#611 - Louis C.K.

Summary

Podcast Summary – This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von Episode #611 - Louis C.K.
Release Date: September 19, 2025

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Overview

In this deeply candid, funny, and wide-ranging episode, Theo Von welcomes legendary comedian, filmmaker, and now novelist Louis C.K. for an intimate conversation. Centered around Louis’s new novel "Ingram," the discussion meanders through art, race, language, childhood, shame, addiction, the challenges and revelations of public failure, and the journey toward emotional and personal recovery. Both men reflect on growth, the power of feelings, the destructiveness of addiction, and the enduring importance of human connection and empathy, all in their trademark unvarnished, humorous style.

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Key Discussion Points

1. Performing Comedy in Sensitive Venues

• Venue and Material Sensitivity
  • Performing in hallowed spaces like The Ryman or churches can be uncomfortable depending on the nature of your material.
  • Louis and Theo joke about perverts and wizards sharing the same venues (01:43).
  • Louis notes how with age, he’s less interested in antagonizing audiences and more interested in connecting, though he doesn’t compromise his act (05:17).
  • Quote:
    "I used to be more defiant... but I feel less that way. I'm not gonna change what I do, but I don't want to upset anybody." - Louis C.K. (04:44)

2. On Language, Offense, and Changing Times

• Fluidity of Words
  • Both discuss how language and offensive words change meaning and power with time and culture: e.g., "colored" becoming "people of color" (19:22).
  • Quote:
    "Language is a living thing... What feeling are you trying to put out there? And sometimes the N word can be said with a lot of love. It can also be said with humor or just experimental confusion. But... it doesn't have that effect anymore." - Louis C.K. (18:23)
  • The power of finding the precise word to unlock honest feelings or communication (20:17).

3. The Novel "Ingram" — Inspiration, Process & Themes

• Genesis of "Ingram"
  • Louis wrote the story of a neglected boy forced to survive alone, describing his writing process as “asking the character what happened each day."
  • The novel is rooted in empathy and honest observation, more about emotional truth than literary ambition (31:00).
  • Quote:
    "I just wanted to hear the voice and see what happened. I worried about him every day..." - Louis C.K. (31:16)
• Themes of Isolation, Growth, Innocence
  • Both compare the hero’s journey to their own childhoods, describing the formative pain and resilience of boys left to their own devices, and the random nature of influence (33:21).
  • The book explores, without judgment, the choices a child makes when faced with hardship and danger.

4. On Feelings and Parenting

• The Role of “No” and Emotional Honesty
  • Louis reflects on how saying “no” to his kids can be done with compassion—no need for extra “spice” (07:54).
  • Both stress that validating and navigating feelings is critical growing up and that growth comes from limits, as much as from freedom (07:57).

5. Race, Upbringing, and Social Understanding

• Personal Histories
  • Both reminisce about idolizing Black cultural figures as children and seeking out connection with Black peers despite societal segregation (11:21).
  • Louis shares his experience growing up in a liberal, yet subtly racist suburb and the complex social dynamics at play (14:27).
  • The conversation covers regional and generational differences in attitudes, with Louis reflecting on how children experiment with language and boundaries (17:00).

6. Reflection on Social Division and Connection

• Modern Polarization
  • Both discuss the ways society now encourages separation and extremity, rather than cooperation, echoing the misplaced intolerance of “zero tolerance” cultures (55:26).
  • Quote:
    "Weird thing is that now a lot you get rejected for coming together... It's a weird time... It's a weird time. And, yeah, you can get ostracized for being accepting." - Louis C.K. (55:02)

7. The Addiction Conversation: Porn, Sex, Intimacy, Recovery

• Both Share Experiences
  • The latter half dives into their shared struggles with sex and pornography addiction. Both describe how early exposure to pornography stunted emotional development and relationships (116:57).
  • They credit 12-step programs (SLA), each other, and support groups for recovery, and discuss the spike in porn addiction among young men due to technological and societal changes (125:12).
  • Quote:
    "All this kind of thing... when you tell somebody, I'm an alcoholic, people have a lot of sympathy for that. This one's a little tougher. So you really need the group..." - Louis C.K. (115:23)
  • They stress the necessity of community and vulnerability in healing, the ways their behavior hurt themselves and others, and the relief of losing public status and discovering authentic priorities (96:05).

8. On Failure, Fame, and Redemption

• Louis C.K.'s Public Scandal and Aftermath
  • Louis offers an unguarded reckoning with the fallout of his misconduct, the pain of losing friends, work, and reputation, and the long process of making amends and rebuilding (92:01 - 134:28).
  • He discusses the impossibility of fixing public perception, the limits of apology, and the importance of meaningful work, humility, and private transformation over performative gestures (135:09).
  • Quote:
    "I really wish there was like I could have a simple kind of watershed where I can say just yes to everything that happened. And I'm sorry. I really am. And I'm just trying to do better. And I don't think I can prove that to everybody because it's a private thing." - Louis C.K. (135:39)
  • Theo remarks that there's value in Louis sharing these struggles because so many people need a role model who’s open about the fallout and recovery from such public mistakes (136:26).

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Offending Audiences:
  "I just want you to know I'm not trying to upset you. This is just. You and I are very different. And if you could try to open your heart a little bit. I can't. I'm opening up to you..." – Louis C.K. (06:00)
• On Writing as Recovery:
  "I wanted to write novels when I was a kid... then I just took so many drugs that I feel like I burnt my brain out..." – Louis C.K. (29:58)
• On Addiction:
  "I was a young kid, like, really obsessed with stuff that put me in a dark room when I should have been out in the sunlight." – Louis C.K. (99:32)
• On the Handshake:
  “The handshake may have originated in prehistory as a demonstration of peaceful intent, since it shows that the hand holds no weapon.” - (79:20, Theo reads from Wikipedia)
• On Survival and Connection:
  "Life will. You will never choose the hard road for yourself. Never... But when life throws a bomb in the middle of your life, and you survive it, you are given this beautiful opportunity to go, like, to see everything from another angle..." – Louis C.K. (138:24)
• On Radical Honesty:
  "I'm fucked up. You're fucked up. Thank God. Thank God you're fucked up. Because if I had to look at you and think you weren't fucked up like me, it would just break my heart." – Louis C.K. (91:02)
• On the End of the World/Eclipse:
  "The end of the world is going to be beautiful because it's going to bring everybody together because you can finally just forget it all. You can finally just go, it's you and me, brother.” – Louis C.K. (84:06)
• On Recovery in the Digital Age:
  "They've turned every human endeavor into an addictive act. And these kids are so overwhelmed by it." – Louis C.K. (125:31)

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Important Timestamps

• Comedy in Sensitive Venues – 01:26 to 06:30
• Language, Words, and Offense – 17:00 to 20:40
• On "Ingram" – Writing, Inspiration, Themes – 27:14 to 40:00
• Growing Up, Race & Social Segregation – 10:50 to 17:00
• Addiction & Fellowship – 92:01 to 119:00
• Scandal, Loss, and Personal Reckoning – 134:18 to 140:00
• On Recovery and Making Amends – 135:09 to end

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Tone & Style

The episode balances gravity and humor with refreshing candor. Both Louis and Theo use self-deprecation, personal anecdotes, and philosophical inquiry. Their language is direct, frequently profane, sometimes raw, yet always earnest and intent on real human connection.

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Conclusion

In a conversation both brave and vulnerable, Theo and Louis use their personal stories—whether of making art, surviving scandal, or recovering from addiction—as a way of mapping the difficult terrain of being alive, especially under public scrutiny. There are explorations of language, race, and America’s complexities; meditations on hurt, compassion, and masculinity; and ultimately, an argument for the redemptive power of honesty, humor, friendship, and feeling every feeling.

Recommended Segment:

• Louis and Theo discuss addiction and the inability to connect (93:05–119:00): a powerful, honest, and rarely heard exchange.

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Louis C.K.'s "Ingram" is available for pre-order; the novel releases mid-November 2025.

Transcript

[Louis C.K.]

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[Theo Vaughn]

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[Louis C.K.]

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[Theo Vaughn]

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[Louis C.K.]

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[Theo Vaughn]

Today's guest is one of the greats. There's nobody like him. He's a comedian, he's a filmmaker, and now he's a novelist. This is his new book, Ingram. And I've read it, and it's. It's great. It's like this huck fin. Like an emotional kind of huck fin. You'll. You're. You'll love it. I guarantee that. I'm grateful to spend time with him today. He's one of my dear friends, and I think he has a lot to offer the world. So I feel lucky to ride on this planet at the same time as him. Today's guest is Mr. Louis C.K. yeah, man. I'm excited to see you guys perform tonight.

[Louis C.K.]

The Ryman's a beautiful place.

[Theo Vaughn]

Oh, yeah. Do you feel uncomfortable ever saying certain things in such a beautiful venue? And not you particularly, but also definitely you?

[Louis C.K.]

Yeah. I mean, I don't know. The Ryman feels like. I mean, Harry Houdini was there.

[Theo Vaughn]

Yeah.

[Louis C.K.]

And so was Martin Luther King. And so was Johnny Cash and Elvis. A pretty good balance of perverts and wizards. Perverts and wizards. Yeah, I think so. I feel okay.

[Theo Vaughn]

Yeah.

[Louis C.K.]

About talking about bad stuff that you shouldn't talk about. There's places, like a symphony space. You know, when you do, like, one of those where it's, like, really hallowed, and there's like, you know, should be a guy in a tuxedo playing a cello.

[Theo Vaughn]

Yeah. There should be like a. Like the maitre d of instruments or whatever that guy's called. What's it?

[Louis C.K.]

Yeah, the maitre d of instruments. Like a conductor.

[Theo Vaughn]

The leader. Yeah.

[Louis C.K.]

Yeah. When you have those guys and then I'm on there and I'm talking about the hair on the tip of my.

[Theo Vaughn]

Yeah. Oh, yeah.

[Louis C.K.]

But then again, I sold the tickets. It's just a bunch of seats.

[Theo Vaughn]

Yeah. But it is, though. You get into something, you're like, oh, this isn't it. Or I had to do a church once. This man invited me, and I don't want to say he was a pervert or what? Or I don't want to say. I don't want to say he was. He seemed like somebody was willing to touch somebody that was probably Young.

[Louis C.K.]

He's willing to touch somebody who's maybe. Probably young.

[Theo Vaughn]

Yeah.

[Louis C.K.]

That's borderline.

[Theo Vaughn]

Okay.

[Louis C.K.]

Willing.

[Theo Vaughn]

Right. He was willing to. I'm not going to say he was right.

[Louis C.K.]

If somebody was like, hey, this kid. This kid's dick is bleeding.

[Theo Vaughn]

Yeah.

[Louis C.K.]

Anybody. We all feel kind of weird about applying pressure. He'd be like, I'm willing.

[Theo Vaughn]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Louis C.K.]

Right?

[Theo Vaughn]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. That kind of guy, like a. Like an EMT for small cocks, you know, like that, you know, shot his.

[Louis C.K.]

Hand up a little too quick. Yeah, I mean, I just would.

[Theo Vaughn]

Yeah, yeah.

[Louis C.K.]

Okay.

[Theo Vaughn]

Like having a couple small tourniquets in his pocket.

[Louis C.K.]

Right. He's equipped.

[Theo Vaughn]

But. Yeah. So that guy invited me to do a show, and it was in, like, Laughlin, Nevada or something out in the middle of the desert, and it was at a church, and he was a church man, and he. Or he was a. Like a pastor or a leader of a church. We get there, and I was like, oh, man. This guy had only seen one of my bits. And it was a. Just more of a safe bed. It just had nothing edgy in it.

[Louis C.K.]

Right.

[Theo Vaughn]

And I got into this stuff and you could see a man get up with his family and just. I mean, he was leaving the show. He was leaving the church, though, too. You could see.

[Louis C.K.]

Oh, no.

[Theo Vaughn]

I felt horrible. And it's. I kept looking at him in the back and he's trying to be supportive, and I was like, don't support me. I was like, this shouldn't be happening. You know?

[Louis C.K.]

You felt that way.

[Theo Vaughn]

I did.

[Louis C.K.]

Shouldn't have been doing it.

[Theo Vaughn]

Yeah. But I couldn't just. All I have was my material. I could do some riffing. But it's also in a church. There was. The lights were all on. But, yeah, some venues, it's just a little.

[Louis C.K.]

Yeah. It's funny. I used to be more defiant. I used to feel more like, you know, hey, man, this is what I. You know.

[Theo Vaughn]

Right.

[Louis C.K.]

You. But I feel less that way. I'm not gonna change what I do.

[Theo Vaughn]

Yeah.

[Louis C.K.]

But I don't want to upset anybody. I'm not trying to.

[Theo Vaughn]

Yeah, but I'm not as defam. Not as like. Yeah, we'll show them.

[Louis C.K.]

I was talking about something on stage recently, and somebody in the. In the balcony yell, ah. Got angry and. And I said, what's wrong? And this person. I don't remember what the bit was, but they were like, that's not cool, man. And I said, are you offended by what I said? They said, yeah. And I just said, I'm really sorry. Like, I had never done that before. I was just like, I'm really sorry.

[Theo Vaughn]

Yeah.

[Louis C.K.]

Anyway, I'm going to keep doing it.

[Theo Vaughn]

Yeah. Yeah. We got to keep going.

[Louis C.K.]

I mean, that's. Yeah, you got to keep going.

[Theo Vaughn]

Yeah.

[Louis C.K.]

I did a club in Florida down in Key West.

[Theo Vaughn]

Oh, yeah.

[Louis C.K.]

And it's a good. I love the guy who runs it, this guy Tom. And it's a fun club, but a lot of the crowd is like people that are on a cruise and they jump off and they had no context for what. I was, like, getting pure silence on some stuff. And at some point I just said, listen, I. I just want you to know I'm not trying to upset you.

[Theo Vaughn]

Oh, yeah.

[Louis C.K.]

I'm just want you to know that this is all. I don't have another way to go.

[Theo Vaughn]

Right.

[Louis C.K.]

This isn't me antagonizing you. This is just. You and I are very different.

[Theo Vaughn]

Yeah.

[Louis C.K.]

And if you could try to open your heart a little bit. I can't. I'm opening up to you, but I can't, like, invent jokes for you right now.

[Theo Vaughn]

Wow.

[Louis C.K.]

And I. And they are like, okay, okay. And I could see these sort of old people in pink. Pink and coral blue shirts going, all right, we'll try a little harder.

[Theo Vaughn]

Yeah.

[Louis C.K.]

Because first they just thought, well, he's just. He's. You know, sometimes if somebody's upsetting you, you think they want to.

[Theo Vaughn]

Right.

[Louis C.K.]

But sometimes it's just that they're just being what they are. And if you can know that, I think it helps.

[Theo Vaughn]

Oh. Even as you're saying that, it makes me think, like, even when I was a kid, if my mom would have every now and then, like, I know. Bring that back things to childhood all the time.

[Louis C.K.]

Yeah.

[Theo Vaughn]

But it's like. Or if a parent would every now and be like, hey, I know this is not good.

[Louis C.K.]

I know this sucks for you.

[Theo Vaughn]

Right. And I know this is. Everything we're doing here is really. It's a Barnum and Bailey.

[Louis C.K.]

Yeah.

[Theo Vaughn]

It's a real shit circus.

[Louis C.K.]

I've tried to say that's all we got. Right. And, like, I used to think that about my kids when I would say no about something. Because when I was a kid, no was mean. It was always like, no and like, no because I said so, stuff like that. And no because you don't deserve it or whatever. And I don't think no has to be a bad thing. I think every. The life is full of yes and no. Right. And the first few years of a kid's Life are just. Yes. You're just trying to keep them alive and just let them know they're loved. And then you have to start going, not that, though. And it's tragic for them. Like, what? The person I love is saying, no. Why would they do that? And because you feel guilty about saying no to your kid, you put a little spice on it. But you can be nice about it as long as you're firm. You know what I mean? Like, you don't roll over because you just go, no, I'm sorry, honey. Yeah, that's. I know how much that sucks.

[Theo Vaughn]

Yeah.

[Louis C.K.]

But it's not changing. Think of something else. But it ain't. That's a wall. That's a brick wall.

[Theo Vaughn]

Yeah.

[Louis C.K.]

And you'll be okay. Also, let them know you'll be okay.

[Theo Vaughn]

Yeah.

[Louis C.K.]

And then they'll know that no is just a turn. It's not a wall. It's just a. It's just a. It's a curve. That's all. Go look something for something else.

[Theo Vaughn]

Yeah. And that's a great way to think about it, too, because then it keeps you in a space of like, well, what else could I. What's possible. How else would I figure this out? You know, it almost puts a little challenge into the child.

[Louis C.K.]

That's it. And also for when my kids would complain about. And if they just harangued and said, come on. I just. No, I'm not even going to discuss it. But if they're like, wait, and they reason and they try to lawyer through it, I go, I'm here. I'm listening.

[Theo Vaughn]

Yeah.

[Louis C.K.]

You know, that I'll listen to. That's a good skill for them to build, you know?

[Theo Vaughn]

Yeah. I remember at night, if we got. If we got in trouble, like, if we got suspended from watching television or something by mom, we could go down and do a performance, right?

[Louis C.K.]

Yeah.

[Theo Vaughn]

And we didn't have a lot of. Like. We had a little bit of face paint. I don't want to say it was like. It would seem racial, but some of the shit probably. We didn't have a lot of colors.

[Louis C.K.]

Okay. What colors did you have? Like, black, red, and yellow.

[Theo Vaughn]

I mean, we had some.

[Louis C.K.]

Yeah.

[Theo Vaughn]

No, we just didn't have a lot of colors. Right. And we didn't. And we loved a lot of black stuff, so I think we probably did in the Heat of the Night or something. We would do scenes from that, you know.

[Louis C.K.]

Yeah. And they call me Mr. Tibbs.

[Theo Vaughn]

Yeah.

[Louis C.K.]

Why not?

[Theo Vaughn]

In the Heat. God, dude, we love that show. I love Carol o' Connor, he was so. God, he was so multifaceted.

