This is Alec Baldwin and you're listening to Here's the thing, My chance to talk with artists, policymakers and performers, to hear their stories. What inspires their creations, what decisions change their careers, what relationships influenced their work. Good stories teach us about people. Great ones alter the way we see ourselves. For many, the new podcast s Town has done just that.
The seven episode series from the folks who brought us Serial and This American Life, provides a window into the world of an eccentric Alabama horologist named John B. McLemore. Released on March, it reached critical acclaim almost instantly, garnering sixteen million downloads in the first seven days. But to focus on its commercial success would be missing the point. S Town isn't about celebrity, viral tweets, or even the alleged Alabama murder that led host and producer Brian Reid
to McLamore in the first place. The front door of the house opens and a man comes bounding out of it. I found it nice to meet you. There's no nice to meet you back, No how you do in no handshake. John just takes off around the side of the house with a pack of dogs following him. She's like the same. Next. It's about a brilliant, cynical man whose very existence challenges modern notions of masculinity, homophobia, and mental illness. A man who had a story to tell, just not the one
he thought. As the world continues to devour s Town, I sat down with Brian Reid to talk about the critical acclaim the series has received. I don't know. I'm getting a taste of it and I'm and I'm enjoying it and I'm grateful to people like it. It doesn't feel overwhelming, you know. Do you also feel it's an enormous opportunity for you to channel this energy into you big production deal and get things going and start making some more content. Oh maybe I don't know, Maybe I
should be thinking that way. I mean, I'm back in my day job right now. I work at this American life and I'm just making stories now work. Yeah, Like, the day after this came out, Ira was like, are you back at work tomorrow? Like, basically, I've been gone for a year on hiatus, and they wanted to who are you? I knew you were. I'm sorry, but when you did this, you obviously didn't predict the success. No. I thought it was going to be if anything, like
a cultish thing. And I started working on this even before Cereal was out, you know, so like or invented, they were just started starting serial. So tell us that, Um, what is s Town? And I mean, what is it for a listener in an encapsulated kind of Uh? If if there was the equivalent of TV guide like radio guide, what would you say in a pithy para. It's really hard. We struggled with this because there's certain things you don't want to tell about the story. You want people to
learn them in the story. So that's been challenging because it's a story that shifts a number of times throughout it. Things happened that change that kind of the story shifts underneath It happened underneath my feet in real life as I was reporting it, but then also as that story. That's what we've tried to reflect in the story as well. But it's about a man named John B. McLamore who contacted me. Um, he contacted you. He wrote our show,
and I saw his email and responded. He says in his first email, I'm a longtime listener who recently started listening again, which is sometimes crazy to be this whole seven part. The thing is just about a listener, you know, like of which we have millions, which is nuts. But um, yeah, he'd been hearing the show and um he heard a couple in particular stories we've done. Um I Rea did a story um investigating a judge and some possible malfeasance
that a judgment UM doing in rural Georgia. He'd heard that story and in a show we did called getting Away with It, which actually wasn't investigated at all, but I think the title caught his attention. And uh, and he wanted us to come down and investigate some wrongdoing that he said was going on in his small town in Alabama. So he reaches out to you. He talks to you first. He wrote our general account, I want to alert your producers to some stuff that's going on
in my town. And the and the subject line was John by McLamore lives in Shiptown, Alabama. That was his title. It was a liveliness to it, there was he had you with that subject. Yeah, and there was a liveliness to it, even even like the capitalization was erratic in a way, that caught my attention in the email, and then you know, he said, I would hope that you guys could come down here and investigate some of the terrible things that are going on in this ship town
would Stock, Alabama and bib County, Alabama. And he mentioned, um two incidents, one of which was this murder that he said had taken place, Um that a local kind of rich kid had allegedly beating someone to death and then was out bragging about it, had not gone to jail, gotten away with it. And so that's what he was telling us about. But it was also like just generally, you need to check this place out. It's so fucking terrible. Like that was like the general vibe with a couple
of examples. But I would imagine that beyond the kind of fulk Ner esque tableau of the area, you know, I mean this kind of southern idol and the crazy characters and the and and the implication of some crime or some evil or what have you, I would imagine that you must get variations of that pitch to you all the time. We do. Yeah, that one made you what what was it about this when they made you go, Okay, let's go down so the next thing is should go down there. Correct. Well, I talked to him for a
while in the phone. It took a year for me to get on the phone with him because it was not a priority for me, like I was working on other stuff that seem more real, you know. And then eventually we got on the phone because he sent me like a news report about some actual police corruption that had actually happened, which reminded me that I should check in with this guy you call him in what happens.
