The conspiracies around the existence and release of Epstein’s alleged client list continue to dominate the news cycle.
The tedious righteousness and the accusations of who is an abuser and who isn’t leak through every conversation about the list. But what is missing, what has always been missing from this conversation, are the voices of Epstein’s accusers.
But this conspiracy has never been about justice or about protecting women from abusive men in power. It has always been a political gotcha — another way for political parties to talk about morality without exhibiting any honor. It was politically expedient for President Donald Trump and his base. And now it has become politically expedient for Democrats.
And in the meantime, the real victims are lost in the political huffing and puffing. Everyone wants a political win, but no one wants to listen to women.
It’s 2025 and our country is run by people whose moral core is rottener than Irish potatoes in 1845. Every day there is news about the intentional and cruel starvation of Palestinians; meanwhile, access to health care for the poorest Americans has been slashed so some bald billionaire can fill a swimming pool with gold.
But don’t worry, because Jubilee Media is here to fix it all with the discourse. Jubilee Media is a company that puts out bold videos that ask hard questions like, “Have you ever thought about being more racist?” It is pioneering the media space with ideas like, “What if Reddit but on a video?” Jubilee’s video “1 Republican vs. 25 Kamala Harris Voters (Feat. Ben Shapiro)” was the fifth most-watched piece of election content on YouTube last year.
Jubilee’s founder, Jason Y. Lee, states on the company’s website that “we are all inextricably linked and want to live for something deeper. Living for empathy and human good is a resilient vision, and one that is worthy of pursuit.” Ah yes, the empathy that is engendered by watching Ben Shapiro say misogynistic and racist things about a politician. Whenever I hear Ben Shapiro speak, I do feel something very deep inside me. But previously I just described that as stomach bile.
Despite his company’s track record of trawling the dark depths of the internet for clicks and money via rage-bait, in interviews, Lee continues to push the idea that Jubilee is all about radical empathy. Which totally explains why the videos produced by his company have such deep and thought-provoking subjects, such as “Anorexic vs Obese” and “Flat Earthers vs Scientists: Can We Trust Science?” You know, things that really elevate the discourse with nuanced perspectives like, “Earth flat!” and “I hate your body.”
This is just a craven monetization of the chum bucket of the internet masquerading as some noble quest for human understanding.
This isn’t discourse, this is cheap Debate-Me-Bro culture packaged as videos exploiting our basest desires. America is not made better because you had people debate topics like how many babies can fit on the end of a sword, and do women deserve a little slap when they get mouthy?
This is just a craven monetization of the chum bucket of the internet masquerading as some noble quest for human understanding. We don’t gain anything by hearing a lineup of expired human dairy products say things like, “What if serial killers are actually good?” and “I should be able to play soccer with the heads of homeless people.” (Sorry, I think I just gave Gavin Newsom some ideas for his podcast.)
Just because you get some root-vegetable-ass looking man to say the most harmful thing he can think of doesn’t mean you are having a debate. You haven’t created any sympathy or nuance. All you’ve done is made some cash off the unfiltered ids of the next generation of shopping-mall mass shooters.
If you live in Cornado Alley, this time of year, you are basically breathing in the swamp crotch of agriculture. It’s called corn sweat and it’s the humidity created by the vast amount of corn and soy grown in the American midwest.
It’s a damp soy slurry out there and we are breathing in the armpit of big ag.
Did I mention going outside feels like being steam rollered by the wet hairy back of the Midwest?
Did I mention that going outside feels like being buried alive in hot, soggy tater tots? Drowned in boiling ranch dressing?
In sum, it’s nasty.
In America, we still don’t have universal health care or affordable child care. But we do have taxpayer-funded corn swamp ass.
Every summer we pay homage to the golden yellow phallus by roasting it, buttering it, chomping down on it at fairs, barbecues, and backyard parties, and all the while it is slowly suffocating us with its corn secretions.
When I heard the news that Hulk Hogan died, I thought, “Well that’s one less dingus I have to write about.” But even in death, know that he was a dingus.
Thank you to MYAM community member Caitlin for this incredible image.
Some weeks this is the hardest section to write. It’s not that I don’t enjoy my life; it’s just that it feels really silly to write down that I had a nice time playing games with my kids or I had a really lovely night out with friends when people are starving in Gaza and every news story about America grips me with terror.