[Louis C.K.]

Well, did you ever see the movie? The movie's amazing.

[Theo Vaughn]

In the other night. Yeah, I have. With Sidney Poitier.

[Louis C.K.]

Yeah. And Rod Steiger.

[Theo Vaughn]

Oh, is that the other guy in it? A Raisin in the Sun? Man, Sidney Poitier was something great, huh?

[Louis C.K.]

Yeah, he was. And what do you call it? Also to sir with Love.

[Theo Vaughn]

I haven't seen that.

[Louis C.K.]

Yeah, he plays a British teacher. Teaching. He's a. A well educated black teacher.

[Theo Vaughn]

Yeah.

[Louis C.K.]

Teaching cockney white kids how to be gentlemen and ladies.

[Theo Vaughn]

Oh, that sounds good.

[Louis C.K.]

It's beautiful.

[Theo Vaughn]

Oh, I've seen scenes from this though, just online and stuff. But. Yes, but if we went down and performed and we would also had. I think we had a kite that we would kind of do this Japanese dragon kind of thing. So we had a couple of like, kind of motifs that we would use to win back the ability to do something new. But that was a way of us lob. Like at least show up and show me something. Right.

[Louis C.K.]

Yeah.

[Theo Vaughn]

Don't just sit there and put on.

[Louis C.K.]

A kabuki and have an allegorical play that says, let us have the. Let us eat the Captain Crunch for dinner. Yes.

[Theo Vaughn]

Let us have this chance. That's all we wanted. And sometimes it would be nice.

[Louis C.K.]

Sometimes you had to sing Mammy to get it. You had to.

[Theo Vaughn]

Swing low. Yeah, it got. I mean, there were times. Yeah.

[Louis C.K.]

I wanted to emulate black people when I was a kid. When I was a kid, it was. All my heroes were. Blaming Muhammad Ali was like the greatest thing in the world when I was a kid. And Bruce Lee and like, I mean, everybody who I admired. Bruce Lee was black, right?

[Theo Vaughn]

Bruce Lee. No. Oh, Bruce Lee's the. Was the Asian. Yeah, but dude, black guys were like, yeah, that's a real. Yeah, that's a real one.

[Louis C.K.]

Reggie Jackson. I mean, I grew up different generation.

[Theo Vaughn]

Yeah. Yeah. No, but those are still some real heroes.

[Louis C.K.]

Yeah.

[Theo Vaughn]

Yeah. There was something about being black that just seemed. I went to fun and risque at the same time.

[Louis C.K.]

Yeah. Yeah. It wasn't. Well, in my school, I was a. Went to public school in Newton, Mass. And we had a. There was a program called metco where kids from inner city Boston were. Were brought in buses to our schools.

[Theo Vaughn]

Yeah.

[Louis C.K.]

And so there was a contingency of not the kids that were not only black, but living in. In a very different place. And so they would sit at. There'd be tables at the cafeteria of just black kids and I would just go sit with them. I just wanted I wanted to be part of that.

[Theo Vaughn]

Yeah.

[Louis C.K.]

And I would sit with them, and they'd kind of go, all right, hey, fellas. And I just. I. I felt like I just re. Was reaching for that, you know?

[Theo Vaughn]

But you think it was because. Cause I would. I definitely noticed that, too. I like being around black kids. It was fun. It was interesting. You didn't know what was going to happen.

[Louis C.K.]

Yeah.

[Theo Vaughn]

There was an element of, like, kind of crossing the tracks a bit.

[Louis C.K.]

Yeah. Because where I grew up in Newton, I mean, I lived in Mexico when I was younger, but I mostly grew up in Newton. And it was a suburb that was already split because there was a working class side and a rich people side. And I grew up right on the. Literally on the tracks, like the train tracks. The Mass Turnpike was a block behind my house, like, one block. I fell asleep to the sound of traffic. And so we were right on the line. My family, we had a little house, little Half a house that we rented, but that was all white, though. Everybody was white in Newton. Later, I drove a cab in Newton, in my hometown and found out that there was a little enclave of black people that lived in one little, like, one street in Newton. And Boston itself, too. The main city was very segregated. So there was this one kid in our. One Metco kid. His name was David, and he. His family's house burnt down in Boston. And my friend's dad had half a house that he rented out, and he donated it to their family so they could have a place to live while they were rebuilding.

[Theo Vaughn]

Wow.

[Louis C.K.]

So this black family moved into our neighborhood, and the Russ. And they were nice people. I didn't think of it. I knew David. He was an okay kid. He was kind of a dick, but he let anybody be a dick. But there was this one, but he.

[Theo Vaughn]

Was a black dick.

[Louis C.K.]

He was a black dick, and he had one. But.

[Theo Vaughn]

But. No, no, but at the time, I.

[Louis C.K.]

Wasn'T aware of that. But there was a kid in our. In our school who was a really vicious bully, and he had a gang. And one day David went to the park, Cabot park, and. And. And Michael was the bully. I'm using real names. I don't know. Maybe I should bleep them.

[Theo Vaughn]

I don't know if he did it. He did it.

[Louis C.K.]

But Michael.

[Theo Vaughn]

Michael.

[Louis C.K.]

His gang, and they took David and they said, we're gonna show you this swing is your swing. And it was paint. They painted a swing black, and they painted a bench black, and they painted one of everything in the park, and they said, that's Your. That's the swing, that's the bench. And I heard that story, and I. I found it hard to believe, but I went to the park and those. There was a black bench, and it was black as long as the rain, you know, until the rain washed off the paint and the park painted it green over. That's what it was like. And this was like a kind of like a liberal suburb, you know?

[Theo Vaughn]

And do you think a lot of that was actual, like, true racism, or do you think some of it was just like, I know you're not playing as a racist, but I think sometimes people. If that's what's going on, people will continue it, you know?

[Louis C.K.]

Yeah, I think so. But I think if you actually go get a bucket of paint, if you actually go put your money down a kid and you paint a bench black, I think that's pretty racist. I think it's pretty hardcore racist.

[Theo Vaughn]

Yeah.

[Louis C.K.]

Yeah, it was nasty. I mean, he was. He was mean to everybody. He found a way to. To hurt. He was a sadistic person. Yes. Scared the. Out of me. Never hurt me because I was a little bigger, but I never fought, really. So. But, yeah, that was. It was weird. It was racism in Newton. It was weird because it was like.

[Theo Vaughn]

Yeah, I've been in Boston. There's still.

[Louis C.K.]

Well, and also because there was that division, like, down where you were there, folks were a little more mixed in, weren't they? A little bit. Did you live amongst.

[Theo Vaughn]

Yeah. I mean, it's just funny. In the south, people will be like, it's so racist. It's so racist. A lot of times people have this view, but also, you have a relationship, there's like, yeah, there's more. A lot of connectivity, I feel like. So. I don't know. You know, I remember one time, me and my buddy Devin, we went fishing, and there was these kids on these railroad tracks up above us, up above the river, and they started throwing rocks at us and calling us the N word and stuff.

[Louis C.K.]

White kids.

[Theo Vaughn]

Yep.

[Louis C.K.]

Calling you guys that.

[Theo Vaughn]

Yeah. And. And I wasn't black. I was, you know, at the time. Yeah. I wanted to be part of it.

[Louis C.K.]

Was it one of the black periods of your life?

[Theo Vaughn]

Yeah. I was like. But I still was like, you don't know us, motherfu. You know, I was like, yelling back, and even Devin's looking at me like, dude, what the. Yeah, yeah, yeah, they'll try to steal my thunder, you know? So it was just like. I don't know. All that stuff was just like. I don't know.

[Louis C.K.]

It was I do think kids throw everything around. Kids just say stuff.

[Theo Vaughn]

Oh, for sure.

[Louis C.K.]

Because they want to try it on.

[Theo Vaughn]

Yeah. Like, I don't trust people that will say. Like, I think if somebody won't say. Some people won't. Won't say. Right. Or they won't say the F word for. About gay folks. And you know what it is? Huh?

[Louis C.K.]

Gay. Fs.

[Theo Vaughn]

Gay Fs, yeah.

[Louis C.K.]

Gay folks. You mean the folks is the F word, right?

[Theo Vaughn]

No, I'm saying. Yeah, some people won't say. And I'll say it really fast because some people don't like hearing it.

[Louis C.K.]

That got right by the people that don't.

[Theo Vaughn]

Yeah.

[Louis C.K.]

They weren't. They were doing something else.

[Theo Vaughn]

Well, some of them. Yeah. It's like you could have looked away. You could have been driving and looking out of the street.

[Louis C.K.]

Yeah.

[Theo Vaughn]

Before you know it, it's gone. But some people will say the N word but won't say that word. That's what I don't get. It's like.

[Louis C.K.]

Yeah.

[Theo Vaughn]

How do you even get that you.

[Louis C.K.]

Won'T say the N word, but you will say the F word? Or that you won't say it. Which way?

[Theo Vaughn]

Some people won't. Say. Won't say the F word.

[Louis C.K.]

Yeah.

[Theo Vaughn]

But they'll say the N word.

[Louis C.K.]

Really? Who's that? Is that.

[Theo Vaughn]

That to me is race. That's racist. It's like.

[Louis C.K.]

Yeah. If you have a general sensitivity about, like. Well, I just don't want. Some of these words have gotten too hard to use.

[Theo Vaughn]

Yeah.

[Louis C.K.]

I used to say all of them.

[Theo Vaughn]

Yeah.

[Louis C.K.]

But I don't now because it just has a different effect.

[Theo Vaughn]

Yeah. I mean, like, you're saying, like you're saying earlier, we. We get older. Some things just kind of. It lands different.

[Louis C.K.]

Something lands different depending on how things are. Language is a living thing.

[Theo Vaughn]

Right.

[Louis C.K.]

And the way people communicate is always changing. And the sounds you make are affected by the other sounds in the air. So you don't live in a vacuum. And it doesn't mean. That's not a moral thing to me. That's just. Do you want to be understood? What do you want to convey? What feeling are you trying to put out there? And sometimes the N word can be said with a lot of love. It can also be said with humor or just experimental confusion. But at a time where there's, like, certain things that got tightened up, it doesn't have that effect anymore. So.

[Theo Vaughn]

Yeah.

[Louis C.K.]

So make an adjustment.

[Theo Vaughn]

It's interesting, I think, because first and also it's by generation. It's like some gen. It's like some people may accept a 15 year old, half Mexican kid saying it, but some people might not accept a 50 year old half Mexican kids.

[Louis C.K.]

That's right. That's right. And I mean the word colored was. No way. When I was growing up, colored was like the. That's. But now they say it. But now it's people of color. Like things move around when you start censoring, you, you freeze yourself and you're no longer hearing what's going on out there. You know what I mean? That's why you gotta have the flow.

[Theo Vaughn]

Yeah.

[Louis C.K.]

And you gotta just trust people to go like, okay, let's put n word on the, on the shelf for a while.

[Theo Vaughn]

Yeah.

[Louis C.K.]

And cunt is back. Colored is respectable now. It moves around. It's fascinating language. It's like the most amazing thing about what we do.

[Theo Vaughn]

Yeah. Yeah. And you use it so well, man. You use it so well. And it is interesting. Like I will try to find a word. It's like sometimes I'll say something and I'll be like, no, that's not it. I need the exact word.

[Louis C.K.]

Yeah.

[Theo Vaughn]

And if I can get the exact word, it can help me unlock a feeling.

[Louis C.K.]

For sure.

[Theo Vaughn]

It can help me be extremely specific about what I'm trying to say.

[Louis C.K.]

Where do you look for your words?

[Theo Vaughn]

I look like in my feelings a lot of times. You know? Yeah. I look at my feelings like, you.

[Louis C.K.]

Got a dictionary in your heart?

[Theo Vaughn]

Yeah. It's like, that's not the word and sometimes you get it and sometimes you don't get it.

[Louis C.K.]

I bought a big dictionary recently because I write, I like to have a dictionary with me when I'm writing fiction. And I wrote and I wrote this book and then I started writing this other one. And I write it with a typewriter. It's very old fashioned.

[Theo Vaughn]

Oh yeah.

[Louis C.K.]

And so I wanted to get a dictionary that had a lot of depth to it. Because when I'm looking for a word, I go, I like looking at the reference. And some dictionaries have like usage of the word they give you. Like. So there was a guy named Samuel Johnson back in England in the early 1700s, and he was the first person to write a dictionary for England. He just wrote one. He was like, somebody should have it. There was none. There was like lists of words and catalogs. But he came up with the idea, I'm going to sit down and write a dictionary of the whole English language with every word describing the word and giving examples in poetry and literature. And he just sat down and he did it. And it's like this. It's huge. I have two volumes and it sits on my desk on each side of me. And I flip through these big pages and I read what Samuel Johnson himself, how he described each word.

[Theo Vaughn]

Was it hard to find those?

[Louis C.K.]

I got one on ebay. The thing that's crazy is I want to get a real. Like an original. Because you can get first editions of that. Yeah, like that. Your guys pulling up there. That's the first. That's the birth of the English language. You can actually touch it with your hands. You can actually own that. The first person to ever fudgeing do this.

[Theo Vaughn]

So that's the first dictionary ever.

[Louis C.K.]

First dictionary. And I'm just talking out of my ass. I'm not educated, but this is what I understand to be true.

[Theo Vaughn]

Okay. A dictionary, the English language, sometimes published as Johnson's dictionary, was published on April 1775. It is among the most influential dictionaries in the history of the English language. There was dissatisfaction with the dictionaries of the period. Yeah, yeah.

[Louis C.K.]

There was nothing around. And I learned all this stuff about language from it. Like the letter I and the letter J were back then were the same letters. So I. And like when you look at. In his dictionary, the letter I is defined and it says I when it's used as a consonant, sounds like E or I. But when it's used as. I mean as a vowel. But when it's used as a consonant, it sounds like J. And that originally J was just an I with a little tail. Just so you know that that's hard. I. That's J.

[Theo Vaughn]

Like this eyes.

[Louis C.K.]

Yeah, yeah. And so when you look in the I section of his dictionary and it alternates I and J. Like it alternates once. Some words start with I, some start with J, but they're all in the same section.

[Theo Vaughn]

Wow.

[Louis C.K.]

And it's the same with U and V. You and V were just one word, but they had these two different, you know.

[Theo Vaughn]

Oh, it makes total sense.

[Louis C.K.]

Yeah. But when you get to know this stuff about language. Yeah. It gives you more. You can actually have more feelings if you have more words. But I like your. Your retro approach, which is you're looking for the words in your feelings. It's good.

[Theo Vaughn]

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[Louis C.K.]

I lit the fuse and my life turns into everything it wasn't supposed to be.

[Theo Vaughn]

Now Charlie sober, he's going to tell you to truth. Is there going to be anything off limits now? Dang. And there he is. That's Charlie Sheen right there. Sober now for seven years he's been and he's telling his life story from his childhood to stardom. He discusses all of his roles, how he turned down Karate Kid and how Platoon and Wall street changed his life. He talks about his friendship with Nicolas Cage. Sheen speaks about subjects and events he's never discussed publicly before. The most outrageous moments of Sheen's life are revisited with raw emotion and exceptional warmth, painting a portrait of a flawed man whose penchant for self destruction is ultimately no match for the ferocious love and forgiveness he inspires in those closest to him. AKA Charlie Sheen. Now playing only on Netflix, this show is sponsored by Liquid iv. Is your brain still in pool noodle mode from the summertime? Well, I feel that. But it's fall, baby, and it's time to focus. Time to lock in. Having a transition from summer shenanigans to the focus needed in the fall should be illegal. Thankfully, there's Liquid iv, powered by Liv Hydro Science. An optimized ratio of electrolytes, essential vitamins, and clinically tested nutrients that turn ordinary water into extraordinary hydration. That's how they do it. It's good. With Liquid iv, I just crack open a packet, pour it on water, shake it up, splash, douse myself, and I'm ready. Ditch the glitch with zero sugar and zero crash from Liquid iv. Be ready for the fall tear. Pour live more. Go to liquidiv.com and get 20% off your first order with code THEO at checkout. That's 20% off your first order with Code T H E [e-mail].

[Louis C.K.]

This is my. This is a hard. Because that's a.

[Theo Vaughn]

No, you brought me Ingram.

[Louis C.K.]

A hard cover of Ingram.

[Theo Vaughn]

Let's go.

[Louis C.K.]

There's an inscription, but don't read it out loud.

[Theo Vaughn]

Okay. I'm gonna say. Okay, yeah. I'm gonna say that. Dude. Thank you so much, man. Yeah. I read this you sent me, and I still have it inside. I have. You sent me, like, it was in this green kind of folder that was really cool. And it reminded me of, like. Kind of like something that MEANT Something like 25 years ago. 20 years ago, you get a script, and it would be.

[Louis C.K.]

Yeah.

[Theo Vaughn]

And.

[Louis C.K.]

Yeah.

[Theo Vaughn]

And it would be in something. You know, it'd be like, in this sort of, like, green folder.

[Louis C.K.]

Yeah, it was professional binder. Yeah.

[Theo Vaughn]

Yes, it was a binder.

[Louis C.K.]

Yeah.

[Theo Vaughn]

And you gave it to me like that. And you let me read this whole book, dude.

[Louis C.K.]

Well, you read a really early version.

[Theo Vaughn]

Yep. And it took me two months to read it because I was like, I don't know what was going on. I was probably down. Who knows? Taking breaks to touch my body, probably. But it was awesome. And every time I came back to it, dude, it was just fascinating. And it's a. It's a. It's a book about. Well, it's a book about a boy who's kind of neglected, and then he has to take on the world himself is right, I would say.

[Louis C.K.]

Yeah. Yeah. It's. It's about a boy who grows up on a. That's what it looks like. On a farm. Just a farm.

[Theo Vaughn]

Yeah. And he lives in a cage or in a.

[Louis C.K.]

Well, he just lives outdoors. His parents don't let him sleep in the house.

[Theo Vaughn]

Got it.

[Louis C.K.]

