This week, The 19th News profiled LGBTQ comedians who are using humor to conquer fear and to find joy and laughter in a dark time. Esther Fallick, a trans woman, told the 19th, “Humor helps us look at it. It’s a bit of a Novocaine, so we can continue to stare it in the face. We don’t have to look away if we can laugh at it.”
That is the ethos of this newsletter. Yes, I write about serious things on Wednesdays (and sometimes Sundays). But every Friday, we look the horrors dead in the eyes and call them a dingus.
Thank you for reading and for subscribing. Paying subscribers keep this newsletter going. From now until we all die by Lisa Murkowski’s hand.
This week, Congress passed Donald Trump’s spending bill, which was (un)ironically titled the “One Big Beautiful Bill.” Which is the equivalent of naming strychnine “A Totally Safe Thing to Pour into Your Grandmother’s Well.” Or shards of leaded glass “New Year’s Eve Party Confetti!”
Ironic isn’t a strong enough word. I need another word that indicates that I am laughing while sobbing blood.
The bill will pile trillions of dollars onto the national debt over the next decade, according to Congressional Budget Office estimates. It would also leave millions of people without health insurance and cut federal funding for food stamps by hundreds of billions of dollars. But don’t worry, because it also enshrines tax cuts for corporations and wealthy individuals. And you can sleep well tonight because those cuts will be paid for with the blood of innocents.
Wrangling over the This Is Totally Not Going to Condemn People on Medicaid to Die Bill took all week, with many Republicans holding out, because — and this is going to surprise you — it’s a bad bill. It’s so bad even the bad guys are like, “Wait, I don’t like this.”
But the What If We Made Out With Mark Zuckerberg Inside a Shuttered Rural Hospital Bill finally passed because Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski ultimately caved and voted yes. Murkowski wants you to know she totally didn’t want to. She had to. It was the right choice for her. But you know, it was really, really hard and she doesn’t like it, but she still went ahead with it anyway. Like, ma’am, you aren’t describing sex with your husband on a Friday night; this is cutting nutrition assistance and health care for millions of the most vulnerable people in America.
In fairness, I too stared in stunned silence, but only because that’s the smartest thing Rand Paul has ever said.
Murkowski was silent for 10 whole seconds. Her response would have been more apt if Nobles had asked about her body count — not to explain why she’d vote for such terrible legislation.
Eventually, the outraged Murkowski said she was doing what was best for Alaska. But I’m not sure what Alaska she’s talking about, because 38 percent of Alaskans are on Medicaid. And one expert warned Alaska Public Radio that if the bill is passed, the state could be forced to cut access to “so-called ‘optional’ Medicaid services, like dental care, vision care, or in-home care.”
You know, optional things like seeing through your eyeballs, having teeth, or your homebound relative receiving lifesaving medical aid.
If Lisa Murkowski were Sophie of Sophie’s Choice, she’d have both her children shot and then issue a statement saying it was a very difficult decision but ultimately she had to do what was right for her.
Asked to solve the trolley problem, Murkowski would kill the person on the tracks with her bare hands, set fire to the trolley, poison the switch operator, and end all access to public transit.
Murkowski, as King Solomon, would take one look at that baby, get out a flamethrower, and then send thoughts and prayers.
This is like if, in trying to balance the household budget, your dad proposed killing the weakest of your siblings. I mean sure, maybe you save some money on chicken nuggets, but the murder charges are going to cost more than that to fight in court.
This is the political equivalent of burning down your house to save money on your water bill.
Hitting your dog with a car to spend less on dog food.
I don’t actually think that rich people filing for bankruptcy is an unqualified good thing, as they often use it as a way of refusing to pay court settlements and other debts. However, I do know that Dr. Phil is having some bad days, and that makes my cold Grinch heart grow two sizes.
This week, I got to take a lovely trip to Wisconsin with my kids, one of my sisters, and my brother-in-law. It was a trip we had to reschedule after my daughter qualified for the regional swim competition over spring break. But it was well worth the wait.
We went to a place called Blue Harbor Resort, where we used to go for years when my kids were little. We stopped going in 2020 for obvious reasons. And I finally decided it was time to go back.
It was such a lovely time. We ate cheese curds every day, and I never once had to ask for a side of ranch; it just was always there. Wisconsin is a land where ranch dressing flows freely, the beer is cheap, the swimsuits are sensible, and no one looks askance when you double-fist a margarita and a vodka lemonade.
My son, who is almost 12, rode the riptide so much and had so many Dippin’ Dots that he puked, then rallied. I rolled down the hills on the resort, and I also rode the riptide and got pretty decent at it, even though my hip flexors are killing me this week. (Why? I have no idea. It might not even be related. I don’t care, I’m 42.)
To that end, at the resort, I rediscovered the joys of the painkiller, a rum-based drink that the bartender made me after making the mistake of recommending a “skinny margarita.” And I responded by saying, “A skinny margarita? For a woman? IN THIS AMERICA!? I need all the sugar!”
He then made me a rum drink, which when I looked it up was close enough to a painkiller that we are calling it good. You might want to drink these as you contemplate America this holiday weekend.
In this hot summer of discontent, I am running a hot socialist summer sale on annual subscriptions. As a reminder, subscriptions keep this newsletter running as one of the loudest, proudest, most politically feminist newsletters on Elon Musk’s internet.
2025 is a hot summer in America. To paraphrase the Simpsons meme: one of the hottest summers of our lives so far.
The heat and the political turmoil feel different now than in 2020, which was a summer of primal screams, of our political discontent, of shouting for systemic change, of being locked inside and taking to the streets. That summer was hot asphalt and stifling masks. Demanding, pleading for institutions not to kill us and our neighbors.
This summer, we’ve lost so much and we continue to lose. But our screams feel different now. Tired feet back in the hot streets, smelling of tar and the closeness of bodies. Recycled protest signs. Hoarse voices pleading again for life over death. People are exhausted because, as the clichéd sign reads, we can’t believe we’re still protesting the same shit.
Maybe that’s because whatever allegedly ironclad dedication to systemic change was promised and pushed through promptly crumpled like tin foil. Hope and change run over by a desperate keening for the past. Any past.
The conventional wisdom is that as people get older, they will become more comfortable and more conservative. But millennial voters, voters born in the 1980s and ‘90s, are so far bucking that trend, aligning, by a few percentage points, with Democrats over Republicans. It’s not much, but it’s enough that trend forecasters are taking notice. Millennials, now aging, have seen the collapse of a financial system (multiple times), wars, historic elections, girl power to #MeToo to trad wife, the crime bill to racial reckoning to ICE deportations, same-sex marriage to trans healthcare bans.
In her book of essays I Want to Burn This Place Down, Maris Kreizman writes in a chapter titled “Neoliberalism and me” about going to see Bill Clinton speak in 1992 and believing so fully in the dream of neoliberalism. Believing that if she worked hard and and played by the rules, she too could be part of the American dream.
The opening is funny in the same way that reading a character in a novel write about how excited they are to take a trip on the Titanic is funny. The reader knows what’s coming. One big sad trombone doing the “whomp whomp” of history. Kreizman takes us from the hope of Clinton to the scandal to the 2000 financial collapse to the Brett Kavanaugh hearings. And then again to Clinton. Kreizman writes about how, when she decried Kavanaugh’s alleged behavior to Christine Blasey Ford, the online hordes pushed back and said, “Well, if you condemn Kavanaugh, you must also condemn Bill Clinton.”
Good. Done. “Sounds good to me,” Kreizman replies. If, upon consideration, those institutions we believed in failed us — if they were part of our oppression when we thought they were our liberation — then, fine, burn them to the ground.
Kreizman’s book is part of a cohort of books from Gen X and older millennial women rethinking ambition, the American Dream, and the promises we were raised with.
A generation of women raised on girl power who saw Hillary Clinton concuss herself on the glass ceiling, and Kamala Harris too, and all of us thinking, “Okay, now what?”
In this space are Jennifer Romolini’s Ambition Monster, The Myth of Making It by Samhita Mukhopadhyay, and Glynnis MacNicol’s I’m Mostly Here to Enjoy Myself. Each a story of a woman pushing against the narrative of girl bosses and ambition and confronting the emptiness of the neoliberal dream.
Other books in this genre come at it slantwise. Sophie Gilbert’s Girl on Girl is a cultural examination of the world in which millennial and Gen X women grew up, charting both the rise of the girl boss and the emptiness and the frustration of clawing to the top. Because if you get there, you haven’t changed the world much; just played by rules never made for you in the first place. So what then?
It’s a conversation my friends and I are all having. When is enough enough? How do we be happy? Where does our ambition go when the world has made it impossible to have it all? Do we keep trying? Do we try something new? A whole generation of Paris Gellers crashing out, we tried to do everything right and still didn’t get where we thought we’d go. Not through lack of hard work or talent, but because these institutions were not designed for our life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness.
For Kreizman, the dream wasn’t complicated. Just a middle-class career in publishing, health insurance, and making books she could believe in. Then came the endless rounds of layoffs, the shitty pay, the revelation that the game is stacked in favor of those who already have money. But Kreizman doesn’t write about quitting in the same way as other cultural conversations around women and ambition.
She’s not saying, “The deck is stacked, so go be a trad wife.” None of the writers in this genre are. But there is a cultural push for that narrative. It’s present on social media and TikTok, in the insistence of princess treatment, the soft girl life, and, of course, the trad wife. Instead, Kreizman talks about agitating for change, unionizing, and demanding better wages.
Each of the essays in the book contends with an aspect of social, political and/or cultural change that Kreizman had to face and rethink, from insulin (Kreizman is diabetic) to the police (her twin brothers are cops), to kids (Kreizman and her husband, Josh Gondelman, are child-free).
I spoke with Kreizman before writing this essay, and I asked her how her ambition has changed as she aged. She told me she no longer has big ambitions for herself, but her ambition hasn’t gotten smaller; it’s gotten more encompassing. Now, she said, “I am ambitious for my community. My ambition is that I don’t want to see people die from a lack of insulin.”
It’s a reframing of ambition that is subtle and big-hearted, moving from the American dream of individual prosperity toward community survival.
Kreizman told me she was worried the book would be seen as “too angry.” The book seethes with a gentle anger, but it’s an anger built out of love, the tired kind of anger that wants everyone to be happy, to live, to experience a socialist revolution.
I asked Kreizman, a New Yorker, what she hopes her book brings to this hot political summer. And she said, “The best thing about having this book come out right this second, right now, is I look at my city, and last week, so many of us decided that the old ways weren't working. The Chuck Schumers of the world and the Democratic Party, as it stands right now, are just putting stuff out on social media and doing nothing. And that is not what most people want.”
“I see Zohran Mamdani capture so much of the imagination of people in my city,” Kreizman continued, “because he calls for change, but does it joyfully. And it's the best message to come out of that election. And what I want for this book.”
Now that’s ambition: to keep pushing for systemic change, despite all we’ve seen and witnessed, and to do with a smile — or, at least, with an endless capacity for joy.
So much has happened this week. Obviously my big news was a visit to the Umbrella Cover Museum on Peaks Island off the coast of Portland, Maine. The museum, run and curated by Nancy 3. Hoffman, is full of those little tubular pouches that sheath your umbrellas before you lose them or throw them out. Nancy has written a theme song for the museum, and her collection has surpassed 2,500 umbrella covers (although only about 630 are currently on display). The collection comprises umbrella covers from 76 countries (the hand-written sign was forcibly altered from “75” in the way Bart Simpson might change a F grade to an A grade), and Hoffman says the mission statement of the museum is to celebrate the joy of the mundane.
Ciao, ‘brella!
Unsurprisingly, the Umbrella Cover Museum is the Guinness record holder for largest collection of umbrella covers. The existence of this establishment is a true testament to what is possible when one person has a unique vision and lives in a place where real estate isn’t $75,000,000/square foot.
I was in Portland, one of my favorite cities, for a Wait Wait…Don’t Tell Me!recording at the Merrill Auditorium. I got a great lobster roll from Highroller and a fascinating donut (bacon and cheddar) from Holy Donut while I was in town. The show itself was a blast, as always! I was on the panel with my good pal Karen Chee as well as the Wait Wait legend Paula Poundstone. Portland native Anna Kendrick was the celebrity guest, and she was extraordinarily gracious and charming on and off stage. I also had the great privilege of watching Anna Kendrick trying to help Paula Poundstone figure out where she (Paula) knew her (Anna) from. It took roughly a half hour and several outside consultations, but the answer was Twilight. Thanks to the Wait Wait team for having me along. Can’t wait to be back in Maine in August for Guster’s festival.
ALSO! My standup special is out NOW! The YouTube premiere on Friday night was super fun. The chat was really silly and lively. I’m so glad this hour is out in the world now and that people are enjoying it. It would mean a lot to me if you (readers) would give it a shot. And if you like it, please spread the word!
Here’s a Bluesky post I made that you can share. And here are acouple of clips on Instagram if you want to spread the word that way. Word of mouth of course works even when it’s not on social media! And while we’re here: If any of you host a popular tv show or podcast or write a big time newsletter, hey…why not tell your audience to enjoy my jokes?
I even got to go on CBS Mornings which was a surprise and a thrill! Thanks to Blonde Medicine’s publicist Kathryn for making it happen! Gayle King came to my dressing room in the middle of the taping and asked me a bunch of questions about myself and my special (including “What made you think you could be a comedian?” which I laughed out loud at despite knowing what she meant). Then as she was heading back to set she said: “We’re having a great show…don’t fuck it up!” And then cheerfully: “Just be yourself!” Which I tried to do. But did I? You be the judge!
But now it’s MARIS WEEK in our household! Maris’s book (which is so good!!!) comes out THIS TUESDAY!!!! She’s doing a big launch event at the Brooklyn Heights Library with Emma Straub on Tuesday night! On Wednesday I’ll be interviewing her at the Harvard Book Store in Cambridge, MA!!! It’s Maris time, baby!!!! I’ll also be hanging out at her Los Angeles event at Skylight Books on 7/7! Let’s burn [these places] down!!!
SOME NEW TOUR DATES
I’ve had this on my schedule for a bit but hadn’t said much about it: I’ll be headlining a show for the Borscht Belt Comedy Festival up in the Catskills on July 26th!
Then on August 1st and 2nd I’m going to be back in Toronto headlining four shows at Comedy Bar! (Currently unclear on which venue it will be but more details and ticket info soon!
PEP TALK FOR NEW YORK CITY-PHOBES
Who will be brave enough to save NYC from the guy most voters think should be the mayor? An important question if you’re dumb as dirt!
Look, you absolute losers and cowards: I know you’re feeling bad because your preferred candidate Andrew Cuomo failed to triumph in the Democratic primary in the mayoral election. Who can say why that happened? Was it because he’s an accused sex pest who is accused of underreporting thousands of COVID deaths in nursing homes and who resigned from the state’s governorship only four years ago? Was its because people don’t actually like him that much and his poll numbers started dropping as soon as he actually began campaigning and the public was reminded of his bad personality and ideas? Was it because a charismatic and energetic candidate decided not to appeal primarily to Democratic voters who secretly just want to vote for a Republican with a (D) next to his name? Was it all of the above? Who can say?
What I can say is that you are going to be fine. I know the Post (the reliably right wing New York one, not the increasingly right wing Washington one) has threatened a “cop exodus” if Zohran wins the general election this November. Do you not realize there’s a cop exodus every day when the NYPD officers go back to Long Island where they live? Do they think that a mayor could or would arm the city’s criminals with armor-piercing bullets made of pure socialism? And also like…why would the police leave New York because someone they don’t like is elected mayor? I hate our current mayor as much as he hates unhoused people and being told he’s not allowed to accept bribes from other countries. It didn’t even occur to me to leave the city because of that. If everyone left a city every time they hated the mayor, the entire country would be a 3.8 million square mile game of musical chairs.
Are you afraid you might have to pay slightly more in taxes? Or that other people might not have to pay for the bus or that people in rent stabilized apartments may not get priced out of the city? Just real quick: Those aren’t real fears. Everyone saying that they’re terrified New York is going to become the former Soviet Union because a mayoral candidate advocating that the city open grocery stores in food deserts is essentially announcing: “I just shit my pants so hard it went up my back and I REFUSE to take a shower, and it IS someone else’s fault!”
I have a shred more understanding for people who are like: “How does this guy feel about Jews?” Not because of anything Candidate Mamdani has said, but because bigots (both avowed and unknowing…whoopsie, Senator Gillibrand) have launched wildly racist and Islamophobic smears at him over and over to the point where if you didn’t know better you might be like…hey…is there a problem here? In the same way that if you watched the news and every day someone asked whether Andrew Garfield had eaten a human baby for dinner the previous night, you might start to question what’s in that particular Garfield’s lasagna recipe.
So…is there a problem? Yes! The problem is Islamophobia and racism. Antisemitism exists! In fact to find it you only have to look as far as THE CURRENT MAYOR WHO RECENTLY HUNG OUT WITH AN ON-THE-RECORD JEW HATER AT GRACIE MANSION. And you’re worried about a guy who literally attended my friends’ Passover seder?
It’s not antisemitic to say: “I believe Israel has the right to exist as a state with equal rights.” Or to insist that you will stand up for the liberty and dignity of all of your constituents. A rigorous interest in human rights is a good quality in a mayor. And if you don’t like his opinions on Israel, you can sleep soundly knowing that he is not running for mayor of that place.
As a brief moment of total sincerity, I found Comptroller Brad Lander’s comments about Jews and Muslims showing solidarity for one another to be immensely moving. I always reserve the right to criticize a politician the moment I am annoyed with them, but this is the kind of talk more politicians would talk even when they aren’t walking the walk of getting detained by ICE.
We are on track to have a mayor who speaks up for immigrants and refugees and trans people, for Muslims and for Jews. Zohran is also the only mayoral candidate in New York City history to follow me on Instagram, but that’s much less relevant. The only people who stand to be demonstrably less safe in a Mamdani administration are a few Benjamin Franklins in the wallets of a few very rich people. I’d rather those guys get kidnapped than random Latino folks just going about their days, which is happening all over the country. And I like the idea of a mayor who tells the guys with Oakleys, face gaiters, and Punisher tattoos to knock it off. (I feel that way about ICE agents specifically, but also about any guy with that vibe.)
And it’s not like Zohran ran on guillotining every billionaire in New York. And even then, only like fifty people would have anything to worry about, but I’d get it.
(Note: Many other people including my buddy have written about the goobers who are afraid that New York City subway trains will shoot them with guns somehow, but I wanted to also. I just have to wait until Monday!)
PEP TALK FOR A TWO READERS
I paired these two requests for obvious reasons.
I'm still looking for a job after 3 months. Having to apply to positions via the internet only has been excruciating. Pep is preferred.
