#111. Peppermint Stick Ice Cream and You

(Okay, as a Jew...are sugarplums real, or were they made up for The Nutcracker?)

Hi everyone,

I hope you’re all getting a little rest in towards the end of the year, even amidst various excitements and obligations. My wife (Maris, who new readers may not know by name, but now you do) and I have a pretty cozy week of hanging out with friends and watching movies and eating Chinese food lined up, so we are celebrating both an observant Jewish Christmas and lighting Hanukkah candles all at once. (Movie-wise so far we have watched Juror #2 which came highly recommended, but I couldn’t get over the COME ON!!!! SERIOUSLY???? sensation I felt basically the whole time.)

Over the weekend our neighborhood took on the quiet holiday tone that sets in when residents scatter across the country (globe?) to visit family. But, since we’re Jews who just saw both of our families, we are putting “plant” in “transplant” and staying put in Brooklyn through New Year’s Eve. I was supposed to meet a friend for lunch today, but that got moved around a little so I am homebodying pretty hard.

As I mentioned last week, I sometimes tend to look THROUGH a period of time when I know I’ll be busy. In those moments, I fully forget that I’ll experience all the things that happen during that time. My eyes slide across my calendar like it’s a Chutes and Ladders board, and I imagine myself deposited on the other side of the busy period. I can feel a little overwhelmed looking at two full calendar weeks and imagining all the appointments and obligations hitting me at once like a truck. And then I realize that I’m very lucky in that it’s (almost all) stuff I like to do that (almost always) comes up one thing at a time.

I’d been looking at the back half of December as “the end of the year” in one capsule, and it wasn’t until early last week that I realized I have a bunch of fun events planned, and I get to enjoy them individually in succession, and sleep in between some of them too. Over the weekend I had a little extra downtime because I forgot to consider Saturday and Sunday exist, and I started having New Creative Ideas for the first time in a while, which felt terrific.

It was a slightly hectic pre-holiday week though, but in a very fun way! I was asked to hop on the

Flagrant Mag

podcast, where I talked (possibly too much) about slam dunks. The whole Flagrant Mag team is brilliant, and I am always so flattered and delighted to get to collaborate with them on anything! Then I went on back on WNYC to give pep talks to listeners! Thanks so much to Kate Hind who invited me back on the show and was such a gracious host! Also thanks to the listeners for being so open and sincere with their pep talk requests!

I also wrote a little guest post about NY Governor Kathy Hochul for my friend

lyz

’s always-excellent newsletter! Embedded in it is this silly video I made about Gov. Hochul’s proposed hotline for CEO’s to call in when they fail threatened. I’ll also embed it here for ease of viewership! (Also hi! Welcome, everyone who came here from

Men Yell at Me

and WNYC!)

joshgondelman

A post shared by @joshgondelman

Now I’m going to…read a book? Do…laundry? The sky (too cold!) is the limit!

PEP TALK FOR PEPPERMINT STICK ICE CREAM

If you don’t like it, take it up with Santa Claus.

P-Stick! Sticky P! Pep Cream! (Wow those ALL sound gross!) It’s time for a little Pep for Pepp! Because frankly, you deserve it!

It is, for so many reasons, ridiculous that peppermint ice cream is a seasonal food. First of all: WHY DO WE HAVE A WINTER-ONLY ICE CREAM FLAVOR? WHAT THE HELL IS THAT ABOUT? Mint ice cream served exclusively in the winter makes about as much sense as a piping hot mug of egg nog at a Fourth of July BBQ. It’s the most dissociative seasonal food our culture has. There’s no way you (peppermint ice cream) are going to catch on in any kind of broader sense while you’re being served in a such a bizarre context.

As I’ve said before in this newsletter (briefly, and two years ago) peppermint stick ice cream should be a year-round treat. Why would it not be? What other ice cream flavors go out of fashion when the weather changes? And yes, we have another mint flavor that perseveres in the warmer months, but if butter pecan and maple walnut and pistachio can endure throughout the full calendar, we can have two different mints!!!

Haters will (and do) say that mint ice cream tastes like toothpaste. Good point. NOT. Every person in America uses toothpaste two to three times a day without complaint! It is one of the most successful and widely-enjoyed flavors in the world. “Mint ice cream tastes like toothpaste?” No, you fools! We are lucky to live in an era when we have an oral hygiene product THAT TASTES LIKE ICE CREAM. (Note: I do not want to erase the small but significant minority of people who use Tom’s of Maine toothpaste, a product that is created, as far as I can tell, by mixing strawberry jam with sand.)

A few brave ice cream brands sell their peppermint stick varietal all year long. And yes, that is heroic. But we can’t stop there! Any company that makes stick cream (eww!) in the winter should make it all four seasons. THERE ARE HUNDREDS IF NOT…A FEW MORE HUNDREDS OF US WHO FEEL THIS WAY.

