🎧 Listen to my podcast Kind of a Lot with Matt Ruby. It offers similar smartfunny™️ content, but for your ears.

Trumpster fire

Ugh, do we have to? Fine. Here we go…

(Chief) Executive Chef Donald J. Trump presents the following menu...

• Amuse bouche - this NYC trial

• Appetizer - Georgia election interference trial

• Main course - Jan. 6 trial

• Dessert - classified documents at Mar-a-Lago trial

Remember to pace yourself! Check comes on Election Day in November, 2024.

I bet he’s actually really upset there was no mugshot. Imagine the merch he coulda sold with that thing. Mugs, shirts, commemorative plates, etc. That’s just leaving money on the table. (Related: Why are tote bags just for libs? It’s weird that a type of bag has political connotations. I blame NPR.)

Anyway, this case is a dumb one. Sorry, hate the dude, but it’s true. Comedians know you should never open with your weakest bit. And this case feels small fry compared to attempting to rig an election or inciting an insurrection. Priorities, people.

Hush money to a porn star ain’t moving the needle/feels like silly puritanical nonsense. I know, falsifying business charges blah blah blah. But if it took you five years to build a case that’s just iffy…well, you get it.

Plus, I can't get mad at Trump for a hush payment because every time I tip a hotel maid, it’s kind of a hush payment: "Let's just keep this between the two of us, ok? No one else needs to know what happened here." In fact, I almost feel bad for the guy. He spent $150k on the most publicized hush payment ever! Can he at least get a refund? It’s like buying ear plugs and getting a siren.

Everything Trump is so bad for comedy. I mean you can’t heighten from this…

“Trump is joining some of the most incredible people in history being arrested today. Nelson Mandela was arrested, served time in prison,” Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia told Right Side Broadcasting on Tuesday. “Jesus — Jesus was arrested and murdered by the Roman government.”

…c’mon, it’s already hilarious. And don’t get me started on the bottomless hypocrisy:

🅼🅰🆃🆃 💎 🆁🆄🅱🆈 @mattruby

"I'm sick of Democrats weaponizing law enforcement to target and persecute their political enemies. Anyway...LOCK. HER. UP. LOCK. HER. UP." -Republicans

2:15 PM ∙ Apr 2, 2023

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(Note: It’s weird when people say, “Don’t get me started on…” Because by that point, they’ve already started. And they did it on their own, not because someone else forced their hand. I just want you to know I recognize the passive aggressive you-made-me-do-it card I just played. Anyway, don’t get me started on people who are passive aggressive…)

However, I will be excited if MAGA protesters come to NYC. Go ahead and try that Jan. 6 BS here and see how it goes, fellas. Proud Boys vs NYPD = got me feeling like that Michael Jackson eating popcorn GIF…

Also, here’s a drinking game for ya: Do a shot any time a Republican says "Soros-backed" or “unprecedented.” You’ll be hammered before Hannity hits his first commercial break. Seriously, I can’t handle anyone saying anything Trump is “unprecedented.” Yeah, we knoooooooow. We’re not in precedented anymore, Toto.

mattrubycomedy

A post shared by Matt Ruby (@mattrubycomedy)

Anyway, it’s all rather devilish. Let’s cleanse the palate with some angel talk…

The river’s flow

Every once in a while I think about Jeff Buckley’s story. Abandoned by his father who gifted him with a voice from the heavens. And then his body gets swept away by the currents of a river, like a passage in the Bible.

Then I play one of his tracks and marvel at the way his voice climbed and sank between octaves like a game of Chutes 'n Ladders. Also, the echo dripping off the odd chord phrasings he'd play on guitar. And I recall how he oozed sensuality, with his golden voice, chiseled jaw line, and unbuttoned shirt; my college girlfriend was totally in love with him – and I couldn't really blame her.

My first exposure: Going to Tower Music my sophomore year of college, putting on the headphones at a listening station (yes, those were a thing back then), putting on Grace, his debut album, hitting play on "Hallelujah," having it sink in slowly, and looking around at the other people in the store while thinking, "What the hell is happening in my ears right now? Where did this person come from?” Now, he seems more like a mythical figure than an actual human being.

