Bonus: Nancy's Deep Cuts
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Hey everybody, I are here. Okay, so what you're about to hear is a bonus episode, one of 20 that we've produced and released for our This American Life Partners so far. And the life partners, if you don't know about this, are people who pay a little bit of money each month to help us keep making the show. In return, they get ad-free listening, they get this list of hundreds of greatest hits episodes right in their podcast feed, and they also get bonus episodes like this one. This is one of my favorites that we've done. It features our producer Nancy Updike and me, and we go through some stories I've done about some very personal things that have happened to me. I hope you like this, and if you do, I hope you'll choose to subscribe and hear others over at thisamericanlife.org/lifepartners. Subscribing helps us make the show. It's become an essential part of our budget, part of our plans for the future. Okay, here's the bonus episode. Hey there, life partners, Ira here with this bonus episode. For this one, I've asked my co-worker Nancy Updike, hello, hi, to come to the studio, pick a few favorite stories, and the idea of this kind of bonus episode, and we're going to be doing a bunch of these, is that one of our producers will come to the studio with some story that ran a long time ago, or we have not rerun them, or it's just that we think lots of people might not remember these particular stories or just their stories that struck the producer as being worthy of being played again. Yes, all true, and so far, you're speaking facts. Thank goodness. And Nancy, we should say that just to explain your relationship to the show, you actually, you were with the radio show at the very beginning in 1995. I was the first person you hired. That's right, you were at Fresh Air. I was at Fresh Air, yes. Do you remember doing the job interview over the phone? I was on speakerphone with you and Tory. Vaguely, Tory Mounty, of course, who we think at the end of the show helped me create the show. No, I mean, I remember the fact of it, and I remember sitting in Tory's office, I can picture it, but I don't remember any of the content. What do you remember? I remember, I've been working at Fresh Air for a year, and they couldn't hire me full time, they didn't have the money, and so I was working other jobs to get health insurance and just live in the world. And I think you asked me about Fresh Air, and did I like working there? Did I want to say there? And I said, well, they've told me that they can't make an honest woman of me, and I want the ring. I want a full time job. I totally remember this. I totally remember this. I remember there was a pause at the other end of the line, and I thought, I think I might have scandalized both of them just now, or maybe I just got the job. Yeah, I think that sold the job. I think we were into that.
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Ira Glass talks with Nancy Updike about the most personal stories they have put on the radio.