#36. Airport Sandwiches and You
Some cheery words for the world's saddest lettuce.
Hi everyone!
I’m currently on a plane home from California, where I was for the past week doing shows and seeing friends! I had a great time despite a kind of chaotic travel schedule that took me as far north as Sacramento and as far south as San Diego. The crowds in all four cities I hit were outstanding, and they raised over $1,200 for the Entertainment Community Fund through poster sales despite the fact that my tour poster did not have the San Diego date listed, and I had to write it in by hand. Thanks to all the venues for having me, all my openers for killing, and all the people who showed up for buying tickets and laughing! During my show in Los Angeles at the wonderful Dynasty Typewriter theater, my friend Chris Fleming (a creative genius who did me the favor of opening for me) gave the absolute most cutting and accurate assessment of my personality.
I also got to visit a bunch of old friends whose children I hadn’t seen since the pandemic started, and the kids are all much bigger now, which I know is just a thing that happens, and that it’s going to continue happening (until their sizes eventually level off, more or less), but it’s so fascinating to be so blown away by the fact that a former baby now tells stories and narrates their favorite books and jumps on a trampoline, and to them it’s just not a big deal.
Last week also marked my 19th (????) standup anniversary, which feels…ridiculous. That’s such a long time, and I’ve gotten to go so many cool places (and a few terrible ones) and meet so many cool people (and a few terrible ones) over that time. Nineteen years isn’t a standard milestone, but it is half as many years as I’ve been alive. Or if anyone in show business reads this…two thirds as many years as I’ve been alive! SPEAKING OF show business, SAG-AFTRA is also on strike now, and I hope that the studios come to their senses and give them/us fair deals soon! (I’ve got another little piece in The Nation coming up soon, and I’ll link to that next week! I could have just saved that info for then, but I didn’t. And we’re all living in a world where I made that choice.)
SOME OTHER BUSINESS
You can listen to me on the most recent Dear Prudence podcast from Slate with the extremely thoughtful and charming host Jenée Desmond-Harris.
THIS WEEK I’ll be in Chandler, AZ doing FOUR SHOWS! It would be so nice to see you there!
Coming up, I’m all over the place including Woodstock, NY co-headlining with my friend Alison Leiby (7/30), Washington DC at the Improv (8/6, which is almost sold out), Zanies in Nashville (a great club I’m visiting for the first time on 8/8), and Charlotte, NC (8/9)
PEP TALK FOR AIRPORT SANDWICHES
Nobody likes a pre-made airport sandwich. The bread, for some reason, is always soggy, and it tastes like the plastic it’s been wrapped in, as if Saran Wrap is a topping rather than a health and safety measure. The produce seems to have been prepped by leaving it in a crisper drawer for somewhere between two and two hundred weeks. The lettuce dangles limply off the bun the way a sleeping dog’s paw hangs off the side of a couch cushion. Every slice of tomato looks like what would happen if a tomato were bitten by a vegan zombie and itself began to turn undead. Whatever the protein is, by the time it reaches your mouth, it’s somehow more room temperature than whatever room you’re in. Often, the sandwich costs as much as a full steak dinner (or at least a plate of fancy pasta) in whatever city the airport is in. You are trying your best, pre-made airport sandwich, which makes it even sadder.
But despite your shortcomings, which are as numerous as open seats at my flight’s gate are scares, you are important. You are often our only viable option. I prefer not to arrive at the airport six hours in advance, which leaves me sadly unable to acquire a breakfast sandwich from Starbucks, where the lines are Genius Bar or DMV long. (Here’s a thought, every airport: Shutter all of your Brooks Brothers and Tommy Bahama stores and make them all additional coffee shops. Why are you buying a suit at the airport? Did you decide spur of the moment to crash a wedding in whatever city you’re visiting?) So unless I want to sit down a mile and a half from where my plane is going to take off, at some weird restaurant that wouldn’t stay open for three weeks outside of an airport and risk missing my flight because the service moves at the speed of an arthritic tortoise, as if whoever staffs these outfits never expects an airport’s worth of people to show up at the airport each day, a pre-made sandwich is all I’ve got. Sorry for the length of that last sentence. I feel strongly about this issue!