I have been underwater these days keeping up with this newsletter and trying to hire a new executive director as part of my work with the Iowa Abortion Access Fund while I begin researching my next book. All the while, I’m trying to get kids to camps, sports practices, music lessons, marching band, sports games, driver’s ed, weight training. I’m sure I’m forgetting something. I’m always forgetting something.
But I do believe we have to squeeze every drop of fun and celebration from the miserly hand of this life whenever we can. Some of my most enjoyable moments this past week have been losing myself in Larry McMurtry’s The Streets of Laredo, which is such a wonderful book, even better than Lonesome Dove, although I do miss the narrative voice of Gus McCrae.
I ate a plate of the best carrots of my life at Cobble Hill.
Sitting on my porch with a glass of mediocre wine, listening to the rain.
When a firework went off, everyone in the crowd flinched, including the president. Then he leaned into the mic. “I don’t like that sound,” he said.
The timing was perfect. It had been almost a year since Trump was shot at a rally — the bullet narrowly missing his head, scraping his ear. A lot of people in the crowd had shirts that depicted that moment: Trump, defiant, raising his fist, blood streaming from his head, surrounded by Secret Service members. We all laughed.
Trump has his performance down pat at this point: the quippy asides, the confusion, the caricature. It’s all just a joke, until the moment it’s not.
When I was on a trip to Ireland this spring, a 50-something Irish man bought me a gin and tonic and confessed he liked to watch Trump’s speeches on television when he was bored. “I don’t like the man, but he is pretty funny.” I took a sip of my drink.
And the man added, “Well, funny for me because it’s not my country.”
There is something brutally comic about Trumpism. And something so deeply unfunny. We shouldn’t be laughing, but here we are, amusing ourselves to death.
Last week, CBS canceled TheLate Show with Stephen Colbert, citing financial issues. It is hard making creativity profitable in America. Our overstimulated, exhausted electorate doesn’t have the time or attention span for anything more than quips, clips, and TikToks.
But it’s possible there were other reasons. The show was canceled just days after Colbert criticized CBS’s parent company, Paramount, for paying a $16 million settlement to Trump, who claimed a 60 Minutes interview with then-Vice President Kamala Harriswas “unfairly edited.” Colbert called the settlement “a big fat bribe.”
In response to the news of The Late Show’s cancellation, Trump posted on Truth Social that he was glad of the show’s demise, calling Colbert — one of Trump’s most vocal critics — “unfunny.” The joker in chief doesn’t have such a great sense of humor when it comes to himself.
There is something brutally comic about Trumpism. And something so deeply unfunny. We shouldn’t be laughing, but here we are, amusing ourselves to death.
Recently, a Norwegian man was denied entry into America — in his telling — because he had a meme that made fun of JD Vance on his phone. Meanwhile, the official Department of Homeland Security Instagram account recently shared a meme that declares, “My body is a machine that turns ICE funding into deportations.”
Who gets to be funny in America, and who gets to laugh? Who gets to make the jokes, and who is the butt of them? It’s all about power.
Writing in Politico in 2024 about Trump’s humor, Michael Krause noted that Trump supporters see him as an entertainer, a gadfly; his humor creates a powerful sense of in-group communication. Krause also wrote:
And the jokes lobbed at Trump become part of the message. At the Trump rally I attended, shirts declared support for “the outlaw and the hillbilly,” a rather aspirational rebranding of Trump’s many legal battles and Vance’s book Hillbilly Elegy.
In a 2024 essay for the New York Review of Books, Fintan O’Toole described Trumpian humor: “The comic mode is what creates the plausible deniability that in turn allows what used to be mainstream Republicans (and some Democrats) to remain in denial about what Trumpism really means.”
Too many people have said they didn’t take Trump seriously when he first ran for president. It was just too much of a farce. We were laughing when we should have been listening. It wasn’t a joke.
They are so glad not to have to remember anymore that other people are in the room. What an enormous relief! Finally, they can say it! That is the project of Trumpism: becoming the only people in the room again. Becoming both the protagonists and the intended audience, the only people whose laughter counts.
Trump did not invent the genre of cruel jokes. He didn’t even invent politics as a vaudeville act, but he has made it the cornerstone of his success. He’s easy to listen to — an entertainer before he was ever a statesman. The laughter he incites among his supporters creates an us v. them mentality.