And he sleeps. Sleeps in the shed. And he just sits on the porch steps where the animals are these. His father. It's one of these farms. His father's got, like, one pig. He's just trying to get a little extra.

[Theo Vaughn]

Yeah.

[Louis C.K.]

And his parents are very overwhelmed. And his father one day tells his. The bank comes to overtake the house. They give him a few days. So the father tells the mother to slaughter all the meat. And. And he. He goes on the horse and says, I'm going to sell this horse and I'll come back. And he never. He just never comes back.

[Theo Vaughn]

Yeah.

[Louis C.K.]

So the kids left with his mother, who's just so weak. And she just tells him, you gotta. You gotta go. And he's like 10. And she tells him, I can't. Your Luck's worse here than it would be out there.

[Theo Vaughn]

Wow.

[Louis C.K.]

So. And she's just too hollowed out to overcome what's going on with her. And.

[Theo Vaughn]

And she probably thinks the best thing she could do to save him would be to send him off, get him.

[Louis C.K.]

Out there, and let him learn how to start taking care of himself. So all she tells him is stay alive any way you can. That's like the. All the advice he's given and he just hits the road. And I started writing it and I didn't know it's not. It's the first novel I ever wrote. I wanted to write novels when I was a kid. That was like the first thing I really wanted to be.

[Theo Vaughn]

Yeah.

[Louis C.K.]

And then I just took so many drugs that I feel like I burnt my brain out. And it's only now really recovering.

[Theo Vaughn]

Is that true?

[Louis C.K.]

You're saying that I feel that way A little bit. I used to feel that way, but.

[Theo Vaughn]

Were you using opioids or whatever?

[Louis C.K.]

When I was a kid, I was doing a lot of smoking a shit ton of pot.

[Theo Vaughn]

Oh, yeah.

[Louis C.K.]

And we took a lot of acid and mescaline and stuff like that too. And I don't think that hurts you, but not at all. It does take out the linear of your thinking a little bit, but. But.

[Theo Vaughn]

But your life got busy too, then.

[Louis C.K.]

Yeah. And then I became a comedian, which I always thought was like, just. It's a free form, scattershot verbal art. So I always felt like I could hand. It was what I could handle, you know? But I wanted to be a writer, you know, And I wrote television. But writing TV and movies is. Is more like a blueprint. You're. You're. It's technical writing. Here's what needs to happen when we shoot this. But actually writing something that's meant to be read is what I really wanted to do. And.

[Theo Vaughn]

God, so cool.

[Louis C.K.]

Yeah. So I started writing short stories a few years ago and I got really back into it. And when. When Ingram kind of like came into my head, I just had this ritual of sitting down every day and asking him, like, what happened to you? And it was just a story that just kept coming.

[Theo Vaughn]

Asking the child, the character.

[Louis C.K.]

Yeah, yeah. Like, what happened? And I felt like I was taking care of him by, like, taking an honest account. Trying to just be honest and not trying to achieve anything in writing it or trying to. You know what I mean? Or be impressive. I just wanted to be. I just wanted to hear the voice and see what happened. And. And I worried about him every day because he Has a heart. It's a hard life that he lives.

[Theo Vaughn]

Yeah.

[Louis C.K.]

But I learned from him because he kept, like, just being curious and reporting when it stinks but not complaining.

[Theo Vaughn]

Yeah. I mean, there's times he takes on some abuse. A couple of times. And I was like, God, it's like you like. Yeah. I mean, there's parts especially toward, like the later parts of the book so harrowing some. You're like, God, why can't he. Why doesn't he know better?

[Louis C.K.]

Yeah, yeah. He's. He's. He's just simple. I mean, he's not simple, like, like mentally challenged. He just hasn't had any.

[Theo Vaughn]

He's Rodman or whatever or who.

[Louis C.K.]

I was.

[Theo Vaughn]

I was going to say that's not fair or. No, somebody else.

[Louis C.K.]

I mean, Dennis Rodman is anything but simple.

[Theo Vaughn]

You're right. That's a great.

[Louis C.K.]

You're complex, dude.

[Theo Vaughn]

Yeah. He's a fucking Rubik's cube.

[Louis C.K.]

Yeah.

[Theo Vaughn]

Mm.

[Louis C.K.]

All the stickers are different. There's not even one color is the same.

[Theo Vaughn]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Even one of those, like, Indian kids couldn't put that.

[Louis C.K.]

Yeah. Forget it.

[Theo Vaughn]

Yeah. That was a bad choice. But. But yeah, dude, there was times you're like, ah, yeah. You feel for him that much? And you did such a great job of making me feel for him.

[Louis C.K.]

Oh, thanks.

[Theo Vaughn]

I can't tell, like, how I got to know him so good as I'm reading it.

[Louis C.K.]

Well, I feel. I. I guess I don't know. For boys, it's this thing of getting thrown out into the world a little bit. I was alone a lot as a kid and out on the street just trying to figure out what life is. And you just become. You're kind of a boy is kind of a microcosm of a human ape turning into a human being. You know what I mean? Like, adapting.

[Theo Vaughn]

Evolution's right there.

[Louis C.K.]

Yeah. Evolution from the first day of life, especially if you're kind of left alone. If you spend a lot of time alone as a boy, you're just catching as catch can. And then you go, oh, I guess that's what this is like.

[Theo Vaughn]

Right.

[Louis C.K.]

And use some things you get strong at and some you don't. And.

[Theo Vaughn]

And some of these you learn from the worst influences, too. It just happens to be the influence that was passing through town.

[Louis C.K.]

That's right.

[Theo Vaughn]

Stopped and rolled its window down. It's kind of crazy the way you can get influence. That's kind of what happens to him in some ways, huh?

[Louis C.K.]

Yeah. Like, there's this one part where he's got he's been working on a farm, like, just pulling up corn. And he makes money in dimes.

[Theo Vaughn]

I know.

[Louis C.K.]

Just because it's the first currency that he learned to respect was a 10 cent dime. So he makes them pay him in dimes. And he has a. He hides them under a tree and when he decides to leave the farm, he digs them up and he falls asleep in his cabin and there's this. He wakes up and there's this guy there about to steal his money. And Ingram at this point has a little knife and he's, he's thinking he's going to have to defend him. So, you know, he's gonna have to stick this guy. But he, he, he's trying to figure out, because he's never been taught, is it okay to actually harm somebody for money? Like, is it. It to, to defend yourself is one thing, but to defend this thing.

[Theo Vaughn]

Yeah.

[Louis C.K.]

And, and then it occurs to him that the guy might be a little scared, even though he's bigger than him, even if it's a kid. Like, it's not easy to beat the shit out of a kid, right? Like it's no small thing.

[Theo Vaughn]

So, yeah, they're resilient. Kids survive.

[Louis C.K.]

Yeah. And you're going to go through something. So. So Ingram says to the guy, why don't we split it? And the guy goes, I don't have to split it with you. I can just take it. He goes, yeah, you can, but it's going to be trouble. I'm going to give you a hard time. I'll split it with you now. And it's my money, but I'll give you half of it if we could just split it. And then they look at it and neither of them know how to count. So they got that problem. But I didn't know where it was going. I got to this moment in it where they're in this standoff. And I was like, what's his solution? But by following his logic and in the way he looked at life without having been taught, he found solutions that I just came to me naturally that I wouldn't have found in life. Do you know what I mean? You just get taught things like you got to defend. You got to. Anybody fucks with you, you have to hurt them, right?

[Theo Vaughn]

You do, you know, let's split the difference.

[Louis C.K.]

Yeah, split them out. I'll take half.

[Theo Vaughn]

I'll take half, I'll take half.

[Louis C.K.]

And nobody has to throw a punch.

[Theo Vaughn]

I stay alive. And also I don't have to feel the pain of if I stabbed You. And if I shouldn't have.

[Louis C.K.]

That's right.

[Theo Vaughn]

Which can be just as harrowing.

[Louis C.K.]

Of course, you got to walk around in life knowing you stabbed somebody for $100.

[Theo Vaughn]

Yeah. Oh, dude, it was. There's a lot of great parts, man. It's a. Honestly, bro, it's awesome. It was so much fun to read. It reminded me of, like. I mean, this sounds crazy, but it reminded me of, like, a real book.

[Louis C.K.]

Yeah. Yeah. Well, you know, I feel the same way. To me, it's. It still doesn't add up to me or make sense that I wrote a book. I grew up in a world of books. You look at a book, you're like, well, nobody. That's somebody else. Yeah, somebody else can do that. Not me. And I've tried. I've written short stories and things that have sputtered out when I got to the end, like when I. When the publishers. I got a publisher.

[Theo Vaughn]

This place, Ben Bella, Simon Schuster, is that you're with.

[Louis C.K.]

Yeah, Simon Schuster is distributing it.

[Theo Vaughn]

Okay.

[Louis C.K.]

The publisher is a company called Ben Bella out of Texas. Really nice people. And when I started working with them and they were going through the book and the editorial part, they said it was kind of curious that I say the end because it's like a Grimm's fairy tale. Like, nobody does that anymore. But I asked to keep it because that's. To me, it was crazy that I got there.

[Theo Vaughn]

Yeah.

[Louis C.K.]

I couldn't believe I got to the end and I was just like. The day I finished this, I was like. Like, I wrote a novel. And, you know, if I wasn't me with a little bit of sense that I could probably sell something. I don't know that it gets out. I have no idea. And everybody. That's right. Haven't. I haven't had anybody read it that hates me. So I don't know if it's good, but, you know, I don't know, folks can buy it. It's.

[Theo Vaughn]

Yeah, it was great. And I know it comes for. It's. You can pre order it now.

[Louis C.K.]

Yeah.

[Theo Vaughn]

September 20, 20.

[Louis C.K.]

Not November. It's coming out November, mid November.

[Theo Vaughn]

Okay.

[Louis C.K.]

But you can pre order. It's good if people pre order it because then they'll. They'll print more.

[Theo Vaughn]

But the ranks up.

[Louis C.K.]

Yeah, get it up there.

[Theo Vaughn]

Get it up. And look, I'm not even joking, guys. Like, I, you know, I like to read. I really. It like, especially for, like, a young man, like, if you've had neglect in your life or you wonder, like, how a child would start to absorb the World with not even, not even being taught how to be much of a sponge in a way. Kind of like, I mean, it's just fascinating. And it was, it was, it took, I was just right there in it. I was right there in it with him. It takes place in Texas, right?

[Louis C.K.]

Yeah.

[Theo Vaughn]

Oklahoma. Texas.

[Louis C.K.]

Yeah, Texas.

[Theo Vaughn]

And so like, yeah, he's just like walking along the highway and these car, like things are, cars are badly things. He's never even seen any of it. It's all great.

[Louis C.K.]

Yeah. He calls the pavement hard black dirt because he doesn't really know what. Because he grew up barefoot in the dirt.

[Theo Vaughn]

And it amazed me. I was like, oh, somebody can do this. I think, I think that was probably the. Because like, you know, you and I know each other and I knew that. I know like your com. And I know that. And then I, I, I've gotten to know you some as a person. But then to see that somebody can make this and it's a real book. I have a lot of friends that have made some okay books.

[Louis C.K.]

Right.

[Theo Vaughn]

You know what I'm saying? I'll buy them. I'm not reading them.

[Louis C.K.]

Yeah. But this, I was like, well, I love doing it. I wrote another one. I just finished another second one. And if I can make that what I do, I'm gonna make that what I do. Like I see in the, I mean, whatever, when you get a vision of what you want your future to be, you might get 40% of it. And that's okay with me. But what I like is the idea of having kind of like a nice cruising altitude stand up comedy, performing and writing novels because I really love doing it. And now that I wrote one, and the second one was a lot, it took me much longer. I spent a year and two months on the second one because this one I was like, wanted to finish so that I wouldn't not finish it. But now that I know I can finish one, I feel like I gotta flow. It's really fun to do. Yeah.

[Theo Vaughn]

And do you think it's the most. Because all I wanted to be, I think when I was a kid was a writer probably. Like I loved to read John Irving. I loved, Once I got into his stuff, it was like so, so exciting. Like all the different possibilities.

[Louis C.K.]

Yeah.

[Theo Vaughn]

And the ways that, like, who was that Irish lady? That.

[Louis C.K.]

Flannery o'.

[Theo Vaughn]

Connor. Yeah.

[Louis C.K.]

Unbelievable. Unbelievable. What an imagination.

[Theo Vaughn]

Yeah. I was like, I could be a murderer.

[Louis C.K.]

She has this story about a kind of cranky woman who lives alone on a farm. She like, runs a farm and she's just tough. And the guy next door, who's black, she's every. I mean, the N word. Talk about the N word. Flannery o'. Connor. It's like fucking polka dots on wallpaper. Look, if it's everywhere, it's just everywhere.

[Theo Vaughn]

If you like some soft use of it, I mean.

[Louis C.K.]

Yeah, but. So in this story, the guy next door has a bull that keeps. Get. Keeps getting loose and coming over to her property, and she hates it. And it's this. This. Just this. You're in this woman's crankiness, and it's really something to be like. Instead of like this thing where we watch Karen's on YouTube and say, that's somebody else. She takes you inside the mind of a very bitter and cranky person who just doesn't like the world she's in. And in the end of the story, it's a short story, the book, the. The bull gores her to death. The. The bull gets his fucking horns in her stomach and rips her to pieces.

[Theo Vaughn]

Oh, yeah.

[Louis C.K.]

And.

[Theo Vaughn]

And Flannery, which are some black neighbor males will get if you leave your wife around.

[Louis C.K.]

Yeah. And dies. And the book stays in her head while she's dying. So you get to, like. You see the lights get brighter and you see some. I don't remember. I read this for a long time ago. It stopped.

[Theo Vaughn]

Green leaf, it says.

[Louis C.K.]

I don't know if that's the one. But does she dive with a bull at the end?

[Theo Vaughn]

One day, Ms. May is upset to find a stray bull on her property. She's worried that the bull will breed with her milk cows.

[Louis C.K.]

That's it, right.

[Theo Vaughn]

She blames Mr. Greenleaf, who appears reluctant to confront the bull.

[Louis C.K.]

Yeah, there it is. But before she dies, Mrs. May has a moment of spiritual clarity. The story notes that she has the look of a person whose sight has been suddenly restored, but who finds the light unbearable. I mean, what the fuck? And this is the thing. Flannery o' Connor was just a regular person in America. And it kind of. One of the reasons that I wrote Ingram is because I live in a world. New York City, modern culture. But this. America has always had this voice. People like Flannery o', Connor, Mark Twain, or Harper Lee who were born in little places, quiet little places. People like you, you have this kind of a voice where it's not through, like, Harvard education and like, you know, reading. It's. It's just that America, the American voice is very eloquent. Simple and eloquent. With that sentence I just wrote of hers. That's not a collegiate sentence. That's like someone who lived in an old house and walked really far to the grocery store and had thoughts like that. That's what. You grew up in some parish. You know, from where I'm from, a word parish just sounds so exotic. It's just a different. You grew up in. In America, and it made you an eloquent person when, like, Abraham Lincoln, he. He. A lot of years of Abraham Lincoln's life, he lived in a lean to. With an open that he would lay with his family and there was no wall, and he'd see, like, a jaguar come up and sniff the family and lay there.

[Theo Vaughn]

Really?

[Louis C.K.]

And he. Yeah. And then he ended up saying some of the most beautiful things ever said just by opening his mouth.

[Theo Vaughn]

Right.

[Louis C.K.]

I just think that America has that language in it. And I started to hear this kid, and I thought, I wonder if I can make a connection with somebody who sounds like that. And that's a humble. I don't know that I did it, but I. But that's what I was trying to.

[Theo Vaughn]

Touch, you know, when you're listening to Ingram to help him guide you to write the book.

[Louis C.K.]

Yeah, something like that. Yeah.

[Theo Vaughn]

No, and look, man, I. You just have such a. I mean, like, I just. You're so good at, like. You're like the guy who's like, say, like, your feelings and everything was like a cave or whatever, and everybody's at the top, and they're like, we can't go in there, you know? And they're. They're not even. There's like, one brave Mexican guy who's, like, selling snow cones or something, but not a lot.

[Louis C.K.]

At the mouth of the cave.

[Theo Vaughn]

At the mouth. Yeah, but it's close. It's no abierto.

[Louis C.K.]

No abierto.

[Theo Vaughn]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And he says that.

[Louis C.K.]

Yeah, no abierto. But you want a snow cone.

[Theo Vaughn]

That's it. Right, Look. Because.

[Louis C.K.]

Amigo, no passe.

[Theo Vaughn]

Yeah. But then you walk up and you have, like, your spelunking gear, and.

[Louis C.K.]

Yeah.

[Theo Vaughn]

Who the.

[Louis C.K.]

Yeah.

[Theo Vaughn]

Is this psychopath? But you go. But you're like, I'll be back. And people are like, what? You can't go in there. Look at all the signs. There's, like, a million times. You're like, no, no, I've been in here. I spent a lot of time in here. I left something down there. Yeah, I left one. A favorite pack of bubble gum down there.

[Louis C.K.]

That's right.

[Theo Vaughn]

Yeah. So good at going in there and, like, just being in there, man. But also getting in there and getting in there and like seeing what the like stalactites are that our hang ups in our time or in our feelings, in our existence in what it means to evolve. Like personally like man, you're just like such a archeologist of. I don't know what it is. I don't know if it's emotions or feelings or just of existing kind of.

[Louis C.K.]

Well, that's what I love to try to do. What you're describing is what I try to do on. I've never her. It's so heard it that way. But that's what it does feel like is, is being a guy bringing people to these places and going, it's okay, it's. It's. You can look at this.

[Theo Vaughn]

Yeah.

[Louis C.K.]

Without letting it hurt you or you can let it hurt and you're going to be okay on the other side. It's okay.

[Theo Vaughn]

Right?

[Louis C.K.]

And having that. And because I've been doing stand up for 40 years now, like I'm very beyond taking it personally. So if I say something to a crowd and I feel them resist, I don't take, I don't go like, oh, they don't like me. Now that's one. One of the problems of being a stand up is you're so exposed personally. So if they don't like something you feel like you take it on.

