#44. Elderly Politicians and You

What do you have against mahjong and early bird dinners???

Hi everyone,

Between strike activities and standup and podcasts and social functions, lately it feels like I’m Doing Stuff all the time! I don’t know if anyone else feels this way, but sometimes when I have a lot of Stuff I Have To Do, I spitefully schedule a lot of Stuff I Want To Do to balance it out, which helps in some ways (more fun) but not in other ways (no rest)! I really showed me who’s boss!

Last weekend I was on the road in Detroit for the first time, and while I was there I ate a bunch of good food (Buddy’s pizza and an all-timer black bean burger from Frita Baditos) and the audiences were so great despite two WAY MORE FAMOUS comedians being in town! I also went to a concert the night before I left (Jeff Rosenstock, who rules) and the night I came back (Ted Leo, who rules), and now it’s Monday and I want to hibernate. All that is to say, I’m sure things will slow down a little bit soon, but I’ve been telling myself that since I was 16 years old. So, probably I’ll feel better when it’s sweater weather outside instead of the 90-degree helltopia with 600% humidity that makes you feel like the sun is stiff-arming you in the face the moment you step outside.

Truly surprised I made it home alive.

I am extremely excited to perform at a bunch of big theaters over the next few weeks with a lot of comedians I like an awful lot! It’s so nice when the Stuff You Have To Do and Stuff You Want To Do intersects.

JUST ANNOUNCED: I’m doing another What’s New? show at Union Hall in Brooklyn on Friday 10/13 at 10pm! Special guests include my friend Nour Hadidi who’s visiting from Toronto and more! It’ll be a real fun time!

PEP TALK FOR ELDERLY POLITICIANS

His grip on reality has become as thin as his lips. Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images

This can be a hard conversation to navigate without being ageist or ableist or sexist (you get the -ist gist). But I want to say, gently, to some of our most wizened legislators: You did it! You can be done now!

I don’t mean to say there’s a cutoff age for being an effective politician. That’s unfair. What I will say is, there are now several members of Congress who, if they were family members, would be harrowing to visit. Like, children would beg not to go see Papa Mitch or Nana Dianne because their general vibes would be unsettling to behold.

And I want to assure those legislators that it will be okay without you! Sen. McConnell, even after your retirement, there will be a generation of chinless ghouls who are dead set on making sure oil spills have more rights than women. Sen. Feinstein, once you wrap up your term as a public servant, there will certainly be at least one Democratic politician the state of California will deem a fit replacement for your post. I know that is tough to come to terms with for both of you, especially considering you literally don’t seem to know where you are at any given moment, even when you’re appearing on the national news.

The thing about American democracy, is that people will vote for a well-known incumbent based on long-term popularity a lot of the time. The other thing about American democracy is that we’re not a monarchy, and we shouldn’t have leaders who are propped up by wooden stakes like tomato plants because they’re too sleepy to stand and whispered the answers to every question in a legislative Cyrano de Bergerac style. We deserve representation that actively understands the good or ill their decisions are doing for America and the world.

So please know, for better and worse, you’ve all done, let’s say…a lot to shape the direction our country is moving in. So not to be condescending, but maybe it’s time for you to enjoy retirement and live as long and happy a life as karma dictates on an individual basis.

PEP TALKS FOR READERS

I’ve done some squishing and chopping to these requests, but the song (point) remains the same! I have also edited out some very kind compliments because I am self-conscious publishing them in these requests! But I do appreciate the nice words!

Hey Josh,

I’m in my late 30s, as is my wife. My wife and I have been dealing with fertility issues for about three years now. Additionally, my work scenario is precarious and, let’s say, getting more precarious with each passing day (without saying too much, I’m in an industry that rhymes with figital fedia). For the most part, I’ve managed to deal with these things relatively calmly. Maybe it’s because I know so much of it is out of my control, I am attempting to control what I can and/or the knowledge that, thankfully, we have a safety net that means we won’t be destitute in all of the worst-case scenarios. Anyway, I’ve managed.

The thing that has knocked me down recently is my parents’ health. My dad, in his early 70s, is about 6-7 years into a Parkinson’s diagnosis, and my mom, in her late 60s, had a flare up with a debilitating mental health issue that bothered her for a large part of my childhood more than a year ago, and it has not abated. Without going into too many details, I am the primary caregiver for them (not living with them, but at their home 1-2 times a week and on phone basically daily), which means driving them around, making sure appointments get attended, pills get organized and proper precautions are taken. I have help from a few other people in our family, and have tried to voice who can help with what. There have been genuine efforts made by many people on many fronts. But the help is inconsistent and unpredictable, and even if it’s there, it feels like I’m the person generally “assigning” that help.

The reality of both of the health situations means what I can do is limited. There are some obvious things that would help that are non-starters right now because of the combination of their illnesses. I can’t change that, and I know I can only influence my parents’ decision-making so much. Still, I feel like I’m messing up, like I’m doing this wrong. I lose patience with them easily. I feel resentment toward people who aren’t helping as much as I am. I have my own anxiety/depression issues for which I’m on antidepressants, and when I’m not feeling angry/sad about this situation, I just sort of feel hollowed out, like I have nothing to offer anyone else, including my lovely wife.

