That's what she gets for asking

NPR, as you say, is known for trying to create an oasis of intelligent and civil discourse in this country. But do you think it's just getting harder and harder to do that, given how polarized and acrimonious the country has become?

Well I think that talk shows are becoming more and more about being divided. Because controversy gets attention. And it's sometimes not the best way to find out the underlying story. Because if you're always arguing with each other, no one is really getting a chance to explain their point of view in any depth.

I promise this will be the last question related to O'Reilly. But listening to your show over the years, I get a sense of which types of guests you particularly enjoy, and which ones just rub you the wrong way. And maybe I'm wrong, but it seems to me one of the types you really don't like is a certain kind of bad boy. Like Hugh Hefner, whose inveterate Playboy ways you seemed to disapprove of. Or Gene Simmons of Kiss, with whom you had another notoriously contentious conversation. [In her book, Gross writes of the aging cock-rocker, "It's tough, not to say pointless, to pretend that you're conducting a typical interview when the guest says things like, 'if you want to welcome me with open arms, I'm afraid you're also going to have to welcome me with open legs.'"] And maybe O'Reilly falls into that high-testosterone category too with his brow-beating and bluster. Any truth to this observation?

I don't know if that's true. In the case of Simmons and O'Reilly, they came in being combative. So if they come in that way, it's no surprise that I'm going to engage with them on the terms they're creating. Like when I was interviewing Simmons, I was thinking, now what are my options? I can say something like (in a singsong schoolmarm voice), "Mr. Simmons, that is so rude. This interview will have to end right now unless you become more polite." Or I could just pretend that nothing weird is going on here and I can just keep asking questions about the process of making music. But that would've been too strange. So instead I said something like, "Hey, that's really obnoxious" (laughs). I decided none of my options were good, so why don't I just say what I'm thinking.

Do you feel that you have fans in both red and blue America?

Yes.

Can you relate to red-state listeners as much as those in gay-friendly, artistically curious, urban America?

Well, you know, mostly I'm in my studio and it's not like I'm hanging out with people who listen to the show, so that's a hard one for me to answer.

I guess what I'm asking is, do you have a sense of your listeners and how would you describe them?

I tend to describe people who listen to NPR as people who are curious, people who want to learn things and know more and are willing to put in the time to do it. Whether it's listening to a six-minute news report on the insurgency in Iraq or listening to a 40-minute interview on "Fresh Air." There's a certain patience and curiosity that's required -- if you're just interested in the headlines, I'm not sure you'd be the most avid NPR listener.

Shifting gears a bit here -- which guests over the years have evaded you, which ones do you hunger to have on your show?

I've stopped thinking that way because the people who evade you are the big-name people, the celebrity actor or rock musician.

So you don't have a wish list?

No, I pretty much stopped having a wish list after Lou Reed walked out on me. He'd been on my wish list for so long. And I realized he really hates being interviewed. And he probably did the interview because a publicist said he should do it. I think a lot of people who are famous are either tired of having to repeat the story of their life and they don't want to be put through it one more time. Or they don't like being public outside their public persona that they present through their art.

I was surprised that Sean Penn really opened up with you in the couple interviews you did with him. He's also notoriously difficult with the press, the Brando of his generation. What was your secret there?

I don't think I had one. Sometimes it might just be how the person is feeling that day. I mean, who knows? But I certainly like his work a lot. I did two interviews with him, but I never met him. He likes to smoke, and you're not allowed to smoke in the studios, so we had to reschedule it for his office, where we did it by phone and where he probably felt a lot more relaxed.

Have you ever interviewed Bob Dylan?

No.

Is he someone you'd like to?

Sure.

I imagine he'd be a difficult conversationalist, though.

I bet he is. I mean he's a pretty obtuse lyric writer too (laughs). He'd be a challenge. And he's worn so many masks in his time -- I mean, who is Dylan? I think we know all the Bob Dylan personas -- but who is Dylan. I'm not sure how accessible Dylan himself would be in an interview.

