I woke up with a voice

This is a SECRET SOCIETY for everyone

Good morning, whenever you are. I woke up with a good voice this morning, so I sang a song, and put it at the end of this message. But first:

johnhodgman

A post shared by @johnhodgman

I posted this when the sun came up last Wednesday. It really took me by surprise.

Here’s a suggestion: when you are planning a funny podcast tour, maybe look at the calendar first. Maybe don’t book your show in Burlington, Vermont for the night after Election Day.

Because if you do, then you will spend Election Day Night alone in a hotel room in the darkness. Which is what happened to me.

I tried very hard to stay in the darkness. When I saw where things were going, I remembered that watching the news will not affect the news, so I turned everything off and tried to sleep.

But no matter how often I hit “do not disturb” on my phone, the New York Times kept sneaking by defenses, waking me up over and over again with bad news, until it was 4AM, and I had not slept, and the darkness seemed infinite.

But then good news: the sun came up. I genuinely had forgotten this was possible. It rose over Lake Champlain, and the rest of the continent. People were waking up, texting me and vice versa—checking in with each other.

I very quickly felt less alone and slightly less desperate. I was reminded that time moves in one direction. This will feel bad and it will be bad. But the sun erases the night and turns it into memory. Over and over again.

That’s what I wrote on that Wednesday morning. It was something of a comfort. But even so I absolutely DID NOT want to do a comedy show that night. Or even our weird imitation of a comedy show. I wanted to hide and be quiet.

But the dumb show must go on. That’s the show biz norm that I will have no part in shattering, and I thought: maybe the two or three people who show up will take some comfort in being together.

And in fact, everyone showed up. And each day of our little tour through New England, the sun kept coming up, and people kept arriving too. Here are some of them. I wish I had taken pictures of all of you.

These two stayed to the end of the end of the end in Maine to say hi.

This person is not just needle-crafty but also a psychiatrist. DOUBLE THREAT.

Oh yes, that is a Russell Hoban tattoo.

This guy came rocking so many layers of Hodgmanalia that I thought maybe he was an hallucination.

But he’s a real guy named Andy, and here he is with his friend MARK, who is writing a biography of Judy Blume. These guys are such pals.

It’s easy to forget: it feels good to be with friends.

And while art can provide all sorts of moral instruction and consolation, one of its deepest purposes is sheer distraction, and I felt honored to provide some of that medicine, and grateful to enjoy some of my own.

Also, Jasper Hill rolled through with a box of cheese—my other favorite medicine.

I didn’t want to wallow, but I did start each show with an update on the sun and its rising. As I thought more about it, I added two additional cents worth of observation.

1. The sun belongs to everyone. Still, there are some people who want to hoard it. When they see the “wrong” people getting a little light shone on them, they freak out. They are poisoned by a society that worships scarcity and zero sum games. They worry they aren’t getting enough sun themselves, and so those others must be punished and cast into darkness. But they’re wrong. There is plenty of sun, it shines on all of us, and we all deserve its warmth and a chance to build our own happiness in its light.

2. You must feel all your feelings as they come, with no apology… grief, anger, despair, resolve. But also: it is really important to have a really good time. We are confronting a political movement animated by a desire to see you weep. Your feeling bad is their victory. And in the face of this, having a really good time doesn’t just help you feel good: it is an act of moral defiance.

It also makes for a better night of fake judging and imitation comedy. So after I offered these two cents (worth exactly one cent), we dropped this topic. We were silly and dumb and happy on purpose for a while, all together, and I recommend it.

When I got home from the tour, I finally got to indulge in that first impulse I had last week: to hide and be quiet.

It was pretty great, actually. I turned off the news for real. I read a crime novel and some George Saunders and some Dr Doom comics. I went to a matinee of CONCLAVE, the hot new papal crime procedural.

After a week of talking, it felt good to be quiet. And while we all have work to do, being quiet is also a way of having a good time. You owe it to yourself.

But when I woke up this morning, I noticed that my voice sounded good. This is not anything I can predict anymore. My vocal chords are often all over the place these days, either locked in deep, cracking spasm, or gunked up with phlegm. It’s no fun not knowing what you’re going to sound like in the morning.

But today when I woke up I was able to hit some very low tones that I don’t get to visit very often, so I took the moment to record a song.

It’s a song by Cynthia Hopkins, who is a wonderful artist and friend. And she has a new album out with her duo/band FELLWALKER, so please go and listen to what she has to say.

Her song is called RESIST THE TIDE, and it is about conjuring light in darkness. I used to sing this song back in 2012, when we thought the world was ending. Haha. That was fun.

Anyway, as Cynthia wrote “You know you have a voice that you can call your own.” So sing along if you want, and I hope it makes you happy.

That’s all for now. Next time I will open up the SECRET ROOM again and keep reading MOBY DICK to you, among other secret messages.

But for now, take care of each other.