The six best curmudgeons to follow on Instagram 😤
Get a respite from all the enthusiasm and “inspiration” that dominates the 'Gram. Viva crustiness!
📰 This is the Rubesletter from Matt Ruby (comedian, writer, and the creator of Vooza). Sign up to get it in your inbox weekly. And check out my other newsletter too: Funny How: Letters to a Young Comedian.
What’s my type? A: Curmudgeons.
curmudgeon - a crusty, ill-tempered, and usually old man
And I especially love me some crust on my InstaPB&J. It’s a welcome respite from all the enthusiasm and “inspiration” that dominates the platform. To that end, here are my five fave ill-tempered follows on the ‘Gram…
Keith McNally
McNally (owner of Balthazar, Minetta Tavern, etc.) is restaurant royalty in NYC and is the quintessential “I don’t give a f*ck anymore” follow. He’ll pose with Woody Allen, talk vasectomies, and just generally pull no punches:
Buvette in the west village is one of my favorite restaurants in New York. I Love The Place! The owner/ chef, Jody Williams, was my original chef at MORANDI. Although Jody’s a Fantastic chef, she was a was such a Bully to my staff that I had no choice but to Fire her. She’s super talented, but a f*cking nightmare to work with.
Who does that? And just when you think he’s a total prick, he’ll donate all the proceeds from a night at one of his resto’s to support Ukraine.
Kyle Dunnigan
Please stop thinking SNL is the end all/be all of comedy. That just shows you’re out of it. Dunnigan’s impressions and writing are miles above anything the Lorne machine churns out. I can’t watch Biden or Ben Shapiro talk without thinking of Dunnigan now. Kudos to funny comic Kurt Metzger who writes on a lot of these clips too.
Supersnake
The ‘snake roasts the Tulum/St. Tropez/Burning Man/crypto/promoter/model world with brilliant captions and impressive range. Legit provides a sneaky good window into the lifestyle of the 1% too.
Eddie Pepitone
Pepitone is a great comedian and his “promotional” posts do an incredible job of putting our corporate-sponsored lives in a funhouse mirror.
Bronques
Bronques used to shoot party photos in NYC during the “Meet Me in the Bathroom” era. Now he’s spouting tough truths as an art/creativity motivation self-help coach guru (or something like that). It’s hardcore advice that often berates creators, which stands out in the sanctimonious sea of self-help schlock. I dig the captions too. For example:
You will only ‘wake up’ when there is tragedy. Or trauma. Or illness. A major loss. Or Death. Only then will you start to feel everything around you again. Only then will you pay attention.
Especially recommended if you dig “The War of Art.” (h/t SP)
Boyfriends of Insta
Perfectly captures the madness that is IG “models” forcing their significant other to play Herb Ritts to their Madonnas. Always a hoot.
P.S. Oh yeah, you can also follow me on Instagram too. I’ve got some curmudgeonly tendencies myself…
Quickies
🎯 "Hopefully this makes you furious or confirms something you already believe!"
-The algorithm
🎯 Coaches can now pray before games. Can’t wait to see a Jewish football coach before a game: “How is this game different from all other games? At other games, we play zone defense. On this night, we play only man to man.”
🗯 In “If I get canceled, let them eat me alive,” Agnes Callard explains there is no “winning” a cancel culture war.
You imagine that you are fighting against the mob, but actually you are becoming a part of it. Within the mob there is no justice and no argument and no reasoning, no space for inquiry or investigation. The only good move is not to play.
🎯 It's weird how we only use the word "souls" to describe people who are wise beyond their years or died in a plane crash.
🎯 We don’t talk enough about the correlation between p0rn and conspiracy theories; namely, how what used to be freaky is now boring. It was missionary position and lesbians once upon a time, just like it was Tower #7 and the Denver Airport. Then the internet came along and now we need wackadoo things like QAnon to “get off.” I call this The Great (Stepsisters) Replacement Theory™️.
🗯 Haragei means “art of the stomach” in Japanese. Haragei drives people to exchange thoughts and feelings – “belly to belly” – without using words.
During a business meeting or negotiation, prolonged silence can be quite painful for non-Japanese. After about four to six seconds, you feel the urgent need to break it. In Japan however, up to 40 seconds of silence is not uncommon; it is often viewed as the most productive time during a meeting. As a form of Haragei, silence can imply a positive response, such as ‘Yes, I like what you’re saying, let me have a minute to think about it’. Or, it can carry a negative message and be used as a social buffer to avoid confrontation.
🎯 The problem with tech bros is they say things like “The problem with intimacy is it doesn’t scale.”
🗯 It’s time to call the American obesity epidemic what it is: An addiction crisis. How’d we get here? Answer:
In order to feed the troops in World War II, the U.S. government turned to American manufacturing to solve the problem of mechanizing food production and creating meals that could survive unrefrigerated for months. When the war ended, dozens of manufacturers had factories that churned out this product — and no consumer base. So, they went to Madison Avenue and asked for packaged food to be re-branded to American homemakers as something modern and efficient. This messaging was woven into everything from sponsored cartoons, like the “Jetsons,” to sponsored shows, like “Bewitched.” Once we relinquished the control of our ingredients, our obesity levels began to rise from that point forward.
Standup comedy
Clips
Fun story about how the Village People were created:
In 1977, Morali—who regularly patronized American discotheques—went to a New York gay bar called the Anvil. That night he noticed dancer Felipe Rose dressed as an Indian, complete with bells on his feet. Morali spotted Rose, clad again in Indian garb, a week later at a West Village disco called 12 West. Rose happened to be dancing near one man dressed as a cowboy and another wearing a construction hat. “And after that I say to myself,” Morali told Rolling Stone’s Emerson, “‘You know, this is fantastic’—to see the cowboy, the Indian, the construction worker with other men around. And also, I think in myself that the gay people have no group, nobody to personalize the gay people, you know? And I say to Felipe, ‘One of these days I’m going to employ you.’”
Updates
Update on some of my projects for all ya fanatics:
Editing has begun on my Substance special and it's gonna be, well, special. 4 nights/4 shows/4 substances (drunk/high/sober/shrooms). Subscribe to my YouTube channel to know when it goes live – I post other comedy clips there too.
And the last Misguided Meditation show went great. Peep the visuals live mixed by artist Sophia Sobers in this video. More Misguidedness coming soon.
Funny How
Also, check out these recent posts over at Funny How: Letters to a Young Comedian…
Bill Hicks’ Principles of Comedy
Setting the tone with your opener
Audiences smell fear
Words of (standup) wisdom from Jon Stewart
Colin Quinn on the job of the comedian
The heyoka and how to be a sacred clown
Roe roe roe your boat (to a different state)
Eerily, eerily, eerily, eerily, democracy is but a dream?
More on the repeal of Roe vs. Wade up ahead – wrote about abortion here too – for subscribers (also: fireworks, buffets, Ella Fitzgerald, and life as an alien)…
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