WHY?
On influence, Louis C.K., and perhaps a third thing even
When I decided to try standup comedy for the first time on June 10 (I think), 2008, I was not sure how it would go, but I was sure of one thing: I would wear a tie. Not just any tie but the only tie I ever bought, an elegant blue-and-purple number from Banana Republic that I’d had to purchase for my waitressing job. I mean waitering!
I was beyond nervous for that five-minute set. I left the mic in the stand, a hot tip I’d picked up courtesy of Greg Proops as quoted in The Comedy Bible (how hilariously sad is the plight of the first-time comic? Reading The Comedy Bible, taking wisdom from Greg fucking Proops. You gotta love it). There was no quote in The Comedy Bible about wearing a tie, but I think it helped. Though my hands and voice trembled, though my entire body could have imploded, the tie stood stalwart and unflinching before the crowd, daring them to question the integrity of its Windsor knot.
After that first set — which went about as well as someone’s first standup attempt can go, I must say — I felt my life had completely changed. This was what I did now, I’d found it, the thing that was mine to do. I felt that the tie deserved some of the credit, and I envisioned myself always wearing a tie onstage. I’d be known as the comic who wears a tie but looks otherwise casual, even unkempt, sort of like a preppy kid for whom life did not turn out as planned and who now had some very interesting ideas about stuff.
Of course, the second set was atrocious, a living nightmare that was absolute in its destruction of my plans and my confidence and my devotion to tie-wearing. The tie did not protect me from the unforgiving audience, in fact made me even more vulnerable (the host made fun of me afterward), and I was humiliated to think I ever thought a tie was a good look onstage. I also wore Birkenstocks.
Ater dozens of open mics, I slowly began to do moderately well, at least at Los Angeles open mics consisting one hundred percent of comedians waiting to do those open mics. I was dressing how I normally dressed, and speaking — I thought — the way I normally spoke. I was learning to be myself onstage.
It was painful to learn that I had not learned how to be myself at all, that I had no real “self” onstage, not yet. The self I’d found there was nothing but a passable impersonation of a comedian whose work was very dear to me.
Louis CK’s 2007 special Shameless was not my first introduction to him, but it was the first time I saw a full hour of his standup, and possibly the first time I felt that an hour of standup could be as vital as an album or a movie or a novel. It was meaningful to me in a way that was bigger than the sum of C.K.’s jokes. It seemed to open something up in my head, to knock something loose. I wanted to get closer to whatever this was. I guess I wanted to think the way he thought.
When comics began telling me that I sounded like Louis, it was not a compliment. What they meant was that I was doing a bad Louis impression. Obviously this is not something any self-respecting young comic would do on purpose. A young comic tries comedy because she believes she is funny, not because she believes Whoopi Goldberg is funny. Whoopi Goldberg might be a catalyst of sorts — she can show you, through her mannerisms and facial expressions, how a thought might be delivered as a joke — but you are the one who must stand onstage and say your ideas. And because those ideas are your own, you think you are being yourself. You’re not.
When I was onstage, the Louis C.K. influence was as noticeable and embarrassing as the tie I no longer wore. I tried to get rid of him, but couldn’t. When you’re new to a creative pursuit — and by “new” I guess I mean when you’re less than five years in — it is impossible to hide your influences. Maybe it always is, I don’t know. This is not a bad thing, necessarily, and a lucky few have so much charisma and confidence and talent that they don’t have this issue. But everyone else does. We might think of Bill Burr as a Singular Comedic Voice nowadays, but real comedy scholars know it took him years to stop sounding like a pale imitation of Rosie O’Donnell.
I tried to rip off more monotone comics — Todd Barry, Steven Wright, even Jasper Redd! (Man, whatever happened to Jasper Redd?). But these attempts resulted in terrible sets and I felt even less like “myself” than when I was unconsciously being Louis. It seemed unfair that I could only stop sounding like Louis by being totally self-conscious; whenever I got into a groove and lost myself in what I was doing, I would turn back into him.
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I guess I say all that to illustrate how much I loved Louis and identified with him. Things would happen to me that would seem like great fodder for material, and when I would start conceptualizing these experiences as jokes, it would be Louis’ voice telling them, not mine. This was so unbearable that I was relieved when a club owner told me that I was actually ripping off Brian Regan.
It took over five years for me to stop hearing Louis comparisons (if it’s not clear already, I should emphasize that these comparisons were about vocal cadence and mannerisms, not flattering comments on my material). By this time, C.K. was as famous as a comedian can be.
