#109. Health Insurance CEOs and a Non-Gift Guide Guide To Gifts

Just kidding! But also not!

Hi everyone,

I got back last night (technically today) from the little week-long tour I got to be a part of for Ted Leo and Aimee Mann’s Christmas Shows. The shows themselves and the attendant driving around were, to borrow an old phrase, just what I needed (JUST WHAT I NEEDED!). A week of performing with some of my favorite artists, in front of warm and enthusiastic crowds. I got to do all the fun parts of touring (writing jokes, goofing around with friends, performing for nice people) without the bad parts (posting videos on Instagram begging people to come to the shows, waking up at 5am to catch a flight). My parents were able to come see me tell jokes in person for the first time in several years (not counting when I visit them and won’t stop talking), and that was wonderful too!

I’m so grateful to Aimee and Ted (so cool and nice in addition to being treat musicians) for having me along for this run of shows. The whole squad (including special guests Paul F. Tompkins and Nellie McKay, the band, and the crew) has known each other and worked together for years, and as the newest guy, I was focused on:

a. Doing a good job onstage.
b. Not being annoying.

Hopefully I pulled off both! I’m so used to touring by myself or in a car with one other person, and it was really fun to have a big part of the day in a van full of people, listening to music and podcasts and riffing silly bits (while also personally being mindful of goal “b,” not being annoying; sometimes a little bit of bit goes a long way when you’re the new guy). Ultimately, the pressure to achieve goal “a” was relieved by the fact that even if I realllly blew it, the audience was going to get to see Ted and Aimee play a bunch of the best songs of this (and the end of last) century, and no one would remember I existed. Pretty good for a worst case scenario! But I think I did a nice job with the job part and also with the not being annoying part.

It means a lot to me to see artists who are in the midst of long and varied careers, who work hard at cultivating a sense of community and collaboration, and who like watching each other perform from the side of the stage. And, not to sound like the oldest guy in history, I also love the magic of a show that is meant to be seen by a live audience and not chopped up into tiny pieces and sprinkled across the internet. (Although I do think the world deserves to witness PFT’s stirring musical number performed as Krampus.) The whole endeavor took the hard work of a whole bunch of people onstage and offstage, and the end result was really special and memorable, and I’m so glad I got to be a little part of it.

Between this and the writing project I’m working on with my friend Alison Leiby, I’m feeling energized by teamwork. That’s the spirit I’m going to try and take with me into 2025. For now, I am home in Brooklyn doing shows around NYC and hanging out with Maris and noodling around with some writing stuff and doing karaoke and watching movies and eating Chinese food. It’s cozyin’ time.

(Oh also, if you are not already a Paul F. Tompkins fan, you just have to listen to his bit about canned peanut brittle. He’s one of the greats! Also so nice!)

PEP TALK FOR HEALTH INSURANCE CEOs

Why does the guy on the right look like he’s tied down waiting to be bitten by the snake on the left?

Last week, the CEO of UnitedHealthcare was shot dead in the street, and a prevailing response even among many pacifists was: “Oh, so that’s why guns.”

All I’ll say here is: It’s never too late to quit your job and give all or most of your money away! There are plenty of other things to be in charge of. Nobody’s mad at the guy who runs the factory that makes twist ties. (Or at least, nobody’s that mad.)

Also, nobody’s making you be the CEO of anything! There are few skills I trust less than “good at business” for its own sake (even “suspiciously proficient at tying knots” could be a Cub Scout thing or a sex thing, not a murder thing). You could still learn to build furniture or play the violin! The world is your oyster!

A NON GIFT-GUIDE GUIDE TO GIFTS

Everyone’s doing gift guides in their newsletters lately, and I don’t have especially good taste, and I also don’t know what you, readers, like! So, in keeping with the Best Compliment I Ever Received feature this newsletter sometimes runs, I asked (on BlueSky) for the best gifts people have ever given, and maybe this will be some inspiration!

(I will say, tickets to a live event is a fun one, and I don’t just say that in a self-serving way as someone who performs regularly at live events! Similarly…merch or other tangible work sold by a favorite independent artist!)

I’ve divided the responses up into loose categories and shared them with you all!

Handmade Gifts!

[My partner] asked me “what kind of advent calendar would you want” and I, thinking this was hypothetical (I’m Jewish!), said “I dunno, probably rocks, bones, and bugs?” He sourced enough weird little things & chocolates for a cool nine-drawer cabinet (he forgot how many days in Chanukah)

Normally I would not consider “rocks, bones, and bugs” a good gift (unless the gift-recipient is a scientist or the gift-giver is an eight-year-old), but this is great!

