By Josh Gondelman — 21 Sep 2026

#202. Maximum Worry and You

Horrendous picture of a wonderful show!

Hi everyone,

I’ve had what many would call a Good Week. Took care of an errand that Maris and I had been putting off, which felt incredible. Saw my friend Isabel Hagen’s independent film On A String (which was wonderful) in a theater and then had a celebratory drink in the neighborhood. As we were getting ready to leave, an off-duty bartender — is that how we say that? — recognized me from a podcast and offered to buy me a shot. As I was about to gently decline, Isabel declared: “WE would love a shot!” And then we were doing shots. And then I went home to bed. It was Monday after all.

I also had a VERY fun set doing a bunch of new material at a show that I was forbidden from promoting on social media. The audience was very young and queer, and I felt good about how my very square energy connected with them!

Over the weekend, I scuttled up to Boston to visit my family (technically in Stoneham) and do some shows at The Comedy Studio (technically in Cambridge). The shows were sold out by the middle of last week which was an unusual (for me) and thrilling feeling. Three shows in one night (and part of the day) is a lot of yapping, but I didn’t want to push one to Sunday and try to sell tickets as Yom Kippur was starting. Oh right I hope anyone observing is having a contemplative Yom Kippur and an easy fast if that’s your thing. I got in just under the wire with an apology last night, telling my friend Julianna I was sorry I introduced her to someone as "Joanna" when I was just a bit tipsy a few months ago. I wrote more about the high holidays last week though, so that's all for now on that!

The shows in Cambridge were SO much fun. I'm immensely grateful for the way people come out to see me when I'm back home. Midway through the first show I felt a light pang of regret that I hadn't gotten a setup together to record the video. But by the end of the night I was so appreciative of the opportunity to get to rip through this hour(ish) three times in front of receptive crowds at the start of my run of shows all over the country. The audiences were kind and enthusiastic. People from all across the first 26 years of my life were present, along with many people I did not know personally, thank goodness. Family, childhood friends, college buddies, people I did improv with during my brief period of doing improv. Comedy Studio CEO Joe Birbiglia was an excellent (offstage) host and even brought some Mike's Pastry cannoli, one of which I took down in what must be record time. Amma Marfo was an outstanding (onstage) host, and Andrew Della Volpe and Dan Crohn killed their sets too. Plus we raised $65 for The Trevor Project through sticker sales! Perfect comedy night.

At the airport on the way home, I ran into one of the parents whose kids I used to teach fifteen or so years ago when I was still in a preschool classroom. Usually a contingent of families comes out to see me live when I'm back around Boston, but I think I slipped into town under their radar. "You're doing great, kid," she told me, not because I'm that much younger than she is, but because that's what everyone calls everyone else in Boston. It was such a nice coda to my trip.

Back in NYC, I told a few jokes at my friend Ginny Hogan and her co-author Carlos Greaves’s book launch and got to see lots of brilliant people read and talk about short humor. Then I stopped briefly home to change before scooting back into Manhattan where my friend Jeff Rosenstock had asked me to introduce his band with a brief comedy something.

Jeff is one of my favorite artists, and I was so excited for the opportunity to do a short bit on his gig at Pier 17, a venue I love. I was kind of nervous to come out cold at a punk show, get the audience on my side, and then get the heck off the stage before wearing out my welcome. But the crowd was extremely receptive (Jeff has great audiences as Gus reminded me backstage), and the band was super nice about my participation (they are all extremely nice in general)!

I've been a huge fan of Jeff (and Laura Stevenson who opened the show) for at least a decade, and they've always been so cool and kind to me. I'm really lucky that so many of my favorite artists have become pals and that sometimes I get to work with them and get to watch them do their thing up close. I missed Laura's tour for her most recent album last year because I had covid, so I was extra thrilled she played so many of the songs from Late Great last night. I've said this before but it's truly unreal how good her voice sounds live! And the songs are so beautiful and heartbreaking!

It was bananas to watch Death Rosenstock play three solid hours including the entire Worry album which is a true all-timer. The sprint through the last few songs on the record really broke me open, feelings-wise, as it always does. It was supposed to rain, but the weather held out until the very end of the show when a steady drizzle cooled us all down during the last couple of songs. I can't believe they played such titanic sets on back to back nights. The energy on the roof was amazing wire to wire, and the crowd was so joyful and inclusive. It was the perfect way to usher in the fall (secular) and the new year (Judaic).

