Last night I had the priveledge of attending the second night of This American Life Live! If you’re not quite sure what TAL is you need to turn off your tv and listen to NPR. If that’s not gonna happen you can get the This American Life Podcast.

Hosted by the amazingly adorably voiced Ira Glass, This American Life is a radio show “where hipster know-it-all’s make ordinary peoples lives sound interesting.” The very first memory I have of This American Life was from a long time ago when they began running an ongoing series of recordings of a son that sent his father audio cassettes for years and years and his father never once returned a tape with a message… ever! It was a heart breaker.

Ever since, I’ve been hooked. I always thought of Ira Glass as this Weezer type nerdy 20something but in reality he’s in his 40’s not so cute (conventionally but incredibly dorky cute), married, and just incredible! He worships The OC (as does constant contributor Sarah Vowell) and is just an all around cool dude.

Last night, TAL-Live came to Boston – the second of six on their American tour promoting their new television show that premiere’s on Showtime March 22nd.

I will freely admit that I was both excited and scared for This American Life to make the move to television. It’s such a classic radio program, the format is perfect, the stories are incredibly fascinating and imaginative which are in no need of visual accompanyment.

If you’ve had that same fear, I’m here to calm your nerves. They previewed clips, outtakes, and video montages from the Showtime show and they are incredible. The stories are as compelling as they are on the radio. The look and feel of the show is this really cinematic, sweeping beautiful, thoughtfully composed pastiche of images to accompany the stories told by real people. It’s a raving success in my opinion.

There were outtakes of the most hilarious nature and an incredibly interesting discussion with Ira Glass and TAL’s Showtime director/producer Christopher Wilcha about converting radio to tv.

A night worth its money in radio gold. You must check out This American Life on Showtime when it premieres March 22 at 10:30pm.

Let the Ira Glass crushes begin…

On another note, last night Jon and I attended the show by ourselves. I saw my friends Brian, Nancy, Sarah, Tom, Keri, and Erin (and her Mom – who is seriously my stalker). A woman that works with Jon and her boyfriend. Two actors from a film I made in 2005 and about 3 others I kinda know. It was one of the first times I’ve been at a place this big in Boston and seen way more people at once than any other time. I’ve been in Boston for over 9 years and this was the first time I felt like maybe this could be my hometown. It was fun.