I loaned my mother a comic book, Digger by Ursula Vernon. Months later she's down for Christmas and gives me the book back but then gives me a four-to-five inch tall felted figure of the main character, including a working button and backpack and a detachable pickaxe.

My husband built me a little Raspberry Pi computer that contains the classic Simpsons seasons (as defined by me). It plugs into the tv and you can choose an episode or let it shuffle. This may not sound romantic but it's some of the hardest I've ever swooned!

My sister took an existing book about sisterhood and affixed pictures of us throughout the entire book. Pictures of us as little children all the way up through adulthood. It is my most cherished object.

My sister made me a beautiful quilt, and I filled her freezer with healthy, homemade post-partum recipes I researched from around the world.

I lived in a house of 6 people for about 6 years and I moved out a few years ago but stay close to them. We see each other as family. Last Christmas one of them designed and had made a set of rings for all of us to wear. It was incredibly touching.

I love this one because it is thoughtful and generous and also custom rings make it feel like you’re part of a secret society or won a Super Bowl together.

My grandma knit me an afghan and said that I'd be getting a big hug from her whenever I wrapped myself up in it

That’s some top shelf grandma shit!!!

A patient once made needlepoint pot holders for me. They were beautiful, but what warmed me even more was she had low vision and was in her 90s but took the time to make them for me. I was so touched. Still am.

Also grandma-style even though it’s not technically from your grandma!

Stuff! (Because sometimes the best things in life…are things!)

I'm only saying this due to recency bias, but a very soft and cozy heated blanket. But actually the same person (my spouse) once found all the extant episodes of my favorite old time radio show and made me a CD of them ❤️ and before that made me actual mix tapes for my car with a tape deck!

My (adult!) child gifted me a Scrooge-style nightcap and a nice bottle of whiskey - for nightcaps!

Nothing better than a cozy situation. And very little worse than a fake-cozy situation. Like when you see a couch that looks nice and soft and you kind of slump down into it and it’s basically a park bench covered in fabric. Kiss my bruised ass, deceptively firm couches!

My bestie stayed with me for a few weeks after a breakup, and was horrified to learn I had no good knives (I was ~30). He bought me my first really good knife. It’s still going strong 20+ years later.

Damn this is the sweetest story I can imagine about acquiring a knife right after a breakup. Normally those don’t turn out this well!

I mentioned to my best friend that when I was around 10 my mom gave away my plush Fievel doll and I had been super sad about it, and months later she found one on ebay and gave it to me for Christmas.

Through the internet, all things are possible, both for better (here) and for worse (50% of other examples).

I don’t think this is what you’re looking for, but a friend (back in the day) gave us an ounce of pot when we were going thru some tough times. Much appreciated!

This is absolutely the kind of thing I was looking for! What a nice friend!

My husband got me an eye mask, kind of as a bit, because he stays up later than I do. It turned out to be the most useful thing he's ever gotten me (and in fact when that one was kind of getting ratty, he bought me a newer, nicer one that I still use).

Sometimes bits become real life!

A few years ago a friend got me a full tea set because I love to throw teas but had a hard time finding a set that had a cream pitcher and a sugar bowl that didn’t wasn’t ugly. Once I opened the box and realized what it was [a cream pitcher and sugar bowl that were not ugly, of course] I cried. It was so thoughtful.

I gave my best friend’s daughter a random stuffed animal for her first birthday that she is still obsessed with at 6 (the gift is making me feel like I totally nailed Cool Aunt early).

Tickets to my favorite baseball team!! I would never have spent the money. But oh, what a treat!!

My wife got custom Lego figures of the two of us.

I was moving to MI from CA, and wistful about leaving. My sister got me a necklace with a California Poppy that matched hers, and said I'd always be welcome to stay with her when I missed home. I think we're as close now as when we lived 30m apart.

The lesson here is listen to people and know what they like and just hammer it. Although you can go too hard. I think I’ve got to put an end to the run of buying Maris olive-themed jewelry before she has enough of it to open her own Etsy store and start flipping pieces I’ve given her.

Practical Gifts

After my dad died a friend with a lot of airline miles gave me enough of them for a round-trip flight so I could have a break from all the grief etc. It was incredibly kind and helpful!

Airline miles! The gold bars of the sky!

