it strikes me as like, wow, the moment the show went national, there were already people seeing and hearing the kinds of interviews you were doing and the kinds of work that you were trying to make. I'm curious, how did you and your EP, Danny Miller, how are you reimagining the show when it went to four times a week, five times a week? Well, we needed to get on to stations, because if you're not being carried, you're not going to last. You need a certain amount of stations to carry you.

So we had to come up with a format that was format friendly for stations. So instead of being like long-form interviews like an hour long, Often what we did, very often what we did, we divided the show into segments so that stations could cut away and have like IDs and weather updates at regularly scheduled times. And so the format was the first half hour would be one interview, then there'd be a seven-minute music review, an 11-minute interview that was highly edited, and that would be long distance, and then a four-minute book, movie, or music review. And we got some hate mail from Philly thinking, like, you sold out to the suits, you know, because, like, where's the fresh air that I knew that was, like, more long form? Now it's so, like, chopped up. We got one letter saying, spring arrived and fresh air died.

Because we premiered nationally daily on May 11th. And it's good you're still holding on to that piece of mail. Yeah, yeah, yeah, in my mind. Did you like the change of direction the show was going in? I didn't like the format when the first half hour was live as it was for the first few months that we went national because I just saw every second ticking away and thinking that answer was really long. I've been robbed of like four minutes and I'm not going to be able to get in the question I wanted to ask even more. And instead of radiating some sense of calm, I think I was just getting more and more anxious. It's like, don't you know the time that you just wasted? You know, this is in real time.

I guess what I'm trying to get at is there were plenty of interview shows in the mid-80s, and it was becoming an emergent form and a very popular form. What did you want to do in that format that you felt like others were not doing? I don't think I thought about it that way. I thought I'm just going to do the best I can. And tell me what the best you can look like. Well, my approach to interviewing tends to be when it's like in the arts of any sort, pop culture, music, to try to find the connection between somebody's life and their sensibility. Like, you know, some people are born with a gift, but the gift is shaped by their upbringing, their parents, the world around them, you know, if they were poor, if they were rich, if they were sick, if they were well.

And that shapes the stories that you tell, it shapes the things that you were exposed to, and your gift. kind of forms around that. So what created the person whose work we love? And who is that person? Do you think one of the reasons you're especially attuned to doing the kinds of interviews that you do is because you were an English major? I think that is very connected. In two ways. I always loved reading and books. So, you know, talking to authors was a joy. I mean, like, I don't have to join a book club. I get to talk to the writer. That's the thing I liked about English class. It's that you. You've got to talk to people who had just read the book onto a teacher who'd probably, like, taught it 100 times. But I think as an English major, you learn to read between the lines.

You learn what makes a good sentence, even if you can't write one yourself. You learn a lot about language and what makes something interesting. There's a boring way and an interesting way to tell a story, and you learn the difference. You get exposed to new words. I also always love movies and music, so finding out who the people were, how that was created, all of that. I loved it. One of the writers who did it very well, and who came on your show very often, was John Updike. Yes. And I want to play a clip from the first time you had him on in 1987. I believe it was.

A writer's job is to, by way of fiction, somehow describe the way we live. And to me, this seems an important task, very worth doing. And I think also to the reading public, it seems, even though they might not articulate it, it seemed to them, something worth doing also. In a way, what you are doing is you're giving, Pascal said this somewhere, you're giving back people themselves. You are, by describing as best you can, the fantasies of your own life, you are showing other people what their lives are like. and in a way you are giving people life, you are clarifying their life for them. So this is not an insignificant task, is it?

No, that's a great way of looking at it, too. Well said, John Ophdike. He spoke in paragraphs. He did. He literally spoke in paragraphs. He spoke as he wrote. That's exactly right. I loved his writing. Oh, well, I love his writing.

I don't have to put it. He's not here anymore, but just books are. I love his writing. The way he's describing the utility of writing, the job of the writer. Clarifying, giving people their lives. Do you see the function of fresh air in similar terms? Only in the sense that I think you can find yourself in other people's stories, true stories, as well as in their art. It can be very affirming to hear somebody's story and say, like, I'm not the only person in the world who felt this.