[Theo Vaughn]

Yeah.

[Louis C.K.]

But I'm okay with any outcome. Like they're all okay. So if I say something and people just go what? I go, cool, now we're here, now we're here that you're weirded out. There's a bunch of places we can go from here. Because I see it all as okay. I think I see every feeling as worth. Worth having. Especially if you don't. Like. I kind of came up with this new idea in my life recently which is that your feelings are like fire and you warm yourself by them. You sit by the fire of the feeling. You don't get in it and let it burn you. But you also don't go away because it's hot. You don't go away from it and you're cold out there and there's no light. Just sit and just let it. You know what I mean? So I'm trying to get better at that. I think a lot of early in life I was more brutal about like, yeah, look at this shit. This is fucked up. Look at this shit. And that's, it's, that's just kind of messy. But I'm trying to get a little more refined at taking people to Hard things to talk about and going like, just, let's just sit next to this for a second. And how does it feel to be next to this? You know?

[Theo Vaughn]

Yeah. What are we doing?

[Louis C.K.]

Get used to it. Yeah. Because every experience in life, certainly feelings are. I think feeling is living. You know, I used to think thinking was more or learning, but I think feeling, when people really feel, they're right on there. You know what I mean?

[Theo Vaughn]

Yeah.

[Louis C.K.]

Feelings are never wrong. They're.

[Theo Vaughn]

Oh, yeah. They're pretty pure, huh?

[Louis C.K.]

They are.

[Theo Vaughn]

Even if they're. Even if the. You may not agree with somebody's feeling or something.

[Louis C.K.]

Yeah.

[Theo Vaughn]

It's interesting to see why they have it if you believe that it's pure from them. Well, it also goes back to that lady's quote, to Flannery o' Connor's quote. That mean. That's more like, about feeling in there.

[Louis C.K.]

Yeah. I finally saw the. The world, and it was unbearable. And. And it is, especially when you first really see it. But if you're willing to like Chris Rock, he's a good friend, and he's sometimes a mentor. He says great things.

[Theo Vaughn]

Oh, he's the best comedian. He's always been my favorite.

[Louis C.K.]

I remember every time I've gone to him in a tough moment, he's never let me out of it. Like, I called him once, I was doing a pilot for this show, Lucky Louie, that I sitcom. And after the. We did two shows. We did two performances of the pilot, and after the first one, I was like, I'm terrible. And I called him up and I said, I'm really scared. I think I might just be a bad actor. And he said, yeah, wow. Yeah, that's scary. He wasn't like, you're great, man. He was like, yeah, well, you better study your lines. I mean, because maybe you are. And I was like, oh, okay. And at the same time, like, I shot a special once, I did two shows, and after the first show, I called him, I said, I just killed. And he said, you did nothing. Go do it again. You did nothing. He's a guy that makes you really look at it and.

[Theo Vaughn]

Wow, that's cool. That's cool to be that kind of friend. Yeah, it's cool to be that kind of, like, challenger, too, to challenge people.

[Louis C.K.]

Well, just to be real, I think.

[Theo Vaughn]

You know, it's so true, huh?

[Louis C.K.]

Like in Rocky, you know, in Rocky, one of the great things about Rocky is that it's a sports movie where the guy loses, you know, I don't think most people even realize that Rocky loses the Fight at the end. But the big moment in Rocky is when he's talking to Adrian the night before the fight. You know, he goes to the ring and he sees the spectacle and he's been training and they play the music and he went like this. But then the night before the fight, he goes back home to Adrian and he says, I can't beat him. It's just a fact. I can't beat him. He's just in another class. I'm not even close to him. I will not win. And instead of saying, you can do it, Rok, she goes, what are we gonna do? Like, she just lets that be real. And she goes, what are you gonna do? And then he decides, I'm gonna pick my own victory. I can't beat him. But I bet I could stand there while he beats me. I bet. I bet I can get through the fight to the end. Wow, what a great goal. And that's what he does. And at the end of the fight, yeah, Apollo Creed wins and Rocky doesn't give a shit because he got what he wanted.

[Theo Vaughn]

Yeah, I think. And if somebody's honest with you, if there's some. If there's a real piece of honesty there, then you can navigate from that place.

[Louis C.K.]

That's right.

[Theo Vaughn]

Which is pretty real. As opposed to, like, things that are so placated and then you're kind of in this fictional space, like, yeah, I'm not going to win. You know, but now you're like, okay, how can I win? How do I find a way to do this? To navigate this?

[Louis C.K.]

Yeah. Or what do I do about that? I'm not going to. What else is there? It's not the end of the world. Because both things, like saying you can do it. This fantasy, it's nowhere you don't have. It doesn't take you anywhere. But all and the same with doom. I can't do anything. I got nothing. Now where are you? This is reality. And usually it's your feelings that will navigate you to where is, like, in. Like Rocky did. I can't win. There it is. But what do I. And then he goes inside his heart and goes, I don't have to win. I just don't want to quit. I just want to do that one thing and stay of standing there. That because I've had a hard life because I've never gotten anything I wanted that I know I can do that means I can beat. Get the shit beat out of me on national TV. But I could do it for 12 rounds. Most people can only do it for eight.

[Theo Vaughn]

Yeah.

[Louis C.K.]

That's fucking good.

[Theo Vaughn]

And it goes back to, like, finding that thing. Like finding the word finding how. What is the thing that you really need? Right. Yeah, maybe he.

[Louis C.K.]

Word, right.

[Theo Vaughn]

He would have liked to have won for sure. Yeah. But what does he really want? What's the real victory for him?

[Louis C.K.]

That's right. Yeah. What is victory? What's. What is it to be victorious? What is it to be.

[Theo Vaughn]

Right? Like, somebody might be working their butt off to make money, but it's like, do you really want money? Do you want to do you. Like, that may be it, but is that just a block? Sometimes we get caught in with, like, this general goal of society or we all get like, herded into what the goal is supposed to be without looking at what exactly it is that we want.

[Louis C.K.]

Yeah. Which makes sense because people coalesce so that they can survive.

[Theo Vaughn]

Yeah.

[Louis C.K.]

So human beings are shitty animals. They're like, really. A human being out in the. In the wilderness is done. It's not worth much, but you group, group together and you're good. So it's kind of like all the things that are, like, hard about life are because of what we're good at. People fight and attack each other, but it's. They're trying to, in a way, get closer to together. You know what I mean? I mean, in other words, when people say, you shouldn't be doing that because that's what. Not what everybody else is doing. Their hearts in the right place. Because we all want to be. The weird thing is that now a lot you get rejected for coming together. Like, it's the opposite. It's a weird time right now. It's like a car battery can have a polarity reversal where it gets confused, and suddenly north is south, south is north. We've done something weird where the accepted thing is to be separate. The accepted thing is to be like enemies of each other. You know what I mean? And to. If you say. If you move towards the middle of any issue, people start getting nervous because they want you to the safe places, these extremes.

[Theo Vaughn]

Oh, yeah. Yeah. But that's.

[Louis C.K.]

Doesn't. That's not. That's not what we're good at. That's not what. That's not what got us through the Ice age and the. And the. You know, and that's not what. It got us out of the food chain.

[Theo Vaughn]

Yeah.

[Louis C.K.]

What got us out of the food chain was like, just put aside your shit and try to be, you know, try to see other people as important to you so that you'll work Together. But now it's, like, scary to say, I don't know. I'm like this guy, even though he's not like me. You know what I mean? That's cons that you can get ostracized for being. For love. It's a weird. It's a weird time. And, yeah, you can get ostracized.

[Theo Vaughn]

You're being accepting.

[Louis C.K.]

Yes, that's right. There is a sign at one of the theaters I did this week. It says, hatred will not be allowed here. Our policy towards hatred is zero tolerance. But that's a weird.

[Theo Vaughn]

Right? We hate hatred.

[Louis C.K.]

Zero tolerance is something you're. That's hate. That's hate, isn't it?

[Theo Vaughn]

Yeah.

[Louis C.K.]

Zero tolerance and hatred are opposites.

[Theo Vaughn]

Yeah.

[Louis C.K.]

So hatred and zero tolerance are the. Are equal. They're the same. Like, no hatred of any kind. It said, I'm like, what about, I hate my dad a little bit.

[Theo Vaughn]

Yeah. Yeah. How do I even get that out of my system before I go in here to watch a matinee?

[Louis C.K.]

Yeah. So I don't know. I think.

[Theo Vaughn]

Yeah, that's like.

[Louis C.K.]

But it's not human nature. I have, like, a faith in the way things are going to go because. And also, I see it like, you know, whenever people complain about. Like, everybody always says this, right? You hear that a lot. You can't say this without saying that everybody does this. The group that behaves that way is shrinking and shrinking and shrinking. Because if you really go out on the street, if you get off the. If you look at people in the eyes and you see people every day, most people are just really eager to find each other again. And reaching out to people as unlike them as they can find, and wanting to find love and common ground. That's how human beings behave. And sometimes there's a confusion that scatters them. But it doesn't last. I don't think. I don't think it can. I mean, if it does, then everybody.

[Theo Vaughn]

Will, and that's what. Yeah, that's what'll happen.

[Louis C.K.]

That'll be the test we didn't pass.

[Theo Vaughn]

Yeah. Oh, the test we didn't pass.

[Louis C.K.]

Yeah. I mean, it may come or it might not.

[Theo Vaughn]

Louie. What if it comes? Then we'll get into.

[Louis C.K.]

Some of us can do it, some of us can. Nothing you can't.

[Theo Vaughn]

You know, we have to have a meeting, though. If things get really bad, we all have to meet somewhere.

[Louis C.K.]

Where would we meet?

[Theo Vaughn]

I don't know. Maybe Denver or something.

[Louis C.K.]

Yeah.

[Theo Vaughn]

Someplace where the air is clean, the water's clean still. So you have Like a surviving chance.

[Louis C.K.]

Yeah.

[Theo Vaughn]

Altitude cures some diseases you don't even. Some stuff you don't even get at altitude.

[Louis C.K.]

Really?

[Theo Vaughn]

Yeah. Or the Amish. You know The Amish have 1/10 of the attention deficit disorder.

[Louis C.K.]

Really?

[Theo Vaughn]

That regular?

[Louis C.K.]

They have AIDS a lot though.

[Theo Vaughn]

I heard.

[Louis C.K.]

Yeah, Amish AIDS is like. It's kind of.

[Theo Vaughn]

Oh no. I look, dude. Amish look. Yeah, I'm not surprised. Trip Planner by Expedia. You were made to outdo your holiday.

[Louis C.K.]

Your hammocking and your pooling. We were made to help organize the competition. Expedia made to try travel.

[Theo Vaughn]

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[Louis C.K.]

Descendants of Abe Troyer and Lucinda Summers. That's the book.

[Theo Vaughn]

I mean it's basically something like that because I mean they started off from just a couple of folks.

[Louis C.K.]

You know, it's all records of stuff is fascinating like that. People used to have to just write everything down. Yeah, forget, you know, I Was at the New York Public Library once, and they. At the New York Public Library, the big one with lions in front. They have every book there, like, ever. And some of them, you can look at anything you want. Some of them, you got to put gloves on because they're very old.

[Theo Vaughn]

Yeah.

[Louis C.K.]

And I was looking for something about Gloucester, Mass. And the. It says. I don't want to describe what I was looking for because it's just boring. But I found this book that was like the shipping logs for Gloucester back in the 1700s. And I read it, and it's like an old writing, and it just said, in this winter, 16 ships were lost. There were 34 new widows and 54 orphans and stuff like that. And just like, Just record keeping. But that would make you cry. You know what I mean?

[Theo Vaughn]

Yeah. Dude, Things were so severe back then. Yeah, we're fucking, man. I'm not. But a lot of us are.

[Louis C.K.]

Yeah, no, we.

[Theo Vaughn]

But when it comes to our feelings, we don't. Like, we're just. I don't know, we're just. We're softer now. Yeah. It used to be like.

[Louis C.K.]

Or we're harder. I think people aren't feeling as much. You know, they're avoiding their feelings. I think people are scared of their feelings. But your feelings are native. Like, there's no feeling that's going to kill you. It's just not. Avoiding a feeling will kill you. But we do a lot, you know, in addiction and stuff like that, to stay away from feeling something.

[Theo Vaughn]

Oh, yeah. I mean, even you were talking earlier about go. You, like. Like a feeling is like a warm place sometimes. You want to get right by it.

[Louis C.K.]

Yeah.

[Theo Vaughn]

Like I was thinking the other day, and I've thought about this before, but I was rekindling the thought that, yeah, something. Sometimes I don't want to change certain behaviors just because I don't want to. You. Part of you wants to have an excuse because it gives you an excuse not to so that other things don't happen. You know, like, there'd be times where I didn't want to quit smoking because I was like, well, if I quit smoking, then I'll have to find something else positive to do. I won't have the excuse that, oh, I can't do that.

[Louis C.K.]

Yeah.

[Theo Vaughn]

Because I'm smoking. Or I don't want to feel that because I'm smoking. Because I would go to smoking a lot of times if I was like, I had an intense feeling or if I, you know, felt rejected or I want it, you know, like, it became this kind of like a bit of like a shower curtain to shield me from like real moments, you know?

[Louis C.K.]

Yeah. Well, when your life becomes a series of shit, you do, you know, I smoke, I eat barbecue, I. I drink at night. I watch this. Then you can avoid like a day. A day of just being on earth under the swirling sky is intense. Like really. If you're really paying attention, if you really wake up to the present moment, it's terrifying. It's constantly moving. Nothing's promised. Everything that you've accomplished is gone. And you're just in this. And so if you can just set out a bunch of stupid tasks and like. And like habits.

[Theo Vaughn]

Yeah.

[Louis C.K.]

You know, and whatever. All ladies night at whatever it is, you know, bowling and going to see that. And now they've turned. There's this, this screen on your phone where you don't need to even choose what that is.

[Theo Vaughn]

Yeah.

[Louis C.K.]

You just let this feed just kind of keep you glazed over. Just serving, serving all night long. And. And you get. Nobody's even sleeping anymore. And you just kind of go to this thing and you're just not. You're not feeling nothing. You're. You're taking. These are fake feelings. These are fake feelings in a safe environment. Can't believe she did that, right? I can't believe he said. What a piece of. Why are they getting on his case? Like all these just dumb things and like, you know, just keeping it going. It. It used to be that they used to call a thing clickbait, where they, they make something so juicy that people would click on it, but nobody's clicking much anymore. It's just. It's just going by. It's just that feed. So they're just going like. Like this. And. And that's living. Now the thing I don't understand is who's benefiting? Because if everybody's doing this, I don't know, eight different people are getting incredibly rich and.

[Theo Vaughn]

Oh yeah, and the rest of us are really going to turn into just.

[Louis C.K.]

And the phone is burning a circuit somewhere. You know, when your phone is doing that scroll, there's a physical thing that's. There's like a little light that's burning somewhere. Like in North Carolina at a data farm. Yeah. This isn't like. It's not in. The phone's not really doing the work. There's something else that's making that. There's a processor that's doing that. And take. Put it on the cloud and bringing it to your phone. But there's smoke going in the air. Hot smoke every Time. You just go like this. And everybody's doing this all the time.

[Theo Vaughn]

Oh. In the middle of the night, I'll wake up. Literally, it's almost like I have to do it for like a minute so I can go back to sleep. I'm not even joking. I wake up, I'll see like four things. I'll be okay.

[Louis C.K.]

Yeah, yeah.

[Theo Vaughn]

Racism, murder.

[Louis C.K.]

Yeah. Just to get, just as a blanket, like, murdered, like a little.

[Theo Vaughn]

Yeah.

[Louis C.K.]

Get you back to sleep.

[Theo Vaughn]

Yeah. Someone's dead. Okay, good. Oh, good. A little bit of racism.

[Louis C.K.]

Ah, yeah.

[Theo Vaughn]

Finally. I was gonna get a sip of water, but that'll, That'll do it.

[Louis C.K.]

No, it's, it's very bad for you. And, and it's such a lucrative addiction.

[Theo Vaughn]

Yeah.

[Louis C.K.]

And people are, are, Are convinced that that's where they're going to go to convince people of what's right and wrong. And that's where you sell stuff.

[Theo Vaughn]

Yeah.

[Louis C.K.]

So everyone just gave into it. And it's like if we were all doing heroin, but somebody somehow stopped calling it heroin. And the machines that make the run, those processes are going to get hotter and hotter and AI and all that stuff.

[Theo Vaughn]

Oh, the data centers are getting crazy, man.

[Louis C.K.]

Yeah, it's going to be nuts. I was reading an article about. In Virginia, they want to use farmland a lot for the solar panel because the companies that do data don't like they, you know, they have a style, so they don't want to be. They don't want to burn coal, you know, they don't want to burn oil.

[Theo Vaughn]

Right. Because it does. Yeah. That seems bad. It seems not cool.

[Louis C.K.]

Yeah. So nuclear, no problem. All of a sudden, like, that's no longer a problem. And, and solar. Right. But solar is, like, heavy, so they've. It takes a lot of those things which are made in China, and they, they pollute a lot just to make them.

[Theo Vaughn]

The panels.

[Louis C.K.]

The panels. But anyway, in Virginia, there was this county where they're trying to get these panels out because they're putting them on the farmland. So in other words, there used to be farm fields.

[Theo Vaughn]

Right.

[Louis C.K.]

Where the sun, the natural sun would touch the soil and make green for. To eat and to make oxygen. It's like the most perfect thing.

[Theo Vaughn]

Right.

[Louis C.K.]

And they're putting these black panels on over the flowers to catch the sun and use it instead.

[Theo Vaughn]

So you and I can doom. Scroll. And a lot of the, the data centers, they're. They're using up like a lot of the water. Right. They're using up a lot of, like, power in places like they're Monopoly. And they're building them everywhere.

[Louis C.K.]

Everywhere.

[Theo Vaughn]

And it's happening fast. And we started to look at. Well, like we were talking with that Sam Altman guy. He's a chat GPT. He's like, started that, right?

[Louis C.K.]

