In “The Paper,” the much anticipated mockumentary spinoff to “The Office,” Alex Edelman plays intrepid accountant/reporter Adam Cooper, part of the team tasked with reviving local newspaper “The Toledo Truth-Teller.” Edelman was also a writer and consulting producer for the show, which premieres on Peacock on Sept. 4 with all 10 episodes, and says the project gave him “the thing that is rarest in Los Angeles”: routine.
“It was a really wonderful routine,” he adds.
Of course, routines must end and new routines must be created. Edelman, who won an Obie and a Special Tony for his stand-up show “Just For Us,” about attending a meeting of Nazis as an Orthodox Jew (it became the HBO original comedy special “Alex Edelman: Just For Us,” for which he won an Emmy), is back on the road and adding new dates for his current show, “What Are You Going to Do.” In his spare time, he’s working on a nonfiction book, “I Don’t Belong Here.”
The perfect Sunday, for Edelman, is always a little bit different, with currents of consistency woven through. (He calls himself a “recommendation machine,” which feels accurate.) There’s always a hike. There are always friends involved. There’s always food. There are plenty of laughs. But for all the tried-and-true recs, novelty is important too. “I guess my headline is, Sunday’s the day to try new things,” he says.
This interview has been lightly edited and condensed for length and clarity.
7 a.m.: Wake up and go on a coffee walk On the weekends, I like to walk. The only thing left to do on planet Earth apparently is to get coffee. Do you know that our whole lives revolve around a series of silly little coffees? I only drink espresso drinks, which is a fact about me, which is very boring. I might walk between coffee stations, like a man journeying between oases. I’ll walk down and I’ll get to All Time and be like, do I want a coffee here or can I make it to Maru? And when I get to Maru, do I get a coffee here? Or can I make it to Camel? And then I’ll make it to Camel, which apparently is now called Handles? And I’m like, do I get a coffee here or do I go to Dinosaur? And then, do I do a coffee here or do I go to Tartine or LaLo in Silver Lake or Lamill, which is also in Silver Lake. It feels like a long time, but that’s only about an hour walk.
I might get some breakfast too. I like Telegrama or Friends and Family — a favorite there is the olive oil eggs. I spend a lot of my money at All Time. I like to get the thing they call “the B.O.A.T.” I don’t know exactly what it is, but it’s really good.
8 a.m.: Get in a bit of writingI like to park myself at Telegrama or Maru; you can find a little corner and really groove.
10 a.m.: Hike and have an adventureI’m a keen weekend hiker. And I have hiking buddies. My friend [TV writer] Jenji [Kohan] and I started to do a thing in the pandemic where every weekend we would go hike somewhere and eat somewhere. I’ll hike with Jenji or my friend Rebecca or my friend Morgan. We’ll get after it. You hike with someone, you complain. It’s a lot of fun.
There are some really, really gorgeous hikes around Los Angeles. I use AllTrails to keep track of them. If we’re doing a hike out of town, we’ll go up to Santa Barbara or down into Orange County for one of the heavy beach hikes. Or any hikes with the word “Punchbowl” in them. And we’ll go to Charlie Brown Farms right afterwards.
We hike and eat and there’s always an adventure in there. We use the Atlas Obscura and go check out things, like, I heard there’s this weird store where this guy who makes things out of pop tabs or whatever it is. One of my favorite things is just getting to look at a little midcentury modern house I’ll never be able to afford. If there’s a house by Lautner or Neutra or Frank Lloyd Wright, sometimes we’ll take a schlep just for the house, to even just see from the street. One of the hikes in Malibu, Solstice, has an old Paul Williams house. It’s like a ruin.
1 p.m.: LunchtimeWe like going into the San Gabriel Valley and eating at Chengdu Taste in Alhambra or Bistro Na’s. I can’t eat pork or shellfish, so whatever falls within the electric fence, my lapsing Judaism. Whenever we drive south for a hike, we like to go to Pho 79 in the Anaheim area, or Garden Grove maybe. And I get something vegetarian or chicken or something like that.
2:30 p.m.: Thrifting and a snackThe thrift stores in Pasadena, those places are so good. Downtown, we always stop at the old mochi spot, Fugetsu-Do. They’ve been around for 117 years, even longer. I think they opened in 1903. On Sundays, sometimes the line can be long, but it’s worth waiting in. I like the regular rainbow-colored, strawberry-stained stuff. A thousand percent fruity or candy and no gelatin because of my Judaism.
4 p.m.: Catching up on books Since we’re downtown, I’ll stop by the Last Bookstore. I also really love Skylight. And I love a used bookstore. I love a browse.
I like reading and listening to music on a Sunday. For a while, I was rationing out my friend Taffy Akner’s last book, “Long Island Compromise.” I’d read a couple of chunks every Sunday until I ran out. I just bought a couple of plays by Kimberly Bellflower and Noah Haidle. And I am reading Carrie Courogen’s “Miss May Does Not Exist” about Elaine May, who I worship and actually met once at a friend’s house.
7 p.m.: Pizza and movie night at Phil’sI have a friend, Phil, who sometimes makes Sunday his movie night. His house has a little pizza oven. Phil will have pizza made in the style of the pizza from Mozza, which he loves. And we’ll watch movies on a projector. I watched “A New Leaf” there and enjoyed it very much, speaking of Elaine May.
9:30 p.m.: A stand-up setLate in the day, my favorite thing to do is stand-up comedy. There are a lot of good places to perform in Los Angeles. So I’d do a late spot at the Comedy Store, the Lyric Hyperion, Laugh Factory or Dynasty Typewriter.
11 p.m.: Late-night mealI’m out late, especially for Los Angeles. And there’s nowhere to eat very late at night in Los Angeles, unless you’re going to venture into Koreatown, where there’s Dan Sung Sa. I love to eat late and hey, we’re four meals deep, but that’s fine. Or Canter’s is open until 11:30 on Sunday. And Same Same Thai on Sunset is open until 11. They do something called khao soi, which is really hard to find in a lot of places. So I’ll sometimes get a really late night khao soi.
12 a.m.: Scrolling, reading, maybe a phone call or twoI’m up for a bit. I watch, I’ll scroll. I’ll scroll until I drift off, which I shouldn’t. Or I’ll call friends in London who are just waking up, stand-up comics. My friend Josie Long was in Glasgow, and sometimes I’ll call her, or I’ll catch my friend Isobel, who’s a composer, who’s in Europe all the time. But in my ideal situation, I’m asleep by 1. I’ll read this book by Lizzy Goodman called “Meet Me in the Bathroom,” or I’ll listen to this podcast called “Search Engine” by PJ Vogt, and sort of drift off.
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