Mike Birbiglia's Working It Out - 25. Ira Glass: The Highly Anticipated Return

Episode Date: December 14, 2020

Since Ira Glass was Working It Out’s inaugural guest in June 2020, listeners have frequently requested his return. This week the podcast has its first return guest and its first *second draft*. We also learn what it takes to get a story on “This American Life” and whether Mike’s new story about learning he had cancer at age 19 has what it takes. Ira gives genius notes and spares no feelings. Story nerds, gather round. It’s a must listen. Please consider donating to: https://elpasoansfightinghunger.org/

Okay, check one, two. This is the return of Ira Glass episode. He got me on speakerphone last time. And I'm going to bust him on speakerphone because he, it's 5.01 and we were supposed to talk at 5 o'clock. Big Z, let me call you back. Okay, when? Okay, bye. Bye.

All right, so that was a failed attempt. He did pick up. However, he immediately said, I will call you back. To be clear, I said when he hung up. And that is our friendship in a nutshell. Hello. Big Z? Big Z?

Hey, man. How's it going? Going good. How's it going? Going good. How's it going? You've fallen into my trap once again. You're on speakerphone. But now that you know that I'm in my studio and I'm recording my voice from my studio, you can take me off speakerphone. So that way you can get my voice at full fidelity from my recording. You know what I have to say to that, Ira?

What? Tell me something I don't know. You've learned so much, young Jedi. You know, it's been so long. You know, you did the first episode in June. And since then, I don't know if you're following the progress. We've won a Pulitzer. The Working It Out podcast has won a Pulitzer.

Did you ever win one of those? Was it your first couple of years or was it like after like a long time? And which episode won you the Pulitzer? Oh, I don't remember. I mean, I think it was just sort of like great work. I think it was like the Pulitzer for great work all around podcasts humor category, I think. Well, that's obviously a very coveted category that not everybody can win.

We also won the Peabody. Did you ever win them? We're only eight months in, Ira. So think about what we could do. We've won the Pulitzer. We've won the Peabody. We may win the Super Bowl. We've won several hot dog eating competitions.

That is just, that's an incredible string of achievements. That's, I feel, I feel, I will say, like, although everything you're saying right now is completely ridiculous, it has been fun over the last few months when you and I have talked to hear just what an actual podcaster you've become. I'm such a nerd. You and I had a phone conversation last week, and literally the content of the phone conversation was you called me up to say,

you guys did an edit of an episode, and then you accidentally left something in, and then you heard that. And then you had this moment of insight that not only could you take that part out, but you could take out another seven minutes in addition, and we discussed how satisfying it is to cut 10 minutes from a story

and I just feel like, oh my god, you have really, you're not a comedian anymore. You've left show business. Some would argue I never was, Ira. Some would argue I never was. Like, I remember when you would have little bits

on little scratches of paper and you would go to the cellar and you'd wait for your turn and sure they'd let you on stage and you'd try out material that's the past baby now you're just like in the pro tool session with jad abramrod wow um so we're returning because you were the first episode of the show. You helped sculpt the show in its formative stages. Now it's pretty well formed. We have a hello section up front, which is this. We goof around.

We get our bearings. We have the slow round, which is sort of questions from childhood, childhood memories, things like that. I got this from Mary Carr's book, Art of Memoir, which I love as a question. I don't even know if you'll answer it, but I love it as a question. What do people like most and least about you? You mean in my personal life? Yes! I love that pause.

You mean in my personal life? I'm intermittently very thoughtful. And that leads to both the most and the least. Like, I think that when I come through, I can be very helpful and considerate. And then there's all the times that I don't come through because my mind is elsewhere or I'm under deadline or I've just organized my life in a way that I'm not including the people I love enough. Yeah. And I might be just restating what you're saying, but I think that those two things are very much interrelated. Yeah. Because I would say one of the things that I like most about you is you're wildly generous

creatively. Like I was pointing out to you the other day that a line from my girlfriend's boyfriend that's the ending, which is, I don't believe in marriage. I still don't believe in marriage, but I believe in Jen and I've given up on the idea of being right. I received compliments on that line a lot. And in fact, my memory is so blurry of when you and I collaborated on that story in your office that I don't remember if that line was created by you or me. I don't remember either, but I do remember that it wasn't at the end for a while. Yes, that's true.