Yeah.

[Theo Vaughn]

And I was saying, well, do you feel like the Earth could look like. Bring up that picture that we had. It was like the whole Earth is covered in panels. And it's kind of what we see when we watch, like, Star Trek.

[Louis C.K.]

Yes. Or like Doctor who. I don't know if you ever watched that show. But, like there's. If you. If you look at water towers, like it used to be, you go into an old town like in the middle of Kansas or something, and folks are still wearing, like, cowboy hats. They're still driving old GMC trucks with faded side panels. Like, going into a place like that is very beautiful. When you look at the water towers now, which. These faded, beautiful, big tanks in the sky, they're crusted over with these cell. Cell phone things. You could probably find an image like that.

[Theo Vaughn]

Oh, they attached them all to them.

[Louis C.K.]

Yeah, they're all over. And it's like they're. They're completely covered in them now. And it's very ugly. And it feels like a mold. Like if you look at it, it feels like there's just this weird. And so when you look at the combination of that with people on the streets staring into a rectangle of black, of nothing. You know what I mean? A black rectangle.

[Theo Vaughn]

Yeah.

[Louis C.K.]

And everyone's just going like this. And there is these crusty things. It makes it feel like a. Like a creature in a way, but it's not. It's. I don't think. I don't have some idea that it's from the outside. It's like something inside of us wanted so badly to not feel or something. It started little. Like, this feels good, you know, with.

[Theo Vaughn]

Looking at our screens.

[Louis C.K.]

Yeah. Or like television first. I mean, it started with, like, theater maybe.

[Theo Vaughn]

Oh, dioramas. I remember. Remember that?

[Louis C.K.]

Sure. Yeah. Or like stereo. Stereo photos.

[Theo Vaughn]

Yeah.

[Louis C.K.]

People used to hold up a thing.

[Theo Vaughn]

You could say, see Peeping Tom. And was good.

[Louis C.K.]

Yeah. And like. Like a girl with, like, you know, a little. With titties and have heavy hips and you put a nickel in. That's where it started. Yeah. Porn is the whole thing. But that. That thing became. Let's all go to a movie theater and everybody would go sit in a theater together or vaudeville and then tv. Then we went home by ourselves to do it. And it got, you know, I Mean.

[Theo Vaughn]

More and more and definitely gotten really used to it.

[Louis C.K.]

Yeah. It happened gradually, but it's become something really weird.

[Theo Vaughn]

Oh, yeah. I mean, you're sitting there and, you know, you start to notice when you look at your screen and then when you'll come out of it, you know, but. And you're saying it's like a molten. Like a crab, like a shell.

[Louis C.K.]

Yeah.

[Theo Vaughn]

And they start to, like, get other, like, barnacles and things on barnacles. It starts to. Oh, for sure.

[Louis C.K.]

It's barnacles. Of avoidance. Of, like, love avoidance.

[Theo Vaughn]

Yeah.

[Louis C.K.]

You know what I mean? Oh, and maybe it's because we, like. Did you see the eclipse that happened back in a couple years ago or April?

[Theo Vaughn]

I did, man. Dude. I heard one of the most racist things while I was watching it, too. I hate to even bring that up.

[Louis C.K.]

What did you hear?

[Theo Vaughn]

I was standing next to a guy, and I'm assuming the guy was racist just because of what he said. He was talking to one of his buddies.

[Louis C.K.]

Yeah.

[Theo Vaughn]

And the eclipse was happening. And he goes, oh, look at that. Even the sun wants to be a. And he said the N word.

[Louis C.K.]

Oh, my God.

[Theo Vaughn]

I was like, oh.

[Louis C.K.]

You know, on its face, you could take that as a being loving black people.

[Theo Vaughn]

Yeah.

[Louis C.K.]

Even the sun. Like, if you say it like this, brother, even the son wants to be a black man.

[Theo Vaughn]

Yeah.

[Louis C.K.]

You could take it like that.

[Theo Vaughn]

Yeah.

[Louis C.K.]

You could convert what the guy said and make it that.

[Theo Vaughn]

Now, that's a great point, actually.

[Louis C.K.]

Yeah.

[Theo Vaughn]

You know what? There was abuse.

[Louis C.K.]

And that is actually most racism, I think, is envious.

[Theo Vaughn]

Oh, for sure.

[Louis C.K.]

Everybody wants to be one of those guys, man. Oh, even the sun. I mean, some racism gets beautiful. Because that's beautiful.

[Theo Vaughn]

Yeah.

[Louis C.K.]

That's poetic. Even the sun wants to be a black man. That's what he's. What's hurting him is not that black people are bad. It's that. That everybody wants to be one.

[Theo Vaughn]

Yeah.

[Louis C.K.]

Damn it.

[Theo Vaughn]

That's a.

[Louis C.K.]

Even the sun. Like, somebody gets so racist that they become. That they. You know, I remember when Obama was running for president and there was Sarah Palin's rallies, some people would yell out racist shit.

[Theo Vaughn]

Yeah.

[Louis C.K.]

Every time she mentioned his name, they'd go, all right, here we go.

[Theo Vaughn]

Yeah.

[Louis C.K.]

So she said his name and this woman with a. With a real, like, town. You know, a real. You know, old movies with a. Pitchforks and torches. You know, some lady yelled out about Obama. You need gloves to touch him. And I was like, whoa. But I thought, there's a few ways to look at that.

[Theo Vaughn]

Oh, it's priceless.

[Louis C.K.]

Yes. And also, like, some part of her is going, I want to touch him. Why can't I touch him? But I need gloves because he's.

[Theo Vaughn]

Just.

[Louis C.K.]

Because he's precious or, like, you need gloves to touch him. There's a lot of. There's a lot in that, you know.

[Theo Vaughn]

Yeah.

[Louis C.K.]

What do you want to touch him for?

[Theo Vaughn]

Yeah, man.

[Louis C.K.]

You need gloves to touch him.

[Theo Vaughn]

You need gloves.

[Louis C.K.]

Well, you could also just leave him alone. But something. You really wants to touch him, but you're scared to. It's a complex thing.

[Theo Vaughn]

Yeah. Oh, yeah. The truth of that, dude.

[Louis C.K.]

Yeah.

[Theo Vaughn]

I remember the first time a black man touched my hand one time, and it was different.

[Louis C.K.]

Sure. How old were you?

[Theo Vaughn]

I was probably 10 or something. 9.

[Louis C.K.]

Why do you touch your hand?

[Theo Vaughn]

Well, I went over to my buddy's house, and they were swimming just in, like, this little kind of round little. I don't know if it was a pool or just like, it had tetanus in it or whatever it was. It looks like a. It was like a something for animals. They put water in it. So we're just playing in there and swimming in there, whatever. And this guy, this black man had come, and he was kind of, like, tickling us and stuff. Sometimes I think he was being okay. I don't know if he was. But that's. But anyway, I don't know. But he. But then he lifted me up out of the thing, too. And I just remember, like, also he, like, touched my hand, and I just was like, oh, that's interesting. This was, like, kind of interesting.

[Louis C.K.]

Yeah.

[Theo Vaughn]

Dude. I remember I walked into a black doctor.

[Louis C.K.]

Yeah.

[Theo Vaughn]

This is in Nashville. This is two years ago.

[Louis C.K.]

Yeah.

[Theo Vaughn]

I never walked into a room in my life with a black doctor.

[Louis C.K.]

Huh. Yeah.

[Theo Vaughn]

And I was like, whoa.

[Louis C.K.]

Yeah.

[Theo Vaughn]

And I wasn't like, you know, I was just. I, I.

[Louis C.K.]

It's new if something's new.

[Theo Vaughn]

Yeah. And I was like, you guys, everybody, you know, looks at the same books or charts or, you know, I just didn't know, you know, it's almost like when you're at Foot Locker and there's a white woman working in there. You know what I'm saying? Like.

[Louis C.K.]

And you're like, this is interesting.

[Theo Vaughn]

Yeah. I support. I'm here for it.

[Louis C.K.]

Last time I was in a Foot Locker, I bought these in a Foot Locker. Oatmeal colored New Balance. I got them in a Foot Locker in Salt Lake City.

[Theo Vaughn]

Oh, yeah.

[Louis C.K.]

And a young guy. I mean, I am really an old man when I'm in a retail situation. I'm just older, and. And this young guy helped me, and he took me through a few different ideas, and he let me try some different things. He took the stuffing out of the sneakers for me, set me up.

[Theo Vaughn]

Yeah.

[Louis C.K.]

And then I tried him on. He was patient while I walked around feeling like, what. What's this like, you know?

[Theo Vaughn]

Yeah.

[Louis C.K.]

He really, like. He was like my mom, like, shoe shopping with me.

[Theo Vaughn]

Oh, yeah.

[Louis C.K.]

And he was maybe 19, and I could tell he was kind of fidgeting, like, this guy's making me do a lot. But I bought the sneakers, and I did something that I think my dad used to do and that I used to do when I was. I don't know when, but I shook his hand at the end, just changed the money, and I said, thanks very much, and I shook his hand, and he was like, what the is this? Like, he didn't know what that was, but that used to be. It's like, you know, it's the proprietor. It's like, you're going to the haberdashery and you think, you know, good work. Yeah. Thanks for your help today.

[Theo Vaughn]

Appreciate that.

[Louis C.K.]

He was just like, what's being done with my arm right now?

[Theo Vaughn]

Yeah. It is crazy, though.

[Louis C.K.]

Yeah.

[Theo Vaughn]

That there will be a time soon, Louis, where people were like. So we used to take a guy's hand that you didn't know.

[Louis C.K.]

Yeah.

[Theo Vaughn]

And move it up and down. Used to pump it for two seconds.

[Louis C.K.]

Yeah. Yeah. Some people dap.

[Theo Vaughn]

Dap's okay. The handshake was for real. But then now people are nervous, too. I think when they're around other people. People have wet hands, and that is scaring a lot of people.

[Louis C.K.]

Well, when you shake hands, you take. You really connect because every finger has a different intention, and the thumb. And you grip someone with the perfect balance of like, I don't want to hurt you, but I want you to. I don't want to make you feel like you're here with me. I want to. You know what I mean?

[Theo Vaughn]

Yeah.

[Louis C.K.]

And then we're going to. I don't know what the shake is about, though.

[Theo Vaughn]

Yeah. Bring that up. Why did the hands shake after they touch? Yeah, I could see them touching.

[Louis C.K.]

You know, like, whenever they try to make movies about, like, Middle Ages or, like, you know, the places of lore, like Lord of the Rings or, like, the future, they always reinvent, like, they do, like, the clasp of the. You do this thing. But a handshake is a globally widespread brief greeting or parting tradition in which two people grasp. One, you do it.

[Theo Vaughn]

Two people Grasp one of each other's hands, and it is often accompanied by a brief up and down movement of the grasped hands. Customs surrounding handshakes are specific to cultures. The handshake may have originated in prehistory as a demonstration of peaceful intent, since it shows that the hand holds no weapon.

[Louis C.K.]

I like that.

[Theo Vaughn]

Another possibility is it originated as a symbolic gesture of mutual commitment to an oath or promise. One of the earliest known depictions of a handshake is an ancient Assyrian relief of the 9th century BC depicting the Assyrian king Shalmaneser the Third clasping the hand of the Babylonian king Marduk Zakir Shimi.

[Louis C.K.]

So there's a picture of that down there, right? Yeah. Two guys, two kings that were probably just fighting.

[Theo Vaughn]

And they said, hey, let's. Yeah, settle it.

[Louis C.K.]

I can't hurt you for this one second, right?

[Theo Vaughn]

No swords.

[Louis C.K.]

Yeah. Because I'm using my fighting hand. It's going to be punch with the left. It's going to be weird.

[Theo Vaughn]

That's a good point. Because they both have a staff in one hand that shows that they've been walking. The other hand would grab the sword.

[Louis C.K.]

Sword there. That's your sword hand.

[Theo Vaughn]

Yeah, brother.

[Louis C.K.]

You can get close to me. It's all right. You've got my hand, I've got yours, right?

[Theo Vaughn]

Or even Steven, bro.

[Louis C.K.]

So. But that gives. Bends me back to that eclipse. That racist eclipse.

[Theo Vaughn]

Yeah.

[Louis C.K.]

Because I saw the eclipse in Vermont.

[Theo Vaughn]

Up in Stowe, Vermont, or. Where were you?

[Louis C.K.]

In the center of Lake Champlain at the time. I was dating a woman who was very wonderful. We had it. We were together for about a year. We're not together now, but she sounded hot. She was. She was great. So we. We decided to. We wanted to see the eclipse totality, you know, like, there's certain places where there's like a line across America, like this diagonal line, and only if you stood in that line could you actually see the sun. Totally.

[Theo Vaughn]

Oh, okay.

[Louis C.K.]

So it's a real hot bed.

[Theo Vaughn]

It's a real hot bed for eclipsing.

[Louis C.K.]

Yes. It's where you see the actual. The. The moon totally cover the sun and you go into total darkness. It's called totality. Any other place you'd get a little. It's a little off and it's still basically daylight. Got it. And so we decided to go and. And I. I looked on that line, and the place that was best for where we were in New York was an island in the middle of Lake Champlain. And she's like, I have a cousin who lives on that island. It's like North Hero Island, I think it's called. And so we went there and it was kind of like a thing to get. We got. We were kind of just. We got there an hour before the eclipse started and we're seeing people scurrying to where they're gonna watch the eclipse. It was like the world was coming to an end. Folks were getting coolers with stuff and folks were, you know, everyone. And the closer we got, the more quiet the streets got. And now people were just sitting in lawn chairs all over Vermont, like, just like this, getting ready. And they all had these glasses on.

[Theo Vaughn]

Yeah.

[Louis C.K.]

And it was just like. And we're the only car. It was like as like an end of the world movie.

[Theo Vaughn]

Hell yeah.

[Louis C.K.]

And we get there and her cousins are all. They're all carrying big baggies of cigarettes because they buy their cigarettes at an Indian reservation where they don't sell them in boxes.

[Theo Vaughn]

They get a deal on them.

[Louis C.K.]

Yeah. They get a big. So they just walk around with a bag and just take and smoking. And these were great people. We were like, right in the right place. It's just a dead end road on an island in a Vermont, you know. And we went out into the middle, me and this woman, we went out into the middle of this field where and. And we could hear. So as the thing started and everything started going not black, but brown, there was this brown. The. The sun disappeared behind the moon and every bird fucking lost its mind. Every bird was like, what the fuck? Like you could hear every bird in its own language saying, bitch, this is fucked up shit. Like just screaming. And then people going, woo. And then everything was dark and cold, like really cold. And it was an incredibly moving thing. And I thought. And then I heard people. There was fireworks going off. And the feeling I had was. The immediate thought I had was, this is what the end of the world is going to feel like. The end of the world is going to be beautiful because it's going to bring everybody together because you can finally just forget it all. You can finally just go, it's you and me, brother. You know?

[Theo Vaughn]

Yeah. Make a sandwich.

[Louis C.K.]

Yeah. Let's just. We. Let's just. I got nothing against you. Like boxers. At the end of it, like just seconds ago I was. And now I just love you so much that everybody's gonna. That nothing that has ever happened is gonna matter at all.

[Theo Vaughn]

Like Warden Gotti, man.

[Louis C.K.]

Yes, Warden Gotti. Like just fine at the end, just going like, man, I loved struggling with you. I got to know you so well in fighting with you, I got. I saw your wounds. I saw how you hurt me. And. Oh, my God. And it's going to be this ultimate. Especially if we end it. Do you know what I mean?

[Theo Vaughn]

Yeah.

[Louis C.K.]

We're just going to be like you, you, you, you. Oh, thank God. Finally. Finally I got in close enough. And we're together now. And there's nothing. All that's left is this one second.

[Theo Vaughn]

Yeah.

[Louis C.K.]

Because I don't think that time is like. Like my sister asked me once, are you afraid when you die it's not gonna feel like it was long enough. Are you afraid when you die you're gonna feel like that wasn't enough life?

[Theo Vaughn]

Yes.

[Louis C.K.]

Are you?

[Theo Vaughn]

I think so.

[Louis C.K.]

I'm not anymore. Because when I get a full moment of living, like when I feel open bore, fucking, you know, aperture 0.08, that feels so good. I feel like that's it. I got it. You know what I mean?

[Theo Vaughn]

Like when you get a real moment of existence.

[Louis C.K.]

Yeah. I'm like, that's enough.

[Theo Vaughn]

Right? Like, it can be. And those moments can happen in all types of ways.

[Louis C.K.]

All types of ways.

[Theo Vaughn]

Yeah.

[Louis C.K.]

Sometimes it's just hugging a kid.

[Theo Vaughn]

Sometimes it's seeing a parent, you know, wipe a kid's cheek or something.

[Louis C.K.]

Sometimes it's standing on a subway platform and seeing somebody's phone is next to the track and going like, no.

[Theo Vaughn]

Yeah.

[Louis C.K.]

Like I see life now.

[Theo Vaughn]

There's so much in that one thing.

[Louis C.K.]

So shitty.

[Theo Vaughn]

Sometimes it's reading that sentence by Flannery in that. Flannery.

[Louis C.K.]

Yeah. Sometimes it's that, but sometimes it's just the dumb little.

[Theo Vaughn]

Oh, yeah.

[Louis C.K.]

Just seeing somebody in their dumb little thing.

[Theo Vaughn]

Seeing one shoe on the interstate.

[Louis C.K.]

Yeah. Just one.

[Theo Vaughn]

That's not me.

[Louis C.K.]

And then driving by the next day and it's not there anymore.

[Theo Vaughn]

Oh, yeah.

[Louis C.K.]

Yeah.

[Theo Vaughn]

And you got it on. And then you're like, oh, yeah, it's getting good. Oh. But yeah. Some people used to think the eclipse was just a time when you could use racial slurs. And it didn't.

[Louis C.K.]

That's right, it didn't. But somebody heard it. Yeah, but still now a lot of people heard it.

[Theo Vaughn]

Oh, yeah. But there is little moments. You're like, yeah, that's life.

