By Josh Gondelman — 22 Dec 2025

#163. 60 Minutes and You

Tick tick tick tick tick. (Sing it if you know the words.)

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Hi everyone,

I am honestly going to try and probably fail to be slightly more concise than usual today because I've been pulled in lots of directions doing holiday and holiday-adjacent stuff. I didn't get to do as much Hanukkah-celebrating as I would have liked, but I've gotten a lot of general December merriment in this week, and I've got a bunch more planned, which is exciting, but my inbox has gotten a little unwieldy with other people's newsletters, and I haven't gotten as much work done on this new script as I'd intended (if my manager or agent is reading this...don't worry, I'll get to it...I bet). But I did have a lovely time at Alison Roman's annual Ham Party! Thank you for the invitation, Alison and Max!

Plus, last week I unexpectedly lost most of a day to travel. After a quick trip back to Chicago for a Wait Wait recording (very fun, featuring guest Rhea Seehorn) I was fully waylaid by flight issues. On Friday morning I leapt out of bed when my alarm went off so I could shower before hopping into a car to the airport. (I try to take public transportation on this route, but it was too cold to schlep to the train.) In my haste, I missed the notification from Delta that my flight had been delayed by three hours. By the time I saw it I was already in a Lyft and wasn't going to get back to sleep, so I went to the airport several hours early. I ate shrimp and grits for breakfast at a sit down airport restaurant (in Chicago) because I respect neither myself nor my body (honestly they were pretty good though) and then spent most of the wait as well as the (additionally delayed) flight reading a book.

Me, Paula Poundstone, and Hari Kondabolu onstage for Wait Wait. — Wait Wait...jingle bell me? Hmmm.

The Slip by Lucas Schaefer was recommended to me by both Maris and our friend Jason Diamond, and they were right...it's really good! I still have to turn over how I feel about the very ending (last few pages), but it's like 480 pages long and full of really interesting scenarios and observations and characters. Even if I end up not liking the last 800 words, it still has the Licorice Pizza thing of being very enjoyable to me despite the "what the hell?" last thirty seconds. The most exhilarating feature about The Slip is the way it hops back and forth through time, unspooling a story that involves an unsolved mystery without doing that thing I hate where an author (or writer/director team) withholds a clarifying detail of a story until the very end as some kind of trick. Not necessarily a big reveal or twist, but a piece of information that in a normal story you'd have been given, but you aren't because it makes the rest of it more mysterious. No I can't think of an example offhand, and I'm SORRY. But these things DO exist.

The whole novel kind of scratches an Infinite Jest type of itch for me, and it opened me up to Elizabeth Lopatto's Bluesky recommendation to read Inherent Vice (I've never seen the movie or read any Pynchon) once I read my friend Tanya's memoir/cookbook and Leiby's essay collection.

Alison and I are hosting a Sup, Bro? show on Saturday (12/27) at 7:30 for all the NYC/Brooklyn stragglers looking for a fun night out post-holidays. We've got Joe Mande, Wally Baram, Jim Tews, and MORE on the show! We're also doing a show in San Francisco for Sketchfest in January, but that lineup is still falling into place!

Flyer for my 12/28 show at The Crocodile in Seattle. It's a photo by Mindy Tucker from a couple of years ago. — SEA you there? (Get it? It stinks, but do you get it?)

Then I'm off to Seattle to headline one show at The Crocodile (12/28) and Portland for three at Helium (12/30-12/31) before returning home (and then back to the west coast in mid-January for SF Sketchfest and other assorted stuff). If you're a reader and haven't seen me live, I think you'd have fun. And if you HAVE seen me live, I've got basically a whole new set of jokes since last time I've been to the northwest. (Live event tickets also make a great last minute holiday present!)

OH, ALSO

Me and Anania holding iced coffees out to the camera in McCarren Park in Brooklyn. — I brought iced coffee in the winter because I am an ally/Masshole.

I was on an episode of internet talk show/game show Gaydar last week. We recorded on a very chilly day, but hostess Anania and her whole production team were so fun and professional despite the elements. The comments on Instagram and especially TikTok were a little chaotic, but mostly people were very sweet about the whole thing! I think there will probably be a longer YouTube video at some point, but for now there's a 90ish-second cut on social media that maybe you'd like to watch and share! Thanks to Amelia, Anania, and everyone for having me on!

PEP TALK FOR 60 MINUTES

Behold! America's most celebrated stopwatch!

Last night, reporting emerged confirming that Bari Weiss, the head of CBS News, spiked or at least indefinitely postponed a 60 Minutes story about CECOT, the brutal prison in El Salvador where the U.S. government has been sending people–to use a legal term of art–all willy nilly.

We know this, and not just the official CBS News stance that the piece "needed more reporting" before it was ready to air, (at least in large part) because an email that 60 Minutes correspondent Sharyn Alfonsi wrote to the show's staff opposing the decision was leaked to Michael Grynbaum of the New York Times. Good job, leaker! Good job, Grynbaum!

If you have never heard of Bari Weiss, I envy your blessed existence, and I will catch you up with great regret, like when you have to explain death to a child or Mr. Beast to a parent. Weiss rose to prominence as a beneficiary of the NYT op-ed section's community outreach program, where they provide financial support to Ivy League graduates who believe themselves to be at the vanguard of public thought despite not having (or even really engaging with) a new idea since 2003. She then founded a blog that told rich people who were not ready to come out of the closet as racists and transphobes exactly what they wanted to hear. In a more just world, she would have been put out of business when ChatGPT began offering the same service to our nation's internet-and-wealth-poisoned elites for free.

