This American Life: Live Broadcast to Local Theatres

You know what I love about Louisville?  (your almost-correct response: "Everything, Lou?")

Well yeah, almost everything.

But one of those things that I big time love is how much we Louisvillagers all love our public radio. Seriously, sometimes I'll be on the Twitter, and I will see a Tweet from someone I perceive to be... well, not an NPR nerd... proclaiming his bro-crush on Peter Sagal, and I'll be floored!

And yes. People stereotype you on Twitter just like they stereotype you in real life. Like the guy who puts his sunglasses "at rest" on the back of his head??  (THIS IS NEVER OKAY, PEOPLE!! NEVER!!! [confession "that guy" just walked into the coffeeshop])  He probably doesn't listen to "Stereolab," right?

That's neither here nor there.

Point being, I expect that the May 10 This American Life live broadcast at Stonybrook and at Tinseltown will probably sell out fast.  From the TAL website:

We're thrilled to announce that on Thursday, May 10th, 2012, we will perform an episode of This American Life on stage in New York City and beam it live via satellite to more than 500 movie theatres around the country! We did a show like this in 2009, and were blown away when 50,000 people came out to see it. A lot of you have asked us if we'll be doing it again.

So yeah, we're doing it again!

The show will feature stories by Ira Glass, writer David Rakoff, comic Tig Notaro and Snap Judgment host Glynn Washington, plus live music by OK Go. It'll also include things you could never do on the radio, like a new short film by Mike Birbiglia, dance by Monica Bill Barnes & Company, original animation, projected illustration and more. Plus special surprise guests.

Ira writes:

I saw this amazing dance performance by Monica Bill Barnes' company, and I thought - that is totally in the style of our radio show. But obviously you can't have dance on the radio. Then I realized, we have to do another cinema event! We've built this lineup of stories mixed with super visual things, including the dancers I saw, so it's going to feel like the radio show but also totally unlike anything we've done before. I really can't wait to see how it turns out.

Live on Thursday, May 10th at 8:00pm ET/7:00pm CT (tape delayed to 7:00pm MT/ 8:00pm PT).

Love This City: Me & the Mean Reds

Confession: I have been in unholy funk lately.


Back when I was in high school, my favorite movie was Breakfast at Tiffany's. I was a really different person back then (weren't we all?). I bought the VHS tape and nearly wore it out.  But in my twenties, I just stopped watching. It lost its glow. I no longer believed that being charmingly dysfunctional was attractive and my ticket to the tunnel of love. I'd lived in New York City and visited Tiffany's, and it had not soothed my soul. In fact, Tiffany's bummed me out-- looking at $250 keychains while working three jobs to make the rent just made me resentful.  And let's face it, it's hard to get past Mickey Rooney's portrayal of Mr. Yunioshi, right?


But when I get in these funks, I think of Holly Golightly (gosh, was there ever a character name as delightful as "Holly Golightly"?). 


I don't have the blues; I have the "mean reds."


Holly Golightly: You know those days when you get the mean reds?
Paul Varjak: The mean reds. You mean like the blues?
Holly Golightly: No. The blues are because you're getting fat, and maybe it's been raining too long. You're just sad, that's all. The mean reds are horrible. Suddenly you're afraid, and you don't know what you're afraid of. Do you ever get that feeling?

Yeah, Holly. Yeah I do. 


But let me tell you something, Louisville, the one unflinchingly good thing in my life is you. You're full of interesting and exciting things to do, and you're full of people who are kind and thoughtful and lovely to be around. 


I mean, it's hard to articulate exactly why I've been in a funk. (Which is why Holly's definition of the "mean reds" really speaks to me.) Seriously, just look at how I spent my weekend:


On Friday night, Roommate and I took in Actors Theatre's production of DRACULA. I went last year, but this was Roommate's first time. It's not entirely my cup of tea, to be honest, but both of us came away wondering the same thing: why in the world do locals pay exorbitant prices for cheesy haunted houses as a build-up to Halloween, when they can go see DRACULA at Actors? I'll be honest; I'm basing my knowledge of haunted houses on the few I saw in my youth. But I remember them being pricey, cheesy, and quick. DRACULA is scary, superbly produced, and a couple of hours long. 


On Saturday, we went to the Jug Band Jubilee, which is quickly becoming my favorite annual festival. It was a gorgeous night to be on the waterfront, and I bumped into some of my best friends in the city. After the event ended, a bunch of us went over to the (I'm still calling it "new") BBC on Main Street. I am a sucker for iceberg wedge salads, and the BBC has the best one in the city-- and it's only $5.99. It has both bleu cheese and ranch dressing, and the bacon crumbles are generously portioned and really tasty (this from a woman who is totally over the whole bacon fad). THEN (yes, it was an Energizer Bunny night), a couple of us went to one of my favorite bars downtown-- Al J's in the Galt House (is that Paula Abdul on their website?). I love looking out over the river at night. And I both love and feel bad for the fish in their fishtank bar.  The drinks at Al J's are well-made and among the most reasonable I've had in a hotel bar-- around $7.50 for a Manhattan.  