One of my biggest regrets is skipping the night he played in Chicago at the Metro because I was tired and figured there would be more chances to see him. Grab things while you can, you never know when they’ll float away.

Have you ever listened to Jeff Buckley? Really listened? Like, turn out the lights, smoke some weed, and put your arm around someone you love and not just hear, but listen? Maybe it's time you did that.

Lover, You Should've Come Over Jeff Buckley

And if you want to dive deeper into Buckleyville, check out him busting into a cover of Pakistani Qawwali singer Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan randomly at a gig:

Uh, WTF? At first, the audience laughs. Then, the laughter stops. By the end, they’re rapt, like a wave had crashed over the room.

Buckley even wrote the liner notes for Khan’s The Supreme Collection, a great example of paying it backward.

It is soaring, healing, penetrating music that rips the sky open, slowly revealing the radiant face of the Beloved. By the end of the night no one is immune to the spirit that clouds the auditorium. All eyes and ears turn straight to the stage, straight to the story being uttered into their bones. There’s a voice, singing like it is the last sound u’ll ever hear before u die & float away into heaven or hell. That guttural silver flame of melody & ecstasy is shooting from the throat of a man who is so deep inside the music that he does not exist any longer. That man is NFAK.

Mustt Mustt (Real World Gold) Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan Album

It all feels like the antidote to, well, a lot of things going on right now.

Related: Check out my friend Umer’s Falsa Music project that’s “rooted in 14th century Sufi music (Indian classical mysticism similar to Rumi's elevating poetry).” It’s good stuff along the same lines.

Maybe Buckley’s reverence for Khan resonates especially hard with me because of how much my mom loved Sufi culture. She’d play music like this all the time in our home. And even though she was a Jew, she’d insist we recite this Sufi prayer before dinner:

Oh thou, the sustainer of our bodies, hearts, and souls. Bless all that we thankfully receive. Amen.

As a kid, I didn’t think about it much; my mom did lots of weird stuff like that. Memory is weird. Usually, it fades. But sometimes, the longer you live, the more you can see into the past. It’s like you have to gain enough distance to connect ancient dots.

Tufail. @tufailA77

[Jeff Buckley on Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan] #Thread

2:00 PM ∙ May 9, 2022

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You + me

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You can also hire me to write interesting things for you or produce videos. Or have me perform at your venue/conference/quinceanera. Just email me at mattruby@hey.com to learn more.

Comedy

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

😈 Check out my other newsletter “Funny How: Letters to a Young Comedian” for standup advice.

😈 New Misguided Meditation with Matt Ruby dates in NYC and LA coming soon.

😈 Lonnie Dama appearance upcoming in NYC…

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Get ready for an appearance from my alter ego Lonnie Dama, "Business Shaman," here: Mt. Tam Psychedelic Integration Jam. April 28-30 @tamintegration It's an online event. Get 10% OFF with coupon code RUBY 💖🍄✨ buff.ly/3ziN9jA

2:15 PM ∙ Apr 1, 2023

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😈 ICYMI: I guested it up on the We Might Be Drunk podcast recently. Here we are discussing my “Substance” special (you can watch the special here). And here’s a clip of me ranting about silly protestors…

Quickies

🎯 April Fool's Day is to comedians what New Year's Eve is to alcoholics.

🎯 Toughest thing about Zoom is constantly having to make that "I'm interested" face. I prefer in-person since your face only needs to convey, "Look, I'm here.”

🗯 Anne Helen Petersen discusses the fault at the heart of #GirlBoss feminism in "Why Are (White) Men So Unambitious?"

If you’re curious about why so many women in their late 30s and 40s are exhausted or dropping out of the workforce entirely, why so many are trying to figure out where their ambition went — well, when the race has no end point, sometimes your endurance just runs out. That’s the fault at the heart of #GirlBoss feminism and white feminism more broadly: if the goal is simply matching the success of white men without re-imagining the world that privileged it in the first place, the whole enterprise is a dead end.

