Nice Try
Page 20
It’s good to read the news and donate to charity and vote, but it’s not brave, and it’s not even really a sacrifice. There’s nothing bold about donating money you can afford to part with. There is no risk in a man saying “I support women!” And sure, it’s a pain in the ass to stand in line on election day at a local elementary school (the only time you can do that without having kids, by the way) to fulfill the obligation of coloring in a few ovals on a piece of paper. But that is the bare minimum. Instagramming an I VOTED! sticker is like showing off a pin that says I DIDN’T EVADE MY TAXES!
On my way home from San Francisco, I once again wound up at JFK during the same round of travel ban protests. The demonstrations had dwindled in intensity but were still flickering at the edges of some airport terminals, and I was determined to find one and join in. Unfortunately, because of the size and complexity of JFK, I could hear the crowd chanting, but after twenty minutes of searching, I couldn’t find them.
I went back inside and wandered over to the makeshift law firm that had taken root near the taxi stand. Everything about the cluster of disheveled professionals was impressive. Many of the lawyers had been there all day, pro bono. They’d generated some kind of ad hoc workflow, and all of them had their heads in a laptop or pressed against a phone, in deep concentration. I marveled at their dedication and the fact that they’d found enough outlets to power their whole ersatz office. I wanted to be helpful, but I am a goober with no practical skills. I have a sub-SVU knowledge of the law.
I walked across the atrium to the Dunkin’ Donuts Express kiosk, where I purchased a dozen cups of coffee. Again, I was throwing money at the problem, this time from up close. I brought the coffees back to where the lawyers were and approached one who appeared to be doing the triage for incoming crises.
“Do you need any coffee?” I asked.
“Maybe someone does,” she said with a shrug, and pointed to a table filled with provisions. Bottles of water, Pepperidge Farm cookies, and Twizzlers. Dry goods purchased from a Hudson News. I put the cups down amid the other supplies.
“I brought some coffee,” I said, barely above a whisper, so as not to disturb anyone in the middle of urgent work. Nobody looked, obviously. “Thanks for what you’re doing,” I mumbled.
I think I did something. Maybe one of those cups of coffee found its way into the hands of a lawyer who stayed up an extra hour poring over visas and wrangling vulnerable immigrants away from the TSA. Or maybe all twelve drinks sat on the table until they grew cold and undesirable, and a custodial worker shook his head and dumped them into a trash barrel. Probably it was somewhere in the middle. It never hurts to buy someone a cup of coffee.
I got in a taxi and headed home, the chanting of the protesters outside still audible but invisible.
It’s impossible for everyone to be on the front line of every battle, but I’m trying to get there as often as I can. In the meantime, I want to make things as good as I can in my everyday life: sparing a few dollars for a person in need, stepping in when I hear someone say something cruel or bigoted, celebrating and supporting art made by people of color, eating vegan meals at least sometimes, treating the people around me well, listening to their needs, and attempting to improve over time rather than retreating into a comfortable privilege cocoon. And that especially applies when the injustice in question doesn’t touch my life directly.
There’s a quote often attributed to activist Angela Davis: “In a racist society, it’s not enough to be non-racist—you have to be anti-racist.” I apologize to Dr. Davis if she didn’t actually say that, but it’s a really good quote, so I don’t apologize that much. Regardless of who said it, it’s a clarifying perspective, and in keeping with that doctrine, I’m working on being less “not bad” and more “actively good,” in both big and small ways, even when it’s uncomfortable and impolite. One of the best parts of writing this book was considering the precise ways I could be doing more to help instead of fretting about not doing enough. I’m trying, more than ever, not to avoid the ugly aspects of the world, but to look them in the eyes, and occasionally punch them in the face.
Because sometimes the best way to be kind is to not be nice.
Acknowledgments
Thank you to Maris, the smartest and prettiest and most generous person I know, and to Bizzy, our chubby cloud of a dog. Thanks to my mom and dad for their nearly 3.5 decades of unwavering support. To Jenna, my sister, for being an ideal sibling.
To Stephanie Hitchcock, for not being impressed by my bullshit and for using her incredible insight to help make this book as good as it can be, and to everyone at Harper Perennial for getting behind it.
To all my friends and relatives (especially Mom, Dad, and Jenna) who let me use their names or at the very least their likenesses in stories, and also to my grandparents, whose names and likenesses I used without permission. (Thanks! Sorry!)
To everyone who has ever paid me a fair wage to write for them.
