By Josh Gondelman — 29 Dec 2025

#164. New Year's Pep Talk Speed Round

This will make more sense as you get towards the end.

Hi everyone,

I'm feeling good, if sleepy, getting back to work after a fairly recreational holiday week. Last week I ate like I was on death row, mostly Chinese food but also a night out at Gage & Tollner with Maris and some friends. After dinner, we got seats at the Sunken Harbor Club, an adjacent shipwreck themed bar with a tiki-heavy drink menu and a Times Square New Year's Eve Chaos energy that feels almost antithetical to the classic steakhouse warmth of the restaurant below. The fog machine was so intense that someone in our party (I will not snitch) vaped openly and undetected in the barroom. The sesame martini, however, immediately planted itself on my list of all time favorite cocktails. It was like a cucumber salad full of gin, in a good way I swear.

I baked brownies for a little gathering on Christmas Eve, and while I did not slice them especially evenly, the flavor and texture were uniformly distributed, and that's what counts. They are pictured below for proof if not aesthetics.

On Christmas night, Maris made a reservation at Sal Tang's, and we were enticed by the Crab Rangoon Mozzarella Sticks (much crabbier than normal crab rangoon, which was delightful) and knocked on our butts by the short rib pancake. Thank goodness I have breakfast planned with a vegan friend on Wednesday, a meal I am trusting to set my entire life on the right path.

While anchored to our couch by the aforementioned dinners, Maris and I finished watching the first season of Pluribus, which ruled. I honestly do not understand the criticism that it's too slow! There's not a ton of action, but everything that happens is interesting! All the characters are fascinating to spend time with! The last scene of the finale made my eyebrows go up like a guy in a 90s beer commercial who just saw a bunch of hot babes arrive at the beach. So much TV lately has felt not-for-me, but this series hit me right where I live! (TV-wise, we also watched the newest Taskmaster "Champion of Champions" episode, stayed up to date on Bob's Burgers, and continued our leisurely meander with The Chair Company. I can't believe I let myself get so behind on that, but I did!)

We also watched Wake Up Dead Man, which I liked a lot, but I would love to chat plot holes with someone else who felt a little "Come on!" about certain things that the film yadda yadda-ed its way through, while taking detours following some threads that didn't feel quite as resonant as the main plot. That said, Josh O'Connor was really charming, and the whole thing felt like the pro-Catholic propaganda that Mark Wahlberg would want to make were he not obsessed with casting himself as a hero in real life tragedies. Has Rian Johnson seen Father Stu? Is he the only person who has? Wahlberg appeared on Desus & Mero with Tom Holland to promote the movie Uncharted, and he could not stop talking about Father Stu to the extent that we all kind of thought he was fucking with us, and that movie could not possibly exist. But it did! And then Wake Up Dead Man did it (ex-boxer and criminal becomes a Catholic priest) better (I assume...I am never going to watch Father Stu). I legit love that Daniel Craig shows up at a murder scene like a silly cartoon character though. There's one music cue that cracked me the hell up. I'd love half a dozen more of these movies!

We also finally watched One Battle After Another, which I do admit would have been a lot of fun to see in a theater, but I (embarrassingly?) prefer to watch a movie that long at home where I can take a break to pee or get a little bowl of ice cream from the kitchen. This movie was as enjoyable as basically everyone said. It was interesting to see a movie where the characters and their relationships were complex, but the moral center of the film was clear. We never had to learn about the antagonist's trauma. Good! Frankly, I don't care if he had a mean dad or whatever! I love that the two biggest movies of 2025 in terms of cultural impact were an original concept (Sinners) and a Pynchon adaptation, and that the two Marvel movies this year kind of ate shit (by the ridiculous standards of the MCU), no offense to the very talented and hardworking people who brought those stories to life. Maris brought up Marty Supreme to me as another contender for "big cultural event" and I legit can't tell if the Safdie brothers are making waves broadly, or if we just know the thirty people who haven't stopped posting Uncut Gems memes since 2019. Also yes the new Avatar movie was a big deal, and even though I don't feel one way or another about that franchise, I like that one of the great directors of all time has become obsessed with space whales and has dedicated his life to telling their story.

I also enjoyed that Leonardo DiCaprio (OBAA) and Ethan Hawke (The Lowdown) both got to play a The Dude type of character this year. I love a movie or a tv show about someone in way over their head trying to deal with a way bigger problem than they are equipped to solve. In that vein, shout out to Search Party, one of the most underrated shows of the past decade. Alia Shawkat played the rare Lady Dude, especially in Season 1.

I'm way behind on comedy specials, and I'm excited to check out the new ones from Kumail and Sarah Squirm and Robby Hoffman! But that's enough entertainment writing from me for now!

