Hi everyone,

Since testing negative for covid, my week practically crackled with possibility and adventure. I did an extremely fun bit with my friend Demi Adejuyigbe at his sold out show warming up for the Edinburgh Fringe festival. If you happen to be in Scotland next month, check out Demi’s show! Or my friend Andrew Mayer’s show! Or my buddies in Ladies Who Ranch! Or the great Cat Cohen! (There are a zillion great shows happening! I don’t have the time or knowledge recommend them all!) Demi’s show is incredibly inventive, and he’s so wildly talented at so many facets of writing and performance! I was really inspired watching him, and I had so much fun goofing around with the little improvised bit we did. Thanks, Demi!

On Wednesday I got to tell some jokes on my friend Gary Gulman’s sold out show at Union Hall! Gary also blows me away with his writing and performance. In all honesty, I sometimes worry that people will catch on to the fact that 50% of what I’m doing onstage is just ripping off Gary, but lazy (the other 50% is ripping off Mike Birbiglia, but boring). Longtime newsletter readers may be familiar with this late night set of Gary’s that I’ve shared before. Master class shit!

I came away from those shows positively exhausted by my old thoughts, and ready to dig in and start working on new standup! AND I have a new cut of my special to watch. I’m really psyched about how it’s coming together! Woo!

Maris and I also had some great meals out for various celebrations. Our friend Jesse had a birthday party at the new (temporary?) Mission Chinese popup in Chinatown, and then our friends Jason and Emily curated a New England vs. Chicago (classic rivals) menu for a Shabbat(ish) Dinner at Gertie’s in Williamsburg, which included, among other dishes, Chicago-style latkes!

The event was largely secular, but I was sitting next to a cool young rabbi, and when someone described Shabbat as less about religion and mostly about togetherness, she did go: “Hmm!” which made me laugh. More importantly, though…everything was VERY tasty.

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On Saturday my friends Maggie and Michael picked me up in a car, and we drove to Western Massachusetts for a private gig. We learned when we arrived that the woman who booked us had done so as a surprise for this party of friends who meet up once a year in the Berkshires (and would not tell us how they knew each other). So we were performing a full standup show to an audience who did not know a standup show was about to happen. This is, to use a little insider term, not ideal.

Comedy is like a massage. If someone asks you for it, it can be an extremely enjoyable experience. But it is not something you should inflict upon them without their explicit consent (although unlike recording a Major League Baseball game you don’t need express written consent). The crowd ended up being very polite and ultimately appreciative, but the best part of the gig was the road trip up and back, and how good the pizza at the venue was. (The staff was also extraordinarily kind and helpful.)

And Sunday I had another super fun show and drinks with my friend Max who lives nearby. Plus I did some podcasts and other lightly professional things that don’t make for great newsletter fodder yet. Now I am tired on a Monday morning, but in a good did-a-lot-of-stuff way instead of a sloggy illness way, and that’s a huge turnaround.

ANYWAY, Alison Leiby and I just added the great Adam Conover to our show at Union Hall in Brooklyn this Saturday at 10pm. It’s going to be so much fun! Emmy Blotnick, Shalewa Sharpe, and Brittany Carney will be telling jokes too!

Grab a ticket! Hear some new jokes from me and Alison, and some great pre-existing jokes from the other comics!

PEP TALK FOR J.D. VANCE

Look at how far you’ve come. You started off fake poor, and now you’re one of America’s premiere fake populists. With your recent addition to the Trump presidential ticket, the whole country knows you, and they fuckin’ hate you, dude. According to a recent CNN/SSRS poll, you have a 28% favorability rating, which is basically the Rotten Tomatoes score for one of Tyler Perry’s non-Madea movies where the point is that getting divorced gives you hepatitis or something.

You could have simply been a rich twerp who went to law school at Yale and never stops talking about it. You could have settled for selling your family out in your best-selling memoir (Dipshit Sonata, I think it was called). You could have said dayenu (Jewish for, “knock it off, already”) when you became a U.S. Senator. Sadly, you did what we encouraged all children to do, and really shot for the moon. You did not land among the stars, however; you found yourself wedged penis-first in a piece of furniture.