I mean, we talked about the alleged murderer, but then also he just starts talking about his life in general. He you know, he's forty eight at the time we started talking, I think around there, late forties, um, And he'd lived there his entire life, in this town of people are less. He'd never left. He desperately hated it.
He wanted to leave, but wouldn't leave if he lived there alone, in the house he'd grown up in that had been there for centuries, in a century and a half, you know, with his mother who had dementia who we took care of, and you know, a large number of dogs fluctuating between thirteen and twenty one dogs and he built a giant hedge maze in his backyard. I mean,
he was, he was. It was just one of those conversations where, yeah, I was getting the information about the murder, the alleged murder, but also he seemed to be going through something in talking to me. It wasn't even just details, like all those details are interesting, but he was wrestling with the fact that he had never left this place. He despised and that caught my attention and I was yeah, and I was like, maybe there's a murderer. If there's a murder, this guy is part of it. This is
what makes the story special. You know, it was always going to be. He was a big part of it from the get go. I mean, that's interesting to me that when you you talked to this guy on the phone, he's a good talker, and he's compelling, and his voice is so kind of theatrical, and I know you're telling yourself this, this has some possibilities. We are a radio show, absolutely, you know, I mean you need I mean, in order for a radio story to work, you need a good
talk sound like. That's the phrase that said many times in our office. Every day of this American life is he a good talker, and a story can live or die on that. A story that in a pitch on a piece of paper, UM, could have all the beats of an interesting story and surprise, we'll call him, do a pre interview with someone and it just doesn't live. You need a good talker to you know, great stories
happen to those. So a year goes by between when you first picked this up when you call him, how much time goes by after that from when you first go down there. We talked on the phone for I think, you know, eight to ten months, because I was working on other stuff and I did try to see if I could find anything about this murder from Afar. Basically I was doing just getting into the court system and stuff UM and I couldn't and eventually got to the point where like, I just need to go down there.
But in the course of that I would be checking in with John, and we invariably had these very long conversations that were about much more than the murder. So we're getting to know each other, you know. I got to know about his obsession with climate change and about this relationship that he had with these um you know, this local guy that worked on his property. That was interesting to me, Like there were just elements where it's just like I want to go. He's the other protective.
Um what what was the root of his obsession with climate change? What was he because of changes that were happening down there? I don't know for sure, and I didn't talk about. My sense is that what I've been told this isn't in the story, is that, Um, he got a computer only in the last few years of his life, and stay the last five years someone at town Hall hooked him up with an old computer before. I mean, he was incredibly intelligent and in touch with
the world. Um, but like I think he had like books shipped to him from the library is how he did it. Um, but he he was given a computer. And I think my sense is that the climate change and energy and peak oil fixations, and you know, him teaching himself about that, like he really went down some rabbit holes with the computer. But it's interesting. I wonder also how he's so connected to the land to borrow that cliche that he knows sort of to notice changes
in that. Yeah, and I think you're I mean, he would talk about like I'm seeing less butterflies, you know, he would notice things like that things are getting brown er, we haven't had rain in this long so yeah, I think that was party was very connected to his environment. Yeah, so you go down and meet him for the first time and describe that situation. It's just me. That's one of the great things about radio reporting. It's super lean. You don't need like a film crew, you don't need
the Golden Hour. Yeah, but it's just like a little kid that I'm paying on my neck in a tiny you know, like a medium sized microphone. So it's pretty like I'm just in my car rental car. I mean, it's it's pretty much as I described in the story, like I missed his house, you know, the first time pass Birmingham, um, like forty five minutes rent a car for if miss to an hour gets pretty I mean, it's the kind of the beginning of like rural part
of West Alabama. Like they're they're the first county kind of after you leave Jefferson County, which has um Birmingham and Bessemer, which is kind of like the you know, the end of the Metro era, I'd say, is my understanding of it. You're driving, you're driving kind of southwest out of Birmingham, UM, but it's bib Counties kind of between Birmingham and Tuscaloose are these two kind of like things on each their cities on either side that are
each about forty five minutes outside. He'd give me directions, but he was like Google Maps doesn't really work, like you should use latitude and longitude would be more helpful. So I put that into Google Maps. Yeah, exactly. I had you know, a compass with me. Missed his house because it's just a little like driveway path through the woods. Eventually like came back by and went down there, like I think it was feet into the woods, and then you had this clearing and it is this very old house.