Or like, I've always felt it. I couldn't express it, but that person put it perfectly, which is often how I felt about uptake and his right. writing. Do you still get that from interviews, for yourself? Yeah, my life is not perfectly clarified. And, you know, my life keeps changing. As you go through different stages of your life, your needs, your body, your interests, your future, your present, they all keep changing. And there's different things you want to read at different stages of your life that you find, you know, sustaining in some way. You said the So many things here No but it's interesting

I'm seeing myself reflected in you What I mean by I don't mean I don't mean you're borrowing from me I mean like sometimes in the middle of an interview I even say this to my guest Sometimes I say to them Just as you just did to me Just give me a minute

I don't know what I want to ask you yet I just need to think about What direction I want to head in On making the show you've said in the past It's like you're slowly Being changed every day by doing this job. And as we talk about the highlights of the show,

I want to talk about some of the moments where you had your own David Mamet walkouts. Yes. I mentioned Bill O'Reilly earlier, Lou Reed, Faye Dunaway, but there's one in 1999 that has really stayed with me. And it was with Monica Lewinsky.

And at the beginning of the episode, you said, I had a really ambivalent reaction when asked whether I should do the inner interview. Yeah, we've gotten called by the publicist. Yes. And you said, in asking about her relationship with former President Clinton, would I be a good journalist or a voyeur? And there's that word voyer again. But in this case, it was literally about sex. Yes, in this case it was. And there's a section before she walks out that I thought we could hear together. Sure. Monica Lewinsky is my guest. And as you know, she has a new book called Monica's story. Let's talk a little bit about what

you believe the relationship with President Clinton was about. You've described the president as your sexual soulmate. And yet he had told you that he had had hundreds of affairs before he was 40, but after he was 40, he'd made a concerted effort to be faithful. Then he confessed to you that he kept a record of the days he didn't cheat on his wife. So when you hear something like that from someone, what delusions can you have about the specialness of your relationship? Well, I think, first let me just correct because please and only in fairness to him that he said he

I mean my recollection of what he had said was that he had kept a record of the days he had been good and so I think to go a step further and say that his being good was necessarily days that he didn't cheat on his wife is kind of a jump that's a little bit too much to make and it's not really fair to him or to Mrs. Clinton

and I don't I think I felt that also at the time when he sort of said hundreds of affairs that I didn't necessarily think that was literal that there were a hundred other women, but I don't know. I think for me that it was understanding and it was seeing that we had some sort of a connection and the connection started. It was a physical attraction. There was an attraction there and it developed into a lot of other things

that come from being intimate with someone not just physically but emotionally. You described in the book that the first time you engaged in oral sex he talked with a congressman on the phone about Bosnia and at the same time while that's happening you're thinking we clicked at an incredible level and reading that I just couldn't help but wonder

how he could be on the phone while this is happening and you're thinking about how incredibly well you're clicking I certainly am not going to go through and reenact for you verbally what was going on and what my feelings and emotions were at the time I think you just have to accept it face value that that's how I was feeling and that that's what was going on for me. It's an interesting piece of tape. Yeah.

How did you feel listening to it? I have very mixed feelings about having done it. I had mixed feelings before the interview, and I had mixed feelings after the interview. And I wrote at the end of the – because she walked out. She walked out after I asked a more explicit question, which was after the oral sex question, that's when she walked out, you know, saying the questions were too intimate. They were. This is not a question.

I don't usually ask people about having oral sex with somebody, but it was in her book. book. And reading her book, I felt like, how can I not ask about this? And I don't know if her book was ghostwritten and I don't know when a book is ghost written. I'm never really sure how carefully the, you know, the author, you know, the subject has actually read it. You had this problem with Nancy Reagan. Yeah. But I felt like I had to ask. I didn't feel good about it. But at the same time, I was told afterwards that she was led to believe that the interview would be about recent trips she had taken and about writing the book and all that, not really anything so specific about the affair with Clinton. And she ended her tour after this interview. She didn't

just walk out on me. Like, that was the end of the tour. You put an end to it. Well, yeah, it's not what I wanted to do. I didn't, I don't want to hurt her. when the interview was over and I later wrote the back announce to the interview I said she wasn't comfortable with the question I wasn't comfortable asking it and this seemed like her walking out

seemed like a fitting end to an interview in which the interviewee was uncomfortable and so was the interviewer do you think you heard her? I know I did and I'm really sorry about it I've never apologized to her in person

but I'll stand by the fact that I asked the question, like, in that moment, I will stand by having asked her that. But trying to imagine what she was going through at the time. And like, so why did she even write a book? I imagine she wrote the book because there was probably a lot of legal fees. She probably got a really nice contract. Why did you go on a tour and be interviewed? That was probably part of the contract that she'd have to sell the book.

