#133. Small Good New Item Speed Round

Good, good. (Picture me steepleing my fingers here.)

Hi everyone,

Sorry for the late newsletter today! It’s my wedding anniversary (Happy anniversary, Maris!!!) so we got up and took Maggie on a nice walk to the waterfront and sat and drank coffee. Honestly, I am not that sorry. What I meant was: “Here’s why this is late! I hope it didn’t cause you too much inconvenience, nor did you worry I had perished!”

Similarly, last week, I was running late to see a show on Friday night, and instead of hopping on the train and risking a sprint to the venue through a semi-unexpected downpour, I took a [rideshare company I won’t endorse by name] into Manhattan. The enormity of New York City still staggers me every time I drive over the Brooklyn Bridge. How are there so many buildings so close together? And they’re so tall? Sure, that’s not EXCLUSIVELY positive, but it is IMPRESSIVE. And the bridge itself! How can such a thing even exist? According to nyc.gov (and why would they lie to me?) says that—including the approaches on either side—the bridge is over a mile long and at its center is 135 feet above the East River. And they made it in the 1800s. What the hell? Seems impossible to me, a guy who recently stopped building a rack to hold his sneakers midway through because it was too complicated. (I think the thing itself was not especially structurally sound. I know say it’s a shoddy workman who blames his tools…well I am, and I do.)

Back to the main thing: I always have the same extraordinarily elemental thought about the view during this 150-second trip between boroughs, which is: “People did this!” As in, people built this whole city. Which is not exactly a revaletion. First of all, fuckin’…duh. Nobody believes that the concrete, brick, and glass structures of Lower Manhattan were left there by extraterrestrials or somehow occurred naturally, like an inverse Grand Canyon.

Another quick aside: I visited the Grand Canyon with my parents in my early 20s, and I was a little skeptical about the travel required to look at a crevasse that I had seen many times in pictures. When I got there in person, it was maybe the least disappointing thing I’d ever gazed upon (and I do a lot of gazing). It’s so big that my wordy, image-averse brain could not conceive of the scale without peering into the massive slice of abyss firsthand (firsteye?). I was overwhelmed. “Nature did this!” I thought. Okay, aside over.

Back to: “People did this!” My second reaction to having that thought (after “obviously, dummy”) is that it’s good to notice things, even very basic things. Clocking simple facts helps establish common ground. It lets you establish a point from which to expound and iterate. It’s not the same as having an insight, but noticing is the breeding ground for realizations.

It’s fitting (or maybe explicitly related) that I had this almost-thought on the way to see Improvised Seinfeld at the UCB Theater. The show is exactly what it sounds like. A cast of four with a few rotating guests improvises an episode of Seinfeld. Extremely clean premise. Seinfeld the show and Jerry Seinfeld the comedian are both at their best when they are noticing something we can all agree on, but maybe has gone unspoken. “Sometimes people stand too close to you when they talk.” “It is embarrassing to think of a comeback a week too late.” “Doing certain activities naked does not look sexy.” And we spiral inward or outward from there.

For what it’s worth, Jerry Seinfeld’s least successful material relies on noticing something that, to him, feels obvious but is neither common to the audience nor explained as a personal quirk of the artist. I think it was his most recent special that starts with a bit about how nobody wants to go out. My man! People have spent dozens if not hundreds of dollars on going out to see the very show you are performing. They probably told their friends about it. It might even be the highlight of their week. You happen to be at work, a place you don’t need to be ever because you have a billion dollars and are seventy years old. Talk about what in your brain makes you keep doing that! That is what I am noticing when I watch you now, at least!

The Improvised Seinfeld show was so beautifully observed and performed. Mike Antonucci and Cathryn Mudon really captured the physicality of Kramer and Elaine respectively. Dru Johnston and Noah Forman locked into an extremely convincing version of George and Jerry’s banter, despite every line of dialogue being generated off the cuff. Connor Ratliff played Jerry’s new tailor, who offered our star a friends and family discount on the condition that they maintain an ongoing friendship (he even threatened to claw back the discounts should the friendship end). Extremely Seinfeld stuff! And it was all made possible by noticing the specificities of the source material. The richness of the show also relies on the performers being able to reproduce and innovate on those core qualities, but it starts with the noticing!

