Alex Friedman, Hot Tip

💭 Thoughts on habanero hummus, Scriptnotes the podcast, and how good art doesn’t have an expiration date.

Alex Friedman is an LA-based comedy writer who grew up in Cobb County, Georgia, where the school district once put "evolution is a theory, not a fact" stickers in the biology textbooks. She's worked for CNN, ABC News, and Late Night with Seth Meyers, and has developed an original project with Broadway Video. Pre-Elon, Alex's satirical videos on Twitter occasionally garnered millions of views. Now, she writes female-driven half-hour pilots about modern Jewish women with anxiety and 1600s Italian murderesses. So, autobiographical. She also writes a Substack newsletter called Hot Tip, a news and culture explainer that’s what she imagines her late night show would be if she weren’t cursed with being a woman.

🎯 Current focus

I recently started writing my newsletter, Hot Tip, and it’s been a real labor of love. A lot of my professional experience is in distilling the news for broad audiences, and I realized I could keep doing that on my own time, and maybe even make it a ~thing~. There’s a lot of uncertainty in the TV & Film industry right now, and so I wanted to create something that was wholly mine. I can do it on my own time, in my own voice, and I can say what I want, like that Ted Cruz doesn’t even have a face for radio. And I really love making the news funny. I grew up on Weekend Update and The Daily Show, which I still love, but I think people are looking for new formats for that kind of stuff. I mean, I’m a 31-year-old who watches CNN and MSNBC, but most 31-year-olds aren’t. So I spread the wealth by condensing it all into a funny, informative newsletter a couple times a week. I sprinkle in some lifestyle and culture stuff, too. I’m basically a serial recommender, and I’m incredibly enthusiastic about said recommendations, whether it’s news to know or ice cream to try. So this allows me to put it all together into one note for my pals and for strangers who think it’s worthwhile. I love doing it and hope it continues to grow.

(Btw: I wrote that first paragraph before Tuesday night, when I expected the world to go a different way. The news is deeply unfunny at this moment. I don’t know how we will find our way through this next chunk of time, only that we have to. It’s clear that there are both misinformation and participation crises in America when it comes to voting — and, obviously, the bigger issues of misogyny and racism. So that’s what we have to figure out how to address, all while championing, supporting, and protecting women, immigrants, and the LGBTQIA+ community every chance we get.)

🗓️ How good art doesn’t have an expiration date

This is going to make me sound like I don’t know what year it is, but one thing on my mind is Game of Thrones. Allow me to explain. I had never watched the show when it aired, but I do watch House of the Dragon now. If that makes no sense to you, I don’t disagree. But I’ve become an HBO Sundays person in the time since, so no matter what the show is, I watch. House of the Dragon won me over enough to go, okay, I would probably enjoy GOT, too. And then I binged all eight seasons of it in the last three months. I was staying up late, watching and worrying about Sansa and Arya and Jon. It took over my brain in a way I can’t recall any other show doing. Actively processing something that most of the world has already collectively processed is kind of a funny thing. Here I was, coming at my friends with hot takes on a show that had started airing thirteen years prior. I’d be like, “Jaime Lannister is growing on me, although he did do a lot of incest, and he did push a kid out a window, but now he seems like a better guy, and the way he looks at Brienne is so sweet” and my friends would (lovingly) be like “can we not do this at brunch in 2024.” So then I would turn to Reddit threads from 2014 or so, and that helped some. 

But I do think there’s a larger point to be made about the consumption of art: It’s never too late. I had been intimidated to start an eight-season, hour-long show, and what was the point? I couldn’t participate in the zeitgeist, so I might as well not dive in. But in an age of virality and memes and “content consumption” we can sometimes forget that the point isn’t just to create a moment, it’s to create something that lasts. Good art doesn’t have an expiration date. It didn’t matter that everyone else had already finished watching, I was fully in it. That’s why I hate the word “content.” It’s so much more than that. A good story will always be a good story; a good joke will always be funny. 

