August 13, 2025

I just realized that my drivers license expires in 10 days. I say “just” as if this were a surprise. It’s not. Nor was it ever. I knew when I got my license 4 years ago the exact day it would expire. Of course, the surprise feeling immediately gave way to self-loathing. One part of me knew the expiration was coming, and another part of me hates that part. Why didn’t you say something sooner, jackass? But that’s how it always goes, isn’t it? Even if we knew the exact day and time of our death, we’d be lying on our death bed thinking already? I thought I had more time! And moments later, how could you…?

Renewing my license should have been a straightforward process: go online, click renew, receive new license in the mail. But, since it’s a government-run website, it’s a bit more complicated: go online, click renew, get an error, retry nine times, drink alcohol. I don’t know why government-run is synonymous with shitty. I mean, I do; I used to work for the government. There’s a reason we have sayings like “a government job,” and “good enough for government work.” The website is so bad, it’s almost like they want us to go into the DMV. “Look, our workers are lonely. Come visit. They need this.” Is that why they’re so slow? They just need someone to talk to?

I eventually got to the point where I could schedule an in-person visit to the DMV. Everyone’s favorite way to spend an afternoon. Why is the DMV so bad? Why does every DMV visit have to be slow and stupid and weird? It’s almost like someone at the DMV asked, “Hey, should we fix everything?” And the boss said, “We have a reputation to uphold.” The soonest reservation I could make was in September. Do they only have one person on duty? Are they that lonely? Or am I just like everyone else, trying to make a last minute appointment? That’s not it…

To renew my license I also needed an eye exam. I was able to schedule an appointment within seconds at a place 400 feet away that takes place in two hours. I mean, it’ll cost two grand, but I’m supporting free enterprise! What are they doing right that the DMV is doing so wrong? How are they able to make it so easy? I walked into the optician’s store at 11:15 and told the smiling clerk I had an appointment for 11:30. She ushered me to the New Patient Registration Desk where I gave the receptionist my last name.

“Ah, I see you have an 11:30 appointment,” she said. “You can sign in here.”

I thought she was joking and smiled at her like you’d smile at someone who just made a joke. I didn’t see the need to sign in when we’d just done it verbally.

“You can sign in here, Mr. LeDonne.” She wasn’t joking.

In a quiet rebellion, I wrote intentionally illegibly, which is no different from how I usually write my name.

“The fee for today’s basic exam is ninety-five dollars.”

“I’m just here for the DMV test.”

“Ah, wonderful,” she said. “That’s ninety-five dollars.” She asked for my drivers license, the very one I was here to renew, and made a digital scan of it. “Oh, please fill out this form, Mr. LeDonne. We just need your name and address.”

“Didn’t you just get that from my ID?”

“It’s just for our office.”

You guys sure love your paperwork. I’d expect this at the DMV, but not a regular place of business.

I paid and waited a length of time that made me wonder why I made an appointment in the first place. Finally, a tech took me to an examination room and explained that he and another tech were going to perform three tests: two eye scans and the air puff test, universally understood as the most exhilarating way to spend 2 minutes of your life.

“I’m just here to read the letters for the DMV.”

“We need to do these tests for you to see the doctor,” the tech explained. He explained it in a way that said look, none of these are necessary, but we have to legitimize the $95 charge. Sit down.

“Do we have to?” I asked, as I sat down in the first seat. They ran the first two tests, and when she told me it was time for the air puff test, I swear I saw her sneer. No matter how much I thought I was prepared for The Puff, it wasn’t enough. When it came, my whole body shook. I would have been better off driving with an expired license until I could get in to the DMV.

They finished and sent me back out to the waiting room, where I waited for another length of time that made me wish I hadn’t been born.

As I sat down, Wiff texted me a link to another eye exam place. This one was online, had a 5 minute wait time, and cost half as much.

I went back to the New Patient Registration Desk. “I gotta bail.”

“You’d like a refund?" the receptionist asked. The way he said it made it seem like this wasn’t an uncommon conversation here.

