#56. George Santos and You

We hardly knew ye because everything ye told us was a lie.

Hi everyone,

I’ve had a big week of seeing friends, which if you know anything about me, you know is one of my favorite things. Sorry to be an extrovert on the internet, but it’s true!

On Saturday, I attended a college friend’s wedding in Connecticut, and it was a blast. All the toasts and speeches were especially sweet and lovely, and Matt and Shannon (the couple, not a reference to an early aughts indie rock group you’ve never heard of) looked so happy. I got to catch up with so many people I’ve known for 20ish years but don’t see very often! The reception cemented my belief that every wedding should have at least one kind of eccentric element for everyone to talk about later. In the case of this wedding, that quirky feature was definitely the DJ/saxophone duo. Most weddings don’t have this combo, and that’s a mistake in my newly-revised opinion. The wedding DJ played the hits (the job of a wedding DJ) and also sang several of her selections over instrumental tracks. “She’s pretty good!” I thought, when she belted out “Uptown Funk.” But my perspective quickly changed to “She’s amazing!” when she closed out the party by crushing a rendition of Mariah Carey’s “All I Want For Christmas Is You.”

Her performances alone would have been enough to reminisce about after the fact, but on top of it all, she had a LIVE SAXOPHONE PLAYER who played along to any sax-forward songs, ripping solos while strutting through the crowd on the dance floor. This was a huge innovation. I’d never seen anything like it before, and it gave everyone in attendance a perfect anecdote for when other friends and co-workers go: “So how was the wedding you went to last weekend?” Anyone who is planning or might plan a wedding in the future, take this lesson! Incorporate one pleasant oddball feature (that doesn’t inconvenience the guests) in your ceremony to make it an even more memorable and delightful event!

Spent the evening at a guys-who-look-like-me convention.

Backing up a few days, on Wednesday night, Maris and I went to the first night of The Hold Steady’s annual four-night stand at Brooklyn Bowl. The Wednesday night show has become something of a meetup for NYC comedians who are fans of the band, and every year I buy tickets knowing that I’ll run into an assortment of people I like very much more or less without trying.

This year, between the opening act and the headliners, my friend Lindsey saw the news that Henry Kissinger had died and announced it to the group. My friend Max was in the bathroom when the conversation started, and when he returned I brought him up to speed. He buried his head in his hands. “WHAT! WHOA!” he said a few times before looking me in the eyes and disclosing: “I am on mushrooms right now.” It probably won’t come up again, but if you ever have the opportunity to tell a friend that Henry Kissinger died right before that friend reveals themself to be tripping on mushrooms, I recommend you carpe that diem.

The Hold Steady played a great set (as always), and I got a little buzzed and thought about how I’ve been seeing this band live for 15ish years, starting with a show I went to with my oldest friend in comedy (hi, Dan!) and snowballing into this beautiful annual tradition that has become a fixture of my holiday season.

A nice facet of growing older is that even people who feel like new friends can be old friends. (I acknowledge that sentence feels like the first draft of a Hold Steady lyric, except it would need to be streamlined a little, and it would require an acknowledgement that some of your old friends are dead.)

A COUPLE OF OTHER THINGS

Put my voice or writing in your ears!!! But only one of those at a time!

I recently had the pleasure of appearing as a voice actor and a writer respectively on a couple of super fun podcasts! My friend Claire Friedman of SNL and Desus & Mero wrote a super funny Audible original series called Trust Fall. It stars Wanda Sykes and Colin Jost, and I do a few silly voices too! If you like the words I write but would rather hear them coming from a better performer, I wrote a chapter of the unauthorized novelization of Independence Day for the Novelizers podcast, and my chapter was read by the wonderful Paget Brewster!

Abrupt change of subject: Coming on the heels of their historic strike and huge contract wins, the United Auto Workers union is being really ambitious (as the great

Hamilton Nolan

has said) in terms of its organizing targets and also in terms of calling for an “immediate, permanent ceasefire” between Israel and Hamas. I think that’s good and encouraging to see!

PEP TALK FOR GEORGE SANTOS

He was just there for the glamor shots all along.

So, George, you’re definitely a bad person. Let’s start there. You were definitely in Congress, in the parlance of one of the reality shows you’ll almost definitely appear on in the near future, for the wrong reasons. But I understand how you might be surprised at getting expelled from the House of Representatives. Using campaign funds to pay for porn and skincare is some of the most innocuous shit a Republican politician has been accused of doing in secret (or promising to do in public) in decades. In the age of Trump, I kind of thought Republican politicians had kind of a FinDom relationship with their voters, in that demanding money for personal gain was understood to be part of the deal. How were you supposed to know exactly how much of a fraud you were allowed to be? There’s no handbook for that!

