By Josh Gondelman — 14 Sep 2026

#201. Some Apologies and You

Hi everyone,

Welcome to (at least where I live) the first week of "putting on a long sleeve shirt to walk the dog at night" weather. Night sleeves are the precursor to "time to really start dressing" season, and my arms are itching to throw on a cardigan for the first time in months. Not as itchy as they'll be once I start wearing wool sweaters again, but the spiritual itch is real.

I had what one might call a pretty nice week. Monday's Frankenstein's Baby show ruled. I'm so glad Joyelle is back in town, and we got really silly hosting together. Ali Barthwell's NYC book launch was so much fun too, but I don't have any pictures from that, sadly!

Sean Patton, Joyelle Nicole Johnson, Sarah Hennessey, Holmes, me, Leiby, Donwill, Esther Fallick, Jordan Ashleigh, and Tyrone Thornhill in front of the red curtain at Union Hall. — Look at this crew minus Ontonio Kareem who had to leave early! (Photo by Sam Cashell)

Maris and I alternated days getting our flu shots and copping the fresh covid booster drop while we were at it. We also took turns being a little zonked out and covering for each other's usual dog walk time slots. Fortunately, we recently had blackout curtains installed in our bedroom so we've benefitted from an excellent environment for sleeping. Plus we had the new and very good so far season/series of Taskmaster to fill one evening, and while we've been in the midst of a slow-rolling 30 Rock rewatch, we also just caught up on Season 2 of Adults on FX.

I think I came down with spontaneous-onset arthritis while watching an episode about how the 25-year-old characters have started "feeling old", but other than that, I'm really delighted with the way Adults explores specific interpersonal and psychological dynamics through actual hard comedy and not just poignant vignettes. Paul Baker has a separate friend group of slovenly dudes that he's embarrassed to bring around his more sophisticated roommates. Anton regresses to his childhood self around his family. Billie desperately wants to be a mentor to someone despite not having her own shit together. The individual episodes could be just a touch tighter, but the jokes really hit, and I hope the show gets a long life to continue establishing its groove.

We're in a totally different entertainment landscape than we were when The Office and Parks & Rec premiered, but both of those shows jumped from six-episode first seasons up into the 20s of episodes for Season 2. I get why some intricately-plotted, high concept, high budget shows take extra time to make fewer episodes. But a sitcome that really captures the long-coveted energy of a Gen Z Friends (but single camera) would benefit from more opportunities for side quests and unexpected combinations of characters.

And, MORE importantly for most of us, the viewers would benefit from having more episodes to enjoy! I'm also trying to decide whether it means anything other than "we live in the future now" that a sitcom with such a classic setup and structure also features characters dropping acid onscreen and candidly discussing plans to have anal sex. It's definitely an upgrade from the rare 30 Rock misstep of the Jennifer Aniston "Crazy Putty" episode where "putty" pretty clearly meant "pussy" right? Honestly, I would way rather a show be a little more frank about adult themes than employ only squeaky clean language while implying someday I will murder my awful wife and children. I love a pure heart and a foul mouth!

We are having a lot of fun watching this show which is not true about many new shows these days!!! So there you have it! We also started watching Dang on Netflix and liked the first episode very much! Oh and yesterday afternoon I finished reading my friend Jo Firestone's new novel (the second Luella van Horn mystery) Sex On Murder Island which was extremely silly and fun and also an exciting mystery!

In personal professional news, my run of tour dates this fall/winter starts on SATURDAY back home in MASSACHUSETTS! I'm doing three shows at The Comedy Studio with the middle one already sold out. Thanks to Nick Zaino for featuring my shows in the Boston Globe! Then it's off to Omaha for a Wait Wait taping. Next is my debut weekend at The Comedy Fort in Fort Collins, CO after that, and then I'm really off and running. (Also next Sunday afternoon I'm doing a little reading back in New York at Ginny Hogan and Carlos Greaves's new book of political satire.)

