By Josh Gondelman — 02 Nov 2026

#208. The U.S.A. and You

Gun to my head (this is America after all), I'd say this one is "shining sea."

Hi everyone,

Welcome to the fourth anniversary edition of That's Marvelous! Four years of Monday morning newsletters in a row! If you enjoy reading this on a weekly basis or...ever, it would mean a lot to me if you'd subscribe or tell a friend to subscribe or upgrade to a paid subscription. I have honestly been hemorrhaging subscribers since I left Substack about a year and a half ago. Nothing is worse for the health of your email list than sending out emails, it turns out. But I like writing them, and it seems like several people like reading them too!

With that out of the way: It's November. What the hell?

Over the weekend, Maris and I moved parallel to the festivities in Brooklyn. Maris suited Maggie up for our building's dog costume competition, but otherwise we didn't do too much in the way of specialized outfits. I did enjoy hearing a brass band playing while floating down the Gowanus Canal and clapped for some of the marathon runners on Sunday as I snuck across the race's path. Our friends had us over for dinner on Actual Halloween, which let us opt out of partying but still felt festive. And last night, Alison came over to watch David Fincher's The Game, which Maris had never seen. It's maybe one of the top movies for yelling "Oh shit!" a bunch of times during. If anyone has recommendations for other The Game-type movies, I'm all ears!

Maggie dressed as a can of diet coke and giving us side eye. — Maggie the Pug feat. skepticism.

I ran out the clock on late October with an excellent trip out west last week for a show in San Diego and one in Chandler, AZ. Thanks so much to everyone who came to either of those! They were both so much fun, and I got to see some great friends, and I had a very pleasant long solo drive in between. I'm home for almost two weeks straight, wrapping up with my New York Comedy Festival headlining show at the Bell House (11/11), and then I have shows in Pittsburgh (11/12) and Cleveland (11/13), and then it's basically Thanksgiving. Again I must ask...what the hell? (Seriously though if you are a New Yorker who's been asking when they can see me do a show, this Bell House one is a great opportunity, and it would be very cool to me if you made it!)

Tonight I'm hosting Frankenstein's Baby at Union Hall with Alison! And Wednesday I'm moderating a book event at Greenlight Bookstore if you're unavailable on 11/11 and want to enjoy my performance or scowl at me in person before then!

Mindy Tucker photo of me and the details for my 11/11 7:30pm NYCF headlining show at the Bell House! — The show will be MUCH better if you buy tickets. Yes, you!

Last Tuesday, my friend Anthony DeVito and I went to see Vince Staples live in concert. Vince Staples gave a couple of my favorite interviews on Desus & Mero. He's really smart and super talented, while also being intentionally confounding at times. At several points in his show, he gave an audience member a microphone and did...crowd work? One guy who worked in the music industry thanked him for advising him not to give beats away for free many years ago. ("I told you to...ask for money?" Staples replied.) Another–Michael from Brooklyn–mentioned how long he'd been a fan with the caveat that the album Big Fish Theory didn't do much for him as a listener, which was a pretty bold thing to say to an artist while surrounded by people who bought tickets to see him. Staples seemed to take the note in stride. Otherwise, he drifted in and out of songs with laid back precision, and he let his backing band stretch out with solos and vamps too, which was fun to hear.

The most memorable part of the night might have been the opening act, though. They were a three-piece combo (with what appeared to be pre-recorded guitar melodies playing as well) made up of, presumably, Gen Z guys. They sounded a baffling amount like Limp Bizkit. Like, the frontman shuffled between singing a little, rapping a little, and shouting a lot. One song conveyed the feeling of being furious about how badly he wanted to smoke weed. Despite the music all having the precise emotional tenor of Fred Durst barking the chorus to "Break Stuff" the young men seemed otherwise nice. The singer was enthusiastic and respectful of a woman he brought onstage to demonstrate an appropriate level of audience energy. He was tickled to get to yell "BROOKLYN WHAT'S UP?" to a big crowd. And yet the band's fidelity to late 90s and early aughts nü-metal/rap metal was mystifying.

