#181. Writers and You

Hi everyone,

This is a long one! You're welcome or I'm sorry! It has been a real Week Of Events over here, so I had a lot to say! Even my more relaxed nights carried that electric charge of springtime and Doing Things. Last night, I got to see Paul F. Tompkins's Varietopia show at the Bell House with our friends Ashtyn and Tim and Annamaria who had never been before. It was, as usual, a joyful and energizing way to spend an hour and a half. (And a huge thanks to friend of the newsletter/Varietopia musical director Jordan Katz for securing us seats in a heavy-standing-room venue.)

On Saturday night, I did my first set at the brand new Greenpoint Comedy Club in Brooklyn. Jeremy Pinsley (a confirmed funny and good dude) and his wife Kayla have been working nonstop to get this room into ship shape for the grand opening this month, and it's just great. They've been sold out every night. The crowds are sharp and attentive. The green room is cozy. And, not to brag, the lineups are very strong. It rules to show up at a comedy club and see only people you like and respect. Check it out if you live nearby!!!

Friday night I hosted Wait Wait...Don't Tell Me! Presents: Comedy Grab Bag at the Bell House, which is always so much fun. I love presenting a variety show that bounces between audience trivia, standup comedy, and funny PowerPoint presentations. And I'm so grateful to Jennifer Mills and the Wait Wait team for trusting me to keep the shows on track. I'm also grateful to Mills and her her husband Jon for procuring me this literally perfect garment for $3 at a thrift store in Massachusetts. A new prized possession.

The night before (Thursday, if you're following along) I had been in Chicago recording an episode of WWDTM for the radio. Tom Papa, who is so funny, guest hosted last weekend's episode, and without Peter Sagal's guidance, the show sometimes gets a little loopier in a way that's a fun change of pace. I was on a panel with the hilarious Shantira Jackson and first time panelist/Massachusetts legend Katie Nolan, and we had a LOT of fun goofing around together. The guest was Jesuit priest Father James Martin, who has done a lot of work to try and make the church more inclusive to LGBTQ folks, which I think is nice.

It was also (probably) my last recording with Bill Kurtis before he retires at the end of next month. I did not get too mushy because I think I'll see him at his retirement party, where I can be effusive among other people doing the same thing. Overall, it was an excellent trip. The weather was beautiful, and the travel was easy. All of that takes the sting out of how hard I biffed the lightning round on the show. (Tangentially, if you have not gotten enough of me doing topical jokes this week, I was back on Alice Fraser's podcast The Gargle. Alice and I had very similar takes on the humanoid robot half marathon winner.)

Even with all this other great stuff going on, the theme of my week was salt-n-pepa unison BOOKS! Yesterday afternoon I had the pleasure of interviewing my friend and former boss J.D. Amato and illustrator Sophie Morse about their new middle grade novel The Endless Game. The book itself is so sweet and fun. There's also a sense of real melancholy that kids sometimes feel, but it's ultimately overcome by a wonderful story about adventure and friendship and figuring out who you are. Lots of comedy people came out to support J.D., and their kids' questions and comments made the event extra special!

Last Monday night, mere hours after the previous installment of this newsletter went out, I emceed the Authors Guild Foundation's big fundraising gala for the year. The event raised $885,000 or so for the cause, and it was an honor to be a small part of the Foundation's work fighting AI theft and book bans. I was legitimately starstruck to meet the evening's honorees, Percival Everett, Amy Tan, and former Librarian of Congress Dr. Carla Hayden. And it was so fun to see Cord Jefferson (who was presenting Percival Everett's award) and meet the other presenters, Christian Cooper and Marie Arana.

Thanks to Steph Opitz for bringing me in for this gig. Thanks to designer Jack Sivan for loaning me this jacket, which everyone assured me I was pulling off (because I asked them to assure me), and thanks to friend and neighbor (and amazing actress) Rosaline Elbay for connecting me with Jack. Thanks to Maris for being the best and most beautiful date!

(Also, I've been posting a little more standup online lately. Here's a little riff about a band name that I hate to say out loud. In the next week, I've got two fun shows at Union Hall. I'm co-hosting a late show this Friday with my friend Hari Kondabolu in conjunction with the pro-democracy collective Fall of Freedom. And then on Monday I'm co-hosting Frankenstein's Baby with Leiby.)

PEP TALK FOR WRITERS

Alexander Chee, a great writer and a pal, suggested that I publish my opening remarks from the Authors Guild Foundation Gala somewhere, and I thought...why not here! I've included them below, lightly edited and annotated.

[T]hank you all for having me here tonight. Please allow me to be the second person this evening to warmly welcome you to the 2026 Authors Guild Foundation Gala, as well as the first person tonight to also wish you an extremely dank 4/20. I am not personally high because none of you want to sit through a five hour ceremony during which I stop after every award presentation to ask if you’re all mad at me, and whether I'm pulling off this jacket.