The beauty of improv is how collaborative and instantaneously generative it can be. When it’s good, it feels like it MUST have been pre-considered because of how synchronous the people on stage become. There’s no set. There’s no script. There’s no budget for special effects. When it’s good it feels like watching actual magic. When it’s bad, it’s like watching a child attempt a magic trick. But seeing an episode of a long-defunct television show conjured from thin air in front of a crowd gave me the exact same feeling as driving over the Brooklyn Bridge.

“Wow. People did this.”

A LITTLE BIT OF BUSINESS

My hotel and travel details have been confirmed, so I feel comfortable saying that I’ll be co-emceeing the late show this Saturday night (5/31) at the Liberation Weekend festival in Washington D.C. along with my pals Mattie Lubchansky and Rax King. I’m not sure what our performance will consist of; it’s a bunch of stalling between bands, I think, but the music portion of the festival has a truly outrageous lineup. It’s a lot of trans artists and friends of trans artists, and the profits go to benefit causes that directly aid trans people (even the ones who are not artists).

Look at this lineup!

On Sunday when I get home I’m hosting a What’s New? show at Union Hall in Brooklyn. I’m going to be telling a ton of new jokes (and maybe trying to record five minutes of older jokes, but we’ll see). And I’ve got some great comics (Meredith Dietz, Erin Depke) on the lineup, plus a couple of special guests I’m working on securing still. These shows are always a blast, and this one starts at 5pm and will end by 6:30 so you can have a nice dinner afterwards and still get to bed at a sensible hour.

PLUS! I’ve got big news coming TOMORROW about my upcoming standup special. I’m going to be shouting my head off about this for a little while because I (and many others) worked so hard on it, and I really, really want people to see it. It was a truly independent production and will be an indie release, so it relies on word of mouth to get people to watch. I would love if your mouths spread such words, readers!!!

(The press release isn’t going out until tomorrow because of the holiday today, and I don’t want to share the artwork without the link to pre-save! So…SOON, I SWEAR!)

GOOD NEWS SPEED ROUND

Because it’s a holiday, I thought I’d try something a little different this week. Over on BlueSky, I solicited some small items of good news, and I’m going to share them here, and maybe we can get some hell yeahs and go get ‘ems in the comments for these nice people!

(ALSO, IF YOU HAVE YOUR OWN NICE PIECES OF NEWS, LEAVE ‘EM IN THE COMMENTS FOR HELL YEAHS AND GET ‘EMS!)

HERE WE GO!

They redid job titles and salary bands at my work, and between that and the annual raise, I'm now making 15% more than I was a couple months ago.

This is outstanding news! I was (too) recently exposed to the idea that record profits are stolen wages, and it sounds like your company realized that if they’re doing well, you should be doing well…as well!

I have learned how to navigate my retirement funds.

You have a retirement fund AND you know what the heck it is? These are two victories squeezed into nine words. Your message is breathtaking in both its significance and its efficiency.

I have learned that my book, released in November, is doing “pretty well” and have come to understand that pretty well is kind of huge.

Oh yeah for sure! Sometimes you’ve got to grade on a curve. Doing well by doing a good job combines to equal doing great. That’s just mathematics.

I started working on a novella! It's gonna be a science fiction action/adventure thing.

Starting is so important! Nothing happens without starting! Nothing worthwhile has ever been finished without starting! And, apart from finishing, starting is worthwhile on its own merits! All’s well that ends well (classic saying) but nothing’s well that starts not at all. Okay the first one is catchier. Touché, Shakespeare. But I’m still right.

I've been on the wait-list for months for several audiobooks from my library, and three just came available on this, the last week of school so I actually have time to listen and enjoy them! (I'm a teacher.)

Another huge literary win. You’re going to enjoy the heck out of those books. At least some of them, I bet. This is why the above people have written or are writing things. So people read and enjoy them. You are doing right by yourself AND others. I don’t throw this word around lightly, but it’s heroic.

I have enough breast milk stored that I can start cutting out pumping! It sounds weird, but it means hours back in my days. We've been able to start our family walks in the evenings again. ❤️

As someone who has never made any food with their body at all, I find this very impressive. If I produced even a shot glass full of milk, lifetime, I would not stop bragging about it. (Or, possibly, never tell anyone about it while letting the mere memory of it consume my waking hours. But that’s more of a a me thing.)

