Always Too Soon: Writing Sketch Comedy in the Trump Era
This is a piece is recently wrote for the New Yorker about the challenge of writing comedy in the Trump Error, I mean Error, I mean…ERA! (Spell-check is sometimes pretty smart.)
This is a piece is recently wrote for the New Yorker about the challenge of writing comedy in the Trump Error, I mean Error, I mean…ERA! (Spell-check is sometimes pretty smart.)
It would be so easy to blame it on my being insulated by my wealth and privilege. But I refuse to do that, and the assistant I’m dictating this to feels the same way.
If you were only reading my posts about this trip, you might assume I was having terrible time. This is because the things I enjoy writing about are the disasters and near-disasters of travel; you can only write so much about a pretty view. So read on with the understanding that for every misfortune there […]
During our recent stay in San Pedro de Atacama, we were harassed by an overly friendly llama and a cat that wanted to sleep on our faces. One night we didn’t have hot water, the next we didn’t have any water at all. A dog barked continuously through both nights. Early on our last morning, I fell into a hole in the driveway and rolled into a clay oven. And when we were packing up to leave, as if in atonement for our suffering, we found a million Chilean pesos in a drawer. But let me start at the beginning.
Whenever I approach an international border, I break into a cold sweat. This is not because I have contraband in my suitcase or cocaine in my ass. This is because border crossings are created to make you feel guilty, just like traffic stops by cops. Borders are there to remind you that you belong to a country, and not to the world.