#104. Election Night Fretters and You

It'll all be over soon...let's hope.

Hi everyone,

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

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

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

Good bit, Stanley Brouwn. Seems a little like you hadn’t realized you had a piece of conceptual art due that day. But good bit.

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

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

We also watched two movies:

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

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

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

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

Sick-ass book cover, right?

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

OH WAIT ALSO

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

I’m always just some light stubble away from looking like an energy vampire.

PEP TALK FOR ELECTION NIGHT FRETTERS

There’s arguably too much of my face in this week’s newsletter.

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

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

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

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

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

If you are still deciding whether to vote (or if a third party/protest vote is worthwhile), my friend

Hamilton Nolan

wrote about this choice in a more forceful and eloquent way than I could. I suggest, as always, that you subscribe to his newsletter and even pay money for it if you have a few bucks to spare.

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

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

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

PEP TALK FOR A READER

I nicknamed this reader but otherwise kept the request intact.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

UPCOMING SHOWS

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

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

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

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

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

11/21: Wrong Answers Only in Washington DC

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

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