In other fun news: Emma Allen at The New Yorker graciously published my new short humor piece “Your Parents’ Fall TV Preview” which felt unusually choppy while I was writing it. Normally after some turning things over in my head, this kind of writing flows pretty smoothly. But this time I kept getting hung up on little details and internal logic. Eventually I got it to what I think is a fun place where it points to the recognizable phenomenon of how parents talk about tv but isn’t cruel or smug. One presumably older guy on Instagram disagreed, and frankly…good for him for figuring out how to use Instagram (I say smugly).

I also popped back on Doug Loves Movies where I had a respectable but ultimately unsuccessful showing and Best Gabe Ever which was a lot of fun.

Tonight I'm co-hosting Frankenstein's Baby at Union Hall with Alison!

My next road dates are 10/2 and 10/3 at The Comedy Fort in Fort Collins, CO! I'm really excited! Then I've got Houston and Dallas(ish) and San Diego and Phoenix(ish) to round out October!

A REVERSE MEDITATION FOR MAXIMUM WORRY

Okay so it's a pretty serious holiday and also as you may have read above, my weekend was fully swallowed up by travel and work, so I didn't have a ton of time to sit down and write. So here I'm including the text of the little bit I wrote to introduce Jeff Rosenstock on Sunday night, lightly annotated. Someone posted video on Bluesky if that's more your thing. Feel free to watch that and then skip ahead if you'd like.

A small piece of backstory is: Jeff asked me to do a funny introduction for the band, and I pitched him a couple of ideas, and the one that intrigued him the most was a reverse guided meditation designed to stress the audience out so they'd be in the right state of mind to enjoy a show called Maximum Worry. So here's that!

Hello! In just a moment I will introduce your headliners. But first one more round of applause for the great Laura Stevenson.

Welcome everyone to Maximum Worry. My name is Josh Gondelman and I am an expert in worrying. So to make sure you are in the proper Maximum Worry headspace, I'm going to lead you all in a brief Guided Palpatation. It's like a guided meditation, but the goal is to feel as much stress as possible.

If you feel comfortable, close your eyes, and imagine yourself fully weightless, floating in space. Where are you going? How will you get home? Did Sandra Bullock survive at the end of that movie Gravity? These are just a few things you could freak out about. [Note: I cut this for time.]

Now ground yourself in your body. Feel any aches or pains you may be experiencing. Really hold onto those. That sucks right? But it’s probably nothing serious. Unless it is. Just something to consider. I want you to count down from five because that's the closest you can get to getting younger. 5, 4, 3, 2, 1...excellent.

I want you to think back to the last time you ate iceberg lettuce. Consider if you heard that's okay to do now, or if you just forgot that leafy greens turn you into a diarrhea time bomb.

Now feel that uncertainty. Hold it in your butt. Clench for ten, nine, eight, seven, six, five, four, three, two, one. Now keep clenching. It's important that you do NOT stop clenching. [Note: I cut this stuff for time too, but it's funny to me so I left it in here.]

If you are a Knicks fan, I want you to picture where you were when they clinched the championship. Then I want you to picture where you were when you heard that Mitchell Robinson, the longest tenured Knicks player, signed with the Boston Celtics in the off-season. Everyone we love disappears eventually. Try and picture the face of your childhood best friend. Not so easy is it? That's pretty fucked up. Woooow. I asked them to picture your faces and they all did is. So sit with that for a little while.

Also I would be remiss if I didn't mention that Yom Kippur, the Jewish Day of Atonement began at sundown. Take a brief moment to consider whether being here right now means you're going to Jew Hell. People say there’s no hell in the Jewish religion. But Jew Hell of course is an eight hour flight delay at an airport with no seltzer. And, if you're the kind of Jew that I am...Ed Sheeran is there too. [Note: The other idea I pitched Jeff was a statement as if I were Ed Sheeran's publicist.]

Before I go I would like you to all join with me in tonight's Mantra For Maximum Worry. Please repeat after me:

"I LEFT THE OVEN ON."

"I AM NOT PULLING OFF THIS OUTFIT." [Note: I skipped this because of forgetting to say it.]

"MY FRIENDS' CHILDREN THINK I'M WEIRD."

"AT ANY MOMENT THE BUILDING I LIVE IN COULD BE SOLD AND TURNED INTO A BLANK STREET COFFEE LOCATION.”

“LOVE IS WORRY.” [Note: This is a lyric from the album Worry.]

[Note: The audience did a very nice job with the repeating of the affirmations and didn't hang me out to dry like an asshole.]

Now open your eyes. Let the dusk wash over you like a torrent of dripping air conditioner water and possibly some bird shit. You are ready for Maximum Worry. [Note: I felt like this would have ruined the momentum in the moment so I didn't say it out loud.]