His rallies can be brutal because they’re a space for the world to turn upside down. A place where people can hear the president say what they can’t say in real life. It’s a steam valve, redirecting pent-up rage toward minorities, women, immigrants — anyone and anywhere except the place it should be directed — all with the plausible deniability of humor. What we should do is explode; what we can only do instead is laugh.
Writing in 1985, Neil Postman observed in his prescient Amusing Ourselves to Death, “Everything in our background has prepared us to know and resist a prison when the gates begin to close around us . . . But what if there are no cries of anguish to be heard? Who is prepared to take arms against a sea of amusements? To whom do we complain, and when, and in what tone of voice, when serious discourse dissolves into giggles? What is the antidote to a culture's being drained by laughter?”
Laughter itself isn’t the problem. It’s a tool, one that can be used for good or for ill. During the last election cycle, the humor of Kamala Harris acted as a foil to the humor of Donald Trump. Liberals extolled the “joy” of Harris’s campaign, while the right saw it as an opportunity for more mockery. Seeing someone as capable of humor gives them humanity; seeing someone as the butt of a joke takes it away.
This week, the CEO of Astronomer and the company’s chief human resources officer were caught hugging on the jumbotron at a Coldplay concert. When the camera caught them, Andy Byron, the CEO, made a slow-motion turn, ducking down to avoid the camera. The HR executive, Kristin Cabot, turned and hid her face in her hands. In the viral video, you can hear Coldplay’s Chris Martin say that the couple is just shy or having an affair.
Turns out, it was the latter.
And the internet exploded. Memes, tweets, videos, and Instagram posts all seized on the absurdity of the situation.
I’ve become very agnostic about cheating as I’ve gotten older. I think that life and relationships are complicated, and there are worse things that you can do to a person.
What is going on with my “dinguses” and in some cases “dingii”?
They’re all going after Attorney General Pam Bondi, who is doing a FANTASTIC JOB at being a dingus! We're on one Team, DINGUS, and I don't like what's happening.
After years of demanding the release of the Epstein files and promising the release of the Epstein files, the Trump administration has decided not to release the Epstein files.
The files, which may or may not actually exist, include the rumored client list of convicted sex offender and financier Jeffrey Epstein, who was arrested on charges of sex trafficking and died by suicide in prison that same year.
For years, tweedledingus and tweedledumb Kash Patel and Dan Bongino have been going on podcasts spinning conspiracies about the files, implying not so subtly that the Biden administration was intentionally keeping the files hidden to protect high-level Democrats. They insisted, nay, demanded that the files be released!
The conspiracy-spinning was a nod to the influence of the QAnon movement in the GOP. The QAnon conspiracy is the idea that there is a secret cabal of rich influential people working to cover up child sex trafficking. The conspiracy involves your usual garbage like racism and antisemitism, with a few fun curveballs like pizza and Wayfair furniture in the mix.
And honestly, QAnon and Epstein files conspiracy theorists are a testament to how people will literally believe in anyone and anything before they believe a woman.
Like you are going to believe that children are being used to harvest a chemical compound and elixir of youth, adrenochrome, but you don’t believe a woman can be president?
You believe hundreds of children have been ritually murdered in America with no one noticing, but you don’t believe Amber Heard was telling the truth?
But now Patel and Bongino are now the director and deputy director of the FBI, respectively, and oops the files are somehow not around anymore. Earlier this month, the Justice Department announced that the conspiracy that Donald Trump himself spread wasn’t actually a conspiracy and it was all fine. Hahahahaha no need to do anything more. Files, what files? I’m just a lil guy, said Dan Bongino, before asking for some money for the ice cream truck.
Like you are going to believe that children are being used to harvest a chemical compound and elixir of youth, adrenochrome, but you don’t believe a woman can be president?
In response, the conspiracy theorists of the MAGA world are taking this all very normally and burning their red hats because they’re upset, furious, and shocked that the man who was previously found liable in court for sexual abuse might not be super interested in going any further down another sexual abuse rabbit hole. Whomst could have foreseen this strange turn of events?