And Sunday, I got to interview the subject of my upcoming article for the October issue of The Louisville Paper-- Mike Brooks. Mike's one of the co-founders of the much-lauded new theater company in town, Theatre [502]. And he's intense and smart and funny and amazingly contemplative (you'll just have to wait for my article to hear more). But this guy is, like, the opposite of the "mean reds;" this guy is the opposite of "afraid for no reason." Seriously-- and pardon my crassness here-- but you have to have huge effing balls to start a new theatre company in this economy. And he and his friends just got it done. Inspiring.


So many good things. And so many more coming up. In fact, the next few days are shaping up to be utterly brilliant. More to come on that soon.


I still have the mean reds. But they'll pass. They always do. And no matter how funked out I get, Louisville, I'm never so funked out that I forget how much I love you.

Walker's Paradise

I have always said that I live in the "best" neighborhood in the city. Not toniest. Just best. And one of the qualities of "bestness" that I rank super-high is Walkability.

The website WalkScore.com allows you to input any address-- I think anywhere-- and using Google technology the site determines what kinds of businesses and services you can walk to and then spits out your Walkability Rating. When I put in my address, my rating is a 91/100. According to the website, that means I have it better, walk-wise, than 99% of all Louisvillagers. Click here to see how they rank the neighborhoods (I live in #7).

Louisville comes out pretty good with an overall rating of #15 on the most walking-friendly cities. Click here to see which cities are MORE walkable than we are, and which ones aren't. Some of it doesn't feel very intuitive. LA is #9? Long Beach is a city? People walk in Austin? I thought they were required by law to drive Vespas.

One more reason to love Louisville!

Small Kindnesses

I'm kind of irrationally devoted to this city. Sometimes I think I'm such a huge fan of Louisville because I never intended to leave New Orleans. Sure, I had a choice. I could have stayed, but my options there were limited and lousy. And Louisville chose me. I didn't choose this place. My current meatspace employer tracked me down and literally booked my plane ticket up here without asking me first. The guy who hired me said, "Don't judge it before you see it." And he was damn right.

So sometimes I think my crazy love of this city is because it found me. And it was just the right place to go during a terrible time in my life, when I felt exiled and rootless and pessimistic.

So when people talk trash about Louisville, sometimes I bite their heads off. Sorry guys.

Everyone's entitled to their own opinion. But there are simply some empirical facts about Louisville that make this a great place to live. One of those is that we (I now count myself among you) are a city of really nice people.

I've been hibernating all weekend. Roommate is out of town, there's snow on the ground, and it's gawdawful cold (one of the few things I loathe about this city). So when I was forced to leave the house to go to Walgreen's to buy a lint brush, I was none too happy about it and decided to "reward" myself with a trip to Starbucks. (I know, I should be patronizing our locals, but folks keep giving me Starbucks gift cards, and I live on the cheap).

I stocked up on stuff at Walgreen's and went over to the Starbucks on Baxter. Roommate and I spend a good deal of time there, and we know someone who used to work there. It's pretty clear that it can be a challenging place to work for a number of reasons. High traffic, some incredibly wacky patrons-- especially in the winter-- etc.

Anyway, it was slow, so I went right up to the barrista (is there a male form of that?-- barristo?), and said-- as I always do, "How are you?" He responded, asked me how I was, and I don't remember what I said. Maybe "cold" or maybe just "fine." Then I ordered a venti Peppermint Mocha and started digging in my wallet for my gift card.

And the barrista/o said, "You know what? Because you were civil, because you're a nice person, you get a free drink."

I argued for a moment, but he waved me off. I asked him if he'd been having a particularly bad day, and he said, "No. It's just nice to have civil customers." An off-duty barrista chimed in that she agreed-- it wasn't a particularly bad day, but nice customers are always appreciated. The barristo made my drink, wished me a good evening, and sent me on my way.

And he sent me on my way feeling like eleventy million bucks. Even though I don't think I really did anything all that nice. Even though I was no more "civil" than I ever am. Even though this free Peppermint Mocha that I just finished was probably undeserved in the grand scheme of things. He made me feel terrific, a feeling that hasn't worn off in the two-plus hours since it happened.

Thank you, Starbucks Man, for the free drink. Thank you much more for making me feel awesome. And thank you double that for being an example of the kind of nice people we have in this city.

I love this place.