Hi everyone,

America had a bad week, but in the small picture I had kind of a nice one, which I hope is not some kind of Dorian Gray type of trend. It would be pretty unreasonable of me to be (accidentally!!!) frittering away the civil rights of people in the United States just so I can have a fun time having brunch with my friends on a weekday morning or riff a few new lines to a new standup bit in a bar backroom.

I spent the weekend in San Francisco for Sketchfest which is always a blast. The 2020 festival was my last out-of-town gig before everything stopped for a while (sorry to bring that up), so I remember it with both great fondness and apocalyptic fear. But this year was just lovely. I did guest monologues for an improv show Workjuice with an absolutely stacked cast of performers, and I got to do my favorite thing which was stand over on the side of the stage and mostly just watch an excellent show happen. I told a bunch of stories about how embarrassing I was at age 20 (Hi, Sarah!) and also at age 29 (I love you, Maris!). Improv, to me, is like sushi: When it’s great, it’s basically magic. And when it’s bad, I want to be sick.

On Saturday, I competed in Comedian Clash (for legal reasons, I will not say which other alliterative game show it is based on) which was also so much fun. Although, our team did have a quiz show ringer in the person of forty-time Jeopardy champion Amy Schneider, so it would have felt a little rough if we’d lost. I am secretly so competitive when it comes to leisure games despite doing nothing to be good at them, which is itself a rocky combination of traits. That night, Alison Leiby and I hosted our Sup, Bro? show at Cobb’s Comedy Club, a room I’ve performed in a whole bunch of times and always love. The crowd was really, really great, and all the comics (Paul F. Tompkins, Dave Mizzoni, Dulcé Sloan, Aparna Nancherla) killed. Thanks to the festival for bringing us out, and to everyone who came to and performed on the show! What a blast!

Also, Alison and I have a recurring bit where we ask people to voice petty concerns and complaints that persist in spite of much greater horrors. We then have the whole audience shout out their validation of those petty complaints. So, in that spirit, if you’ve got something small that’s been a figurative pebble in your figurative shoe lately, feel free to leave a comment for validation! (And feel free to validate, as a reader as well!)

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Yesterday Maris and I met up in Los Angeles, where we will be for the week. We were a little shoddy about planning things to do and people to see because we kept teetering on the brink of cancelling the trip altogether. We didn’t know if it would feel tactless to visit in the wake of the fires, honestly. But we are here now! I’m doing a short standup spot tonight and then a few on Wednesday, which is extraordinarily New Yorky of me to attempt. Let’s see if I make it to all of them! (Info is below.)

Oh also, before I left New York, I got to host the premiere of the upcoming season of Taskmaster. I’d done a similar event last spring with Greg Davies and Alex Horne in a teeny comedy club that waaaaaay oversold tickets. It was a ton of fun (for at least most of the people who made it in) but also a little hectic. This time the premiere was in Town Hall which is a big beautiful theater, and it was an even better experience. Alex and Greg are so funny and so nice. Plus, doing this made a lot of my close friends extremely jealous, which is of course why I got into comedy in the first place. Jkjkjkjk, it’s just a fringe perk.

After two days of catching up with old friends and staying up late (and my time-zone frazzled body feeling like it’s even later) I’m glad to be in a city where people think a lot about vitamins and the bars close early. Next week I’ll be back to my regularly scheduled grinding of my body to dust on the east coast as God (the Jewish one) intended me to do.

ALSO: I was on the most recent episode of Another Day with Ana Marie Cox as well as The Catered Quiz. (On the quiz show I was VERY on edge to seem smart! I hope it comes off as funny and not aggressive!)

PEP TALK FOR COFFEE DRINKERS

On Sunday, our new old president became furious (his resting state, to be fair) at the nation of Colombia for not accepting two planes full of migrants that the U.S. government had turned away. He declared that the United States would levy a 25% tariff on goods imported from Colombia, which would be increased to 50% in a week. Ultimately, the trade war did not come to pass. But, it’s worth noting that a downstream effect of a massive tariff on Colombian goods would (likely) have been elevated prices for U.S. coffee drinkers.

Putting aside for a moment that Donald Trump often cries “Tariff!” the way guys in the street shout “Go fuck yourself!” (not as a literal threat…who wants to see that act of anatomical dexterity?…but as a general expression of menace), let’s talk about the underlying issue here, which is, to me, this: The Trump administration is willing to risk inconveniencing (or more substantially financially weakening) U.S. citizens to preserve his ability to treat the many groups of people they hate (non-citizens, people of color, LGBTQIA people, women in general) more cruelly.

If you’ll permit me an overwrought analogy (which, at this point in the newsletter, I don’t know why you wouldn’t) the whole thing feels like stealing someone’s bowling ball, just to drop it out the window onto the head of a pedestrian. Sure, it’s bad to steal a bowling ball, but what’s worse is that it’s in service of a much more vicious goal.

We are in for four years of both stolen bowling balls and also bowling balls falling from the sky. (It’s kind of the whole premise of DOGE. Funneling public funding away from essential uses and deploying it for anti-social, inequitable goals.) It’s going to feel bad, and it’ll hurt some people way worse than others. It’s going to be imperative to take care of our heavy sporting apparatus, both for the purposes of retaining what’s ours and protecting people from its misuse.

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(Inserting a “keep your eye on your balls” joke here, just so nobody makes it in the comments.)

In short, it seems like coffee is going to stay the same financial price, but at a much greater human cost. It’s not a trade-off we need to celebrate, nor is it one that was necessary to make. That doesn’t mean we can’t enjoy our coffee! It simply means we should should think broadly about who’s being put at risk to keep us (whoever us is in a given situation) “safe”.

PEP TALK FOR A READER

I edited this request a bunch, but the thrust of it is the same!

I am in love with my dearest friend.

She is one of the best people the planet has ever had. She is whip smart, funny, energetic, up for any activity and just so friggin beautiful.

Also, she has been an emotional rock for me after my brain injury.

I told her how I feel about her years ago, when I had a girlfriend (judge me). She does not reciprocate. I accept that. We have become the closest friends can be.

Sometimes, I have this strong urge to just either kiss her or ask her why she won’t date me. Of course, I respect her boundaries and would never break them. I want her in my life however I can have her.

How can I help myself to carry this burden and not let it get me down?

- Friend Without Benefits (Except For Friendship)

Hello, FWB(EFF) [note: nickname chosen by me]. It may feel like you’re between a rock (carrying your feelings around with you in secret) and a hard place (pursuing a romantic relationship with your friend who has told you she’s not interested in that dynamic). In reality, you are in a much better position: You have a friend! That’s terrific! It is special any time you have someone in your life you care about a lot and who cares about you! This is not glass-half-full “wish you would step back from that ledge, my friend” comfort. It is real!

Your current situation may feel like a conflict, but it’s not! It’s just good! Most people don’t want to date most people, and that’s fine. You will not date (conservative estimate) 7.5 billion of the people on the planet. There are so many not-fish in the sea. The number of people you will fall in love with is a single bead of sweat in a rainstorm compared to the number of people you will not kiss, even if you are one of those people for whom sex seems like their only hobby. (Unlike me, a guy who…uhhh..watches basketball. Is that a hobby?) Many of these non-lovers are strangers. Some of them are friends. It rarely helps to learn why they’re not into you, in my experience. It’s basically never something like: “You haven’t answered my riddles three!” Usually it’s something you can’t change or don’t want to. Again, that’s okay!

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It can be stressful to not get what you want, but viewing your amorous feelings towards your friend as a burden is a little like resenting your car for not having helicopter blades. A friendship is a friendship! One of the best things there is!

I don’t want to give advice (because I’m a dummy and I’d prefer not to ruin your life with my unhelpful thoughts) but I do feel confident that finding a partner who reciprocates your feelings will alleviate some of the strain you’ve been feeling. Maybe that requires a step back from your best friend (a smart idea that my wife had), or maybe it just means opening yourself up to more and different possibilities. If you allow yourself to receive the gift of this friendship for what it is, it might help you find someone to share the gift of romantic love with too (to be clear: a different person).

PICK-ME-UP SONG OF THE WEEK:
Craig Finn - “People of Substance”

Oh hell yeah there’s a new Craig Finn solo track produced by Adam Granduciel from The War On Drugs? Say less, as they say more and more.

It’s about wanting to feel better but not feeling better enough yet! Relatable! It sounds great! Craig is such an evocative lyricist! There’s maybe no current songwriter who deploys irony so gently to undermine the narrators of his own songs. I love it!

I’ve been on kind of a run of classic rock/indie rock guys, but if I can’t be honest about what I’ve been listening to in this newsletter, where can I be honest?

Can’t wait for the whole album, obviously.

UPCOMING SHOWS

I’m currently popping around Los Angeles, but I’ve also got a whole bunch of shows back home in NYC coming up, plus a few fun things on the road!

1/27: Superbloom at the Elysian Vault (Los Angeles)

1/29: Apartment Show, Better Half, and Adult Entertainment (Los Angeles)

2/5: Freddy’s Backroom (Brooklyn)

2/7: Don’t worry about it.

2/8: Circle Round Live Recording (Boston)

2/9: What’s New? at Union Hall (Brooklyn)

2/10: Funhouse at Pete’s Candy Store (Brooklyn)

2/13: Commune and Wild East Brewing (Both in Brooklyn)

2/16: Young Ethel’s

2/17: Co-Hosting Frankenstein’s Baby at Union Hall (Brooklyn)

2/23: Beauty Bar (Manhattan)

2/27: Kelsey McKinney’s Book Launch (Philadelphia)

3/11: The Backspace at Nod Hill (Ridgefield, CT)

Hi everyone,

What an intense week! David Lynch* died!Football playoffs continued! Ceasefire deal??? TikTok ban went into effect! The Unrivaled woman’s basketball league tipped off! Ongoing fires in Los Angeles. The inauguration later today?!?!?! People yelling at me online for saying it’s a big corporation’s job to provide value to its customers. Severance is back! It’s been a true “We Didn’t Start the Fire” type of seven-day span.

(Okay for real what did people think about the Severance premiere?)

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Also I turned 40 on Wednesday! I was a little flustered by the competing goals of:
- Throwing a party!
- Not forgetting to invite anyone! (I think I did the worst at this one!)
- Making it feel like it’s totally okay if people were unavailable to be there!
- Still having a bunch of people show up!

Overall I think I did okay! (Although, I am extremely sorry to anyone who slipped through the invitation cracks!) Lots of pals showed up. My somewhat-chaotic playlist (sorry for the Spotify link; it’s what the venue requested) set a fun tone. All the pizza got eaten. The photos (taken by Arin Sang-urai) came out great too. And, many different people came up to me to say that they had met cool and interesting people they didn’t already know, which is such a nice party compliment.

I don’t have a ton to say about hitting a big milestone birthday other than to say it feels really gratifying to hit this big round number and feel so grateful for all the love and support in my life from family and friends. And to feel more capable and accomplished professionally than I was the last time I hit one of these decade markers. Looking back in the medium-view, I had a pretty excellent ten years, despite everything. And a good ten years is made up of a bunch of good individual days, which can occur through engineering or by surprise basically any time, weather permitting.

So, thanks to everyone who came out! And everyone who sent a happy birthday message over the internet! I wasn’t able to reply to all of them, which of course makes me deeply uncomfortable! Just know that, okay?

Last night, Maris and I went to opening night of Gary Gulman’s off-Broadway solo show Grandiloquent. We’d seen it in previews a couple of weeks back, but we were invited back to the official premiere, and it is even better now! Plus, the people-watching was out of control. Maris and I were seated in a row with a bunch of friends, but also we were directly behind OLIVIA RODRIGO???? So I also kind of watched one of the world’s biggest pop stars enjoy Gary’s show.

I hope on this Martin Luther King Jr. Day/Trump Inauguration Day Pt. 2 we are all able to think about how we can do our part to help build a fairer and kinder world and undo cruel and racist systems. Especially because there are so many people who seem to love racist/sexist/homophobic/transphobic policies and want to hug and kiss them. And that’s all I’ve got to say about that for today!

I know I put my all of my show dates at the bottom of the newsletter, but here are a few upcoming shows that will be really fun!

TONIGHT: Co-hosting Frankenstein’s Baby at Union Hall in Brooklyn!
SATURDAY: Sup, Bro? with Alison Leiby in San Francisco (plus a couple of other Sketchfest shows, but I’d really love for you to come to this one)!!!
NEXT WEEK: Los Angeles! Details below!
2/8: Circle Round LIVE! in Boston

*I have a possibly dubious memory of my parents recording the original run of Twin Peaks off of the tv onto VHS tapes but not letting me watch it because it was too scary. But also Twin Peaks seems way too scary for my mom to enjoy. Mom, I know you’re reading this. Text me to clarify please!

PEP TALK FOR TIKTOK USERS

It seems like, for the time being, you’re back in the game. After a brief interlude Saturday night through Sunday morning, which gave Big Shortform Video a chance to kiss Donald Trump’s weird butt. So, you’re back in action for now, at least, whether you’re an aspiring dancer or a famous chinchilla or a political commentator or someone who just performs other people’s jokes without giving them credit or a standup comedian who’s extremely curious about how long the two people in the front row have been dating or a “wellness professional” who’s rebranding eating disorders as biohacking or a guy and his twin son (?) who got famous (?) for reviewing Costco’s food or “coaches” who aren’t legally allowed to call themselves therapists but who use the exact cadence of therapists they’ve seen on television. All of you, plus your fans, you’re back!

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I am, sincerely, sorry for any professional instability and stress the actions of our government have caused you. Many of you are extremely talented and hardworking and spent a lot of time building a career tied to this specific platform, and now it’s in jeopardy for reasons I can’t quite pinpoint. I honestly had to google “why are they banning tiktok, again?” and the reasoning still feels slightly clunky to me. I guess because TikTok’s parent company is based in China, the data harvesting they do is bad and should be illegal. As opposed to the data being harvested by American tech companies which is business as usual, play on player.

I don’t even really like or care about TikTok (besides the fact that it’s been helpful to the careers of many people I like and respect, and the fact that it serves unlimited cute dog videos to my wife). But it does feel strange that this is the app that has to go. Personally, I am way less worried about Chinese companies than American ones because the Chinese government isn’t the boss of me. I don’t (as far as I know) present a national security risk by occasionally uploading standup clips when I remember to do that. Or by watching half of a video of someone making the worst-looking recipe I’ve ever seen and then logging out of the app for a week and a half. I would rather have tabs kept on my by a government that isn’t allowed to do anything with that information than one who can show up at my apartment whenever they want.

Like, am I supposed to feel like China, the country, is my enemy? I don’t love everything their government does, but also I don’t love everything our government does. And who gives a shit what country is #1 in the world at various industrial metrics? What’s the reward for being #1? Do they hang a big gold medal on the White House? Do we get holiday bonuses? How is letting tweens lip sync to Taylor Swift songs standing in the way of that regardless?

I don’t love the algorithmically-driven self-censorship on TikTok. If I were personally choosing a reason to ban the app it would be the way the algorithm-avoiding euphemisms have escaped containment and are being spoken out loud not even for videos. Hearing someone say “unalive” to mean die or kill makes me want to commit vehicular buttpepper (my cute new TikTok-style alternative term for “assault”). But it’s not technically unconstitutional to trick people into sounding ridiculous.

I hope that you get to keep making your videos about amateur botany experiments or gentle parenting or “reactions” to other popular videos where you just make a befuddled face or theories about relationships you learned from a 22-year-old who’s never been on a third date. And I’m sorry that, between this and our increasingly-cruel immigration policy, Congress’s biggest issue of bipartisan consensus seems to be xenophobia in one form or another.

Anyway, the decision to ban TikTok seemed legally workable but philosophically unnecessary. And now it’s potentially here to stay thanks in part to our incoming president who hates China but loves any outlet to sell cheap garbage to gullible fans.

You’re welcome? I’m sorry?

PEP TALK FOR A READER

This request is near and dear to my heart, so I didn’t edit much!

My wife is estranged from a longtime friend of hers, who's a mutual friend of mine, which means (thanks to our wedding vows which clearly state "your enemies will be my enemies") I'm estranged from him too. But I have a long-term project I'm working on where this guy would make for an ideal contributor. I feel like I have to pass over him because he didn't do right by my wife. But I keep thinking of how good it'd be to collaborate with him on this. I know I can't ask him — I don't need advice to make that call — but how can I get over it and renew my vicarious enmity at my former good friend?
- Enemy For Wife

Right out of the gate, I want to commend you on staying strong on your wedding vows and not caving to the pressures of professional success in direct contradiction to your wife’s enduring personal acrimony. I myself took a vow of spite when I got married, so I understand your predicament well.

There are lots of things that make a good collaborator. “Gets the job done well” is one positive quality. “Does not cause tension in my marriage” is another. Obviously these factors are not mutually exclusive. The best version of this is like: “My wife’s favorite of my coworkers is also the one whose collaboration yields the best results.” The worst outcome is something like: “The person I had a relationship-jeopardizing affair with is the only one who can help me accomplish this goal.” Or, conversely: “My partner’s best friend is an untalented chump who ruins every day at the office we share by being agonizingly incompetent.” The outcome matters, but so does the process, as does the experience of doing the work.

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It’s not all about raw productivity and wife compatibility. There are obviously lots of other good and bad qualities for a colleague to have.

Some good ones: Fun lunchtime gossip, thoughtful communicator, occasionally brings snacks to the office, good taste in art, possesses skills you lack, cares about the outcome of your shared endeavor, not a snitch, cool sweaters, a perspective that is unique but not too unique.

Some bad ones: Shirks responsibilities, bad listener and/or talker, withholds compliments to feel powerful, too-intense aroma, prone to disappearances during work hours, big into harassment (sexual or other).

What I’m driving at here is that the ultimate outcome of a project is only one factor in the decision-making around that project. You’ve got to decide how fast you need it done, how much work you’re willing to take on, whether you’d rather deal with the precise but prickly coworker or the delightful but slightly more spacey colleague. (Obviously sloppy and prickly is the worst option here, and precise and delightful is the dream when possible.) You’re allowed to prioritize whichever factors you want, within the boundaries of what your employers/clients will tolerate.

And, if the best revenge is living well (which I can’t say for sure, but it is the most powerful form of revenge I’ve had the pleasure of attempting, and it’s not bad), then getting this job done capably without involving your enemy-once-removed will fulfill your professional obligation, please your wife, and spite your enemy in one fell swoop.

PICK-ME-UP SONG OF THE WEEK:
Talking Heads - “And She Was”

Surprisingly, David Lynch dying made me want to listen to a bunch of Talking Heads songs. We must appreciate our old weird Davids while they are still here! (This for some reason was also the second song I put on my birthday party playlist, so I guess I was in a David Byrne mood even before we lost David Lynch.) Another possibly-invented childhood memory I have is my mom having this song on a cassette in her car stereo along with “Money For Nothing” by Dire Straits and a few other tunes I can’t recall. But maybe those songs were both on the radio a lot while my mom was driving places when I was a kid.

Here’s a bonus song that I also put on my party playlist (I told you it was a little chaotic). I listened to D’Angelo’s Black Messiah album twice in a row the night it came out (nearly 11 years ago????). If we’re going on his normal release schedule, we’re only three years away from a new D’Angelo album, so that’s something nice.

UPCOMING SHOWS

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

1/20: Co-hosting Frankenstein’s Baby at Union Hall (Brooklyn)

1/21: Taskmaster Premiere at Town Hall (Manhattan), Scorpion Records (Ridgewood)

1/22: Young Ethels (Brooklyn) and New Money at Flophouse Comedy Club (Brooklyn)

1/23: Spicy Moon Bowery (Manhattan)

1/25: Sup, Bro? at SF Sketchfest (San Francisco)

1/27: Superbloom at the Elysian Vault (Los Angeles)

1/29: Apartment Show, Better Half, and a third thing? (Los Angeles)

2/5: Freddy’s Backroom (Brooklyn)

2/7: Don’t worry about it.

2/8: Circle Round Live Recording (Boston)

2/9: What’s New? at Union Hall (Brooklyn)

2/10: Funhouse at Pete’s Candy Store (Brooklyn)

2/13: Commune and Wild East Brewing (Both in Brooklyn)

2/16: Young Ethel’s

2/17: Co-Hosting Frankenstein’s Baby at Union Hall (Brooklyn)

2/23: Beauty Bar (Manhattan)

2/27: Kelsey McKinney’s Book Launch (Philadelphia)

3/11: (Venue TBA) Ridgefield, CT

Hi everyone,

I wanted to start off by saying how heartbreaking the Los Angeles wildfire situation is. I am not a big prayers person, but my heart goes out to anyone affected by the fires. I’ve got a little more to say about that later, but it’s been top of mind for me over the last several days, so I wanted it to be top of newsletter as well.

Here in New York City, my sister came to town, and we saw Gary Gulman’s new solo show Grandiloquent, which was really excellent. Gary is my friend, but I’ve been a huge fan of his for even longer than I’ve known him. He is, as he explores in this show, one of the most thoughtful and meticulous comedians working today. It’s rare and special to see someone put so much work into every word of their set. Watching Gary makes me want to be more precise and intentional about my language, and he also inspires me to be more sincere and vulnerable onstage about real opinions and feelings. I’ve never really seen someone talk about feeling intellectually insecure in such a fascinating and open way! I think there are certain topics we think about as being ripe for vulnerability, but it’s fascinating to see someone explore a different kind of terrain. (It’s also a fun counterpoint to Nate Bargatze’s new hour in which he is totally secure, and hilarious, about knowing…nothing.) The show is running for another four weeks, and if you’re in town you should check it out!

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Our Wednesday matinee of the Death Becomes Her musical was cancelled as we were on our way to see it, so instead we just had lunch with my sister as we’d planned, and turned back around towards Brooklyn. I’ve heard the show is great and still want to see it, but a sibling visit alone is enough to bring me into midtown Manhattan on a week day for fun. That’s love!

Last Thursday I was in Chicago for a taping of Wait Wait…Don’t Tell Me! which was a blast as always. Rachel Coster (of Boy Room fame) killed as a first-time panelist! And it is always so much fun to work with Negin Farsad as well as Peter, Bill, and the whole WWDTM team! Josh Gad was the celebrity guest, and my ears kept perking up every time someone said “Josh G—” but that’s my problem and not yours.

(Side note: If you’re a Bugler, I’ll be on this week’s episode of The Bugle which I think will be out on Tuesday or Wednesday.)

I also appeared on the podcast Guys to talk about Morning Radio Guys! It was really fun (Brian and Chris are hilarious hosts), and we got into my experience with Scorch, if that name means anything to you, but most likely it doesn’t!

Coming up: I’ve got a ton of standup spots around New York City to work out a bunch of new jokes! A highlight: On 1/20, Alison Leiby and I are co-hosting the next Frankenstein’s Baby show at Union Hall! We are also co-hosting a Sup, Bro? show at Cobb’s Comedy Club in San Francisco on 1/25 as part of SF Sketchfest!

Plus, I’m doing my first installment of my What’s New? show in almost a year! I’ve finally got enough new jokes to ramble through that it was worth booking a night at Union Hall and a few guests (including, so far, my very funny pal Carson Olshansky) to join. The show is on 2/9, which is Super Bowl Sunday, but it’s at 5pm and will be over by 6:30, so you’ll probably miss the kick-off but get home in time to see Kendrick Lamar throw dirt on Drake’s reputation in front of a billion people.

I’ve also got some fun stuff coming up in Boston (Circle Round live show) and Philadelphia (Kelsey McKinney’s book launch event) coming up! 2025! Let’s go!

(I have a couple of shows in LA booked for later this month, but that trip is in flux for obvious reasons. I will have more info next week!)

PEP TALK FOR LOS ANGELES

Sorry for the grainy screenshot, but Twitter’s search function is so busted that I had to go back and find my re-post of a meme account’s Instagram re-post of my friend Cullen’s tweet.

Some institutions, obviously, are working really hard to keep people safe. I imagine 98% of Angelenos would push Tom Holland into a ditch for a chance to smooch a firefighter on the cheek out of gratitude after this week. We also owe a literal debt to the incarcerated people who are fighting fires for below minimum wage, which seems wrong to have them do.

But! Cullen’s tweet reallllly resonated with people; I saw it shared by numerous friends who don’t know each other, and those shares seemed to come from various disparate aggregators. And I imagine it’s because there’s the feeling that so many of our social services have been hollowed out and inhabited by people who explicitly don’t want to do any good for anyone. “The economy” is ostensibly booming and yet we’re not investing in sufficient climate solutions, and the costs of housing and medical care and education and groceries spiral out of control because we’ve allowed “the market” to self-regulate, which is kind of like trusting a toddler to know how many handfuls of Reese’s Pieces to eat without getting sick. And the whole situation is going to get worse under Trump 2, with Elon Musk being empowered to print out lists of public benefits and shoot those printouts execution style with a gun.

ON THE OTHER HAND, which is important to acknowledge in two-hand situations, so many people are working so hard to keep their communities safe. There has been so much loss over the past week, and people have shown up over and over again for their neighbors. Organizing networks have set up (or shared existing) fundraising efforts and on-the-ground assistance for immigrant laborers and protective mask distribution and Black families in Altadena and meals for evacuees and shelter for unhoused people. Sure, there are probably a few people who have holed up in their relatively smoke-free homes clutching machetes like it’s day two of a zombie apocalypse. But far more prevalent are stories of people who have opened their doors to people who were displaced from their homes, or contributed funds to those who have lost everything. (Over the last year and a half, I think I’ve read the words “lost everything” more than I had in my entire life up to that point.)

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My brilliant and kind friend listed a bunch of places to donate funds or time or supplies in his most recent newsletter (which is a treat to read every week!), and I’m going to add a little shout out to my friend Eva Woods who has a team that consistently offers food and other services to unhoused neighbors who are always even more at risk than folks who have houses to return to. You can send contributions via Venmo to @catherine-schetina to support their efforts. Every little bit helps. And of course if you don’t have a ton of spare cash, but you have the time and energy to offer help to people in your own community, that’s meaningful too.

The other night while I was walking in Brooklyn, an older man tripped and fell. The people he was walking with made sure he was not badly injured, but they didn’t seem able to help him back to his feet on their own. I lurked nearby waiting to see if there was an opportune time to offer assistance, but before I could, someone else walked over and made the offer out loud. I approached as auxiliary (and ultimately unnecessary) hands on deck, and a driver in a nearby parked truck (helpfully?) shouted: “Pick him up!!!” The assembled party hoisted the man to his feet, largely unscathed once he was vertical. It was helpful to see how little time it can take to make a concrete difference to someone in need. Not to mention how waiting around to be asked for help is not always the most effective course of action…JOSH. (But then again, neither is yelling DO SOMETHING from your warm truck…TRUCK GUY.)

The worst slugs in society have been racking up wins lately, but despite their frequent public successes being thrown in our faces, there’s so much power we have to make life better for people without waiting for institutional assistance or permission.

LOW STAKES PEP TALK SPEED ROUND

Because of the heaviness of the previous section, I wanted to give pep talks to some readers with an especially frivolous problem this week, so here we go!

One of my wife's friends accidentally took our sauce ladle home and then lost it. The ladle is from a set and it's just pricey enough to make it annoying to buy a new set (it's almost as much from a replacement site). I'm not allowed to ask them to buy a new one. This is turning me into Larry David.

By purchasing a replacement ladle (matching or otherwise) and forgiving your wife’s friend, you are basically mastering the tenets of buddhism. You will achieve enlightenment beyond your wildest dreams. It is difficult to let go of a well-earned resentment, but the rewards of making peace are much greater than the benefits of feeling furious and smug and wounded forever. Unless you prefer to quietly hold it over her head forever in which case that option is figuratively on the table (as opposed to literally putting a new ladle on the actual table).

A mom on my block completely monopolizes the Q&A at our monthly PTA/principal meeting.

You and the other moms (and dads) have the power to defeat her!!! Her stranglehold on public resources must be broken!!! Sic semper tyrannis (but peacefully)!!!

