Hi everyone,

This might be a long one because I had a week full of interesting experiences and (hopefully) commensurately interesting thoughts!

I’ve been thinking a bunch about the ends of things, and how they can be temporary and permanent at the same time. On Monday night (after I watched Maris interview our friend about her new book The Dad Rock That Made Me a Woman), the Celtics and Knicks had what was very nearly a classic playoff game. “Jayson Tatum has left his body” I texted a friend, as the C’s star drained a series of picturesque jump shots. Then, with his team down by nine points in the game’s twilight minutes, Tatum crashed back into himself. He crumpled to the ground, banging the floor in agony. On Tuesday we (all of us, right?) learned that he had ruptured his Achilles Tendon and had undergone surgery that morning. Season over for Tatum, season (effectively) over for the Celtics. They may have lost the series anyway—the Knicks were playing great—but this was an exclamation point that plunged into the heart of the season like a sword. JT will be back on the court eventually, but it’ll take his injured human body a long time to recover. Things will be different by the time he returns.

Too bad the NBA season is over now *puts fingers in ears*. So psyched that the WNBA has tipped off. What perfect timing. Grand closing, grand opening. Let’s go Liberty! See you next year, basketball gentlemen!

Similarly, I saw my friend Lauren’s band Worriers play their last ever (ever, ever?) show in Brooklyn on Tuesday night. Lauren got a little choked up describing what playing the show meant to them. It struck me how even when you choose to bring a period of your life to a close, it can feel complicated while still being the right decision for the time being. You don’t have to befall a tragedy for the end of something to feel intense. Sometimes you really feel the weight of a sunset, you know? That said, I’m extremely psyched to see what post-Worriers music Lauren makes!

But! While my week started with endings, I ended it with a wonderful new beginning.

On Saturday night, I was preparing to do a short standup set/toast at a friend’s wedding, which normally I would dread (people don’t want standup comedy at a wedding usually, even when they think they do), but I trusted my friend Jennifer to nurture the proper context for me to not look like a total asshole up there. She and her husband, also a friend now, had asked me to tell some jokes about marriage and weddings, and fortunately I have written a bunch of those over the years. I didn’t realize it until last week, but I’ve been married long enough to have forgotten the exact wording of many of the jokes about my own wedding. In an attempt to re-learn my own material before the reception, I googled a few key words to pull up an old video, and I was met with a fascinating surprise.

Now, normally I scroll right past the AI Overview that Google has decided to jam into our eyeballs anytime we use their search engine. But seeing my name highlighted slowed my thumbs down long enough to read the computer-fabricated and factually-incorrect sentence: “Josh Gondelman and Fiona Apple are married.” First of all, wow, flattering. Second of all, this would create a LOT of complications in (probably) both my life and the life of recording artist Fiona Apple if it were true, which it is (despite Google’s insistence) not.

For what it’s worth: The result seems to be in incorrect inference based on an old standup bit and a tweet from 2020 about my (actual) wife going on a walk to listen to Fiona Apple’s new album and my fear that she would join a coven of other Brooklyn women doing the same and never return. But, through an algorithmic game of telephone, Google turned that information into something completely nonsensical (though admittedly hilarious).

It feels totally deranged for Google to screwhorn (that’s a shoehorn they shove up your butt) this AI functionality into one of the company’s most beloved and widely-used services. Obviously the old school Google Search returned some dubious “facts” from time to time, but that still feels different than the top result announcing: “Hey it’s us, your trusted information sources here at Alphabet, and what we think is important is that you read whatever a fancy robot freestyles based on your search terms. We do not care whether it’s true, and we will beam that information into your brain and stand behind it whether it’s accurate or not! Cool, right?”

It’s not cool, Google! And I have to imagine for every easily-disregarded result (I know who I’m married to!) there are way more accurate-seeming replies that are, upon further inspection, false. This AI integration is like selling a model of microwave that flash-freezes your food instead of heating it up sometimes. Who cares if that occurrence is frequent or rare. That technology is not ready to be foisted onto the public! I know that I can be kind of an AI skeptic (okay, hater) in this newsletter. But I’m certainly not smart or plugged in enough to say with any authority that there will never be an important application for this emerging technology. I will say, I don’t have a ton of faith that these massive breakthroughs are coming when the people who are most psyched about them are duct taping deeply flawed LLMs to their existing software packages, making them vastly less useful in the process. It’s like if a plumber showed up at your house and immediately took a shit in your toilet tank. You would not be especially inclined trust that person’s skills or intentions. And even that is giving tech companies too much credit because most of us have encountered a plumber who has gotten the job done without any ancillary shenanigans.

Here’s the joke I was looking for, by the way!

People were very kind about my performance at the wedding, and I’d be remiss if I didn’t say: Congratulations Jennifer and Jonathan!!! They curated a really wonderful group of people and experiences to celebrate their love, and I was thrilled to be a part of it, and DOUBLE thrilled not to have screwed it up with my jokes!

On Wednesday, Maris (my real wife) and (who has a new and great newsletter!!!) and I saw the Tim Robinson/Paul Rudd movie Friendship, which is so stressful and surreal and funny. I had seen several positive reviews and was worried that I’d be the one dull slob who didn’t think it lived up to the hype, but it really did for me. It’s definitely in the same vein as Robinson’s sketch show I Think You Should Leave, so it’s maybe not for everybody, but if it’s for your it’s really for you. I love the density of jokes it packs in instead of leaning on the unsettling tone to get laughs all on its own. I really recommend it if you like offbeat comedy!

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Speaking of weird comedy things, I stumbled across this sketch that I’d written for the final season of Desus & Mero on Showtime. Well, it’s 1/3 of the sketch. The whole thing was a runner that recurred throughout the show. But embedded here is the final beat in the saga of Dr. Jonathan Ratzmor, the dermatologist that snitches go to to get their stitches. Anthony Atamaniuk was great as Dr. Ratzmor, and Seans Donnelly and Patton show up at the end with excellent supporting performances.

Also, tonight is Frankenstein’s Baby at Union Hall! We’ve got a super fun lineup and an also-super-fun special guest who must remain unannounced! ;)

If weekends are more your speed for going out to comedy in New York City, I’ll be running a bunch of new material at 5pm on 6/1 (also at Union Hall in Park Slope) with a few friends doing sets on the show as well!

If you don’t live in New York (as most people do not), I recently recorded an episode of my friend Will Weldon’s podcast I Hate Bill Maher, where we broke down a 2004 episode of Maher’s show Real Time. I came in open-minded, but YIKES there was some awful stuff in there. Many super talented people (including pals) have worked at the show over the years, but there’s a lot of what Maher does that makes him hard to watch in addition to the fact that the jokes are twenty years old, which renders basically any late night comedy material incomprehensible at best.

A SMALL PIECE OF BUSINESS

Okay so I truly, TRULY hate being a “like, share, and subscribe” guy. But here’s the thing: That’s everything now! It’s basically unavoidable.

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I spend several hours a week writing this newsletter for free, and my hope is that in exchange, when I have a more substantial project to promote, or I come to your town to do a show, that you consider checking out my other stuff and spreading the word and maybe buying a ticket.

I’m writing this today because either next week or the week after that, I’m going to be announcing the release of my new standup special (for real!!!). It’ll be somewhere easy to find/share/enjoy, and every little bit of word-of-mouth about it helps. So whether you want to share a favorite installment of this newsletter on social media, or add a silly video I post here to your Instagram stories, or even just text a friend and tell them that they might like my jokes, it would mean a lot to me!

But especially the info about the special! That’s huge! I, and others, worked so hard on it! I really want people to see it!

Okay thanks for enduring the business! Back to our regularly-scheduled programming!

PEP TALK FOR MS. RACHEL

Ms. Rachel, I only kind of know what your whole deal is. I’m pretty sure I get the general idea from your overalls and body language, but I can’t claim to be a day one fan. Others, however, revere your talent. My friends who are parents of toddlers—regardless of sexual orientation—would gladly accept you into their lives in a throuple situation, predominantly because of your expertise in dealing with children. I have heard exclusively good things about your work, which I have not sought out as a childless adult man, but I’d happily fire it up while babysitting if any of the aforementioned friends would grow up and ask me to babysit.

But despite you having a gentle and capable energy around kides (a trustworthy quality), people have become furious at you. I imagine that came as a surprise to you, a person whose work does not court controversy. You don’t make music about committing violent crime. You have not written a book that besmirches the name of a well-loved celebrity. You haven’t even, to the best of my knowledge, advocated for the widespread adoption of an unorthodox pizza topping. You simply said that children should not be forced to starve or be murdered, which is an opinion some people get mad at now.

Of course you don’t like violence. If you did, you’d already have fomented an uprising of every toddler in America against their parents. Your tiny army would serve you with unwavering loyalty and could only be subdued by a counterinsurgency led by Bluey the cartoon dog. (Even this plan would likely fail because it takes a comparatively long time to produce animation.)

