"A fantastic experiment in chemistry and comedy"
A comedy special that gets weird and existential.
My “Substance” special/doc is back!
Watch comedian Matt Ruby perform four sets: one high, one drunk, one on 🍄🍄🍄, and one sober. It's a one-of-a-kind standup special/documentary/experiment unlike anything you've ever seen before.
Watch it here:
It was pulled down from YouTube for a while but just went live again. I’m biased, but ya gotta see it. Here’s some more info:
What happens when a control freak decides to lose control? That’s the question at the heart of Substance. In it, I perform four standup sets, each one filmed a week apart, in a different state of mind: high, drunk, tripping on shrooms, and sober. And I took the mission seriously – and got seriously f*%$ up. The resulting sets were unlike any comedy special you’ve ever seen before. Think Jackass meets Michael Pollan meets George Carlin.
Worth mentioning: These weren’t typical special tapings where the audience gets all pumped up, they were just regular spots on NYC shows. And the crowd didn’t know anything about what I was doing until I went onstage. I wanted to see what happened performing outside my comfort zone: Would I crash and burn or could I still stick the landing?
The film, directed by Matthew Salacuse, also includes documentary footage of the day preceding each performance, including my conversations with fellow comedians like Shane Torres, Mark Normand, and Andy Haynes. We discuss comedy, sobriety, performing under the influence, and more. In the standup sets, I tell jokes about each of the substances ingested alongside jokes about my therapist, generational differences, nut milk, female magicians, serial killers, and tons more. There are also deeper musings about social media addiction, ego, death, and my mom’s (and the venue’s) surprising relationship with the Velvet Underground. It's a full special filled with funny stand-up and interesting detours.
Substance is edited by Anthony Verderame. Stand up sets were filmed at New York Comedy Club in NYC’s East Village. The soundtrack features music from Plastics Hi-Fi, the indie rock band I fronted in Chicago in the early 2000s before I began performing comedy.
Here’s the trailer if ya want a quick taste:
I’ve got a new special coming soon too so stay tuned for info on that.
.