🎯 Nothing has damaged relationships more than the notion of a "soul mate." Offloads all the hard work any long-term relationship requires. Instead of "we need to try harder," it's all "there's some magical person out there who will agree with me on everything!"

🗯 No one told Adam Mastroianni that depression would be so weird.

I wanted evidence-based treatment. I wanted CBT. Correct my counterproductive thoughts! Flog my brain into shape!…I wanted to solve my bad feelings the way I had learned to solve everything in life, which is by being a diligent student and a good boy. But you can’t ace feeling good like it’s a math test, and trying only makes you feel worse. My recovery was going to be far more mysterious than I could possibly appreciate.

Related: Some of my therapy tales here: I love therapy. I hate therapy. 🧠

🎯 Never served in the military. But one time I accompanied my gf of 7 years to her younger sister's wedding and it felt a lot like being on the front lines of something.

🎯 The magic feature of Alexa is that it lets people with no employees cosplay being someone's boss.

Up ahead: 'Succession' actor Brian Cox’ (kinda) defense of Logan Roy, the sex recession, doctors for men, Germany vs. Brazil, and the problem with cute dogs.

🎯 Social media is a great place to watch people take jokes seriously.

🎯 Women have a doctor specifically for their genitals. Men don’t. Can’t help but think a lot of things would be different if men got UTIs, cysts, and had to go see a c0ck doc once a year.

🎯 Being a Jew has strange side effects. Example: Years ago, Germany played Brazil in the World Cup. Germany scored and the broadcast cut to a square in Germany where thousands of Germans were going crazy and chanting in unison. Immediately, I thought, "I'm now rooting for Brazil."

🗯 'Succession' actor Brian Cox can't defend Logan Roy, but he can relate to him. Because, at some point, you have to stop blaming your parents and take responsibility for your own life.

I remember the great actor Brian Dennehy saying this to me, and I always remember it. He said, you know, after a certain age, all bets are off. You can blame your parents for everything, but finally, there's a point where you've got to say, hang on, you know? You know, I'm 30 now; I can't just keep blaming my mom and dad for my conditioning. You know, there's a point where I have to use my own intelligence and say, hang on, let me get the perspective on this. And, of course, this is what human beings sometimes - a lot of the time - fail to do.

🎯 "Sex recession" is an odd term cuz it's weird to combine economic terms w/ sex stuff. Like hearing on the news: "There was a drop in the Consumer Blow J0b Index this month. Wives are likely cautious given p0rn inflation is still elevated & dishwasher emptying rates are falling."

🎯 People who hate on how the government explained Covid stuff never seem to factor in how much the American population is moronic. How do you offer up nuanced, in-depth explanations to a populace incapable of processing nuanced, in-depth explanations? Sometimes you gotta give the baby some apple sauce and hustle onto the plane.

🎯 We are living in the era of zero accountability meets zero attention span. Unsurprisingly, it’s not going well.

🗯 Maybe dogs have become too cute.

The most blatant dog fetish today is the yen for cuteness. Almost any foray on to Instagram, YouTube or TikTok will bring you into contact with adorable pictures of dogs and cats and other animals that will make you smile and say: Aww, how cute! You have just witnessed commodity fetishisation through a cultural phenomenon that the media scholar James Meese calls the ‘cute economy’. The cute economy exists primarily on social media, is user-generated, and is heavily dominated by pictures of animals, especially pets. Within the cute economy, the goal is simple: to generate an ‘aww’ response, presumably followed by a tap on the screen to ‘like’ and ‘share’. We can click through image after image of cute animals doing cute things, feeling a little boost of positivity and good cheer.

🗯 90’s novel “Mating” shows a romance based on “intellectual love” (i.e. permanent intimate comedy).

Their bond is an “intellectual love” forged through scholarly debates, jokes and an endless stream of conversation. “Causing active ongoing pleasure in your mate is something people tend to restrict to the sexual realm or getting attractive food on the table on time,” the narrator observes, “but keeping permanent intimate comedy going is more important than any other one thing.” The two come to acknowledge their devotion to each other “without anyone having to go through the horrible bourgeois ritual of declaring love.”

Thanks for reading. Stay strong. 💪

-Matt