Obviously, this pep talk is directed to Ms. Rachel, but it’s for anyone who is told that compassion and empathy are foolish traits to cultivate. At the highest ranks of government, the most dearly held value is the ability to pin down another person, fart in their face, and take their wallet. It’s infuriating. I hate that anyone thinks this way. And even worse, there’s a strong impulse to want to get better at their thing than they are. Wouldn’t it feel so good to hold those people down, fart in their faces, and steal their wallets.

WRONG! That can’t be our aim! To paraphrase a popular saying: Every problem looks like a face when your only tool is a fart. What we’ve got to focus on is keeping vulnerable people’s faces un-farted-on. That’s the goal! This is all about trying to keep farts away from faces, not to build up face-farting strength and deploy it against our enemies. Work done in the service of that goal is noble and brave, even as it is gentle. I think this metaphor works and I will NOT be taking notes on it.

I know that may seem like a lengthy digression, but it’s really the whole point. The idea of measuring strength by the ability to do harm is a flawed one. The capacity to heal is another valid way to consider what being strong is, and it’s frequently more useful. And it’s suspicious to me when someone wants to undermine that objective.

That’s what Ms. Rachel knows and some other folks could learn. Remember: The only reason her enemies are not facing the wrath of her toddler army is because she chooses to hold them back.

PEP TALK FOR A READER

I combined the initial request with a brief follow-up on social media that offers some helpful context. The emoji is essential to the tone, in my opinion, so I left it there.

I'd love a pep talk for coming to terms with having been the unhelpful, sometimes actively mean partner in my marriage after I've made some serious steps to not to be this way in the future. I'm already making changes, but a pep talk about moving forward while reckoning with what I've done? Things are honestly much better [already]! Disappointed to report that sobriety has improved every area of life. 🤣 I just like your take on things and we can all use some pep.
- Cuts Like a Wife

Thank you for making this job a lot easier for me with the second half of your message! At first, I was a little antsy about how to respond. I usually try to give the people who write to me some encouragement to do what’s in their heart already. If it’s a 50/50 call, I side with the person who reads my newsletter out of my impulse to be helpful to the person in front of me instead of a stranger who I might not even reach…and also some light narcissism. Honestly, sometimes the people who write in are probably in the wrong, but that’s fine. We’re all wrong sometimes, and most of us don’t deserve to be thrown in a well or rocket-launched out of Earth’s atmosphere for our transgressions.

Still! It put a kink (inconvenience kind not sex kind) in my usual strategy when you were like: “I’ve been kind of a dickhead.” I cannot, in good conscience, say that your dickheadishness is no problem at all. That would be both dishonest and contrary to the spirit of the newsletter. I am in favor of being mean to people who deserve it, but not people who simply happen to be nearby when you’re in a foul mood. Even the assertion of having taken serious steps to improve the situation felt…vague. I didn’t quite know what to say that would acknowledge your humanity and ability to change without sounding a little too wide-eyed about the potential for things in this specific context to improve.

You can imagine my happiness for you (and immense personal relief) to hear that things have started to turn around already. This is where I really shine—any time or place the work has been done before I arrive and I can just say: “Looking good!”

And, in that spirit: “Looking good!” You’re doing it! You’re doing the thing!

I love hearing (with my eyes, which I guess they call “seeing”) that things are feeling better and that you’ve taken (what sound/look like) sustainable steps towards a future where you are making the best and healthiest possible decisions. Sobriety feels like a really positive development; it seems like it’s enabling you to be the best version of yourself. That doesn’t erase the past, but it lays the groundwork for a better future. And the more that the future becomes a solid past, the less of the past is the rocky parts of the past. A beautiful future is a beautiful past waiting to have happened.

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Again, I will reiterate: “Looking good!”

(Also I want to plug my friend Rax King’s upcoming sobriety memoir Sloppy, which is extremely funny and heartfelt about even the parts of sobriety that are not easy.)

CHILL-ME-OUT SONG OF THE WEEK:
Gerry Mulligan - Night Lights

Look, I am anti generative AI for creative pursuits and also kind of a hater of algorithmic discovery mechanisms, but sometimes an unknowable piece of code gives you just what you need to hear. I basically never listen to jazz, but this album surfaced on YouTube, and I was like…oh hey nice! It’s low-key and relaxing without feeling too “lo fi beats to study to”- core. I looked up Gerry Mulligan to make sure he wasn’t like a famous Holocaust denier before posting, and nothing of the sort came up. Plus I learned that he helped arrange (and played on) Miles Davis’s Birth of the Cool album, which I think means my taste here has been at least semi-validated.

UPCOMING SHOWS

I’m out and about in NYC a whole bunch coming up, plus a few shows on the road!

5/19: Co-hosting Frankenstein’s Baby at Union Hall (Brooklyn)

5/24: Picture This at Union Hall (Brooklyn)

6/1: What’s New? at Union Hall (Brooklyn…EARLY SHOW!)

6/18: Minibar (Brooklyn)

6/26: Wait Wait…Don’t Tell Me! Taping (Portland, ME)

9/13: Headlining the Fairfield Comedy Circle (CT)

Hi everyone,

First of all, a happy belated Mom Christmas to all the mothers out there. And a hearty “hey, at least that’s over” to people who have a tough relationship with Mother’s Day. I got to talk to my own mom on the phone yesterday (BRAG!) and then as a gift to my mother-in-law, Maris and I rented a car and drove Maggie the Pug down to New Jersey to meet her maternal grandparents. Although if you’re the people from the rental car place who told me “no pets” while I was lightly hungover on Saturday morning…no we didn’t.

I published a whole bunch of freelance work this week, almost all about basketball, which was kind of a funny set of circumstances. It’s been a while since I’ve done much freelance work on the internet, and I was a little nervous to put so much writing out into the world. I was especially antsy because (and I don’t know if you’ve noticed this) people tend to have strong opinions about sports, and they (I’m breaking new ground here I’m sure) do not always read past the headline before commenting. I am so grateful for all the people who read this newsletter and let me jettison thoughts out of my head and into the universe without putting them into the eyeballs of too many random jerks!

Fortunately, things went pretty well (aside from a few scattered jerks)! Here’s a longwinded rundown, in case you missed any or all of this stuff. (Not unlikely!)

Shout out to my friend (and brilliant editor) Ashtyn Butuso who asked me to write a little something about Boston Celtics coach Joe Mazzulla for the OffBall newsletter. I came up with some advice that imitated Mazzulla’s famously intense press conference quotes. I also wrote a piece for the basketball print magazine () that Ashtyn co-founded, and that’s out this week too. Sadly because I live thousands of miles from where the magazine is printed, I don’t have my copy yet. I can’t wait to get it in my hands assuming the USPS isn’t defunded while it’s out for delivery. I love every issue of Flagrant and am over the moon to have gotten to write about three-pointers for the new issue. Flagrant finally offered a way to subscribe, and I recommend if you like NBA or the WNBA (or both) that you do so!

Ashtyn and her co-founder Alex (who both make me laugh so much!!!) also had me on the Flagrant podcast last week, where we talked a bunch about basketball as well as a vast assortment of other subjects such as whether Mrs. Met is (in Alex’s words) “caked up.” I maintain she (Mrs. Met) has a pretty big butt for a baseball, but not on the overall spectrum of butts. Here’s a little video clip from our episode!

Another friend and brilliant editor Gaby Paiella asked me to write for GQ about the feeling of being a Celtics fan living in New York City as the C’s fell down 0-2 to the Knicks in the Eastern Conference Semifinals. (The Celtics have since won a game in the series, lowering my blood pressure by 50% in the process.) I appreciated the opportunity to say a lot of backhanded and petty things about my friends and colleagues who cheer for the New York Knickerbockers. I finished my first draft faster than I’d ever written anything, and I’m really delighted by how it turned out. The experience also offered a catharsis that group texts with other Celtics fans did not afford me. AND, I love the artwork they created for the piece!

Finally, I wrote a little essay about the Miami Heat for ’s newsletter Basketball Feelings. Katie is such a thoughtful and entertaining writer. I’ve learned so much about how to talk about sports with humanity and creativity from reading her work. She’s just the best, and I was delighted/intimidated to do a little writing for her.

If you are not sick of me yet, here’s my performance from last weekend’s 54/54/54 show at 54 Below. I do not have a great singing voice, but I had a wonderful time performing (part of) a They Might Be Giants song for a group of musical theater fans who kept asking me: “What show was that from?”

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And this Friday evening at Littlefield in Brooklyn, I’m performing on a WNBA season kickoff show that Defector is putting on!

