I've listened to This American Life for many years and when I saw that Ira Glass was coming to the Smith Center in Las Vegas I was excited to see his live show. I like the radio program and have listened to most of the episodes spanning its 20-year history. It used to be my favorite story-based audio program. I say “used to be" because it seems that for the past year or so, This American Life has become what seems like an agitprop sounding board for the progressive left and it’s just impossible to listen to. Anyway, I was hoping the live show would reflect the radio program of old so I purchased tickets. My wife, who is unfamiliar with the radio program, and largely apolitical, accompanied me to the show.
The live show consists of Glass, standing alone in a bright spotlight stage left, conducting various audio and video clips on a large screen to the right via hand-held electronic tablet. Essentially, it's a handful of stories from the radio program illustrated using video footage from the TAL television show. Glass interrupts the clips frequently in order to add clarification and commentary. Other than a few times where he stops and delivers a lengthy set up, or monologue, this is the extent of the show.
I am a relatively introspective person, and as I mentioned, I really like Glass' radio program, but this didn't feel like it was worthy of a live event. About 30 minutes into it, I could tell that my wife was feeling the same.
Having said that, I felt shut out when, Glass suddenly launched a ham fisted tirade aimed at the idiocy of the Trump administration. His polemic was so trite he could have summoned perpetually-provoked MSNBC star Rachel Maddow to the stage and the script would have remained exactly the same. This is not what I signed up for. Fortunately, it seemed things were going to improve when, after ten or fifteen minutes, Glass finished his anti-Trump broadside and introduced another topic.
Then, about three quarters of the way into the show, Glass picked up where he left off with his criticism of the current presidential administration, this time stepping away from the audio/video and lurching into a sort of one man meandering soliloquy, saying things like, “I don’t know, I don’t know, I just don’t understand it,” and, “it just doesn’t seem like this administration is concerned with facts,” and, “I don’t get it, I’m confused.” This rambling rant drifted from Obamacare to the “Muslim ban,” to the incoherency of the current administration’s press briefings. And every five minutes or so Glass would say, “I know, it’s Saturday night; it’s your weekend and you probably don’t want to hear this,” yet, each time he would continue to soliloquize as if he were alone, getting ready in the morning, talking to himself.
I asked my wife if she wouldn’t mind if we left. She concurred and as we were leaving, I heard a guy in one of the isles we passed say to me, “I’m right with you, bro. Come on, honey, let’s get out of here.” As we exited the hall my wife, who attends probably a dozen events at the Smith Center every year, said aloud, “Well, that was the worst show I’ve ever seen here.”
If you lean to the left, you might be happy attending this show (though you might not). If you sit anywhere else, including that gray area in the middle, you might regret wasting the time and dropping the cash on the ticket price for what I would describe as a boring, preachy progressive polemic.