#72. (Alleged) Gamblers and You

Good luck with all of that!

Hi everyone,

The news (non-harrowing division) has gotten pretty intense in the last week or two, huh? We’d gotten a little complacent with our daily stories about Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce, each of which could have featured the identical headline: “COUPLE SEEMS TO BE HAVING NICE TIME.” Well not anymore!!! The American League MVP (of baseball, for non-sports folks) is embroiled in a massive gambling scandal (more on that later!). Less surprisingly, the Kate Middleton Gossip Saga has resolved unfortunately. The Duchess (not going to look up what she is the duchess of, sorry) revealed that she’s been receiving treatment after a recent cancer diagnosis. That’s Marvelous is anti-monarchy but also anti-cancer, so we here at the newsletter hope she recovers quickly and smoothly (and then dedicates her life to the dismantling of the extant ramparts of the British Empire, let’s say).

I know everyone thinks this about every issue, but I really do feel like I cared the exact right amount about this story. By that I mean:

• When it was announced that Kate Middleton was going to take a break from her work in the public eye to have surgery, I thought a. What work? and b. I hope her surgery is not too painful!

• When people began hypothesizing about her whereabouts during this previously announced period of seclusion, I thought those people were being weirdos. Who, I thought, gives a shit?

• When the royals started to gaslight the public with obviously photoshopped images of Kate with her children, and grainy leaked footage of her walking around to prove that she was not only alive (Of course she was alive!!! Why would it have been a secret if she was dead? People are allowed to be dead!!) but thriving, I became obsessed with what the hell they were hiding.

• After the cancer announcement, I thought…why were the royals playing weird PR games instead of either saying nothing or making an announcement that that a member of their family was IN THE MIDST OF A SITUATION THAT EVERYONE ON THE PLANET HAS SYMPATHY FOR?

• It’s okay, in my opinion, not to feel bad for speculating and joking while the entire force of a centuries old monarchy began baldly lying to our faces. That was ridiculous of them to have done! And it wasn’t the people who were joking about a possible BBL gone awry who caused the cancer. (But again, if you were obsessed with Kate’s “disappearance” during the early, completely explicable period, you should admit that you were being weird). Voila! The perfect amount to have cared about this story!

Moving on!

I was notified by Facebook that it’s the eighth anniversary of my late night tv debut on CONAN! It was so long ago that people said “ghosted on” instead of just “ghosted,” which is reflected in my set in a way that feels a little clunky now. Before the taping, Conan came down to where I was getting ready and said to me: “Hey Josh, thanks for doing the show. This is the biggest dressing room; it’s the one we give to our musical acts when they come on. And I wanted you to have it today so you’d always remember…we tried to book a band, and they weren’t available.” And then I asked if I could still nibble on the veggie platter, and he said: “No! That is for FLEA!” It made me laugh a lot, and it put me at ease to see that Conan was giving me crap, like a friend! I am at my most comfortable when I am being gently bullied, I think. Not sure what that says about me psychologically. Not going to investigate further.

This weekend (3/29-3/30) I’ll be at the Comedy Attic in Bloomington, Indiana for four shows! Next weekend (4/5-4/6) I’ll be in New Orleans for four shows at Junk Drawer Coffee.

PEP TALK FOR (ALLEGED) GAMBLERS

The headline on this story says: “Shohei Ohtani declines comment,” which seems cruel to say about a guy who just fired his translator/friend.

Gamblers, unfortunately, you are probably not one perfectly-placed bet away from financial security. You are, way more likely, a few bad beats away from economic precarity (or, I guess, additional economic precarity depending on where you started off). The house doesn’t always win, but I’ve never heard of the mob going out of business from paying off too many gambling winners. And the new boom of sports betting websites seems flush enough with cash that they can hire 50% of the comedians your parents have ever heard of as spokespeople.

You don’t have to keep chasing this high! There’s plenty of other stuff you can do for the rush if that’s what you’re in it for. You could call a muscular stranger “little guy” and then run away. You could sign up for a free trial of a streaming service and forget to write down the date you need to cancel it by to avoid being charged. You could buy the pre-packaged sushi that goes on sale at the end of the day at your local Japanese market. None of these will require you to empty your kids’ college funds.

I don’t mean to say that every instance of gambling puts you in an untenable situation. You’ve got support nearby. Your friends and family love you, and they want to be there for you. But they probably can’t offer you as much support as Shohei Ohtani, who reportedly floated his translator/close friend Ippei Mizuhara $4.5 million to cover his betting debts. (This was reported for like a day and then vehemently denied by Ohtani’s camp. Intrigue!) OR ALTERNATIVELY, they probably don’t love you as much as Mizuhara who is rumored to be taking the fall for Ohtani’s potentially much more salacious gambling debt. Honestly, I think if you’re the MVP of a sport, you should get to gamble. You’ve earned it. I, some geek off the street, can bet on sports, but not you, a literal expert at them? Seems unfair to me!