I wanted to get some new merch made up for his tour, and my friend the amazing comics writer/cartoonist Mattie Lubchansky crushed the design of this new sticker. Buy and read Mattie's books, and come pick up some Basketball of All Genders merch on the road. The other day I saw a guy wearing a pair of Warriors shorts with a Valkyries hoodie, and I wanted to just give him a sticker on the street.

Sticker featuring four hands belonging to people of various genders holding a basketball with the slogan "BASKETBALL OF ALL GENDERS" plus my website and a union bug for Radix Co-Op. — Sick, right?

For reference: The stickers are based on this joke from my new hour which I already spoiled a little by telling it on tv. (I recorded my episode of Comics Unleashed before Byron Allen slid into Colbert's old time slot and bought BuzzFeed/HuffPo, fwiw.)

My episode of My Favorite Lyrics with Devon Walker dropped last week, and people have been really nice about it in the comments, which is always a relief. Devon is so funny and we had a blast joking around about some lyrics that have been rattling around in my head for decades. See what I mean? Pretty good week!

SOME APOLOGIES

Justin Bieber in black and white holding up a piece of paper that says: SORRY — Justin Bieber, our most famous apologist.

If you are not Jewish, you may have missed that Rosh Hashanah lasted from Friday at sundown until Sunday at sundown. Jewish holidays run on a DJ's schedule in that they don't really get going until the sun sets. Over a weekend, fewer Jewish classmates and colleagues have to quietly slip a way for a day or two of religious observation.

Rosh Hashanah marks the start of the new year on the lunar calendar on which the Jewish faith runs, although I do prefer to think of it as Jews saying: "You know what? I don't care that it's September. We need a reset NOW. Fuck it. It's next year."

In the ten days starting with Rosh Hashanah and ending with Yom Kippur, it's incumbent upon us (individual Jews) to make amends with anyone we've wronged in the previous year. I've got a spotty record of door-to-door apologies, but I like to try and show a little contrition in the newsletter. Here goes:

I apologize to my wife Maris for my latent slob tendencies. She is a very tidy person, and am like if Pizza the Hutt from Spaceballs was a pile of laundry. In my defense, I have been more timely about putting things away (and figuring out where "away" is for new things) than ever before. I even had the idea to get a trunk for the foot of the bed to store sheets and towels in, but I have admittedly been coasting off of that success for a solid month and a half.
I am sorry to my dog Maggie for occasionally cutting her off in the middle of kissing my face. I am enormously grateful for the affection but sometimes after 2-3 straight minutes of having my cheeks licked, I do have to get some work done or go to sleep. I hope to make it up to her with increased patience and compensatory belly rubs (me rubbing her belly, not the other way around) in the new year.
I'm sorry to my parents for not visiting more often! Even though I'm not sure that more frequent quality time would stop them from waiting up for me to return to their house from a show or a party like I am seventeen years old and trying to bring the car home before curfew.
I am sorry to anyone I insulted on the internet despite the fact that you for SURE deserved it. I have gotten much better at not being sucked into stupid who-gives-a-shit arguments online. My target number of those for the next year is zero. But sometimes people are so astonishingly dumb that it feels like no one has ever told them that before, and I am compelled to let them know that their reading comprehension makes me despair for the nation-wide state of education. And while I am, again, morally and factually correct, it rarely helps anything to remind someone they should be using their few active brain cells for remembering to breathe in and out instead of aggressively weighing in on a subject about which they know essentially nothing.
I'm sorry to anyone vulnerable I shied away from defending and to anyone I love who I was unable to care for in a time of need. I aspire to be more morally and personally resolute in the coming years.
I'm sorry to my friends who I always make come to my neighborhood to hang out, but I don't see that changing really, so how sorry can I actually be?
I apologize to myself for anytime I undermined my own best chances at success and fulfillment with procrastination or neglect. For staying out too late the night before an early flight. And for filling up on mediocre junk food when I should have at least splurged or foraged for delicious junk food.

Shana tova, everyone! Let's go out and get 'em this year!

(If you have any apologies you'd like to share, or if you think I owe you an apology, please let me know in the comments!)

PEP TALK FOR A READER

I did some light editing on this request and added a nickname!