You’ve landed directly in the field of vision of the public eye, and the public does not like what it sees. Last week a rumor that your book included a passage about having sex with a couch became so prevalent that the Associated Press had to run an article stating that you did NOT actually make love to a loveseat, which they had to walk back because no one could effectively prove that you didn’t, at some point, engage in the act of sexual intercouch. Whether or not it’s true, it doesn’t speak highly of your public image that people heard this rumor, saw your face, and thought…I know the book was loosely and offensively about the struggle many people face with opioid addiction, but now my dominant impression is that this creep is positively hooked on cushion pushin’. Do they have rehab for that?

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I want you to think back three weeks, J.D. Return in your mind’s eye to a time when people vaguely knew your name and face and reputation. But they hadn’t heard you say that your political opponents are lonely miserable cat ladies. They maybe didn’t know you were an anti-choice zealot in a way that is out of step with both public opinion and medical good. Or that you think people should get to cast proxy ballots in national elections based on how many children they have. Before even Donald Trump who just selected you as his running mate was rumored to be looking for ways to get rid of you like a high school senior figuring out how to dump her boyfriend before leaving for college.

Think back to those heady times, back in early July, when most people didn’t know what a creepy sexist weirdo you are. It must have felt like the sun’s warmth shining down on Icarus, just before the first bead of wax melted away from his wings, alerting the people below about his impending plummet from the sky.

Obviously no result in November’s election or beyond is even close to assured. But you are effectively running as the giant dead bird on a Mariner/Albatross 2024 ticket. You’d come so far without your horrible personality and opinions being a hindrance to you. That’s a real success story. You had everything but this, but you wanted everything. But with any luck (for all of us) you’ll recede gently from the public eye the way you allegedly removed yourself, flacidly from a sofa.

PEP TALK FOR READERS

Hey at least no matter how badly your last week went, there was no nation-wide rumor about you, a couch, and one unforgettable night. You’ve got that going for you!

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PICK-ME-UP SONG OF THE WEEK: Kanye West - “Gone”
(But just the Cam’ron verse!)

Kanye West’s legacy has unravelled fairly thoroughly over the past few years, but I will not deny myself the joy of Cam’ron’s verse (starting at 1:28) over those strings. Sorry! You can’t take that away from me, pro-Hitler Kanye!

Also: My buddy Shonali has a new album out. It’s very good, and it sounds like this!

UPCOMING SHOWS

I really need to update my full calendar on my website, but here’s some stuff I’ve got going on in the very near future!

I’ll be on a few of the Wait Wait…Don’t Tell Me! standup tour dates later this summer!

7/30: Scorpion Records (Queens)

8/3: Co-Hosting SUP, BRO? with Alison Leiby at Union Hall (Brooklyn)

8/6: Cassie and her CRUSHES at Union Hall (Brooklyn)

8/6: Tuesdays at the Red Room with Emily Wilson (New York City)

9/5: Wait Wait Standup Tour (Ft. Lauderdale, FL)

9/6: Wait Wait Standup Tour (Orlando, FL)

9/7: Wait Wait Standup Tour (Tampa, FL)

9/8: Wait Wait Standup Tour (Atlanta, GA)

9/20-9/21: High Plains Comedy Festival (Denver) MORE INFO SOON!

9/26: Wait Wait…Don’t Tell Me Radio Recording (Kansas City)

Hi everyone,

My week was, as you may have surmised from last week’s newsletter, dominated by recovering from covid. Fortunately the worst of my symptoms abated by last Monday afternoon, and my focus shifted towards tending to Maris, whose worst symptoms hit a few days behind mine after we unsuccessfully attempted to isolate from each other, and coming slowly unglued from staying inside (with the exception of brief Bizzy walks). We are now both testing negative and feeling strong enough to fight god or an ox, whichever we see first walking around in Brooklyn.

The other time I was personally struck down by the novelty of the novel coronavirus, it took me a few days just to feel up to watching movies or reading. This time, my brain shaped up more quickly. After watching Miami Vice holed up in our home office, I emerged to watch Heathers (which I loved) and Fall Guy (which I liked a lot), and Blood Simple (which, look at me, obviously I loved) with Maris. I also finished reading Dan Ozzi’s book Sellout, which is really awesome. It tracks punk and pop-punk bands like Green Day, Jawbreaker, and Against Me! through their jumps from indie to major labels. There are a million great band stories, plus a lot of thoughtful reflection on what it means to do creative work in a sustainable and principled way. I could not recommend it more for anyone who knows anyone who learned how to play “Dammit” by Blink-182 on the guitar.

