By Josh Gondelman — 05 Oct 2026

#204. Dogs in Costumes and You

This corgi is dressed as a baked potato, not a plate of nachos.

Hi everyone,

I am still a litttttle bit sleepy after hurrying home from a weekend in Colorado. I made my debut at The Comedy Fort in Fort Collins, and it was just the best. Such a nice and cool staff. Great crowds. Lots of people came out after hearing me on Wait Wait and The Bugle, which is always delightful. The other comics (Bailey Tyler, Owen Matthews, Miriam Moreno) were so funny and nice. Mellisa Rasor, the venue's photographer, got some excellent photos. I'd been wanting to make it out this way for a long time, and I'm SO glad I finally got to. Truly an A+ weekend!

A mirror photo of me, Owen, Miriam, and Bailey at the Comedy Fort. Bailey and Miriam are sitting on an ottoman while Owen and I stand behind them. — Lesser photo by me!

I've been honestly a little nervous about ticket sales, and I'm so relieved that people showed up! Hopefully the same thing happens in Irving, TX (10/21), Houston (10/22), San Diego (10/28), and Chandler, AZ (10/29) later this month. I've been having a great time working this new hour of jokes into shape (hopefully recording it in the spring) and I'm always so grateful when people buy tickets to the shows!

The decor at my hotel in Fort Collins was a little kooky. It included leopard print carpeting, a pink faux-rotary phone, and a very large photograph of two Playboy Playmates riding horses. Why not?

Classic handicap spot marking but the person in the wheelchair is wearing a bold hat. — "I am the one who parks."

The piece of art (?) that really took me out though was this, let's say, painting indicating that the handicap spots behind the building were only for disabled people who were really trying something fashion-wise. This spot is for people with mobility issues and swag. It's such a small detail, but it killed me. I sent it to like five people via text. Maybe this is widespread as part of an initiative to normalize the idea that people who use wheelchairs also have their own senses of style. It has the kind of stylistic simplicity of the gender neutral bathroom signs where the person is wearing pants on one leg and a skirt on the other, except this doesn't seem to convey any particular information other than POSSIBLY the premise that even when you are using accessibility accommodations, you are not automatically pulling off an ambitious hat.

Horsetooth Reservoir, with a little bota in the water, and a hill with a trail up it in the distance. — **looking at this view** "Wow, this is like the last thing a sugar cube sees."

I also woke up early on east coast time and took a quick drive out to Horsetooth Reservoir, where the views were as lovely as promised. They sure know how to name a reservoir out there. Although, nothing about it reminded me of the inside of a horse's mouth in a meaningful way. But it was perfect weather for an 8am pseudo-excursion into nature. It was a little crisp in the mornings and the evenings all weekend even though it got up to a beautiful and apocalyptic 85 early October degrees in the afternoon. On Saturday in the middle of the day, I walked into town to enjoy a Corgi Parade.

A steady stream of corgis and their people wound their way through Old Town. There were more corgis than I thought one town could support. Literally hundreds. A true corgicopia. Many of the dog costumes were very cute–how could they not be?–but the real showstoppers were the people who dressed up along with their dogs. There was a whole crew of Loraxes (outnumbering their canine companions) that I had to stop and ask about their backstory. Everyone pointed to one woman who blushed. "I really like the Lorax."

This week I'm doing a couple of shows at Greenpoint Comedy Club, which I love. And on Tuesday night I'm performing a couple of parts in a staged reading of a film script called Yankel The Rooster, which I think will be fun also! I will be on the next episode of The Gargle after appearing last week on The Bugle. You can listen now, and if a couple of the jokes remind you of things you've read in this newsletter, let's keep that between us, yeah?

PEP TALK FOR DOGS IN COSTUMES

Some dogs enjoy wearing costumes. The snugness of the fabric feels comforting or they appreciate the attention a little outfit garners for them or maybe they know they look extra charming dressed as a taco or a spaceship. Other times, whether the material is uncomfortable, or they feel embarrassed to have strayed so far from the unadorned ferocity of their canine ancestors, you can see in their eyes that they're not having a good time with the dress-up experience. Maybe I'm projecting, but I am certain that our late dog Bizzy used to look at me like "I am supposed to be a WILD BEAST!" when we tried to style her like R2-D2 for Halloween.

