A Note from Your Publisher, Editor in Chief, and Writer, Columnist, and Ombudsman
Welcome to Masthead. I’ve been wanting to start a newsletter for a while now, for a few reasons. First, I demand that my voice be heard. Second, I sure could use the practice. Third — but really first and second, for real — I want to build a depository for my writing that isn’t weighed down by my own outsized expectations. I don’t want to have to submit this to the approval of an editor, or beg for likes and retweets, or run these thoughts through some Validation Matrix before I’ve even starting writing. Too many times I’ve refrained from starting projects because they seem too daunting; I feel hampered by the boulder before I’ve even begun to push it up the hill. This is going to be an exercise in trusting my thoughts.
This might consist of the week’s essentially random thoughts, like this edition, or it might be where I end up writing longer essays or posting dumb jokes. I don’t know. Subscribe or don’t. I don’t care. But I’m going to try to be here every week.
The Big Stuff
Obviously, this is an important moment in history. We’re all living through it together, and many of us white people are simply, sadly, catching up. My friend Tom wrote on Instagram that he’s embarrassed he’d never heard of Juneteenth until a year ago. I don’t think I had, either, and it is embarrassing. I mentioned this to my girlfriend, who grew up in Beverly here in Chicago, and she said she’s always known about it — if not from school then definitely from the annual celebrations in the surrounding neighborhoods. “I’m South Side, honey.” That a couple white boys from the suburbs wouldn’t know about Juneteenth isn’t all that surprising, but it’s helped me realize that American inequality isn’t just about economic or material or social conditions. There’s another disparity: those of us born into — or around — injustice have a fuller awareness of our history, and the rest of us will spend our lives trying to keep up.
For my part, I’ve spent the last few weeks doing what everyone else has — trying to learn everything I can, donating, writing my reps, having the tough conversations with friends and family about What This All Means, not to mention surviving through the ongoing pandemic despite our nation’s seeming inability to reckon with any existential threat to our humanity, be it systemic racism or police brutality or climate change or too many major movies starring Pete Davidson. If it’s not a threat to capitalism, it’s not worth addressing. It didn’t used to be this way — but of course, we white boys do not have the fullest grasp on history.
I hope I can use this space eventually to share what I’ve learned. For now, I’m still taking it all in, reading, listening to Black voices, studying our history. I’m trying to catch up, and I don’t have any point right now that’s worth stopping to make.
On iO
If you don’t know what happened last week, the Chicago comedy scene, such as it still exists, was roiled by the sudden and permanent closing of iO Chicago. I got drunk and captured the bulk of my reaction on a brief Twitter thread, but there’s a couple more things I feel like mentioning here.
I don’t think my experience at iO or with improv is unique, and it was more about my own anxiety than anything else, but I also don’t want it to seem like a “toxic culture” is the most important problem. The whole system has larger issues. As Seth Simons has covered in his own excellent newsletter, all these institutions — from UCB to Second City to smaller theaters in Raleigh and beyond — have been plagued by a business model that naturally preys on the ambition of young artists. They’re also, obviously, fundamentally unable to address their lack of diversity on stage, no matter how many scholarships they dole out or special showcases they produce. The financial barriers are too high, the success stories too rare. These places were designed to collect exorbitant fees for classes and churn an endless parade of zealous twenty-somethings to face artistic inertia, sexual harassment, and the jealous scrutiny of their competitive peers — all for the opportunity to seize an infinitesimal chance of “success” that might as well be zero. They weren’t performance spaces; they were social clubs run by millionaires who erected enough financial and social barriers to keep out the rabble. They deserve to burn.
It is absolutely pathetic that the Tribune posted this op-ed from an alt-right dipshit claiming that “cancel culture” killed iO*, but that also appears to be what Charna believes, too. (I’ve seen a lot of people call out the author, and he sucks for sure, but I wouldn’t be surprised if he was simply assigned a pitch from Charna’s post-closure PR blitz.) Even when faced with a chance to set her legacy right, she quit and then blamed people for complaining. Why were these people ever legends?
Regardless, I really did meet some of my favorite people at iO. Maybe even you! And even when these institutions finally burn, I’m confident that comedy will find a way thrive in the fertile ashes. Let’s just hope we take down a few other American institutions with them.
