#65. Some Recommendations and You
Some good stuff to like! Or not! I'm not the boss of you!
Hi everyone,
I had a really fun week of Doing Stuff With Friends, both professionally and personally. Maris and I went to a dinner party at our friends’ apartment, and honestly we were blown away by their hospitality. Two batched cocktails! Homemade bread! Their dogs didn’t poop on either of the hosts or any of the guests (take notes, Bizzy)! I baked brownies (no drugs…people always ask) for the occasion! There were about seven of us, and we hung out for the whole evening eating and drinking and talking a little shit and playing party games. Friendship! It’s great!
In other friendship news, I was on the panel for this week’s episode of Wait Wait Don’t Tell Me (recorded live in Milwaukee) with pals Joyelle Johnson and Brian Babylon! The show was so much fun, and guest Kristen Kish of Top Chef was almost terrifyingly cool and charming. Jennifer Mills (also a great pal, and a producer at Wait Wait) took the picture included below from behind us at the end of the show, and it was such a fun surprise to see! I saw a bunch of other friends in New York this week too, but these are the little anecdotes that felt worthy of sharing.
If you are interested in hearing me tell jokes about slightly less topical news stories, I forgot to mention that I was on The Bugle last week, which is always a great joy to be a part of! I also forgot to mention that I returned to All Fantasy Everything (with fellow guest Jesse David Fox) to draft ways we’d spend money in a Brewster’s Millions scenario. I laughed a lot during this recording!!! I bet you will too, if you listen!
Coming up, I’ll be on the road a whole bunch, getting the set for my new special all buttoned up (hence the poster, photo credit: Maris). Tickets for most of these dates are for sale on my website, and I’m hoping to add a few more cities too! (Portland tickets just went on sale!!!! SF and VT tickets will be available soon!) I’ve written a bunch more jokes since I’ve been through all of these cities, and even if you saw me in late 2022 or early 2023, the show should be like…half different stuff at least!
(Oh also, I’m interviewing my friend
about his upcoming labor history book The Hammer at Word bookstore in Brooklyn on 2/27! I’m so psyched!)SOME RECOMMENDATIONS
I’ve been pushing my own work pretty hard lately (including this recent standup set I recorded with Don’t Tell Comedy), and will continue to do so, unrepentantly! BUT! I also wanted to take a little extra time and shout out some stuff I’ve been enjoying! Some of it costs money, and some of it is free! That’s how this is gonna go!
First of all, Maris and I put off watching the final season of Reservation Dogs, and unsurprisingly it’s so good. I hope the stars (who are amazing) go on to have incredible careers, but there’s something really special about seeing performers that you don’t associate with anything else. You come in with an extra layer of “maybe this is just who these people are” suspension of disbelief. The show is really funny and sad and unique, and the boundaries of reality and fantasy and spirituality overlap in a way that is very distinctive and not annoying like a lot of tv and film can be when it starts to depict dream sequences and drug trips and hazy memories. The first episode is maybe my favorite pilot of all time. The finales of Season 2 and Season 3 are both extremely tender and moving. It’s legitimately dizzying how overlooked for awards Reservation Dogs was. Not even guest actor nods for the older, famous white guys who you’d (unfairly but predictably) expect to get some attention (shout out to Marc Maron and Ethan Hawke). If you have not seen this show, watch this show!!!
As long as we’re here, I think I’ve mentioned it before, but the new season of Fargo was really great. It feels like kind of a companion piece to No Country For Old Men, but inverted? I don’t want to spoil too much, but I do want to hear people’s thoughts if they agree or disagree. (Apparently Noah Hawley who runs the tv show has said something similar about his intent, but I did NOT steal this insight from him. I just got it from being a SAVVY TELEVISION VIEWER.) Okay enough about that.
Next thing: This was legitimately fucked up of me to not mention already: Maris has a new biweekly column about books that she’s writing for LitHub! The first two installments are out now and they’re so thoughtful and well-written. Last week, she wrote about the “bulletpointization” of books, and it really made me think about how good art often rejects efficiency (because that’s what she wrote, and I agreed)!
