#102. Undecided Voters and You

The choice is yours!

Hi everyone,

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

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

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

Incredible, right?

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

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

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

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

Great lineup! Great venue! Alison Leiby and I will be real goofy as hosts!

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

PEP TALK FOR UNDECIDED VOTERS

Green checkmark for president!!!

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

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

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

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

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

PEP TALK FOR A READER

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

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

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

Unexpectedly, two things happened:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

UPCOMING SHOWS

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

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

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

10/29: Slipper Room (Manhattan)

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

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

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

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

11/21: Wrong Answers Only in Washington DC

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