3 Things: Edoardo Ballerini, McSweeney's, and Terryn Hall

Happy Independence Day!

This week, Mollie and I went camping for a night. We found a campground that was only 30 minutes away and seemed like it was safely spaced out. And while it wasn't a big vacation by any means, it was so nice to get away for a couple hours. I always love a campfire and eating outside in the dark under the stars. But the trip highlight was that the campsite next to us was a family with a three-year-old. When Mollie walked by in her mask, he said "Hey kid! Look mom, it's a kid!" and his mom had to say "No honey, that's actually a grownup." And then when I walked by he said "Look, it's the garbageman!" 

We laughed about that for a long time. Just a friendly garbageman and his child setting up their campsite.

Upcoming Events

LIVESTREAMS:
-No COME ON DOWN show today, but I'll be back next Saturday with more Zoom game shows.

- Tuesday, July 7th at 4 p.m. PT / 7 p.m. ET
UPTOWN SHOWDOWN I'm on the first virtual edition of this great comedy debate series. "Two teams of funny folks from the worlds of stand-up and late-night television to tackle topics of great importance to pop culture, such as which pets are superior, cats or dogs, and is it better to be comfortable or fashionable?" Link 

This week’s list

GREAT:
He's one of the most successful and consistently booked actors in a generation, but almost no one knows his name or his face. What they do know is his voice. I loved this profile of Edoardo Ballerini, the Brad Pitt of audiobook narrators. I first read it a few months ago, but I think about it every time I hear a voiceover now. It's also very fun that the article contains a bunch of embedded audio so you can hear what makes his acting so special as you read. The Voice of God. (And Knausgaard, Whitman, Machiavelli… ) h/t Andrea Amiel


FUNNY:
I know this is kind of cheating, since the whole premise of this newsletter is three things, but two McSweeney's pieces I read recently killed me so I'm going to share them both with you.

For the purely silly: Wendi Aarons perfectly nails "Dads of America, As Explained By Their Pants"

For biting satire: Amanda Lehr and Tatiana McInnis' "We Condemn All Institutional Racism Except Our Own"


INTERESTING:
My friend Terryn Hall writes a fantastic newsletter covering "politics, gardening, and culture." She's a writer and political organizer who worked on Elizabeth Warren's campaign and has written for VIBE, The Guardian, LA Review of Books, and many more impressive places. In today's email, she featured some enormous tomato plants, a recipe for a lemon strawberry cake, and a very thought-provoking essay on the politics of McDonald's commercials in the age of coronavirus. Freedom to Buy McChicken and Diamonds 


Thanks for reading! if you like these emails, please forward to a friend or spread the word. If someone forwarded you this email but you're not yet on the list, you can subscribe here.

Have a great weekend, wear your masks, and stay safe,
Chris

3 Things: Anna Deveare Smith, Ziwe Fumudoh, and Jia Tolentino

Hey there,

I know there's nothing worse than a comedian who never makes jokes. And yet there are so many urgent and serious things to talk about! I sometimes wonder if people signing up for my newsletter feel duped, like they hired a clown for their kid's birthday party and then he shows up and starts lecturing about the horrors of authoritarianism. (To be honest, that's a pretty good idea for a sketch and also not a terrible business plan for a clown... you gotta tell the kids the truth, you know?)

Anyway, to make sure it's not all medicine and no spoonful of sugar, here's a video that never fails to make me laugh: reporter terrified by chicken

And now here's some information I need to share before we get into this week's list. Look at this graph. There is a calculated political effort underway right now to make it seem like coronavirus is inevitable and there's nothing we can do about it. That's a complete and shameless lie. I also haven't seen a ton of people talking about the shutdown of legal immigration into the US, but it's so transparently cruel and shoots America in the foot. And then there's the terrifying rise of anti-Asian hate crimes and the fact that some people seem more concerned about statues getting damaged than humans being executed by the police. So please, I'm begging you: wear your masks, protest, vote, organize, donate, and keep social distancing. 

That's all important, but it's also a lot. I know. So here's a chicken wearing pants.

Upcoming Events

LIVESTREAMS:
- TODAY Saturday, June 27th at 2 p.m. PT / 5 p.m. ET
COME ON DOWN, YOU'RE ALREADY HERE! Today's Zoom game show will once again be raising money for the National Queer and Trans Therapists of Color Network.  You can play a round or just watch and laugh from the comfort of your home. Link

AROUND THE INTERNET:
- WYATT CENAC'S PROBLEM AREAS: HBO made the whole series free on YouTube and Hulu (in the US). We spent the whole first season looking at solutions to policing in America and the second season on education. Link 

- CELEBRITY SUBSTITUTE: This Youtube Original Series pairs high school teachers with celebrities to make remote lessons. I helped produce the episodes with Janelle Monae, Terry Crews, and Ken Jeong. Link 

This week’s list

GREAT:
I am always inspired by Anna Deveare Smith. I give her book, Letters to a Young Artist, to anyone I know trying to navigate a creative career. And her plays, Fires in the Mirror and Twilight: Los Angeles, 1992, changed the way I think about live performance and journalism. If you're not familiar, Anna Deveare Smith interviewed hundreds of community members and then used their words, verbatim, to put together plays about racial unrest in Crown Heights and Los Angeles. PBS just recently released a recording of her LA work for free. I can't seem to find a recording of Fires in the Mirror online, but you can read it as a book and I think it's equally powerful in that form. 


