Hello to all the readers of The 100 Billionth Person. This is Ira Glass, host of the NPR radio show This American Life. I know I look a little different in this picture than you may remember, but I have had some work done. A lot of work. I think I’m going to sue.
The reason for this message is to ask you, listeners and readers, to subscribe to this blog. As you know, I am a very well-connected guy, and I have a lot of cool and nerdy friends. Craig H. Collins, the writer of this blog, would like to be one of them. Maybe he can be, someday. But first, I told him, you have to be better known than you are. I may be cool, but it doesn’t mean I hang with just anyone.
It takes work to put together a cool, laid-back, quirky radio show like This American Life. Yes, this blog can be quirky too, I see that. But I told Craig, if you want more subscribers, you have to stop doing things like denigrating cats and praising atheists. It just alienates ninety percent of your readers, and the other ten percent don’t want to be reminded.
Another tip I gave Craig, based on my twenty years of success as a public radio show host, was to find some corporate sponsors. I get paid by the people and corporations who I guilt into donating to public radio. I don’t make anything from subscribers. I don’t know why Craig wants subscribers and not sponsors, but I told him I will do what I can here.
Finally, Act Four. I told Craig that he has to tell more stories on his blog. And they should have something to do with cats, or his neurotic mother. In fact, I think he should just ask David Sedaris to be a guest-writer on the blog. Not that David would be interested.
Well, this is all the time I have. I have other cool, nerdy and important things to do today. So please subscribe to this blog. I told Craig to get back in touch with me when he gets a thousand subscribers, and we can talk about being friends.
Cheers, Ira
P.S. to Craig — why not post a few cat photos, it can’t hurt.
[ Originally published June 5, 2016 ]
This is the tenth year I have been doing this blog. Over that time, it has evolved from a Facebook substitute into a one-person science-and-humanities magazine-without-covers. As much as I enjoy researching and writing and drawing and composing, I would not be doing any of that if there were no one out there reading it. If it all ended, my loss would assuredly be greater than yours.