* It’s worth reading Kevin Knickerbocker’s rebuttal to the op-ed. There are absolutely a lot of wonderful people who were invested in iO and prepared to address the problems together. I just don’t know if it would have been possible to completely change that system.
Reading Reccos
One of the books I’ve been reading is Ordinary Men, the 1992 historical account of the German police battalion assigned to carry out the Final Solution in Poland in 1942. I’ve been reading it as a means to understand how otherwise “good people” can become complicit in systems of brutality as injustice, specifically as it applies to American policing. (It’s generally hard for me, for some reason, to comprehend how some people can be motivated by greed, power, etc. enough to willfully harm others.) The Holocaust is obviously a rather extreme example, and I’m still early in, but the book is great so far — a sobering study of our universal capacity to break bad. Take this chilling example of a doctor, trained to save lives, putting his expertise to use:
I believe that at this point all officers of the battalion were present, especially our battalion physician, Dr. Schoenfelder. He now had to explain to us precisely how we had to shoot in order to induce the immediate death of the victim.
Grim.
I really enjoyed this piece by Timothy Kreider called “America Was Built to Fail.” It’s actually kind of funny that the things that bring me hope right now are the ones that suggest we might be due for societal collapse. Normally that would be horrifying, but considering everything that’s happened since March — or even considering the decades that led us to the point — a major reset feels like the only way we’re going to bend toward progress within my lifetime.
This is also worth reading: “COVID-19 Broke the Economy. What If We Don’t Fix It?” I’ve thought for a while that the metrics we use to measure the strength of the economy are bullshit. What does GDP matter when it only includes the monetary value of production — including industries like finance, which has no effect on most people’s well-being — and who cares about job creation when so many of these jobs don’t include basic protections or health care? I like the concept this article reviews — the “Degrowth” movement — but I’m not sure the term is good or snappy on its own. Either way, here’s another thing we should probably be thinking about as we tear down our existing institutions.
Finally, everyone on earth should read this analysis of Josh Allen’s mechanics from Cover1.net. If the NFL ever has a season this year, the Bills are going to win the Super Bowl, baby!!
Embrace the Small Obsessions
Look, I don’t know why, but I love the goofy bridge at 2:14 of Weird Al’s “Your Horoscope For Today.” It’s one of the funniest things he’s written. Last week, I found myself memorizing and rehearsing the entire 20 seconds word-for-word just so I could sing it in the shower. Both of these things should’ve probably stayed private.
Words From Friends
My good friend Chris Geiger wrote some great reflections on his reaction to Ava DuVernay’s 13th. I remember having a similar revelation after watching it a couple years ago (on my phone at the gym, maybe a bad idea for a film that’ll already boost your heart rate), but then I didn’t have the priming of the watershed moment in which we find ourselves now. Back then, I thought, “Wow, this is all so fucked up! Why is Newt Gingrich in this?” Now, my reaction might be closer to how Chris felt — embarrassed that a film like this was so illuminating to me after I’d spent 30 years in this country, and ashamed at my complacency despite that illumination. When the movie was over, I wiped my sweat off the elliptical, but I didn’t do anything else.
Please read Nico Carter’s piece on his experience within the toxic culture at Cards Against Humanity. It breaks my heart that someone as smart and thoughtful as Nico was ever led to question either of those traits. His story is a good reminder that even the institutions we try to build with good intentions, filling them with good-hearted people and crafting noble mission statements, can just as easily crumble when the corrosive agent of power takes hold.
Donate to Jonathan
Finally, if you can spare some change, please donate to this fundraiser for Jonathan Euseppi, a wonderfully talented writer and performer who’s battling a resurgence of cancer. Jonathan put together one of the funniest, most honest solo shows I’d ever seen in Chicago, and I hope to see much more of his work in the years to come.
So Where Do We Go From Here?
In terms of all these rotten institutions, fallen or merely cracked, I can’t answer that. I can tell you that I plan to keep this newsletter going, for better or worse. Thanks for reading this first one. Hopefully this turns into something more interesting!
Please subscribe, comment, share, whatever. I’m still figuring out how this works.
01: Institution
Because music, you know... if you haven't heard it, check out Joel Thompson's piece for orchestra, men's chorus and baritone, "Seven Last Words of the Unarmed" (c. 2016). https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zdNXoqNuLRQ
Great read, Zack!