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- [00:00]
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- [00:30]
Jesse David Fox
The main thing is like, this will be like, they'll be people talking about like Cancel Culture is dead. And I'll be like, you, you're gonna miss it while it's gone. Like your entire thing was built upon it and without it, you kind of don't really have a reason to exist. This is a good one. I'm Jesse David Fox, senior writer, Vulture, and author of Comedy Books. Earlier this week, Louis CK released a special on Netflix called Ridiculous. This is his fourth special since 2017, when the new York Times reported accusations of the comedian's sexual misconduct, but is only the first on a major platform. As a result, depending on who you are and what Internet you've been on the last decade, him releasing this special now on that streaming service is either shocking or mundane, infuriating or gratifying. So what exactly is a person supposed to think of this information? And more simply, is this special worth watching? Discuss these questions and so much more. My guest this week is Vulture critic Katherine Van Arendonk. Despite his other releases, this special coming out now feels like a big deal. It must be reckoned with with, and I cannot think of a better person to do so with than Catherine. So here is Katherine Van Arendonk. I'm here with Katherine Van Arendonk. Thank you for joining me.
- [01:41]
Katherine Van Arendonk
Thank you so much for having me.
- [01:43]
Jesse David Fox
It's a pleasure. We're going to be talking about Louis CK's ridiculous that was released on netflix.com before we get too far into it, what are your just sort of first reactions? How would you describe what this special is?
- [01:57]
Katherine Van Arendonk
This special is the first major special by a comedian who used to be the most famous and important standup comedian alive and was also one of the most notorious Cancel Culture figures. And this special is now the most mainstream return for him. And I found it impossible to watch without thinking about all of those things at the same time. And I don't think that works to the special's benefit.
- [02:39]
Jesse David Fox
No. How could, how, how could it I would say, like, there is, for me, there is one section that I would say is exceptional. It's very, very, very good. And then it is otherwise just sort of like lackluster, to a point of like kind of being monotonous. But it definitely seems like having rewatched his previous three specials that were released on his own website, a clear attempt to just sort of like Men in Black Mind Erase and be like, 2016. This is kind of what you remembered what I was doing. Don't really look at what I was doing in the years in between. And it's interesting what that means for a person like Louis CK but it definitely felt calculated, unsurprisingly because for better or worse, he's very talented. So it is. And we'll see. It might work. But that was sort of the main thing. I was like, oh, he knows the buttons that would make it so that would be the story where other comedians, I think, would be a lot sloppier with it. But as a result, it is like, other than the one part, I think, a quite boring experience.
- [03:49]
Katherine Van Arendonk
It's boring, but it is also, I found it to be this baffling experience of like a. Like a funhouse mirror thing where I was constantly having a reaction based on the. Not just the story about him, but based on the material. I was now constantly having a reaction that he both wanted and very much did not want me to have at the same time. And so I spent my entire time watching the special feeling like the joke had the response that he wanted it to. And also it was exactly opposite from what I was. What he was attempting to create.
- [04:28]
John Marco Cerese
Yeah.
- [04:28]
Jesse David Fox
I think what will be interesting for the special is people will be entering it with a lot of different contexts. Right. Like, he's been a huge stand up comedian, especially for the last five years of this, like playing Madison Square Garden, arguably playing venues the same size he was playing beforehand. And to those people.
- [04:46]
Katherine Van Arendonk
Yeah.
- [04:46]
Jesse David Fox
So now they're special from Louis CK I'm just watching it somewhere else. Oh, so great. I don't have to pay for it.
- [04:50]
Katherine Van Arendonk
Yes. It's on Netflix now.
- [04:51]
Jesse David Fox
And other people, he like vanished and then they're watching this and I think as a result it'll be useful to sort of like recontextualize it also because it's essentially 10 years and there will be people who like, either don't remember because they're not following as closely or were too young really to understand what it was 100%. So I think a nice place would. Would a good place to Start would be. Can you convey to people who don't remember this how big of a deal Louis CK was in 2016?
- [05:18]
Katherine Van Arendonk
Yes, he was truly the only standup comedian that you could be sure that every single person had heard of.
- [05:25]
Jesse David Fox
Yes, the.
- [05:26]
Katherine Van Arendonk
He was incredibly famous in a bunch of different. He was incredibly famous and also good. That was. It was one of those things where it was like, all comedians know that he's incredibly good at his job. He is operating at the top of his craft. And the vast public has also agreed that he is good and famous and popular and important. It is like these things almost never intersect and had for him. And he was operating in a real prestige space because he had this TV show that was like artsy and playing with the form. This was Louis on fx. And so you got a lot of TV critics and people, you know, sort of film kinds of people being like, oh, it's so inventive and innovative and it's in using film language to do television and all the things that make me crazy. And. And also he would then go on talk shows and have. Do a little bit, not even standing, sitting on a couch, do a joke about what it is like to be in an airplane and how we should all be grateful for being in an airplane. And it would go mega, mega, mega viral. And like, you couldn't have existed online without having seen him do that joke. Not even heard about it. Like, you sat and watched the whole clip. And so when the MeToo movement kicked off, there was a pretty swift undercurrent of like, are they gonna. Are we gonna get to Louis CK Is that gonna happen? Among anyone who sort of followed comedy rumors. Yeah, this was a well known secret. Exactly the kind of thing that the MeToo movement was so fervent about exposing and no longer just putting up with. And his was also one of the first major sort of like, okay, this thing is a movement. This is not just one isolated story. This is a thing that we are going to see happen to people. Your most famous beloved figures could be actual secret monsters. And so there was a New York Times story that came out in 2017 which accused him of sexual misconduct, in particular of masturbating in front of people, in front of women, in front of female comedians, usually. And there were both the accusations that were in that story, and then there was also quite a lot of sort of other rumors and social media posts about other people who had not been in the story. And it was there. There was this huge fallout from it. He acknowledged, but did not apologize.
- [08:25]
Jesse David Fox
You didn't say the words I'm sorry. Yes, for legal reasons. This weird.
- [08:29]
Katherine Van Arendonk
And also for whatever.
