Ira Glass: It took me a while to realize that there was a certain kind of common denominator that there were certain stories that I gravitated towards. Most of the stories were like a return to some distant past, something that's been eating away at the person, something that has stakes. He says if you're still hanging onto something after decades and decades, there's something inherently compelling about that. The first episode where we set off is when my father Buzz and his brother Sheldon talk about what went wrong.
Jonathan Goldstein is an audio producer and the host of Heavyweight.
“I wasn’t taking myself very seriously, initially. I liked working with my friends and family because I think I was a little more comfortable with them. Then in the second season people were writing in with real problems, and they were looking at me as a kind of expert. It was terrifying to meet with these people and see the look of hopefulness in their eyes. ... I realized I need to step it up and even if I didn’t feel like an expert—an expert in an invented field that doesn’t really exist—that I’d really have to take that on with seriousness.”
Show notes:
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