I believe all television has become inaudible. I have a problem with programmers who opt for white subtitles without a black border for outdoor scenes. (This mostly seems to be a problem with old X-Files Episodes.)

User interface seems to have been tossed into a bog and left for dead by so many tv-related apps and features!!! We deserve better! YOU deserve better!

I'm having an outsized physical reaction to someone watching video on their phone without earbuds in at the airport!

That’s because what this person is doing is mortifying and their inability to feel shame over it is a moral failing, and you are definitively a better person than they are (at least in this specific respect, but maybe also in others).

Husbands. Where should I start?

Here!

Our new neighbors seem to believe in free ranging their kids (justifiable) and dog (less so). The dog aggros the other neighborhood dogs on their walks, I've already found a stray softball dangerously close to our window, and I feel like I'm living in a bad 80s comic strip.

I'm being slowly driven mad by the noise pollution in my suburban neighborhood (constant city noise is one thing, hours of pesticide truck pumping, neighbors' children intermittently hitting their tree with hammers???, loud engine revving for no reason, etc. is different).

Okay some of this stuff sounds a little reckless and dangerous, which is no good at all, and maybe worth a difficult conversation. Other of these things sound annoying. And it’s no fun to be annoyed. But the price we pay for living in society is other people. You can try to appreciate the joy of a child hitting a tree with a hammer, which is like…industrial grade empathy and optimism. Or you can acknowledge that many facets of life can feel like stepping in a puddle of shower water after putting on fresh socks. And that’s not great, but it’s okay for things to not be great sometimes.

You could also live deeper in the woods where there are fewer kids or hammers, or out into a desert where there are fewer trees, but I can’t recommend taking on a project with those kind of expenses attached cavalierly.

The neighbor brings their dog down to my end of the complex to poop so it looks like I'm not picking it up.

This neighbor is, of course, going to hell. But with tenacity and thoughtfulness, you can live a life of kindness and generosity that will make your other neighbors certain that it is not you who is perpetrating this crime on the neighborhood.

Occasionally, people out walking their dogs drop their poop bags in my garbage bin, so whenever I open it I’m greeted by a rather disagreeable odor. I have learned to hold my breath when opening the bin.

This sounds unpleasant, but you are providing a valuable service for the community and it’s okay for trash to smell bad. That’s what trash does! (Also those people could leave the poop on the ground in front of your house like the above writer’s enemies, so there are levels to this type of annoyance, and you are somewhere in the middle.)

I bought new wiper blades for my minivan like three weeks ago and my girlfriend is about to discover they are still in the packaging on the passenger seat.

My wife does chores around the house before I get around to them, and she holds it against me. I was going to get around to it!

These problems are beautiful in their simplicity and the straightforwardness to their solutions. This is going to sound like advice, but it’s not really advice, it’s just a reminder. You can completely eliminate these issues with a single decision: Just do the thing already. Believe me, it brings me no to pleasure to say it, as a card-forgetting-to-carry do-it-laterer myself. But if you do the thing, the thing will get done (one benefit) and no one will be mad at you for not having done it yet (second benefit). You have the potential to kill infinite birds (ruthless, intimidating) with the solitary stone of preemptive action (annoying, true).

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When do I take down my fake Christmas tree. Pro: It's January. Con: I like the pretty lights, especially when everything is [wave hands].

You are allowed to have pretty lights in your home any time you want. If you choose to have them attached to a synthetic pine tree year-round, that’s weird, but ultimately okay if it makes you happy. You are also free to consider other configurations of pretty lights that will bring you joy amidst the ongoing horrors of existence.

My standing desk needs to be about 2 inches taller or I need to be about 2 inches shorter.

All the erasers on my wood pencils have dried out and gotten hard. Wood pencils were supposed to reduce administrative waste, but now I need to buy erasers. F'n capitalism.

I hate having the slightly wrong tool for the task at hand. It always feels like trying to cut a baguette with a plastic knife. But these problems are solvable, probably within a day or two, and possibly with equipment from your own home (you must own something two inches high you don’t use very often). And, while I too oppose the excesses of late capitalism, I think you are off the hook its worst impact for the crime of buying new erasers to replace the stale ones. (Note: Please do not attempt to make yourself two inches shorter with any kind of amateur surgery.)

I need to clean some of the junk photos and memes off of my phone, but it's so time-consuming and boring.

Once you do it, it will be done! Plus this is a perfect second-screen activity for zoning out in front of a reality competition show or sporting event you don’t care that much about. A win for you and for Netflix’s business model of producing entertainment people aren’t supposed to watch all that closely (shivers).

I’m genuinely grieving the very likely loss of TikTok.

This whole ban seems so arbitrary and like a real case of government overreach. That said, your life will probably be full of wonderful experiences and connections and entertainment with or without TikTok.

Navigating family differences in determining the ideal time to arrive at an airport before flight?

You will never come to a consensus on this. People’s opinions on when to leave for the airport are more closely held than their political beliefs or their own genetic code. You just have to remember that they love and care about you and you care about them whether they are the kind of anxious weirdo who shows up at security four hours before their flight or the kind of careless maniac who tries to arrive at the gate forty-five seconds before the boarding door closes.

PICK-ME-UP SONG OF THE WEEK:
Ben Kweller - “Optimystic”

Ben Kweller’s debut solo album came out twenty-five years ago and was huge for me at the time. It’s also a road trip staple on the few occasions every year when Maris and I drive somewhere. On Friday night we doing a semi-regular thing we call “cocktail hour” which is really just having one drink in our apartment while playing music off of our Apple TV device. We stumbled across a reissue of 2000’s Sha Sha with a bunch of demos and bonus tracks (a solid Smashing Pumpkins cover among them) and then saw that he’d put out a new single in December.

I wish I had a less hackneyed touchstone for this sound, but it reminds me of old Weezer, and I can always do with new music that sounds like old Weezer. I feel like “man of a certain age” implies an older age than I am, but I do feel like a man of a different certain age because of how much I love the way this song jumps and stomps around. I think it’s going to be in pretty heavy headphone rotation. And yes, I know the lyrics are downers, but That’s Marvelous regulars know that a pick-me-up song of the week can feature depressing words if the tune is catchy enough. This song even has some whistling and some Ooooos going on.

(Also, Friends of the Newsletter PUP put out a great new single and video this week. I love PUP and cannot wait for more new music from them, but this is a real feel-bad tune, which I say with nothing but affection and admiration! So that’s why it’s not the lead single in the newsletter.)

UPCOMING SHOWS

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

1/13: New York Comedy Club (Midtown)

1/16: Bomb Shelter at Gaf West (Manhattan)

1/17: Best Night Ever and BCC (Both in Brooklyn)

1/18: Bushwick Comedy Club (Brooklyn)

1/20: Co-hosting Frankenstein’s Baby at Union Hall (Brooklyn)

1/21: Scorpion Records (Ridgewood)

1/22: Young Ethels (Brooklyn) and New Money at Flophouse Comedy Club (Brooklyn)

1/23: Spicy Moon Bowery (Manhattan)

1/25: Sup, Bro? at SF Sketchfest (San Francisco)

2/8: Circle Round Live Recording (Boston)

2/9: What’s New? at Union Hall (Brooklyn)

2/27: Kelsey McKinney’s Book Launch (Philadelphia)

3/11: (Venue TBA) Ridgefield, CT

Hi everyone,

Happy (???) new year! I know how calendars work, but I also think that today is officially the beginning of 2025. I’d really been enjoying this liminal period between “the holidays” and “the year.” It’s been nice to not have too many firm plans during the time when it wasn’t quite a holiday, but no one was going to ask me to do anything annoying. Maris and I watched Thelma (loved it!!!) and rewatched the whole first season of Severance (loving it again!!!) before the new season starts. (If you’re a Severance fan…or a Party Down fan…or a Parks and Recreation fan, you should read Rachel Syme’s New Yorker profile of Adam Scott, which is great!)

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We also went to two parties extremely close to our home (incredibly fortuitous) and had a great New Year’s Eve. We stopped by Alison Roman’s famous ham party for a bit. The ham was amazing. We talked for a long time with a woman we’d never met before about the various reasons to fear the ocean. Then our friend Nick graciously hosted a small group of great friends at his bar (El Pingüino in Greenpoint, which rules), and it was such a fun time. SCORCHING hot take: Has New Year’s Eve become underrated? (Sorry to sound like Bill Simmons coming up with a theory about Kevin Durant in real time on a podcast.) But seriously, I think I like New Year’s Eve more now than I have since I was a teenager. I love being (verrrrrrry nearly) 40 and not placing pressure on any social gathering.

I am not a #hustle #grindset #newyearnewme person, but I have had fun doing a bunch of creative work while the other parts of having a career are briefly suspended in Jell-O. It’s been a slow time for emails and phone calls and Zoom meetings and podcast recordings and assignments and submissions for new jobs, so I finished a project with a friend, half-finished a sloppy draft of a solo thing, and noodled around with some ideas for bigger long-term projects this year.

Plus with a little unstructured time, I dug in and worked on some new standup jokes for the first time in a minute, and I booked a bunch of shows around New York City to work them out! I’ve spent a couple of years working a lot on the road and largely performing at clubs when I am back home, and I’d gotten out of the groove of doing lots of independent shows where I can experiment a little more, so I’m very excited for that over the next couple of months.

Speaking of standup! Alison Leiby and I are bringing our show Sup, Bro? to Sketchfest in San Francisco on 1/25! I reiterate, the lineup is out of control! Aparna Nancherla! Paul F. Tompkins! Dulcé Sloan! Dave Mizzoni! (Alison and I are co-hosting the 1/20 Frankenstein’s Baby show at Union Hall in NY too!)

I’m also going to be in LA for a few days after Sketchfest, and I should have some shows there to announce by next week! No big headlining set (I don’t have enough new jokes ready for that) but a few spots around town for sure!

And! I’ll be up in Boston on the afternoon of 2/8 for a recording of Circle Round, the wonderful children’s radio show! We’ll be recording two new stories live at Symphony Hall with music from Boston Symphony Orchestra musicians. I always love getting to record with the Circle Round folks! Come! Bring your kids! It’s a family friendly thing!

I’ll also be on the first new Wait Wait…Don’t Tell Me! of the year this coming weekend! So…keep your ears out (???) for that!

NEW YEAR’S RESOLUTION SPEED ROUND

This week, I’m doing a rapid fire round of pep talks for people’s new year’s resolutions! Not that you have to have a resolution! Or that January is the only time you can make changes in your life! But you all know that already! So let’s goooo!

(For the record, my new year’s resolution this year—as it is every year—is to be a more thoughtful, available friend as well as a more looming, intimidating enemy. But I’ve added the resolution to focus more on creative projects I can make without permission and less on stuff that requires someone else’s sign-off.)

My resolution is to find love in 2025.

Here’s something I just came up with off the dome: Love, actually, is all around us.

*touches earpiece* Oh I’m hearing there was an entire movie about that concept that’s like 2/9ths good. They should make a version of Love Actually where you get to only watch the couple of interesting and fun stories and don’t have to see the other ones. Step up, science!!!

For real, though, there are so many ways to find love! You can love your family. I mean, maybe that’s not true for every “you” but it’s a place to start. You can love your friends. You can fall in romantic love. You can make a big thing of pasta “with love.” You can scream “I love this song!” when you hear a song you like, even if you were the one who put that song on the playlist.

Looking for love when you’re dating is so hard! Because it often involves meeting a stranger and being like: “Okay…should we hang out with each other’s parents in six months? We’re really vibing, but will we want to eventually combine bookshelves???” (NOTE: My wife and I have lived together for nearly a decade and have never combined bookshelves.)

Even if you don’t find a soul mate this year, there are a zillion ways that you can add love to your life, and you deserve to enjoy them all!!!

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I would like to finish a first draft of my novel by spring but have been stuck and procrastinating since basically mid December!

You can barf out a first draft!!! It is within your grasp!!! It doesn’t even have to be good!!! No one ever has to see it!!! You can write the easy parts first if you are finding yourself stuck with something complicated!!! No one has to know!!! Making it readable is future-you’s problem!!! Right now your job is to spill your brain out into a document and trust that you’ll mop it up later!!!

One of my resolutions is to try more drugs.

I am famously not an expert on this topic; even my modest effort to occasionally smoke a little semi-legal weed last year was not especially successful. But I think you can find a safe and comfortable way to expand your comfort zone around people you trust! Although for legal reasons, you did not hear that from me. Legally, I think you should do FEWER drugs. Cut out caffeine, even. I am unclear about what my liability is here, so I’m kind of throwing stuff at the wall.

I'm resolved to sincere post this year into oblivion. I see a post about a sweater, great sweater! Something silly makes me giggle, tell the silly goose themselves. I rarely engage on social media. Not anymore mofos! I'm coming in complimenting.

I'm trying to outwardly express my appreciation and gratitude for things more often! Check in with friends more, tell people when their outfit is cute, write reviews of small businesses I enjoy, etc. As an introvert it doesn't come naturally but it's the 2025 energy I need to cultivate!

Obviously, these two resolutions are right up my alley! The writer podcaster John Moe recently mentioned on BlueSky how nice it is when people reach out to an artist to say they enjoy their work! I would even go as far as to say those interactions (especially if you’re not, say, interrupting someone in public eating dinner with their family or secret family) almost always go pleasantly (and usually it’s neutral at worst).

This for sure extends to the people in your life. Maybe your friend got a nice new sweater! Let ‘em know! Perhaps a co-worker’s homemade lunches always look and small great! Tell ‘em! Did the cashier at CVS make your day by applying a customer cares code even though you didn’t bring your card? Appreciate them!!! So much of the time, we’re all shuffling around, unsure if we are pulling off this new haircut or should start taking piano lessons. It’s a true kindness to offer enthusiasm and reassurance to the people around you (without being a creep)!

I refer to the online practice of this as Uncle Posting or Aunt Posting. I honestly aspire to the digital life of someone who logs on with no self-consciousness, who just wants to tell their nieces and nephews that they’re doing great, and has no inkling that strangers will see these comments. I will leave the comment “You two!!!” on the anniversary picture of people I’ve met one time. I’ll throw down some flame emojis on a photo of a friend wearing a suit to the theater. Why hold back? Who are you trying to look cool in front of? Leave the sincere comment that your heart years to share!

I’m working to get my dumb ass to read a book a month. It shouldn’t be hard, but there’s so much tv and things to look at on my phone instead.

Oh yell yeah. As someone with a similarly dumb ass, who is also prone to scrolling, I believe in you (and me) here! There are so many great books, and so many of them are fun to read. And guess what? The fun ones count as books too! A.B.A.B. (All Books Are Books). You don’t have to read War and Peace to consider yourself a reader. You don’t have to swim against the tide of Moby Dick’s page count to prove your literacy! I am POSITIVE that you can find a book or two that fires up the little pinball machine lights in your brain and makes you want to leave your phone across the room for an hour or two.

Extremely biased recommendation: Nobody talks about books and suggests good books to read like over at her newsletter The Maris Review!

I would like to watch more movies, especially older ones, and spend less time brainlessly poking around the streaming platforms looking for I-don't-know-what.

We’ve all heard the jokes about someone’s favorite movie being the Netflix home screen. Or how we have access to a nearly infinite deluge of entertainment but somehow, just like when we had three channels beamed into our home via a big metal antenna, there’s nothing on. What the hell?

This conundrum is wildly relatable! To slip into the dreaded “advice” mode, I find keeping a list of things I want to watch is super helpful. That way when it gets to be 8pm, I don’t have to try and discover something that fits my mood. I keep a little running tally in my phone of things I’ve heard are good so that when the time comes I can snap into (in)action and enjoy a movie. This method also helps stave off the feeling of not being in the mood that sets in when I scroll. There are so many great movies that I stumble across and think not tonight. If you keep a log of everything you want to watch, there’s a much better chance of having something temperament-appropriate at your fingertips when you want it.

Also, they don’t tell you this, but you don’t have to watch the whole thing at once! Watch half, go to be, watch the other half the next day. The Brutalist has an intermission, but when you’re at home, you can put a break in any movie you want.

I'm resolved to floss every day. It's the only resolution I make, because I've yet to complete a full 365 days of flossing.

Made a bunch of micro goals for better health.

Trying to be patient with myself and regulate when I’m overstimulated. (With ptsd, adhd, and a toddler it is a LOT!!)

These are some great goals! One beautiful thing about setting long-term intentions like these is that you can give yourself credit every time you do something resolution-compliant instead of kicking yourself in the butt (or punching yourself in the butt if you’re more of an upper-body type) every time you feel like you’re falling short.

I am a total (platonic) freak about flossing. People say that flossers live longer than non-flossers, and I’ve taken that to heart. It’s basically the only good habit I have, and I fully pat myself on the back every time I do it (which is every day, sometimes twice).

Wayne Gretzky (allegedly) said that you miss 100% of the shots you don’t take. But it’s important to remember that you might also miss most of the shots you DO take, and that’s just part of it. I’ve probably said this before in the newsletter, but I’m just obsessed with poking holes in Gretzky’s logic. That smug son of a gun.

An imperfect attempt at achieving a goal isn’t always a failure; most of the time it’s the process working as processes do. You rarely hit every green light (or every zero-wait subway transfer) on the way home from work. You rarely hit every note when you’re singing along to the radio. You deserve the same gentleness from yourself with resolutions you’ve explicitly set as you do with less formal aims.

Give yourself credit when credit’s due, and don’t—I don’t know—send yourself to detention every time you slip up.

I’d like to be a better friend this year. While my favorite plans are canceled ones, so much of relationships are showing up. I’d like to do that more. The depression be on my head, though.
- Out On Bail

Yes yes yes! You can do this! One thing I started doing a few years ago that might be helpful is making the kinds of plans I’m likely to keep. Maybe you’re not always going to be up for a sunrise bike ride across a mountain ridge. But chances are it’s a little easier to keep plans like “hey why don’t you come over here and we’ll watch the game” or “let’s grab coffee and sit in the park”. Let people know where your head is at, and I bet they’ll show you the same consideration and care you’d show them under similar circumstances. When you’re not at your best, it’s okay to let people show up for YOU, and maybe that will help you cultivate the skills at showing up for them too.

I’m trying to *operate from a place of confidence* this year, Josh!! and it ain’t gonna be easy!!

I love this goal because confidence is an attribute that you can benefit from nearly as much by pretending to have it as you do by actually having it. That’s not true of, like, a medical degree. You need to actually know the stuff you’re claiming to in order to perform an appendectomy. But with self-esteem, you can kind of fake it ‘til you make it, and really you never even have to make it. You can fake it forever, and that usually does the trick.

I feel like every wildly arrogant jerk I’ve ever met has someone trailing behind them, whispering to the people in their wake: “Actually, they’re really insecure.” And in my head, my response is always: “Then they should fuckin’ act insecure so we know their deal.” But you don’t have to be a monster to enjoy this loophole. Just…ask yourself what a confident person would do…and then do it, and reap the rewards. There’s no way for impostor syndrome to set in when you are intentionally being an impostor. Go wild with it. No one will know the difference. It’s the perfect crime.

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I need to spend this year trying to create a life in which it is possible for me to thrive.

Here’s the best part about this resolution: It doesn’t even require you to thrive. You just have to set up the preconditions for thriving and then que será será! That’s such solid, process over results shit. I hope that in this coming year, we all create lives in which it is possible for us to thrive! And then whether we do or not is kind of up in the air, but hey we did what we could, and if things end up falling short of great, that’s probably fine too. Unless you’re Shaq, you’re probably going to miss at least 50% of the shots you take, after all.

PICK-ME-UP SONG OF THE WEEK:
Redman ft. Method Man - “Lalala”

For over a quarter of a century, Redman and Method Man have reliably released rap songs about smoking weed, and I think that’s beautiful. Both rappers are in their (let’s say) mid-50s now, but they still sound like they’re having a lot of fun hanging out and making songs (primarily about smoking weed) together. Redman’s new album Muddy Waters Too can get a little too backwards-looking at times, as you night anticipate from the fact that it’s a sequel to his 1996 album Muddy Waters. And sometimes Redman’s lyrics are a little *cough* from another time, but he has a Don Rickles-y charm that makes it mostly feel warm or at least benign.But there’s something comforting about knowing that Red and Meth are still out there, doing their thing. It’s not quite like meeting up with an old friend, but it’s definitely like seeing old friends meet up with each other.

UPCOMING SHOWS

I’ve got a bunch of NYC dates coming up, and then a bunch back on the road!
I’ll probably have some LA spots locked in by net week! See you there?!?!

1/8: Ambush at Flophouse Comedy Club (Brooklyn)

1/9: Wait Wait…Don’t Tell Me Live Recording (Chicago)

1/11: Sick-ass Panther (Manhattan) and QED (Queens)

1/16: Bomb Shelter at Gaf West (Manhattan)

1/17: Best Night Ever and BCC (Both in Brooklyn)

1/18: Bushwick Comedy Club (Brooklyn)

1/20: Co-hosting Frankenstein’s Baby at Union Hall (Brooklyn)

1/21: Scorpion Records (Ridgewood)

1/22: Young Ethels (Brooklyn)

1/23: New Money at Flophouse Comedy Club (Brooklyn)

1/25: Sup, Bro? at SF Sketchfest

2/8: Circle Round Live Recording (Boston)

Hi everyone,

This is kind of a long one! I’m sorry. Or…you know what? You’re welcome! Yeah, let’s go with you’re welcome.

Happy (Almost) New Year! (Also) Happy Kwanzaa! And Happy Hanukkah (Still)! I’ve been lighting candles and saying the blessings every night at (or around) sundown, which I’d been sloppy about for a few years. But for the last two Hanukkahs I’ve been more attentive in part because it feels cozy to participate in tradition even when I’m not doing it with my whole family, and in part out of defiance of everyone who’s said I’m a bad Jew or a self-hating Jew or not a Jew at all for asserting that the United States should stop financing Israel’s assault on the people of Gaza (and Lebanon etc.).

Seeing friends’ year-in-review recaps has made me reflect on my year as well. I haven’t felt especially accomplished this year, which is okay (he says but has not internalized yet). But I have done a lot of STUFF. It’s harder to remember what I’ve done this year because we’re aware of so many things now. It used to be that occasionally you’d get a letter telling you about the ailments of a faraway cousin, and your harvest would be bountiful or…unbountiful. Now you have to know about Madame Web and a presidential election and a thousand other events that cast a shadow on your day-to-day life without your being able to do much of anything about them. (If you’re in line for Madame Web…get OUT of line! It’s not in theaters anymore and hasn’t been for months!)

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So, in an effort to take stock of my own year, here’s a quick list of some things I’ve done that feel significant in terms of my own life (sorry you have to see them; I should really just have a journal). This year I: Crushed a seafood tower on my birthday, watched bootleg fireworks from a friend’s roof on July 4th, met Dionne Warwick, hosted the Writers Guild of America awards (New York ceremony), celebrated Maris’s birthday in Miami, drove all over Florida for gigs with my friend Negin (and also Dulcé and Alonzo were on the gigs but not in the car!), read a bunch of books, failed to read a bunch of other books, spent a weekend with my family on Cape Cod, saw Oh, Mary! off-Broadway and felt very smug about it, ate several bagels with my parents, worked very closely with a good friend on a short-term job, worked on a project that never quite went anywhere with a couple of other friends, worked on a project that hopefully will become something next year with a friend, recorded a new standup special with a team of friends as producers, made a big thing of soup, drank several awful Dunkin’ alcoholic beverages with my sister, watched the Celtics win an NBA championship (good), saw a bunch of great concerts, rode around in a van on tour with some of my favorite artists, said goodbye to our beloved elderly dog, celebrated lots of friends’ victories, bought some new sneakers, drank a million gallons of iced coffee, ate lots of good meals with Maris, complained, listened to friends complain, caught up with people I hadn’t seen in decades, made new friends, performed on the JoCo Cruise again, won a couple of Wait Wait episodes, closed down the bar a few nights, went home at a sensible hour many times, showed up in kind of a staggering “special thanks,” told jokes in two dozen or so cities, missed a gig because of weather, started a bi-weekly show at one of my favorite venues, got covid (probably) in Asbury Park, surprised an old buddy for his 40th birthday, did a big gig because a way more famous comedian couldn’t make it after all, attended Kristen and Kayla’s wedding and Mattie and Jaya’s anniversary party and Isaac and Kel’s “not wedding,” met several friends’ new babies, met the hosts of Taskmaster.

That’s a year’s worth of stuff, I’d say!

Over the holiday week(s) Maris and I have been tearing through our DVR (okay, mostly via Hulu not actual DVR) and screeners, and here’s some stuff we’ve been enjoying:

Bad Sisters Season 2 (Apple+): We loooooved Season 1 of Bad Sisters and were extremely psyched for the Season 2 premiere. I thought this season meandered a little bit in the middle but was overall really good too! I’ve never written this kind of tv, but it seems hard to pivot from a thrilling mystery/caper in a show’s first season to a second season that’s in large part about Dealing With Consequences. (I felt this way about Search Party as well, which is one of my all time favorite shows, Seasons 1 & 3 especially!)

Interior Chinatown (Hulu): We just finished this last night. It’s formally inventive in ways that enhance the storytelling instead of feeling like bells and whistles. The themes are compelling, and the plotty mystery stuff is legitimately mysterious! Every performance is great; Ronny Chieng and Jimmy O. Yang especially are tremendous. There’s a touch too much voiceover in the pilot, imo, but I only even mention it to assure you that it eases back in subsequent episodes. This is truly a more people should be talking about this show type of show, and (as someone said to me on BlueSky) it really would have benefitted from a week-over-week release model where people could have caught on in the middle of the season.

Speaking of Ronny: Standup specials by Ronny Chieng (Netflix), Nate Bargatze (Netflix), and Ilana Glazer (Hulu), James Acaster (Max), Jim Gaffigan (Hulu). There’s so much good standup happening!!! Maybe I’ll do some specific standup recommendations on social media or here if people have requests/tastes that they want catered to. I’m also excited to watch Rose Matafeo’s special on Max and Michelle Buteau’s upcoming Netflix special, but I haven’t gotten around to one and the other isn’t available yet.

Anora: I really liked this movie! Probably don’t watch it with your parents like did though!!! Midway through, Maris declared it to be Home Alone + Pretty Woman and then there’s a healthy dose of After Hours thrown in too. It’s full of one of my favorite movie things: Big ol’ goons getting in way over their heads. If you like overwhelmed goons, Anora is up there with The Beekeeper for me in terms of this year’s releases.

Hundreds of Beavers (free to watch on YouTube with ads!!!) is totally bonkers. People have described it as a live action Looney Tunes short stretched out to feature length. It’s visually spectacular in a way that is entirely out of step with the kinds of things being made right now (more on that in a sec). It’s much more like a classic film comedy (down to some gags that are clearly homages to that era). It slows down in the middle where you might go “Okay, I get it!” but the third act is spectacular. My eyes were wide the whole time. Watch the trailer below, and if you are at all intrigued, I think you’ll be dazzled by this silly-ass movie.

Not to be too ~inside baseball~ but I read this great reported piece in n+1 about how Netflix’s explicit mandate for its programming is to make and distribute series and feature films that are so accessible, they’re basically made to be watched while doing other things. The responses on social media were full of writers/producers/directors affirming that Netflix had told them in some form: “We don’t want to make stuff you have to pay attention to!”

This, in my humble opinion, stinks. Not that everything needs to be challenging to viewers, but it should at least strive for engaging. Between this and Liz Pelly’s excellent-slash-demoralizing exploration of the fake(ish) artists that Spotify has invented to populate their playlists, it is both stabilizing and devastating to receive confirmation that giant, zillion dollar corporations are lowering the bar for all sorts of art forms. There’s no problem with wanting background music (or even background tv on occasion) but starting from the premise of: “Make this mediocre because we don’t want people to focus on it!” lowers the ceiling on some of this work to crawl space heights. I don’t want to sound like I’m looking down my nose (or roiling with jealousy) at the artists who make these deals. Goodness knows I’ve done some weird gigs for money. But the “aim low” mantra from the biggest names (and bank accounts) in the industry really makes me queasy.

