#106. Alex Jones and You

InfoWar is infohell.

Hi everyone,

To paraphrase the Foo Fighters: I’ve got a little confession to make. Don’t worry. This is not about me having an affair that resulted in a baby (which is now what that lyric reminds everyone of when Dave Grohl sings it, I assume). With all the very serious news lately, I haven’t really had the chance to admit this, but here goes: I am only (at best) a casual baseball fan, but I watched four out of the five World Series games just to root for the Yankees to lose. I don’t particularly care about the exploits of the Los Angeles Dodgers. I felt only slightly happy for their fans when their team won, but I experienced a rush of endorphins when they beat the Yankees that was about 95% as powerful as the one that hit when my beloved Red Sox defeated the Dodgers to win the Fall Classic in 2018.

The morning after the Red Sox clinched that championship, I had my final interview for a job at Desus & Mero on Showtime. I will never forget what Desus, a lifelong Yankees fan who knew I was from the Boston area, said to me as we sat down to talk business: “I bet you’re pretty fuckin’ happy today.” That’s how the interview started. I replied: “Yeah, it feels amazing [to win the World Series]. You guys should try it sometime.” I got the job anyway. I appreciate Desus’s open-mindedness to this day.

This season, the Sox finished a beautifully mediocre 81-81 came within a few breaks of scoring exactly as many runs as they allowed. Completely neutral. But I feel amazing. Because the Yankees imploded in crushing fashion on the biggest possible stage. Watching the 2024 World Series, and the joy it brought me, was an incredible commitment to good old fashioned New England spite, and it made me think that maybe, just maybe I should be in therapy after all.

Last week I was on a bunch of podcasts (and radio shows) making jokes about the news, if you can believe it. I flew to Detroit for a Wait Wait…Don’t Tell Me live recording at the Fox Theater, which was gorgeous! The guest was Governor Gretchen Whitmer. I sometimes have trouble figuring out how to thoughtfully engage with politicians for the sake of entertainment, but I will say Gov. Whitmer was extremely funny and charismatic. Hari Kondabolu and Roxanne Roberts (the other panelists) were so much fun to joke around with. And, as always, it was a joy to see the whole Wait Wait team and work with them!

Then I flew home and plunked myself down in front of the computer to record an episode of The Bugle with the great Andy Zaltzman and Tiff Stevenson where I joked more about the news, but with swearing!

I also linked back up with Mile and Jack (of Mad Boosties fame, in this newsletter) on The Daily Zeitgeist to talk about the news after having talked about the news with John Fugelsang on his Sirius XM radio show. You get it!!!

Pep talks that fit in your pocket!

And, in other pep talk related news, the very nice and charming Paula Skaggs and Josh Linden have written a book of tiny pep talks that comes out TOMORROW (but is available for preorder now). My friend Jess Zimmerman sent me a copy, and it’s awfully sweet and charming and thoughtful! Check it out if you need a little more pep in your life! Seems like a swell holiday gift to me!

PEP TALK FOR ALEX JONES

So long, sucker! AP Photo: David J. Phillip

Congratulations, dickhead. For years you engaged in biblical levels of Fucking Around, and you’ve finally been hit with ten plagues worth of Finding Out.

For anyone who isn’t sure what I’m talking about: Alex Jones, the proprietor of intellectual superfund site InfoWars had to sell off his media empire to pay restitution to the families of Sandy Hook victims who he repeatedly slandered during his broadcasts. The site ended up being bought by The Onion (with support from the Sandy Hook families), meaning that the website best known for spreading conspiracy theories and misinformation is now owned by a way better website known for incisive social commentary that is also not literally true.

At a moment when the stupidest and cruelest people are ascending to the highest ranks of global political power, there is so much beauty in any affirmation that some misdeeds do not go unpunished. Bad things can, in fact, happen to bad people too. When I saw the news, I legitimately teared up, not even from laughing, but from the triple distilled platonic purity of the bit. Walter White himself would look at the chemical construction of The Onion’s decision to purchase one of the world’s most vile swamps of malicious conspiracy-mongering, adjust his stupid hat, and smile.

Would I prefer to live in a world where a screeching pimple of a man never impugns the names of grieving families in the wake of a tragedy they’ve suffered? Of course. But in the world we live in, one where there is profit to be made from chewing up poison and feeding it directly into the faces of your eager audience members like so many baby birds, it is a visceral relief to see this mother duck of misinformation get pulped by a helicopter blade of consequences.

AlJo, you are on the business end of an all time bit. This tops anything People Magazine’s Sexiest Guy Jim Halpert ever did to Dwight Schrute. It beats the time 50 Cent bought two hundred tickets to a Ja Rule show so the whole front would be empty. We’re approaching the prank territory occupied by the serpent who tricked Eve into eating the forbidden fruit that damned all of humanity.