In a similar vein, Rebecca Jennings wrote a great piece for Vox about how much self-promotion a career in entertainment entails in this current era of media or having almost any job at all. As
pointed out in her newsletter this weekend, that’s not a fully new phenomenon. But to me, what’s new is that SO MUCH of what entertainment gets produced hinges on quantifiable metrics of viewership/followers, and that’s (imo) because so many people in charge of creative industries are not just exclusively motivated by making money (which has been true forever) but they seem to fully resent that they need to create a product worth paying money for. It’s always been kind of a miracle when any work of art that’s made with the intention of making a lot of money is good at all (hello again, Barbie). But now it feels like everything that gets made has the directive to simply exist and taking time or using resources to make it good is not just rare, but antithetical to the whole project that the companies who distribute entertainment have undertaken. It’s beyond the moneyball idea of walks and home runs being the most efficient (there’s that word again) outcomes, applied to art. It’s home run derby rules. If you can’t knock it out of the park, it’s an out.ANYWAY! I’ve written a bunch about Dicks: The Musical here in the past, and now it’s on MAX (sorry, HBO) so you can enjoy it at home. It is extremely funny and goofy and dirty. And Megan Thee Stallion has a very fun supporting role and musical number. I think it’s nice that she’s one of our new big time celebrities. Every so often, someone elbows their way into the public consciousness in a way that because of talent and/or popularity, makes it feel like they’re going to stick around for a while. It’s cool that she is one of those people!!! Also, holy shit “Hiss” is so ruthless. If that song were about me, I would go live in a grain silo somewhere with no internet (honestly, kind of an appealing idea regardless).
Moving on! My friend Rob Haze has a new standup special out now on YouTube! It’s called Frontin’. Rob’s delivery feels so warm and genuine, and his writing is so sharp and (weird word for this) circumspect. I love the way he explores the ideas he digs into. If this sounds good, but you would like have a little Costco Free Sample of his style first, check out his set on The Tonight Show from last week! He deserved a standing ovation in the middle for his insight about roosters not caring whether or not people wake up in the morning.
Finally (FOR NOW) the folks at Flagrant Mag have a new issue coming out soon. I got put onto Flagrant a little while back when I was looking for a physical magazine to subscribe to, and many people called this one out. It’s a basketball magazine founded by women, and it is extremely spectacular to look at in terms of its layout and art direction. The way Flagrant explores issues surrounding the game of basketball is really holistic and fascinating, from a sustainability themed issue to this upcoming issue about community. I also love their podcast, which is extremely silly. Legitimately some of the funniest sports talk (mostly NBA and WNBA) out there. I have pestered some of the people on their team into being my friend, so occasionally I will pop up on the podcast, but please do not hold that against them.
Oh also I wore one of their t-shirts in my Don’t Tell set, which I won’t link to again in this newsletter installment because that would feel gratuitous.
Okay that’s all of these for now! Let me know if you read/watched any of this stuff! I don’t make any money from it; I just want to talk about things I like!!!
PEP TALK FOR THOSE STUPID APPLE GOGGLES
This isn’t your fault, goggles. You didn’t ask to be born.
PEP TALK FOR A READER
I’ve done a little trimming of this request (no pun intended), but I didn’t cut anything you need to know!
Hey Josh! I've been working myself up to finally get a Queer Haircut and step into my non-binary-ness fully but I'm honestly scared to do it! I've always had long hair and my hair has always been one of the few Definitely Feminine aspects of my appearance and it feels safe to have my hair long. I'm anxious about a sudden change and how I'll do without my long hair to basically hide behind.
- Long Hair, DO Care
Once again, I find myself slightly in over my head with this subject matter. I’ve never had to make a sudden, striking change to my appearance to affirm my gender identity. I can totally imagine what a big step this feels like, and I do not want to take your anxiousness lightly. In light of all that, I’m still going to try to hype you up.