I'm heading into my 6th month of unemployment and I can feel myself getting overwhelmed by self-doubt!
- Well Well Well If It Isn’t the No-Job Brothers
Having a job can be satisfying, especially when you’re doing work you believe in or get to be a part of a collaborative team. But it can also be boring, demoralizing, exhausting, dangerous, humiliating etc. to work for a living wage. You don’t always know what you’re going to get. It’s a real continental breakfast fruit salad situation.
Looking for a job, however, is pretty uniformly annoying. Either you’re up for a dream gig, and your entire emotional wellbeing hinges on getting it (what? is that not how everyone feels?), or you’re applying for some whatever position that you have to pretend is your reason for living. (“Where do I see myself in five years? Ideally I will have won the lottery so I can afford to keep working for you for free because I care about this company so much!”) I guess there’s a middle ground too that’s like: “Sure! I can see myself here for a while even though I’d rather be hanging out by a pool reading a book.” But even then, person who interviewed you might slight you by hiring someone else. What the hell? You don’t even know that person, and they’re not going to use any of their salary to buy you groceries. Rude!
Job search stress has come up a few times in the two and a half years I’ve been writing this newsletter. In part it’s one of those regular occurrences that’s never a pleasure. It’s like moving into a new apartment or telling a child that Santa Claus isn’t real (and even if the second thing is fun, you can’t show it, you sicko). It’s just kind of a thing that you have to do until you’re on the other side of it.
You are not bad for feeling bad that it’s taken months to find a new job. You’re in a vortex of some of the most frustrating experiences of being alive: Not getting what you want, not making money, people rejecting you from a thing you were lukewarm on in the first place, engaging with LinkedIn. You are not deficient for failing to cultivate a #grindset and centering your life on waking up at 4am to dunk your face in a bowl of cold water and make a video of you doing 600 pushups before sunrise. It is you who is normal. Not the person who becomes a job-getting influencer on a website for human Dockers.
Sometimes people say job searching is like dating, but it’s NOT like dating, because dating can be fun even when it doesn’t result in anything long-term. No one has ever had one great interview for a job in a city they’re visiting for a weekend and felt great never talking to that interviewer again. And often the payoff for things breaking right is…fine. It’s…some job. It’s like if instead of tantric sex, Sting just rubbed a rice cake on his face for six hours and then ate it.
This whole process is annoying to participate in and discouraging to experience setbacks at. But while you’re in the midst of it, you still get to participate in the whole rest of your life. You can celebrate birthdays and bake cookies and watch the sun set and text your friends screenshots of your most embarrassing acquaintance’s Instagram stories. You can pet a dog and catch a frisbee and fill in the gaps with the Coen Brothers movies you haven’t seen yet. A job search is a bummer. A prolonged job search is an enduring bummer. But it’s not your whole thing. You are not Rick Ross. You do not have to hustle every day. Some days you can send three emails and then learn to paint from a YouTube video. After all, nobody’s paying you not to.
PICK-ME-UP SONG OF THE WEEK: Laura Stevenson - “#1”
Laura Stevenson’s new record Late Great came out on Friday, and it’s just so damn good. The subject matter is heavy, but the beauty of the lyrics and the melodies is what really overwhelms you. Longtime That’s Marvelous readers know that ***lawn sign voice*** in this newsletter we believe Laura Stevenson is one of the best songwriters and songperformers on earth. I probably listened to this song five times just on my way home from Portland. It’s expansive and stirring without quite being baroque (although there are STRINGS). I ordered a vinyl copy of the album (which I try to do as support for artists I really like even when I am “between turntables” as I am now), and I also ordered the Laura Stevenson chip clip, because that’s extremely funny merch to sell and honestly I could use a chip clip.
Go see Laura on tour this fall. I got tickets for her New York show even though it is technically during Rosh Hashanah. I don’t know why I said technically, it’s just during Rosh Hashanah, so I should be home…reflecting? But I don’t know! I think hearing this record live will start the new year off right for me.
UPCOMING SHOWS
I’m out and about in NYC a whole bunch coming up, plus a few shows on the road!
7/2: In Conversation w/ Maris Kreizman at the Harvard Bookstore (Cambridge, MA)
7/12: Bushwick Comedy Club
7/14: Regular Thing at Crystal Lake (Brooklyn)
7/17: Emmy’s East Village (NYC)
7/21: Hosting Frankenstein’s Baby at Union Hall (Brooklyn)
I am in Wisconsin this weekend for a little summer break. I call Wisconsin the Spain of the Midwest because we all go here for cheap booze, cheap vacations, and access to the water. Spain and Wisconsin also both have a lot of Catholics, cheese, and ham, and both places like to dabble in fascism.
Normally, I have some thoughts or a little essay before the links, but right now I have no thoughts.
I will, however, remind you that I am running a hot socialist summer sale! And if you’ve been meaning to subscribe for these elite links harvested from the internet and brought to you by me and my assistant editor, Isabella, then today is your day.
It’s officially a hot socialist summer. And to celebrate, I am going to be running a sale! Twenty percent off yearlong subscriptions to the newsletter. See, socialism can help the economy!
I normally only do sales in October, on the anniversary of the newsletter. But it’s hot as hell and we are all out here in the struggle. If you want to support a fiercely independent feminist voice — one that makes men so mad they email me to say things like “Be nicer to Matt Yglesias!”1 — well, you know what to do.
It is the year 2025, and New York City has fallen into the hands of a mob of socialists who have a terrifying and disgusting agenda.
Led by Zohran Mamdani, a bearded man with roguish charm, and my god, that dimple— but no, stay focused on the horrors. They want you to see the dimple and nothing else. That is how the socialists win. We must stay vigilant.
Because, you see, led by Mamdani, the evil socialists want to do unspeakable horrors, like raise the minimum wage, make rent affordable, provide childcare and help new parents. Mamdani plans to round up all the gays… and give them a little kiss on the forehead.
It makes me sick to my stomach.
What’s next? Free public transit?!
You know what could happen when you make buses free? Poor people might have an easier time getting to their jobs, and then, GLOBAL THERMONUCLEAR WAR?!
Wake up, sheeple!
Can’t you see how bad this is? It’s so bad the hedge fund boys be crying. See, the rich boys, they cry. You are laughing, and the rich boys cry! Is this all just a game to you? Have you stopped once to think, what if this is the final straw and they all leave en masse and then NYC suddenly becomes a lot more affordable, and that one insufferable bar stops serving $45 tater tot poutine with a side of artisanal ketchup as an ironic send-up of American culture and $30 old-fashioneds because the cruelty-free cherries were grown with a land acknowledgement? WHAT THEN?
Have you taken even one moment to ask yourself, what happens if all those guys leave, and then, when you open Tinder in Murray Hill, no one is there to explain stock options to you? No. Of course not, because you weren’t thinking about anything except the dimple and a future for America not entirely ruled by corruption and greed. You stupid, stupid socialist sluts.
Like if we let a Democrat run on the actual platform of the Democratic party, what do we do with all the politicians with the moral compass of RFK’s brainworm who are out here saying, “Wait, maybe Charlie Kirk has a point and women are bad?” or “What if we don’t do rights for everyone?” Are we going to toss them into the dustbin of history? WHAT ABOUT MALE LONELINESS?!
Yes, nothing says “We are the good guys!” like backing the guy who allegedly gave kickbacks to Turkish officials because you’re so afraid a guy with a beard might hold you accountable for your greed and encourage you to support your neighbors.
I mean, a 33-year-old man talking about kindness, loving your neighbor, helping the poor!? We must get him out of here. Call Pontius Pilate! He’ll know what to do.
For now, Mamdani is the presumptive Democratic mayoral nominee. And as the NYC mayoral campaigns kick into gear, it’s going to be a long, hot, socialist summer.
A horrible, terrible, no-good, very bad summer when people will be encouraged to think about revolting things like how to make the world a better place. I can’t stand it!
Because you definitely know you are on the right side of history when you back the guy who was charged with corruption, but those charges were dismissed because another guy who was charged with corruption is the president and wants you to stay mayor so he can violate the Constitution and deport immigrants with no due process.
Last weekend, I went to visit my dearest friends in Minneapolis and say goodbye to my friend Anna, who is moving. You don’t know this, but frequently Anna and Kate punch up my jokes in the weekly dingus. (I pay them back by buying dinner when I see them.) And if you read This American Ex-Wife, Anna is the wise friend whose insights punctuate the book. She’s also a brilliant academic whose research and insight often deepens my own work.
I feel so lucky to have had friends for 24 years. I hope to have them for so many, many more years.
So, to toast friendship. I think we should all make Amaro spritzes. I made this drink last week and it was delicious.
Yes, this is a real email I received this week. The logic was that he went to Harvard and he’s just trying to help and I, a stupid woman who needs correction, should be nicer. And my only response is LMAO now I’m gonna get meaner.
After attacking Iran, Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told Iranian media that he was doing it to free the people of the country, specifically the women. He stated, “They’ve impoverished you. They’ve given you misery. They’ve given you death. They’ve given you terror... I mean, this is an outrageous radical fanatic regime, and the time has come to defang them.”
Elon Musk, a pronatalist who believes that the biggest threat to civilization is population decline, oversaw cuts to (among many other things) USAID, which has already resulted in deaths, including those of children. He’s trying to get people in the US to have more children, even as he is responsible for the deaths of many abroad.
I don’t think it’s just cynical messaging. These are men who truly see the lives of only some women and some children as worthy. Those lives are both the human cost of their violent missions and the justification for them.
It’s been three years since the Dobbs decision eliminated the nationwide right to abortion.
In the wake of Dobbs, more people in America are pro-abortion than before, with a notable exception: men.
Since 2022, fewer men identify as pro-choice — a seven-point dip from 48% to 41%. According to a recent Gallup poll, “There is now a record-high 17-point gap between women (57%) and men (40%) in their belief that abortion is morally acceptable and a record-high 15-point gap in women’s (56%) and men’s (41%) support for abortion being legal in all or most circumstances.”
He pushed back asserting that in the time of Trump, when there are wars and people storming the Capitol, we had to be focused. As if my participation in public life was of no consequence to the project of democracy.
This shift represents a difference not just on policy, but on who sees women as individual human beings, with choice, independence and the right to make their own health care decisions. It seems, in fact, that not all lives matter.
People on the left often debate how to finesse messaging to bring men aboard. They worry about how Democrats are “losing men.” So we have to worry about the tone of our voice as we beg for our lives. Recently, a man emailed me to say he supported women’s rights, but he didn’t like my tone and maybe I should consider that women would be better off if we were nicer.
This is the same logic that is extended to policing people over their race and nationality. If you must protest, be respectful. Ask for your rights, but be polite, and work hard.
Sorry, no: The very definition of inalienable rights is that they belong to me regardless of how little I work or how much I scowl and call people dinguses.
I joined the board of the Iowa Abortion Access Fund after the Dobbs decision because I wanted to channel my rage and despair into making my state a better place. The IAAF raises money to give to clinics and patients to help cover the cost of abortion. I may not be able to fix American democracy, but I can make sure that at least 700 people a month have the money to pay for their abortions. I can help them access choice. And that is the foundation of democracy if anything is.
I was at a recent event for the IAAF when a man told me that it was hard for him and other men to support a cause that didn’t affect them. I balked. Was he not human? Did he not have people in his life who he cared about? “Sir, don’t you have sex with women?” I asked. “Aren’t you a human being?”
He pushed back, asserting that in the time of Trump, when there are wars and people storming the Capitol, we had to be focused. As if my participation in public life was of no consequence to the project of democracy.
Our individual rights are the foundations of democracy. Writing in Who’s Afraid of Gender? Judith Butler observed, “Stripping people of rights in the name of morality or the nation or a patriarchal wet dream belongs to the broader logic amplified by authoritarian nationalism.”
Sorry, no: The very definition of inalienable rights is that they belong to me regardless of how little I work or how much I scowl and call people dinguses.
Don’t tell me you are fighting for one part of democracy while ignoring the others.
Recently, , whose newsletter is a necessary and often excruciating accounting of the impact Dobbs has on our country, wrote that she thought about pausing the newsletter in the middle of the war and societal upheaval. She notes, “But then I thought about everything we’ve built over the last three years—the daily ritual of refusing despair, concession, or silence. The hopeful habit of working for change, even when that future feels impossible. That’s not something I’m willing to forgo—especially on days like the ones we’ve had recently.”
War and invasions don’t protect women. And our rights are not a distraction from the bigger issues. Democracy, like hope, is a practice that relies on the foundational belief that all people deserve rights. That all women matter, not just the ones that fit our definition of who and what we want them to be.
I’ve been talking more than usual lately, which to people who have known me for a long time may seem impossible. I’ve been doing my usual standup shows, singing songs to my dog, and socializing, of course. Then there’s my new gig co-hosting Pillow Talk, a nightly talk show for the Hatch+ app that’s designed for people to fall asleep to. It’s been a fun project figuring out how to have conversations that are legitimately funny and compelling, but also tonally geared towards the listeners not staying awake until the end. The producers have a very clear vision for the show, which has been enormously helpful! I’ve really enjoyed getting to know my co-hosts (Kristen, KP, Jacquis, Matt, and Sophia) better through chatting on mic with them.
Let us put you to sleep (in a chill way not a medical way).
And here’s a little clip of me talking from my new standup special Positive Reinforcement which premieres on Friday!!! This is the first footage we’ve shared, and I am really psyched that it’s out in the world now! (It’s also on Bluesky and TikTok if those platforms are more your speed.) Again, we made this special without the backing of a big platform, and anything you can do to spread the word (sharing a post, talking about it in your own newsletter, spray painting POSITIVE REINFORCEMENT on an underpass) is much appreciated.
The full special premieres Friday night on Blonde Medicine’s YouTube channel at 8pm eastern time. I’ll be in the chat watching along and maybe giving some pep talks there too. I think it’s fun to treat it like appointment viewing. CLICK HERE for a reminder to watch the special when it’s available!
Last week I recorded a couple of episodes of the aforementioned Pillow Talk, plus two interviews with Boston-based media outlets, plus three other podcasts. On top of that, I sat down with Jeff Foxworthy (well, over Zoom, but we were both sitting) to talk about standup for his SiriusXM show. Several friends had mentioned to me beforehand that Jeff is an extraordinarily warm and gracious person, and even with that preamble, I was blown away by his kindness and enthusiasm as an interviewer. The hour we spent together flew by, and I got to tell Jeff how influential his comedy was for me as a kid.
When I was maybe ten years old, my dad got a subscription to the BMG Music Group, a thing that will make no sense to anyone ten years younger than me. Basically, if you’ve never heard of this organization (or if like me you’re old enough that it’s a dim twilight memory), BMG advertised something like twelve CDs or cassettes of your choosing for a penny (plus a usurious amount of shipping and handling, if memory serves) and then they’d mail you just…some other album once a month until you told them to knock it off.
My dad let me make a few selections of my own and let me choose a few albums as well, and because I didn’t have a ton of access to comedy specials back then, I picked Ellen Degeneres’s Taste This, Bill Cosby’s Greatest Hits (at my dad’s suggestion), and Jeff Foxworthy’s You Might Be a Redneck If… to receive in the mail. I think my parents’ guidelines were that they the albums had to be clean and could not have been made by someone who was known at the time as one of America’s most reviled sex criminals. (The second part was more of an unspoken thing.)
So, Jeff Foxworthy imprinted early on my kid brain as One Of The People Who Are Comedians. (It was those three, plus Adam Sandler, George Carlin, Monty Python, and probably Chris Farley.) Last week, he took my compliment graciously and told me a great story about how when he was still working a day job, Steven Wright was the person who told him he should do standup full-time. I’m not a big “signs from the universe” guy but wow what a sign from the universe that must have felt like. (I guess “Here’s your sign…” is more of a Bill Engvall thing, but still!)
The interview will air a few more times on SiriusXM, and then I think it’ll stay available on their app. My parents listened to it and thought it was very nice, if that makes a difference to you.
I’m a little self-conscious about saying the same things in interviews over and over, but I have tried to assure myself that almost no one (except for the aforementioned parents and maybe my in-laws) will read or listen to all these interviews I’m doing. That said, if you do want to hear me talk, you’ll have nearly-unlimited opportunities to do that in the near future. This week alone I’ll be back on Wait Wait…Don’t Tell Me, and appearing on CBS Mornings (8-10am Wednesday) and The Weekend: Primetime on MSNBC (Saturday evening) assuming that I’m not bumped by some horrendous and unexpected news, which is certainly possible.
In terms of talking I did a little while ago that’s available for you to hear now: This week I returned to the All Fantasy Everything podcast to draft Jobs That No Longer Exist. Thanks to the guys for having me back so quickly! And thanks to their fans for being so nice about my appearances on the show! I have the BEST time riffing with Ian, David, and Sean! (Video version below!)
And I appeared on the Cancel Me, Daddy podcast to talk about the time AI thought ("thought”) I was married to Fiona Apple (a familiar story to newsletter readers). Also a blast! (Video below!)
I’m also starting to book some tour dates for the fall which is exciting if you want to hear me talk in person. (There will be lots of new jokes that do NOT appear in this special, but maybe not QUITE a whole new set of them yet. It’s getting there though!)
Also real quick for New York City residents who haven’t voted early in the Democratic primaries, I wanted to put in another quick plug for ranking Brad Lander and Zohran Mamdani #1 and #2 on your ballot in some order and NOT ranking Andrew Cuomo anywhere. (My ballot will likely be rounded out by Adrienne Adams, Zellnor Myrie, and Michael Blake.)
I really try not to be a mark for any politician saying the things I want to hear, but I appreciate the way Lander and Mamdani have geared their campaigns towards talking about how life can be better and safer and healthier for all New Yorkers. Cuomo mostly seems to be pitching himself as the city’s mean dad. The above video of Lander talking about solidarity between Jews and Muslims (during a week when he was detained by ICE for advocating for the rights of a migrant living in NYC) really hit me. I always love to see examples of Jews standing in solidarity with other groups who need it! (Fix your heart, Debra Messing!!!)
Okay that’s enough of that. Let’s keep it moving…
PEP TALK FOR ANYONE TOO YOUNG TO REMEMBER 9/11
“A second generation of forever wars has hit the Middle East, sir.”
This really sucks shit, huh? Here we are, nearly twenty-four years after the September 11th attacks and twenty-two years after that tragedy was used as a pretense to invade an unrelated country. Over the weekend, the U.S. bombed Iran based on…I don’t know…smoking that last bit of 9/11 resin at the bottom of the bowl?
Ostensibly, Donald Trump ordered the strikes on Iran’s nuclear sites for the sake of preventing the country from developing atomic weapons, which I’m sure Iran will take in stride. Historically, when one country bombs another, the bombee usually throws up their hands and says: “Welp! You got us!” No further conflict necessary. And certainly those strikes hit exactly the kinds of targets we were told they did with no other damage done. No one would ever lie about Weapons of Mass Destruction!!!