🕉️ Mantra of the moment

I want to be clear that I am not someone who believes everything happens for a reason. The world is a chaotic mess, and there’s a lot of bad. But I play around a lot with the idea of “you make a reason out of everything.” It is easy with hindsight to look back on moments of your life and wish you’d gone about things differently. Professionally, that’s a big thing for me sometimes. But I try to remember that the person I am today and the ideas I have are because of the exact set of circumstances I’ve lived. One day soon, I’ll create something that I’m really proud of and excited to see out in the world, and without my life happening exactly as it has, that thing would likely have never existed. It’s basically just, “no regrets,” which sounds deeply corny and sometimes is hard to abide by, but it helps me to think of life that way.

💪 Women who create amazing work (and help others do the same)

Sharon Horgan and Amy Poehler are my idols: Women who have created their own amazing work, and then helped other people – especially women – bring their great work into the world. There’s sort of no limit to their talent, in my opinion. They can write, act, direct, produce, and run their own production companies, all while being cool, smart, funny women. Catastrophe was perfect. Bad Sisters is one of the best things I’ve watched in years. And then Sharon also produced and starred in This Way Up, created by another perfect Irishwoman, Aisling Bea (and if you’ve never seen it, it’ll fill the Fleabag-sized hole in your heart.) Meanwhile, Parks and Rec is responsible for at least a third of my adult personality. I met Amy years ago when I worked at Late Night, and I did a whole bit from the show for her, and she couldn’t have been more gracious. I mean, I blacked out during the part where I was talking, but she was lovely. And then Amy helped get Broad City made, she created Russian Doll with Natasha Lyonne… There's just so much great television that was made by and influenced by these women. The things I write are inherently influenced by them. I love them.

🍂 A taste of fall in Chicago

I’m heading to Chicago to see two of my best friends next week, and we all just have a great time together. I know them from different chapters of my life, but they live right near each other, so a while ago I was like, you have to be friends! And thankfully, they liked each other. One has a husband and toddler who I can’t wait to see, and the other recently moved in with her boyfriend. It’s really beautiful to watch your friends grow and change and have these full, evolving lives, but then you get together and you still laugh about the silliest things from 10+ years ago. Also – I live in LA, and it’s perpetual summer here, so I am looking forward to a taste of fall and being able to drink a hot coffee in the morning without sweating through my shirt.

🎧 Scriptnotes the podcast

My favorite way to consume content nowadays is definitely podcasts. I’m one of those people who simply can’t stand to be alone with my own thoughts, so whether I’m on a walk and listening to Scriptnotes (my fav screenwriting podcast) or cleaning my apartment and listening to Pod Save America/Ezra Klein/POOG/Conan O’Brien Needs A Friend/Happiness Lab/etc., it is just the perfect way to be kept company and be actively learning at the same time. I’m a huge talker, so I love to listen to other people talk. The sound of silence ain’t for me, unless it’s the song. I love the song.

🌶️ Habanero hummus

I think I’ve accidentally changed my taste buds entirely over the last few years in particular. It started out with adding hot sauce to tacos and burritos, but now it's on eggs, turkey sandwiches, cottage cheese – literally everything. I think living in LA has a lot to do with it. There is so much great hot sauce and salsa available at every single restaurant. Usually it’s house-made, too. At home, I have no fewer than eight bottles of hot sauce in my fridge at a given time. I do have favorites, but I also like to try new ones. Of course, there are some things that are just staples for me. Brothers Hummus, a local LA farmers market brand I tell everyone about, sells a habanero hummus I go and buy every week. Think of that: a tub of habanero every week. The guy who sells it tells me it’s too spicy for him. And then I come home, and I make my egg sandwich with hot sauce and habanero hummus and avocado and then an hour later I wonder why I have such bad heartburn. So I can’t live without it, but as I age I also can’t live with it. It’s a pickle. A spicy pickle.

Follow Alex on Instagram & Linkedin and check out her Substack here.

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