I Like You... Louis C.K.

As I write this I'm listening to the sound of grumbling thunder pass by the window near my cubicle and the lady who now shares the office with myself and a few other co-workers is yipping like an injured chihuahua every time there's a boom or a streak of lightning illuminates the sky, and it is taking every ounce of self control that I have not to tell her to eat a bag of dicks and get back to being quiet while she works on whatever spreadsheet or word document she's supposed to be slogging through like the rest of us. Until sometime last week I did not even know the phrase "eat a bag of dicks" existed, nor would I have thought about using it so freely and easily in the middle of the working day, but until sometime last week I only had a very cursory knowledge of stand-up comedian, writer, director, TV star and hero Louis C.K. This is not sometime last week.

I'm a very amateur comedian, or what some would call a hack, and I'm fine with that. I go to the occasional coffee shop or cafe here or there and peddle my jokes to an unsuspecting group of strangers who are usually too involved in their mocha-chinos or laptops to give me, or the other struggling comics, the time of day. Which is fine, it's our fault for not being compelling or interesting enough to grab their attention and hold on tight, and right now I'm in the middle of a cosmic struggle to find my own voice and write and perform material that will do exactly that. It's really f_cking hard. From week to week performance to performance I've dabbled in everything from politics, race, economic struggles, stupid fart jokes, an occasional impression and a whole lot of other bullshit that would make Carrot Top look like George Carlin by comparison. (Yes, I am that bad, or at least I think I am) I never once thought comedy would be easy, but I never once imagined it would be so hard to do something that seems to be so natural to me when I'm at work, home or out with friends. (Yes, I'm the guy who listened when his best friend and girlfriend told him he should give stand-up a try.)

As per usual, when I'm feeling a little lost in the wilderness, I put on "The Comedians of Comedy Movie" and sit and watch Patton Oswalt, Maria Bamford, Brian Posehn and a pre-fame Zach Galifianakis go through the grind of traveling from city to city performing their unique brand of hilarious comedy. Now, I've seen this movie maybe a dozen times and almost every time there's something I catch that I missed before that allows me to shake the cobwebs away and get back to being somewhat funny on an intermittent basis; which is what happened this time around, sometime last week. During a radio interview filmed for the movie, when asked which comics people may not know about that they should, Patton Oswalt said the name Louis C.K. immediately and without hesitation, and I thought to myself, "Okay, I've got to really get into this guy to find out what the deal is," adding, "for real this time."

It's not that I haven't known about Mr. C.K. for the past few years, because I have. I just didn't really give a shit because I was so into myself that I thought, "yeah, yeah cheap laughs and crude humor, I get it and it's not for me," but I wasn't paying attention to the material I was just hearing the language and seeing this middle aged, pudgy, red head on stage getting huge laughs from an audience that I assumed probably consisted of red necks and dip-shits. My second attempt to "discover" Mr. C.K needed a different boost in a different direction and as luck would have it I came upon an interview he did with The A.V Club about his new show "Louie" (which airs Tuesday nights at 11 on FX).

I missed the first couple episodes of "Louie" so I felt left out and in the dark, but to my extreme delight and surprise the first two episodes popped up on Hulu and, holy shit, the man's a f_cking genius. "Louie" is more or less two short films with some of Mr. C.K's stand-up interspersed throughout and it is the best new comedy to come to television since the British version of "The Office," and I am brutally addicted to it. I find myself feeling withdrawal symptoms when too much time passes between the episodes, so I went and bought all that are available on iTunes and I annoy my girlfriend by watching them as frequently as humanly possible. "Louie" speaks to me on some strange, incomprehensible level that is sometimes a little scary to admit, because I don't know what it is about it that makes me feel like I'm shooting heroin and listening to Thelonious Monk on vinyl each time I see an episode, but it does and I do not plan on attending rehab anytime soon. I would gladly sell my body on the streets for nickels and dimes if it meant I got to go home and watch more "Louie," it really is that good.

From "Louie" I went to the internet and sought out every piece of Mr. C.K.'s stand-up that I could find and found myself respecting and listening to him on a very different level than the old, comedy snob me had a few years ago. His jokes, while littered with the foulest words imaginable have very little if nothing to do with the language and everything to do with the context it is used in and I am more than amazed that some of his more raunchy sets have gotten huge laughs from my girlfriend who, normally, doesn't find that sort of thing funny, but Mr. C.K. is so good it's unbelievable and anything close to normal. One piece, displayed at the end of last weeks episode of "Louie," where Mr. C.K. tells a story about his cousin visiting New York City and seeing a homeless person for the first time is above brilliant and should be studied until the end of time as the pinnacle of what comedy should aspire to be, and with my obsessive nature firmly dictating that I needed to consume as much of his stand-up as possible I rented his 2008 stand-up special "Louis C.K.: Chewed Up" and, to my knowledge, it's the hardest I've ever laughed for an hour of my life.

From there I worked backwards and watched "Louis C.K.: Shameless" and anything else I could find on YouTube, and I have yet to be disappointed or left feeling like the person I watched is anything less than the funniest man alive. As much as I used to look up to guys like Patton Oswalt, David Cross and Zach Galifianakis as the ultimate leaders of the comedy revolution, I can say right now that I only did so out of my own ignorance of Louis C.K.; which is not to take way from the others I have mentioned, they are 3 of the best comedians in the world and they make me cry with laughter on a regular basis, but Mr. C.K. is just, well, special and maybe it's only me and I'm just an asshole, but I don't care. If you take anything away from this stupid blog post of mine, please let it be that you go and seek out Mr. C.K. and his television shows (he had a much praised sitcom on HBO called "Lucky Louie" that was canceled after 13 episodes; which I am waiting for to arrive in the mail via Netflix), stand-up comedy, movies and whatever else of his you can find, because it's just beyond description how f_cking good it is.

Somewhere along the way of my excessive, obsessive, borderline compulsive quest to track down everything Mr. C.K. has ever produced in the history of his life (Jesus Christ I'm entering stalker territory now, Mr. C.K. if you ever read this piece of shit, don't worry I'm not that crazy, just a huge fan) I found myself writing better jokes and speaking more confidently and more like myself than I ever have in the past; which I entirely attribute to seeing Mr. C.K. do his job and do it so well that it could do nothing but inspire me to go in my own direction and become my own comedian for the benefit of everything I do on stage and off. I've re-embraced my love of swearing without trying to tone down my act or make it overly crude and about shock value and all that; it's just how I talk and think and that's what people want to see, right? (Probably not)

In closing, welcome to the "I Like You...Hall of Fame" Mr. C.K., you are my new hero and I look forward to, hopefully, seeing you perform on stage and television for years and years to come. Thank You.