This American Life

I used to catch this show on NPR every so often, and there were a few things I noticed about it that I did or didn't like. I did like the fact that some of the episodes were extremely good storytelling. I didn't like the fact that most episodes were narrated either by Ira Glass himself or people who sounded exactly like Ira Glass, speaking in an irritatingly nasal, clipped, and monotonous style. Further, nearly all of the stories were accompanied by sad or depressing or foreboding instrumental music, as if all stories of American life were inevitably bummers or worse--weird bummers.

After talking with a coworker, though, about the pros and cons of This American Life, I started getting the weekly podcast on iTunes and began burning the episodes to disk to listen to on the road. I discovered David Sedaris, whom I was surprised to learn was a man, and a very funny man at that, and I listened to many shows to the point that I felt more and more guilty about listening to the episodes while traveling while not supporting the show and I finally coughed up some money to donate to their expenses. That was just before Christmas 2009, and then they ran what I considered a very cynical, elite Christmas episode and I thought WTF am I doing supporting these arseholes when they are so fricking cynical about American Life?

I guess I'm past that now, only I am not especially disappointed when they air yet another episode narrated by an irritatingly nasal, montonous Ira Glass wannabe accompanied by foreboding "The Apocalypse is near" instrumental music. I just won't feel so guilty about giving these nonvarying dopes some money to continue their simewhat dubious stories.