And next Monday (5/19) I’m co-hosting Frankenstein’s Baby at Union Hall! Thanks to everyone who came to see me and Alison co-host Sup, Bro? on Saturday! Come see this too! We’ll be doing a totally different set of deranged riffs!

PEP TALK FOR BILL BELICHICK

Over the weekend, 24-year-old Jordon Hudson finished third in the Miss Maine competition, which is not the kind of thing you’d normally hear about at all, except that Hudson is in a romantic relationship with 73-year-old UNC football coach Bill Belichick. And look, I believe that love can take all kinds of different forms. Honestly, I tip my hat to Belichick for defying the stereotype of an older man dating a woman half his age by going out and dating a woman who is one third of his age. But there are some weird details at play here. Wait, scratch that. There are only weird details in this story.

During a recent television interview Belicheck was doing to promote his new book, which I believe is called Tales From The Hoodie although I may have made that up entirely, Hudson shut down a question about how the couple met. (You know, the most obvious question to ask any two people when you find out they are dating.) Pablo Torre and Katie Nolan hypothesized on a recent podcast that the topic may be uncomfortable because it seems as if Hudson was only nineteen years old when the pair first met. I don’t think that counts as grooming, but it certainly sounds like…primping to me.

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For context: When they first encountered one another, Jordon Hudson had been alive for one fewer year than Bill Belichick had been Tom Brady’s head coach in the NFL. The story actually is that they met on an airplane, and if I was seated next to a 19-year-old woman on an airplane, here’s what I, a 40-year-old man would say to her.

Me: “It’s okay to wake me up if I’m snoring and it bothers you.”
Her: “Okay, old man.”

But who is (potentially) sex-criming whom? Is it weirder for an old guy to date a way way way way younger woman, or for that woman to install herself as a de facto agent and publicist in her way way way way older boyfriend’s career? (Honestly, both the “boy” and the “friend” in the word “boyfriend” seem inaccurate here. He’s more like a “makeoutgrandpa.”)

So to you, Bill Belichick, I want to offer some words of encouragement. First of all, if you two are legitimately happy together, and there’s a legal mechanism in place for protecting you if she tries to write your way-older-than-her children out of your will, and to compensate her for having to see your balls, god bless. If that’s the case, wow. I’m so glad a college cheerleader was able to find the love of her life who happened to be a guy with the disposition you’d imagine the human father of The Thing from The Fantastic Four having.

If this relationship doesn’t work out though, that’s okay too. There are plenty of other fish in the sea. And many of those fish are of an age where you can publicly admit when and how you met them.

(For more substantial coverage of this ongoing story, follow ’s newsletter Impersonal Foul or her podcast—The Sports Gossip Show—with !)

PEP TALK FOR A READER

I’ve made a couple of little tweaks to this request but nothing ridiculous.

Hi, Josh. I’m losing my house this month. I tried very hard to keep it, but my ex-husband and his lawyer have spent the last 11 months intentionally delaying and obstructing my settlement from the divorce so now I have no choice but to sell. I have no idea where we’re going to find to rent…but wherever we do will have a higher monthly payment than my current mortgage and will put my poor daughter through even more upheaval than she’s already suffered. I am devastated.
- There Goes The Neighborhood

For pretty obvious reasons, I don’t have a ton of upbeat things to day about losing your home. There’s not even really a cliché for this. There’s that saying about how god never closes a door without opening a window, but in this context that sounds like permission to commit divinely-aided breaking and entering. We’re talking about literal doors and windows, here, and for legal reasons I can’t recommend that you try to pry them open.

I also don’t believe that things need to be really bad sometimes for you to appreciate the happier periods in your life. It seems unlikely that as much as you are accustomed to your home’s specifics, you haven’t been taking the concepts of having a roof and walls for granted. So this doesn’t seem like a situation that’s going to be rich with the learning of hard but necessary lessons, or important perspectives you hadn’t considered before.

So many people in America are so close to finding themselves unhoused, and our culture is so unkind to them. Some places have a social safety net. Here’s it’s more like just…a net. Gotcha! You’re stuck here now! This is a terrible reality, and it’s important to acknowledge, but I don’t imagine a ton of character-building comes from experiencing it firsthand. You’re not some Ebenezer Scrooge-type of miser who needs to be reminded that other people exist.

The only flicker of optimism that I can see here is that someday this period will be in the past. That’s not true of all misfortunes, but it seems fair to surmise here. It sounds like you’re in a position to find a new place to live, even if it’s a downgrade from your current situation. On top of that, it sounds like an enormous psychic improvement to not be fighting over a house anymore, even if this new state of being is brought about by losing the house. (It’s the inverse in many ways of how a wedding is a wonderful celebration, but one of the things about having one is that it means you’re done with wedding planning.) Once this dispute is over, you’ll know what you need to do to make your life as hospitable as possible under new conditions.

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And, with regards to your daughter, I completely understand your impulse to protect her from further upheaval. But all you can do is provide the best life you can for her, full of the most love and support. Plenty of kids who have experienced turbulence at a young age have happy and healthy future. And plenty of absolute ghouls grow up in two-parent homes with massive square footage. This might not have been your happiest Mother’s Day, but there will be better ones ahead!

PICK-ME-UP SONG OF THE WEEK:
Maura Weaver - “Goner”

My buddy Tommy McNamara came with me to see Chris Farren and Oceanator last Wednesday, and we arrived early enough to see opening act Maura Weaver. We walked into the showroom from the outdoor patio when we heard the opening chords of Maura’s set. Immediately we looked at each other and affirmed what we were both thinking: “This rules.”

Weaver’s 2023 album is very good, but live, there’s even more muscle and groove to the songs. The show was end-to-end one of the best concerts I’ve seen in a long time. The tour is still going on! See them if you can! I ran into Tommy again on Friday night for our friend Anthony DeVito’s standup special recording (which was great) and our conversation returned to Maura Weaver’s excellent opening set. It was a real unexpected treat.

Okay also though there’s been so much good music lately! The new Adult Mom record rules. The HORNS on this one. (I am, as always, a sucker for horns!!!)

And Um, Jennifer?’s album Um Comma Jennifer Question Mark is so specific and fun and full of songs about things I’d never heard songs about before. It’s great! I’ve just heard a bunch of great new stuff this week and I’m feeling hyped about it.

UPCOMING SHOWS

My calendar is filling in a little! Hooray!

5/14: Friends With Caveats at Caveat (Manhattan)

5/16: Defector WNBA Season Kickoff Show at Littlefield (Brooklyn)

5/19: Co-hosting Frankenstein’s Baby at Union Hall (Brooklyn)

5/21: Minibar (Brooklyn)

5/25: Picture This at Union Hall (Brooklyn)

6/1: What’s New? at Union Hall (Brooklyn…EARLY SHOW!)

6/26: Wait Wait…Don’t Tell Me! Taping (Portland, ME)

Hi everyone,

It feels weird to have a slightly lighter-than-usual standup schedule lately. “But Josh, that’s like…your job. What have you been doing?” Short answer: Don’t worry about it. Shorter answer: Other things!

Last night I performed on a fun show called 54/54/54 (featuring 54 performers singing 54-second songs on 5/4 at Manhattan’s 54 Below). It’s a little 55 burgers 55 fries 55 tacos 55 pies… in a fun way. I sang, per the host’s request, slightly less than a minute of “Birdhouse in Your Soul” by They Might Be Giants. I think I was…credible. But I was tucked into the lineup amidst some very heavy musical theater hitters. And, backstage, I had mentioned my song choice to other performers with little recognition in their eyes. So I did open my 54-second set by saying: “The performers you’ve seen tonight have beautiful voices and are performing songs you all know and love. I’m the only one brave enough to do neither.” Ten seconds in (or roughly 18% of the way through my performance), I made eye contact with a guy in the front row singing along, which made me feel literally and metaphorically seen. A fun night!

Earlier this year, I went on a little ticket-buying spree for all sorts of shows, and even though the money left my bank account months ago for some of these things, I’m finally reaping (going to shows) what I’ve sewn (ticket purchases). Last week Maris and I saw our friend (and Drama Desk Award Nominee!!!) Natalie Walker in a new musical where she is customarily brilliant. Her big musical number was the clear highlight of the show, not that it’s a competition with the other songs.

Then on Friday we saw Paul F. Tompkins’s Varietopia show on the tour’s NYC stop. (Okay this one we did not buy tickets for because a friend hooked us up. Thank you, Jordan!!!) This show was, also customarily, great. Paul was so funny as always and sang a beautiful tribute to the late Jill Sobule. And the musical guest (Medusa) was excellent as was the guest magician (Artoun Nazareth). In an unexpected coincidence, one of his magic tricks was extremely similar to one from the last magic performance we saw (last summer, we’re not doing like…constant magic watching), but that fact really highlighted how good his performance was, that we’d seen the trick before but enjoyed it this time even more. So much of the magic in a magic show isn’t about the magic part.

