Pour Me A Story, Vol. 39
feat. Josh Gondelman, overeating in the Big Easy and more
greetings everyone! welcome back to Pour Me A Story, the only newsletter assumed to be a podcast by the majority of Twitter users who see it on their timelines each Friday.
it feels like approximately 100 years since last we met, although that can mostly be chalked up to the fact that I was away from home for an entire week. after four nights in New Orleans over the weekend I begrudgingly, but understandingly, quarantined in a hotel by the airport in Cincinnati for two nights before heading to Indianapolis for work Tuesday and Wednesday.
that meant that Alex had to hold down the parenting fort for a whole-ass week, the thought of which makes me break out in a cold sweat. that’s just a whole lot of solo parenting, and I am equal parts grateful and in awe of her for the support.
I dunno about you guys, but when I’m nursing a hangover at the end of an extended weekend away, all I want to do is be in my own bed and see my family. that made two nights at the La Quinta Inn in northern Kentucky even tougher than it probably usually is. (I kid, I kid, the hotel is fine and the staff were great. I just wanted to be home.)
The Big Easy was a terrific time, as always, and if I had the required bravery to stand on the scale I’d surely find that I put on 10 pounds over the weekend. I had a bucket list of stuff I wanted to eat, namely: beignets, oyster po’boys, crawfish in some form, fried chicken from Willie’s Chicken Shack and the muffuletta at Central Grocery. more on that later. we even got to hang out at Faubourg Brewery, where Katie from last week’s edition bought us beers, showed us around and gave us a terrific tour. I’m very fortunate to have interesting friends all over the place.
despite consuming significant amounts of booze and food, I even managed to line up this week’s guest at 1:30 on Saturday morning, while I was taking a breather between a four-piece mixed fried chicken dinner from Willie’s and a fried oyster po’boy with tots and crawfish bisque at Nola Po’Boys. needless to say, I suffered the following morning because that is way too much fried food to eat in the space of two and a half hours before bed.
Anyway, We Have Company
this week’s guest comes to us from New York City. that’s right folks, the Windy City! Josh Gondelman is a writer and co-executive producer for Showtime’s Desus & Mero, incredibly the show’s second staffer to appear in this segment. (Mero, you’re next.) anyway Josh put out one of his regular calls-to-action on Twitter last Friday night and I, drunk and full of fried chicken at Erin Rose in the French Quarter, decided to shoot my shot. the rest, as they say, is history.
we connected via earlier this week, which you can read below.
AC: first off I wanted to say how much I dig the "five minutes for a pep talk" format (bit? segment?) you do on the timeline sometimes. it feels as though it shares some of the same "let's get some positivity going here" values as I try to promote with this newsletter. do you remember what prompted you to start that, and keep it rolling?
JG: Thank you! Yeah, I for sure remember when it started. It was late 2013, and I was in kind of a career slump, and I had a gig scheduled out of town that night that wasn't anything big, but I thought it would be fun to get out of the city and tell jokes. And then that morning, the promoter told me that not only did they not put tickets on the website, but the venue door was chained shut, so they cancelled the show. It felt like...a little on the nose, as a metaphor for my career frustrations, you know?
I was feeling low that night and I thought like, instead of reaching out to ask other people to reassure me, I'd offer to do that for them. I knew in my head that I was FINE, and things would be OKAY even if I didn't achieve some of the stuff I wanted to, and I felt like by reminding other people, I would remind myself of that too. I keep doing it because people seem to respond to it, and it's just a small thing I can do to be helpful to a few people who may be in a similarly down place.
AC: congrats on the ongoing success of the show; you're actually the second member of the team who's joined me for a guest spot here after Tawanda was on a few weeks ago. what does being a comedian and writer on a late-night show look like, and how does the creative process differ between developing your own material compared to writing for someone else?
JG: Thank you again! I was actually just talking to Tawanda about this! I think one of the great things about writing for a show is that I can write stuff that's outside the scope and voice of what I do myself. Bigger productions pieces and different points of view and things like that. It's so much fun! There's more texture and ambition than just me being one guy standing still on a stage talking too fast.
It's also a cool challenge when I'm writing for someone new where our sense of humor aligns naturally and where I have to do a little more work to meet the host where their style is. Because first you have to pitch an idea you like to the hosts (or head writer) at the show and they have to like it before the audience even gets to hear it. It's a good way to build skills and get out of my own personal creative ruts!
With standup or even essay writing where I have an editor, I get to write exactly what I want even if everyone else thinks it's boring and unfunny and bad, which is not the goal, but it happens from time to time.
AC: I work in the sneaker biz and seeing what the guys wear on each episode is definitely something I get a kick out of, pun possibly intended. has working with Desus and Mero been a catalyst for growing your great sneaker collection, or was that something that had a life of its own before you joined the show?
JG: I had been dipping my toes (pun basically unavoidable, and I apologize) into sneaker stuff the few years before I started at D&M, but I'm definitely more conscious of what I'm wearing on a given day now that I work there! I really try to bring it at events where I'm representing the show. I'm already so much of a gentle goober. I want to make sure I have something cool going on!
