Language stuff

🎯 Odd that we use “white lies” to mean harmless little fibs. Actually, white people tell the biggest lies. “Don’t worry, the police will investigate themselves.” THAT'S a white lie. “Casinos! That should make up for it.” Extremely white lie. "These Haitians are eating our dogs." You get it.

🎯 “Disco nap” is a great way to make depression sound hip. We should start calling tears "emo juice." And when someone hangs themselves, it should be called a "goth necktie."

🎯 Americans hate immigration so much that when they do it, they insist on being called “expats” instead of “immigrants.”

Celebrity stuff

🎯 I’m used to this "Aaron Rodgers on the Jets" experience because he’s similar to a lot of women I’ve dated: Diva behavior and a lot of narcissism combined with impressive physical feats that leave you hoping psychedelics will eventually smooth out the rough edges. I just hope it doesn't end with him scratching my car.

🎯 I don’t have fans because on the rare occasion someone approaches me for a selfie, I say stuff like, “I suggest you reconsider this and other forms of celebrity worship. In reality, YOU are the only celebrity you need.”

🎯 Lopez' Law: The bigger the kitchen, the less the person who lives there actually cooks.

🃏 Comedy: Get jokes on my social media: Instagram – TikTok – Threads – X – Substack Notes.

Media stuff

🎯 Truly hilarious how everyone who tells us the mainstream media can't be trusted then turns around and hawks snake oil supplements. "Yeah, CNN and the NY Times suck...now gimme some more of your bullsh*t protein powder energy drink weight loss pills, Mr. Speaks Truth to Power!"

🎯 We keep complaining about the news ecosystem without addressing the real problem: People refuse to pay for news they don't want to hear.

🃏 Comedy: I post clips at Punchup.Live too. The latest one is about pap smears and the g-spot…

Hot button issues

🎯 It’s Climate Week! Funny that we keep having meetings/panels/conventions about how much we need to do something about climate change and then keep doing exactly what we've been doing. At least we performed caring!

🎯 Went to a climate change event the other night and the AC was busted so it got really steamy and I was like come on man it’s a little too on the nose.

🎯 People say we’re not doing anything about gun control but that’s not true: We changed the gun emoji to a water pistol. Progress!

🎯 Someday people are gonna correlate the spread of Viagra with the increase in creepy geezer sex scandals. Biology tried to get 'em off the field but science kept 'em in the game so this is what we get.

🎯 Heard Tucker Carlson is interviewing a historian who says Jesus was actually the true villain in the crucifixion.

🃏 Comedy: NYC, GOOD EGGS is uptown every Monday night at 7:30pm at the new NY Comedy Club on the Upper West Side. Also go these other weekly shows in NYC: HOT SOUP (Tuesdays) at Comedy Cellar and GOOD EGGS (Wednesdays) at NY Comedy Club (East Village).

Tech stuff

🎯 Prediction: "No AI involved" will be to content what "organic" is to food. Get ready for “non-GMO art” and "free range music."

🎯 All this tech progress yet somehow there’s still no good way to know “this is happening on your block on Sunday” besides posters on a telephone pole.

🎯 People who don't live in San Francisco seem so goddamn obsessed with San Francisco. You know you can just not care, right?

🎯 The best way to summarize how Americans think is we're outraged about having to scroll all the way down to United States in pulldown menus. “Like, what the hell? Who do you think we are, Uzbekistan!? America first! (And then you can put everyone else in alphabetical order).”

🎯 I don't have time to talk right now. I'm busy arguing with strangers on the internet.

🎯 OK, you have ADHD. But, like, who does NOT have it now?

🎯 Life: 80% is showing up.
Work: 80% is replying to emails quickly.

🎯 Sean Combs is sharing a jail cell with Sam Bankman-Fried!? Talk about FREAKONOMICS. We’re about to get Lubecoin™️. 🧴🪙

🎯 Related (ICYMI):

What a week for freaks!

Matt Ruby · Sep 20

“Hey Gemini, make an image that’s Matt Gaetz at a freak off with the ‘black n*zi’ guy and they’re both pouring baby oil on Olivia Nuzzi while Scott Galloway rants about slut shaming.”

Read full story

🤑 I know. We all want everything for free now. But good stuff takes time. And time is money. Well, it requires money. What I’m trying to say: I spend a lot of time on this and would like your money. So please consider signing up for the paid version of this newsletter. You’ll get bonus stuff and it’s the best way to show me ya really like what’s going on here. (Second best: Share this with other folks.) Thanks.

Elon stuff

🎯 Dear Elon: Leaning on an algorithm in order to amplify content that you want others to see while simultaneously billing yourself as a free speech champion is some next level hogwash.

🎯 Worst. Dr. Seuss. Ever.

🎯 Other wealthy bastards need to get Elon off the Ketamine. ‘Cuz him and his cronies keep doing Bernie Sanders-level harm to the 1%. Due to them, society is getting shown over and over again how little wealth and intelligence are actually correlated.

Love, dating, and women stuff

🎯 If my wife was having an emotional affair, I’d be pretty excited. It sounds like hiring a TaskRabbit for conversations you don't want to have.