Who was your favorite Beatle?

(Laughs) Well, at the time it was Paul, but later on it was John.

Did you tell Paul that when he was on your show?

(Laughs) Uh, no.

What was it like for you to interview him? You're a baby boomer, so I'm sure you were as dazzled by the Beatle aura as the rest of our generation.

Sure, well, the challenge was he probably wouldn't want to talk about the Beatles. He had a book of poetry that included some of his lyrics, and I knew he'd want to talk about that. The problem with a lot of people who are as famous as he is, is that what we want to hear about is exactly the part of their life that they're most tired of talking about. They want to move on, but they feel stuck in that part of their past. So it made the interview challenging, because obviously I wanted to know about the Beatles and how that affected him and his relationship with John. And because there were some Beatle lyrics in his book of poems, I was able to use those lyrics to relate to John Lennon and get at that. But he did let me know at some point that he had talked about that part of his life as much as he cared to.

You still managed to get several revealing stories out of Paul -- the story about how he and John got drunk and talked about their mothers, who had both died when they were young, for instance. You don't think of Paul as the deep, reflective one, like John. But you managed to get a side of him that most people weren't aware of.

Yeah, I really enjoyed that interview a lot and I was grateful that he was willing to talk about the early part of his life to the extent that he was.

Do you remember the first rock show you went to?

Yeah, it was at the Fillmore East, it was the Doors. I was a junior in high school, I think. And to actually be in a room with a band that you listened to on the radio was just amazing. I remember very little about the music, actually, but I remember getting home very late, like 1 in the morning or later, which was very late for me. And my parents didn't believe that the show started really late, they were sure there was some sort of hanky-panky and there would be horrible repercussions.

My favorite Doors moment came years later when the band's keyboard player, Ray Manzarek, was on the show and he sat down in the studio and played a piano version of the famous organ solo in "Light My Fire." It was so entertaining, and so funny to hear that on piano.

What are you listening to these days?

Sadly for my producers and probably a lot of my listeners, I like to listen to dead jazz singers. I love them -- my tastes include Billie Holiday and Chet Baker singing Sinatra and Una Mae Carlisle, Maxine Sullivan, Ivy Anderson. A lot of people I like aren't well known -- early Carmen McRae, the 1950s Decca recordings. So it's a conflict for me -- a lot of time the people I like to listen to for pleasure will never get to be a guest on "Fresh Air." And I always feel a little bit guilty about it, because I feel I should always be listening to a new band.

You love who you love.

You love who you love.

I just heard a replay of your interview with Bernie Mac -- and your entertaining interview with Chris Rock is included in your book. Both of them were very interesting on how their tough childhoods shaped their comedy. You seem to have a special love for comedians, as well as musicians -- is that true?

Well, sure, I love comedians. My father was always very good at telling jokes.

What did your father do?

He was in millinery. It was a family business he was in; he was a wholesaler for the material that they use to make hats, the cloth, the ribbons, all that kind of stuff.

This was New York?

Yes, Manhattan. I grew up in Brooklyn.

So he was a frustrated comedian?

Always told a lot of jokes.

Who were his favorite comics?

Well, it was always a big debate in the house whether Jackie Mason was good or bad for the Jews (laughs). He always liked Myron Cohen a lot too, because he was like a dialect comic.

If you were asking Bush and Kerry the questions at the Thursday debate instead of Jim Lehrer, what would be at the top of your list?

I'd really like to think about that before giving you an answer. I mean I always prepare for interviews, so it's not like I have things off the top of my head that I'd want to stand by. So I hesitate to give you a glib answer on that -- it's something that I would genuinely think about before.

As communicators, how do you think each one is doing in the campaign?

Well, it's interesting for me to see Kerry being criticized for being complex. I guess in a campaign situation maybe you need to speak more simply, but it surprises me that complexity should be seen as a liability for a president. The issues are, in fact, complex.

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