And we moved it to the end because it's such a good end. Like that part I do remember. And it's funny because when I hear that line, I feel like that's something that you would say in real life. Oh, that's interesting. I don't think I would have thought of that line. Yeah, so maybe I did come up with it. But there's a

lot of lines in the movies we've worked on over the years and the shows we've worked on and the pieces for This American Life that you have given me as lines that I use and you don given me as lines that I use and you don't run around going, I wrote this line. I wrote this one of Mike's lines. No, but partly that's because I just don't remember.

But also, I have to say, that's the way we make the radio show. We all feed each other lines. I mean, in a way, it's a very traditional kind of writer's room when you're writing a TV show or something. We're all giving each other lines all the time that we put into each other's scripts yeah yeah that makes sense uh oh oh actually the inverse of what we're you're saying what people like most and least about you is you're describing it as sometimes you let people down is that what you were saying you would describe it as yes I feel like I'm in a constant struggle with everybody who I love to be there as much as they want me to.

And I feel like I don't do the greatest job. I try. do the greatest job. I try. But I think that it's interrelated because I think it's because you're so generous that the expectation for generosity becomes so high that you can't actually meet up to your own standard. That might be true of you. That is so not true. No, that's my analysis of you. so one of the reasons why i asked you to come back today and you so generously were willing to come back is that a lot of people, including when Jimmy Kimmel was on, was like, I want to hear more working it out and more sort of finished products. And so I thought, well, you gave a lot of great notes on my story the first

time. So why don't I write a new draft? So I did a page one rewrite based on your notes. And to paraphrase, because people can just go back and listen to episode one, it's really easy. But the gist of your notes, and it was a really thoughtful note, the macro note was the story was intended to be a part of my YMCA pool show. And for people who don't know this, it's a story that I'm working on, a show about middle age and mortality and having a midlife crisis and thinking about death and natural causes and all this stuff. And I had cancer when I was 19. And I basically told Ira this story about having cancer when I was 19. And then at the end of the story, I say, and that was the moment when I started becoming preoccupied with death. And Ira's note in a nutshell was, you actually didn't pinpoint the moment. It was such a good note and so simple,

which is you just go, you're not is you're saying you're doing the thing, which is explaining to people the moment that you became preoccupied with death, but actually that moment is not felt or understood or lived in. Is that safe to say that's what your criticism was? It's funny. I haven't thought about this since we did that podcast. And that was months ago. And then you and I agreed that I wouldn't listen again to it to prepare for this one. So I do remember vaguely that you told that story

and that, yeah, like you'd never got to the part of the story where you said, like, okay, here's the moment where I confronted this for the first time. There was no moment with feeling in the story the way you had told it. And this is actually a thing that I'm asked a lot, even though I am not a producer on This American Life. I am only someone who's contributed stories to the show. People say, how do you get a story on This American Life? And I always say, I don't know. That's my first answer. I have no idea.

It's like the chocolate factory over there. I don't really know how it works. But that in my experience, I've noticed that you want stories that are high stakes and surprising. And yeah, I would say that that's the big thing. I think a lot of times people are pitching you stories, in my experience, friends of mine who've pitched stories where the stories haven't made it on the show, is the story's a good story, but it's either not surprising or it's not high stakes.

Right, but can I say, low stakes and surprising is just as good. That's interesting. Yeah, it's not high stakes. Right, but can I say, low stakes and surprising is just as good. That's interesting. It's funny, I was just talking to a producer today about this story we did in our first year or two, and literally this story was, there was a guy who I

interviewed, who basically he witnessed this thing where he said he was standing on a subway platform in New York and there was a man walking up to people one after another and saying something to the people and then he would just move on to the next

person. So he would walk up to somebody, stand very close, say something and then move on to the next person. And people weren't doing anything because of him doing this. They weren't reacting very much. There was very little of exchange. A good man would just walk up, say a thing, and move on to the next person.

