A Connecticut Black Bear

When I think of Connecticut, several things immediately come to mind:

1. Wealthy, white people

2. Tick-based diseases

3. Clams on pizza

This past weekend, however, I gained a new lasting mental image of The Constitution State. An image of a large black bear, hungry for scraps.

We had joined a bunch of friends for a weekend by a lake in Northwestern Connecticut. There were seven families, all with young children, and we had an idyllic day splashing around with all the kids in the water. That evening, we ordered a bunch of pizzas for dinner and picnicked by the lake. The sun was starting to go down and we talked about the possibility of making s’mores. It was the kind of perfect evening that could only be disrupted by an apex predator.

We were all facing the lake and looking out at the sunset when my friend Richie looked behind us. His face dropped. Trying to keep his voice calm to not disturb the kids, Richie said, “Umm, guys? Turn around.”

Lumbering towards the picnic tables full of pizza was a large black bear.

I sprang into action.

Contrary to everything that you would expect to be true about me, I’ve actually had a fair amount of experience dealing with black bears. I grew up in a NYC apartment, but my dad loves nature and backpacking so we spent a lot of time camping as kids. I learned about keeping all food far away from your tent, tied up, and hung high off the ground in a tree. I learned that most bears, especially black bears, are just looking for some easy trash to scavenge (relatable!) and that if you start making noise and yelling at them, they’ll go away.

Living in Los Angeles, I’ve had many opportunities to practice this same technique on coyotes. Clap loudly and yell something like “NO THANK YOU, COYOTE!” and they scamper the other direction. Incredibly, this is also all it takes to get rid of most black bears.

Once, towards the end of my senior year of high school, a group of friends and I went camping unsupervised in the Delaware Water Gap. You won’t be surprised to learn that my role in our friend group was sometimes referred to as “the soccer mom,” since I packed snacks and cared a lot about following the rules. While we were camping one night, everyone else took mushrooms and tripped while I cooked Ricearoni. Midway through dinner, I was serving plates of food to my hallucinating peers, when a black bear wandered into the campsite. It immediately started devouring the packages of hotdogs that we had left scattered on the table. One of my greatest personal accomplishments is successfully convincing my friends, mid-mushroom trip, that they should NOT attempt to battle the bear with a machete and instead let me get a park ranger.

Anyway, all of that is to say that by the time this Connecticut pizza bear showed up, I was a literal parent, surrounded by other parents, and we all made noise and said “NO! GO AWAY BEAR!” in our sternest parent voices. The bear begrudgingly obeyed, without stealing even a single slice of pizza. He kept looking over his shoulder as he walked away, like “Really? C’mon!”

To be fair, after he left, I did notice a very prominent sign that said “There is a bear in this area. Do not leave any trash or food out.” It was his beautiful lake, not ours. But I can only imagine how disappointed he would have been to discover that we didn’t have a solitary clam on any of our pizzas. We also didn’t have a single machete between us. I won’t let that mistake happen again.

My upcoming events and other projects:

VIRTUAL EVENT: Thursday, August 20th at 12:30 p.m. Pacific Time. Finding the Funny in Hard Times. I’ll be doing a live conversation with the Greater Good Science Center (UC Berkeley). It’s free and open to the public (close to 1000 already signed up to attend!), but you need to RSVP if you want to join them.

SAN DIEGO BOOK FESTIVAL: Saturday, August 22nd from 12:30 p.m. to 1:15 p.m. Pacific Time at the University of San Diego. I’ll be doing a book talk, signing, and Q&A as part of the fest sponsored by KPBS! Free and open to the public. RSVP here.

ASPEN, CO: Thursday, September 24th at 7:30 p.m. at the Wheeler Opera House. The night before the Aspen Literary Festival begins, I’m going to be doing a comedy show with two of my funniest friends (who also happen to be Emmy-nominated writers for Colbert). Join me, Carley Moseley, and Asher Perlman as we perform comedy, talk about our books, and answer audience questions. It’s going to be a very fun night. Laugh More Everyday at the Wheeler Opera House

MY BOOK: Humor Me is out in bookstores everywhere

MY PODCAST: Perrin Ireland is an incredibly talented visual artist, an excellent writer, an environmentalist, and a person with an always surprising sense of humor. She joined me on How to Be a Better Human this week to talk about her new book Poking the Squid and what we can learn about the natural world (and ourselves) by finding out how animals do it. Why should you care about animal sex? (w/ Perrin Ireland)

This week’s list

GREAT:

I love a good party game with friends, especially one that gets everyone laughing and making jokes. My friend Steve Moilanen created a hilarious and delightful game that plays on how you (and your friends) would act as imaginary characters. It’s a great way to spend a night together and guaranteed to generate lots of laughs. Check it out! Altered Egos

FUNNY:

I’ve been watching Nato Green perform political comedy for more than a decade now and I never stop being impressed with the way he’s able to take big (often terrifying) issues and turn them into jokes. Jokes that not only make people laugh but also illustrate a larger point! It’s so, so, so hard to do and Nato does it so well. Nato is one of those comics who other comedians know and respect but he’s only just now putting out his first special. I’m excited for the broader public to get to see him at the top of his game. Nato Green - The Darkest Hour

INTERESTING:

Brendan Leonard wrote a piece about writing. It’s about the value of doing things slowly, painstakingly, and without shortcuts. At a moment when people are bragging about AI writing so quickly and efficiently for them, Brendan has hit the nail on the head about what those AI boosters are missing. Do It 14,000 Times Slower With This One Trick

BONUS FOR PAYING SUBSCRIBERS:

This week’s subscriber bonus is a video of me, barefoot, overly proud of myself, scaring away a bear. In addition to this exclusive video, paying subscribers get access to all posts in the archive and make Bright Spots possible!

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

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Lumbering, regretfully, in the opposite direction of a pizza,

Chris Duffy

This has been Bright Spots, a newsletter.

…wait, who are you?

I’m Chris Duffy. I’m a comedian, I host TED’s How to Be a Better Human podcast, and I’m both a former fifth grade teacher and a former fifth grade student. I wrote a book called Humor Me: How Laughing More Can Make You Present, Creative, Connected, and Happy that’s out now from Doubleday.