Can’t believe we're gonna have a civil war because of some con man grifter with a moronic cult of personality when it should be to settle this: Bagels or Waffle House?

Let’s think through this whole secession thing, though. The split isn’t north vs. south anymore. In fact, it’s not even red state vs. blue state, the real divide is between the cities and the rural areas. And how the hell is that supposed to work? We're gonna have to airlift abortion doctors into Milwaukee/Denver/Austin like they're Berlin after WWII.

Perhaps it’s time America embraces Gwyneth’s notion of a "conscious uncoupling." Obviously, we just don’t see things the same way: Everyone in Texas can’t believe New Yorkers don’t know how to shoot a gun. And everyone in New York can’t believe Texans don’t know how to be pedestrians. (Hint: Stop walking four people horizontally in a row while staring up at skyscrapers, y’all are clogging up the sidewalks while we’re, as Ratso says, “walkin’ here.”)

Also, us big city folks ain’t typically churchgoers so Team Red’s attempted Christian government takeover feels rather meshuggeneh. After all, we’re not at synagogue plotting ways to force everyone in Wyoming to eat bagels and lox for breakfast.

And think how it must feel to be Muslim and face this crap all the time…

…while at the same time witnessing these MAGA mooks go megachurch on the Senate floor.

🅼🅰🆃🆃 💎 🆁🆄🅱🆈 @mattruby

Radical Christian Terrorists

January 19th 2021

1 Retweet3 Likes

That’s Radical Christian Terrorism, right? Looking forward to the Glock forum where someone posts, “It is up to the ‘good’ Christians to speak out and anonymously tip off the police as to who the radicals are. It's time for the so called "good" Christians to prove it!”

Note: I’m not bashing Jesus. His OG messaging is solid/great personal branding too. But lately I feel the same way about Jesus as I do about Beyonce: Love the artist, scared to death of the superfans. 🐝🍋🐝🍋🐝

Honestly, I’m not sure why we’re still trying to keep our states united. All things must pass, including empires. Just because a relationship ends, doesn’t mean it’s a failure. Same thing with countries. We had our good times, didn’t we, Tuscaloosa?

Alas, it’s time to divvy up the goods and move on with our lives. It’s not USA, it’s me. In time, I hope Team Red vibes with someone new…cue up Viktor Orbán singing:

🎶 One look at you
And I can't disguise
I've got Hungary eyes
I feel the magic between you and I 🎶

So here’s what I propose for America’s divorce settlement. Blue is what us coastal elites get and red is what “real” America takes home. As Bill Simmons says about potential NBA trades: “Who says no?”

Proposed divorce settlement for America

🟦 Abortions
🟥 AR-15s

🟦 Rosé
🟥 Jack Daniels

🟦 Twitter
🟥 Talk radio

🟦 eBikes
🟥 Pickup trucks

🟦 Bagels
🟥 Waffle House

🟦 Twinks
🟥 Teen moms

🟦 Cocoa butter
🟥 Chicken grease

🟦 Books
🟥 Strange flags

🟦 Juneteenth
🟥 Kentucky Derby

🟦 Priuses
🟥 Coal

🟦 NBA
🟥 College Football

🟦 Ethnic food
🟥 BBQ food

🟦 Democracy
🟥 Authoritarianism

🟦 Pronouns
🟥 Flag pins

🟦 Dunkin’ Donuts
🟥 Cracker Barrel

🟦 Axe throwing
🟥 Mechanical bulls

🟦 Big Buck Hunter Pro
🟥 Actual hunting

🟦 Hollywood
🟥 Nashville

🟦 Journalism
🟥 Gluten

🟦 Defund the police
🟥 Defund the FBI

🟦 Immigrants
🟥 Bikers

🟦 Silicon Valley
🟥 NASCAR

🟦 Hippies wearing crystals
🟥 Rednecks doing crystal

Huzzah. Problem solved!

But wait. Houston (and, um, Chicago), we have a problem. Brisket. Damn you, brisket. Southern folks cook it all the time…yet so do Jews. Now what? And what about Taco Bell? Oddly, one of our few overlaps is Mexican food (well, pseudomexican lab “food”). Oh, and then there’s Dolly Parton. I will always love her – and so will everyone in Oklahoma. And what about beards? Hipsters and lumberjacks will have to do shared custody of those.

Phew, that got messy fast. OK, I’m calling the divorce off. Let’s work it out and stick together. After all, eventually we’ll need to team up and invade Canada; it'll be the only place left in North America that isn’t on fire.

Share

Quickies

🎯 It's weird that we give two week's notice at work but not in relationships. Feels like it should be the opposite: You should ghost your job and after a breakup you should stick around for a bit and train the new guy.

🎯 Everything related to gender/sexuality: "It's fluid! There's a spectrum!" Relationship advice: "You are definitely one of these three attachment types and there is no in-between, sucker!"

