021 - A Place for My Stuff: Vol. 1

I’m nearly three months into my Substack safari, and color me impressed with what I’ve seen so far.

There’s the flagship newsletter, which I guess I’ve been using as a drafting table for an inchoate memoir of some sort? Still not sure where my posts are going or how the sum of the parts will ultimately add up, but the whole point of this creative exercise is not to worry about “the point.” I am purely focused on the labor, not on the fruits thereof. The journey is the destination, yada yada, etc. etc. Namaste.

Then there’s the podcast feature, which has been a blessing. As someone who had been frozen in analysis paralysis and vicious cycles of self-doubt and cynicism about my self-worth, I had been putting off podcasting despite 15 years as a regular consumer of the medium, countless guest appearances on others’, and requests from fans to start my own. There had been several false starts and one highly publicized (yet strangely scrubbed from the Internet) hired-gun project in 2021 with Morning Brew, co-hosting a twice-weekly pod called Business Casual (at least I got my first frickin’ Times Square billboard out of the deal).

But with Substack, I am able to upload and publish what I’ve dubbed The 40-Year-Old Podcast without thinking twice, and I appreciate that I can choose to make it exclusively available to the 194 of you who subscribe to this thing, aka, MY RIDE OR DIES (hope you appreciate it, too :)

There is also a Notes feature, which seems to be… Twitter. And a Subscriber Chat, which seems to be… Discord. Substack also enables Video posts… so… it’s also YouTube/TikTok/Instagram? And a few months ago they added Live Video streaming capabilities… so… it’s also Twitch/YouTube Live/TikTok Live/Instagram Live!

I’m slightly ashamed to admit I only recently discovered this godsent omniplatform. Substack is truly the best of all online worlds, which is why I’ve decided to devote the best of my online energies to this space. I’ve spent my entire adult life building out various social media followings — beginning in college with Facebook (RIP), then being pressured into creating a ‘web presence’ on MySpace (RIP) by Nick Kroll and John Mulaney, then posting my first video to YouTube in 2009, then joining Twitter (RIP) when I got my first smartphone in 2011, then reluctantly starting an Instagram when I began hosting HQ, and then most recently and most unenthusiastically falling in line with TikTok (soon-to-be RIP?).

Whatever novelty each might have held at the outset has long ago burned away and burned me out, leaving in their wake a scorched and disfigured society; a hyper-fractionalized culture devoid of any common, solid ground with which to sustain a functioning democracy or cohesive source of truth. It’s bad!

But Substack is good.

So going forward, this will be the place for my stuff. This is where you will find the WORLD PREMIERES of my silly videos — like today’s Duolingo IRL: Little Italy Edition — as well as forgotten golden oldies from the vault. This is where you will find my jokes, my jabs, my jests, my japes, or to borrow another George Carlinism, my brain droppings — so please spread word to others who may find interest in my turds.

And as for the rest of these online platforms, if they haven’t yet croaked on their own, they’re dead to me now! ✌️

---

ONE LINERS N’ THINGS

• Thinking about opening up an inconvenience store, with really high shelves…

• The spelling of the word awkward is so… awkward…

• I bet the three most important things bats consider when looking for a new cave are echolocation, echolocation, echolocation…

• I use Playboy magazine to keep tabs on climate change. This year’s Miss January was the hottest on record…

• There has to be at least one abortion doctor somewhere out there drinking from a World’s Greatest Dad mug…

• Sometimes I think about vaginas, and jerk off…

• It’s amazing that in all the futuristic sci-fi movies and TV made in the 50s and 60s, none of them anticipated 16 Handles…

• That party last night was a real sausage fest. Granted, it was the Dietz & Watson holiday party…

• I can trace my AT&T family plan all the way back to the Mayflower…

• Rickshaws are great because they’re the least efficient means of transportation for the most amount of money…

• I finally read Harry Potter. Didn’t care for all the magic. Should have simply been about kids going to school…

---

Things I Said on the Second Date
by A Guy Who’s Reasonably Sure He’s Met the Love of his Life

“Let’s see Anora! I hear there’s a scene where you can make out the silhouette of a young man’s visible erection!”

“This seltzer we snuck into the theatre isn’t the only thing that’s hard! Look at his boxers!!!”

“Do you think the actor who plays Vanya had to tape his penis down to his thigh when filming scenes where he WASN’T supposed to be visibly erect?”

“What an extraordinary film! My only critique is that we didn’t get to see any pants tents from any of the strip club patrons. You’d figure with all those shots of guys getting dances, we’d at least see ONE!”

“I’m reasonably sure you’re the love of my life, which is the only reason I feel comfortable sharing my deep, personal thoughts about this masterpiece of modern cinema.”

“You probably can’t tell, but I’m currently erect.”

---