And then all that shit went down. You know the shit. I am embarrassed to say that the moment I learned of the story breaking in the Times is one I remember with exacting clarity. There are not many events like that: the death of Chris Cornell (2017); Will Smith slapping Chris Rock (2022); September 11, 2001 (2001); Will Smith announcing he would not partake in the Independence Day reboot (2016), and a few other Will Smith events.
I was working a freelance gig, loading floral arrangements into a truck in Manhattan’s flower district, when my best bud Derek texted me: “Looks like it’s all coming to a head for Louis C.K.” I had no idea what he meant, yet I knew exactly what he meant. Those masturbation rumors had been circulating for years and finally they were not something we could all ignore. I googled his name and found the NYT article. It was not shocking to read. It was a lot of stuff that I probably had heard already, but now it was framed in this sobering, unfunny way.
His apology came promptly from that same publication. I found it perfectly acceptable. Then I read a bunch of comments about how it wasn’t acceptable and I found those comments perfectly reasonable. But I believed that Louis would “take a long time to listen,” as he stated. He did not. I won’t get into that shit. The timeline, the reaction to his return. One is spoiled for think pieces on this topic if one wants to take a dive.
It was a strange time. Every comic who had a podcast, meaning nearly every comic who was alive, was talking about this: how would Louis come back, how would he address the thing, should he come back, does he deserve an audience?
He came back. He addressed the situation in his return special, whatever that one was called. I don’t remember whether it was funny or not. It might have been. I do remember feeling bad. Something felt off about it. It seemed that the topic, for him, did not merit crafting a thoughtful bit around — it was an aside. More alarming to me was what I perceived as a drastic drop-off in quality from his previous work. But was this perception a genuine evaluation of the new material, or was I not able to fairly evaluate the material through this new, uncomfortable lens? No matter the cause, I felt that I’d just seen an artist fall off with the abruptness of a Recovery-era Eminem.
And why did he not give more airtime to the thing? My best guess, now, is that he had no interest in courting those that had written him off as a weird sex criminal, that he’d maybe even felt relieved that he could focus on the fans who were still with him and felt he’d done no wrong. Perhaps he’d found an exit ramp from a level of fame he’d never felt too comfortable occupying and figured this was as good a way out as any.
My YouTube feed is still clogged with clips of Louis being interviewed on podcasts I do not listen to/watch: Joe Rogan, Theo Von, Tom Segura, the one by that smarmy asshole, and the one by the smarmy douchebag. And I always watch these clips. I cannot not watch them. To ignore them would be as unthinkable to me as scrolling past clips of interviews with my dad. And always, Louis is giving eloquent, thoughtful responses to questions about comedy, creativity, parenting, childhood, life — but never, ever the thing.
As I’m writing this, I wonder why I am writing this. I wonder who it is I hope will read this, and what it is I want them to take from it. And I’m wondering what I want from Louis now, if anything.
I guess I wonder if I’m the only one who’s been thinking about this and still thinks about it. Louis’s scandal was not as bad as Cosby’s, but he seems to think his scandal was on a par with Hugh Grant getting caught with a prostitute. He tossed it off with an “aw shucks” non-bit and his fans ate it up and continue to love whatever he churns out (and he won a Grammy!). And isn’t it weird? It seems that the comics who felt grossed out by C.K.’s actions and his response to the revelation of those actions got very quiet and less visible while those who felt he had nothing to apologize for became very vocal about that and very present in the comedy world, and that’s what comedy is now? Comedy feels mean lately, doesn’t it?
I’m thinking about it too much, I suppose. I’m sure Louis has thought about it too much as well — how could he not? But it doesn’t feel like it. Why does it feel like he’s barely thought about it?
I don’t know how much of Louis’ specials are on Netflix in America, but here in Australia his Live at the Comedy Store special from 2015 popped up in my recommended section this week. Reader, I pressed play! When I watched this special in 2015, I thought it was his best since Shameless. After the almost didactic tone of Oh My God and Live at the Beacon Theater, I viewed this one as a very welcome recommitment to the absurdity and silliness that made me love Louis in the first place. And rewatching it was…pleasant! I missed this guy. Several bits had lost potency but for the most part here he was, my special guy, a man I loved, a flawed and disgusting mess, sure, but a guy with warmth. The warmth is what I miss, I now realize.
Anyway, this is a roundabout way of saying I really enjoyed Dave Attell’s new special Hot Cross Buns, now available on Netflix. It’s under 40 minutes long. If there’s one new trend I’d like to see in standup, it’s specials that are under 40 minutes long.
