Hi everyone,
New York City flooded over the weekend, but Sunday was so beautiful I’m tempted to call it September 31st as a refusal to acknowledge that it was 77 degrees the first day in October. I got to see Maris moderate a great panel at the Brooklyn Book Festival outside in the nice weather, and I got home just in time for the Liberty to clinch a spot in the WNBA finals. (Last Tuesday I saw a Liberty/Sun playoff game in person, which was great. And one guy sitting behind me was what I’d call a Very Intense Sports Dude, but one who clearly didn’t want to come of as a misogynist because of his intensity. So as a solution(?) he was REALLY shouting at the one male ref. I’d never encountered this kind of guy before!) Anyway, I had a pretty nice Sunday is what I was trying to say.
As I mentioned in last week’s newsletter, the Writers Guild of America has reached a tentative agreement for a contract with the AMPTP (imho it’s a good one, I can now say). And now, even more excitingly, after 148 days the strike is OVER (for writers)! And, as the WGA is ratifying its contract this week, SAG-AFTRA is going back to the table to negotiate their (technically our, because I’m a member too) contract today. I felt so good seeing how enthusiastic WGA members were about so many of the gains that were made in this contract, and I’m so excited for SAG-AFTRA to get a fair deal as soon as possible too. It’s an exciting reminder of how much power workers in any industry have when they band together and bargain collectively. (Shout out to the United Auto Workers who are on strike as well!)
The shows I was supposed to do with John Oliver last weekend were postponed so that he could host his tv show, which means I may be the only person who lost work when the strike ended (lol), but I’m so psyched that a deal is in place!
I do have a bunch of fun shows in New York coming up including a secret taping for YouTube on Friday (10/6) night at 10pm in Brooklyn and my What’s New? show at Union Hall at 10pm on 10/13! Plus this weekend I’ll be in Cincinnati and Indianapolis with the Wait Wait…Don’t Tell Me standup tour! Oh and this Thursday (10/5) I’ll be in Providence doing a show with Adam Pally!
Okay time for pep talks!
PEP TALK FOR SHORTS
Shorts have taken a few very public losses the past few days. We’ve started the transition from Princess Diana (sweatshirt over athletic shorts)/SEC Sophomore (salmon colored button down over khaki shorts) Weather into Actually Kind Of Chilly Weather, leaving shorts metaphorically out in the cold but literally inside in the cold. Not to mention, high profile shorts-wearer John Fetterman recently caused a stir in the Senate by committing to a shins-out lifestyle so staunchly that the legislative body codified their dress code of business attire. I for one will miss Fetterman’s signature style, which I call: Bill Beli-chic.
(
wrote really thoughtfully last week in his newsletter about how wearing business clothes doesn’t make one respectable.)Quick digression: I think the Senate should do away with their dress code and let each Senator choose how one other Senator dresses. So, yeah, Mitch McConnell, could make John Fetterman wear a suit, but in turn, Fetterman could make Ted Cruz dress in an Austin Powers costume. (Okay, bad example. There is nothing Ted Cruz would enjoy more than a chance to show of his Austin Powers impression, which I am CERTAIN has been lying dormant for the past few decades. And no, Senator Cruz, you do not make me horny, baby.) I’ve heard they did this on The Real Housewives of Salt Lake City recently, and think it would work just as well in the Senate.
To officially write shorts out of a venue’s dress code doesn’t diminish the importance of short pants; it actually affirms it. Think about it like this: In addition to the physical advantages granted by shorts (increased mobility, cool breezy legs), there are real social benefits to wearing them. I have a theory that the two most visibly impressive people in any room are the best-dressed (obviously) and the worst-dressed (huh?). I’ll explain…
Clearly, when you step into a room clothed head and shoulders above the crowd, there’s a level of prestige you carry with you. “This person cares about their appearance,” onlookers think. “They must have it together.”
On the other hand, when you are dressed far more casually than anyone else at an event, heads turn. “This person doesn’t give a shit,” they murmur to one another. “Are they unstable or wealthy or both???”
Someone wearing shorts in a non-shorts context is saying that they run hot that they don’t care about conventional wisdom and that they may have attended the Gathering of the Juggalos at least once. People with those qualities are not to be messed with. They demand respect and/or fear. And shorts, you cultivate that admiration and/or terror.
