My Dad Has a Direct Line to A-List Celebs

If I get booked on a talk show, my dad will have been the reason. Plus recs for Oliver Burkeman on disappointment, John Wilson on filming everything, and Miriam Jordan reporting on deportations.

First of all, thank you so much to everyone who voted for me in the Webby Awards! I’m thrilled to announce that we won for best advice / how to podcast! I genuinely did not think we had a chance and I was so pleasantly shocked to find out we won. It’s the first award I’ve ever won and I immediately updated my bio to include “award-winning podcast host.”

I also got a text from my dad saying how happy he was about the win and alerting me to an online news clip he’d seen that had this as the thumbnail image:

Just an astronaut, Snoop Dogg, and me. Normal stuff!!

LOL

Even better is that when I was talking about how funny that video is to my dad, he told me that he had “sent it to Drew Barrymore” and told her she should have me on her show.

Of course, my first question was, “When you say you ‘sent it to Drew Barrymore,’ what do you mean by that?”

My dad informed me that he had sent The Drew Barrymore Show instagram page a direct message telling them about me and suggesting they needed to book me for a segment on the show.

I love my dad. It’s a real gift to have a parent who is so supportive that they are firing off wild unsolicited DMs to social media managers insisting they book his kid. I’m like a nepo baby, but if you could be a nepo baby in Hollywood by having a dad who spent his career working in human resources for the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey.

Here’s the thing though, I don’t think there’s a zero percent chance that my dad’s DM could work. I would normally think that, but he has a wildly successful track record of interacting with celebrities in the past. Maybe it’s luck, maybe it’s his Midwestern charm, maybe it’s being a 6’4” guy living on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. I don’t know!

To give you an example, one time my dad found out that the actor Christian Slater had grown up in the same apartment as us (not even just the same building, the exact unit in the building) and told us he was going to invite him to dinner. I figured there was no way he could get in touch with Christian Slater and then he sent our whole family this clip:

chrisiduffy

A post shared by @chrisiduffy

What makes me laugh the most is how Christian Slater gets increasingly flustered and a little terrified as he tries to back out of what he’s already committed to live on air.

Even aside from the daytime talk shows, my dad has had some incredible celebrity run ins. Once, in a grocery store in Columbus Circle, he jokingly told a guy that people must always tell him he looks like Luke Skywalker, only to realize that the guy he was talking to was, in fact, Mark Hamill.

Another time, he was at his neighborhood gym (nothing fancy, just a regular old gym) and asked a random guy to spot him on the bench press. The guy happily helped my dad out and when he left, another gym patron came over, impressed, and asked my dad, “How do you know Matt Damon?”

My dad’s jaw dropped. “That was Matt Damon!?”

Incredible stuff all around.

My point being, you might very well see me and Drew Barrymore hanging out next week. If anyone can make it happen, it’s Mark Duffy.

My projects and upcoming events:

LIVE IN LA: Wrong Answers Only - Dynasty Typewriter on Tuesday, May 20th at 7:30 p.m. There are so few opportunities to go to a comedy show that prominently features a parrot scientist. I am here to change that. Please join me and a panel of three celebrity comedians as we learn all about the wild parrots of Los Angeles. Get your tickets now (also available for livestream if you live outside LA and still want to join in the fun).

PODCAST: How to Be a Better Human (TED/PRX) - In honor of Earth Day, we had marine scientist and author Ayana Elizabeth Johnson on the show. Her book, What If We Get It Right?, is a clear-eyed look at the challenges of climate change but also the incredible opportunities for what our world can/will look like if we address it. She’s the kind of person I admire most: smart, funny, and dedicated to getting things done. Listen to her here (or wherever you get podcasts).

This week’s list

GREAT:

Every once in a while, I read something that so perfectly articulates a problem I’ve been having that it rocks me to my core. I have reread this essay by Oliver Burkeman more than five times this week and I still can’t get over it. I loved Oliver’s books, about how understanding our mortality and that we have a very limited amount of time on Earth, can free us up to understand we can’t possibly do everything and so must make choices. I got a chance to interview him for the podcast (watch the video or hear the audio), which was a delight. But this piece of writing is the thing that’s going to stick with me the longest. “The older I get, the more convinced I become that it’s a critical life-skill – at least if you’re roughly the sort of person I am – to get better at disappointing other people.” Oliver Burkeman: Be a disappointment

FUNNY:

John Wilson’s How To might be my favorite TV show ever made. It was so unbelievably funny and completely unpredictable. I think he’s a genius. I loved this interview with him for the Museum of Modern Art. Why John Wilson Can’t Stop Filming

INTERESTING:

I believe that one of the most important (maybe the single most important) issues right now is the denial of due process and unaccountable deportation and imprisonment. It’s very, very bad. It’s also very much something that good politicians and leaders can stop if they’re forced to take up the issue by us, the public. This recent story by Miriam Jordan is particularly chilling and illustrates the stakes for everyone in the U.S., regardless of your citizenship status. If we allow someone to be grabbed without a shred of documentation or process and sent to a country they’ve never been to before without any chance at appeal or proving innocence/guilt, there’s no reason it can’t happen to anyone else. An Immigrant Held in U.S. Custody ‘Simply Disappeared’

Here is one way to fight back. There are many others.

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That's it for this week. Thanks for reading! Please share Bright Spots with anyone you think might enjoy it.

All the best from me, Astronaut Kellie Gerardi, and Snoop Dogg,

Chris Duffy

This has been Bright Spots, a newsletter.

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…wait, who are you?

I'm Chris Duffy, a comedian, TV writer, podcast host, and both a former fifth grade teacher and a former fifth grade student. I’m currently writing a nonfiction book about humor for Doubleday.