#122. Jean Jackets and You
Denim'? I hardly know 'em?
Hi everyone,
The Celtics beat the Lakers on Saturday night, and I am still in a good mood from that. My brain is such a simple machine.
Last week comprised a lot of socializing, even by what Maris calls my “ultimate extrovert” standards. We saw our friend
at our other friend ’s charity guest bartending stint. It was the day Scaachi’s new book came out, and I unexpectedly got to buy her a celebratory martini. (She is one of my favorite essayists! This was true even before we were friends! I bought four copies of her book, which is about divorce, and I joked on Instagram that I was going to give copies to friends I think should split up, but for real I just think people will like it!)We also went to a party/reading for our friend Jeremy’s first novel, which was a ton of fun even though I snuck out early to go to a college friend’s birthday party (hi, Jenna)! Plus there were somehow two double-dates (well, one was a 2.5 date) and a friendship coffee or two in the mix.
Right in the middle of the week, I got to perform on one of Padma Lakshmi’s annual-ish “Padma Puts on a Comedy Show” comedy shows to benefit the New York Abortion Access Fund. The shows took place at the Bell House where I filmed my (still upcoming) standup special last summer, and the lineups were pretty outrageous. Padma co-hosted both with Jay Jurden, and the late show (which I performed on) featured Hasan Minhaj, Larry Owens, Marie Faustin, and Sydnee Washington.
After the show, Padma invited all the comedians over and cooked pasta for everyone at like 1am, which was a pretty magical turn for the night to take. Most nights I am not clamoring for fresh carbonara at 1:30 in the morning (in part because I’m usually asleep), but when the host emeritus of Top Chef is offering it to you, you say yes. The post-show hangout was both a lot of fun in the moment and something that the comics kept murmuring about how ridiculous it all was. We really stuck the Kurt Vonnegut “if this isn’t nice I don’t know what is” landing on Wednesday.
I’ve got quite a bit of fun stuff coming up! Tonight (3/10) I’m performing on a Purim-adjacent show with a bunch of funny Jewish comics/pals. On Thursday, I’m back on All Of It with Allison Stewart on WNYC (and later as a podcast) talking about the five-year anniversary of the pandemic shutdowns.
Then I’ve got a few shows at Union Hall (also in Brooklyn) performing with my friend Taylor Garron (3/15), opening for my friend Adam Cayton-Holland (3/19), and co-hosting Frankenstein’s Baby with my friend Tyrone Thornhill (3/17). Frankenbaby has another outrageous lineup thanks to our producer Jordan.
Outside of NYC, I’m going to be in Ridgefield, CT tomorrow (3/11) headlining a fun show! Tickets are almost gone! Then on 3/27 I’m doing my friend Chris Duffy’s comedy/science show Wrong Answers Only in Mobile, AL which may or may not be open to the public. I’ll be back in Chicago for a Wait Wait…Don’t Tell Me taping on 4/3 and off to the Comedy Attic in Bloomington, IN on 4/4-4/5! It’s one of the best clubs in the country and I’m SO psyched to be there while I’m building this new hour up! Tickets are on sale NOW!!!
PEP TALK FOR JEAN JACKETS
Your time is drawing near, denim stalwarts. Where I live, at least. You’ve been hung up, packed away, or cast aside for months. Now, as the first breaths of spring drift through the air, many of us find ourselves asking the same question: “Do I kind of give off a Bruce Springsteen vibe in this jacket?” And though the answer is almost uniformly “no,” that is our fault not yours.
As the temperature approaches sixty degrees Fahrenheit (or forty-five degrees if you’re from New England), closets and Rubbermaid containers will be rummaged through, and you will be brought out into the increasingly bright sunlight. Eat shit, winter coats. It’s time for you to be tucked away unceremoniously and maybe dry cleaned but probably not dry cleaned. Because you are not going to be broken out again until it’s suddenly too cold to wait for the cleaners to do their thing. Well, okay, you’ll be back in two weeks when it’s cold again, but THEN you’ll be banished for several months.