Right. I can't imagine what it was like to go through what she went through. You know, and now I think she's like really, managed to turn the worst thing that happened in her life into something that's really productive and useful for other people, trying to help women who have been trolled. Because there was no such thing as trolling yet. There wasn't an internet, but she was really just dragged through the mud in every way imaginable. Whatever level of responsibility one thinks she should take for what happened, it's still, I can't think of anything more

horrible, experiencing what she did in the aftermath. I'll tell you that I had not heard that tape until preparing for this episode. And two things stood out to me. One, the show, as you've said many times, reflects culture. It doesn't create culture. It reflects culture. I think what that also means is it also reflects the cultural and moral values of the moment. And I think at that time, interview was very much in line with how she was interviewed in other places. But it struck me as like, given what we have gone through in the intervening 26 years, would you have done that interview like that now? I'm not sure I would have done the interview and I wasn't sure I should have done it then. But reading the book, it seems so delusional to me. But that's through the

lens of who I am and she was she was young and obviously didn't seem delusional to her then I felt like I had to ask it it's not the only thing I asked and I had other things I would have asked but I just it really stood out to me and you know I think maybe what I'm trying to get at is when I hear that tape it doesn't sound like the woman who started her radio program on woman power right but at the same time like I said the culture, like you said, the culture was different then. And I felt a responsibility as a journalist to, you know, address something in the book, you know, because everything had already happened. And she's still insisting at that point that there were sexual soulmates and

they clicked at an incredible level. Like, look at how she's evolved. So I think we were both living in a different time. Yes. I don't think she would have written that if she was writing it today. The whole language was different. I'm not saying that to excuse myself. But like I said, as a journalist, I'm willing to still justify that if she was able to write that, that I'm able to ask about it. I think actually hearing that and hearing you talk about it is a good reminder to everyone how much not only we change, but the culture changes and how two people with pretty good intentions, you know, can hear and mishear and not reach each other. It's good and it's okay that people change. Oh, it's definitely good that people change. And we ought to be tolerant of that.

Oh, yeah, you mean in terms of cancellation. I think so. I mean, the amount of guests you've had of people whose careers are, we're basically asked to ignore now. You had Louis on many times. Louis C.K. came on. Yes, and I loved our interviews. I felt so bad. that this person who I'd come to admire and enjoy so much had done something so thoughtless and harmful. In the case of Louie, or even Monica, for that matter, how do you think about the limits of the autobiographical interview? Oh, I think there are limits.

That's what I was trying to get at earlier. I think that autobiographical interviews are really helpful. We see ourselves in them. We learn about people who aren't like ourselves, and it opens up our understanding of different cultures or countries or religions, whatever. But at the same time, I think there's a lot that's left out. There's a lot of fiction. The example I always like to use is, you know, in addition to Louis C.K.

I once had, like, years ago, probably in the late 80s, a poet who seemed like a really sensitive poet to me. and who seemed like nervous being on the air. I was trying to be really, like, gentle with him because I don't think he was used to being interviewed that much. And I later found out that he was accused of sexual harassment of his students. And I don't know if it was, like, assault, a harassment. The language was, like, less precise then. But I felt really bad.

And then he came out with a book that was, I forget what the title was, but it was all about his sexual obsession. And I thought, oh, I thought I knew something about this guy. I knew nothing. And that there's so much you do not know about the person you're interviewing, no matter how forthcoming they may seem. You don't know what's happening underneath all that. And I don't elude myself about that.

No matter how much research you do. Yes, because, you know, if you're hiding something, you're hiding it from everybody else is interviewing you too. Oftentimes, as people are hiding it from themselves, even. Well, that's true, too, yeah. When people have asked you, what is your goal in an interview? What do you want to get at? You said, I want to talk to people about the time they were struck by lightning,

when their lives are irrevocably changed. You mentioned this earlier about needing different books for different times and how you have changed, having done this show, and committed so much of your life to making this show. And in looking through your body or work, there's one episode, one conversation that immediately comes to mind when I read that quote. And that's with the writer Joan Didion. You spoke with her in 2006 around the release of her book, The Year of Magical Thinking, which was published shortly after her husband, the writer John Gregory Dunn, passed away. Can we play a clip from that?

Oh, sure. I want to quote something you write in your memoir, The Year. of magical thinking. You write, marriage is memory. Marriage is time. Marriage is not only time, it is also paradoxically the denial of time. For 40 years, I saw myself through John's eyes. I did not age. This year, for the first time since I was 29, I saw myself through the eyes of others. This year, for the first time since I was 29, I realized that my image of myself was of someone significantly younger. Right. As writers, you both worked at home and you were with each other, all the time. Did you have a sense of who you were outside of the marriage, who you were

as a single Joan Didion, as opposed to Joan Didion and John Gregory Dunn as a unit? Not really, no. The family was my unit. It was kind of the way I, that was actually the way I wanted it. So, no, I had, so it was kind of necessary. to find my, you know, to refine myself. I hadn't particularly liked being single. When you were younger, you mean? When I was younger. Were there parts of yourself that you kind of relied on him to do?