So I tip my cap to you, shorts. And by that I of course mean a baseball cap that I’m wearing with a suit, like I just got drafted by a professional sports team.
PEP TALK FOR A READER
Request lightly condensed for various reasons that are mine and mine alone!!!!
Hey Josh, I could use a pep talk. I'm moving back to the Boston area and feeling apprehensive about it. I've been clean off opiates since last December when I came to Maine to get away from Boston. I have a pattern of going back to Boston and turning back to drugs but I'm cautiously optimistic that I'll be ok this time. I just need a little encouragement. Appreciate you so much.
- Shipping Down To Boston
Let’s sidestep the obvious jokes about how living in Boston would be enough to drive anyone to heavy drug use. For one thing, it’s disrespectful to the sincerity of your question. For another, I (obviously) love Boston. And while I have known many people who have dealt with the kinds of things you’re dealing with, I’m not an expert. I’m honestly just kind of going from secondhand experience and the AA chapters of Infinite Jest (which people would EXTRA make fun of for being about Boston if they actually read it) right now.
As I’m sure you’re aware, you can find trouble anywhere you want it, even in locations where you can’t find (in the case of Boston) a place to get a bite to deat after 10pm or (in the case of large swaths of Maine) any cuisine spicier than maple syrup at any time of day. The fact that you’ve avoided your own personal trouble for ten months in Maine bodes well! It means you got up every day and didn’t seek it out, and/or you turned it away if it came looking for you! That doesn’t happen by accident. People pretend it’s not the case, but low population density doesn’t automatically mean drug-free living. There’s just more leeway to give trouble a wider berth, a greater opportunity to wave an exasperated “Go around!” when it roars up behind on a two-lane road.
Staying healthy in wide open Maine is good practice for doing it back in the Boston area where your personal history is clingier and harder to avoid, where maybe you can’t go to the grocery store without running into someone from high school, let’s say. Boston’s past and present are piled directly on top of each other like the thinly sliced meat of a classic North Shore roast beef three-way in a way that feels as unavoidable as Cape traffic in the summer. But that thickness means that even if trouble feels close, you can stop it from making its way to you if you try. (Or you can make your way back somewhere safer and healthier if this move doesn’t seem like it’ll suit you.)
Have a safe and healthy move back! I hope you are able to reconnect to the parts of your life you’ve been missing in Maine, and that you’re able to stay away from the parts of it you’ve been avoiding!
PICK-ME-UP SONG OF THE WEEK:
Okkervil River - “Unless It’s Kicks”
Every year when summer weather has pulled its final hand-stretching-out-of-the-grave-after-you-thought-it-was-dead resurgence, my friend Mindy Tucker (an incredible photographer who has documented so much comedy in New York and across the country for over a decade) exchange text messages about how Okkervil River Season has begun.
I think (???) the band’s widely recognized masterpiece is Black Sheep Boy, which is a great album but is also very bleak. So when light jacket season hits, I start with The Stage Names or The Stand Ins or The Silver Gymnasium, all of which feel like foliage looks: beautiful and brisk, with a light reminder that everything dies (baby, that’s a fact). As someone in a creative industry who is currently looking for work, I’m really being smacked squarely on the jaw by The Stage Names this fall. The first song is about how just because you’re an artist doesn’t mean that you are the main character of an indie movie (Ouch! Direct hit!), and “Unless It’s Kicks” is about making and consuming art just because it feels good to do and helps connect you with other people (I think).
I think we’ve got a few warm days coming up in the northeast, but I needed to get a jump on those feelings, so I started Okkervil River season early this year, with apologies to Mindy.
UPCOMING SHOWS
I’ve got some new dates added in NYC as well as a couple of fancy theater shows!
10/4: Ambush Comedy at Ebbs Brewing Co. (Brooklyn)
10/5: Dye House in Providence (Opening for Adam Pally)
10/6: Don’t Tell Comedy Taping (Brooklyn)
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)
10/16: Butter Boy at Littlefield (Brooklyn)
I’ve heard some people say that senators and congresspeople should wear suits with sponsor logos from the companies who are funding them (maybe it was an Onion article?) which would never work but is an excellent idea
Very Intense Sports Dude = delightful character comedy I'd like to see/do.