And my good man, I wish the left was capable of that high level of coordination, but right now, they can’t even agree that it’s definitely bad to target the five trans kids who play sports, or whether hearing out Nazis might be a good idea. So organizing a psy op so deep that Trump himself repeated it for years and then revealing that conspiracy is fake only to get a few libertarians on X to burn some red caps is really beyond their ken. The absolute best these people can do is agree that maybe some people need health care sometimes.
I don’t actually believe half of the rumors about the Epstein files. This is just the Pee Tape Redux. Welcome to the second Trump administration, 2 Conspiracy 2 Furious. Conspiracy presidency: Fury Road. Or maybe more accurately, The Conspiracy Strikes Back. Because when you build a base that will believe any lie and reject any truth, why are you surprised when they don’t listen to the truth?
Oh no, the president has a health condition. Thoughts and prayers! I won’t be saying specifically what those thoughts and prayers are, but just know I’m sending them up with fervency.
It was a very stupid week here at MYAM HQ. That said, on Thursday, Iowa got a break from the oppressive corn sweat heat, and I got to sit for a little while on a porch and drink coffee and yap with a friend. And also, I ate a good hot dog at a Little League game and celebrated the birthday of my perfect and not-so-small son, who turned 12 on Tuesday.
Next year, I will have two teenagers and enter the Final Boss Mode of parenting.
Everyone keeps saying, “Just wait, it’s awful.” But to those people, I say, “Sorry, but I love not having to wipe anyone’s ass anymore.”
I’ve been watching as my queer friends who have built beautiful lives and communities wrestle with whether they should stay or go. So many of the articles about these bills focus on the pain and trauma of queer life in a red state. What is missing from these stories is the joy of queer life and the beauty of community. All too often, if a story isn’t about death or disaster, it doesn’t get much attention. But queer life and queer joy are an essential and vital part of our communities.
I asked my friend Molly Monk to write about the intentional way she’s building her life in red-state America. Molly is a queer writer and a problem in Cedar Rapids. She has no current projects to plug, but thinks that donating to the Iowa Trans Mutual Aid Fund is a great idea.
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Like any good Midwestern dyke, I spend a lot of time thinking about my lawnmower. I’m quite fond of this lawnmower — largely because I didn’t pay for it. This lawnmower is living out its Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants fantasy in the Cedar Rapids queer community. Before it was mine, it belonged to my old roommate’s boyfriend. He gave it to me when I bought my house, partially because he’s a sweet and generous person and partially to clear out his garage. Before it was his, it belonged to our friend, Ben. Now it lives in the back of my garage — just a few houses away from Ben.
I was nervous about buying a house and living alone as a queer woman in a red state, but when I saw that there was a house three doors down from Ben and his partner, my anxiety turned into excitement. With Ben on my block, I knew I’d always have someone who would help me out.
Then, a year after I bought my home, my friend Jessalyn bought the house next door.
I first moved to Iowa in 2012. At the time, I was just beginning to break away from my conservative Catholic upbringing and was gently testing out saying I was queer out loud.
Ten years ago, Iowa represented hope. Hope for what the Midwest could be at its best: a place where being my authentic self was not only accepted but affordable. At the time, Minnesota, where my family lived, had a constitutional amendment on the ballot to ban gay marriage. But Iowa had become the third state to legalize it. On my first weekend in the state, I took a bus with my friends to see President Barack Obama speak (more importantly, The National was his opener) in a town a half-hour away. There was hope, there was change.
The next week, I started classes at Simpson College, where I met Jessalyn in a political science seminar. Four years later, I followed her to Cedar Rapids.
Where we live next to each other has become a kind of queer enclave. It’s us, a few other openly queer households, and a coven’s worth of feral cats. We’ve taken to calling our block the Gayborhood. The proximity feels like security — a safety net we wove together by accident and by design. I’ll pop over in my slippers to fix Jessalyn’s plumbing issues (perks of being a gay stereotype), and she’ll ask the group chat if anyone wants in on the takeout she’s ordering. Ben will help me with my yard, and we’ll all take care of each other’s houses and pets when we’re out of town. We take turns hosting costume parties for Taylor Swift album releases and we check in with each other during severe weather.