I’m now about halfway through (reading, not writing) Charles Yu’s novel How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe which is really beautiful and thoroughly conceived, but also maybe a little smarter than my normie mind can handle. It’s extremely philosophical and poetic and not super plotty, and every few pages I’ll feel an “Oh, shit!” insight wallop me in the face, and that feels very worthwhile, even though sometimes I sit there feeling like damn I bet if I knew more about physics or fake physics I’d really be cooking right now.

My big takeaway from the past week is this: I am never as ambitious with my schedule as when I’m hypothesizing what I would have done over the weekend had I not been sick. Apparently sick me thinks that healthy me has a reservoir of energy and enthusiasm that I have never possessed. Last Saturday I sent my regrets to friends having gatherings in several different U.S. states, despite knowing for months that I wasn’t going to make it to some of them. I got FOMO seeing pictures from concerts of bands I’ve never heard of. I saw pictures of friends participating in activities I’ve not once enjoyed (or even attempted) and thought: “Maybe this weekend would have been different! I could have gotten a tattoo while skydiving! But I missed my one chance to turn over a new leaf! C’est la vie (sadly all the French I’ll ever know, having missed the boat on becoming a Duolinguo guy by being sick).”

ALSO! Alison Leiby and I are hosting another Sup, Bro? show at Union Hall on August 3rd at 10pm. Alison and I are going to goof around and riff on a bunch of new ideas, and then some of our friends will go up and destroy! We’ve got Emmy Blotnick, Shalewa Sharpe, and Brittany Carney, plus maybe a surprise guest or two on the lineup! It’s going to be a great show! You should be there if you can!

My calendar for the rest of the year is filling in (tour dates below!), but I’m also doing a little fundraiser for Cori Bush this Thursday (7/25) at Eastville Comedy Club in New York, a festival in Denver coming up in a couple of months (more details soon), and a bunch of standup shows in the southeast with the Wait Wait folks!

Wow, I’m much chattier when my brain isn’t just a beehive for viral particulate just buzzing around in there. It’s nice for me at least!

PEP TALK FOR CROWDSTRIKE

Seven days ago, I had no idea what CrowdStrike was. With a gun to my head (which, why do you think that would help me do my best thinking?) I’d have guessed it was a Call of Duty knockoff exclusive to Android phones, advertised with deceptive videos on Twitter. Or maybe a description of Billy Joel’s driving style in the 80s. But now I (sort of) understand that CrowdStrike is a massive cybersecurity firm that, in conjunction with Microsoft, temporarily made a vast swath of the world’s…cyber less…secure.

Over on his newsletter, Ed Zitron explains the whole situation more clearly than I can (or would even want to know how to, frankly). But basically, some garbled code in a new CrowdStrike update caused computers in sectors from finance to medicine to aviation to refuse to boot up. I’m no cybersecurity expert. I admittedly lag behind my own father’s security protocols (painter’s tape over the computer’s built-in webcam). But even I know enough to describe this situation as: bad. This wasn’t a security breach; it was more like CrowdStrike and Microsoft dropping the keys to everyone’s house in the ocean. If anything, the world’s computers became so secure that even their owners couldn’t use them.

It is, we can all agree, not optimal for your brand awareness to explode because millions (est.) of people are finding out you are who ruined their day. But think of it this way: News reports are blaming CrowdStrike (you) and Microsoft for this issue in the same breath. That must feel nice to hear, right? To truly screw over so much of the earth’s population in one fell swoop, you must possess an unfathomable amount of global influence. Microsoft is so massive that people accused its founder of putting computer hardware into people with needles without telling them. And to be co-headlining this technological catastrophe? You must be the them of…whatever it is that you do. Congratulations! (?)