- [08:31]
Jesse David Fox
Who knows Other words. But from what I've learned since it's. If you say I'm sorry, then it is a different. You're legally more liable than if you sort of say whatever he said it was in compared to the sort of apology that happened since it is longer and more thorough. But the. Some people are like, okay, that's enough of apology for me. I didn't really care that much. So people were like, he didn't say sorry. And that sort of like that split was sort of a vision. And then I guess part of the story is also then like seven months later, whatever. Months later he came back and there was a lot of debate of when he should come back. His set was leaked and there was like jokes about a school shooting. I honestly can't remember because there's been other school shootings since. And I think it's useful to talk about the fallout in terms of its relationship to the state of comedy because as you said, it was this weird moment where everyone agreed that he was the greatest comedian working. We now think of comedy as tribalized. But those tribes used to both sort of agree on Louis CK And Louis very deliberately picked from different groups and was very good at. At sort of navigating that he always would seem still edgy enough for sort of the edgier people and still sort of emotional and thoughtful for the people who pursued. Preferred that. And then I think part of the. And the sort of mythos that he became sort of avatar of taking comedy seriously and the idea of comedy as the modern day philosopher and comedy as the sort of definitive truth teller. This idea of like the comedy of truth teller is an extremely recent phenomenon and really centered on Louis. And it's unbelievable if you don't know this to look back of how people talked about Louis for those. The first sort of 10, 15 years of the 21st century. And like truly the. The profile in the New Yorker of him was like, like TV's Most Honest man is always going back to how like honest he was. And this idea that he was sort of bearing his soul always with his comedy. And then you were like, wait, this whole time he was lying to us. He was doing these jokes about masturbating all the time, but he was sort of lying to us.
- [10:46]
Katherine Van Arendonk
But telling the truth.
- [10:47]
Jesse David Fox
But telling the truth, right. So then it like, it made me rethink about like what truth means in comedy. And I think it then sort of like Broke open. Just sort of like what it means, what we're doing. And can you talk about then the sort of fallout of losing Louis CK as this sort of figure?
- [11:13]
Katherine Van Arendonk
Yeah. I mean, it is hard to piece apart what is correlation and what is causation, because there's a lot of things that were happening at the same moment. Um, this was also the moment when we all started, when social video is sort of nascent and then beginning to take off, when, like, comedy podcasts become the major forum for, like, hanging out with your comedy friends. And then everyone gets kind of niche ified into them. Algorithmic video, like, all of these other things are also causing this. But there is this other Louis CK element to it where the material that you do now is. Is associated with you. Like you are. Everything you say then becomes more deliberately a signal to the kind of audience that you want. Or it is like a thing that you are. You can be indicted for. Like, any moment that we had where the way that you told a story and the art of doing it, and this was kind of the thing that we valued in a comedian's craft, was then understandably washed away in this sense of, like, what. What did you actually say? What kind of jokes are you telling? Who are you telling me that you are? And so the kind, particularly the alt right edginess guys, figured out quite quickly that you could stand on a stage and get that crowd to associate you with a certain kind of identity tribalism by signaling, you know, saying what kinds of specific words and using accents and all the things that you understand. Likewise, there was this, you know, rise of many of them women who had been. Some of them women who had been abused by or harassed by, by Louis C.K. voices being like, I. We are also an important group of. And it was like, are you on that side? Are you on this side? And you lose that central sense of like, this is the guy who is deciding, like, what truth looks like.
- [13:47]
Jesse David Fox
And the truth is. The truth is Louis was never as truthful as the media and not even, like, it's so funny to be like, he was honest about the fact that he was not honest. Actually, oddly amount. He would often do jokes where he would say premises were lies. There's a famous clip, at least to me, where he's talking funny or whatever, which is the Stand up, the special that HBO did where it's Louis ck, Chris Rock, Jerry Seinfeld, and Ricky Gervais. It's. It's mostly a special about how Ricky Ger thinks he's as good of a comedian as the other three. But there's a moment where, like, Ricky's almost, like, insulting Jerry. He's like, you do jokes, but, like, Lou doesn't even do jokes. He's just, like, up there bearing his soul. And Lou's like, no, I'm doing jokes. I just, like, hide it.
- [14:30]
John Marco Cerese
Yeah.
- [14:31]
Jesse David Fox
And the thing is, like, Louis was not actually just a truth teller. Like, definitely the thing that got him the most respect was he did jokes about the early phase of parenting with a sort of, like, rawness and frankness.
- [14:46]
Katherine Van Arendonk
Yes.
- [14:46]
Jesse David Fox
And just sort of, like, willing to, like, be in the muck about it. That just had not really been done before and has really taken hold since.
- [14:54]
Katherine Van Arendonk
And you couldn't have done as a woman.
- [14:55]
Jesse David Fox
Yeah. And. And I think he gets extra credit because it's a man.
- [14:58]
Katherine Van Arendonk
100%.
- [14:58]
Jesse David Fox
You could do it. Just people wouldn't like it as a
- [15:00]
Katherine Van Arendonk
woman, and they would have been like, you're a mom, and we. You don't. We don't want to listen to you talking about how much you resent your children.
- [15:07]
Jesse David Fox
Yeah. 100%. No. Now he. It happens more now. There's a little bit more freedom to it. But.
- [15:13]
Katherine Van Arendonk
But the only reason that freedom exists for somebody like Ali Wong is because Louis CK is already out.
- [15:17]
Jesse David Fox
And so that. And that was really. That completely changed his career trajectory. He. No one really liked his standup because, like, most of his standup was sort of, like, absurd, fake interactions with people. Then he does this thing. He creates a real connection to the audience. He's seen as this sort of, like, rare, honest comedian, and then he sort of mixes in. And what I realize is there's really, like, five Louis CK's. And I think a lot of great comedians have to be a bunch of different comedians because you have to, like, essentially assemble cohorts. So, like, he never lost the absurdist person who has fake interactions with people. There is somewhere the part of him who, like, is. I think, like, wants to be honest about life. And also I think there is this sort of, like, mixing that is like, an ex. Like, an existential, like, desire to look at, like, the dark parts of existence. So that's sort of one part. But then there's also the, like, edgelord, who kind of gets away with it. Yeah, look how cleverly I get away with it. That, like, he has a joke about why it's okay to say the N word. That I think that style of comedy has really taken a hold, even though it's been 20 years since he's done that.
- [16:22]
Katherine Van Arendonk
Yeah. They lost the Cleverness part.
- [16:24]
Jesse David Fox
Yeah, yeah. And they. They didn't need it. They were like, oh, actually, people didn't need the first part where he justified. And then there's like, what do you would call, like, the shame monster or what? Which is, like, a person just talking about how disgusting they are. And you think he's being confessional. That word was thrown around a lot with Louise. That he's being confessional when he's actually essentially being an exhibitionist. Yeah. And so then what is useful is. Okay, so those are five things. One of the things I think was, like, probably the most respected part, most revolutionary part, most interesting part. Then you have these other four parts. He gets canceled, gets me to Ed, but doesn't really stop performing and releases more standup specials. And he kind of just like, switches the amount of which part of himself that he's showcasing. Gone is the sort of, like, personal stuff at all. There's still some absurdist, but it's a lot of the edgelord person who can get away with it. And I think that's partly a reflection of the fact of, like, that's who his audience is. That's a large audience. And it's like, if lesser comedians are doing a worse version of it, he can do, like, he can kind of also do it. And it's. It's really. Those specials are bad or much worse than all of his other output because it is so much of that stuff. There's probably one great joke, I think the entirety of that. He has a joke about COVID and how people would say it's like a 911 every day. And he's like, when do we start comparing these to 9 11s? Honestly, it was one of the best jokes written about COVID and just sort of like the looking at death and the fact of how casual we became with it. But it was a lot more of the edgy stuff. And then slowly the sort of, like, gross stuff was coming back. Like, he didn't do the first special because clearly he probably even knew his fans didn't want it. But the gross stuff came back, and instead of personal, there's a lot of, like, victim. Like, oh, like, it's in a crazy. Like. Like, can you imagine what it'd be like to have your life blown up? Like, really?