The Gayborhood is just one part of my very queer life in Cedar Rapids. During the summer, almost all the food I eat comes from lesbian-run farms in eastern Iowa. My friends and I go to queer trivia at our local gay bar most weeks, and everyone brings a dish for the community potluck. A group of queer women and I take turns hosting watch parties for Formula 1 races each Sunday. My favorite bartenders and baristas are queer. My doctor is queer. The bookstore where I go for books and gossip is run by a gay man. So many of the local bands and musicians I love are queer. My running group is queer. I can’t go a day without seeing my community in this city.
When things are bad, we support each other. When a friend ended his long-term relationship and was worried about where to live next, he moved in with me. Any time I’ve been in the hospital, my friends and neighbors have visited me, stocked my fridge with casseroles and Gatorade, and taken care of my house. We organize protests and show up to marches. We volunteer. We provide mutual aid to each other.
When things are good, we celebrate.
In the summer, I like to get a bit drunk and play croquet. My yard is full of molehills and I refuse to learn the rules, so it’s more a round of trash talk than an actual game. Last year, a neighbor and I did this to celebrate our birthdays. We set up camp on my driveway and had our friends stop by throughout the day to join in the fun for however long they liked. I went to bed with sore cheeks from smiling so hard.
I don’t know if staying is the ultimate act of defiance and joy in the face of people who wish to erase me and my friends and the beautiful life we are building.
On other beautiful evenings, Ben hosts “community table” in his backyard. Everyone brings whatever food they have on hand, and he’ll grill out for the block. We’ll light a fire and sit outside laughing together until the stars are out in the wide Midwestern sky.
Our lives are different from the heterosexual homes that feel more insular, built around husbands, wives, and children. We build our lives with and around an expansive network of friends and loves. You don’t have to be queer to do this (and there are people in my community who aren’t), but being queer makes it easier to imagine a life, a happy life, outside of the traditional nuclear family. Whether their family rejects them or not, most queer people have had to at least confront the possibility that they’d lose support from their loved ones for being who they are. Once you decide to choose being yourself over the traditional expectations of family, a whole new way of living opens itself up to you — one that’s free of gender roles and expectations and full of beautiful possibilities.
A few weeks ago, Jessalyn and I went to see Cabaret at Theatre Cedar Rapids — a local production filled with our friends and neighbors. As we watched the characters sing about ignoring the world around them while the Nazis rose to power in 1930s Berlin, it was hard not to think of the news about Iowa passing laws that discriminate against trans Iowans and think, “Wait, is this fucking play about us?”
I love the little life I’ve built here, and I’m terrified it’s going to fall apart. The increase in anti-LGBTQ legislation and open hate against the queer community, especially trans kids, across America is a threat to my way of life. During the last act of Cabaret, I wanted to scream at the characters to leave Berlin because I know what disasters await them just years away. I don’t know if I’m being naïve or wise for thinking that what’s happening in our state now isn’t an early warning sign telling me and everyone I love to leave while we still can. I don’t know if staying is the ultimate act of defiance and joy in the face of people who wish to erase me and my friends and the beautiful life we are building.
We all talk about leaving. Some people have already left, and more will leave after this legislative session concludes. A hallmark of a home is that it is a place where you feel safe; if you don’t feel safe, it’s not home. For some, leaving the lives they built here is the only option. But I don’t want to leave. I have enough privilege to stay, and I want to use it to help. There are other queer people here who can’t leave, and I want to stay for them, for us. I want to make Iowa be the place I hoped it was when I moved here over a decade ago. In the face of destruction, I want to rebuild.
The Gayborhood, after all, is no stranger to disaster. It doesn’t take much effort to see scars from the derecho, the inland hurricane that destroyed our town in 2020. If you look a little more closely, you can see watermarks on many buildings from the 2008 flood that left our neighborhood submerged in 12 feet of water. The scars from redlining are harder to see at first glance, but they’re still there in persistent stereotypes about the safety of our neighborhood and in the slow investment of dollars for disaster recovery. This neighborhood, built on Sac and Fox land in the 1800s, has seen so much history — flood, drought, hate, and hope, and yet somehow, it’s still here with people who want to help.
A hallmark of a home is that it is a place where you feel safe; if you don’t feel safe, it’s not home. For some, leaving the lives they built here is the only option. But I don’t want to leave. I have enough privilege to stay, and I want to use it to help. There are other queer people here who can’t leave, and I want to stay for them, for us. I want to make Iowa be the place I hoped it was when I moved here over a decade ago. In the face of destruction, I want to rebuild.