Peppermint stick ice cream, you are underrated. And in time, you will be vindicated.

PEP TALK FOR A READER

I did just a little tweaking of this pep talk request. Don’t worry about it.

Hi!! I would love a pep talk! I got laid off the week before Thanksgiving (media) and feel like I was the person cut on my team because the big boss didn’t like me. I haven’t even had time to start seriously looking for something new yet because I’ve had a lot going on (Thanksgiving cooking, destination wedding, MOVING) and am worried that there won’t even be anything to apply for over the holidays. Basically I’m overwhelmed and even though I’m incredibly privileged and can look for a job I actually want, I’m scared no one will want me back! THANKS!
- Looking Towards a Hire Power

Let’s start here, and it’s going to sound a little flippant, but: Imagine doing all this BIGS LIFE STUFF while also having a job!!! That sounds way worse than your current situation! Obviously you’re going to need some money coming in eventually, but you sound financially stable in this moment, and most employers don’t let you take a ton of time off to smush your belongings into cardboard boxes or brine a turkey, especially if you are also planning to take a few vacation days for a honeymoon coming up. So, while the holidays and a wedding are stressful occasions to go through without income, they are positively delightful times to not have to go to work.

I will for sure grant you that it’s a rough time to be looking for work, especially in media. The people in charge of most outlets seem to have published their “Best of the Year” coverage the first week in December, laid off a chunk of their staff, and then thrown up a couple of middle fingers to the world until at least New Year’s Day. I have a few of things I’m working on (ideally) for television, and I was told the week of Thanksgiving that nobody on the network/platform/studio side of things was going to do any work until mid-January. So I guess in that sense it’s a great time to have one of the seven or eight (rough estimate) remaining jobs in media, because you don’t actually have to do anything for the final 10% of the year. I’m all for work/life balance, but I would love if the people with the money would show up for work so the rest of us could get on with our lives!

Across industries, it seems like working people are employed by fewer and fewer (bigger and bigger) companies who give less and less of a shit about both the products they sell and the people who create and distribute them. And the bigger the company, the harder every boss’s nipples seem to be at the prospect of replacing their workforce with computer programs that haven’t even proven they can do the jobs yet. Merry Christmas!

Wait! Please do not delete this newsletter yet! I wasn’t finished! I have more pep to offer!

While the richest people on earth are using their literal and political capital to try to burn holes in the social safety net, way, way more people are working collectively to secure sustainable and dignified working conditions. Last week, the Writers Guild of America called on television and film studios to take up the fight against generative AI and its theft of intellectual property. Even more encouragingly, unionized Amazon and Starbucks workers are on strike leading up to Christmas. (Two nice things you can do during that time are avoiding going to Starbucks while the strike is in effect, and donating to the unions’ strike funds if you have a couple of bucks to spare. Here’s Amazon’s! Here’s the one for Starbucks employees in the Pacific Northwest!)

This information probably isn’t of any material help to you in this moment, reader. But seeing how many working people across the country have begun to seize the power of collective action has been really encouraging to me. I know a lot of recent events suggest otherwise, but we can make things better with effort and solidarity. But in this moment, as you said, you have the privilege to look for work you want. Exercise it! That’s what it’s there for! Happy holidays!

PICK-ME-UP SONG OF THE WEEK:
Julien Baker & Torres - “Sugar in the Tank”

As long-time newsletter readers know, my favorite Christmas song is this one by Charly Bliss and Pup (with an honorable mention for this Sufjan Stevens classic that feels about as much about Jesus as his non-Christmas music is). And we’re still in kind of a Hanukkah song dry spell since Adam Sandler dropped our last holiday classic THIRTY YEARS AGO(??!?!?!?). Since getting back from Aimee and Ted’s holiday tour, I haven’t been listening to any seasonal music. And ever since I saw They Might Be Giants live a week and a half ago, my headphones have been a lot of TMBG (and a lot of podcasts, so I guess I could recommend the Here episode of Blank Check or the Trap episode of The Flop House)!

But as counterprogramming to the current barrage of holiday (we know which one) music on the radio and in stores and scoring commercials…I offer you a sweet gay country song. It’s new and it’s good! I’ve missed Julien Baker (my favorite of the boygeniuses) and Torres individually the last few times they’ve come through town, and last week I couldn’t make it to the little pop-up show they did as a duo, but hopefully they’ll be back soon and I can hear them play songs together! Until then, let’s enjoy this one!

UPCOMING SHOWS

It’s a slow time of the year, but I’ve got some more shows to announce soon!

12/26: The Comedy Cellar (NYC)

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

1/18: Bushwick Comedy Club (Brooklyn)

1/25: Sup, Bro? at SF Sketchfest