- [18:25]
Katherine Van Arendonk
Yeah.
- [18:25]
Jesse David Fox
Centers himself. And as we then go into this special, it definitely is, like, trying to rejigger it a little bit because it's going to be on Netflix, and hopefully people don't realize, like, oh, he's like, doing kind of like race A lot of race related jokes. He's doing a lot of jokes to try to get away with doing accents. There's a little bit of that here,
- [18:50]
Katherine Van Arendonk
but just, just a skosh.
- [18:52]
Jesse David Fox
But there is like kind of more of a personal part. There is like a lot just sort of like observational comedy that feels like, just lulls you into being like, oh, this is normal. But there is also sort of the other stuff. And, and it's really a test. Like, can we, can I put this in here and see if people are going to be fine with it?
- [19:14]
Katherine Van Arendonk
Yeah.
- [19:17]
Jesse David Fox
Talking about the special, I think like, it would be useful if it's okay to talk about the good part.
- [19:22]
Katherine Van Arendonk
Sure, sure.
- [19:23]
Jesse David Fox
Because people are going to be like, you hate him, you think he sucks. And I think it'd be really useful to talk about how. There's one part that I think is great and it's honestly like, even if you look at the specials before, me too, he was doing less of this stuff anyway. He seemed like, had less personal stuff he wanted to talk about. And you're getting famous and rich and your personal life is not interesting.
- [19:41]
Katherine Van Arendonk
Right.
- [19:43]
Jesse David Fox
So there's a section here about his putting his dad in a home.
- [19:49]
Katherine Van Arendonk
Yes, yes.
- [19:50]
Jesse David Fox
And you talk about that section.
- [19:51]
Katherine Van Arendonk
Yes. So this start. This section starts. He warms. He gets into it a little bit, but it comes. Starts about 15 minutes in. And he introduces it in ways that are not. They're not trying to telegraph that. This is the exciting part of this. This is the interesting part of this special. He starts talking about his mom, which he gets into with a joke. Do with vagina. I mean there's just, you know.
- [20:19]
Jesse David Fox
Yeah.
- [20:20]
Katherine Van Arendonk
But what he gets up to is that he doesn't miss his dad. Why doesn't he miss his dad? Because his dad is still alive, but he does not see his dad. Why doesn't he see his dad? Because he's in a home. Why did they put his dad in a home? Because he was too old to stop them.
- [20:34]
Jesse David Fox
Yes. And they didn't want to look at him. And it's illegal to kill him.
- [20:38]
Katherine Van Arendonk
And it's illegal to kill him.
- [20:39]
Jesse David Fox
Which is a funny thing to say. Yes.
- [20:41]
Katherine Van Arendonk
And there are several lines in that. What becomes an extended joke about his father in a home. Many lines that hit you with exactly what a Louis CK joke. A very grim version of we should all be grateful all the time to be in an airplane. That the thing that you can go to some comedians for where you have disassociated from the reality that you. You cannot. It is The David Foster Wallace like, this is water, this is water, this is water thing, where suddenly you can see this reality that is a way, or in this case, horrific, that you have attempted to divorce yourself from all of the time and you are forced to now see it again clearly. What he talks about then is like when you go on. When you read the brochures, when you go on the websites for the places, they understand exactly what situation you're in, which is that you have an old father who you don't want to see anymore, and you. They will take him if you give them money. And again, like you are, you cannot help but be overwhelmed by the. Exactly the thing that he is trying to convey, which is how horrific that is. How the. Our entire way of thinking about the end of life is completely nightmarish. How there is no dignity for anyone in any circumstance at this part of our life. He has. There's a lot of physical comedy in this special that I find unnecessary and unimpressive. The one good physical joke is in this section where he talks about how his dad spends his entire day like this, and then his entire night like this, and then his entire day like this. And it's like a street lamp. And it is. It evokes so clearly this image of what this place is like and how horrified he is by it and how he does not know what to do with those feelings and how we are also horrified by it and we do not know what to do with our feelings.
- [22:53]
Jesse David Fox
And he's doing what a comedian can do, which is make us look at it. Process your feelings, relieve the anxiety you have over the reality of life, that you have parents, they die, you get older, you die. And it is really evocatively written. Like, we'll get to the worst parts of the session later. But, like, the writing of this special is like, clearly he's like, this section is clearly he's like, this is something I'm going to write the hell of it. It feels tonally a lot like the TV show where there are.
- [23:24]
Katherine Van Arendonk
It is a lot like the.
- [23:25]
Jesse David Fox
There are sections that are just sort of like sad and beautifully rendered. He describes going to a home, visiting the home and seeing all the people just sort of in directions. And he's like, it looks like a bumper car. Just bumper cars that are turned off. And he was like, what a. Just sort of beautiful portrait. And then culminates in. He's walking around the home and he sees sort of an old lady. And then he just goes, have you ever seen a dead baby bird on the street. And now he's so the. He has grown into this tendency of doing these tangents of, like, these absurd tangents.
- [23:57]
Katherine Van Arendonk
Yes.
- [23:58]
Jesse David Fox
Instead he does this, like. I don't even know. It's like a. Like a sad tone poem about the idea of dead baby birds. And he just describes the fact of, like, some baby. Like, some birds are born when they come out the shell. They're two at the end of the nest and just fall. And he does the noise of it. And then you walk by. It's the saddest thing you ever seen your entire life. And just keep on walking by and smiling now. It's so beautiful and sad. And the way he paints it is so funny. And. And it was like, I am missing this.
- [24:27]
Katherine Van Arendonk
Yeah.
- [24:28]
Jesse David Fox
Like, I would love more comedians doing this. Obviously. I know not every special. Not every part of every special has to be or should. This is death. And specifically, like, painterly portraits of.
- [24:39]
Katherine Van Arendonk
Yeah.
