#37. One Weird Dog and You

Did you know dogs can get bed head?

Hi Everyone,

Despite the surface-of-Mercury type heat, I had a really nice time in Chandler, AZ this weekend at Mic Drop Mania (a comedy club, not a psychiatric condition marked by an addiction to making conversation-ending points). It was 116 degrees outside, and people were still golfing, which is just an incredibly upscale cry for help, right? Golfing when it’s 116 degrees out is how depression manifests itself when you are rich and don’t believe mental illness is real. Personally, I stayed inside during the day except for braving the heat to eat lunch with some cousins who I hadn’t seen since my wedding. Mercifully, they realized that I’ve got basically no recollection of who was at my wedding, and they were very gracious about my not remembering any conversations we may have had there. I missed out on the Boppenharbie excitement this weekend because I didn’t want to see either movie without my wife, so no spoilers! I don’t want to know if America successfully did a war crime or if Greta Gerwig finally incorporates my idea for Busta Rhymes to do a song on one of her movie soundtracks called “Frances Ha!! Got You All In Check.”

Spotted some local wildlife! Any birders know what this thing is called?

For some reason, while I was in Arizona, I had the impulse to start organizing some of the photos on my phone’s hard drive. I lost a bunch of pictures when I left my old phone in a cab last month, and it made me really nostalgic for the extremely recent past. I am constitutionally incapable of a complete spring cleaning of my Recent Photos album, but I did start sorting a few pictures of/with friends and family into their own album so I don’t have to remember WHEN an event was and then scroll all the way back to that date to pluck the relevant media from the morass of snapshots of mildly funny signage and blurry creepshots of neighborhood dogs when I want a specific picture. 

I also started a little album of screenshots of people saying nice things to/about my work. I like to think that I have a pretty decent memory in general, but that might not be true at all. It’s hard to tell, right? You only realize you’ve forgotten something when it becomes relevant. It’s so much more likely for you to think Oh shit, I don’t remember my sister’s apartment number! than it is for you to go Aww man! I forgot that a friend said a really sweet thing about an essay I wrote in 2017! That kind of stuff just slips away! So, in an effort to preserve that glow of feeling seen and appreciated, I started filing those little moments away where I can go back and look at them like a real egomaniac.

In terms of stuff I’ve done recently that maybe you’d like: I wrote a new piece for The Nation about the ongoing WGA strike and the new SAG-AFTRA strike. Huge thanks to editor Jack Mirkinson for helping me work it into shape. (In other strike news, I gave a little comment for Jessica Roy’s New York Times article on strike t-shirts.

I also contributed a list of my top five Weezer songs to Luke O’Neill’s Welcome To Hell World newsletter along with like 30 extremely cool writers. It was a much harder project than I expected it to be because there are more Weezer songs I love than I even remembered. That was a fun realization!

Last also: I talked basketball with Miles Gray and Jack O’Brien on their podcast Mad Boosties. They’re so funny and we had a great chat about Celtics fan misery and 76ers fan misery and other relevant topics.

COMING UP SOON

This Thursday I’ll be in Chicago for a Wait Wait taping (guest-hosted by the extremely funny Karen Chee), so look/listen for that next weekend if you’re so inclined! (Oh right! One more also! Last week I was on the radio in New York talking about seltzer!)

On this Sunday (the 30th), Alison Leiby and I will be in Woodstock, NY co-headlining a show at Colony, which is a great venue! I can’t wait to be back! Come see our jokes if you’re in the area

My last few standup dates for the summer are coming up pretty quickly too!

8/6 - DC Improv (on pace to sell out!!!!)

8/8 - Zanies in Nashville

8/9 - Comedy Zone Charlotte

PEP TALK FOR THIS ONE DOG I SAW

Aww, buddy. Are you in the middle of a dogvorce?

My wife and I spotted this dog while we were having dinner in our neighborhood last week, and he (or she?) really looks like they could use a pep talk. I mean, check out this haggard little goblin, looking like they’re at the Las Vegas airport about to fly home from a bachelor party. I’ve never seen a dog possess a stronger “disoriented time traveler who just got spit out of a portal into an undetermined year” energy. I posted this picture on Twitter and several people replied that it looks like the pig monster from the most recent season of I Think You Should Leave, and I certainly agree that looking at this Gary Busey-ass dog made me think for fifty seconds that there is monsters on the world.

