Really this couldn't even wait until
February for this shit. Fine be that way
better now and when he's like nominated
to the Supreme Court or something so
Louie CK has been trying to stage a
comeback pretty much ever since the
popular culture politely asked him to
please go away for a while a return to
the public I hotly demanded by fans of a
TV show I'm fairly certain was watched
way more by critics and reviewers than
actual audiences and guys who
desperately need to believe that a
slightly above average command to verbal
gymnastics can also excuse a terrible
personality and lack of social filter in
a famous person so that might someday
also apply to them I don't know that it
needs to be rehashed or dwelt on any
great lengths read the whys and how's of
Louie becoming a persona non grata in
the world of comedy over the last year
though sidebar for those of you who may
or may not have had caused their
opportunity professional otherwise to
interact with the world of stand-up
comedy. Do you have any idea how gross
you have to be to be over the line with comedians?
Ok the comedian world is like
the rock musician world except it's all
the after the house lights up parts
where everyone's sober. The important
broad strokes of it are that a guy who
was known for being a fairly thoughtful
hard to categorize comic who gained fame
by balancing edgy material with actual
introspection about the ignorance and
ugliness that informs such material
especially as it existed within his own
psyche had to take the long walk off
stage when it turned out he'd been
conducting himself in a much uglier and
frankly more abusive way than even his
material would have copped to in reality
bowing at the time to mend his ways and
think on his actions and now he's come
roaring back quite a bit sooner than
even his most forgiving booster might
have anticipated with a new stand-up set
that's jettisoned much of his earlier
persona for a new tone of angry
self-righteous vindictiveness wherein he
rages against the injustice seemingly
done to him and in particular rails
against the supposed oversensitivity of
the younger generation. Reserving
particular bile for you to request
gender non-conforming pronouns and the
survivor activists of the Parkland
school shooting massacre. Now I'm not
here to do an episode about whether or
not the jokes are funny or if it's too
soon for him to be staging a comeback or
not but since you're gonna ask I don't
think the set is particularly very funny
and it is way too soon for him to be
trying for a comeback in my subjective
opinion. I'd also be remiss not to point
out a certain sense of cosmic confluence
that this particular comedian attempting
to come back with this particular type
of material happened in the same
relative timeframe as they seemingly out
of nowhere pop culture backlash against
the so called hope punk movement a
decidedly silly named but in my opinion
at least valid enough push to categorize
a noted preference among generations z
post Millennials for fiction and pop
culture that in Vince tin upwardly
optimistic framework as opposed to the
dystopian apocalyptic bent that had been
invoked previously that triggered an
embarrassingly enraged out spewing of
these damn kids isms about the young
being too soft and genial and whatever
neoliberal is supposed to mean this week
and not knowing what real Punk and real
rebellion is and somehow it's also
lin-manuel Miranda and Obama's fault I
think I honestly have no an idea maybe a
whole bunch of shitty clickbait writers
all found out their sons were secretly
big into Steven universe at the same
Christmas potluck and just couldn't deal.
But that and the formally relevant
writer director of Pootie Tang going all
kids these days over teenagers wanting
the march on Washington instead of
whatever played out sweathog and
shenanigans to find cool when he was a
whippersnapper kind of felt like the
same cloud of negative energy passing
through but maybe it's just me but
anyway
topical and or personal comedy has
always had a difficult time with concept
of aging and generational transitions
and social standings in fact it's kind
of amusing to me that one of the few
areas where baby boomers and Generation
Xers ended up on the same page is that
it's unavoidably frustrating when you
try and make your generational brand
rebellion and permanence adolescence and
you can't help it end up as weird old
hippies accusing your kids of being the
squares hell that comedy premise itself
is so old and relatively safe it was the
foundation for Family Ties a famously
sunny fuzzy sitcom that debuted back in
1982 meaning that louis c.k could have
been watching it when he was 15 years
old. I mean if you want a working
definition of weaksauce as it applies to
stand-up comedy a set that can be
handily dunked on by the out-of-touch
old man character from The Simpsons from
season seven in 1995 would be it.
I use to be with it.
But, then they changed what it was.
Now what I'm with, isn't it.
And what's it seems weird and scary to me.
It'll happened to you.
To be honest the set
itself is so trite and familiar to
anyone who scrolled the front page of
Reddit or unwittingly followed their one
weird uncle's Facebook link to Breitbart
news recently I'd be hard-pressed to say
anything will that have bite in it to be
genuinely offensive if anything offends
me about it it's the obviously cynical
calculated nature of the thing if I can
just make the conversation about how
oversensitive sjw's are yelling at me
for not being politically correct for
long enough it'll start to feel like
that's why I got vanished instead of the
whole abusive sex past thing.
My little Roman Polanski.
Homer!
What what's wrong with being Roman
Polanski?
He what!?! You monster!
And then I can make a comeback
on that and ride out the back half of my
career doing sold-out shows to the same
undemanding easy lay audience let's keep
in South Park on the air and probably
still mad about Roseanne.
Now look far be it from me a man who on a
different show does jokes about video
games on the internet to pretend that
shock humor can't be funny that certain
topic should simply subject to a blanket
taboo where you just can't tell jokes
about these things I don't believe that
in those words are in general and I'd be
a giant hypocrite
if I did but what I do believe is
that if you're gonna do it you have to
do it really well and I don't mean that
in the rules of social decorum sense I
mean that in the sense of if there's no
stud in that part of the wall you have
to use a drywall anchor if you want the
Shelf to take any weight.
