808s & bellyache

Oh, Kanye. There you go again. H*tler was "fresh," eh? Pretty hack take from someone who calls himself a creative genius.

I ain’t saying he’s a washed up attention whore, but he ain’t posting ‘bout no music he’s making.

Instead, it’s all 808s & bellyache. Thing is he really oughta be mad at a different group…

Sadly, I guess this Kanye bit of mine is relevant again… (😬)

mattrubycomedy

A post shared by @mattrubycomedy

It’s all so tiresome. I miss the good ol’ days of social media when we’d fight about stuff like this instead.

Ye’s going back to the well on all this reminds me of one of the first lessons I ever learned in improv: Never heighten to Jesus or H*tler. It’s too damn obvious. Find a different lane if you want to deliver something as “fresh” as, um, Stalin.

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Laziness is a skill

If you want something done efficiently, ask the laziest person you know. We’ll figure out how to do it passably while putting forth the least effort possible. We’re gifted like that.

Another thing lazy people are great at: getting out of stuff.

For example, my dad was a master of “weaponized incompetence.” That’s when men refuse to learn something in order to get out of doing it (e.g. laundry, dishes, parenting, etc.).

It’s an underrated talent. Learning stuff isn’t that hard. But to avoid learning something for years on end? That requires real dedication.

Like, anyone can figure out how to do laundry. But you’ve got to be a true innovator to continually come up with stuff like “I didn’t know you’re not supposed to put crayons in the dryer” until you’re disqualified from that task. That requires an ongoing virtuoso performance of amateurishness.

Anyway, I’m off to load the dishwasher. The spatulas go in the plate section, right? But now there’s no room for the plates. Anyway, maybe I’ll just put these wooden spoons inside these mugs and–

OK, sure. You can do it. Now, about folding this fitted sheet…

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Quickies

🎯 One thing I didn't expect about the future is that it'd feature robots constantly asking me whether or not I'm a robot.

🎯 A lie can travel halfway around social media while the truth is still begging you to sign up for its Patreon.

🎯 Social media offers “community” the way a plastic rose offers “beauty.”

🎯 "These are not the droids you are looking for." The thing Star Wars got wrong about the future: It's not humans asking about robots. Instead, it's robots constantly asking us to prove we're human.

🎯 crack den = chiropractor's office

🎯 Spectrum poetry:
Two neural pathways diverged in a mind, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the neurodivergence

🎯 “The future is female” always rubs me the wrong way. The future is men and women collaborating. It’s like saying, “The future of velcro is loops.” Nah, it’s hooks and loops coming together.

🎯 There's nothing worse than TV news guys trying to fill airtime during a breaking news event. They just turn into excitable second graders. "Look at all these fire trucks lined up. And then look over here: MORE fire trucks!" Got it, Jim. Thanks for the news.

🎯 Please stop making stoners do math. We’re already dealing with iffy synapses, we can’t solve your “If this 50MG chocolate bar has 12 squares and you want to dose 3 people on a train leaving Chicago for Boston going 85 mph...“ riddles. There's a reason no one takes the SAT while high.

🎯 Your mind problem may be a body problem. Exercise the latter and you often cure the former.

🎯 THEN: Do you even lift, bro?
NOW: Do you even listen to Huberman, bro?

🎯 Y’know these narcostates where cartels terrorize citizens until they wanna come to the US? They are sponsored by America's insatiable desire for their drugs. Conclusion: One of the best things we could do to combat illegal immigration is end the war on drugs.

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Watch BOLO

🃏 Social with me: Get jokes (and more) on my social media at Instagram – TikTok – Threads – X – Substack Notes – Bluesky.

🃏 NYC 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).

🃏 FUNNY HOW: I have another newsletter all about the craft of doing standup. Check it out.

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Scenius

A deleted scene from Substance (my doc/special where I perform on various substances) all about scenius, rock, and NYC.

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5-spotted

🗯️ Sahil Bloom: The Most Powerful Life Hacks.

When someone is going through hell, just saying “I’m with you” is the most powerful thing you can do. Advice, perspectives, or offers to help are minimally impactful. The notion that someone is with you is 10x more powerful. Be the “darkest hour friend” to those you love.

🗯️ Every single aspect of human life is being reoriented around the pursuit of attention, according to Chris Hayes.

The more competitive an attention market it is, the more it will select for involuntary methods of capturing attention. Think of Times Square with its blinding lights, or a casino floor or a supermarket checkout counter. More and more, our entire lives have come to resemble those spaces.

🗯️

Mario Gabriele

: We’ve underestimated the harms of scrolling.

It’s specifically the act of scrolling, which forces us to ingest, process, and respond to an insane firehose of ideas. I don’t think all this micro-context switching is good for us; we’re collectively destroying our attention. Most people know the feeling when they’ve scrolled too much and it makes them feel kind of exhausted and bad, yet for some reason, suggesting that something should be done about this behavior – I’m still agnostic as to what – makes people upset and defensive. I think being perpetually distracted as a species is a very bad thing, and it has downstream effects on everything else.

🗯️

Kat Rosenfield

: On what women want

The thing is, if women can’t be trusted to assert their desires or boundaries because they'll invariably lie about what they want in order to please other people, it's not just sex they can't reasonably consent to. It's medical treatments. Car loans. Nuclear non-proliferation agreements. Our entire social contract operates on the premise that adults are strong enough to choose their choices, no matter the ambient pressure from horny men or sleazy used car salesmen or power-hungry ayatollahs.

🗯️ Leslie Alexander sold the Houston Rockets but kept the team’s championship trophies.

Alexander, who last September sold the Rockets for $2.2 billion to Houston businessman Tilman Fertitta, confirmed this week that he remains in possession at his home in Florida of the two Larry O'Brien Trophies he accepted for the team's back-to-back NBA titles in 1993-94 and 1994-95.

"They're here in a corner at my house," he said during a brief phone conversation. "I haven't decided how to set them up yet."

Thanks for reading.

-Matt

P.S. Lately over at Working Methods (my newsletter with creativity advice from art legends that will kickstart ya)…