“I gotta be somewhere,” I lied. “And I’ve waited too long.”

“We can over you a discount. Maybe for like $60?”

“I appreciate the offer, but I’ve gotta jet.” I had nowhere to be, but I had to get there fast. Meanwhile, I’d clicked the link Wiff had sent, and was 5 minutes away from my eye exam.

I got my refund, and walked to meet Wiff at an Irish pub. I arrived just in time for Doris to pop up on my screen. Wiff, Doris, and I walked outside, and Wiff held the phone while Doris gave me an eye exam.

Within 5 minutes, I’d passed the test, paid my $49, and Doris had uploaded my exam details to the DMV.

I sat down at the bar and finished my license renewal with no hiccups from me or the website.

August 10, 2025

My morning chores normally include tasks like watering my garden and then admiring my garden, but this morning I awoke to a huge problem. My Genovese basil seedlings were leaning like the Tower in Pisa that overlooks the same sea as their eponymous home. I wondered if I’d ever recover.

View fullsize

Soil block basil seedlings in the foreground, lettuce in the background (click to enlarge)

I’d planted the basil seeds in 3/4” cubes of freestanding soil instead of sowing them in cell trays or directly into their final growing medium. It’s a technique known as “soil blocking.” But I’d let these guys grow too tall and they’d started to list. So I went down to my storage locker, opened my giant Rubbermaid bin full of dirt, and started sifting. As one does when they live in a high-rise apartment in midtown Manhattan. I up-potted my basil and this afternoon I’m happy to report that they’re back to standing upright. Thank god. Now I can continue with my day.

My next order of business was calling family. Mostly to tell them about Basilgate, but also just to catch up. I like to do that seasonally.

Then on to Important Show-business: following up with a comedy agent. Last night a comedy agent called to ask if I was free to work tomorrow night. It went to voicemail. I wish I could say it was because I was too busy performing on stage, making a theater full of thousands of audience members laugh their heads off. But, I was sitting on a piano bench next to Wiff while we figured out the key in which Ariel sang in each of two versions of The Little Mermaid. So today I called him back. “Can you feature for Chris Kattan tomorow.” I said yes. Then he said, “but I’d need a favor.” In showbiz, “I need a favor” usually means money or sex or, in rare instances, both. In this case, thankfully, it was neither. “Can you pick him up from the airport?”

Can I pick someone up from the airport that I used to watch on TV every Saturday night when I was a kid? And then drop him off at his hotel, and then pick him back up and drive him to the club? And then perform for 25 minutes while he watches my set laughing his head off? And then drive him back to his hotel where he’d presumably invite me in for a drink and we’d become best friends and no “favors”?

I played it cool. “Sure.”

So that’s what I’ll be doing tomorrow night. After I play Uber driver to an SNL alum, I’ll be performing at Borrelli’s Taproom out on Long Island. And then becoming best friends with someone I admired on TV.

August 9, 2025

Hello people who have Pomeranians and know how important it is for their fur and skin and body image to brush them almost daily. And hello people who own Pomeranians and refuse to brush them daily because it isn’t fun fighting with your dog daily.

Happy Saturday!

I started off the week by getting a last minute request to host a comedy show at Gotham Comedy Club. The show went well. Jim Gaffigan stopped by and did 20 minutes. I get to introduce him pretty frequently at Gotham, and I always find watching him to be instructional. In most other fields, you’re not privy to the inner workings and the creative process of those who are at the top of their game. Could you imagine sitting next to J.K. Rowling while she worked on Harry Potter? Actually…that might be kinda boring…just a lot of her sitting, quietly writing, daydreaming about what she’d do with the billions she was sure to make from the Harry Potter franchise. So to watch another comic come in, week after week, and test out and refine material is pretty cool.

