Louis C.K. w/ Mark Normand & Sam Morril - We Might Be Drunk Podcast

Summary

Podcast Summary: We Might Be Drunk – Louis C.K. w/ Mark Normand & Sam Morril

Episode Date: July 13, 2026
Hosts: Sam Morril, Mark Normand
Guest: Louis C.K.

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Episode Overview

This engaging episode welcomes iconic comedian Louis C.K., celebrating his return to Netflix with a new special. The conversation spans from streaming platforms and TV algorithms to film craft, the evolution of comedy, and stories from Louis’s influential career. Listeners are treated to a deep-dive on stand-up writing processes, stories from the NYC comedy scene, movie nerdery, and plenty of candid comics-only insights.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Louis C.K.'s New Netflix Special & Streaming Reflections

• Louis discusses the feeling of coming back to Netflix versus distributing on his own site:
  • “It's nice because it's outside the fence more. Folks can wander over... It's global and it's all over the world.” (00:35)
• The crew jokes about how personalized Netflix algorithms serve up bizarre recommendations depending on who’s watching.

2. Diverse TV & Movie Tastes, Algorithms, and British Dramas

• Banter about family members’ odd algorithm suggestions (01:01), especially British detective shows and “Broad Church.”
• Introduction to "Doctor Who" for the uninitiated, with Louis admitting he's never watched it:
  • “I don't know what Doctor Who is. I've never seen a minute.” (01:50)

3. Visual Styles in TV/Film & Publicist Influence

• Discussion on how movies now look visually “samey” due to marketing and thumbnail optimization:
  • “It's probably the thumbnails that are making things look the way they do now.” (05:33)
  • “I don't like when, like, for a horror movie... For a comedy, you don't want a dark looking.” (05:44)

4. The Will Smith–Chris Rock Slap (with a Comedian's Perspective)

• The group touches on the infamous Oscar slap:
  • “It was this punk move... The idea that it was chivalry was really offensive. No, because if you are shill... You say you're in a fight now, the duel. You don't walk up like this and... And you're twice as big as the guy.” (06:30)
• In-depth breakdown, with characteristic comic irreverence.

5. Movie Nostalgia: Michael Mann, Spike Lee, and Casting Against Type

• Deep reverence for directors like Michael Mann (“Thief,” “The Insider”), Spike Lee (“Inside Man,” “He Got Game”).
• Joking about unconventional casting, like Travolta as a hitman in “Pulp Fiction.” (12:36)
• Louis shares his love for odd supporting actors and how his own show “Louie” benefited from unconventional casting (13:16), highlighting people like Michael Rapaport, David Lynch, and Doug Stanhope.

6. Louis on "Louie," Stand-Up in NYC, and Impact on Comedy Worldwide

• Anecdotes about filming “Louie” in New York, guerrilla-style:
  • “We Were shooting on the streets pretty barely, like, without much support… we got to really see the city the way it felt then.” (14:08)
• The show’s influence: “There are places in other countries that got into standup because of my show… it was the series that got people into standup.” (17:14)

7. Influences & Underrated Films (Global Cinema Tour)

• Louis names Woody Allen, Scorsese, and Lena Wertmüller as influences (18:17).
• Excitement for global cinema: Spanish and Korean film, “Society of the Snow,” “Children of Men,” “Early Spring” (Japanese), “Another Round” (Danish), “Howard’s End,” and “Remains of the Day.”
  • “Most great cinema, especially visually, is Spanish speaking for some reason.” (21:34)

8. The Art & Pain of Stand-up Comedy: Writing, Bombing, and Growing Pains

• On finding new “gardens” of comedy by exploring discomfort and audience rejection:
  • “If you do a joke that makes them go, what the fuck was that? Now you're in a new... You've gone to a new place.” (41:39)
• Embracing bombing:
  • “I like being in that world of bombing is. There's dignity in it, you know?” (44:44)
  • “Some comics have a thing where they can take more abuse.” (45:21)
• The comfort with rejection, learning from boxing, and using pain to innovate.

9. Evolving as a Comic: From One Hour in Ten Years to One a Year

• Louis’s journey from repeating the same material (“mine. Don’t pee on that”) to re-inventing himself yearly:
  • “I did that joke thousands of times, and I hated it so much every time I would say it.” (47:37)
  • Credits Chris Rock’s “Bring the Pain” for waking him up to true ambition and work ethic (49:30).

10. Writing Process, Carlin’s Influence, and Accepting the Cycle

• Transition to “no one’s laughing? We’re all going to be okay.”
• On material turnover:
  • “I put comedy out of my mind, though. I don't think about it for months.” (57:23)
• Letting ideas “ferment” before returning to work.

11. Legacy, Burnout, and Renewal

• Honest reflections on burnout, depression, and taking long sabbaticals:
  • “The last time I stopped, I took... a year and a half. And my thought was, I'm not doing it anymore. I was quitting.” (59:05)
• On seeing the ‘trick’ to his own material, and how to break the formula:
  • “If I can see it, I bet they can fucking see it.” (69:07)

12. The “Bar Trick” of Stand-Up and Why Comics Keep Going

• Jim Florentine’s line: “It’s a fucking bar trick.” (60:17)
• It’s the little thrill of crafting a new bit that sustains the grind:
  • “As long as I'm curious about bits like that... I'll keep doing this. And it really is. It's a small thing that makes you love it.” (61:12)
• Keith Robinson’s resilience and the addictive hunt for fresh material.

13. Wrap-Up: Touring, Future Plans, and Acknowledgements

• Louis steps back from touring: “I’m taking a long... have no gigs for the foreseeable future.” (76:31)
• Sam and Mark share upcoming gigs.
• Final appreciation of how having a killer hour feels like “strapping on guns” and means you can “go to any venue on the planet.” (78:45–79:17)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Netflix’s reach:
  “It's nice because it's outside the fence more. Folks can wander over.” (00:35) – Louis C.K.

