#168. Snow Shovelers and You
Hi everyone,
I'm writing to you while soft-snowed-in in Brooklyn, meaning that I can physically leave the house, and plenty of businesses in my neighborhood are open, but all of my going-out plans for a couple of days have been wiped off the books. The gentle snowfall on Sunday morning cast a soft hush across the neighborhood. The usual sounds–birds, traffic, pedestrians even–were temporarily replaced by a near-silence that felt like a noise of its own.
Honestly, I needed the downtime. I have, against all odds, been having Too Much Fun lately. At the beginning of the year, Maris declared this month a "Wet January" in defiance of the cultural pressure to engage in a puritanical reset. I've been pretty damp myself over the last couple of weeks in solidarity. That plus a lot of zipping around the country left me feeling appreciative for a snow-mandated break to write and watch a football game that itself seemed to barely be happening on account of snow.
I spent last week with Greg Davies and "Little" Alex Horne, the Taskmaster and Taskmaster's Assistant from the show Taskmaster, as they whizzed through the last several stops on their quick American tour. My job was fun and easy, facilitating a 45-minute Q&A with Greg and Alex at the top of the show. The two hosts came armed with a zillion crowd-pleasing anecdotes and were quick on their feet when they encountered a question they hadn't expected. They were also so cool and nice. I got to work with some old friends and colleagues (including my former boss John Oliver) and made some new ones (including Lisa Gilroy, who is so good on Comedy Bang Bang and also the underrated Interior Chinatown). The tour staff (Paul, Aaron, James, Claire, Florrie etc.) was a joy to work with as well.
I spent all of last week doing great shows and watching great shows and staying out late and scarfing down salads in the green room to avoid simply dropping dead of malnutrition and taking Amtrak trains up and down he eastern seaboard (well, part of it at least). The electric energy in the room at Town Hall in Manhattan when (Taskmaster Series 19 contestant) Jason Mantzoukas came onstage as a surprise guest could have blown every fuse in the venue. I woke up on Saturday morning (BARELY) with a writhing hangover that ultimately dissipated by about 2pm. Coulda been worse. And the rest of the tour couldn't have been better. Truly a dream gig in a meet-your-heroes (for the third time) way.
As all that was happening, ICE continued to terrorize the people of Minneapolis, a city I love very much. But even if it was the worst city in America (or another country) I would agree that ICE needs to get the fuck out of there and also be disbanded forever. I'd been too busy and ragged to make it to a protest, but I was pretty frugal with my tour travel stipend, and I donated essentially half of it to groups on the ground in the Twin Cities. Here's a link to some helpful organizations if you have a few dollars to donate. I don't say this to self-flagellate or self-congratulate. I'm just feeling some dissonance lately, and I wanted to be helpful where I could instead of punching myself in the stomach for being otherwise occupied and having fun where fun was available to me. All we can do is pitch in where we can I think.
Earlier today I recorded a new episode of The Bugle so look for that, Buglers!
On Thursday, Alison Leiby and I are hosting an incredible lineup of comics at the Jewish Museum in Manhattan!!! We've got Ilana Glazer, Joyelle Nicole Johnson, Esther Fallick, Emmy Blotnick, and Ariel Elias! I'm really psyched for this show, and I hope you can make it! (I'm also hosting the Comedy Grab Bag show presented by Wait Wait...Don't Tell Me! at the Bell House on Friday but that's sold out already!
I think that's it for me lately! On to the pep talks!
PEP TALK FOR SNOW SHOVELERS
One time, in 2013 or 2014, New York City was hit by snow storm after snow storm, rendering the streets congested and narrow, and (crucially) causing alternate side parking rules for street cleaning to be suspended for literal weeks. I used this opportunity to neglect my 1999 Toyota Corolla entirely. I left it parked on a bridge near my apartment, encased in an ever-thickening layer of ice, never starting it and rarely thinking about it. When I needed to drive to a gig a few weeks after the onset of wintry precipitation, it took me several hours just to chip away at my car's newly-formed exoskeleton enough to be able to get inside and launch the sedan over a snow bank and into the flow of traffic.
I learned my lesson that day. And sure, the lesson was "don't have a car." But the other lesson I could have learned was to take the task of shoveling bit by bit, even if it's annoying in the moment/various subsequent moments. Taking the snow as it comes rather than allowing it to fully submerge your sidewalk or Han Solo In Carbonite-ize your motor vehicle is the efficient way to approach things. And yes, it may feel like you're back to square one every few hours. But that's a vast improvement over waiting two weeks to start at square negative a hundred.