And you know, I've been in Alabama once before, kind of just passing through, and I've been in the South before, and but I was kind of just like, all right, well maybe this is just like a normal house and like place to live in the South. This land that's like this house in the middle of a clearing. You know, that's very old. But I've since you know, spent a lot of time in Alabama and talked to a lot of people and everyone who know, even lifelong residents of Alabama.
I said, no, that place is not normal. When I first went to John, that was like, where the hell am I like, I'm stepping back in time? That That's what's curious to me, is I mean, I'm not I don't want to say. He sounded to me and I only experienced him on your show and his voice in your show, and he sounded to me like he was pretty wound up and pretty intense, and he's very colorful in a way that would make me entertained by him
alternately and concerned about him alternately. So when you go down there, you're not nervous, You're not worried for your safety. I wasn't worried for my safety. I was a little you know, I was aware that I was going somewhere kind of off the grid. You know. I don't remember being conserned my safety with John. I don't mean you've spoken to him so many times trust with him, Yeah,
I guess so. Um, But he certainly was very intense and he was exhausting to be with, you know, both thrilling and could be frustrating and exhausting, you know, like his it wasn't like a normal interview, like what we're doing right now, Like I could not get him to do that. You know, there were a couple of times I tried to sit down and just talk to him, and he was just he couldn't sit there and talk.
Do you attribute too, I think it's his personality and whether that's you know, certain mental health issues or as I talk about in the story, there's a question of mercury poisoning. Yeah. I wasn't nervous, but it was like just really trying to get a grasp on like you know, like you know, you're reporting, you don't just like normally let someone talk. That's not reporting, you know what I mean?
Like you have questions and you have a focus, and where were those questions and what was the focus when you began well with him? I mean, like I definitely was like, you know, we've got to do this murder investigation stuff. So were certain steps I wanted to take, you know, that were seemed safe but defined with him. But then I was also open to like, I'm interested in him in his life. I want to talk to
him about his life. I'm interested in this relationship he started to tell me about with Tyler Goodson and some of the locals there, So hopefully I'll get to like get inside that a little bit. So that was those were all kind of like through lines in my head, you know, as I'm down there. But then he had his own agendas to like, well, he wanted to teach me about climate change. Like he literally, like the second morning I was there, you know, called him. I'm like,
I'm up, I'm going to drive over there. You know, I was staying like fifteen or two minutes away, and he's like, Okay, I'm preparing a lecture for you on climate change. I timed it, it's like five minutes. It will only take twenty minutes. But did you sense he wanted to teach you out of some kind of intellectual vanity or was he the Obi wan Kenobi of climate change and want you to run out and go fight
the fight somewhere? What did the artic constantly had this feeling with John where in all my time knowing him and to this day, his mind and his ability to understand particularly science, um was so beyond mine. Like like what he would talk about climate change, it was I could get like two percent of it. And so I constantly have this feeling of like either he is a
freaking profit or completely looney. I have no idea, and it could be either at any points either I still don't know, I mean, and I I hired to research her to look into like a lot of his writings on climate change, like to try and figure that out. At one point it's I mean, it was so complicated, like basically it seems like he's right. He's not like putting factual and accuracies in these in his theories, but
he is. The general sense I got after the researcher looked into it was that, um like he you know, he's he's choosing things to focus on that serve his thesis, you know, that serve his negative worldview. So you start with him down this path of exploring the crime, and then you find out that none of it is what it was purported to be. Some of it is, but one important detail is different, important detail different. When you discover that, what prevents you from just packing up and
leaving and going we're done. I discovered it after I So I did a visit there in October, but I didn't actually really put it all, like come to the conclusion of that until early summer. I still was interested in him. He had other pieces of corruption that he was telling me about. I was like maybe. And I was interested in his relationship with Tyler Goodson, and so I was like, Okay, maybe they I'll look into one of these other things. Because what he was telling me