And he was just like, what is he saying? And so I'm telling you, Mike, the stakes of this are very, very low, right? It's just a man walking up to people on the subway. Sure, sure. And as the guy gets closer, he hears that the man is saying to people okay you're in, you can stay and he'll go to the next person and be like you're out

and people wouldn't do anything they wouldn't leave and then what the interviewee noticed was as the guy got closer and closer he's like oh he's going to do me and he starts to get a little excited inside and the guy sure enough walks up to him and there's a pause and guy looks at him and says

okay you can stay and then the interview my interviewer brett he's like he's like he felt amazing even though yeah nothing happened like he like staying like like you know what i mean like like and he had no idea. This guy had no authority. He's just like simply being picked feels like a thing. And I feel like it's a really good example of a story where it's just like every detail is kind of like both is surprising in itself and pulls you forward with a question of what is going to happen and what does it mean. of what is going to happen and what does it mean. And then it goes to this nice thought at the end of like, oh, it feels very good to get picked even if there are no stakes at all.

And so the stakes can be very low as long as it's surprising. Whereas I think in comedy the rules are a little bit different actually. It's almost like the punchline to the joke. The machinery of it is so different. When you and I work on stuff, I feel so aware of the machine of what is required for a stand-up bit. There just have to be a string of pearls, and each pearl has to be so shiny. And then it has to end on a really big pearl, and then you can move on to the next bit. That's true, yeah.

It's interesting you're saying about stakes. The stakes can be low, but I think that stakes have to be high to the narrator. Oh, that's a really good point. If they're going to be low. Yeah, there's so many movies actually built around that, right? Like in the end. Even something like Stand By Me,

there's like a deadhead, but actually what it's about is their friendship. Oh my gosh. That takes my breath away as an example. That's exactly right. What are the stakes of Stand By Me? I think the stakes of Stand By Me are really about what does their friendship mean with each other.

In the end, that's the thing that's getting... I don't know. They're on this adventure to see this dead body, but it's called Stand By Me because it's really just about, like, their friendship. Okay, so I'll tell you this story. It's a rewrite of the story I told you last time. And I'll even time it just to understand sort of how long it is at this point. I haven't timed myself doing it. It's so funny you say that because literally, as you said that, I pulled out a stopwatch

because I actually can't take notes on anything without timing it because the time tells me some structural things. Yeah, I'm the same way. Okay. I've been thinking a lot about aging because I turned 42 this year. And when you're middle-aged, people use the phrase over the hill, which is a phrase I never understood until I got on the hill. And I looked around and I go, oh, there's natural causes. They're not close, but they're coming. When I was 19, I was driving home from college and I pulled over at a rest stop to pee. And there was blood in my pee. It was a very specific type of blood because the instant

it would hit the water, it would create what I can only describe as a fireworks display of blood in the toilet, which I'd never seen. It was like poof, poof, poof, as if to say, congratulations, you might have cancer. I didn't, by the way, I didn't know I had cancer, but I knew it wasn't a good sign. I got home and I was worried. And so I told my parents about the fireworks and they're concerned. And so they take me to the urologist the next morning.

My urologist just so happens to be a friend of my dad. A little piece of advice, if your dad's friend ever starts fiddling with your junk, make sure he has a degree. And even then, check out the user reviews. My urologist was actually my dad's golf buddy, which didn't make me feel like we were in a cone of silence. So anyway, my dad's golf buddy, who we'll call Dr. I'm still working on this. I have Dr. Bogeyballs.

I was trying to come up with just sort of a fun non-name. Or Dr. Mulligan, maybe. I was just trying to come up with a golf name. I like Dr. Mulligan better. So Dr. Mulligan says, take down your pants, and he gets a good look at everything,

sticks his finger in my butt for good measure, which I'm assuming is just for kicks, since the butt and penis are, according to everything I learned from middle school graffiti, entirely unrelated. For some reason, I feel the need to stop Dr. Mulligan in the middle of all this and say is it possible that the blood this is such an embarrassing story but it's like I was 19

I this is almost a direct quote I said is it possible the blood is from masturbating too much which I'm guessing if there are urological drinking games is one of the key phrases because he did not seem surprised that I was asking. It was like this is a question he gets asked 65 times a day, like with me, how people are like, what's it like to be a comedian? With him, they're like, tell me the truth.

