#126. The Economy and You
You can't spell "crash" without "ash" which is what a Phoenix rises from!
Hi everyone,
I was kind of all over the place this week, physically and practically, which was a lot of fun. I had a great weekend at the Comedy Attic in Bloomington, Indiana, which is one of the best clubs in the entire country. I am not a big time celebrity or social media sensation (YOU: “No way! Josh???!?! You aren’t?”) and I am always so flattered when I am invited back to the Attic. I’m about halfway to building up a new headlining set, so I was a little looser than usual onstage, and I ended up having some fun talking to the crowd. Would you believe there are people who are old enough to go to comedy clubs but have literally never heard of Y2K??? These are the kinds of things you learn when you ask people questions.
I also (sorry to be cryptic) felt a little forward progress on a writing project I’m working on with a friend. Despite getting on several airplanes lately, I’d been feeling a little professionally sedentary, and this momentum released an embarrassing amount of endorphins from my brain. It was like the first nice day of spring, but for professional news.
In other, more explicit fun updates, I returned to the All Fantasy Everything podcast with my friends Ian Karmel, David Gborie, and Sean Jordan to fantasy draft Interactions With Strangers. Ian, David, and Sean are SO fast and SO funny on the show, but they create such a welcoming environment for guests to hop into their world and play around for an hour or two. I did a live show with them in Boston at the Wilbur a couple of years ago, and something David said made me laugh as hard as I’ve ever laughed at a live performance. Along with The Bugle, AFE is maybe my favorite podcast that I get to appear on regularly. I know I come back to this same realization every few months, but I am so lucky to get to have so much of my job be to goof around with my extraordinarily funny friends!
After that, I was back on Wait Wait…Don’t Tell Me this week along with my friend Negin Farsad (who newsletter readers may remember from last week’s adventures in Alabama) and first-time panelist the great Tig Notaro! Please don’t tell Tig but I am always very intimidated by her (despite her only ever having been very nice to me). Another all-time career highlight was opening for her at the Academy of Music in Northampton, MA and then sitting backstage while she spent five minutes lying to the audience about the Indigo Girls being special guests on the show. Maris was with me, and even though we had been backstage for hours even she was like…ARE the Indigo Girls here??? Tig is so committed to bits!! The celebrity interview guest on WWDTM was Sterling K. Brown, and I went full Chris Farley Show inarticulate talking to him about Paradise. Thanks to the whole Wait Wait team for being the best, as always. (Here’s a short clip from the recording!)
Oh right ALSO my episode of Abolish Everything is up on Nebula (a thing I only kind of understand). The live taping was great. I had so much fun watching the other performers’ presentations and talking about why we should abolish confidence.
And, as has been previously established, I’ll be in Boston NEXT Monday (4/14) to help raise money for my friend Mike Dorval’s cancer treatment along with a great lineup. I can say without looking that it’s the best show in town that night.
And, on 4/17, I’m headlining one show at the State Theatre in Austin as part of the Moontower Comedy Festival. I have never been to town for Moontower before and I’m SO psyched for it!
Plus, I’ve got a fun show in NYC with my pal Marina Franklin on 4/22! It’s my first long set in the city in a while!
Lotta business this week! Not too painful though, right? We got through it!
A SMALL HEADS-UP FROM A FRIEND
My friend Ana is hosting a writing workshop about how to keep creating even if democracy (or your life) is in chaos. I know so many people who are really grappling with how to do creative work (or any kind of thinking) outside of the truly horrible news that seems to unfold daily. How much is it incumbent on us all to focus on that stuff? How do we step outside it and have our own thoughts? Ana is great, and this workshop feels like the kind of thing a lot of people are searching for lately.
It’s called “The Slow Burn”… don’t burn out, burn slow. (Alt tag line: “Your life isn’t linear, your writing practice doesn’t have to be, either."). I included both tag lines because I think they are both good and express different relevant ideas.
PEP TALK FOR THE ECONOMY
Something that frustrates me about the economy is that for most people there seems to be a ceiling but not a floor. When the economy is good, rich people always seem to be thriving, and when it’s going badly, they always seem to be pretending to be struggling. But it’s not like the rest of us become wealthy along with the Big Dogs of Finance (unsure what else to call them) when things are good. And even at the worst economic downturns, someone with no money in the stock market probably has a worse time than someone who lost half a billion bucks.
When the people who own (roughly) everything to begin with suck air through their teeth and knit their brows and say that they just don’t have the budget because of an economic downturn (or an anticipated economic downturn, remember that?) so they have to make layoffs, it makes me feel like the guy at the beginning of The Big Lebowski who’s dunking Jeff Bridges’s head in the toilet and yelling: “WHERE’S THE FUCKING MONEY, SHITHEEEAAAD! BUNNY SAYS YOU’RE GOOD FOR IT!”
Ultimately though it’s not on you, the economy, to be “good” or “bad.” You are completely made up by people. Unlike gravity or the freezing point of water, the economy only exists because we say it does. Or at least, it only exists in its current form because we say it does.