[Louis C.K.]

Yeah. So I don't know. I think it's enough. I'd really ambitious to live more. I love it. I'm gonna really love living a lot.

[Theo Vaughn]

Really?

[Louis C.K.]

Yeah.

[Theo Vaughn]

Do you remember we went to Chris Rock's birthday together? You took me there.

[Louis C.K.]

It was an incredible night.

[Theo Vaughn]

That was so. First we went for Italian food.

[Louis C.K.]

That Night had. Had no right to be that great.

[Theo Vaughn]

Oh, we were.

[Louis C.K.]

All we did was go to an Italian restaurant.

[Theo Vaughn]

Yeah.

[Louis C.K.]

And go to birthday party.

[Theo Vaughn]

Yeah. And we say that. Went to his birthday party or not. It's okay.

[Louis C.K.]

It wasn't private.

[Theo Vaughn]

Yeah.

[Louis C.K.]

It was a big party. Madonna was there.

[Theo Vaughn]

Yeah.

[Louis C.K.]

I think we can. I think we can say that we were there.

[Theo Vaughn]

Yeah. Yeah. We felt like misfits, remember?

[Louis C.K.]

Yeah, yeah. We were like, this is weird because it was super, super famous people. It was. And yet the center of attention, Chris is. Was like my best friend.

[Theo Vaughn]

So.

[Louis C.K.]

But I. But it was like, this is not. I don't belong here.

[Theo Vaughn]

And I didn't belong there, neither one. So we were just like a pair.

[Louis C.K.]

Yeah.

[Theo Vaughn]

Yeah.

[Louis C.K.]

I was like. I was an outcast and you were a. Not let in.

[Theo Vaughn]

Yeah.

[Louis C.K.]

At the same party.

[Theo Vaughn]

Yeah. So we just had each other. Dude. There was so much fun.

[Louis C.K.]

And we were just standing in the corner, just going, this is so weird. And looking at all the famous people there and. And then Chris went up and he said. He took a microphone and he said, I feel like my life must have been good because I got all these. Cause all these people here and especially the comedians who came to see me. And he said, Theo Vaughn. And Louis. Louis brought Theo here. It was like the first thing out of his mouth was that I brought you there and how much that meant to him. And he said it, like three or four times.

[Theo Vaughn]

It was interesting. I couldn't believe any more.

[Louis C.K.]

More to him than all these other, like, big shots. It was like, really, you know, And I hope that's okay for me to share, but.

[Theo Vaughn]

But no, I think it is. I mean, I think it just showed that he was happy that you were there, you know, and that you were there. Oh, I couldn't believe that he said my name. But it was also just that, like. Yeah. It was just so funny that we were there. We felt uncomfortable, and that he made it so we didn't feel uncomfortable.

[Louis C.K.]

That's right.

[Theo Vaughn]

That's what I mean.

[Louis C.K.]

Yeah. But you know, Theo, you're like a bridge, you know, as a person. That's the way I think about you.

[Theo Vaughn]

Yeah.

[Louis C.K.]

Yeah. Because when I first saw you is because you invited me to be on here three years ago. Something like that.

[Theo Vaughn]

Yeah. 2002. 2022. Three or four years ago.

[Louis C.K.]

And somebody said, this guy wants you on a podcast. I wasn't. I hadn't done any interviews for a long time, and then I was just coming out to do interviews for the first time. I was pushing a special. Whatever I was doing. And I saw a little clip of you, and I was like. And I. I'm as bigoted as anybody.

[Theo Vaughn]

Oh, yeah.

[Louis C.K.]

So I was like, mullet red state, I don't know, fucking Southern, you know?

[Theo Vaughn]

Yeah.

[Louis C.K.]

Mud flap fucking. Yeah.

[Theo Vaughn]

Yeah.

[Louis C.K.]

And without contempt, because I love every kind of American. So I was just like, but. But you reached out with, like, we'd really like to have him on. And I was like, wow, just meet somebody new. Meet somebody new. And then I went and listened to your standup, and I just couldn't believe how funny it was to me and how inventive and how beautiful. Like, just really eloquent and funny. Fucking shit had me laughing so hard. And then we sat down and talked and I never met anybody like you. I never met anybody that had such sort of open sensitivity and such honesty. And you're ambidextrous. You run all over the. You can be loved by anybody who's willing, you know? And I've gotten to know you. You're beautiful. I love you, man. You're a great guy. And. And you're an example of. When somebody brings people together, folks get a little scared of them, you know, there's nothing. You're just willing. You're just. You know what I mean? You'll listen to anybody. It's the way I feel. But you're, like, a really important guy in the world to me.

[Theo Vaughn]

Thanks.

[Louis C.K.]

I think.

[Theo Vaughn]

Yeah. Well. Well, thank you, dude. That's nice of you. Yeah. I couldn't believe that. Yeah. I just appreciated you bringing me over there. It's been fun to walk, like, become friends and, like, you know, like, be able to talk to. It's like. Yeah. I don't know. You just. You're able to. To think without a lot of judgment of yourself. And I think that a lot. It gives us so much information. Not a lot of people were like. I don't know if it's bravery if you're just missing a governor inside of yourself.

[Louis C.K.]

Right.

[Theo Vaughn]

That needs to be.

[Louis C.K.]

Well, we have something in common, you and me, because we're. We're born very different parts of the world, different lives, but we both are broke in the same way. We both have the same problem.

[Theo Vaughn]

Oh, yeah.

[Louis C.K.]

And when you have that, that's like a language barrier crosser, you know what I mean?

[Theo Vaughn]

It really is.

[Louis C.K.]

You just go like, oh, I get you. I get. I've seen this, man.

[Theo Vaughn]

I've seen it, believe me. Really?

[Louis C.K.]

You see it? Oh, yeah, I know. I see it, man. So. And you've helped me A lot. You've been very kind to me and helped me a lot in ways I needed. And you're younger than me, but I, you know, you've kind of given me guidance and helped me, but. But that's the thing that makes people the closest, is that is their common. Like, you were fucked up the same way.

[Theo Vaughn]

Yeah. Oh, yeah. You're fucked up. I'm fucked up. Yeah.

[Louis C.K.]

Yeah, yeah. Thank God. Thank God you're fucked up.

[Theo Vaughn]

Oh, yeah.

[Louis C.K.]

Because if I had to look at you and think that you weren't fucked up like me, it would just break my heart.

[Theo Vaughn]

Yeah, dude.

[Louis C.K.]

You know.

[Theo Vaughn]

Dude. Yeah. I think when. Yeah. Like, there was one time you said, oh, because you've been through. You'd been through, like, a lot of, like, stuff in your career. You'd had, like, you know, this is when things had gotten kind of crazy in your career with accusations and all types of stuff and.

[Louis C.K.]

Yeah.

[Theo Vaughn]

And. And accurate accusations.

[Louis C.K.]

Accurate accusations and whatever.

[Theo Vaughn]

Yeah.

[Louis C.K.]

Yeah.

[Theo Vaughn]

But. But you said, man, I feel so free. And there was something about that. To me, I think about that once a week.

[Louis C.K.]

Yeah.

[Theo Vaughn]

Because I think about just, like, the little pieces of ourselves that we. Like that we try to manage and operate, and we don't even know what they are, and we don't even know why they're in pieces.

[Louis C.K.]

Yeah.

[Theo Vaughn]

It's like trying to put a. Like a. Some glass together so you can get a clear reflection of yourself.

[Louis C.K.]

Huh.

[Theo Vaughn]

And it's just like, how did this. I didn't even break this. And I'm just so tired of cutting my fingers, trying to get a look at myself.

[Louis C.K.]

Yeah.

[Theo Vaughn]

You know, trying to piece together that.

[Louis C.K.]

Broken mirror and cutting your fingers. That's beautiful. It's true. And when the. When life fucks it up for you, when it gets torn up, it's a relief. That's why I felt free, you know?

[Theo Vaughn]

Yeah.

[Louis C.K.]

Because I had. I had tried to manage these problems I had inside of me for so many years. And I tried to. To feel like I was like a normal person.

[Theo Vaughn]

Yeah.

[Louis C.K.]

Or that I was, like, what I thought of as a good person. But I was doing shit in the background in my life that I was ashamed of. I was hurting other people and trying to tell myself I wasn't. And, you know, those things on the edge, like using another person, but you got their permission first. You're still using another person. You're not being with them, you're using them.

[Theo Vaughn]

Right.

[Louis C.K.]

That took me a long time to learn about that stuff. But when you're doing that stuff and creating more and more problems, they just keep getting bigger and bigger. And then the worst thing is if you're having a good life that's successful because you're feeling this like incredible rift between like the way you're representing yourself and who you really are. And it's getting really. And I used to try, I think some of the early versions of talking on stage really honestly were me trying to get out and say I'm, I'm not, I'm. I'm corrupt. I want everybody to know it.

[Theo Vaughn]

Right? I'm a corrupt file.

[Louis C.K.]

Yeah. And a corrupt file. Yeah. And. But all of that is like you can't manage it. And so when you're in front of the world and that's going on inside of you, it's just like real, it's real hell. And so when it, and also when you are successful because we live in America and there's like you're taught it's a work, working community, like you got to succeed. So when you're succeeding, you believe it's a perfect good. Everything you're getting is important, right? You're getting stature, you're getting work, you're getting money, importance. People are saying good things about you. These things. You just believe that after a while you need those things anyway. When life comes along and just fucking. By the grace of my own fucking mistakes, my own fuck ups, they all came back and took everything away from me. And it was the most thing I was most afraid of in the whole world. And it happened. The scariest possible thing. And it happened. Now people know about me. They know, they deeply know. And not perfectly either, you know what I mean? Because it's fantastical. Fame world. So they hear their own version and I'm sitting there going like, wait, no, it's not quite like that. And all the, it's like the worst thing that could happen happens.

[Theo Vaughn]

Yeah.

[Louis C.K.]

And you lose everything you were working for. And you, the people you hurt, everybody knows about it now. And also people who love you are hurt by it. I hurt a lot of people who love me by, by mismanaging that and letting and, and willfully becoming big enough as a famous person that the, that the downfall hurt a lot of people, people I love. So it was like unbearable.

[Theo Vaughn]

And you remember me saying on stage one time and I'll let you finish your thought. Am I messing up by interrupting you?

[Louis C.K.]

Go ahead, go.

[Theo Vaughn]

There was, I remember you saying one time I was trying to find a flight to somewhere, but every flight was landed on earth. It was all places to other places on Earth.

[Louis C.K.]

Yeah.

[Theo Vaughn]

And it was so unmanageable.

[Louis C.K.]

Yeah, there was no. I didn't feel safe anywhere in the world. And I was full of a lot of self pity. I was full of a lot of anger too. And also I just didn't feel safe in the world. Like I also didn't feel safe inside my own head anymore. And it was kind of like, fuck, that's craziest. That's the hardest thing. You can kind of handle anything except for the inside of your own head. When that gets. Because I live in a world where, like I said before, people coalesce, they come together and that's our strength. So when you get dejected, love for yourself becomes antisocial. Do you know what I mean? Like sitting there going like, I'm a good person. And most people's mistakes, when people get fucked up the way that I had, it's because of slow self esteem problem to begin with. So you just can't.

[Theo Vaughn]

It's just can them. Yeah, it's like, yeah, you're just sitting.

[Louis C.K.]

There and you're trying to like feel something good about yourself. It's difficult. And so it was just very overwhelming. And. But the losses that I, like, I had spent, like, I don't know, I was, I wasn't like an overnight success, you know. I was in my 40s when I got really famous and I built to it very gradually. I worked really hard, I learned a lot. I got at my own TV show because I'd learned how to make a TV show from the ground up. Like I was a cameraman at a local access cable station. And then now I was a director and star. And I'd met so many people and had so many affiliations and a tapestry of a life, a career. And I remember thinking of it like all like tentacles coming off the back of my head, connecting me with the world. And when this thing happened, it was like someone twisted all of them into like a braid and put their foot on the back of my head and just pulled out all the wires and all of a sudden I had no, nobody likes me. Nobody. Everybody. You know, I can't talk to nobody. Nobody can. Everybody's afraid of me. And I was just spinning. It was really wild. But now I look at that, that thing as like a beautiful thing. It's like I look at that as like God's hands, you know, or whatever you want to call it. That, that was just like a good caring thing that said, dude, you need to stop.

[Theo Vaughn]

Yeah, you gotta be detached.

[Louis C.K.]

You need to stop. You need out of all the this and that's for me was great. Not for other people in my life. Some people it was hard for them.

[Theo Vaughn]

Oh yeah. I can have certainly imagine that. Yeah. I think it's scary. I think having like a different. Yeah, I mean I. I mean I've run it like I've had a lot of the same issues in my life with just like affection and those sorts of things and trying to like never having like any coaching on that and just having severe like. And then you start to figure it out all yourself and you make these crazy like. Like this crazy tetris of what it's all supposed to be and how love is and like. And then it's also like I'd be a like. But my low self worth. I was always trying to fill it with like things that weren't re. Just. Just impossibility. And then I mean for me I got into watching porn and that became this crazy space.

[Louis C.K.]

It's like never ending thing.

[Theo Vaughn]

I missed my 20s because I was watching, you know, same.

[Louis C.K.]

I was a young kid like really obsessed with stuff that put me in a dark room when I should have been out in the sunlight.

[Theo Vaughn]

Yeah.

[Louis C.K.]

And it twisted around my. And it was. That was all behind this thing of wanting. Just wanting someone lovely and female to look at me and. And tell me I'm okay.

[Theo Vaughn]

Oh yeah.

[Louis C.K.]

And tell me that I'm acceptable and even more so and lovable. And I got. I had such a strange twisted trip to that moment that I never really quite learned it. And that's my shit. But those things when you're a kid, they're pain. And then when you get to be a grown up with a life and you have effect on other people, it starts becoming a problem for other people. But I think that if I hadn't lost all of that it just would have gotten worse. Because that's why I felt free when I said that to you. Because I could see the real shape of the world and I could see that nothing I had that you can't take anything away from me that's really mine. And that I realized I didn't have much that was worth having. I had my family and that's private. That's a different thing for me. But I realized I need to start making a real treasure chest that has.

[Theo Vaughn]

Shit in it that's valuable.

[Louis C.K.]

That's valuable. I need to stop thinking about why these people turn their backs on me and ask myself, yeah, why did they? Were you a good friend to them? Who are you useful to in this World, that's where I started, was when I wanted to try to reach out and feel less isolated, was, who can I be of use to? And I started to try to. But what was easy to let go of was like, fame, money and connection and red carpets. That was easy. That was easy. I don't want that back.

[Theo Vaughn]

Yeah. Oh, it seems like a fucking nightmare.

[Louis C.K.]

It's shit. It's nothing. Work is different and what we do is public. So it's like the hard thing was like, I wished I was a carpenter. I could just start making chairs again. I love stand up comedy. I love it. It's my life. I love it so much, and it's given me so much. And the other thing that happened too, was that when a hard thing that happens to you, that feels like an all encompassing thing when you live with it every day you go to sleep going, I can't do this. I went to sleep many nights going, my days are numbered. I just can't handle this. This is more than I can handle. But then I wake up the next day and I go, all right, I'm still here. It's still here. It's like a siren's blaring and it's not stopping. And at some point you just gotta make coffee and talk a little louder or whatever. You gotta, you know, it was like, all right, this is life now.

[Theo Vaughn]

Yeah.

[Louis C.K.]

And I started to have to look at it and go, like, well, everybody doesn't hate me. It's just not true.

[Theo Vaughn]

No.

[Louis C.K.]

And there's people that love me and they're reaching out to me and I should. I should take their hand. I shouldn't just sit there and be a little victim, you know? And so after, like, what felt like a terribly long time of just feeling hated by everybody, I started seeing people coming up in the street and saying, where are you? Where are you? Where are you? We're, you know, we. We want to see you. And I thought, I want to start working again. To me, work was like the thing. I love it. I know I have value there. So I started working again, and then it was really hard because I lost a lot of friends for starting again. And that's crazy to me. It was. Well, it was. Everyone was. I used to react to all of this with a lot of anger and confusion, but I started to do psychedelic drug therapy and see that everyone was acting in their own needs and everyone is doing what they need to do. And life is really hard for everybody. It's really hard. And these times have been really hard for everybody. The thing that ripped my life in half had been ripping lives around all over the world and everybody was dealing. And some people were so scared that what happened to me would happen to them. And, you know, it was a lot of stuff going on, so I had to see that.

[Theo Vaughn]

Right?

[Louis C.K.]

And. But I also saw that a lot of people that now knew about me were like, what do you got? And I thought, I'm willing and I'll get. I was getting shit for trying again. But I'm like, that's okay. It's okay. I don't. My, my rule with that whole thing now is I don't take part in it and I don't interfere with it. There is a thing about me. I became a symbol for something which is on me because I made a trillion carbon copies of myself and threw them out of a helicopter and said, think whatever you want about me. So when people started to think bad things about me, that's how they use this image. And that's. I can't go around the world and fix that. I can't make people that are mad at me not mad at me anymore. I can't, like, I can't confront this thing on a global level because I'm not a globe. I'm one guy. And trying to live that way was what got me in trouble in the first place. And the damage is done and I can't fix that. But what I can do is be a good man to my friends on a one to one. I can shake one hand at a time. I can be a good father and I can take care of myself. I can constantly try to revise what I think is right and wrong, not depend on it, but just keep asking myself because I thought I was a good guy and a lot of moments where I wasn't and I have to go back and go, that wasn't okay. And try to make amends when I get an opportunity. And it was really confusing to do all that. And then you can cut it out if you don't want it set on the air. But you, you told me about this program, you told me about SLA and about a 12 step approach to what I was suffering from.

[Theo Vaughn]

Yeah, I was so amazed that you didn't have some of the familiarity with it.

[Louis C.K.]

I never heard of it and I didn't think it was for me at all. You told me about it and I was like, yeah, that's not for me. And you become such a role model.