The other day I was talking with some comics about how hosts can run the risk of being pigeonholed into hosting. I think it’s a valid point, I know several comics who host more than they do spots. But it’s also kind of a pointless problem. Because when someone asks if you want to host a show, you can just say, “No” and/or ask other people for regular spots. I find a lot of would-be problems are like this. If you’re worried that drinking too much might mean you’re becoming an alcoholic, just stop drinking. If you’re worried people will think you’re too hilarious because you’re always cracking them up with your jokes, stop making jokes. I guess what I’m saying is stress is make believe.

Moving on.

On Tuesday I had a callback for a commercial that will most likely appear on cable news channels watched exclusively by elderly people. I can’t tell you exactly what product the commercial was selling, but suffice to say it probably hangs out with its friends Reverse Mortgages, Buy Gold Bullion, Mesothelioma Class Action Lawsuit, and the ever-popular, Self-Catheter. During the callback, the casting director and director told me I exuded warmth. It was a compliment, but not as huge of one as you might think. The bottom of their casting email says “Casting emphasizes authenticity, warmth, and relatability across all roles.” Am I generally a warm guy? Yes. But was I doing my darnedest to make sure that warmth came through the callback because I desperately need to book something to make it to the age where I can buy the product I might be selling? Also yes.

Moving on.

I got a hair cut on Thursday. My barber slash hairstylist and I have been in a cold war. For as long as I’ve been seeing him—since about the beginning of the year—he’s left a chunk of hair long to cover up where my hair is receding. I don’t want the chunk long, because it takes extra time to style that chunk. I have to blow dry the chunk to seal it into place, when all it wants to do is to fly free and let my true hairline show, no matter how far back on my head it’s gone. I’d had enough of the cold warring this week and asked him—nicely, he had scissors—to cut it off. He did it so quickly and without any pushback it would almost make you think there was never a cold war in the first place.

Moving on.

Wiff and I had friends over last night which meant we spent most of the day cooking and cleaning. I like having an excuse to clean but also wonder why I need an excuse to clean. Here’s the menu, in case you’re curious:

THE MENU
Mixed nuts, cerignola olives, and Cheez-Its with Pol Roger
Sous vide filet mignon roast with heirloom tomatoes, grilled serrano salsa verde, and fresh horseradish dip
Roasted tricolor potatoes
Blanched haricot verts

They brought dessert, a “tiramisù” from Whole Foods that was more like a tiramisù spongecake. It was tasty—I ate my entire portion with such reckless abandon it made me forget about my growing paunch until this morning—but I wouldn’t call it tiramisù. Speaking of tiramisù, I went to Rome in December and learned how to make really good, really easy tiramisù. I should probably put that up on my website, eh?

Anyway, hope all’s well.

Chow for now,
Anthony

Working Dirty

On the stage, my act is clean. But in the garden, I’m free to be filthy.

There’s something so human about playing in the dirt. I love tearing open a new bag of soil. It smells like earth. And despite New York being a pretty dirty place, it doesn’t smell like earth. It smells like boiled hotdogs, bus exhaust, and dog urine.

There’s something so pleasing about tending a garden. Is it the low stakes? A former manager at Gotham Comedy Club used to tell comics who were freaking out, “There’s no such thing as a comedy emergency. Everything’s going to be okay.” And I think the same holds true for a garden. So what if I over water my lettuces? Sure, they’ll get root rot and die but it’s not like I have to spiral to a deep, dark place where the only thing to keep me company is existential dread.

Is it the fact that it’s an analog practice? Things in gardening, at least how I see them, aren’t black or white. They’re green. A lot of my world is digital. It’s binary, a one or a zero, right and wrong, black and white, cheese or pepperoni. But gardening is green. Are the leaves a little droopy? Give ‘em a little water. Are they turning yellow? Give ‘em a little water. Or maybe more nutrients. Or less water. (I’m not a master gardener.) The point is, when you’re not so focused on whether something is right or wrong or by the book or not, you’re free to evaluate the situation and adjust as necessary.

A Few Days Off

Updated July 25, 2025.

I took a few days off from writing. I wish I could say it was intentional, that I’d been working so hard lately that I just couldn’t possibly get through another day without taking a much-earned break.