Wait, to use a pre-2001 idiom: “NOT!” This is a scary and arguably unconstitutional escalation of military force that will likely be met with retaliation. No good will come of it, and lots of bad might! Unless you are wildly racist and don’t think of people from other countries as fully human (lots of folks, apparently) or you own a missile-making kiosk that has a DoD contract (way fewer people) there is nothing in this for you. Rolling Stone has already reported that the bombings were carried out more on vibes than on military intelligence, and it’s exciting to know that the U.S. government’s policy is to blow up buildings across the world for the same reason one might get bangs or move a couch to the other corner of the living room.
If you are too young to remember the invasion of Iraq, it was also extraordinarily stupid and evil. ( got into exactly how stupid it was in a recent newsletter, which is well worth your reading.) The Bush administration spent over a year tricking people into thinking that war with Iraq was necessary and would be brief. Many were still not convinced. History has of course vindicated the skeptics.
I don’t think it’s a coincidence that the Trump administration has dispensed with the work of manufacturing consent (another manufacturing sector he’s failed to bring back to U.S. soil smdh). There was barely a hint of pre-bombing foreplay. If Noam Chomsky were to write a book about the run up to this military action, it would be called Are You Even Going To Spit On It, Dude? (sorry, mom). The post facto justifications have started emerging from both the Trump administration itself and from especially gutless media members. They are going to try to make you feel insane for opposing the slaughter of people halfway around the world. You don’t have to let them. We are (with great respect to The Chicks and their outspokenness) not letting people go out like The Chicks this time (by that I mean we’re not going to let people get pushed out of public life for being right and reasonable). Millions opposed the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, but those wars had a head start on the public because Americans were sad and scared, and the ghouls around George W. Bush did the legwork of frothing those who could be frothed into a frenzy of “freedom.” That’s not the case now, and we should keep that in mind.
We don’t have to let this shit happen quietly, and we certainly don’t have to pretend (or be convinced) that a new war is a good thing. You can feel firm in your instincts and moral courage knowing that a sundowning real estate tycoon with six cockroaches for braincells is not actually a liberator or a tough-but-fair decision maker. His domestic policy is so ruthless that two weeks ago I had the passing thought: “Maybe things we’ll get so out of hand that we’ll get invaded by another country with with a better human rights record, and we’ll get universal healthcare out of it.” A completely deranged inkling, and one brought on by Stephen Miller, who it brings me no pleasure to declare my Wario.
The idea of war is terrifying. The reality of the violence it entails is stomach-turning, even in “victory” whatever that means here. The pep talk is that you don’t have to listen to anyone who says otherwise. You’re right and they’re wrong.
PEP TALK FOR A READER
This request gets right to the point so I left the text basically unaltered.
I have no motivation and no joy and am angry, anxious, sad and frustrated all the time. - Nopeamine
This is a tough situation. One one hand, the world is full of things to feel angry, anxious, sad, and frustrated about. We’ve hit a true “if you’re not mad, you’re not paying attention” era.
But, to contradict myself immediately, there are so many other places you can land on the paying attention vs. emotional state spectrum. For example, some people are paying attention and happy. Those people have bad opinions and raw sewage where their hearts should be, but they exist! Conversely, many people are paying attention and feeling hopeful because they’re doing their best to change the status quo. Other people are paying attention but they just shared an ice cream cone with a loved one while looking at a sunset so let them have five minutes of joy before they go back to feeling despairing or resolute or befuddled or furious or whatever their resting state may be.
Also, many people are NOT paying attention and are still mad. Worst of both worlds if you ask me. If you don’t have any idea what’s going on in the world, you should at least have the decency to feel psyched about it.
Diversity of one’s specific emotional response to the situation aside, now more than ever we are aware of the numerous and relentless reasons to feel bad. No need to catalog them for you. I am not the news. Chances are you don’t come here to learn about ongoing horrors. You come here for a reprieve from them, which we all need and deserve. Asking someone how they can go to the movies or have a birthday party at a time like this is a little like asking: “How can you eat that donut when kale exists?” Maybe I had kale earlier, okay? Or maybe I’ll have some later! I know about vitamins already!!!
Anger, anxiety, sadness, frustration…that’s the easy part to reckon with. Easier, at least, in that I can’t imagine a person not feeling that way at least a little bit sometimes. The heavier part to navigate is the total lack of joy and motivation. That part’s a real problem, and it makes me worry that I’m out of my depth here. Sometimes feeling bad, that’s life. Never feeling good is a hard way to live.
I don’t know what your current regimen for mental healthcare is, whether it’s yoga and an SSRI or simply carbs and prayers. But whatever it is, I bet it could be fortified further. I don’t say this out of judgement or as a diagnosis. I am so stupid and am woefully unqualified for most jobs, never mind doctor. I don’t know what services you’ve tried or that you even have access too. But I do know that as an outsider, it sounds like you could use a little more care if that’s possible to find.
This may sound like a dull and basic thing to say, but I offer it in hopes of countering the popular sentiment that it’s wise or virtuous to allow the bleakness to seep into all the crevasses of your brain, submerging your thoughts in thick grey sludge. Is it unavoidable to feel some stress? Of course. But disallowing opportunities for joy (or surrendering to the inevitability of anhedonia) doesn’t do you any favors either. I’m not suggesting a bootstraps approach to mental health (“just stop thinking the sad thoughts”); I’m just suggesting that pursuing whatever services are within your grasp is a beautiful gift to give yourself.
And maybe it has felt like circumstances are hopeless or that feeling bad all the time (the Reverse Kramer) is unavoidable or even somehow right. But there is more out there for you, and you are worth marshaling as much effort as you can towards finding it. At the very least, maybe you’ll find some stuff that’s worth paying attention to and won’t exclusively make you mad.
PICK-ME-UP SONG OF THE WEEK: Defcee - “Lord Costanza the Third”
I learned about Defcee from a recent Hearing Things newsletter that shouted out his new album Other Blues. (Check out Hearing Things if you’re looking for great independent music coverage!) Other Blues is jazzy and meditative, perfect late night songs for driving around or taking the subway during the wee running-local hours. “Lord Costanza the Third” (from a previous album) is, admittedly, more of a novelty. But the quality of the rhymes, the deep cut Seinfeld references, and shimmering keys over staggering drums has kept it in my headphones all week. “Feast your eyes on the guy/Chicken salad on rye/Tell the truth ‘til it’s inconvenient then snap into a lie.” Come on, now. That’s a good time.
I also imagine I’m going to be listening to Ted Leo and the Pharmacists’ Iraq War-era ripper Shake the Sheets a lot coming up for reasons that we’ve already covered.
UPCOMING SHOWS
I’m out and about in NYC a whole bunch coming up, plus a few shows on the road!
6/25: Fighting Words at Caveat (Manhattan), Comedy Cellar (Manhattan)
Last week was the most “What a week.” week in quite some time. Maris and I tried to attend a protest on Saturday, but we showed up too early, and it was raining pretty steadily, so we went to get coffee and came back half an hour later to the Brooklyn protest site which was mostly a single gazebo and some overflow. It didn’t seem like they had permitting to use an amplifier, because we could not hear what the people twenty feet ahead of us were cheering for. It was slightly demoralizing to attend a protest that was overshadowed in intensity and attendance by the adjacent farmers’ market. An extremely nouveau Brooklyn folly. Honestly, I have no one to blame but myself. The protests across the country were historic, and I missed out on the feeling of history because I thought I could get it without taking the train into Manhattan.
Aside from that, I got to see my friend Megan Greenwell launch her new book about private equity (even hearing her talk about it made me want to punch that Wall Street bull statue in its big metal face). I enjoyed a great reading to benefit the Freya Project to benefit abortion access for people in Iowa. I saw James Acaster’s new work in progress show, which I loved. I brought my friend Robert who had never seen Acaster before and our minds were blown in very different ways! And hey while we’re here, how about a big shoutout to the Vox Media team for winning a new union contract and to my friend Helen Rosner for winning a James Beard Award for her profile of (person I know but whom I think it would be presumptuous to call a friend) Padma Lakshmi!
Most excitingly, I got to see my friend Erin Judge’s movie Queens of the Damned as part of the TriBeCa Film Festival. Erin is one of my oldest friends in comedy, and she was one of the first working comics to be nice and helpful to me. She’s so funny and smart, and she co-wrote this movie with Tina Romero (who also directed the film and whose father is George Romero). Sitting in a theater during Pride (capital P) and hearing the crowd go wild for this big gay drag queen zombie movie, I was so so so proud (lowercase p) of my friend’s accomplishment. QotD won the festival’s Audience Award, which makes total sense because it got so many big laughs and cheers in the theater. I was really overwhelmed with joy to get to experience it that way.
So many divas are down in this movie, you wouldn’t believe it.
I got to read an early version of the Queens of the Dead script, and it’s so cool seeing how it shaped up and came to life thanks to the hard work of Erin and Tina and their whole team. They made the film on a SUPER tight budget, and the cast is incredible. I feel so encouraged by the fact that this movie exists and was made by so many wonderful people working hard towards a common goal together.
Also, Happy Belated Fathers’ Day! My great friend (and great occasional editor) Gabriella Paiella tasked me with investigating why dads watch tv standing up for GQ, and it was a really fun project to dig into. Sadly, I didn’t give enough due to dads who are afraid of falling asleep if they sit down, but I did get a lot of fascinating answers. (The man pictured above is not my dad, he’s simply a dad.)
For those of you who are not Nebula subscribers (still not 100% sure what that is or where to become one) my Abolish Everything segment (I chose “Abolish Confidence” as my topic) is now available on YouTube. The show was SUCH a blast, and the whole team was a ton of fun to work with. I invite you to enjoy these few minutes of jokes and maybe share them with a friend if you have a nice time.
I look like I’m running for Congress in an even more dystopian dystopia than we’re currently living in.
If you would like to see me back on the show, you can vote for me to return on a special Season 2 episode by going here by June 30th. I’d like that very much!
And since there’s nowhere else that feels quite right to put this semi-announcement, the new podcast I’m co-hosting premieres tonight! I’m excited but I can’t say much more than that right now. More info next week though!
*banging my fists on the table* Maris! Maris! Maris! Maris!
And! Finally! Maris announced her book tour for I Want To Burn This Place Down last week! The book comes out on 7/1 (but you can preorder it now)! Maris’s essays are wonderful. She writes with such warmth and generosity while retaining the uncompromising force of her ideas. It’s a great read, especially for anyone who has become disillusioned with the things they were brought up to believe were the pillars of society (and especially especially in the 80s and 90s). I’m going to be interviewing Maris in Cambridge, MA on July 2nd, and I’ll also be at the Brooklyn, LA, and (probably) Catskill events. I hope to see you there! And I hope she sees you at the events I can’t be at! I’ll be kicking around LA for a few days doing podcasts and maybe standup as Maris continues on her tour. See you there, Los Angeles friends?!
(I’ve got to miss tonight’s Frankenstein’s Baby show at Union Hall in Brooklyn, but it’s a great lineup, and you should check it out if you can!)
PEP TALK FOR WEED BODEGAS
I always remember this business name being spelled with a Z, but it’s not!
The era of the weed bodega in New York City was brief but spectacular. If you don’t know what I’m talking about, here’s a quick bit of history: Recreational marijuana was legalized in New York State in 2021, but because of various regulations and goals, it took a couple of years for honest-to-goodness dispensaries to populate NYC storefronts. In the meantime, weed bodegas, dubiously legal marijuana-vending establishments popped up to semi-fill the void. (At their height, five or so of these spots sprung up within ten blocks of my apartment over six months.)
Because these establishments weren’t technically sanctioned by state law, they all felt like what a store would look like if a drug dealer kind of boldly set up a brick and mortar outpost, except without a weed guy’s usual sense of professionalism. They were all lightly sketchy and staffed by people who seemed to know very little about the product they sold while also giving off the impression that they used quite a bit of it. Often, they were unable to restock in-demand products entirely. (“What kind of gummys do you have?” “None.” “Okay.”) Every weed bodega was aesthetically heinous, as if they got their awnings and light fixtures exclusively as Spencer’s Gifts. They had names like “Papa Kapow” and “Zoot!!!” and were painted with what someone who had never been on a subway train would think was authentic graffiti. Many featured elements like Rick and Morty from Rick and Morty ripping a bong together, which is inappropriate because Morty is literally a child.
Forget the merits of marijuana vs. liquor, but you’d never see a liquor store with a cartoon of Homer Simpson getting drunk and choking the hell out of Bart. It’s a bad advertisement for the product. I’m not even a big weed guy. Last year around this time I failed at being a “two hits of a joint before bed instead of a cocktail” person, and I’m still trying to become an “occasional edible before bed” guy. I do think a little tin of weed candies is easier to bring as a party offering than a bottle of wine, depending on the party though. “No rambunctious cartoons!” is just good branding advice, imo!
Now the actual dispensaries are popping up with greater frequency, pushing you—weed bodegas—to the margins. After all, when people can go into a cozy store called like “Higher Altitude” or “The Kind Bar (No Relation To The Energy Bars)” or whatever, the brazen bootleggeries must be seeing the writing on the wall. The legit spots are much cozier. They have a classic Apple Store setup for purchases, and all their branding makes the stores seem from the outside like the kinds of places where you walk in and pay $125 for a clay spatula. It’s a much more soothing vibe.
To you, weed bodegas, I want to say thanks for doing the best you could with the tools at your disposal (namely, access to moderately large stores of medium quality weed and enough up front capital to rent out a small retail space from a landlord who doesn’t ask too many questions). You provided some of the reliability of a storefront with some of the convenience of “having a guy.” You’re in your twilight years now, as you’ve become basically convenience stores that only sell a few varieties of imported chips, Gatorade, and lighters. But your reign as New York City’s grey market will linger on in our memories. We will not forget you, Papa Kapow.
PEP TALK FOR A READER
I did a little light tweaking to the format and syntax of this request! That’s all!
Midlife career change to become a schoolteacher here. The masters program needed for a license starts next week. It’s my first time back in school in years; gotta get back in the rhythm. - School Dazed
As always, I’m extremely psyched whenever a request tees up a classic “you’ve got this” pep talk. And this week’s newsletter presents me with just such an occasion. Obviously, I appreciate when people have the confidence in me to write in from places of deep distress. I try to be as encouraging as possible in those situations. But this week’s letter is a layup. No, it’s an alley-oop that I can catch by jumping off a trampoline. And who wouldn’t like to dunk off a trampoline every once in a while?
Let’s go through the details:
You’re studying to become a schoolteacher, which is a generous and noble goal. So that’s a hell yeah just based on your intent right there. You are definitely not just doing this for the money or prestige; we notoriously underpay and undervalue teachers, and schools have become the focus of absolute maniacs looking to put their stamp on civic life by banning books and even individual words (the component parts of books). So let’s assume that you’re (in the parlance of The Bachelor and The Bachelorette) here for the right reasons.
You don’t appear worried about the (necessary, arduous) work of teaching itself. Just getting into a groove with your upcoming studies. Well, I’ve got some good news for you: You’ve already done school. And you liked it enough that you’re going back there to earn the permission to spend the next couple of decades in classrooms. So it seems like you’re not only an expert in the topic of school, but an enthusiast as well. Sounds like the best of both worlds (with no due respect to the Jay-Z and R. Kelly collaborative album by that title) to me.
Congratulations on this exciting new endeavor. You’re well set up to thrive, and the best part is that the more you invest in your career as an educator, the better it is for other people too. That’s not the same with all hard work. Marathon training, for one thing, functions very differently. Putting your heart and soul into it can be very rewarding for you and more of an annoyance to those around you. But a devoted teacher casts ripples throughout the future. (Being a bad teacher has a similar effect, but those ripples are resentments. SO BE WARNED! Kidding but…)
You’re working hard for your best future and for the best futures of so many people you haven’t even met yet. As I said above: You’ve got this. (Perhaps I could have stopped there, but as regular readers know, I rarely do.)
PICK-ME-UP SONG OF THE WEEK: Tennis Elbow - Love Me More*
Tennis Elbow is the witty and heartfelt music project of Ryan from the goofy and hilarious comedy music group (and That’s Marvelous favorite) Two Tree Hill. Part of TTH’s success comes from the fact that they’re excellent musicians and songwriters on top of being very funny. I loved hearing what that sounds like with a less direct imperative to make people laugh on Ryan’s newest EP Sum Summer Summest. “Love Me More*” (the * in the song title indicates *at all) is about all the concessions someone with no sense of boundaries or self might make to convince an uninterested party to love them back. It’s got kind of a “No One Else” by Weezer vibe (in that it’s lyrically toxic but also honest and catchy) which is fun. If you can’t relate to someone cheerfully/desperately vowing “my favorite song is your favorite song” were you ever really in your 20s?
UPCOMING SHOWS
I’m out and about in NYC a whole bunch coming up, plus a few shows on the road!
First of all, thanks for the kind reception to my update about the standup special! I’m so excited for you all to see it (starting at 8pm eastern time on June 27th, when I’ll be watching along in the chat for the premiere, click the link above for a reminder). I forgot to thank one crucial person, whose voice is the first one you hear: My friend Matt Braunger, one of he funniest guys in the whole world, who was in town when I was recording and graciously agreed to do warmup! He killed, and it was/is an honor to have him as part of this big project!
I’ve been a little extra busy the past couple of weeks with this new podcast hosting gig starting up, plus some freelance writing, plus lining up and doing promo for the special, and all my normal things. Also my sister visited New York City and we saw Oh, Mary on Broadway (it is still incredible; congratulations to the whole team on the Tony Awards they won last night). All that is to say I may finally succeed in being concise in this newsletter for once!
“Oh…Tony!!?!?!”
In less pleasant, and in fact truly heinous news, a good friend of mine who is an immigration lawyer was trying to be helpful to immigrants being detained by ICE in Los Angeles over the weekend. They asked me to share what they were seeing because it’s a truly horrible situation. I really believe that the people organizing to protect immigrants and refugees are doing heroic work. The cruelty of the U.S. government towards vulnerable people is despicable, and I am heartened by the courage of everyone fighting to counteract it. I know it is maybe contrary to the general ~vibe~ of a silly pep talk newsletter to get into this, but I think it’s important to both recognize when things are bad and appreciate (and support or join) the people who are working to make things better.
I feel like a real dumbass lately not knowing how to feel moment-to-moment when it’s like oh the Red Sox beat the Yankees and that felt nice for a minute but also fascists are tear gassing two-year-olds and we just have to walk around knowing that. Anybody else feeling off-kilter about all of this?