Am I masturbating too much? And he goes, it's not that. But he says, but to be on the safe side, we're going to put you under anesthesia tomorrow morning for a cystoscopy. I go home and I spend the afternoon Googling cancer, which, by the way, I do not recommend. If you're looking for some fun searches, I would try half-court buzzer beaters or my dog can talk, but do not search for cancer.

There are one billion results, which is 10 times as many results as there are cells in one cubic centimeter of a tumor. What I'm saying is don't Google cancer. Wait, I feel like I'm learning. Keep going. It's like a math joke. It's like a math cancer joke. Math cellular something joke. Yeah.

Well, I feel like I'm just laughing. I'm getting educated. Keep going. Exactly. So that's the key thing about cancer is the sheer number and multiplication of cells that cause the tumor. And I'm sitting in my childhood bedroom reading my computer, and I'm on one site that explains that cancer is a disease caused by an uncontrolled division of abnormal cells. And I sort of think like, I don't get it. And to be clear, I get it the way I get that water is two parts hydrogen and one part oxygen,

which is to say I don't get it, but I'll drink it. And I'll definitely drink it if you add sugar and caramel-colored secret ingredients that may or may not cause cancer. So I wake up in the morning. My mom drives me to the hospital, and we say hello to Dr. Mulligan's wife, who turns out is my nurse. So apparently it's a family business, which is an interesting parallel to my own parents who, as you know, Ira, are a doctor and a nurse. Yes. You have to sympathize with the doctor and nurse couples if it just so happens they enjoy role-playing in bed. They're like, I guess I'll just keep on my work clothes.

So I get into my gown and I'm freezing. It's the winter. And I'm typically not a gown guy in the winter. If I had known it was going to be so cold, I would have brought my own gown that was more weather appropriate.

I would have brought a goose down gown. What's sad about the goose down gown, you know, is that they told the geese they were going in for feather surgery. I'm glad you're laughing at that because it's so stupid. I almost didn't say it. I'm just like, even when you got it's so stupid. I almost didn't say it. Even when you got out of the gown, I was like, where the fuck is this bit going? We're going to digress and talk about the gown?

Okay, fine. Yeah, yeah, yeah. All right. But then again, all you have to do is just get to feather surgery, which I just think it's a funny line. Okay. which I think, you know, I just think it's a funny line. Okay, so what I remember from this day is I'm freezing. The nurse puts an IV in my vein, and I slowly fall asleep, which I have to say, even in a hospital, pretty nice. So while I'm under anesthesia,

they put a scope through my penis into my bladder, which is what the procedure is. They didn't sort of improvise that. And they spot what looks like it might be a tumor. So they make an executive decision to pump me with more drugs to extend this nap. And they take out what seems to be a tumor. And I wake up and I'm so high that they don't even tell me what happened, really. I'm coming down from the drugs for a few hours, and eventually my parents drive

me home. And I'm slowly coming down, and I remember this very well. In the kitchen of my parents' house, they told me about the tumor and that the biopsy would take a few days, but that I might have cancer. My mom is generally the more cheery of the two parents, and she said, I think it's going to be okay. And my dad did not seem as optimistic. He goes, well, we don't know that. It was sort of a good cop, bad cop of cancer.

Like my mom is like, we're going to get you out of here. Maybe it's good cancer. My dad kicks the door closed and is like, I'm thinking bad cancer. But I don't know what bad cop would do. A version of bad cop. So I start crying in the kitchen, like a lot, like someone hit me in the face with a baseball bat level of crying. And my mom says, your dad is just upset. I think you're going to be okay. And I'm crying. I feel so emotionally raw that I tell them that Dr. Mulligan's wife, the nurse, Dr. Mulligan's wife, the nurse, whom I will call nurse inappropriate, said to me, Mike, when you were high, I'm going to take out nurse inappropriate because I think that that's not funny enough. I'm feeling so emotionally raw that I tell them that Dr. Mulligan's wife, who was a nurse, said to me, Mike, when you were high on the drugs from the surgery,