We also attended a one-year-old’s birthday party which was so much fun in part because a party for a kid that small is basically for adults, except everyone is more careful about covering electrical outlets and keeping knives out of reach. Happy birthday, Lulu!

This week I’m going to be hanging out at Frankenstein’s Baby tonight at Union Hall! On Wednesday I’m seeing Chris Farren and Oceanator play a show! Friday I’m going to ’s book launch and then to Anthony DeVito’s new standup special taping.

I’ve got a few fun things coming up, including a live Wait Wait…Don’t Tell Me recording up in Portland, Maine at the end of June! And on June 1st I’m doing another What’s New? show at Union Hall in Brooklyn to work out some new material. My friend Meredith Dietz who is very funny will be on the show as well, and I’ll announce some other guests soon too. I’m also hanging out at tonight’s Frankenstein’s Baby at Union Hall and co-hosting on the 19th!

In the meantime, you can listen to me on the podcast talking about Massachusetts culture, and I got to chat with Griffin and David and Ben on the great Blank Check podcast about Amy Heckerling’s extremely silly gangster comedy Johny Dangerously which is actually really tricky to watch. (I used an internet archive link with pretty shaky video quality.)

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Okay that’s all the news for now! Don’t forget to get your Mothers’ Day ducks in a row if you’re a person who plans to celebrate Mothers’ Day. It is, against all odds, this coming Sunday.

PEP TALK FOR J.K. ROWLING

Last week, in defense of the network’s upcoming Harry Potter TV show, HBO’s Casey Bloys asserted that the series would not “secretly [be] infused” with J.K. Rowling’s worldview. Which, let’s take a second and acknowledge the bleak humor in saying, essentially: “We want this person’s intellectual property, but not, you know, her personal intellect, so much as one can call it that.” As if Hagrid Ogreman (last name presumed by me) comes from a separate part of Rowling’s mind, hermetically sealed off from a level of transphobia that appears, even to the casual observer, to have consumed her brain the way syphilis did to Al Capone’s. This is such a wild statement for Bloys to feel compelled to make. Like, when Woody Allen puts out a new movie, nobody feels the need to go: “Don’t worry! There’s no stepdaughter-marrying stuff in here!”

It didn’t have to be this way. You, J.K., created one of the most beloved book/movie series of all time. I don’t know why Harry Potter resonated as much as it did. But who knows why anything works? Mickey Mouse is a rodent who sounds like he’s been doing whippets. Jerry Seinfeld from the show Seinfeld is loosely based on Jerry Seinfeld, a New Yorker who hates everything. These are not intrinsically likable characters. And sure, there have been allegations of antisemitism in the Harry Potter universe. Personally, as a Jew, I was less offended by the gold-hoarding goblins than the fact that you decided the most evil guy in the universe should be named “Mort.” Still, you could have lived in your castle and even built another castle around that castle to insulate people from your terrible opinions. But instead you became more and more animated by your most bigoted impulses. It’s like you pointed a magic wand at your own head and shouted: “Transphobus amplifius!” or some other bullshit first-thought fake Latin.

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Remember the halcyon days of 2007 when you were like “Truth bomb: Dumbledore is gay!” and people were like, okay sure that’s kind of a Macklemore-ass thing of you to say, but we’re with it. (Obviously there are two caveats needed here: Macklemore in his current Mackleform was not famous in 2007. And also, against most odds including his former signature haircut, Macklemore seems cool now.)

Today, instead of using your massive wizard wealth to cure a disease or feed the hungry, you are funding campaigns to make sure transgender women can’t enjoy water polo or whatever the hell you’re on about lately. It stinks. You, frankly, stink.

Here’s the bright side for you, J.K. Rowling, a person who will never feel meaningful consequences for the harm you’ve done to others and doesn’t actually deserve consolation. The criticism you’re receiving and the turmoil around your work: It is all your fault. You did this to you. I imagine the criticism now feels the same as when religious weirdos protested your books for promoting an agenda of Dark Magick. Just like Ricky Gervais gets the same charge out of his transphobia as he did from saying the Bible may have taken some liberties with details (bold!) and Dave Chappelle can’t distinguish between the criticisms he receives after talking shit about marginalized people or saying that American society is positively termite-ridden with racism (he’s right about the second thing, of course). But it’s not the same, obviously. And you with a fully-formed prefrontal cortex should be able to tell the difference.

The ball is in your court. Or, to address you with your own mythology, the Quidditch puck(?) is in your…I don’t know…broom-catcher? You certainly don’t deserve any benefit of the doubt here, but you could have, at any point over the past seven or eight years, stopped this all from happening. Instead, you continue to spew garbage thoughts while generating enormous sums of money off of the performances of a new generation of child actors who will probably grow up to know better than you like the last ones did.

So, congratulations, I guess. You are become Mort, destroyer of your own legacy.

[Brief, non-joke point!!!! In this oppressive political and cultural climate, a nice thing you can do is support trans artists and also non-artist transgender people! Perhaps throw a few bucks towards Trans Lifeline or check out the artists performing at the Liberation Weekend music festival later this month in Washington DC as two examples of things to do. Okay thanks!]

PEP TALK FOR A READER

This was a very concise request, but I did add one comma and a nickname.

I got laid off almost two months ago now and thought I'd feel creative (I play in a band, I make art) in my newfound free time, but mostly I feel bummed out. Is there a pep talk for that?
- Brainiyuck

There IS a pep talk for that, and it’s right HERE! Well, right BELOW HERE! Wait for it…

HERE IT IS: I have to believe that you are bummed out at least in part because the thing that happened to you is a bummer. Even (especially!) if the job you were at was a true pain in the neck, you were there for a reason, and not in a spiritual, everything happens for a reason, sense. The reason in this case is that they were giving you money to show up. And now you don’t have to show up anymore, which has its benefits, certainly. But they probably aren’t paying you anymore either, which is a pretty substantial drawback.

And, irritatingly, it’s not just unstructured hours of the day that allow for the best creation of art. You also need to cultivate the right mental space, not to mention pulling together the financial resources for art materials and things like dinner and electricity. It’s a bad deal, honestly. Unless your creative work brings in enough money to live off of (and sometimes even in that case) you’re always trying to balance a seesaw with Enough Bandwidth on one side and Enough Money on the other. The tricky part is, the seesaw of capitalism isn’t designed to be in balance!

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An important part of pep talking, to me, is The Validation of Feelings. Because if I don’t acknowledge that there are legitimate reasons for you to feel bad, any response will come off as: “Actually things are fine, dummy!” Which is not what I mean! Especially because in many cases, things are not fine. (Will not elaborate. No need. If you think all things are fine…why are you here?)

Now, here’s the pep talk part of the pep talk: You can shake yourself out of this funk!!! Or, crucially, someone else can help shake you out of this funk. This funk-shaking could take many forms, probably not all of which are necessary! On the smallest level, you can fence off some time to do creative work in a contained period. Don’t kick your own ass for not being a gushing geyser of generative energy. You deserve to give yourself a few hours where imagining and executing creative projects becomes your entire task. Commit to not job searching or doing chores you put off over your entire tenure at the last gig or staring at the ceiling (or your phone) spiraling over the discrepancy between where you thought you’d be by now and where you currently find yourself. ESPECIALLY take some time off from that last thing. Maybe a friend can hold you accountable or even better collaborate with you on one of these simmering ideas. Or you could find a way to make some money that doesn’t stress you out too badly. OR, and I don’t mean to diagnose from afar, but I’ve spent some time around creative people, and maybe what you’re feeling is not just a post-job malaise but a smidge of depression. There are treatments and strategies for dealing with that too, despite what our current HHS Secretary might tell you!

This potential for satisfaction and improvement extends beyond creative ambition too. If there’s anyone reading who wants to learn how to rock climb or draft a will and testament or get a new printer cartridge, you can probably do those things with a combination of effort and support. Often that takes a little effort to discern what external obstacles are in your way and which obstacles are obstacling from inside the house, as it were or…as it ‘stacle.

So, to boil this pep talk down to two points, which maybe I should have done in the first place, but there’s no going back now because I’m too lazy to do that…

1. Your feelings of malaise are completely valid!

2. You can do something to adjust those feelings even though they are legitimate!!!

PICK-ME-UP SONG OF THE WEEK:
Aesop Rock - “Send Help”

Okay so last week I shared (and ultimately deleted from the newsletter archives) a kind of stitched-together late-90s style rap song that at least one of the artists involved didn’t want out there. Sorry, Big Daddy Kane! My bad! Please believe I would never knowingly defy your wishes!