PEP TALK FOR HUMIDITY
You have a bad reputation, humidity. Even in comparison to heat, a thing people are 50/50 on at best. But the problem’s never the heat, we’re told. It’s you. You’re a scapegoat. It’s easy to blame you for things because you make life feel bad. You can turn a beautiful seventy-five degree day into an invisible but highly tactile swamp. Sometimes it doesn’t even feel like I’m sweating. It feels like I’m collecting ambient wetness from the atmosphere as I move through the world, and it clings to me like an ever-growing liquid katamari ball. You also create chaotic conditions for hair, or so I’ve heard from people with hair. This is your legacy.
That said, when we scorn humidity we let heat off the hook. No one has ever been sunburned by the dew point alone. It’s the (well, duh) sun. We need light, sure, but we need the moisture too. Without humidity plants don’t grow. I’ve spent time outside Phoenix. It is, meteorologically, miserable. Too dry a climate precludes life. Water has to get WAY too aggressive before it’s a major problem. That’s what I tell myself when a sheet of sweat sloughs off my forehead like rain pushed from the side of a car by windshield wipers.
Not everything good feels good. And no one is hurt when we complain about the humidity. Anti-humidity bias isn’t a meaningful prejudice, nor does it make any impact on the weather. These grips comprise a ready shorthand for discomfort of all kinds. So thank you, humidity, for giving us a locus for our distress. You are so important and I hate you so much.
PEP TALK FOR A READER
I just changed a little syntax here and added a nickname!
I’m going to live in Italy for two months, which is great obviously. I’ve been studying Italian for three years now. But I’m nervous! - What If It All Goes To Shitaly?
It feels, for self-explanatory reasons, bad to be annoyed. But here’s what we don’t often acknowledge: It also feels bad to be annoying. International travel triggers my fear of being both annoyed and annoying at the same time. I imagine this might be a cause of some of your anxiety too. Like, sure you’ll be out of your normal rhythms and away from your usual support systems. But if you’re anything like me (which you may not be, and that’s okay too) your biggest stressor is being both flustered by the language barrier and petrified of being a pain in the ass of the native speakers around you. As I’m saying this, I realize that maybe it’s the first thing (loneliness, distance from the usual apparatus that helps you thrive) that’s got you on edge. That would be…eminently reasonable.
Regardless of what’s got you a little keyed up before your trip, it is all part of the deal. The price we pay for great excitement is often great stress. For two months you will have to make new friends or call old friends and beloved family at odd hours. You will have to bridge a linguistic gap to meet your daily needs. You will feel like a total chump in the moments when you have to resort to speaking loudly and slowly in Italian, famously a loud and fast language.
These are not even risks. They are inevitabilities. BUT! Think of all the joy and excitement you are opening yourself up to. New people. New places. New culture. New kinds of chips. This is what growth feels like. Embarrassment leading to satisfaction. Growth is annoying your neighbors with clumsy noodling on your new guitar until you are merely inconveniencing them by skillfully playing it at times they’d prefer you not. Growth is over or under-seasoning a new recipe and eating it anyway even though it tastes bad but getting it right next time. Growth is occasionally watching a movie that is outside your comfort zone, hating it, and feeling securer in the reasons for your taste. (Sometimes you like a new kind of movie, too!)
Two months in Italy will be two months of discomfort and weirdness, but they will be two months of excitement and pasta and discovery and pasta and accidentally ordering the wrong pasta which is still pasta, and that’s pretty good.
PICK-ME-UP THING OF THE WEEK: JIM TEWS - WITH PICTURES
I have known my friend Jim Tews for a long time, and he is a really great and funny dude. His new standup special is called With Pictures because he performed this hour of comedy with a bunch of images for reference and extra jokes. (Jim is a super talented illustrator/animator as well.) He also edited the whole thing himself. He’s good at too many things and must be stopped. Just kidding. Jim rules. Enjoy his jokes and pictures!
UPCOMING SHOWS
I’m out and about in NYC a whole bunch coming up, plus a few shows on the road with more to come!
It’s a big news day here at the newsletter, which is what this sucker is here for in the first place! My new standup special Positive Reinforcement, recorded last June, has a release date at long last. And fancy entertainment publication Deadline has the scoop!
The photo was by the brilliant Mindy Tucker. Her name is not my new job title.
The special, if you don’t want to click through to Deadline, will be out on 6/27 (premiering at 8pm, when I’ll be in the chat maybe giving pep talks?) on Blonde Medicine’s YouTube page. If you go here now you can click “Remind Me” and you’ll get a little notification when you can watch it! That’s fun right?
It’s totally bonkers how I’m the only person onstage in this thing, but it took a zillion amazing people working together to bring it to life. HUGE thanks go out to Dom and Jess at Blonde Medicine, my record label, and Robby at Moxie Pictures. Colossal thanks go out to Chris Werner, my genius director friend who directed it and spent so long on calls with me helping to make it look and feel exactly right. Massive thanks to Mark Newell the production designer and Russell Swanson our director of photography. It looks amazing!
Plus Steven Feinartz who edited the show, Craig who did the sound mix, and the whole production crew! Also Jeff Rosenstock and Pete D’Angelo for licensing us the theme music. And all the folks in this crowd and everyone who came to see me on tour or in NYC warming up for the recording and working out material.
Big thanks also to Mindy Tucker who did the photoshoot for this cover art and Molly Roth who did the design for the artwork, which I love!!! Oh also my reps, especially Biz who flew out for the taping!!!
It would really help if you wanted to spread the word! Even a repost is huge! Here’s my BlueSky about the special, and here’s my Instagram post. I’ll bug you all again to share when the special is live, so if you’ve only got one in you, wait until then, but every little word from every mouth helps build the excitement, and I’d love for people to see this hour, which will also help me film the new hour I’m working on down the line!
I’m writing this intro from a delayed Amtrak train sitting at Union Station in Washington DC. It’s certainly not an ideal situation. I made the uncharacteristically prudent decision to hydrate well last night, which is the only reason I’m not currently writhing and groaning in my chair and bothering the my very personable and very pregnant seat mate. I didn’t even drink last night, but I was out until 2am, and at forty years old, I can either be awake that late OR enjoy a cocktail (OR I guess feel like ground beef the next day).
I came to our nation’s capital (and more recently I guess the site of the offices of the people trying to dismantle the functional parts of our federal government) for Liberation Weekend, a music festival put on and performed by many transgender artists and some cisgender friends. In some spaces where I work, I feel like kind of a mouthy, if gentle, lefty shitstarter. At Liberation Weekend, I felt like Kevin James. (No offense to the King of Queens himself, but he is a little, let’s say, square.) It was an extremely politically righteous space, and all the profits went towards causes protecting and fighting for trans rights, which rules. And also, some of the performances were intense. One band consisted of two members, one of whom wore a witch hat and brought out a sword to “knight” the audience, which was a little wilder than I usually get at shows. It reminded me of how last month a friend of mine was canvassing for socialist New York City mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani at a May Day rally, which she assumed would be like getting petition signatures from fish in a barrel. Over and over though she ran into several avowed anarchists who said things like: “Oh, you vote for mayors? Cute.”
I emceed the late show on Saturday night alongside my friends Rax King and Mattie Lubchansky (whose band Faith/Void had played earlier in the day). Sensing the vibe in the room at that hour was not, let’s say, “ripe for bits,” we mostly shouted out the festival’s organizers and ethos and did a few quick goofs between bands. I had such a great day seeing truly killer sets by great acts. In addition to the ones I mentioned I also saw Speedy Ortiz and Ted Leo for the zillionth times, and Pure Adult and Big Girl for the first times. (Sadly I missed The Ophelias and Bartees Strange.) Ekko Astral brought out a bunch of festival guests to play a set full of covers ranging from Fleetwood Mac to Joyce Manor. Obviously their rendition of “Maps” by the Yeah Yeah Yeahs brought a special energy to a room full of millennials and older zoomers.
I set a new personal best for hand stamps in a single day.
I probably spent six total minutes onstage during the three-hour show, but I was there to be present and stand with trans people in their ongoing fight against the Trump administration’s attempt to punish them for existing. You’ve gotta say shit like that with your chest, and I was honored to be asked to do it. Thanks to Jael from Ekko for having me along. What a fucking night. Happy Pride, everyone!
Special shout out to my childhood (and adulthood) friend A.B. who let me hang out at his house and throw my pants in his dryer after I got caught in a downpour immediately upon arriving in town.
Also, while we’re here, if there are any NYC residents reading this, I’m planning to follow the Working Families Party suggestion to rank Zohran first, Brad Lander second, and then Adrienne Adams, Zellnor Myrie, and Jessica Ramos on my ballot. Importantly, I am not planning to rank Andrew Cuomo, who is trying to become mayor after resigning in disgrace from the governorship, like an actor who is too toxic on set to book work and starts doing standup comedy as a fallback.
I’m hanging out or co-hosting (tbd) Frankenstein’s Baby at Union Hall tonight if you’re in Brooklyn and looking for something to do! Thanks to Benny Feldman, Meredith Dietz, and Erin Depke for ripping it on last “night’s” What’s New? show! And thanks to everyone who came out early on a Sunday!
A LITTLE APOLOGY
LOOK! I know I PROMISED that I’d announce my standup special last week but the TRUTH is that after I said that, the record label’s publicist secured an exclusive announcement in a fancy trade publication but not until this week. INFORMATION SOON, I SWEAR IT! (And this doesn’t mean a delay for the release itself, which is still very soon!)
Damn, remember when the people associated with drug use were cool? How far we’ve fallen.
Ketamine, you’re responsible for many people’s intensive depression treatment and many other people’s intensive appreciation of electronic music. It’s not your fault that the world’s richest man is (allegedly) abusing your therapeutic qualities to the point that he is nodding off on camera and (again allegedly) routinely peeing his pants. (Honestly an improvement over his consistent pissing in the gas tank of the federal government.) It used to be that rock stars and literary rascals were associated with over-indulgence in substances. Elon is the worst thing for drugs’ reputation since Eagles ripped a bunch of lines of cocaine and recorded “Peaceful Easy Feeling.”
Some people are making fun of Elon Musk for his purported drug regimen. But I think he can prove those haters wrong and do way more drugs. I think he’d feel amazing and it would ultimately be good for the rest of us too.
SOME RECOMMENDATIONS
I’ve been a little gripe-y about the state of the entertainment industry and some of the products that it has pushed out into the world lately, so I thought I’d shout out pieces of culture and art that I’ve been enjoying over the last few weeks. None of this is sponsored, and nobody asked me to do it. Maybe people will ask me NOT to do this afterwards. But I thought it would be fun! I love to talk about good things I’ve been watching and reading!
I didn’t get to watch the season finale of The Rehearsal until after last week’s newsletter went out, but when I got to it, the way everything wrapped up knocked me on the floor. I know that Nathan Fielder’s work is not for everyone—some of it is not for me—but The Rehearsal lives in an exact replica of my head with rent money coming from a line item on the show’s HBO budget. I’ve never seen a tv show that more successfully creates visible, exterior scenarios to mirror a character’s interiority. Yeah, I said it! Take that, dream sequences!!! The second season, which you can watch without having seen the first, interrogates questions like: “How much do you really need to know about yourself?” “What does it mean to be ‘taken seriously?’” And of course: “How can we prevent plane crashes?”
During the final episode, I kept looking over at Maris and saying: “Holy shit, holy shit, holy shit.” With all due respect to Daniel Day-Lewis walking around pretending to be Abraham Lincoln in his personal life for six months, he wants what Nathan Fielder has. Joaquin Phoenix would, no joke, literally have to complete a successful bank robbery in character as The Joker for me to be as impressed.
My friend Jayson Greene profiled singer/songwriter Ben Kweller for Vulture, and it made me cry. Both the writer and the subject have lost children to tragic accidents, and the way both talk about life and grief is so gripping, and so sad without being depressing. It’s heavy, but it’s worth it.
In an abrupt tonal shift, I loved this deeply reported piece about how a bird in the Charlie’s Angels movie came to be referred to by one name, look like another bird entirely, and emit the call of a third, unknown species. I love it for the story but also for the transparency of how dogged the pursuit of this trivial information became.
Massachusetts legend Mike Birbiglia.
Mike Birbiglia is one of my favorite comedians and has been for many years. He’s always been extremely kind to me, and something he said at a talk that he gave fifteen-ish years ago has informed how I’ve thought about comedy since then. I am constantly relaying it to people (with attribution). Okay fine, since nobody asked, here it is, paraphrased: When you’re writing a joke or developing any creative work, do it exactly the way you want at first. Then, if it’s not resonating with people, take a step towards them in your next revision and see if that brings them over to you. You shouldn’t start by trying to guess what people want, and it’s your responsibility as an artist to decide how many steps towards the audience you’re willing to take to make yourself understood.
Good, right?
The reason I bring this up is: Mike’s new Netflix special The Good Life is really good. Maris and I started watching it, and even though she had to stop in the middle to go to bed, she wanted to finish it together later instead of asking me for a recap in the morning, which is a hallmark of good comedy in our household. There’s so much smart and tender stuff about family and love and mortality. But also, he’s the first person I’ve heard talk in a funny way about being on the the (weird…it was weird right?) excursion that a bunch of comedians took to meet Pope Francis last year. One joke I won’t reproduce here (no spoilers) especially made me laugh because at Desus & Mero, the show’s lawyer once called us urgently insisting that we cut out an instance of Mero casually referring to the Pope as “that motherfucker.”
It’s good! It’s more about organized crime than some people expected!!!
I’m halfway through Deli Boys on Hulu, and it’s a lot of fun. It’s funny and propulsive. It feels a little shaggy in that it’s not a perfectly tight crime narrative, but the tone is (so far) consistently exciting and enjoyable. I’ve never seen a show set in a Pakistani/Philadelphian community before either. It’s a good time! (And a little violent, so if that’s your thing or not your thing, know that.)
Poker Face is on Peacock here in America but this is the best artwork I could find!!!
Similarly, I’m having a blast watching the new season of Poker Face. Natasha Lyonne is just completely in the zone (The Lyonne Zonne) as a lady who drives around the country drinking beers and solving crimes. It’s got a great 90s mid-level premise feel like Quantum Leap or Murder She Wrote or The Pretender if anyone remembers that show. I love the vibe of very-good-but-not-prestige tv. Each episode is thoroughly considered, but it doesn’t feel like homework. I also love a breezy show about weirdos that never takes a digression into a full episode that’s like “oh, their father hit them so that’s why they’re like this” in black and white.
And here’s a fun little video! I think John Mulaney is so good on camera with kids. This clip from Everybody’s Live kills me for real. Mulaney is really curious in a way that’s funny but not disrespectful. He treats children like small people who have thoughts and feelings but don’t know a ton of information and are sometimes clunky communicators. We need a Sack Lunch Bunch 2 now!!!
And finally for now, I have been loving the newsletter! It’s especially worthwhile for burger-eating New Yorkers, but Christina Casillo’s weekly burger reviews are some of my favorite emails to receive. I cannot recommend it more as a fun and servicey gift to yourself!
PICK-ME-UP SONG OF THE WEEK: Big Girl - “quit ur job”
I saw Big Girl this weekend at the aforementioned music festival and loved their set. I did not get to tell them in person, but I have included this fun song from their brand new EP here! I hope you like it! (My favorite of their songs is “Mother Tongue” but it’s not as much of a pick me up!)
UPCOMING SHOWS
I’m out and about in NYC a whole bunch coming up, plus a few shows on the road!
6/9: Whiplash at Union Hall (Brooklyn)
6/12: Fundraiser (Brooklyn)
6/16: Co-hosting Frankenstein’s Baby at Union Hall (Brooklyn)
Sorry for the late newsletter today! It’s my wedding anniversary (Happy anniversary, Maris!!!) so we got up and took Maggie on a nice walk to the waterfront and sat and drank coffee. Honestly, I am not that sorry. What I meant was: “Here’s why this is late! I hope it didn’t cause you too much inconvenience, nor did you worry I had perished!”
Similarly, last week, I was running late to see a show on Friday night, and instead of hopping on the train and risking a sprint to the venue through a semi-unexpected downpour, I took a [rideshare company I won’t endorse by name] into Manhattan. The enormity of New York City still staggers me every time I drive over the Brooklyn Bridge. How are there so many buildings so close together? And they’re so tall? Sure, that’s not EXCLUSIVELY positive, but it is IMPRESSIVE. And the bridge itself! How can such a thing even exist? According to nyc.gov (and why would they lie to me?) says that—including the approaches on either side—the bridge is over a mile long and at its center is 135 feet above the East River. And they made it in the 1800s. What the hell? Seems impossible to me, a guy who recently stopped building a rack to hold his sneakers midway through because it was too complicated. (I think the thing itself was not especially structurally sound. I know say it’s a shoddy workman who blames his tools…well I am, and I do.)
Back to the main thing: I always have the same extraordinarily elemental thought about the view during this 150-second trip between boroughs, which is: “People did this!” As in, people built this whole city. Which is not exactly a revaletion. First of all, fuckin’…duh. Nobody believes that the concrete, brick, and glass structures of Lower Manhattan were left there by extraterrestrials or somehow occurred naturally, like an inverse Grand Canyon.
Another quick aside: I visited the Grand Canyon with my parents in my early 20s, and I was a little skeptical about the travel required to look at a crevasse that I had seen many times in pictures. When I got there in person, it was maybe the least disappointing thing I’d ever gazed upon (and I do a lot of gazing). It’s so big that my wordy, image-averse brain could not conceive of the scale without peering into the massive slice of abyss firsthand (firsteye?). I was overwhelmed. “Nature did this!” I thought. Okay, aside over.
Back to: “People did this!” My second reaction to having that thought (after “obviously, dummy”) is that it’s good to notice things, even very basic things. Clocking simple facts helps establish common ground. It lets you establish a point from which to expound and iterate. It’s not the same as having an insight, but noticing is the breeding ground for realizations.
It’s fitting (or maybe explicitly related) that I had this almost-thought on the way to see Improvised Seinfeld at the UCB Theater. The show is exactly what it sounds like. A cast of four with a few rotating guests improvises an episode of Seinfeld. Extremely clean premise. Seinfeld the show and Jerry Seinfeld the comedian are both at their best when they are noticing something we can all agree on, but maybe has gone unspoken. “Sometimes people stand too close to you when they talk.” “It is embarrassing to think of a comeback a week too late.” “Doing certain activities naked does not look sexy.” And we spiral inward or outward from there.
For what it’s worth, Jerry Seinfeld’s least successful material relies on noticing something that, to him, feels obvious but is neither common to the audience nor explained as a personal quirk of the artist. I think it was his most recent special that starts with a bit about how nobody wants to go out. My man! People have spent dozens if not hundreds of dollars on going out to see the very show you are performing. They probably told their friends about it. It might even be the highlight of their week. You happen to be at work, a place you don’t need to be ever because you have a billion dollars and are seventy years old. Talk about what in your brain makes you keep doing that! That is what I am noticing when I watch you now, at least!
