An Interview with The Sound of Young America's Jesse Thorn

Twenty-seven-year-old Jesse Thorn is a radio show host, a podcast producer, and one of the leading proponents of The New Sincerity. Next summer, he'll be leaping into all-new terrain by launching MaximumFunCon, a unique weekend event that's sort of a vacation, entertainment, education smoothie.

Attendees of MaxFunCon ("a gathering of creative people who wish to be more awesome") will descend on a lovely looking resort in Lake Arrowhead, CA (SoCal) next June. Scheduled entertainment includes a performance by Jonathan Coulton, comedy courtesy of Maria Bamford, and a keynote from author and "Daily Show" resident expert John Hodgman. Courses range from "Doing Creative Work with Merlin Mann" to classes on cooking, cocktails, and improv comedy. Reading about the event last week left me, yeah, a little suspicious. So I got on the horn to find out what gives.

Who are you and what's your mission in life?

JT: I'm the host and producer of a public radio show called The Sound of Young America that's distributed by Public Radio International and on various public radio stations around the country. It was one of the first terrestrial radio shows to podcast in late 2004, and in fact my podcast audience led directly to my national distribution on the radio. So I've always been very invested in the online community around the show. I also host and produce a show called Jordan, Jesse Go! and produce a couple of comedy shows, The Kasper Hauser Comedy Podcast and the Coyle and Sharpe Podcast, and distribute a few other things and blog on the website, and that kind of thing. If I was going give myself a title, "Proprietor of Maximumfun.org" might be it.

As far as my mission in life, I've only just recently achieved my first mission in life, which was to consistently be able to pay my share of the rent. So I'm kind of resting on my laurels right now. [laughter]

It's a good start.

JT: Yeah, exactly.

So where did the idea for MaxFunCon come from?

JT: When you're a public radio host and you're essentially supported by donations, you have a really strong incentive to connect with your audience ‒ even stronger than you would just from having a podcast or even from having forums on your website. So I'm always trying to think of ways that I can bring the ideas behind maximumfun.org ‒ the spirit of it ‒ into people's lives in a new way.

Because of the fact that I'm a public radio show and I run on donations, there doesn't always have to be a revenue stream associated with it. It's really just about, how can I connect with people and share stuff that's awesome with them?

I had this idea that I should have a convention because I went to Comic-Con in San Diego. And it sucked, it was really unpleasant. [laughter] It was just really smelly and full of giant posters of ‒ this was a year ago ‒ so it was full of giant half-nude posters of Dane Cook.

This is blasphemy to Comic-Con!

JT:I know, I know.

But it's bold.

JT: I mean, there are a lot of reasons that it's good, but it was just really unpleasant. And I thought, "Gosh, I bet I could have a convention and it would be really fun." [laughter] And so my intern and I went and looked at some different convention sites around Los Angeles and were completely uninspired. All we could imagine was an event that ‒ I mean, we might be able to get people to come to it, but it wouldn't be very convivial, it would just be a big conference floor with people selling stuff. And nothing against that, but it's just not what I wanted to do.

We happened on a link to this site, which is owned by UCLA.... But they also let private groups book the space if they're using it for an educational purpose. So me and my intern drove out there. And when we got there and saw the fireplaces, and old wood bars, and the summer-camp-style amphitheater, it immediately became clear that what we wanted to do was not a conference and not an industry tradeshow, but sort of a get together, in the same way that, I guess, people who go to TED are going in part for the programming, but they're also going to share some time with people who have similar ideals.... And this seemed just like the perfect place for that. So it became an easy decision to the extent that putting $25,000.00 on credit cards is ever an easy decision. [laughter]

It was such a perfect venue, and walking in there, I could immediately see, "Oh, here's where we can have an awesome stand-up show. Here's where I can interview somebody. Here's where we can have a class on how to make something." The whole picture of the event just became instantly clear when we went into this place.

Every convention should be in a lodge with a fireplace.

JT: Absolutely!

The educational piece seemed especially cool ‒ the idea that while people were being entertained and vacationed, they were also going to learn a few things that were mostly connected by awesomeness. There are four or five courses on the site now ‒ is that the plan?

JT: Well, it's going to be a very intimate event. We're only opening up a hundred slots, so the number of courses you can offer to a hundred people in the six hours [or so] that we have allotted for courses is small. But the idea was similar to the idea behind The Sound of Young America, which is that just because you're learning something doesn't mean that whatever you're learning automatically has to be lame. And just because something is fun doesn't mean you can't learn anything from it.

My buddy Merlin Mann has this amazing podcast called You Look Nice Today, and he and I have done our podcast together as The Monsters of Podcasting, with me and my partner Jordan doing Jordan, Jesse Go! and Merlin, Scott Simpson, and Adam Lisagor doing You Look Nice Today live, and I knew I wanted that. But then I also thought, well, Merlin's, I guess he's a productivity guru, but I knew that what he really cares about is less just raw productivity, which is how it's easy to caricature him, and more about how to build a life for yourself where you're being creative, and following your passion, to use the most horrible cliché in the world.

And I thought, "Gosh, I bet I could get Merlin to talk about that." And I called Merlin and said, "Well, I have this idea where you give a talk, but it's not about Inbox Zero, it's about making a life for yourself as a creative person, as an independent actor." And he said, "That's exactly what I want to do a talk about it!"

And then I thought, what other cool stuff could we teach people to do? Well, we'll have an improv class! For me, I don't think there's anything that has ever inspired me more creatively than doing improv. It's an amazing way to both let go of your self-censorship and your selfishness and ego onstage and then be rewarded for it. So I definitely wanted that in there.

And I thought, "You know who knows a lot about stuff that's awesome (although they call it Wonderful Things) ‒ the BoingBoings." So I e-mailed Xeni and Mark [Xeni Jardin and Mark Frauenfelder] and they said, "Yeah, absolutely, we love it, we're in!"

I'm working on some other stuff. Obviously, I can't announce anything that's not confirmed yet, but there's definitely other cool stuff in the offing.

MaxFunCon bills itself as, among other things, as "a convocation of awesome people who seek to become more awesome." In your own life, is there anything you've found that helps you achieve more awesomeness?

JT: When I was just out of college, I couldn't get a job. I was really depressed about it, and I had been trying to get a radio job. But I couldn't even get any job. It was really horrible. I was applying for retail jobs and not getting them.

I was really down, and I was thinking, "Why am I driving back and forth to Santa Cruz, an hour-and-a-half from San Francisco?" At the time, I didn't have a car, so I was driving back and forth in my mom's car. I thought to myself, "I should just quit doing this. There's no reason I'm doing this."

And I talked to my now wife/then girlfriend, Theresa. And she said, "Well, you don't do anything else," and I thought, "Yeah, that's true, I don't do anything else. Maybe I should keep doing this." [laughter] And it has been the regular demands of making sure that I'm doing something that has backed me into a corner in order to be creative and think of new things. The fact that I have to make a radio show every week. For many years I did it when I had a real, regular day-to-day job, and now it is my job. The fact that I have to think of new stuff to connect me with people. It's sort of boring, but it's that backed-into-a-wall state where I'm able to be creative.

I'm a very harshly self-critical person. To be honest, I'm a very harshly critical person in general. [laughter]` Which I think is one of the reasons why I find improv so beneficial. I'm only able to really create when I have to. So I've set up my life so that I do have to.

And the things that I have to do are things that I love to do, so it works out.

MaxFunCon will be held from June 12-June 14, 2009. This week and this week only, you can score a $20 discount when you sign up and enter the code "innovator."