it happened. Everyone in town believed it. It happened exactly as he told me. He didn't make it up. It was just that, you know, one important detail was different that didn't make it as bad of a crime as he had said it was. So I was talking to him like, I'm gonna come back down there. You know, there are a couple of loose ends I wanted to put to bed with this initial murder investigation, um, and then just talk to him, you know, like kind of
get inside his and Tyler's relationship a little bit more. Um, possibly look at another piece of corruption or you know, wrongdoing that he was telling me about. So that was in like June. We were having these conversations. I was working on a big story that was coming on on July four, and I was like, right after July four, John, I want to come back down there, you know. And he was all like, um, oh my god, it's gonna
be the dead of summer. It's gonna be so hot, and I need to get the house cleaner out here, and it's the house is full of fleas and oh my gosh, and I'm gonna have to prune the maze and gracious. Yeah. And I was like, oh, I don't worry about to worry about it. So right after July four and then he he, um, I guess we're not talking about this. That's the truck tricky part. But he did the thing that he does in the story on June two, and so that, um, do you do? You
want to tell it? You because you want to? Can you tell people to maybe you like, go with the show first before I say that was the next part. Yeah, we're gonna stop here. Here's where you press pause, pause now and go listen to S Town, which in total is what six hours or six and change. Yeah, and we mean it. If you haven't listened to S Town and don't want more details about what happens, stop listening
to this right now. Go download S Town and come back here in six hours if you are sticking with us. Coming up, Brian Reid reveals why he can never eat calamari again. Hint, it involves pork Brian started at This American Life as an intern in two thousand ten. He says he can't imagine another place where he would have gotten to make s Town, in large part because of the creative wisdom of his boss, Ira Glass, who I
spoke to a couple of years ago. I mean this show because my taste, but also I have to say the taste of my coworkers, you know, like it's not just mine at this point, Like it's something that we all share, and I happened to be the frontman, and in that way it's different than than it was from the beginning, Like I am the frontman for this thing that we make together, like somebody who's in a band that's been playing for a long time. To hear more of my conversation with Ira Glass, take a listen at
Here's the Thing dot Org. This is Alec Baldwin and you were listening to Here's the Thing. When Brian Read replied to an email sent to This American Life from John B. McLamore, he intended to get more information about an alleged murder in rural Alabama. Instead, he met a most compelling character who, after hours of interviews, left him in an unusual position. So I was talking to Hi, I'm gonna come down after life. Fourth John. I was beginning of June, you know, first couple of weeks of
June that I was having these conversations with him. Um. And then on June's twenty, he killed himself, and so I had there wasn't like did you see that coming? No? I mean it was like it was a little bit like the boy cried wolf with him and on and on the show. You sound crushed. Yeah, it was one of those things where you know, he talked, he said he was going to kill himself, like he said, I'm going to do it many times, and I knew he said to other people. And it was still utterly shocking.
Where were you when you heard that he died. I was in a studio in this American Life, recording it, which I did not expect. How do you feel? I felt shocked. I felt disbelief, but then kind of of course, Um, did you feel angry? I didn't feel angry yet. Um, you know other people you did. No, he didn't. He didn't. He didn't know me anything. Here you've given him the attention that he craved on a level he could never have gotten it, you know. I mean, that's my I
get paid to do, right. I'm I'm not saying you're doing any favorites. I'm just saying I found it interesting that he did that, even in spite of the fact that, you know, had he lived, he could have been like Lance Loud, like this cult figure. I mean, I don't think he didn't want that, No, IM not. I don't know how he felt about I mean, I don't know how he felt about that. I just think I was not the biggest part of his life, Like you know, that was that was something that was going on in
his life. He really felt, you weren't the biggest part of his life. I'm definitely not the biggest part of it. Now. We would talk occasionally and I went to visit him for the better part, but he died before the podcast came out. I know. I'm just saying, like, once the podcast came out to it, you think he would have been thrilled by the by the attention he got. Yeah,
I think he would have really liked it. I think he could have, though I don't totally know, because he had such an unpredict He was such an unpredictable person that he could have any number of reactions and I wouldn't deign to like get inside of his head about it.