Airport sandwich, remember this: People need SOMETHING to eat on the plane, and process of elimination dictates that they need YOU. You are, legally speaking, food. And food is important on a coast-to-coast trip that essentially spans every mealtime on either side of the flight. You’re not a meal to bring home to our parents. You’re a one night standwich. And that’s something you can feel proud about. Not too proud, but proud nonetheless.
Pre-made airport sandwich, you may not be the breakfast, lunch, or dinner we deserve, but you’re the breakfast lunch and dinner that we have, dammit.
PEP TALK FOR A READER
(I’ve done a little condensing and editing per usual, but not too much!)
Hello Josh - One of my friends is unemployed and not finding any leads. he is completely down in the dumps and could really use a pep talk. This friend is great! HE WROTE A BOOK. I can't promise much but I will promise that if you ever come to Raleigh or Durham I will buy tickets to see you.
- I’m With ‘Thor
What I discovered about myself up on receiving this request is that an offer to purchase tickets to a live show immediately bumps a pep talk to the top of my to-pep pile. I can be bought! And, with your help, dear readers, I will be bought!
I get a lot of pep talk requests from people job searching or changing careers, which makes sense. We need careers (or at the very least, jobs) to make money so that we can eat pizza and live indoors and make travel plans to see friends and relatives. Or, whatever it is that makes life enjoyable for you. Perhaps that’s more about downloading video games or stocking up your sex dungeon with sex implements or acquiring granola and bug spray for hiking (or for your grandma’s famous granola and bug spray casserole, which is disgusting but you eat it to be polite).
Unemployment feels bad because it means a reduction of those worthwhile activities in many cases. That’s unavoidable, given the way our society is presently constructed . It also feels bad to be unemployed because we’re Supposed To Have A Job To Contribute To Society. And that feeling is something you CAN avoid. You’re not a loser because you don’t have a job. (I’m not sure if your friend feels that way, but it’s not uncommon. I DEEPLY apologize if I’m raising that possibility to them for the first time.) There are lots of ways to be a productive member of society that aren’t having a job. One of them is writing a book, which, in a stroke of outstanding luck, your friend has already done!
It’s not only creative work that gives you a sense of purpose! It can be taking care of a child or volunteering with a local mutual aid group or, I don’t know, religion/mushrooms depending on which way your upbringing wired your brain. Jobs can be great and fulfilling! But so can…not jobs! And when you’re unemployed you have so much not job in your life. It’s all not-job. And only the no money part of it has to feel stressful.
It is a pain to not have a job. Well, let’s rewind, it is a bummer to not receive a paycheck. But most of the other things we want from a job are available to us elsewhere. And you can have them, even if you have to skimp on some of the pricier sex dungeon accoutrements to which you’ve grown accustomed.
PICK-ME-UP SONG OF THE WEEK
My wife and I sometimes do a cocktail hour at home before dinner (usually on nights when I cook). She makes us drinks, and then we choose some tunes to listen to and have some nice post-work, pre-meal conversation. Sharon Jones and the Dap Kings make excellent cocktail hour (or any hour) music.
UPCOMING TOUR DATES
I’m in the middle of the second leg of my 1900s Kid Tour, and the first few dates are listed here! The rest of them so far are of course on my website!
7/21-7/22 - Mic Drop Mania in Chandler, AZ (four shows)
7/27 - Wait Wait Don’t Tell Me in Chicago (with guest host Karen Chee!!!)
7/30 - Co-headlining Colony in Woodstock, NY with Alison Leiby
8/6 - DC Improv (on pace to sell out!!!!)
8/8 - Zanies in Nashville
8/9 - Comedy Zone Charlotte
8/31 - Wait Wait Don’t Tell Me in Ann Arbor (sold out!!!)
9/8-9/9 - House of Comedy Detroit
9/29-9/30 - JUST ADDED Laugh Camp St. Paul (four shows!!!)
"One night standwich" is a next-level nugget!
incredible, amazing, an inspiration to us all, etc