The Improvised Seinfeld show was so beautifully observed and performed. Mike Antonucci and Cathryn Mudon really captured the physicality of Kramer and Elaine respectively. Dru Johnston and Noah Forman locked into an extremely convincing version of George and Jerry’s banter, despite every line of dialogue being generated off the cuff. Connor Ratliff played Jerry’s new tailor, who offered our star a friends and family discount on the condition that they maintain an ongoing friendship (he even threatened to claw back the discounts should the friendship end). Extremely Seinfeld stuff! And it was all made possible by noticing the specificities of the source material. The richness of the show also relies on the performers being able to reproduce and innovate on those core qualities, but it starts with the noticing!
The beauty of improv is how collaborative and instantaneously generative it can be. When it’s good, it feels like it MUST have been pre-considered because of how synchronous the people on stage become. There’s no set. There’s no script. There’s no budget for special effects. When it’s good it feels like watching actual magic. When it’s bad, it’s like watching a child attempt a magic trick. But seeing an episode of a long-defunct television show conjured from thin air in front of a crowd gave me the exact same feeling as driving over the Brooklyn Bridge.
“Wow. People did this.”
A LITTLE BIT OF BUSINESS
My hotel and travel details have been confirmed, so I feel comfortable saying that I’ll be co-emceeing the late show this Saturday night (5/31) at the Liberation Weekend festival in Washington D.C. along with my pals Mattie Lubchansky and Rax King. I’m not sure what our performance will consist of; it’s a bunch of stalling between bands, I think, but the music portion of the festival has a truly outrageous lineup. It’s a lot of trans artists and friends of trans artists, and the profits go to benefit causes that directly aid trans people (even the ones who are not artists).
Look at this lineup!
On Sunday when I get home I’m hosting a What’s New? show at Union Hall in Brooklyn. I’m going to be telling a ton of new jokes (and maybe trying to record five minutes of older jokes, but we’ll see). And I’ve got some great comics (Meredith Dietz, Erin Depke) on the lineup, plus a couple of special guests I’m working on securing still. These shows are always a blast, and this one starts at 5pm and will end by 6:30 so you can have a nice dinner afterwards and still get to bed at a sensible hour.
PLUS! I’ve got big news coming TOMORROW about my upcoming standup special. I’m going to be shouting my head off about this for a little while because I (and many others) worked so hard on it, and I really, really want people to see it. It was a truly independent production and will be an indie release, so it relies on word of mouth to get people to watch. I would love if your mouths spread such words, readers!!!
(The press release isn’t going out until tomorrow because of the holiday today, and I don’t want to share the artwork without the link to pre-save! So…SOON, I SWEAR!)
GOOD NEWS SPEED ROUND
Because it’s a holiday, I thought I’d try something a little different this week. Over on BlueSky, I solicited some small items of good news, and I’m going to share them here, and maybe we can get some hell yeahs and go get ‘ems in the comments for these nice people!
(ALSO, IF YOU HAVE YOUR OWN NICE PIECES OF NEWS, LEAVE ‘EM IN THE COMMENTS FOR HELL YEAHS AND GET ‘EMS!)
HERE WE GO!
They redid job titles and salary bands at my work, and between that and the annual raise, I'm now making 15% more than I was a couple months ago.
This is outstanding news! I was (too) recently exposed to the idea that record profits are stolen wages, and it sounds like your company realized that if they’re doing well, you should be doing well…as well!
I have learned how to navigate my retirement funds.
You have a retirement fund AND you know what the heck it is? These are two victories squeezed into nine words. Your message is breathtaking in both its significance and its efficiency.
I have learned that my book, released in November, is doing “pretty well” and have come to understand that pretty well is kind of huge.
Oh yeah for sure! Sometimes you’ve got to grade on a curve. Doing well by doing a good job combines to equal doing great. That’s just mathematics.
I started working on a novella! It's gonna be a science fiction action/adventure thing.
Starting is so important! Nothing happens without starting! Nothing worthwhile has ever been finished without starting! And, apart from finishing, starting is worthwhile on its own merits! All’s well that ends well (classic saying) but nothing’s well that starts not at all. Okay the first one is catchier. Touché, Shakespeare. But I’m still right.
I've been on the wait-list for months for several audiobooks from my library, and three just came available on this, the last week of school so I actually have time to listen and enjoy them! (I'm a teacher.)
Another huge literary win. You’re going to enjoy the heck out of those books. At least some of them, I bet. This is why the above people have written or are writing things. So people read and enjoy them. You are doing right by yourself AND others. I don’t throw this word around lightly, but it’s heroic.
I have enough breast milk stored that I can start cutting out pumping! It sounds weird, but it means hours back in my days. We've been able to start our family walks in the evenings again. ❤️
As someone who has never made any food with their body at all, I find this very impressive. If I produced even a shot glass full of milk, lifetime, I would not stop bragging about it. (Or, possibly, never tell anyone about it while letting the mere memory of it consume my waking hours. But that’s more of a a me thing.)
All of the 9U soccer players in the club had to try out again for 10U and, after working hard all year and having a great tryout, my 9yo made the top team again!
Great news and congratulations to this nine-year-old!!!
My son was awarded a National Merit Scholar and his PSAT score is in the top 1% of the country.
Great news and congratulations to this…sixteen-year-old? I forget when teenage things happen.
My son got off the waitlist for a year-long paid fellowship that he really really *really* wanted.
Tremendous job waiting. Tom Petty was right about it being the hardest part, and your son slayed this specific demon!
After reaching out to 17 daycares that are full up, we found a spot for the kid in a daycare just down the street from where we live.
Eighteenth time’s a charm, I always say! L’chaim!
I screen printed my own artwork for the first time yesterday! It was a lot of work but only made me more excited to make more new art!
It is so so so satisfying to get good—or even good enough—at a new skill. This is big time stuff, and it’s only going to get better as you continue to allow your enthusiasm to lead you. I finished a crossword puzzle this weekend and felt smug for hours. Your thing sounds even better than that!
My friend scored me first row behind the dugout tickets for the Cubs game on my birthday 🙂
You have a good friend and something to look forward to. That’s another double victory. It’s almost too much good news for me to include here, but I’ll make an exception.
I’m going to London for my birthday with my best friend. Last minute decision. I’m going to see Ophelia in person at the Tate. I’ll probably cry.
Ophelia! The Chicago Cubs of art (for this purpose and this purpose only)!
My local bookstore, The Trident, gave me a smoking deal on the collected works of Mark Twain and I’ve actually started reading it. Gems like “It could probably be shown by facts and figures that there is no distinctly Native American criminal class except Congress.” This is from a collection of his Anti-Imperialist Essays. Which I am reading for no particular reason.
Damn, I didn’t realize Mark Twain gave it to Congress as hard as he took on golf. “A good walk spoiled.” Stop, Sammy C.! They’re already dead!
My goal of bringing a music performance series to my town got a big step closer to becoming reality!
This is huge for your community! You’re a local legend in the making! (I call that being a Local Rumor.)
Our library board incumbents— all wonderful people, experienced, passionate about our communities, the freedom to read, and libraries won their election! Aaaaand one of the challengers who talked a lot about morality got a DUI two days before Election Day.
Congratulations on your victories, library board incumbents! And wow I don’t know that hypocrisy moves the needle with many people, but someone trying to (let’s say) ban books getting busted for drunk driving does feel like they kind of beautiful poetry they’d try to keep out of people’s hands, eyes, and minds.
Went to a wedding of a couple that had been together for 24 years! Lots of love in the room!
It must have felt so good to be at that wedding since the couple had already been together for so long. Like drinking a big glass of water after you’ve been out in the sun doing yard work, or peeing after drinking a big glass of water after you’ve been out in the sun doing yard work. (I’m so good at writing about romance!)
My husband and I met each other 10 years ago this week. It was a chance encounter that changed the course of our lives.
Happy meetingiversary! I assume your lives were changed in a good away and not that it locked you in some kind of decade-long (and counting) strife! Ten years is so much time! Congratulations on all of that love!
Tender is this little bit of good news, I say!
I opened up a box to find that my sr prom corsage (from my then-BF, now husband) is still intact after 56 yrs. ❤️
This is so cute I could tip over. Fifty-six years? That’s five point six ten yearses. And to have the corsage still? Nearly a miracle. I always save the wrong stuff even when I’m trying to be sentimental. Never the corsage from a high school sweetheart I went on to marry. Always a poster from a concert that got torn on the way home from that concert so I never put it up anywhere and now it’s just garbage that comes with me every time I move.
My best friend who lives in Colorado and whom I rarely see was randomly in Boston for twenty-four hours and we managed to get lunch during my prep period and it was wonderful.
A surprise lunch with a friend is one of life’s great joys. It combines lunch (potentially excellent), friendship (always the best), and surprises (a real mixed bag, but sometimes extremely exciting).
The wife and I are going to see Wicked on Broadway next week! We got our tickets. Very excited about it.
This is going to be such a good time! A great Broadway show is such a marvel. (Marvel with a small “m” not Marvel with a big “M” which is different and less frequently thrilling in my opinion.)
Ok. I’ll play. My students won first place in the most prestigious collegiate journalism competition in the country for telling the story of how a group of women in Sierra Leone is working locally to mitigate period poverty.
Get ‘em, students!!! This is amazing! Congratulations!
My income-less and chronically ill mum is trying to sell her house in the countryside and has been very worried about the cost of everything that needs to be fixed - the biggest worry was the faulty electricity. Turns out a mouse had just chewed a wire and it was easily fixable!
It is such a relief when a problem is unexpectedly less severe than you thought rather than surprisingly worse than you’d imagined. Another name for shockingly small scale loss is a win, in my book. (A future book, called Winning By Losing Less that I haven’t written yet and would probably hate if it existed, but still.)
The wildlife removal man came and found the birds and possible squirrel had already vacated my attic, so no further intervention was needed other than sealing holes—whew.
The only thing better than a problem that’s less acute than you feared is one that fully solves itself by the time you get around to it.
At an Airbnb with friends in central MA for the weekend, and the host unexpectedly gave us free duck eggs!
A third fortuitous bit of little critter news! I feel like even most vegans would appreciate the gift of eggs from a well-treated duck.
I can use my hand for the first time in 3 weeks AND the cat hasn’t pissed anywhere she shouldn’t be for 2 weeks? Winning at life here in South London UK!
I hope you and your hand go on so many hand-based adventures. Turn signaling manually from your car. Steering a ship. Doing sign language. Etc.
My 87 year old mother got an injection in her spine that is providing moderate pain relief after two years of increasingly debilitating pain!
This sounds so impactful and I hope she stays feeling great!!!
My son got scheduled for a long awaited medical procedure in Montreal for July and we are tacking on a vacation weekend before it as a bonus.
Amazing. Living in America, it’s always incredible to hear about anyone receiving medical treatment at all, never mind with an attendant vacation.
My husband, who was diagnosed with Guillain-Barré Syndrome in Sep, and who has not recovered in the typical 1-3 months, was told on Friday that his insurance-approved motorized wheelchair is available on Tue. Now he can leave the house and GO PLACES. We can GO PLACES together!❤️
I can feel your enthusiasm through the screen! This is wonderful, and I hope you enjoy it so much! See the world! Or just the neighborhood. Even if it’s only a ten-block radius that’s become your oyster…that’s still a pretty big oyster!
PICK-ME-UP SONG OF THE WEEK: Car Seat Headrest - “CCF (I’m Gonna Stay With You)”
Inspired by ’s newsletter, I checked out the new Car Seat Headrest, and it’s very good! “CCF (I’m Gonna Stay With You)” is a big old eight-minute epic that starts slow and builds up to big bright heights. It’s been this week’s on-repeat song in my headphones when I’ve taken Maggie the Pug out for walks.
In sad song news, Laura Stevenson, one of the absolute best singer-songwriters out there writing and singing songs, put out a real heartbreaker of a lead single for her upcoming album Late Great. Laura has made some of my all-time favorite albums. Her voice sounds incredible live. I really hope she tours when the new album comes out.
(Also, Laura was a great guest on an episode of my old podcast Make My Day!)
UPCOMING SHOWS
I’m out and about in NYC a whole bunch coming up, plus a few shows on the road!
This might be a long one because I had a week full of interesting experiences and (hopefully) commensurately interesting thoughts!
I’ve been thinking a bunch about the ends of things, and how they can be temporary and permanent at the same time. On Monday night (after I watched Maris interview our friend about her new book The Dad Rock That Made Me a Woman), the Celtics and Knicks had what was very nearly a classic playoff game. “Jayson Tatum has left his body” I texted a friend, as the C’s star drained a series of picturesque jump shots. Then, with his team down by nine points in the game’s twilight minutes, Tatum crashed back into himself. He crumpled to the ground, banging the floor in agony. On Tuesday we (all of us, right?) learned that he had ruptured his Achilles Tendon and had undergone surgery that morning. Season over for Tatum, season (effectively) over for the Celtics. They may have lost the series anyway—the Knicks were playing great—but this was an exclamation point that plunged into the heart of the season like a sword. JT will be back on the court eventually, but it’ll take his injured human body a long time to recover. Things will be different by the time he returns.
Mentioned above, but slightly off topic here.
Too bad the NBA season is over now *puts fingers in ears*. So psyched that the WNBA has tipped off. What perfect timing. Grand closing, grand opening. Let’s go Liberty! See you next year, basketball gentlemen!
Similarly, I saw my friend Lauren’s band Worriers play their last ever (ever, ever?) show in Brooklyn on Tuesday night. Lauren got a little choked up describing what playing the show meant to them. It struck me how even when you choose to bring a period of your life to a close, it can feel complicated while still being the right decision for the time being. You don’t have to befall a tragedy for the end of something to feel intense. Sometimes you really feel the weight of a sunset, you know? That said, I’m extremely psyched to see what post-Worriers music Lauren makes!
But! While my week started with endings, I ended it with a wonderful new beginning.
On Saturday night, I was preparing to do a short standup set/toast at a friend’s wedding, which normally I would dread (people don’t want standup comedy at a wedding usually, even when they think they do), but I trusted my friend Jennifer to nurture the proper context for me to not look like a total asshole up there. She and her husband, also a friend now, had asked me to tell some jokes about marriage and weddings, and fortunately I have written a bunch of those over the years. I didn’t realize it until last week, but I’ve been married long enough to have forgotten the exact wording of many of the jokes about my own wedding. In an attempt to re-learn my own material before the reception, I googled a few key words to pull up an old video, and I was met with a fascinating surprise.
Huge if true which of course it’s not because this AI function is damp garbage.
Now, normally I scroll right past the AI Overview that Google has decided to jam into our eyeballs anytime we use their search engine. But seeing my name highlighted slowed my thumbs down long enough to read the computer-fabricated and factually-incorrect sentence: “Josh Gondelman and Fiona Apple are married.” First of all, wow, flattering. Second of all, this would create a LOT of complications in (probably) both my life and the life of recording artist Fiona Apple if it were true, which it is (despite Google’s insistence) not.
For what it’s worth: The result seems to be in incorrect inference based on an old standup bit and a tweet from 2020 about my (actual) wife going on a walk to listen to Fiona Apple’s new album and my fear that she would join a coven of other Brooklyn women doing the same and never return. But, through an algorithmic game of telephone, Google turned that information into something completely nonsensical (though admittedly hilarious).
It feels totally deranged for Google to screwhorn (that’s a shoehorn they shove up your butt) this AI functionality into one of the company’s most beloved and widely-used services. Obviously the old school Google Search returned some dubious “facts” from time to time, but that still feels different than the top result announcing: “Hey it’s us, your trusted information sources here at Alphabet, and what we think is important is that you read whatever a fancy robot freestyles based on your search terms. We do not care whether it’s true, and we will beam that information into your brain and stand behind it whether it’s accurate or not! Cool, right?”
It’s not cool, Google! And I have to imagine for every easily-disregarded result (I know who I’m married to!) there are way more accurate-seeming replies that are, upon further inspection, false. This AI integration is like selling a model of microwave that flash-freezes your food instead of heating it up sometimes. Who cares if that occurrence is frequent or rare. That technology is not ready to be foisted onto the public! I know that I can be kind of an AI skeptic (okay, hater) in this newsletter. But I’m certainly not smart or plugged in enough to say with any authority that there will never be an important application for this emerging technology. I will say, I don’t have a ton of faith that these massive breakthroughs are coming when the people who are most psyched about them are duct taping deeply flawed LLMs to their existing software packages, making them vastly less useful in the process. It’s like if a plumber showed up at your house and immediately took a shit in your toilet tank. You would not be especially inclined trust that person’s skills or intentions. And even that is giving tech companies too much credit because most of us have encountered a plumber who has gotten the job done without any ancillary shenanigans.
Here’s the joke I was looking for, by the way!
People were very kind about my performance at the wedding, and I’d be remiss if I didn’t say: Congratulations Jennifer and Jonathan!!! They curated a really wonderful group of people and experiences to celebrate their love, and I was thrilled to be a part of it, and DOUBLE thrilled not to have screwed it up with my jokes!
On Wednesday, Maris (my real wife) and (who has a new and great newsletter!!!) and I saw the Tim Robinson/Paul Rudd movie Friendship, which is so stressful and surreal and funny. I had seen several positive reviews and was worried that I’d be the one dull slob who didn’t think it lived up to the hype, but it really did for me. It’s definitely in the same vein as Robinson’s sketch show I Think You Should Leave, so it’s maybe not for everybody, but if it’s for your it’s really for you. I love the density of jokes it packs in instead of leaning on the unsettling tone to get laughs all on its own. I really recommend it if you like offbeat comedy!
Speaking of weird comedy things, I stumbled across this sketch that I’d written for the final season of Desus & Mero on Showtime. Well, it’s 1/3 of the sketch. The whole thing was a runner that recurred throughout the show. But embedded here is the final beat in the saga of Dr. Jonathan Ratzmor, the dermatologist that snitches go to to get their stitches. Anthony Atamaniuk was great as Dr. Ratzmor, and Seans Donnelly and Patton show up at the end with excellent supporting performances.
Also, tonight is Frankenstein’s Baby at Union Hall! We’ve got a super fun lineup and an also-super-fun special guest who must remain unannounced! ;)
Who could it be?
If weekends are more your speed for going out to comedy in New York City, I’ll be running a bunch of new material at 5pm on 6/1 (also at Union Hall in Park Slope) with a few friends doing sets on the show as well!
If you don’t live in New York (as most people do not), I recently recorded an episode of my friend Will Weldon’s podcast I Hate Bill Maher, where we broke down a 2004 episode of Maher’s show Real Time. I came in open-minded, but YIKES there was some awful stuff in there. Many super talented people (including pals) have worked at the show over the years, but there’s a lot of what Maher does that makes him hard to watch in addition to the fact that the jokes are twenty years old, which renders basically any late night comedy material incomprehensible at best.