This all feels related to how every app and website offers AI assistance that takes slightly less time than a human could complete that task and returns worse results. Oh, Coca-Cola’s Christmas ad was generated by AI? Cool! I could tell by the way it’s a slurry of its previous Christmas ads (not exactly the apex of creativity to begin with) that looks bad and adds nothing new to the canon. I don’t mean to discount there ever being any useful implementation for this kind of computing technology (I think it came through for me while changing a flight in January), I’m just deeply skeptical of how quickly and forcefully it’s being shoved in front of us half-baked as a solution to the problems of “having to write a three-sentence email” and “people wanting to be paid for their work.” Even the Coke commercial works more as a signifier of “this is basically what you expect from a Coca-Cola Christmas ad” if you’re not paying attention. Nobody wants that! Nobody wants a half-assed product delivered under the assumption that nobody cares whether anything is good.

The thing about Hundreds of Beavers that I didn’t mention earlier is that it’s basically impossible to “second-screen” because there’s so little dialogue. You really have to keep your eyes on the action and follow along at a truly madcap pace. On one hand, it was annoying to not be able to send a text mid-movie without losing my place, but on the other hand, fuck me for expecting to be able to zone out! So many people worked hard on this film! The least I can do is hit PAUSE for nine seconds to reply “lol” to a friend’s message. So, on top of everything else, Hundreds of Beavers demands presence and mindfulness from the viewer in a way that felt very special and necessary.

I am hoping for more weird, trend-averse art in 2025, both from others and from myself!

(If you’re looking for something affirmative and big-hearted to read, I strongly recommend Blythe Roberson’s essay about going hunting as a vegan.)

What have you all been enjoying lately that feels made by humans for humans?

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PEP TALK FOR AULD ACQUAINTANCE

Come on, Auld Acquaintance. No one is saying that you should be forgot. The song is just asking questions. Which, yes, is often cover for stating an opinion but lilting your voice at the end so you retain plausible deniability. But that’s not what’s going on here! You’re brought to mind, like, all the time! Just the other day I was thinking about back in the day when we were hanging out and you said that funny thing. Everybody was dying at how funny it was. I was so happy you were brought to mind when I remembered. So you definitely haven’t been forgot.

No, I don’t know why they wrote a song about the possibility of forgetting you. Maybe whoever wrote it was just going through some shit of their own and it’s about them more than it’s about you. Okay I looked it up and the lyrics to “Auld Lang Syne” are by Robert Burns, who I believe is Robert Frost’s Chris Gaines. Maybe he (Robert Burns) was worried about being forgotten himself. And he wrote this defensively like: “Should auld acquaintance be forgot and never brought to mind? lol I don’t know but wouldn’t it be weird if we kissed?” Stop hiding your true feelings, Burns! Just say what you mean!

Okay, you’re right. I can’t guarantee you’ll e’er (annoying poet speak for “ever”) be brought to mind. What I can can promise is that I’ll make a good faith effort to stay in touch. And if you do the same, we will figure out a way to be in each other’s lives. Or we won’t, but it won’t be for lack of effort. People fade away from each other with time. And it’s nobody’s fault. Or it’s somebody’s fault. But these things happen. Or they don’t.

Anyway, let’s totally grab coffee in the new year. It’s been auld lang syne.

PEP TALK FOR A READER

I’ve edited this request just a bit for length AS IS MY CUSTOM!

I’m a paramedic in a really, really, rural area with sketchy terrain and weather. There are not nearly enough medical professionals; it’s 45 min to the closest ambulance station and almost 2 hours by car to a trauma center. I’m 41, my health concerns are under control, I don’t have a legitimate reason to not do [this job] except that I’m burnt out. But, if I quit, or even cut back, there literally are not enough medics. Either even more people will go unhelped or my co-workers (the 3 of them) will all have to pick up more work than any of them can reasonably do. The community doesn’t have enough money to offer enough to bring outside people in and no one is local is interested in going through the training. I’m afraid it might not get better and while it would definitely be better for me to quit, is my little bit better worth the little bit worse for everyone else? Also, would the guilt eat me alive? Or should I just get a 3rd dog and put all of my emotional well being into that?
- Medic Alert

As usual, I do not have the answer to this question! But I do have some encouragement for you in what is clearly an intense and draining situation!

In most cases, it’s helpful to remind people that it’s not their job to worry about the lives of everyone around them. What makes this situation tricky is that it literally is your job to save their lives, which is the whole problem, right? Someone’s got to do it. And right now that someone is you, and so far no one else has reached out to grab that baton and run with it. So you’re stuck running and running, and because you’re a human being, you’re tired.

To reduce this to the level of children’s literature (I used to be a preschool teacher after all), it might help to ask yourself…are you being a Lorax here, or are you acting like a Giving Tree. The Lorax famously “spoke for the trees” like a pro bono attorney or a very confident boyfriend ordering for his girlfriend at a restaurant for some reason. The Giving Tree spent her life going straight Papa Roach (“CUT MY LIFE INTO PIECES!”) until all that was left of her was a stump. Honestly, the Giving Tree could have used a Lorax of her own to tell that kid to stop lopping off her branches. Nice work chopping up your best friend, idiot. And Giving Tree, set some boundaries!

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What I mean to say is, there are many ways to offer care to others and to care for yourself. I don’t know what the Lorax did to unwind. Maybe he had an extensive hair-and-mustache-care regimen that helped him decompress while keeping his fur(?) lustrous. Maybe he did hot yoga. Maybe he had a drum kit in a cave somewhere that he could just fuckin’ go berserk on for an hour every night. I don’t know. Dr. Seuss didn’t cover it. He had other allegories to get to.

Regardless of whether The Lorax was a gamer or studied Brazilian jujitsu or practiced transcendental meditation, he’s a helpful model to keep in mind. Were his results perfect? No. But he was up against a problem that was bigger than his Danny DeVito-sized ass could handle. And so are you!

I don’t know whether the answer to your problem is leaving the job entirely, or taking a sabbatical, or scaling back your hours, or forming a union with your coworkers so the conditions are more sustainable, or merely grinding yourself down into a fine powder and blowing away in a breeze (hopefully not that one). But if you stick with a Giving Tree mindset, you’ll end up with an old man sitting on your stump, and by then it’s too late. You’ve been cut down, which is like being burnt out, but with an ax instead of a candle.

PICK-ME-UP SONG OF THE WEEK:
The Mountain Goats - “This Year”

This year and every year. A That’s Marvelous tradition like no other: Listening to this Mountain Goats song on New Year’s Day (which isn’t until Wednesday, so you can get a jump on it by listening now, or hold off until then, or both).

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UPCOMING SHOWS

It’s a slow time of the year, but I’ve got some more shows to announce soon!

1/1: The Comedy Cellar (NYC)

1/9: Wait Wait…Don’t Tell Me Live Recording (Chicago)

1/18: Bushwick Comedy Club (Brooklyn)

1/20: Co-hosting Frankenstein’s Baby at Union Hall (Brooklyn)

1/25: Sup, Bro? at SF Sketchfest

Hi everyone,

I hope you’re all getting a little rest in towards the end of the year, even amidst various excitements and obligations. My wife (Maris, who new readers may not know by name, but now you do) and I have a pretty cozy week of hanging out with friends and watching movies and eating Chinese food lined up, so we are celebrating both an observant Jewish Christmas and lighting Hanukkah candles all at once. (Movie-wise so far we have watched Juror #2 which came highly recommended, but I couldn’t get over the COME ON!!!! SERIOUSLY???? sensation I felt basically the whole time.)

Over the weekend our neighborhood took on the quiet holiday tone that sets in when residents scatter across the country (globe?) to visit family. But, since we’re Jews who just saw both of our families, we are putting “plant” in “transplant” and staying put in Brooklyn through New Year’s Eve. I was supposed to meet a friend for lunch today, but that got moved around a little so I am homebodying pretty hard.

As I mentioned last week, I sometimes tend to look THROUGH a period of time when I know I’ll be busy. In those moments, I fully forget that I’ll experience all the things that happen during that time. My eyes slide across my calendar like it’s a Chutes and Ladders board, and I imagine myself deposited on the other side of the busy period. I can feel a little overwhelmed looking at two full calendar weeks and imagining all the appointments and obligations hitting me at once like a truck. And then I realize that I’m very lucky in that it’s (almost all) stuff I like to do that (almost always) comes up one thing at a time.

I’d been looking at the back half of December as “the end of the year” in one capsule, and it wasn’t until early last week that I realized I have a bunch of fun events planned, and I get to enjoy them individually in succession, and sleep in between some of them too. Over the weekend I had a little extra downtime because I forgot to consider Saturday and Sunday exist, and I started having New Creative Ideas for the first time in a while, which felt terrific.

It was a slightly hectic pre-holiday week though, but in a very fun way! I was asked to hop on the podcast, where I talked (possibly too much) about slam dunks. The whole Flagrant Mag team is brilliant, and I am always so flattered and delighted to get to collaborate with them on anything! Then I went on back on WNYC to give pep talks to listeners! Thanks so much to Kate Hind who invited me back on the show and was such a gracious host! Also thanks to the listeners for being so open and sincere with their pep talk requests!

I also wrote a little guest post about NY Governor Kathy Hochul for my friend ’s always-excellent newsletter! Embedded in it is this silly video I made about Gov. Hochul’s proposed hotline for CEO’s to call in when they fail threatened. I’ll also embed it here for ease of viewership! (Also hi! Welcome, everyone who came here from and WNYC!)

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Now I’m going to…read a book? Do…laundry? The sky (too cold!) is the limit!

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PEP TALK FOR PEPPERMINT STICK ICE CREAM

P-Stick! Sticky P! Pep Cream! (Wow those ALL sound gross!) It’s time for a little Pep for Pepp! Because frankly, you deserve it!

It is, for so many reasons, ridiculous that peppermint ice cream is a seasonal food. First of all: WHY DO WE HAVE A WINTER-ONLY ICE CREAM FLAVOR? WHAT THE HELL IS THAT ABOUT? Mint ice cream served exclusively in the winter makes about as much sense as a piping hot mug of egg nog at a Fourth of July BBQ. It’s the most dissociative seasonal food our culture has. There’s no way you (peppermint ice cream) are going to catch on in any kind of broader sense while you’re being served in a such a bizarre context.

As I’ve said before in this newsletter (briefly, and two years ago) peppermint stick ice cream should be a year-round treat. Why would it not be? What other ice cream flavors go out of fashion when the weather changes? And yes, we have another mint flavor that perseveres in the warmer months, but if butter pecan and maple walnut and pistachio can endure throughout the full calendar, we can have two different mints!!!

Haters will (and do) say that mint ice cream tastes like toothpaste. Good point. NOT. Every person in America uses toothpaste two to three times a day without complaint! It is one of the most successful and widely-enjoyed flavors in the world. “Mint ice cream tastes like toothpaste?” No, you fools! We are lucky to live in an era when we have an oral hygiene product THAT TASTES LIKE ICE CREAM. (Note: I do not want to erase the small but significant minority of people who use Tom’s of Maine toothpaste, a product that is created, as far as I can tell, by mixing strawberry jam with sand.)

A few brave ice cream brands sell their peppermint stick varietal all year long. And yes, that is heroic. But we can’t stop there! Any company that makes stick cream (eww!) in the winter should make it all four seasons. THERE ARE HUNDREDS IF NOT…A FEW MORE HUNDREDS OF US WHO FEEL THIS WAY.

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Peppermint stick ice cream, you are underrated. And in time, you will be vindicated.

PEP TALK FOR A READER

I did just a little tweaking of this pep talk request. Don’t worry about it.

Hi!! I would love a pep talk! I got laid off the week before Thanksgiving (media) and feel like I was the person cut on my team because the big boss didn’t like me. I haven’t even had time to start seriously looking for something new yet because I’ve had a lot going on (Thanksgiving cooking, destination wedding, MOVING) and am worried that there won’t even be anything to apply for over the holidays. Basically I’m overwhelmed and even though I’m incredibly privileged and can look for a job I actually want, I’m scared no one will want me back! THANKS!
- Looking Towards a Hire Power

Let’s start here, and it’s going to sound a little flippant, but: Imagine doing all this BIGS LIFE STUFF while also having a job!!! That sounds way worse than your current situation! Obviously you’re going to need some money coming in eventually, but you sound financially stable in this moment, and most employers don’t let you take a ton of time off to smush your belongings into cardboard boxes or brine a turkey, especially if you are also planning to take a few vacation days for a honeymoon coming up. So, while the holidays and a wedding are stressful occasions to go through without income, they are positively delightful times to not have to go to work.

I will for sure grant you that it’s a rough time to be looking for work, especially in media. The people in charge of most outlets seem to have published their “Best of the Year” coverage the first week in December, laid off a chunk of their staff, and then thrown up a couple of middle fingers to the world until at least New Year’s Day. I have a few of things I’m working on (ideally) for television, and I was told the week of Thanksgiving that nobody on the network/platform/studio side of things was going to do any work until mid-January. So I guess in that sense it’s a great time to have one of the seven or eight (rough estimate) remaining jobs in media, because you don’t actually have to do anything for the final 10% of the year. I’m all for work/life balance, but I would love if the people with the money would show up for work so the rest of us could get on with our lives!

Across industries, it seems like working people are employed by fewer and fewer (bigger and bigger) companies who give less and less of a shit about both the products they sell and the people who create and distribute them. And the bigger the company, the harder every boss’s nipples seem to be at the prospect of replacing their workforce with computer programs that haven’t even proven they can do the jobs yet. Merry Christmas!

Wait! Please do not delete this newsletter yet! I wasn’t finished! I have more pep to offer!

While the richest people on earth are using their literal and political capital to try to burn holes in the social safety net, way, way more people are working collectively to secure sustainable and dignified working conditions. Last week, the Writers Guild of America called on television and film studios to take up the fight against generative AI and its theft of intellectual property. Even more encouragingly, unionized Amazon and Starbucks workers are on strike leading up to Christmas. (Two nice things you can do during that time are avoiding going to Starbucks while the strike is in effect, and donating to the unions’ strike funds if you have a couple of bucks to spare. Here’s Amazon’s! Here’s the one for Starbucks employees in the Pacific Northwest!)

This information probably isn’t of any material help to you in this moment, reader. But seeing how many working people across the country have begun to seize the power of collective action has been really encouraging to me. I know a lot of recent events suggest otherwise, but we can make things better with effort and solidarity. But in this moment, as you said, you have the privilege to look for work you want. Exercise it! That’s what it’s there for! Happy holidays!

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PICK-ME-UP SONG OF THE WEEK:
Julien Baker & Torres - “Sugar in the Tank”

As long-time newsletter readers know, my favorite Christmas song is this one by Charly Bliss and Pup (with an honorable mention for this Sufjan Stevens classic that feels about as much about Jesus as his non-Christmas music is). And we’re still in kind of a Hanukkah song dry spell since Adam Sandler dropped our last holiday classic THIRTY YEARS AGO(??!?!?!?). Since getting back from Aimee and Ted’s holiday tour, I haven’t been listening to any seasonal music. And ever since I saw They Might Be Giants live a week and a half ago, my headphones have been a lot of TMBG (and a lot of podcasts, so I guess I could recommend the Here episode of Blank Check or the Trap episode of The Flop House)!

But as counterprogramming to the current barrage of holiday (we know which one) music on the radio and in stores and scoring commercials…I offer you a sweet gay country song. It’s new and it’s good! I’ve missed Julien Baker (my favorite of the boygeniuses) and Torres individually the last few times they’ve come through town, and last week I couldn’t make it to the little pop-up show they did as a duo, but hopefully they’ll be back soon and I can hear them play songs together! Until then, let’s enjoy this one!

UPCOMING SHOWS

It’s a slow time of the year, but I’ve got some more shows to announce soon!

12/26: The Comedy Cellar (NYC)

1/9: Wait Wait…Don’t Tell Me Live Recording (Chicago)

1/18: Bushwick Comedy Club (Brooklyn)

1/25: Sup, Bro? at SF Sketchfest

Hi everyone,

Materially, I have had a totally fine and good week. AND YET, I was in an intensely foul mood for several days, just stomping around, grumbling to myself (and others), and being a general pain in the ass. Nothing catastrophic happened, even though I missed a standup show because the train stopped working (not ideal), and I had trouble focusing on a little work I had to do (got it done eventually, though). But that did not stop me from temporarily ruining my own life with bad vibes!

The dust cloud lifted several times (the Writers Guild holiday party, getting to chat and take pictures with my friend Mindy Tucker…even though I did a bad job preparing for the photos, seeing They Might Be Giants with Maris, eating part of a big sandwich my friend won in a raffle), but as soon as I was done having fun, I hurled myself right back into this little rut. My brain is largely back on its feet now, but yikes I am not used to being so grumpy for such a sustained period, and I’m not good at it!

I’m feel so jealous when I see people who are skilled at being mad, whether they channel it into working out or getting revenge. When I’m in a bad mood I just want to like…flop around until I exhaust myself from flailing and pass out. Do you all have any better ways of handling anger? I would love to hear them!

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Circling back (to myself) for just a moment, I want to say how great They Might Be Giants are as a live band. I first knew them from their animated shorts on Tiny Tune Adventures and secondarily from their album Flood which I’d inherited after the death of my uncle Jay. He was a fascinating guy and had a wildly eclectic CD collection that I downloaded into my head little bits at a time. (TMBG, Red Hot Chili Peppers, and the rapper Chubb Rock were some memorable inclusions.) Then in the summer of 2005, a bunch of my childhood friends headed down to Lebowskifest in Louisville (for the second time…more on that later, or never!), where TMBG headlined the big opening night concert, and I was kicked in the chest by how powerful they sound with a full band. Some of their arrangements on record sound a little…novelty song, but they are a real-ass band with a big live sound. I imagine that’s a big factor in how they’ve remained a band for forty-plus years.

I also love the way TMBG weaves these intense moments of tenderness and melancholy into such quirky premises. It reminds me of the improv maxim of committing to the stakes of the scene, or the way Charlie Kaufman’s movie scripts take absurd concepts (you can spend fifteen minutes being John Malkovich) and play them out to their emotional conclusions. On Friday night I was struck by the lyric “I want to thank you for putting me back in my snail shell” from the song “Snail Shell” which is ostensibly about a snail that fell out of its shell, but is also poetically about coming across someone who puts you back into alignment with your own sense of purpose and identity. I also got a little choked up by the lyric “leave the nightlight on inside the birdhouse in your soul,” and I’m not even 100% sure what that one means!

I really resist depressing art that is “naturalistic” or “realistic,” but I’m much more willing to engage with weirdo surrealist drags. (Maybe that means I’m a baby who can’t handle the real world. But also maybe it means that I know war is bad and I get bored when that’s what a movie is all about.) This also points back to my eye rolls at so many awards-y movie performances. Oh, he acted sad because in the movie his son died? WE ALL KNOW THAT DEATH MAKES YOU FEEL SAD. I’m way more interested in a coherent portrayal of a guy who learns that he is appearing in the dreams of everyone in the world. (Even though that specific movie was a little uneven!)

In other news!

I’m co-hosting tonight’s Frankenstein’s Baby show at Union Hall in Brooklyn with Alison Leiby! It’s a very fun lineup!

Leiby and I have also added Dave Mizzoni to our Sup, Bro? show at Sketchfest in San Francisco on 1/25! (A truly bonkers lineup! Aparna Nancherla! Dulcé Sloan! Paul F. Tompkins! Dave Mizzoni) You should come!

I’ve been on a bunch of recent podcasts that I forgot to mention, so here goes!

• I was deeply flattered to try on my native accent for a Dead Pilots Society reading of a dormant script for a show called Massholes. My personal accent kind of faded in and out, to be honest! But I gave it my all!

• I showed up on some recent episodes of Sound Heap with the great John-Luke Roberts!

• I have recently been obsessed with my friends’ extremely chaotic new podcast Welcome to Talk Town, and I was lucky enough to appear as a guest on the last two episodes. It was some of the most fun I’ve had in months!!!

• Did I mention that I chatted with my old friend Gabe Dunn about Iron Man, which I’d never seen before and did NOT like?

• Oh and also here’s a little topical standup joke that didn’t do great, but I still like so I shared it on the internet anyway.

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PEP TALK FOR YOON SUK YEOL

Mr. President, you really stepped in it. You declared martial law about a week ago, which people did not like (people rarely enjoy martial law, I’ve found). And then your declaration of military rule was voted down, which must have been so humiliating. In America, our (once and future, ugh) president’s attempt at seizing power through force was executed by a bunch of off-duty police officers and wine moms who think ordering furniture online is the same as sex trafficking. Obviously they weren’t going to succeed. But you declared the military was in charge of South Korea, and you got voted down. Not to engage in toxic masculinity, but you got cucked by democracy, dude. Strongman leaders all over the world are probably cooking you in your group chats, and even female Fox News anchor types who LOVE when men take their rights away most likely got an incurable case of “the ick.”

Now you’ve been impeached by parliament, which, unlike in our government here, means that you are prohibited from exercising presidential power until the whole situation is resolved. Even worse, your own party turned against you because you refused to resign. And honestly, as an American, it’s kind of beautiful to see that some political parties in some parts of the world still have a sense of shame. If a Republican politician in America failed to implement marital law, their supporters around the country would rush out into the streets and BEG the military to suppress their rights out of fealty to their leader. Matt Gaetz would stage a photo op with his leg pinned underneath a tank tread while he gave the thumbs up straight to camera. It’s lightly encouraging to know that in South Korea, some politicians still view embarrassment as embarrassing.

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You’ve got a little time on your hands now, it seems. And that’s a chance for you to figure out what’s next because, unless you were really good at martial law, there was always going to be a next thing. If you don’t die in office, you’ve got to have a third act. It seems unlikely you can take after the recent American tradition and become elected president again after exhibiting wildly disqualifying behavior. But maybe you can do the slightly less recent American ex-president things of taking up painting or turning yourself into an entertainment executive or becoming vegan and just continuing to stick around while people grow more and more aware of your flaws over time.

Your options are limitless (well, except for being president still). You’re done with public service; now you’re ready for a little Yoon-time.

(DISCLAIMER: I know very little about Korean politics and hopefully learned just enough for this pep talk to make a little sense and not sound culturally monstrous!)

PEP TALK FOR A READER

I’ve done just a little editing of this request for brevity!

Not sure if this is relatable but we're halfway through December and I am struggling to get into the holiday spirit. I'm not at all depressed, everything is going great. I just feel tired after this past year, and like my head has been elsewhere (particularly the recent news cycle). Would love a pep talk on how to restore some holiday spirit and maybe get my groove back in time for Christmas.
- Holidazed and Holiconfused

This writer has captured maybe the most prevalent mood I’ve ever seen someone describe as potentially unrelatable. Nearly everyone I know is feeling burnt out, wrung out, and a third out of your choosing. Our presidential election ended in a true worst case scenario for many people (although if you’re a billionaire who owns a racist bumper sticker factory, all your dreams are coming true). Everything feels like a scam lately. I am currently being hounded to pay two months of membership dues for a gym I’ve never been to in a city I haven’t lived in for over a decade. There are maybe some unexplained drones hovering over New Jersey, but also a bunch of dummies are getting freaked out while accidentally stargazing or spotting regular-ass airplanes. We’ve been living in “unprecedented times” for so long, I think it’s safe to say we’ve established a new precedent.

(Okay so maybe I am still wallowing in a little residual crankiness.)

Because you asked, and because I believe I have something to offer here, I will dip my toes briefly in to the advice-giving pool. Outside of the general year-end malaise, I deeply relate to the feeling of looking at a calendar and seeing a solid block of stuffI’vegottado. It’s a daunting position to be in, considering two or more weeks as a single unit of BUSY. But even if your holidays (Hanukkah and the other ones) are packed with obligations, I want to offer a few ways to reframe that experience and make it less dreadful.

1. Break this period down into its component parts. Not for productivity reasons. I don’t think a to-do list is going to eradicate your doldrums. But even just considering the individual things that are keeping you busy is a nice way to focus on the events and experiences themselves rather than the fact that you are constantly occupied. You’ve got to go to the mall and pick up a couple of gifts? That’s not just an hour and a half of Being Annoyed (although it’s maybe also that); it’s a chance to bring joy into the lives of your loved ones. If it weren’t, you wouldn’t be doing it. Throw a podcast or audiobook on in your headphones and hurl yourself into the fray of commerce.
   
   UGHHH you have to make an appearance at an office Christmas party? Sure, that’s a demand on your time. But what will you be doing there? Probably making some stilted smalltalk but probably also catching up with someone who you enjoy chatting with and mostly only see in the context of work. Get psyched for gossip instead of viewing the event as a period of your life you’re handing over to the whims of fate. Is there an hour you can reclaim for yourself in the middle of the day or after everyone else is asleep? SEIZE IT! It’s yours now! No one can make you not do that!

2. What will make this fun? Now that you’ve considered what you Have To Do, is there a way to make it more enjoyable? Can you bring a friend? Will there be a dog you can pet at this event, or a group of kids building a Lego structure you can ingratiate yourself with instead of talking about How Work Is with older cousins you never see? Can you talk with the older cousins about how annoying (or adorable) the kids are? Will there be food you’re excited to eat? This can be a fraught and frazzling time of year if you have difficult relationships with family members or holiday celebrations themselves. So…how can you build or observe traditions in ways that are as joyous as possible (AJAP).
   
   This is something I used to tell friends who were trudging through first date after first date with dud after dud: It’s supposed to be fun. If it’s not fun, you don’t have to do it. And while that’s absolutely true with dating, it’s not always the case with family. You don’t always get the chance to opt out. But still, a party, a gathering, a family dinner is supposed to be fun, and treating it as such is a helpful way to start. But also…

3. How can you indulge the feeling of Don’t Wanna? Sometimes things have to get done, which is sad but true. There’s cleaning, cooking, gift buying, orchestrating travel, wrangling childcare, pretending Santa is real, making excuses for things you can’t do, and so much more. Obviously a disproportionate amount of stuff on average falls to moms under the auspices of “having it all.” But sometimes moms and others simply Don’t Wanna. In those cases, it might help to consider what can you…not do?
   
   Do you have the ability to throw a few dollars at a problem? Make it rain, and buy some nice cookies instead of baking them! Are you expected to travel an inconvenient distance to see people who make you feel bad? Stay home! Are you overwhelmed with tasks? Ask for help! Or, quietly delete a few low-priority chores from your itinerary. If nobody but you is expected to pay attention to them anyway, chances are other people might not even notice they didn’t get done. Don’t wrap gifts! Put them in little bags! Or leave them in the bags they came in! Who gives a shit?

This is not failproof methodology. Sometimes you just have to do things you don’t want to. Or even a deluge of good things can leave you underwater. But instead of considering The Holidays as an mountain to be scaled, that you can make life easier by driving a car up the path instead of walking, or remembering that you’re climbing this mountain because you want to, or if you actually are not interested in scaling the peak, you’re free to go around. Everest is optional. And so is making egg nog from scratch.

PICK-ME-UP SONG OF THE WEEK: Bob Sapp - “Sapp Time”

Kind of a curveball this week, I know. This video feels like a very early aughts “can you believe this silly thing is on the internet?” cultural element, but I never hear it brought up as such. Maybe “Sapp Time” never achieved the heights of virality required to coast smoothly into the future. Perhaps there was just not a specific cultural stickiness that kept it around.

In any case, this music video that my college hallmates and I stumbled upon during out first year in school popped into my head this week, and the song is still surprisingly catchy in its clunkiness. I think at one point I knew what some of the Japanese words meant, but I do not remember any of the translations. The phonetic pronunciations are still rolling around along the wrinkles in my brain though.