All of the 9U soccer players in the club had to try out again for 10U and, after working hard all year and having a great tryout, my 9yo made the top team again!

Great news and congratulations to this nine-year-old!!!

My son was awarded a National Merit Scholar and his PSAT score is in the top 1% of the country.

Great news and congratulations to this…sixteen-year-old? I forget when teenage things happen.

My son got off the waitlist for a year-long paid fellowship that he really really *really* wanted.

Tremendous job waiting. Tom Petty was right about it being the hardest part, and your son slayed this specific demon!

After reaching out to 17 daycares that are full up, we found a spot for the kid in a daycare just down the street from where we live.

Eighteenth time’s a charm, I always say! L’chaim!

I screen printed my own artwork for the first time yesterday! It was a lot of work but only made me more excited to make more new art!

It is so so so satisfying to get good—or even good enough—at a new skill. This is big time stuff, and it’s only going to get better as you continue to allow your enthusiasm to lead you. I finished a crossword puzzle this weekend and felt smug for hours. Your thing sounds even better than that!

My friend scored me first row behind the dugout tickets for the Cubs game on my birthday 🙂

You have a good friend and something to look forward to. That’s another double victory. It’s almost too much good news for me to include here, but I’ll make an exception.

I’m going to London for my birthday with my best friend. Last minute decision. I’m going to see Ophelia in person at the Tate. I’ll probably cry.

Ophelia! The Chicago Cubs of art (for this purpose and this purpose only)!

My local bookstore, The Trident, gave me a smoking deal on the collected works of Mark Twain and I’ve actually started reading it. Gems like “It could probably be shown by facts and figures that there is no distinctly Native American criminal class except Congress.” This is from a collection of his Anti-Imperialist Essays. Which I am reading for no particular reason.

Damn, I didn’t realize Mark Twain gave it to Congress as hard as he took on golf. “A good walk spoiled.” Stop, Sammy C.! They’re already dead!

My goal of bringing a music performance series to my town got a big step closer to becoming reality!

This is huge for your community! You’re a local legend in the making! (I call that being a Local Rumor.)

Our library board incumbents— all wonderful people, experienced, passionate about our communities, the freedom to read, and libraries won their election! Aaaaand one of the challengers who talked a lot about morality got a DUI two days before Election Day.

Congratulations on your victories, library board incumbents! And wow I don’t know that hypocrisy moves the needle with many people, but someone trying to (let’s say) ban books getting busted for drunk driving does feel like they kind of beautiful poetry they’d try to keep out of people’s hands, eyes, and minds.

Went to a wedding of a couple that had been together for 24 years! Lots of love in the room!

It must have felt so good to be at that wedding since the couple had already been together for so long. Like drinking a big glass of water after you’ve been out in the sun doing yard work, or peeing after drinking a big glass of water after you’ve been out in the sun doing yard work. (I’m so good at writing about romance!)

My husband and I met each other 10 years ago this week. It was a chance encounter that changed the course of our lives.

Happy meetingiversary! I assume your lives were changed in a good away and not that it locked you in some kind of decade-long (and counting) strife! Ten years is so much time! Congratulations on all of that love!

Tender is this little bit of good news, I say!

I opened up a box to find that my sr prom corsage (from my then-BF, now husband) is still intact after 56 yrs. ❤️

This is so cute I could tip over. Fifty-six years? That’s five point six ten yearses. And to have the corsage still? Nearly a miracle. I always save the wrong stuff even when I’m trying to be sentimental. Never the corsage from a high school sweetheart I went on to marry. Always a poster from a concert that got torn on the way home from that concert so I never put it up anywhere and now it’s just garbage that comes with me every time I move.

My best friend who lives in Colorado and whom I rarely see was randomly in Boston for twenty-four hours and we managed to get lunch during my prep period and it was wonderful.

A surprise lunch with a friend is one of life’s great joys. It combines lunch (potentially excellent), friendship (always the best), and surprises (a real mixed bag, but sometimes extremely exciting).

The wife and I are going to see Wicked on Broadway next week! We got our tickets. Very excited about it.

