Podcast: The newest episode of Kind of a Lot with Matt Ruby is out now. Ep 39 // The boy who cried "Wow!"

Matt Ruby delves into the enchanting story of Ronan Mattin, a young boy whose spontaneous expression of joy—an exuberant “Wow!”—at a symphonic performance ignites a deeper conversation about authenticity and expression.

You can stream video version above, watch at YouTube, listen to the audio, or read the original essay this episode was based on.

Behind the Bill Burr backlash

He’s an angry, bald, middle-aged white guy who constantly rants about how feminism is dumb. Can’t get much more MAGAsphere than that, right? Yet many conservatives are miffed at Burr for going “full woke.”

Burr’s sins? He (kinda) defended Luigi and pointed out “the incredible lack of empathy from the general public about this [killing] because of how these insurance companies treat people when they at their most vulnerable, after we’ve all given them our money every f*cking month, and now we finally need you and all you do is deny us.”

Also, he’s hated on greedy CEOs, refused to blame the LA wildfires on mismanagement, and keeps beefing with Elon Musk. All that is def no bueno to the Charlie Kirks of the world.

Perhaps worst of all, Burr is married to a “DEI wife” 🙄 (gawd, these dudes wanna say the n-word so badly)…

…who flipped off 🍊 at a UFC fight.

“They’re always going, ‘Ah, you’re snowflakes, eff your feelings,’ and all of that,” Burr said. “And then you make fun of Trump, and they’re like, ‘Oh my God, it’s so disrespectful!’ You’re saying ’Eff Joe Biden!’ It’s like, you can’t have it both ways!”

Burr then explained how the whole thing went down.

“The guy walked in the arena,” he said. “Everybody cheered. She gave him the finger. Nobody got arrested. That’s why this country’s great. Everybody expressed themselves. Can we all be adults?”

A: No.

The weird thing is Burr routinely mocks liberals for their lameness too.

I just refuse to believe that it was an accidental two-time Seig heil. And he does it at a presidential inauguration. This is why I hate liberals. It's like liberals have no teeth whatsoever. They just go, oh, my God. Can you believe - I'm getting out of the country. I'm just like, you're going to leave the country 'cause of one guy with dyed hair plugs and a laminated face who runs - who makes a bad car and has an obsolete social media platform? You're going to leave this - why doesn't he leave? Why isn't he stopped? What are we so afraid of this guy who can't fight his way out of a wet paper bag?

Burr does what great comedians should do: He points out BS wherever he sees it. Good comedy doesn’t come from acting like a tribalist sheep who follows party lines. A big part of standup is not knowing exactly where someone’s going. That’s why preach-to-the-choir political comedy ain’t funny. There’s no twist.

Online pundits profit from telling fans exactly what they want to hear while Burr gets over by surprising his fans. He makes art while they churn out clickbait content. After all, lashing out at Burr for going “woke” is catnip for the “own the libs” crowd.

“All he knew is if he put ‘woke’ on what I said, he would make more money,” Burr now said of [Ben] Shapiro’s claim. “I don’t know who he is, but that guy is a jerk-off.”

But there’s an even deeper reason these guys hate Burr so much: He’s evolved from manchild to grown adult. (Howard Stern too.)

Burr’s gone to therapy, takes psychedelics, makes art, married a confident woman who calls him on his nonsense, and continually works to manage his anger issues because he wants t. It’s no wonder so many of these hateful bros have turned on him. His path is the antidote to the toxic masculinity they embody.

Burr:

I try to make sure that my kids see - that they know how much I love my wife and how beautiful I think she is and how amazing I think she is, and it's something that I feel like I've really advanced the ball, so to speak, with my kids because they're really happy kids, and they know that they're loved. This is what I've finally gotten to with all my demons is I can't fix it. All right, it happened. There's nothing I can do about it to make it not have happened. I just look at all of that stuff. My job is that that stuff dies with me. It doesn't get passed on.

They’re not mad because he’s “woke.” They’re mad because he got out.

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Surrounded

Finally realized what that “surrounded” debate framework reminds me of and it’s every Bruce Lee movie where the bad guys wait their turn so they can get their butts kicked by Bruce.

Talked all about it in this 1min clip:

mattrubycomedy

A post shared by @mattrubycomedy

Related: Crazy how everything online is someone getting either DESTROYED or EVISCERATED. It's nonsense. Whatever happened to a good old fashion disembowelment??

dis·em·bow·el
/ˌdisəmˈbou(ə)l/
verb

1. cut open and remove the internal organs of.

   "the dinosaur used its claw to disembowel prey"

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Comedy

🃏 CATCH ME ON TOUR! 🎟️ Ticket info here.

• 4/3 New York, NY

• 4/18-19 Oak Park, IL

• 4/25 Cheshire, CT

• 5/1 San Francisco, CA

• 5/30 Arlington, VA

• 6/1 Frederick, MD

• 6/7 Millvale, PA

• 6/27 Manassas, VA

🃏 NYC: MOOD BOARD is returning to Gospel in Soho on 4/3. Promo code JOY20 for discount. And you can catch me at these weeklies: 1) GOOD EGGS (Mondays) at 7:30pm at NY Comedy Club (Upper West Side). 2) HOT SOUP (Tuesdays) at 10:30pm at Comedy Cellar. 3) GOOD EGGS (Wednesdays) at 8pm at NY Comedy Club (East Village).

🃏 I’ve been on a bunch of podcasts lately. Here’s a roundup with links.

🃏 Watch/share BOLO if ya haven’t already:

Quickies

🎯 There should be a bar called Moderation. That way, alcoholics could say, “I only drink in Moderation.”

🎯 Buddhism: Taking care of is-ness.

🎯 Purim is the rare story in the Bible where a woman is the hero. It was really the Barbie movie of its day.

🎯 Poppers are either recreational drugs or jalapenos. Either way, your rectum gonna get loose.

🎯 There will never be a revolution from a bunch of people obsessed with self-care.

🎯 "Self-care" is frequently just narcissism wearing the mask of wellness.

🎯 Learning requires humility. That's why the dumbest people are so confident they're right.

🎯 “Crush all anti-semitism” vs. “free speech absolutism” is a real irresistible force meets immovable object paradox for the Free Press.

🎯 We have an obesity epidemic and that we've decided the cure is to jab ourselves with needles filled with a Big Pharma fix instead of going for a jog actually feels more symptom than solution.

🎯 If the sushi involves dry ice or a blow torch, I’m out. Save that crap for IG. I came for fish, not a maki-nical Whitesnake video.

🎯 Showers should be like a dishwasher or car wash. Why am I still having to do so much work to bathe? Just put me on a conveyor belt or in a box, lather me up, and spray me down.

Portnoy’s complaint

Hoops talk is getting catty!

Stephen A. went off on Bronny…so then Lebron gave him a Will Smith-esque “keep my son’s name out yo mouth” talking to courtside…which made Dave Portnoy rant that the King is actually a trés “sensitive baby”…and it’s all giving the most dramatic bros ceremony yet.