My best idea ever...

The Ask Roulette live show is back!

Some thoughts below but the gist of this email is that there’s an Ask Roulette live show on September 20th in NYC and I’d love to see you there!

I worked at WNYC, on The Brian Lehrer Show, for about seven years. One of the best things about Brian (there are so many great things) is his willingness to have fun with the live call-in format, so one day I cooked up an idea to have callers just call in with a question they wanted to ask a stranger. They’d get put on the air, get randomly paired with another listener… and start talking. We tried it, and it worked better than we could have dreamed — weird, funny, moving, surprising…. it captured everything I like about, well, people.

Soon after, I asked Brian if he’d be okay with me taking the concept and doing a live show. “Radio Roulette” became “Ask Roulette,” a live show I hosted bi-monthly in NYC for about 5 years or so at Housing Works Bookstore.

The brilliant Eli Bolin (Sesame Street, John Mulaney's Sack Lunch Bunch, Documentary Now) came on board to improvise songs, we had a ridiculous run of special guests, a devoted audience, and we found our little niche within the NYC comedy/storytelling scene.

It was a great time.

In 2017, a little overwhelmed by juggling my work at FiveThirtyEight, ESPN, and, oh, yeah, with a kid on the way, we did our last show. A “short hiatus” that turned into five years or so.

But now, we’re back, baby!

Life has settled a bit, I think Eli and I can juggle this, but more than anything I continue to think that Ask Roulette might be the best idea I’ve ever had. And lord knows, I’ve been missing the idea that we can connect with strangers again.

So, let’s get together on Wednesday September 20th, and every other month after that. We have a new home, Caveat on the LES, and we couldn’t be more excited.

For this first show, we’re keeping it pretty low-key. My hunch (and hope) is that it’ll be the same show we came to love, but it’s still worth thinking of this night as a chance to get our sea legs back.

Which is all to say, I’d really like a warm room, full of our longtime community. We’ll advertise a bit, but my ideal scenario would be that everyone reading this come and bring two friends. (Or a date!) It’ll be fun, and we need your support.

Think of it as a soft-launch “friends and family” night. Hopefully Eli doesn’t get stuck in the walk-in.

Tickets are available now, better to grab them in advance so that Caveat knows we can bring in an audience. And feel free to forward this to anyone who might want to join us.

See you on the 20th, I hope.

-Jody-