Thanks to Noah for helping make me an author as well as a writer. And Chenoa, Taryn, Ayala, Adam, and Josh (different guy), for believing in me and advocating on my behalf.
To anyone who read this book, especially if you got this far. Holy shit that’s some dedication.
About the Author
JOSH GONDELMAN is a comedian and writer and producer for Desus & Mero on Showtime. Josh has earned two Peabody Awards, three Emmy Awards, and three WGA Awards for his work on Last Week Tonight with John Oliver on HBO. His writing has also appeared in the New York Times, New York magazine, and The New Yorker. He performs stand-up comedy basically wherever. He lives in New York City with his wife and their pug.
Discover great authors, exclusive offers, and more at hc.com.
Praise for Nice Try
“Nice Try makes me wish I was friends with Josh in high school. His take on the world is something we need more of—it’s optimistic, observant, sincere, and insanely funny. Read this book.”
—Hasan Minaj, host of Patriot Act with Hasan Minaj
“Josh Gondelman is a comedian who looks like an author, so this book makes a lot of sense. Like him, it’s hilarious, excellent, and fun.”
—Pete Holmes, author of Comedy Sex God
“Josh Gondelman reinforces what I love so deeply about his writing: chock full of wit, so wonderfully hilarious, and unafraid to be vulnerable and honest. Yes, he is known as one of the nicest dudes in comedy, but he’s also one of the most funny and consistent. This book will not disappoint, so stop reading this blurb already and read the book!”
—Phoebe Robinson, author of Everything’s Trash, But It’s Okay
“Reading Nice Try is like carrying around a good friend with you, someone who’s funny and compassionate and always reminding you to do better. If you’re lucky enough to read Josh Gondelman, you’re sure to leave the experience a happier, kinder person. (And as a real bonus, you’ll laugh, too.) There’s good in the world yet—Nice Try is a great reminder of that.”
—Scaachi Koul, author of One Day We’ll All Be Dead and None of This Will Matter
“Josh Gondelman is hilarious. This book proves he clearly wouldn’t have survived if he wasn’t.”
—Judd Apatow, author of Sick in the Head
“Everyone in comedy knows Josh Gondelman is funny and nice, but he’s better than nice, he’s good. This collection of essays will make you laugh out loud and want to be a better human.”
—Akilah Hughes, author of Obviously
“I laughed on every single page of Josh’s book and insisted on reading much of it aloud to whomever was sitting next to me. I did not always know these people, but I choose to believe they loved it too.”
—Jill Twiss, author of A Day in the Life of Marlon Bundo
“Like the best conversation with your smartest, funniest friend, these essays leave you feeling a little bit better about the world. Gondelman doesn’t flinch from self-examination or the complexities of life, but navigates both with such warmth and wit that I miss h
is company already.”
—Cynthia D’Aprix Sweeney, author of The Nest
“Gondelman’s chops as a comedy writer are on full display throughout, and his observations are hilariously spot-on. . . . [His] fun, witty book is a marvel of emotional depth and cutting one-liners.”
—Publishers Weekly
Copyright
NICE TRY. Copyright © 2019 by Joshua Gondelman. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
Cover design by Joanne O’Neill
Cover photograph by Mindy Tucker
FIRST EDITION
* * *
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Gondelman, Josh, 1985- author.
Title: Nice try : stories of best intentions and mixed results / Josh Gondelman.
Description: First edition. | New York : HarperCollinsPublishers, [2019] | HarperPerennial paperback. | Includes bibliographical references and index. | Summary: “Emmy-Award winning writer and comedian Josh Gondelman’s collection of personal stories of best intentions and mixed results”— Provided by publisher.
Identifiers: LCCN 2019021584 | ISBN 9780062852755 (hardcover)
Subjects: LCSH: Life skills—Humor. | Success—Humor. | Maturation (Psychology)—Humor. | Gondelman, Josh, 1985—Humor.
Classification: LCC PN6231.L49 G66 2019 | DDC 818/.602—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019021584
* * *
Digital Edition SEPTEMBER 2019 ISBN: 978-0-06-285276-2
Version 07312019
Print ISBN: 978-0-06-285275-5
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1 Do we still say “carny”?
1 Yes, the Morton Gondelman, owner at the time of Morton’s, the women’s clothing boutique in downtown Boston.
1 I think this qualifies as his best performance because you watch him playing a townie asshole and think, Is he just . . . like that? Is that his real personality? I bet that’s just what Ben Affleck does all day. That to me is good acting, when you believe the character is just the actor’s real personality.
