By Josh Gondelman — 02 Mar 2026

#173. Shorts and You

Whose crotch is this? I'll never tell.

Hi everyone,

On Saturday in New York City the temperature peaked right around fifty degrees and people could not wait to peel off their jackets and take long walks and even have brunch outdoors. The local mood was, despite the United States government plunging enthusiastically and horrifically into a new war, pretty decent. I drank two NA beers with my friend Robert while he had an hour between a movie and a party, and then Maris and I caught up on Paradise. The second season started with several bangs as Hulu released the first three episodes all at once. Paradise is the antidote to semi-prestige shows where nothing seems to happen. It is a semi-prestige show where EVERYTHING happens. I love it. I would watch 100 episodes a year. I also enjoyed the pilot for the new Tracy Morgan/Daniel Radcliffe show on NBC. And Jackie Kashian and Chris Fleming both put out new standup specials! As Alison wrote last week, fun tv is back (baby)!!!

Me, Faith, and Alonzo at the panelist table. Robert Newhaus is in the back at the producer table. — Several great faces from radio!

Last Thursday I made a quick trip to Bloomington, Indiana for the most recent Wait Wait...Don't Tell Me! live recording. I had a great time on the panel with Alonzo Bodden and Faith Salie; the three of us even drove the hour from the Indianapolis airport together. Thanks to Alonzo for driving! It's always a blast to record with Peter Sagal and Bill Kurtis and the whole Wait Wait team, obviously!

For our recording on the IU campus, the celebrity guest was Lilly King, an alum of the university, and a MANY-time Olympic medalist. Lilly was SO funny and cool onstage and off. She brought one of her gold medals to the venue, and she let everyone from the show's staff wear it if they wanted. No judgement to anyone who did, but my New England Puritan Mentality (not a brag) did not allow me to put the medal around my neck because I had not earned it and it felt improper somehow. I did hold the medal, and it was both heavier and shinier than I expected. I probably did not have to hold it to know how shiny it was. But it was cool to have in my hands, which is fine according to the arcane rules I have made for myself for some reason.

Me and Lilly King. I am wearing the sweater that Maris bought me for my birthday, a brown striped cardigan, and I'm holding Lilly King's gold medal (one of them). Lilly is next to me wearing a very stylish pink blazer. — See? Shiny, right?

The whole situation reminded me of how twenty (yikes!) years ago, a few college friends and I were visiting New York and staying at our friend Molly's dad's apartment. Molly's dad had won two Emmys for his work on the early morning show on CBS, and the other friends I traveled with were posing for (respectful!) photos with the statues. I (derangedly) did not. I closed the loop when the staff of Last Week Tonight won the first of their infinity Emmys in 2016, and I got to hold one of my own. BUT NOW THE LOOP OPENS AGAIN AND I HAVE TO WIN AN OLYMPIC MEDAL I GUESS? Okay that is clearly not going to happen. But is my general mindset reasonable or ridiculous? Feel free to diagnose me in the comments, everyone!

I got home from Indiana in time to shower and scoot into Manhattan for the Comedians Earnestly Singing Musical Theater show at Joe's Pub. The evening of song and (some) dance is in its fifth year, and I'm so grateful that my buddy Reid Pope (of Going Down with Ella Yurman fame) and Zach Schiffman invited me to be a part of it. I sang "Sit Down You're Rocking the Boat" from Guys & Dolls, which is a perfect song for a guy who can almost sing. I gave it my all and did not offer any disclaimers because of the show's firm "No Bits!" rule.

The audience was so warm and receptive, and I was really blown away by the talent of my friends and colleagues. I had to follow Edy Modica who absolutely crushed "Dance 10, Looks 3" from A Chorus Line. Michael Cruz Kayne truly brought down the house with his rendition of "I'm Not Afraid of Anything" from Songs For a New World, which I wasn't familiar with but will now look up. The show ended with a medley of songs from Legally Blonde which I ALSO was unfamiliar with, but it was so much fun, and I was kind of stunned by how well coordinated it was given that it was being performed a single time on a show that is mostly kind of a lark. It was such a fun night out! I love community and sincerity! (I have some pictures, but I'm waiting to post any until I get the professional ones taken by the great Arin Sang-urai.)