Last week when the stock market crashed, Mark Zuckerberg lost $18 billion and somehow got out of bed the next morning. If I lost even a single billion dollars (and I don’t know how I’d ever get that much money…maybe I’d find myself in line for a rollercoaster behind Jeff Bezos and he’d hand me a big wad of cash so it wouldn’t all fly away when he went “WAHOOO!” and threw his hands up in the air during the fast part) I would, having lost that quantity of money, be dead within hours.
I honestly think that if you can lose $18 billion overnight and still function the next day, you should have to give a million bucks in cash to anyone who asks, no matter the reason. Even if they just want to take a brick of tens and slap you in the face with it.
“Hey Zuck I’d love to start a bumper car course where people crash Honda Civics into each other and it’s expensive to insure.”
“Here’s a cool milli. Follow your dreams.”
“Marky Z.! My man! I’m trying to buy every remaining Beanie Baby!”
“Here’s a million clams. I hope there’s still a Princess Diana bear out there for you.”
“MarZu! Can I call you that? I just gotta know what panda meat tastes like.”
“Well, you’ll probably need a little more cash than this but, spoiler alert, you’re gonna love it.” (I have to imagine that Mark Zuckerberg has probably tasted the flesh of every animal on earth.)
We (humans) did this!!!! Or rather they (the Trump administration) did this specific thing to the economy. The rises and falls of the stock market are not dictated by natural laws like the contours of a mountain range. They’re all things people made happen (like melting glaciers, if we’re looking for an analogy in nature).
Anyway, in two different midwestern cities this weekend, I saw audiences go absolutely wild with enthusiasm when it was announced how much money the richest people in America lost last week. People are furious and will only get madder when the markets perk back up and those same vampires are wealthier than ever. But you can’t take that personally, the economy. You’re not even a person.
PEP TALK FOR A READER
I left this request mostly as-was. Just so you know.
Can I get a pep talk for my broken ankle?
I am mere months away from turning 40, and I've already had two stupid falls in the past month. The first one (tripping on an uneven sidewalk) resulted in broken glasses, a black eye, and some scrapes on my face. The more recent one (missed the last step of my back steps because I didn't turn a light on) has resulted in a broken ankle. I know I'm getting older, but this is ridiculous! I know it's irrational, but now I'm worried I might have more frequent falls in the future, something people only worry about for very old people. I JUST joined a (super queer and inclusive) gym and now I have to pause the routine I was really enjoying! I also don't drive, but pride myself on walking/taking the bus everywhere, so I'm very annoyed to have to rely on rides for awhile. I don't like being told I can't do something!
- Not Even Forty
The thing about bad luck is that it’s both real and not real. Bad things happen to good people for no justifiable reason all the time. Misfortune is unavoidable and has real consequences. Damn this sounds a lot like how I’m describing the economy but it’s not like that at all, really. Because bad luck can disappear at any time for any reason or for no reason at all. Chance is not a rational actor. Two falls in short succession doesn’t necessarily mean that you are the kind of person who topples over all the time. Your dependence on others (at least in the short term) is a setback, not a definition.
Every human body is an ice cube on a countertop. There are no limits to the peril it faces at the whims of weather and randomness and other people’s actions. And even under the best circumstances, it’s not going to last forever.
But you’re making intentional choices to make your recovery as smooth and complete as possible. You’ll get back on your feet (foot?) again before too long. The routine you established before hasn’t gone away. It’s on pause the same way it would be if you were on vacation or got stuck working extra long hours for a while.
You can get back to the place where you were. Luck is real and imaginary. Momentum exists and it doesn’t. Can something be real if you can create it out of thin air? Can something be fake if you can feel it more than more if you’re looking for it?
PICK-ME-UP SONG OF THE WEEK:
Camp Trash - “Detroiters”
The chorus of this song hits in a burst like biting into a soup dumpling. I mean, maybe it’s not even a chorus. Nothing comes back. “Detroiters” is more like four cohesive movements that all whizz by in a total of two and a half minutes. Keegan from Camp Trash referred to the tune as “Detroiters Season 3” on social media, and honestly that level of pandering is too direct for me to ignore. So here we are.
UPCOMING SHOWS
I’m out and about in NYC a whole bunch coming up, plus a few shows on the road!
4/14: Benefit for Mike Dorval at Laugh Boston (Boston)
4/17: Moontower Comedy Festival Headlining Show (Austin)
4/21: Co-hosting Frankenstein’s Baby at Union Hall (Brooklyn)
4/22: Co-Headlining Baruch PAC with Marina Franklin
4/23: GRIEFSTRIKE! Reading at Francis Kite (Manhattan)
5/4: 54/54/54 at 54 Below (Manhattan)
Oh my gosh, this is PERFECT: "Every human body is an ice cube on a countertop. There are no limits to the peril it faces at the whims of weather and randomness and other people’s actions. And even under the best circumstances, it’s not going to last forever." This is probably the best description I've ever seen, or ever will. Thank you so much for this, and for every other stellar thing you've written!!!
Thank you for the pep talk to a broken ankle. I feel the Not Even Forty's pain - almost literally! I fell in October on wet blacktop when it was raining and broke my stupid pinky finger on my dominant hand. And then I fell again in February on an uneven sidewalk and seriously bruised my ribs. My husband now thinks I'm just a person who falls. But I know I was just unlucky and both falls could have happened to anyone. Wishing speedy healing to Not Even Forty!