(For reference, Bob Sapp played in one NFL game and then at some point moved to Japan to pursue combat sports, which he was not very good at, comparative to other professional fighters. But do they have a theme song like this? I don’t think so!)

SOME OTHER STUFF I ENJOYED

My friend Yassir Lester wrote (and co-directed along with his brother Isaiah) an extremely silly movie starring Shameik Moore and D’Arcy Carden (Janet from The Good Place), and Maris and I had a blast watching it. It was the most/hardest I’ve laughed at a movie this year!

Also my friend Martin Urbano put out a new standup special in character as a general creep who is making his return from being “cancelled.” He’s an excellent writer and performer, and he’s always turning the premises of his own jokes in on themselves over and over in a way that really asks the audience to examine what they’re laughing at. It’s a real tightrope walk!

UPCOMING SHOWS

I’ve got a bunch of NYC dates coming up, and then a few back on the road! See you there?!?!

12/16: Co-Hosting Frankenstein’s Baby at Union Hall (Brooklyn)

12/19: Comedy Cellar (NYC), Bushwick Comedy Club (Brooklyn)

1/9: Wait Wait…Don’t Tell Me Live Recording (Chicago)

1/25: Sup, Bro? at SF Sketchfest

Hi everyone,

I got back last night (technically today) from the little week-long tour I got to be a part of for Ted Leo and Aimee Mann’s Christmas Shows. The shows themselves and the attendant driving around were, to borrow an old phrase, just what I needed (JUST WHAT I NEEDED!). A week of performing with some of my favorite artists, in front of warm and enthusiastic crowds. I got to do all the fun parts of touring (writing jokes, goofing around with friends, performing for nice people) without the bad parts (posting videos on Instagram begging people to come to the shows, waking up at 5am to catch a flight). My parents were able to come see me tell jokes in person for the first time in several years (not counting when I visit them and won’t stop talking), and that was wonderful too!

I’m so grateful to Aimee and Ted (so cool and nice in addition to being treat musicians) for having me along for this run of shows. The whole squad (including special guests Paul F. Tompkins and Nellie McKay, the band, and the crew) has known each other and worked together for years, and as the newest guy, I was focused on:

a. Doing a good job onstage.
b. Not being annoying.

Hopefully I pulled off both! I’m so used to touring by myself or in a car with one other person, and it was really fun to have a big part of the day in a van full of people, listening to music and podcasts and riffing silly bits (while also personally being mindful of goal “b,” not being annoying; sometimes a little bit of bit goes a long way when you’re the new guy). Ultimately, the pressure to achieve goal “a” was relieved by the fact that even if I realllly blew it, the audience was going to get to see Ted and Aimee play a bunch of the best songs of this (and the end of last) century, and no one would remember I existed. Pretty good for a worst case scenario! But I think I did a nice job with the job part and also with the not being annoying part.

It means a lot to me to see artists who are in the midst of long and varied careers, who work hard at cultivating a sense of community and collaboration, and who like watching each other perform from the side of the stage. And, not to sound like the oldest guy in history, I also love the magic of a show that is meant to be seen by a live audience and not chopped up into tiny pieces and sprinkled across the internet. (Although I do think the world deserves to witness PFT’s stirring musical number performed as Krampus.) The whole endeavor took the hard work of a whole bunch of people onstage and offstage, and the end result was really special and memorable, and I’m so glad I got to be a little part of it.

Between this and the writing project I’m working on with my friend Alison Leiby, I’m feeling energized by teamwork. That’s the spirit I’m going to try and take with me into 2025. For now, I am home in Brooklyn doing shows around NYC and hanging out with Maris and noodling around with some writing stuff and doing karaoke and watching movies and eating Chinese food. It’s cozyin’ time.

(Oh also, if you are not already a Paul F. Tompkins fan, you just have to listen to his bit about canned peanut brittle. He’s one of the greats! Also so nice!)

PEP TALK FOR HEALTH INSURANCE CEOs

Last week, the CEO of UnitedHealthcare was shot dead in the street, and a prevailing response even among many pacifists was: “Oh, so that’s why guns.”

All I’ll say here is: It’s never too late to quit your job and give all or most of your money away! There are plenty of other things to be in charge of. Nobody’s mad at the guy who runs the factory that makes twist ties. (Or at least, nobody’s that mad.)

Also, nobody’s making you be the CEO of anything! There are few skills I trust less than “good at business” for its own sake (even “suspiciously proficient at tying knots” could be a Cub Scout thing or a sex thing, not a murder thing). You could still learn to build furniture or play the violin! The world is your oyster!

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A NON GIFT-GUIDE GUIDE TO GIFTS

Everyone’s doing gift guides in their newsletters lately, and I don’t have especially good taste, and I also don’t know what you, readers, like! So, in keeping with the Best Compliment I Ever Received feature this newsletter sometimes runs, I asked (on BlueSky) for the best gifts people have ever given, and maybe this will be some inspiration!

(I will say, tickets to a live event is a fun one, and I don’t just say that in a self-serving way as someone who performs regularly at live events! Similarly…merch or other tangible work sold by a favorite independent artist!)

I’ve divided the responses up into loose categories and shared them with you all!

Handmade Gifts!

[My partner] asked me “what kind of advent calendar would you want” and I, thinking this was hypothetical (I’m Jewish!), said “I dunno, probably rocks, bones, and bugs?” He sourced enough weird little things & chocolates for a cool nine-drawer cabinet (he forgot how many days in Chanukah)

Normally I would not consider “rocks, bones, and bugs” a good gift (unless the gift-recipient is a scientist or the gift-giver is an eight-year-old), but this is great!

I loaned my mother a comic book, Digger by Ursula Vernon. Months later she's down for Christmas and gives me the book back but then gives me a four-to-five inch tall felted figure of the main character, including a working button and backpack and a detachable pickaxe.

My husband built me a little Raspberry Pi computer that contains the classic Simpsons seasons (as defined by me). It plugs into the tv and you can choose an episode or let it shuffle. This may not sound romantic but it's some of the hardest I've ever swooned!

My sister took an existing book about sisterhood and affixed pictures of us throughout the entire book. Pictures of us as little children all the way up through adulthood. It is my most cherished object.

My sister made me a beautiful quilt, and I filled her freezer with healthy, homemade post-partum recipes I researched from around the world.

I lived in a house of 6 people for about 6 years and I moved out a few years ago but stay close to them. We see each other as family. Last Christmas one of them designed and had made a set of rings for all of us to wear. It was incredibly touching.

I love this one because it is thoughtful and generous and also custom rings make it feel like you’re part of a secret society or won a Super Bowl together.

My grandma knit me an afghan and said that I'd be getting a big hug from her whenever I wrapped myself up in it

That’s some top shelf grandma shit!!!

A patient once made needlepoint pot holders for me. They were beautiful, but what warmed me even more was she had low vision and was in her 90s but took the time to make them for me. I was so touched. Still am.

Also grandma-style even though it’s not technically from your grandma!

Stuff! (Because sometimes the best things in life…are things!)

I'm only saying this due to recency bias, but a very soft and cozy heated blanket. But actually the same person (my spouse) once found all the extant episodes of my favorite old time radio show and made me a CD of them ❤️ and before that made me actual mix tapes for my car with a tape deck!

My (adult!) child gifted me a Scrooge-style nightcap and a nice bottle of whiskey - for nightcaps!

Nothing better than a cozy situation. And very little worse than a fake-cozy situation. Like when you see a couch that looks nice and soft and you kind of slump down into it and it’s basically a park bench covered in fabric. Kiss my bruised ass, deceptively firm couches!

My bestie stayed with me for a few weeks after a breakup, and was horrified to learn I had no good knives (I was ~30). He bought me my first really good knife. It’s still going strong 20+ years later.

Damn this is the sweetest story I can imagine about acquiring a knife right after a breakup. Normally those don’t turn out this well!

I mentioned to my best friend that when I was around 10 my mom gave away my plush Fievel doll and I had been super sad about it, and months later she found one on ebay and gave it to me for Christmas.

Through the internet, all things are possible, both for better (here) and for worse (50% of other examples).

I don’t think this is what you’re looking for, but a friend (back in the day) gave us an ounce of pot when we were going thru some tough times. Much appreciated!

This is absolutely the kind of thing I was looking for! What a nice friend!

My husband got me an eye mask, kind of as a bit, because he stays up later than I do. It turned out to be the most useful thing he's ever gotten me (and in fact when that one was kind of getting ratty, he bought me a newer, nicer one that I still use).

Sometimes bits become real life!

A few years ago a friend got me a full tea set because I love to throw teas but had a hard time finding a set that had a cream pitcher and a sugar bowl that didn’t wasn’t ugly. Once I opened the box and realized what it was [a cream pitcher and sugar bowl that were not ugly, of course] I cried. It was so thoughtful.

I gave my best friend’s daughter a random stuffed animal for her first birthday that she is still obsessed with at 6 (the gift is making me feel like I totally nailed Cool Aunt early).

Tickets to my favorite baseball team!! I would never have spent the money. But oh, what a treat!!

My wife got custom Lego figures of the two of us.

I was moving to MI from CA, and wistful about leaving. My sister got me a necklace with a California Poppy that matched hers, and said I'd always be welcome to stay with her when I missed home. I think we're as close now as when we lived 30m apart.

The lesson here is listen to people and know what they like and just hammer it. Although you can go too hard. I think I’ve got to put an end to the run of buying Maris olive-themed jewelry before she has enough of it to open her own Etsy store and start flipping pieces I’ve given her.

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Practical Gifts

After my dad died a friend with a lot of airline miles gave me enough of them for a round-trip flight so I could have a break from all the grief etc. It was incredibly kind and helpful!

Airline miles! The gold bars of the sky!

I offhand mentioned once to a friend that I always cringed using a can opener because I envisioned cutting myself on the lid and a few days later I received a beautifully giftwrapped OXO good grips safety can opener. I have felt warm with friendship every time I open a can for over ten years now.

I was embarking on an exciting new chapter professionally and my then-girlfriend bought me a wonderful backpack upgrade for everyday carry. Reader, I married her.

There is something so gratifying about having just the right tool for a job. I can only imagine how good it felt for someone to use dental floss for the first time instead of cleaning the spaces between their teeth with a twig or some twine.

for my birthday in october my bestie called my local fancy butcher and put two very nice steaks on hold for me, knowing i love cooking, rarely eat meat, and money was tight. i had a lovely birthday dinner!!!! (when i picked it up the staff cheered and said it was a first)

Celebrating my birthday - at the end of August - has always been a challenge because I was always moving or starting school. One year, my best friend baked me a birthday cake and froze it in my mom's freezer so I could have a home-baked cake on my actual birthday.

A loved one died on Thanksgiving day in 2002. My whole family had been in the hospital with her all week. When we got home that night, we found an entire thanksgiving feast had been prepared & set up in my parents’ house by their friends. It was the best and sweetest gift I’ve ever experienced.

A tub of sunshine-yellow carrot ginger soup from a distant friend when I was upside down headfirst in a snake pit of grief.

You gotta eat!

Once when we lived in California, the first time it had rained in months my husband drove to my office parking lot and replaced my windshield wipers so that I could drive home with new ones.

One of my exes bought me a set of tires when I was a broke grad student and had a tire blow out and couldn’t afford it, and it was just such an immense relief to have them instantly solve a huge problem for me.

When going through an especially busy & difficult time in my life a neighbor walked over and washed my car (during The Pollening here in the South). Asked for my keys & cleaned the inside too. Small thing, but something I lacked time to do and was very needed. Will never forget that small kindness.

As someone who has no idea how to take care of a car, this sounds incredible. My usual thing as a car owner is to drive until one of the parts starts making too loud a noise for me to hear the radio, or too acrid a smell for me to think thoughts, and then I take it into a mechanic who goes “You would have died if you’d driven ten more miles!” and then charges me my net worth to replace a piece of metal the size of my left thumb.

Cold Hard Cash

When I was 18, I asked my mom for money, which she thought was boring (she likes wrapping presents). So my mom gave me a Kleenex box with a dollar bill sticking out. When I pulled it out, I found it was an entire roll of dollar bills taped together that came out like tickets from a skee-ball machine

Was studying abroad in college & our classroom had a random piano. I’d arrive early to play. Showed up one morning & was told to stop: heartbroken. A few days later a classmate told me to keep playing & not to worry. I found out later he’d paid the place to make sure I could continue. Incredible.

I was getting divorced & struggling financially. I mentioned to a friend that I hadn’t filed yet because I had to come up with the court fee first. Soon after a stranger walked up to me and handed me an envelope with the money I needed. Several friends had taken up a collection, I found out later.

Someone once left me an envelope of cash for a few drinks at my local bar. Handwritten note and all. The thought and gesture were so kind.

There’s an old Simpsons joke where Homer describes alcohol as “the cause of and solution to all of life’s problems,” and that’s kind of how I feel about money. Capitalist exploitation, bad. Giving someone a wad of bills to make a problem go away, good.

Sometimes people treat money or gift certificates like a tacky or thoughtless gift and to that I say NO. Obviously you don’t want to give a dusty re-enveloped Borders gift card for your tenth wedding anniversary. But giving someone a green light to splurge at a restaurant (big recent trend in my family) or on a nice pair of sneakers without assuming what they want to eat/wear is often more thoughtful than going: “I bet you’d like this thing that’s maybe not your style or even your size!” That level of taste is so hard to nail! You don’t have to try it if you have any doubts!

Well, Harper Lee’s friends once gave her a year’s wages so she could have a year off to write. I think we have different friends, but it would be nice!

If anyone knows any patrons of the arts, I too would like to befriend one!

Acts Of Service

When I was very depressed once, my pal drove to my house, coaxed me into her car, and brought me to eat soup dumplings. It was the nicest thing.

My roommate and I were in the process of repainting basically the entire house that we were renting from my parents and we were burnt out. A friend was over and saw the supplies. He said "I have tomorrow off, I'll come paint it for you" and he DID. Painted until he was out of paint. A hero.

okay best gift ever was, after years of loneliness, a group of new friends all showed up for my birthday, did karaoke with me, and were their weird and wonderful selves. couldn't have asked for anything better than silliness and feeling loved

This is my kind of gift! I may not be a skilled house painter (traditional) or “guy who paints houses” (mob), but I can certainly take you out for soup or show up to your birthday party!

My dad died over the winter holidays in 2021. My fam all went back home for several weeks, mid-Dec to mid-Jan. I came back in Jan to find my SIL & friends had taken down all of our Christmas decorations for us & put them away, & had my house professionally cleaned. I will never forget that kindness.

My dad passed away unexpectedly and I had to leave town in a rush. When I got back my friends had cleaned my whole house. Which was….no small feat. It was totally unexpected and was the best thing EVER.

I was really sick one December, and very sad about it. When I came home one day, my husband had put up the tree and lights and just decorated the shit out of the house, and it cheered me up so much.

my mom stayed with us after our baby was born and did all the laundry, cooked, and organized my living room, it was the best gift anyone has ever given me

The week after my kid was born, my husband’s boss came over to help around the house. She ended up spending about an hour shredding old documents, repeatedly emptying the shredder, and vacuuming around it. I think of her every time I have to empty the shredder myself, an odious task.

These are all such generous uses of time and energy. As an aside, I am so relieved to not be a Christmas celebrator, because I’d absolutely be the slob with a tree up until March and lights up until May. I would probably try to cheat it by finding lights with what I’d consider a “year-round” color scheme (a thing that doesn’t actually exist) and then become the subject of gossip across the neighborhood. (I mean, assuming I ever live in a house again.)

Sentimental Value

My sister gave her daughter (my niece) my name as her middle name.

A beautiful and high-stakes gift.

I was carded at my 33rd birthday party. That was a gift from the universe!

On one hand, we shouldn’t put such a cultural premium on youth. On the other hand, it’s sometimes nice to have someone mistake you for a youth. What better day than your birthday?

This is revealing but, as an autistic, the best gifts are when I actually get what I asked for and not someone’s interpretation of it. I know it sounds ~not great, but again the autism demands specificity and particularity

Unclear what if anything this says about me, but I do relate to this. I was a VERY bad gift recipient as a child! As an adult I learned that if I never ask for anything specific, I don’t put any pressure on receiving anything specific, and I can just be delighted that someone thought to give me a gift at all. (Your mileage may vary, of course.)

Definitely up there, my first birthday after my dad passed a friend got me a Cameo from my favourite Jewish jobber, Barry Horowitz. Who also offered me very genuine condolences which was as lovely as it was unexpected.

Best friend in college got me a notebook filled with messages from my closest friends about why I was so special to them. Still keep it by my bedside to read on tough days.

I have one of these that my co-teachers made filled with pictures by my last group of students when I was a pre-school teacher. It’s so special to me!

My husband made me a compilation of videos from my family and friends, but they were all in the style of Cameos. Very funny!!!

A partner lovingly applying lipstick to me for the first time which helped me realize I was trans.

This is so tender, and I don’t know if it’s the right gift for everyone, this sounds like such a beautiful experience someone gave you, and I’m so glad you shared it here!

What about you, readers? Do you have a best gift you’ve ever received that you’d like to share? Please do!!!

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PICK-ME-UP SONG OF THE WEEK:
Emilyn Brodsky - “Hands off the Stove”

I recently met Emilyn through the excellent DC Pierson (whose “architect who designed New York ” videos are my favorite running internet comedy bit right now), and I realized that I’d seen her perform live probably…15 years ago opening for the World Inferno Friendship Society in Rhode Island. Wild!

I went back to listen to Emilyn’s studio albums, which are great, and her most recent one was self-produced, and it’s just so light and breezy-sounding, but also full of poignant lyrics and catchy hooks. There’s an emotional muscle behind the gentleness of the music. And a melodic punch behind the tenderness of the vocals. The horns! Really good stuff! I couldn’t stop listening to it! And now I’m sharing it with you!

Also, the recently shouted-out Doechii’s Tiny Desk Concert is great!

UPCOMING SHOWS

I’ve got a bunch of NYC dates coming up, and then a few back on the road! See you there?!?!

12/10: The Comedy Cellar (NYC)

12/11: The Comedy Cellar (NYC)

12/12: Uptown Showdown at Symphony Space (NYC)

12/15: Say Less at UCB (NYC)

12/16: Co-Hosting Frankenstein’s Baby at Union Hall (Brooklyn)

12/19: Bushwick Comedy Club (Brooklyn)

1/9: Wait Wait…Don’t Tell Me Live Recording (Chicago)

1/25: Sup, Bro? at SF Sketchfest

Hi everyone,

I hope you had a nice Thanksgiving with people you love, or at least some nice food, or at whatever is slightly less than least (penleast?) a moment to rest near the end of a long year, which all years are unless you’re a tortoise or a mountain.

Maris graciously agreed to sneak out of New York City with me for a quick visit to see my family. The travel included an early Wednesday wake-up and a late Thursday arrival back in Brooklyn, and I am thankful that she was amenable to shuttling up and down the northeast corridor via Amtrak to hang out with my folks. I have a very chatty family (with me being arguably and argumentatively the yappiest among us), so we packed a lot of great conversing and catching up into two-ish days. We also tried a new-to-us Dunkin’ seasonal alcoholic beverage (the Spiked Peppermint Mocha Iced Latte) which may be their all-time best boozy offering (not a strong field, but still). It had an egg nog quality, not in its flavor, but in the fact that I could drink one glass of it a year and feel totally content. It tasted like some novelty drink that a friend would whip up in a large batch for a holiday party, and you wouldn’t say no, but you also wouldn’t ask for the recipe. That’s more than I can say for their spiked iced teas.

Starting Friday, my time has mostly been devoted to the Aimee Mann and Ted Leo Christmas Show tour. I’m part of a little company of performers for this run of shows, and I do like…three minutes of standup plus a bunch of little songs and sketches with Aimee, Ted, Paul F. Tompkins, and Nellie McKay. Over the weekend, we had several hours of rehearsal (I was generously exempted from Thanksgiving day) and four excellent shows at City Winery in Manhattan. When I was in college, my roommates and I put on a weekly sketch show called Friends Like These, that always came together at the last minute, and this reminds me a little of that. I love the Little Rascalsy feeling of “we’re putting on a show!” Although it helps that in this case I’m tagging along with some of the best singers/songwriters/comedians in the world, and that the band is full of RIDICULOUSLY talented and accomplished musicians as well. I’ll probably write more about the specifics next week, but I don’t want to spoil anything for the folks who are going to see the tour in Alexandria, VA; Collingswood, NJ; Beverly, MA; and Norwalk, CT!

Between the family visit and the shows and the staying out late with friends after the shows and the pie, I’m feeling sleepy but satisfied, which I think is a good way to feel as the year comes to a close!

(Oh also we got the final version of my standup special edited, and hopefully we’ll figure out soon where it will live and when people can see it!!!)

PEP TALK FOR VITO THE PUG

Vito, you little goblin, you’ve done it. Even though your face is as wrinkly as a 95-year-old man’s elbow skin. And your nasal passages are crazy straws made of flesh. And even at top speed, you run about as fast as a toddler can chuck a bowling ball. If Air Bud had been about a pug, he’d have been cut from the team in the first act of the film. And yet, Vito, you persevered. You showed them all! You won Best In Show at the National Dog Show!

Take that, dogs who can breathe normally! Shove it, canines with the disposition to perform tasks or the musculature to undertake impressive athletic feats! There’s trouble down at the old mill? Well, call a border collie! Vito the Pug is too busy posing with THE TROPHY HE WON FOR BEING THE GREATEST DOG.

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Vito, you are an inspiration to everyone who’s ever been told that they’re too short, too round, too clingy, too out of breath. You’ve proven that there is no human-bred quality one might possess that can stop them from achieving their dreams. In a field of expertly groomed standard poodles and impeccably well-adjusted golden retrievers, a crumpled up little gremlin stood (metaphorically) tall and won the day.

We are all a little Vito at times, and little Vito, you’ve shown us what we’re capable of.

UNEXPECTED GOOD NEWS!

Over on BlueSky, I asked for people to share some unexpected pieces of news, big or small, that they’ve received lately. I received such lovely responses, and here they are! I’ve done some light editing for grammar, but that’s about it!

I got a chance to audition for my dream theater role (Carlotta in The Phantom of the Opera), which I never thought I'd get to even try for.

Oh hell yeah that’s great news! Sometimes almost getting the thing you want can feel discouraging, but what it really means, most of the time (as you know), is that you’re going in the right direction. When people say it’s an honor just to be nominated, they always sound slightly full of shit (which they sort of are) but they’re also telling the truth! I can say this honestly, as someone who has attended the Emmys as a nominee a year I did not win an Emmy.

I had such a nice time hiking with my nieces over Thanksgiving. The Bay Area delivered on great weather & views, and they are such interesting & funny people! Also, the Wicked movie really rocked, and we had a Secret Breakfast sundae afterward.

Incredible day. Great times with family. Perfect moviegoing experience (Wicked seems especially great for nieces; it’s niece-core, basically). And Breakfast Sundae? Game changer! I think that’s what the movie Game Change starring Julianne Moore was about. Just kidding. She played Sarah Palin in a film about the 2008 election. That’s still a movie you can probably watch somewhere if you want! Weird!

One of my union members needed sick time donations and our members got them 80% there and the campus president is going to waive the rest.

Our healthcare system in America sucks shit through a hose (and you have to pay out of pocket for the hose) but organized labor and mutual aid always warm my heart! It’s so beautiful when people care for each other! When people even temporarily band together to stave off the brutality of unchecked capitalism, it feels the same to me as when a pug wins a dog show. Against all odds, it happened!!!

Earthjustice continues to notch hard won essential wins. One of the organization’s attorneys blocked a handout for coal in an energy case and we just settled two cases in Colorado making electricity more affordable and less reliant on the climate destabilizing gas industry. This follows a slew of other recent big wins including protecting one of the worlds most endangered whales from the oil development that also threatens small scale fishers and tourist operators in the Gulf of Mexico.

Earth: 2
Climate Criminals: Well, a lot, but at least Earth is on the board.

A roof replacement that my mother was warning me about and that I should claim on my insurance came in at less than half of what I’d saved up for it.

Isn’t it a relief when some kind of financial misfortune isn’t as severe as you’d anticipated? It feels like a real big jerk threatening to kick your ass and then letting you off with a wedgie. You feel briefly invincible even though in reality you’ve merely been not-vinced.

Unbeknownst to me, the payroll office that just gave me a raise was supposed to give me an even better raise. They have corrected the error with back pay.

Okay, actually, upon further reflection, it is better when someone actually gives you more money than you thought they were going to. I hope you spend a small portion of it on something frivolous. Like a painting of a turtle waving “go around” to a faster animal. Maybe not that but something like that.

on thanksgiving my downstairs neighbor left me a mini-thanksgiving feast on my doorknob. good news as in an act of kindness still counts.

Neigh-bors! Neigh-bors!

I’ve lived in the same apartment for seven years, and our building has a really friendly energy to it. One time our neighbor’s smoke alarm was going off, and we had to call the fire department and let them into their place through our little adjoining balcony and it turned out they were just very deeply asleep, and they bought us a big bottle of wine as a thank you, even though we should have bought THEM a big bottle of wine as an apology for letting the fire department into their apartment when they were just doing a Snow White type slumber. Our upstairs neighbors play “City Of Stars” (from La La Land) on their piano several times a week, and they have a toddler who stomps around at weird hours, but they’re so so nice, and those sounds are just the cost of doing business of living in a community, and it’s really pretty cute if I’m being honest.

I do not extend the same goodwill to the next door neighbors who put one of those Ring doorbells that says “Hi! You’re being recorded!” on their brownstone. Boo that doorbell! It is my enemy.

In June 2024 , my photograph was chosen and made into a USPS stamp.

I am so impressed by this!!! You get to be a stamp? Your work is now on par with icons like the Grand Canyon and Bugs Bunny! Stamps are forever! It says it right there on the thing! This is a legendary accomplishment and you should feel proud!

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Have you received any unexpected good news lately? Leave! A! Comment!

PICK-ME-UP SONG OF THE WEEK: Nellie McKay - “David”

Nellie is very good at writing and singing songs. She’s on this little tour I’m a part of all week, and on Friday afternoon she asked if I’d come onstage with her and sing the Chipmunk Christmas song (the one where Alvin wants a hula hoop, which is such a 1950s-ass present to request, but that’s not the point), and I said sure, and it turns out I can do a fairly credible chipmunk voice, so that’s been fun. (Spoiler!)

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“David” belongs to a favorite That’s Marvelous genre, which I call “jaunty bummers” (upbeat but depressing songs, not whatever gross sex thing British people might use that phrase to signify). Wikipedia told me that the title of Nellie’s debut album Get Away From Me was a play on Norah Jones’s Come Away With Me, and it made me wonder if kids these days know what powerful sway Norah Jones and her jazz whispers held over American culture in the early aughts. Perhaps with a newly elected second-term Republican president, jazz whispers will return.

UPCOMING SHOWS

Not a TON on the calendar right now, but I bet that’ll change soon! Maybe a couple of spots in Los Angeles early next year?

12/3-12/8: TED LEO AND AIMEE MANN CHRISTMAS SHOWS (Several Cities)

12/12: Uptown Showdown at Symphony Space (NYC)

12/16: Co-Hosting Frankenstein’s Baby at Union Hall (Brooklyn)

12/19: Bushwick Comedy Club (Brooklyn)

1/9: Wait Wait…Don’t Tell Me Live Recording (Chicago)

1/25: Sup, Bro? at SF Sketchfest

Hi everyone,

I don’t know if it’s just this time of year or if things in the entertainment industry are actually perking up, but I feel like there’s been more fun stuff to watch lately? Maris and I have been on the edges of our seat (same couch) with Season 2 Bad Sisters on Apple’s original tv platform that they seemingly forget to tell anyone exists. Season 1 was GREAT and Season 2 has kind of the same thing going as the second season of Search Party (an all-time favorite show) where these characters had a fun time solving/committing crimes for a while, and now they/we have to sit in the reality of what they just did. We also started Interior Chinatown which rules so far. (I don’t love the voiceover, but I am really into all the other meta-genre stuff!) Huge shout out to Ronny Chieng and Jimmy O. Yang who are really great as cousins/friends! We’re also excited to start the new Mike Shur/Ted Danson show on Netflix. I think it’s called Man on the Inside, but I will not look it up, so that might just be a grandfatherly recollection of the name of a heist movie Spike Lee made.