• On why TV and movies look the same:
  “It's probably the thumbnails that are making things look the way they do now.” (05:33) – Guest/Interviewer

• On the Will Smith slap:
  “It was this punk move. The idea that it was chivalry was really offensive.” (06:30) – Guest/Interviewer

• On bombing:
  “I like being in that world of bombing is. There's dignity in it, you know?” (44:44) – Guest/Interviewer (Louis)

• On growing as a comic:
  “I did that joke thousands of times, and I hated it so much every time I would say it.” (47:37) – Guest/Interviewer

• On being re-inspired by Chris Rock:
  “He was doing these jokes that I was like, I didn't know this was an option to get this good.” (49:30) – Guest/Interviewer

• On writing risky material:
  “The joke was, you know how bad a person you are by how soon after 911 you jerked off for the first time.” (54:04) – Guest/Interviewer

• On letting life refill the well:
  “Just stay off of it completely. Let it bury the potato under the ground and let it just sit there... Get fermented.” (57:54) – Guest/Interviewer

• On material burnout:
  “But the tour before this one... I started hearing my own bits and going like, yeah, I know what you're doing.” (69:03) – Guest/Interviewer

• On the moment a comic feels powerful:
  “But it's great when you get a new hour. It feels like you just strapped on a... some guns.” (78:45) – Guest/Interviewer

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Important Timestamps

• 00:35 – Louis on returning to Netflix and global reach
• 05:33 – Why movie/TV styles are so uniform now
• 06:30 – Break down of the Will Smith/Chris Rock Oscar slap
• 14:08 – Guerrilla filming of “Louie” in NYC
• 17:14 – “Louie’s” impact on global stand-up scenes (e.g., Turkey)
• 41:39 – Jokes that confuse/disorient the audience as creative exploration
• 44:44 – The pride in, and lessons from, bombing on stage
• 47:37 – On doing the same hour for too long
• 49:30 – Chris Rock inspires level-up in stand-up ambition
• 54:04 – Louis’s notorious joke about post-9/11 masturbation
• 57:54 – On letting material “ferment” during downtime
• 69:03 – Realizing you see your own comedic tricks
• 78:45–79:17 – The feeling of power and freedom with a new hour

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Tone & Style

The episode is fast-paced, irreverent, and packed with comedian-to-comedian candor and self-reflection. Stories are shared with biting wit and warmth, genuine admiration for craft, and the kind of gallows humor that only veteran comics can deliver. There’s plenty of film geekery, throwback references, and a shared sense of the grind and privilege in doing stand-up for a living.

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Takeaways for Non-Listeners

If you’re curious about the realities of modern stand-up, what it means to burn yourself out and start creatively over after decades, or want a hilarious and nuanced conversation about movies, risk, and why comics keep doing what they do—this episode is for you. Louis C.K. is open, wise, and as funny as ever with Sam Morril and Mark Normand as thoughtful foils, riffing and reflecting all the way.

Transcript

[Louis C.K.]

All right, you take it.

[Chris]

That was terrible. Just roll with it.

[Louis C.K.]

We're here. We're queer. My legs are freezing. But, yeah, good to have you. We got Louis ck, everybody. Hey, what's cooking?

[Chris]

Hot new special on Netflix. Louie's. You're back on Netflix, man.

[Guest/Interviewer]

Back on Netflix. Starting today. This morning. I don't know, midnight. I don't know when they put it on. Yeah, it was on when I woke up.

[Chris]

How does it feel? Like, as opposed to, like, thrown on your website?

[Guest/Interviewer]

I mean, it's only been a few hours, but it's nice because it's outside the fence more.

[Louis C.K.]

Yeah.

[Guest/Interviewer]

Folks can wander over.

[Louis C.K.]

Right.

[Guest/Interviewer]

You know what I mean? It's global and it's all over the world.

[Louis C.K.]

Yeah.

[Guest/Interviewer]

So is my website, but it was a closed circuit.

[Louis C.K.]

Right.

[Guest/Interviewer]

And so it's nice. People can stumble on it. I know some people's algorithm won't give it to them, but. But you know, that's true.

[Louis C.K.]

You ever see someone else's algorithm at their house? You're like, what the hell? Yeah. Spanish. Different singing. Yeah, it's crazy. Indian movies. Yeah.

[Chris]

For a while was on my dad's Netflix and I would just stumble and I'd be like, you and my mom are watching weird shit. Yeah, it's all just like Korean drama type stuff.

[Louis C.K.]

Yes, that's funny.

[Guest/Interviewer]

Korean. And you said Spanish and Indian.

[Louis C.K.]

My mom goes all British, like cop show. Like British detective. Like.

[Chris]

Like Happy Valley or something. You ever seen.

[Guest/Interviewer]

What do you call it? The one that's a town's name and it's really morose and dark.

[Louis C.K.]

They're all morose and dark and boring. I hate it.

[Chris]

Broad Church. That was one. That was a good one.

[Guest/Interviewer]

Yes, I like those.

[Chris]

Really good.

[Guest/Interviewer]

What's his name? David something or other is in that. Yeah, he was. Then he was a Doctor who. My kids got into Doctor who, so I watched Doctor who for a while.

[Louis C.K.]

They love Doctor who. I don't know what Doctor who is. I've never seen a minute.

[Chris]

Oh, no. Yeah, they're different.

[Louis C.K.]

Doctor who's okay.

[Guest/Interviewer]

Yeah. So Doctor who's a. It's actually not a guy. That's not the person's name. It's the name of the show. He's just called the Doctor. And he's the guy who lives in a telephone booth that's really big inside and he travels through time.

[Louis C.K.]

Really?

[Guest/Interviewer]

Yeah.

[Louis C.K.]

Oh, okay.

[Guest/Interviewer]

And.

[Chris]

And you could be with us.

[Guest/Interviewer]

No, it's what it's about. But it's a movie. It was a TV show back in the 50s. It used to be in black and white in Britain. And every few years he dies because they don't pay the actors very much. And then he regenerates as a new person. So there's been a lot of people that have played the Doctor and the newest Doctor who's evolved in a new generation. Also, once in a while the show dies and then it comes back with a new group of writers and producers and a new cluster of actors. Yeah, so those are some of the Doctors.

[Louis C.K.]

Wow. So it's almost like a James Bond thing. Yeah.

