#103. Obscure Costume Wearers, Dwyane Wade's Statue, and You

If they have to ask...

Hi everyone,

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

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

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

Aftermath of a fun show! Photo credit: Sam Brooks

PEP TALK FOR OBSCURE COSTUME WEARERS

“Get it? I’m Freddie Kreug-HER!”

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

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

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

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

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

BONUS PEP TALK FOR THE NEW DWYANE WADE STATUE

A statue, and a picture of a guy that the statue definitely represents.

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

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

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

PEP TALK FOR A READER

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

UPCOMING SHOWS

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

10/29: Slipper Room (Manhattan)

10/30: Sesh Comedy (Manhattan)

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

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

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

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

11/21: Wrong Answers Only in Washington DC

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

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