#KeepIt100: ‘The Nightly Show,’ Starring Me

Posted on by Mark Aldrich

“Oh my God, it’s Fareed Zakaria,” I whispered to Jen, my girlfriend. It is possible that Mr. Zakaria goes days between hearing something like that from non-famous people; it is possible that he can leave his house without a pen because he can expect a day without autograph requests.

I am a lifelong news junkie and talk show viewer, so in my world, Fareed Zakaria is very famous. He was one of the guest panelists Thursday night on “The Nightly Show with Larry Wilmore,” which Jen and I watched get made. Because I attended that taping and was in the audience for one of the last episodes of “The Colbert Report” in September, I thought it would be worth comparing the two experiences—”The Colbert Report” was very professional and “The Nightly Show” was not as professionally run, but this was okay. “Keep it 100,” as he would say.
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Requiem for a Sponsor

Posted on by Mark Aldrich

Thinking of you today, Charles F. Brennan, III, my friend Charlie (November 2, 1960–April 7, 2014). His funeral mass card carried a quote from Emerson: “To laugh often and much; to win the respect of intelligent people and the affection of children; to earn the appreciation of honest critics and endure the betrayal of false friends; to appreciate beauty; to find the best in others; to leave the world a bit better whether by a healthy child, a garden patch, or a redeemed social condition; to know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived. This is to have succeeded.”

“An Phaidir Suaimhneas”—The Serenity Prayer in Irish
A Dhia,
deonaigh dom an suaimhneas
chun glacadh le rudaí
nach féidir liom a athrú,
misneach chun rudaí a athrú nuair is féidir,
agus gaois
chun an difríocht a aithint.

Mark Aldrich's avatarThe Gad About Town

“Alcoholics Anonymous,” the famous “Big Book” of A.A., does not use the word “sponsor” in its 164 pages, but it certainly describes a society in which one member helps another learn … about the fellowship, about life without drinking one day at a time, about life. Period. “Practical experience shows that nothing will so much insure immunity from drinking as intensive work with other alcoholics. … Carry this message to other alcoholics! You can help when no one else can,” Bill Wilson writes at the start of Chapter 7, “Working with Others.”

The great insight is that when we help others, we help ourselves; when we see ourselves in others’ plights, we see ourselves and thus our own plights become ever more reasonable to negotiate. For many alcoholics, it is the first practical application of “walking the walk” and not just talking to make noise. I taught college for five…

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Schadenfreude and Other Tongue-Twisters

Posted on by Mark Aldrich

The term schadenfreude literally means damage-joy. When one enjoys the news that a rival is encountering trouble, one is experiencing a sense of schadenfreude. Most of us have experienced this feeling at some point in our lives, but most of us also have been jerks at some point in our lives, and the two sometimes come at the same time.

There is no real-world term for its opposite, so some people have begun to use a made-up word, freudenschade, to describe the distress one feels when a friend or rival is doing well or has had a success.

And then there are some people, I am thinking of the late Gore Vidal here, who appear to take pleasure at others’ distress at one’s success. Vidal confessed to feelings of schadenfreude over other writers’ freudenschade. (That is as hard to type as it is to say.)
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