[Guest/Interviewer]

So that guy down there, David. What the fuck is his name? David Tennant was a great doctor and so was. Who's too fret down from him. The woman's pretty good too. Peter Capaldi is really good. Matt Smith, I wasn't that into. Okay, and then if you go, go. Can you see the first one?

[Louis C.K.]

Because I grew up so many.

[Guest/Interviewer]

The first one was in black and the first one I saw was the guy. He's holding an orange and red thing. Oh, yeah, he was the first one.

[Louis C.K.]

I remember when I was a kid that Alubel Al. He was the first Doctor. Look how many iterations. This is crazy.

[Chris]

Do your kids turn you on to a lot of shows?

[Louis C.K.]

Yeah, yeah, they.

[Guest/Interviewer]

I like what they watch. I like a lot of what they watch, but this one was pretty cool. Anyway, how do we end up talking about Doctor who?

[Louis C.K.]

I don't know, but this is it. I've never gotten algorithms. Broad Church. Yeah, Broad Church.

[Guest/Interviewer]

Yes.

[Louis C.K.]

She also loves that Sherlock Holmes.

[Guest/Interviewer]

Yeah, Sherlock Holmes with Beyond.

[Louis C.K.]

Yes, yes, yes.

[Guest/Interviewer]

And Martin Freeman, who I love from the office.

[Louis C.K.]

Oh, the blonde guy. He's good.

[Guest/Interviewer]

Yeah, he's great in a lot of stuff.

[Louis C.K.]

Yeah, that was a great Sherlock Holmes rendition.

[Guest/Interviewer]

Yes, it was. It was fucking clever as hell.

[Louis C.K.]

Yes.

[Guest/Interviewer]

Really well filmed. Really taught.

[Louis C.K.]

Because that. We did one in America called Elementary and it wasn't as good.

[Chris]

It was like a CBS show.

[Louis C.K.]

That's true. It had that. That CSI look, that kind of cloudy beige look.

[Guest/Interviewer]

I hate exactly what you mean. I hate that too.

[Louis C.K.]

Yeah, well, we're doing a movie and we're trying to. All the movies now look shitty. I think they look better.

[Guest/Interviewer]

Which movies, like, would you like a mainstream?

[Chris]

I feel like every movie is, like tinted a little too dark now. I don't know.

[Guest/Interviewer]

Yeah, well, the places that put out the images for promo, they're all the same. They do everybody's.

[Louis C.K.]

Ah.

[Guest/Interviewer]

It's like there's only a few publicists. So, like, remember when Chris got slapped by Will Smith? So there's Only at that elite level, of all the people that were in the room, there's only like two publicists. I don't know who they are at this point, but you know that. That everybody has like two of the same.

[Louis C.K.]

Yeah.

[Guest/Interviewer]

So they. They all thought really quickly, I think during the commercial break, like, wait a minute.

[Chris]

We.

[Guest/Interviewer]

We're not sure they're both black. It's what you know. And so all of the stars just tweeted that. You can't say nothing. So all the stars tweeted, like, did you see that? Like, they just quick.

[Chris]

Have no take.

[Guest/Interviewer]

Just registering surprise.

[Louis C.K.]

Right.

[Guest/Interviewer]

Oh, wow. Yeah, that happened. They all said so. You know, there's one publicist or maybe two. They're like, you got to just be surprised. Don't. Don't have a take. This is how we do this. But, but so all these images you see of movies now are sort of samey.

[Louis C.K.]

Mmm.

[Guest/Interviewer]

Because that's what's registering is I think it's probably the thumbnails that are making things look the way they do now.

[Louis C.K.]

And they probably did some focus group where they're like, people respond to this.

[Chris]

Yeah, but I don't like when, like, for a horror movie. I get it. For a comedy, you don't want a dark looking. No, you want like a light comedy.

[Louis C.K.]

Yeah, exactly. Want some levity there. Some good colors, like a Billy Madison.

[Chris]

Yeah. So it was like bright. It was bright.

[Louis C.K.]

Not a fan.

[Chris]

You don't like it.

[Louis C.K.]

Great. I'm not saying. I'm just saying it's. It looked good.

[Guest/Interviewer]

Terrific.

[Chris]

You're taking people out this episode, dude. Between. Between Matt Smith, not the Sandman.

[Guest/Interviewer]

Yeah.

[Louis C.K.]

No, wait. Have you ever actually had a conversation with Chris about that slap?

[Guest/Interviewer]

No, I don't want to talk about that.

[Louis C.K.]

It's his story.

[Guest/Interviewer]

It's his story. It's not my story to tell.

[Louis C.K.]

Hold the cup with two hands. No.

[Guest/Interviewer]

Yeah. I don't know. It's a. Yeah. He slapped me. Shouldn't have done that. Was wrong.

[Louis C.K.]

Agreed.

[Guest/Interviewer]

It was this punk move.

[Louis C.K.]

Agreed.

[Guest/Interviewer]

Punk slap. The idea that it was chivalry was really offensive. No, because if you are shill. If you're that guy that British.

[Louis C.K.]

Use a glove.

[Guest/Interviewer]

You say. Well, you say, put your hands up. Oh, you say you're in a fight now, the duel. You don't walk up like this and.

[Louis C.K.]

Right.

[Guest/Interviewer]

And you're twice as big as the guy.

[Louis C.K.]

Not about twice.

[Chris]

Well, he's big, dude.

[Guest/Interviewer]

I think he's.

[Louis C.K.]

We could do the. We could do the heights.

[Guest/Interviewer]

Chris is very. Well, heights is one thing.

[Louis C.K.]

Okay. Okay.

[Guest/Interviewer]

I mean, you're taller than me. Yeah, but at my age still, I could kick the. Out of.

[Chris]

Dude, I don't think you could do it right now. I like your bit, though, about how. How old is 58? And it's like, it's old enough that I could. You're talking to the 11 year old. I could kick your ass, but I. It would hurt me too.

[Guest/Interviewer]

I'd get hurt too.

[Chris]

Yeah, that's a great line.

[Louis C.K.]

Get hurt too.

