A story in three acts

Of public radio’s storytelling greats, only the Okie has kept her distance

It’s hard to measure the impact the long-running public radio program This American Life has had on me. The show’s been on for two decades but didn’t really become a part of my life until about 2002. Since then, in terms of personal cultural influence, I put it right up there with the great music, books, and films of this era. Creator and host Ira Glass seems as familiar to me as any real friend could be. I always have the sense that were we ever to meet, the conversation would pick up naturally as if we’d known each other since school. This is the genius of the radio/listener relationship when done at the highest level. Of course Ira’s talking to all of us, but for that one hour a week (our session), I like to imagine he’s talking only to me. With me. 

Over these past dozen years or so, one of the great pleasures This American Life provides is an introduction and occasional visit from some of the great essayists/humorists of our time. The list is long, but the holy trinity to me will always be David Sedaris, the late David Rakoff, and Oklahoma’s own Sarah Vowell. If you had told me in 2002 that I would one day become friendly with two of these three writers, one would have assumed that the Okie would be one of the two. Wrong. Through various capacities and alliances, I’ve had the great pleasure to bring David Sedaris to town a half-dozen times in the past decade, including his upcoming gig at the Tulsa Performing Arts Center on November 12. He’s always so kind and as fun as you’d imagine, and our times together have been a blast. My favorite memory is hanging out at the Brookside Laundromat for an hour or so because he “didn’t trust hotel laundry.” My wife even took him swimming once at the Thornton YMCA. 

Getting to know David Rakoff during what would be the last six years of his life was truly a gift. After striking up a bit of an email correspondence, I brought David to Tulsa in 2006 in partnership with the now-defunct Celebration of Books at OSU-Tulsa. We had a great time, and he always talked about going to the Tulsa State Fair. The giant turkey leg left a lasting impression. We stayed in touch fairly regularly after that and saw each other a few more times, once in Austin (with Amy Sedaris to boot), and another time in New York City, where he took my wife and me on a walking tour of his neck of the woods around Gramercy Park. We had a return trip to Tulsa arranged for 2010, but around that time David was diagnosed with a malignant tumor that led to further complications. He died on August 9, 2012. 

Of all of the TAL personalities, Sarah Vowell stands out. She is funny. She is witty. But above all else, she’s endlessly curious, specifically with American history. It might sound silly to say I enjoy learning from her work, but I always do. Of Cherokee descent and born in Muskogee in 1969, Sarah spent the first decade of her life in the Sooner State before heading to Montana. Her distinctive voice (so great Pixar came calling), doesn’t sound particularly Oklahoman, but it doesn’t really sound like anywhere. It’s just her. I’ve tried for years and years to get Sarah back to her home state. I’ve emailed, asked friends to put in a good word and badgered her publishers any time a new book arrives. No dice. She deserves to be celebrated and we’re ready to do so. Perhaps she has a few crazy relatives she wants to avoid. We all do, Sarah. Whatever the reason, let’s work it out. It’ll be fun. Still not convinced? Just ask Mr. Sedaris.

An evening with David Sedaris // Nov. 12, 7:30 p.m. // Chapman Music Hall, Tulsa PAC // Enter to win a pair of tickets at TheTulsaVoice.com/sedaris