But that would be a lie. The past two days were an accident.

But it’s not like I wasn’t doing other stuff.

Thursday I got a phone call from a comedy agent.

“Saturday,” he said, as if we had been in the middle of a conversation. “You free?”

“Saturday…Let me check.” I didn’t want to say I was available straight away. I wanted to feign some semblance of being someone who is constantly on the move, a mover, a shaker, someone who works so much and in so many places that, when asked whether he has plans two nights hence, he has to check his datebook “Yes, I’m free.”

“Great, you’re booked.” He hung up.

“Sounds great. Thanks!”

So Saturday night I hosted two comedy shows at Bananas Comedy Club, one of my favorite clubs in New Jersey. Dan Ahdoot headlined. Jordon Ferber featured. They were both hilarious.

None of this is germane to the story of why I didn’t post the past two nights, except it buys me time to think of a real excuse.

I don’t have one yet.

I’m Just Getting Started

I worked out on Wednesday. I did squats, shoulder presses, and RDLs, plus some bicep curls for the ladies. It’s a plan called Minimalist, co-created, or at least marketed by, Matt D’Avella, a YouTuber I’ve followed off and on for the past several years. The plan is kinda fun. I don’t know if it’s any different from any other plan I’ve ever tried and failed to do, but this one has the added benefit of being new.

My abs are sore. Now, when I say “abs” I don’t want to give you the impression that I have a six-pack. Or any pack, for that matter. I’m sore where most people’s abdominal muscles would be. I’m used to being sore. My workout regime for the last year has been on-again-off-again, which, has the benefit of not adding any muscle and only producing soreness. But that’s fine. What really gets me is that it wasn’t the main part of the workout that made me sore, it was the warm up.

Shots on Goal

I taped 6 auditions today—four for voiceover gigs and two for on-camera gigs. I enjoy each audition, but I hate the process of auditioning.

The difference between being in an audition and auditioning is like the difference between playing soccer and watching soccer. When you’re on the field playing, you’re present, you’re alive, you’re in the scene, ready to respond to whatever the other players give you. But when you’re watching soccer, you’re always three beers in, drinking to forget the fact that you somehow you got roped into watching a sport played mostly by people who can’t afford air conditioning.

Often, when I’m planning my day and looking at all the auditions I have to do, I’ll let myself go up into my head, and brew up a nice, pensive little mood thinking about how my life isn’t going anywhere and how none of these auditions will lead to anything and I’m a terrible actor and even worse person [but at least I’m better than soccer fans]. But then, from the far reaches of my brain, a ref will blow a little whistle and hold up a red card and he’ll force me to stop my little drama-queen show of rolling around on the field, wincing in pain, holding my ankle even though the only thing it touched was a blade of grass, and it’s just enough to jolt me out of my mood and force me to get back in the game.

And then, when I decide to setup the camera, print out the sides—actor-speak for scripts—and start rolling the camera, I have so much fun.

To remind myself to spend less time thinking about doing the audition and actually doing the audition, I’ve started watching outtakes of some of my previous auditions. Here’s one from a recent shoot where Wiff shot spit wads at my face. The trick is to get over the hump from thinking to doing. When I think about auditioning, I loathe it. But when I get into shooting? I’m pumped. It’s in the doing of the thing that I remember how much fun it is, and why I’m doing it: because it’s fun, because it can support my family, and because it can support my comedy career.

After all, isn’t that the goal?

Sauerkraut

I’m making sauerkraut right now and I’m both a) amazed at how simple it is and b) intimidated by the process. Conceptually, I know it’s simple: shredded napa cabbage, 2% by weight kosher salt, massage, and put in a jar for two weeks to ferment. But emotionally, I’m inexperienced. What if it’s too warm? Or too cold? What if it’s exposed to oxygen? Will it taste good? Will I get diarrhea?

Maybe.

But doing stuff, trying and failing and sometimes succeeding but mostly failing, shines a light into the shadows of inexperience and, where you once thought there were boogeymen, you see there is nothing.