Included here is a new song by Aesop Rock, who represents the other genre of rap music I was obsessed with as a youth. At the turn of the century, Aesop Rock made lyrically dense songs set to somewhat confrontational sounding beats. Not rap confrontational like M.O.P. but noise confrontational like Nine Inch Nails. I got really into the catalog of El-P’s Definitive Jux label (to which Aesop Rock was signed), in part because they put out a ton of good stuff and in part because I liked the ethos even when some of the music was too much for my gentle radio-trained suburban ears.

When you are fifteen, and a celebrity (or even just a non-celebrity artist you’re aware of) is twenty-three, it feels like an enormous generational chasm. But when you’re forty and the other person is forty-eight, that’s basically the same age. Isn’t that weird? We’re all just adults now? Eminem is fifty-two years old. What the hell?

I can’t quite tell whether Aesop Rock’s choice of beats has gotten a little friendlier over time, or if my ears have grown up a little, or both. Either way, I stumbled across this song and video on YouTube, and I like it a lot! It’s cool to grow together with artists you’ve known (or known of) for a long time.

And one more! As I mentioned, I have tickets to see Chris Farren (who is so good live!) this week in New York, and this new song is another classic mega-catchy melody with extremely depressing lyrics. I’ve never heard a song about this particular uncomfortable feeling before! It’s new! It’s great! Chris Farren!

And, of course, the new PUP album Who Will Look After the Dogs? is out now too! It is great, and I’m so excited to hear them play these songs live later this year!

UPCOMING SHOWS

I am mostly close to home the next month or two, but that could change!!!

5/8: The Comedy Cellar (Manhattan)

5/14: Friends With Caveats at Caveat (Manhattan)

5/16: Defector WNBA Season Kickoff Show at Littlefield (Brooklyn)

5/19: Co-hosting Frankenstein’s Baby at Union Hall (Brooklyn)

5/21: Minibar (Brooklyn)

6/1: What’s New? at Union Hall (Brooklyn…EARLY SHOW!)

6/26: Wait Wait…Don’t Tell Me! Taping (Portland, ME)

Hi everyone,

Last week was all about BUSINESS in a bunch of funny little ways, including some social ones. On Saturday night, our friends Ashtyn and Tim came over to drink espresso martinis from the ~influencer~ kit that HBO sent me in celebration of the new season of Hacks. (We haven’t started watching yet! Between Gemstones and The Rehearsal and the NBA Playoffs, I’m at capacity for TV right now!) I’d never had an espresso martini before, and I’m not an influencer, but I did used to write for an HBO late night show, which I imagine was what got me on their list. Maris mixed up some delicious cocktails, and the little kick of coffee had the added benefit of motivating us to leave the house for a friend’s birthday party at 8:30pm. (Happy birthday, Sean!) It was an extremely successful #brand #integration.

I also auditioned to co-host a podcast for putting people to sleep that would only exist on a specific brand of white noise machine. The audition consisted of a sample episode I recorded with a friend, where we were instructed to banter and have fun, but not to be too engaging. (Laughter, we were told, really wakes people up, so we tried to be funny enough to keep the riffs afloat, but not funny enough to crack each other up.) I’d never been challenged like this before although people have occasionally told me that I’m plenty unfunny already! I kind of love a quirky little gig that pays me money to learn a weird new skill, so fingers crossed this pans out. Business!

Most spectacularly this week, Maris and I saw Glengarry Glen Ross on Broadway with our friend Casey who was visiting from Los Angeles. I’d never seen a staged version of GGR (not sure anyone abbreviates it that way) before, just the movie, and it had such a different tone. The show played to huge and consistent laughs, which I hadn’t expected despite the casting of big comedy stars (Bob Odenkirk, Bill Burr, Michael McKean, and even Kieran Culkin). Maris hypothesized that it’s because in the present day, slick real estate guys from the past are self-evidently laughable. I also think that the re-exclusion of Alec Baldwin’s famous “Coffee is for closers!” monologue that was written into the 1992 filmed version of GlenGaGleRo (100% sure nobody calls it that) leaves the stage play without any character who seems cool or impressive. There’s no avatar of success, and everyone is (at best) a corruptible corporate drone and (at worst) a pathetic, corrupt scumbag. (Excising that role didn’t stop them from selling “coffee is for closers” mugs at the merch stand. Capitalism finds a way!)

Even the new season of The Rehearsal (no spoilers) digs into the gnawing push and pull of what it takes to acquire enough money to make real change, and whether the acquisition process impedes one’s ability to use that money beneficially. It’s an issue that’s certainly top of mind for me lately (how to be a responsible and helpful member of society while also finding a way to earn money). It’ll come up later in the newsletter as well. Oooo, a teaser!???!?!

It’s also ostensibly the topic of this podcast episode I did with my friend about the movie Iron Man 3. I honestly had a pretty good time watching this one even though I didn’t like the original Iron Man very much. In large part I was able to enjoy it because it was less about Tony Stark’s immense wealth and his ruminating about how he can use it responsibly. This one is more about how messed up it is to be an Avengers, and how America loves to hate a guy in a cave, which was more interesting to me. Is anyone else having this kind of gut reaction to entertainment as the U.S. government is increasingly directly manipulated by some of the most grotesque and racist oligarchs in world history? Just like, not wanting to see rich people feeling conflicted about their richness?

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In any case, I had fun talking with Gabe and maybe you’d have fun listening! And this week I’m psyched to see the great Paul F. Tompkins’ Varietopia show on Friday night. Lots to look forward to, even if I’m maybe about to render myself the Pagliacci of sleep podcasts and stay up all night twisted off the free espresso martinis.

PEP TALK FOR MAY FLOWERS

Over the past week, I’ve been spending a lot of time walking around my neighborhood with Maggie (pug, age 4). She is curious about all the sights and smells. She wants to befriend every person she sees, and for some reason growl at 50% of the other dogs and scrape her feet along the ground like a bull about to charge. Frankly, she’s too cute; when the weather is nice, strangers can’t help stopping to marvel at her squishy face. I do love it, and I am absolutely offended when folks don’t stop me to say how adorable she is. But we have places to go! Maggie has (finally) been convinced that it’s better for all parties concerned if she pees outside instead of inside. But she’s very picky about where she’s willing to go, and I try not to let her be distracted while she’s getting in the zone.

I’m happy to meander through Brooklyn with a small wrinkly dog in part because I am wildly underemployed but even more so because the weather has been rapidly improving; we’re in the midst of three of the six excellent weeks that seduce visitors into moving to New York and coax residents into staying here. The flowers in my neighborhood are in full bloom, and I have managed to pry my eyes off of my phone screen long enough to murmur: “Ooo, the cherry blossoms, or at least what I assume to be cherry blossoms, are lovely this year!” We haven’t quite hit the technical season, but May Flowers are doing their thing.

And to those flowers I say: Watch yourselves. I know you’re populating Instagram stories (and newsletter headers) now, but don’t get cocky. This could all go to hell for you on any day, and speaking from experience (with seasonal flora, not entropy generally, but also…) it will. Soon your petals will be strewn across the sidewalk, dead and ready to be outlined in pollen (nature’s chalk).

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I know this is a pep talk newsletter, but sometimes tough love is what’s needed, and I’m here to deliver. So May Flowers, don’t get too big for your branches and forget where you came from. You would be nothing without April Showers. Nothing. You were just buds and bulbs and stalks while the rest of us had to splash and splatter through the spring storms. DON’T THINK WE DIDN’T NOTICE.

Yes, everyone is happy to see you, even people with allergies. And no I don’t know if I have allergies or if I’ve just been staying up too late the last few weekends and feel like garbage because of that. Regardless! You’re great, May Flowers, but nothing lasts forever, even warm May sun. Be cool. And, sneezing aside, we will appreciate you while you’re here.

PEP TALK FOR A READER

I did a little re-formatting and nicknaming for this reader! That’s all!

My second tarot book is coming out in July and I am nervous to market it given *flails at the world.* I believe so strongly in what I do, but it's still a struggle right now. I'm positive that I'm not the only author in this place right now!
- Booked and Dizzy

Congratulations, B&D, on what is a big and thrilling accomplishment despite *glances back and forth furtively* basically everything else going on. I know for a fact you’re not the only author concerned about launching a new book in the face of *does one of those deep sighs where your lips go p-p-p-p-p-p-p* the vast majority of news reports and cultural headwinds. (I may be married to one.) Let’s take a step back here: It’s not just authors. If I had to bet, I’d guess people in nearly every line of work have felt some ambivalence lately about the value of what they do when confronted with *looks in mirror, slaps self in face once, scowls and walks out of the bathroom* the overwhelming chaos of living in the present day.