What you can't make a dog understand is that there's beauty in bearing a light indignity for the ones you love. Not mistreatment, but the mild humiliation of being present amidst an enthusiasm you don't share in totality. My friend Reid Pope has written and spoken at length about their annual visit to a sanctuary for (I'm paraphrasing here) wicked fucked up and extremely pungent farm animals with their partner. People who love Phish fans but are not themselves jam-curious deal with the same thing (the feeling, not the specific smell). Oftentimes having a loving family includes an outer orbit of less beloved family members who ask inadvertently condescending questions about your career when you hang out with them out of familial responsibility. And well more than half of the time, you can tell that one half of a couple's costume has ashamed dog levels of enthusiasm about the whole endeavor. That's all before taking into account the levels of belittling imagination games and spit-into-your-hand food you have to deal with when you have children of your own to love.

Enduring these minor slings and arrows carries with it a counterintuitive depth of humanity. It means that you love someone else enough to put aside your own reservations about being a part of a trivia team or watching a concert performed by a stage full of ten-year-olds with recorders. Allowing yourself to be an accomplice to someone else's joy is an extraordinarily adult way to show support. The caveats here being that this holds as long as they appreciate and reciprocate your efforts, and that it's a different ballgame if humiliation happens to be your whole, you know...thing.

Dogs cannot appreciate this, but humans can. I wish Maggie the Pug could see how much joy she adds to the household while dressed as a [redacted until Maris makes it public] this Halloween. But fortunately she seems not to mind too much at least.

PEP TALK FOR A READER

I didn't edit this request much, but I did add the nickname.

Give me a pep talk about how it's totally fine to be a never married 40 year old who treats his cats like the children he'll never have. And maybe something on moving to a rural town because buying a house is way too expensive in the city.
- The Suburbicats

I am a little zonked from travel. I woke up at 4:05am mountain time (the forgotten time zone) on Sunday to drive an hour to the airport. And today I had an 8:30am coffee date with a friend who has both a toddler and a job, so we have to investigate new frontiers in socializing. So I'm going to be as brief as my nature allows. Usually I start by validating the unpleasant or upsetting part of a reader's pep talk request. Let's assume I don't think you're being a weenie about your life and jump straight to the encouragement.

I'm really psyched that you have cats to love and a place you can afford to live in. I know that's not what you thought your life would look like. And it doesn't have to be the totality of your situation in the long term. But it's a hell of a start. You know what you have, and you know what you want. There's a gap in between, sure. But you don't have to jump that chasm all at once, nor is there a danger that you'll tumble headlong into it. In no world will you set your cats out to make their own way in the world because you're intent on having a human child someday.

This isn't a screed about gratitude and appreciating what you have and material things not bringing happiness anyway. It is really nice to have material things. And it's even more wonderful to have love and companionship in your life. Best case scenario, you get exactly what you want, or your desire shifts towards something that feels less impossible.

And I know what I just said, but I do think it's important that while cats aren't children, they aren't just not-children. They're cats! You have beloved cats! They are not merely fuzzy little anti-kids that poop in a box in your house to remind you of what you don't have. Similarly, a home in a rural town isn't just a reminder of the distance you are from the exciting city life you imagine yourself living. It's a place with a community of its own. There is joy to be found there. Maybe someone to have human kids with? Maybe not! But it's the place you are, and you can squeeze as much juice as exists from the fruit in your hand. The things in your life are things in your life, not just COMING SOON (or NOT COMING SOON) signs for something better. That's not nothing! It's something!

Honestly, brevity more or less accomplished! And that's not nothing either.

PICK-ME-UP SONG OF THE WEEK:
Wendy Eisenberg - "It's Here"

This is such a sweet song!!! Wendy's voice is so tender!!! The production is so rich and so gentle!!! The sentiment is very ...is going to be okay. I recently learned about Wendy because we're both a part of Rax King and Niko Stratis's "Words and Guitar" show next week (10/13) at Littlefield. Friend of the newsletter Jayson Greene gave their new record a great review for Pitchfork, and the album deserves it! At the live show, I'm going to read a piece of writing about one of my favorite songs, and Wendy is going to play it, among other tunes. There will be lots of great music writers and musicians there.

Listen to this beautiful song and then come see Wendy (and me, and more) in person next week if you're around!