A SMALL PIECE OF BUSINESS
Okay so I truly, TRULY hate being a “like, share, and subscribe” guy. But here’s the thing: That’s everything now! It’s basically unavoidable.
I spend several hours a week writing this newsletter for free, and my hope is that in exchange, when I have a more substantial project to promote, or I come to your town to do a show, that you consider checking out my other stuff and spreading the word and maybe buying a ticket.
I’m writing this today because either next week or the week after that, I’m going to be announcing the release of my new standup special (for real!!!). It’ll be somewhere easy to find/share/enjoy, and every little bit of word-of-mouth about it helps. So whether you want to share a favorite installment of this newsletter on social media, or add a silly video I post here to your Instagram stories, or even just text a friend and tell them that they might like my jokes, it would mean a lot to me!
But especially the info about the special! That’s huge! I, and others, worked so hard on it! I really want people to see it!
Okay thanks for enduring the business! Back to our regularly-scheduled programming!
PEP TALK FOR MS. RACHEL
The face of PURE EVIL (if you’re completely full of shit).
Ms. Rachel, I only kind of know what your whole deal is. I’m pretty sure I get the general idea from your overalls and body language, but I can’t claim to be a day one fan. Others, however, revere your talent. My friends who are parents of toddlers—regardless of sexual orientation—would gladly accept you into their lives in a throuple situation, predominantly because of your expertise in dealing with children. I have heard exclusively good things about your work, which I have not sought out as a childless adult man, but I’d happily fire it up while babysitting if any of the aforementioned friends would grow up and ask me to babysit.
But despite you having a gentle and capable energy around kides (a trustworthy quality), people have become furious at you. I imagine that came as a surprise to you, a person whose work does not court controversy. You don’t make music about committing violent crime. You have not written a book that besmirches the name of a well-loved celebrity. You haven’t even, to the best of my knowledge, advocated for the widespread adoption of an unorthodox pizza topping. You simply said that children should not be forced to starve or be murdered, which is an opinion some people get mad at now.
Of course you don’t like violence. If you did, you’d already have fomented an uprising of every toddler in America against their parents. Your tiny army would serve you with unwavering loyalty and could only be subdued by a counterinsurgency led by Bluey the cartoon dog. (Even this plan would likely fail because it takes a comparatively long time to produce animation.)
Obviously, this pep talk is directed to Ms. Rachel, but it’s for anyone who is told that compassion and empathy are foolish traits to cultivate. At the highest ranks of government, the most dearly held value is the ability to pin down another person, fart in their face, and take their wallet. It’s infuriating. I hate that anyone thinks this way. And even worse, there’s a strong impulse to want to get better at their thing than they are. Wouldn’t it feel so good to hold those people down, fart in their faces, and steal their wallets.
WRONG! That can’t be our aim! To paraphrase a popular saying: Every problem looks like a face when your only tool is a fart. What we’ve got to focus on is keeping vulnerable people’s faces un-farted-on. That’s the goal! This is all about trying to keep farts away from faces, not to build up face-farting strength and deploy it against our enemies. Work done in the service of that goal is noble and brave, even as it is gentle. I think this metaphor works and I will NOT be taking notes on it.
I know that may seem like a lengthy digression, but it’s really the whole point. The idea of measuring strength by the ability to do harm is a flawed one. The capacity to heal is another valid way to consider what being strong is, and it’s frequently more useful. And it’s suspicious to me when someone wants to undermine that objective.
That’s what Ms. Rachel knows and some other folks could learn. Remember: The only reason her enemies are not facing the wrath of her toddler army is because she chooses to hold them back.
PEP TALK FOR A READER
I combined the initial request with a brief follow-up on social media that offers some helpful context. The emoji is essential to the tone, in my opinion, so I left it there.
I'd love a pep talk for coming to terms with having been the unhelpful, sometimes actively mean partner in my marriage after I've made some serious steps to not to be this way in the future. I'm already making changes, but a pep talk about moving forward while reckoning with what I've done? Things are honestly much better [already]! Disappointed to report that sobriety has improved every area of life. 🤣 I just like your take on things and we can all use some pep. - Cuts Like a Wife
Thank you for making this job a lot easier for me with the second half of your message! At first, I was a little antsy about how to respond. I usually try to give the people who write to me some encouragement to do what’s in their heart already. If it’s a 50/50 call, I side with the person who reads my newsletter out of my impulse to be helpful to the person in front of me instead of a stranger who I might not even reach…and also some light narcissism. Honestly, sometimes the people who write in are probably in the wrong, but that’s fine. We’re all wrong sometimes, and most of us don’t deserve to be thrown in a well or rocket-launched out of Earth’s atmosphere for our transgressions.
Still! It put a kink (inconvenience kind not sex kind) in my usual strategy when you were like: “I’ve been kind of a dickhead.” I cannot, in good conscience, say that your dickheadishness is no problem at all. That would be both dishonest and contrary to the spirit of the newsletter. I am in favor of being mean to people who deserve it, but not people who simply happen to be nearby when you’re in a foul mood. Even the assertion of having taken serious steps to improve the situation felt…vague. I didn’t quite know what to say that would acknowledge your humanity and ability to change without sounding a little too wide-eyed about the potential for things in this specific context to improve.
You can imagine my happiness for you (and immense personal relief) to hear that things have started to turn around already. This is where I really shine—any time or place the work has been done before I arrive and I can just say: “Looking good!”
And, in that spirit: “Looking good!” You’re doing it! You’re doing the thing!
I love hearing (with my eyes, which I guess they call “seeing”) that things are feeling better and that you’ve taken (what sound/look like) sustainable steps towards a future where you are making the best and healthiest possible decisions. Sobriety feels like a really positive development; it seems like it’s enabling you to be the best version of yourself. That doesn’t erase the past, but it lays the groundwork for a better future. And the more that the future becomes a solid past, the less of the past is the rocky parts of the past. A beautiful future is a beautiful past waiting to have happened.
(Also I want to plug my friend Rax King’s upcoming sobriety memoir Sloppy, which is extremely funny and heartfelt about even the parts of sobriety that are not easy.)
CHILL-ME-OUT SONG OF THE WEEK: Gerry Mulligan - Night Lights
Look, I am anti generative AI for creative pursuits and also kind of a hater of algorithmic discovery mechanisms, but sometimes an unknowable piece of code gives you just what you need to hear. I basically never listen to jazz, but this album surfaced on YouTube, and I was like…oh hey nice! It’s low-key and relaxing without feeling too “lo fi beats to study to”- core. I looked up Gerry Mulligan to make sure he wasn’t like a famous Holocaust denier before posting, and nothing of the sort came up. Plus I learned that he helped arrange (and played on) Miles Davis’s Birth of the Cool album, which I think means my taste here has been at least semi-validated.
UPCOMING SHOWS
I’m out and about in NYC a whole bunch coming up, plus a few shows on the road!
First of all, a happy belated Mom Christmas to all the mothers out there. And a hearty “hey, at least that’s over” to people who have a tough relationship with Mother’s Day. I got to talk to my own mom on the phone yesterday (BRAG!) and then as a gift to my mother-in-law, Maris and I rented a car and drove Maggie the Pug down to New Jersey to meet her maternal grandparents. Although if you’re the people from the rental car place who told me “no pets” while I was lightly hungover on Saturday morning…no we didn’t.
I published a whole bunch of freelance work this week, almost all about basketball, which was kind of a funny set of circumstances. It’s been a while since I’ve done much freelance work on the internet, and I was a little nervous to put so much writing out into the world. I was especially antsy because (and I don’t know if you’ve noticed this) people tend to have strong opinions about sports, and they (I’m breaking new ground here I’m sure) do not always read past the headline before commenting. I am so grateful for all the people who read this newsletter and let me jettison thoughts out of my head and into the universe without putting them into the eyeballs of too many random jerks!
Fortunately, things went pretty well (aside from a few scattered jerks)! Here’s a longwinded rundown, in case you missed any or all of this stuff. (Not unlikely!)
Shout out to my friend (and brilliant editor) Ashtyn Butuso who asked me to write a little something about Boston Celtics coach Joe Mazzulla for the OffBall newsletter. I came up with some advice that imitated Mazzulla’s famously intense press conference quotes. I also wrote a piece for the basketball print magazine () that Ashtyn co-founded, and that’s out this week too. Sadly because I live thousands of miles from where the magazine is printed, I don’t have my copy yet. I can’t wait to get it in my hands assuming the USPS isn’t defunded while it’s out for delivery. I love every issue of Flagrant and am over the moon to have gotten to write about three-pointers for the new issue. Flagrant finally offered a way to subscribe, and I recommend if you like NBA or the WNBA (or both) that you do so!
Ashtyn and her co-founder Alex (who both make me laugh so much!!!) also had me on the Flagrant podcast last week, where we talked a bunch about basketball as well as a vast assortment of other subjects such as whether Mrs. Met is (in Alex’s words) “caked up.” I maintain she (Mrs. Met) has a pretty big butt for a baseball, but not on the overall spectrum of butts. Here’s a little video clip from our episode!
Another friend and brilliant editor Gaby Paiella asked me to write for GQ about the feeling of being a Celtics fan living in New York City as the C’s fell down 0-2 to the Knicks in the Eastern Conference Semifinals. (The Celtics have since won a game in the series, lowering my blood pressure by 50% in the process.) I appreciated the opportunity to say a lot of backhanded and petty things about my friends and colleagues who cheer for the New York Knickerbockers. I finished my first draft faster than I’d ever written anything, and I’m really delighted by how it turned out. The experience also offered a catharsis that group texts with other Celtics fans did not afford me. AND, I love the artwork they created for the piece!
See? Isn’t this fun?
Finally, I wrote a little essay about the Miami Heat for ’s newsletter Basketball Feelings. Katie is such a thoughtful and entertaining writer. I’ve learned so much about how to talk about sports with humanity and creativity from reading her work. She’s just the best, and I was delighted/intimidated to do a little writing for her.
If you are not sick of me yet, here’s my performance from last weekend’s 54/54/54 show at 54 Below. I do not have a great singing voice, but I had a wonderful time performing (part of) a They Might Be Giants song for a group of musical theater fans who kept asking me: “What show was that from?”
And this Friday evening at Littlefield in Brooklyn, I’m performing on a WNBA season kickoff show that Defector is putting on!
Let’s go , Liberty!
And next Monday (5/19) I’m co-hosting Frankenstein’s Baby at Union Hall! Thanks to everyone who came to see me and Alison co-host Sup, Bro? on Saturday! Come see this too! We’ll be doing a totally different set of deranged riffs!
PEP TALK FOR BILL BELICHICK
Fun fact! That jacket is made from repurposed red flags! (Credit: Kevin Mazur/Getty)
Over the weekend, 24-year-old Jordon Hudson finished third in the Miss Maine competition, which is not the kind of thing you’d normally hear about at all, except that Hudson is in a romantic relationship with 73-year-old UNC football coach Bill Belichick. And look, I believe that love can take all kinds of different forms. Honestly, I tip my hat to Belichick for defying the stereotype of an older man dating a woman half his age by going out and dating a woman who is one third of his age. But there are some weird details at play here. Wait, scratch that. There are only weird details in this story.
During a recent television interview Belicheck was doing to promote his new book, which I believe is called Tales From The Hoodie although I may have made that up entirely, Hudson shut down a question about how the couple met. (You know, the most obvious question to ask any two people when you find out they are dating.) Pablo Torre and Katie Nolan hypothesized on a recent podcast that the topic may be uncomfortable because it seems as if Hudson was only nineteen years old when the pair first met. I don’t think that counts as grooming, but it certainly sounds like…primping to me.
For context: When they first encountered one another, Jordon Hudson had been alive for one fewer year than Bill Belichick had been Tom Brady’s head coach in the NFL. The story actually is that they met on an airplane, and if I was seated next to a 19-year-old woman on an airplane, here’s what I, a 40-year-old man would say to her.
Me: “It’s okay to wake me up if I’m snoring and it bothers you.” Her: “Okay, old man.”
But who is (potentially) sex-criming whom? Is it weirder for an old guy to date a way way way way younger woman, or for that woman to install herself as a de facto agent and publicist in her way way way way older boyfriend’s career? (Honestly, both the “boy” and the “friend” in the word “boyfriend” seem inaccurate here. He’s more like a “makeoutgrandpa.”)
So to you, Bill Belichick, I want to offer some words of encouragement. First of all, if you two are legitimately happy together, and there’s a legal mechanism in place for protecting you if she tries to write your way-older-than-her children out of your will, and to compensate her for having to see your balls, god bless. If that’s the case, wow. I’m so glad a college cheerleader was able to find the love of her life who happened to be a guy with the disposition you’d imagine the human father of The Thing from The Fantastic Four having.
If this relationship doesn’t work out though, that’s okay too. There are plenty of other fish in the sea. And many of those fish are of an age where you can publicly admit when and how you met them.
(For more substantial coverage of this ongoing story, follow ’s newsletter Impersonal Foul or her podcast—The Sports Gossip Show—with !)
PEP TALK FOR A READER
I’ve made a couple of little tweaks to this request but nothing ridiculous.
Hi, Josh. I’m losing my house this month. I tried very hard to keep it, but my ex-husband and his lawyer have spent the last 11 months intentionally delaying and obstructing my settlement from the divorce so now I have no choice but to sell. I have no idea where we’re going to find to rent…but wherever we do will have a higher monthly payment than my current mortgage and will put my poor daughter through even more upheaval than she’s already suffered. I am devastated. - There Goes The Neighborhood
For pretty obvious reasons, I don’t have a ton of upbeat things to day about losing your home. There’s not even really a cliché for this. There’s that saying about how god never closes a door without opening a window, but in this context that sounds like permission to commit divinely-aided breaking and entering. We’re talking about literal doors and windows, here, and for legal reasons I can’t recommend that you try to pry them open.
I also don’t believe that things need to be really bad sometimes for you to appreciate the happier periods in your life. It seems unlikely that as much as you are accustomed to your home’s specifics, you haven’t been taking the concepts of having a roof and walls for granted. So this doesn’t seem like a situation that’s going to be rich with the learning of hard but necessary lessons, or important perspectives you hadn’t considered before.
So many people in America are so close to finding themselves unhoused, and our culture is so unkind to them. Some places have a social safety net. Here’s it’s more like just…a net. Gotcha! You’re stuck here now! This is a terrible reality, and it’s important to acknowledge, but I don’t imagine a ton of character-building comes from experiencing it firsthand. You’re not some Ebenezer Scrooge-type of miser who needs to be reminded that other people exist.
The only flicker of optimism that I can see here is that someday this period will be in the past. That’s not true of all misfortunes, but it seems fair to surmise here. It sounds like you’re in a position to find a new place to live, even if it’s a downgrade from your current situation. On top of that, it sounds like an enormous psychic improvement to not be fighting over a house anymore, even if this new state of being is brought about by losing the house. (It’s the inverse in many ways of how a wedding is a wonderful celebration, but one of the things about having one is that it means you’re done with wedding planning.) Once this dispute is over, you’ll know what you need to do to make your life as hospitable as possible under new conditions.
And, with regards to your daughter, I completely understand your impulse to protect her from further upheaval. But all you can do is provide the best life you can for her, full of the most love and support. Plenty of kids who have experienced turbulence at a young age have happy and healthy future. And plenty of absolute ghouls grow up in two-parent homes with massive square footage. This might not have been your happiest Mother’s Day, but there will be better ones ahead!
PICK-ME-UP SONG OF THE WEEK: Maura Weaver - “Goner”
My buddy Tommy McNamara came with me to see Chris Farren and Oceanator last Wednesday, and we arrived early enough to see opening act Maura Weaver. We walked into the showroom from the outdoor patio when we heard the opening chords of Maura’s set. Immediately we looked at each other and affirmed what we were both thinking: “This rules.”
Weaver’s 2023 album is very good, but live, there’s even more muscle and groove to the songs. The show was end-to-end one of the best concerts I’ve seen in a long time. The tour is still going on! See them if you can! I ran into Tommy again on Friday night for our friend Anthony DeVito’s standup special recording (which was great) and our conversation returned to Maura Weaver’s excellent opening set. It was a real unexpected treat.
Okay also though there’s been so much good music lately! The new Adult Mom record rules. The HORNS on this one. (I am, as always, a sucker for horns!!!)
And Um, Jennifer?’s album Um Comma Jennifer Question Mark is so specific and fun and full of songs about things I’d never heard songs about before. It’s great! I’ve just heard a bunch of great new stuff this week and I’m feeling hyped about it.
It feels weird to have a slightly lighter-than-usual standup schedule lately. “But Josh, that’s like…your job. What have you been doing?” Short answer: Don’t worry about it. Shorter answer: Other things!
Last night I performed on a fun show called 54/54/54 (featuring 54 performers singing 54-second songs on 5/4 at Manhattan’s 54 Below). It’s a little 55 burgers 55 fries 55 tacos 55 pies… in a fun way. I sang, per the host’s request, slightly less than a minute of “Birdhouse in Your Soul” by They Might Be Giants. I think I was…credible. But I was tucked into the lineup amidst some very heavy musical theater hitters. And, backstage, I had mentioned my song choice to other performers with little recognition in their eyes. So I did open my 54-second set by saying: “The performers you’ve seen tonight have beautiful voices and are performing songs you all know and love. I’m the only one brave enough to do neither.” Ten seconds in (or roughly 18% of the way through my performance), I made eye contact with a guy in the front row singing along, which made me feel literally and metaphorically seen. A fun night!
Earlier this year, I went on a little ticket-buying spree for all sorts of shows, and even though the money left my bank account months ago for some of these things, I’m finally reaping (going to shows) what I’ve sewn (ticket purchases). Last week Maris and I saw our friend (and Drama Desk Award Nominee!!!) Natalie Walker in a new musical where she is customarily brilliant. Her big musical number was the clear highlight of the show, not that it’s a competition with the other songs.
Then on Friday we saw Paul F. Tompkins’s Varietopia show on the tour’s NYC stop. (Okay this one we did not buy tickets for because a friend hooked us up. Thank you, Jordan!!!) This show was, also customarily, great. Paul was so funny as always and sang a beautiful tribute to the late Jill Sobule. And the musical guest (Medusa) was excellent as was the guest magician (Artoun Nazareth). In an unexpected coincidence, one of his magic tricks was extremely similar to one from the last magic performance we saw (last summer, we’re not doing like…constant magic watching), but that fact really highlighted how good his performance was, that we’d seen the trick before but enjoyed it this time even more. So much of the magic in a magic show isn’t about the magic part.
