Live @ The Bijou Theater, Knoxville, April 3
by Andrew Clayman
Published in The Metro Pulse, April 2009
At first, a Louis C.K. standup performance might seem like the antithesis of, say, the final scene in It’s A Wonderful Life. The forty-something comic veteran is cynical, crude, devoid of schmaltz, and not a particularly strong believer in angels. In a strange way, though, he actually proves to be a lot more like George Bailey than one might initially think— a good-natured Everyman who’s occasionally driven nuts by his dumbass kids and constant financial failings.
C.K. can say the most vile things imaginable, but he never really offends, and that’s a testament to his comic genius. Unlike Dane Cook, who has famously pilfered a good chunk of Louis’ material for his own act, C.K. isn’t going for shock value or over-the-top theatrics. He’s simply tapping into the secret, unspoken, internal dialogue that just about everyone can relate to: wishing death upon the people in line in front of you at the post office; wishing your kids would shut the hell up; feeling sexually pathetic. It’s human humor, and it often finds its way into social commentary, too. But C.K. isn’t really a George Carlin disciple as some have said. If anything, he’s a twisted take on Bill Cosby (not surprisingly, a C.K. hero), turning the daily and the mundane into the impossibly hysterical. More times than not, he’ll leave you crying—just like the end of It’s A Wonderful Life.
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