But this isn’t about you, winter coats. This is about jean jackets. Jean jackets! It is (nearly) your moment! You’re going to make us all look cool, or as cool as possible given our general resting states. Who cares if you’re a little wrinkly from the months in storage? The wear makes you look rugged, lived in. And who cares that our active trade war with our neighbors to the north will likely result in the phrase “Canadian Tuxedo” being forbidden in America despite the first amendment implications? You’d look just as good as a “Buffalo Suit.” And yes, I know that means a denim jacket with denim pants as well, but what other pants are you going to wear a denim jacket with? Khakis? I’m not trying to scream MIDLIFE CRISIS with my clothes, here.
Jean jackets, despite all the bad news in the world, your reemergence signifies the continued predictability of our natural order. You are a harbinger of optimism. Things can get better. Happier times can return. You’re back. And we’re so glad.
That is…until it becomes too hot for long sleeves in a month and a half, and we toss you aside again.
PEP TALK FOR A READER
I did a little cleaning up of this request’s punctuation, but the words are basically the same!!!
I am the mother of a 16-year-old who wants to start having sex. I am okay with it —in theory, informing her, supporting, getting her BC, etc. But also this is Scary AF. Parenting a teen in this day and age is hard (I sound 200 years old).
- M.I.L.F. (Mom Is Letting Fornicationhappenbutisuneasyaboutit)
The idea of anything bad ever happening to someone I love is a source of true dread. I can only imagine the volume on that terror turning up 1,000,000% when it involves the wellbeing of someone I’m legally in charge of. Having kids in 2025 sounds so hard! Even harder than a hundred and twenty years ago when you’d just send your offspring off to a mill in the morning and hope they came back with a number of fingers somewhere in the ballpark of the number they left with.
Honestly, it sounds like you are doing tremendous work. Your anxiety is reasonable, but so is your sense that your behavior should not cave in to your worst fears. We let teenagers start driving at around age sixteen, and that’s way more dangerous than having consensual sex with careful precautions in place. There’s no way your kid is going to look down to answer a text and cause a twenty-fuck pileup.
I feel a little weird ruminating on the sex lives of high school students, so I will focus on you. It is a very beautiful impulse to want your child to have healthy and fulfilling relationships. It is good parenting to give them the resources to be as safe as possible, especially during an era when Republican politicians would travel house to house, inseminating anyone of ovulating ability with a Visine bottle full of their own sperm.
And it’s not like these issues were easier to navigate back when the standard position was just “no daughter of mine…” Sure, some kids would probably subdue their hormones out of sheer fear. But the rest of them were scrambling down trellises after arranging a wad of poodle skirts or bellbottom jeans into the shape of a person under their covers. I mean, 50% of the time “I married my high school sweetheart” has got to be code for “I got (or got someone else) pregnant on prom night” right?
You’d be less of a good mom if you didn’t worry about your child’s health (physical and emotional) but you’d also be less of a good mom if you kept her up in a tower until her hair got long enough for a lover to climb up it (or she went off to college).
PICK-ME-UP SONG OF THE WEEK:
Daisy the Great - “Ballerina”
This new song by Daisy the Great reminds me so much of my friends Speedy Ortiz. (But I don’t know these folks, although they are friends of friends.) “Ballerina” has a catchy melody that’s always kind of wrestling with the insistent sound of the guitars. It’s both vulnerable and venomous (V&V Music Factory?). I bet this band rips it up live; I should go see them next time they’re playing in town!
UPCOMING SHOWS
I’m out and about in NYC a whole bunch coming up, plus a few shows on the road!
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)
3/20: Grisly Pear (Midtown)
3/25: Alphaville (Brooklyn)
3/27: Wrong Answers Only (Mobile, AL)
4/2: Freddy’s Backroom (Brooklyn)
4/3: Wait Wait Don’t Tell Me (Chicago)
4/4-4/5: The Comedy Attic (Bloomington, IN)
“…look down to answer a text and cause a twenty-fuck pileup” really made me laugh
OMG! What memories this brings back. I bought my jeans jacket as a celebration when Nixon resigned in 1974(?). I was foolishly optimistic. Now I am a wizened old man shouting at the clouds.