Except when it comes to sauerkraut. The directions said to keep it in the dark.

Breaker HotBoxing

The other day I smelled weed in my home. Besides the three times our dog, Bailey, ingested spent marijuana cigarettes on the sidwalk in front of our building and subsequently gorged on Beggin Strips and Taco Bell, our home has been weed free. So this was a rare intrusion. After Lauren and Bailey both passed lie detecter and drug tests, I set out to find the source. I sniffed everywhere in my apartment. As hard as I tried to isolate the point of entry I couldn't smell it anywhere except the electrical breaker box. It made no sense. As a last resort I opened it and smelled a rush of the good stuff.

We've had run-ins with smokers in our building before. A few years ago, a resident down the hall smoked weed every day. The smoke would waft all the way down the hall and right into our apartment. I reported it every time—every building needs a Karen—and every time, nothing happened. Our building couldn't do anything except build a case against the guy. That's how the law's setup in New York: it protects tenants even if they're being dickheads. After a year of smelling weed and getting second-hand high—not the worst way to spend a year, Bailey said—our building finally made us an offer: we could move to the same apartment 11 floors up and they'd lower our rent. What?! Not wanting to look a stoned gift horse in the mouth, we accepted the offer.

The day before our move, I took Bailey for her morning walk. As I left my apartment, I saw a uniformed police officer sitting in a chair down the hall.,

"Morning!" I said. I'm that kind of neighbor. She was seated in front of The Smoker’s door, and I needed to find out what was going on.

"Morning."

Playing hard to get, I see. "Can I get you a coffee?" I pushed the elevator call button to keep up appearances, but I had no intention of getting into the car.

She smiled. "No thanks. I'm good."

I was getting stonewalled by New York's Finest. How was I supposed to get the scoop? I should have known she'd be trained to resist interrogation... I wasn't going to get much out of her without a fight. The elevator door opened and for a moment I stood there, staring at the cop, wondering whether to walk down the hall for a chat. But Bailey whined. So we hopped on and went about our walk. The next day, just as we were closing our door for the last time, a resident told me that The Smoker was arrested for domestic violence and evicted.

It's been three years since we tried to put some distance between us and him, but this whiff was a pungent reminder that no matter how much we try to distance ourselves from others, we're still connected. There’s always going to be someone doing something somewhere that’s going to annoy me.

Pulling Out

In 1916, on the eve of America’s declaration of war in the WWI, Harry S. Truman put in $5000—around $147,000 in 2025 dollars—to the Morgan Oil & Refining Company and signed on as treasurer to help the growing business. The company began drilling beneath farmlands in Kansas in hopes that the country’s impending mobilization for war would lead to a gasoline boom.

But instead, business dried up. To add insult to injury, as McCullough writes in Truman, “only later it was it discovered that one of their leases in southeastern Kansas was part of the famous Teeter Pool, a supply of oil that would have made millions for the company and its officers had they just drilled deeper.”

Woof.

How do you know when to keep drilling and when to pull out? If there were signs of oil—and I have no idea what those signs would look like since the only oil I deal with is extra virgin olive—would you notice them? If you’re in a career and you think it’s going nowhere, would you know if you’re on the precipice of a breakthrough?

Asking for a friend.

I’m Sore Today

I'm just the teensiest bit sore after yesterday's trot with Wiff. And though I'm ashamed to admit it—since it was barely 3 miles— I’m also proud, because I won.

I Went For A Run Today

I’ve mentioned before how supportive of a husband / competitive I am, so you won’t be surprised when I tell you that when I walked in on Wiff changing into her workout clothes this afternoon, the first words out of my mouth were “I’m going too.”

And so, after not having run together since Thanksgiving, we went for a run/race. [I won.]

The best part? As we were having an evening Manhattan, I got a little peckish, and threw together a little snack. Here’s the recipe:

1 cup of oyster crackers
several tablespoons of EVOO
a bunch of smoked paprika
several turns of freshly cracked black pepper
a few pinches of cayenne
several large pinches of oregano
a decent amount of kosher salt

Toss everything together on a foil-lined baking sheet and bake at 350˚F for 8-10 minutes.

