As soon as you climb aboard the New York City subway, you enter a constant state of avoiding. Avoiding eye contact, avoiding sitting on chicken bones, avoiding touching anything with your hands, avoiding clicking on airdropped d*ck pics, etc. Want to know why so many New Yorkers are in therapy? It’s because we all have subway PTSD. The slogan should actually be "If you see something, you should see someone."

One thing you can’t avoid is all the ads, which are, for the most part, targeted at cretins: "Do something about those zits, you uneducated schmuck. Also, you’ve probably got an STD. Here's some internet startup with a cute one word name like Charlie or Teddy that will mail you the solution. Sure, this used to be illegal, but not anymore!”

And try riding on weekends. You’ve got to decipher riddles like this:

Wait, I get it! Take the chicken on the G train. Go back and bring the grain on the F train. Then, leave the chicken at Hoyt-Schermerhorn and take the fox with you on the Manhattan-bound A. Right?

It’s just ongoing f*ckery constantly. Hey Amazon, you could have gotten HQ2 here no problem if Bezos had just offered to fix the subway. Everyone in NYC woulda been like, "Yes, please. We will give you a tax break, half of Queens, and the Nets too if you just get the Q train to run on time."

It’s not all bad, though. There’s a surprising amount of pleasure to be derived from subwaydenfreude, the term I invented for the joy you feel when you descend subway stairs, see a bunch of annoyed people waiting, and realize you’ve arrived just in time for the next train. Hallelujah.

The marine and the MJ impersonator

There are tons of eyes on the subway this week as we enter debate mode re: the marine who choked out a Michael Jackson impersonator (say it with me: “Only in NY!”).

We don’t really know what happened on that train yet. Unpopular (social media) opinion: It’s okay to say “I’m not sure” about something when you don’t know wtf actually happened. I know it feels good to yell “murder” or “he deserved it,” but it’s also nice to know what the hell you’re talking about first.

Of course, we don’t need Charles Bronson-esque vigilantes killing mentally ill people who can be deescalated without violence. We also don’t need moral grandstanding from social media white knights who act as if they’d all behave immaculately in any f–d up situation. We’re all heroes in our fantasies. I only want to hear your moral lecture about how NYC subway riders should behave if you’re riding alongside me on the C train at 1am.

Because I do that frequently. And if you routinely ride the NYC subway after midnight, you are basically on the front lines of our society’s mental health care system. It can feel like an old timey carnival where you pay $2.75 to see things you can’t believe. The Bearded Lady and the Sword Swallower got nothing on the Blind Man Who M@sturbates While Clipping His Toenails. "HOW DOES HE DO IT!?" Ride the F train to Coney Island and the freak show at the final stop will feel like it’s just another car.

That said, these right wingers who have a hard-on for vigilantes need to settle down. It’s hilarious how all these midwestern FOX viewers seem to care more about NYC being “crime-ridden” than the people who actually live here. The city, for the most part, feels incredibly safe. It’s basically a Disney Store/Bank of America/weed dispensary that also doubles as a Genius bar. 70’s Big Apple seediness is long gone so it’s tiring to hear people who love to nag about nanny-state nonsense getting their panties in a twist on our behalf. This is NYC, baby. We’re fine. In fact, anxiety and fear are our love languages.

However, those on social media who depict themselves as saviors are also tiresome. Some stuff I read this week that generated eye rolls:

“I’ve been groped more at sports bars than on the subway.” Sorry about that. But subway riders are trapped underground in a metal tube with no way out. This isn't discussed enough when we factor in how threatened riders do/don't feel. If your analogy involves a place where you can just get up and leave, then, well, it isn't analogous.

“You just assume homeless people are an inherent threat.” Subway riders don’t make assumptions based on housing status, we make them based on THIS DUDE IS ACTING CRAZY. If anyone is able to look past one’s housing status, it’s New Yorkers. After all, we’re a city of 40 year-olds who have multiple roommates. You want to know who straphangers fear most? It’s not the homeless, it’s the guys who get on the train at Canal Street, blare a boombox, and start yelling, "Showtime’s here! What time is it? Showtime!" Ugh. Nooooooo.

“Jordan Neely was hungry or thirsty or tired or in obvious distress." OK. But also: Jordan Neely punches elderly women, pushes people onto the tracks, and has been arrested 44 times, including for assault. Feels at least slightly relevant when considering why things broke bad for him. (Again, doesn’t mean he should have been murdered – just seems silly to ignore when discussing. Context doesn’t have to be an all or nothing affair.)

A glorious monster

I know, this makes it sound like the subway is a hellscape. That’s just part of the story, though. It’s also a goddamn miracle, a glorious caterpillar crawling through our metropolitan bowels. It is the de facto circulatory system of the world’s greatest city. We’d be nothing without it.