On Sunday, Maris and I went to a For Your Consideration screening of Wicked in Manhattan, and I was kind of blown away how much I enjoyed it. I read the book a realllly long time ago, and I’ve forgotten basically everything about it, and I never saw the stage show. The movie really got me though! Ariana Grande is super funny, and Cynthia Erivo gives such a good performance that you almost forget she’s not actually a magic green lady who lives in the world. Peter Dinklage is very good as a talking goat, which I mostly mention because one time we crossed paths while walking our dogs, and his sweet puppy jumped up on Bizzy (R.I.P.), and he responded by gently chiding: “Hey…respect your elders.” And Bowen Yang is good in everything, obviously!

The thing that kicked my ass about Wicked is how earnest the whole endeavor is. So much entertainment lately feels so burdened by the weight of iterating within genres that have existed for so long, but Wicked, despite it being a prequel to an existing play/movie, kind of (to use IMMEDIATELY dated language) fell out of a coconut tree. There’s one tiny little winking joke towards the end, but other than that this movie is SO SINCERE about Oz and magic and this mythical high school for youthful 30-somethings. Nothing against Deadpool, but it’s very un-Deadpool, if that makes sense.

That, plus getting a BUNCH of advance copies of friends’ books (brag!!!), finishing a script I co-wrote with a friend (that no one is asking for), and reading this short essay by my buddy , I’m feeling pretty energized about creative stuff! That’s all despite my feeling of dread that in the wake of the election, rich execs in LA are going to greenlight mostly things that some hypothetical poor (white) people that they imagine will want to watch, and the results will be really misguided and unpleasant.

I was in SUCH a bad mood all day on Saturday, but between a fun show on Saturday night and all this other stuff, I’m back to feeling good heading into the holiday.

Okay also! THIS WEEK I am going on a little tour with Ted Leo and Aimee Mann which I am so excited for! I’ll be probably doing a teensy little bit of standup and a few goofy bits as part of their Christmas shows along with the rest of the traveling party, Paul F. Tompkins and Nellie McKay!

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ONE MORE ANNOUNCEMENT

My pal Alison Leiby an I are hosting our (extremely sporadic, borderline premise-less) show Sup, Bro? at SF Sketchfest on January 25th!!! Alison and I have so much fun co-hosting a live show, and the lineup is straight up BANANAS. So far we’ve got Aparna Nancherla, Dulcé Sloan, and the aforementioned Paul F. Tompkins on the bill! Bay Area: Come through and have a good time with us!!!

PEP TALK FOR MATT GAETZ

Congratulations to this big ol’ creep on his greatest accomplishment! When I posted this little joke on Twitter (where the lights have come on and the floor is visibly sticky), several people with user names such as TrumpLovr1776 sent me replies like: “He should and will SUE YOU for SLANDER for this!” (and then tagged Matt Gaetz, like he’s gonna kiss them on the forehead for being such a good little guy).

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First of all: You mean libel, idiots. Slander is spoken out loud!

Second of all: I’ll admit I was a little cavalier on social media. For the sake of humor, I used some inaccurate and possibly reckless language. So I want to say, for anyone reading…I’m sorry that I implied that Matt Gaetz ever was or will be the Attorney General of the United States. That was wrong of me, and I won’t let it happen again.

PEP TALK FOR A READER

This was an especially nicely written pep talk request!

Dear Josh,

You’re a sports guy (no Bill Simmons) and I’ll put my pep talk request in those terms. Blowouts feel bad but it’s the close calls that really kill you. Like I imagine Malcolm Butler jumping Russell Wilson’s pass sticks with Russ forever. (Am I kissing enough Boston sports ass? LOL.) 

Rejection is one thing. But getting so close to an opportunity, and then it being snatched away, is really hurting me of late. I dealt with a layoff a few years ago, it took me several years to get back into my field, then my company folded in less than 3 months.

Now, professional near misses happen for many reasons. Lack of funding, changes in priorities, something else to complete the rule of 3s. That said: it’s still tough.

People tend to encourage me to start my own company as a response to this frustration. And I get that. Hell, in my heart it feels like the best way. But man. I need money for these Wale tickets NOW. 

Love,
Close But No Cuban

My comedian friends and I talk all the time about how there was this brief window where the internet felt like a place where artists and other creative folks had the opportunity to make and share good work and maybe get some recognition for it. Now it can sometimes seem like garnering that kind of acclaim is a prerequisite for working in creative fields. Industry tastemakers are more like tasterecognizers, seeing whose name has a big number next to it and throwing opportunities at that person. When a gig ends, artists are encouraged to start a Substack or a Patreon or an OnlyFans. And I appreciate the acumen of folks who can balance creative work with the hustle it takes to make it as a freestanding entity. But sometimes you just want to have a job, not start a company. With respect to Jay-Z, not every businessman needs to be a business, man.

As much as I admire any artist who finds ways to make ends meet, I do also think you can see the #grindset of certain creative types coming off of them like cartoon stink lines. You can feel it when a comic’s hour set is just an infomercial for their merch table. You can tell when a podcast host puts a little too much mustard on their ad reads, and you’re like…are you, like a casual Super Bowl viewer, mostly here for the commercials? I think we can all intuit when a writer/director/artist/actor/influencer is honing a craft and when they are making “content.”

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Maybe I’m being naive here! I don’t begrudge anyone (wellllll, I don’t begrudge most people) an opportunity to make a living from a job well done. And unless you’re one of a very select group of people, that does take a little bit of elbow grease outside of your creative output. As I get older and gain experience, I start to notice how often the people who fade out of creative fields are the ones who can’t stomach sending a “just following up” email. And with deregulation allowing multimedia conglomerates to form like Voltron, there are fewer and fewer independent outlets (or, even legacy outlets) where you can just do art. The vampires who run these companies would gladly replace us with a single computer program that raises Earth’s surface temperature and never has an original thought if they could. So there’s some water-treading required just to stay afloat unless you’re Ryan Murphy. But again, with all due respect to Oscar winners Three 6 Mafia, I get a little itchy when I see people who are all hustle and no flow. Just go work at a hedge fund, then, weirdo!

Obviously I’m working out some of my own shit here! But what I mean to say to you, reader, is that you don’t have to be an LLC to stay in the game. You’re allowed to turn your own “COMMERCE” dial as far up or down as you feel good about, and figure the rest of it out from there. Not everyone has the luxury of making art for art’s sake and letting the chips fall where they may (then asking their parents for more chips if their old ones fall wrong). There’s no shame in paying for concert tickets with money you earn elsewhere. But it’s a drag how much of this is business, man.

PICK-ME-UP SONG OF THE WEEK: The Both - “Milwaukee”

Ted and Aimee’s collaborative album The Both came out ten years ago, and Maris and I went to see them live at the Music Hall of Williamsburg. I bought a t-shirt, which was one of my favorites until it mysteriously disappeared. Now I’m doing a little tour with them, and I’m very excited. To paraphrase the guy from the beginning of that one Weezer song: Sometimes life’s so rad.

And, while we’re here “tv off” from the new Kendrick Lamar album makes me want to jump up in the air and break bricks with my bare fist like a Mario Bro. I’d listen to an entire Kendrick/Mustard album that just flips nearly identical string samples like this and “Not Like Us.”

UPCOMING SHOWS

I’ve got a bunch of NYC dates coming up, and then a few back on the road! See you there?!?!

11/25: Whiplash at UCB (NYC)

11/29-12/8: TED LEO AND AIMEE MANN CHRISTMAS SHOWS (Several Cities)

12/12: Uptown Showdown at Symphony Space (NYC)

12/16: Co-Hosting Frankenstein’s Baby at Union Hall (Brooklyn)

12/19: Bushwick Comedy Club (Brooklyn)

1/9: Wait Wait…Don’t Tell Me Live Recording (Chicago)

1/25: Sup, Bro? at SF Sketchfest

Hi everyone,

To paraphrase the Foo Fighters: I’ve got a little confession to make. Don’t worry. This is not about me having an affair that resulted in a baby (which is now what that lyric reminds everyone of when Dave Grohl sings it, I assume). With all the very serious news lately, I haven’t really had the chance to admit this, but here goes: I am only (at best) a casual baseball fan, but I watched four out of the five World Series games just to root for the Yankees to lose. I don’t particularly care about the exploits of the Los Angeles Dodgers. I felt only slightly happy for their fans when their team won, but I experienced a rush of endorphins when they beat the Yankees that was about 95% as powerful as the one that hit when my beloved Red Sox defeated the Dodgers to win the Fall Classic in 2018.

The morning after the Red Sox clinched that championship, I had my final interview for a job at Desus & Mero on Showtime. I will never forget what Desus, a lifelong Yankees fan who knew I was from the Boston area, said to me as we sat down to talk business: “I bet you’re pretty fuckin’ happy today.” That’s how the interview started. I replied: “Yeah, it feels amazing [to win the World Series]. You guys should try it sometime.” I got the job anyway. I appreciate Desus’s open-mindedness to this day.

This season, the Sox finished a beautifully mediocre 81-81 came within a few breaks of scoring exactly as many runs as they allowed. Completely neutral. But I feel amazing. Because the Yankees imploded in crushing fashion on the biggest possible stage. Watching the 2024 World Series, and the joy it brought me, was an incredible commitment to good old fashioned New England spite, and it made me think that maybe, just maybe I should be in therapy after all.

Last week I was on a bunch of podcasts (and radio shows) making jokes about the news, if you can believe it. I flew to Detroit for a Wait Wait…Don’t Tell Me live recording at the Fox Theater, which was gorgeous! The guest was Governor Gretchen Whitmer. I sometimes have trouble figuring out how to thoughtfully engage with politicians for the sake of entertainment, but I will say Gov. Whitmer was extremely funny and charismatic. Hari Kondabolu and Roxanne Roberts (the other panelists) were so much fun to joke around with. And, as always, it was a joy to see the whole Wait Wait team and work with them!

Then I flew home and plunked myself down in front of the computer to record an episode of The Bugle with the great Andy Zaltzman and Tiff Stevenson where I joked more about the news, but with swearing!

I also linked back up with Mile and Jack (of Mad Boosties fame, in this newsletter) on The Daily Zeitgeist to talk about the news after having talked about the news with John Fugelsang on his Sirius XM radio show. You get it!!!

And, in other pep talk related news, the very nice and charming Paula Skaggs and Josh Linden have written a book of tiny pep talks that comes out TOMORROW (but is available for preorder now). My friend Jess Zimmerman sent me a copy, and it’s awfully sweet and charming and thoughtful! Check it out if you need a little more pep in your life! Seems like a swell holiday gift to me!

PEP TALK FOR ALEX JONES

Congratulations, dickhead. For years you engaged in biblical levels of Fucking Around, and you’ve finally been hit with ten plagues worth of Finding Out.

For anyone who isn’t sure what I’m talking about: Alex Jones, the proprietor of intellectual superfund site InfoWars had to sell off his media empire to pay restitution to the families of Sandy Hook victims who he repeatedly slandered during his broadcasts. The site ended up being bought by The Onion (with support from the Sandy Hook families), meaning that the website best known for spreading conspiracy theories and misinformation is now owned by a way better website known for incisive social commentary that is also not literally true.

At a moment when the stupidest and cruelest people are ascending to the highest ranks of global political power, there is so much beauty in any affirmation that some misdeeds do not go unpunished. Bad things can, in fact, happen to bad people too. When I saw the news, I legitimately teared up, not even from laughing, but from the triple distilled platonic purity of the bit. Walter White himself would look at the chemical construction of The Onion’s decision to purchase one of the world’s most vile swamps of malicious conspiracy-mongering, adjust his stupid hat, and smile.

Would I prefer to live in a world where a screeching pimple of a man never impugns the names of grieving families in the wake of a tragedy they’ve suffered? Of course. But in the world we live in, one where there is profit to be made from chewing up poison and feeding it directly into the faces of your eager audience members like so many baby birds, it is a visceral relief to see this mother duck of misinformation get pulped by a helicopter blade of consequences.

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AlJo, you are on the business end of an all time bit. This tops anything People Magazine’s Sexiest Guy Jim Halpert ever did to Dwight Schrute. It beats the time 50 Cent bought two hundred tickets to a Ja Rule show so the whole front would be empty. We’re approaching the prank territory occupied by the serpent who tricked Eve into eating the forbidden fruit that damned all of humanity.

Thank you for getting so thoroughly got, Alex Jones. I can only hope that you continue to spread goodness and inspire optimism across the nation by enduring more legal and karmic punishment in the future.

PEP TALK FOR A READER

This pep talk was concise and well-punctuated, and I didn’t really change it at all although I did make up the pseudonym at the end!

I’ve had tension with a friend, tension with one of my partners, and my anxiety has been generally through the roof lately. 
- Present, Tense

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Historically, I am very bad at handling interpersonal tension. Especially with people that I care about. I don’t love being on the bad side of a stranger or a (do we still say…) frenemy, but when a real friend or loved one tells me: “Hey, we need to talk…later…” my brain goes into a spiral so tight it may as well have been thrown by Patrick Mahomes. WHAT do we have to talk about later? Do you secretly hate me and plan to come clean over dinner? Did you sell my social security number on the dark web? Is the conversation itself a ploy to distract me while ninjas riddle me with throwing stars? There is no end to the catastrophizing I can do between now and this mythical “later.” The practice would be impressive if there were any use to it at all.

In romantic relationships as a younger person, I was a chronic “Are you mad at me?” asker, which is, if you don’t know the kind of guy who takes someone who may or may not be mad at him (me) already and gets them annoyed at the very least.

All of those situations ended fine, or they ended and now it’s fine! There are so many ways interpersonal conflict can be resolved. Through talking openly about the issues at hand. Through time healing some wounds. (Not all woulds, though! Whoever came up with that expression must never have had the kind of wound that bleeds a lot.) Through the situation becoming untenable to the point that someone calls the whole thing off. These outcomes have various levels of attendant stress, but if you’re looking to get out, the only way, as they say, is through. You can’t stay…in. I mean, I guess you could also allow relations to deteriorate without taking any action to improve or disengage, but that one I don’t recommend! It turns out you can keep going through forever without making your way out, like a never ending pasta bowl of duress. But you don’t have to. No one can make you do that!

The other anxiety is a tough thing to disentangle from your concrete situation. It’s a real chicken and egg problem? You’re like: “Where the hell did that chicken come from? AND why won’t it stop laying eggs? I’m stressed out!” (I think that’s what that expression means.) There are so many options for attacking a you-vs-you conflict, and in some ways it’s harder because you are ultimately stuck with yourself no matter which you choose, but in many ways it’s a little less fraught because you don’t have to rely on someone else’s honesty or good faith to fix things. (Although you SHOULD trust those intentions from the people you care about, even when you’re in conflict.)

It’s hard to believe that you’ll ever be out when you’re so deep in the through part of it. But all oceans have shores and all buildings have doors and even every corn maze has a…corn path(???) out into the…broader…corn field(?). You can make it out the other side or back out the same side if that’s what you want, but the point is you can make it through one way or another or another or another.

PICK-ME-UP SONG OF THE WEEK: Ben Folds Five - “Kate”

On Tuesday night, Maris was a little under the weather, so her seat at the Ben Folds solo show at the Paramount in Brooklyn became a little table for my drink and the drink of the guy sitting on the other side of the empty chair. Attending this show closed the loop on my choice to do my first open mic in Boston in July 2004 instead of seeing Ben Folds (along with…I believe…Guster and Rufus Wainwright?) across town with my sister. Twenty years later, I have also seen him in concert. Now I think she has to be a professional comedian?

The show was part of Folds’s Paper Airplane Request Tour during which he plays one set of songs he chooses in advance and then plays a second set selected by audience requests made with paper airplanes thrown from the crowd onto the stage. The all-request set, through coincidence or a shared communal mood, was full of very gentle down-tempo songs. Folds himself remarked that he would never have structured a set that way, but he was respectful of the direction set forth by the room at large. Once again, democracy proves imperfect.

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“Kate” provided a counterpoint to those requests. It’s a sweet, bouncy number, and when played solo it reminds you that a piano is a percussion instrument. Some of the slower tunes felt a little slight in the spacious concert hall without drums or bass or harmony to anchor them, but “Kate” filled the room with sound and energy.

Also, while Ben Folds (and his Five, which is of course is actually only him and two other guys), can be a little lyrically venomous, there’s a sweetness to “Kate.” The subject of the song is just a cool lady he wants to be more like. She plays drums and has cool taste in music and wears the same clothes day after day and smokes weed. And sure, the singer is probably projecting many of her appealing qualities onto her, but I find it endearing that he just wants to say “hey!” to her jack her style a little bit. Kate!

UPCOMING SHOWS

I’ve got a bunch of NYC dates coming up, and then a few back on the road! See you there?!?!

11/21: Wrong Answers Only in Washington DC

11/23: Comedy From Scratch (Larchmont, NY)

11/25: Whiplash at UCB (NYC)

11/29-12/8: TED LEO AND AIMEE MANN CHRISTMAS SHOWS (Several Cities)

12/12: Uptown Showdown at Symphony Space (NYC)

12/19: Bushwick Comedy Club (Brooklyn)

1/25: Sup, Bro? at SF Sketchfest

Hi everyone,

I’m not going to get too deep into it here, but obviously last week’s presidential election went about as badly as it could have. Donald Trump not only won the electoral college (possibly America’s worst college now that the actual Trump University shut down) but he also won the popular vote; third time’s a harm, I guess!

There were some glimmers of hope further down the ballot. Seven out of ten states with abortion protections on the ballot passed those protections (which is good news unless there’s a national ban), with Florida’s amendment failing to meet the predetermined threshold to take effect, despite an overwhelming majority of voters approving of it. Missouri voted to raise the minimum wage to $15 an hour. People want healthcare and economic protections from corporate greed.

I am still crossing my fingers that President Biden uses his remaining time in office for helpful, progressive purposes: push to confirm judges who will preserve civil rights and democracy, maybe forgive some student debt, stop sending a zillion dollars worth of weapons to Israel every forty-five minutes. Part of me fears that he will simply use this time to dig up Strom Thurmond’s skeleton so he can shake his hand across the aisle one last and then pardon himself for the crime of grave robbing. SORRY FOR THE CYNICISM! I THINK I GET TO DO A LITTLE BIT OF THAT THIS WEEK!

I’ve been thinking a lot about what my friend Scaachi wrote about how this election wasn’t going to save us, and it’s not going to doom us. But there’s also going to be a real onslaught against a bunch of the broad “us.” By that I mean: immigrants and refugees, the unhoused, people of color, LGBTQIA+ people, women, and inclusive of/beyond those groups, anyone who’s not super rich and has to work for a living.

A lot of people have been sharing George Carlin’s words lately, and aside from the incisiveness of the jokes themselves, I think something really beautiful he did was ending his shows by saying “Take care of yourself…and take care of somebody else.” It’s the a call to the best impulses and abilities we have, as people.

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So, let’s take care of each other, huh?

A few little pieces of business before we move along…

This Thursday I’m sadly unable to perform at the Comedy Gives Back benefit show at Gotham in NYC. If you’re in town, it’s still a great show for a great cause. But I’ve been called away to record an episode of Wait Wait…Don’t Tell Me at the Fox Theater in Detroit!

I’ve also been on a bunch of podcasts this week.

I talked with the thoughtful and hopeful Ana Marie Cox about how to respond to the election for the first(?) episode of her show Another Day.

On Tuesday before results came in, I chatted NBA stuff with the excellent Miles and Jack on Mad Boosties.

I talked about entertainment and creativity and business and podcast guesting on Attach Your Résumé! (This was from a couple of weeks ago, but I forgot to mention it then.)

And, in very exciting news, I got to return to Normal Gossip with geniuses Kelsey and Alex and the whole wonderful team (hi, Jae)!

This episode came out on Wednesday, and people were so kind about it being a nice little distraction from feeling political despair for an hour. Maybe you’ll like it too!

PEP TALK FOR DJs

“Is this going to end up in your newsletter?” my friend Dan asked me on Saturday night at the surprise birthday party his mom and girlfriend threw for him at the Kowloon restaurant in Saugus, MA. The Kowloon (technically just “Kowloon” but not if you’ve ever been there, it’s not) is a giant Chinese restaurant on Route 1. It’s known for its tiki drinks as well as for being a go-to after prom/drama club cast party venue for a wide swath of Boston’s suburbs. One room in the vast culinary labyrinth has a boat in it, and there are tables inside the boat. On weekends they have comedy shows upstairs in the function rooms. I haven’t performed there since 2009. I’ve never had a good set or a bad spare rib in this building.

I wasn’t going to write a lot about the party even though, as Dan pointed out, it was the most North Shore thing of all time. Meaning: It took place at the Kowloon (check), and the guest of honor almost didn’t come because he had previous plans to watch the Bruins game on tv (double check). I was pushed to chronicle the event when the DJ demanded all sixty-ish guests flood the dance floor to perform choreography he taught us in real time to the song “Sweet Caroline” (infinity checks). At that point, the sheer Massachusettsness of the night became too much to ignore. The only thing that could have ratcheted the quotient up higher is if a Kennedy had drunk driven a car into the side of the venue, indicating the party’s end (or beginning, I guess).

To the DJ, I just want to say: You did your best under delicate circumstances. I can only imagine the sensitivity required to navigate being an interloper, plunked dead center into a room full of literally centuries of combined shared history. Even as someone who knew a lot of the other partygoers, I felt the gravity caused by such density of interpersonal history. I saw friends I’m in a group text with that’s active most days. I caught up with childhood pals I hadn’t seen in 15+ years. I met someone who had gone to the same school as a bunch of my friends and knew them at the time but wasn’t close with them and has since been folded into the friend group because she started dating one of the core members while everyone was in their 30s. Also, I sat with Dan’s cousins from Ohio who I’d heard about for…30ish years but never met before. There were layers here!

So for all those reasons, I understand your decision, DJ, to hammer us with Gen X and millennial party standards. You can’t take a ton of risks when you’re a stranger in a room like this. I cannot blame you for playing “Jump Around” by House of Pain (IMPORTANTLY: NOT FROM BOSTON) twice in a span of two hours. Or doing the same with “Nuthin’ But a ‘G’ Thang.” I was a little perplexed by how much of Billy Joel’s Storm Front album you played. But hey, you’ve got to put your own spin on the evening. And everyone seemed to have a wonderful time.

This is the DJ’s gift: Teasing out the threads that can take an occasion where disparate corners of a life converge—a wedding, a bar mitzvah, an anniversary—and weaving those strands into a shared communal energy. In the days after the election, a lot of people have talked about aspiring to a national sense of unity, as if it is possible or even desirable for a nation of nearly 400 million people to form a meaningful consensus on most issues. But maybe a DJ’s type of unity is something to strive for. Bringing an existing community closer together by sensing the group’s needs and providing for them. Making people on the outskirts of that community feel safe and welcome by caring for even the skeptics and the newcomers, while keeping an eye out for the safety of everyone around.

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Like all good organizers, a DJ has the power to galvanize a group by harnessing the shared energy of a moment. Even if, in some moments, that energy is: “Wait is this guy playing 2 Live Crew? There are children and old people here!”

PEP TALK FOR A READER

I nicknamed this reader and cut out some preamble and…postamble (?) from their request that they indicated I could!

I made the very silly (but correct, I think) decision of breaking up with my sweet, wonderful boyfriend of 2 years right before the dark grim election-winter. It was an amicable, we-want-different-things breakup which uniquely sucks because I have a lot of love for him and our relationship never got the chance to be bad. I feel horrible for hurting him and also myself, and I am struggling to find fun things to do while I prepare for the holidays with a bunch of my happily-partnered family and friends. I know there will be goodness on the other side, but that other side feels impossible to visualize right now. Could really use a pep talk for this difficult time.
- Single, Not Yet Ready To Mingle

Not to be reductive, but feeling bad is the worst. There are obviously caveats about having your health and there being bigger, worse things happening in the world, but hearing that has never, in the history of heartbreak, accelerated the healing process. Oh there are orphaned children in the world, so I should suck it up about missing out on a professional opportunity? WHY DIDN’T YOU SAY SO IN THE FIRST PLACE? Hearing about someone else’s misfortune rarely cheers me up, unless the misfortune is happening to a preexisting enemy. Very few of my enemies are orphans. And even most of those are adults by now.

That said: You are allowed to let other people’s joy be your joy as well. Your friends and family members are not happily romantically partnered to spite you. When you leave the room, they don’t scream “In her FACE!” and start making out. These relationships are (among other things) proof that abundant opportunities love and companionship exist in the world. Your own past suggests this as well!!! The end of a mostly-pleasant relationship is sad, but in the way that the end of a good movie is sad. I’d say “nothing lasts forever, even cold November rain” but it’s the middle of November now, and last week it was 73 degrees in New York, and we’re basically experiencing a drought. We should get Guns n Roses back together to record a song about that. Nothing lasts forever, even hot November drought. (Because, at the very least, November ends eventually.) Wow. Even by my usual standards, that was a lengthy and irrelevant digression.

Happiness can look like a lot of different things. It can mean being single and investing extra time and energy in your friendships. Or being single and investing extra time in binging Monk (engaging in a binge of, not using the search engine Bing to look it up) until you’re ready to be around other people. It can constitute sex with several strangers or a couple of friends! It could be finding one partner that makes you happy. Or, in some instances, it can mean non-monogamy. ALTHOUGH, MY HOTTEST RELATIONSHIP TAKE IS THAT MOST PEOPLE WHO ARE BAD AT MONOGAMY ARE BAD AT POLYAMORY FOR SIMILAR REASONS.

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Maybe you’ll find your person. Or a parade of your people. The idea of a soul mate is romantic, sure, but it kind of trivializes relationships from your past as being “wrong.” Sometimes that’s true. But often things are right until they’re not. And you’ll find more right in the future, whether it’s one right or a series of several rights in a row like you’re circling the block looking for parking. But maybe you didn’t need to park right away after all. Maybe you were just out for a ride. I am really letting these metaphors get away from me this week.

Even an amicable breakup is still a breakup, and like you said, it’s a uniquely stressful kind. I’ve never seen anyone exuberantly Nicole-Kidman-divorce-walk away from a polite mutually agreed upon separation. There are many bad kinds of breakups (and many, many worse kinds of relationships than the “wants different things” kind) but this is one of them! It’s okay to feel bad. And, fewer people tell you this, but it’s also okay, if you can crack a window to a warm November breeze of joy, to feel good too.

PICK-ME-UP SONG OF THE WEEK:
Doechii - “NISSAN ALTIMA”

I realized that maybe I should tag stuff I post that’s (lyrically) NSFW, but I assume most readers aren’t bumping these songs on their office computer desktop speakers. But in case you are: This week’s song is NSFW. The beat and the general vibe remind me of Missy Elliott’s (UNDERRATED!) “She’s a Bitch” which I think I’ve written about here before. My buddy Sean Sullivan put me onto this Doechii album (Alligator Bites Never Heal), and it’s great and just got nominated for a bunch of Grammy awards.

Good luck to Doechii at the Grammys! She seems cool and is really good at rapping in a bunch of different modes and moods. Her flow on “Nissan Altima” is relentless. Spiritually, a great headspace to put yourself in for ~these times~.

UPCOMING SHOWS

I’ve got a bunch of NYC dates coming up, and then a few back on the road! See you there?!?!

