Made in the USA

“This American Life,” the public radio show hosted and narrated by Ira Glass, tries, and often succeeds, at being as big as the country itself, throwing open its doors and inviting in an ever-expanding cast who share with us a bit of their lives. It is a motley crew of storytellers, from literary giants to offbeat eccentrics to just plain folk. In the process, Glass has created something that feels like a huge extended family--and after just a little time with them, you feel part of the clan as well.

Each week for the past three years, the hourlong show, originating from Chicago’s WBEZ-FM and carried here on KCRW-FM (89.9) on Saturdays at 10 a.m. with repeats the following Saturday at 6 p.m., presents three or four different tales tied by some common theme. This week, Glass brings the show to Los Angeles with special live presentations taking place Sunday at 2 and 7 p.m. at UCLA’s Royce Hall, to be taped for airing on KCRW on Dec. 26 and again Jan. 2.

Often the results are indelible: Grateful Dead lyricist John Barlow’s tale of love at first sight turned tragic when his soul mate passed away suddenly and quietly on a plane flight; L.A. food critic Jonathan Gold’s poetic accounts of the ecstasies of eating; and culture writer Sarah Vowell’s “Frank Sinatra Has a Cold,” a prescient if futile plea for the media not to use “My Way” as the end music for Ol’ Blue Eyes’ obituaries--a piece that itself was replayed as part of the coverage of the crooner’s death on “Nightline.”

The thing is, Glass believes that to get those results it must always be you, the listener, doing the picturing--giving the stories their ultimate shape and form. That explains the photo accompanying this story, provided by Glass himself, with the intent of leaving the specifics of his appearance to the imagination. A shot on the show’s Web site doesn’t help much either, having been taken of Glass at his bar mitzvah in 1972.

“It detracts from the thing about being on radio,” Glass, 39, says of his reluctance to allow his image to go from the abstract to the concrete--”makes what is a sort of ephemeral and luminous presence into a specific person, which hurts what is cool about radio. It takes part of the power away. Why do that?

“With Howard Stern, it works for him,” says Glass, referring to the radio shock jock. “But now that we’ve seen him doing his show on TV, now I picture the TV show when I hear him on radio, and a lot of the mystique and power are gone.”

The Ratings Are Nearing ‘Prairie Home,’ ‘Car Talk’

But that puts Glass in an awkward spot these days. “This American Life” has the fastest-growing audience in public radio today, having reached the 300-station mark in its network, nearly up there now with “A Prairie Home Companion” and “Car Talk.” It’s spinning off into such side projects as a greatest-hits CD, “Lies, Sissies and Fiascoes: The Best of ‘This American Life,’ ” due in March.

Glass, who worked for National Public Radio in Washington for 17 years, including an early stint as a producer of the flagship news magazine “All Things Considered,” has now become a star with his audience. To regular listeners, the Baltimore native’s nasal comments and introductions are the warp and woof on which the weekly tapestries are woven. And with that rise, more and more people want to meet Glass, or read about him in magazines and papers--and see a picture of him.

As uncomfortable as that makes Glass feel, he won’t be wearing a bag over his head when he steps on the Royce Hall stage to host live presentations by L.A. wit Sandra Tsing Loh, sex advice columnist Dan Savage and writers Vowell (a “TAL” regular and contributing editor) and David Rakoff.

“Yes, there’s a contradiction, although I’d like to pretend there isn’t,” he says of his willingness to appear before an audience. “I like to say that the theater is as intimate as radio. I say that and kind of believe it. Well, at least half believe it. I really don’t know what it’s like for people who hear the show without knowing what we look like and then see us and then go back and listen again.”

This isn’t the first time. Glass stepped into these murky waters a year ago with a show taped at UCLA’s Wadsworth Theater featuring readings of David Sedaris’ hilarious Christmas accounts by such figures as Julia Sweeney and Sedaris himself. And it won’t be the last--he was asked to put together a show for live presentation at the HBO Comedy Festival in Aspen, with some celebrity participants.

Glass Shuns the Camera, Yet TV Keeps Beckoning

And Glass also now finds himself thinking about the seemingly unthinkable: a TV version of “This American Life.”

“I don’t have a strong desire to do anything other than radio,” he says. “But there have been a barrage of book offers and TV offers, people calling to discuss it. The book thing will happen at some point, an anthology from the show.

“But the TV stuff--all along I’ve said that if one of these development guys can put me in contact with someone who knows film as well as I know radio and whose sensibilities I like, I’d be willing to talk about it. And finally someone put me in contact with someone in New York that I like, and it feels real. Sketching out ideas I can sort of imagine it, using images to tell the stories, more impressionistic than usual TV, still the same kind of fierce narratives we count on, characters introduced in a way that you can’t help but get involved with them. People will stay with it if it looks different.”

Still, he’s loath to appear on camera.

“I don’t want to be on TV,” he says. “Once you’re on TV, it feels like there’s no turning back. There are people who are on TV, and there’s the rest of us. The rest of us live in the real America. The people on TV are just pretending to. I want to stay in this country. It’s a way better country.

“But it’s a problem--if you never appear in a TV show that you’re narrating, there’s something pretentious about that. And if you want to capture the radio show, you have to capture the intimacy, the casual intimacy, so you have to see me. So this week I resigned myself to the fact that if there is TV, I would have to be seen in some fashion.”

BE THERE

“This American Life,” live shows, hosted by Ira Glass, Sunday at Royce Hall, UCLA campus. 2 and 7 p.m. The evening show is sold out, but tickets are available for 2 p.m. at $21.50. Information: (310) 825-2101