On a Diet

I'm a week and a half shy of starting my sixth month without checking the news, and no, it has nothing to do with our new president but everything to do with his wife.

It all started on Inauguration Day 2025.

*insert dream sequence harp glissando*

The morning started off like any other: two cups of Starbucks Caffe Verona coffee, French press, followed by a mild-to-moderate bathroom catastrophe. It continued like any other. I wiped the tears from my eyes and the sweat from my brow, and gingerly sat back in bed to play a few minutes of Disney Dreamlight Valley—because I identify as a 9 year old girl from Terra Haute who wants nothing more than to meet, or better yet, be, Belle. When I bored of Disney Dreamlight Valley—DDV for those in the know—I played the News+ Crossword and Sudoku. All three levels, thank you very much.

After the games ended, it was on to the real work: checking the news. I skimmed the headlines on NBC New York and then The Post, to ensure a balanced dose of daily spin. (I know, I know, I said I swore off the Post in a previous, ahem, post, but sometimes you just need a hit of the good stuff.)

On the morning of Inauguration Day, I went to NBC New York and saw the headline "What did Melania wear to Donald Trumps’ Inauguration?" Now, I have nothing against Mrs. Trump. One of our household even voted for her husband last year—Bailey started her own alt-right group, the Proud Good Girls. Mrs. Trump seems like a nice woman and/or a very well put together robot. But I have no idea what she wears and even less of an idea why it was front page news. Is this why I'm reading the news? To find out what people wear?

Whenever I tell someone I don’t read the news—and, when you don't read the news, you're required to work it into the conversation within the first five minutes of meeting someone—their response is always the same: "How do you stay informed?"

To which I ask, "Why do you stay informed?"

What are you doing with all the information? I'll tell you what most people do with the information. They complain. They complain about what one politician did and what another failed to do. They complain about how much other people complain. (At least that's what I did.) They tell you at the bar how the country's going to shit. They tell you that they read on X that illegals are stealing our jobs. Then the recession was stealing our jobs. Now AI is stealing our jobs. [NB: If your job is so easily stolen, maybe you're in the wrong job?] And when they see your eyes glaze over, they tell someone else, usually on X.

But as I started to interrogate my news intake, I found that it didn't sustain me like reading a novel. It wasn't improving my life like reading non fiction. It was just a quick hit of sugar. I'd get high, vibrate with rage, and then crash. The news was empty calories.

So I removed it from my diet. And I started to read more. I started reading history and philosophy. I read a biography on Truman. Did you know we've had presidents people didn't like before? With all that's going on in the news, you'd think we were living in unprecedented times. I hear all the time on comedy stages that "we're living in a very divisive time right now." Right now? Did you know that when Truman ran for reelection, a lot of people hated his political platform? He wasn't doing anything radical. He took FDR's New Deal platform, which sought to spend a ton of government money to improve the lives of Americans, and said, “What if we added black people?” Nuts, right?

But some people hated the idea so much they created a new political party. They called it the Dixiecrats, presumably because The Segregationists was a little too on the noose. That, or they couldn't spell it—they were Southerners, after all. Obviously the Dixiecrats, a party founded on racist ideology, couldn't put a man in the White House. That'd be preposterous. So they put one in the Senate, where he served for 48 years.

Time has a way of winnowing prejudices, bias, and falsehoods so that only the truth remains. Sure, each author introduces his own bias, but the good ones, I think, let data and facts speak for themselves. Plus, unlike news, which exists as an ephemeral flash, we can argue with authors. They take time to research, compile, and argue their point. They give us an opportunity to read, digest, and even refute what they write. You can't do that with news. It's just there, and then it's replaced with the next news story. Have you ever gone back through old news clippings to see what they got wrong or how little of the full picture they had?