I mean, you know what I mean? All parts. I mean, people often said that he finished sentences for me. Well, he did. which meant that I, I mean, I just relied on him. He was between me and the world. He not only answered the telephone, he finished my sentences. He was the baffle between me and the world at large.

She was really good. And in the middle of the episode, one of our producers came and with something from the wire service that saying that she just won the National Book Award. So I broke the news to her. I heard. Yeah. That was amazing.

I hadn't listened to that episode before. And in discovering it, I, of course, could not help but think about you and the year you have had. Where does that tape land with you? Hearing yourself read those words from her incredible book. Well, I think her relationship with her husband was really different than mine. But I'll tell you, when I read her book, it was for the interview because the book was just coming out. And I found the book impossible to put down and impossible to read. Impossible to put down because it's so well written and it's so emotional and impossible to read because it's so painful.

And I just kept thinking, what if this happened to Francis? What if Francis suddenly died? I can't imagine anything worse. How do you endure that? but my experience in hers were really different. First of all, Francis was not my protection from the world and answering the phone for me and all of that. Your baffle?

Yeah, no, it was nothing like that at all. I mean, I was the person who drove. He didn't know how to drive. You know, there was all kinds of things where I was the one who had to do it. But he had a long illness. He was sick for like four and a half years. The COPD and Parkinson's?

Yeah. And he had major surgery in 2020 that wasn't related to either of those things. In the pandemic. And then the pandemic. When he was in a skilled nursing facility for rehab after the hospitalization, I wasn't allowed in it

because they weren't allowing visitors in. And in the hospital, it was really scary, too. I was able to visit him, but there was no vaccine, there was no medication, there's no anything for COVID. Another real big difference between what Joan Didion experienced and what I experienced is that when her husband died, she kept all the clothing and everything. Because the year of magical thinking is about, like, he can't really be dead, so maybe he'll come back. So she was saving his clothes.

If it stays there, then maybe he'll come out of the closet. Yeah. And for me, it was like, I don't really need his clothes. He wasn't like a special dresser. He didn't care that much about his clothes. I'm just going to keep the ones that have some kind of meaning to me, because he wore it so often that I see that robe and I see Francis. I see this shirt and I see Francis.

What I kept a lot of were his vinyl albums and his CDs. I sold a lot of them because we had a remote locker. We had a locker in the basement of where we lived. we had crates and crates on the floor. There was an archive in there. It was, we had more than your average record store did. It was like living in a combination of a used book and record store. It's kind of like there's a huge long wall of just vinyl albums and other walls of CDs.

And that's like, that's my shrine to Francis now. I have his ashes and his ashes are on one of the record shelves. So his ashes are in and urn like a little wooden box surrounded by the music that he loved. And I can think of no better place. And it's also at eye level when I have my meals so I can see him. He's surrounded by his music. It's all good. It's hard for me to talk about.

I usually don't get very far. You've gotten pretty far. You know, when you go through a long-term illness with somebody and then you have a part-time caregiver and then you have full-time caregiver and then you have 24-hour caregivers and then you're in and out of the hospital with that person and you see them just kind of slowly decline and then recover a little bit and then decline even more in never getting back to where you were before, it's a very painful thing to experience with someone. and through it all, you really kept working. Was that hard, or was it in some ways helpful? It was helpful. It was helpful to me because I don't think I would have survived if I was just home the whole time.

And I wanted to make sure that I maintained part of my life. That was important to me. And we were very lucky. We had wonderful caregivers, and our daytime caregiver, who is now a very close friend of mine, he loves music and he loves movies and he loves television and keeps up with all of that. And so he and Francis would have great talks. And Dev would, you know, he'd take him to the movies when there was something that, you know, Francis wanted to see. And either, you know, he'd be able to walk there with assistance

or even if he was in a wheelchair, our caregiver was, like, very, very strong. And we'd just, like, wheel him over the cobblestones and to get to the movie theater. And Francis also liked to be alone. He really wanted to be alone a lot of the time. And so just being alone in his office, in our home, was what he wanted. If I was there, it's not like we'd be spending all day together, you know. So I think what was hard was that I had to work in the evenings to do more research. Remember in the beginning you said that with that Marie Sundack tape, which we'll hear a little bit of at the end here, that you got to have the conversation about death with him that you didn't get to have with your parents.