I offhand mentioned once to a friend that I always cringed using a can opener because I envisioned cutting myself on the lid and a few days later I received a beautifully giftwrapped OXO good grips safety can opener. I have felt warm with friendship every time I open a can for over ten years now.

I was embarking on an exciting new chapter professionally and my then-girlfriend bought me a wonderful backpack upgrade for everyday carry. Reader, I married her.

There is something so gratifying about having just the right tool for a job. I can only imagine how good it felt for someone to use dental floss for the first time instead of cleaning the spaces between their teeth with a twig or some twine.

for my birthday in october my bestie called my local fancy butcher and put two very nice steaks on hold for me, knowing i love cooking, rarely eat meat, and money was tight. i had a lovely birthday dinner!!!! (when i picked it up the staff cheered and said it was a first)

Celebrating my birthday - at the end of August - has always been a challenge because I was always moving or starting school. One year, my best friend baked me a birthday cake and froze it in my mom's freezer so I could have a home-baked cake on my actual birthday.

A loved one died on Thanksgiving day in 2002. My whole family had been in the hospital with her all week. When we got home that night, we found an entire thanksgiving feast had been prepared & set up in my parents’ house by their friends. It was the best and sweetest gift I’ve ever experienced.

A tub of sunshine-yellow carrot ginger soup from a distant friend when I was upside down headfirst in a snake pit of grief.

You gotta eat!

Once when we lived in California, the first time it had rained in months my husband drove to my office parking lot and replaced my windshield wipers so that I could drive home with new ones.

One of my exes bought me a set of tires when I was a broke grad student and had a tire blow out and couldn’t afford it, and it was just such an immense relief to have them instantly solve a huge problem for me.

When going through an especially busy & difficult time in my life a neighbor walked over and washed my car (during The Pollening here in the South). Asked for my keys & cleaned the inside too. Small thing, but something I lacked time to do and was very needed. Will never forget that small kindness.

As someone who has no idea how to take care of a car, this sounds incredible. My usual thing as a car owner is to drive until one of the parts starts making too loud a noise for me to hear the radio, or too acrid a smell for me to think thoughts, and then I take it into a mechanic who goes “You would have died if you’d driven ten more miles!” and then charges me my net worth to replace a piece of metal the size of my left thumb.

Cold Hard Cash

When I was 18, I asked my mom for money, which she thought was boring (she likes wrapping presents). So my mom gave me a Kleenex box with a dollar bill sticking out. When I pulled it out, I found it was an entire roll of dollar bills taped together that came out like tickets from a skee-ball machine

Was studying abroad in college & our classroom had a random piano. I’d arrive early to play. Showed up one morning & was told to stop: heartbroken. A few days later a classmate told me to keep playing & not to worry. I found out later he’d paid the place to make sure I could continue. Incredible.

I was getting divorced & struggling financially. I mentioned to a friend that I hadn’t filed yet because I had to come up with the court fee first. Soon after a stranger walked up to me and handed me an envelope with the money I needed. Several friends had taken up a collection, I found out later.

Someone once left me an envelope of cash for a few drinks at my local bar. Handwritten note and all. The thought and gesture were so kind.

There’s an old Simpsons joke where Homer describes alcohol as “the cause of and solution to all of life’s problems,” and that’s kind of how I feel about money. Capitalist exploitation, bad. Giving someone a wad of bills to make a problem go away, good.

Sometimes people treat money or gift certificates like a tacky or thoughtless gift and to that I say NO. Obviously you don’t want to give a dusty re-enveloped Borders gift card for your tenth wedding anniversary. But giving someone a green light to splurge at a restaurant (big recent trend in my family) or on a nice pair of sneakers without assuming what they want to eat/wear is often more thoughtful than going: “I bet you’d like this thing that’s maybe not your style or even your size!” That level of taste is so hard to nail! You don’t have to try it if you have any doubts!

Well, Harper Lee’s friends once gave her a year’s wages so she could have a year off to write. I think we have different friends, but it would be nice!

If anyone knows any patrons of the arts, I too would like to befriend one!

Acts Of Service

When I was very depressed once, my pal drove to my house, coaxed me into her car, and brought me to eat soup dumplings. It was the nicest thing.

My roommate and I were in the process of repainting basically the entire house that we were renting from my parents and we were burnt out. A friend was over and saw the supplies. He said "I have tomorrow off, I'll come paint it for you" and he DID. Painted until he was out of paint. A hero.

okay best gift ever was, after years of loneliness, a group of new friends all showed up for my birthday, did karaoke with me, and were their weird and wonderful selves. couldn't have asked for anything better than silliness and feeling loved

This is my kind of gift! I may not be a skilled house painter (traditional) or “guy who paints houses” (mob), but I can certainly take you out for soup or show up to your birthday party!

