A Conversation w/ Gwen Macsai

Love's Cautious Climate
Thomas Marzahl - December 10, 2002 - #18

I'd like to start off the discussion by asking Gwen why she wants to come back to (public) radio - if it's more that it's because it's her first love - or whether it has something to do with a general lack of humor on the public radio airwaves. And do you hope to do a bit to change that, if editors will let you, and despite the cautious climate in the general public radio world today?

On The Way
bw - December 11, 2002 - #19

It seems though that you are almost settling for radio - like it's your second choice!! Actually - radio does have this sort of 'on the way' somewhere else (book deal a tv show or a movie option)' quality to it - is this just because of the money??

I would love to hear more about the ideas you raise in lesson #15 - lets talk about radio now and radio future... what would we hear if you had your own show???

Would That Be Chin Hair?
Gwen Macsai - December 13, 2002 - #25

The program directors tearing their hair out. I would love to do my own show, have always wanted to do it. But, given the circumstances of my present life, it would be pretty hard to pull off. What would it be? I don't really know except that I guess I would just want it to be as fun and irreverent as possible. Unfortunately, I know how much work goes into a really well done one-hour weekly show. Part talk show kinda thing, part produced goofy stuff, I don't know. I'm just thinking out loud.

As for radio now and radio future, where do we start? I still think that NPR needs to take the Ira Glass approach and seek out new talent. Hand-pick new voices and do what you have to do to train them for radio. Then, NPR should devote a small staff of non-territorial, non-competitive, un-cruel, non-news people to support, nurture and shuttle these people through the machine of the network. A "creative desk" if you will. I don't ever see that actually happening, however, it would be a small investment with huge dividends for NPR. Why does a piece about chin hair get more listener mail than news of Bosnia. Like it or not, this is the culture we live in. Things that make people laugh, just like things that make them cry ("my so called lungs," for instance), are what move people and make them not only remember the piece but love NPR for having that type of work on the air. god knows, car talk and this american life have shown us that even throwing a bone to this kind of work, let alone doing it well can even translate into DOLLARS, a language management seems to understand a little better than the point of doing a piece on the cockroaches in congress (the bugs, not the representatives, though really, what's the difference?).

Anyway, when they hire me on as a consultant for lots of moolah, I'll have my restructuring plan ready. In closing however I will say one other thing. A little patting on the back and appreciation goes a long way with creative people. Something NPR has a hard time remembering. Most companies do. This is the single biggest error in my opinion because a happy workforce is a loyal one. Of course, I haven't been in the building in like, seven years so what do I know.

Our Serious Friend
Andy Sewell - December 11, 2002 - #20

Radio, for those who have 'discovered' its soft cozy edges and specific idiosyncrasies, is a great friend. And maybe because of that one-on-one nature of Public Radio (one voice telling me things without Neon and info graphics distracting me) it leans to serious.

In any event, the humor is there, and it doesn't come from the hilarious hijinks that unfold when Phoebe forgets her own birthday. It is simply a different way to tell a story. Public Radio need not compete with television, it simply needs to keep doing what it is doing - making us smile, laugh, cry, fume, yell, cheer, and any other human reaction it elicits.

What About Gwen?
Andy Knight - December 12, 2002 - #22

What About Joan was witty, smart, and endearing. Perhaps those strengths were its biggest drawbacks. ABC certainly didn't know how to market it. It was too smart for ABC, the All 'Bout Cancellations network.

Gwen, what are you doing now?

On The Megilah
Gwen Macsai - December 13, 2002 - #23

That's what my accountant wants to know. Actually, in the interest of full disclosure, I have to say that one thing bringing me back is a CPB grant I got in '96 and never was able to initiate, due to babies, book, etc. I am now trying to re-ignite the grant. If that flies, I will be back shortly. As far as no humor on the radio, there is precious little except on the weekends in "humor" shows. As NPR gets more and more news heavy, it seems to be harder and harder to work it in. It just isn't a priority when all hell is breaking loose around the world. And, while everyone gives it a lot of lip service, the truth is that the system is not built to give editors the time nor independents the true independence it requires to do it and do it well (nothing kills a vision like too many editors or levels of approval). Having said that, I will say that I miss it. I miss the people, the buzz, the neurosis (did I just say that?) and the whole megilah. Someone once asked me to write an essay about patriotism and though it never aired, the opening line read "I think about patriotism the way I do about marriage: sometimes you say to yourself, 'this is exactly where I want to be' and other times it is all you can do not to pack your bags, walk out the door and never come back.' I think that the same can be said of working for public radio. There's nothing like it, and there's nothing like it.

