After hopping around his native Australia last fall with his first stand-up show in six years, the comedian Josh Thomas returned home to Los Angeles. Now he’s taking his show on a U.S. tour through March 11, as well as preparing for a potential second season of “Everything’s Gonna Be Okay,” his Freeform show, which debuted in January and is available on Hulu.
Working on these projects meant not leaving his house for days at a time, as he read scripts and rewrote jokes, a process he describes as being like “trying to put on a wet bathing suit”
Distraction was never far away, though: “Cheer” distracted him from an Oscar party the night of Feb. 9; RuPaul hosting “Saturday Night Live” distracted him from his work; and Twitter distracted him from everything (“Twitter has been a real problem to me,” Thomas explained).
Over the course of two housebound days, Thomas tracked his cultural diary. These are edited excerpts from a conversation.
Monday Morning
On Sunday night I went to an Oscars party, not an interesting party. You know those nights where you’re out, but you just want to get home to finish your show? Well, I had one of those nights with “Cheer.” So I got home at about 1 a.m. and then I watched the final episode of “Cheer,” just alone, eating leftover curry. I was very drunk and I did cry — when La’Darius’s brother sheds a single tear? That was the end of me.
Then when I woke up in the morning, hung over, I watched Seth Meyers’s “A Closer Look” segment from his show the night before. At the moment I’m just addicted to American politics, so I’ll watch pretty much all the late-night show monologues the next morning. I really love Seth Meyers, and his “Closer Look” is great because it gets me in deep a little bit. I like “The Late Show With Stephen Colbert” because he’s really funny and “Full Frontal With Samantha Bee” is probably my favorite, but she’s only weekly.
Then my producing partner Stephanie [Swedlove] called me, because I’ve got to read new writer scripts. Her ringtone is “Work Bitch” by Britney Spears, which always just makes me laugh. On Stephanie’s phone I set it so that when I ring her, “Beautiful Boy” by John Lennon plays.
I watched a lot of YouTube and then I washed my dog (we sit in the bath together) and I listened to Lizzo. All I really do is listen to Lizzo.
And I read the scripts. I like reading new writers’ scripts because you get to see what writers think new shows should be, before they get churned through the industry. And generally their scripts are not about rich people, but a lot of shows on TV, including mine, are about rich people, which I think is interesting.
Monday Afternoon
And then I looked at Twitter. At the moment, I find it really hard to look away from what’s happening in the world. I was off Twitter for four months last year but now I’m back in and it’s just hell, actually. Because Twitter is always telling you what’s wrong with everything and then someone else is like, “Actually that is not the real thing that is wrong with that, the real thing that is wrong with that is this” and it’s suffocating. And then occasionally there’s porn and occasionally something quite whimsical and funny. In many ways, it plays into my ADHD really well.
My day was a real hodgepodge: I’ll watch a little something and then I’ll get mad at myself for not working and then I’ll do some work for my stand-up tour and then I’ll decide that it’s very important to catch up on RuPaul Charles hosting “Saturday Night Live.” I mean, if someone gay does someone, then I’ll watch it. And I love RuPaul, obviously.
Monday Evening
So I worked more on my standup tour, and then I thought I should watch the Oscars movies. I’m not on the cutting edge of new entertainment. I’m not one of those people that’s going out trying to find the hot new things. So I usually haven’t seen anything until very late.
I was going to watch “Parasite,” obviously, but I was watching on my laptop in my bed and I thought maybe that wasn’t the best situation to watch “Parasite” in, so I decided to watch “Judy” because I thought it was going to be fun. It was fine.
I’m single, you know, so I watch a lot in the evenings. From 6 p.m. to midnight I’m just watching so much TV. So after “Judy” I watched Conan, and then I watched a new episode of “Curb Your Enthusiasm,” which is a show that I really like, and then I watched “McMillions,” which is this new HBO thing about McDonald’s. And then I went to bed, finally, around 1 a.m.
Tuesday Morning
The next day I did a lot more work. I watched Seth’s new “Closer Look” again. Then I listened to this podcast I was supposed to be a guest on that it turns out I’m obsessed with, called “Off Menu.” It’s about your dream meal and it’s really lovely.
And I listened to my Spotify playlist. I only want music that I’ve heard before, I don’t want new music. So I’ve been playing this 24 song playlist on a loop since October. It’s comforting. The theme of this playlist is songs that my ex-boyfriend used to play. There’s no men, only female singers. One of my favorites is “Let’s Go to the Beach” by this Australian band Banoffee. There’s also some Des’ree and “I Try” by Macy Gray.
Tuesday Evening
Then finally I watched “Parasite,” and the subtitles stopped me looking at my phone for two hours, which was a real thrill. Subtitled movies are going to be my new thing, I think.
I also watched the documentary “American Factory,” which is very much about the American working class. I watched the films while the [New Hampshire] primary was happening and so I was watching that via Twitter too. And I watched a bit of Elizabeth Warren’s speech, and read everyone’s opinions. This was interesting because both films have themes of class, which I feel like Americans don’t really talk about much, but in this Democratic primary is really a big deal.
So it was a lot of subtitles, and then a lot of ideas about our society and where it’s going, which I really like. I don’t watch a lot of scripted stuff; I like things that feel real. My scripted stuff is as realistic as possible and pretty issues-focused.
I watched Julia Louis-Dreyfus on “The Late Show With Stephen Colbert.” If she’s on TV I’ll have a look, of course. And then I went to bed around 1 a.m. again.