Fortunately, despite your recent political misfortune, you seem to have no interest in the politics part of being a politician. You mostly seem interested in being photographed wearing suits, and as a person with over 100k Instagram followers and no sense of shame, you’ll still be able to do that as much as you’d like. I’m writing about you right now, despite the fact that I hope to never hear your name again after your rumored upcoming interview with Ziwe, of course. You are going to be fine because none of the consequences you faced impeded your actual goal of having people pay attention to you.

Not to mention, because you haven’t (yet) been convicted of a felony, you’re allowed to use the House dining room and gym (until the other shoe drops, presumably). If you cared about other people at all, you’d lurk in the hallways, pestering your Republican colleagues, knocking over their beverages and snapping towels at them. This is an opportunity to leverage your current liminal place in American government for both the public good and your overall aim of being so unscrupulous and annoying that people talk to you on camera.

And even if reality television doesn’t come calling as fast as you’d hope, there’s always time for your (borderline inevitable) pivot to standup comedy, the last refuge of the uncancellable.

PEP TALK FOR A READER

Maybe I changed a couple of words of this here and there, or maybe I didn’t. I’ll never tell.

I started my master’s degree in October which I still am excited about, but so far it’s been very stressful and draining. I’ve anticipated that it’ll be a lot of work, work I’m willing to put in. The problem is though that some of the teaching in the most difficult subjects is genuinely really bad, which significantly increases the workload to a level that I cannot keep up with. The pile of things that I need to catch up on keeps getting bigger and bigger and I’m not fast enough to actually reduce the pile, especially since I’m also working on the side. It’s just so frustrating and exhausting, which in turn leaves me with less energy to put into my studies. Vicious cycle. I’ve been speaking to some of the more senior students and apparently, the first two semesters are just acknowledgedly shit, so it’s a matter of surviving until things get better. But oof, it’s taking a real toll.
- Piles To Go Before I Sleep

Regular readers of That’s Marvelous will know that I’m a big proponent of focusing on the fact that lots of bad times (this one included, it seems) have a defined endpoint, and beyond it, things may not be perfect, but at the very least they’ll be different bad. I know this contradicts the popular mindfulness advice of “living in the moment.” Looking towards a point two semesters in the future isn’t very Be Here Now, but sometimes the present is annoying, and it’s a relief to allow yourself a moment or two to leave your body and Be Somewhere Else Another Time.

In your situation, Piles, there’s another thing to take solace in: It’s not your fault. Sorry to plagiarize Robin Williams’s character from Good Will Hunting (whose name I believe was Robin Williams’s Character), but it’s true. This isn’t advice, of course. It doesn’t give you a roadmap making up for the deficit you’ve found yourself staring up at. But perhaps regardless of the practical difficulties you still face, it will bring you a little comfort to consider that the people who are letting you down can kick rocks, pound sand, and/or eat shit. You didn’t fail here; they have failed you. Screw them, right? (Right!)

You did not plant them apples and you do not have to eat them.

It only takes a minute to engage in some good old fashioned cursing of your fate and wishing comeuppance on those who have wronged you. And as long as you’re already way behind on things, why not indulge? Don’t beat yourself up for exhausting yourself just to stay afloat! (Mentally) beat up the people who have caused this situation in the first place. Maybe you’ve got this, and maybe you don’t. Either way, your hands are clean. That may not make an impact on your GPA, but hopefully it helps you get a little peace of mind.

PICK-ME-UP SONG OF THE WEEK: Madonna - “True Blue”

On the ride up to Connecticut, Maris and I listened to Madonna in the rental car as preparation for seeing her in concert in a couple of weeks. Maris mentioned thinking that “True Blue” is underrated, and I agree! I don’t usually love seeing big arena shows, but I’m very excited to see how Madonna uses the time and space!

UPCOMING SHOWS

I’ve got some really fun shows coming up! Come see one! More NYC spots are listed on my website! Some more road stuff coming soon plus a big announcement I think…sorry for the delay on this.

12/6: Wits End with John Hodgman at the Midnight Theater (NYC)

12/14: Wait Wait Don’t Tell Me at Carnegie Hall (NYC)

12/23: What’s New? at Union Hall (Brooklyn)

1/18-1/20: The Comedy Vault (Batavia, IL)