Meet Uma

A few months ago, we decided to foster a dog from Puerto Rico. Her name is Uma and this is what she looks like:

Yup, she’s a cutie. When she starts wagging her tail, you can’t help but melt.

Slight problem though: I don’t speak any Spanish so I have no idea what to say to our Puerto Rican pup. The only Spanish I know I learned on a trip to Tijuana and so far she’s not responding at all to “Dónde está los Vicodins?”

So in order to make her feel at home, I’m cooking a lot of plantains and playing a lot of Reggaeton – there’s a lot of sofrito and Bad Bunny in our apartment these days. At least she’s not from Spain; it’d be weird to have some Barcelonian dog that makes you yell, “Thit. Now thay. Now rrrrrrrroll over and eat paella.” 

I don’t like saying we “rescued” a dog because that word feels a bit hyperbolic. Like, they asked us to fill out all these forms and give a video tour our apartment to prove we were worthy. That doesn’t sound like a rescue operation to me. If I was drowning at sea and someone threw me a life preserver, I wouldn’t reply, “Actually, I’m going to need to see your W2’s for the past three years and photos of your boat’s interior because I need to know you can support my lifestyle.”

Uma is still, um, timid? Dealing with some behavioral issues? Let’s just say she’s a work in progress. But also, she’s adorable so giving her up wasn’t really an option; thus, we’ve transitioned from fostering to adoption. Apparently, that’s what’s called a “failed foster” situation – which is basically when you decide you can’t let your foster pet go. “Failed foster” is a strangely negative framing though, like referring to your marriage as “an unsuccessful one night stand.”

Actually, the whole pet adoption thing is full of oddness. For example, the way these adoption folks euphemistically describe dogs in their listings sounds a lot like a shady real estate agent trying to move a dilapidated house; but instead of trying to sell you on a money pit, they’re trying to sell you on a money pit bull.

As a result, a dog that eats your couch any time you leave is listed as a “velcro dog,” one that barks at everything in sight is “overly exuberant,” and one that never leaves the couch has “mad snuggling skills.” Uma freaks out at most people, noises, and, well, just about everything – so, y’know, she’s a “shy party girl.” But underneath all that, you can tell she’s a very good girl who will do great once she builds more confidence. 

Owning a dog in the city is a great way to ensure you’ll have the same 30 second conversation every day for the rest of your life. I’m legit considering getting a card printed up that says her age (9 months), breed (dunno, DNA test pending), and ends with “I’d rather not discuss any of this further with you. Thank you for respecting my lack of interest in this mundane conversation.”

Uma seems to be scared more of men than women. At least that’s what I tell myself when trying to figure out why she’s so spooked by me and not my girlfriend. When I’m left alone with Uma, it’s like when The Bachelor is out on a group date and the other contestants are left behind at the mansion; there’s no vibe whatsoever. I’m like, “Wanna go to the park?” Uma sulks and seems to reply, “Look, I’m not here to make friends.” And then I throw her a piece of bologna and shuffle away.

The whole experience has been a lesson in acceptance. For example, I knew I didn’t want a Paris Hilton-esque purse dog. Alas, Uma refused to walk on the leash for our first few months together so three times a day I’d put her in a bag and carry her wherever we needed to go. Everyone would stare at us and go, “OMG, she’s soooooo cute!” And then they’d stare at me and my purse pup and go, “And you must be soooooo gay!” And then I’d have to explain I’m not so gay, I’m just the right amount of gay – like I enjoy musicals, use the elliptical at the gym, and am curious about poppers…but that’s it, I swear. (I mean, poppers must be good, right? Can’t help but feel like I’m missing out.)

Then there’s her name. The adoption people listed her online as Huma but we changed it to Uma because 1) no one could pronounce it, 2) it’s not like it’s her actual name, it was just picked by some rando at the adoption agency who named her and all her siblings with names that begin with the letter H, and 3) the only Huma I know is Huma Abedin, a Palestinian politico, and, as a Jew of Israeli descent, I just felt like it was weird to have a Palestinian pup eyeballing me all day. (Turns out Huma means “bird of paradise” which also feels like an odd thing to call a dog.) Uma was just a letter away and easier all the way around. Plus, the Uma we all know is Uma Thurman, who I’ve always enjoyed – and her pop is a Buddhist scholar; if the name was good enough for him, I figured I could roll with it too.

Note: Please do not refer to me as a doggy daddy. It’s a dog, not a baby. I’ve watched enough Dog Whisperer to know that many problems begin when owners start to think of their dogs as human. Alas, Dog Whisperer also led me to believe that a calm, assertive energy would solve all my pup’s problems. Um, not so much.

Uma is the first dog I’ve had since I was a little kid. Back then, we had a chow chow named Little Bear who had a purple tongue and would run wild and dig up every neighbor’s lawn. One of them even threatened to shoot him if he got into her garden again. Suburbs, I tell ya.