And, before I forget, I want to say a quick thank you to Cipriani for hosting tonight’s event. Apparently some availability opened up now that former mayor Eric Adams has become a citizen of Albania.

My name is Josh Gondelman. If my voice is familiar to you, you may have heard me as a regular panelist on NPR’s news quiz show Wait Wait…Don’t Tell Me! If my face is familiar to you, it might just be that you’ve met a Jewish guy before.

It is an honor and a pleasure for me to get to host tonight’s event. The work that the people in this room, from authors to editors to Foundation staff to donors is deeply meaningful. 

As you can tell by my glasses and general demeanor, I love books. My childhood enthusiasm for Sideways Stories from Wayside School and Goosebumps helped expand my imagination. Under the instruction of my high school English teacher Patricia Norelli, I read the work of Toni Morrison and William Faulkner which exploded my understanding of both literary convention and American history. Books remain central to my adult life. 

I am an author myself, although kind of in the way that the dog from Frasier was a television star. Technically, but not in a way that Kelsey Grammer respects. Sincerely, though, literature plays such an important role in my life. Many writers in this room have added depth and breadth to the way I see the world. And a copy of Dianetics keeps my laptop at eye level for Zoom meetings when I work from home.

In those ways and so many more, literature carries so much power. It can expose people to new ideas and philosophies that shape the way they see the world. It can help people feel less alone in a world that is often hostile and outright cruel. And, increasingly, it can make people horny for fairies and minotaurs.

Great books increase one’s radius of empathy, bringing the humanity of others close enough to embrace. But even, and possibly especially, terrible books are so important for squishing really big bugs.

As you all know, the very concept of literature is currently under siege. Across the country, books are being banned in public venues. Educators are being prohibited from teaching certain texts. Librarians are being told what they can and cannot offer to their communities. It’s an upsetting state of affairs. Librarians should not be silenced. [Huge applause for the point here that kind of buried my silly joke afterwards.] It is literally their job to do the silencing! 

It can feel truly demoralizing. These books are being banned for accurately describing racism past and present, or merely suggesting that queer people exist in the world. Some books are forbidden for depicting magic. And I think we can all agree, showcasing witchcraft in a work of fiction is the wrong reason to hate J.K. Rowling. [Definitely the joke that landed the best.]

The Authors Guild Foundation alongside other amazing groups such as Authors Against Book Bans, fights these unjust and arguably unconstitutional rules. The Foundation, the Guild, and everyone in this room believes passionately in the necessity of free expression for writers, and how important it is for readers to have access to diverse perspectives.

The Authors Guild Foundation also vociferously advocates for writers who have had their work stolen by generative AI models. Today’s tech companies are some of the wealthiest entities in human history, and they are built on a foundation of plagiarism. They are immoral and environmentally catastrophic, and they don’t even do a good job. Google’s AI summary once told me that I was married to singer/songwriter Fiona Apple. I was shocked. And I don’t think Ms. Apple would be too pleased to learn this news either. And I’m sure you’re wondering: Why was I googling myself? That’s not the point! The point is that generative artificial intelligence cannot and will not replace human authorship.

A large language model does not have a point of view. It is not capable of making the kind of person-to-person connection that is present in real art. At best, it’s a facsimile of a perspective, a thoughtless recombination of existing phrases, a narrative without ideas. It will never open a reader’s eyes to new worlds or inspire a personal awakening. Just because Chat GPT could conceivably incite an assassination attempt on a political figure doesn’t make it The Catcher in the Rye. [Okay they did NOT like this joke, but I kind of knew it would not be a crowd pleaser. My friend Isaac Fitzgerald did laugh really loudly though so that's a victory for me.]

Everyone here tonight is fighting — or, even better, financing — a series of crucial and interrelated battles. The struggle for free expression. The struggle of artists and other working people against the oppressive forces of capital. The line for the bar.

But we are also here to celebrate. Tonight we celebrate artistic achievement as well as activism and service to the writers and the craft of writing itself. 

Tonight, we will honor three truly colossal figures of modern literature: Amy Tan, Percival Everett, and Doctor Carla Hayden. I will leave the accounting of this evening’s honorees’ accolades, accomplishments, and notable works to our extraordinary group of presenters, all of whom are luminaries themselves.

Before I relinquish the stage, I would like to thank our honorees and presenters — and our attendees — your relentless work to create a more human and more just world through your art and your action. It is an immense privilege for me to share this evening with you. 

And in closing, I just want to say: Are you mad at me? And am I pulling off this jacket? [Someone after the event came up to me and said: "Hey! You didn't suck!" And I was like...that's not what I asked, actually.]

I won't promise not to be an AI hater next week in my heart, but I do promise that barring unforeseen news, that energy will take a less prominent place in the newsletter. I've been on kind of a tear.