[Guest/Interviewer]

Wouldn't be a cleanup.

[Louis C.K.]

All right, he's 5 10, I bet. I'm gonna go Will Smith, 6 2. If I had to guess, he's got 100 pounds.

[Guest/Interviewer]

He played Muhammad Ali in a movie, so he's shaky. Yeah. All right, well, he's dead now.

[Louis C.K.]

Oh, good point. Nailed it.

[Guest/Interviewer]

Nice.

[Chris]

That was not a good movie.

[Louis C.K.]

Did you see that? No.

[Guest/Interviewer]

Oh, Ali. Well, I like Michael Mann.

[Chris]

He's like one of my favorites ever. But I just don't like.

[Guest/Interviewer]

See Manhunter.

[Chris]

Dude.

[Louis C.K.]

Of course.

[Chris]

The best.

[Guest/Interviewer]

So funny.

[Chris]

Diving through the glass window is.

[Guest/Interviewer]

My buddy Tom Noonan is the bad.

[Chris]

He's amazing.

[Guest/Interviewer]

Died recently. Yeah, great, great.

[Louis C.K.]

I mean, Thief and he. I think they're redoing.

[Guest/Interviewer]

Thief is incredible.

[Chris]

Thief is a gorgeous looking movie.

[Louis C.K.]

It's beautiful.

[Chris]

That's one of the most amazing. Like the wet streets and the blue.

[Louis C.K.]

Yes, yes.

[Chris]

Yeah, that scene in the diner too, when he just talks about, like, have needy. Nothing to lose. Like, that is like. That could be any other career.

[Guest/Interviewer]

It's incredible.

[Chris]

That could be like comedy or whatever.

[Guest/Interviewer]

Oh, you mean the way he describes prison? Yep.

[Chris]

And he's like, I needed to have nothing to lose to be great. And you're like, oh, that's fucking cool.

[Guest/Interviewer]

It is. It is a little thing about life.

[Louis C.K.]

They don't make movies like that.

[Guest/Interviewer]

And Willie Nelson, he was so cool.

[Louis C.K.]

Yeah. Look at him.

[Guest/Interviewer]

Wow. Get me out of here, brother.

[Chris]

James Caan is so cool in that movie.

[Guest/Interviewer]

It's. That movie is astonishingly good. And it's violent as fuck.

[Chris]

Oh, my God. Even some of the deaths, like the

[Guest/Interviewer]

guy who plays the main bad guy.

[Chris]

So good.

[Guest/Interviewer]

The thing is, they used to have off type guys like that. Like.

[Louis C.K.]

What do you mean?

[Guest/Interviewer]

In other words, you didn't get a guy like this. I'm the. I'm the mob guy. It's this sort of fat Irishman. He looks like Santa Claus.

[Chris]

Yeah, he looks sweet, but he's.

[Guest/Interviewer]

He's a sweet looking guy, but he is. He puts him in a. In a. Oh, that guy.

[Louis C.K.]

Yes.

[Guest/Interviewer]

He puts James Belushi in a vat of acid and melts his body.

[Louis C.K.]

Yeah.

[Guest/Interviewer]

But he's like, nice about it. He's like, well, I'm gonna do this.

[Louis C.K.]

I'm sorry.

[Guest/Interviewer]

Not have done that.

[Chris]

Oh, my God. The scene when he tries to adopt a kid too, and they won't let. I'll take a black one. I'll take. I'll take.

[Guest/Interviewer]

I'll even take a different time.

[Louis C.K.]

Yep.

[Chris]

That movie, you know, it's also so underrated. The Insider. Michael Mann.

[Louis C.K.]

Great. Oh, yeah.

[Guest/Interviewer]

Insider's great.

[Chris]

Amazing.

[Louis C.K.]

Russell Crowe.

[Guest/Interviewer]

Oh, yeah. Pacino. But also just the backdrop of al Pacino playing 60 Minutes producer.

[Chris]

Yeah.

[Guest/Interviewer]

Great movie.

[Chris]

Classic.

[Guest/Interviewer]

Also Inside. Well, who's the one that's kind of similar feeling, kind of dark and gritty with the word inside in it? Spike Lee.

[Chris]

Inside Man.

[Louis C.K.]

Inside Man. Great.

[Chris]

Cool.

[Louis C.K.]

Great movie. That's his best movie, I think.

[Chris]

Really?

[Guest/Interviewer]

Yeah, Spike is. I mean, Spike gets and gets a lot of ideas of what he wants to do in life, but he's a great director.

[Louis C.K.]

Oh, yeah.

[Guest/Interviewer]

Like, he's a great. Like if I. If you took any movie and you a great script, just a tight script and you just hired Spike. This movie is so good, so entertaining.

[Louis C.K.]

Clive Owen was great in that.

[Guest/Interviewer]

Jody Foster. Christopher Plummer, one of his best roles in a long. Yeah, William Defoe is great in it.

[Louis C.K.]

Oh, yeah. Yep. Huge hog.

[Guest/Interviewer]

Yeah.

[Chris]

Yeah.

[Louis C.K.]

They have to do CGI sometimes.

[Chris]

No, that's not true. They did a replacement.

[Louis C.K.]

Pull it up.

[Chris]

That is me.

[Guest/Interviewer]

That's you.

[Chris]

Are you setting me up for that one? No. Yeah, that movies. That's a fun one. I love 25th hour too. I think that's a really cool one.

[Guest/Interviewer]

I don't think I saw it.

[Louis C.K.]

Oh, yeah, I liked Philip Simon.

[Guest/Interviewer]

Mo Better Blues I liked.

[Chris]

Yeah, I never saw that one.

[Louis C.K.]

Malcolm X. Do the Right Thing.

[Guest/Interviewer]

Malcolm X is great.

[Chris]

The Right thing.

[Guest/Interviewer]

I didn't love the first one. She's got to have. It's great. What's the one? Jungle Fevers.

[Louis C.K.]

Really?

[Chris]

Oh, yeah. Didn't say it.

[Louis C.K.]

Gotta say, it created poetic justice, which I jerked off to once.

[Guest/Interviewer]

Nice.