The thing about shock comedy is that
it's a fundamentally adult medium that
feels fundamentally childish but is not.
See children tend to think that anything
shocking surprising jostling
transgressive sudden and out of the
ordinary etc and the often extreme
responses that they elicit are innately
profound because as children they're
still developing their emotional lexicon
and psychological matrices which is a
snobby way of saying that's why children
tend to laugh so hard at relatively
simple blunt-force transgressive
behaviors like slapstick pratfalls
scatological humor and inappropriate
language being deployed in formal
situations when it comes to comedy and
because most people in the mass media
age first encounter shock comedy of one
type or another shock comedy its core of
course typically beginning or revolving
around a comedian saying something you
and they both know they're not supposed
to say in some sense as children there's
a tendency to think of it in those
simple terms that what's noteworthy or
important about even good insightful
shock comedy is the shock itself the
initial oh my god I can't believe he
just said that moment that gets the
gasps and nervous titters from the adult
audience but belly laughs from the kids
who are mostly just thrilled at the
prospect of getting away with something
by proxy and will typically lack the
experience real maturity or crucial
sense of contact to meaningfully
distinguish between hahaha he farted out
loud you're not supposed to fart out
loud so it's funny that he did hahaha he
said the f-word you're not supposed to
say the F word so it's funny that he did
hahaha he said the n-word you're not
supposed to say the n-word so it's funny
that he did. Or hahaha he made fun of
school shooting victims you're not
supposed to do that so it's funny that
he did see there's always been shock
comedy or blue humor to use phraseology
older than even most of my grandmother's
best furniture for the key aspect that
defines much of the great shock material
that cultural ionizes other comics
aspire to and people in general point to
his examples in justifications I'm
talking everyone from your Lenny Bruce
to your Richard Pryor Redd Foxx to Dice
Clay Sam Kinison George Carlin CK
himself in certain sets guys like
Gilbert Godfried and Bob Saget after a
fashion Howard Stern sure the
all-too-rare women who were able to
persevere in the format like moms Mabley
Sarah Silverman Roseanne Sandra Bernhard
early on Wanda Sykes look guys I only
get to do one of these shows a week I'm
sorry if I left your favorite out you
get the idea is that nine times out of
ten the shock in the joke routine set
narrative whatever isn't the punchline
because that's easy surprise naughty
word gotcha
it's the setup the shock isn't just I
said this but rather I introduced this
gross or taboo or off-limits otherwise
forbidden thing you should not joke
about as the jumping-off point of my
joke it's the standing onstage telling
jokes
version of an acrobat taking the safety
in a way or climbing to a higher beam or
lighting one of the hoops on fire or a
juggler taking a chainsaw out of the
prop bag or a serious dramatic
production casting Jon Voight after 1999
or so or the White House press secretary
saying sure the president will take a
few on-screen questions now a
declaration that you're about to do
something ill-advised that could go
horribly wrong but will look amazing if
you pull it off the great shot comics
were almost never expecting the big
laugh from just going to a dark place
they went to dark places because when
they still stuck the landing and pulled
a big laugh out of it it was all the
more impressive
there's also crucially the issue of
context just as working without a net is
only impressive if the lack of net
clearly raises the possibility of a fall
killing you shot comedy isn't actually
all that impressive a feat if there's no
risk involved in blowing the joke and
having the ugliness of the shock
overwhelming poison the audience against
you you're not doing shock comedy or
being transgressive or speaking truth to
power or sticking it to the man or even
being very funny most likely if the
audience or the broader culture isn't
gonna be on your side and you don't have
a point outside of being on their side
to begin with. Lenny Bruce is famous say
the n-word a bunch of times until it's
defang and loses all meaning routine was
not shocking or transgressive simply
because he said that word. Lenny was
doing those sets in the 50s and early
60s pretty much the height of the tail
end of the era when it was more than
okay for a white person like Lenny Bruce
does say that word. The transgression the
taboo being broken wasn't saying the
word it was saying it in an impolitic
context. In other words the actual
definition of not being politically
correct.
"Hey hey Lenny whoa hey no not here wrong
crowd. That words for the poor whites who
can only use language of physical
violence to abused minorities and feel big
You're in a club in a city people at
hip and diverse-ish and paid their money
here we don't do racism with words we
express it by denying them bank loans
and not renting apartments and over
police saying you're upsetting the order
putting it all out in the open like that
come on." That was the edgy shocking
dangerous thing about that routine the
very strong chance that the crowd would
turn on him for making them part of the
punchline. But a comic today in his 50s
famously disgraced for being gross and
abusive to women, doing the younger
generation is too sensitive, things
are different now and it sucks, what
happened when men were men are you
triggered snowflake. Those kind of jokes
to the sort of audience that turns out
to see a performance by that sort of guy
in the first place that's the opposite
of dangerous that's safe that's the
safest possible jokes he could be
telling for the most receptive possible
audience in the least challenging or
daring context laugh at it if you like
defend it if you think it's somehow
necessary
but let's drop this thing about how
anyone who thought it was a dreary set
just can't handle shock humor because
whatever else this was it doesn't
deserve to get mentioned alongside
George Carlin and Lenny Bruce and
Richard Pryor and all those other guys
and it's definitely not shocking it's preaching.
I'm Bob and thanks for letting
me pontificate about the minutiae of
comedy writing for probably too long. I
promise next week I'll do a show about
like transformers or something honest.
