🎯 So who is the Gen Z version of Steve Albini? Who spits in the face of corporate capitalism and stands up for the purity of art via a punk ethos? And would they like to do a collab with Tostitos on new fun size Scoops™️? Because I know a guy.

🎯 A therapist is just an emotional support human. Must be disheartening to know your job can also be done by a dog.

🎯 I have the opposite of beer goggles. The drunker I get, the more I sound like a bitchy gay dude watching celebs on the Met Gala red carpet...Me to a gal when sober: “You look nice.” Me drunk: “Oh, god no. What on earth are you wearing? I don’t think so, honey. And was there an accident at the makeup factory? Because it's giving Ronald McDonald meets the Joker."

🎯 Lamar calling Drake a “colonizer” was final nail in the coffin for that word. It used to be Belgians pillaging the Congo, then it became Jews running away from the holocaust, and now it’s Canadians who wanna rap. We love being drama queens and wielding words so loosely they eventually lose all their bite. (Apologies for this “violent” message.)

🎯 Allies act like allies. When they start to spit in your face and disrespect you publicly, you have to reconsider just how allied they really are with you. I learned that from watching comedians who host podcasts together.

🎯 Note: Repeating the punchline in the comments is not the same as having a sense of humor.

🎯 Considering their notes, I’d argue the best way to catch kidnappers is to find guys who subscribe to a ton of random magazines.

🎯 The amount of morons who think Hamas is "the good guys" reveals so much. Might as well line up to support ISIS, Al Qaeda, beheadings, Bataclan/Charlie Hedbo attacks, Osama, and 9/11 too. So many useful idiots in the west acting like a group who throws gay people off roofs is Nelson Mandela 2.0.

🎯 I won’t stop complaining about how much pants right now are ridiculous – it's like we all gave up and/or might need a spare sail. ⛵️⛵️⛵️

🎯 Whenever someone says "Mike and Ikes" aloud I feel like they're talking about some tribe in an ancient Greek battle..."Eventually, the Spartans were betrayed and the Mikanikes were able to outflank them."

🎯 God is just the word we use to describe things we can’t describe.

End of the tour

The big Netflix is a Joke fest went down in LA recently. I missed it because I was on tour in Europe (and also because I was not invited). Sounds like it was a real blast though. Check out this Ted Sarandos party shot:

I’m holding out for an invite to the David Zaslav party. I heard he’s gonna rent out a Dave and Buster’s in midtown and give everyone 1/2 off beer and wine until 9:30pm. Rad.

The rest of my Euro shows were solid though:

🎪 Had a hot crowd at Club Haug (the Comedy Mothership of Rotterdam). Told ‘em how I was creeped out by a top tourist attraction Brussels:

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🎪 Also, what I learned about “the ick” in Holland:

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🎪 Met some Amsterdam comics who invited me up to do a show there on my off night. That’s when I learned that this is a universal theme: “Weird, last week’s show was packed.”

🎪 Did an abortion bit and just replaced Republicans with Catholics – and the Euros totally got it.

🎪 Got some big laughs off a group of Turkish engineers/incels in Leuven and a voluntarily celibate woman in Ghent.

🎪 Handed out business cards after shows with a QR code to this newsletter since I’m trying to get better at promo.

🎪 Saw all kinds of interesting stuff:

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🎪 Remembered this story: Did a bar show a couple years ago. Comedian before me got furious everyone was on their phones. Left the stage before his allotted time was up. I went onstage next and talked to 'em. Turns out the place only had QR code menus. They weren’t disrespecting the show, they were just ordering drinks the only way they could. I feel like this is some kinda Zen proverb but for comedy.

🎪 Talked about finding out I’m a colonizer:

🎪 Did my best to tourist it up during the days.

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🎪 A couple of open mic’ers were sitting in the back at my Luxembourg show so I felt like I was an ambassador for New York City standup. It’s a specific flavor of jokes and attitude. Made me realize how much performing at NYC venues is the engine of my act. Can’t wait to get back in the mix there.

🎪 And on the last night, I was invited to close out a new material show in Amsterdam at a spot called Mezrab. It was a packed room but it was rather tense. I watched one comic after another go up with super dark, aggro material that the audience was not onboard with. The second-to-last guy ran the light, yelled at the crowd, and seemed off his rocker. Thankfully, years of doing NYC open mics (filled with insane folks who seek amplification) prepared me for this moment. I gently riffed on the preceding comics, threw in some local references (e.g. narrow stairs, old people on bikes, etc.), cracked some jokes about my tour, did a couple bits I knew worked (had to do something to bail out the boat), and then tried a bunch of new jokes (a couple killed so maybe they’ll stay in the act). It was a real knife fight and I had to use every tool in my belt…but also, it felt like the perfect culmination to the trip. Sometimes all the work is invisible, it just comes out in a subconcious way.