To this dog (who I’ve been told by a neighborhood friend might be named “Stinker”) I want to say, you’re doing great. As frazzled as you may be, it’s not like you’re late for work or something. You’re a dog, and not one of those job-having dogs, as far as I can tell. I don’t think you’d be good at leading a blind person around. You seem to have no idea where the hell you are. There’s no way you’re a drug sniffing dog. Look at you. All the other cop dogs would call you “Detective Pikachu” or some shit because you don’t fit in on the force (which in my opinion is a good thing). Also, it’s possible that you are straight up on drugs recreationally. Maybe you’re a therapy dog, but I only believe that because half of the therapy people I know are complete disasters in their own lives.

As far as I can tell (from seeing you go into a house) you’ve got a roof over your head and food on the table-slash-floor. Not that everyone’s struggle is visible to strangers. But the person you were walking with seems to have it together, which means there’s a pretty serious chance you’re well provided for. You’ve got nothing to worry about, which doesn’t mean you’re not going to worry. It does mean that below that anxiety you’ve got a bedrock of care and stability. With that squared away, you can pursue the higher-order items on Mastiff’s Hierarchy of Needs. You’re going to be okay.

Oh yeah, and your butt looks like a little cinnamon bun, which is so cute. So you’ve got that going for you too.

PEP TALK FOR A READER

(I didn’t alter this pep talk request at all! Just letting you know, since I always mention it when I do.)

Speaking of taking a new life path, I just accepted a new teaching position and could use a pep talk! I have spent the past 11 years as a middle school special education teacher (9 at the same school!), but will be teaching high school math (within a small, therapeutic setting) for the first time in the fall. I am very confident in teaching math through 8th grade - and my math skills in general (hello math team in high school) - but it's been a long time since I brushed up on high school level topics. I know I can do it, but it's going to take some effort to prepare this summer! Luckily I have some connections with some former (soon-to-be current again) students at this high school now, but I really want to do right by them as they get closer to their adult lives. This path to specifically support students with behavioral and emotional challenges is the one I really want to take, but I know it's going to be a steep learning curve in the fall! 
- Moving On Up

Whoa! This is a really exciting and understandably daunting career shift. I have some great news for you though: You’re already prepared to do the hardest part of your job! The teaching part! It’s so much harder to be a dedicated and nurturing teacher than it is to do high school math. I know that because the second thing is something we make every high school student do. They’re all required to pick up a little geometry even though many of them can’t nurture worth shit! Is that a bigger issue with our educational system and culture at large? Sure! But for now it puts you way ahead of the game.

You’ve already learned this math once, and you’ll do it again this time. So you know you’re capable of it. You may have lost some specific skills over the years (I remember that SOH CAH TOA is something but what the fuck is it*? And more importantly: Who cares?) even when you don’t quite remember what you’ve forgotten until you go and look for it. But the skills will return. And teaching it to yourself will prepare you to teach it to your students! Plus, look, I don’t mean to be rude about it, but the people who have the most intuitive numerical and conceptual math skills aren’t always the best at communicating those things to other people. I’ll never forget what my friend Sam (who has a brilliant math and music composition brain) told me once after a high school calculus class when I asked him to clarify a concept our teacher had brought up. He looked me in the eyes and said: “No. I can’t do that. I just kind of know it.”

You’ll spruce up your math, and re-creasing those wrinkles into your brain will give you even more empathy for the students as they have to learn these concepts for the first time. Consider this a co-sign, even though I truly do not know (or care) what a cosine means or does.

*I know what it means, functionally, but I still don’t care.

PICK-ME-UP SONG OF THE WEEK: Weezer - “Possibilities”

I wrote about this in my Weezer top five list, but this song just pummels your face into a smile for two straight minutes, and then it’s over. I think of it as “late period Weezer,” but since it came out twenty years have passed and Weezer has released another 200 albums. Time! It keeps going! Maybe that’s why I’ve been photo-organizing? Who can say? Did I do this one already? My brain is chowder!

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!

7/27 - 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 - Laugh Camp St. Paul (several shows!!!)