NYC contains multitudes and living here is a constant lesson in duality. David Cross nails it in this joke:

In New York, you are constantly faced with this very urgent, quick decision that you have to make about every 20 minutes. And it doesn’t matter where you are—indoors, outdoors, f*ckin’ in a park, in a museum, in a restaurant…. About every 20 minutes, immediately, you have to go, “[Gasp] Oh my god. Do I look at the most beautiful woman in the world or the craziest guy in the world? Look at her; she’s f*cking beautiful! But look at him, he’s wearing orange footie pajamas and he’s got tinfoil on his head and he’s playing a Casio!”

In a way, the subway is the perfect microcosm of NYC. It’s multiple things happening all at once. It’s amazing and crazy, wonderful and scary, beautiful and filthy. It’s the most beautiful woman and the craziest guy. And which once you decide to focus on probably says more about you than it does about New York.

Quickies

🎯 Want to protect the sanctity of marriage? The enemy of it isn’t gay weddings, it’s Netflix reality dating shows.

🎯 "I'm really tough and that's why I need all these guns" is like saying "I smell great and that's why I need all this perfume."

🎯 Before memes, unfunny people knew they were unfunny. Sure, sometimes they'd say stuff like "oh behave," "my wife," and "that's what she said" – but then we all groaned and they knew their place. It was a better time.

🎯 Please consider that you may not have a disorder, you may just have a personality trait.

🎯 Comedians doing podcasts where they give life advice cracks me up 'cuz there is no group of people I can think of LESS qualified to do that.

🎯 A.I.strology gonna be wild: "Write an 800-word horoscope in the style of a wellness influencer from Marin County who owns a ton of crystals."

🎯 Biz idea: Sell sunscreen at the writer's strike picket lines.

🎯 I just want you to know that if you use the words activation, cohort, or modality, I will instantly stop listening to anything else you have to say.

🎯 I ❤️ the Met Gala!

🎯 The annual spectacles of May: The swallows returning to Capistrano and Chris Paul grabbing his groin and/or hamstring injury.

🎯 Tip: It's not love bombing if you tell the person right away, "You'll eventually be shocked by my future level of inattentiveness."

🎯 The fun thing about America now is you have no idea whether or not something is a parody or for real. For example:

🎯 1964-1969 was so wild that we've spent the next 50+ years constantly reacting to it.

🎯 One of the toughest things to clock is how little the amount of effort you put into something determines the value with which the world perceives it. That thing you labored over may be worthless while that thing you tossed off takes the world by storm. Go figure.

🎯 ChatGPT meets Google SEO optimization feels like the irresistible force vs. immovable object of tech.

🎯 You spend the first 20 years learning all the things they teach you and the next 20 unlearning them. Life is a long process of trading in regurgitation for true knowledge.

🎯 Sweetgreen sold a “Chipotle” bowl…

…which immediately made me think of this:

🎯 Full (El)on propaganda mode activated at Twitter! Here’s a login screen I saw there…

Like some Chairman Mao level propaganda: "Watch our dear leader gift the children with eternal prosperity!" Also, Ben Collins opened the site and saw this:

More Matt Ruby

😈 Check out my podcast: Kind of a Lot with Matt Ruby.

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

• A documentary about the NYC standup scene in 2009

• How Roy Wood Jr. approached the White House Correspondents’ Dinner

• "Tired, tired, tired!" Repeat your setup...

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• 5/9 COMEDY CELLAR (FBP) - 10:30PM – tickets

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• LA shows in late May. Stay tuned for details.

5-spotted

🗯 Derek Sivers talks to Tim Ferriss about the weight of unfinished projects and the power of saying, “Good enough.”

I think how important it is to be done with something so that you can move on. Like, I don’t want open loops. Unresolved decisions. Sitting unresolved. Sitting undecided for a long time. I feel the weight of those unfinished projects because I’m trying to make it perfect. I feel the weight of those. And so I think I’ve learned the importance of just getting things done and finishing. And to do that, you usually have to say good enough.

I love the fact that we say somebody releases an album. You release a book. Because there’s a wonderful double-meaning in that word, right? I think about that with anything. Alright, it’s released, it’s good enough.

🗯 Could unplugging (and stopping software updates) become the new analog?Damon Krukowski explains why he disconnected his recording studio from the internet entirely.

I disconnected my recording studio from the internet entirely. This wasn’t an analog rebellion – I didn’t trash my studio computer and replace it with vintage tape machines. On the contrary, I did it to preserve the digital audio tools I have come to rely on. I wanted my tools to continue working the way I know…

Who knows what the next operating system update will do to the digital tools we use each day. Which older files will be rendered unreadable. What painstakingly curated digital music collection will suddenly be scrambled.

Up ahead for paid subscribers: Some interesting links about AI and humanity…...