Thank you for getting so thoroughly got, Alex Jones. I can only hope that you continue to spread goodness and inspire optimism across the nation by enduring more legal and karmic punishment in the future.

PEP TALK FOR A READER

This pep talk was concise and well-punctuated, and I didn’t really change it at all although I did make up the pseudonym at the end!

I’ve had tension with a friend, tension with one of my partners, and my anxiety has been generally through the roof lately. 
- Present, Tense

Historically, I am very bad at handling interpersonal tension. Especially with people that I care about. I don’t love being on the bad side of a stranger or a (do we still say…) frenemy, but when a real friend or loved one tells me: “Hey, we need to talk…later…” my brain goes into a spiral so tight it may as well have been thrown by Patrick Mahomes. WHAT do we have to talk about later? Do you secretly hate me and plan to come clean over dinner? Did you sell my social security number on the dark web? Is the conversation itself a ploy to distract me while ninjas riddle me with throwing stars? There is no end to the catastrophizing I can do between now and this mythical “later.” The practice would be impressive if there were any use to it at all.

In romantic relationships as a younger person, I was a chronic “Are you mad at me?” asker, which is, if you don’t know the kind of guy who takes someone who may or may not be mad at him (me) already and gets them annoyed at the very least.

All of those situations ended fine, or they ended and now it’s fine! There are so many ways interpersonal conflict can be resolved. Through talking openly about the issues at hand. Through time healing some wounds. (Not all woulds, though! Whoever came up with that expression must never have had the kind of wound that bleeds a lot.) Through the situation becoming untenable to the point that someone calls the whole thing off. These outcomes have various levels of attendant stress, but if you’re looking to get out, the only way, as they say, is through. You can’t stay…in. I mean, I guess you could also allow relations to deteriorate without taking any action to improve or disengage, but that one I don’t recommend! It turns out you can keep going through forever without making your way out, like a never ending pasta bowl of duress. But you don’t have to. No one can make you do that!

The other anxiety is a tough thing to disentangle from your concrete situation. It’s a real chicken and egg problem? You’re like: “Where the hell did that chicken come from? AND why won’t it stop laying eggs? I’m stressed out!” (I think that’s what that expression means.) There are so many options for attacking a you-vs-you conflict, and in some ways it’s harder because you are ultimately stuck with yourself no matter which you choose, but in many ways it’s a little less fraught because you don’t have to rely on someone else’s honesty or good faith to fix things. (Although you SHOULD trust those intentions from the people you care about, even when you’re in conflict.)

It’s hard to believe that you’ll ever be out when you’re so deep in the through part of it. But all oceans have shores and all buildings have doors and even every corn maze has a…corn path(???) out into the…broader…corn field(?). You can make it out the other side or back out the same side if that’s what you want, but the point is you can make it through one way or another or another or another.

PICK-ME-UP SONG OF THE WEEK: Ben Folds Five - “Kate”

On Tuesday night, Maris was a little under the weather, so her seat at the Ben Folds solo show at the Paramount in Brooklyn became a little table for my drink and the drink of the guy sitting on the other side of the empty chair. Attending this show closed the loop on my choice to do my first open mic in Boston in July 2004 instead of seeing Ben Folds (along with…I believe…Guster and Rufus Wainwright?) across town with my sister. Twenty years later, I have also seen him in concert. Now I think she has to be a professional comedian?

The show was part of Folds’s Paper Airplane Request Tour during which he plays one set of songs he chooses in advance and then plays a second set selected by audience requests made with paper airplanes thrown from the crowd onto the stage. The all-request set, through coincidence or a shared communal mood, was full of very gentle down-tempo songs. Folds himself remarked that he would never have structured a set that way, but he was respectful of the direction set forth by the room at large. Once again, democracy proves imperfect.

“Kate” provided a counterpoint to those requests. It’s a sweet, bouncy number, and when played solo it reminds you that a piano is a percussion instrument. Some of the slower tunes felt a little slight in the spacious concert hall without drums or bass or harmony to anchor them, but “Kate” filled the room with sound and energy.

Also, while Ben Folds (and his Five, which is of course is actually only him and two other guys), can be a little lyrically venomous, there’s a sweetness to “Kate.” The subject of the song is just a cool lady he wants to be more like. She plays drums and has cool taste in music and wears the same clothes day after day and smokes weed. And sure, the singer is probably projecting many of her appealing qualities onto her, but I find it endearing that he just wants to say “hey!” to her jack her style a little bit. Kate!

UPCOMING SHOWS

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

11/21: Wrong Answers Only in Washington DC

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

11/25: Whiplash at UCB (NYC)

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

12/12: Uptown Showdown at Symphony Space (NYC)

12/19: Bushwick Comedy Club (Brooklyn)

1/25: Sup, Bro? at SF Sketchfest