So, here we are. The end of 2022.
The year went by fast. But not in a nice way. As they say, time flies when you're having fun. But it also flies when you're in a constant state of anxiety and each moment adds a new horror onto the last. Time also flies fast then. Remember that screenplay you said you were going to finish this summer? It's late December now and you don't even have the character list done. Get that character list done! But first you gotta do an outline! Or characters first! Gah!
For me, 2022 was a weird year. Most years are weird for me, granted, but this year felt like one of them fancy "transition" years. I don't know much about sports, but whenever something sucks, I know the term "rebuilding year" is mentioned and everyone seems to solemnly nod and agree that it is, in fact, a year of rebuilding.
The world itself was a mess, but it’s always a mess. People nostalgic for childhood often forget the world was a different type of mess back then. The world doesn’t become a mess just because the mess is now part of your problem. Mess was always there. You just now have to open the paper and go, “Oh, man. The mess is a real mess today!”
Unfortunately, in 2022, that mass came in the form of a lot of horrifying shit for a lot of people. Any complaints I have about my own life - or any iterations of “It’s a shame this happened!” - don’t measure up to the old problems vulnerable people faced and the new ones that have been designed to fuck up their lives even more. I’ve still got complaints! I just recognize my complaints aren’t the bubbles boiling over the pot of human suffering. Jesus. That metaphor did not work but we’re leaving it in.
The show I spent most of my time on, Full Frontal with Samantha Bee, came to a close during the summer. Or, rather, was canceled. "Came to a close" is sort of the "sent to a farm upstate" of showbiz. Our show had a good run, and ironically, this year we won the Writers Guild Award for our special on gun control. So we may have lost the show, but we got a heavy potential murder weapon that, importantly, isn't a gun.
Losing any job isn't easy, especially one that people have a lot of strong opinions about on the internet. Some people loved our show. Some people hated our show. Some people were aware of our show. But it was a fun show to make, and I miss Sam and everyone I worked with there. We got to talk about a lot of insane topics and do some extremely weird shit. I wrote an entire piece on a pumpkin that looked like a vagina, so don’t say I didn’t do anything for progress.
The show was a big part of my life for years - especially when the first year of the pandemic narrowed my existence to a one-bedroom apartment. I'm lucky I had the job, and I'm lucky the show lasted as long as it did in a format that is in a constant state of change. Late night shows are required to have a very serious article every year asking if the genre will exist in the following year. When I took the job there in 2018, those articles still existed. I didn't know how long I'd be there. I say again that I was lucky I got as long as I did. I’ve used the word “long” a lot in this short paragraph.
I also felt lucky getting to see my episodes of Mystery Science Theater 3000 air this year as part of the new season. MST3K is a foundational show for me. It fostered a love of comedy, a love of robots, and a love of pure idiotic absurdity. It's not the only reason I write jokes for a living, but it definitely was on the path to writing jokes for a living. Getting to write riffs for the hosts and the robots is still unbelievable to me. The fact my name is in the episodes - I just don't know how I'd explain that to myself as a kid.
If you want to watch those, they're on the Mystery Science Theater 3000 app called "Gizmoplex." My episodes are "Beyond Atlantis" and "Gamera vs. Jiger," but everything in the new season is good. Plus, the more you spend on that streaming app, the more new episodes there can be down the line. Whether I'm there or not, I think we all need more MST3K. At least, I do. I dunno.
In the Fall, I took some time to return to the Tonight Show, a place that feels like home every time I’m there. Plus, after spending three years working from my sunlight-free bedroom, I wanted to spend less time in my sunlight-free bedroom. While I hadn't been back in years, it was nice to spend time with writers I missed and get to do fun things like a sketch where I was hit in the nuts by a soccer ball. We filmed it through the Hollywood magic of throwing a soccer ball at my nuts. I also got to write a sketch for Ryan Reynolds about passive aggressive insults, which itself is always nice. Not that you'd know.
Through all this, I wrote weekly columns for The Gamer, wrote for a couple awards shows, started touring again with stand-up, and announced a book for Limited Run Games. Because it wouldn't be a year I'm in unless I was somehow using my love of video games to make me money to blow on more video games. The cycle will never break. I will break, but the cycle will never break.
As we end this arbitrary time period, I wanted to say thank you for reading this. Thank you for reading the tweets. Thank you for buying the books or checking out the articles or watching the shows. I'm a constantly depressed piece of shit, but I'm a grateful constantly depressed piece of shit. I know how lucky I am in this world that I complain about, and I know how much of that luck comes from strangers being willing to give me the time of day.
Thank you for allowing me to do that.
Now let's all bite down on a strip of leather because 2023 is gonna be a real doozy.
Thanks for these. Loved reading them anytime I got the notification. This season of MST3K I've been screaming out loud has been AMAZING. One of the funniest ever. And thanks for doing my podcast too! People are still quoting me your 'magic castle' line you said to me regularly :)