you thought I was your mom. And you said to me, Mom, I love you. And my dad got so mad. He said, she should not be telling you that. Not only does my dad not say I love you, but he's very discouraging of other people relaying it. So I walk back up to my bedroom and days later I'm diagnosed with a malignant tumor in my bladder, but the margins were good and they caught it early. And the doctors decided not to do chemo, and radiation. Because their gamble was that maybe it was an anomaly. And maybe it was. Because I go in every year for a cystoscopy and it hasn't come back to this very day. But as I'm arriving on top of the hill, I've discovered a new perspective of what happened to me when I was 19, which is I was lucky. Not everyone gets blood in their pee.

Blood in your pee is if you're lucky enough to have a symptom of what's going on inside your body because no one really knows what's going on inside their body at any given moment. It just as easily might not have created a fireworks display in my pee. And if there isn't a fireworks display for every event taking place inside my body, then what else is going on that is possibly preparing to attack my own body from the inside? Are there 100 million other abnormal cells in my body rapidly dividing? Abnormal cells in my body rapidly dividing. I've been thinking about that at least once a week for the last 23 years. I'm 42 years old and the cancer hasn't come back.

But that was the week I first became preoccupied with death. Okay. Yeah, that was better. So that was 11 minutes and 49 seconds, 50 seconds. And like I have line edits through it. Like just in a, is there a script I could look at as we talk about this? I don't know.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. But like. Yeah. So I guess my first question is, is does it achieve the, does it answer the question that you had about following through on the promise of explaining the moment that I started to understand my own mortality? Sort of. I feel like it's almost there, but one of the things that's strange in this

is that it seems like you have three different spots where you think it's cancer and, and really like the first two don't have much feeling. Right. And then, and then in the third one, I feel like you could feel more, if that makes sense. Sure. Like, like, like, like, like it was a little confusing, like, like you pee and then you, then you have like a cancer joke there with the fireworks display. Yeah.

And what it creates, it makes it seem like, okay, this is where you first are scared that it's cancer. You think that it's cancer. But did you think it was cancer? I mean, not that you have to stick to what happened in real life in this context, but, like, think it was, was cancer really at that point? I don't, well, it's a really good question. When there was blood in my pee, when I was driving home, this is similar to a question you asked last time. I don't think it's as much as I thought I had cancer. It's just like, when you see a symptom that's that alarming, it's hard to think

not the worst thing. You know what I mean? Like, you're just thinking like, ugh, this is bad. Like, this is really bad. I think if you keep the, I think if you think then that it's cancer,

whatever it is, the first time that you think it's cancer, it has to be a thing and then if it starts to seem like it really is cancer then you can double down on it I know what you mean, this is similar to what you said last time you were saying last time, one of the main things

is that last time I said the middle-aged over-the-hill joke, and then I said I had cancer when I was 19, which I changed. You were like, if you give away that it's cancer, you're putting the audience ahead of the story. Yeah. And so I changed it to just when I was 19, I was driving home from college. When I was 19, I was driving home from college. And I think what you're saying is that I might as well withhold, when there's blood in my pee, the feeling of that it might be cancer until maybe when I wake up from the surgery, in which case then I start to sort of ruminate on how serious it could be. Yeah. Like, there's a thing here that happens where, like, there's, like, congratulations, you might have cancer when you pee, right, which is just a line for a joke. And then when you leave the doctor the first time after talking about, like, is it because

I'm masturbating, you immediately go home and spend the afternoon Googling cancer. But again, it's like you don't feel anything. And... Yeah, yeah. I understand. I understand. Like, in other words... In a way, like, I feel like if you're gonna Google, do it fucking later. If you want to keep the Googling

jokes. No, I know. And to be clear, and Ira pointed this out in the last episode that we did, and I think it's important to point out, because it has to do with what Ira's profession is in journalism and also my profession is as a storyteller. When Ira and I work on stories that are about my life and my memories, I am very liberal with chronology of when I felt a certain thing, when, and the convenience of timeline in story. Whereas when you're telling a story journalistically, you're very strict on fact-checking. Yes. Yeah. We don't move around the timeline ever. Like, no, things happen in the exact order that they happen. Yeah. Yes.

