The Only Five Things I Liked in 2022
The things that tickled what's left of my soul
It’s time for my annual recounting of how dead I am inside! As readers of this blog know, I’m a comedian in the midst of a crisis: For most of my life, I watched a ton of comedy, and now I watch almost none, because just about nothing that gets made these days makes me laugh. Though I did like Severance — that was interesting and had funny moments. I also liked House of the Dragon, though I wouldn't call that a giggle-fest.
The one thing that gives me solace is that I am still capable of experiencing enjoyment. An old lady falling down, the glint of excitement in an arsonists eye — these are the commonplace wonders that warm my heart. In the interest of mining the joy that can be found all around us, here are:
The Only Five Things I Liked in 2022
5. Successful people failing hard in public
The Elon Musk thing has been kind of great; watching an alleged genius plummet to earth like a drunk trapezist has been terrific for my ego. I’ve also enjoyed the public comeuppance meted out to Sam Bankman-Fried and Vladimir Putin (who is objectively successful at being awful). I've got my fingers crossed for more highly-visible spin-outs from putative winners in 2023; maybe Bill Gates will get pounded to dust in an ill-advised foray into mixed martial arts, or perhaps Derek Jeter will buy the Taj Mahal and then burn it down with a hot plate. We can hope.
These failures are important, life-affirming events. It sometimes seems that life is a relentless succession of failures interrupted by the occasional bout of diarrhea. But watching big winners lose big reminds us that failure comes even for the “best” of us. Gore Vidal once said “It is not enough to succeed. Others must fail.” He was right. And though success may remain out of reach, watching others fail makes me feel that the job is half-done.
4. The birth of my child
Some people — my wife, for example — might feel that this should be higher on the list. I think #4 is pretty good! If you’re the fourth best basketball player of all time, you’re, like, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. And Kareem was amazing! Four is a really good spot!
In fairness to me, the baby hasn’t been born yet. As of this writing, we are days away from his due date. I’m sure that the moment I lay eyes on him, I’ll fall in love and he’ll rocket up the list, perhaps as high as #2. Especially if he’s born before January 1, because a 2022 birth will net us $3,000 in American Rescue Plan money.
3. This Hanukkah video
My wife and I plan to raise our son in our faith tradition, which is: lapsed. I’m a lapsed Christian, she’s a lapsed Jew. We will teach him about our traditions, which include sleeping in on weekends and eating whatever the hell we want.
But we still like to do fun holiday stuff! Our house currently has both a tree and a menorah. And in the course of seeking out child-friendly Hanukkah entertainment — which is severely, tragically thin on the ground (if Jews run Hollywood then explain that, Kanye) — we came across this video.
This video will teach out son a little about Hanukkah and a lot about being a dance major. Which is important, because if he wants to major in dance, that’s fine, but he needs to know what he’s getting into. The tragedy of that video is that the dancers are pretty good! I could imagine the girl on the left getting a callback for the Fly Girls; the girl on the right may have been a hair’s breath away from being a Milwaukee Bucks cheerleader. But they didn’t make it, and they ended up on the Jewish-themed, local TV version of Fraggle Rock. It’s the director’s cut ending of Billy Elliot that you never saw. And it’s the risk you run if you major in dance.
2. A noticeable shift towards YIMBYism
What do AOC and I have in common? We both recognize the need to build more housing (uh…at least nominally). I consider the need to build more housing — which can be done simply by removing archaic and poorly-considered barriers — probably the most obvious, clearly-beneficial policy choice facing Americans today. It’s like we’re starving, and we stumbled across a Honey Baked Ham. Now the question is: “Should we eat the ham?” Yes…yes, I think that we should. I really don't feel that this is a tough call.
I seem to have noticed this viewpoint becoming part of lefty canon in the past year or so. I’ve seen Twitter profiles with red roses complaining about parking requirements and minimum lot sizes. Smart people like Noah Smith and Matt Yglesias have noticed people coming over to our side. I don’t know why this is happening; it might be a byproduct of a petulant “BOOOO, the SUBURBS” attitude suitable for an Arcade Fire song. Trump and Fox News did have a brief “Democrats are destroying the suburbs!” NIMBY moment that may have reoriented the far left’s policy alignment. But no matter why it’s happening, I’m glad that our numbers are growing.
1. Cats
Some writers fear that they’ll be replaced by artificial intelligence; I’ve made peace with the fact that comedy writers will be replaced by cats. It’s already happening; people increasingly get comedy from Tik Tok and YouTube. And who’s creating that content? Fucking CATS are. We really need to get these cats into the Writers Guild.
Cats are natural comedians. They’re ridiculous. They’re not self-conscious. And no cat has ever made a self-serious turn towards drama in a lame attempt to win awards. I, for one, welcome our new feline overlords; they played a great game and deserved to win. Who needs the entertainment industry when you’ve got geniuses creating content like this?
Going out on a limb to predict that one of my favorite things about 2023 will be the uptick in quality dad humor coming our way. Congrats to you and the missus!! And good job taking the commentariat’s advice to just go for it in that column about fatherhood 9 months ago, as I’m sure that was the deciding factor. You won’t regret listening to randos on the internet!!
The left's reaction to the Twitter Files has been fascinating