By Josh Gondelman — 22 Jun 2026

#189. Algae and You

Hi everyone,

I just got back from a quick and excellent trip to Massachusetts to celebrate Father's Day with my parents and sister (and aunt)! Maris came along, and she was a hero on the drives up and back holding Maggie on her lap in a little dog bed for both of their comfort. Magoo (you know who I mean) charmed her grandparents (my parents) who are not super devoted dog people. Huge news for us! We went out for a fancy dinner on Saturday night, sans Maggie, and the waiter had such a thick accent that Maris was sure he was offering us a magical dish called: "Steak Tada!" So there were little victories all over, is what I'm saying.

Last week was full-on chaos. Our apartment, which flooded eight days ago, needs to be torn apart for repairs, which necessitates our packing up all of our belongings and putting them...somewhere until it's all fixed. Instead, we will probably pack them up as we were instructed, and then go live somewhere else entirely. If anyone knows of a nice place in Brooklyn where we can live, I'm all ears! GAH!

I also lost a friend last week. I don't have a lot of details, but John Rosenberger was one of the kindest and most supportive people I've ever met. His warmth and generosity within the New York comedy scene were legendary, and his death has shaken up a lot of people who loved him. I always loved seeing John on or offstage. We'd talk about music or comedy or dogs. He really gave a shit about people, and he meant so much to so many. Fuck.

While I was recording an episode of my great friend the photographer Mindy Tucker's podcast last week, we both got pretty emotional talking about friends who aren't with us anymore and the importance of keeping their memories alive. So often, when a member of the NYC comedy community dies, people share Mindy's portraits of them along with tributes, and I think that is a really beautiful way for someone to contribute to another person's legacy.

These people are all still alive. Missing from the picture: Sarah Sherman and Sureni (also still alive)! Photo Credit: Sachyn Mital

In good news news, I got to do spots on Padma Lakshmi's fundraiser shows at the Bell House again. Thanks to Padma and Jesse David Fox for having me along. The audiences were wonderful. The backstage hang was great. There were lots of friends and lots of pizza. It rules that Padma does these shows every year to benefit abortion funds. I feel very fortunate to get to participate! I should not wear the same color scheme as Brett Goldstein while standing next to him because I look like his rapidly-aging Dorian Gray portrait. Whoops!

I missed out on late night pasta at Padma's apartment after the shows because I rushed home to put in some some work on a little writing that Alison Leiby and I were doing for a big Get Out The Vote event at Kings Theater. Ilana Glazer was hosting the event to help boost turnout for a Democratic Socialists of America-endorsed slate of candidates (including Brad Lander who is running to represent my district in Congress as well as Claire Valdez and Darializa Avila Chevalier). Leiby and I got to say hi to Brad, and after the event we bothered special guest performer Sara Bareilles to tell her how much we loved Girls5eva (one of the best sitcoms of this decade)!!!

We felt in the way literally everywhere we stood or sat. But because we were in the thick of things, we were able to flag down Mayor Mamdani, one of the event's keynote speakers, to say hi. I have met the mayor a few times in the past, and I introduced him to Alison, which was a fun thing to get to do! We did not get to say hello to Senator Bernie Sanders, the other keynote speaker. I imagine he conserves his social energy for strategic shouting purposes.

Ilana was a really excellent host. She's so righteous and warm, and her talent and heart came though so vividly. All the politicians spoke with great skill and enthusiasm about their hopes for a better, fairer city and world. It is really exciting to feel energized by a slate of politicians, even if I'm not able to vote for all of them for geographical reasons.

It's been weird over here lately, with some lovely moments interwoven with deep sadness and heavy stress. But I guess that's what life is! I'm happy to be alive, but also a little frazzled. Okay, a lot frazzled.

This week you can see me at Union Hall on Thursday for the last John/Jean/Josh show of our little run. Plus I'm at Greenpoint Comedy Club on Friday. And the rest of the week I'll be touring various dog-friendly two bedroom apartments throughout Brooklyn. Big week!

PEP TALK FOR ALGAE

Algae, I know you're just trying to live. You've got to bloom where the blooming is good, and right now, the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool in our nation's capital is the hot spot (literally and figuratively) for single-celled aquatic life. Thanks to a new set of paint and a refilled basin, the pool's business is blooming and blooming is booming. You saw a lane and went for it. You are thriving.

You (readers) all know the story already, but I'm going to record it here for posterity in case anyone reads this newsletter out of context sometime in the future (maybe someone will be choosing an edition of That's Marvelous to appear in an anthology of Great Email Newsletters, or more likely will be looking for clues about my eventual nervous breakdown when the entire entertainment industry is reduced to dating shows, web series where one person on the street interviews another person they're pretending they don't already know, and podcasts that are broadcast to Netflix while they are still being recorded, no editing needed).

Donald Trump wanted the water in the Reflecting Pool (designed for...you know...reflection) to appear a bluer shade. So he gave a no-bid contract to some loser who probably once told him that he golfs like a young George S. Patton. Through a series of scientific inevitabilities, the water has become so full of monocellular life that Republicans would arrest and execute it for crossing state lines to see a doctor. The whole situation is green and slimy and gross because the people who created it are (on all sides) some of the dumbest, laziest losers that ever figured out how to walk upright.