The Royal Screw
Gwen Macsai - December 13, 2002 - #24

As far as I'm concerned ABC screwed us and screwed us pretty royal. I might mention here that the guys in charge of tv sitcoms for ABC were fired after our year but hey, I'm not worried about their pension fund. Long story short, I know that the show had its problems but ABC was never really behind us as I see it. They dropped all promotions after the first two or three weeks and did nothing to help us out after that. Anyway, as to what I am doing now, I guess the best answer would be, recuperating.

On Process and Pants
chelsea merz - December 17, 2002 - #26

When you make pieces, such as trying to buy an Oscar, I imagine that most of the surprise and creativity happens in the editing process. Conversely, when you write essays for the radio I imagine that the surprising moments happen while writing. What are the advantages/disadvantages to these methods?

Also, how did you adapt your radio essays for print? What liberties are there in writing for radio vs. writing for print?

And, any comments on NPR's radio drama "I'd rather eat Pants?"

On Pants, Actualities, Arteries, And Expansion
Gwen Macsai - December 18, 2002 - #27

To answer your last question first, I haven't heard "I'd rather eat pants." I have heard promos for it and maybe a few seconds so, while I often comment on things I know nothing about, I feel that to do so in a public forum would be unseemly.

As to the differences between doing pieces versus essays and where the surprises lie, to me, they both have their goods and evils. Doing a piece is in some ways easier in that you don't have to start with nothing but thin air. You are doing a piece about SOMETHING and interviewing SOMEONE. And usually it is around these people or ideas that the piece is constructed. How you construct it of course is where the creative process comes in. I always thought it would be a great assignment, if I ever teach again, to give everyone in the class the exact same tape and have them make a piece out of it, just to see how differently they would come out. Even give them the same actualities, especially in non-hard news pieces.

In making a piece, I would say that the surprises happen (for me at any rate) in the interview itself and in the logging and cutting when I log tape, I listen to everything, keeping an ear for what I could possibly want to use, then dub those, listen again to cut it down, then listen while writing. And in all that listening, sometimes the tape makes you think of something you wouldn't otherwise think of, almost as though the tape is actually suggesting something to you. You hear someone say something and it reminds you of a piece of music, or a joke, or a piece of tape you heard on the news, or your uncle. Any of this might be fun to bring into the piece and if you don't listen back to your tape a lot, this doesn't happen as much.

And then of course, many surprises always happen while you are writing (piece or essay) which is why on any given day you could sit down to write the same piece and it would come out completely differently. The disadvantage of doing a piece is that you are relying on someone else for the base of the piece and if they suck, you have to find someone else, or write rings around the tape or abandon it. Also, pieces are nice in that they get you out of your room/apt/office and out in the world as opposed to sitting in front of a computer while your arteries harden.

The best thing about an essay is that it is wide open, which is also paralyzing. The surprises are mostly in the writing however, for me, with all the campy sounds and music. Oftentimes it has happened that we don't find the exact right music until the last second and sometimes a sound FX or piece of music will suggest something be changed and it is always better to be open to all that stuff all the way through. Once the writing part is done, it is really fun to just sit there and pick music, SFX and coach people who do the voices. I'm never more relaxed than when the writing is finished.

Adapting radio for print... you get to expand a lot and include all the things you had to cut, on the other hand, you'll never be pithier than when you have to fit it all into seven minutes. In the adaptation for print, you get to go down side roads and fill out things with examples and repeat yourself endlessly. In fact I think those would be my instructions for a how-to manual.

Dignifying Humor
Daniel Costello - December 19, 2002 - #28

I think Gwen's work is funny to many people because it is relevant to their experiences. With regards to the Eat Pants marathon, how many of us are displaced Jewish fruit-store owners from New York? Some of that thing is funny, but as a whole it is torture. Five parts? And why do we care if NPR is opening a L.A. bureau? How about some real news instead of the Collectors Edition Forced Humor Grand Opening? What are they trying to tell us with the Seinfeldesque theme music?

How about working humor into regular news analysis on occasion? Aaron Freeman and John Dempsey used to have a great local show on WBEZ called Metropolis on Saturday afternoons. One of their features was called Who Dat? They played quotes from newsmakers and callers tried to identify them. Some were serious and some were funny. Each week there was one called the Daley Double, where the objective was to take a Daleyism and decipher what Hizzoner MEANT, not what he said. Very funny, and it fit smoothly with the serious bits.