PEP TALK FOR SEVERAL READERS

I am going to be brief here because several people requested a pep talk for New England sports fans, specifically Red Sox fans. One or two people made requests on behalf of recently-fired Red Sox manager Alex Cora. While I do wish Alex Cora the best despite his involvement in the Astros cheating scandal (though I am on the record saying that you should be able to cheat at baseball), it seems a little niche to devote a number of non-sports column inches to the fate of a sub-mediocre MLB team 1/8 of the way through the season.

I will say that the owner of a sports team being mercurial or stingy is probably the least impactful way someone with that much money is making our lives worse. But it is a useful analog for broader conditions. You'd think that if you were going to lay out the cash or take on the debt to own a professional sports franchise, you'd go all the way and spend a few more (tens of millions of) dollars to help the team achieve its goal of winning. And yet! So many stewards of professional sports organizations pull up short.

We ("we" lol) get mad at the Dodgers and Clippers for using their vast wealth to outpace their peers (in some cases by getting involved with fraudulent tree-planting charities, sure). But in reality we should be so much madder at the team owners who refuse to do that. Not because it's important for any sports franchise to be competitive, but because it's helpful to see that hoarding money is even more important to the super rich than doing the thing their companies ostensibly exist to do.

If you own a baseball team, you'd think that the best way for that sports team to accrue value is by fulfilling its mission of winning games and ideally championships. No, idiot. The way a franchise maintains or increases its value is by minimizing expenses while maximizing brand awareness. Just look at Tom Dundon, the new owner of the Portland Trailblazers, who is cutting costs by refusing to pay for late checkout for some team staff. If a zillionaire can't be trusted to invest maximally in the stated goals of their own company, why would we trust them to deliver a positive customer experience in any arenas (whether those endeavors involve literal arenas or not)?! And how could we possibly expect them to use their unimaginable wealth to solve large scale societal problems?

I guess I talked a little bit about the Red Sox in an oblique, accidental way. But what do you expect from someone who has a saved Dunkin' order in his app settings for at least one a city he doesn't live in. Go Sox!

PICK-ME-UP SONG OF THE WEEK:
Nickelus F - "O'Doyle Rules"

Nickelus F's new album The Undisputed is another recommendation I picked up from the Hearing Things newsletter, which I continue to recommend! The rapping plays right into my inclination towards desus & mero voices "hip hop, hip hop, real hip hop," and I also love how this song is named after (and samples) a running gag from 1995 Adam Sandler comedy Billy Madison.

Every once in a while, a pop star or A-List actor will be photographed carrying around a book written by someone I know, and it's always very thrilling. I know every book was written by someone, and that person has a constellation of friends and acquaintances, but the proximity to me isn't what's striking. It's that even famous people are–for the most part–limited to consuming the same media as the rest of us. They can vacation at fancier resorts. They can drive more expensive cars. But there aren't like...secret books and movies and songs for them to enjoy.

I feel a similar positive pang (a yay-ng?) of recognition when a rapper interpolates or references a very stupid comedy into one of their songs. Kanye West, in a less fraught period, would do this often. It was fun to consider that such a serious, monomaniacal artist probably also quoted Anchorman with his friends. It's especially fun when the comedy is weirder or less "cool" even if it is popular. (I am always mildly surprised to find out when a professional athlete or high level coach expresses a love of Tim Robinson's work.)

Maybe this is nothing, and it's silly of me to assume that serious, big time stars mostly enjoy the work of other serious, big time stars (Tom Cruise must be a fan of U2, in my head) or refined artists in their own field. Either way, "O'Doyle Rules" rules.

Also! Noah Kahan's new album is out, and it's a little melancholy for this section of the newsletter, but I've got to shout it out because Marcos Valles, who was three years ahead of me in high school and whose car I rode in as part of a group drama club outing to see Center Stage if I remember correctly, plays drums in the Noah Kahan's band. That is really cool to me!!! I haven't listened to the whole album yet, but the song "Dashboard" is a real earworm, and it reminds me vaguely of a sincere version of the other famous New England anthem about someone being an asshole (Denis Leary's "Asshole").

UPCOMING SHOWS

My 2026 road schedule is shaping up, plus I've got lots of stuff in New York too! I'd love to see you at a show!

4/30: The Comedy Cellar (NYC)

5/1: Fall of Freedom w/ Hari Kondabolu at Union Hall (Brooklyn)

5/4: Co-hosting Frankenstein's Baby at Union Hall (Brooklyn)

5/5: Wild Card at Alphaville (Brooklyn)

5/8: Greenpoint Comedy Club (Brooklyn)

5/27: Josh Gondelman, Jean Grae, and John Hodgman in Alphabetical Order at Union Hall (Brooklyn)

5/29-5/30: Blue Ridge Comedy Club (Bristol, TN)

6/3: Fundraiser Gig (Burlington, VT)

6/11: Wait Wait...Don't Tell Me! Live Recording (Chicago)

7/23: Wait Wait...Don't Tell Me! Live Recording (Chicago)

10/21: Dallas, TX (DETAILS COMING SOON)

10/22: Houston, TX (DETAILS COMING SOON)