I’m Going To Be On Seth Meyers This Thursday (And Other Such Conversation Points)

Also, please don't rank Cuomo!

Hey folks! We’re getting regular with this! The ball is in the air! Someone hit that ball! Keep it up there! In the air! I’m not sure what this metaphor is, but my brain is broken by this world. At this point, me trying to think straight is basically just the old Windows screensaver of flying toasters. That reference is 30 years old! How the time flies when we have no choice but to let time fly.

Big news you see in the headline below, but before that, here is some other stuff.

Don’t Rank Cuomo

I’ll try and fail to keep this short since I’m guessing only a small fraction of the readers are New York City residents and a top ten annoying thing is big cities making politics everyone else’s problem.

Today is primary voting day in NYC, which often amounts to a normal election since Democrats hold a strong majority in the city. But don’t let that trick you into thinking that everyone is a liberal leftist socialist, as fun as that might be. It often means there are still a lot of hyper conservative folks who just want to fuck normal people without getting judged for being a bad person. Seriously, half of Fox News on-screen personalities live in or directly around NYC.

I won’t ask you to rank Zohran Mamdani #1 despite him being my choice. If you feel uncomfortable with his lack of experience or his stances on certain issues, may I offer you Brad Lander? Very progressive. Very experienced. Very not racist, homophobic, or prone to sexual harassment. And, you know, actually Jewish, which matters when Andrew Cuomo is running on being the most Jewish candidate of all time despite not actually being Jewish.

Cuomo was a bad governor who got a lot of people killed while sexually harassing over a dozen women. If that doesn’t move the needle, he’s responsible for his dad’s political slogan, “Vote for Cuomo, Not The Homo.” I mean, come on. Don’t rank him. Not 1, 2, 3, 4, or, hell, even 5.

“They Don’t Know What The Fuck They’re Doing”

You know what? I’m starting to doubt that Trump posting that there was a ceasefire between Israel and Iran was going to solve all conflicts in the Middle East. Far be it from me to weigh in on international politics, because lord knows I’ve got no expertise, but our country is currently being entirely run by people who celebrate having no expertise, so I guess that makes me incredibly qualified? We really live in a time when people point at a fire and shout, “We’ve tried regular firefighters for too long! Let the Dalmation drive the truck!”

And while I hope that any ceasefire is worth more than the screen it’s typed on, I don’t think the big guy was feeling super confident this morning when he shouted that the countries have been fighting for so long that “they don’t know what the fuck they’re doing.” The worn out part of me would say that if a Democrat swore on camera at all, it would be and has been a scandal. Let alone just throwing up his arms and going, “I NO UNDERSTAND! IT HARD!”

It turns out you can’t passive-aggressively create a ceasefire by posting about it without everyone being on board. And it also turns out that achieving peace in the Middle East might be more complicated than going, “Hey. I’ve got a thought. Crazy pitch. What if everyone stopped fighting here?” Truly Nobel Prize material.

I’ll Be On Seth Meyers This Thursday!

I am super excited to make my debut as a TV talk show guest this Thursday on Late Night With Seth Meyers. I’ve spent most of my adult life working in late night television, including writing, producing, and performing in front of live studio audiences. But this will literally be the first time that I’m going to be sitting down on TV and facing someone and having to be the worst thing possible - myself. It’s crazy that this is happening and, even if an anvil falls on me before I get to do it, I’m excited that my name is on their website.

We’ll be discussing my book Good Game, No Rematch, which at this point I’m assuming you’re all familiar with because I won’t shut the fuck up about it. But the fun part is that I’ve actually known Seth for about twenty years. I was a writers’ intern at Saturday Night Live from 2005-2007 and, later, a researcher. After that time, once I was starting to write jokes that were approaching the line of funny, Seth hired me to be a writer on the ESPYs and White House Correspondents Dinner. I sincerely mean it when I say I probably wouldn’t have the career I have without him, so this is a very cool full circle moment.

The episode tapes Wednesday, but airs Thursday night at 12:30 am on NBC. That said, obviously, you can see the YouTube video the next day and I shall be posting it endlessly as long as it goes well and pretend it never happened if I accidentally call Seth “mom” or something.

Bryant Park Memoir Panel This Wednesday

Making my Wednesday even more complicated and terrifying, I’ll be on a memoir writing panel at 12:30 pm in Bryant Park, New York. And if you don’t want to just hear from a complete idiot, there are real human beings with valuable experience there too. Ruthie Ackerman (The Mother Code: My Story of Love, Loss, and the Myths That Shape Us) and David Litt (It's Only Drowning: A True Story of Learning to Surf and the Search for Common Ground) are also on the panel and will sure to have far better insights than mine.

If you’re looking for a taste of what I have to offer in terms of memoir writing, I’d say “feel the need to passive aggressively make your family pay for their crimes.” Is that healthy? No. Is that fun? Sometimes. Is it a way to fill yourself with more regret? I’m gonna find out! Still, this should be a great event with a lot of good information for anyone interested in writing.

Recommendations

I’m hitting the word limit on Substack posts that can be delivered to email, so I’ll keep this brief. Briefer than the mayoral thing.

I finally completed Clair Obscur: Expedition 33. If you’ve ever wanted the most French version of Final Fantasy X possible, have I got good news for you! It’s an incredible achievement of a game. Also it’s extraordinarily depressing at every turn with small pockets of great comedy, so it’s basically a video game designed for me. That said, the battle system is either super fun or frustrating depending on whether or not you like having to parry during a turn-based fight.

I’m now a few hours into Death Stranding 2, which had its early release last night. God, this game is beautiful. I’m only running it on a PS5 (not Pro) and it still looks better than any game I’ve seen on this system. Or possibly ever. I’ve also enjoyed the opening sequence a bit more than in the original, which kind of felt flat to me. Or, rather, I’ll put it this way: the original Death Stranding didn’t really grab me for the first few hours. Death Stranding 2 does a great job of engaging you right away, making you feel for the characters right off the bat instead of wondering why everyone talks in vague fucking riddles. Plus, there’s a recap feature if you missed Death Stranding 1. It’s not a great recap since you’ll still be completely lost in the obtuse, nonsensical lore of the series, but it’s something! Honestly, just read a Wikipedia summary of the first one.

I’m a little late to The Day the Earth Blew Up, but god I love seeing a Looney Tunes movie again! I can’t emphasize enough how much I’ve missed this style of animation. It almost has a 1990s/2000s Cartoon Network feel that hits every spot just right. It’s also only 90 minutes so it’s not like I’m trying to get you to watch a Scorcese film that should have been a TV series.

That’s all for now! Thank you folks as always. Keep reading. Keep sharing the Substack. And, as Jay Sherman once said, buy my book.