Tonight I'll be co-hosting Frankenstein's Baby at Union Hall in Brooklyn with Leiby! It's another killer lineup. Come by if you're around!

In other delightful news, the great Alice Fraser revived her podcast The Gargle, and I returned to it immediately! If you notice a joke or two that also appeared on Wait Wait... don't worry about it. How was either show supposed to resist the siren call of scientists inventing a "smart" pair of underwear that measures farts.

LOS ANGELES: I had my dates twisted up, but now that tickets are on sale I can announce ("announce" lol) that I will be headlining one show at Dynasty Typewriter at 10pm on Friday March 20th!

Oh! If you're a parent of little kids in need of some screen time (no judgement!), here's the new Ms. Rachel video about friendship that I mentioned recently!

PEP TALK FOR SHORTS

Same picture from above. — Nothing says "mandatory office barbecue" like khaki shorts!

I KNOW THE SNOW IS MELTING, BUT IT'S NOT YOUR TIME YET SHORTS! MAYBE SOON! BUT NOT NOW! STAY READY, SHORTS! WITHIN WEEKS WE'LL GET OUR FIRST DAY OF PSEUDO SPRING, AND YOU WILL BE RUMMAGED FOR AT THE BOTTOM OF A DRAWER OR IN THE BACK OF A CLOSET ONLY TO BE JAMMED BACK IN WHEN THE TEMPERATURE DROPS PRECIPITOUSLY TWELVE HOURS LATER!

PEP TALK FOR A READER

Admittedly, I am a little behind on answering this one, but I'll do my best!

Angie (my 16yo) and I were JUST talking about our low moods. I'll spare you the details, so suffice it to say - it's very February.
- Feb-blah-uary

The obvious silver lining here is that it's now March. If you survived February – and I have no reason to believe you didn't – congratulations! You kicked those twenty-eight days of wind and slush in the ass. You outlasted the endurance challenge of our shortest month, a gauntlet that is either paused or TURBO-CHARGED by the holiday in the middle of it.

It doesn't make total sense to ascribe a bad mood to a time of year. Seasonal depression is real, but (and I don't mean to brag, don't mean to boast) I've had a pretty unpleasant August or two in my life as well. But the nice thing about blaming your doldrums on the calendar is that once you turn the page, you can tear it off and toss it in the trash. Month over, bad mood obsolete. Eat shit, the middle of winter. It's the end of winter's time now!

It doesn't work exactly like that, just as deciding to go to the gym regularly starting on January 1st doesn't bestow the resolution with any binding power. But there's definitely something to choosing a line of demarcation and then DEMARCATING the hell out of it. And the nice thing about months is that they start coming and they don't stop coming. (Smash Mouth said that about years, but it's actually twelve times truer about months, if you think about it.) You can start over any time you'd like, and a month is a handy enough chunk of time to grab onto.

It's also maybe helpful to consider that things can turn around at any time. The beginning of a year or a month, totally. But also The 12th or 23rd. Every day is a new start, fresh with possibility. But don't count out the fact that things can turn around at lunchtime or over dinner or in the middle of the night. The dog days of winter (is that an expression?) are melting away. Don't be alarmed if the dogs themselves (negative in this case...this idea must come from a cat person) stick around. But remember that they can leave at any moment.

Things can get worse at any time, too. But that's not the point. The point is you don't have to wait for the solstice or the end of the school year or the Angels to win the penant for things to improve. You can improve them whenever you want.

PICK-ME-UP SONG OF THE WEEK:
RJD2 and Supastition - "Carte Blanche"

As I have well established over two and a half years of That's Marvelous, I am a sucker for songs that sound like this. RJD2 is a longstanding favorite of mine. And this song hits my personal sweet spot of what I refer to in my head as "wicked loud drums." Supastition's flow handles the heft of the beat admirably. I was charmed to hear him describe an absence from recording music: "Supa never quit, I was just using up my PTO."

I don't consider myself overly nostalgic, but I do miss what my former bosses Desus and Mero would tounge-in-cheekly call "hip hop hip hop real hip hop" and I am always happy to stumble across it in the wild.