[Theo Vaughn]

To me through that program, man, you've become like somebody that, like, when you talk, I listen. When you want to know how I feel. I know you mean it, you know, when you, like, yeah, man. I mean, you've become, like, just a real role model to me, you know? You've become somebody that I. I aspire to be able to get through some of the problems that I have. Because I've seen you get through them, man. You know?

[Louis C.K.]

Well, look at that, Theo. Because you brought me into this shit. So it's like you. If you. If you reach out to somebody that's on the outside and take their hand and pull them in, they can end up teaching you something. And it's the same for me because, like. Like, when we were. I loved having you as a. I wouldn't have gone into it if I didn't know somebody. And then, by the way you took me behind this curtain, I was like, I know a bunch of these guys. I had no idea, but I remember, like, I mean, to get a specific for a second, there was one point in my life where, during. When I got into this program where I was, like, in what we call withdrawal. So I was like, this crazy idea to me. Don't have sexual release for several months in a row. What? Like, I mean, since I first came clear liquid, I've done it every day, you know?

[Theo Vaughn]

Yeah.

[Louis C.K.]

And then what that did to the relationships of my life and my inability to feel real feelings, and then the. The kind of reckless behavior and the things I did with other people that came out. But there was a point where I was like, okay, so just don't, like, don't at all. And the thing I loved about. It's like, a time that's so important.

[Theo Vaughn]

I remember when you were doing that, I was like, dang.

[Louis C.K.]

Yeah. Because I would call you, this dude's going deep. Yeah. And you're like, how long's it been? And I'd say, like, two months since I jerked off. And you would go, what's it like out there, man? And when you said that, like, I think about that all the time. What's it like out there, man? It was like, I'm an astronaut who cut from the court, and I'm just out. And that's what it started to feel like. I got out of the gravitational pull. I got out of this cycle. Because every time you want something and you get it, you just go back to square one. You keep going back to just, oh, that's.

[Theo Vaughn]

My cycle has just been, like, for years. I was texting women, right? And, like, let's meet up sometime. And we would Never meet up. Right. And it got to a certain point, in certain years, I didn't even know if we knew who each other were anymore.

[Louis C.K.]

Right.

[Theo Vaughn]

But we would both. I mean, almost every day. Should we meet up this week?

[Louis C.K.]

Yeah.

[Theo Vaughn]

I mean, for years, but just little moments of trying to get approval, right?

[Louis C.K.]

Yes.

[Theo Vaughn]

And then going back to, like. And the group isn't like, everybody's not like, everybody may. Maybe people have some perversion stuff, but a lot of it's just like, kind of pornography, intimacy disorders, like, inability to connect. It's not like.

[Louis C.K.]

Well, it's huge. When you do the steps, you learn what. How you got to where you are, and you learn what. What in your history made you this way.

[Theo Vaughn]

Yeah.

[Louis C.K.]

And you get some guidelines for trying to undo it. And the thing about going through withdrawal is that by not pressing the reset button, you go to a new place every day. Every day you don't do it, you're in a new place. You feel new feelings. And I started realizing that my feelings, my actual emotions, were coming online for the first time, really, in my life. And. And I saw everything really differently. And I saw that everything that had happened with me was because of me. And by the way, that's great news because that means you could do something about it, right. And that everyone else is doing what they have to do. And so I had to start, like, being a man about it. And I can't prove that to the world. I can't do a big gesture. I can just do it in my private life. I can talk to you about it. People can see this, whatever. You know, I have mixed feelings about this. Scares the shit out of me to talk about it. Yeah, but. And that had its own thing. Like, I kept thinking, I have to fix this. I have to fix this reputation. I have to go back to where people have at least a neutral feeling about me. And I realized I just can't. I just can't. And also for some people, the kind of people I probably would want to know, it's happened naturally, right?

[Theo Vaughn]

And, dude, I was shocked whenever we would hang out that you. You thought so many people thought that you were like. Like such a pariah or something. I was like, dude, Louie, like, people care, but they don't care that way.

[Louis C.K.]

Yeah, no, I'm the last one who gives a right.

[Theo Vaughn]

And not even in a bad way, but, like.

[Louis C.K.]

Yeah, no, I know.

[Theo Vaughn]

Didn't even seem like that bad of a guy. You know what I'm saying?

[Louis C.K.]

Like, well, I don't know. Some.

[Theo Vaughn]

For some people, I am now that's a good point.

[Louis C.K.]

But, but those. No, it's okay, those. For, for some people, I'm. There's a, There's.

[Theo Vaughn]

Yeah, you're a boogeyman.

[Louis C.K.]

And that's the way that is. And it's like if I did a movie for Marvel and now I'm on a McDonald's cup you can still get. And I can't. I made the movie, I did that. And maybe it's good for those people in some way. I don't know. And I don't like the way it affects people in my life and my family. That's hard. That's what I still carry and I can't. But I'm responsible for it. That's the thing. And what it helps me. My past and the way it's still present in the air around me helps me because my life was completely unmanageable and I had no power to change it. And now I've changed it hugely. My life is so different now. I have real love in my life and. But I need to remember, like where I was, you know, And I also need to remember what is important, you know, so, so I'm, you know, and I'm writing, I'm writing novels because I, I don't jerk off every 15 minutes. That's really all it is. And I don't look, I don't look at the phone because for a long time the phone was a gun pointing directly at my face. So I completely extricated myself from social media and from scrolling. I haven't scrolled in. I mean, it's a, it's a guilty pleasure. About once every month I'll go and look. But the chronic looking, I had to. It would have killed me to keep looking at it. So I got, I'm so lucky what happened to me because of the, what I was ejected out of and also the culture. Since this happened with me in 2017, the world has gone completely insane. And I've just been watching like, I haven't had to comment about it, I haven't had to pick a side. Yeah, I've just been sitting back going like, wow, you guys are. I mean, like I'm on the bottom of the sea, but I look up and I see, you know, like there's a, there's still a full on fucking Battleship Royale up there. And once in a once in a while I see a body, like a blue body float down and I'm like, hey, man, I remember you. And he's like, hey. And we're all collecting and there's more people down here now than there was up there. And it's quiet down here. Oh, you know, and there's fish and stuff. Yeah, yeah. It's all right.

[Theo Vaughn]

Yeah, it is, dude. It is like, I don't know, having a support group and being in a. Like, being able to go to meetings and share what's going on. Listen to somebody else say something that has unlocked something in you that you never could have unlocked.

[Louis C.K.]

Yeah, it's huge. It's beautiful.

[Theo Vaughn]

Yeah. I mean, yeah, it's unbelievable. It's like you could spend the rest of your life trying to figure that out, and then suddenly somebody just helped you get to a new place.

[Louis C.K.]

One thing I love about meetings is, like, you know, there's like this structure to these meetings, like in any other 12 step program where you get three minutes to share. Right. And the regiment of that, it's, like, perfect. It's kind of like the way baseball is perfect. Like someone figured out just the right amount of feet to make that, you know, that the throat of first is always close.

[Theo Vaughn]

Yeah.

[Louis C.K.]

12 step meetings have, like, this perfect. This three minutes. And there's a spiritual timekeeper, a guy who just says, when you're one minute away from finishing. Yeah, it says one minute. And you acknowledge it, you know. Thank you. One minute. Right. There's that thing. But in two minutes, you can get really lost in what a guy's saying. And you get to have this moment where, like, a guy's going, like, you know, I keep lighter fluid under my pillow because of the days that my father used to come to my room and I'd want to burn him alive. Thank you. One minute. And I like these little interruptions and. Because it reminds you, yeah, you're in your shit, but. Right, wrap it up. There's other guys waiting to talk, and the world's going around and it's, you know, that was a long time ago, man. Get over it on some level. Glad you're sharing it. But you only get three minutes, you know?

[Theo Vaughn]

Yeah, dude, it's Monday, brother. Yeah, that sounds like a Thursday show.

[Louis C.K.]

Yeah. I need to check in some about what I did today, you know?

[Theo Vaughn]

Oh, dude. Yeah. Even things like. I mean, I was looking at pornography the other day, just being able to, like, text somebody and say that to him, you know, just like. And then just like, how many times do I want to go back to this feeling of after I look at pornography, I just feel, like, empty, you know, Or I just don't feel like myself the next day. That's Been the biggest thing that helped change it for me is like. Like noticing that, like, the next day I don't feel like myself. I feel like I'm a little scattered. I feel like I still need to recover from something. I still need to, like. Like, put my aura back together a little bit.

[Louis C.K.]

Yeah, because you ran away into pornography. So when you. When you. You feel, you get. It's like you froze yourself.

[Theo Vaughn]

Yeah.

[Louis C.K.]

And the next day you start to thaw, and that's uncomfortable. It's like feeling your leg coming back to, you know, after falling asleep.

[Theo Vaughn]

Yeah, it's.

[Louis C.K.]

It's tingles and it's bad. It's a bad feeling. You want to be in one or the other, you know, so it is. It's hard. The hard thing about being in recovery from addiction. Something like what we have is that you can look at something like pornography, but it's. You're aware now, so, you know there's.

[Theo Vaughn]

A cost to it.

[Louis C.K.]

Yeah, you know, there's a cost. But that's. But thank God, because you get so much of life back and being able to tell another guy, like, I'm. I'm doing this because there's a lot of shame involved with sex and love addiction. Like, all this kind of thing. It's. When you tell somebody, I'm an alcoholic, people have a lot of sympathy for that. Yeah, this one's a little tougher. So you really need the group because these are a bunch of guys who get it. And so when you tell them, I'm struggling not to do this. The genius of that is just that someone else knows it now. That's all that. It's too much for you to carry. At some point, for anybody who's an addict or not, life got to be too much to handle. It just was overwhelming. So you found a way to shift away from it, and thank God you did. Like, thank God I had that. When I was a kid. I don't think I could have handled life without this thing that was right there to soothe me.

[Theo Vaughn]

Yeah. If I didn't have that thing, I mean, I found pornography, and then I would write. When I would get home, I would go. I would look at pornography and stuff like that because it was a way to make myself feel good. It was like I felt so horrible, you know, I didn't even know I felt so horrible about myself. I just felt like a cavern, you know? I felt like. I mean, I felt embarrassed. Like, I didn't even want to impose myself on people because I didn't. I don't Know, I just. Nobody had time for me, Right. And so it made me think that I wasn't worth people's time. So I always just felt like I just couldn't say what I needed to say. I just didn't want to waste your time. I didn't want to remember that feeling because you would see that I was a waste. Like, yeah, if I could just.

[Louis C.K.]

How old were you?

[Theo Vaughn]

Probably 10, 11.

[Louis C.K.]

I mean, imagine a 10 year old kid, like, look at a 10 year old kid's face and imagine that he feels like a cavern inside. That's a hard thing to carry. And so you take on this thing that helps you just simplify life, right? I do this. I. I search, I search, I push, I push, I get to ecstasy. I'm calm, right?

[Theo Vaughn]

And then it's homeostasis, it regulates me.

[Louis C.K.]

It's just regulating, right. And when you, if you're exposed to sex early in life, which I was in a way that was. Yeah, you get, you. That's it, that's it. That's what you got. And then later in life when your feelings are supposed to be developing, they're. They're still under this muffled thing, so they're not developing properly. And you. And you're ashamed of what you're doing.

[Theo Vaughn]

Yeah.

[Louis C.K.]

But when you. The thing about a fellowship, it's just so simple. It's not God, it's not something that's better than you. It's a bunch of guys who just have the same problem and you're able to just go, you know, I'm having this problem. They go, yeah, I get it. They don't give you a solution. They just go, I know it too now. And you go, like, now I got two souls to carry this problem and I'm there for him when he needs that.

[Theo Vaughn]

Yeah.

[Louis C.K.]

And that just makes it a tiny bit easier so that you can go to the alternative, which is, why do I do this thing? It's because I feel like a cavern. And the detaching from the behavior and stopping the thing I couldn't stop doing gave me the opportunity to go, what's in that cave? What's in that? Is there something in that that's worthwhile? How bad is it? What's wrong with the cave? Is it that I'm alone in there? Am I alone in there? It gave me the courage to sit in the cave alone and take a look around and go like, with the flashlight, man. There's like crystals on the right roof. It's cool in here, you know, how did I get in here there is a. There's a little. There's a little door. Where does that go? And starting to really be okay with. I'm just here, I'm in here. And then a feeling comes that the kind of things I used to run from, you know, like deep sadness, I miss my mom. Something like that. That I want to just have it. I just want to have it now. I just want to have it. And I've got a new habit which is that when I get that. Huh. That used to lead to an addictive moment when I get that. Ah. I know that if I pull away from it, it gets worse. It actually only hurts if I pull away. But if I get up to it and I go, what do you got? And I see colors and I see beautiful things, you know? And that's the potential is to. Is to welcome every feeling and then you don't want out. And I love my life so much now that the last thing I want to do is gray it out.

[Theo Vaughn]

I know.

[Louis C.K.]

With a kind of chronic sexual half release fake thing. Watching a sad person on a video in a weirdly lit room. And I'm in it. I just don't.

[Theo Vaughn]

Come on, buddy. And I don't even know who I'm cheering for. Someone's in pornography. Yeah. That's crazy.

[Louis C.K.]

Yeah. Which team are you on? Yeah.

[Theo Vaughn]

Yeah. And you're like, ty, let's just have a tie.

[Louis C.K.]

Yeah.

[Theo Vaughn]

But. Oh, dude. Yeah, it's like, oh, that sedative. And it was a full body sedative. But yeah, I would. Yeah. I didn't have marred really my ability to make a lot of connections because like I'll even notice still in my life and I still have. I still need to go through my steps again. I need to check in with my sponsor today. But like if I'm. If I'm face to face with a woman and they say something nice about me, I can't stay there for a second.

[Louis C.K.]

Really.

[Theo Vaughn]

I cannot like even a woman looking at me, really.

[Louis C.K.]

I just.

[Theo Vaughn]

I can't eat. I just have to.

[Louis C.K.]

What happens? What's. What makes you run away from me?

[Theo Vaughn]

Like, it, like inside of me, it feels like. It almost feels like a dirty electricity.

[Louis C.K.]

Yeah.

[Theo Vaughn]

Comes inside of me. That's. Or just like shows up at the front of me.

[Louis C.K.]

It's a power. It's a weird electronic. It really is like touching a third rail.

[Theo Vaughn]

Yeah.

[Louis C.K.]

Love and sex are both extremely powerful and they ain't all good. It's what I learned after like months of not jerking off. And then I decided I talked to my sponsors. Like, it's time to try.

[Theo Vaughn]

Oh, yeah, I remember that big weekend. We were all excited. I think I bought one of those Amish fireplaces just so I could just feel some of the distance out there. But weren't you out of town? Weren't you?

[Louis C.K.]

Yeah, some.

[Theo Vaughn]

Somebody had to be in New York somewhere, weren't you?

[Louis C.K.]

You had to be in the totality of my first jerk off. Like, you had to be in that one stripe. That's right. In the island. I was out in Shelter island. And I said, okay, you're gonna visit this, and you're not doing this for pleasure. You're doing this to visit. You're gonna go to the country you left. And I did it. And it was like an electrical shock. It wasn't like this pure pleasure. And I realized that's what it's always been like. But I've been putting, like wet towels and asbestos and shit over my whole life so that I could barely feel it. So I had to really, really rub hard and with the most penetrating, fucked up thoughts in order to find it. And I've been doing it since I was a kid. And I'm like, I can't believe I felt that as a kid. As a child. Wow, that's crazy, because I really felt its raw strength again. And I said, I don't. My little conversation I have in my head with this presence I call Wally, it's just my own thing. And I said, after I did it, after I came, I said, that's no joke. And Wally said, no, it's not. And I said, I think I need some rules. I should not go there alone very often, and I should never go there with somebody who I don't trust. And Wally says, that sounds smart, kid. And that's what I've been living by. I've been respecting sex as a very hot fire that's beyond electricity. Your feelings are. Your feelings are fires that you can sit by and warm yourself. But sex is electricity that you have to deal with with real discipline and thoughtfulness. And. And so is love. Because that's a two way thing. You got somebody else involved. And the other thing that the Steps did was looking at my life, looking at, really looking at it. And I was writing down my history of my sex life, you know, from. It was the first assignment I was given and I got to like, I've blown up my life like twice, really. And the first time I blew up my life, I looked at that moment, I was writing it, and I yelled onto the Paper. I said stop to myself, you gotta stop. And I felt this huge remorse because I realized I can't hear it. He can't hear it. That happened. I can't change it. Oh. But then I heard a voice say, please stop. And I realized it's my future self whose life kept getting wrecked. And he said, please stop. And I'm like, I can hear him. I can fucking hear that guy. And I can actually. I'm in this moment. But I thought, yeah, but I can't. I'm not strong enough. And I asked the universe to. I just said, somebody help me. Because I want to live. I want to really live my life. And that was a big moment for me. So that's powerful. I can hear that guy now saying, thank you, dude. And please keep it going because you could still like you. You have to keep going in this better direction. So that's all just from this stupid 12 step thing that you get. It's like a DMV fill out thing. Yeah, Anybody can do it. When you go to these SLA meetings, they're like on Zoom and stuff. There's like 100 dudes on every meeting.

[Theo Vaughn]

Yeah.

[Louis C.K.]

It's like. And a lot of it is young guys in like their 20s, some are 19, who can't. Who are addicted to porn.

[Theo Vaughn]

Yeah.

[Louis C.K.]

Because they were born into a world where they're being encouraged to go to their phone for love and acceptance and power and money. And that's where they find sex. And it's all addict. They've. They've turned every human endeavor into an addictive act. And these kids are so overwhelmed by it.

[Theo Vaughn]

Everything.

[Louis C.K.]

The most important ones.

[Theo Vaughn]

Well, one of, some of the things that I've learned are. I mean. Well, the crazy part is. So say I'm sitting there, I'm jerking off. And then there's some just because I'm jerking off on my phone. Some county out in. In Iowa is. They're losing water because they're having to run a data center.

[Louis C.K.]

That's right.

[Theo Vaughn]

That's flaring up a little icon.

[Louis C.K.]

That's right.