[Louis C.K.]

Oh, oh, Girl six was the one I jerked off to cuz she's tall.

[Guest/Interviewer]

Girl, He Got Game.

[Chris]

I love He Got Game.

[Guest/Interviewer]

It's great. And get on the Bus is great. Clockers is good. Clockers is another example.

[Louis C.K.]

I've never seen that.

[Guest/Interviewer]

Oh, you got to see Clockers.

[Louis C.K.]

Okay.

[Guest/Interviewer]

So good. John Turo's.

[Louis C.K.]

Oh, wow.

[Guest/Interviewer]

That guy.

[Chris]

Dude, you know what?

[Guest/Interviewer]

I watched Keitel, you know, I watched

[Chris]

the other day that I'd never seen 90s movie. Exotica. Awesome.

[Louis C.K.]

I don't know.

[Chris]

Have you heard of this?

[Guest/Interviewer]

No.

[Chris]

This movie? Yeah, right here. Definite wreck.

[Louis C.K.]

Okay.

[Guest/Interviewer]

I don't know this one.

[Chris]

It's really. It's like kind of a slow burn. You don't know what's happening. Yeah. It's in a strip club. But it's like all these weird people and you don't know how they really know each other connect, and it kind of slowly comes together. It's really cool.

[Louis C.K.]

Okay.

[Chris]

Adam Moyen.

[Guest/Interviewer]

Oh, Adam Aoyan. He made a movie about a bus full of kids going through the ice.

[Chris]

Yeah. No, you're right, though. Yeah.

[Guest/Interviewer]

I didn't say it was the second movie like that.

[Louis C.K.]

Really?

[Guest/Interviewer]

Because Dennis Hopper made one.

[Louis C.K.]

Wow.

[Guest/Interviewer]

Out of the blue.

[Louis C.K.]

He's a wild dude.

[Guest/Interviewer]

Yeah. Also dead.

[Chris]

Yeah, he died.

[Guest/Interviewer]

Sure did.

[Chris]

Such a good bad guy.

[Louis C.K.]

Hot shot. Pop quiz.

[Chris]

Yeah.

[Louis C.K.]

You know who's good at with the off type casting is Travolta. Quentin Tarantino. He'll cast any, like, Travolta as a hitman guy.

[Guest/Interviewer]

Yeah.

[Louis C.K.]

That was kind of crazy.

[Guest/Interviewer]

That was.

[Louis C.K.]

But it worked.

[Guest/Interviewer]

It really did.

[Louis C.K.]

He has a lot of those where you're like, that guy. Really?

[Guest/Interviewer]

He has great vision.

[Chris]

When you had Louis, was that one of the most fun things is you're like, I'm just gonna put someone like, I get to cast Charles Grodin.

[Guest/Interviewer]

Yeah. Once we started being able to get people, it was really cool. I mean, I liked it before too, when we were just. Because New York has a huge, like theater community and people that are just laying around who have huge skill and. But yeah, when we could start going like, like, Michael Rapaport was one of my favorite.

[Chris]

Oh, yeah.

[Guest/Interviewer]

As the cop. He was great. And David Lynch, I mean, you know,

[Louis C.K.]

that was a great.

[Chris]

That was a great three episode arc.

[Guest/Interviewer]

And then at the same time, Doug Stanhope out of the.

[Louis C.K.]

Yes. You know, the Village Lantern.

[Guest/Interviewer]

Yeah. And he was great.

[Chris]

Maybe that might have been my favorite guest performance of the whole show.

[Louis C.K.]

The Stanhope was so good. Going to the open mic.

[Guest/Interviewer]

Yeah.

[Chris]

With fighting with Greg Rogel.

[Guest/Interviewer]

Yes. Yeah. Yeah, right.

[Louis C.K.]

That was awesome documentary.

[Guest/Interviewer]

Yeah.

[Louis C.K.]

What about the Robin Williams? Oh, that was a great one. With the funeral.

[Chris]

And Big J.

[Guest/Interviewer]

Big J was in the show.

[Chris]

I've messaged you when I'm like, we watched it before. I've messaged you when I was rewatching Louis, like, yeah, yeah. I just missed. There aren't that many New York shows like that anymore. It like captured a kind of New York that isn't often captured.

[Guest/Interviewer]

Yeah. We Were shooting on the streets pretty barely, like, without much support, you know, so we got to really see the city the way it felt then.

[Chris]

Bobby Kelly.

[Louis C.K.]

Thanks.

[Guest/Interviewer]

Bobby was great. Played my brother.

[Chris]

Oh, Pamela Adlon. Great in the show.

[Guest/Interviewer]

Great in the show.

[Louis C.K.]

I love that episode where you're trying to sleep in the morning. You're trying to sleep in, and there's a bunch of garbage happening. The garbage men are being too loud, and then eventually they come in and then they're on the bed. That is quality comedy.

[Chris]

You keep escalating. The other one I love is when you're. You miss the flight and the woman keeps explaining why you. You're like, oh, what happened in the plane? And you're not allowed to be upset when you find out where. She says, everyone died. Except for one baby.

[Guest/Interviewer]

Except for one baby.

[Chris]

It's just like, oh, that's. Yeah, that. That's like you. You tapped into shit that we feel all the time as New Yorkers in Road comics.

[Guest/Interviewer]

Oh, thanks, man. Yeah, that was. That was pure fun.

[Louis C.K.]

Apparently after that, people said, I want the Louis deal. That was a thing in tv, and

[Chris]

it died in a year. No one's getting. The thing is, I had a lot

[Guest/Interviewer]

of training as a filmmaker, so I was just. You know, I had directed a lot, so I knew how to do it. That was what it all rested on. I didn't need a lot of supervision and stuff because I actually knew how. Some guys, when they have their first show, they actually have to learn how to do it, so they need help.

[Louis C.K.]

Well, it was cool. I remember being an open micr and you would tweet, hey, I'm gonna be at the Comedy Cellar at 4. Free soda.

[Guest/Interviewer]

Yeah.

[Louis C.K.]

