#135. Humidity and You

We've gone from sweater weather to sweatier weather.

Hi everyone,

First of all, thanks for the kind reception to my update about the standup special! I’m so excited for you all to see it (starting at 8pm eastern time on June 27th, when I’ll be watching along in the chat for the premiere, click the link above for a reminder). I forgot to thank one crucial person, whose voice is the first one you hear: My friend Matt Braunger, one of he funniest guys in the whole world, who was in town when I was recording and graciously agreed to do warmup! He killed, and it was/is an honor to have him as part of this big project!

I’ve been a little extra busy the past couple of weeks with this new podcast hosting gig starting up, plus some freelance writing, plus lining up and doing promo for the special, and all my normal things. Also my sister visited New York City and we saw Oh, Mary on Broadway (it is still incredible; congratulations to the whole team on the Tony Awards they won last night). All that is to say I may finally succeed in being concise in this newsletter for once!

“Oh…Tony!!?!?!”

In less pleasant, and in fact truly heinous news, a good friend of mine who is an immigration lawyer was trying to be helpful to immigrants being detained by ICE in Los Angeles over the weekend. They asked me to share what they were seeing because it’s a truly horrible situation. I really believe that the people organizing to protect immigrants and refugees are doing heroic work. The cruelty of the U.S. government towards vulnerable people is despicable, and I am heartened by the courage of everyone fighting to counteract it. I know it is maybe contrary to the general ~vibe~ of a silly pep talk newsletter to get into this, but I think it’s important to both recognize when things are bad and appreciate (and support or join) the people who are working to make things better.

I feel like a real dumbass lately not knowing how to feel moment-to-moment when it’s like oh the Red Sox beat the Yankees and that felt nice for a minute but also fascists are tear gassing two-year-olds and we just have to walk around knowing that. Anybody else feeling off-kilter about all of this?

PEP TALK FOR HUMIDITY

Flowers around my neighborhood made possible by moisture! (If you're okay with the word "moisture" but not "moist," you need to look within yourself and ask yourself some hard questions..

You have a bad reputation, humidity. Even in comparison to heat, a thing people are 50/50 on at best. But the problem’s never the heat, we’re told. It’s you. You’re a scapegoat. It’s easy to blame you for things because you make life feel bad. You can turn a beautiful seventy-five degree day into an invisible but highly tactile swamp. Sometimes it doesn’t even feel like I’m sweating. It feels like I’m collecting ambient wetness from the atmosphere as I move through the world, and it clings to me like an ever-growing liquid katamari ball. You also create chaotic conditions for hair, or so I’ve heard from people with hair. This is your legacy.

That said, when we scorn humidity we let heat off the hook. No one has ever been sunburned by the dew point alone. It’s the (well, duh) sun. We need light, sure, but we need the moisture too. Without humidity plants don’t grow. I’ve spent time outside Phoenix. It is, meteorologically, miserable. Too dry a climate precludes life. Water has to get WAY too aggressive before it’s a major problem. That’s what I tell myself when a sheet of sweat sloughs off my forehead like rain pushed from the side of a car by windshield wipers.

Not everything good feels good. And no one is hurt when we complain about the humidity. Anti-humidity bias isn’t a meaningful prejudice, nor does it make any impact on the weather. These grips comprise a ready shorthand for discomfort of all kinds. So thank you, humidity, for giving us a locus for our distress. You are so important and I hate you so much.

PEP TALK FOR A READER

I just changed a little syntax here and added a nickname!

I’m going to live in Italy for two months, which is great obviously. I’ve been studying Italian for three years now. But I’m nervous!
- What If It All Goes To Shitaly?

It feels, for self-explanatory reasons, bad to be annoyed. But here’s what we don’t often acknowledge: It also feels bad to be annoying. International travel triggers my fear of being both annoyed and annoying at the same time. I imagine this might be a cause of some of your anxiety too. Like, sure you’ll be out of your normal rhythms and away from your usual support systems. But if you’re anything like me (which you may not be, and that’s okay too) your biggest stressor is being both flustered by the language barrier and petrified of being a pain in the ass of the native speakers around you. As I’m saying this, I realize that maybe it’s the first thing (loneliness, distance from the usual apparatus that helps you thrive) that’s got you on edge. That would be…eminently reasonable.

Regardless of what’s got you a little keyed up before your trip, it is all part of the deal. The price we pay for great excitement is often great stress. For two months you will have to make new friends or call old friends and beloved family at odd hours. You will have to bridge a linguistic gap to meet your daily needs. You will feel like a total chump in the moments when you have to resort to speaking loudly and slowly in Italian, famously a loud and fast language.

These are not even risks. They are inevitabilities. BUT! Think of all the joy and excitement you are opening yourself up to. New people. New places. New culture. New kinds of chips. This is what growth feels like. Embarrassment leading to satisfaction. Growth is annoying your neighbors with clumsy noodling on your new guitar until you are merely inconveniencing them by skillfully playing it at times they’d prefer you not. Growth is over or under-seasoning a new recipe and eating it anyway even though it tastes bad but getting it right next time. Growth is occasionally watching a movie that is outside your comfort zone, hating it, and feeling securer in the reasons for your taste. (Sometimes you like a new kind of movie, too!)

Two months in Italy will be two months of discomfort and weirdness, but they will be two months of excitement and pasta and discovery and pasta and accidentally ordering the wrong pasta which is still pasta, and that’s pretty good.

PICK-ME-UP THING OF THE WEEK:
JIM TEWS - WITH PICTURES

I have known my friend Jim Tews for a long time, and he is a really great and funny dude. His new standup special is called With Pictures because he performed this hour of comedy with a bunch of images for reference and extra jokes. (Jim is a super talented illustrator/animator as well.) He also edited the whole thing himself. He’s good at too many things and must be stopped. Just kidding. Jim rules. Enjoy his jokes and pictures!

UPCOMING SHOWS

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

6/9: Whiplash at UCB (Brooklyn)

6/12: Fundraiser (Brooklyn)

6/18: Minibar (Brooklyn)

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

6/27: STANDUP SPECIAL POSITIVE REINFORCEMENT PREMIERES

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

7/26: Borscht Belt Comedy Festival (Ellenville, NY)

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

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