Now before you think me all high and mighty, taking about how much better I think I am than all of you news readers, let me be clear: I don't think that. [I know it.] And, I have to admit, I still get some news. In fact, I get my news by word of mouth. And I enjoy it. Some mornings Wiff will ask, "do you me to tell you about a thing that happened?" And that's how I learned about a few plane crashes, some freaky weather, and the recent flood that affected Texas. But instead of reading hyperbole on a computer screen, I get a just-the-facts-ma'am version from a human.

Look, I don't care if you read the news or not. I'm not even saying that reading the news is bad. Smart people have said societies need free press and those smart people have also written books so ergo I must agree with them. All I'm saying is that I've enjoyed not having to read poorly written local news articles about what the First Lady wore on Inauguration Day.

What did I do with all that time I saved by not reading the news? I figured out how to stop those mild-to-moderate daily bathroom catastrophes. Turns out the news wasn't the only thing I had to change in my diet.

An Ideal Day

Today I had lunch with Wiff, hosted a comedy show, and then had a few beers with a few of my favorite comic friends. I can’t think of a better way to spend a day.

I wish I could…

My Garden is Back

Why I got two 50 qt bags is beyond me.

I’m growing three kinds of lettuce to start, Romaine, Cimarron Red, and Simpson Leaf.

I keep a garden journal to keep track of what works and what doesn’t.

A lot of it doesn’t.

But that’s the point of keeping a log: so I don’t make the same mistakes again.

Hand Stuff

On the side of my bottle of Bombay Sapphire there's a little note that reads "hand-selected ingredients." I don't know why the body part is important to note, but they've got it on there. Does anyone care?

And does anyone actually believe these ingredients are all hand-selected? And what does that even mean, to be hand-selected. Does some buyer point to a picture of rose petals in a catalogue and say "those?" What do they think we think when we read "hand-selected?" That someone is selecting each and every juniper berry that goes into making 25 million liters of halfway decent gin every year?

And what does it say about the person who appreciates that? I don't know if I necessarily want to imagine someone rummaging through every ingredient that goes into my gin. At best it's a romanticization of the process, and at worst, a downright lie. Plus, this gin doesn't cost enough to pay for what I imagine it costs for humans to hand-select the ingredients. Or does it and I'm just that out of touch with the cost of human labor?

Let's take the neutral grain sprit. Are human hands selecting each of the thousands of acres of wheat it took to distill that? I could imagine someone pointing to one field over another and saying, "that one," and then watching the combine harvest all the wheat. But then what?

Does someone go around and hand-select all of the 10 botanicals?

"Let's get the berries from that juniper tree, no, NO! Not that one it's threadbare...that one! She's a beaut. Yes. Good. And that one. NO! The other one...Good..."

ChatGPT estimates that 12 million lemons are used each year to produce Bombay Sapphire. Are any of those hand-selected?

I've noticed this in restaurants too. Every steak is hand-selected. Every cocktail hand-crafted. Even the fries—something you'd think a machine could do handily—are hand-cut.

Just once I want the waiter to come out and say, "After the pandemic we realized no one knew how to wash their hands, so we decided to remove them from the equation altogether. Our kitchen is entirely hands-free. They’re all amputees."

To which I would say, "Amazing. Let's give them a hand."

The Freakin Weekend

Why is it that, even though I don’t have a regular office job or even a job that requires me to be somewhere on weekdays, a weekend still feels like a weekend?

It’s Saturday, July 5th, and I don’t feel like doing work. I have an audition due Monday that I could have done this morning, but I didn’t, because it’s a weekend. I need to write, but I don’t wanna because it’s a weekend.

I have nothing to clock off from. No desk to not go to. Any day could be a weekend if I wanted.

I can go to the movies on a Tuesday or the beach on Wednesday if I liked doing any either of those things.

I could work on a Saturday or even on Sunday, the lord’s day, if I wanted to do any work at all.

Who knows, maybe I’ll feel different tomorrow.

Hey, at least I wrote!