We also attended a one-year-old’s birthday party which was so much fun in part because a party for a kid that small is basically for adults, except everyone is more careful about covering electrical outlets and keeping knives out of reach. Happy birthday, Lulu!
This week I’m going to be hanging out at Frankenstein’s Baby tonight at Union Hall! On Wednesday I’m seeing Chris Farren and Oceanator play a show! Friday I’m going to ’s book launch and then to Anthony DeVito’s new standup special taping.
I’ve got a few fun things coming up, including a live Wait Wait…Don’t Tell Me recording up in Portland, Maine at the end of June! And on June 1st I’m doing another What’s New? show at Union Hall in Brooklyn to work out some new material. My friend Meredith Dietz who is very funny will be on the show as well, and I’ll announce some other guests soon too. I’m also hanging out at tonight’s Frankenstein’s Baby at Union Hall and co-hosting on the 19th!
In the meantime, you can listen to me on the podcast talking about Massachusetts culture, and I got to chat with Griffin and David and Ben on the great Blank Check podcast about Amy Heckerling’s extremely silly gangster comedy Johny Dangerously which is actually really tricky to watch. (I used an internet archive link with pretty shaky video quality.)
Okay that’s all the news for now! Don’t forget to get your Mothers’ Day ducks in a row if you’re a person who plans to celebrate Mothers’ Day. It is, against all odds, this coming Sunday.
PEP TALK FOR J.K. ROWLING
Too bad she’s not taking a long, hard look in the mirror.
Last week, in defense of the network’s upcoming Harry Potter TV show, HBO’s Casey Bloys asserted that the series would not “secretly [be] infused” with J.K. Rowling’s worldview. Which, let’s take a second and acknowledge the bleak humor in saying, essentially: “We want this person’s intellectual property, but not, you know, her personal intellect, so much as one can call it that.” As if Hagrid Ogreman (last name presumed by me) comes from a separate part of Rowling’s mind, hermetically sealed off from a level of transphobia that appears, even to the casual observer, to have consumed her brain the way syphilis did to Al Capone’s. This is such a wild statement for Bloys to feel compelled to make. Like, when Woody Allen puts out a new movie, nobody feels the need to go: “Don’t worry! There’s no stepdaughter-marrying stuff in here!”
It didn’t have to be this way. You, J.K., created one of the most beloved book/movie series of all time. I don’t know why Harry Potter resonated as much as it did. But who knows why anything works? Mickey Mouse is a rodent who sounds like he’s been doing whippets. Jerry Seinfeld from the show Seinfeld is loosely based on Jerry Seinfeld, a New Yorker who hates everything. These are not intrinsically likable characters. And sure, there have been allegations of antisemitism in the Harry Potter universe. Personally, as a Jew, I was less offended by the gold-hoarding goblins than the fact that you decided the most evil guy in the universe should be named “Mort.” Still, you could have lived in your castle and even built another castle around that castle to insulate people from your terrible opinions. But instead you became more and more animated by your most bigoted impulses. It’s like you pointed a magic wand at your own head and shouted: “Transphobus amplifius!” or some other bullshit first-thought fake Latin.
Remember the halcyon days of 2007 when you were like “Truth bomb: Dumbledore is gay!” and people were like, okay sure that’s kind of a Macklemore-ass thing of you to say, but we’re with it. (Obviously there are two caveats needed here: Macklemore in his current Mackleform was not famous in 2007. And also, against most odds including his former signature haircut, Macklemore seems cool now.)
Today, instead of using your massive wizard wealth to cure a disease or feed the hungry, you are funding campaigns to make sure transgender women can’t enjoy water polo or whatever the hell you’re on about lately. It stinks. You, frankly, stink.
Here’s the bright side for you, J.K. Rowling, a person who will never feel meaningful consequences for the harm you’ve done to others and doesn’t actually deserve consolation. The criticism you’re receiving and the turmoil around your work: It is all your fault. You did this to you. I imagine the criticism now feels the same as when religious weirdos protested your books for promoting an agenda of Dark Magick. Just like Ricky Gervais gets the same charge out of his transphobia as he did from saying the Bible may have taken some liberties with details (bold!) and Dave Chappelle can’t distinguish between the criticisms he receives after talking shit about marginalized people or saying that American society is positively termite-ridden with racism (he’s right about the second thing, of course). But it’s not the same, obviously. And you with a fully-formed prefrontal cortex should be able to tell the difference.
The ball is in your court. Or, to address you with your own mythology, the Quidditch puck(?) is in your…I don’t know…broom-catcher? You certainly don’t deserve any benefit of the doubt here, but you could have, at any point over the past seven or eight years, stopped this all from happening. Instead, you continue to spew garbage thoughts while generating enormous sums of money off of the performances of a new generation of child actors who will probably grow up to know better than you like the last ones did.
So, congratulations, I guess. You are become Mort, destroyer of your own legacy.
[Brief, non-joke point!!!! In this oppressive political and cultural climate, a nice thing you can do is support trans artists and also non-artist transgender people! Perhaps throw a few bucks towards Trans Lifeline or check out the artists performing at the Liberation Weekend music festival later this month in Washington DC as two examples of things to do. Okay thanks!]
PEP TALK FOR A READER
This was a very concise request, but I did add one comma and a nickname.
I got laid off almost two months ago now and thought I'd feel creative (I play in a band, I make art) in my newfound free time, but mostly I feel bummed out. Is there a pep talk for that? - Brainiyuck
There IS a pep talk for that, and it’s right HERE! Well, right BELOW HERE! Wait for it…
HERE IT IS: I have to believe that you are bummed out at least in part because the thing that happened to you is a bummer. Even (especially!) if the job you were at was a true pain in the neck, you were there for a reason, and not in a spiritual, everything happens for a reason, sense. The reason in this case is that they were giving you money to show up. And now you don’t have to show up anymore, which has its benefits, certainly. But they probably aren’t paying you anymore either, which is a pretty substantial drawback.
And, irritatingly, it’s not just unstructured hours of the day that allow for the best creation of art. You also need to cultivate the right mental space, not to mention pulling together the financial resources for art materials and things like dinner and electricity. It’s a bad deal, honestly. Unless your creative work brings in enough money to live off of (and sometimes even in that case) you’re always trying to balance a seesaw with Enough Bandwidth on one side and Enough Money on the other. The tricky part is, the seesaw of capitalism isn’t designed to be in balance!
An important part of pep talking, to me, is The Validation of Feelings. Because if I don’t acknowledge that there are legitimate reasons for you to feel bad, any response will come off as: “Actually things are fine, dummy!” Which is not what I mean! Especially because in many cases, things are not fine. (Will not elaborate. No need. If you think all things are fine…why are you here?)
Now, here’s the pep talk part of the pep talk: You can shake yourself out of this funk!!! Or, crucially, someone else can help shake you out of this funk. This funk-shaking could take many forms, probably not all of which are necessary! On the smallest level, you can fence off some time to do creative work in a contained period. Don’t kick your own ass for not being a gushing geyser of generative energy. You deserve to give yourself a few hours where imagining and executing creative projects becomes your entire task. Commit to not job searching or doing chores you put off over your entire tenure at the last gig or staring at the ceiling (or your phone) spiraling over the discrepancy between where you thought you’d be by now and where you currently find yourself. ESPECIALLY take some time off from that last thing. Maybe a friend can hold you accountable or even better collaborate with you on one of these simmering ideas. Or you could find a way to make some money that doesn’t stress you out too badly. OR, and I don’t mean to diagnose from afar, but I’ve spent some time around creative people, and maybe what you’re feeling is not just a post-job malaise but a smidge of depression. There are treatments and strategies for dealing with that too, despite what our current HHS Secretary might tell you!
This potential for satisfaction and improvement extends beyond creative ambition too. If there’s anyone reading who wants to learn how to rock climb or draft a will and testament or get a new printer cartridge, you can probably do those things with a combination of effort and support. Often that takes a little effort to discern what external obstacles are in your way and which obstacles are obstacling from inside the house, as it were or…as it ‘stacle.
So, to boil this pep talk down to two points, which maybe I should have done in the first place, but there’s no going back now because I’m too lazy to do that…
Your feelings of malaise are completely valid!
You can do something to adjust those feelings even though they are legitimate!!!
PICK-ME-UP SONG OF THE WEEK: Aesop Rock - “Send Help”
Okay so last week I shared (and ultimately deleted from the newsletter archives) a kind of stitched-together late-90s style rap song that at least one of the artists involved didn’t want out there. Sorry, Big Daddy Kane! My bad! Please believe I would never knowingly defy your wishes!
Included here is a new song by Aesop Rock, who represents the other genre of rap music I was obsessed with as a youth. At the turn of the century, Aesop Rock made lyrically dense songs set to somewhat confrontational sounding beats. Not rap confrontational like M.O.P. but noise confrontational like Nine Inch Nails. I got really into the catalog of El-P’s Definitive Jux label (to which Aesop Rock was signed), in part because they put out a ton of good stuff and in part because I liked the ethos even when some of the music was too much for my gentle radio-trained suburban ears.
When you are fifteen, and a celebrity (or even just a non-celebrity artist you’re aware of) is twenty-three, it feels like an enormous generational chasm. But when you’re forty and the other person is forty-eight, that’s basically the same age. Isn’t that weird? We’re all just adults now? Eminem is fifty-two years old. What the hell?
I can’t quite tell whether Aesop Rock’s choice of beats has gotten a little friendlier over time, or if my ears have grown up a little, or both. Either way, I stumbled across this song and video on YouTube, and I like it a lot! It’s cool to grow together with artists you’ve known (or known of) for a long time.
And one more! As I mentioned, I have tickets to see Chris Farren (who is so good live!) this week in New York, and this new song is another classic mega-catchy melody with extremely depressing lyrics. I’ve never heard a song about this particular uncomfortable feeling before! It’s new! It’s great! Chris Farren!
And, of course, the new PUP album Who Will Look After the Dogs? is out now too! It is great, and I’m so excited to hear them play these songs live later this year!
UPCOMING SHOWS
I am mostly close to home the next month or two, but that could change!!!
Last week was all about BUSINESS in a bunch of funny little ways, including some social ones. On Saturday night, our friends Ashtyn and Tim came over to drink espresso martinis from the ~influencer~ kit that HBO sent me in celebration of the new season of Hacks. (We haven’t started watching yet! Between Gemstones and The Rehearsal and the NBA Playoffs, I’m at capacity for TV right now!) I’d never had an espresso martini before, and I’m not an influencer, but I did used to write for an HBO late night show, which I imagine was what got me on their list. Maris mixed up some delicious cocktails, and the little kick of coffee had the added benefit of motivating us to leave the house for a friend’s birthday party at 8:30pm. (Happy birthday, Sean!) It was an extremely successful #brand #integration.
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Have you heard about Season 4 of Hacks? Well NOW YOU HAVE!!!!
I also auditioned to co-host a podcast for putting people to sleep that would only exist on a specific brand of white noise machine. The audition consisted of a sample episode I recorded with a friend, where we were instructed to banter and have fun, but not to be too engaging. (Laughter, we were told, really wakes people up, so we tried to be funny enough to keep the riffs afloat, but not funny enough to crack each other up.) I’d never been challenged like this before although people have occasionally told me that I’m plenty unfunny already! I kind of love a quirky little gig that pays me money to learn a weird new skill, so fingers crossed this pans out. Business!
Most spectacularly this week, Maris and I saw Glengarry Glen Ross on Broadway with our friend Casey who was visiting from Los Angeles. I’d never seen a staged version of GGR (not sure anyone abbreviates it that way) before, just the movie, and it had such a different tone. The show played to huge and consistent laughs, which I hadn’t expected despite the casting of big comedy stars (Bob Odenkirk, Bill Burr, Michael McKean, and even Kieran Culkin). Maris hypothesized that it’s because in the present day, slick real estate guys from the past are self-evidently laughable. I also think that the re-exclusion of Alec Baldwin’s famous “Coffee is for closers!” monologue that was written into the 1992 filmed version of GlenGaGleRo (100% sure nobody calls it that) leaves the stage play without any character who seems cool or impressive. There’s no avatar of success, and everyone is (at best) a corruptible corporate drone and (at worst) a pathetic, corrupt scumbag. (Excising that role didn’t stop them from selling “coffee is for closers” mugs at the merch stand. Capitalism finds a way!)
Even the new season of The Rehearsal (no spoilers) digs into the gnawing push and pull of what it takes to acquire enough money to make real change, and whether the acquisition process impedes one’s ability to use that money beneficially. It’s an issue that’s certainly top of mind for me lately (how to be a responsible and helpful member of society while also finding a way to earn money). It’ll come up later in the newsletter as well. Oooo, a teaser!???!?!
It’s also ostensibly the topic of this podcast episode I did with my friend about the movie Iron Man 3. I honestly had a pretty good time watching this one even though I didn’t like the original Iron Man very much. In large part I was able to enjoy it because it was less about Tony Stark’s immense wealth and his ruminating about how he can use it responsibly. This one is more about how messed up it is to be an Avengers, and how America loves to hate a guy in a cave, which was more interesting to me. Is anyone else having this kind of gut reaction to entertainment as the U.S. government is increasingly directly manipulated by some of the most grotesque and racist oligarchs in world history? Just like, not wanting to see rich people feeling conflicted about their richness?
In any case, I had fun talking with Gabe and maybe you’d have fun listening! And this week I’m psyched to see the great Paul F. Tompkins’ Varietopia show on Friday night. Lots to look forward to, even if I’m maybe about to render myself the Pagliacci of sleep podcasts and stay up all night twisted off the free espresso martinis.
PEP TALK FOR MAY FLOWERS
No pilgrim, but these may flowers are pretty nice.
Over the past week, I’ve been spending a lot of time walking around my neighborhood with Maggie (pug, age 4). She is curious about all the sights and smells. She wants to befriend every person she sees, and for some reason growl at 50% of the other dogs and scrape her feet along the ground like a bull about to charge. Frankly, she’s too cute; when the weather is nice, strangers can’t help stopping to marvel at her squishy face. I do love it, and I am absolutely offended when folks don’t stop me to say how adorable she is. But we have places to go! Maggie has (finally) been convinced that it’s better for all parties concerned if she pees outside instead of inside. But she’s very picky about where she’s willing to go, and I try not to let her be distracted while she’s getting in the zone.
I’m happy to meander through Brooklyn with a small wrinkly dog in part because I am wildly underemployed but even more so because the weather has been rapidly improving; we’re in the midst of three of the six excellent weeks that seduce visitors into moving to New York and coax residents into staying here. The flowers in my neighborhood are in full bloom, and I have managed to pry my eyes off of my phone screen long enough to murmur: “Ooo, the cherry blossoms, or at least what I assume to be cherry blossoms, are lovely this year!” We haven’t quite hit the technical season, but May Flowers are doing their thing.
And to those flowers I say: Watch yourselves. I know you’re populating Instagram stories (and newsletter headers) now, but don’t get cocky. This could all go to hell for you on any day, and speaking from experience (with seasonal flora, not entropy generally, but also…) it will. Soon your petals will be strewn across the sidewalk, dead and ready to be outlined in pollen (nature’s chalk).
I know this is a pep talk newsletter, but sometimes tough love is what’s needed, and I’m here to deliver. So May Flowers, don’t get too big for your branches and forget where you came from. You would be nothing without April Showers. Nothing. You were just buds and bulbs and stalks while the rest of us had to splash and splatter through the spring storms. DON’T THINK WE DIDN’T NOTICE.
Yes, everyone is happy to see you, even people with allergies. And no I don’t know if I have allergies or if I’ve just been staying up too late the last few weekends and feel like garbage because of that. Regardless! You’re great, May Flowers, but nothing lasts forever, even warm May sun. Be cool. And, sneezing aside, we will appreciate you while you’re here.
PEP TALK FOR A READER
I did a little re-formatting and nicknaming for this reader! That’s all!
My second tarot book is coming out in July and I am nervous to market it given *flails at the world.* I believe so strongly in what I do, but it's still a struggle right now. I'm positive that I'm not the only author in this place right now! - Booked and Dizzy
Congratulations, B&D, on what is a big and thrilling accomplishment despite *glances back and forth furtively* basically everything else going on. I know for a fact you’re not the only author concerned about launching a new book in the face of *does one of those deep sighs where your lips go p-p-p-p-p-p-p* the vast majority of news reports and cultural headwinds. (I may be married to one.) Let’s take a step back here: It’s not just authors. If I had to bet, I’d guess people in nearly every line of work have felt some ambivalence lately about the value of what they do when confronted with *looks in mirror, slaps self in face once, scowls and walks out of the bathroom* the overwhelming chaos of living in the present day.
Teachers feel forced to do a worse job because of small cohorts of reactionary parents. Human rights lawyers are fraying at the ends worried that they are doing enough for clients at risk. I’m sure that there are plumbers out there thinking “Who gives a shit?” and dog trainers struggling with an unprofessional impulse to let a rogue chihuahua keep biting strangers. Who cares? How strong could his jaws possibly be? I bet PR representatives feel trepidation as well, but they will continue sending a “just following up” email every six days until the sun burns out, regardless of the fact that you have no idea how you got on their email list, and have never replied to a single one of the five dozen messages they’ve sent you already this year.
It’s natural and beneficial to question the value of how you spend your days. I bet most thinking and feeling people keep themselves in check this way far more than the folks who are doing the bulk of the ruining of the world. If, for example, J.K. Rowling looked inward for a moment, she would realize her heart does not pass inspection and maybe she’d do some things differently. She’d probably stop throwing money and support behind the world’s cruelest transphobes and would likely include less antisemitism in her children’s books as well. (Forget the gold-hoarding goblins. She named the worst guy in the whole universe “Mort.”)
But wait!!! I am not trying to absolve anyone from the obligation to make the world a better place because you’ve done appropriate hand-wringing. No one can do that (especially not while we are *ahem* between Popes). But reflection on the issue of “What the hell am I doing with my life?” is worthwhile. And you can honestly say: “I’m doing creative work that I think will be of comfort and use to people!” Great! That is huge! And if you feel like that’s not enough, you can do more too!
Most people (myself very much included) do not have the capacity to fight fascism 24/7. We need sleep and snacks and sometimes to read a book about tarot or (as I’ve been told is popular) sexy dragons running their tails seductively along people’s lips. It’s good to do something small and nice for others, especially if you’re not talking over people doing BIG good things or pushing them out of the way. We’ve all got to do what we can, and that takes lots of different shapes, even and especially during a period of *winces, goes back to bed and pulls covers over head for an extra hour* this current deluge of bullshit.
We’re all in this together. (Despairing.) But, more importantly, we’re all in this together. (Hopeful.)