So this has all been a real learning experience. I didn’t realize how tough training a dog would be, especially one that (presumably) had a rough go in her earliest days. Our couch has been chewed up, there are sooooo many walks, and her tail seems permanently fixed between her legs. She’s getting better, but it’s usually two steps forward, one step back. Guess that’s just how nature works and there’s no way around it.

On the plus side, she’s getting me outta the house frequently which is upping my Vitamin D levels. And she’s given us a constant topic of conversation (Wait, is that why people have kids? So they have something to talk about? Hmm.) Plus, she’s extremely attractive, the reason why she pretty much gets away with anything (trés human that).

Also, she makes me laugh so hard. There is such a purity to all of her expressions. When she gets scared, her eyes bulge like a cartoon character. Her ears are wildly expressive and seem to have a life of their own. Her happy place is off-leash hours at the park where she loves scampering around there, introducing her butt to any dog around. Sometimes, she gets coy and pretends not to notice you’ve got treats; she even yawns as if she couldn’t care less – when you know she actually couldn’t care more.

And maybe the best thing is watching her run. It can be after a tennis ball, another dog, or that random deer she spotted in the woods one time. She starts off in a ready-to-pounce pose, still as a lion in the Serengeti right before an attack. And then she launches at top speed and it’s a sight to behold. Maybe there’s some whippet or greyhound in her? Because when she goes, man, she really goes. And you can tell, in that moment, there’s nothing else in the world that matters to her. She’s lost in motion and whatever happened to her before no longer exists. Every time I see her move like that, it feels like a lesson, like we’re teaching each other how to behave.

My NEW podcast: Kind of a Lot

The winter of Ruby continues! I’ve got a new podcast. It’s Kind of a Lot. That’s the title, actually: Kind of a Lot with Matt Ruby (listen on Apple, Spotify, or anywhere else that you get yer pods). It features content from this newsletter as audio, discussions about tech/zen/comedy/culture, and plenty of joking around.

I’ve tried to notice what I dislike about other comedy podcasts and do the opposite. Instead of hour+ slogs, each episode is under 15 minutes. Instead of mindless rambling, you get tight writing and sharp points. How refreshing. Instead of bare bones production, producer Jeremiah McVay (of Stereoactive Media) is bringing in all kinds of neat audio enhancements: outside clips, sound efx, and other bells and whistles. Shazam. And you get a mix of depthful insight and funny jokes you might hear on something like Bill Maher’s “New Rules” but without, y’know, the condescension and “get off my lawn, you pesky kids” vibe. (OK, there’s a little of that, but not too much.)

Check out the first episode and let me know what you think. And if you dig it and want to leave a review at Apple podcasts, that apparently helps a lot and I’d appreciate it. (Heck, you could just go there and leave a positive review without even listening. I won’t tell.) Let us all worship at the altar of the algorithmic gods!

Listen to Kind of a Lot with Matt Ruby

Quickies

🎯 People who work from home should have Formal Fridays where they put on something besides pajamas just to zhuzz it up a bit before the weekend.

🎯 ChatGPT is to writing what calculators are to math. They can solve everything, but they don't really solve anything.

🎯 I'm starting to think ALL of our society is a pyramid scheme. People are like "Bitcoin is a ponzi scheme" and I'm like "Well, ok...but I think the US dollar might be one too."

🎯 Re: the TWITTER FILES: “The FBI was deciding what should be posted on Twitter, a platform that’s hugely important!” If true, I’m not crazy about that. But then again, is a bunch of Silicon Valley douchebag execs deciding really all that much better?

🎯 Don’t get me started on those ugly ass gamer chairs that tech dudes love. All they tell me is you clearly don't live with a woman.

🎯 The NFL is a pimp: CTE, sexual harassment, domestic violence, Kaepernick blackballing, Goodell lies, right wing billionaire owners forcing taxpayers to fund stadiums, "we care about player safety" while adding games, etc. It knows we'll put up with anything & come back for more.

🎯 Now, cancelling plans is self-care. And bingeing Netflix is self-care. Basically, self-care is just a bougie euphemism for "I don't care."

🎯 Kinda crazy that people will spend 50 years alongside someone they loathe just so they don’t die alone.

🎯 She is listening to Joe Rogan and I'm reading Esther Perel and now I'm worried we're starring in some kinda "Freaky Friday" reboot.

🎯 Jan. 6 winding up just like the mafia: The capos all go to jail while the Don walks.

🎯 Compromising is now weakness. Seduction is violence. Persuading is badgering. Clarifying is mansplaining. Discomfort is trauma. And the center is invisible.

🅼🅰🆃🆃 💎 🆁🆄🅱🆈 @mattruby

Michelangelo Taylor Greene

2:16 PM ∙ Jan 7, 2023

“Substance” premiere

I've got a new comedy special/documentary coming out called "Substance" – it shows me performing 4 sets on 4 substances: weed/booze/shrooms/sober (you can watch the trailer here). It gets crazy and the whole thing came out really great. I think you'll enjoy. It'll debut on my YouTube on Thursday, Jan 19 at 3pm EST. Watch it live with me then – I’ll be part of a group chat and it will be an experience.