11/14: Wait Wait Don’t Tell Me Live Recording (Detroit)

11/15: Live From Outer Space at Cobra Club (Brooklyn)

11/21: Wrong Answers Only in Washington DC

11/23: Comedy From Scratch (Larchmont, NY)

11/25: Whiplash at UCB (NYC)

11/29-12/8: TED LEO AND AIMEE MANN CHRISTMAS SHOWS (Several Cities)

Hi everyone,

Please excuse the lateness of today’s newsletter (which marks TWO FULL YEARS of weekly editions of That’s Marvelous). Last month, Maris (who is my wife, for any new readers) stated a desire to, quote, “do some fall shit” and so this weekend some fall shit…we did. We rented a car and drove upstate for a couple of days somewhere quaint and picturesque, which was just what we needed to de-stress from our rigorous freelance writing and general anxiety lifestyles. The whole ride up, I made sure to point out anything I saw that qualified as “foliage,” which I’m sure did not get annoying at all.

On Sunday, we went to Dia Beacon, an art museum that doubles as a classic fifth date location for NYC couples. Maybe not always ~fifth~ date, but it’s a place you go sometime between staying the night at someone’s place and meeting their parents. Maris and I had never been before, despite having gone on a fifth date of our somewhere in the neighborhood of ten and a half years ago.

Something I loved about Dia Beacon is how much of the artwork is rooted in ideas. Each artist’s work seems to really be wrestling with something big. One entire room was devoted to paintings that depicted the date (in the grammar/language of the country of their creation) on which they were painted. The artist (On Kawara), over decades, was obsessed with the passage of time and tried to paint one of these a day. Sometimes he made two. If he couldn’t finish a painting by the end of the day, he threw it out. Another room, which appeared empty, contained a small placard by each exit affirming that the gallery, like every space on earth, is full of cosmic rays and was therefore not empty at all. You can’t get much higher concept than that. (I mean, I assume you have to be high when coming up with that concept.)

Very little of the art was aesthetically “beautiful” in the sense that you’d want it hanging in your living room. But it evoked so many different thoughts and responses in me. Overall, I was struck by the beauty of devoting a giant space to showcasing so many unique visions of the world. Specifically, visions that took time and resources to communicate (although there’s always a question of who benefits from this kind of allocation of resources and who doesn’t). Amidst a media landscape that demands constant, often thoughtless, production of culture, it’s a real joy to witness art that results from meticulous construction, and isn’t intended for rapid absorption.

Still, I did poke fun at an exhibit by Robert Ryman that used exclusively white paint spread with different techniques over various surfaces. As we walked by a sort of choppy white wave painting (as opposed to a completely covered canvas) I leaned over to Maris and whispered: “You’re crazy for this one, Ryman.” Got him.

We also watched two movies:

• Weird the Weird Al parody biopic starring Danielle Radcliffe, was excellent. It captured the extremely difficult but delightful tone that Jerry Seinfeld’s Pop Tarts movie kind of carelessly gestured towards.

• The Sweetest Thing starring Cameron Diaz, which in my mind was a cute rom com, but in reality (which Maris knew from having seen it in theaters) was a female-driven gross out comedy that felt SO “of its time” (2002) that it was a little tough to get through despite its brief duration. Are there any secret huge fans of The Sweetest Thing who read this newsletter? Let me know!

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Also, in a huge piece of news for our household, Maris’s book cover and release date have been revealed!!! The cover is (in my humble opinion) excellent, and the roughly 40% of the book I’ve been allowed to read so far is ALSO excellent! You can preorder the whole book HERE now.

I’m sure you’ve heard this before, but preorders are really important to authors for convincing their publishers that there’s excitement around the book! So if you’re at all interested…I humbly request (both as a fan of Maris’s and as someone whose finances are entwined with hers) that you consider preordering.

On the way home today we stopped at a Cheesecake Factory in a New Jersey mall because Maris and I are both children of the suburbs and cannot resist a giant salad (even when it’s declared a “lunch portion”) and a spring roll full of vaguely tex-mex chicken from time to time. It tasted incredible. And now we’re all caught up!

OH WAIT ALSO

I dressed up as Colin Robinson from What We Do in the Shadows for Halloween because I needed a costume that I didn’t have to shop for, and I already look what I’d call a humiliating amount like this character. Although I did miss an opportunity to go as Tim Walz’s mug shot, as long as I was shaving already.

PEP TALK FOR ELECTION NIGHT FRETTERS

I try not to give advice in this newsletter, but here’s some anyway: Go to bed.

You’re not going to change the results of the election by staying up late while Steve Kornacki sweats through his button-down and paces his khakis to rags. Or by watching whatever they do on Fox News on election night. I assume they start with a bright red map captioned: “ANY RESULT OTHER THAN THIS IS FRAUD” and then kind of vamp sexistly and racistly after that.

In late 2016, Maris invented a technique called “defensive sleeping” in which she goes to bed before the tv coverage of election news even really starts trickling in. If you’re nervous about this election, why not give that a shot? There’s not going to be a buzzer-beating three-pointer or field goal that sends the vote to a thrilling conclusion. Even in the unlikely event that they call it on Tuesday night, it’ll just look like a guy who has seen enough declaring that he’s seen enough. Snoooooze. (Which is what you should be doing instead of watching along.)

The election itself (and not just the presidential category) has real outcomes for people. You staying up to watch all the results does not. You are not a better citizen for viewing live election coverage. You can learn all the relevant information on Wednesday morning from a newspaper or the internet or maybe even the general vibe of pedestrians in your neighborhood. (If there are no pedestrians in your neighborhood, peer through the window of a passing truck and try to ascertain the mood that way.)

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There are lots of ways to make a difference in the world. Organizing your workplace is one. Participating in a door-knocking campaign for a political candidate is another. Giving money to an abortion fund or attending a political protest are two other things to do. Even voting is a teensy tiny avenue to make your voice heard and influence the democratic process except where the electoral college renders millions of votes practically meaningless but that’s not what we’re here to talk about. Watching CNN while stress-pounding Pepperidge Farms cookies is not such an avenue for change.

If you are still deciding whether to vote (or if a third party/protest vote is worthwhile), my friend wrote about this choice in a more forceful and eloquent way than I could. I suggest, as always, that you subscribe to his newsletter and even pay money for it if you have a few bucks to spare.

I will also say: Tony Hinchcliffe ending up in history books for swinging an election away from the candidate he supported by bombing harder than has ever been bombed in the history of comedy would be the funniest thing he’s ever done. So, please consider that as well when you cast your ballot.

So…do what you can, and then spend Tuesday night watching a movie you’ve been meaning to see, or talking to an old friend on the phone, or, I don’t know, creating a mnemonic device for remembering the difference between an alligator and a crocodile. You'll find out who won on Wednesday…or Sunday…or after Donald Trump gets bored from inciting a fortnight of January 6th-style attempted coups and flees to a non-extradition country.

You did all you could. Or you didn’t. But it’s too late to change that now. Regardless, your Election Night is your own.

PEP TALK FOR A READER

I nicknamed this reader but otherwise kept the request intact.

It’s the most wonderful time of the year: trying to juggle family time around the holidays, now with a new wrinkle…we have a newborn. All families in question will be in Texas, but it’s still a hassle. Every year we try to split the time evenly as possible and it always seems to result in making no one happy, so a pep talk for navigating the “WE WANNA SEE THE BABY” waters would be much appreciated!
- Kiddin’ Around

The holidays, even when they’re wonderful, are inconvenient. If you’re hosting, there’s sooooo much to be done from cooking to cleaning to cataloging your resentments towards those who don’t chip in. And if you’re visiting, you’ve got to execute a travel itinerary while fifty percent of America is also traveling. Our infrastructure is not built for this!

I love visiting my family! I do also wish we could enjoy a secret Thanksgiving a week earlier or later when no one else is taking an urgent Amtrak from New York to Boston.

Here’s the pep talk: It’s an ENORMOUS privilege to have a new baby and the ability to travel and a whole bunch of family members you want to visit for the purposes of them spending time with your tiny new person who will not remember a moment of any of these visits, and who will complicate the whole process by orders of magnitude their little brain hasn’t yet downloaded the software to comprehend.

Taking on some major pain-in-the-ass logistics to see so many people you love is life’s best case scenario for the time being. You get to experience the joy of experiencing the misery of effort and annoyance. This is what we do all the rest of it for. (At least until the baby is old enough that you can start dictating your own holiday agenda a little more assertively.)

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Consider it this way: Do you think Taylor Swift (and her entire band and stage crew) want to make EVERY STOP on the Eras Tour, which I believe started during the Bronze Age and is set to wrap up a week before our sun burns out? I would guess they do not. But T-Swift in demand everywhere, so that’s where she goes. Your baby is the Taylor Swift of the family. You are (for now) the baby’s stage crew. It’s not ideal, but in many respects, it’s the greatest thing in the world, even though it absolutely bites.

PICK-ME-UP SONG OF THE WEEK:
Tyler, the Creator - “Sticky”

Tyler, the Creator’s last two albums are two of my favorite hip hop albums of the last few years, which is a surprise to me because they’re so sprawling and ambitious and confrontational, and I usually prefer records where people just rap as hard as they can over wicked loud drums.

“Sticky” features Lil Wayne and GloRilla and Sexy Redd (who recently un-endorsed Donald Trump…people can change). The beat builds and shifts and stomps and blurts. It’s nasty. The “chorus” sounds like an invitation to an ass-kicking. When the horns come in it feels like a marching band crashed through the walls. It makes me want to walk worse, all woozy and aggressive. It makes me want to knock things over. It makes me want to uppercut through my ceiling into my neighbor’s apartment. It’s on repeat in my headphones.

UPCOMING SHOWS

I’ve got a bunch of NYC dates coming up, and then a few back on the road! See you there?!?!

11/4: Co-hosting Frankenstein’s Baby at Union Hall (Brooklyn)

11/10: School Fundraiser at Eastville Comedy Club (Brooklyn)

11/14: Comedy Gives Back Fundraiser at Gotham Comedy Club (Manhattan)

11/15: Live From Outer Space at Cobra Club (Brooklyn)

11/21: Wrong Answers Only in Washington DC

11/23: Comedy From Scratch (Larchmont, NY)

11/29-12/8: TED LEO AND AIMEE MANN CHRISTMAS SHOWS (Several Cities)

Hi everyone,

Other than seeing footage of a white supremacist rally at Madison Square Garden all over the news, I’ve had a pretty nice last few days!

Over the weekend I attended a birthday party for a toddler and confirmed that despite having retired from early childhood education over a decade ago, my ability to entertain a baby remains strong. I always offer to babysit for nearby friends when they have kids, and I think they think I’m joking because I am a nearly 40-year-old guy with no children of my own (and none that I share with anyone else). Also, the more someone of my demographic insists they are a good babysitter, the more of a red flag it is. But I am extremely qualified, and I have what might be described as “a dizzying amount” of time on my hands lately when I’m not on the road. Yesterday I held my friend Steph’s baby so she could eat a breakfast taco, so I’m basically a first responder in terms of my level of heroism. (I also held my friend Jason’s baby, but I think that was mostly for him to watch me experience the joy of hanging out with his very cool baby. And you know what, that was great too!)

Speaking of babies: Last week’s Frankenstein’s Baby show at Union Hall was so much fun! Next Monday (11/4) I’m co-hosting again with Tyrone Thornhill and also special visiting guest host Aparna Nancherla!!!! See you there, Brooklyn?!?!!?

PEP TALK FOR OBSCURE COSTUME WEARERS

If this pep talk seems harsh, I want you to know, Obscure Halloween Costume Wearer, that it’s because I see myself in you. Obsessed with seeming cultured. Too clever by half. Often using wordplay to paper over a near-total lack of foresight and effort on a given endeavor. If anything I say strikes a nerve with you, please trust that I am practically smashing myself in the knee with one of those little little rubber knee-hammers that doctors use.

I will say, in basically every instance of an obscure costume, I love your ingenuity. You got your face all wet and put on a red t-shirt with no pants to attend a party as “Pooh Deng?” Beautiful. Tremendous stuff. You showed up in a dress and heels, holding a Skinny Girl Margarita in one hand and a fishing rod in the other because you’re a Reel Housewife of New York? Good bit. I’d never suggest otherwise. And who am I to argue if you want to dress exactly like Donnie Wahlberg in that one scene at the beginning of The Sixth Sense? (Honestly, in 1999, that guy turning out to be a former New Kid all along was as big a twist as the ending.)

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However, and not to drool in your chowder bowl (trying a new saying out here), I do think you might encounter a little friction when you make people guess who you’re supposed to be and nobody notices that you have one hand in your pocket and the other one is giving a high five because you are Alanis Morissette as described in the lyrics of the song “Hand In My Pocket.” It is, of course, not a great tragedy if you have to explain to one friend after another that you are being beaten over the head with a cane while wearing neon green because you are dressed as Senator Charles “Brat” Sumner. But the more delighted you are by a costume’s thematic opacity, the greater a strain it is likely to place on your social interactions while you’re wearing it.

As our media environment continues to fracture, there’s less and less monoculture, which means almost every costume is a little less legible than it once was. But still, you have to realize what you’re doing to people when you and two friends enter a costume contest as Bel Biv Betsy DeVos.

This does not make you a bad person. And there are so many Halloween costumes you can wear that do make you a bad person. But a threadbare pun or an indecipherable reference is not that. (As long as your outfit doesn’t include blackface.) Halloween is like karaoke. You can choose a deep cut if you want, but at a certain depth, there ceases to be enough oxygen for the entire room. It’s okay to eschew a crowd pleaser if that’s your priority. But you’ve got to accept that when you play for an audience of one you lose everyone but yourself. (And, if you can figure out how to visually represent “losing everyone but yourself” you’ve got yourself a costume I’d call “Reverse Eminem,” which I would find delightful, personally.)

BONUS PEP TALK FOR THE NEW DWYANE WADE STATUE

The Miami Heat, a basketball franchise known for its players’ rigorous conditioning and its fans’ late arrival to the stadium, unveiled a statue that allegedly honors retired star Dwyane Wade. I say allegedly because without the Heat jersey, the statue looks more like it was erected in memory of the man Mr. Clean is modeled after, or like you’re supposed to see it and think: “Did I miss the news that Kelsey Grammer died?”

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People have really been roasting the statue because it has struggled to achieve, let’s say, even wax sculpture levels of verisimilitude. But we don’t know the circumstances! Maybe it was the artist’s first time making a statue. You’d feel pretty bad in that case, right? For a first statue, it’s got all the right parts for looking like a person, if not the right person. Or maybe Dwyane Wade refused to sign away his likeness rights to the sculpture, so the final product had to evoke Dwyane Wade without actually depicting his physical features. In that case, it’s a great statue, because it avoids a lawsuit, stupid.

Statues are probably really hard to make. Especially statues that look like specific handsome celebrities and not slightly melty versions of them. There’s no reason to believe that this statue-maker didn’t do their best, except for the fact that the end result is not very good. But think of it this way: Somewhere out there, Michael Chiklis is looking at pictures of this sculpture, and thinking…somebody really loves me.

PEP TALK FOR A READER

I edited out a little compliment (for me, not the reader’s friend) at the end of this request because I feel uncouth republishing it, but not so uncouth that I won’t allude to it. Like Walt Whitman, I’ve got multitudes out the butt!

My best buddy Luis just started culinary school which was a life long dream of his! He’s doing really well and I’ve enjoyed all his food.
- Friends With Confits (don’t try to say this one out loud it’s more of a visual pun)

A pep talk request to hype up someone who is already thriving? If this isn’t a That’s Marvelous first, it’s the first in a while! Receiving this request kind of blew my mind. Like looking in the rulebook and realizing there actually is no regulation that says a dog can’t play basketball. (Although it was pretty messed up of that family to make their dog play youth sports.) While I appreciate the vulnerability of everyone who writes in with difficult personal issues and trusts me to handle them carefully, I’m pretty psyched to take a week and write a newsletter that’s like: Hell yeah, brother!

Luis! You did it! Well, you are doing it which is the only path having done it! There are many good reasons (time, money, health) to put off pursuing your dreams as well as many bad ones (fear of success, fear of failure, fear of sharks which is really only relevant if you dream of being a marine biologist, Katy Perry Super Bowl backup dancer, or children’s music performer), and you have surmounted them all. I was so inspired that I used “surmount” as a verb, which it technically is even though you normally only see it as part of an adjective (insurmountable, obviously). Surmount, you are a weird little freak, and you deserve so attention for your solo work. You’re the George Harrison of verbs. But I digress.

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There are many cruel truths in the world but there are many beautiful truths too. Here’s one: They’ve gotten dairy-free ice cream basically as good as the kind made from milk. The first time I tried Halo Top, which tastes like if someone froze a wet cardboard box, I didn’t even think they’d get close. But science persevered. Our world is full of wonders. And when we get to experience them, it’s our job to help distribute them to others as well. Sometimes that means political activism and organizing or donating to a fundraiser. Sometimes you’ve got to wipe oil off a duck. Other times it entails making dinner for a friend.

Here’s another beautiful truth: It’s a real gift to yourself to imagine what would happen if you worked really hard at something and it all went right. We think of the worst case scenario so often, but it’s equally if not more helpful to consider: What’s the best thing that could happen? Not to be all “aim for the moon something something you’ll land among the stars” (completely spatially inaccurate, by the way), but it’s easy to make excuses for not trying. And unlike popping a batch of Toll House cookies (wildly underrated dessert) in the oven, easy doesn’t mean good. Luis, you gave yourself the best shot at happiness, and it’s paying off, and that’s about as good as it gets.

(Tangentially: My grandmother once watched the movie As Good As It Gets and then excitedly told me she loved seeing the film “As Good as Things Have Been or The Best Things Ever Were” which I found very sweet!)

PICK-ME-UP THING OF THE WEEK: Rap World

Rap World, a feature film starring Conner O’Malley, Jack Bensinger, and Eric Rahill, had a few live screenings in New York, and I missed them all like a clown, so I’m psyched that the whole movie is up for free on YouTube now. It’s about three losers trying to make a rap album while one of their moms is out of town, leaving the house available to record in. The whole film is less than an hour long, and it’s got a bunch of super funny, super dumb jokes in it. It looks like it was shot for a total of $500, which I mean as a compliment. It’s kind of touching to watch a bunch of silly friends make a fun piece of low budget art about a bunch of goobers trying to make a brutally misguided piece of low budget art.

The milieu is also like…uncomfortably and viscerally recognizable to people who grew up in the suburbs at a certain time (the early 2000s). At the end (no spoilers) O’Malley’s character says: “Some of the best nights of my life were being had in parking lots.” And if that resonates with you in any way, you should watch this movie.

UPCOMING SHOWS

I’ve got a bunch of NYC dates coming up, and then a few back on the road! See you there?!?!

10/29: Slipper Room (Manhattan)

10/30: Sesh Comedy (Manhattan)

11/4: Co-hosting Frankenstein’s Baby at Union Hall (Brooklyn)

11/10: School Fundraiser at Eastville Comedy Club (Brooklyn)

11/14: Comedy Gives Back Fundraiser at Gotham Comedy Club (Manhattan)

11/15: Live From Outer Space at Cobra Club (Brooklyn)

11/21: Wrong Answers Only in Washington DC

11/23: Comedy From Scratch (Larchmont, NY)

11/29-12/8: TED LEO AND AIMEE MANN CHRISTMAS SHOWS (Several Cities)

Hi everyone,

Huge week for me over here. First of all, it was full of social gatherings, and at one of them someone even offered me hard drugs, which I notably do not do, but it’s nice to be thought of. A few weeks ago, in the same vein, a friendly acquaintance asked me if I had any Diddy stories, which no one ever asked me before he became a famously accused sex criminal, so that one was slightly hurtful actually. I will say I am rarely offered nose drugs, but I am (I think?) never invited to parties that are mostly (alleged) sex crimes, which makes me feel like I’m living life right in one respect at least.

In bigger (bigger than going to a party, Josh?) news, I’m working on a new little writing project with a friend, and my brain feels all crackly and synaptic for the first time in a while. Nobody has asked us to write this thing. And there’s certainly no guaranteed money at the end of it, but that’s kind of what makes it great in this moment. Nobody can tell us what to do. Well, wait. We’d gladly allow people to tell us what to do if they wrote a check, but until then we get to write as silly a thing as we want, and this thing is going to be very silly. I love collaborating! I love a little nudge to actually do something! But also I love to make something without having to go to an office in an inconvenient part of town! So we’re really crushing it on all fronts so far.

The BIG news in our household this week was that our toilet tank lid, through a series of small choices and accidents that’s too boring to get into, fell to the ground and shattered. It is, apparently, not an easy process to purchase just the lid to a toilet tank. Big Toilet would really prefer that you just bought a whole new unit. If I were a father of two, this is where I’d say “that’s how they get ya.” Fortunately, our landlord found a website that made its entire business model capitalizing on this hole in the market at , and he ordered a new toilet tank from them. You will not believe how perfect the name of this establishment is. Get ready…

God bless you, cheaptoilettanklids.com. I truly can’t believe you are a real website and not a phishing scam designed to rip off grandpas who are doing home renovation projects on their own.

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In smaller news (smaller than replacing a busted toilet part, Josh?) I did some fun shows last week. Thanks to Negin Farsad for inviting me out to Pennsylvania to perform on her “The Muslims Are Coming” live show despite what I would call my reckless lack of fidelity to the Five Pillars of Islam. And thanks to Joe Zimmerman for including me on his benefit for hurricane relief in North Carolina. You, readers, can donate to BeLoved Asheville HERE if you’d like.

In other Josh Gondelman updates: I returned to Ana Marie Cox’s podcast to talk about election pessimism. I was booked for Ayman on MSNBC Saturday night but then bumped from the show because the news got too newsy. But, never fear, I did write a little blurb for GQ’s feature on how to watch tv!

Tonight I’m co-hosting Frankenstein’s Baby at Union Hall in Brooklyn! Come by if you’re around!

Now let’s get to the heart of the matter. I think I accidentally succeeded in keeping this whole endeavor a little tighter than usual, but let’s see!

PEP TALK FOR UNDECIDED VOTERS

I am going to try and be as straightforward and enthusiastic as I can, here, despite my general belief that if you are registered to vote and currently vacillating between the two major party candidates, your brain is as unknowable to me as an amoeba trapped under ice in the shadow of a cliff on the far side of Mars.

And that is not to say that I think everyone in America sees their exact belief system represented in these two candidates. Maybe you were hoping the Democrats would nominate someone more progressive on issues of criminal justice reform and foreign policy. Maybe you were planning to vote for RFK Jr. and you’ve been left without a candidate who will advocate for your key issue: Allowing your pet falcon to drink unpasteurized whale blood that you foraged with your own two hands and a bucket. Maybe you are one of Ron DeSantis’s few dozen supporters, and you think that adults should be able to look down teenagers’ underpants whenever they want, but it should be a crime for a gay person to say hello to their seven-year-old-child. If you are one of those freaks, I understand the feeling of being left behind by the Republican party, who merely wants to cut taxes on the wealthy and be wicked racist and sexist and still disgustingly transphobic but in a less horny way.

Some people have decided to vote third party or not at all. And I’m not talking about those people, because those are both decisions. I don’t know that they’re always good decisions, but it’s not the same as being undecided. Neither one of those choices is the same as looking at Donald Trump and Kamala Harris and feeling like you’re going to vote for one of them, but you just haven’t figured out which yet because both are appealing to you in their own way. Like one is a walk on the beach and the other is a drive through the mountains. There are many complicated facets to politics. There are many reasons to feel demoralized or disillusioned by our government. There is no logical reason to feel hung up between these two choices, even if you are a person who hates Democrats but always does what Dick Cheney says.

Anecdotally, a friend told me that she’d recently met a bunch of undecided voters who are small business owners and haven’t done enough research to know which candidate is better for their small business, the thing they care most about. I submit that if you are < three weeks from an election, and you only care about one issues, but you don’t know which candidate is better on that issue, you don’t actually care about that issue very much, and you should make a choice or find a different thing to tell people. And this comes from me, a person so logistics-averse I routinely book myself hotel rooms on business trips as I’m traveling from the airport into the city.

If that’s where you are, I do believe, pretty firmly, that if you really sit down and reflect on your vision for the world, you will be able to decide who to vote for. Make a list of pros and cons. If your list of positive attributes doesn’t include “cares deeply about which dead golfers have the biggest penises” you probably have your answer right there.

PEP TALK FOR A READER

I’ve fiddled with this request just a little but kept the intent the same!

I’ve been unemployed for a whole year, and I’m trying to keep hope alive while the world is crumbling & my husband’s people are being genocided.
- Optimism’s Optimissin’

When I started writing this newsletter, I’d hoped to keep things light. Even when I started taking reader requests for pep talks, I’d imagined that most people would reach out with relatively low stakes dilemmas. “I’m worried I can’t pull off this expensive hat I purchased!” or “I have so many friends’ weddings coming up, and a wizard cursed me to hate the song ‘I Wanna Dance with Somebody (Who Loves Me)’ and I’m afraid this might drive me to the breaking point.” You know, trivial hiccups that you’ll get through fine even if they go as badly as you could imagine. (Having worked for a famous wearer of elaborate hats, I can tell you that a lot of “pulling it off” is about merely choosing a hat you like a lot and having the confidence to sport it in public!)

Unexpectedly, two things happened:

1. People’s hearts were more open and sincere than I’d expected! That’s so beautiful!

2. The world continued to be bad in many precedented but agonizing ways, which frankly I should have seen coming! I don’t love it though!

Unemployment can create a brutal financial and mental strain. But, probably, you will get a job again at some point. People need jobs done. And, until the .00001% of the wealthiest people successfully automate the rest of us out of employment, leaving us to rummage around in nature for food and fashion weapons out of tree branches in order to foment a revolution, someone will eventually pay you to do a thing. It’s just impossible to know what the next thing is until it appears. You can’t turn on the high beams for foresight and see further into the future. (Unless you are Nic Cage starring as Frank Cadillac, an actually psychic Las Vegas magician in the movie Next, but I don’t think that’s who wrote to me this week.)

Addressing the second part of your message, I don’t have any easy words of comfort to counteract the sorrow of mass murder. It certainly doesn’t help that I read the original text and thought: “To which current genocide are you referring?” The Jewish (and also Islamic, I’m learning) concept of “every life, a universe” has felt especially relevant lately in terms of both the boundless tragedy we’re seeing across the globe, and the imperative to stand up for the survivors.

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Sincerely, I don’t know if this is helpful at all, but if every life lost is cause for infinite grief, every life saved is a limitless miracle. The horror we’ve witnessed doesn’t absolve us from the responsibility to fight against future horror. I know this sounds a little all lives matter-y, but with every life being precious, there is so much good we can still do even in the face of so much cruelty. Things can (must????) be better than they are. People are working really hard at it. You can help. That’s the best I’ve got for you. I hope it gives you at least a small jolt of perseverance.

PICK-ME-UP SONG OF THE WEEK:
Catherine Cohen - “Blame it on the Moon”

My friend Cat Cohen has a new comedy special out now called Come For Me on a platform called Veeps, which literally no one in America has ever heard of, but that’s not the point. If you liked Cat’s previous special (The Twist…? She’s Gorgeous on Netflix, which is excellent) I think this one is EVEN BETTER. Her songs are always full of extremely funny and sharply-observed details, and they’re so catchy. This one is about how nothing is ever your fault (relevant!).

UPCOMING SHOWS

I’ve got a bunch of NYC dates coming up, and then a few back on the road! See you there?!?!

10/21: Co-hosting Frankenstein’s Baby at Union Hall (Brooklyn)

10/24: National Sawdust (7:30pm) and then The Gutter (9pm) (Both in Brooklyn)

10/29: Slipper Room (Manhattan)

11/4: Co-hosting Frankeinstein’s Baby at Union Hall (Brooklyn)

11/10: School Fundraiser at Eastville Comedy Club (Brooklyn)

11/14: Comedy Gives Back Fundraiser at Gotham Comedy Club (Manhattan)

11/15: Live From Outer Space at Cobra Club (Brooklyn)

11/21: Wrong Answers Only in Washington DC

11/29-12/8: TED LEO AND AIMEE MANN CHRISTMAS SHOWS (Several Cities)

Hi everyone,

First of all: A quick apology for the lateness of today’s newsletter! It’s been a busy couple of days, and then this morning I met a baby (great!) and went to the dentist (not to brag). So I’m a little bit behind!