You know, I appreciate that, which is very which because he could also be annoyed by like the think piece reactions and the you know, I think he would be upset that I didn't have more climate change stuff in the story, Like I think he would have criticisms and too. We're gonna leap back a bit. Where are you from? I'm from Shelton, Connecticut. And when you like an hour and a half from New York. And when you were growing up was radio and communications that kind of thing
the goal were, you know? I never listened to radio. However, my parents didn't know what MPR was Like. We're not that kind of house. I feel there are a lot of people who go work at MPR in public radio who have this whole Like I grew up in an MPR household. I did not have any clue what you did it as a house painter? What'd your mom? She a different jobs growing up. She always wanted to be a teacher, but never became one fully, so now these days she teaches adult head in different You have a
younger brother, what's he doing. He's in sales, door door salesman. He's a door to door salesman. Your dad, your dad was was a professional painting contractor. And how do you get into this radio game? Where'd you go to college to Yale? Would you study Yale theater and history? And you wanted to be? I don't know. I think I went in. I did like, you know, high school musicals
and stuff in high school. Going into college, I wanted to be I would liked acting, but then I very soon realized there are people far better at it than me. So I did some performances in college, but I got a little more into directing. Um, So I directed a few shows and that was a little more my focus in the major. And then and um and writing and stuff.
I started to fancy myself a writer. I did some journalism some friends and I took a road trip one summer and like brought up cam quartering, like finagled some grants and bought an old van and interviewed people about what makes them happy, you know, and like tried to write a book about it. I was just looking for kind of jobs that were journalists, the you know, kind of like writing that your initial direction was writing in journalism, and yeah, writing, I fancy myself a writer, I guess.
I worked from a forum, an alternative weekly company for very briefly for a few months in Washington, d C. But got this fellowship at NPR called the Croc Fellowship, which was funded by Joan kroc Um, which gave me my career. Like I, I hadn't listened to radio, but I went and did. It's a year long fellowship for people who are shortly out of any kind of school. You could do four different jobs in the organization, including
reporting and producing, and it's really trial by fire. And at the end of it, I was like, Wow, radio is really hard, but I really like it and I think I'm getting better at it. I wasn't like love at first sight like that, but I was like, I'm engaged by this. This is you know, there seems to be opportunities here. And then shortly after that, I moved to New York and got the internship what was then the internship and is now the Fellowship at this American Life. Um,
what was that like when you got there? Because I always show was such a monolith, you know, It's like it's a great program, and yeah again, I was still kind of new to it. I started listening to it in the last year or two, just because I'd only gotten into radio. I didn't listen to a growing up and stuff. I think I was aware of it. I'd heard some episodes, but um very soon after getting there,
Ira put me on a very big project. He was producing an MPR reporter named Frank langfit on a hour long story about a car plant called New me in California. And really that's one of my favorites. I love well was the first thing that produced, the one that one with the one of that bung. I'm the one who did the taste test, who got it wrong at you know. So in actuality, Seth is eating calumari. The chewing you hear from Brian's mic that is the sound of a
Calamari lever eating fried pig recton. I should also add there were actually two varieties of bung on the plate that day. One bung that my sister had blanched over and over to mellow any organy fecal flavor and then untreated straight up bung that one. The latter one bung at its purest, at the height of its bungy nous. This is what Brian was eating. I can't calmara legend? Can Calamaria a legend among my friends? You know? That's
a very similar. The way that the Calamari story came about is very similar to uh, the way East Town came about. It was a tip line kind of email where someone was like, I was in a pork I believe it was someone saying, like, I was in a pork processing plant and I saw boxes labeled with like imitation Calamari, And that was how that's and they emailed us about it. That was got what got us hooked on that I don't I don't need Calamari anymore. And even if I did, I would be like so uh
terrified because I loved it. So when you when you do segments for that show, when you produce reports for that show, you get to a point with some of them where it becomes aborted. You sit there and go, well, this isn't really holding together in terms of you find somebody with many of them then you do. So that is a condition when you work. There's some of it
just crashes and and it's considered the laws. Yeah, it's and it's I mean it's built into it, like I were very wisely, I believe, from the beginning of the show, and they had like no money still built on their budget to be able to kill a third of the stories that we start and it's now it's probably around there.