I know there is no “perfect” way to deal with this. I know I’m doing the best I can. I know my parents appreciate me doing what I can, too. I am familiar with general self-care routines and am doing … some of that work. I don’t know what I’m looking for. A little acknowledgement, maybe. And I’m sure a pep talk can’t hurt.

Thanks,
Overwhelmed and Resentful

O.A.R. (not the band, I’m assuming), this sounds like a lot a lot. A great tragedy of growing up is that as our capacity for wonder and excitement becomes a little less expansive, our ability to comprehend sorrow increases. When you’re a baby, and you’ve never tasted a strawberry before, holy shit, get ready to have your mind blown to confetti shreds, unless you are Baby Tom Brady who has allegedly never eaten a strawberry. Plus, not only do you not fear your own death, you don’t understand death at all.

As adults, the tradeoff is that because we know how fleeting joy can be, and how deep the pain of loss can run, we are more able to care for one another and form community. On one hand, it’s such a profound experience to be so tapped into one’s humanity. On the other hand, a lot of the time, it fuckin’ sucks shit!

It is not wrong or selfish to feel ground down by the physical and psychic toll of what you’re going through. It is extremely normal to feel bad at times like this, and acknowledging “this feels bad, and that is natural” doesn’t make things feel good, but at least maybe it will curtail the cycle of feeling bad for feeling bad. (What a weird thing our brains do: Hey, you feel like shit…better feel like shit about it!)

You have taken on a lot, which is extremely good and generous. It’s also okay to be the assigning editor for this kind of care, which is its own kind of work, but I think the idea of delegating is to divvy the effort up enough that the work you dole out is more impactful than the push it took to do the divvying. (I wouldn’t know firsthand; I’m bad at this in my own personal life.)

The other part of this is that even though all this professional and personal instability is hitting at once, it’s not all interconnected. The individual parts can get better (or worse, but let’s not talk about that second possibility right now) separately. So even though this feels like a bullshit stew, what it actually is is a plate from a crapshoot buffet, assembled by a picky eater who prefers their cuisines not to touch. Honestly, I don’t know if this analogy tracks all the way through, but you get what I mean I think.

Life won’t all be like this forever, and you’re working hard to make things as good as they can be at the moment. Sometimes the best we can do is as good as it gets for now.

Hey Josh, in February of this year I took a pay cut to get a job closer to home. I was on the road way too much in my previous role and was missing out on my kids growing up. Five months later, I was laid off after my boss spent company funds on things like a non-functioning demo of a streaming service for Christian Libertarians and couldn’t make payroll. In the month since, I’ve applied for 70 jobs and haven’t made it further than a second interview. I could really use a pep talk.

- Skeeve Jobbed

What a nightmare that last job turned out to be! I’m sorry that your wish to be around your children more consistently was granted by some kind of malicious genie! “Oh you want to make less money and be home more? How about NO money and ALWAYS home?” Sell the rights to this story to Stephen King! (Side note: Christian Libertarians is a truly mystifying group. “When there were no footprints in the sand, that was because the free market invented a hoverboard for Jesus.”

Applying to seventy jobs in a month with little traction sounds both exhausting and demoralizing! That’s so many jobs to not get, but also that’s so much work of doing applications. You’re really being burnt by the candle on both ends here.

One upside here is, think of how many bad jobs you didn’t get. Of those seventy, really, how many would you have been excited to do? Obviously the financial pressures of job searching are no joke, or else you’d be using your time to…perfect your recipe for homemade chocolate chip cookies or spending your days as a volunteer massage recipient at the world’s top Parisian masseuse academy, which I assume is called “The Sorebones.”

As much as seventy jobs and a month feels like a lot, there will be more job openings and more months. And while many jobs are a drag, I will cross my fingers that your next one will not also go supernova within months of your starting there. And hopefully in the meantime, you aren’t too stressed to enjoy the fruits of the non-labor that you were looking for all along!

PICK-ME-UP SONG OF THE WEEK: Boldy James - “Top Ten”

I haven’t listened to Boldy James in a while, but being in Detroit made me want to revisit his work! (He’s from Detroit, it isn’t some personal, Proustian connection I have.) This beat, produced by Real Bad Man, sounds like being on a merry-go-round in hell, and I think that’s a cool way for a song to sound. It’s been a while since I’ve shared a “guy raps his ass off and that’s about it” song, so please enjoy and get hyped to study for the bar exam or commit some crimes or cook a soufflé.

UPCOMING SHOWS

I’ve got some new dates added in NYC as well as a bunch of fancy theater shows!

9/13: Blank Check presents Congratulations at the Bell House (Brooklyn)

9/14: Wait Wait…Don’t Tell Me Live Taping in Chicago

9/15: Soho Playhouse NYC (Opening for Caitlin Cook’s Solo Show)

9/16: The Bushnell in Hartford (Opening for John Oliver)

9/17: The Met in Philadelphia (Opening for John Oliver)

9/29: Miller High Life Theater in Milwaukee (Opening for John Oliver)

9/30: Indiana University Auditorium in Bloomington (Opening for John Oliver)

10/7: Wait Wait Standup Tour at the Taft Theater in Cincinnati

10/8: Wait Wait Standup Tour at the Clowes Memorial Hall in Indianapolis

10/13: What’s New at Union Hall (Brooklyn)