Where did they even learn about this music? Did they see one of the competing Woodstock '99 documentaries and learn nothing from it? Were they rebelling against Sufjan Stevens-loving parents? I was left with so many questions about why a group of talented young people would want to emulate the worst and most reviled genre of a generation that came before them. I guess if big pants are going to be back in style, it makes some sense that Big Pants Music returned as well. The punchline to their whole set came in their outro: "Thank you, we've been Private School!" Incredible band name. Borderline performance art. Brought the whole thing into focus. 10/10 experience despite the songs themselves earning a much lower rating.

This week I am going to be guest hosting Please Advise, the new pop-up advice show from WNYC! It will air live from 1-2 on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday! I was the first guest in the history of the show, and now I get to host for a week! Monday's guest is author Priya Parker! Tuesday will be reporter and podcaster Anna Sale! We're working on an extremely exciting guest for Wednesday too! You can listen live on the radio or hear it later as a podcast! Please do!

Picture of me in the green room at the Comedy Fort with my upcoming tour dates listed. — Yes, some of the shows already happened! That's okay! Photo by Mellisa Rasor

I've put some new tour dates on sale including Austin, TX in January! And my show at the Iron Horse in Northampton on 1/30 is so close to selling out we added a 4pm matinee! Grab those tickets, and I'll see you out there!!!

PEP TALK FOR THE U.S.A.

I have the enormous privilege of traveling all over the United States of America and telling jokes (and writing jokes) as a job. I find myself in frequent awe of the spectacular environmental diversity as well as the breadth of humanity I get to encounter from sea to, as the song goes, shining sea. It's not my place to opine on which sea is regular and which is the radiant one. I'm not trying to be divisive here.

Last week I had the occasion to drive from San Diego to Phoenix (the occasion being I had gigs in both cities and couldn't stomach the thought of spending three mornings in a row at various airports). I passed clay-red rock formations and stretches where the roadside vegetation only grew about six feet high and farmland. Like a bunch of ingenious jerks, we humans had carved a swath through it all and laid down pavement, permitting me travel smoothly for a few hundred miles despite lacking both a horse and a pioneer's spirit.

At once point as I motored along in the right lane, adjacent to if not in full compliance with the speed limit, I saw an SUV gaining on me. As it passed, I realized it was a Border Patrol vehicle. (It was not a feat of deduction on my part; the words Border Patrol were right there on the side of the thing.) The border agent moved smoothly past me, continuing on towards the horizon and out of sight.

Normally I am pretty at ease being passed by a faster car. I don't feel competitive with other drivers. No hard feelings, Tracy Chapman. But the sight of a Border Patrol Jeep or whatever brand name blazing down the highway well above the legal speed made me really mad. It wasn't road rage. It was more like a righteous anger that happened to strike me while I was on the road. Like, speeding is objectively more of a danger to others than entering the country without the prescribed documentation. So why does this person get to casually break the law? And why is there such a ravenous political appetite to clamp down on other kinds of rule skirting? (Racism, of course.) It's such a small but obvious unfairness.

I have mostly avoided the crucible of midterm election stress, in part by not running for office, which seems extremely rigorous and not especially fun. Additionally, early voting in my neighborhood is considerably less convenient than...punctual voting. So I haven't had to confront the reality that the election is, in fact, underway. Several friends have proudly posted their "I VOTED" stickers on Instagram, and I wish I had one that said: "I'm GOING to VOTE, I SWEAR!"

There are many flaws with our current system of government, as evidenced by the way everything seems to really suck shit lately on a federal level. And our present moment was preceded by a lot of bloodshed and subjugation. Our history books are full of horrors, and then there are the atrocities that don't get written about as frequently. But it seems pretty clear to me that we have one political party populated at least in significant part by people who would like the world to be fairer and more just. And then there is a political party full of people who actively aspire to suck the blood out of their own constituents (in addition to anyone else they can sink their fangs into) and all they offer in trade is the permission for their voters to be openly bigoted.

I've written this kind of thing before, but it's still important and will always be! Investing in your community and living your values are important all the time, and a couple of times a year, voting is part of that.

It takes a lot of effort from all sides to make change, and one of those sides is people running for office. Dr. Abdul El-Sayed in Michigan, for example, seems to sincerely want life to be as good as possible for as many people as possible. Kathy Hochul, who is fine, stands head and shoulders above her maniacal opponent for Governor of New York. Nobody is perfect, of course, but all we can do, electorally, is take these candidates at their word and then try to hold them to it. It's not just individuals though. There's a wealth tax on the ballot in California despite Governor Gavin Newsome's greasy objections. Voting is not a revolutionary act, but as we saw in Brazil last month, it can meaningfully forestall the encroaching plague of fascism and help preserve democratic norms. We can make the world a little better every day if we focus, and tomorrow is an opportunity for lots of us to work on that project all at once and receive a sticker for their troubles.