Is there an institutional bias against humor because of the historical and frequently current connection to education? Do the editors or whoever think that humor is not dignified enough for public radio?

Oscarfying Humor
Gwen Macsai - December 20, 2002 - #30

If you ask me, there is an institutional bias against humor almost everywhere. Do you ever see funny movies winning Oscars? Or funny books winning Pulitzers? There is a general assumption out there that if it is funny, it is not serious (no pun intended) in that it is without meaning or depth or focus or truth. Nothing could be farther from the truth. Would you rather walk out of a movie and say, "I cried my eyes out," or "I laughed, I cried, it was the whole megilah." Give me the latter any day.

Most people respond well to humor. Or at least good humor. And when they respond, you already have an open line of communication you can use to tell them something more "serious." It's the same in writing a novel or disciplining children. Try yelling your head off, then try making them laugh and see what gets their attention.

Drek
Julia Barton - December 20, 2002 - #29

I really liked your description of TV writing, Gwen. Just curious: do you think radio would benefit from that kind of group effort? Many editors in pub radio are very good at what they do, but when it's all dependent on one person who may not have had lunch or is grumpy about some inter-office politics...the next thing you know, the life is sucked out of your writing, and you don't even know why. Or your writing lacked life in the first place, and it's still lying there after the edit. At least in TV, the thing gets thrown around a bit. And also tried out on a fake public first. Then again, most of the writing I hear on TV is drek.

Poor Bastard Child
Gwen Macsai - December 20, 2002 - #31

I wouldn't force my worst enemies, not even my worst editors, into writing en masse. Because it may be an exercise in writing together but ultimately there is one person who decides what goes in and what stays in (until they get notes from the next level of executives) and that person is likely to have a very different sensibility than the original author. While there will always be editors who don't get things, and there will always be editors who's personality is a bad match to yours (I use such restraint here), I do think that there are, in general, some things that can be done to ensure a happy healthy creative arena.

The best editors understand that 'creative' people need a comfy place to do their work (symbolically) and set about to do what they can to make sure that happens. Whether that means assigning them to the kinds of stories they like and are good at, or giving them a drawer to put their things in, or letting them work 20 hours one day and three the next, whatever. People like this are very rare. And when you find one, you will go to the ends of the earth to work with them because it is so safe and wonderful. NPR needs to find people like that to edit the creative people. Or, as I mentioned before, set up some kind of creative unit or desk so that this kind of work isn't always the poor bastard child of a slow news day that sits on the shelf until a slot opens up. But that's just me. If Mr. CEO wants my opinion, I'd be happy to provide.

Busy Rattling
Jackson - January 4, 2003 - #35

I think we're all agreed that there is not enough humor on PR (or in public broadcasting generally) and the reason, as far as I can see, is that we spend roughly a quarter of our working lives rattling tin cups.

A couple of things occur to me as I read over all this: there are people who are just funny when they open their mouths. And then there are people like W.H. Gilbert in Topsy Turvy.

Just Plain Funny
Gwen Macsai - January 5, 2003 - #37

I actually think that if Public radio hired people who were really funny to do funny pledging, the drives would be over in two days. In Chicago, Ira started doing funny pledges and I guarantee you he's one of the most popular pledgers. I definitely agree that some people are just plain funny by nature and others will never be no matter how hard they try (and by the way, degrees in funniness are in no way related to mental adjustment, in fact, just the inverse, I should know). But the problem is not that there aren't funny people, it's that no one is really there to support and nurture their talent vis a vis public radio.

Devolving Elves
Andy Knight - January 7, 2003 - #41

This conversation on the place of humor on public radio is even more interesting when compared to the devolving state of affairs over on the TAL boards regarding Sedaris's Christmas stories. It seems that nothing alienates listeners quite as quickly as comedy.

Censoring Happiness
Jay Allison - January 7, 2003 - #42

Yes, in our neighborly TAL Boards, satire is defending itself in the age-old battle against charges of racism, tastelessness, and anti-baby behavior on Christmas.

Gwen, do you have any thoughts about the relationship between humor and offensiveness? Do you rein yourself in sometimes? Have you been censored?

In your experience, was this issue of offensiveness dealt with differently in public radio and commercial TV? Would public radio be happiest if it never offended anyone, ever?