But anyway, so I just want people to understand that as I'm working on this, which is to say that like, I was suggesting that there's three moments where I bring up realizing I might have cancer. And I think what you're suggesting is that if those consolidated all to the final moment of when I'm home, in other words, that my parents say this thing to me, I go upstairs, I'm Googling cancer for the first time, I don't even know what cancer is and I have cancer, that that moment might contain the most emotional impact

to place all of that feeling in that plot point. Yeah. I guess I'm wondering where to locate the feeling because what happens is you do the good cop, bad cop thing, and then you just say like, I'm crying and feeling raw. But somehow, like, I feel like you're describing it from the outside. I'm still not getting, like, when they say the word cancer to you, I feel like that would, you know, when they say like, it'll take days and what they're going to test is, do you have cancer?

Like, like up until this point, has the doctor told you you might have cancer? No. And that's something you pointed out last time, which is that it's not the doctor who tells me it's my parents, oddly. Yeah, that's fucked up. But also like before the procedure did you know it might did he say and what this might be is it might be cancer yeah i think that was in the air i think it was in the air yeah i think you need to choose your spot where you learn this might be

cancer and i think sure i think this is probably the best spot is they tell you you might have cancer and i think you i think you might want to build out, like right now you're saying it in a very general way. You say, I'm coming down from the drugs in the kitchen. They tell me about the tumor and the biopsy, and it's going to take a couple of days, but I might have cancer. Like right now you're not putting that

in either of their mouths, but I feel like you should figure out which one of them is saying that to you and have them say it to you. And then you should have a reaction to it. Right. Like as a piece of dialogue, as opposed to a generality of like my parents told me. Yeah. And I feel like if my dad said blank, as opposed to my parents told me the blah, blah, blah. Knowing your family, I would expect that it's your dad who gives you

that news. And then when your mom comes in all cheery it might not be that could kick off the bit about you know about like them slipping into this this good cop bad cop thing good cop bad cop role but before they do like i just think like when they bring the word cancer on stage like like you know you have a tumor like and it might be cancer, I don't know, you just have to react and say something. And do you remember, from any of your cancer experience, what you would picture? Would you picture when I I was okay this is like me

like when my when my when my Uncle Lenny went to Vietnam I was like a kid I was like six or seven and um and I just pictured him

dying all the time and then I pictured myself dying and I really would lay in bed and I would picture the entire universe going on

without me alive like okay I'm not around I'll never be conscious again but everything continues without me alive. Like, okay, I'm not around. I'll never be conscious again. But everything continues without me. And I would just lay in bed as a little kid and try to picture what that is. And I think if you had anything that you pictured or thought

as your mind tried to get yourself around the idea that it's cancer, I still kind of feel like it's just going to be like, I don't know, you just need a beat. It doesn't have to be elaborate, but if you have something... Yes, yeah. Something just came to me when I

was sort of transporting myself to that moment. The sense memory that brings me there is like the smell of carpet from my bedroom, my parents' house. But it's like, I just remember, like I've always been like a real talker. Like I'm on the phone a lot.

You and I talk on the phone a lot. And I remember that I didn't call anyone. You know, like, like, like, like, it was almost like it silenced me like the thought of death silenced me that's good i didn't call my i didn't call my friends i didn't call like kids i grew up with i didn't call anybody i just was silenced in my room and it was just sort of like, yeah, that might be it. That might be it. And it's just me saying it to myself. It's not me being like, Sarah, you're not going to believe this. You're not going to believe this, Sarah. I have cancer. Rajiv, get over here. I might have cancer.

You know what I mean? It took my breath away. I like that as being the thing. When they say to you, cancer, if you can do a beat that's like, yeah, if you do a beat of like, and it silenced me. Like in that moment and also in the days to come like yeah the main thing about me

is I don't shut up no I don't shut up and I run yeah and to process anything I call people that's a funny joke by the way the main thing about me is I don't shut up is a very funny line

but also I feel like you could say and I was silenced for days. And then you could pause and you say, obviously, I've gotten over that. In fact, witness this entire show where all I'm doing is talking about my own death. Oh, that's very funny. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I've worked. Obviously, I've worked through it. Yeah, exactly.

