The problem with Larry David's takedown of Bill Maher
On expertise, Adolf, and the greatest sin in Podcastistan.
Douglas Murray vs. Joe Rogan! Larry David vs. Bill Maher! Worlds are colliding.
My take on those battles in a minute.
But first, I’ve noticed this is a sentence you never hear these days: "I am ignorant on this topic so I'll defer to the experts.”
Because that makes for bad clickbait. And bad podcasting. The right way to spin it: Experts suck! Instead, we should place our trust in podcasters and YouTubers who speak quickly, confidently, and charismatically. Bonus points if they monetize via iffy supplements. It’s as if we’ve all decided to give the mic to the hecklers.
Because the greatest sin in Podcastistan is suggesting that certain people shouldn’t comment on certain things (or that others should avoid elevating amateurish voices).
Podcastistan is a place where people scold the mainstream media for failing to live up to their standards on honesty and accuracy while having none of their own.
See, people who are right 50% of the time really hate people who are right 80% of the time for acting as if they're right 100% of the time. “That guy who spent decades doing scientific research was wrong about [insert Covid something here] so he and I are basically equals.”
These are the same dudes who say ya gotta “do your research” too. My problem is how often that just means watching YouTubers. I'm skeptical about the expertise of Professor Beast, y'know?
On Rogan, Douglas Murray chastised Dave Smith for opining on Israel and Gaza without being a trained historian. But the thing is Douglas Murray ain’t a trained historian either. It’s a healthy message, but I’m unclear how he’s the right messenger.
And while we’re on the subject, allow me once again to stand up for "mainstream media" since I’m a fan of fact checkers, editors, corrections, objectivity (even if performative), and attempts to present both sides fairly. (I know, I’m a real dinosaur.)
And then you’ve got Larry David mocking Bill Maher for having dinner with 🍊. Maher’s whole “he’s actually nice in private” recap deserved to be challenged. (Tell that to the guy in the El Salvadoran hellhole prison.) Also, anyone who says, “I should be considered a hero for…” (like Maher did) deserves to be taken down a peg. Heroes don’t usually go around telling you they deserve to be called heroes.
But my problem with LD’s takedown is I dislike escalating to H*tler as a comedy concept. Feels too cheap/easy. 🍊 is not actually running concentration camps (yet?) so it feels unfair to claim anyone who breaks bread with him is akin to an Adolf fanboi. I’d argue it’s wise to keep your powder dry on that comp.
But then again, who am I to tell Larry David how to do comedy? That dude is a real expert.
Quickies
🎯 Shoutout to the guy on the skateboard who’s always filming the other guy on the skateboard 🛹 You are an ollie-ing dolly, dahling!
🎯 I lived in Chicago in the early '00s. If wearing a Bulls hat and having a bad tattoo means you're a gang member, then I dated a bunch of gals in MS-13.
🎯 If 47 makes it illegal for Harvard grads to tell you they went to Harvard within the first hour of meeting them, I may have to reconsider my views on all this.
🎯 Tyler the Creator on promoting: “I’m still promoting an album that came out a year ago. I put too much time and energy into this finished project just to put it on Instagram and forget about it. No. Promote. Let people know. Be proud of what you made.”
🎯 SF! Slinging jokes there on May 1 at Lost Church (tickets). $3 off each ticket when you use the code earlybird6 at checkout. Offer ends April 27th.
🎯 We've got it all backwards. Getting married should be like running a maze and getting a divorce should be when they throw ya a big party.
🎯 [Working Methods] Stephen Merchant: “You can always simplify. You can always cut lines out. You can always be economical.” Below is the Clint Eastwood scene he thinks illustrates this perfectly
🎯 [Working Methods] Dolly Parton gems: "Find out who you are and do it on purpose." “Storms make trees take deeper roots.” “It costs a lot of money to look this cheap” “I'm not offended by all the dumb blonde jokes because I know I'm not dumb - and I'm not blonde either.”
🎯 There is no OnlyFans targeted at women because it'd just be a guy listening to how her day went and that doesn't scale the same way feet pics do.
🎯 [Funny How] Why comedians have successful marriages: “[Comedians] are students of human behavior. They pay keen attention to their own quirks and emotions, and to those of others, for a living. And they apply that same perceptiveness to their marriage."
🎯 Me when you start a Zoom call in the coffeeshop:
🎯 [Funny How] Doug Stanhope with a message for comics (and the entire internet actually): "Spend at least as much time propping up someone lesser known as you do shitting on someone in the spotlight."
🎯 Why do AI company logos look like buttholes?