Boobs, Boogers, And A Nice-A Piece A Pie
Gwen Macsai - January 12, 2003 - #56

I had to take the word breasts out of a piece, I had to take the words 'pick your nose" out of a fading voice in reverb (ME is a family show!) When I was working, I had bouts of fighting with editors all the time and of course, I always lost.

There is definitely a connection between some humor and offensiveness. I never could listen to Andrew Dice Clay, for example, but someone out there paid his plumbers bill. There seems like there is a general line of acceptability for humor, and then people push the envelope to broaden the line of acceptability. Some of the time, it moves things forward and sometimes it's just still offensive. But the whole thing is so subjective.

As for TV, you cannot possibly get more rank than the writers in the writer's room, depending on who the head writer is... And sometimes it seeped into the script because basically there is a mindset among some writers that that's what's funny.

If public radio never offended anyone ever, it may be happier but I think its listeners would be less happy. I don't want to offend people so I feel like I stop short (so very like women) but I am so happy to hear people who do. In my own work I have stopped short of writing about something or someone if I think that it will hurt specific people if they heard it.

And remember, there are some people who would be offended by apple pie. And they have the time to write a lot of letters.

Pissing Off
Thomas Marzahl - January 8, 2003 - #48

I'm curious... what kinds of experiences have you had when suggesting humor to a given editor, be it in form of a piece, or just as a line within a piece?

Does public radio, because it takes itself so damn seriously now, not have room to push the envelope anymore? Witness some of the changes that happened post-September 11, when several stations yanked Harry Shearer's Le Show, a program that while interesting and sometimes even quite funny and off the wall, isn't exactly cutting edge.

One of the reasons that I continue to listen to Marketplace, for instance, is because that is a show that does *not* take itself (or the markets, or the corporate big- and littlewigs) too seriously. And the hosts reflect that, too.

By the way, Jay, an old news director colleague of mine once said, "if we're not pissing someone off, we're not doing our job." So, please, more risk taking, at the risk of offending, not less. There's always the off button.

Yes, To Spam!
Gwen Macsai - January 12, 2003 - #55

Talking to editors about humor is sort of like hitting your proverbial head against the proverbial wall. I have had all kinds of responses while pitching ideas and pieces. The best luck I had was when I was working for a long time with Taki Telonidis who had a rare kind of autonomy on ME. I pitched to him, he mentioned it to the exec, and we produced the entire thing and then played it for them. He was my editor and producer. Can you believe that? I feel like I'm telling my grandchildren about the great victrola, for god's sake, it's that antiquated to think that you don't have to go through a long line of hard news people.

I also had an editor who told me that if it was an old subject, like aging (the sample she used), she didn't want to hear the piece, no matter how funny it was. We then had a lengthy conversion in which I stated that who cares what a piece is about if it is written about in a new and interesting and funny way. I got nowhere. She said, "It's like when people first get to NPR and they all want to do stories on spam and Peruvian throat singing. No more spam and Peruvian throat singing!" It was a conversation I will never forget, though I would like to.

Then there was the famous ode to marriage story although I feel unable to go into the details on that one. The reason that story had a problem getting on the air on Valentine's Day, the day it was supposed to, was because (they said though I always felt it was an excuse) I'd had a piece on ME that same day that the exec didn't know about. That was good reason to bump that piece and let it sit on the shelf for over two weeks after that. At the last minute they put Dave Barry on the air on Valentine's. But of course, I have no harsh feelings whatsoever.

The Comedy Quotient
Rebecca Flowers - January 11, 2003 - #50

it really depends on the editor, but overall I think there is an unwillingness to do certain kinds of humor. Isn't that one of the reasons TAL has done so well? Now there's a TAL voice, of course, just like there's an ATC voice -- I think the "humor voice" on ME is a bit more jumbled up, for better or for worse, but they do seem willing to do a wider range of bits. I almost said "riskier" but I don't mean that. Risky in terms of the comedy quotient, maybe. But not politically risky, for sure. Also I noticed you can't make fun of public radio on public radio -- there goes a huge chunk of material for us all!

In Love With Laughter
Gwen Macsai - January 12, 2003 - #51

I'll fall in love with anyone who makes me laugh, whether they do it naturally because they just ARE funny or whether they are trying really hard and happen to be successful. Laughing to me is like the greatest aphrodisiac. At least for that moment. Romantically, I have to say, it has lead me down quite a few rocky roads but we all have our weaknesses. I reiterate here that humor and emotional balance usually have an inverse proportion to one another. I should know.

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