🎯 Hear me out: Destination divorces. I'd totally fly to Tuscany to see a guy tell his wife, "I've been unhappy for a while..."

🎯 “You only watch men’s tennis? You should watch women’s tennis because it’s closer to the way you play tennis.” Um, I don’t want to watch people do things how I do them. Like, I don’t wanna watch a p0rn that's just a guy apologizing a lot.

🎯 Get me in a room with Netflix so I can pitch ‘em on a show combining true crime with astrology: “Mercury was in retrograde that night…so Candace never should have gone sailing with her husband. It’s next on Horrorscope.” Also: One of these kooks should reboot (rekook?) the Zodiac Killer. Instant virality.

🃏 Comedy: Watch my standup at YouTube. I post new Shorts there on the regular and got a new special coming soon.

Jew stuff

🎯 My body isn’t a temple. My body is a synagogue. There’s a lot of complaining and my mom disapproves of everything going on there.

🎯 Can’t believe Ultra-Orthodox Israeli Jews insist their country fight a neverending war while simultaneously claiming exemption from military service. "The war must go on...so go fight it!" Now that’s chutzpah.

🎯 There’s a reason Jews are neurotic. That’s how our ancestors survived. There were probably Jews who were once like, “I’ve got a good feeling about this stranger.” And then society Darwin-ed them out of existence.

🃏 Comedy: FUNNY HOW is my other newsletter all about the craft of doing standup. Check it out. Recently there:

• Hope vs. Cynicism: Lessons from Nick Cave and Patton Oswalt

• What comedians can learn from Taylor Swift

• At least gatekeepers recognized hack

• …and lots more

Random stuff

🎯 Netflix now has way more true crime documentaries than comedy specials. That means if I want to get an hour on Netflix, I really need to kill.

🎯 Helicopter parents? Mine were more like submarine parents. I rarely saw them, communication was spotty, there was a lot of weaponized rage below the surface, and they could go nuclear at a moment's notice.

🎯 Small talk is the $1 menu of conversation.

🎯 Every therapist’s office is just an emotional escape room.

🎯 I love the way pets will find a little sliver of sun coming through the window and just plop down on the floor and get some shine. Humans should do that more often too.

🎯 I don't want to grind. I want to sit outside a cafe all day, drink a spritz, and "people watch" (i.e. make fun of wardrobe choices).

🃏 Podcast: Listen to “Kind of a Lot with Matt Ruby” wherever ya pod.

Kind of a Lot with Matt Ruby Stereoactive Media 37 episodes

5-spotted

🗯️ Comedian John Mulaney brutally roasts SF techies at Dreamforce.

“If AI is truly smarter than us and tells us that [humans] should die, then I think we should die,” he said, looking out to the crowd from center stage. “So many of you feel imminently replaceable.”

He added, “Can AI sit there in a fleece vest? Can AI not go to events and spend all day at a bar?”

…

“Some of the vaguest language ever devised has been used here in the last three days,” he continued. “The fact that there are 45,000 ‘trailblazers’ here couldn’t devalue the title any more.”

If any other tech companies are looking for a comedian to come and roast them/the industry...I AM AVAILABLE.

🗯️ Michael Hirschorn, former VH1 honcho, on how reality TV emerged as a cultural form in its own right.

Drawing on such over-acty “lowbrow” genres as Kabuki, commedia dell’arte, British panto and professional wrestling, reality flowered into its more mature incarnation: a fully self-referential cinematic universe, artfully levered between the authentic and confected, a winking co-creation among players, producers and audience that gleefully showcased narcissism and other antisocial character traits. Its rules no longer needed to be explained.

🗯️ A.J. Jacobs’ advice: “Get curious, not furious.”

Nowadays, when talking to someone from the other side of the political spectrum, I try to frame the discussion as a puzzle, not a war of words. It’s a mystery we can investigate together. I ask questions such as: Why does she believe what she believes? Why do I believe what I believe? What evidence, if any, would to change her mind? And what would change my mind? Even if we disagree on some points, what do we agree on? And given those agreements, are there practical actions we could take that would work for both of us? 

🗯️ Kevin Kelly on what government does better than business:

In America, we rely a lot more on the market to solve things. And there’s evidently many, many things that the market wants. One of those primary things is long-term infrastructure—long-term anything. Businesses are horrible at trying to solve a problem that may take 10 years, 20 years to solve. They’re just not built for that. And that’s the role of governments. They should be inefficient. We want them to be inefficient. We want them to stockpile two million masks, just in case.

🗯️ Robert Caro’s magic words: “I can’t lose the days.”

He bought the prefab shack, he says, from a place in Riverhead for $2,300, after a contractor quoted him a comically overstuffed Hamptons price to build one. “Thirty years, and it’s never leaked,” he says. This particular shed was a floor sample, bought because he wanted it delivered right away. The business’s owner demurred. “So I said the following thing, which is always the magic words with people who work: ‘I can’t lose the days.’ She gets up, sort of pads back around the corner, and I hear her calling someone … and she comes back and she says, ‘You can have it tomorrow.’”

Thanks for reading. Appreciate ya.

-Matt