🎪 Thanks to everyone who attended the shows. Great to see some newsletter readers, podcast listeners, and Vooza fans along the way.

Comedy plugs

🃏 Get jokes, info, and clips of my standup via social media: Instagram, TikTok, Threads, and YouTube.

🃏 Road dates coming up: Denver, Boulder, Arlington (VA), Boston, and Victoria (BC). Ticket info.

🃏 NYC weeklies:

• Tuesdays in NYC: HOT SOUP at Comedy Cellar (Tickets)

• Wednesdays in NYC: GOOD EGGS at NY Comedy Club (Tickets) | promo code SCRAMBLED

🃏 My other newsletter is Funny How: Letters to a Young Comedian. Great post with wise words from Paul F. Tompkins just went up.

🃏 You can listen to my podcast: Kind of a Lot with Matt Ruby.

I ❤️ the Knicks

I was a Knicks fan who lived in Chicago throughout the MJ Bulls run. You can't imagine the suffering I endured. For those of us who had to watch those Starks/Ewing teams swing-and-miss like Wile E. Coyote, the glorious feeling this current NYK team of hustlers/grinders is giving is transcendent.

Of course Brunsen/Hart/Thibs rule. But the two most underrated people behind this run: Leon Rose and Jay Wright. They created the foundation and stocked this team with winners. Love this group and we still got draft capital to spend. This is a feeling (i.e. competence) Knicks fans have never experienced in my lifetime.

Dating concierge

Bumble founder Whitney Wolfe Herd says the future of dating is having your AI “dating concierge” date other people's AI “dating concierge” and recommend the best matches for you to meet.

Dating concierce, eh? Um, as Chris Rock has pointed out, we already have this: It’s you on a first date.

“When you meet somebody for the first time, you're not meeting them, you're meeting their representative.”
-Chris Rock

Related: Future wars will be one country's dating concierges love bombing the other country's dating concierges.

5-spotted

The Power of Doing Nothing by Tim Kreider.

I can’t help but wonder why it never seems to occur to any real-world leaders that doing nothing is a viable—often the best—option. The option not to react seldom seems to occur to them in a crisis, and even if it does, they almost never choose it. They can’t resist the temptation, alluring as a glowing red stovetop coil to a toddler, to Do Something instead. Something Big! Something strong, to intimidate the opposition, quash all resistance, to Show Them All!

According to Ted Gioia, bad music disappears—you just need to wait 70 or 80 years.

These songs have disappeared from the public’s consciousness, and no critic had to lift a finger to make it happen. Meanwhile, the 1950s recordings by Thelonious Monk, Miles Davis, and Charles Mingus will still be cherished a century from now, despite the fact that they were far too smart and ambitious to get on the Billboard chart when they were first released.

Seinfeld’s commencement speech:

“Whatever you’re doing, I don’t care if it’s your job, your hobby, a relationship, getting a reservation at M Sushi, make an effort,” he reportedly said from the stage. “Just pure, stupid, no-real-idea-what-I’m-doing-here effort. Effort always yields a positive value, even if the outcome of the effort is absolute failure of the desired result. This is a rule of life. Just swing the bat and pray is not a bad approach to a lot of things.”

How Friedrich Nietzsche felt envy could be useful to us (via Austin Kleon):

Nietzsche thought of envy as a confused but important signal from our deeper selves about what we really want. Everything that makes us envious is a fragment of our true potential, which we disown at our peril. We should learn to study our envy forensically, keeping a diary of envious moments, and then sift through episodes to discern the shape of a future, better self…. The envy we don’t own up to will otherwise end up emitting what Nietzsche called ‘sulfurous odours.’ Bitterness is envy that doesn’t understand itself.

There are apps who use AI well, according to Alex Dobrenko`.

They don’t call it AI because they are not children. 

All of Google is AI.

But you don’t see them bandying it around like a kid with new light up shoes.

If I see “now with AI-enabled assistant” anywhere on a website, I run.

I will pay money for you to not use the word AI anywhere on your app. Make that the premium tier and I will buy it.

Thanks for reading.

-Matt