Photo: Holy long-hair Batman! Ira Glass - circa 1991

by Justin Kaufmann | Mar. 15, 2010

Last week, a blog post was bandied about the twitter-sphere confirming that the myth that WBEZ's Ira Glass was indeed Lynda Barry's inspiration for her "bad boyfriend" character. In the post confirming the myth, the author takes on the character's ponytail, which was one of the reasons that people didn't think this was Ira. But here's the story, according to the post, which uses a quote from the Chicago Reader in 1998:
It was over, but she and Glass weren't done with each other. She briefly collaborated with Covino and Glass on The Wild Room, and in fact coined the title. Glass recalls that Covino wanted to call the show "Radio Factory," which he and Barry were able to agree was stupid. And when Glass went on The Wild Room to tell the story of why he'd let the Tribune cut his hair, she was the old girlfriend it got cut for. The Tribune had published a vapid Style section photo spread, with Glass as a guy with a ponytail who goes to a fancy Oak Street salon to make "drastic changes." A caption said, "The final cut finds Glass 'ready for Wall Street.' He loves the new look and so do we." Glass said on the air that he went along with this tomfoolery because the ponytail had been favored by an old flame who'd dumped him -- and now it was time to stop pining and let her go.
Damn, that's good. So in reading this, we realized that there might be a Tribune article out there somewhere that shows a different Ira Glass. We realized it had to be in the early 90s due to the reference to "The Wild Room" and since I met Ira in 1994 and he had no ponytail.‚  Our search was fruitful, turning this up this abstract from September 11, 1991.
Glass, a National Public Radio reporter, was just ready for a change, he said. And he sure got one. From "Kiss band member" to "GQ junk bond trader" is how the 32-year-old journalist summed up his long-to-short hair transformation created by Diane Peterson and Charles Ifergan at Charles Ifergan Salon, 106 E. Oak St.
So ladies and gentleman and merry blog-readers, I bring you a photo from the 1991 photo-spread featuring former NPR Reporter Ira Glass before we knew him...

Big thanks to Aaron Duncan for tracking this photo down and to to the Trib archives for the copy. Also, I did e-mail Ira to get this from the source, but he didn't respond. Which I took for a "go ahead and find it. I dare you." Now we have a few questions: 1) Is that a fancy smock or was Ira really into The Cure? 2) Ray-Bans? I'm assuming it was a daylight shoot and probably indoors. 3) Was Ira famous? Or was this article just a way to get a long-hair into an Oak Street salon?
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Elizabeth wrote:

It's so very reassuring to me to know that Ira Glass went from looking like that to being the dignified, intelligent person he is now. :)

  • Thu Apr 29 2010, 8:32 AM
Jeanette C wrote:

We love Peter and hope he's stopped with the cigarettes.

  • Mon Apr 12 2010, 8:58 AM
PatO wrote:

Ira doing impression of Arlo Guthrie hanging outside a Haight-Ashbury ashram? Ad time travel to the resume.

  • Sat Apr 10 2010, 11:58 AM
DanielA wrote:

I was having a really lousy day at work, but this... has made my day.
Thank you!

  • Wed Mar 17 2010, 4:50 PM
GibsonGirl99 wrote:

Smock or no smock, Ira w/long hair & RayBans was hot, hot, hot!!

  • Tue Mar 16 2010, 4:08 PM
karen casey wrote:

Lynda Barry ! I have a curiously renewed interest in your writing !
Ira Glass looks like a cleaned-up, aristocratic version of Russell Brand.
With tamer (less animalistic and crazed) sex, drugs and Rock and Roll.
Great post, Justin !

  • Mon Mar 15 2010, 3:59 PM
MB wrote:

Celebrities... they're just like us!

  • Mon Mar 15 2010, 3:49 PM
Dave Stanford wrote:

facebook? it should be his staff profile photo...

  • Mon Mar 15 2010, 2:35 PM
Kent Brockman wrote:

Could be a smock revival... the new "Snuggie".

  • Mon Mar 15 2010, 2:21 PM
NW B wrote:

Ira,

Channeling a combination, of Michael Stipe, REM, Robert Smith, The Cure, and Paul Westerberg, The Replacements.

Nicely done.

  • Mon Mar 15 2010, 2:13 PM
Justin Kaufmann wrote:

After further investigation - it is in on his FB page photos. Good catch Cavra...

  • Mon Mar 15 2010, 1:59 PM
Justin Kaufmann wrote:

Of course it's a smock! But The Cure reference was waaaaay too great to pass up...

  • Mon Mar 15 2010, 1:54 PM
mark wrote:

I always knew Ira was a hippie!

  • Mon Mar 15 2010, 1:48 PM
Cavra Thompson wrote:

That photo made the rounds on his facebook months ago. he was about to get his haircut, its a smock.

  • Mon Mar 15 2010, 1:46 PM
S. Ongthe wrote:

You stole that off the iraglasses twitter account. Can't find your own stories, fine, but don't pretend you went on some mission based on a hunch, and it was magically fruitful. You posted it not even two hours after @iraglasses posted it on twitter.

  • Mon Dec 20 2010, 6:33 AM
Howard Covitz wrote:

When I volunteered for a pledge drive at WBEZ in 1990, Ira stopped by to chat with us. His hair, which was straighter, went at least halfway down his back.

  • Wed Apr 13 2011, 11:38 PM
Ian_pink wrote:

those aren't ray bans

  • Mon Oct 3 2011, 1:27 AM

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