25 years ago, The Sopranos, the best television show ever created, premiered. This week, a new documentary called Wise Guy asks the question: how did a show considered so risky & uncommercial even get made? We’re interviewing Wise Guy director Alex Gibney about that question, and about how stubborn lunatics like him and David Chase got to make the projects they wanted to make. Incognito Mode, our ad-free, no-rerun, bonus episode feed. To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices
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Go to viore.com slash pjsearch and discover the versatility of Viore clothing. Welcome to Search Engine, I'm PJ Vogt. No question too big, no question too small, no question too repetitively echoing in my head seven times a day. Okay. I've been telling stories professionally for 16 years.
I complain about work like anybody else, but the more honest part of me always knows that really, I'm getting away with something. Being paid to make art you love is as close to a scam as you can run without being in legal danger. It feels impossible that this is all true. And the thing is, some years, it wasn't true. When I first started in audio, podcasting didn't really exist. It was radio.
And there would have been no business model to support a show like the one you're listening to. I've been here long enough that I've watched the business model arrive. I worked for a few years where there was tons of money in podcasting, and I'm here in the era after, where a low tide ebbs again.
The state of things comes up on the show sometimes because one of the biggest questions that actually preoccupies me day to day is how are we going to get people to pay for this shit? Free art, pay what you want, is a funny thing to build a life on. It preoccupies me.
And I know it preoccupies me because lately, when I see something good, a movie, a book, a live event, I don't think so much about the creative choices enabling it. I think... How is this getting funded? Even what does the lifestyle of the person who made this look like that it permits them to make art? Do they have kids? Where do they live?
This documentary came out this week called Wiseguy, which is about The Sopranos, my favorite TV show, maybe my favorite piece of narrative art. And watching it, it felt like the documentary was asking the same question that has been haunting me. How do you make something personal and important when the entire system is conspiring to keep that stuff off the air?
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