This is going to be such a good time! A great Broadway show is such a marvel. (Marvel with a small “m” not Marvel with a big “M” which is different and less frequently thrilling in my opinion.)

Ok. I’ll play. My students won first place in the most prestigious collegiate journalism competition in the country for telling the story of how a group of women in Sierra Leone is working locally to mitigate period poverty.

Get ‘em, students!!! This is amazing! Congratulations!

My income-less and chronically ill mum is trying to sell her house in the countryside and has been very worried about the cost of everything that needs to be fixed - the biggest worry was the faulty electricity. Turns out a mouse had just chewed a wire and it was easily fixable!

It is such a relief when a problem is unexpectedly less severe than you thought rather than surprisingly worse than you’d imagined. Another name for shockingly small scale loss is a win, in my book. (A future book, called Winning By Losing Less that I haven’t written yet and would probably hate if it existed, but still.)

The wildlife removal man came and found the birds and possible squirrel had already vacated my attic, so no further intervention was needed other than sealing holes—whew.

The only thing better than a problem that’s less acute than you feared is one that fully solves itself by the time you get around to it.

At an Airbnb with friends in central MA for the weekend, and the host unexpectedly gave us free duck eggs!

A third fortuitous bit of little critter news! I feel like even most vegans would appreciate the gift of eggs from a well-treated duck.

I can use my hand for the first time in 3 weeks AND the cat hasn’t pissed anywhere she shouldn’t be for 2 weeks? Winning at life here in South London UK!

I hope you and your hand go on so many hand-based adventures. Turn signaling manually from your car. Steering a ship. Doing sign language. Etc.

My 87 year old mother got an injection in her spine that is providing moderate pain relief after two years of increasingly debilitating pain!

This sounds so impactful and I hope she stays feeling great!!!

My son got scheduled for a long awaited medical procedure in Montreal for July and we are tacking on a vacation weekend before it as a bonus.

Amazing. Living in America, it’s always incredible to hear about anyone receiving medical treatment at all, never mind with an attendant vacation.

My husband, who was diagnosed with Guillain-Barré Syndrome in Sep, and who has not recovered in the typical 1-3 months, was told on Friday that his insurance-approved motorized wheelchair is available on Tue. Now he can leave the house and GO PLACES. We can GO PLACES together!❤️

I can feel your enthusiasm through the screen! This is wonderful, and I hope you enjoy it so much! See the world! Or just the neighborhood. Even if it’s only a ten-block radius that’s become your oyster…that’s still a pretty big oyster!

PICK-ME-UP SONG OF THE WEEK:
Car Seat Headrest - “CCF (I’m Gonna Stay With You)”

Inspired by

Christian Finnegan

’s newsletter, I checked out the new Car Seat Headrest, and it’s very good! “CCF (I’m Gonna Stay With You)” is a big old eight-minute epic that starts slow and builds up to big bright heights. It’s been this week’s on-repeat song in my headphones when I’ve taken Maggie the Pug out for walks.

In sad song news, Laura Stevenson, one of the absolute best singer-songwriters out there writing and singing songs, put out a real heartbreaker of a lead single for her upcoming album Late Great. Laura has made some of my all-time favorite albums. Her voice sounds incredible live. I really hope she tours when the new album comes out.

(Also, Laura was a great guest on an episode of my old podcast Make My Day!)

UPCOMING SHOWS

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

5/29: The Comedy Cellar (NYC)

5/31: Late Show at Liberation Weekend w/ Mattie Lubchansky and Rax King (DC)

6/1: What’s New? at Union Hall (Brooklyn…EARLY SHOW!)

6/9: Whiplash at Union Hall (Brooklyn)

6/12: Fundraiser (Brooklyn)

6/16: Co-hosting Frankenstein’s Baby at Union Hall (Brooklyn)

6/18: Minibar (Brooklyn)

6/26: Wait Wait…Don’t Tell Me! Taping (Portland, ME)

7/2: In Conversation w/ Maris Kreizman at the Harvard Bookstore (Cambridge, MA)

8/8: State Theater for Guster On the Ocean Festival (Portland, ME)

9/13: Headlining the Fairfield Comedy Circle (CT)