Inaugurating JIALIO’s new format, your hosts choose the topic of work, specifically the value produced by labor, as a thread they want to pick up from the previous episode. They begin with jokes that deliberately do not work as jokes. This leads to a discussion of French humor and the tendency of French comic artists – from Moliere to Jacques Tati – to appropriate, in the name of refinement and elevation, comedic aesthetics originally found elsewhere in the world. Finally getting around to a conversation specifically about work, they find themselves focusing on vacation and debt, comparing (as they so often do) attitudes and practices in France with those in the U.S. Ira struggles to articulate his experience of the relationship between professional and personal identities in the U.S. context and, thanks to Aaron’s time in Lithuania, learns the term “Free-Air Director,” a euphemism for unemployment he can put on his business cards. If he doesn’t hit it big as a Jeopardy! champion first, that is.

Music:
“Open Up Your Heart” by Roger Miller (a song which features the show’s namesake lyric). arranged and recorded especially for JIALIO by 80 Foots, Chicago’s only End Times Vocal Trio.

“Open Up Your Heart” by Buddy Killen + Roger Miller
Arranged and recorded by: 80 Foots (https://www.facebook.com/80FPM)