- [24:40]
Jesse David Fox
Nature and how, like, humans are just like birds or whatever. But it is one. What you see here is care and thought about how building it, using your talents to go further than I think the audience will. And like, watching it then, like, it is in such a sharp contrast to how much less work goes into the rest of the special.
- [25:04]
Katherine Van Arendonk
Yes. And like, there's even a joke about the wonder of nature earlier. There is a joke about how he is. He. It's not even really a joke. I'm not sure why. Like, what. Where it is supposed to be going. He talks about how he lives in New York City. He wishes he lived outside at nature, but he lives in New York City. There's no nature. There's no wildlife in New York City. He once saw a Bee on 38th. It was a dead bee. And then the joke is, somebody shot a bee. And you're like, okay, okay. But. But it is like, it's all.
- [25:36]
Jesse David Fox
You're like, where's where? It's so meandering.
- [25:40]
Katherine Van Arendonk
And what is the thing that I'm supposed to be taking away from it? And also, it's not true. Like, New York City is full of odd, strange. You. You opened with a joke about rats with aids.
- [25:51]
Jesse David Fox
Yes.
- [25:52]
Katherine Van Arendonk
Like, it is to say nothing of then he.
- [25:56]
Jesse David Fox
When he sets up nature.
- [25:57]
YourRichBFF Host
Yes.
- [25:57]
Jesse David Fox
He has really nothing to say.
- [25:59]
Katherine Van Arendonk
Really.
- [25:59]
Jesse David Fox
He really goes to. Like, you ever go to nature. It's so. You're so far into nature. Your phone only has one bar and it's a gay bar. Like, that is like a play on words. It is like kind of a nothing punchline. And that's the end of this section.
- [26:11]
Katherine Van Arendonk
That's it.
- [26:12]
Jesse David Fox
So there's a lot of. I would say the special's filled with kind of, like, filler, observational humor. A useful example as we sort of transition to, like, what the special is or sort of how there's this other layer. Right. So he's talking about jury duty.
- [26:34]
Katherine Van Arendonk
Yeah. Oh, yeah.
- [26:35]
Jesse David Fox
And there's a long section about how jury duty. But it's. And how, like. Oh, it's weird that you make to do an oath. Like, really kind of like Seinfeldian just sort of like, isn't that kind of odd that you do an oath like this? But why do you. Why didn't you raise your hand?
- [26:47]
Katherine Van Arendonk
Why is your hand not like this? Nobody told you how to raise your hand.
- [26:49]
Jesse David Fox
I've never been on a jury duty, and if I was like, all of it just sort of like flights of fancy. But it's set up by being one of. This is truly a moment.
- [27:02]
Katherine Van Arendonk
I was rewatching this on the train on the way here because the train was being very slow.
- [27:07]
Jesse David Fox
Yes.
- [27:08]
Katherine Van Arendonk
And I got to this section and. And honestly paused it and just had to sit for a second and think, what. What is he. What is happening in his brain as he is saying this.
- [27:20]
Jesse David Fox
This is a good. I wrote on the line because I. I assume you'll hear the sentence and some people be like, oh. And that's when he gets into it. Yeah, he does not get into. And I'm not saying, like, arguably he's done special. It'd be. He doesn't need to now do a new section about what happened. Um, but he's these sort of, like, the. His relationship to the fact that audience members will associate him with certain things is odd. When he says a sentence, he goes, the truth is important, but lying is important, too. And he talks about situations where you might lie. That's how he gets into jury duty, which he doesn't even need to set up the truth thing until you're like. But wait. But we think of you as, like, are you reckoning with truth?
- [28:02]
Katherine Van Arendonk
The other part of that, that I was like is the part where he's talking about the oath and how when you sit down when you're in court, you just. All you have to do is you sit down and you say, I'm telling the truth. And then everyone has to be like, ooh, yeah, yeah, they're telling the truth now. And even thinking about him coming up with that framing and what it might be doing in relation to how anyone is watching his material is. So it is like this is what I was sort of saying at the beginning, the funhouse mirror reaction. Because there is a part of me that's like, hahaha. It's so funny that he is joking about how this relationship with truth and he clearly knows that there's going to be somebody who is watching who's like, isn't that the truth? And the other side of me is going, is he just saying this whole time like I, it's stupid that any of you ever believed me. Why? Or have this relationship with truth telling. I'm, I've just been standing up here the whole time being like, I'm telling the truth. Wink.
- [29:08]
Jesse David Fox
Yeah. I mean, I think in my opinion, I wish it was that amount of. He, I think it's more like he thought of a transition and that the transition made sense and he'd always do sort of these sort of hinge on truth and lies and whatever the thing that it underlines. And this is the sort of. When we go back to the sort of meta aspect of like Louis CK's truth teller, which is like he doesn't, he is not, he doesn't tell stories in the special at all. He doesn't really tell stories in the last four specials, like story stories where it's like, it's all like clearly autobiographical and then he can kind of do flights fancy throughout. Instead he does like fake stories that seem like the other day I was doing this and then, and then clearly it's all made up. Now the thing about that is one, it's an interesting style. Not a lot of comedians do it because it's hard, but like Adam Sandler does it a lot. Like if you watch his specials, it's tons of these. And the thing is, Adam Sandler's a really good actor and so it's hard and he has a certain sort of goodwill currently built up with the audience. So you kind of like fall into the trap and you're wooed by him. Louis CK always would do this, but it hinged on this other idea that he was a truthful person. So when you take that out, it's hard to not have the special glaze over because you don't agree. All the premises seem fake because they are made up things. And it is, it is one of the, it is the undercurrent that makes the special just sort of like feel blah, blah. And there's a bigger fact. But can you talk about. Because I think this is like the rub that you had that it's not like. Because I think people will Assume when they looking at us in our glasses and being like, what are you saying about our glasses? You guys are just, like, mad that Louis CK Gets to do standup again. You think he should be in, I don't know, A Home for Canceled Men.
- [31:07]
Katherine Van Arendonk
An island.
- [31:07]
Jesse David Fox
An island of canceled Men. Well, now we're foreshadowing the end of the special, but. And maybe, or maybe not. The main thing is, like, as people who watch a lot of stand up, it is just that, like, formally, a lot of his act hinged on a certain sort of, like, goodwill, on the idea of him as a person who, like, comes. He's speaking the truth, that he played with that. Without that, then it just seems like a guy kind of, like saying random shit.
