#121. Nervous Flyers and You

The sky's the limit, but so is the ground.

Hi everyone,

The theme of my week was gossip. On some level that was expected. I traveled to Philadelphia to interview my friend Kelsey McKinney about You Didn’t Hear This From Me her (delightful!) book on the topic. YDHTFM is so thoughtful and full of insights and juicy details. Kelsey writes nonfiction in such a breezy, engaging way that every chapter whizzes by. We (or at least I, speaking for myself) had the best time onstage and also offstage. Kelsey’s fans are big time sweethearts, and I got to hang out with a little cluster of Philly friends afterwards too. Maris came with me, and when we got to our hotel, I took one of the five best naps of my life. Perfect duration, woke up energized and refreshed. An unqualified success.

Onstage, I also got to tell a recent almost-gossip story from earlier in the week. On Tuesday night, I was extremely lucky to attend The New Yorker magazine’s 100th anniversary party. It was at Jean (which I’ve been to twice, and still can’t tell if it’s pronounced like the pants or like ____ Luc Picard, captain of the Starship Enterprise), and even my friends who are on staff there didn’t get to bring a +1. Because the space was so packed (even with the -1s), I ended up chatting/hiding with a friend in a stairwell for about half an hour. While we were kibitzing/stowing away, a very friendly and stylish woman came up the stairs. She and my friend obviously knew each other, and he asked her about the SNL 50th celebration, which (I ascertained from context clues like a detective) she had attended.

“Okay but what’s going on with Meryl Streep and Martin Short?” my friend asked. “Are they dating?”

“I know nothing. They aren’t saying anything one way or the other,” she replied, and then disappeared into the party.

“She must know something,” my friend whispered to me.

“How do you know?” I asked.

“Because she’s married to Steve Martin.”

Bombshell revelation! I was floored! We marveled for a moment at her secrecy; she truly gave us zero insight. I only feel comfortable sharing this story because she was so discreet that there’s no privileged information one way or the other. But the reveal of who had just stonewalled us still made my jaw drop.

The other theme of my week (grow up, weeks can have two themes) that Maris and I are in the process of trying to adopt a new dog. We recently attended a dog adoption fair where all the dogs we hoped to meet got scooped up before we even got to rub their tummies to see if we had chemistry. Adopting a dog, at least the way we’ve tried it, entails a significant amount of luck or heartbreak. It’s not like dating, where you can go out once and then in the common occurrence that it’s not a forever thing, you lost a couple of hours and maybe a few bucks and that’s that. But you really have to imagine, before you meet a specific dog, what your life would look like with that particular fluffy little pal near the center of it. How would you adjust your schedule? How would your physical space need to be altered to accommodate their needs? Can I see us together long term? And then you cross your fingers and hope you’re the one of (often) dozens or even hundreds of applications chosen to be this dog’s new companion. Sadly, the answer is usually “no.”

This week we have a home visit scheduled with a pug rescue organization. (I do think we deserve bonus points for keeping an already-old pug happy and relatively healthy for nearly a decade. I am going to try and bring that up in a way that doesn’t sound too pushy.) Wish us luck! Or, I guess, give us a dog? (Jkjkjkjk…unless?)

Also, just while we’re here. Readers: Do you think that “Burps” is…

a. A good name for a dog. Or…
b. A bad name for a dog.

Sound off in the comments!

Yesterday I had lunch with my friend Sean Sullivan who writes a really fun newsletter about music! I recommend it! We ate at a place that his daughter picked because of the cheese pull videos she’d seen on TikTok, and honestly…it was good! They were playing pulsing EDM at 11:30 in the morning though, which is not necessarily the experience I’m looking for with an egg sandwich.

The Oscars were last night too, but I don’t have much to say about them! Congratulations to all the nice people involved, and a big thumbs down to any jerks.

Tonight (Monday 3/3) I’m doing a 10-15 minute set at the Comedy Cellar’s Village Underground room at 9:30, which I mostly mention to say that the whole show is also livestreamed via Mint Comedy, and if you’re interested in checking it out, please use the promo code GONDELMAN.

On Wednesday I’m performing at the Bell House on the second of two Padma (Lakshmi) Puts on a Comedy Show comedy shows. It’s all to benefit the National Network of Abortion Funds. It’s already sold out, but if you snagged a ticket, I’ll see you there!

PEP TALK FOR NERVOUS FLYERS

Lately it seems like United we ALSO fall (out of the sky).

As a concept, it’s extremely reasonable to be afraid of air travel. It certainly violates the spirit of the laws of nature, if not the letter of those laws. We as humans aren’t supposed to be up there where thunder lives. Dozens if not hundreds of times in my life, I’ve taken a nap while hurtling through the sky. Birds don’t even do that. In the event that God exists, I imagine they take this as a personal affront.

Statistically speaking, flying is still way, way safer than driving. But you can’t math away adrenaline. Public speaking tops lists of fears year after year, and nobody has ever died from it. Some people have died while doing it, but there’s almost always a complicating factor at play. Discussion of what is statistically safe always makes me think about these lyrics from Warren Zevon’s “Porcelain Monkey”:

He was an accident waiting to happen
Most accidents happen at home
Maybe he should've gone out more often
Maybe he should've answered the phone

Sure, most accidents happen at home. But if we spent more time other places, we’d fall off of more stuff or drop more things on ourselves in those locales as well. Warren Zevon knows this. He’s very sarcastic, which is sometimes a hard tone to get across in song, but he nails it with shocking frequency. It’s not that helpful to hear that flying is safer than driving. Honestly it mostly makes me more afraid to commute (which is maybe a rational thing to consider, but it’s no fun at all).