Thanks to everyone who braved the snow to come out to Sup, Bro? in Brooklyn on Saturday and to the Crocodile in Seattle last night! I was a little nervous about moving into a bigger venue than I had before, and the crowd was AMAZING. I am now worried that I've become TOO confident in this new hour. I'm on my way to Portland now, where I've got shows Tuesday and Wednesday at Helium to close out the year! Come on out, people of Oregon!

Also, in terms of work stuff, I think I can say I'm moderating most of the Taskmaster Live U.S. dates! They sold out immediately, and I can't wait to join Greg Davies and "Little" Alex Horne and special guests in Philadelphia, DC, and New York City. Sadly, I have to miss the Boston and Chicago dates on account of previous engagements, one of which is SF Sketchfest, which will be fun as hell.

If you'll permit me a little more self-indulgence than usual (Is that even possible??? you ask), I'd like to do just a quick year-in-review, for my own benefit as much as anyone else's. As with every year, my 2025 resolution was to be a more available, supportive friend as well as a more looming, formidable enemy. And honestly I think I did a good job this time! I was especially thrilled to cheerlead for Maris's book launch. Her essay collection is so good, and it was a joy to see her connect with audiences in person and to receive so many delighted text messages from friends who read it. (Good husband counts towards this goal, imo.)

Me and Maris dressed up and holding copies of her essay collection. — I know I am biased, but it is a really good book!

I could always do better, which is why it's always my big resolution, but I did really try to show up for the people in my life this year! If I failed you...sound off in the comments, I guess. It's the only way I'll learn!

I also made it a point to work on creative projects that didn't need industry approval, and I think I was up and down on that! I had a really great experience writing, revising, and pitching a pilot with my friend Alison Leiby. Even though it didn't go as far as we wanted, it was an excellent creative experience, and I'm excited to pursue more collaboration even if it's ultimately not a life-changing long-lasting endeavor.

In terms of collaboration: I had the time of my life onstage with Greg and Alex at Town Hall for this January's Taskmaster live in NYC event. Same for touring with Aimee Mann and Ted Leo and PFT and Nellie and the band for the Christmas Show. Not to mention co-hosting Frankenstein's Baby (first and third Mondays of every month at Union Hall) with Alison, Joyelle, Tyrone, and Donwill plus producer Jordan and photographer Sam! And consulting on standup projects with some people I really like and admire!!!

I wrote a few pieces for GQ thanks to brilliant and generous editors Gabriella and Alyssa. Thanks to them for tapping into my areas of expertise (being bald and being from Boston and watching tv). I contributed to Flagrant Mag as well but it's not online because digital is dead. I should pitch more writing next year, I'm realizing right now.

Thanks to Edgar and the Curiosity Desk team at WGBH I sampled many of the best roast beef sandwiches of the North Shore and talked about them without being FULLY torn to shreds by the North Shore Beef community, a group of people who I fear and appreciate.

I returned to a bunch of my favorite podcasts like Doughboys and Dumb People Town and Never Not Funny and Blank Check and All Fantasy Everything and Straightiolab and Normal Gossip (live), and I joined the one-timers club on Comedy Bang Bang, which was a true thrill!!! Plus So True with Caleb Hearon!

Along with the team at The Nightly (nee Pillow Talk) I recorded many podcast episodes for people to fall asleep to! You can listen to the show now even if you don't have a Hatch device!

Then there were lots of appearances like Gaydar and Shit Talk and CBS Mornings and the Moontower festival and the Philadelphia Comedy Festival. I did a lot of Wait Wait and Wait Wait-adjacent shows with their wonderful team. I wrapped up my third term on the Writers Guild of America East Council and was selected to the Negotiating Committee, which was a source of great pride.

And of course thanks to Blonde Medicine and Moxie Pictures and director/pal Chris Werner I put out my second special (and 4.5th album) Positive Reinforcement. I think it's really good, and I'd love for you to give it a watch if you haven't yet.

And of course we adopted Maggie the Pug, the smushiest, sweetest, silliest little clown who I ever allowed to pee on the floor of my home for three straight weeks until she figured things out. Maggie has been a burst of endorphins wrapped in a teeny little body shaped like a loaf of bread. We love her so much!

Maggie in her harness on the streets of Brooklyn, looking adorable. — LOOK AT THIS PEANUT!

Thanks for allowing me this space to take stock of my year! And thanks for reading! And for listening! And watching! And for buying tickets to live shows!