PICK-ME-UP SONG OF THE WEEK: Video Dave - “Jay’s Appliance Repair”
Longtime newsletter readers know that I am a big fan (and friendly acquaintance) of Video Dave. His new album is very good, and this is my favorite song off of it. The beat is so breezy and bouncy. You can close your eyes and imagine yourself on a boat or a beach. Or, if you are already one of those places, you will feel like you’re your boatiest, beachiest self. Dave also lays out a maxim that I personally subscribe to but never had the words for: “I cannot hang with you if I cannot complain with you.” Perfect. Gotta leave room for some grievances at any social engagement.
[Editor’s note: I removed a second song from this post that was released without the artist’s approval and wasn’t quite exciting enough to warrant defying their wishes.]
UPCOMING SHOWS
I’m kind of busy the next couple of weeks, but I’ll still be onstage!
5/4: 54/54/54 at 54 Below (Manhattan)
5/13: Friends With Caveats at Caveat (Manhattan)
5/16: Defector WNBA Season Kickoff Show at Littlefield (Brooklyn)
5/19: Co-hosting Frankenstein’s Baby at Union Hall (Brooklyn)
6/1: What’s New? at Union Hall (Brooklyn…EARLY SHOW!)
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I am writing to you after spending a few days in Austin for the Moontower Comedy Festival. Staying in downtown Austin just off of 6th Street really makes you look inward and ask some serious questions. Questions like: “Have all the nation’s 24-year-olds descended on a five-block strip to get blackout drunk?” And: “Can I count salsa as a vegetable? Because otherwise I might not have eaten a vegetable in like 36 hours.”
Despite navigating hordes of inebriated youths and a looming fear of scurvy, the festival was a really stellar time. I saw a ton of comedy friends and several non-comedy friends and made a ton of new friends (I’m very friendly). I don’t get to go to Los Angeles as often as I’d like, and that’s where many pals live now, so it was a treat to catch up with west coast buddies who were also in town. It was also nice to see a bunch of New York comedians outside of our normal rhythms. We got to do more hanging out and goofing around than when we have the rest of our lives to attend to.
Thanks to everyone who came to my headlining show at the State Theatre! And thanks to my friend Isabel Hagen for opening the show! Isabel writes perfect jokes and is also a classically trained viola player which is unfair and frankly rude. She must be stopped. (But in the event that her rampage is allowed to continue you should check out her directorial feature film debut at Tribeca this summer!)
I’m pointing up so you know why I’m standing there.
HUGE thanks also to Colleen and the whole festival staff for organizing such a fun and impeccably run event. Thanks to the Sklar Brothers for having me on their show Tag It (where comedians do a set and then Randy and Jason provide a wealth of potential tags for their jokes) and Business Casual for having me on their live podcast show to take a practice SAT test in front of the audience. (My verbal section was pretty good, but my math could use some brushing up. I was extremely stressed out the entire time, through no fault of Business Casual’s.)
Especially huge shout out to my friend whose beautiful and heartbreaking and hilarious show Happy Place I finally got to see. It’s a really special show, and not just because it’s extremely pro (Stoneham, MA hometown hero) Nancy Kerrigan and (excellent karaoke band) Sum-41.
Not to be all ~in these times~ but…uhh…in these times, I have extra added respect for the transgender comics and the comics who were not born in the United States for traveling to Texas to tell jokes.
Between this festival and a quick trip to Boston to perform on a fundraiser for my friend Mike Dorval’s cancer treatment (He’s doing well! It’s just that private health insurance is a nightmare even when it’s working!), I have felt especially grateful to be part of a community of friends and colleagues who care about each other as artists and people. I got to watch and work with lots of people I’ve looked up to for years, which is always a thrill. And I don’t think I did anything especially embarrassing even.
Some of the greats and also me, in Boston!
One non sequitur: Last week, a little girl (about four years old) in our neighborhood wanted to say hi to Maggie the pug, and afterwards she was extremely thrilled to show us that her dress had pockets. I hadn’t realized how early that starts!!!
This week: I’m co-hosting Frankenstein’s Baby at Union Hall tonight. Another outrageous lineup per usual! Tomorrow night I’m co-headlining a show in Manhattan with Marina Franklin! And on Wednesday I’m doing an evening of humor readings. What will I be reading? Can I even read? These are questions I will try to answer over the next couple of days. Then things are a little quieter for a bit. Maris and I are seeing some bands play next week and I’m very psyched for that.
And if you’re not in town you can listen to me later this week on the Review of Mess podcast with (whose newsletter is a long-time favorite) and (a new fave)! And if you’re not sick of reading things I’ve written, check out my guest entry for Dingus of the Week in my friend ’s excellent newsletter! I say many mean and gross things about Marco Rubio!
Oh and I made a little video plea to Jeff Bezos. Please share to promote male astronaut awareness.
Oh! I saw my friend Ana Marie Cox over the weekend, and she still has a couple of slots available in her upcoming writing workshop!!!
Okay! On to the pep!
PEP TALK FOR THE NEXT POPE
He didn’t win the Oscar; just let him have this, imo.
The Pope died over the weekend or today depending on what time zone you’re in, and I will not be making jokes about that because while I don’t believe in hell, I also don’t enjoy people telling me I’ll go there online for a week straight. Plus, it would hurt my feelings if Catholics said mean things when Mel Brooks (the closest thing my people have to a Pope) died.
I know you’re out there somewhere listening to “Humble” by Kendrick Lamar in your headphones so as not to feel inappropriately worthy of assuming stewardship over the whole church. Maybe you’re worried that you won’t be able to fill Pope Francis’s shoes (which, upon Googling, had considerably more style than I imagined). Do not worry, future Pope. Just by virtue of taking office (Is that what we say about Pope? Again…Jewish.) you will be infallible. Catholic grandmas all over the world will accept whatever you say. That’s Pope’s Prerogative! You can even say that gay people are good or genocide is bad, and the only people who will really get mad are conservative commentators who should probably just have Ronald Reagan prayer candles in their homes and give up the facade of religion entirely.
There’s only so bad a job you can do as Pope these days. You’re not going to convert the Vatican to cryptocurrency. (I don’t even know if Popes have that kind of municipal authority.) You’re probably going to be mostly within the general sphere of acceptable Popedom. Although honestly I do think it would be very funny if you, like, sincerely converted to Islam. That would probably shake the whole situation up a little. But I can’t imagine you came this far with all the robes and blessings and Latin to do that. And, if you do anything to cut out…you know…the thing the Catholic Church is second most famous for, you’ll probably go down as the GOAP (Greatest of All Popes).
PEP TALK FOR A READER
This request was extremely straightforward to I left it basically untouched.
I need a pep talk to get me through the next few months as I manage my senior dog's healthcare and possible end of life, getting my child through the end of HS and ready to launch into the adult world, and finalizing a divorce amid all the attendant financial and emotional turmoil. - Have You Heard That Sometimes It Rains AND Pours?
My goodness, you are in the throes of so many big changes. And even the positive shifts are heavy and effortful. There’s not a single event you cataloged that will fully happen on its own, nor is there one that’s absent of a high-voltage emotional charge. There’s nothing you mentioned that’s laborious and less fraught (putting together new furniture, taking on a rigorous new job, learning to weld) or mentally taxing but otherwise undemanding (deciding whether to go back to school after you’ve been accepted, working up the nerve to ask for a sabbatical at work, lifting a fallen tree with your mind).
You’ve got to actually do all these things, and you’re going to feel as it’s going on. Raw deal, I know, but it’s the only one that’s on offer. But you can do this! And, more than that, you will! This isn’t like filing your taxes. You can’t just skate by without actually completing that task for a couple of years if things get hectic enough (not that I’d know, but I do). Dragging your feet will have immediate and noticeable consequences. So, wisely, you’ll probably choose to put your head down and barrel through this gauntlet of landmark events.
That is, in my opinion, lightly good news. You seem to realize that the only way out is through, so through is where you’re headed. But the better news, is that once you go through, you’re out. That’s the corollary, right? If the only way out is through, the place you end up once you’re through is out! It’s kind of like the transitive property of mathematics but…not quite. And after all this through you’re mired in, no one has ever been as out as you’re about to be.
So get excited for out! You’re not going to be a brand new person. Despite what my old barber used to say immediately after every haircut (“Brand new man!” he’d gush, while snapping his fingers, despite removing maybe 5mm of hair from the sides of my head) one rarely finds one’s self a person fully transformed. But you will be a mostly-continuous version of yourself under new and bracing circumstances. They won’t all be good, but they will all offer the potential for a beautiful future informed by your past. Hold on! Out’s coming!
PICK-ME-UP SONG OF THE WEEK: Matt Berninger - “Bonnet of Pins”
Matt Berninger and his band The National are not known for music that makes one feel good. They’re more conversant in songs for drinking alone to while the sun creeps over the horizon on its way up. But this one has some big bright horns towards the end and an old school “Mr. November”-era National charge to is, so I made an exception. Sue me if you dare. I’ll fight it tooth and nail. (That kind of sounds like a National lyric honestly.)
And there’s a new Illuminati Hotties song featuring Stefan from PUP! Honestly, it’s a better fit for this section of the newsletter, but I’ve been going so hard for both of these bands individually in these here (web) pages that I figured you’d all be like enough already. So I linked it separately.
There’s very little routine weather I enjoy less than 40 degrees and rainy. Just snow, coward, I want to shout at the sky. On account of lousy weather and not much work on the calendar, I had an extremely cozy Maris-and-Maggie hanging out weekend, which was lovely when we did not have to subject ourselves to the elements. On Friday night, we watched Black Bag, the new Steven Soderbergh movie, which I loved and Maris liked a lot. It’s about love and mind games and espionage. And, it’s only 94 minutes long *guy on dating apps voice* because I guess that matters. (It does matter to me! I think movies should be short until proven to merit being long.)
We also plowed through the last few episodes of The Residence, the new Netflix series starring Uzo Aduba as an eccentric detective solving a murder in the White House. It might be my favorite of the recent batch of comedy/murder mystery shows. My all-time favorite is probably Search Party, but I don’t consider that part of this batch. The mystery of The Residence is very fun and mostly very tight! I laughed out loud a bunch of times! I don’t know many people who watched it (except for my friend Ashtyn who correctly guessed the ending!!!) so I have been mostly unable to vent about one little plot hole, but otherwise it was very enjoyable.
In other television news, I’m so excited for the upcoming adaptation of my friend Holly Gramazio’s delightful novel The Husbands starring Juno Temple of Ted Lasso and more importantly the most recent season of Fargo. Congratulations to Holly and also to all of us on getting to watch a fun tv show!
I kind of screwed up my Sunday calendar, and instead of coming home to Massachusetts for Sunday’s Passover seder, I scheduled a train for this morning and then booked a little work in New York last night that made it hard to change once I realized what I’d done. I’m a truly horrendous long-term planner. So you’re good at living in the moment? you may ask. Also no.
Feeling annoyed at myself for missing my family’s Passover celebration did at least made me reflect a little extra on what Passover is. (The past few years I haven’t traveled home for Passover, but it’s been because of actually inconvenient scheduling rather than my own poor grasp of the calendar, and I haven’t done much around the holiday at all.) With the U.S. government ramping up its cruelty and persecution towards anyone that it considers an outsider, the Passover story feels upsettingly relevant. And of course it is hard to internalize the sorrow we (Jews!) are compelled to feel for the pain that the Ten Plagues caused without feeling analogous anguish over the pain being visited on the Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank, largely in the name of the Jewish people.
It’s a bad time! And Passover is very much a bad times holiday. But it’s also a reminder that bad times can end. So I am going to try to focus on that starting…now!
Here’s some more fun news!
As I mentioned last week, my episode of Abolish Everything is up on Nebula now, but in the interim, Nebula has posted a few clips from my presentation, including this one!
While I’m at it, here’s an extremely silly bit I couldn’t get out of my head, so I wrote some jokes and recorded them and put them online. It’s absolutely too specific and nonsense-y to work as standup, but I wanted to share it with you here.
I also was on last week’s episode Joel Kim Booster’s podcast Bad Dates talking about a time I was a bad date. My story will be familiar to anyone who’s read my book, but the episode is worth it to hear hilarious stories from Skyler Higley and Punkie Johnson as well as Joel’s commentary.
NOW A FEW REMINDERS!!!!
TONIGHT! I’m performing on a benefit at Laugh Boston in the titular Boston to help pay some bills for my friend Mike Dorval’s cancer treatment! It’s a tremendous lineup for a good cause, and my parents will be there, so I’d love if you could show up and laugh so I look like a professional to them.
THEN! I’ll be in Austin for Moontower this Thursday night! I haven’t been to Austin in like 2.5 years, and I’m so hyped to eat some bbq and see a ton of friends. I would love love love if you made it out to the show!
The tag line should be: “In this Pitt, they open up…YOU.”
Okay so I have not seen this tv show at all because I am humiliatingly squeamish, but my wife is watching it as I’m working on this newsletter, and everyone seems like they’re in a pretty bad way. The doctors seem stressed as hell. The patients are in agony. I’m hearing constant moaning and squishing sounds, and not in a sensual way.
Here’s what I have to offer these people: I imagine that the patients are in capable hands and the doctors are working alongside trusted and assiduous colleagues. I feel like they wouldn’t make a drama about a hospital full of dumbass doctors who are always leaving rubber gloves inside of pancreases and amputating the wrong feet. These nurses may be overworked and underfunded (again, unclear on the sitch here, just kind of overhearing bloops and squelches) but they’re doing their best, dammit.
There are so many times in life that things just go wrong. I bet it is hard to be the kind of medical professional where occasionally your patients die. (I mean, I guess all of every doctor’s patients die on a long enough timeline, but ideally not right in front of them.) And it is probably as emotionally difficult to die as it is physically easy to do so. It rules to not be dead (not to rub it in if anyone dead is reading this), and it’s kind of amazing if you stop and think about the unlikelihood of being alive.
So many tragedies happen all the time, and anytime there’s someone there to help out when one befalls you is a miracle. Again I’m feeling kind of emotionally open this week, which is not all that normal for me, and the idea of like, doctors, is really astonishing. Why aren’t we all doctors? Should I be a doctor? Could I even get into medical school???
But! The season is over so any potential bad news is all on hold for now. Get well soon, or get some rest, or both!
PEP TALK FOR TWO READERS
I did a little capitalizing and comma-izing to this request but otherwise left it unchanged.
I’m writing a novel (just words no pictures!) and I’ve never done this before and I have to finish it before I try to sell it and it feels like a big bet on myself! - Oh, Word!
[Newsletterer’s note: The pep talk requester is a very talented writer and visual artist who has published books before that include their artwork, hence the parenthetical.]
In my biased (or rather, let’s say informed) opinion: This rules. It’s great to try a new form of creative expression, even if you’re horrendous at it (which I’m sure you’re not). Seriously, even if you’re in the process of writing the worst novel since ink was first put to paper (which I would bet my life you are not) it would be a worthwhile undertaking to bite of a big hunk of the unknown and chew it until it’s small enough to swallow.
(Caveats here being: As long as you aren’t endangering your ability to pay your bills, which it doesn’t sound like you are, or imperiling anyone else with your new endeavor, which also sounds unlikely. Writing a novel rarely ruins someone else’s life, and you realllly have to try to make that happen.)
You’ll almost definitely fold a new crevasse or two in your brain from the sheer novelty (pun unintended, but not deleted, so you be the judge…) of novel writing. It will no doubt inform your future attempts at picture-free fiction, or a return to the kind of work at which you’re already an expert.
SIDE NOTE: I think sometimes, and I’m not saying you’re doing this here, but sometimes, people write off the value of things that they’re already good at because they don’t feel hard and therefore don’t seem as worth doing. But it’s not a cheat to allow a pre-existing talent or previously-cultivated skill to lead you. It’s giving yourself the gift of your own expertise. You can always try new stuff, but you deserve full credit for your current capacity as well! SIDE NOTE OVER.
Even if the novel was a pile of goat puke (which, as we’ve established, it’s not) and you didn’t learn a single thing from the process (which, as we’ve covered, you will) the whole thing would be valuable because you want to do it. It’s good (if and when you can) to allot time and energy and precious mental capacity to something that fascinates and engages you, something that makes you feel alive and full of possibility.
I know I write a lot to and about people in the midst creative pursuits, but this pep talk goes for any kind of thing. If you want to take a French lesson or buy a skateboard, do it. It doesn’t matter if you never know how to tell a native Parisian where the library is, or land a kickflip. There’s valor in trying something new because you’ve never done it before and are curious. It’s the opposite of making AI draw you as an embryo or whatever. You benefit just by doing it, even if it’s bad. How often do you get to benefit from something even if you’re history’s worst practitioner of that skill? Almost never. And of course, as mentioned above, you aren’t and won’t be.
A PEP TALK UPDATE (PEPDATE?)
I received this message on Bluesky from a recent pep talk recipient and wanted to pass it along!
Do you ever do a 'where are they now?' for past pep talks?? because the end of my story is that while I couldn't afford to buy my current apartment [which my landlord is selling], I found another, better apartment nearby that I CAN afford!
Oh heck yeah!!!!
PICK-ME-UP SONG OF THE WEEK: Allo Darlin’ - “Tricky Questions”
The algorithm hit me right between the eyes on Friday night. Maris (and Maggie) and I were sitting on the couch, DJ-ing through our tv’s speakers via iTunes or Apple Music or whatever the app is called now. Maris spotted a new Allo Darlin’ song, the first in about a decade, on the New and Notable (or whatever that is called now) menu. Allo Darlin’, an Australian band, has apparently survived the rise and fall of the twee aughts and early 2010s and came out the other side…still twee. This song is so damn PLEASANT. It’s light and peppy and feels like spring. Hate to tip my cap to our robot overlords, but they really knew what I needed to hear.
BONUS SONG: Turnstile - “Never Enough”
We’ve also got this new Turnstile song, which I can’t get enough of, thanks to the human song selection machine . Turnstile has a loud/soft quality to their songs that is like if the Pixies sounded nothing like the Pixies. The soft parts are more delicate and the loud parts are more churning. Their album Glow On is widely beloved, but I had a little trouble finding a way in. My favorite previous Turnstile tune was the one featured in I Think You Should Leavewhich now makes me tear up in the wake of the death of Biff Wiff. Anyway, I get it now, and this song rules, and the video rules.
UPCOMING SHOWS
I’ve got a few great shows coming up and then my calendar gets a little light, tbh! I’m going to see what I can do about that!
Oldenburg (dpo) - Dass bei der Aufzucht von Hühnern oft Antibiotika verfüttert werden, ist kein Geheimnis. Ein Großbetrieb aus Oldenburg setzt nun auf ein neues Konzept, das immer mehr Schule macht: Um Kunden trotz Fabrikhaltung Eier von glücklichen Hühnern anbieten zu können, werden bei "AgriHuhn" jetzt zusätzlich Antidepressiva ins Futter gemischt.
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