#128. The Next Pope and You

I know you're hopin' for a Popin'.

Hi everyone,

I am writing to you after spending a few days in Austin for the Moontower Comedy Festival. Staying in downtown Austin just off of 6th Street really makes you look inward and ask some serious questions. Questions like: “Have all the nation’s 24-year-olds descended on a five-block strip to get blackout drunk?” And: “Can I count salsa as a vegetable? Because otherwise I might not have eaten a vegetable in like 36 hours.”

Despite navigating hordes of inebriated youths and a looming fear of scurvy, the festival was a really stellar time. I saw a ton of comedy friends and several non-comedy friends and made a ton of new friends (I’m very friendly). I don’t get to go to Los Angeles as often as I’d like, and that’s where many pals live now, so it was a treat to catch up with west coast buddies who were also in town. It was also nice to see a bunch of New York comedians outside of our normal rhythms. We got to do more hanging out and goofing around than when we have the rest of our lives to attend to.

Thanks to everyone who came to my headlining show at the State Theatre! And thanks to my friend Isabel Hagen for opening the show! Isabel writes perfect jokes and is also a classically trained viola player which is unfair and frankly rude. She must be stopped. (But in the event that her rampage is allowed to continue you should check out her directorial feature film debut at Tribeca this summer!)

I’m pointing up so you know why I’m standing there.

HUGE thanks also to Colleen and the whole festival staff for organizing such a fun and impeccably run event. Thanks to the Sklar Brothers for having me on their show Tag It (where comedians do a set and then Randy and Jason provide a wealth of potential tags for their jokes) and Business Casual for having me on their live podcast show to take a practice SAT test in front of the audience. (My verbal section was pretty good, but my math could use some brushing up. I was extremely stressed out the entire time, through no fault of Business Casual’s.)

Especially huge shout out to my friend

Adam Cayton-Holland

whose beautiful and heartbreaking and hilarious show Happy Place I finally got to see. It’s a really special show, and not just because it’s extremely pro (Stoneham, MA hometown hero) Nancy Kerrigan and (excellent karaoke band) Sum-41.

Not to be all ~in these times~ but…uhh…in these times, I have extra added respect for the transgender comics and the comics who were not born in the United States for traveling to Texas to tell jokes.

Between this festival and a quick trip to Boston to perform on a fundraiser for my friend Mike Dorval’s cancer treatment (He’s doing well! It’s just that private health insurance is a nightmare even when it’s working!), I have felt especially grateful to be part of a community of friends and colleagues who care about each other as artists and people. I got to watch and work with lots of people I’ve looked up to for years, which is always a thrill. And I don’t think I did anything especially embarrassing even.

Some of the greats and also me, in Boston!

One non sequitur: Last week, a little girl (about four years old) in our neighborhood wanted to say hi to Maggie the pug, and afterwards she was extremely thrilled to show us that her dress had pockets. I hadn’t realized how early that starts!!!

This week: I’m co-hosting Frankenstein’s Baby at Union Hall tonight. Another outrageous lineup per usual! Tomorrow night I’m co-headlining a show in Manhattan with Marina Franklin! And on Wednesday I’m doing an evening of humor readings. What will I be reading? Can I even read? These are questions I will try to answer over the next couple of days. Then things are a little quieter for a bit. Maris and I are seeing some bands play next week and I’m very psyched for that.

And if you’re not in town you can listen to me later this week on the Review of Mess podcast with

Jessica DeFino

(whose newsletter is a long-time favorite) and

Emily Kirkpatrick

(a new fave)! And if you’re not sick of reading things I’ve written, check out my guest entry for Dingus of the Week in my friend

lyz

’s excellent newsletter! I say many mean and gross things about Marco Rubio!

Oh and I made a little video plea to Jeff Bezos. Please share to promote male astronaut awareness.

joshgondelman

A post shared by @joshgondelman

Oh! I saw my friend Ana Marie Cox over the weekend, and she still has a couple of slots available in her upcoming writing workshop!!!

Okay! On to the pep!

PEP TALK FOR THE NEXT POPE

He didn’t win the Oscar; just let him have this, imo.

The Pope died over the weekend or today depending on what time zone you’re in, and I will not be making jokes about that because while I don’t believe in hell, I also don’t enjoy people telling me I’ll go there online for a week straight. Plus, it would hurt my feelings if Catholics said mean things when Mel Brooks (the closest thing my people have to a Pope) died.