Were you able to have those? I'm going to need a minute. I'm sorry. That's okay. No, it's okay. Does anyone in the control room have a tissue? Actually, I do. It's very soon for me. We can talk about something if you want there.

The answer was I never really did quite have that conversation. I think it was very hard for Francis to talk emotionally about it. It's hard for most people. I know. I know. Even though it's something you often ask And you're so good at asking about it I know I tried

You tried with him Yeah But you know there's a distance that you have With an interviewee Where you can You feel empowered to ask anything And I always tell my guess If I ask you anything too personal

Let me know and I'll move on to something else And when I'm asking something super personal That I think might be crossing a line And I'll say, this is what I, this question is what I meant when I said, if I ask you anything too personal, and you're not, you're not going to offend me if you tell me it's too personal. So I'll ask the question, feel free not to ask it, not to answer it. But I'm more cautious when asking people who I'm really close to about things like that, because, like, it's a different relationship.

Yeah. I think about this all the time. Do you really? What are your thoughts? It's hard because part of doing this with you, I knew going in that we would have to talk about this. But the other part... Do you need your touch? Yeah. I've heard you say over and over and over again that to be a sensitive interviewer, I have to be a lousy friend. And I've heard you say that in interviews for 25 years.

Yeah. And so I'm thinking about what we ask the people in our lives versus what we ask of the people over the fiber optic cable or across the table. What I meant, though, was something different. What I meant was I don't have time. I didn't then have time for friends. And I didn't mean in terms of my relationship. I didn't mean in terms of the questions that I ask friends.

I meant this solely as, like, I'm a lousy friend because if you call me in the evening, I'm not going to be able to talk to you. But to the point, there are things that we're willing to ask people on tape. Yes. The important things that we sometimes don't get around to asking people in our lives. I think for me, the violation seems worse if it's somebody who I'm very close with. Tell me what you mean by that. Because usually if I'm asking a guest about the death of a husband, like I did with Joan Diddyan, it's because she's written about it. I'm not likely to ask somebody about death if it hasn't been a subject of their work or if I don't think that they can handle it.

Ditto with sex. When I ask somebody about sex, it's because they've written about it, like Monica Lewinsky. Or John Updick Or John Updike He was great about writing about it Can I just quote you one line? So he said What is the proper etiquette

Before having sex? Do you ask if the person needs to use the bathroom first? As if you were going on a long trip together? I just think that's so great. It's amazing. He was a horny man Or at least the writing was I'd have trouble with his relationships

probably, but in terms of his ability to describe things, anyhow, it's not like I say to my parents when my parents were dying, like, I won't be offended if you don't answer this. So I'll ask the question and feel free not to answer it. That's a very professional, thoughtful. This is the part in the hospital where if you don't like my questions about dying, this is the time to say I don't like this. Yeah. So, I mean, I asked it very gently and backed off, because I can intuit, I can intuit what my parents are thinking. I can tell by the look on my husband's face, what he's thinking, whether he really wants to, you know, talk about something. And I don't, I don't need to go any further if I see the not now.

After one more break, the end of my conversation with Terry Gross. You mentioned this right at the beginning of this episode, two and a half weeks removed. You got back in this office and you got to work and you made this piece about your late husband. And I re-listened to it this morning. And it's just, it's just fucking remarkable. Oh, thank you. And one of the things that stuck out to me is how you gave so much. much space to the words and descriptions of other people. You quoted from magazine after newspaper,

and I was wondering if you did that, one, because you're a good journalist, and two, because at that point you didn't have the words yet. I don't have the words. I mean, I'm not a great writer. I think I've made that clear. And also, I'm biased. I mean, I fell in love with his writing before I fell in love with him or at the same time. And part of how I fell in love with him was his words. I don't mean, sweet talking me. I mean, just he just used words in conversation and on the page, like, just so well. And loving writing as I do, you know, made me just have very deep feelings.

And I had a lot of people come up to me and write to me afterwards. saying, like, I had no idea of all the things that he'd accomplished and how highly regarded he was. Because the truth is, jazz has become a very, you know, niche kind of music now. And most people don't listen to jazz. Even more, most people don't read jazz criticism. You know our theme music. So to me, I know what you're saying.

And I like your theme music a lot. I just don't understand, because to me it's very important. I want to quote something he wrote. In the Atlantic, he wrote a piece about Johnny Cash, someone who came on your show in the late 90s, who didn't love doing interviews but said, boy, you're really good at your job. That's what he said to you. Do you remember that? Yeah, I do. And that's the kind of thing you keep in your mind. Your husband wrote about Johnny Cash He was in his late 30s

And already had plenty of mileage on him When he was discovered by television Longer hair And the shadows and dense of middle age Brought out the character in his face Making him almost handsome The shadows and dense of middle age I love that line so much

That's one of the things I read In my tribute to him I wish I could come up with something like that I'm totally incapable of it. But you look at Johnny Cash's face and you know exactly what shadows and dense means. You know, I was thinking about the shadows and dense in relation to this third act of yours after doing 50 years of fresh air. There's been so much speculation about when and whether you would retire. Is that something you're interested in?