Teachers feel forced to do a worse job because of small cohorts of reactionary parents. Human rights lawyers are fraying at the ends worried that they are doing enough for clients at risk. I’m sure that there are plumbers out there thinking “Who gives a shit?” and dog trainers struggling with an unprofessional impulse to let a rogue chihuahua keep biting strangers. Who cares? How strong could his jaws possibly be? I bet PR representatives feel trepidation as well, but they will continue sending a “just following up” email every six days until the sun burns out, regardless of the fact that you have no idea how you got on their email list, and have never replied to a single one of the five dozen messages they’ve sent you already this year.

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It’s natural and beneficial to question the value of how you spend your days. I bet most thinking and feeling people keep themselves in check this way far more than the folks who are doing the bulk of the ruining of the world. If, for example, J.K. Rowling looked inward for a moment, she would realize her heart does not pass inspection and maybe she’d do some things differently. She’d probably stop throwing money and support behind the world’s cruelest transphobes and would likely include less antisemitism in her children’s books as well. (Forget the gold-hoarding goblins. She named the worst guy in the whole universe “Mort.”)

But wait!!! I am not trying to absolve anyone from the obligation to make the world a better place because you’ve done appropriate hand-wringing. No one can do that (especially not while we are *ahem* between Popes). But reflection on the issue of “What the hell am I doing with my life?” is worthwhile. And you can honestly say: “I’m doing creative work that I think will be of comfort and use to people!” Great! That is huge! And if you feel like that’s not enough, you can do more too!

Most people (myself very much included) do not have the capacity to fight fascism 24/7. We need sleep and snacks and sometimes to read a book about tarot or (as I’ve been told is popular) sexy dragons running their tails seductively along people’s lips. It’s good to do something small and nice for others, especially if you’re not talking over people doing BIG good things or pushing them out of the way. We’ve all got to do what we can, and that takes lots of different shapes, even and especially during a period of *winces, goes back to bed and pulls covers over head for an extra hour* this current deluge of bullshit.

We’re all in this together. (Despairing.)
But, more importantly, we’re all in this together. (Hopeful.)

PICK-ME-UP SONG OF THE WEEK:
Video Dave - “Jay’s Appliance Repair”

Longtime newsletter readers know that I am a big fan (and friendly acquaintance) of Video Dave. His new album is very good, and this is my favorite song off of it. The beat is so breezy and bouncy. You can close your eyes and imagine yourself on a boat or a beach. Or, if you are already one of those places, you will feel like you’re your boatiest, beachiest self. Dave also lays out a maxim that I personally subscribe to but never had the words for: “I cannot hang with you if I cannot complain with you.” Perfect. Gotta leave room for some grievances at any social engagement.

[Editor’s note: I removed a second song from this post that was released without the artist’s approval and wasn’t quite exciting enough to warrant defying their wishes.]

UPCOMING SHOWS

I’m kind of busy the next couple of weeks, but I’ll still be onstage!

5/4: 54/54/54 at 54 Below (Manhattan)

5/13: Friends With Caveats at Caveat (Manhattan)

5/16: Defector WNBA Season Kickoff Show at Littlefield (Brooklyn)

5/19: Co-hosting Frankenstein’s Baby at Union Hall (Brooklyn)

6/1: What’s New? at Union Hall (Brooklyn…EARLY SHOW!)

Hi everyone,

I am writing to you after spending a few days in Austin for the Moontower Comedy Festival. Staying in downtown Austin just off of 6th Street really makes you look inward and ask some serious questions. Questions like: “Have all the nation’s 24-year-olds descended on a five-block strip to get blackout drunk?” And: “Can I count salsa as a vegetable? Because otherwise I might not have eaten a vegetable in like 36 hours.”

Despite navigating hordes of inebriated youths and a looming fear of scurvy, the festival was a really stellar time. I saw a ton of comedy friends and several non-comedy friends and made a ton of new friends (I’m very friendly). I don’t get to go to Los Angeles as often as I’d like, and that’s where many pals live now, so it was a treat to catch up with west coast buddies who were also in town. It was also nice to see a bunch of New York comedians outside of our normal rhythms. We got to do more hanging out and goofing around than when we have the rest of our lives to attend to.

Thanks to everyone who came to my headlining show at the State Theatre! And thanks to my friend Isabel Hagen for opening the show! Isabel writes perfect jokes and is also a classically trained viola player which is unfair and frankly rude. She must be stopped. (But in the event that her rampage is allowed to continue you should check out her directorial feature film debut at Tribeca this summer!)

HUGE thanks also to Colleen and the whole festival staff for organizing such a fun and impeccably run event. Thanks to the Sklar Brothers for having me on their show Tag It (where comedians do a set and then Randy and Jason provide a wealth of potential tags for their jokes) and Business Casual for having me on their live podcast show to take a practice SAT test in front of the audience. (My verbal section was pretty good, but my math could use some brushing up. I was extremely stressed out the entire time, through no fault of Business Casual’s.)

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Especially huge shout out to my friend whose beautiful and heartbreaking and hilarious show Happy Place I finally got to see. It’s a really special show, and not just because it’s extremely pro (Stoneham, MA hometown hero) Nancy Kerrigan and (excellent karaoke band) Sum-41.

Not to be all ~in these times~ but…uhh…in these times, I have extra added respect for the transgender comics and the comics who were not born in the United States for traveling to Texas to tell jokes.

Between this festival and a quick trip to Boston to perform on a fundraiser for my friend Mike Dorval’s cancer treatment (He’s doing well! It’s just that private health insurance is a nightmare even when it’s working!), I have felt especially grateful to be part of a community of friends and colleagues who care about each other as artists and people. I got to watch and work with lots of people I’ve looked up to for years, which is always a thrill. And I don’t think I did anything especially embarrassing even.

One non sequitur: Last week, a little girl (about four years old) in our neighborhood wanted to say hi to Maggie the pug, and afterwards she was extremely thrilled to show us that her dress had pockets. I hadn’t realized how early that starts!!!

This week: I’m co-hosting Frankenstein’s Baby at Union Hall tonight. Another outrageous lineup per usual! Tomorrow night I’m co-headlining a show in Manhattan with Marina Franklin! And on Wednesday I’m doing an evening of humor readings. What will I be reading? Can I even read? These are questions I will try to answer over the next couple of days. Then things are a little quieter for a bit. Maris and I are seeing some bands play next week and I’m very psyched for that.

And if you’re not in town you can listen to me later this week on the Review of Mess podcast with (whose newsletter is a long-time favorite) and (a new fave)! And if you’re not sick of reading things I’ve written, check out my guest entry for Dingus of the Week in my friend ’s excellent newsletter! I say many mean and gross things about Marco Rubio!

Oh and I made a little video plea to Jeff Bezos. Please share to promote male astronaut awareness.

Oh! I saw my friend Ana Marie Cox over the weekend, and she still has a couple of slots available in her upcoming writing workshop!!!

Okay! On to the pep!

PEP TALK FOR THE NEXT POPE

The Pope died over the weekend or today depending on what time zone you’re in, and I will not be making jokes about that because while I don’t believe in hell, I also don’t enjoy people telling me I’ll go there online for a week straight. Plus, it would hurt my feelings if Catholics said mean things when Mel Brooks (the closest thing my people have to a Pope) died.

I know you’re out there somewhere listening to “Humble” by Kendrick Lamar in your headphones so as not to feel inappropriately worthy of assuming stewardship over the whole church. Maybe you’re worried that you won’t be able to fill Pope Francis’s shoes (which, upon Googling, had considerably more style than I imagined). Do not worry, future Pope. Just by virtue of taking office (Is that what we say about Pope? Again…Jewish.) you will be infallible. Catholic grandmas all over the world will accept whatever you say. That’s Pope’s Prerogative! You can even say that gay people are good or genocide is bad, and the only people who will really get mad are conservative commentators who should probably just have Ronald Reagan prayer candles in their homes and give up the facade of religion entirely.

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There’s only so bad a job you can do as Pope these days. You’re not going to convert the Vatican to cryptocurrency. (I don’t even know if Popes have that kind of municipal authority.) You’re probably going to be mostly within the general sphere of acceptable Popedom. Although honestly I do think it would be very funny if you, like, sincerely converted to Islam. That would probably shake the whole situation up a little. But I can’t imagine you came this far with all the robes and blessings and Latin to do that. And, if you do anything to cut out…you know…the thing the Catholic Church is second most famous for, you’ll probably go down as the GOAP (Greatest of All Popes).

PEP TALK FOR A READER

This request was extremely straightforward to I left it basically untouched.

I need a pep talk to get me through the next few months as I manage my senior dog's healthcare and possible end of life, getting my child through the end of HS and ready to launch into the adult world, and finalizing a divorce amid all the attendant financial and emotional turmoil.
- Have You Heard That Sometimes It Rains AND Pours?