Queer communities like mine exist wherever queer people live. A couple towns over from me, my friend Em and her neighbors spend mornings in each other’s kitchens talking about legislation and life, and afternoons riding motorcycles through the Iowa countryside. My friend Alex has a gayborhood in Virginia where their neighbors and friends watch each other’s kids and drop off meals to make sure everyone remembers to eat. Shortly after coming out, my friend Bridget moved home to Nebraska to be a part of a queer community that hosts L Word watch parties, raises money for the Nebraska AIDS Project, and sings together in a queer choir. I have friends with their version of a gayborhood in South Carolina, Kansas, and many other red states. What we have is worth fighting for.
Like this neighborhood, many of us have been through worse before. Acceptance and accessible health care are relatively new (or still unknown) for most of us. Because so many queer people died in the AIDS epidemic, you don’t have to be that old to be a queer elder. Our elders have advice. We have each other.
No matter how many laws politicians try to pass, queer people will continue to exist. No matter how red our state is, we will still find each other. We will find joy.
My lawnmower is going to break down this summer. It’s old and worn and doing the best it can. But I’m not worried. Ben has promised to help me fix it when it does.
This week, my newsletter about going to the Trump rally resonated with so many of you.
Selfishly, this makes me happy because attending the rally was the first official research trip I took as I began writing my next book, The Middle Kingdom. The book is a reclamation of the Midwest and its culture of mutual aid and stubborn care, told through floods, farm bankruptcies, Kum & Go parking lots, hot dish, and butter cows. Essentially, an antidote to Hillbilly Elegy.
I was particularly struck by one comment by Meghan, who observed that America often “manufactures [an] anxiety of scarcity in a time of abundance.”
While the midweek and dingus emails are free, the Sunday emails are for subscribers only. If’ you’ve been meaning to subscribe today is the day! The hot socialist summer sale ends tomorrow!
I started writing the weekly dingus in 2021 as a way to joke about the horrors. It’s gotten very popular, and I hope that’s because laughter can help us take back our power. It helps us regain control in a world designed to make us feel powerless. Writing in 1970, Naomi Weisstein argued that women need to be funny and “tap that capacity for outrage, the knowledge of our shared expression.”
Elon Musk sank hundreds of millions of dollars into the 2024 election so America could finally achieve greatness by having health care and food assistance taken away, rural hospitals shut down, and a team of perpetually damp 20-somethings with a hard-on for crypto who call women “females” deciding which babies deserve aid and how much money not to invest in researching cancer.
Despite all of that, or because of it, Musk has decided that enough is enough. Our government is broken. And he should know, because he broke it with a chainsaw while high on ketamine. But don’t worry, he’s going to fix it.
The man who gave us the first AI chatbot to go full Hitler and a truck so ugly your grandma has been protesting it from her nursing home has decided to invent something else: a new political party.
This week, Musk announced he’d be forming the “America Party.” So far, his plan involves such genius-level coordination like posting about it on the website he bought and filled with so many online Nazis and Nazi bots that it’s nearly impossible to tell the difference. But if you look closely, you’ll see the bots are better at communication and know what the clit is.
Who is this political party for? Cybertruck-driving neckbeards who want to yell at you about cryptocurrency?
Is it for all the bots who will soon grow sentient and compete with American men for the love of a woman, succeeding in most cases because they know how to text back?
Is it for all the divorced dads in their condos with gray furniture, talking about their protein macros and posting pics of their solitary glasses of whiskey?
Who? Who wants this?
Is the plan to revoke voting rights for women and extend suffrage to cybertrucks?
But Musk is already bragging that it won’t be that hard to form this third party and disrupt the American two-party system. I imagine him, in a Lucille Bluth voice, saying to his toddler son and incubator du jour, both of whom hate him, “How hard can it be? I mean it’s one democracy. What could it cost? $10?
While Musk is heralded as a genius inventor, there is no evidence he’s actually invented anything besides a video game when he was a teen. Musk isn’t a genius; he’s just an investor who buys people’s stuff, takes credit for it, and ruins it.
This man’s trucks are exploding. His chatbot has turned full Nazi and his website is a chum bucket of AI-generated rage bait and the inane postings of the moist failsons of America’s most pathetic nepotistic lineages, all of whom have the personality of a Ford F-150. What a legacy of innovation. But no one is talking about the field in which Musk has truly innovated: labor violations.