Not now, no. You know, there's the saying that nobody ever other deathbed says, oh, I wish I spent more time in the office. Well, I think if you're passionate about your work, which has been a kind of theme of the interview in a way, you know, of our interview, that it's not time in the office, it's doing something you're passionate about. Like, work really gives my life a focus and meaning. I find my work very meaningful. And it's not like, ah, I'm going to retire and golf. Or I'm going to retire and write the Great American novel, which I just haven't had time to write. But I know, given the time, I've got it in me.

My attitude about writing a book is like never again. This book, which is a collection of my interviews with a kind of long opening essay, I had an excellent collaborator, Margaret Moose Pick. and she did a lot of the editing of the interviews. She did most of the editing of the interviews. And yet, just like doing, like rewriting intros and writing the opening essay.

And then it was so time consuming. I can't begin to tell you. And that's with help. So this job that gives your life meaning that has given it meaning for as long as it has, for 50 years, we're living in a moment where $1.1 billion in funding for NPR and PBS, and stations across the country have been eliminated. It was voted on and passed through the Senate, in part because of Pennsylvania's own Dave McCormick, who voted in favor of this cut.

The New York Times have called the cuts a time bomb for the public media system. As someone who has given as much of their time and life to this medium as just about anyone still doing it, How are you thinking about the future of public media? I don't know what to expect. I don't know whether there will be more corporate underwriting coming through or listener support. But I know that some stations will probably go under. I know some stations might have to not be NPR members anymore because you have to pay dues to become a member of NPR if you're a station. And those dues help support NPR.

And stations pay a fee to carry our show. I don't know what to expect. I think the, I think public radio will probably survive in some form. I think the form might really change. I don't know. I'm really not the right person to predict anything. I'm not, I'm not good at that, and I don't know. I'm not concerned about predictions.

I'm more focused on the fact that you say, I have no plans of retirement. Right. As someone who's going, within the time bomb, as the New York Times called it, I want to stick it out and do this job that gives me meaning. How are you feeling day to day? Day to day, I just do my job. I don't think about the long-term future of public media day-to-day,

at least not in a consuming way. I think about it a lot, and I don't know what the future will bring. I do know. I'll just speak specifically about public radio right now. It has contributed so much to American culture and journalism. You know, there is still nothing in the audio space that's like all things considered or morning edition. Absolutely nothing. There's a zillion podcasts. None of them have reporters around the world. Maybe the BBC has a podcast. But there's nothing on the radio. Let me put it that way because all things considered in morning edition. aren't whole shows on the podcast, but there's nothing on radio like that. There's a lot of communities that are cut off culturally from a lot of what's happening. And they've, you know, a lot of those communities have really relied on public radio for their cultural news. And not, not everybody even knows how to do podcasts, you know, how to, how to access them. I meet a lot of people who don't know. So when I started in public media, when I started in public radio, it was like

1973 or four. All Things Considered was only two or three years old. No one knew what public radio was. My parents thought like this is some kind of, this must be some kind of amateurish thing because I've never heard of it. It's not going to be a serious career. You should find something else. But look at how it grew. Look at how many artists were connected to audience. through public radio shows. Look at how many shows it helped create, like our show. We could never have gone national without a very major CPB fund, the show World Cafe, same thing. It helped build W-H-Y-Y with just a local grant that enabled us to create a newsroom when Bill Searing was here. So many podcasts are inspired by public radio shows. This American Life, Serial, Long-Farm Interviews,

shows. They're outgrowth of public radio. And for years, I felt like, we have no competition. I don't mean our show. I mean like NPR shows, NPR stations. There's no, how come someone in commercial media isn't trying to copy what we do? Because it's so good and it has such a devoted audience. And now, God, there's so much competition. I feel like I've been just a couple years away from the early fruits of the corporation for public broadcasting, and here I am at the other end of it, when there is no more of that funding. And I think it's really sad and really unfortunate. Bill Moyers said that some people confuse journalism with liberalism, and I think that that's part of what's going on here, that some people with power, including

perhaps the president, see journalism that's fact-based, and they think it's liberal because they disagree with the facts. Congressman Scott Perry, who represents Pennsylvania's 10th District, says this exact thing. He says, it's a no-brainer to slash taxpayer funding of NPR and PBS. They are disinformation and propaganda outlets that only publish leftist talking points. Oh, that's simply factually, totally untrue. If you listen to the NPR news shows, they have on Democrats, they have on Republicans, they have on very conservative people, they have on arts of all kind.