[Theo Vaughn]

So now some kid can't even take a hot shower because some other.

[Louis C.K.]

Because you just need a little 40.

[Theo Vaughn]

Year old kid won't stop jerking off in the distance. Oh, it's unbelievable. I mean, and here's one of the crazy things that we had a lady that came on who, who told us about pornhub and a lot of these sites, a lot of the content on there isn't even consensual.

[Louis C.K.]

Right. Of course.

[Theo Vaughn]

So now you Start to realize, oh, I'm jerking off to crime.

[Louis C.K.]

Yes.

[Theo Vaughn]

I'm jerking off to possible sexual crime. Like, they found, like 70% of it was non consensual. This lady, Lila Mickle Wade is her name. She came on, was fascinating to learn about it.

[Louis C.K.]

Yeah. And if you're jerking off to anything on that site, you're supporting that. Even if. Even if the thing you're watching isn't. Is consensual. It's. It's all the money's going into the same pot. It's financing this. That. Not consensual.

[Theo Vaughn]

And. And then also, one great thing about being in the program, and I've never really talked about it. This. I've talked about it with one other comedian on here, actually, is that there's. We have a buddy in the program named Steve, and he's awesome, and he runs a program called Valor. And this isn't really an advertisement for it, but we. We do free ads for the Valor on the. On the podcast. And. And it's a lot of young dudes in there. And, you know, and I'm in some of the meetings, and it's a lot of dudes in there who are just going to. Who are getting help.

[Louis C.K.]

Yeah. Because it's really hard to unlearn this. And it. And it does make you. It gets dangerous because it does make you an unthoughtful person. That's the way I got into the trouble that I got into because I wasn't stopping and thinking. I was, like, so blinded by what I wanted that I didn't. And I would just get this basic feeling of, like, this is okay. I would tell myself that, but I wasn't stopping and thinking. And I. I just have so many. You know, like when you're in a. If you have a power boat and you're pulling water skiers or people on a tube, that kind of boat has a elaborate system of ignition, you know what I mean? So that you don't chew somebody up with the propeller. So, like, when someone's in the water, you turn the ignition off, and when you turn the ignition on, it beeps really loud before you start the motor. And that's before you go in gear. You have all these movements before you're harming, and that gives everyone a chance. Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa.

[Theo Vaughn]

Right?

[Louis C.K.]

So I got all these beeps and triggers in my life now, like, especially if I'm looking at a moment of ecstasy, if I'm looking at something that's going to make me feel euphoric. I go, you might be being selfish right now. Like, that's an automatic thought to me now. Like, you might. Who's. Who is someone paying for this? Is someone looking like they're okay when they're not? Is somebody saying yes when it was tough for them to get there? Can you just wait a second? Can you cool off? Can you take a breath? Because you might be going too fast. You might be so desperate to get this moment that's going to give you that assuagement, that kind of like, I'm okay feeling that you're not thinking, you're not in. You're not in it. You're not in the room with somebody. You're not in the room with yourself, even. You're not. You're hurting yourself. You're using yourself.

[Theo Vaughn]

Oh, yeah.

[Louis C.K.]

So that's new for me. That's new and it's become an installed part of me. So, yeah, I just move slower and that life has a speed, and if you can get on the same track with it, you're okay. Like, the thing I get from, like, I. Every morning I look at the sky. I just look at the sky and, and the world and nature, and I just. The. The there. There's a message I keep getting, which is that you're meant to be here. You're designed to be here. You don't even have to look at it as like some conscious being made you. It's just that you're of this earth at this time.

[Theo Vaughn]

Yeah.

[Louis C.K.]

So chances are you match if you're willing to be in it, the way. As long as you're willing to be in reality, the way things really are, accepting what's not there. And because we're human, going for it a little, trying a little, trying to make things happen. I think that the universe, when we around to find out, goes like, huh. Nice. Yeah. Nice. Yeah. And so there's a little. There's an edge there that you want to be at where you're just like, I'm here. Which means I'm. I belong here. And I'll. Everything that happens will basically be okay with me if I really take it in as reality. And I don't try to just like, think my way out of it. But I'm a clever little fucking monkey and I want to try some shit too, you know, and it means I'll fall.

[Theo Vaughn]

Yeah.

[Louis C.K.]

You know, try, try to try to try Only as high as the fall won't break you. When you get up really, really crazy high in life, you're too high. Your Madison Square Garden and all this kind of crazy shit that I was doing. It's like the fall will kill you. And because it's not a human height, it's not human, and there's no oxygen up there, and there's no drag on your wings, and it's lonely, and it doesn't have. It's not affected by your feelings anymore. It's just this other thing. But when I went back to work and I was like, I'm doing clubs again. How's that going to feel? And I'm sitting in the funny bone in St. Louis, and the Coke. The machine that sends coke to the bar is. Is.

[Theo Vaughn]

Yeah.

[Louis C.K.]

Next to my head. And I'm sitting there, and there's a smell of chicken wings and pizza and I'm doing retail comedy when, you know, I was happy as fuck. I was so happy to be telling the jokes to people whose faces I could see and whose admission price is. Is. They're giving that to me as a. As a gift, and they're going home happy. And I got back to that level of comedy, and it was really beautiful. That's where I live now. I mean, I do the theaters because I'm still a pig. I still want. I still like it, but.

[Theo Vaughn]

Well, some of them are nice, too.

[Louis C.K.]

Some of them are nice with the Ryman and.

[Theo Vaughn]

Oh, yeah, Nashville.

[Louis C.K.]

Beautiful.

[Theo Vaughn]

I'm excited to come over there. Well, dude, I just knew. I came over your place, and you were making art, and you're sculpting and sending me stuff, and then you sat me down one time with a friend when I was over there, and she had made something. You were reviewing it, or she was reviewing a project you had made. It was an anime. It was like a. Some type of a cartoon. I believe it was a silent film.

[Louis C.K.]

Yeah, maybe. Yeah. It's a movie that I was starting to make, and we were making an animatic we're doing with charcoal.

[Theo Vaughn]

Yeah. It was just fascinating. Like, oh, this dude is a artist, man. And that's when I realized, oh, this guy really, like, he likes being an.

[Louis C.K.]

Artist, you know, it just feels good. It's just fun.

[Theo Vaughn]

Yeah.

[Louis C.K.]

And if you can share this stuff, it's great.

[Theo Vaughn]

And it was just. Yeah, it was. It was great. And then you sent this, and I was like, wow, this dude's really in his spot. But, yeah, I agree, man. Having that, like. Having that. That, like, need for attention from women or having. Watching pornography or watching porno and stuff, it's taken a lot of things. Moments in my life, you know, I was on one time I was on a vacation and with. With. With my girlfriend. Instead of, like, spending time, I was like. Like texting some other woman or I was like watching pornography.

[Louis C.K.]

Yeah.

[Theo Vaughn]

It took us out of this great weekend where we're supposed to. And it's like. And that caught. It's like, you know, I can never, like, get that right in a way, you know, because.

[Louis C.K.]

But it's. It's understandable because you had that feeling that right there with somebody, you're too much for them. You're scared to be alone with her. You're scared. So you're finding a way. You're finding a way to not be in the room.

[Theo Vaughn]

Yeah. And it's just that old pattern, though, that if I don't try and get it under control, if I don't try to do better. And I think even this year has been tough for me. It's just like. Yeah, I just feel like work's gotten busy and it just makes me scared kind of a little bit. And it's like, you know, and then popularity makes you scared, and that's kind of scary. And then you're just scary looking at yourself and you're just like, what am I even you. You're like, I can't even feel. Like. I can't even. The controls feel far from my hand sometimes. Not. Yeah. Not like I'm doing crazy stuff or anything, but just like, you know, I just. I don't know.

[Louis C.K.]

No, it's. It is scary and it should be. That's the thing is, it's like another electricity. You got to respect it. It's not a small thing, being famous and it can go bad and it's your fault because you got into it, but that's. I don't know. It's also a human thing to want to share your work and want to be out there, but when it goes bad, you get in this predicament of like, I want to go to each person's house and tell them what really happened and what the little things that aren't in the way. This. And that's just never going to happen.

[Theo Vaughn]

Yeah.

[Louis C.K.]

And at this point, with all. To me, I just want to get. I just. I just want to live and I want to, like. I haven't talked about this the way I'm talking about it to you, and.

[Theo Vaughn]

We can take it out if you want.

[Louis C.K.]

Scary. We'll talk about it after.

[Theo Vaughn]

Okay.

[Louis C.K.]

But there's so many times where I just want to come out and tell people, like, I'm fucking sorry. I'm really sorry. I hurt people. And I feel, I felt like in the way that it was so hard to take all of that at once, that much anger at once. It's like I just don't have a sorry that covers it. And so. And I don't have only one feeling. Sorry is not the only feeling I have. And so I don't want to say something. And I'm scared of the way that I. Anything I say can be used by other people. There's all kind of fears that come up and I'm very raw in that space.

[Theo Vaughn]

Yeah.

[Louis C.K.]

But that's all because I made this. I'm making these choices to stay in this. And it's because I love the work and I want to share it. So I guess, like, I really wish there was like I could have a simple kind of watershed where I can say just yes to everything that happened. And I'm sorry. I really am. And I'm just trying to do better. And I don't think I can prove that to everybody because it's a private thing. It's a one to one man thing. It's not a famous guy act.

[Theo Vaughn]

Right.

[Louis C.K.]

And. But I got work that I want to share with people.

[Theo Vaughn]

Yeah.

[Louis C.K.]

I have work that I think is worthy. And there I'm like, if you don't like it, you don't like it. That's so. That's always okay with me when I'm on stage and I'm talking and people aren't accepting it. Like, oh, that's okay. That's fine.

[Theo Vaughn]

That's fair.

[Louis C.K.]

Fair enough, man. And I don't. Nobody owes me nothing. I'll just, I'm trying. We'll see what happens.

[Theo Vaughn]

Dude, I'm kind of like, in a weird way, like, I know it sounds maybe crazy to say, it's almost like. Well, I think so many of us probably needed. We needed a guy like you to have some of the same problem because you have such an ability to look at things and kind of like examine them. And it's like we needed an astronaut. Like, I know it sounds crazy, but it's like we needed like a Neil Armstrong like you.

[Louis C.K.]

Well, you know, I walk out there.

[Theo Vaughn]

And report what you're feeling under your feet because it's like so many people are struggling and you say things, dude, that like, I mean, the rest of us just cannot put it into words. And it's just such a gift that you have, you know?

[Louis C.K.]

Well, it's. It's been a little bit painful because.

[Theo Vaughn]

I know it has.

[Louis C.K.]

Well, because. Because I felt that. And when it happened, like, hey, this is an opportunity. I can tell people what this is like. And I can really. I can. I can come back with something great to say, but I just. I'm not. I just couldn't. Like, I just couldn't do it. I was too scared, and I was too fighting for my life and also worried about other people in my life. Everything I say affects people that love me.

[Theo Vaughn]

I know that.

[Louis C.K.]

And people that I'm related to. And I. I can just decide, like, what's going to fix it. And also, I'm completely confused by it. I still live with this thing every day. It's still part of my everyday life. It still imposes limits on me every day, and I still don't know what to do about it. I really don't. It's really confusing. But. So I wish I could feel like I'm like a shitty astronaut. I'm like an astronaut who's not. They sent the. What's his name, Don Knotts in that. Whatever. I think he did an astronaut one. Right.

[Theo Vaughn]

If he didn't, he should.

[Louis C.K.]

I think I. Yeah, there it is. Yeah. The reluctant astronaut. That's me. Yeah. It's no good. And I'm Gus Grissom. I blew the hatch and I just was. I was just too weak, man. And I flailed through it, you know, I said some things out of confused anger because I am who I am on stage. I'm pretty raw up there, you know?

[Theo Vaughn]

Yeah.

[Louis C.K.]

I'm not, like, vetting what I say. I'm not careful about it.

[Theo Vaughn]

You know? But you. You may be the reluctant astronaut, but I think it's like, what we all are. It's like we all just want to try and, like, figure out whatever the truest stuff that's going on inside of us.

[Louis C.K.]

That's right. And.

[Theo Vaughn]

And that's the part that I think you report back. Like, I'm just saying, like, well, life.

[Louis C.K.]

Life will. You will never choose the hard road for yourself. Never. And the choices you make in life are a combination of fear. You do things because of what you're afraid of to avoid things. You're afraid of most things in life. You work for financial success because you're afraid of being poor more than anything else. And you work towards acceptance because you're afraid of being alone.

[Theo Vaughn]

Yeah. Sometimes you look at pornography. You do stuff like that because you're afraid of going in and sitting with. Talking with your spouse or your girlfriend, talking about things that are scary to you.

[Louis C.K.]

That's right. So that's how life. That's how a person. And it's understandable. It's like, people just do their best.

[Theo Vaughn]

100.

[Louis C.K.]

But when life throws a bomb in the middle of your life, of your life, and. And. And you survive it, you are given this beautiful opportunity to go, like, to see everything from another angle and go, like, what is. What is even breathing? Like, what is even. Like, why do I put a sock on? Like, what am I doing here? And it breaks everything. That takes everything away and it goes, start again. And you look back at your life and you go, that was a mess. And you're met with real remorse about your mistakes. You don't have time to regret when you're living life, but when it's cut off and you just go, wow, that was fucked up. And I can't even fully fix it for some people. I just can't. I just. What do I do now? Put a sock on. Maybe another sock. Maybe on the same foot. Maybe two socks on one foot. What's wrong with that? And you. You get. I got my sense of humor back that way. So it's just like, this is all pretty silly. It's all pretty silly in a sense. Don't you dare take life seriously is like, one of my big things. Even as a comedian, you sort of think I'm a great comedian. Yeah. Lighten up, buddy. You know what I mean? And the shows I've been doing on the road now are just. I called the show ridiculous because it's back to. I just want to be. I just want to surprise people with what I'm saying.

[Theo Vaughn]

Yeah.

[Louis C.K.]

And I just want to be a bit of an asshole for a little. For an hour. It's just fun. But also just seeing that, I don't think I would have seen these things if life didn't force me to. So it's good. It's good. Like, right now for me, life is just so good. Way better than it was before.

[Theo Vaughn]

Would it be able to live in such. I mean, just to be able to, like, really face some real challenges in your life, that's pretty crazy.

[Louis C.K.]

I mean, you walk away going, like, I can do that.

[Theo Vaughn]

Yeah.

[Louis C.K.]

And. And it's okay. And what happened that was terrible. Was okay. And it wasn't all terrible. Some of it was so beautiful. Because when you're exposed to the hardest part of life, you're also exposed to the most wonderful. Like I was looking the other day, I don't know why this is. But the word compass and the word compassion, like, they share the first, what, seven Letters. I don't know why that is, but you get some direction out of life, but you only find real compassion by seeing real pain. And you go, oh, wow, life is really tough, you know? And then that. That's all you need. All you need is to understand how much life can hurt, because it's. Well, I don't know, sort of spinning out with what I'm saying. But it's okay. It's. Yeah, life is better now. And I also. The. What's happened to me can be an example for other people. And, like, in fellowship, when I go to a meeting in person and there's a guy who's really hurting, his life's fucked up, and I approach him and I go, hey, you should. And he's not sure about being in this program. And he goes, oh, I ruined my life. And I go, do you know who I am? And he goes, yeah. And I go, I'm doing pretty good, buddy. And the fact that my wreckage can be a mountain for folks to lean on. Take a little load off. That's a beautiful gift, you know?

[Theo Vaughn]

Yeah. Well, it's been awesome, man. It's so funny. I never really got to know you as a comedian. I mean, I got to know you on stage, but I've gotten to know you, I feel like, as a man.

[Louis C.K.]

Yeah.

[Theo Vaughn]

You know.

[Louis C.K.]

Yeah. You're my brother.

[Theo Vaughn]

Yeah. I got to know you just by being kind and being cool and. Yeah, man. I just. Yeah. I hope one day I have a cool kid like you, man, that's creative and fun and brave and weird and, you know, not afraid to hide somewhere and fucking jerk off a little. But.

[Louis C.K.]

Yeah.

[Theo Vaughn]

Also be fucking cool.

[Louis C.K.]

Yeah. Yeah. Open up. Stay open.

[Theo Vaughn]

Yeah. So I hope that one day I have a cool kid like you, and. Yeah. I just feel really proud that I just feel like. Yeah. Thank you for being a role model to me, man.

[Louis C.K.]

Same.

[Theo Vaughn]

Theo, you do a good job of that, and I think you should know that, you know.

[Louis C.K.]

Thanks, bro.

[Theo Vaughn]

That you do a really good job of that. Of being important to people, Louie, and it's definitely been that for me, so thank you.

[Louis C.K.]

Thanks, bro.

[Theo Vaughn]

Yeah. I think you're a brave dude, and. Yeah, man, I'm excited to see you guys tonight. So let's get the out of here. Shit's getting gay, dude.

[Louis C.K.]

But this book is coming out of your eyes. There's jizz coming out because it's backing up very. That's where the gauge is. Comes out the eyes.

[Theo Vaughn]

Oh, God.

[Louis C.K.]

Yeah, it's true. That's true.

[Theo Vaughn]

Oh, I know. It is.

[Louis C.K.]

Yeah.

[Theo Vaughn]

Oh, I've given. I did a four part series on it online. Ingram is great. It's kind of. It's like a. It's a new kind of Tom Sawyer, but it's just good. It's written well. It's not like, oh, this is a. A big name writing a book. And that's why it's going to be good. This book is good. If anybody wrote it, it's magnificent. And I'm so glad that you finally get to a place in your life where you feel you have the time and the ability to make such magic like this, man.

[Louis C.K.]

Thanks, bro.

[Theo Vaughn]

It's really cool. Thank you. All right, Louis C.K. thank you so much, bro.

[Louis C.K.]

Thank you, Theo.

[Theo Vaughn]

Yep. Now I'm just floating on the breeze and I feel I'm falling like these leaves I must be cornerstone oh but when I reach that ground I'll share this piece of my life out I can feel it in my bones but.

[Louis C.K.]

It'S gonna take a little.