I got in a bike crash this summer (funnily enough on the Golden Gate Bridge on July 4th) and split my lip open, and now I have a hard, puffy lump of scar tissue on my lip that feels like a marble. I need encouragement to embrace my lip topography.
- Scarface

Lip aside, I'm so glad that your human body recovered from the bike crash! It's always so scary when your physical vessel gets busted up Humpty Dumpty style and you have to see whether it's going to be put back together again. Side note: Not to victim-blame, but if I were an egg, I would not hang out alone on top of a great wall with no safety apparatus. Although it is nice that whatever kingdom H.D. lives in offers government-sponsored healthcare.

Even the specter of getting wrecked can feel so scary. My apartment building has weirdly spaced stairs in the lobby. They are a distance apart that a professional basketball player might be able to take each one in a single stride, but it's about 1.33 normal-sized-person steps to ascend or descend. On the way home from the beach one day last month, I was shuffling through the lobby in flip flops, which I hate wearing to begin with. One sandal performed its eponymous flop, catching on the stair ahead of me. I crumpled to the ground in slow motion (both in my perception and in real life I think), and as I fell, I catalogued a litany of injuries I feared sustaining on impact. Fortunately the only lingering malady sustained was the hit my pride took as my wife and a few neighbors watched me go down like a quarterback with an offensive line who actively despises him when faced with the obstacle of two stairs. Otherwise, I didn't take any lasting damage. Ironically I still have a little scrape on my foot from walking ten blocks in my rigid plastic slides.

My friend Kiva Reardon recently interviewed the actor Steve Way (from Furious and Ramy) about being a performer with a physical disability. One thing he said that stuck with me is that "the future is disabled" meaning that technology can be used to help disabled people live more independent lives, but also disability can happen to anyone at any time. It got me thinking a lot about how a human body changes over time, sometimes in temporary ways but often forever.

Being alive in 2026 requires such a strange balance of doing the work to keep your body as healthy as you can, while trying to avoid tipping into becoming one of those guys who monitors his son's sperm count for comparative purposes or the kind of person who gets so many cosmetic procedures that they no longer look young or old but rather under construction.

We are all made up of (mostly) meat held up by (mostly) bone girders. Time beats down on us every instant. Sometimes the floor or a kitchen implement or a car door or a teething child takes a shot at us too. Everything we eat changes what's inside of us a little bit (at least temporarily...sorry to be gross). You cannot keep your body perfectly preserved in one shape except through embalming or mummification, which I do NOT recommend if you're hoping to continue riding a bike or even driving a car. It's no good for mobility.

A visible lip scar provides a story if you want to tell it, or a sense of mystique if you don't. The novelty of feeling your body's new terrain will settle in too. There's only so many times you can think: "Whose mouth is this anyway????" before your brain preempts your befuddlement with: "Remember: This is what your face is like now." A scar is a reminder that you went through something hard and survived to tell the tale (or, as mentioned above, to keep the tale to yourself if you prefer). You may not be better than ever but you're still the youngest and spryest you'll ever be going forward. Which may not sound like much, but it's pretty good what sometimes happens after a great fall.

PICK-ME-UP SONG OF THE WEEK:
Lily Seabird - "Lightspheres on Their Way"

I'd never heard of Lily Seabird before reading friend-of-the-newsletter Marissa Lorusso's review of her new album for Pitchfork. The album isn't out yet, but I listened to all the available songs, and the title track/album closer hit me right between the eyes. It burns slowly and really catches fire halfway through, culminating in Seabird declaring "I'll be alright" as the music churns beneath her.

It sounds a little like if Laura Stevenson were fronting Okkervil River or if Ekko Astral and Josaleigh Pollett made the edges of "i90" a little less jagged. I've been ping ponging between gentle singer songwriter tunes and bouncy hip hop music over the past few newsletter installments which, frankly, is a very me thing to do. It's kind of a return to form after my brief but intense jazz phase (which could return any moment). I'm curious to see what I get into next. Noise rock? EDM? Probably just the next band to put out a song that sounds like they listened to Born to Run one million times while they were getting ready to record.