You don't have to allow a situation to become a catastrophe before you try to remedy it. This is something I needed to be taught about snow and also like...going to the doctor and doing laundry and frankly anything that could bury me under a (literal or metaphorical) big pile of something that I'd have to shovel out of all at once. It's not impossible to solve a massive problem in one sustained burst. But it's a lot easier when you make the effort to stop the seedling of a problem from blooming out of control.
You can do it little by little, snow shovelers! Or you can procrastinate and do it all at once! We both know the right way to attack an obstacle. But deep down, we probably know how we will actually take a problem on. And that's okay as long as it turns out okay for you.
PEP TALK FOR A READER
I am publishing this request basically unedited!
The 5th grade basketball team I coach just had their first loss of the season. The boys played well but the ball just didn’t bounce their way.
-Metrowest Coach
This is a situation that feels low-stakes in the grand scheme of things, but it's also kind of delicate, right? Because sports are great for learning group dynamics and improving physical fitness and having fun. But you have to care a little about winning because otherwise you'd just read a book or run a 5k. (Runners remain the most intense athletes I know who rarely care about victory.) Winning isn't everything, of course, but it's some of the thing, usually. With all that said, here are two small pep talks, one for you and one for your team:
FOR YOU
You are doing such a good job as a coach to emphasize playing with effort and dedication and a focus on the fundamentals. A job well done is its own reward, and that's a beautiful lesson to impart on kids. Ultimately, it's more important and useful than a "victory at all costs" mentality. As you know, and they will find out, a single-minded focus on demolishing your competition results in (at best?) becoming a successful, thriving monster or (at worst?) destroying your own life in pursuit of an unachievable standard for what success means to you. Sometimes you get to do both!
That said, it's okay for the players to feel a little disappointed when the results are disappointing. When you are playing a zero sum game, sometimes you end up on the negative side of the ledger, and that doesn't feel as good as when things break the other way, and that's okay too. As long as you are not heaping additional despair on top of them and are praising their hard work and commitment to doing their best, you are doing your job as well.
FOR THEM
It feels bad to lose! But your hard work has paid off! You are in better condition for running up and down the court than you've ever been! You're getting stronger and faster! You are playing better as a team! These are the qualities within your control! You might be a little too young for the explicit introduction of some variation of the Serenity Prayer, but focusing on the things that you can improve is such a huge way to take satisfaction in any project, including sports.
If you did your best and worked together, it's okay that you didn't win. Winning all the time is unlikely. Winning some of the time is nice. Winning none of the time gets frustrating, but it makes it all the more important to focus on the little things. Did you listen to your coach? Did you listen to each other? Did you try something in a game you'd only done in practice before? These are all things to be proud of!
It's fun to win, sure. But it's fun just to play. To use a cliche (because you are young and don't realize it's kind of hack, but also cliches are cliches for a reason), winning is the cherry. Playing is the sundae. And a sundae without a cherry still tastes better than most things you eat.
PICK-ME-UP SONG OF THE WEEK:
Droogie Otis (feat. Killer Mike) - "The Edge"
The rapper Your Old Droog is one of the most prolific artists working, but my attention sometimes gets buried under an avalanche of his new projects. On paper, and often in practice, he does exactly the thing I'm into, musically. Classic NYC boom bap. Dense but playful lyrics. I just get overwhelmed sometimes, is all. Last week, though, I saw that Droog and producer Madlib performed together on The Tonight Show under the banner of their Droogie Otis project, and my ears perked up. Killer Mike's booming voice on the album version of the track creates a counterpoint to Droog's east coast rasp. The beat is both smooth and crackly. It's a slice of what Desus and Mero used to call (in a slightly tongue in cheek manner) "hip hop hip hop real hip hop." I am not embarrassed that I enjoy when my tastes are pandered to.
UPCOMING SHOWS
I am home in New York City for two straight weeks telling jokes and then I'm back out on the road a little bit!
1/27: Two Boots Park Slope (Brooklyn)
1/29: The Jewish Museum (NYC)
1/30: Wait Wait...Don't Tell Me Presents: Comedy Grab Bag at the Bell House (Brooklyn)
2/4: Wait Wait...Don't Tell Me! Live Recording (Chicago)
2/7: Opening for The Grownup Noise at Deep Cuts (Medford, MA)
2/13: Love Letters Reading at The Monroe (NYC)
2/19: Gorge Night at Club Cumming (NYC)
2/26: Wait Wait...Don't Tell Me! Live Recording (Bloomington, IN)
2/27: Comedians Earnestly Singing Musical Theater at Joe's Pub (Manhattan)
2/28: Fundraiser (Hyde Park, NY)
4/10-4/11: Commonwealth Comedy Club (Cincinnati-ish)
5/29-5/30: Blue Ridge Comedy Club (Bristol, TN)