FUNNY:
Ziwe Fumudoh is a comedy genius. She creates such high stress shows and then perfectly walks the tight rope of comedy. On Baited, she invites friends "as guests on the show and she baits them into making unwitting racial faux pas." Her recent episode with Alison Roman had me crying tears of laughter, but even when the guests don't stumble at all (like this episode with Aparna Nancherla), Ziwe makes it hilarious. Ziwe Fumudoh Has Mastered the Art of Putting White People on the Spot


INTERESTING:
I wrote about the Bronx Freedom Fund successfully shutting down operations several months ago. In the past few weeks, there's been a huge surge of interest in and donations to bail funds across the country. Jia Tolentino looks into how these organizations are uniquely positioned for this current moment and what comes next. Where Bail Funds Go From Here

Thanks for reading! if you like these emails, please forward to a friend or spread the word. If someone forwarded you this email but you're not yet on the list, you can subscribe here.

Have a great weekend,
Chris

3 Things: Jon Laster, Eric Andre, and the Lucas Brothers

Hello there,

Like seemingly everybody else, I tried my hand at baking sourdough bread during the past months of social distancing. Who doesn't love a good slice of freshly baked bread? And we all had plenty of time on our hands.

The first time Mollie and I tried to bake a loaf, it came out flat and dense but still tasted okay. Same with the second attempt. On the third, we switched things up and ended with a fully inedible and extremely heavy brick. It was not recognizable as bread at all. At that point, we gave up for a few weeks. (Did you know you can just... buy bread? It's not even very expensive! And it never tastes like concrete!) 

But then we had even more time. So I tried again. And again. And I finally cracked the code (with a lot of help from my friend Sandy's Breb Class). It turns out the secret is that sometimes the processes you need take longer than you want. You can't just force the bread onto the next step. You have to wait and evaluate (does the leaven float? Does the dough pass the windowpane test?). And only when it passes the tests, can you move onto the next direction. The whole process ends up taking longer than I would have liked, but now I consistently end up with bread that is recognizable as bread.

That's both a true story about baking and a metaphor I've been thinking about for this particular time in our country. Are we doing the work and passing the tests? Or are we just getting impatient and heading towards an inedible block of stone?

Upcoming Events

LIVESTREAMS:
- TODAY Saturday, June 20th at 2 p.m. PT / 5 p.m. ET
COME ON DOWN, YOU'RE ALREADY HERE! Today's Zoom game show will again be raising money for the National Queer and Trans Therapists of Color Network.  You can play a round or just watch and laugh from the comfort of your home. Free, but with donations suggested. Link

AROUND THE INTERNET:
- WYATT CENAC'S PROBLEM AREAS: HBO made the whole series free on YouTube (in the US). We spent the whole first season looking at solutions to policing in America and the second season on education. Link 

- CELEBRITY SUBSTITUTE: This Youtube Original Series pairs high school teachers with celebrities to make remote lessons. I helped produce this episode where Janelle Monae explains the Electoral College. Link 

- SMALL BIZ GONE VIRAL: My friend Grant LeBeau runs a small business making organic energy bars. But in the age of coronavirus, he's also started a fantastic podcast about how small businesses are trying to survive. I was his guest on an episode where we talked about the business of comedy during quarantine. Link 

This week’s list

GREAT:
Jon Laster is an incredible standup. He's got that immediate presence that commands the room and his jokes are so funny. I've seen him crush in the basement of an Italian restaurant and in the best comedy club in the country. It's amazing to me that he's not a household name yet. Especially when you hear how thoughtful and gracious he can be while talking about the serious stuff as well. I've been loving all the episodes of Mike Birbiglia's new podcast, but the one with Jon Laster is the best so far. Working It Out with Jon Laster (also available anywhere you listen to podcasts)


FUNNY:
Eric Andre's comedy is intense and confrontational. It's extremely strange and in your face. It also makes me laugh in a way that nothing else does. I'll be wiping tears off my cheeks while saying "What is happening? What is he doing!" There's no one else like him. One of my all-time favorite bits on a talk show is when he interviewed James Van Der Beek and hired body doubles who tried to speak at the same time as them. Or this brilliant joke from his new special about how offensive the COPS theme song was. There's a great profile of him in the NYT too: Eric Andre Isn't a Prankster, He's a "Benevolent Attacker"


INTERESTING:
On the other end of the comedy spectrum, the Lucas Brothers are understated and cerebral. They're also hilarious. (Check out their set on The Tonight Show). They wrote a piece about a man they grew up with in Newark and the very different path that his life went down. There are no easy answers, but they write about the complexity beautifully. "He would be called a murderer and a domestic terrorist. But to us, he was family. Our struggles with systemic racism were the same." Our Brother Kaizen


Thanks for reading! if you like these emails, please forward to a friend or spread the word. If someone forwarded you this email but you're not yet on the list, you can subscribe here.

Take care,
Chris