This American Life LIVE

Imma just come out and say it, I love This American Life, Mike would probably say I'm "gay for Ira Glass," but whatever. Radio is a great format for learning and entertainment and TAL is one of my all time favorite shows. I listen to past shows when I am at work and have now listened to every episode archived on their website. I think the reason I like the show so much, besides their ability to find really interesting stories and tell them very well, is because the show makes you feel "normal," or about as normal as one can feel in the diverse surroundings we live in. They tell stories about people down on their luck, people on the top of their game, historical accounts of the founding of our nation, fictional stories from such great authors as David Sedaris, and much more. They have a way of bringing you into the story no matter who you are and where you are.

TAL started doing a TV show on Showtime last year. On May 1st, they did something new for the show where they did a live broadcast to theaters all over the US (as explained in the video above). They showed clips from the upcoming season as well as never before seen footage and answered peoples questions. The whole show was 2 hours long and it definitely kept me entertained the whole show.

The most interesting and entertaining segment of the whole show to me was the "Talk with an Iraqi" segment. In it, an Iraqi, who goes to school in the United States but was in Baghdad during the invasion, goes and sets up a booth in different cities and towns in the south and talks with people about the Iraq War. It was a very candid and sincere look into the Iraqi war through the eyes of many American people. The commentary by the Iraqi was very insightful and put many of the comments made into a different perspective. They posted one of the more interesting clips of it on their website.

I bought the Season 1 DVD the next day and from what I have watched so far, the TV show is proving to be as thought provoking, intelligent, respectful, funny, and humbling as the radio show. If you haven't checked out the radio or TV show, you should definitely do so, you can podcast it for free. Enjoi!