My goodness, you are in the throes of so many big changes. And even the positive shifts are heavy and effortful. There’s not a single event you cataloged that will fully happen on its own, nor is there one that’s absent of a high-voltage emotional charge. There’s nothing you mentioned that’s laborious and less fraught (putting together new furniture, taking on a rigorous new job, learning to weld) or mentally taxing but otherwise undemanding (deciding whether to go back to school after you’ve been accepted, working up the nerve to ask for a sabbatical at work, lifting a fallen tree with your mind).

You’ve got to actually do all these things, and you’re going to feel as it’s going on. Raw deal, I know, but it’s the only one that’s on offer. But you can do this! And, more than that, you will! This isn’t like filing your taxes. You can’t just skate by without actually completing that task for a couple of years if things get hectic enough (not that I’d know, but I do). Dragging your feet will have immediate and noticeable consequences. So, wisely, you’ll probably choose to put your head down and barrel through this gauntlet of landmark events.

That is, in my opinion, lightly good news. You seem to realize that the only way out is through, so through is where you’re headed. But the better news, is that once you go through, you’re out. That’s the corollary, right? If the only way out is through, the place you end up once you’re through is out! It’s kind of like the transitive property of mathematics but…not quite. And after all this through you’re mired in, no one has ever been as out as you’re about to be.

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So get excited for out! You’re not going to be a brand new person. Despite what my old barber used to say immediately after every haircut (“Brand new man!” he’d gush, while snapping his fingers, despite removing maybe 5mm of hair from the sides of my head) one rarely finds one’s self a person fully transformed. But you will be a mostly-continuous version of yourself under new and bracing circumstances. They won’t all be good, but they will all offer the potential for a beautiful future informed by your past. Hold on! Out’s coming!

PICK-ME-UP SONG OF THE WEEK:
Matt Berninger - “Bonnet of Pins”

Matt Berninger and his band The National are not known for music that makes one feel good. They’re more conversant in songs for drinking alone to while the sun creeps over the horizon on its way up. But this one has some big bright horns towards the end and an old school “Mr. November”-era National charge to is, so I made an exception. Sue me if you dare. I’ll fight it tooth and nail. (That kind of sounds like a National lyric honestly.)

And there’s a new Illuminati Hotties song featuring Stefan from PUP! Honestly, it’s a better fit for this section of the newsletter, but I’ve been going so hard for both of these bands individually in these here (web) pages that I figured you’d all be like enough already. So I linked it separately.

And I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention my friend Avery Friedman’s gentle and tender and lovely new album is out now! Congratulations, Avery!!!

UPCOMING SHOWS

I’m out and about in NYC a whole bunch coming up, plus a few shows on the road!

4/21: Co-hosting Frankenstein’s Baby at Union Hall (Brooklyn)

4/22: Co-Headlining Baruch PAC with Marina Franklin

4/23: GRIEFSTRIKE! Reading at Francis Kite (Manhattan)

5/4: 54/54/54 at 54 Below (Manhattan)

Hi everyone,

There’s very little routine weather I enjoy less than 40 degrees and rainy. Just snow, coward, I want to shout at the sky. On account of lousy weather and not much work on the calendar, I had an extremely cozy Maris-and-Maggie hanging out weekend, which was lovely when we did not have to subject ourselves to the elements. On Friday night, we watched Black Bag, the new Steven Soderbergh movie, which I loved and Maris liked a lot. It’s about love and mind games and espionage. And, it’s only 94 minutes long *guy on dating apps voice* because I guess that matters. (It does matter to me! I think movies should be short until proven to merit being long.)

We also plowed through the last few episodes of The Residence, the new Netflix series starring Uzo Aduba as an eccentric detective solving a murder in the White House. It might be my favorite of the recent batch of comedy/murder mystery shows. My all-time favorite is probably Search Party, but I don’t consider that part of this batch. The mystery of The Residence is very fun and mostly very tight! I laughed out loud a bunch of times! I don’t know many people who watched it (except for my friend Ashtyn who correctly guessed the ending!!!) so I have been mostly unable to vent about one little plot hole, but otherwise it was very enjoyable.

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In other television news, I’m so excited for the upcoming adaptation of my friend Holly Gramazio’s delightful novel The Husbands starring Juno Temple of Ted Lasso and more importantly the most recent season of Fargo. Congratulations to Holly and also to all of us on getting to watch a fun tv show!

I kind of screwed up my Sunday calendar, and instead of coming home to Massachusetts for Sunday’s Passover seder, I scheduled a train for this morning and then booked a little work in New York last night that made it hard to change once I realized what I’d done. I’m a truly horrendous long-term planner. So you’re good at living in the moment? you may ask. Also no.

Feeling annoyed at myself for missing my family’s Passover celebration did at least made me reflect a little extra on what Passover is. (The past few years I haven’t traveled home for Passover, but it’s been because of actually inconvenient scheduling rather than my own poor grasp of the calendar, and I haven’t done much around the holiday at all.) With the U.S. government ramping up its cruelty and persecution towards anyone that it considers an outsider, the Passover story feels upsettingly relevant. And of course it is hard to internalize the sorrow we (Jews!) are compelled to feel for the pain that the Ten Plagues caused without feeling analogous anguish over the pain being visited on the Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank, largely in the name of the Jewish people.

It’s a bad time! And Passover is very much a bad times holiday. But it’s also a reminder that bad times can end. So I am going to try to focus on that starting…now!

Here’s some more fun news!

As I mentioned last week, my episode of Abolish Everything is up on Nebula now, but in the interim, Nebula has posted a few clips from my presentation, including this one!

While I’m at it, here’s an extremely silly bit I couldn’t get out of my head, so I wrote some jokes and recorded them and put them online. It’s absolutely too specific and nonsense-y to work as standup, but I wanted to share it with you here.

I also was on last week’s episode Joel Kim Booster’s podcast Bad Dates talking about a time I was a bad date. My story will be familiar to anyone who’s read my book, but the episode is worth it to hear hilarious stories from Skyler Higley and Punkie Johnson as well as Joel’s commentary.

NOW A FEW REMINDERS!!!!

TONIGHT! I’m performing on a benefit at Laugh Boston in the titular Boston to help pay some bills for my friend Mike Dorval’s cancer treatment! It’s a tremendous lineup for a good cause, and my parents will be there, so I’d love if you could show up and laugh so I look like a professional to them.

THEN! I’ll be in Austin for Moontower this Thursday night! I haven’t been to Austin in like 2.5 years, and I’m so hyped to eat some bbq and see a ton of friends. I would love love love if you made it out to the show!

NEXT WEEK! I’m co-hosting another monster (pun semi-intended) Frankenstein’s Baby lineup at Union Hall in Brooklyn on Monday, and I’m doing a long set on Tuesday in Manhattan co-headlining with the great Marina Franklin.

PEP TALK FOR EVERYONE ON THE PITT

Okay so I have not seen this tv show at all because I am humiliatingly squeamish, but my wife is watching it as I’m working on this newsletter, and everyone seems like they’re in a pretty bad way. The doctors seem stressed as hell. The patients are in agony. I’m hearing constant moaning and squishing sounds, and not in a sensual way.

Here’s what I have to offer these people: I imagine that the patients are in capable hands and the doctors are working alongside trusted and assiduous colleagues. I feel like they wouldn’t make a drama about a hospital full of dumbass doctors who are always leaving rubber gloves inside of pancreases and amputating the wrong feet. These nurses may be overworked and underfunded (again, unclear on the sitch here, just kind of overhearing bloops and squelches) but they’re doing their best, dammit.

There are so many times in life that things just go wrong. I bet it is hard to be the kind of medical professional where occasionally your patients die. (I mean, I guess all of every doctor’s patients die on a long enough timeline, but ideally not right in front of them.) And it is probably as emotionally difficult to die as it is physically easy to do so. It rules to not be dead (not to rub it in if anyone dead is reading this), and it’s kind of amazing if you stop and think about the unlikelihood of being alive.

So many tragedies happen all the time, and anytime there’s someone there to help out when one befalls you is a miracle. Again I’m feeling kind of emotionally open this week, which is not all that normal for me, and the idea of like, doctors, is really astonishing. Why aren’t we all doctors? Should I be a doctor? Could I even get into medical school???

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But! The season is over so any potential bad news is all on hold for now. Get well soon, or get some rest, or both!

PEP TALK FOR TWO READERS

I did a little capitalizing and comma-izing to this request but otherwise left it unchanged.

I’m writing a novel (just words no pictures!) and I’ve never done this before and I have to finish it before I try to sell it and it feels like a big bet on myself!
- Oh, Word!

[Newsletterer’s note: The pep talk requester is a very talented writer and visual artist who has published books before that include their artwork, hence the parenthetical.]

In my biased (or rather, let’s say informed) opinion: This rules. It’s great to try a new form of creative expression, even if you’re horrendous at it (which I’m sure you’re not). Seriously, even if you’re in the process of writing the worst novel since ink was first put to paper (which I would bet my life you are not) it would be a worthwhile undertaking to bite of a big hunk of the unknown and chew it until it’s small enough to swallow.