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People often cite the idea of an institution being “too big to fail,” occupying a space of such big importance that it can’t be allowed to collapse because of the attendant collateral damage. CrowdStrike, you’ve achieved a kindred status; you’ve become big enough to fail. You’re such a massive virtual gear in the global tech sector that you can shower chaos upwards against the sky like a minor deity, and the rest of us have to sit there and think: “Well fuck me, I guess!”

You (and Microsoft) seem to have biffed it in the kind of major league way that most people couldn’t if they tried. If I, one human dude, tried to disrupt thousands of flights, I wouldn’t even know where to begin. And if I did somehow succeed in creating so much failure, the reprecussions would surely ruin my life. But you did it in the blink of an eye, and I have no idea if you’ll face any consequences. Who else would I go to for international cybersecurity? You’re the only company I know of who does that. (Because the other companies haven’t messed up the way you have, but still.)

So, nice (terrible) work with that! You’re doing so badly it only reifies your greatness!

PEP TALK FOR A READER

I’ve made some little tweaks to the reader message here and there for clarity/brevity/house style. These things happen!

Man do I ever need a pep talk. As I sit here in massive back and sciatica pain, preparing for a revision of a procedure I’ve had done previously to allow blood to flow through my liver and realizing that cap on my tooth that I out off replacing has something stuck in it, I can’t help but focus on something other than my health. I know you can’t help me with my health and I’m hopeful that my conditions will all improve - you know, the “this too shall pass” advice. But everything I’m reading is about the debate and all these pundits are saying the older guy fumbled the bag- stolen from my 18 yo son & very relevant during the Euro Cup & Copa América. No one is calling in the criminal and rapist to drop out of the Republican Party nomination sweepstakes. 

So, what do you suggest I read to take my mind off my health & politics?

In health,
Me

This is maybe the most jam-packed pep talk request I’ve ever received! Health complications. Electoral politics. Big picture despair. It’s very of-the-moment! I am…so sorry that your life feels so of-the-moment. It’s not a great moment!

First, a pep talk about the election now that there have been new developments: To me there’s always been a little asymmetry between calling on Biden to step down and asking for people to call on Trump to step down. Many people on the left, Democrats and further, didn’t believe in Biden’s ability to govern well for four more years. The call for him to recuse himself as the presumptive nominee was more or less coming from inside the house. Those same people (who would like America to trend in a relatively just and progressive direction) have no sway over what Donald Trump decides to do. He doesn’t care what people on the left think, or at least he doesn’t care to appease them/us. And his backers actively like that he is a giant piece of shit who is unfit for office.

The New York Times calling on Trump to step down would be like me putting out a press release demanding that Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson carry me around piggy-back style for the month of August. Why would he do that? I have no authority or leverage over him. And maybe he’d go the other way (dropping me on the ground?) out of spite. I think that Biden stepping down (and endorsing Kamala Harris) in the face of this kind of swirling chaos is turbulent but not necessarily negative! Hopefully this at least calms the maelstrom of the past few weeks and we get fewer moments like Aaron Sorkin writing an op-ed to say that the Democrats should nominate Mitt Romney, which is truly one of the stupidest things I’ve ever read. It made me regret literacy, not just my own, but the whole concept. A compromise candidate is a doomed proposition. The Democrats could nominate a gun, and Republicans would say because that gun has a safety on it, it’s un-American. Sorkin has since recanted the op-ed, which means his thought process was: “The Democrats should do basically the stupidest possible thing…unless anyone has any better ideas. But I’m going to suggest the stupid idea to the NYT without checking in on those other ideas first.”

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In terms of what to watch/read/listen to! I will treat this not as advice (which I try to avoid giving) but rather a recommendation (which I am okay tossing around). I would propose, gently, not searching for media that will blot out our present reality. Instead, I’d suggest looking for the kinds of things that make you feel hopeful and energized about building the kind of world you’d like to see. This is about news and politics stuff, not your health. I cannot in good conscience insist you remain constantly vigilant about your tooth and liver (Tooth and Liver being the Yale’s gnarliest secret society, I have to imagine). That sounds like hell, and I don’t have a fancy enough degree to prescribe you hell.

On my old podcast, the great writer Jia Tolentino recommended the book The Ministry for the Future by Kim Stanley Robinson as a radical work of climate optimism, and a vision for how that might be made into a reality. In accordance with Jia’s recommendation, I bought the book. In accordance with my own laziness, I have not read it (sorry, Jia)!