And you give a free Coke. And I was broke, and I would go drink Cokes. And you would do a set at the Cellar with the Steadicam guy up your ass on the stage and everything. And that was all. I had to leave work for that.

[Guest/Interviewer]

It's funny because I. Those shows were always kind of shitty. Yeah, the crowds were too. Like, ooh, we're at a place. It wasn't like an audience. You need an audience to feel like they own the show. Like, you know what I mean? It rests with them. And this tweeted, these crowds, I used to just tweet, come to the Cellar. And they'd come.

[Louis C.K.]

Yeah.

[Guest/Interviewer]

And they'd sort of stiffly stare at me. So I started to go. I stopped doing that. And I would just go to the Cellar with the Steadicam guy, jump on stage, and he'd Kind of elbow his way in.

[Louis C.K.]

Right.

[Guest/Interviewer]

And I would just, you know, we just take over and do it once in a while.

[Louis C.K.]

Was he like a German guy, that guy with the steady cam?

[Guest/Interviewer]

I don't remember that.

[Louis C.K.]

Oh, okay. I thought he. It was a friend of yours.

[Guest/Interviewer]

No, it was an Asian guy who I worked with a lot back then.

[Louis C.K.]

I just remember a guy with a thick, crazy accent.

[Guest/Interviewer]

Gosh.

[Louis C.K.]

He was some kind of DP or something on the show. And he would always yell stuff at you.

[Guest/Interviewer]

Sorry.

[Louis C.K.]

That's all right. It stuck. That. That stuck into my brain. Like, wow, this guy's like a real artist. He's foreign.

[Guest/Interviewer]

I don't remember a German guy.

[Louis C.K.]

All right.

[Chris]

I feel like that's what took the Cellar, like, from doing two shows a night or whatever to now it's four. Soon to be five rooms. But I feel like that show is, like, became a tourist attraction.

[Guest/Interviewer]

Yeah, we brought a lot of business there. I mean, it also has its own momentum.

[Chris]

Sure, totally.

[Guest/Interviewer]

Yeah.

[Chris]

And comedy definitely took off, you know, at a certain point. But, yeah, I mean, that was. I mean, we were at the Cellar and there were two shows a night. Now it's what, like 12 or something?

[Louis C.K.]

Totally.

[Guest/Interviewer]

It's insane.

[Chris]

It's crazy.

[Guest/Interviewer]

There is places in other countries that got into standup because of my show. Not even, but because it was about standups. Like, I was just in Istanbul and I did a show there, and a guy told me that a comedian there told me that it was the series that got people into standup because it was like the life of standup comedy. Like, that's what you watch. If you watch standup and you don't do it, it feels like this other thing. Like, who can do that? But the shows showed the, you know, comedy as a first person experience, so. So people got into that. They. That's what made them want to do it, I guess, in Turkey, anyway.

[Louis C.K.]

Wow, that's.

[Chris]

That's crazy.

[Louis C.K.]

I think that was the last show about a standup.

[Chris]

No, Crashing was after.

[Louis C.K.]

Oh, crashing.

[Guest/Interviewer]

Because also at the seller.

[Louis C.K.]

So.

[Chris]

Yeah.

[Louis C.K.]

Was that awkward?

[Guest/Interviewer]

Huh?

[Louis C.K.]

Was that.

[Chris]

I don't know.

[Guest/Interviewer]

I didn't watch it.

[Louis C.K.]

Some people get weird about that. You know, Chappelle's always like, key and Peele stole my show.

[Guest/Interviewer]

I don't know.

[Louis C.K.]

And you're like, ah, it's just.

[Chris]

Just.

[Louis C.K.]

It's just another show.

[Guest/Interviewer]

Everybody's biting everybody. Doesn't matter.

[Louis C.K.]

All right.

[Guest/Interviewer]

Yeah, yeah.

[Chris]

Who. Who are your biggest influences? Like, as a director?

[Guest/Interviewer]

I love Woody.

[Chris]

Yeah.

[Guest/Interviewer]

Scorsese. Then, like, some weird people, like Lena Vert Muller. She's an Italian director. She made great films.

[Chris]

Pull them up. Don't know it.

[Guest/Interviewer]

Yeah. So she made a movie called Swept Away, which has been remade a couple of times. It's about a fancy yacht and it hits the rocks and the. The snottiest lady in the gold bikini, like a millionaire lady, and the sluggiest dude that works on the yacht are. End up together on an island and turns, you know, so he ends up ruling the island because without him she's dead. And so it's just this turning upside

[Chris]

down of kind of like triangle of sadness.

[Guest/Interviewer]

Yeah, like that. But yeah, this. This one is. It's also hilarious. But also he made one called Seven Beauties, which I think is the next one over on your list there. It's right next to Swept Away.

[Louis C.K.]

There you go. There you go.

[Guest/Interviewer]

Okay, so this one is about an Italian pimp and he's a real just ladies man scumbag. And then It's World War II and he turns out he's Jewish. So now he's in a concent. Concentration camp.

[Louis C.K.]

Whoa.

[Guest/Interviewer]

And he's dying in the concentration camp. He's like, I can't. He has. He has no courage. He's no. He has no strength as a person. And the concentration camp commandant of his barracks is a big fat German lady. And he's like, I gotta. I gotta try to her. Like it's the only skill I have.

[Louis C.K.]

What a premise. Yes.

[Guest/Interviewer]

So yeah, there she is. So he seduces her so that he can survive the holocaust. I mean, who else is making that movie?

[Louis C.K.]

Exactly. That's gold.

[Guest/Interviewer]

Yeah.

[Chris]

This guy knowing women saved his life.

[Louis C.K.]

I guess so.

[Guest/Interviewer]

That's right.

[Chris]

Damn.

[Louis C.K.]

Wow.

[Guest/Interviewer]

That was Lena Wertmuller. She was a incredible filmmaker.

[Louis C.K.]

Did she. She didn't write them too, huh?

[Guest/Interviewer]

I think she might have.

[Louis C.K.]

Oh, that's even cooler.

[Guest/Interviewer]

Yeah, she's a great filmmaker. I don't know if she wrote her movies.

[Louis C.K.]