It's just factually not true. And if having on people of different backgrounds, people who are black, Latino, queer, feminist, if that's a sign of wokeness, well, it's a sign of a merit. America. It's not a political position. It's a sign of representing human beings who are human beings and who live in our country and who have great contributions that they've made. As soon as it was safe to come out, we saw that so many of the artists that everybody loves are queer. And when the doors opened to black writers and filmmakers and directors, we realized There were so many talented filmmakers who just weren't given access. And we already knew that with music. There was always black music being recorded. Artists weren't necessarily being paid properly for making it.

They may have been exploited, but we still got to hear the music. Right. I don't say that in forgiveness of the exploitation. I just say that in recognition that that talent was recognized. So it's impossible to do an art show. Without what Scott Perry might think of as being woke, just by virtue of having on great artists who happen to be black or queer or Latino or feminist. And that's reflected in their work because people's lives are always reflected in their work. I think many people saw their lives reflected in the work of writer Mori Sendak.

And he came on your show many, many times. Yes. And in celebrating 50 years of fresh air in the building where it happened, where it continues to happen. I thought we could play a clip from your conversation with him in 2012. I have nothing but praise now, really, for my life. I'm not unhappy. I cry a lot because I miss people. I cry a lot because they die and I can't stop them.

They leave me. and I love them more but I have my young people here four of them who are studying and they look at me

as somebody who knows everything of four kids they only a little I know but obviously I give off

something that they trust because they're all intelligent oh God there are so many beautiful things in the world which I will have to leave when I die, but I'm ready, I'm ready, I'm ready.

Well, listen, I have to tell you something. Go ahead. You are the only person I have ever dealt with in terms of being interviewed or talking to who brings this out in me. There's something very unique and special in you, which I so trust.

When I heard that you were going to interview me as you wanted to, I was really, really pleased. Well, I'm really glad we got the chance to speak Because when I heard you had a book coming out, I thought What a good excuse To call it Maurice Sandek and have a chat Yes, that's what we always do, isn't it?

Yeah, it is It's what we've always done It is Thank God we're still around to do it Yes And almost certainly I'll go before you go So I won't have to miss you Oh, God, what is...

And I don't know whether I'll do another book or not. I might, it doesn't matter of a happy old man. But I will cry my way all the way to the grave. Well, I'm so glad you have a new book. I'm really glad we had a chance to talk. I am too. And I wish you all good things. I wish you all good things.

Live your life, live your life, live your life. I need another tissue. So many times I play him back in my head saying, live your life, live your life, live your life. Like when I get caught up in a negative thought cycle, I just, I play that. My emotions have been very close to the surface since Francis died. Is that all right?

Yeah, I mean, I should be, I mean, I should be feeling a lot. We lived our lives together for 47 years. It's okay. Why are you saying that to me? Because I feel like maybe you're uncomfortable that I'm tearing up. Oh, no, no. I'm just holding the space. Yeah.

I also want to reassure you that I'm okay. You don't have to reassure me anything. That's not what this is. Okay. Are you? Yeah, I really am. I know there's still a wound there's an absence but but I'm okay I have a life I have friends I have work that I really treasure I have people who I see every day at work who I really

care deeply about I enjoy seeing them I enjoy being in their company I enjoy relationships built around a common purpose and I have that I have that in a very profound way when you hear that tape now it has new meaning yeah and what is that I feel like I understand more

what it's like to be in the position Maurice was in where he had been sick for a while he'd been declining he couldn't travel which was why we spoke on the phone and to know death is near and to you know

to still find you know he still found beauty in the world And I love that he did. That's very meaningful to me. And I really hope that when I'm nearing death, if it doesn't come suddenly, like if I know I'm nearing it, I hope that music and movies or whatever still brings me, you know, pleasure and connection and meaning.

I know music still matter to Francis at the very end. When he says, live your life, live your life, live your life, live your life as we go, how do you, how do you want to go about living the rest of it? I'm in a day by day right now. I mean, I know I'm not going to retire now. Give me a good day. A good day? Yeah. A good day, like at work is when an interview goes well. Or just a day when, you know, I'm at the point in my life where I'm not looking for the big exclamatory kind of pleasure.