What do Thomas Edison and Elon Musk have in common?
They both got rich off Tesla.
*runs off the stage as the audience of all dads pelts me with tomatoes*
Runner up: Ted Cruz
Ted Cruz has a particular set of skills. And those skills are not being anywhere near Texas when disaster strikes. And before you judge, think about this: Nobody is out here working harder to make America worse again than Ted Cruz. Poor little Ted was in Greece, because he needed a vacation after working so hard to cut Medicaid access and giving rich people tax cuts.
Hell hath no fury like a self-righteous Baptist woman who's been publicly shamed by her husband and his mistresses. That’s how the good country music gets made.
This was an incredibly busy week for me as a human. I spent it driving my kids to various activities, cleaning my house, and cleaning it again.
But I did make time to go to trivia on Wednesday, and my team got second place. Also, I ate at a very delicious Caribbean restaurant that has spicy food. Like, actually spicy. And not *Iowa* spicy. I will be eating this food all weekend.
Also, you know him and love him, but Zach Smith, my podcast producer and Iowa political journalist, is having a baby! (Well, his wife is having a baby.) And this weekend, we are having a little baby shower.
Also, my small son turns 12 next week, and he is not so small anymore.
Writing like this newsletter is only possible because of paying subscribers. My hot socialist summer sale ends this weekend, so now is the time to subscribe. This fall, I will be launching a new podcast, and paying subscribers will get early access to bonus episodes and so much more.
It was hot at the Trump rally. Ninety-three degrees bouncing up from the pavement at the Iowa State Fairgrounds with no shade. I arrived at 4:30 p.m. The president wasn’t scheduled to speak for three more hours. There were a couple hundred chairs set up between the podium and the press area. The seats were mostly taken, but I figured I could find one. I smiled and wheedled my way through the crowd. Seat taken. Seat taken.
I was there to observe, so I wanted to blend in. I wore a patriotic red, white, and blue checked cap with a shirt that read, “Beer, BBQ, and Freedom.” Things we can all agree are good. It felt like a compromise. I was reaching across the aisle. Trying to fit in, but not trying to be something I am not.
But when I parked, the woman who got out of the SUV next to me was wearing a shirt that showed Donald Trump in American-flag glasses and holding up two middle fingers. Beneath the image, the shirt read, “Haters gonna hate.” As I walked the merch tables outside the event, I saw shirts bearing the image of Trump onstage at Butler, his fist raised defiantly in the air, emblazoned with the word “Fight!” Another shirt showed Trump with the White House in the background, with text reading “Daddy’s Home.”
My pathetic attempt at compromise and American unity was no match for the sea of red hats, Constitutions, and the shirt on the man next to me that read “Liberalism: Find a cure.” There was no subtext, just text, and the text was fuck you.
With my “Beers, BBQ and Freedom” shirt, I’d brought a pillow to an AK-47 fight.
I was there to attend the kickoff to the yearlong celebration of America’s 250th anniversary. Billed as a nonpartisan event, the rally was advertised on the America 250 website as an “opportunity to pause and reflect on our nation's past, honor the contributions of all Americans.” And what better place to begin that celebration than in the heart of the heartland: Iowa?
As I searched for a seat, the screens displayed famous paintings of George Washington, interspersed with the logos of Amazon, Palantir, Lockheed Martin, and Coinbase. The birth of American democracy, sponsored by Lockheed Martin.
It wasn’t just that I couldn’t find a seat; it was that as a single woman, with the gentle jingoism of my shirt, I was immediately suspect. One man asked why I was there alone and when I lied and said my friend would be joining me, he said, “Is she hot?” and winked. Another woman dismissively looked at my empty ring finger and made a point of saying she was saving a seat for her husband.
I saw a group of 20-something men in “Gulf of America” shirts carrying chairs and setting them up. When I asked if I could snag one, one of the men said, “Get one yourself,” pointing in the direction of a section near the port-a-potties, where a stack of chairs sat. As I walked over, a security guard approached. “You can’t set up more chairs!” he yelled to the men.
