We had a time in Brooklyn!
On Monday night, we hit the stage at The Bell House in a section of Brooklyn that had Styles asking, “What the fuck neighborhood are we in?” backstage. (Gowanus.) 400 people were in the building, some of whom were at our Bronx show and a few who were on the Rock the Bells cruise — we see you, ladies, thanks for making the drive!
In a world where 30% of people buy comedy show tickets on show day, we’d sold out days earlier — and someone actually listed one for resale on StubHub for $575. Through talking to people, I know some came in from Philly, DC, Chicago, Florida, California — and if he’d won one of the newsletter giveaways, a man and his girlfriend were going to drive in from Michigan. So, the enthusiasm was real and very much felt by us. We appreciate all of you who came in as well as the ones who want to be there for the next one.
I don’t want to make this too long — it’s Christmas Eve, maybe you’re with your family, maybe you picked up a double-time shift or you’re helping an old lady across the street in a last-ditch effort to get on the nice list — but I just wanted to (on behalf of all of us) say how grateful we are to have formed this community with you all. Maybe the holidays make softies of us all, but I think it’s a message worth sharing.
And speaking of family: years ago, Eric and I were doing our podcast A Waste of Time from our home, and we got an email from some guy who’d just moved up from Maryland to Brooklyn. He was working a job he hated and wanted to be a full-time photographer — could he come by our interviews and do just that? He could expand his circle, he could sharpen his skills, he could enjoy the podcast conversations he’d previously only listened to, in a whole new way. We said sure. Week after week, he made the trek from Brooklyn to the Upper West Side on his own dime and took incredible photos of Trevor Noah, Rick Ross, Bun B, Sophia Chang, whoever was in our apartment that day. We spoke the same language and his art spoke volumes. We had him as our photographer when our little showcast was known as 2J2BD, and the guys loved him as much as we did. When the pandemic hit and everyone scrambled to figure out a new world with an airborne disease - including us, who stopped doing regular podcasts for three years - this guy evolved, offering professional portraiture on peoples’ front porches around Brooklyn. And when things opened back up, this guy got back to it, working his way up to becoming the official staff photographer for the NYCFC soccer team, running around the pitch, capturing extraordinary action around the globe (and exotic places like Columbus, OH) and landing his Hail Mary.
For this show, we were able to bring that man, the great Tommie Battle, back into the fold — his fantastic pictures are below — and we were also able to bring on his wife Nicole to handle our merch. We knew she was the best, but she fucking sold the hell out of our stuff. (I asked her if she’d ever worked retail before, she said, “I LOVE retail.”) Shouts to the whole Battle family and movement, we love you guys.
Looking at Tommie’s pictures (and the hundreds of posts posted on IG), I can safely say a time was indeed had. We got a step closer to finding out if Jada was Italian when everyone read from Do the Right Thing; Karate Man karate-krashed out over an audience member. Eric had the most raucous AKA of all time, I talked about how holiday cards are stupid and Sheek had us all crying laughing over his concerns of being called an OG. Oh yea, we reviewed Die Hard, too, which started off with Eric offering Sheek $100 on the spot if Sheek could give the villain’s full name. How’s that for a cliffhanger!
Shout out to Johan and Eric Chiriboga behind the cameras, DJ Steph Cakes who set the tone, our booker Josh No-Name, Abraham at Uptown Prints for the site-specific merch and the staff of The Bell House for making this happen. Looking forward to the next one!
Make sure to watch and listen to our Q&A episode this week — thank you again for your questions, even though The LOX hated — and look out for the year-end episode on Monday! Also, here’s our re-enactment of Home Alone (on YouTube), in case you missed it:
As always, you can find us on YouTube, Spotify, Apple, Instagram, TikTok and right here, for our weekly newsletter. Also, here’s our merch shop!
Feel free to suggest movies for us to review here! People hit us every day for us to review movies, and the only way for them not to be lost is in the Google form, linked right there.
The latest suggestions have been Carlito’s Way, which I imagine one of the guys will suggest at sopme point; The Craft, which I almost saw on a date in 6th grade, and Home Alone 2 which I’ve been arguing with Mayo about because he thinks it’s good and I think it’s a cynical note-for-note, pound-for-pound remake of a movie we’d already loved. Wack! Anyway, you can listen to our thoughts on the original here.
Also, it’s award-show season, a lot of great movies are coming out. Eric and I have already seen Marty Supreme twice and highly recommend it. Netflix’s Jay Kelly was pretty good, Train Dreams was good-looking but okay and the Hamnet book was better than the movie, but the movie was worthy and emotional. Enjoy your Christmas, sorry for the longer-than-expected email, back on Monday!
the craft is definitely a great movie. have a great weekend! do we get another episode or letter before Jan 1st?