Do you know what I mean? I'm not planning on any great physical adventures. I was never a physical adventure. I was always been a physical coward. Me too? Really? Oh, 100%. And, you know, I'm not much of a traveler, kind of a home body.

But to me, I just want inner equanimity, like inner contentment. And that could just be having dinner alone or having dinner with a friend. It could be talking to somebody in an interview. It could be just working with the people I work with. It could be taking a walk by myself. It could be sitting and watching a movie. Do you know what I mean? But just to feel content and comfortable in my own body and in my mind.

and that doesn't always happen. That's what I seek. And the positive value and negative thinking? Well, that I can't turn off. I'd like to turn that off. But those times occur. And that's when I say it like, I'm okay because I still have times like that, you know.

What did your dad say about pleasure again? No one said that life is all about pleasure. And he's right, it isn't, but you shouldn't say that in a scolding way. Right. To somebody who's not exactly a hedonist, you know, if you look at me and look at my, you know, the life I've always led. I've always been, you know, on the introverted side. Studious. Yeah, exactly.

You never think, like, that woman, all she cares about is pleasure and she doesn't work. She doesn't focus. You wouldn't be saying that about me. I guess my last question for you is, for 50 years, people have listened to your interviews. They've read them in this book. And part of what happens is what Updike talked about, that they see their lives reflected back at them by hearing about other people's experiences. Do you feel that after 15,000 interviews, 50 years, that hearing other people's stories, trying to understand other people, has it helped you better understand yourself?

I think so, yeah, in the sense that it's been helpful to me to hear people talk about things that I would be embarrassed to admit to myself. And I don't mean like criminal offensive things, but just like thoughts and feelings that, you know, I tend to keep to myself because I think it would reflect badly on me or, you know, be embarrassing in some way. And so it's, it's helped me feel more comfortable within myself and also help me feel that there's value in sharing stories, even maybe mine. There's a lot of value in it. Well, I say that because I've been a very inhibited interviewee most of my life because I wanted to not only be invisible, but, but also be a bit of a blank slate.

And I feel like I've been at this long enough that maybe I can say more about myself and say it comfortably. And thank you for asking such good questions and being such a sensitive interviewer. I admire your work a lot and felt very comfortable talking to you even when I was in tears.

You said back in the day, Why don't more people do the kind of interviews that we do at NPR? And I assure you, and I know you know this, but I'll say it. So we have it on the record that there would not be one episode of Talk Easy if it weren't for you. Thank you, Sam. It means a lot to me. It means a lot to me because I admire your work a lot. And I think you're really good. I learned from the best.

Terragros, thank you for all the time and everything in between. Thank you. Can I give you a hug? Yes. You're so tall. And so, you know, and then, and then, you know, and we're going to be, and the

I'm going to be, and the, and I'm going to the, and I'm going to be, a bit of the but I'm a bit of a a bit of a,

And that's our And that's our show. If you enjoyed today's episode, be sure to share it on social media. Tag us at Talk Easy Pod. I want to give it very. special thanks this week to the team at Fresh Air and W. H.Y.Y. The incomparable Molly C.V. Nesper. Tom Grassler, Julian Hertzfeld, Al Banks, and Tina Callicay. I also want to thank Sarah Silverman, Heidi Samon, and of course, our guest today, Terry Gross. You can hear Fresh Air on NPR or wherever you're listening to this right now. If you want to watch this on video, it will be up later this week on YouTube. For more episodes, I'd recommend Ira Glass. David Remnick and Seth Myers. To hear those and more Lemonada podcasts,

listen on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you like to listen. You can also subscribe to Lemonada Premium for exclusive bonus content and add free listening. Just hit the subscribe button on Apple or head to Lemonada Premium.com. Talk Easy is produced by Caroline Reebok. Our executive producer is Janixa Bravo. Today's talk was edited by Matt Sasaki and Nick Zahn.

It was mixed. by Andrew Vastola. Our music is by Dylan Peck. Our illustrations are by Krisha Shadai. Photographs today come from Sarah Schneider with research assistants from Ben Eisen and Corey Atad. This episode is made in partnership

with the good people at Lemonada Media, and I'm Sam Fragoso. Thank you for listening to this very special episode of Talk Easy. I'll see you back here on Sunday with a brand new one. Until then, stay safe, and see you.

So long. Hey, it's Rachel Martin. I'm the host of Wildcard from NPR. For a lot of my years as a radio host, silence sort of made me nervous. That pause before an answer, because you don't know what's going on on the other side of the mic. But these days, I love it. Hmm. Ah, gosh.

Give me a minute. Yeah, yeah. Think. Listen to the Wildcard podcast only from NPR.