What I am an expert in is going from having (relatively) a bunch of hair, to having not very much hair at all. And from that experience, I can say that I think you will be okay! Sure, my hair depletion happened to me over a period of years not in one fell swoop, but people definitely noticed that my hairline was (let’s say) a work in progress. Not to sound bitter, but you have the advantage of choosing how much hair you keep (must be nice!), which is an enviable position to be in (specifically, I envy it).
To put this in Bald Guy Terms (my native tongue) I imagine your current style feels like you’re wearing a toupee made of your own hair. Like, you can look like this, but it’s not what you really look like deep down. It is scary to feel seen!!! Hair-wise, that fear is apparently propping up the entire Turkish economy through affordable transplant tourism. But you don’t have to live like this!
You are not Rapunzel. Nobody loves you or cares about you because of your hair. You will be okay in this new haircut world. Will people comment on the change in your appearance? Probably! But I imagine they comment on the length of your hair now. And, unlike with an actual toupee, I imagine your response isn’t: “Booya! Fooled ‘em again!!!” And at least people will be seeing you the way you want to be seen!
This change will feel exciting and new, and then probably it will feel pleasant and familiar. And, worst case scenario, if you decide this new style isn’t what you want in the long term, you can always grow your hair back out. Don’t rub it in, okay?
PICK-ME-UP SONG OF THE WEEK:
Future Islands - “The Tower”
I was not excited for a new Future Islands album, mostly because my greatest association with them was how because one of their lesser songs came alphabetically first in Maris’s music library, it played immediately whenever she connected her phone to a rental car’s speakers. So my firmest opinion of the band was: “This again?”
But the new album is really good in a similar way to how (imo) the band War On Drugs is really good. This song feels really good for like…jogging towards someone you love? Or building something by hand, in a montage. I’m sorry I judged you by 15 seconds of a song I never even heard the vocals kick in on, Future Islands. (Also, a cool looking bartender in Williamsburg had this song on when I arrived at the bar to do a show last night, which validated my taste. Phew.)
UPCOMING SHOWS
I’ve got some really fun shows coming up! Come see one! More NYC spots are listed on my website, and more road dates are coming soon!
2/8: Docky’s Bar (Red Hook)
2/22: Jungle Cat Comedy (NYC)
2/27: Hamilton Nolan Book Launch at Word Bookstore in Greenpoint
3/1-3/2: Laugh Camp (St. Paul, MN)
3/7: Wait Wait Don’t Tell Me Live Recording (Chicago)
3/29-3/30: Comedy Attic (Bloomington, IN)
4/5-4/6: Junk Drawer Coffee (New Orleans, LA)
5/2: Wait Wait Don’t Tell Me Live Recording (Chicago)
5/8: Cobb’s Comedy Club (San Francisco, ticket link coming soon)
5/10: Here-After (Seattle)
5/12: Helium Comedy Club (Portland)
5/16-5/18: Vermont Comedy Club in Burlington ticket link coming soon)
6/21: NEW SPECIAL TAPING AT THE BELL HOUSE IN BROOKLYN (Late show to be added soon.)
I hope I’m not the only one my millennial who can definitively point to Hamilton writing as the reason I got radicalized in the 00s and 10s. He made gawker better than it would have been without him and he made me better too. I’m so glad he’s still writing and I can’t wait to read the book, thanks for linking to his substack!
Also, your advice to the letter writer is as always so sweet and funny.
Also also Fargo was one of the few things giving me hope. We can’t ask our entertainment and culture to ignore the people like Roy — I think that was kind of how we got 2016. But this way of showing how empty and weak they can be is the commentary we need.
This was my first season of watching Fargo and I found it Very Enjoyable. Also Jennifer Jason Leigh absolutely kidnapped and stole every single scene she was in. I want a whole show about the elder Mrs Lyons. What an icon.