Too funny to cringe

Louis CK returns to his club roots—and his dark side—in new special

Over the past few years, comedian Louis CK has become a household name after decades of only niche recognition (mostly from critics and fellow comics). His last two specials, “Live at the Beacon Theater” and “Oh My God,” reflected CK’s newfound mainstream success through bigger venues and jokes that felt more polished, considered and socially engaged. But those jokes also felt self-consciously safer, as if they were tailor-made for a wider audience. It started to feel like the guy who made “Shameless” and “Chewed Up” might be gone for good. “Oh My God” especially feels as if we’re watching someone gear up for the downslope of his artistic career, at least as a stand-up comic (his other creative venture, the FX series “Louie,” has never been better), just as he’s hitting his commercial peak.

Thankfully, CK has taken a hard left turn with his sixth special, “Live at the Comedy Store.” It feels like a course correction in every way. First, he’s returned to the intimacy of the club setting after several successful theater specials. The material is noticeably darker, and CK seems looser, less prepared and more engaged with his audience. The entire experience feels raw and off-the-cuff. 

He opens with a joke that feels like a throwback to his “Shameless” days, before his blustery, un-PC misanthropy had refined into gentle self-deprecation and befuddlement. He greets the crowd with an effeminate lisp, then acknowledges (while still using the voice) that he’s perpetuating a stereotype. When the punchline comes, he’s suddenly hopped from a tired gay joke to a cheap race joke. And it’s funny. Really, really funny. It shouldn’t be. Right out of the gate, CK plucks two pieces of low-hanging, semi-rotten fruit, smashes them together and force-feeds them to us. 

This sets the tone from the beginning. Throughout the hour-plus act, CK tap-dances across a variety of taboos and worn conceits—he makes dead baby jokes, gay jokes, fat jokes, airplane jokes, he pantomimes bringing a female rat to orgasm—all trite and offensive in concept but often brilliantly subverted by CK’s arrangement and execution of the material. The centerpiece bit of the special involves multiple uses of the “N” word in service of a joke with no punchline. On paper it sounds like comedy suicide; in the hands of Louie it somehow becomes a poignant comment about family, personal priorities and miscommunication. Not all the material works—some of his riffs and tangents are uncomfortably long, and a few of the more taboo jokes barely skirt the edge of acceptable (read: funny and self-aware enough to work)—but it’s fascinating to watch such a successful comedian still take chances when he doesn’t have to.

The week of its release (which happened abruptly with no buzz or forewarning), CK sent a letter to his email subscribers outlining his motivation and thinking behind filming at the Comedy Store. It’s a very long email, but the following paragraph perfectly sums up the scrappy spirit of “Live at the Comedy Store” (sic for everything below):

“Nightclubs, comedy clubs, is where comedy is born and where comedy, standup comedy, truly lives. Going back to Abraham Lincoln, who was probably America’s first comedian, Americans have enjoyed gathering at night in small packed (and once smokey) rooms, drinking themselves a bit numb and listening to each other say wicked, crazy, silly, wrongful, delightful, upside-down, careless, offensive, disgusting, whimsical things. Sometimes in long-winded, red faced hyperbole, sometimes in carefully crafted circular, intentionally false and misleading argument.  Sometimes in well-chiseled perfectly timed trickery of verbiage.  Pun-poetry.  One line, one off, half thoughts.  Half truths.  Non-truths.  Broad and hilariously wrongful generalizations, exaggerated prejudices and criticism of nothing and everything... It’s a club. It’s a bar. It’s late at night. No one here is being responsible. These are the things we do when we are DONE working and being citizens.”  

“Live at the Comedy Store” is available to purchase for download or streaming exclusively through louisck.net. It’s only five bucks and worth every penny.

Writer’s note: After a year of being chained to my television in service of this column (it’s a hard life), we’ve decided to tweak the format to encompass popular culture in all its forms. Now I can focus on the awesome/awful podcasts, books, movies, music, stand-up specials, Vine series and kitten memes competing for our attention and dollars. I’ll still cover the occasional TV show (“Intervention” is on Netflix again, FYI), but the new fluidity of the column means I’ll be following my whims from issue to issue. If you have any suggestions for cool things you’d like to see covered, feel free to e-mail me at joshua.s.kline@gmail.com. Hope you enjoy. 

Looking for more stories from Josh? Check out his feature on a local production of "August: Osage County" and his top 2014 tube picks.