Instead, Weiss was rewarded with a massive payday from the new conservative owners of Paramount, who installed her atop CBS's news division despite-slash-because-of her unfitness for the job. It's a supernova convergence of win-win and lose-lose situations. If she turns her division into a functioning organ of the conservative media apparatus, she's done her job, and if she allows the whole thing to crumble like the Roman sculptures in her fans' twitter pictures, well, that's just as helpful to her bosses. Bari Weiss a rising/collapsing star of the news world!

More accurately: Bari Weiss is Joe Rogan with glasses. "Joe Rogan" meaning a high-profile useful idiot with a laser-focused ability to erode their audience's ability to distinguish facts from bullshit. "With glasses" meaning both "bespectacled" and "for nerds."

I hope that the principled journalists and journalist-enablers at 60 Minutes see that people are noticing what's going on, and they're rejecting it. It is humiliating that so many of us had to learn who Bari Weiss is. It feels the same as when awareness of Tom Sandoval broke containment from the Vanderpump Rules bubble and briefly became a national affliction. Both people have been elevated above their natural stations (Weiss was destined to own a PR firm for men accused of sexual misconduct and Sandoval's fate should have been bartender who hooks up with entire female friend groups in LA over the course of years working at the same establishment and is independently saved in all their phones as "Mustache Tom") by powerful forces who profit off of their ineptitude. Neither of them is prepared, talent-wise or even savvy-wise for this level of spotlight.

60 Minutes is an enduring and important institution. Hopefully this public embarrassment will help usher out the brief and stupid reign of its current overlord. We'll see if she has the charisma to host a popular podcast or to thrive on an upcoming season of The Traitors. My hopes are not high, which in turn does make me feel hopeful.

PEP TALK FOR A READER

I have published this request pretty much unedited and added a nickname!

If you give my dog a pep talk about how no one has ever died from going outside to poop in the rain (or snow) I will read it aloud to her.
- That's A Snow For Me, Dog

There are so many things I wish I could explain to my dog in words. "I'll be right back," is the big one. Several times a day I try to communicate to Maggie the Pug that I'm just getting up to grab a pencil or a can of seltzer from across the room (where I will still be clearly visible to her) and I will be right back. It's not that I mind being followed across our little apartment, but this little clown won't even jump up onto the couch on her own; she demands to be scooped up and plunked down beside me as soon as I return. Obviously I do it every time. Codependent much? (I'm talking about me as much as her here.)

The second most urgent message I would like to impart to the weird little goblin who lives in my home is that the sooner she poops (or even pees, honestly) the sooner we can go inside. I know that the weather is inclement. Trust me, pug. I hate exposing myself to the elements as much as you hate wearing those little rubber booties that are supposed to protect your feet from the salt on the sidewalks. I am not taking you outside in the rain or snow for my own enjoyment, unless you count the enjoyment of you not taking a dump on the rug.

As the caretaker to a squishy little clown, I am obligated to allow her to roam through the neighborhood until she finds a pile of leaves or scrap of trash she considers worth soiling. Or to stand holding her leash and denying her re-entry into our building as we are both pelted with raindrops until she relents/releases. (Check your privilege, yard-havers.) In exchange, she barks at the doorbell, she tries to fight Peter Dinklage's dog on the street (sorry, Peter Dinklage, loved you in The Lowdown!), and she licks my face relentlessly when I'm trying to pass out at night. It is, honestly, a perfect trade, a deal I have undertaken fully cognizant of the checks and balances on sleep schedule and potential to befriend Peter Dinklage.

Maggie the pug, lounging on a throw pillow on my couch. — Look at this clown!

So, what I'll say to your dog–who will not understand me at all–is: Come on, buddy. You can do this! You'll be more comfortable and happier and less likely to destroy a couch cushion if you just find the highest possible patch of grass or sidewalk, do your thing, and scramble back inside. A minute or two of sogginess is worth the upside, long term. Consider the long view for a moment and act accordingly. You will be rewarded with relaxation and probably treats as well. (I should note, I've had very little luck curtailing my own dog's impulsiveness. Last night she lunged at the television during a Dunkin' commercial which featured anthropomorphized donut holes which she may have assumed were even rounder pugs or maybe she thought they were friends of Peter Dinklage's dog.)

And to you, reader, I will say this: These are the sacrifices we make for love and companionship. We accept that our pets are goofy, illogical animals because these are also the qualities that make them such charming, devoted companions. We do things like hiding their pills inside of treats or letting them rest on the people furniture even though there's a dog-specific cushion eighteen inches away because they do things like spinning around in happy little circles when we come home from a twelve-minute errand and snuggling in the crooks of our knees at night (which is so sweet but also causes you/me to wake up with my spine twisted into a waterslide shape).

As thanks for their affection, all we can do is tend to their quirks and whims, keep them healthy and safe, and hold their leash tight when Peter Dinklage and his dog walk by. Good luck, and keep your strongest jacket handy.

PICK-ME-UP SONG OF THE WEEK:
The Cherry Poppin' Daddies - "Zoot Suit Riot"

Look, I don't like this either. First of all, the band's name is so nasty that I can't imagine people under thirty years old believing that it's real. (Never mind the fact that they were part of the confounding swing music revival that took place during my youth.) I've been told that they'd often have to put THE DADDIES up on marquees when venues rejected the coarseness of their full moniker.

During an otherwise excellent karaoke hangout last week, I learned the devastating truth that this song lives at the DEAD CENTER of my vocal range. I am very good at singing this stupid song. It made me feel great and terrible (the Wizard of Oz emotional speedball) and now I am making YOU think about this song. Sorry! Happy holidays!