I have felt a little self-conscious about a lack of stable employment as well as an inability to become a massive viral success, but it was helpful to look back at the year and think about all the fun and exciting stuff I did professionally since turning forty (great party, btw). Plus all the long coffees and whiskeys and seltzers and phone calls with pals. I'm excited for More Stuff next year! Let's do it!

NEW YEAR'S PEP TALK SPEED ROUND

Credit: Matt Croc — This is from Rent, for those of you who didn't do theater in high school.

With New Year's Eve fast approaching I thought I'd handle a bunch of quick pep talks for people who need a little encouragement turning one page or another.

I need a lifetime version. I’ll be 65 in April, so don’t overthink it.

You have lived so much life, which I imagine informs your perspective on what you want from the world going forward! You've missed the chance to accomplish certain things, sure: You will almost definitely never be a child violin prodigy or play Division I college lacrosse if you haven't already. But there's so much on the table for you still whether it's seeing sights or cultivating relationships or making art or even just watching a bunch of movies you'd been putting off. And I have to believe you've experienced sufficient joy and bummer in your life to know how you want to spend your time, and where, and with whom. You have fine-tuned this intuition and experience for years. If you haven't spend the past 6.5 decades leading yourself astray, keep moving towards your goals. And if you have spent the better part of a century getting in your own way, knock it off. It's never too late to stop being a bozo. (Bozo-ness not assumed, merely mentioned just in case.)

The film industry could use a pep talk, Josh. Especially the crew members!

This request hits so close to home that I think my dog smelled it screeching by on the most recent walk we took. Because of a series of factors (a shifting media landscape, corporate greed, corporate consolidation, corporate incompetence, changing audience tastes and means of distribution), people working in the film and tv industries have faced some hard times recently. Harder than usual, even, and the baseline is not...unhard. Soft, one might say. It isn't forgiving.

My response isn't especially funny because, as I said, this issue is so close to the bone it's practically a ligament, but here's where I'm finding hope these days...

Talented and experienced people doing creative work will always be valuable. Audiences will want it, even though we are being assured that what crowds actually demand is 30-second a AI-generated clip where Minnie Mouse engages in some kind of user-directed activity that the Disney company has not yet realized is someone's fetish. The work you do is good and interesting and worth investing in (both your energy and other people's money). That hasn't changed even though the way people watch movies has.
Labor organizing gives us all our best shot at fair compensation for the work we do. It's no surprise to any readers that I feel greatly indebted to and enmeshed in the Writers Guild of America. The other unions (SAG-AFTRA, to which I also belong, the DGA, IATSE) are also made up of members who look out for and care about each other and the industry. This collective power is comforting and instructional and meaningful, in film and in other industries. (Enormous respect to/solidarity with the Starbucks union during its ongoing ULP strike.)

I don't have a ton of other hopeful words on this topic, but I really do think things can improve, especially if we view our talents and passions not as pain points that can be leveraged against us to make us take less than we are owed, but as assets that give us the confidence that we are necessary and our work is meaningful.

I'm going to the UK for 61 games of scrabble across 3 high intensity tournaments. I could definitely use a pep talk!

Sixty-one is so many games of Scrabble. I have not Scrabbed that many times in the past five years total, and I am someone who likes Scrabble very much (and played it a bunch during the early pandemic). Just taking on this much intense competition is an accomplishment on its own. And there's no material risk to it, like when Jake Paul cosplays as a boxer long enough that he eventually fights someone who adjusts the topography of his face. No one is going to fracture your jaw in two places no matter how well or badly you spell words with tiles. Do your best! Have fun! Good luck!

Yes, please. 2025 lasted a million years and also just a week and I feel like I accomplished nothing. What’s one reasonable goal I can set for 2026?

First of all, years are not about accomplishments. We've all heard the song from Rent. You've gotta count the sunsets and coffee cups and and strifes(?). (Also in inches which seems like an inversion of how light years are a unit of distance.) You will have, presumably by year's end, weathered 365 consecutive days of ups and downs in 2025 alone. The feeling that you haven't accomplished anything probably means that you were busy fulfilling all the relentless and immersive obligations of being a person, which is an accomplishment on its own.

A maxim I often repeat and then immediately disregard is that I try not to give advice in this newsletter. However, you did ask a question that fits squarely within my area of expertise (taking inordinate pride in a minor achievement). My friend Jaime often talks about making new year's resolutions that are additive to your life rather than restrictive, and I love that paradigm. But I think we can peel your 2026 goals back a little further still.

Next year, I want you to try and clock your small achievements more generously. Allow your petty triumphs and molehills climbed to bring you more joy and add more points of light to the constellation of your self-regard. Did you do a satisfactory job following a new recipe? Count it!!! Did you complete a professional project on schedule without letting it spill over into your personal time? That's another victory! Did you remember to call a loved one on their birthday? Boom! Accomplishmented!