Second of all, I want to thank all the That’s Marvelous readers for the kind words about our late great pug Bizzy. I have been overwhelmed by the dozens of thoughtful messages in the comments here, as well as the literally hundreds across social media. I haven’t been able to respond to everyone individually yet. My hope is that I will make time to express one-on-one gratitude before too long. But there is also an ENORMOUS chance that I will instead decide to never ever do it because the self-imposed pressure is driving me to the precipice of madness. Stay tuned to see which way this breaks.

It’s been a pretty melancholy week over here, and the grief has hit at unexpected moments. I find myself missing Bizzy at times when I used to be annoyed by her. Late at night, when I’d have to wake her up to take one last walk before I went to bed. Coordinating plans with Maris so there would be someone home to put out a dish of food at her usual mealtimes. When I realize I don’t have to make those accommodations, I feel pangs of sadness, little tugs of feeling where my life had grown in twists and loops to cater to the needs of an adorable twenty-pound tyrant with the brain of a garbage disposal.

We’ve also been really well taken care of by friends checking in and sending care packages. Our apartment, at present, is home to more flowers than it had ever contained cumulatively over the previous seven years. We also received a ton of delicious food deliveries from friends. And because carb-rich meals mess with Maris’s blood sugar, I have consumed (basically) an entire chocolate babka, a half dozen bagels, and a half-pound of smoked salmon over the past seven days. It is the diet of a cartoon Jewish person. (Not one of the Nazi caricatures, a more benevolent one. Like Donatello from the Ninja Turtles, who I just decided we claim.)

It also became (or was destined to be) a very Jewy week here in Brooklyn overall. After taking too long a nap to make it there in person, Maris and I watched the Rabbis for Ceasefire Yizkor service on Saturday/Yom Kippur afternoon. The robust attendance (again, not us, but other people) and the unwavering commitment to both future peace and allowing present grief to transcend geopolitics affirmed so much of what connects me to the Jewish faith. I also started reading Yiddishe Kop, a short Kabbalah-adjacent treatise on Jewish folklore and philosophy, on my friend Amy’s recommendation, and despite the intricate theory and theology much of which I’m too pudding-brained to understand, it’s really resonating with me. It’s kind of like if Aesop’s Fables were also about Game Theory and they all took place in Eastern Europe instead of Ancient Greece But With Talking Frogs.

In (literally) other news, I am once again popping up in several periodicals this week. Here I am in the Washington Post recommending Hell Gate after doing so in this very newsletter a week ago. Thanks to Laura Wagner for chatting with me about one of my favorite news outlets. I also talked with Rachel Sugar from the New York Times about restaurants that don’t have websites (fine for a smaller place that can’t afford upkeep, infuriating when it’s a trendy place with a glossy Instagram page with no actual information on it). I made an unexpected appearance in the recent ABC News piece about Taskmaster that they shot back when I interviewed the hosts of the show in late March. And, finally, I appeared on a recent live episode of The Grawlix Saves the World giving competitive advice, and two live episodes This Day in Esoteric Political History talking about the idea of an “October Surprise” (despite what your parents may have told you, it’s not about Halloween candy filled with razor blades).

Yesterday, Maris and I saw The Big Gay Jamboree off-Broadway, and I very much recommend it if you are in town. It’s funny and inventive and full of great performances. Our friend Natalie Walker, who is amazing, has a large role, and I am always extra-thrilled to see a talented friend really crush a big professional opportunity. So many things in creative fields are so bad, and I feel even more attached than ever to cheer for great people doing a great job in a great thing. (Former SNL cast member Alex Moffat played the least singing-intensive role, and between that and Bad Monkey, which we’ll get to later, I’ve been enjoying his recent work!)

AND Sunday’s get together was so good!!! I missed the game itself, but I got to come by and see lots of friends and meet so many cool people I’d known of but never encountered in person! Flagrant forever! Go Liberty!

Plus I had several restorative friendship coffees and a GREAT time hosting the 826 Brooklyn Trivia For Cheaters event with my pal Emmy Blotnick on Tuesday night. Thanks for having us, 826. I’m sorry I refused to marry your daughter on account of already being married, older lady who kept trying to get me to marry your daughter. And thanks to Jake and Holden for letting me rank bagels with them on their Tiers of a Clown livestream on Wednesday!

Sorry I didn’t make it to Frankenstein’s Baby at Union Hall on Monday! I was a little ragged still from dog stuff. But I’ll be co-hosting with Alison Leiby next Monday! Killer lineup! Great venue! Early show! Grab your tickets, and I’ll see you there!

I don’t mean to make this part such a long chronicle of my week, but I find it very helpful while I’m still gently bobbing in the professional breeze to note that I actually am Doing Stuff kind of all the time.

PEP TALK FOR THE FLOWERS IN OUR APARTMENT

Hey there, flowers. I see you withering away on the counter, and I just wanted to say…it’s not you, it’s us. Neither my wife nor I have any aptitude for keeping plants alive. It is not out of any animosity towards you or your kind. Yes, Maris has some light allergies and has banished a few of you to the office where I will absolutely no doubt in my mind forget to water you. But that doesn’t mean we appreciate you any less. Your arrival meant so much to us. Sadly (for you), your departure will feel like nothing.

Still, you are beautiful, and you are rich in sentimental value if not in soil, nutrients, or adequately sized vases. Soon, all we will have left of you will be pictures of flowers, which on one hand do not brighten up the room in the same way, but on the other hand do not make my wife’s eyes itchy.

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(TRULY thank you to everyone who sent all these gorgeous flowers, and I am sorry to be the H.H. Holmes of horticulture. Is that what the H stood for? Was that serial killer with the murder castle named Horticulture Horticulture Holmes? Anyway, you get it.)

PEP TALK FOR A READER

Okay, this request I have condensed substantially, but I promise I am taking all the words into account as I respond.

Hey Josh! I am in desperate need of a pep talk (although some may say I need a psychiatrist more, but whatevs)! I've been an aspiring TV comedy writer for way too long, and I'm about ready to give up. And yet, I know if I do, I'll regret it. So I've been writing specs and pilots for years, and a few of my scripts have advanced in competitions I've submitted to. This has given me the push to keep going. But nevertheless, I've never been able to get any representation, and as a plan B, I've tried to score production jobs in order to get my foot in the door, but even that has been elusive. I feel like I've been treading water for far too long. On top of this, my entire support system/family is in Chicago while I'm living in LA (a city I liked at one point but now have grown to actually hate). My parents are elderly and starting to deal with serious health issues. Luckily, I have siblings and other relatives living close to them in Chicago, but here I am, chasing what seems to have become a pipe dream, and I feel terribly guilty for not being there for them.
- I Love L.A. (In The Randy Newman Way)

When I moved from Boston to New York in 2011, I was 26 years old, and I felt nervous that I wouldn’t “make it” in the big(ger) city. Before I could bring myself to take the leap, I really had to commit to the idea that returning to New England after a year or two would not represent failure. It would just mean I tried something new, and it wasn’t what I wanted. Which is, in some respects, what failure is. But in other respects…who cares? It doesn’t go on some kind of scorecard or permanent record. It’s not embarrassing to make choices that improve your life unless that choice is going to the hospital to remove a croquet wicket from your butt because you got drunk and sat on one at a friend’s child’s baptism or bris.

The thing I said to me thirteen years ago, is true for you now, except it’s MORE true today than it was then. Thanks to Zoom, nobody has any idea where you live. And if people like your writing and want to meet with you to talk about it, you probably exist primarily in a 3x5 inch digital rectangle, just like everyone else. It doesn’t matter if you literally live inside the Hollywood sign or if you are subletting a corn crib in rural Kentucky. As long as you have wifi and a dream, you are within reach of the ~industry~, or whatever is left of it now that every media mogul is moving closer and closer to the strategy: “What if we made one movie every year that cost one billion dollars and earned us five billion dollars? We could buy back so many of our own stocks with that money!”

Your life, in its current configuration, sounds…miserable. You are far from your family with few professional prospects. You hate (your words not mine) the city you live in. It doesn’t have to be like this. Your support system is in Chicago, not like…Moose Ass, Alberta (no offense to any Canadian or moose readers of this newsletter). There is, famously, so much comedy in Chicago. I can’t promise you can “have it all” if you move back home, but it sounds like right now you have very little of it in Los Angeles.

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I don’t say that to be cruel!!! I just mean, you don’t have to live like this!!! Hard work and some level of sacrifice are generally necessary to cultivate a creative career. But you don’t have to deprive yourself of valuable time with your family or stay in a place that doesn’t suit you…unless they’re paying you a lot of money to do those things. The good part about the toiling-in-obscurity phase of a career is that obscurity is everywhere. You are allowed to toil in cozier environs! Take ownership of it and put the YOUR in obsc-YOUR-ity!!!! You will probably make better and more interesting art if your brain is less consumed by guilt and resentment.

Again, I’m not trying to make fun of you here. I’m just pointing out that you know what is making you unhappy and how to change those conditions. As long as no one is begging you to be in a writers room or on a film set, you can live wherever you want. And then, if they implore you to return, you can go be unhappy personally while thriving professionally, like generations of writers before you. It’s not a failure to make healthy choices. Or maybe it is. But who cares! It’s your life, not Hollywood’s.

PICK-ME-UP SONG OF THE WEEK:
Marcus King - “The Waiting” (Tom Petty cover, of course)

Maris and I just finished watching the AppleTV series Bad Monkey which you might be shocked to learn…exists. Vince Vaughn plays a disgraced detective in the Florida Keys trying to solve a mystery and then trying to prove that he solved it. I thought I was over Vince Vaughn’s whole thing, but it’s fun to see him playing into the fact that he’s kind of haggard now. It adds some charm to the smarm. We had a great time watching! Meredith Hagner (Search Party) is VERY good in it!

The show’s soundtrack is largely (exclusively?) made up of Tom Petty covers, which are are variously successful. This one is one of the few that offer a take on the source material that is both a. distinctive and b. good. (Some of the other more faithful covers are strong too!) It’s a bluesy/gospely version of the Tom Petty song whose chorus I often facetiously pretend I made up. “The waiting is the hardest part. Do you like that? I just came up with it.”

OTHER PICK-ME-UP STUFF OF THE WEEK:
”Relationship To Patient” (Short Film)

My friend Caroline Creaghead wrote and directed an extremely tender short film that I’ve been waiting to see for (possibly) years, and it’s now online! It’s all based in a small uncomfortable moment that feels so real, and the two central performances by Eleanore Pienta (Cocoon Central Dance Team) and H. Jon Benjamin (you know who this guy is) are very subtle and charming. It’s thirteen minutes long, and I loved it! Caroline was also one of the first people who booked me on cool shows when I was new to New York, and she was always so encouraging and generous even when I had (let’s say, charitably) not much going on. I do not know if I have even said this to her, but I have appreciated her kindness for years and years, and I really encourage people to support a nice friend and great artist!

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And ALSO! My friend Chris Duffy did a fun and funny TED Talk!!! Chris’s work is always rooted in curiosity for his subject matter and generosity towards the audience. This talk is about creativity and keeping your mind open to surprises and delight.

UPCOMING SHOWS

I’ve got a bunch of NYC dates coming up, and then a few back on the road! See you there?!?!

10/18: The Muslims are Coming: Swing State Invasion (Reading, PA)

10/21: Co-hosting Frankenstein’s Baby at Union Hall (Brooklyn)

10/24: American Sawdust and then The Gutter (Brooklyn)

10/29: Slipper Room (Manhattan)

11/4: Co-hosting Frankeinstein’s Baby at Union Hall (Brooklyn)

11/10: School Fundraiser at Eastville Comedy Club (Brooklyn)

11/14: Comedy Gives Back Fundraiser at Gotham Comedy Club (Manhattan)

11/15: Live From Outer Space at Cobra Club (Brooklyn)

11/21: Wrong Answers Only in Washington DC

11/29-12/8: TED LEO AND AIMEE MANN CHRISTMAS SHOWS (Several Cities)

Hi everyone,

It’s been a pretty heavy week here, for reasons I’ll get into later. There were definite highlights though: I ate some apple with a little blob of honey on it to celebrate Rosh Hashanah. Performing on the super fun Late Stage Live and Friends standup show was a bright spot during the week for sure. Late Stage Live is a late night-style show that airs on public access and then YouTube. It’s made by a group of young queer Gen Z comedians and is very cool. On the most recent episode, host Ella Yurman interviewed NYC city councilperson Chi Ossé! I am always delighted to get to do shows with young hip comedians, like I am the (or, a) fun uncle of Brooklyn standup.

Also delightful: Maris and I saw our friend Jennifer Mills’s Tiny Play Festival, in which actors (mostly first-time performers) put on a series of very, very short plays that Mills herself wrote. Then I hung out at a live Hey Riddle Riddle podcast show. HRR is a podcast about…solving riddles (as one might expect from the name), and I was on an episode early this year! It was one of the most fun podcasts I’ve ever been a part of and the live show made me laugh a ton.

On Saturday night, we wanted to watch something stupid that would not make us feel any feelings (for reasons I promise I will reveal), so we threw on The Beekeeper, Jason Statham’s recent morality play (action movie) about the evils of defrauding the elderly. The film contains, as my dad would say, “a lot of good beating up” and it doesn’t make a ton of sense, but it doesn’t feel like the movie is calling the audience stupid; it’s more like the movie invites us to be stupid.

When I was a kid, there was a robust tradition of mid-premise movies that were mostly setups for the aforementioned style of beating up. The mob comes to town to turn the recycling plant into a casino, but SORRY, DICKWEEDS, the town’s recycleman is Steven Seagal, and he’s going to beat the shit out of you all one at a time. Or, like, Nicolas Cage in a tank top plays a haberdasher in a remote Polish village whose training as a Navy WALRUS (bigger, more dangerous version of a Navy SEAL) kicks in after a warlord tries to enslave the local elementary school children at his heroin factory. Now we get a bunch of superhero movies, the occasional Fast v. Furious sequel, and the even more occasional movie that WOULD be fun if there wasn’t such a lengthy digression to explore childhood trauma. Statham is all we have left of this tradition. Thank you for your service, you classic bald angel of death.

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Also, I think I have the newsletter’s first ad today? I am saying that in case the good people of give me money for this, but my cool basketball magazine friends are throwing a Finals Watch Party this Sunday (10/13) afternoon in Brooklyn!

Which Finals? Legally I’m not sure I’m allowed to say. But use your noodle, folks! It’s a free, all-ages event, and you can RSVP right here!!! (I, a Beekeeper-watching doofus have theater tickets and won’t be able to make it, which is BREAKING MY HEART!) Even if YOU can’t make it, you should subscribe to the Substack and buy their print issues and merch and listen to their podcast!!! That part is NOT a paid ad. It’s just something I believe deep down!!!

Tonight I’ll be kicking around at the second ever Frankenstein’s Baby show at Union Hall! And tomorrow Emmy Blotnick and I are co-hosting Trivia For Cheaters at Brooklyn Brewery to benefit 826 Brooklyn!

Sorry to be so New York-centric with these events, but it is where I live! (Go Liberty!)

A FEW WORDS ABOUT BIZZY, OUR BELOVED PUG

Content warning: I am so sad!

Here’s the bad news I alluded to earlier.

This afternoon, Maris and I will say goodbye to Bizzy, our pug. She lived a long and wonderful life (she was born during the Bush administration, mere months after top college basketball prospect Cooper Flagg, who is now 6’9”). She was already eight years old when she came to live with us, though the other biographical details from that era of her life are murky on account of the person who gave her to us being a compulsive liar. (I wrote about this in my book.) She’s become increasingly eccentric in her habits and infant-like in her old age, which I wrote about in Luke O’Neil’s excellent newsletter.

Maris and I adopted Bizzy almost immediately after moving in together. It’s been nearly a decade since I’ve slept at home without her snores and mururs firmly within earshot, if not in bed with us. Her regular walks and irregular digestive system dictated the rhythms of our days. Bizzy’s increasing neediness (3am walks, being spoon-fed her wet food) made me love her more with time, not less. We accepted her into our lives, an anxious senior dog. It felt beautiful, just even, to care for her in her even older age. Maris (an angel!) bore more of Bizzy’s wriggly, unwieldy weight than I did, tending to her solo while I traveled a ton for work the past couple of years. We gave Bizzy the best life we could until the vet, not-as-gently-as-I-might-have-preferred, told us a few days ago that there wasn’t really a best life for her anymore.

In her nearly two decades on Earth, Bizzy shared so many apples with Maris and devoured enough slices of deli turkey to comprise dozens of Thanksgiving meals. She received so many compliments from strangers. She accepted so many hugs and squeezes and scratches behind the ears. We saw her learn to deal with the clatter and buzz of living in an apartment building with neighbors she could hear coming and going. She outlasted the set of couches Maris and I had in our first apartment together. She trotted countless times to be barber shop down the block, where her presence delighted the employees (who lavished her with treats) and inconvenienced the patrons. She got up early to keep Maris company while she wrote. She stayed up late to watch basketball with me when I got home from shows. She was a sweet little bunny and a wild little goblin. She was a joyful companion and a perfect little pain in the ass.

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Bizzy rarely accepted the obligations of a lap dog. She never kissed or licked people (unless she noticed peanut butter on their fingers). She used to snuggle with us in the morning, and would occasionally hump Maris’s leg after dinner. But those habits faded away years ago. The customary canine affections were replaced by new tendencies. The way she allowed me to scoop her up and carry her outside when her legs were too frail to clamber up and down the steps to and from our second floor apartment. The way she dozed beside Maris after they shared a piece of fruit. Her contented grunfs and grumbles. Her demands for me to hang out NEAR her on the couch in the middle of the night even when she refused to sleep in bed with us. I will miss her anxious specificities despite how many times they left me bleary-eyed in the morning, and how many dog sitters she went through on account of her being an absolute maniac. What shape will my days and nights have without her weirdness filling every empty moment?

She physically fills the place too. Pug-related ephemera juts out of every corner of our apartment. Art bearing Bizzy’s image. The slippers in her likeness that I got Maris as a gift. So many pug oven mitts and dish towels and pairs of socks we’ve received from friends and family. Without the fuzzy little goblin around, it will feel bizarre to have these artifacts on display. But I can’t imagine getting rid of them.

Even when we do, when the potholders get too grimy to keep and the prints we ordered from Etsy are displaced by other art, we will never forget Bizzy. No one who has met her could ever do that. She’s too cute and weird and stubborn and funny.

Over the past few days, a handful of friends have popped in to say goodbye, and Bizzy submitted to pats and squeezes and doting. We visited the barber shop for the last time this morning, Bizzy in her stroller, her legs can’t carry her anymore.

I’ve been crying a lot thinking about all these last times. But then I remember the thousands of walks, the hundreds of naps, the millions of moments of quiet company (and loud frantic company too). How sad it is to lose a tiny old friend. How beautiful it is to carry so much of her with us still.

Okay thanks for indulging me. Back to our regular newsletter format.

PEP TALK FOR A READER

I’ve done just a little futzing around with this request! And I added the nickname!

I work in animal rescue, a field I love but that is incredibly taxing both physically and mentally. I’m in a very “what’s my purpose?” or rather “is there a purpose?” type of spiral even in the midst of working with vulnerable dog populations everyday. I left the film industry after feeling disillusioned and a need to do something that felt more personal and immediately rewarding but now I feel I’ve come to a dead end due to burn out. In the midst of this I’ve also lost touch with all the things I once enjoyed (crocheting, movies, reading, record collecting, etc.). So the entirety of my life is split between work 6 and often 7 days a week and then catching up on Bravo shows. I feel selfish but I’m tired.
- Must I Love Dogs (This Much)?

Hello, MILD (TM). You’ve been really burning the candle, well…not at both ends, exactly, but at one end all the time. That doesn’t seem sustainable! You’re going to run out of candle at some point even if you are burning it on someone else’s behalf and for a very good reason.

I get that you left your previous professional field in search of something that felt impactful, and it seems like the problem isn’t that you’re still searching for a way to make a difference; it’s that doing only that is nearly as stressful as working in an industry that doesn’t offer the same satisfaction at all. Anything’s going to burn you out if you do it 6-7 days a week for years. Rescuing vulnerable dogs. Jumping off a trampoline and dunking basketballs. Hot dog eating contests. It’s good to be mindful of not living a selfish life, but your self deserves a little ish. It’s the only self you have!

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Maybe it’s because we’re right in the midst of the High Holidays, or maybe it’s just the symmetry of your questions, but this quote from Rabbi Hillel (the only quote from any rabbi I know by heart, as far as I know) comes to mind: “If I am not for myself, who will be for me? If I am only for myself, what am I?” (The third part of the quote “And if not now, when?” is also a classic, but in this case “a little later” can be the answer too.) Obviously there’s a bigger “how to be a person in the world” thrust to these rhetorical questions. But their magnitude seems to match the immensity of the way you posed your concerns about life and work. If you’d said “should I quit my job?” or “is any job going to feel fulfilling?” I probably would have quoted Office Space or The Big Lebowski and left it at that.

A job will never give you a holistic sense of meaning, even when you’re doing good and important work. And you won’t find out what else is important to you while you are All Job All The Time, like you’re Charli XCX but for going to work instead of dancing and singing about nose drugs. (Not that I recommend a 365 Party Girl lifestyle as an antidote for professional burnout.) But I don’t think cutting out your hobbies and restorative practices will help you find a purpose and especially not your purpose. No offense to Bravo, but there’s only so long you can sustain yourself on Real Housewives franchises alone. You can get back to being the whole you! And maybe even find new you deep down inside!

To paraphrase Rabbi Hillel: “You do so much for those dogs. But what are you doing for you, dog?”

PICK-ME-UP THING OF THE WEEK:
Welcome To Talk Town (which is a podcast!!!)

My friends Alison, Anthony, and Greg started a new podcast. It is fully deranged. The idea is that every episode they talk about some features of a hypothetical town (the titular Talk Town) that would correct the problems with modern society. Sometimes they come up with great ideas (Expert Lines, Erotic Duels) and other times they argue about whether the question Anthony asked was actually a ripoff of a game Greg had made up but hadn’t told anyone about yet.

It is…so stupid, which I mean as a compliment but also an accurate description. I laugh a LOT listening to this goofy show. It’s nonsense. I love it. Check it out!

UPCOMING SHOWS

I’ve got a bunch of NYC dates coming up, and then a few back on the road! See you there?!?!

10/7: Hanging out at Frankenstein’s Baby at Union Hall (Brooklyn)

10/8: Co-hosting Trivia For Cheaters 826 Fundraiser at Brooklyn Brewery

10/12: Climate Fundraiser at Union Hall (Brooklyn — Early show!!!)

10/18: The Muslims are Coming: Swing State Invasion (Reading, PA)

10/21: Co-hosting Frankenstein’s Baby at Union Hall (Brooklyn)

10/24: American Sawdust and then The Gutter (Brooklyn)

11/29-12/8: TED LEO AND AIMEE MANN CHRISTMAS SHOWS (Several Cities)

Hi everyone,

This might be a rambly one! (Welcome new readers who heard me on Wait Wait…Don’t Tell Me! last weekend! Usually I’m not quite so longwinded.)

Last week I struck a pretty terrific balance between hanging out and doing work, which is honestly my biggest goal of late. Maris and I had brunch with our friends Jason and Emily and their itty bitty baby who is so cute. I enjoyed Mad Men Lunch Pt. II (which is just drinking on a weekday) with my friend Tanya. Did some fun standup sets. Had offee with my friend Caroline. Participated in New York Climate Summit comedy panel show. Reached out to one of my favorite musicians about licensing one of their songs for the opening/closing of my standup special. Ate dinner with Dionne Warwick (more on that below!?!!?!?). One drink at my friend Merritt’s birthday, and another at my friend Meredith’s birthday party, while sadly missing Dave’s birthday party. A little call about future work projects. Two podcasts. Saw Bad Moves play live. Met Joel McHale (super nice!) at the Comedy Cellar. A great talk after the show with my friend Matt Koff about comedy and They Might Be Giants (Are they a top ten all time American rock band? Sound off in the comments!) That was most of it I think.

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My great friend Sarah was in town from London, and I hadn’t seen her in five or six years, so we had breakfast on Wednesday morning and then went to this immersive art installation in the financial district (she works in that field and has a google alert set for such things). We spent an hour meandering through fourteen of the fifteen exhibits (one was closed) and talking about them. At their best, they were technically impeccable and visually engrossing. Lots of mirrors (“This is the Instagram room,” Sarah quipped, not knowing there would be several more similar Instagram rooms to come.). At worst, I would describe the aesthetic of a few pieces as “NFT-core.” A few of the exhibits seemed like the work of someone who’d heard of Banksy and just kind of ran with that idea.

Sarah is so smart about considering intentionality in art, and considering what things could mean, and how they could be executed more successfully. And those qualities make her extremely fun to talk trash with. She basically has a post-graduate degree in it (as well as teasing out and explaining what’s interesting about art). So even though the thing itself was hit or miss, the conversation had no skips.

Thursday I flew to Kansas City for the aforementioned Wait Wait taping with the also aforementioned Dionne Warwick. The actual music legend and her very friendly associate came and ate dinner with me and Paula Poundstone and Shantira Jackson, and even Peter Sagal, esteemed host of the program decided to be a fan and ask for a picture, which gave the rest of us the green light to do the same. We mostly talked about astronauts and outer space at dinner. Ms. Warwick said she plans to stay on earth rather than ever going to Mars, and she chuckled politely when I said that the food there seems terrible. A huge win for me!

On Saturday I ran into my friend Shaina who literally moved to New York this week and doesn’t live anywhere near me! And then when I got home from that walk I had received an email from someone I’d never met but who I’d been corresponding with about a work thing, and he’d driven past me on the street around the same time. I was really struck by how beautiful small moments of synchronicity can be. I was recently talking to a friend who’s also not super spiritual, but who finds meaning in unexpected connection. I don’t mind the smallness of being one person out of eight billion on one planet out of ??? planets. But when the world feels small too, it’s a little bit of a comfort. Not only are we not alone, we’re all neighbors.

Rosh Hashanah starts on Wednesday night, and I’m (I think!) slightly more religious (a little) than I am spiritual (again, not really at all). What can I say, I like a once-a-year ceremony-adjacent snack and a feeling of being rooted in history. Plus I appreciate the concepts of renewal and forgiveness that the High Holidays bring into focus. I’ve been feeling a lot of closeness with a Jewish community lately attached to the ideas of protest and compassion. And I’ve been feeling kind of estranged from Jewish institutions that have taken up the cause of mercilessness. I imagine this next week will be full of heaviness and mourning, which is understandable. I also hope that as people grieve the losses of October 7th, they allow their grief to also encompass the tens of thousands of Palestinian lives (and now hundreds in Lebanon) that were taken in the wake of that tragedy.

I talked a little about these things on Francesca Fiorentini’s show last week. We also had a great chat about climate science with extremely smart journalist Kate Aronoff! And, in other news, I talked about very silly and frivolous stories on the great Alice Fraser’s show The Gargle.

It was a real week of a week. And I haven’t even touched the big local news yet, so…let’s get to it!

PEP TALK FOR ERIC ADAMS

Last summer, Mayor Eric Adams showed up on the WGA/SAG-AFTRA picket line (several months into the strikes, but who’s counting) and I was pulled into some photos with him. Knowing in advance this might happen, and being a naturally smiley person, I practiced several dead-behind-the-eyes expressions before leaving my apartment in the morning so as not to seem happy to be standing next to our mayor. No pictures of me have ever aged better. (Other people redacted because I didn’t ask their permission to post these.)