Amazing work, everyone. Now that you are all appropriately on edge, it's time to begin. Ladies and gentlemen, and people of all genders: Please give it up FOR DEATH ROSENSTOCK!!!!

[Note: It was a really fun time.]

PEP TALK FOR A READER

I did some light editing of this request and added the nickname. That's all!

What if you gave a pep talk to amateur U10 soccer coaches for the last game of the season and the team is 0-9 vs the 9-0 team.
- Defeated

What you've got to know is that almost nothing is going to be different in the long term if the U10 soccer team you coach doesn't win any games. Your job as a coach of kids this age is not to prepare them to crush their competition (other fourth graders, by the way, it's worth remembering). It's to cultivate a love of team sports and help them learn basic skills and strategies for soccer specifically. Kids can have a miserable time winning and a great time losing depending on the cues they get from the grownups around them.

So the team you're ending the season against is undefeated? That doesn't matter even a little. It's nice to win things! But like...being the best nine-year-olds in town at soccer could literally mean that one kid hit an early growth spurt and is just steamrolling the rest of the little twerps on the field. Who cares? Being a large child doesn't set you up for success unless you also become a tall adult in which case people respect you more unless you're very tall and then people are weirded out sometimes.

Success in youth sports in terms of wins and losses I GUESS matters if one of the kids is good enough to play in college or the pros. But here's the thing: Statistically, no one on the 0-9 team OR the 9-0 team is that good. They are almost assuredly destined to be rec league players at best after childhood and that is OKAY. Especially if they have a good attitude. There are few personality types more annoying than: "Used to be good at youth sports and now isn't good at much of anything, and I'm MAD about it." Nobody should care how many games kids win at sports. Not that they shouldn't try to win! But trying is the thing. And sometimes failing is the thing. And learning how to collaborate and be a part of a group working together towards a common goal.

Wait I'm sorry. The ADULTS should not care whether kids win. The kids can care! They're spending so much time and energy practicing and playing. It's good for them to feel some sense of stakes and investment. But some of their parents should, to put it gently, chill the fuck out.

It's faded away over time, but there was a lot of noise from dumbasses a few years back about getting rid of participation trophies for kids' sport. Fine. Get rid of all trophies for kids. Again: Who gives a shit? Oh you beat a bunch of children at soccer? Good for you! I could do that too, and I've never even played that sport competitively. It is barely an accomplishment. It's the same as participation, to me.

This is also how I feel when losers piss and moan about trans kids playing sports. I think kids should play sports to have fun and do their best and win sometimes and lose sometimes. As long as no one is cheating or otherwise playing dirty, I do not mind for one instant about which children win at sports. If your weak little tween loses to a child who is socially transitioning or taking puberty blockers, that is fine with me. Sometimes people are better than you at things. It's good that kids are learning that lesson young. Most of the time this won't even happen, which is a point that gets brought up a lot in defense of trans children. Sometimes it might, though, and that's such a better outcome than carving out little bigotries in our lives to appease adults who care about which child is best at swimming (and are often being manipulated by people with even worse intentions and biases).

I know I'm being harsh, but ultimately what I mean is this: The kids you coach could be having a massively successful season despite the team's record. If they are having fun and improving their skills and participating in teamwork to the best of their abilities, you've done an excellent job. The cliches about playing the right way are, in fact, true. They might not feel that right now, but they are kids. They don't know shit. Whether they continue to play for losing teams, or get shuffled onto a league champion next season, or quit soccer altogether to find something they're better at, they have benefitted from your patience and care and instruction. Winning the league doesn't have more more long term benefits than that. If an adult put "U10 soccer champion" on their resume, you would laugh at them every day for the rest of your life.

That's something you can't teach kids, but if you've laid the groundwork they'll learn it in time.

PICK-ME-UP SONG OF THE WEEK:
Lex Walton - "Ultimate Love 4Ever"

I met Lex Walton earlier this year at my buddy Grace RoSo’s reading, and now she has an album out on Sub Pop which is very cool and also a total coincidence. The record’s lyrics are witty and unsparing, but Walton embraces extra hope and tenderness on "Ultimate Love 4Ever", the closing track. There's also some playful back and forth with the band that just feels so warm and fun.

It’s prickly in the way that The Strokes sounded at their inception, but with an eye more towards forming a community than being a part of a scene. The internet says that Lex Walton was born in 2001 which adds an extra layer of sweetness to the song. You can’t really be nostalgic for something you missed the first time. I think that’s just called being wistful.

In other That’s Marvelous music news, Pup covered a Ratboys song, and it rules, so that’s getting a mention here for sure.