And that could mean one interview, it could mean a pre interview, but it can also mean you know, I've gone on entire trips to four different states, come back and like, can you give us an example, like of a killed story. I mean an example of the story that you're really keen and you think you go onto something and then it dies, And how do you feel about that? Yeah, I love killing stories because I know I'm serious, But that's a are the culture. It's not
it's built into our budget. But it's also I think ideally, Like not everyone who I work with like agrees with this, but I believe like it was instilled in me by Ira and Julie Snyder and the people who run this American like that it's a triumph to kill a mediocre story, like and it is so much hard, like when you've been through this enough, like something that's not working so well that you get in so deep that you're trying to bring across the finish line to make it good
enough to be on the air. So much harder than something that's got got all the goods and it's going to be great, you know what I mean? I don't know, but it could be a million things. So, like I went on one story that I was excited about. It was a Scottish reporter who was going to look back at a single like photograph of a shooting that had happened in a rack ten years on that he'd been therefore embedded with a with a battalion or something. I can't remember all the details. And we went to three
different states, four different states. We were like in a week to interview different players back from that time. But there was this one interview we really wanted to get um that was going to make it come together. I think he was a chaplain in the unit and we're so we flew to Colorado. He was like the key interview who would like it kind of like helped everyone deal with their grief. And we got to the airport and he can't. He was like, I can't do this.
I'm not going to do this anymore. I don't want to do the interview and We're in the Denver airport, like calling and begging, and we came all the way out here. We like you have dude had flown here from Scotland. Um he did not meet with us. Um we went home. No. I think he was just like it was dredging up. It was a traumatic thing. He just I don't know why exactly. So we flew home and I was like, maybe I can salvage this, Maybe
there's some way to do it. And I pulled some tape and ultimately it was just like, you're gonna be happier if you kill this now, Like it's not you're gonna be working so hard to make up for what many people. Um, we've grown a lot in the last couple of years, but like not many, like fifteen to twenty fifteen are less producers. And then there's you know other staff, you know doing operations and tech and stuff
like that administration. Do you feel that there's a uh philosophically and uh politically, there's a d NA to the kind of stories they do over there. Oh yeah, how would you describe that? Not politically but but in terms of philosophy, Like we're trying to amuse ourselves that's the philosophy and amuse use the term, you know, that's that's irish statement. But I believe in that, you know, um thesis like um amused can be broad like it can be into you know, you can learn something, you could
be engross in a character that's going through something. Yeah, but we're doing it for ourselves, like we're trying to do things that we would want to listen to. Yeah, And so that's like one overarching principle. But then there's actually just specific ingredients we're looking for in stories like that. Stories have to have for the most part to work
on our show. And that's a good you know, a character, a main character who's a good talker, who goes through something like with plot um surprise that leads to an interesting idea about the world. Those are the ingredients we're looking for. But do you feel like with your success of your podcast you want to kind of go off now and do your own thing? Would you like where you are as a good hub. That's a good mothership
for you. I get to work with the best podcast creators in the world, Like it's so yeah, there's yeah, I'm very happy. And I think last is such a blindingly bright. Guy's great, you know, I you know, I've learned like a lot of what I know from him, and but it's a place that because of him we get to make things like S Town. There is a
spirit of invention. They're like we're constantly trying to fend off boredom and try things that are new, and like, I don't think there's many of the places where I could say, like, let me leave my job for a year to make this thing that you're going to help fund, you know, that is S Town, Like it's I imagine pitching that a lot of places the show Best Town, Yeah, yeah, stuff, And were some of the things that were said positive and negative that resonated with you. I mean, they're really nice.