OR MAYBE this whole situation involves a third arrangement that no one has hypothesized about, but no matter much the people in your life want you to be okay, they probably don’t have the resources to arrange whatever that is either! The official story is now that Ippei Mizuhara stole the money, but that account ranks slightly below the Warren Commission Report on JFK’s assassination in terms of overall public confidence.

We are constantly bombarded with online gambling ads, an affliction worse than at least three of the ten plagues of Passover. But the upside is, when you owe these companies money, it’s just regular credit card debt. Not dangle-you-off-a-building debt. It will still ruin your life, of course, but at least it won’t start with your kneecaps.

Maybe they could give it a shot!

In ten years they’re going to remake Uncut Gems but at the end, Howard is going to lose all his money on an eight-way parlay on FanDuel from the comfort of his own home because he doesn’t need a bookie, and then he’ll quietly walk into the ocean. Kevin Garnett (or in this version, Draymond Green) will never even be aware of him.

You can avoid this fate! So go out there and (practical) set some limits for yourself or (unlikely) find a wealthy benefactor who will cover your outrageous debts.

PEP TALK FOR A READER

I edited this request just a bit for non-nefarious purposes.

I’ve been on sabbatical for a while since my mom died and I have this great idea for a business with a friend but I’m hard with the transition. I could def use some encouragement. Also…Dunkin’ for life.
- Entrepreneurvous

Fuckin’, sure! Whatever! Do it! You’ve got to do something all day. It might as well be trying to execute the idea you and your friend had. Even if it’s a terrible idea, what’s the worst that can happen? Losing all your money, probably. But if you don’t invest all of your money, there’s very little danger of that happening. (Note: I have no idea how money works, but you should definitely try to avoid losing all your money in my amateur opinion.)

Maybe your idea is great and financially sustainable. Maybe it makes you rich. Maybe you tread water for a couple of years and feel good having given it your best shot before ultimately shutting it down. I don’t know. Oh, I guess you and your friend could not be friends anymore because of the stress of professional entanglement. That’s the other possible negative outcome. Not great. But probably not going to happen if you’re just pricing out office space and dipping your toes in shared commerce as a start and seeing how things develop from there.

Unless you’re planning to launch a business that buys endangered species from overseas and sells them to backyard zoos, or a service called GigBunny (TaskRabbit but for child laborers), what are you worried about? Businesses fail all the time, and it’s fine. Half the time now you get a boring movie made about you starring a B-list actor hoping to win awards for doing an impression of someone no one has heard talk in the first place. So, I don’t know. Give it a shot. Knock yourself out. The concept of job security seems to exist less and less with each passing day, so fuck it, right?

Also, tangentially to the meat of this pep talk, I am so sorry for your loss, and I hope you’ve got lots of love and support nearby now and always.

And yes, Dunkin’ for life.

PICK-ME-UP THING OF THE WEEK: Girls5eva

Girls5eva is one of my favorite current shows, and everyone needs to watch it because if it doesn’t come back for a fourth season I’m going to puke. All three seasons are currently on Netflix, which is huge, because the first two premiered on Peacock, which in terms of audience reach is like a launching a tv show inside a single snow globe. Meredith Scardino who had written for The Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt created the Girls5eva, and the 30 Rock/Tina Fey family tree influence is clear in a wonderful way. Every episode is so funny, and the genre parody songs are excellent. It is the kind of show I wish there were five of on the air at any given time.

Also I have been binging Taskmaster episodes on YouTube in preparation for interviewing the show’s two hosts tonight at their NYC event for the premiere of the new season, a word that they pronounce as “series” in the U.K. My entry point was this segment, which my friend Casey showed me. Damn, a second pick-me-up suggestion? Can he do that? He can, and he did.

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! OH ALSO: In April I’ll be guest cohosting Butterboy at Littlefield with my friend Maeve Higgins every Monday! :)

3/29-3/30: Comedy Attic (Bloomington, IN) (Four shows!)

4/1: Butterboy at Littlefield in Brooklyn

4/5-4/6: Junk Drawer Coffee (New Orleans, LA) (Four shows!)

4/14: Hosting the Writers Guild of America New York City ceremony!

4/25: Lovett or Leave It in Washington, DC

5/2: Wait Wait Don’t Tell Me Live Recording (Chicago)

5/3-5/4: Commonwealth Sanctuary (Dayton, KY) (Four shows!)

5/8: Cobb’s Comedy Club (San Francisco)

5/10: Here-After (Seattle) (Two shows!)

5/12: Helium Comedy Club (Portland)

5/16-5/18: Vermont Comedy Club (Burlington) (Five shows!)

6/15: Kismet Improv Theater (Pawtucket, RI) (LATE SHOW ADDED!!!)

6/21: NEW SPECIAL TAPING AT THE BELL HOUSE IN BROOKLYN (Late show tickets on sale now!)