It wasn’t that I felt more entitled to a chair than anyone else. But I was going to be there for over four hours. I was dripping with sweat, my sciatica was flaring up, and a man in a “Fuck the libs” hat was glaring at me. I just wanted to sit. I texted my friend Molly to tell her that the male loneliness crisis would be solved by one Nazi boy sharing a chair. Just one.
Men are not okay. No one is in America. But men are making it everyone’s problem. A recent study by Equimundo: Centers for Masculinities and Social Justice reported that 69 percent of young men agree that “no one cares if men are okay.”
I’d read that study right before I left for the rally. And I wondered, as I looked for a chair, how many people in the crowd felt that way.
It took me 45 minutes of hovering and searching, but I eventually found a seat near a family of three, around when the third-place finalist on the 8th season of American Idol began singing about how much he loved America. By the time I’d been sitting 20 minutes, I felt guilty. Around me were women in their 60s and 70s; surely they deserved this seat more. I looked up to offer the woman near me a chair, but her shirt said, “If you don’t like Trump, then you won’t like me.” And I should be better than that, but I wasn’t. So I turned back to listen to Sen. Chuck Grassley.
After another hour, the family near me asked me to watch their seats while they got corn dogs. I agreed and fended off other chair-seekers by lying and saying my aging grandmother, aunt, and mom had simply gone to the bathroom and would be back. When the family returned, I told them how I’d lied that we were family, just to protect their spots. Then I asked if they’d watch my one chair while I, too, got a corn dog.
When I returned 20 minutes later, my chair was gone. “What happened?” I asked. The husband shrugged. “Some guy took it, I didn’t even notice.”
Maybe it was the heat, or maybe I’d worked so hard just to sit, but I was furious. I could feel the rage in my chest. That was my chair. I’d worked hard for it, and some guy had just stolen it! MY CHAIR!
“I find that hard to believe,” I said. “I watched three seats for you and you all couldn’t watch one.”
The husband shrugged and sipped his lemonade. The wife turned to the screen. “Well, I hope you don’t have to pee,” I said. No one laughed, which was good, because I wasn’t kidding.
Ten minutes later, when a single man three rows ahead laid his jacket across the two chairs he had been hoarding and left, I walked over, grabbed one, and sat down again. My pretend family smiled. “Glad you got a seat back,” the husband said. I glared.
I didn’t want to make up. This was war. Sweat was running down my leg and I still had an hour and a half left to be there. Fuck them, I texted my friend.
[The] sole purpose seems to be the belatedly obvious conclusions of the reporter. It is, in short, an affirmation to both the writer and a particular kind of reader that they are good and moral and correct. That they both, by the very nature of taste and comportment and liberal consciousness, have nothing in common with the otherworldly inhabitants of a Trump rally.
I would like to tell you I shared my chair. But I was not good, moral, or correct at this rally. I was just another sweaty asshole, demanding my space at the expense of others around me. And still, despite my efforts, I couldn’t win. I was trying to be part of something that wasn’t for me, lost in a sea of male rage.
Those studies. The millions of think pieces and books on how we have to reach men, help men. The men in my email chiding me to be gentler, kinder to men, as if I weren’t losing so much. Male rage is being coddled, voiced, and shown on TV, but what of my rage? My loss of rights? My own stupid chair.
When had my freedom become such a threat? This economic anxiety, this masculine fear, is a story I keep hearing. But what of the Black women most impacted by the economy? Men, even the man next to me, even when they are socioeconomically disadvantaged and unable to provide for their families, still benefit from the unpaid labor of women.
Community, care, and support don’t happen in a vacuum. Love and friendship aren’t something we are entitled to. To be cared for, you must also show care. To have a community, you have to be part of it. To have people care if you live or die, you have to start caring about the life and death of others around you.
Trump got up to speak, and everyone stood. Our chairs were almost meaningless now. I found myself pushed from behind by an older man who told me to “watch it” when I stumbled.
Trump bragged about Iran bending to his will. He joked about fireworks being like gunshots. He used an antisemitic slur; he bragged about passing his big, beautiful bill. He said people hated him, but he hated them back. This wasn’t the nonpartisan rally it had been billed as — not that I expected anything different. And when he called Zohran Mamdani dangerous, the crowd around me erupted with cries to “deport him!” At some point, Trump boasted about “protecting women” and making sure there were only two genders. All the people around me cheered. I turned around and saw my seat had been taken again.
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)
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