- [31:37]
Katherine Van Arendonk
Yeah, but it is also. So you were talking about all these different versions of him as Truth teller, and in particular that one of them is existential truth teller and one of them is Shame Monster. And that these are. Both of these exist. And in fact, they're sometimes they're the same. Right? Like, I am a shame monster. And the existential truth that I am telling you is that we all have this shame, and we are all, like, I am bearing a reality that none of us really want to touch. But so much of why those earlier specials work so well is that he could transition. When he was doing these transitions in and out of the premises, in and out of these stories that he was telling about his life and his children, they were often also premises or they were shifts in and out of. I'm being existential truth teller now. Now I'm being Shame Monster. Where did the switch flip? Were they always the same where and now. And you can trust me as Shame Monster, because actually, I'm going to switch back to, like, big Truth teller all the time. And so it felt like a careful and canny and ultimately trustworthy presentation of all of these incredibly dark things. Because you were confident that at every moment he was gonna then say, but of course I don't do those things. And of course I. These are. I am just exorcising all of these demons that I have. And we all have demons. And then when it turned out that it was not that he was just exorcizing all of these demons, but that, in fact, he. He was doing all of these things all along, and it was always a lie all along. And so now I come to this, and I spend the entire time in what feels like one of those boxes in a museum where they're like, this is what an earthquake feels like. And Then you stand here like this, and you just go, like. Like, you can't. And it sort of. You don't know at any moment when his announcement that he is once again telling you the truth is going to wallop you over to the side and be like, but it. Which one was the lie and where was the truth? And how do I. How do I. Not just how do I intellectually process all of this, but, like, how do I have any kind of emotional connection to this thing if you are just standing up on this stage constantly telling me that you truly, truly, truly feel so many thoughts about the pad underneath the chicken? I don't think that you do.
- [34:21]
John Marco Cerese
Yeah.
- [34:22]
Jesse David Fox
It's a fundamental. You. Your. Your disconnect is, like, at the fundamental idea of what standup comedy is with him.
- [34:31]
Katherine Van Arendonk
Yes.
- [34:31]
Jesse David Fox
Which is the. The thing that, like, Louis would fetishize in his performance of self for. For a decade, which is like, I'm just a guy talking up here, like, beyond the sort of all other things, like, Louis was, like, smart enough to know that I'm wearing a black T shirt and black jeans. I'm just a guy. And. And I'm just saying things I'm making up on the spot. This is a fundamental lie of standup comedy. And we all. And what's exciting about American standup comedy is it's like, we go in and it's conversational, but it's all planned. And that's the paradox, the magic. Yes. And then now you're like, well, you're not Jessica. You're Lucy K. And, like, you do all these things, and when you say these things, it feels like exercises. Right. It just feels like studies of paintings. You're not really giving us much, like, the dip. Like, when he really goes for it, you can feel a person really going for it, but the rest is just like, you're talented enough. That just feels like you're showing us how good you are at drawing these different things. And there, like, there's, like, a good example is, like, there's a section that is supposedly about living in the present that really just builds to that. His worst fear is ball torture. Right. And then he just kind of goes on about ball torture.
- [35:40]
Katherine Van Arendonk
Yeah.
- [35:40]
Jesse David Fox
And then this feels like, oh, in the past, this would feel like a joke about living in the present still, but instead it feels like you kind of just wanted to talk about how you look.
- [35:53]
John Marco Cerese
You.
- [35:54]
Jesse David Fox
How your balls are. He was talking about how he doesn't, like, he wants to remove his balls. So he's just like, they just sit there and stink and bother my dick. And it does feel. Not like he wanted to tell us about living in the present. It felt like he wanted to get away with saying how his balls stink.
- [36:11]
Katherine Van Arendonk
Yeah.
- [36:11]
Jesse David Fox
And that is a different. That flips the essentially fundamental nature of how the comedy works, where essentially, like, you are making the punchline, the premise, and it's at the end. So then you're just like, oh, this whole time that was this.
- [36:27]
Katherine Van Arendonk
Well, the other.
- [36:27]
Jesse David Fox
Over and over again.
- [36:28]
Katherine Van Arendonk
The other. This whole time that was this thing which you touched on in the beginning, which. Which is if you. If the thing that you are trying to do is be vulnerable over and over again. And I believe that you are doing a hard thing, bearing a deep inner thing about yourself and that I. This is a gift that you are giving me that is very different than if I discover that actually this is exhibitionism and you are getting off on it.
- [36:50]
Jesse David Fox
Yes.
- [36:51]
Katherine Van Arendonk
And the act that he was cancelled for is to literally get off in front of other people. And so how can you not be at every moment in this special? How can I not? Every time he says, here is a gross thing about myself, how can I not be thinking. You like other people to see you being gross.
- [37:12]
Jesse David Fox
Yes. I mean, there is such. We. There's so much he is not talking about in the special. And this is the thing, Mochi. With famous comedians in general, it is difficult for famous comedians because they don't kind of like, want to talk about being famous and how weird their life is and how much money they have and just sort of like they don't want to reckon with the perception society has with it. And by sort of humanizing that perception, we make it look. It's human general. Like, it's why what Richard Pryor did was like the greatest comedy ever did. So we know a lot is going on with Louis ck. Yeah, this. He's one of the first people ever to experience this phenomenon of one. He was this sort of famous person. He was considered the greatest comedian alive. All this stuff comes out with him. We learn that he, from his appearance on the Oban podcast, that he, like, went through sex therapy and like, re. Thought about his entire relationship to everything. None of that is in this at all. Maybe look, to give him the most benefit of the doubt, he's like, let me do one special where I'm just sort of like, we pretend nothing happened. See if that works, then I'll get into it. I. That's. I don't think that's going to happen because what comedian artist would do that? I think most comedians like, oh, this worked. So I'll just keep on trying to doing the thing to work and maybe I'll run out the clock, which is kind of what this feels like. It feels like maybe I could run out the clock and like, but make a little bit more money than I was making these last 10 years and not work as hard doing all the self release stuff. This is the. I want to get into sort of the big problem with the special.
- [38:46]
Katherine Van Arendonk
Believe it or not, none of this
- [38:47]
Jesse David Fox
is like, I will say, like, honestly, what we're talking about makes the special kind of okay with one really good part. So then when you compare that to other specials, I would be like kind of recommending it to people because, like, not that many specials have great.
- [39:02]
Katherine Van Arendonk
There's one good part.
- [39:03]
Jesse David Fox
Like, there is, there's a saying about movies are essentially like great movies are just like four good scenes surrounded by no bad scenes. So you can kind of be like, oh, there's one great part. And it's kind of a bunch of okay things. That's better than a lot of specials. But there actually is a, a bigger problem, which is there's a couple. There are three jokes that hinge on aids and there are seven jokes that are exclusively about molestation or pivot to molestation now. So this, this focus on the molestation part. Well, child molestation, childhood moles. I think a comedian has the right to talk about it. I actually think there's a sort of societal value to doing a joke in your special about child molestation and reckoning with this sort of dark reality of the thing and relieving attention, all that stuff. I think there's a value of it when you do it seven times. None of it, it becomes so boring. There's jokes. He talks about AIDS three times so that like a joke later in the special that would have benefited if it's the only mention of aids. Kind of feels like you already talked about aids. So this is the feeling that I have that watching the special and this is what I was thinking about, that Cancel culture was the best thing that ever happened to comedy. And specifically the best thing that happened for a certain subsect of sort of edgy, transgressive comedians. Because like 15 years ago there was like a conundrum for these comedians, which is the Internet allowed there to be a place where you can say whatever you wanted. Not in the biggest place, but you can find places where you can say whatever you want at any time.