🅼🅰🆃🆃 💎 🆁🆄🅱🆈 @mattruby

sometimes iphone knows exactly what's it doing 🤫

August 12th 2022

1 Like

🎯 BREAKING: America…
- Incels can't get laid.
- The obese can’t get weighed.
- Atheists can't get prayed.
- Workers can't get paid.
- MAGA can’t get swayed.
- Kevin Durant can't get trade.
- And every goddamn flight's delayed.

🎯 I don't understand bad book reviews. Just stop reading the book! No one should torture themselves for hours upon hours just to write a smarmy pan.

🎯 Every wedding is just Medieval Times but with flowers instead of jousting.

Vooza @voozahq

2034: [Robot dogs invade city] Politician: No one could have seen this coming. Me (in the back): Not true! Me, I saw it coming. I tried to warn ya. Don't trust these damn dogs, I said. Y'all wouldn't list– [gets arrested]

August 11th 2022

3 Likes

🎯 Want workers to return to the office? Then get rid of cubicles and give people offices again. People ❤️ doors.

🎯 Nothing's more expensive to society than everything being free.

🎯 I wanna write a biography on Phil Collins' first band just so I can call it "The Book of Genesis."

Comedy

🤪 Check out my most recent standup clips on Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube.

🤪 Here’s a story about smoking weed with my mom:

🤪 Here’s an interesting post about Ira Glass and George Bernard Shaw from Funny How:

🅼🅰🆃🆃 💎 🆁🆄🅱🆈 @mattruby

"It has ambition to be good, but it’s not quite that good." For years, the things you make won't be as good as you want them to be. What's the answer? Creative guidance from @iraglass and George Bernard Shaw in the latest edition of Funny How... Ira Glass: What beginners make just ain’t that good (and what to do about it)“It has ambition to be good, but it’s not quite that good.” For years, the things you make won’t be as good as you want them to be.buff.ly

August 15th 2022

🤪 Speaking of pedestrians and terrorism, here’s a golden oldie Matt Ruby bit. Check out how I use the mic stand. What can I say? I’m a gifted physical performer.

🤪 I’ll be performing in Davenport, Iowa on September 18. Tickets/info.

5-spotted

🗯 When heroes collide! Roger Ebert tore into Bob Dylan in his review of Don’t Look Back.

Indeed, those who consider Dylan a lone, ethical figure standing up against the phonies will discover, after seeing this film, that they have lost their hero. Dylan reveals himself, alas, to have clay feet like all the rest of us. He is immature, petty, vindictive, lacking a sense of humor, overly impressed with his own importance and not very bright.

The remarkable thing is that Dylan apparently approved of this film. It's easy enough to make a film putting someone down; all you have to do is slant your material. But to make a film putting YOURSELF down--and then not even to realize it!…When Dylan sings, he has hold of something precious. It is only his pathetic private life, as he has revealed it in this film, that should be dismissed or regretted.

🗯 When people decide to forge a new way, it’s called a desire path.

The desire paths of human and non-human animals are always shorter than the built environment’s official route. Desire paths are created by creatures who intuit the best way to get where they want to go from where they are right now. 

Some researchers call these informal paths ‘social trails;’ a desire path is inherently a method of communicating an efficient way to get from one place to another…Desire paths can be seen as a form of resistance or a path of civil disobedience, however minor. They are a very real, visual indication of people going where they want to go versus where they have been told to go.

🗯 Big Other! Shoshana Zuboff: The Age of Surveillance Capitalism.

The threat has shifted from a totalitarian Big Brother state to a ubiquitous digital architecture: a Big Other operating in the interests of surveillance capital. Here is the crucible of an unprecedented form of power marked by extreme concentrations of knowledge and free from democratic oversight… [It’s] a controlled hive of total connection that seduces with promises of total certainty for maximum profit -- at the expense of democracy, freedom, and our human future.

🗯 Origin story of the word seersucker.

Seersucker is a fabric native to India. The word seersucker is taken from the Persian shir o shakka, which means “milk and sugar”: its stripes being both smooth as milk and rough as sugar. British settlers bringing this fabric back to Europe anglicized the word to give it the shape we know today.

🗯 Ethan Strauss: Work From Home Is Good.

In my opinion, a major driver of modern societal dysfunction is that the highly influential laptop class has lost its collective mind, possibly because so many of these minds experience social life through the screen. Personally, I’m for whatever we can do to get our college-educated Slack addicts shifting towards some semblance of sanity. If they’re happier and more grounded, they’re less likely to push for nihilistic social policy as some weird form of atonement.

We made it. If ya enjoy this newsletter, please 1) forward it to a friend and tell ‘em to sign up or 2) post about it online or 3) go paid if you haven’t already.

Thanks for reading!

-Matt