And here we are. That's very funny. No, and I actually have more to say about that. Because it's almost like when I speak with people, with friends and family, it is actually how I work through feelings. And I was silenced by this event because I actually thought my feelings no longer matter because I may not exist. as radical in a comedy show as it is on the radio to just stop and just like let a moment, which you've done in shows. I've heard you do, but like it's always powerful. And like, yeah, like I could picture you figuring out some way to say like, so that's what my

dad says and what I say was nothing. Nothing. In closing, how close to being a story for this American life is this story? Halfway there. Halfway there? Oh, my gosh. That's just an awful estimate.

The margins are terrible on that. Well, no, we just got a structure, but now there's like jokes to fix. Do you know what I mean? Yeah, all the work that has to be done. There's digressions to, like I feel like you can have certain digressions, but you can't have all of them.

Like either you do the goose down thing or you don't do the golf thing. Sure, sure. All that's, that's the machining of it. Yeah, that seems good. I'm up to the challenge. I know you are. But you feel like it's closer than we were last time in June. Yeah, like, yeah, it's getting closer.

Yeah, like, now I feel like I can see a thing with a beginning, yeah like yeah it's getting closer yeah like now I feel like I can see a thing with a beginning a middle and an end and jokes and feelings

do you feel like this will end up in my final show some version of this probably will yeah yeah it's funny

because the version that I was saying I said to you is somewhere between like 9 and 12 minutes I'm gonna guess that if it is in the final show, it might be about six minutes. Yeah, that seems about right to me too.

But I think that the silencing thing is quite significant because I think that that's what makes it specific. And I think that's what brings you into like what you were describing earlier, the feeling and the specific feeling as opposed to like the generic feeling of, you know, I might die or I'm crying or anything that any general way that you might describe feeling. so serious, you're silent. Like, you can use that again elsewhere in the show. And, like, if I can just remember,

like, you spend a certain amount of the show talking about swimming laps, right? Yeah. Like, the one thing you can't do when you're swimming laps is talk. And that's why you're Ira Glass. Well, no, I'm saying saying like, I just feel like... You're absolutely right, of course. It could come back when you're swimming laps.

Oh, that's phenomenal. And you're forced into silence. That's a moment that you have to sit with these thoughts. Just like in your parents' kitchen. Oh, wow. Oh, yeah. Oh, that's great. Oh, that's great. Oh, that's great. I love that.

You can't reach for your phone. You can't shoot a comment over to Jen. It's the one time in your day when literally it's impossible for you to talk. And so you have to sit there and think. To bring people up to speed, one of the structural elements of the YMCA pool show is about how I, as a kid, I went to the YMCA pool to learn how to swim. But then from childhood on, I avoided the YMCA pool actively until I was 40 years old.

And my doctor said, because of my breathing and I had type 2 diabetes, that I really should consider going back to the YMCA and swimming very seriously. And so I did. And I started regularly swimming laps. And this is what Ira's referencing. I just want to make sure people understand what we're talking about. Ira, you need to understand that when people are listening to things on the radio or on a podcast, you need to bring them up to speed

so that they understand the context of what you're talking about does that make sense yes thank you thank you for the note good note um so so yeah like like the notion yeah like i think it could be very pretty actually the notion that like for you silence um like like to bind that with your thinking about death and the fact that then you find yourself in the water swimming and it basically puts you back into that situation where you can't talk and you're thinking about like, basically you're swimming for your life anyway. Like you're swimming because the doctor told you

you need to in order to live. Yeah. You know, I should call my mom. My mom and just, I should call my mom and I should interview her about this incident in my life because she probably has so many great details. I call my mom and I should interview her about this incident in my life because she probably has so many great details. Like we went to visit her in the backyard of their house recently. And my mom said this thing that made me laugh so hard, which is in my senior year in high school, I had been avoiding my science requirement all through high school.