Amurica

In 1775, David McCullough writes, King George III “hoped his people in America would see the light, and recognize that to be a subject of Great Britain, with all its consequences, is to be the freest member of any civil society in the known world.”

I’m thankful those brave colonists did see the light and realized that, though they were subjects of Great Britain, with all its consequences, and were the freest member of any civil society in the known world, they weren’t free enough to leave.

Because now we can celebrate by blowing stuff up.

Smart Collector

The other day I was in a voiceover live directed session and the director asked me to send both the raw and edited versions of the audio files, each in two different formats. After the session I jumped into my Digital Audio Workstation and began chopping up the session recording. All in, I had 35 audio clips that needed to be exported four times.

Given software constraints this is not as easy as it sounds. I'd have to manually select each one of those 35 clips and add to an export queue, repeating for both versions and both filetypes for a total of 140 clips. That's a lot of clicking, and I wanted to turn this around quickly for the client.

I saved myself the clicking and decided to write a python script that would do everything for me.

When I was in the fifth grade, I started learning how to code. I read a book on the BASIC language, which sounds like it comes with a Pumpkin Spice Latte and contains words like "literally," "I can't even," and "obsessed," but is in fact a real programming language. I wrote a few simple programs, one of which would take the letter grades on my report card and calculate the average.

And thank god I learned how to program! Before this program [a note to readers under 40, programs are old school apps], my poor father would have to calculate the average for himself to award a dollar amount based on the result, but now, through the magic of automation, my program could do the work for him. Surely that was worth an extra few bucks. Due to a persnickety bug, no matter what grades you inputted, it always returned the same result. YOUR AVERAGE IS AN A.

I had no plans to use this knowledge beyond running this little scam. It wasn't exactly top of the list for impressing the babes in my class. "Hey, honey, wanna see some code?" But then, the other day, I thought about breaking it back out.

Not that I could use the exact knowledge, mind you. BASIC couldn't help me in my voiceover editing scenario, but having a minimal understanding of code could. So I wrote a python script—with the help of Chat—to do export. What would have taken me an hour only took me a few minutes. Well, technically it took me two hours to learn how to write the python code and two seconds to click "GO."

There's a story about an algebra teacher responding to a student asking whether he would ever use algebra. "No. Studying algebra is like lifting weights. Chances are, you're never going to need to deadlift a barbell-shaped object outside of the gym, but you might need to lift a couch to help a friend move or a dining room table to help your parents prepare for Christmas dinner." And just as lifting weights keeps your body healthy, studying algebra keeps your mind healthy.

This needs an ending. But that's what editing is for.

Tomorrow!

Stress Test

During our bookclub meeting tonight, one of the guys told a story about a stressful work situation. In the story, one of the leaders he works with, referring to the stressful situation, said, “I can’t wait to read the book on this in 10 years.”

Now, I don't know if this is what he meant, but I think that’s great advice for deciding whether or not to worry about something. If something isn’t worthy of having a book written about it, it’s not worth stressing about. Books take time to write. They have to be researched, edited, proofread. They have to be interesting enough that an agent will submit it to a publisher, and have a strong enough hook that a publisher buys it. No one’s gonna write a book about you losing your wallet or getting fired.

But the opioid epidemic? Or the COVID vaccine? (Both bookclub books, btw!)

Along the same line of thought…

Jaron Lanier talks about creating content that take 100 times longer to create than it does to consume. A blockbuster movie takes months or years to create and 110 minutes to consume. That passes the Jaron test. A novel, say about an ambitious NYC attorney who has to spend the holidays with her ex, for example, takes months to write, and several hours to consume. That passes too. But a tweet? Or a Reel?

The story about the stressful work situation was especially fitting given the club’s most recent read, Thoughts of a Philosophical Fighter Pilot. The author, a Vietnam Vet and former fighter pilot, was shot down over Vietnam and survived as a POW in the Hanoi Hilton for more than 8 years. His experience was worth writing a book about, and was probably worth stressing about. But, ironically, and because of his studies of Stoic philosophy, and in particular, Epictetus, he didn’t.