You know, there's a lot like there's some really nice stuff that's been said that it's just a lot of credible example of empathy, which I couldn't have. I did not even occur to me that it was like more empathetic than other things, Like it just felt like me making the thing that I've heard a lot of that and that was super cool in that way that your storytelling, I mean, who you wanted to direct and do plays and you wanted to act and what were some of
the negative things that hit you. It's been interesting. It's I'm still sorting through all this, you know, it's only been a few weeks. But I believe people have different reactions to it that kind of betray like their background a bit. Um. So there's a certain reaction I've heard from mostly like white Northerners, um where like the podcast makes them uncomfortable. They'll use that word like uncomfortable. I
don't quite know what they mean. Like in a couple of cases, you know, it's been a reaction to there's this one this one scene in the second chapter where I was inside of this tattoo parlor, black sheet bank and some very terrible racist contents, um. And so there's this there's a certain reaction I've gotten from mostly like people in the North, white people, like black people are like yet, uh, but did you have the same reaction
your stuff when you were there? Do you find it even for you when you went down the My god, this is the same country I live in. I didn't have that feeling, but I was cut. But that's the thing, Like I'm wherever I'm reporting, I'm trying to find things that are surprising. That's what I'm doing when I'm reporting, I don't affect you know, it affects me. It's the whole point, you know. But it wasn't because it's like the South, the racism, It didn't. What surprised me about
it was how open people sometimes were. Not everybody, but that there were moments where people would be open on Mike. That surprised me. I certainly was not surprised that that racism exists, and that you know, people would say things even to a stranger. You know, that didn't surprise me. And so anyway, so the react what did surprise you? Um in general? You say, I do this to be amused? What amused me? Like they're just like the only reason
to do this story is because I like it. Like I realized in the middle of writing it, like there's no news peg for this, there's no like business imperative like to do this, like I like this story. And so it was actually like a joy to write, even when I was like staying up all night on deadline. And the reason I like it is just a million different moments, like you know, I I you know, there's a moment where one of the characters talks about wanting
to like cut like someone's nipples off. I've just never heard someone say that before, you know, to get someone's gold nipple rings. I've never heard that on tape before. That amused That amused me, Like, Um, there's you know moments where John goes on at second rant talking about like Putin should bomb us all and we're just living in some crazy country, you know, Like that's just a rant I can't even replicate because I've just never you know,
totally extemporaneous. There's a moment where, um, you know, an old love interest of John's at the end of chapter six lays out, you know, just exactly what he wanted to do to him one day that he never actually did, Like he wanted to make a move and he wanted to kiss him on his belly. I've never heard anyone do that on the radio before. That was wonderful And so it was just like those moments they surprised me and they were the reason to do the story to me.
So when you when you talk about writing and when you're stitching the whole thing together and doing the tracking of where you kind of bring it all together, you've got to write all that down for you when you've got to write heavily edited and right, and now you're doing all the writing, the writing and who was doing the editing. To have a good editor well, editing means something I think maybe different to me in radio than
it would it to you and UM in shaping. So so basically I worked with Julie Snyder, who's who is the co creator of Cereal and um was the senior producer of This American Life for years until she created Cereal. Now I have her job, UM, but we made it this together, and you know she so she she was working at This American Life as senior producer when John first contacted me. So she was my editor as I was going down to Alabama in the early days and then we kind of stayed on it together and saw
came up with a vision for this together. So she's the person I would be checking in with on my reporting trips because there's a million decisions you're you're editing even as you're reporting in deciding what leads to follow, what to spend your time on, who to talk to you, what to talk to him about. So she was constantly in the process with me, and it's so important of a good editor. I mean, she's she is the secret
to what makes things so good. So so then finally, after like you know, a year of reporting or more, we had like a month where we sat down or first we had a month where we went through all the tape and kind of made summaries of every interview. Then she and I just sat there and we're like, okay,
so how does the story start? And it was like a good month of just like you know, I'm what I imagine it's like to be in a TV writer's room of just you know, talking through the story and kind of jamming, you know, kind of like well what if it went this way? You know, so you get an email, then you write him back. Now you don't need the writing back part goes straight to the phone call like, no, this part we want to save for later.