One of the best things I do for myself is making sure to file every picture I take with friends into its own photo album on my phone so that I have a running record of the best things I did during the year. Going through that album recently I laughed out loud remembering sitting fully reclined in easy chairs with Kelsey McKinney at her book launch in Philadelphia. A perfect moment that I'm glad I cataloged as such!

You survived 2025, a year made up of (as we all know) 525,600 minutes. You had to have been doing something productive or healthful or enjoyable for at least some of that time, and you can/should take credit for all of it. Now that's how the fuck you measure...measure a year.

Can I get a pep talk about getting a new job even though my current job is ok? Like, it’s ok but just ok. Could be better!! Thank you!

While the Buddha was definitively on to something with "desire is the root of all suffering" (possibly his greatest hit), it's okay to believe that things can be better than okay! It's okay to value your time and not want it to feel like drudgery+, the drudgery that comes with snacks and nice coworkers. While there are certainly benefits to keeping things in perspective (okay is not bad, by definition), it's your life and you get to decide how you want to live it. Don't let perfect be the enemy of good, but don't let okay be the nemesis of terrific either.

I need to do a lot of things in the New Year that will make my life much better in the long run but are really going to suck in the short term and I could sure use a pep talk about it.

An important fact about the short term is that it's over soon. So if something has to suck for a term, short is for sure the one to take the hit on. It beats wading through hot, wet trash in the long term. It's an improvement over an itchy, shaky medium-term as well.

Let's not ignore the fact that you're expecting the long term to be good. This isn't even an issue of chugging a bunch of mud in hopes of sucking down some nutrients along with it. You've got a plan, and you know that after the hard part comes the good part. You are well-situated for happiness and success. Get it!

If you can include a pep talk for someone who appears to have a gum infection but has exhausted his dental benefits for 2025 and is trying to make it a few more days, yes please.

Oh no!!!! I hope you have been able to keep the pain at bay with whatever over the counter or under the table remedies you have on hand. Healthcare in this country is so brutal, and your ability to have gums that don't feel like they're being attacked by bees should not be contingent on turning the page on your calendar. They say time heals all wounds, but I think whoever came up with that saying had only experienced a limited spectrum of wounds. Fingers crossed that this one is not worsened by time and is resolved as quickly as possible.

2026 is a year where I am going to have to do a lot of self-promotion and marketing both for day job and writing, and I absolutely haaaaaate that because of my debilitating case of imposter syndrome

I'm going to lean back on my long-held rubric for knowing how to deal with these delicate situations. It is probably familiar to long-time That's Marvelous readers, but here it is again: "What would a person do?" Asking yourself (myself, honestly) this question helps get out of your (my) own head. You stop thinking about whether you're doing too much or grating on people's nerves. And instead you consider whether what you're up to is a normal, reasonable course of action for a regular person navigating the world. In terms of self-promotion, if what you're doing wouldn't annoy you if someone you liked was doing it...the people who like you probably won't be irritated by it either. Your hard work deserves your own best effort to get it out into the world. That doesn't mean pinning your book to the front door of a potential blurber's home with a knife. It doesn't mean sending daily emails to everyone in your rolodex reminding them to visit your revamped website. It just means allowing yourself the pride and enthusiasm you would allow others to get away with without rolling your eyes and texting your friends about how thirsty they are. Be a person. You're not faking that.

I’ve had a rough year Josh, and could really use a pep talk!

You made it through this year, and you'll make it through the next one. As always...

[We are] going to make it through this year if it kills [us].

PICK-ME-UP SONG OF THE WEEK:
Paul F. Tompkins as Krampus - "Krampus Live!"

Krampin' ain't easy.

I know it is a little late to share a Christmas or Christmas-adjacent song. I am not even a "Wonderful Christmastime" hater (it came on during our Christmas dinner out, and the experience added a campy charm to the evening), but if I heard that song on December 27th, I would fly into a blind rage, forsaking wonder, Christmas, and all four Beatles forever.

HOWEVER! This song was not available for sharing last week. Paul put it up on YouTube on Christmas Day. And now I'm passing this joy along to you.

A little context: I got to see PFT perform this bit roughly ten times last year on the Aimee Mann/Ted Leo Christmas Show Tour (which I intended to be done talking about, but it's BACK baby) and it killed me every time (as did his character performance on the show this year). Basically every night, Ted and Aimee and I would stand backstage watching and laughing and then singing "end of da song!" along with Paul at the end of da song. It is a truly cherished memory for me! The non-song parts of this bit are great too, so don't just skip forward until the music starts. I'm so happy there's a recorded version of Krampus to share.