I know you’re out there somewhere listening to “Humble” by Kendrick Lamar in your headphones so as not to feel inappropriately worthy of assuming stewardship over the whole church. Maybe you’re worried that you won’t be able to fill Pope Francis’s shoes (which, upon Googling, had considerably more style than I imagined). Do not worry, future Pope. Just by virtue of taking office (Is that what we say about Pope? Again…Jewish.) you will be infallible. Catholic grandmas all over the world will accept whatever you say. That’s Pope’s Prerogative! You can even say that gay people are good or genocide is bad, and the only people who will really get mad are conservative commentators who should probably just have Ronald Reagan prayer candles in their homes and give up the facade of religion entirely.

There’s only so bad a job you can do as Pope these days. You’re not going to convert the Vatican to cryptocurrency. (I don’t even know if Popes have that kind of municipal authority.) You’re probably going to be mostly within the general sphere of acceptable Popedom. Although honestly I do think it would be very funny if you, like, sincerely converted to Islam. That would probably shake the whole situation up a little. But I can’t imagine you came this far with all the robes and blessings and Latin to do that. And, if you do anything to cut out…you know…the thing the Catholic Church is second most famous for, you’ll probably go down as the GOAP (Greatest of All Popes).

PEP TALK FOR A READER

This request was extremely straightforward to I left it basically untouched.

I need a pep talk to get me through the next few months as I manage my senior dog's healthcare and possible end of life, getting my child through the end of HS and ready to launch into the adult world, and finalizing a divorce amid all the attendant financial and emotional turmoil.
- Have You Heard That Sometimes It Rains AND Pours?

My goodness, you are in the throes of so many big changes. And even the positive shifts are heavy and effortful. There’s not a single event you cataloged that will fully happen on its own, nor is there one that’s absent of a high-voltage emotional charge. There’s nothing you mentioned that’s laborious and less fraught (putting together new furniture, taking on a rigorous new job, learning to weld) or mentally taxing but otherwise undemanding (deciding whether to go back to school after you’ve been accepted, working up the nerve to ask for a sabbatical at work, lifting a fallen tree with your mind).

You’ve got to actually do all these things, and you’re going to feel as it’s going on. Raw deal, I know, but it’s the only one that’s on offer. But you can do this! And, more than that, you will! This isn’t like filing your taxes. You can’t just skate by without actually completing that task for a couple of years if things get hectic enough (not that I’d know, but I do). Dragging your feet will have immediate and noticeable consequences. So, wisely, you’ll probably choose to put your head down and barrel through this gauntlet of landmark events.

That is, in my opinion, lightly good news. You seem to realize that the only way out is through, so through is where you’re headed. But the better news, is that once you go through, you’re out. That’s the corollary, right? If the only way out is through, the place you end up once you’re through is out! It’s kind of like the transitive property of mathematics but…not quite. And after all this through you’re mired in, no one has ever been as out as you’re about to be.

So get excited for out! You’re not going to be a brand new person. Despite what my old barber used to say immediately after every haircut (“Brand new man!” he’d gush, while snapping his fingers, despite removing maybe 5mm of hair from the sides of my head) one rarely finds one’s self a person fully transformed. But you will be a mostly-continuous version of yourself under new and bracing circumstances. They won’t all be good, but they will all offer the potential for a beautiful future informed by your past. Hold on! Out’s coming!

PICK-ME-UP SONG OF THE WEEK:
Matt Berninger - “Bonnet of Pins”

Matt Berninger and his band The National are not known for music that makes one feel good. They’re more conversant in songs for drinking alone to while the sun creeps over the horizon on its way up. But this one has some big bright horns towards the end and an old school “Mr. November”-era National charge to is, so I made an exception. Sue me if you dare. I’ll fight it tooth and nail. (That kind of sounds like a National lyric honestly.)

And there’s a new Illuminati Hotties song featuring Stefan from PUP! Honestly, it’s a better fit for this section of the newsletter, but I’ve been going so hard for both of these bands individually in these here (web) pages that I figured you’d all be like enough already. So I linked it separately.

And I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention my friend Avery Friedman’s gentle and tender and lovely new album is out now! Congratulations, Avery!!!

UPCOMING SHOWS

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

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)