AC: speaking of which, you might be the only person I'm aware of who has a pair of the Dunkin' Donuts x Saucony collab, although I bet Affleck has a pair. do those turn heads everywhere or do they stay in the house so you don't experience anti-Boston sentiment in New York?
JG: I do wear them out every once in a while. They're SO comfortable. I have been trying not to tone down my innate Boston-ness when I'm around. Occasionally people give me shit for it (including at work lol) but I don't see a reason to try to fit in on something so benign. I wear my Red Sox hat everywhere. One time a neighbor heckled me from his stoop, he was like: "Yankees forever!" And I said: "I respect that." And he goes: "You better respect it." It was...slightly menacing but it felt very sincere in a way that I did, in fact, respect.
I've even been trying to use more of the slang from when I was growing up instead of suppressing it. It does occasionally lead to confusion when I use the term "ripping butts" to mean "smoking cigarettes." But usually it just means I say "wicked" a lot after two drinks.
AC: two more softballs to finish up. first off: the weekly special guest gets to choose the song of the week, since I'm very bad at expanding my own musical tastes and I appreciate the help. something you've been jamming to this week or something that's been in your head for a decade or...whatever!
JG: Oh this is easy, I've been listening to Sandstorm off of Laura Stevenson's new album on repeat! It is the new best song called “Sandstorm." Sorry, Darude!
AC: this last one is in a similar vein. this is where you get to plug something, anything you like, whether it's a cause close to your heart or a really good sandwich place or anything really. sky's the limit!
JG: You know, I was just thinking about how much I enjoyed Made For Love on HBO Max. Of all the kind of new "prestige" shows that debuted in the past year, I think it was my favorite. I also liked the three episodes per week release model. Perfect for little mini-binges! It had exciting twists and turns and was weird and funny and tender! A second plug is Black Monday on Showtime, which is SO funny and I think might be the most underrated show on TV currently!
Worthy Consumables
on Sunday morning, after four nights of drinking in New Orleans, my fellow travellers and I were feeling about as good as you can imagine a trio of mid-30s dudes would be after four nights of drinking. companion number one split around 9:45am, citing the need to check his dog in at the airline counter as reason enough to get to the airport mad early.
companion number two and I hung back at the Airbnb, neither with the energy nor inclination to venture out into the 85-degree morning in the hour or so we had before we had to check out. but there was one thing on my mind that I’d been thinking about since long before my arrival on Wednesday night.
founded in 1906 by a Sicilian immigrant, Central Grocery is the home of the original muffuletta sandwich. the muffuletta features olive salad, salami, ham, Swiss cheese, provolone, and mortadella, layered on the Sicilian bread that gives the sandwich its name. I’d never had one, but I had also never had a cheesesteak until the first time I set foot in Philadelphia, so it stood to reason that I should have it for the first time in its ancestral home.
unfortunately the deli was a mile away from our digs and, while I could easily cover a mile in 15 minutes even with a hangover, time was ticking and I didn’t think I had time to do the round trip as well as eat the sandwich and shower again before we had to leave. so, while my buddy sat on the patio trying to amend a cancelled flight, I did what every millennial does when they’re hungover and in need of sustenance: I opened the DoorDash app.
with one nervous eye on the clock and the other on the app, I watched in real time as the delivery driver arrived at the deli, picked up my order and drove through the traffic-choked French Quarter towards our apartment. he arrived with about 20 minutes to spare, apologized for the delay (which…dude. I’m the lazy one here, not you), handed me my order and took off.
I raced gleefully inside, dumped the bag out on the patio table to the bemusement of my travel companion, who had no idea I was ordering food, and unwrapped it.
I had been warned by another friend that the full sandwich was enormous and that the half-cut-in-half option was the right move. when it arrived, I absolutely agreed with that assessment, but an hour and a half later at the airport I wished I’d bought the whole thing. I couldn’t stop thinking about it.
the sandwich was perfect. I don’t even like olives that much but I ate every morsel and immediately declared it among my top 5 sandwiches of all-time. I’m not even sure what others are on there — probably the Publix chicken tender sub; a chicken cutlet and mozzarella sandwich from some deli near White Plains, New York; the lobster roll at The Maine House when I worked there in 2015; and the Cubano at Havana in West Palm Beach, Florida — but this went straight into the pantheon of meals found between bread.
anyway next time you’re in New Orleans, you simply must go to Central Deli and try it for yourself. I’m even tempted to order a kit on Goldbelly so I can have them at home.
Parting Note
well that was a fun one again, wasn’t it? truth be told, the only editions I don’t feel are fun ones are the ones where I just talk for 1,500 words. it’s much better when I have someone along to take the spotlight, and Josh was great. anyway, as requested, here’s Laura Stevenson with Sandstorm to take us home for the week.
thanks again for hanging with me, pals. can’t wait to see what we can come up with next week! until then.
— adrian ✌🏻