“This phenomenon reveals something deeper about the tech industry: the fear of standing out too much. Despite claims of innovation and disruption, there's tremendous pressure to look legitimate by conforming to established visual language.“
🎯 In therapy and it’s working slooooowly. I feel like I’m in boarding group F but for sanity.
🎯 Just beat 🍊 at a Mar-a-lago golf tourney and now I’m in shackles on a plane to El Salvador. Damn, knew I shoulda bogeyed 18.
🎯 [Working Methods] The band Wire on the power of reduction:
“The only things we could agree on were the things we didn’t like,” observes Bruce Gilbert. “That’s what held it together and made life much simpler.” Recalling some unofficial Wire rules, Graham Lewis summarizes this negative self-definition: “No solos; no decoration; when the words run out, it stops; we don’t chorus out; no rocking out; keep it to the point; no Americanisms.”
🎯 Jason Fried: Go do business.
You have to do.
You learn business by doing business. Hiring by hiring. Products by building them.
We know this is true in music.
Never pick up a guitar? Go read 100 books on guitar. You'll suck just as much.
You have to play. You can only learn guitar by playing.
Business is music.
🎯 We are in the golden age of p*ss poor logic delivered with utter condescension.
🎯 The problem with yelling at Senators in town halls is it just comes off as elder abuse.
🎯 [Working Methods] Kim Gordon (ex-Sonic Youth) believes at concerts “people pay to see others believe in themselves.”
🎯 There oughta be a German word for when you post a screenshot and a commenter ignores the contents and focuses instead on your battery life or number of unread messages.
🎯 Meds are like entitlement programs: easy to start but hard to give up.
🎯 The problem with “disability rhetoric.”
Why can’t anyone point out that saying you have a medical disorder is a shortcut to getting sympathy and attention, and that human beings crave sympathy and attention the way they crave water and air?
🎯 “Latinx” was white people trying to colonize Spanish.
🎯 People who say "Actually, that study's been disproven" really grind my gears. Look, I only read one article in Science magazine per year. Let me have this.
🎯 ‘Views’ are lies: a “view” on the internet means even less than you think.
Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube Shorts all count a view the second a video starts playing. This is objectively absurd. Every time you scroll, even if you immediately jump to the next video, the platform logs that you watched the video the same as if you’d seen the whole thing. That’s like saying, if you’re in a Best Buy and you walk past a TV playing Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End, you’ve now technically seen Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End. Congratulations, you’re a pirate.
🎯 I refuse to pay for Paramount Plus. Gotta draw the line somewhere.
🎯 [Working Methods] Akira Kurosawa: "While cameras are rolling, I rarely look directly at the actors, but focus my gaze somewhere else. I sense instantly when something isn’t right. Watching something does not mean fixing your gaze on it, but being aware of it in a natural way."
🎯
: The Five-Star Feedback Scam.I’m so over businesses asking for my feedback. Not just because it’s disruptive and time-consuming but because the whole process is nothing more than an obligatory charade where a business pretends to care about our opinions, and we pretend to offer a sincere evaluation. If you dare rate an experience less than five stars, the inevitable follow-up just sucks up more of our day and finite brain power.
🎯 AI is trying to give us all the finger but it still doesn’t know how to render hands properly.
🎯 I’ll be headlining in Cheshire, Connecticut on Friday 4/25. Tickets.
🎯 The answer to so much: Go outside. (What can I say? I’m a real touch grasshole.)
🎯 The inherent problem with Substack is that when someone tries to charge me to read a long email, I'm like, "Actually, I’d pay to have fewer emails to read.” But still, you should sign up for the paid plan and get bonus content and support my long a** email writing:
🎯 Brian Eno on religion:
I’m an atheist, but I believe in religion. I’ve always been aware of the downsides, but when I got interested in gospel music I started to see what it could do for people, that it could create a place where you could surrender and become part of something bigger. I think we all want to achieve that, and we all do it in different ways. Sex, drugs, art… they’re all ways of surrendering, of allowing our identities to lose their hard edges and merge with something else.
🎯 Beyoncé, Lil Nas X, Shaboozey: All are black artists who went country. Yet it's not considered cultural appropriation. Rednecks oughta scream, "My cowboy is NOT your costume!" I guess one nice thing about being Jewish is no one's coming for our music. Beyoncé ain't gonna put out a remix of “I Have a Little Dreidel.”
🎯 America 2025:
🎯 [Funny How] Conan O'Brien on Mark Twain: "The comedy I have loved all of my life is comedy that is self-critical, deflating, and dedicated to the proposition that we are all flawed, absurd, and wallowing in the mud together."
🎯 “Since when did comedy become so right wing?” My reply:
Keep reading with a 7-day free trial
Subscribe to The Rubesletter by Matt Ruby 💎 to keep reading this post and get 7 days of free access to the full post archives.