I super recommend and ’s newsletter for regular writing that makes me feel sane (things are bad!) and hopeful (but we could make them better!). I also think the way writes about books is a great map towards both living mindfully and finding new entertaining/engaging things to read. Similarly, and write about abortion and the Supreme Court in ways that can be upsetting but also clarifying in a way that an endless drip of social media and cable news are often…the opposite of. Honestly, I think my old boss John Oliver and the wonderful team at Last Week Tonight does a great job making the horrors of the world feel comprehensible too!

But! You can’t look into the teeth of the world 24/7! Who wants to stare at teeth that long? Not me. Not even dentists, and they are fiends for teeth.

We also have the Olympics coming up, which I think is a great way to balance a desire for things in America (and the world) to be good with watching our nation’s gymnasts and basketball players kick other countries’ asses.

But also you need something to fill a few hours a week when you want the thinking parts of your brain to go to sleep even if you still need the eating dinner and walking the dog parts awake. I’ve been watching a lot of standup comedy. Maris and I just finished a three-season (no comment) rewatch of Arrested Development (perfect for this task) and have started Veep (perfect, but not for this purpose).

What’s everyone watching/reading/listening to to help them feel plugged into the world in a productive way OR to turn on Dumbass Mode for the night? I’ve heard Love Island is good for that kind of thing!

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PICK-ME-UP SONG OF THE WEEK: Great Grandpa - “Kid”

I didn’t know about Great Grandpa at all until other bands I follow (Camp Trash, Charly Bliss who also have an excellent new song out) on social media started posting about their new song last week. It’s not an upbeat tune, but it has a cozy, dreamy quality to it that feels comforting to me. It sounds like a bunch of people singing and playing instruments together in a way that lots of artists these days don’t, and I miss! You can hear the component parts of the song (the strings! the vocals! the different movements!) in a way that doesn’t feel like it was pushed out of a Play-Doh fun factory as one contiguous blob in the shape of SONG. Does that make sense? I love a good Play-Doh song, but I miss when a band could write a little more sprawling a ballad, and it would still have a chance to make it into rotation on the speakers at CVS.

OH ALSO! I can’t believe I haven’t given a plug to my buddy Allie Goertz’s Nine Inch Nails cover album, Peeled Back! I’m not a huge NIN person, but I love Allie’s takes on the source material! It’s exactly what you want from covers, a fresh perspective and sound! Here’s her version of my favorite Nine Inch Nails song!

There’s a new Japandroids song out too, which sounds like the old Japandroids songs, putting it in a firm “your milage may vary” place for a lot of people. But I do love the refrain “sorry baby, we call it like we see it in Chicago” which reminds me of my friend !

Lots of songs this week! Can you tell I’ve been mostly sitting around listening to/looking at stuff within my apartment?

UPCOMING SHOWS

I really need to update my full calendar on my website, but here’s some stuff I’ve got going on in the very near future!

I’ll be on a few of the Wait Wait…Don’t Tell Me! standup tour dates later this summer!

7/22: Demi Adejuyigbe is Going To Do One (1) Backflip at the Bell House (Sold Out)

7/24: Pizzazz with Gary Gulman (Brooklyn, Rescheduled, Sold Out)

7/25: Cori Bush Fundraiser at Eastville (Brooklyn)

7/26: Don’t Stop I’m About to Jazz at Union Hall (Brooklyn)

8/3: Co-Hosting SUP, BRO? with Alison Leiby at Union Hall (Brooklyn)

8/6: Cassie and her CRUSHES at Union Hall (Brooklyn)

8/6: Tuesdays at the Red Room with Emily Wilson (New York City)

9/5: Wait Wait Standup Tour (Ft. Lauderdale, FL)

9/6: Wait Wait Standup Tour (Orlando, FL)

9/7: Wait Wait Standup Tour (Tampa, FL)

9/8: Wait Wait Standup Tour (Atlanta, GA)

9/20-9/21: High Plains Comedy Festival (Denver) MORE INFO SOON!

9/26: Wait Wait…Don’t Tell Me Radio Recording (Kansas City)