Your book was my favourite thing I read this year, and this includes things I’ve written, so that’s saying a lot. I know the title alone went through an extended wringer, both in your own head and in back-and-forths with your publisher and editor or whoever. Obviously ‘pee’ is far better than ‘pee-pee’, so I commend you for sticking with what you know is the funniest and standing up to the broad minds, as you’ve done over and time again. I’m working on a non-fiction book myself, about myself, but it’s come to a standstill until I can come up with the perfect title. Here’s a rundown of my current shortlist:
- The Comparable Ian Smith
- I Meant It At The Time
- Fun At The Time
- Next Stop, Woodland Drive
- Things To Do With Cabbage: Not A Cookbook
- The Runaway Model
- My First Car: An Auto Biography
- Cow: A Bunga: A Memooir
- The Assless Chapters
- Crawling Through A Not-So-Big Pipe
- Thoughts From A Shower
- Simon Steals Home
- Ninjaic
- Entitled
- Untlttled
- Funtitled
- Down to Clown
- There Ghost The Neighborhood!
I also have this band that comes out for one month every few years, that’s made up of just me. Once I settle on a perfect name in that realm, I’ll invite others to join me, and hopefully they’ll know how to whap their instruments nice and good so we can go on tour. Here’s what I’m working with so far:
- Winner and the Nominees
- Pretty Thieves
- Satched
- Back Wax
- External Validation
- Chesterfields
- A Mushroom Tour of the San Fernando Valley
- Tixe
- Banana Force Kale
- Grass Soup
- Non-NABs
- Mnemonic Hymns
- Mnemonic Vices
- Noise Will Be Noise
- The Almond Butters
- Pee Nut Butt Hair
- Bonereal Forest
- Wet Taint
- Pee Shivers
- The Perfect Pinch
- Fruitful Endeavors
- Individual Cream Packets
- Shoutin’ Jay Cheezies
- Steve Albedo Effect
- Merle Strep Froat
- Pure Butts
- Hedgehoggy Dilemma
- Poison Girls
- Land of Walkie-Talkies
- Indie Band Name
- How Now Pow Wow
- Planned Handstand Band
- Pizzle Rot
- Apollo Geese
- Umlaut Reduplication
- ¨ ¨ [pronounced ‘Dubloomlout’]
- Cozy Robes
- Cozy Cabins
- Jimothy Goof Again!
- Espionage Carnival Gathering
- Clark Gregg’s group of people who got together to make music and have other fun with Clark Gregg [band name I came up with in a dream – at the time I thought that Clark Gregg was Clark Duke]
- Here’s a few more I came up with, going so far as to create fake album covers for them
Now that I think about it, my solo project could use a new name too, but only if I pivot to the rap game. Maybe I’ll change it to one of these:
- Lothario Dawson
- Old Man Werm
- Brobocop
- Cyril Sneer
- Sum Fella
- DJ Trope
- DJ Deej
- LJ Cool Bean
- MC Donalds
- b42
- Emperor Neapolitan
Notes on your podcast appearances
On Pete Holmes’s, you mention that the hospital people had to tie you down because they thought you’d pull the tube out of your nose. When I was in the hospital a couple of years ago, I hallucinated a crazy scene that melded with real life and when I came to I’d ripped a tube out of my nose.
On Norm’s, the two of you go back and forth for an extended amount of time, asking each other how you both pronounce different words. Occasionally I’ll think about how great it would have been if this went on for another hour or so.
A final note
Thank you for articulating the effect of the disingenuous apology, and thank you more for Make It A Treat, and thank you too for being real funny.