My dad died over the winter holidays in 2021. My fam all went back home for several weeks, mid-Dec to mid-Jan. I came back in Jan to find my SIL & friends had taken down all of our Christmas decorations for us & put them away, & had my house professionally cleaned. I will never forget that kindness.

My dad passed away unexpectedly and I had to leave town in a rush. When I got back my friends had cleaned my whole house. Which was….no small feat. It was totally unexpected and was the best thing EVER.

I was really sick one December, and very sad about it. When I came home one day, my husband had put up the tree and lights and just decorated the shit out of the house, and it cheered me up so much.

my mom stayed with us after our baby was born and did all the laundry, cooked, and organized my living room, it was the best gift anyone has ever given me

The week after my kid was born, my husband’s boss came over to help around the house. She ended up spending about an hour shredding old documents, repeatedly emptying the shredder, and vacuuming around it. I think of her every time I have to empty the shredder myself, an odious task.

These are all such generous uses of time and energy. As an aside, I am so relieved to not be a Christmas celebrator, because I’d absolutely be the slob with a tree up until March and lights up until May. I would probably try to cheat it by finding lights with what I’d consider a “year-round” color scheme (a thing that doesn’t actually exist) and then become the subject of gossip across the neighborhood. (I mean, assuming I ever live in a house again.)

Sentimental Value

My sister gave her daughter (my niece) my name as her middle name.

A beautiful and high-stakes gift.

I was carded at my 33rd birthday party. That was a gift from the universe!

On one hand, we shouldn’t put such a cultural premium on youth. On the other hand, it’s sometimes nice to have someone mistake you for a youth. What better day than your birthday?

This is revealing but, as an autistic, the best gifts are when I actually get what I asked for and not someone’s interpretation of it. I know it sounds ~not great, but again the autism demands specificity and particularity

Unclear what if anything this says about me, but I do relate to this. I was a VERY bad gift recipient as a child! As an adult I learned that if I never ask for anything specific, I don’t put any pressure on receiving anything specific, and I can just be delighted that someone thought to give me a gift at all. (Your mileage may vary, of course.)

Definitely up there, my first birthday after my dad passed a friend got me a Cameo from my favourite Jewish jobber, Barry Horowitz. Who also offered me very genuine condolences which was as lovely as it was unexpected.

Best friend in college got me a notebook filled with messages from my closest friends about why I was so special to them. Still keep it by my bedside to read on tough days.

I have one of these that my co-teachers made filled with pictures by my last group of students when I was a pre-school teacher. It’s so special to me!

My husband made me a compilation of videos from my family and friends, but they were all in the style of Cameos. Very funny!!!

A partner lovingly applying lipstick to me for the first time which helped me realize I was trans.

This is so tender, and I don’t know if it’s the right gift for everyone, this sounds like such a beautiful experience someone gave you, and I’m so glad you shared it here!

What about you, readers? Do you have a best gift you’ve ever received that you’d like to share? Please do!!!

PICK-ME-UP SONG OF THE WEEK:
Emilyn Brodsky - “Hands off the Stove”

I recently met Emilyn through the excellent DC Pierson (whose “architect who designed New York ” videos are my favorite running internet comedy bit right now), and I realized that I’d seen her perform live probably…15 years ago opening for the World Inferno Friendship Society in Rhode Island. Wild!

I went back to listen to Emilyn’s studio albums, which are great, and her most recent one was self-produced, and it’s just so light and breezy-sounding, but also full of poignant lyrics and catchy hooks. There’s an emotional muscle behind the gentleness of the music. And a melodic punch behind the tenderness of the vocals. The horns! Really good stuff! I couldn’t stop listening to it! And now I’m sharing it with you!

Also, the recently shouted-out Doechii’s Tiny Desk Concert is great!

UPCOMING SHOWS

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

12/10: The Comedy Cellar (NYC)

12/11: The Comedy Cellar (NYC)

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

12/15: Say Less at UCB (NYC)

12/16: Co-Hosting Frankenstein’s Baby at Union Hall (Brooklyn)

12/19: Bushwick Comedy Club (Brooklyn)

1/9: Wait Wait…Don’t Tell Me Live Recording (Chicago)

1/25: Sup, Bro? at SF Sketchfest