What the recent spate of airplanes flipping over, bumping into each other, exploding a little, landing in inopportune places, and otherwise misbehaving, we’re all more on edge about human flight. It does not feel good to get on a plane under these conditions. You, nervous flyers, aren’t exactly right to stress out about taking to the sky, but it’s hard to deny that your anxiety feels wrong. I get it now. At least, I get it now more than I used to. Congratulations on your horrible vindication!

If it helps, I fly way, way more than the average person, and I have never died. Extrapolating outwards from there, it’s possible that I never will die, although I wouldn’t bet on it. Statistically, it’s pretty unlikely. I’m home a lot.

PEP TALK FOR A READER

I did a little grammatical smoothing-out of this request to fit the house style. Nothing major. Don’t worry about it.

On top of *waves at everything,* my landlord just told me she's selling the apartment I've rented for the past 16 years. I’m trying to figure out if I can afford to buy it and if that's even the right thing to do.
- Rent-To-Oh No

A formative media experience from my childhood was seeing tv commercials for the movie Threesome, which included the quote: “Sex is kinda like pizza; even when it’s bad, it’s pretty good.” Apparently this character had never had pizza, or sex I guess, at an airport food court. In any case, moving is the opposite of this premise. Even when it’s fine, it’s pretty bad. It’s time-consuming and expensive. You have to find a bunch of cardboard boxes, which is always harder than it sounds. Then you need to get used to a totally new shower’s water pressure. No thanks.

Prying yourself out of your home of sixteen years seems like, at best, a hassle. The kind of hassle you’re considering paying (let’s estimate) tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars to avoid. I get it. I’ve lived in the same (rented) place for almost eight years, and there are piles of unopened mail that I couldn’t stand to part with if I had to move. (Sorry to my wife for being a semi-slob!) The idea of finding a new place to live makes me understand hoarders a little better. In my defense, I don’t think I am one; I’m just lazy. Still a bad quality when you’ve got to pack up everything you own and then find a place for it in a new apartment or house.

It sounds to me like you have found yourself in the first half of the “even when it’s fine, it’s kind of bad” formulation. Your situation is, ultimately, fine. For now at least, which is when we’re corresponding. Yes, it is bad! And you have every right to complain about it! Complaining is so important, and I would never take that away from you. But think of it this way: At the very least, you have almost enough money to buy your apartment. That’s so far ahead of where you could be in this situation. You could find yourself already certain you couldn’t afford the place. Or you could be in a position where even paying rent was hard to accomplish. Getting booted from your home is bad. Having to pay a LOT more money than expected to stay in your home is bad. Having a little financial cushion knocks my overall evaluation of this situation down from “wicked bad” to “kind of bad.”

You don’t have to feel psyched about this, of course. It’s still upsetting! The expectation, fortunately, is not that you’ll end up unhoused. And there’s only so much gratitude most people with homes can actively feel on a day to day basis. It’s like trying to muster joy that you aren’t currently being eaten by sharks. I mean…thank goodness, but I hadn’t considered that was even on the table most days.

You are in a stressful place, and no one who currently has a roof over their head at night would begrudge your complaints. This change in circumstances is annoying. And sometimes life is annoying. But ultimately you’re in a place where even if money can’t buy happiness, it can still help you rent contentment somewhere else.

Or maybe you can rent Threesome and tell me if it’s a good movie or just had a memorable commercial for someone who was nine years old in 1994. You’ve got the cash for that!

PICK-ME-UP SONG OF THE WEEK:
Wyclef Jean - “We Trying to Stay Alive”

My friends Zach and Dom were giving Wyclef Jean’s 1997 album The Carnival a re-listen, so I gave it a re-listen too. “We Trying to Stay Alive” is just “Stayin’ Alive” by the Bee Gees but with rapping, which is (controversial to say?) an improvement. I probably feel that way simply because I first heard this version as a tween and thought: This is what a cool song for cool people sounds like.

Meanwhile, I heard the original as a younger child and thought: This song sounds like it would be a lot of fun if I was old.

Hearing the song pop up during its natural place in The Carnival’s track listing felt like running into a group of old friends (albeit a group including one member who was convicted of all sorts of financial crimes several years ago…sorry, Pras), and it brought a little pizzazz to my Saturday night dinner preparations, which isn’t what Wyclef and the team likely intended, but it’s where I’m at right now.

UPCOMING SHOWS

I’m out and about in NYC a whole bunch coming up, plus a few shows on the road!

3/3: Comedy Cellar Village Underground (NYC and Livestream)

3/5: Padma Puts on a Comedy Show at the Bell House (Late Show)

3/7: Pine Box Rock Shop (Brooklyn)

3/10: Purim Show at Littlefield (Brooklyn)

3/11: The Backspace at Nod Hill (Ridgefield, CT)

3/15: Bushwick Comedy Club, Taylor Garron’s Show at Union Hall (Brooklyn)

3/17: Co-hosting Frankenstein’s Baby at Union Hall (Brooklyn)

3/19: Opening for Adam Cayton-Holland at Union Hall (Brooklyn)

4/4-4/5: The Comedy Attic (Bloomington, IL—ticket link soon!)