Movies are so expensive now. If you pitch that, people go, this is never gonna sell. Everybody hate me. So you never get to see that movie anymore.

[Chris]

Yeah, but I think there's gon a big resurgence now with like indie movies and stuff like that, I think.

[Guest/Interviewer]

I think so too.

[Louis C.K.]

People are.

[Guest/Interviewer]

I don't know. There's always somewhere that people are having cinema courage, you know?

[Chris]

Do you still go to the theater a lot or.

[Guest/Interviewer]

No, I haven't seen a movie in the theater in a while. Last few I saw. I saw the. The Spanish version of. It's called Society of the Snow and it's about the plane that went down and they all ate each other pretty good. So they made one here a long time ago with Alive. Ethan Hawke. No, I don't remember who's what. That one's called Ethan Hawke and Josh Hamilton. And it's about the plane going down and they all eat each other alive. You got it?

[Louis C.K.]

Oh, I got it. Okay. That's old.

[Guest/Interviewer]

Yeah.

[Louis C.K.]

And that was a great movie.

[Guest/Interviewer]

Fucking good. But the one that's in Spanish, made by the actual. Basically the people who experienced it. It's phenomenal. I mean, it's made by the country. It's like in Paraguay or something.

[Louis C.K.]

Right.

[Guest/Interviewer]

God, that's good. I. Most great cinema, especially visually, is Spanish speaking for some reason. A lot of movies, I don't know, but they're. Because part of it is the democratization or whatever you want to call it, of the simplicity of not just phones, but like cameras. You can. You can get a really great camera now for very cheap. And so I think countries in South America are making beautiful movies now.

[Louis C.K.]

What's the.

[Guest/Interviewer]

I've seen a few of them.

[Louis C.K.]

The gravity guy, I think he's Hispanic.

[Guest/Interviewer]

Cuaron. He's my buddy.

[Chris]

Is that it?

[Guest/Interviewer]

Cuaron is Alphonse Cuaron. He. He is Mexican.

[Louis C.K.]

Okay.

[Guest/Interviewer]

And his great movie is. One of my favorite movies of all time is Children of Men.

[Louis C.K.]

Oh, I love that movie.

[Guest/Interviewer]

Great movie.

[Louis C.K.]

Great movie.

[Chris]

Yeah, that. Yeah, just like a good. That last 20 minutes or so.

[Louis C.K.]

Oh, yeah.

[Chris]

Unbelievable.

[Guest/Interviewer]

I don't know how you. How you do it. I don't know how he did it.

[Louis C.K.]

I know. It's so much handheld and. And running with the camera.

[Guest/Interviewer]

Yep.

[Louis C.K.]

Great flick.

[Guest/Interviewer]

Yeah. So a lot of Latino movies are good right now.

[Louis C.K.]

What about. Where you at on Korean? I think they're doing some good stuff.

[Guest/Interviewer]

They wanted to go Parasite.

[Louis C.K.]

Yes.

[Chris]

That was. You didn't like it?

[Louis C.K.]

You didn't like Parasite?

[Chris]

You don't like Parasite or Billy Madison?

[Guest/Interviewer]

What the hell making was. Yeah, those. It's as good as Billy Madison. I don't know. I didn't get.

[Louis C.K.]

It felt.

[Guest/Interviewer]

Not meta, but it just felt like there was a conceit to the way people acted in the movie that I was like, I'm not picking up on it. I thought there was great filmmaking in it. It was very beautiful. He made a movie that's like a crazy kind of. There's a lizard eating people on the streets in Korea or something. Oh, and the Host, maybe. It was really fucking great. I mean, I think the guy's a genius.

[Chris]

He made a movie Called Memories of Murder.

[Louis C.K.]

Right, Right.

[Guest/Interviewer]

Huh.

[Chris]

Do you see Memories of Murder?

[Guest/Interviewer]

Don't know that.

[Chris]

That's. That same director. It's really cool. I don't know, really weird crime movie.

[Louis C.K.]

His. All his movies have kind of a message. He did that Okja. And it's all about how we shouldn't be eating meat.

[Guest/Interviewer]

Huh.

[Louis C.K.]

And then parasites about the class system, blah, blah, blah.

[Chris]

Don't let crazy people live in your apartment.

[Louis C.K.]

Yeah, yeah.

[Chris]

It's a good lesson.

[Guest/Interviewer]

There's a Japanese filmmaker, and it doesn't matter that this. That doesn't. It's not connected to him just because area. But he's. I watched a lot of Turner Classic Movies and he's. He made a bunch of movies. There's nothing like these movies. Fuck. Early Spring is one of them. I think it's called Japanese Early Spring. Try that. Something like that.

[Louis C.K.]

There we go.

[Guest/Interviewer]

Yeah. What's his name, the director?

[Louis C.K.]

Oh, man, we got a busy weekend. Yes, sir. Julie Ozu.

[Chris]

Okay.

[Guest/Interviewer]

That guy is incredible.

[Louis C.K.]

Okay.

[Chris]

All right.

[Guest/Interviewer]

That guy is incredible.

[Louis C.K.]

You got to.

[Chris]

You have to bookmark some of these.

[Guest/Interviewer]

So he made this one movie, 1903. So it's about a guy. Well, his movies were made in post war Japan.

[Louis C.K.]

Yeah. It's like.

[Guest/Interviewer]

I mean, think of that. Post war, like, we went from the war to like, Dan, today we go, right? And Japan's like, woof.

[Louis C.K.]

We're going to need a minute. Yeah.

[Guest/Interviewer]

Like, this is fucking tough.

[Louis C.K.]

Yeah.

[Guest/Interviewer]

So they became very muted. You can see it's sort of. Well, anyway, this movie is about a professor, college professor, who lives with his daughter. His daughter never marries. Marrying and being in family is a big thing in the culture at the time. And she loves living with her dad. And she's just a sweet girl who doesn't really want to get married. And he's worried because he's going to die and she's going to be alone.

[Louis C.K.]

Yeah.

