Thank you Shannon Wheeler, Jodi Spargur, Jenifer Douglas, Janice Driver, Artbymeera, and many others for tuning into my live video with Stand-Up Comedy For Introverts! Scott and I flogged our book, pitched some gags and accidentally defamed a clown.
Scott wore a hat last week.
It was immediately clear to everyone on the street that he is not a hat man. He didn’t have the confidence to pull it off, so he pulled it off. Before he got on the train.
So naturally, today Scott Dooley turned up to our live stream in a woolly hat, as a tribute to our pal asher, a man who suits a hat so well he probably sleeps in one. Asher then appeared in the chat and asked to join our gang. We warned him: it’s Australians. He’ll lose a liver.
The replay is above. Here’s what you missed.
Quick refresher. You’re Not a Real Parent Until... came out on 13th October, and Scott and I are trying to sell it using only Substack. No press tour, no breakfast telly, no begging podcasts. Just you, us and this inbox.
We tried the traditional route with You’re Not a Real Dog Owner Until... and it was… not particularly fruitful.
How will we measure success this time? The data’s patchy, so Scott proposed two metrics: Amazon rankings, or whether I buy a yacht.
Meanwhile, our friend Nishant Jain funded his new book on Kickstarter, straight from his Substack, in under 48 hours. He’s now onto stretch goals. I genuinely think this is the new model: a writer, readers who opted in, and nobody in the middle taking a cut. Scott’s documenting everything we learn over on Stand-Up Comedy For Introverts . If you’ve self-published or crowdfunded a book, he’d love to hear what worked.
Order the book at yourenotareal.com, and it ships from us, signed, with a sketch inside of your kid (or grandkid, or a friend’s kid). Scott pointed out that “we’ll do something with your kids” sounds threatening on a livestream. Fair. I have a very particular set of skills.
Then we did what we always do on Is There Something In This?: pitched New Yorker cartoons at each other in real time while I drew them.
A psychiatrist’s couch. A pizza party run by wise guys. Two standover men and a smart speaker. A genie with too many wishes. A self-checkout machine and whatever’s lurking in the bagging area (the shortlist included a surprise party, Jimmy Hoffa and the Spanish Inquisition).
I’m not telling you the captions. Partly because they might sell. Mostly because Scott will kill me. (If The New Yorker passes, you’ll get them here for free. Rejection is a wonderful business model.)
We also lost ten minutes to the Three Wise Men, gift receipts for frankincense, and a gag about Frankincense’s monster which, I was reminded, is technically the scientist. This is the ugly process of writing jokes.
Last Friday, Katie Zacharia was fired after five days as White House press secretary. I threw a Hail Mary pitch at the magazine (Scott: “None of those things can hit.”), and they bought it, on one condition: they needed it within the hour.
I cleared the calendar and drew it in a MAD style, which doesn’t usually fly at The New Yorker. I agonised over the likeness. Scott’s review: who cares, nobody knows what she looks like. It confirmed my one artistic theory: nothing exposes an illustrator like a celebrity courtroom sketch.
Our cartoon also ran in New York’s Newspaper ( The David Prize), in the issue announcing this year’s five New Yorkers getting $200,000 each to make the city better. (Regular readers may remember I once crashed their party for the tiny Reubens. )