We’ll be doing a celebration standup show with some funny friends on Jan. 26 at NY Comedy Club in the East Village at 10:30pm. Get half off with code "ludlow" here. There’s a screening on 1/12 at The Gutter in Brooklyn too.

Also, check out this cool screenprinted poster (inset below) designed by Scott Sugiuchi. Limited edition of 150. You can order one and I’ll mail it to you (signed, if ya want).

Comedy

😈 Flashback: Club Scale. I created/wrote this short film about nightclub doormen featuring two of my fave comics: Dan Soder (Billions, HBO, Netflix) and Joe List (Fourth of July movie, Netflix). Directed by Jesse Scaturro.

A "documentary film crew" gives a behind-the-scenes look into the cutthroat world of nightlife, as seen through the eyes of the doormen at one of New York City's hottest clubs, in the outrageously hilarious satire "Club Scale." This biting mockumentary shows viewers what it's like to work the door at a nightlife hotspot – and the right (and wrong) ways to get in.

😈 I post clips of my standup at Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube.

😈 Check out recent posts at my other newsletter “Funny How: Letters to a Young Comedian.”

• Using "Game of the Scene" in standup

• The best question to ask when writing

• The best people to ask for help

• What improvisers can teach standup comedians

5-spotted

🗯 Director Joel Coen on TV and open-ended stories.

“The thing about TV series that I don’t understand and I think is hard for both of us to get our minds around is, you know, feature films have a beginning, a middle and an end,” Coen said. “But open-ended stories have a beginning and a middle — and then they’re beaten to death until they’re exhausted and die. They don’t actually have an end. And thinking about that in the context of a story is rather alien to the way we imagine these things.”

“As writers… long-form was never something we could get our heads around,” Coen said. “It’s a different paradigm. Not to be shitty about it, but you can look at stories that they have a beginning, middle, and end. But so much of television has a beginning, a middle, a middle, a middle, a middle, until the whole thing dies of exhaustion. It’s beaten to death and then you find a way of ending it. That’s how a lot of long-form television works, so it’s a hard thing to get your head around.”

🗯 AMW on the standard Silicon Valley wardrobe in her 2020 memoir of working in the tech industry Uncanny Valley.

Her former colleagues “dressed for work as if embarking on an alpine expedition: high-performance down jackets and foul-weather shells, backpacks with decorative carabiners….They looked in costume to LARP their weekend selves.” While that wasn’t much of a departure from gorpcore Brooklynites, were these not the same people creating the things that kept us indoors, glued to our screens?

🗯 Stephen Sondheim’s “idea of poetic lyric writing was conversational.”

It was a lesson he absorbed from the lyricist Oscar Hammerstein, who was his mentor. He pointed to lyrics from Hammerstein’s “Oklahoma!”: “Oh what a beautiful morning, oh what a beautiful day.” “When it’s set to music, that’s poetry,” he said. “When it’s on paper, it’s flat prose. That’s the difference. And that’s a crucial difference.” I asked him to tell me a line from “West Side Story” that satisfied him. He answered unhesitatingly: “I just met a girl named Maria.” This was lyrical restraint coupled with musical richness. He recalled playing it for Hammerstein and his wife, Dorothy, while he was at work on “West Side Story.” When he was finished, Dorothy got up off the couch and kissed him. Sondheim’s eyes became a little moist as he told me this. “And I knew why. That’s the kind of lyric that belongs in this show, for these characters. That’s poetry.”

🗯 Kat Rosenfield: Is it racist to like big butts?

The concept of cultural appropriation has always struck me as both fundamentally misguided and historically illiterate, arising from a studied incuriosity about both the inherent contagiousness of culture and the mimetic nature of human beings. But when it comes to the remixing of thing such as textiles, hairdos or fashion trends across cultures, the appropriation complaints seem at least understandable, if not persuasive: there’s a conscious element there, a choice to take what looked interesting on someone else and adorn your own body in the same way. Here, though, the appropriated item is literally a body part — the size and shape of which we rather notoriously have no control over.

🗯 Andrew Sullivan on dying and quality-of-life.

We don’t like to focus on this quality-of-life question because it calls into question the huge success we have had increasing the quantity of it. But it’s a big deal, it seems to me, altering our entire perspective on our lives and futures. Ricky Gervais has a great bit when he tells how he’s often told to stop smoking, or eat better, or exercise more — because leaving these vices behind will add a decade to his life. And his response is: sure, but the wrong decade! If he could get a decade in his thirties or forties again, he’d take it in an instant. But to live a crepuscular experience in your nineties? Not so much. “Remember, being healthy is basically just dying as slowly as possible,” he quipped. Not entirely wrong.

That’s it. I’m off to take Uma for a walk. If you’re on the paid plan: Thanks! If not: I’d appreciate if you tell a friend about all the good stuff cooking here. Word of mouth is creatoxygen. Rock on. 🤘

-Matt