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Mayor (still???) Adams, it has not been your best week in office. Last Wednesday you were indicted on several counts of fraud and bribery and lots of other things that mayors should not be caught doing. The (alleged) pattern of behavior dates back long before your tenure as mayor began, because you play like you practice and practice how you play. The full indictment includes a whole bunch of text messages between you and your staff that say things like “Please delete this text message because it was super illegal of me to send!” and “It’s crime time, big man! And I’ve got a passion for graftin’.” (I’m paraphrasing, but barely.)

Some of the smaller, more hilarious (alleged, but…) crimes include taking consistently discounted travel on Turkish Airlines in exchange for doing favors for the nation of Turkey, which raised red flags in your personal life because your routing always took you through Istanbul when you left the country. Look, I will sometimes go a little out of my way to earn points on my preferred airline but not fly-to-a-country-with-an-authoritarian-leader out of the way. I’m talking a layover in Atlanta, here. You allegedly tried to fly go Chile via Istanbul, starting out in New York, which is an act of cartographical malpractice that can only be described as Columbian.

The less hilarious, more infuriating allegations include falsifying campaign records to access New York City’s matching funds, which both boosted your campaign and siphoned away $10 million of the public’s money. Many have already pointed out the absolute gall to steal millions of dollars from the city and the slash budgets for local services like the library. Not to mention positioning yourself a a “law and order” mayor when you were more like a Law and Order: Criminal Intent mayor.

On Twitter I expressed some embarrassment that our city’s mayor was getting indicted like we live in Providence or something. And several people from Providence responded that the difference is that they actually LOVED their corrupt mayor, who did many good things for the city. (R.I.P. Buddy Cianci.) Fair point, Rhode Islanders!

Mayor (still?!!?!?!) Adams, you have to this point refused to resign, like a captain going down the the ship that he intentionally drove into a rock formation near the Turkish port city of Antalya (which was nowhere NEAR your ultimate destination, and not on the way either). As more and more of your political employees and appointees resign in disgrace, you persevere (also in disgrace). You are (politically) like Tony Montana going down in a hail of (metaphorical) gunfire, if Tony Montana had pretended to be a vegan for some reason. (“Where'd you get the beauty scar, tough guy? Eating tempeh?”)

So congratulations to do what even (walking criminal confession, recently disbarred in Washington D.C.) Rudy Giuliani couldn’t do: Getting indicted as a sitting New York City mayor. You will (fortunately for you) be remembered more for your brazen (ALLEGED lol) criminality than for your cruelty to migrants, lethal increases of police presence in our subways, and almost definite actual home address in New Jersey. And thank you for committing scams so flamboyant they basically assure that you will not be elected again. (Although if disgraced governor Andrew Cuomo ends up as our next mayor, I will get a membership to Zero Bond to yell at you in person when you get out of jail.)

You vowed to bring the swagger back to New York City, but you swaggered too close to the sun. And while I don’t quite respect that about you, I am grateful that your unflappable cop confidence led to your own political implosion.

You truly were here for a good time, and hopefully not a much longer time.

(Also, if you live in New York and are looking for incisive and entertaining coverage of the ongoing Eric Adams saga and other local news, I cannot recommend subscribing to Hell Gate highly enough!!!)

A READER’S PEP TALK FOR HERSELF

I recently (well, a few weeks ago) received a pep talk request from a reader, who before I could respond, had a big shift in attitude following a small shift in material circumstances. This reader has given me permission to publish their messages to me as a little extra pep talk this week!

I’d love a pep talk on getting back into dating. The last time I was actively dating was 2016, then broke up with my boyfriend in late 2019. Since then I haven’t been interested in romantic relationships at all, but at the beginning of the year I started to feel ready - and put the work in on myself. Went back to therapy, started journaling again, quit smoking weed…good things! So I’ve been on Hinge for almost a month now, and while I’ve gotten lots of interest and had some good chats, I’m nervous about committing to actual dates. The process of getting to know someone and letting someone get to know me feels exhausting - and doing it again and again until I find the right person? Yikes. I’m also a very different person than I was eight years ago, and I don’t want to date the same way I did back then, so I feel like I can’t fall back on experience for fear of repeating old bad patterns. At the same time, I’m excited to finally feel ready to open myself up to romantic connection again, and I’ve never felt more on top of my shit. Can you help get me pumped up enough to finally let someone take me out - even if I don’t find the right person right away?
- (Re)new Romantic

That was an extremely thoughtful message to receive, and one that I bet a lot of people can related to in part or in full! But, before I could respond, I received this message from the same person!

Hi Josh - no longer in need of a pep talk. Went on a singular Hinge date and met an amazing person and things are going great. It only takes one, I guess!! Just want to add that I’m dating differently than I ever have before - taking it slow and really getting to know him at a measured pace and vice versa, with the aim of building something meaningful and long-lasting. And I think laying out that I wanted to do things differently in my note to you really helped me recognize that and build on it. So your pep talk system absolutely did help in its own way
- (Re)new Romantic

I felt so good reading this message, not just because the Gondelman Pep Talk Method (tm) was given credit, maybe more than it/I deserve. But it just felt so nice to see the general premise of the newsletter (Things can be okay! Often you’re in a temporary funk that you can fix or ride out!) in effect in the real world! So, let that be a lesson to you readers…just because I am absolutely not on top of my emails (or more accurately I really only respond per week) doesn’t mean things in your life won’t improve!

Congratulations on your excellent news, (Re)new!

PEP TALK FOR A READER

I might be a little late with this pep talk too! If so, I apologize!

Hi Josh, I could use a pep talk. I'm (41F) headed on vacation with my parents (77M/77F) to San Francisco for a week soon. And while I'm blessed and happy to spend time with them like this, after a few days together, it's hard not to revert to kid attitudes when I'm in their company for this long. I'm a functional, grown adult and yet I can feel teenage me taking over by day three. What do I do? How do I fight this?
- All Play And No Work Makes Jack A Dull Girl

Okay, Jack (sorry to start this off sounding so much like Joe Biden), I know that you know that I know that you’re in a pretty swell position. There’s no need for me to stress to you the joy of getting to spend time with older relatives in a vacational context. You said it yourself! This is not a you-should-be-grateful pep talk. You seem to be tapped into the concept of gratitude enough that we can deal with the other part of this situation: Petty annoyances (which are really my wheelhouse here anyway)!

I, too, find myself becoming Teenage Me when I visit my folks. My mom (a wonderful person whom I love, and famously a reader of this newsletter) will offer me yogurt, and I will politely decline, knowing that she doesn’t know I have not eaten yogurt under any circumstances in like…ten years. And yet, there is still an adolescent twinge of Come on, MOM! that is not her fault at all. She’s being nice! And I never communicated to her that I don’t even think about yogurt at any point in my adult life. I just moved out of my parents’ house 17ish years ago (and then again 15ish years ago after a brief moving-back-in period) and developed a bunch of new habits that I didn’t tell my parents about. Anyway! Enough about me and my nonsense…

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As usual, I will try to avoid giving advice here even in defiance of your specific request, but I will say this: You are allowed to return to Adult You at any moment, like a werewolf when the sun comes up, but if the werewolf could cause the sun to rise simply by taking a deep breath and saying: “Hey, I’m going to take a little walk and get a coffee? Do you two want anything?” As long as you are otherwise a good faith vacation participant (showing up for the tentpole events, hanging out with your parents in between when not otherwise occupied), you can even take a nap or read a book or meet up with a friend for a stroll (in my San Francisco experience, you will end up way more winded than expected at the end of that stroll because the terrain is like if SimCity and Rollercoaster Tycoon merged into one game and that game was a real life topographical map). You’ve got a week to spend with them, and I bet most weeks of your life are not spent in immediate proximity to the same two people 24/7. Even Run-D.M.C. probably planned a few solo hours when they were on tour (do not forget to include the late Jam Master Jay when you picture Run-D.M.C. in your mind). Even the most romantically invested throuples probably de-throup to go to work or Pilates or book club from time to time. You are allowed to introduce a little of your normal solitude/socializing rhythm into that half-fortnight (septnight?) with your folks.

Despite your Paul Rudd in Wet Hot American Summer-style sighing, you’ll probably have a very nice time and wind up thinking fondly this trip with your parents, especially if you are able to intersperse your time together with a little time apart.

PICK-ME-UP SONG OF THE WEEK:
Dionne Warwick - “I Say A Little Prayer”

On my trip to Kansas City last week, I listened to the Apple Music “Dionne Warwick Essentials,” which made for a great flight. There were so many classic hits, and then deeper cuts (or big hits that had maybe just faded out of rotation before my time) and then other songs that I’d heard more frequently as covers. (I really wanted to ask Dionne Warwick what she thought of the White Stripes version of “I Just Don’t Know What To Do With Myself” but I did not have the opportunity or moxie to do so.) I probably heard an a cappella group on campus cover “I Say A Little Prayer” a zillion times while I was at Brandeis, and no offense to (I think) Company B, but this version is superior. It’s not my place to pass judgement on the relative merits of the Aretha Franklin take on the tune.

UPCOMING SHOWS

I’ve got a bunch of NYC dates coming up, and then a few back on the road! See you there?!?!

10/2: Sleepwalk and then also Rodeo (Both Brooklyn)

10/4: Late Stage Live and Friends at Union Hall (Brooklyn)

10/7: Hanging out at Frankenstein’s Baby at Union Hall (Brooklyn)

10/8: Co-hosting Trivia For Cheaters 826 Fundraiser at Brooklyn Brewery

10/18: The Muslims are Coming: Swing State Invasion (Reading, PA)

10/21: Co-hosting Frankenstein’s Baby at Union Hall (Brooklyn)

10/24: American Sawdust (Brooklyn)

11/29-12/8: TED LEO AND AIMEE MANN CHRISTMAS SHOWS (Several Cities)

Hi everyone,

I am…so sleepy after an excellent weekend in Denver (more on that later), but I’m back at sea level and breathing air that feels as thick as clam chowder.

Two weeks ago, I threw my body into the wood chipper of three concerts in six nights. Last week I did the same thing, but for comedy. I regret nothing!!!! Well, nothing about the last two weeks. Going back further, in the words of noted drama queen Frank Sinatra, regrets…I have a few. But that’s not what we’re here to talk about!

Monday night was the first ever Frankenstein’s Baby show at Union Hall! It was great! A woman in the crowd called out to ask where my sweater was from (Mifland) and it turned out she was…Stacy London of What Not To Wear?!?!?! Anything is possible! Our next two shows are 10/7 (I’ll be there hanging out) and 10/21 (I’ll be co-hosting)!

On Tuesday I got to do a show on Long Island with friend and J.D. Vance impression-master Dan Wilbur! On Wednesday, I opened for Aparna Nancherla whose new hour really shot me into space! On Thursday evening (flight timing on account of recording a new episode of Normal Gossip in the afternoon…but you didn’t hear it from me), I flew to Denver for the High Plains Comedy Festival, landing just in time to make it to my first show!

High Plains was an ideal comedy festival experience. The volunteers and staff members were so helpful and kind. The crowds were warm and enthusiastic. I got to hang out with a million old friends (Rob Haze! The All Fantasy Everything guys! Hannah Jones! Grawlix!) and see them crush shows! I met a few people (Chris Estrada! Laura Peek!) whose work I love but who I’d never encountered in person before! It’s just wild to see how many different ways there are to be good at standup comedy, even in front of the same audience! (Shouts out also to Rory Scovel, Kyle Kinane, Jaye McBride, Milly Tamarez, and Django Gold!) It’s been a weird time in the industry/country/world, but at least in terms of professional optimism, very little is more restorative to me than seeing how many people are working so hard on creating art that is special and personal and weird and serious and silly!!!

I had an especially fun time on The Grawlix Saves the World podcast with the aforementioned Grawlix and Laura Peek. It is a competitive advice show judged by a live audience, and it was total chaos. Several times during the recording, the entire audience chanted “Evil Josh! Evil Josh!” at me, which warmed my heart.

I think in terms of vegetables, I ate…a few jalapeños, so I’m planning on a week straight of intravenous salad consumption to get my efforts to continue being alive back on track. Thanks so much to festival founder Adam Cayton-Holland for inviting me out, and to Karen and the whole staff for running such an incredible weekend! I was so glad to finally make it to Denver! (Reminder: If you subscribe to this newsletter you’ll always be on top of my tour schedule so you can come see me or stay away from me according to your preference!)

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Speaking of not dying (sort of) I’ve been trying to make the use of New York City’s few perfect weeks of cool morning/hot afternoon/cool evening weather to get out of my apartment early to shoot some jump shots at my local court. It’s the perfect time of year both weather-wise and in terms of teenagers being back at school and unable to remark on my technique or (even worse) invite me to play with/against them.

I am trying to break the vicious cycle of being out of practice, so I don’t play pickup, so my skills continue to erode, making me even more avoidant of letting other people see me shoot a basketball. I’m like the phantom of the three point line. Speaking of the three point line, the one at my court is NBA-distance, and I’m finding myself coming up short on my jumper. So I downloaded my brilliant pal Casey Johnston aka ’s beginner weight lifting program to build strength and take my rightful place as Brooklyn’s male Sabrina Ionescu. Let’s see if I follow through on this (both the training program and the release on my jumper).

Also, speaking of basketball (again, 1:1 here), let’s go Liberty! I’d love to see them complete feat of both the NBA and WNBA teams I root for reigning as league champions!!!

Oh and!!! I’ve been sitting on this news until the official announcement, but just after Thanksgiving, I’m doing a bunch of shows around the northeast as part of Aimee Mann and Ted Leo’s Christmas Show! I am part of a little touring company (also including Nelly McKay and Paul F. Tompkins!!!) doing a bunch of dates in New York, Virginia, New Jersey, Massachusetts, and Connecticut as part of their semi-regular variety show, and I can’t wait! Please do not blow up my spot by telling them I said this, but Ted and Aimee and Paul are so cool, and I’m extremely thrilled and intimidated to get to be a part of these shows!!! (Nelly I’m sure is also cool but I don’t know her as well yet!)

PEP TALK FOR MARK ROBINSON

For readers who don’t know, Mark Robinson is the Lieutenant Governor of North Carolina as well as the Republican candidate for Governor in the upcoming election. His continued rise to power would be bad for the people of North Carolina. Which is important, but not the issue at hand. Robinson was also, several years ago, allegedly, a prolific commenter on a porn site called Nude Africa, a name I will refrain from mocking because I do not know if it’s an important fixture in the Black community. This is what we’re here to discuss. The comments in question were made through a username that Robinson employs across several other websites, and the account was linked to his email address (as was a recently-uncovered Ashley Madison account). So far this is weird, but it is not a crime to be horny while holding or aspiring to political office. At least two of our last four presidents would easily have qualified as criminally horny, for sure, if that was the case.

The problem with LieuGo (short for Lieutenant Governor, probably) Robinson is the specific nature of his libidinous comments. Some of them (referring to himself as a “black NAZI!” for example) were off-putting, if not disqualifying to his base of people who think the first word of that descriptor is more problematic than the second one. (And when I say “he,” I know this isn’t proven; I simply mean the commenter who uses Mark Robinson’s email address and social media handle. It could be anyone.) He (whoever he may be) also expressed his enthusiasm for pornography featuring transgender performers, which seems to contradict his bigoted position on which bathrooms transgender people should be forced to use. And, he (Who could it have been? But to clarify it’s the Nude Africa message board poster who uses Mark Robinson’s email address) said he doesn’t care whether a celebrity gets an abortion as long as he can see their sex tape. As you might imagine, Robinson is not nearly that pro-choice when he is flaccid and making statements under his own name.

Look, Mark Robinson, we all say things during sex that aren’t our actual opinions, and sometimes that’s a good thing. If our sexual utterances had to be 1:1 with reality, a disturbing amount of brains would wind up…out, through a process that it is not family-friendly to mention. Although it is a process that can be friendly to expanding families. On the other hand, I don’t think you get the same leeway with stuff you type with one hand while embarking on a sensual tour through Nude Africa with the other.

But, for your sake, at least you only contradicted a few of your (horrific and dangerous) conservative principles in your porn comments. You never commented something like: “Wow that guy has more than enough meat to satisfy everyone, if you know what I’m saying, and by that I mean America’s 1% has hoarded too much wealth, and they should be taxed at a sufficiently high rate to fund social programs that ensure no one goes hungry at night.” Or: “Look at how many people are inside her…it’s so beautiful, which makes me think that maybe our immigration system should be less focused on keeping people out at all costs.” That would really have torpedoed your support among conservatives. (Sorry this is a little explicit! Sometimes, in a newsletter, you’ve gotta play the news you’re dealt!)

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Sure, you have so many bad opinions. But at least your insatiable appetite for pornography and shoddy understanding of anonymity only showed you to be a hypocrite regarding a few of them (allegedly). And yes, your top aides quit when this initial report came out. But you want a staff who knows and respects the real you. Even if the real you is someone whose horniness supersedes all his other values, which, I should reiterate, are bad.

PEP TALK FOR A READER

I made a teensy tweak to this pep talk for the sake of anonymizing the writer!

May I please have a pep talk? I’m moving tomorrow, I just started school, I’m going through a messy breakup and I just met someone new! My world is changing so much!
- Scare Change

Wow you really are in the middle of a ton of huge life changes, which can be challenging but also very rewarding. The trouble is, that situation stands in contrast to stasis, which is easy and can also be rewarding. 

But it certainly doesn’t sound like you wanted the easy, breezy (Am I the first person to rhyme those two words? Probably!) pleasures of continuity. You were ready for some dynamism. You were ready for the status quo to be, well, quover. You didn’t accidentally apply to school, select courses, and begin to attend them in a fugue state. You chose this for reasons, which you didn’t mention, so I will assume they are none of my business!

And sometimes breakups happen against your will, but certainly finding a new partner isn’t something that was foisted upon you as you kicked and screamed. I mean, maybe kicking and screaming is part of it! I don’t know your life. But if it was, it sounds like consensual kicking and screaming between grownups.

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That’s not to say there aren’t issues even when you’re forging your own path forward with intent. But these are growth problem (like needing new pants or boredom with defeating your smaller peers at sports) rather than inertia problems (feet falling asleep, inability to experience new things unless someone brings them to you or drags you towards them). 

Ultimately, you’re in a position of experiencing joys and struggles of your own choosing. Which in this world is a beautiful privilege to get to experience, even for a short time. And if it’s great, you can go back to gliding for a while. And if it doesn’t stay satisfying, you can shuffle the deck again and deal with the new deal.

PICK-ME-UP SONG OF THE WEEK:
St. Vincent - “New York”

It was more relevant to my life two weeks ago when I saw St. Vincent live, but this song has been bubbling up in my head for a little bit now. It’s not really peppy, but it’s propulsive and wistful, which qualifies it for this section of the newsletter. I think it’s sweet to refer to someone as “the only motherfucker in the city who can handle me.” Who wouldn’t want to be a singularly qualified motherfucker? Full disclosure: Maris and I left the St. Vincent show before she performed this song, but we did see Lorde play a cover of it a few years ago, and that was good too!

UPCOMING SHOWS

I’ve got a bunch of NYC dates coming up, and then a few back on the road! See you there?!?!

9/23: New York Climate Week Event

9/25: Ambush at Ebbs Brewing (Brooklyn)

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

10/2: Sleepwalk and then also Rodeo (Both Brooklyn)

10/4: Late Stage Live and Friends at Union Hall (Brooklyn)

10/8: Co-hosting Trivia For Cheaters 826 Fundraiser at Brooklyn Brewery

10/18: Cobra Club (Brooklyn)

10/21: Co-hosting Frankenstein’s Baby at Union Hall (Brooklyn)

10/24: American Sawdust (Brooklyn)

11/29-12/8: TED LEO AND AIMEE MANN CHRISTMAS SHOWS (Several Cities)

Hi everyone,

I’m going to TRY to be brief this week because I’m kind of in the thick of a bunch of little professional things converging, and also admittedly a couple of lunch dates with friends that I don’t want to cancel. So newsletter, you’re getting squeezed this week.

I had a terrific and always-too-brief trip to Boston last weekend for the live This Week In Esoteric Political History live podcast, which will be released online in October. It was a blast being onstage with the show’s brilliant hosts! Plus I had an incredible speed run of fortuitous Bostonian experiences: A visit with my family, a cannoli from Mike’s Pastry, an incredible parking spot, and a WILDLY botched Dunkin’ order. As often, I felt emotionally overwhelmed by personal history while zipping down Storrow Drive in my mom’s Prius by myself late at night.

I also successfully saw St. Vincent, the Old 97s (at long last!), and Charly Bliss play live, which I mentioned last week, but was not 100% confident I’d be up for. All the shows were very good, but it was especially wonderful seeing my pals in Charly Bliss tear through their new songs live. There’s a texture and dimension to their recent album that’s even more vibrant in person. And the band members’ love for each other is so evident onstage. I got to talk to them all a little bit about it when I was writing the bio for Forever, but their mutual affection radiates through the room and makes their shows feel so joyful. I especially loved seeing singer/guitarist Eva Hendricks and guitar player Spencer Fox playfully head butt each other during instrumental sequences in a way that I’m not sure baby rhinos actually do, but you can picture it, right? I think Eva’s mom might read this newsletter, and if so: Hi, Eva’s mom! It was so nice to see you there!

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On Sunday I hosted a panel for this big day of conversations and performances put on by lefty magazine Jewish Currents. I felt lucky to sit onstage and talk with a group of people who work so hard at living their principles despite working in entertainment.

While I was at the event, a bunch of friends AND SEVERAL ENEMIES (jkjkjkjk) and many strangers won Emmy Awards! And many friends (and strangers) lost their categories too. Speaking from experience: It is an honor just to be nominated, but it’s more fun to win. (This year I did neither, which was also fun but not particularly notable!)

Tonight at Union Hall (in Brooklyn) is the first ever Frankenstein’s Baby live show! It’s a great and bimonthly standup show hosted by me, Alison Leiby, Joyelle Nicole Johnson, and Tyrone Thornhill in rotating combinations. Donwill is going to DJ the show (thank goodness) and the wonderful Jordan Ashleigh is producing it!! Tonight the lineup includes Sabrina Wu, Shalewa Sharpe, and Alex English! Ridiculous!

On Wednesday I’m opening for my friend (who is a genius) at the Bell House! I think a few of my new jokes are finally shaping up to the point where I can trot them out at a show like this. Get ready to hear about my parents’ email address (singular), audience!!!

I’m so psyched to go to Denver this weekend for the High Plains festival! Here are the shows I’m doing, if you’re curious. And I’m going to try and hang out and see a bunch of pals do their shows as well (hi, All Fantasy Everything)! See you there, Denver?

PEP TALK FOR INDOOR VAPERS

Cigarette smoking has been on the decline for years, which is great for public health but difficult for people who want to leave their job for fifteen minutes every two hours. Maybe we’ll see “having IBS” take over as a new trend, but I’m not holding my breath. Speaking of breathing out…

The dip in people ripping butts (what they actually call it where I’m from) has occurred hand in hand with a rise in vaping. I’m not breaking any news here; by now we’re all familiar with the sweaty little computers that people suck nicotine mist out of. Maybe it’s a healthier habit than inhaling a campfire every day, or maybe sucking up a cloud of chemicals the likes of which you normally see billowing out of an operational paper mill isn’t great either. Who can say?

What I do know is that while vaping has exploded in popularity, it’s still outlawed in many places, especially indoors. And yet, for reasons that are probably totally healthy and not at all signs of a problem, people continue vaping indoors in a way that they might describe as “surreptitious” but in reality is extremely obvious.

We’ve all seen these undercover vapers, cupping their devices in one hand, the way you’d hold a twenty-dollar bill you’re about to slip to a maitre d in hopes of jumping the line. They lean downwards, hand to face, like they’re whispering a secret to their fingers. Then, a few seconds later, they exhale a sweet vapor, as if announcing that they’ve just chosen a new Pope of Candyland.

Indoor vapers, relax. You are fooling literally no one. It is outrageously difficult to hide the fact that you’re emitting steam. That is the whole premise of teapots. It’s not, like, courteous to commit this act of attempted obfuscation the way it’s polite to sneeze into your elbow. So what’s the benefit of this performance?

Stop gaslight (vaporlighting?) us! Just do your thing. No one will be mad at you except flight attendants and waiters, who are already actively ignoring your rule-breaking because conflict is hard and they don’t want the (fake) smoke.

Or simply go outside, the way smokers have for years, since people realized they could avoid their own hair and clothing reeking for days if they just asked people to keep their open flames outdoors.

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PEP TALK FOR A READER

I didn’t edit this request at all. JUST SO YOU KNOW.

Hi Josh! I would love a pep talk. I just had to defer my entry to my first marathon after months and months of training. I strained a calf muscle and the race date was too soon to heal and continue training in order to run.
- Half Calf

Ahh shoot noooo! What a drag! It sounds like you were really excited to run this first marathon, and you aren’t doing it because someone is chasing you 26.2 miles while wielding a chainsaw, which is what it would take for me to participate in this kind of athletic event. (I would be chainsawed to pulp and splinters before I hit mile five.) If I were giving this pep talk to me, it would go: Hey, at least now you don’t have to run a marathon, which I assume you’re doing because you lost some kind of high-stakes bet, me. But I’m not writing to me. That’s a gimmick I try not to go back to all that often. I’m writing to you. So to you I say…

You got so close this time!!! And it sounds like you will recover and be able to run again, even if it won’t be in time to compete in this particular marathon. That’s already a lucky break on the scale of injuries that can happen to human legs. Honestly, I know it doesn’t feel like it now, but that’s so much more important than running a specific marathon. My grandmother used to always say “Wear it in good health!” when she gave me or my sister a garment, and I never understood it when I was a kid (who had the good luck to be in good health most of the time). But as an adult I’m like…yeah, the good health part is probably a bigger deal than the sweater. If you could give someone good health itself as a birthday present, they’d take it every time.

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There will be other marathons, and you’ll get back into fighting shape. (I know you are running, not fighting, but I still imagine you have to fight the urge to just…stop running.) People love running marathons. They hate when I point out that for a group of people obsessed with athletic achievement, it is the ultimate participation trophy culture. I know dozens of people who have run marathons, not a soul who’s won the fuckin’ thing. You don’t wear a medal for finishing a pickup basketball game or a flag football tournament.

Still, I understand the celebration (and am pro-trophy in general). Completing a marathon is a triumph of a human being over their own body, which even though I’m not a runner, I understand as someone who routinely does things that make me feel horrible, seemingly to spite my own corporeal form. And so, with that in mind, finishing the marathon you sign up for when you’re finally recovered and ready will be an even more wonderful victory. You will have overcome MORE adversity and persevered through even FORMIDABLE-ER conditions. Your body doesn’t want you to do this AT ALL, but your brain is like “fuck you, body” and I think that’s beautiful, and it’s going to feel (emotionally) amazing (AND physically horrendous). You can do this, for some reason, or for no reason at all!

PICK-ME-UP SONG OF THE WEEK:
The Old 97s - “Rollerskate Skinny”

The Old 97s are maaaaybe Maris and my #1 car trip listening band. They have so many perfect songs. The records contain so much specificity, but they never sacrifice emotional impact or sonic impact. He sings bridge at the end (“I believe in love/But it don’t believe in me”) with such wistfulness that it’s impossible to doubt that someday love will find him. It reminds me of the line from the (roughly contemporary) movie Adaptation about how it’s more important to focus on what you love than what loves you! I think that’s so beautiful and heartbreaking, to believe that putting love into the world is more important than having it reflected back at you in a specific way. I listened to this song five times in a row on repeat on the Amtrak on Saturday. Now you try!

UPCOMING SHOWS

I’ve got a bunch of NYC dates coming up, and then a few back on the road! See you there?!?!

9/16: FIRST EVER FRANKENSTEIN’S BABY SHOW AT UNION HALL (Brooklyn)

9/17: Industry Lounge (Huntington, Long Island)

9/18: Opening for Aparna Nancherla at the Bell House!!! (Brooklyn)

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

9/23: New York Climate Week Event

9/25: Ambush at Ebbs Brewing (Brooklyn)

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