And just like trying it with each other, you know, she'd say, well, what if we want this and this and this, and I'd be like, no, that part's boring, Let's cut that part where that's too much explanation, and and we would just go through it, write it on a white board, and then move on to the next chapter.
Eventually we got to a point where we couldn't see it at all and we were feeling overwhelmed in our heads, and so we started again from the beginning with note cards on a wall and stretched all around the corner. I'm a big fan of note cards, and it was just that. So then we came more. Taught me that they really is that the sketches and stuff, how he pieces the show together, it's all not cards. Giant. It was the first time I've done that. I can't imagine,
like to put that thing together six hours. That's incredible in the time and the effort involved. What are you working on now? Um, I'm back in my day job. I'm my ideas. I'm helping other people with their stories. So I do a lot of editing. So like people i'm talking, you know, we're working on the show next week. Um, that's a political show, so I'm editing a story about that. I'm ading a story about a Somali pirate right now,
but it's someone else's story. But so they're reading it to me and I'm telling them structural changes and different changes to make, and we're going through that process, which I'm grateful for. I don't have a story in mind that I love as much as s town and so I can kind of wait for it to come to me, you know, while I help other people with their stuff. Hello privates, Alick, Hi, alec Hey, Brian. I realized after we spoke that I did have one more question for you,
and all right, I'm very curious what that is. Burning I think it's I think it's a pretty obvious one, which is, do you see any of yourself and John? Um, yeah, definitely. Yeah. I really respect like people who forged their own way in the world, and I don't know, certainly like a way of being in the world that I aspired to that I don't know if I always accomplished. And that's what I enjoyed about talking to him and being with him.
He was so unabashedly himself. When I'm able to do that in my own life, I feel good about it, you know. I admire that and John a lot. And it seems like he was somebody who insisted that he could be himself regardless of who he was with. Do agree, absolutely? Yeah. I think he was aware that he had a very polarizing effect on people, and he was aware of that, but his his personality could overwhelm people or turn people off,
or people really just loved being with him. Um, and he kind of had a sense of bath, I feel like this is me and take it or leave it. Do you make people on comfortable? You could, yeah, Or you bring people along for like a very special ride and the right type of person is willing to go there with you. But one more thing that occurred to me was if he were around, what was one question
you still wanted to ask him? Um? Something I wish I did with John that I never did is to like push back on some of his racial views that he expressed. Sometimes. Um, you know, sometimes it would come up in the course of some other discussion about something else, and I would kind of note, like I want to talk to him about that at some point, like why he seems to be so enlightened in some ways and that so kind of backwards and like thoughtless and others.
And I just never got the chance to do that. Do you attribute those views if it's just a certain kind of stereotypical regionalisms or did you think he really was a racist? I mean I think you certainly. I don't know his Like his professor said, when he got to college, as a really young guy, like, you know, he bore kind of the markings of someone who've grown up in that part of the world at that time in terms of the way he talked about about race
and the words he used. I get the sense from talking to people knew him that he got better over the years as he read more and engaged with the world more. I mean, I don't know, I don't even know it's in someone's heart, Like he was both things at once, but he, you know, sympathized with and felt for people who are affected by racism, and he understood
that racism can be systemic. But then he would be thoughtless and you know, really really shitty words and um, you know, kind of retreat back into a cruder way of talking. And it was one of the things where it would have been like a whole thing to talk about that I wanted to talk about with him and always meant to, and he died before I could. You know, I wish I had. I wish I could have kind of pushed back on some of the stuff he would say, you know, because he knew better, all right. That's so
that's kind of what I wanted to talking about. It's like why why do you sometimes still kind of retreat into this way of talking when I know you know better? You know well, thank you so much, and listen seriously. I still look forward to discovering what's the next thing you're gonna do. I'm really looking forward to seeing you do another show. It would be great. I appreciate it. This is Alec Baldwin and you were listening to Here's the Thing