2 In the 1990s, before digital cable, an enterprising young person could turn to where the Spice channel would be if his parents paid for it and try to make out the sexual activity through the static. The project necessitated the vigilance of a sailor spotting nearby cliffs through a thick fog, and often bore paltry results. But when you caught a brief glimpse of flesh on flesh, it felt like a flicker of insight into the adult world.
3 Massachusetts slang for “water fountain,” pronounced bub-blah.
1 I have no idea why Al Weaver’s phone number was eight digits long instead of seven. Probably the calls just started after the R of GOOD-PORN and we never noticed. Or someone did notice and kept it to himself because it would have spoiled the joke.
1 Obviously, the music wasn’t all heartbreak and violence. It was also a lot of fun. The joy and the danger existed side by side, a dichotomy the rapper Notorious B.I.G. summed up in a single song title: “Party and Bullshit.” He was a much more succinct writer than I am.
2 Which he was/did.
3 The cover of one George Carlin album features a giant parental advisory label covering 80 percent of its surface, with the comic’s head barely poking over the top.
4 Some kids in my grade listened to hip-hop, for sure, but we ran in different social circles.
5 We were also listening to a lot of Rage Against the Machine around this time.
1 Okay, I could not have handled that.
2 Ms. Norelli, who taught Faulkner so brilliantly that she tricked me into thinking I liked Faulkner. I didn’t! I just liked her!
1 In the early 2000s, jeans width, at least where I grew up, correlated directly to coolness. Many of my classmates’ individual pant legs had the girth of a country line-dancing skirt. The chicest possible outfit would have consisted of a head-to-toe denim sleeping bag with a wallet chain attached. Though true connoisseurs would notice subtle differences between the various brands, massive swaths of denim united the fashions of my high school’s (white) hip-hop heads and (also mostly white) metal fans.
1 It’s exactly what it sounds like. DramaFest also included a student playwriting competition, which I won my senior year. It was my first indication that maybe I could be a real writer. The summer after graduation, some friends and I put on the play in a local theater and donated all the proceeds to the high school drama club. There is a video that no one is ever, ever, ever allowed to see.
1 Pun intended, and knocked out of the goddamn park.
1 The only upside, as far as I can tell, is that your friends are less likely to die, which I admit is a significant perk.
2 Don’t get me wrong, there are lots of ways to have fun without drinking, but none of them are predicated on serving as the unpaid chauffeur for a car full of people whose plan for the night starts with the premise “No matter where the night takes us, the one thing we know for sure is that at the end of it we will be too impaired to drive.” That means the absolute ceiling for your friends’ cognitive capacity as the evening winds down will be “should not get behind the wheel.” And the floor sits somewhere around “human-size bag of wet cement, able to answer questions only by moaning.”
3 It wasn’t my car, but I was driving it because no one else was in any condition to.
4 More than ten years after that night, I feel comfortable saying this: beer is not good. The better the beer, the worse the beer. Pabst Blue Ribbon is essentially Great Lakes water in a can, so it’s fine to drink if you’re at a barbecue or trying to get wasted enough to enjoy country music to its full potential. But every craft IPA I’ve ever had has tasted like gasoline filtered through potting soil. Craft beer tastes like cold brew coffee’s hippie cousin who lives in the woods outside Portland. Drinking a beer is a toll you pay for being drunk, and hangovers are the cost of maintenance after the trip.
1 Pronounced “Mike Kaplan.”
2 If you feel inclined to heckle my book, now would be a good time to drunkenly yell, “Fun didn’t enter the audience’s mind, either!”
3 A lot of things are like skydiving, it turns out!
1 Not all male humans, but . . . plenty of them, the heterosexual ones at least.
2 In addition, of course, to the neighborhood’s original residents, who have been pus
hed ever farther to the margins of the borough by those transplants.
3 No one expressed this type of dichotomy better than 50 Cent when he rapped, “I’m into having sex / I ain’t into making love.”
1 I’m not against vegan baked goods, just their customary price point.
2 Remember: this was one week before the 2016 presidential election, and Bernie Sanders had ended his campaign several months earlier.
1 Technically there are also museums and plays and parks and stuff.
1 Or the FarmersOnly.com version, if that’s more your speed.
2 Obviously she has more fine qualities, too! She is also supportive and independent and generous and thoughtful and silly and insightful and good at dancing and great at karaoke, but I didn’t know any of that at the time.