I'm back with two more live events from this past year to recap. For this one, I am moving away from music.
Remember in January when Conan O'Brien ousted off as host of The Tonight Show? The ugliness is now behind him and the first episode of his new show airs on TBS today (Monday, November 8th)! During his time off from television, Conan toured the country performing in the aptly named "Legally Prohibited from Being Funny On Television Tour", and I was able to go to the San Jose show.
I have been a fan of Conan for a long time, so I was so glad to see him live in person. I was only in New York once during the days of Late Night, and it just so happened to be during a the writers' strike in 2007 so there weren't any tapings. And when he moved out to L.A. for the Tonight Show, he was cancelled before I even got a chance to go.
The "Prohibited" tour was not a replication of The Tonight Show or Late Night. There were no special celebrity guests when I went (although I heard other cities had some celebs dropping in). Instead, it was all about Conan.
The show started with a video of Conan wallowing in misery after being cancelled, and then training to get in shape for the tour. After that it was live, with old pal Andy Richter again playing co-host. Conan's usual band was there (minus Max Weinberg) performing songs, and Conan performed with them for several numbers. I always knew Conan was an avid music fan, and I knew he played guitar. He performed and sang a few of songs throughout the night, and to me it seemed like that was the most fun part for him. It is something he seldom got to do on his tv shows, but he obviously loves to rock out. In between the songs Conan made light of his leaving NBC, told inside jokes for the San Jose office, and bantered with Andy.
I am glad Conan will be back on television again--I have missed getting my regular doses of humor which a mixture of silliness, self-deprecation, awkwardness and nerdy intelligence.
My friends and readers probably know that I am a huge fan of public radio (see previous posts), so you can imagine how eager I was to go to an event featuring Ira Glass of This American Life!
I really had no idea what to expect from the night. On This American Life, Ira is heard interviewing people and getting them to share their own stories. What would it be like to hear him--and see him--talking about himself?
Ira clearly anticipated this question, because the evening began as the lights went out and the audience was plunged into complete darkness. It was then that we first heard his voice--that oh-so-familiar, disembodied voice that often speaks in my head via headphones at work. It was far less jarring to start this way than if he just walked out on stage and started talking.
The night consisted of Ira telling stories that explained how he originally conceived This American Life, the elements of a good radio interview, and his belief in storytelling. He broke up his own chatting with audio clips from TAL as examples of what he was talking about. It was fascinating for a radio nerd like me. I was scribbling notes down in anticipation of one day getting a story on TAL or maybe even producing some of my own and posting them here.... I won't ramble on about everything he said, but here are a few things that stuck out:
According to Ira, one of the things that makes a story successful for the show is the element of discovery that occurs along the way. This is perhaps different than other news-style programs in which the interviewer and narrators take an authoritative position as they set out to educate and inform the audience on a particular topic. Instead, on TAL they allow you to hear how the interviewer learns, questions and is often surprised by what they hear during the course of the story. This is the key to good storytelling: a feeling of forward motion. To support his point, Ira mentioned the tales told by Scheherazade in "One Thousand and One Nights". Scheherazade saves herself by keeping the murderous king interested in a tale that keeps moving forward, hanging on cliff-hanger after cliff-hanger, night after night.
There was a time for questions from the audience at the end. When asked about what is ahead for show, his response was, "I don't have any other skills,"assuring us that there no plans for the show to end any time soon. I actually love that response from Ira. To hear him talk about creating This American Life, you realize that he was not setting out do anything other than tell stories in a way that he believed was the most entertaining and illuminating. It worked out rather well as we know--but I love stories about people who essentially invent their own careers by following their own passions. I imagine that such people are fulfilled in some way, whether they have measurable success or not, just from doing what they do.
Hey readers, think about leaving a comment, and don't forget to check back for the Part 4!
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