- [40:50]
Katherine Van Arendonk
Yeah.
- [40:51]
Jesse David Fox
So kind of you didn't need a comedian to say bad words. Then 10 years ago, cancel culture, whatever it was, emerges as a thing for comedians to point to and be like, what I'm doing actually on stage is dangerous. I'm cool. I'm an outsider for doing it. And what it does is they would evoke the specter of cancel culture at the beginning of their special and allows them to sort of, like, bring comedic tension and energy to what otherwise would be kind of lazy joke writing where you, like, don't have a punchline. You can say a slur, and then the audience will still make a noise anyway. But now, and this is a good example of it, they are on Netflix. They are doing brand deals. They're doing super bowl commercials. So they are not cool outsiders anymore. Also, like, people are saying the R word everywhere. So you watch parts of this special, and you watch all of Tony Inchcliffe's special, and it just, like, does not really have comedic tension or. Or energy. And it is just so boring. And the feeling of watching Louis CK who is a talented person do it is. He seems boring, he seems bored, he seems tired. And it makes it just sort of like a not particularly fun thing to watch. And definitely he is better than this, and he has been better than this. And I don't think people will be like, oh, this is just kind of Louis. I knew. He's like, this is a tired man trying to figure out, like, how to kind of get through an hour.
- [42:28]
Katherine Van Arendonk
Yeah. I mean, I kind of can't believe I have to say this part of it also. But, like, when you do that many jokes about child molestation and you have fre. You have in the past then been discovered to have done the things that you regularly joked about. Like, the most tension in the joke is, wait, is he actually so much worse than we thought he was?
- [42:51]
Jesse David Fox
Oh, that's interesting. Yeah, that then, because him. The bad things he talked about, he
- [42:57]
Katherine Van Arendonk
confessed to the things that he did constantly.
- [43:00]
Jesse David Fox
Even if you go, like, the previous specials did much more race stuff.
- [43:04]
Katherine Van Arendonk
Yes.
- [43:04]
Jesse David Fox
And then you go like, you're talking about how you're not racist, but then you're doing this racist thing. In many ways, it's the same. You're talking how you're not a pedophile and you've not been molested, but you're like. And that you don't want to pee on kids. There's just sort of a lot. It's not like a theme that runs out. It is a sort of, like, a drumbeat and. And a thing he kind of goes to partly because it is a. A safer, edgy thing for him to go to. Right. It's like he's not really talk. He's not like throwing out. If you watch. If you watch the previous three specials, he says the word Jews a lot as a shock punchline.
- [43:38]
Katherine Van Arendonk
Right.
- [43:38]
Jesse David Fox
Or he'll like do a lot of a move he does is he'll say people in stories are black. This is a classic Louis AK move. He goes, there's a black lady. You can see move place here where he'd do it, where he'd be like, I went to the reception desk. She was black. And then the audience would be like. And then you go, look, that's not part. It's just who she was. And then clearly. And then the punchline would be him doing a black voice.
- [43:58]
Katherine Van Arendonk
Yeah, yeah.
- [43:58]
Jesse David Fox
None of that there.
- [43:59]
Katherine Van Arendonk
Yeah.
- [44:00]
Jesse David Fox
It's just always talking about molestation and pedophile. And it is like there just is something so not cool about trying to figure out what is the safest edgy topic to talk about.
- [44:13]
Katherine Van Arendonk
Yes. And I. I mean, it's also, I. I think about Anthony Jeselnik, who often does child molestation jokes and. Or pedophilia jokes and are very carefully, very very carefully designed to perpetually find some way of undermining them so that you are once again surprised by how horrified you are. And there is. There is like a moral responsibility if you're going to be a comedian doing child molestation jokes, to find a way to surprise me with H. And. And instead I am getting more and more bored by molestation.
- [44:51]
Jesse David Fox
Yes. Yeah. I mean, like. Yeah. To say nothing, in fact, that there are probably people in the audience who have been molested when they were children and you're not doing anything to make it so they're having a better experience. Yeah. But it's also just like when Anthony does it, it usually be a section about it.
- [45:05]
Katherine Van Arendonk
Yes.
- [45:06]
Jesse David Fox
So then it's actually a challenge. Right. Can I get you to laugh at the thing. You were kind of already know the area.
- [45:10]
Katherine Van Arendonk
Yeah.
- [45:10]
Jesse David Fox
Where like, if you. I wrote down all the jokes and I highlighted the parts that are. And it truly was like every fifth joke hinged on it. So, like the closer in of itself is actually, I think a good idea for a joke which is essentially about the idea Barely Legal. And like, what's essentially saying is if you read this, you are not a pedophile, but you're so fucking close. But you're not. That is definitely a classic Louis joke. It definitely hinges on the sort of shame stuff that he is fluent In. And if that was the only mention of any of this stuff, one, it would hit tons harder and he would kind of be like, able to take the sort of like, I'm above it tone.
- [45:54]
Katherine Van Arendonk
Yeah.
- [45:55]
Jesse David Fox
But truly it is just like every five jokes it comes up in some way or the other and he does not seem above it. The sort of the excitement of the topic runs out and you're just sort of like, so we're closing on this again and. And that shouldn't be the case. Like, it's just like. That's when I say, like, they're the care put into the. The home stuff is so clear. The jokes, the punchlines are surprising and you don't know where it's coming and like there's different angles of it and it's like really written. And then there's just like a bunch of jokes where it's like, yada, yada, yada, have sex with a kid, yada, yada, yada, like, I was molested or I had sex or whatever, or like,
- [46:36]
Katherine Van Arendonk
my dad didn't molest me, but he could have, but he's old now.
- [46:39]
Jesse David Fox
Yeah. There's a callback that should be amazing in some ways because you're like, oh, I didn't even think is going there. You're like, yeah, of course he's going to bring it up again because he just needed something to say there to get out of a joke. And that's what it feels like is like these feel like exercises. And for a person try. It's like, I'm sure people like, well, why don't you just like, sit back and laugh? It's like one I was trying to. There was a part that I laughed a lot. I liked it. I talked about how great it was. I will talk about how great it was probably for a while. But also like you, if he was supposedly the greatest comedian alive, he, I believe, assumed she should be held to such a standard. So as a result, we are doing so. And currently he is not operating as such.