Is it a little funny that a political administration whose early slogan was "Drain the swamp!" has created an actual swamp in Washington DC? No. It's a lot funny.

Is it kind of amusing that the guy hired to do the job was the owner of a company named Green Water Services? No. It's breathtaking.

And I'll spare you a third rhetorical question: It is downright spectacular that the owner of Green Water Services looks like a mortician who tests whether a body is really dead by sucking on its toes and seeing if it squirms.

It is uncomfortable to watch the president and a crowd of chumps who have drawn butter instead of brain fluid desecrate some of the the least racist and imperialist icons of American history. But it is a valuable lesson! While the left is often accused of turning into a circular firing squad at crucial moments, the right is a daisy chain of murder-suicide pacts. The people in charge are all greedy, cruel, and stupid in varying combinations, and any one of them would happily chop off another's head and use it as a sex toy as soon as they turn their back.

Trump made a dumb choice, and the people in charge of carrying it out did a sloppy, bullshit job, and now everything is worse than before, and the national guard is "protecting" the pool from "vandals" when the real vandals were the people who were ordered to do this and biffed the job so hard it became national news.

One would think that a Trump donor would want to do right by Trump. But no. He didn't care enough. He took the money and ran. There are not enough bus routes in DC for all the throwing-each-other-under-one these avaricious cowards want to do. It would be more efficient for one of the most enterprising ghouls to simply get behind the wheel of a bus and drive it over his rivals in cupidity, but to a one they all lack the work ethic of an average (or below-average, honestly) bus driver, so that's out of the question.

It is not inevitable that good and progress triumph over evil. But in moments like this it can be heartening to remember that our opponents are not invulnerable warriors of pure hate. They are crawling all over each other to devour as much of what's in front of them as they can, like ants swarming a toppled-over ice cream cone. We will not win because we are good, but we can win because we are better than they are.

Yes, I know that everyone has been writing about this for the past week. But my home was recently filled with disgusting water, so it is relevant to my culture!

PEP TALK FOR A READER

I didn't edit this pep talk request, but I did add a nickname.

My much loved ten-year-old dog died of cancer earlier this month and I am pretty fucked up about it! I could use a pep talk.
- A New Grief

I am so sorry to hear about your loss. You are well within your rights to feel – in your words – pretty fucked up about the death of a beloved dog! I hope you have lots of love and care around you. When our dog Bizzy passed away a year and a half ago, people in our lives showed up in force. There were more flowers in our apartment that week than there have been cumulatively for the rest of the nine years we've lived here. I do not say this to brag, but to illustrate the possibility of community care in the midst of this kind of sadness. People are, in my experience, ready and willing to step up in these moments.

After Bizzy died, Maris and I didn't know when we were ready to get a new pet. We didn't want to feel like we were trying to "replace" Little Business before we were prepared. But six months later, we realized there was a dog-shaped hole in our lives and a dog-shaped divot on our couch that both needed filling in. Bringing Maggie the Pug into our household didn't replace Bizzy. Our new goblin (affectionate) added love and companionship to our home side by side with the emotional space Bizzy's loss occupies (and directly on top of the physical space she used to occupy).

This isn't especially funny, but it is true! Your heart (figurative) and brain (literal) are elastic and bigger than you think. Joy and pain can keep taking turns (and will occasionally arrive in tandem) in ways you didn't expect. I've been thinking lately about how the more love you have in your life the more loss you will inevitably feel unless an unexpected tragedy befalls you and then everyone around you has to feel that loss. But the pain of loss is orders of magnitude better than the pain of loneliness. And the loneliness you feel now is a problem that you can solve in time. And the heaviness of memory will make you strong enough to carry it the longer you walk around with it.

Until then, the people close to you will help you heft that burden. This all sounds a little hack, but life is hack sometimes, and leaning into the comfort of inherited wisdom is better than inventing new misery to deal with. I hope the feeling of feeling your feelings doesn't feel to bad for too long. You can do this.

PICK-ME-UP SONG OF THE WEEK:
James Taylor - "Your Smiling Face"

I think this song got lodged in my head after hearing a snipped of the breakdown on a Girl Talk album over Mother's Day when Maris and I were driving home from New Jersey. On Saturday while I was on my way to pick up the rental car to go to Boston, it occurred to me that I could listen to it in its entirety anytime I wanted, so I did.

I love the way he's like: "Isn't it amazing a man like ME (famous degenerate James Taylor) can feel this way (in love)!" Come on, dude. I knew you had it in you! We all did! Also: "I thought I was in love a couple of times before with the girl next door/But that was long before I met you/Now I'm sure that I won't forget you." What an incredible thing to tell your lover: "I'm sure that I won't forget you." That's for sure the goal. You shouldn't have to say it!!! Who is worried that their lover will FORGET them!??1

"Your Smiling Face" also sounds like the theme song from a charming but ultimately forgettable sitcom. I mean that as a compliment even though it sounds very much like an insult. Shout out to Massachusetts legend James Taylor.

Emmy Blotnick, another Massachusetts legend, just put her new standup special on YouTube and that rules too!