And so I took it as a senior and it was a class full of sophomores. And I was terrible. And in my senior spring, I was getting, I think, a C minus. And my parents were really worried that my college was going to revoke my acceptance because my grade was so bad. And so they called my teacher, Mr. Anderson, my chemistry teacher. And they said, is this going to be okay? Like, is, you know, is Mike's getting a C minus? That seems really bad. And he goes, he'll be fine. He'll be fine. He'll, he'll, he'll do okay. And on the final, he goes, um, but I really like having Mike in my class because he's so willing to go up to the board and fail he never has the right answer

wow he he's he he doesn't barely understand what we're talking about but he's willing to to try and understand it. And as a result, these younger sophomores who look up to him, because he's like a student leader and all this stuff, they're like, well, if he can fail, then I can try and fail too. And he said, he's like, it's a very positive influence on the class itself. That's really interesting. And it's also really, I feel like that's interesting to me in a couple of ways.

First of all, number one, it's kind of insulting. It's so insulting. No, it's beyond insulting. But number two, it just so reminds me of what your early comedy career was like, where you would just go on stage. By the way, Ira, early and late.

Whatever. You know, just like some, I mean, yeah, late in terms of, yeah, you go up on stage with the material, you have no idea if it's going to work, you think it's going to work,

and then some of it definitely doesn't work. I can, I've been there, I've seen it. It's trial and error. It's trial and error. I'm all about it. Yeah.

I mean, I think, and that's why I think people liked the first episode we did of the show and I get so much feedback on episode one where we tried a version of this story and then I rewrote it. I did a page one rewrite

and at the end of it, you're like, it's halfway there and it's a page one rewrite. It's not like I tweaked a couple things. It's like I reconceived it, and you're like, it's halfway there. Which, by the way, I'm saying in the most positive way. So if people are listening to this, just understand that this is how many drafts of my things that Ira and I work on before they end up being a thing.

Yeah, that doesn't seem—it's so funny. I mean, I guess I'm just—yeah. Like, it's not—that seems so not strange to me. Yeah. That we would like do, get one more kind of restructure and then you're just, and yeah, like it still has a ways to go for sure. Oh, and the one last thing is,

and you did this last time, but the last section of the show is I give to a nonprofit of your choice. So is there a nonprofit that you want to support this week? Sure. There's a food bank in El Paso that I read about that has these incredibly long lines. And they're giving out food and they say they're going to run out of money by the end of the year unless some sort of like other funding comes in. And their name, hold on.

Yeah, the one I'm talking about is the El Pasoans Fighting Hunger Food Bank. Okay, so I'm going to give to them. And thank you for, thanks for working on this story with me. That was fun. Okay. Good. So that's our episode with the great Ira Glass, Pulitzer Prize winner, multiple Peabody Award winning host and producer of This American Life, among his many other projects.

He's collaborated with me on the new one, Don't Think Twice, Sleepwalk With Me, many other things. One thing I want to tell you is we're doing more virtual shows. We have four more coming up at the end of December. So the day after Christmas, the 26th, the 27th, and the 28th. Get your tickets fast at burbigs.com because they do sell out. They've been so cool, so fun. Join us. Also, if you're enjoying the Working It Out show, give us a rating or a stars or a things where you say you like it or a user review. Wherever you're enjoying this, just say, hey, I like this. We really appreciate it. It'll help more people find our special little show.

special little show. Working It Out is produced by myself, along with Peter Salamone and Joseph Berbiglia. Consulting producer Seth Barish. Sound mix by Kate Balinski. Assistant editor Mabel Lewis. Thanks to my consigliere, Mike Berkowitz, as well as Marissa Hurwitz and Josh Upfall. Special thanks to Jack Antonoff for his music.

As always, a special thanks to my wife, the poet J. Hope Stein. Our book, The New One, is always at your local bookstore, Curbside. Perfect for the holidays! And as always, a special thanks to my daughter, Una, who created a radio fort. Hope to see everybody at the virtual shows after Christmas. And thanks most of all to you who have listened. Tell your friends, even tell your enemies,

because it's the holiday season. We're working it out. See you next time, everybody.