- [47:26]
Katherine Van Arendonk
No, I mean, he's. He is not operating as such, but also seems uninterested in pretend, in trying to engage with the. The things that you would want anyone in his position to be sincerely engaging with. There is a whole world that has happened in the last decade since we. Since a mainstream audience might have heard of him. There are plenty of other disgusting things happening. People still ride airplanes, in fact. And it is not just that he is not engaging with his own. What has happened in his own life and being vulnerable about those feelings but that he seems completely uninterested in the world, that he used to be actually quite like a really meaningful voice on what it was like to be a person in the world. There's almost nothing about what it is like to be a person in the world. The closest it gets is age. And he does talk in multiple jokes about his own aging and his father's aging. And he, you know, the beginning of the special is like, isn't it so terrible that we have to wake up over and over and open our eyes and be like, here I am. I am still alive. I have to do this. And then he says, but not too much longer. Just a couple more. And yes, like, there is something about that that feels like a comedian reckoning with one of the great horrible, fascinating things about being a person. But it for sure doesn't also help the sense of, like, I'm a tired person who doesn't want to be here.
- [49:22]
Jesse David Fox
What do you think about it? I believe it builds to what would be his sort of like, truth teller moment. He definitely a comedian as philosopher moment, which is he's talking about his friends have a baby in their 40s, and they're complaining about how hard it is. He famously became famous because he complained about how hard it is. But whatever. They're complaining at it. But he's. He's trying to say. He's like, you're gonna miss this part and. And okay. And then. Which is, I think, true. A correct statement about. I think most people who have experienced this would agree with. But that is getting to his grand statement, which is life teaches you how. How you should have lived it. That truly feels like he's hoping. He's hoping to be on bumper stickers. And that is him being. There's no punchline. It is true. At that moment, he's just being like, look how I lived through it and look how wise I am now. I have had experiences. We're not going to talk about those experiences. You know them. But life teaches you how you should have lived it. How does that. How did that moment hit for you?
- [50:37]
Katherine Van Arendonk
Well, it's pretty bad because, for one, he's not telling me any of the things that he should have. You've realized about what he should have done.
- [50:45]
Jesse David Fox
Yes.
- [50:46]
Katherine Van Arendonk
So how am I supposed to. Like, what are. I need you to do a little, like, applied work here about what that actually means for you?
- [50:54]
Jesse David Fox
Yeah.
- [50:56]
Katherine Van Arendonk
It is a. It has the shape of something meaningful, but the point of it is to then feel it having friction and tension and utility and beauty when it is actually in somebody's life. And there is no, there's no life here. The thing that comes right after that is a Buddhist parable about how many. About a couple who have a child and the child grows up and bad things happen. And the Buddhist monk says, or the Buddha says, you know, they say, we are so unlucky. And they say, well, we'll see. Then a good thing happens. We are so lucky. Well, we'll see. Then a bad thing happens. We are so unlucky. This is also literally the end of Bluey, which I do have to say,
- [51:50]
Jesse David Fox
and to plug your book out later
- [51:53]
Katherine Van Arendonk
this year, spring 2027, the bluey years. But, but that when, when you. I mean, not. I mean, Bluey's a very deep children's show, so of course they make quite a lot of use of that Buddhist parable. But. But it is also so annoying to see a full grown man saying things like, life teaches you how you should have lived it. And then transitioning into a Buddhist parable. And then the end of the Buddhist parable is like, huh?
- [52:23]
Jesse David Fox
Yeah. I mean, it's a good example. I mean, the next joke after that is about dating when he's older and he goes, I only date when my own age. And he sets it up and it is literally almost verbatim a joke from his last special where he says, I only date women who are younger. And he has jokes about that. Also, I should plug my book, comedy book, which came out already. And I do talk about Louis UK and this sort of idea about it. 1, 2, 3.
- [52:46]
John Marco Cerese
I'm stand up comedian John Marco Cerese.
- [52:49]
Commercial Announcer
And I'm actor penis model Russell Daniels.
- [52:52]
John Marco Cerese
The downside is our podcast, where we bring on guests to talk about how miserable their lives are, because, let's face it, things are not getting better. Every episode we talk about what's wrong with our lives, our guests lives, the
- [53:05]
Commercial Announcer
world, but in a fun way.
- [53:07]
John Marco Cerese
Bottom line is you're going to walk away feeling better about your life. We've had so many cool guests. Caleb Huron, Busy Phillips, Stavros Halkias, Laverne Cox, Hassan Piker.
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Commercial Announcer
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- [53:19]
John Marco Cerese
I promise you're gonna have a good time. Now on the Vox Media podcast Network,
- [53:24]
Commercial Announcer
this is the downside.
- [53:27]
YourRichBFF Host
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- [54:15]
Jesse David Fox
what should we make of the fact that this is came out at all Right now the special is out there. I will set up the fact that he's put out three specials. They were all on his software. This one's website I believe. I think it was right. I guess it was 2021 or so. I asked the person who buys specials for Netflix if they're going to work with Louis CK and he said, we have no plans in working with Louis ck which I don't think he's lying. That is how you should answer that question when you work for a company, which is we have no plans. They put out the special now in the year 2026.
- [55:00]
Katherine Van Arendonk
That's the year it is, correct.
- [55:00]
Jesse David Fox
In the year 2026. What should we make of that?
- [55:04]
Katherine Van Arendonk
It is kind of shocking how little I make of it, how unsurprising it is, how inevitable it feels. How I mean, I saw it pop up in my preview row, which is how critics often get screeners before I read the announcement and I saw it and I was just like, oh yeah, yeah. I mean it. There were so many other places along the road where it could have been. Like, nope, we've decided that's where the line was. That did not happen. That this then feels. It feels simply inevitable. Now I am very curious what the response will look like.
- [55:45]
Jesse David Fox
Yes, we are recording this the day before it comes out.
- [55:48]
Katherine Van Arendonk
I am very curious whether there will be any hullabaloo about it at all or I imagine there will get some press and some attention being like both on the like, look here, he's. It's so gross that he's back. How dare they have bought this. And on the like, finally, like we acknowledge that the only way out of Cancel Culture is through and all those things. But it also, I kind of expect it to. To happen and to go away.
- [56:19]
Jesse David Fox
I mean like everything does. I mean like you'll have the amount of days we'll see what it's just sort of like the news cycle will only be able to stomach how much it is. Right. It's like, you know, like, people talked about the Kevin Hart roast longer than you expect because there wasn't really anything else to talk about. But if this came out the day after the Kevin Hart roast, no one would talk about the Kevin Hart roast for another day. I mean, it's like.