(Caveats here being: As long as you aren’t endangering your ability to pay your bills, which it doesn’t sound like you are, or imperiling anyone else with your new endeavor, which also sounds unlikely. Writing a novel rarely ruins someone else’s life, and you realllly have to try to make that happen.)

You’ll almost definitely fold a new crevasse or two in your brain from the sheer novelty (pun unintended, but not deleted, so you be the judge…) of novel writing. It will no doubt inform your future attempts at picture-free fiction, or a return to the kind of work at which you’re already an expert.

SIDE NOTE: I think sometimes, and I’m not saying you’re doing this here, but sometimes, people write off the value of things that they’re already good at because they don’t feel hard and therefore don’t seem as worth doing. But it’s not a cheat to allow a pre-existing talent or previously-cultivated skill to lead you. It’s giving yourself the gift of your own expertise. You can always try new stuff, but you deserve full credit for your current capacity as well! SIDE NOTE OVER.

Even if the novel was a pile of goat puke (which, as we’ve established, it’s not) and you didn’t learn a single thing from the process (which, as we’ve covered, you will) the whole thing would be valuable because you want to do it. It’s good (if and when you can) to allot time and energy and precious mental capacity to something that fascinates and engages you, something that makes you feel alive and full of possibility.

I know I write a lot to and about people in the midst creative pursuits, but this pep talk goes for any kind of thing. If you want to take a French lesson or buy a skateboard, do it. It doesn’t matter if you never know how to tell a native Parisian where the library is, or land a kickflip. There’s valor in trying something new because you’ve never done it before and are curious. It’s the opposite of making AI draw you as an embryo or whatever. You benefit just by doing it, even if it’s bad. How often do you get to benefit from something even if you’re history’s worst practitioner of that skill? Almost never. And of course, as mentioned above, you aren’t and won’t be.

A PEP TALK UPDATE (PEPDATE?)

I received this message on Bluesky from a recent pep talk recipient and wanted to pass it along!

Do you ever do a 'where are they now?' for past pep talks?? because the end of my story is that while I couldn't afford to buy my current apartment [which my landlord is selling], I found another, better apartment nearby that I CAN afford!

Oh heck yeah!!!!

PICK-ME-UP SONG OF THE WEEK:
Allo Darlin’ - “Tricky Questions”

The algorithm hit me right between the eyes on Friday night. Maris (and Maggie) and I were sitting on the couch, DJ-ing through our tv’s speakers via iTunes or Apple Music or whatever the app is called now. Maris spotted a new Allo Darlin’ song, the first in about a decade, on the New and Notable (or whatever that is called now) menu. Allo Darlin’, an Australian band, has apparently survived the rise and fall of the twee aughts and early 2010s and came out the other side…still twee. This song is so damn PLEASANT. It’s light and peppy and feels like spring. Hate to tip my cap to our robot overlords, but they really knew what I needed to hear.

BONUS SONG: Turnstile - “Never Enough”

We’ve also got this new Turnstile song, which I can’t get enough of, thanks to the human song selection machine . Turnstile has a loud/soft quality to their songs that is like if the Pixies sounded nothing like the Pixies. The soft parts are more delicate and the loud parts are more churning. Their album Glow On is widely beloved, but I had a little trouble finding a way in. My favorite previous Turnstile tune was the one featured in I Think You Should Leave which now makes me tear up in the wake of the death of Biff Wiff. Anyway, I get it now, and this song rules, and the video rules.

UPCOMING SHOWS

I’ve got a few great shows coming up and then my calendar gets a little light, tbh!
I’m going to see what I can do about that!

4/14: Benefit for Mike Dorval at Laugh Boston (Boston)

4/17: Moontower Comedy Festival Headlining Show (Austin)

4/21: Co-hosting Frankenstein’s Baby at Union Hall (Brooklyn)

4/22: Co-Headlining Baruch PAC with Marina Franklin

4/23: GRIEFSTRIKE! Reading at Francis Kite (Manhattan)

5/4: 54/54/54 at 54 Below (Manhattan)

Oldenburg (dpo) - Dass bei der Aufzucht von Hühnern oft Antibiotika verfüttert werden, ist kein Geheimnis. Ein Großbetrieb aus Oldenburg setzt nun auf ein neues Konzept, das immer mehr Schule macht: Um Kunden trotz Fabrikhaltung Eier von glücklichen Hühnern anbieten zu können, werden bei "AgriHuhn" jetzt zusätzlich Antidepressiva ins Futter gemischt.

Washington, D.C. (dpo) - Angesichts der rücksichtslosen und unberechenbaren Zollpolitik von US-Präsident Trump herrschen weltweit Verunsicherung und Angst. Dabei besteht höchstwahrscheinlich kein Grund zur Sorge: Der Mann, der bereits sechs Firmen in den Bankrott geführt hat und mit zahlreichen weiteren Unternehmen gescheitert ist, weiß ganz bestimmt, was er da tut.

+++ Kann Ungeheuer gut sehen: Schottland-Tourist war just beim Augenarzt +++

+++ Wo ein Willi ist, ist auch Einweg: Pfandflaschensammler gönnt sich Birnenschnaps +++

+++ Gieraffe bestellt: Zoo erhält versehentlich unersättlichen Pavian +++

+++ Vom Staat hängen gelassen: Rente reicht nicht für BH +++

+++ Wer flicht?: Pistorius sucht neue Tarnnetzknüpfer +++

+++ Hört man immer wieder: Stimmen treten bei einer Psychose häufiger auf +++

+++ Lack heiß, Inzest-Anschein: Langneseverkäufer schmilzt bei Anblick von Cousine in Fetisch-Outfit +++

Zu weiteren Fakten

Laut einer Studie ist britisches Essen nur dann ungenießbar, wenn es korrekt zubereitet wurde.

Radolfzell (dpo) - Drama um den schwer von Niedrigwasser gebeutelten Bodensee! Eine durstige Kuh hat heute bei Radolfzell den ehemals größten See Deutschlands leergetrunken. Die Anwohner stehen vor dem Zusammenbruch des Tourismusgeschäfts.

Jeder Autofahrer kann sich noch an sie erinnern: Die Fahrprüfung – für junge Menschen oft ein stressiges Erlebnis. Dabei hat man es in der Regel schon so gut wie geschafft, wenn man auf die folgenden Äußerungen verzichtet. Hier sind 20 Sätze, die man bei der Führerscheinprüfung besser vermeiden sollte:

New York, Frankfurt, Tokyo (dpo) - Solche Rabatte gab es schon lange nicht mehr! Zum aktuellen Black Monday können Aktionäre Mega-Schnäppchen abstauben – selbst die Wertpapiere namhafter Konzerne sind derzeit für unglaublich günstige Preise zu haben.

Washington, D.C. (dpo) - Ihm kann einfach keiner das Wasser reichen: US-Präsident Donald Trump zeigte sich heute zufrieden mit seinen Leistungen auf dem Gebiet der Wirtschaft und strich dabei seine historische Einmaligkeit hervor.

New York (dpo) - Sicher ist sicher: Die New Yorker Stadtverwaltung hat tausende Feuerwehrleute in die Wall Street geschickt. Sie sollen vorsorglich Sprungtücher aufspannen, um dann rechtzeitig bei Öffnung der Börse bereitzustehen.

+++ Durch den Wind: Kranführer ganz aus dem Häuschen +++

+++ Mit Hack: Mutter kocht Bolognese +++

+++ Total locker: Mann nimmt Parodontose gelassen +++

+++ Wär' Niessage: Galerie erwägt Ausstellung "Verschnupfte Nibelungen" +++

+++ Die Hand sitzt locker: Spielzeugbauer haut Lehrling fehlerhafte Puppe um die Ohren +++

+++ Denkanstoß: Frau hilft Sexpartner auf die Sprünge +++

+++ Im Großen und Ganzen: Mann insgesamt zufrieden in letztem noch nicht geplatztem Jogginganzug +++

Zu weiteren Fakten

Flugzeuge können nur fliegen, weil Piloten in der Ausbildung beigebracht wird, nicht mehr an die Schwerkraft zu glauben.

Es war ein denkwürdiger Auftritt des US-Präsidenten: Am Mittwoch zeigte sich Donald Trump öffentlich mit einer überdimensionierten Liste, während er erklärte, dass… ach, Sie haben es doch eh mitbekommen. Also helfen Sie unseren Lesern auf die Sprünge – diesmal möchte der Zollillon (unterstützt durch Tariff Control) von Ihnen wissen:

Jede Woche erreichen die Postillon-Redaktion zahlreiche Leserbriefe. An dieser Stelle präsentieren wir mehr oder weniger regelmäßig eine kleine Auswahl.