PEP TALK FOR A READER

I mostly just added the nickname to this request. (And wrote my response!)

I wrote a book! I felt really good about it! But the proverbial Reviewer #3 got my ass, and I’m struggling to see how I can make this book better in their view. (Or whether I can decide it doesn’t exactly have to be!)
- Boy Is My Face Read

If a war can ever be said to rage within me, it is this fight: The struggle between the side of my personality that wants to take feedback in stride, collaborate enthusiastically, and acknowledge my own limitations, and the side of me that is a precious delicate orchid artist who knows just how it should go and rejects input from even trusted friends and colleagues who just don't get it, man.

It's not just with creative work. I often find myself similarly torn asunder regarding questions of travel logistics, interior design, how to dress for a given event, medical advice, and any other issue where instinct and personal taste butt up against outside expertise or aesthetics. How much can I trust my gut when everyone I talk to has a different gut, each with a mind of its own?

The way I see it, you have two choices: You can adjust the manuscript to address the reader's notes, or you can say THANKS BUT NO THANKS, BUD. The good news is, it's fully your choice. No one is going to Misery you into writing this book any certain way. Even in a world of niche internet microcelebrities, you probably aren't famous enough for that to happen. But the bad news is, nobody's going to tell you which of the two paths is best. It is firmly on you to decide.

My hunch, just from your phrasing, is that you feel that there's some merit to the critique. And if that's the case, what you're really deciding is whether you want the book to turn out the best it can, or if you want it to be done now. Being finished is such a satisfying and even exhilarating feeling, whether you have put away the last of a clean load of laundry or you're an oilman who has beaten an enemy to death with a bowling pin. But, you've come this far. And if your post-critique period of stomping around and feeling misunderstood has ultimately led you to realize that this reader has a point or two now that you think of it...it seems like maybe you want to do the hard but worthwhile work of making the thing the best it can be.

You can be finished anytime you want. Nobody can make you revise this book. (Even if they could...why would they?) And, although it sounds like Reader #3 raises some good points, you don't have to take all of their advice. But as long as you're tinkering with this project, why not embrace the friction of making it the most fully realized version of itself? That's why we write, right? To actualize and explore the ideas in our minds? You've been given the beautiful and annoying gift of attentive and insightful notes. Do yourself the miserable, painful favor of applying the ones that instilled the most vertigo in you. After all, not a soul is waiting for this book to be done. As long as no one's banging down your door for it yet, why not see it through? You're only screwing yourself over if you don't. You don't defeat a critic by refusing to improve.

PICK-ME-UP SONG OF THE WEEK:
Titus Andronicus - "A More Perfect Union"

While ripping down I-8 from California into Arizona last Thursday I felt compelled to listen to Titus Andronicus's album The Monitor from front to back. It's a loud, rowdy Civil War concept album that starts with a song about driving from Boston to New Jersey. The Monitor, especially when played while cruising down an open road, is a real "no skips" experience.

There's an official video for "A More Perfect Union" that omits the long opening quotation from Abraham Lincoln and I think the closing quotation from William Lloyd Garrison, which are pretty critical to the experience of the song. Even without those quotes though, the interpolation of abolitionist anthems gets the themes across pretty clearly.

The Titus Andronicus experience is not for everyone. It evokes Springsteen (including the lyric: "Tramps like us, baby we were born to DIIIIIIIIIEEE!") played through a bluetooth speaker that's falling down a long staircase. But as the midterm election results unfold, there is catharsis in shouting along to a song that loudly recalls the past injustices of the U.S. and the painful but necessary efforts taken to try and remedy them. It's still an ongoing process, and it entails, I guess, the opposite of whatever Haley Stevens is up to in Michigan.

I don't think we need another Civil War, but shouting along with the song's bridge of "WhoooOOooOoooAAaaa!WhoOooOoOAaaAAoooOOOooo!" is an energizing reminder that the cause of collective liberation is righteous and worth fighting for.