- [56:38]
Katherine Van Arendonk
And vice versa. If this had come out the day before the.
- [56:40]
John Marco Cerese
Right.
- [56:41]
Jesse David Fox
I mean, like, the main thing is like, this will be like, there'll be people talking about, like, cancel culture is dead. And I'll be like, you, you're gonna miss it while it's gone. Like, your entire thing was built upon it. You kind of don't really have a reason to exist. Because again, like, yeah, if people really wanted to hear people say bad words, like, it's actually kind of easier than watching a stand up comedian do it. And then now you're just, you're just like reducing the role of a standup comedian. I mean, I do, I remember I was having a conversation, I want to say two years ago with a comedian not of this world, but like, about how Tallulah, he's going to come back. And it just sort of was like, he's on all these podcasts already, so he's sort of back. He just sort of is a fact. He just is back.
- [57:19]
Katherine Van Arendonk
Yes.
- [57:20]
Jesse David Fox
And, and I do think part of the undercurrent is he's better than all these other comedians at comedy. So like, we just like, like, if we're, if these comedians are going to exist doing this stuff, shouldn't we have the, the one that's like, good at it and then. And that kind of like, is louder than like, there's a. His. Like what is sort of interesting about the Louis CK narrative is, is like, I do think to the world of podcasts in which he stayed on, a lot of the reason of like, what happened to him was that performance that was leaked in Long island where he like makes the school shooting jokes. Like, that became the, like, I remember he would do interviews.
- [58:05]
YourRichBFF Host
Like, it's.
- [58:06]
Jesse David Fox
When that happened to him, I was like, how dare they do. Like, that was the worst thing that's ever happened. Like that. That happened. Yeah. And you know, people say bad things and we don't now we're fine with people saying bad things. Like, actually the sort of me too aspect of it is like fully in the rear view. And I do think, like, other than the Theo Vaughn mentioned, like, he'll probably be done talking about Forever. Unless I'm sure there are journalists at comparable publications to our own, and maybe even our own. I don't know, probably not. Who are like, kind of be interesting. Time to finally interview Louis CK about this stuff. And I bet part of it will be rooted in like, well, he's good at stand up showing. So many people are good at stand up. Like, there is this sort of like, full cynicism of the modern times. Or like modern times or modernity where it's like, this is like the compromise of like, what capitalism, broadly, where you're like, well, if it's. Everything's going to be awful, at least I should get cheap gas prices and cheap groceries. That's kind of what this feels like. This feels like, well, like people are gonna be exploited no matter what. So, like, shrimp should be cheap. That's what this feels like.
- [59:15]
Katherine Van Arendonk
You just also cannot remove the larger context of where we are as a country.
- [59:19]
Jesse David Fox
You can't.
- [59:20]
Katherine Van Arendonk
I can't.
- [59:21]
Jesse David Fox
And I get. But people don't even think about.
- [59:24]
Katherine Van Arendonk
No, but from the sort of, like, press perspective.
- [59:26]
Jesse David Fox
Yes. All hundred.
- [59:27]
Katherine Van Arendonk
Why those things would happen. It's like, well, of course, how am I gonna draw a line for Louis C.K. when our President is this person or whatever? Like, we are in this. This world of, you know, all of the stale, all of the over tin windows, all of the people who love to talk about over tin windows have all gone together into a room and announced that, like, this is where we are now. So of course it would be wild to not. Because we're also doing profiles of Nazi. You know, just all of it's kind of together in a big, terrifying, like, rain, stick of noise. And so I think that is also what I feel about why. About this special coming out at this particular moment. Although it is interesting that it is doing so, you know, in this part of the Trump phase, where it also feels like maybe people are thinking, huh, I don't know.
- [60:18]
John Marco Cerese
Yeah.
- [60:19]
Jesse David Fox
I mean, do you think it just feels like this comes out and it's like in so much as that there were sides in a comedy civil war.
- [60:27]
Katherine Van Arendonk
Yeah.
- [60:29]
Jesse David Fox
It's like, okay, you won. Like, enjoy being the people that win. People don't like that. Like, people don't like whatever is the dominant form of comedy because they want comedy to seem like somewhat outside the mainstream.
- [60:43]
Katherine Van Arendonk
Well, it's harder.
- [60:44]
Jesse David Fox
Yeah. So then it's just sort of like, okay, enjoy not being edgy at all. It's probably not fun. And I think, like, you'll. It will be the beginning of this sort of like, dwindling of their audiences just because it won't be the sort of like, I mean, not avant garde but like, not the sort of like cool arts alt thing. Like, it truly is like brave. Yeah, you're just like, oh, you're the most famous comedians doing, playing the biggest venues, getting the most money to do it. And like everyone else is on YouTube now, which was the sort of space that you were sadly relegated to. It just is going to like it really. It's a state that really lays bare the reality of your art. And I do not think that is the sort of judgment that a lot of these comedians, Louis, ZK included, probably want to deal with.
- [61:37]
Katherine Van Arendonk
Not based on this special.
- [61:39]
Jesse David Fox
Do you have any final thoughts, lingering thoughts about this thing?
- [61:43]
Katherine Van Arendonk
I watched it once and was really surprised at how much my mind was wandering, um, particularly in the second half. And I watched it again and I was like, now I will pay attention and write down and figure out all of the things that I want to say. And once again, by about 35 minutes in, I was like, what are we talking about again?
- [62:01]
Jesse David Fox
You know what? This is news you can use. You could just stop the special in the middle. You could. If you watch the first 20, you kind of get a sense of it and you, I mean, if your goal is to like enjoy yourself, you can watch 1st 20 and be like kind of glad to have this back. And then you don't have to reckon with like it kind of over and over again, but like specifically so like they're sort of like tone setting stuff. That is some parts are better than the other. Builds to the sort of dad home stuff. That's really good. He has like one joke about getting work done. That's okay. And then he says, I was talking to an 11 year old. Turn it off right then, right then. And then you'd be like, well, that was a nice 20 minutes. Kind of like economy central. Half hour.
- [62:38]
Katherine Van Arendonk
Yep, yep, that's it.
- [62:41]
Jesse David Fox
Thank you so much.
- [62:42]
Katherine Van Arendonk
It is my pleasure to be here.
- [62:44]
Jesse David Fox
That's it for another episode of Good One. Good One is produced by myself, Zachary Mack, Neal Janowitz and Ann Victoria Clark. Music composed by Brandon McFarlane. Write a review and rate the show on Apple Podcasts. Five stars, please. I am Jesse David Fox and you can follow me at Jesse David Fox. Buy my book, comedy book, wherever books are sold. Thanks for listening to Good One from New York magazine. You can subscribe to the magazine@nymag.com Be back with a new episode next week. Have a good one.