[Guest/Interviewer]

So he pretends that he found a wife that he's. Because he's a widow and she was raised from only by him, as her mother died when she was just a kid. So he says, I'm marrying this lady down the street, so you have to go. And so she's sad, but she sort of finds. Opens up to finding somebody and she finds a guy. And the main character. It's a really sad story, but he's really happy. Go lucky.

[Louis C.K.]

Like, she's.

[Guest/Interviewer]

Like, when she leaves to go to live with her husband, she says, I so grateful to you for giving me the best childhood anybody. And she's Crying. And he goes, oh, yeah, yeah, that's cool. Like the whole movie, he's like, yeah. And people are like, are you sad your daughter's leaving? And he's like, nah, it's okay. It makes sense. He's just really, you know, happy. And then the whole movie is a setup for when she leaves. And he goes home to the empty house.

[Louis C.K.]

Whoa.

[Guest/Interviewer]

And he gets an apple. And there's this incredible scene where he's peeling the apple, and you hear the sound of the knife going through the apple. And he looks at the apple with no skin on it, and he just goes like this. And it's credits. It's just his head going. And you just fucking die.

[Chris]

Those are my favorite movies. When the credits hit and you're just

[Guest/Interviewer]

like, yeah, just that little move.

[Chris]

Yeah, we talk about all that Jazz all the time on this. When you. When the credit and when the credits hit and you're just like, fuck.

[Guest/Interviewer]

Where. Where is that moment for you, for all that jazz?

[Chris]

I mean, after that whole number, you just. And they just zip the bag on him.

[Guest/Interviewer]

Yeah.

[Chris]

And you just go, fuck that movie.

[Louis C.K.]

So well done. The opening of that movie is unbelievable. This. Popping the pills.

[Guest/Interviewer]

Yes. That all that Jazz is a masterpiece. Yeah, it's a big, juicy, gorgeous masterpiece of a movie.

[Louis C.K.]

Yeah. Sweaty and it's sexy and. Yeah.

[Chris]

It's also another round. I feel like the ending of that movie, too.

[Louis C.K.]

Oh, that's after that ending.

[Chris]

You ever see that one? Oh, Danish movie. Mads Mickelson.

[Louis C.K.]

Sure.

[Guest/Interviewer]

Now I know that one. What, so what's the moment then?

[Chris]

Well, just when you don't know what happens to him, and you're just like, yeah, that's it. And you don't. But just. It hits it. I love an ambiguous ending. You're just like, oh, so back to

[Guest/Interviewer]

him in a second. But there's another movie that has that moment, and it's. I think it's called Howard's End. It's.

[Louis C.K.]

Oh, yeah, I remember that one. No, maybe. I don't know.

[Chris]

Yeah.

[Guest/Interviewer]

No, no, no, it's different. It's Anthony Hopkins. And that's him.

[Chris]

That's him.

[Guest/Interviewer]

Yes. But it's. What's her name? Oh, yeah. So maybe it is this one. So it's a. A butler and. No, it's different. It's a different movie. Howard Zen is different, but it's another Merchant Ivory that they're both in. Him and Emma. What the.

[Chris]

Is he's in two of the same movie.

[Guest/Interviewer]

Yeah, they're in the. Dressed in the same kind of clothes. Both period movies. Remains of the Day.

[Louis C.K.]

Thank you.

[Guest/Interviewer]

He's the butler and she's the housekeeper.

[Louis C.K.]

Yeah.

[Guest/Interviewer]

Of a great house. Right. And it's this long story of the. And his father was the butler, so he replaces him. But anyway, he's deeply in love with her and she kind of. She's waiting for him because it's English to make a move. And he's just. Every time they're going away for like the holidays, she's like, where are you going? And he's like, I'll just be going to the countryside. And she's like, I'm not going anywhere. And he's like, well, I'll see you later. And year after year, then they get gray and they're both old and the house closes, so it's over. And he sees her to the train, and she's on the train and. And. And he. She gives him her hand just to say goodbye, just to shake hands. And there's this close up of her hand and he just presses it with his thumb just a little. And as the train takes off, she's like, oh, my God, he loved me the whole fucking time. And he's just like, he couldn't. It's like a 40 year. I can't say I love.

[Louis C.K.]

Damn, what a nut.

[Guest/Interviewer]

That moment.

[Chris]

It's like the ending of the age of innocence when Daniel Day Lewis won't go upstairs.

[Guest/Interviewer]

Right?

[Chris]

Yeah. It's like that repressed age was just like a touch. You're just like, oh, my God.

[Louis C.K.]

Yeah.

[Chris]

It's crazy to think where we went. We're like. With like porn and stuff now. Back then, it's like, you're like, you touched my hand. Now it's eight cocks at once

[Guest/Interviewer]

with jizz all over it.

[Louis C.K.]

The makeup's running. Hey, hey, folks. If you've got cats and I, you know I do, you know, your litter box is one of those chores that you never really goes away. Whether you got a busy schedule, growing family, or just tired of scooping every day, the litter robot can take one more thing off your plate. The Whisker litter robot automatically cycles after every use, so you don't have to scoop every day. Handle the waste. It also connects to the Whisker app, which gives you notifications when a cleaning cycle is complete, lets you monitor your cat's weight, bathroom usage, and tells you when the unit needs attention. Whisker has automatic litter box models for every household, whether you have one cat or five. Sorry, ladies. Get a boyfriend. And they also offer bundles that make it easy to get everything you need while saving some money. If you're looking for an easier way to keep up the litter box maintenance, this is definitely worth checking out. Maintain your cat's litter while focusing on your growing family. Learn more about Whisker litter robot models and starter kits today to get set up before your new baby arrives. Take an additional 50 bucks off bundles with code WMBD when you shop Whisker.

[Chris]

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[Louis C.K.]

Yeah.

[Guest/Interviewer]

Well, like don't look now. Or don't look now. I think Donald Sutherland.

[Louis C.K.]

I don't know.

[Chris]

Don't know it.

[Louis C.K.]

Oh, I know. Look who's.

[Guest/Interviewer]

That's a chilling of all of these. I beseech you to watch this.

[Chris]

Okay.

[Guest/Interviewer]

Oh, really deeply upsetting movie. And it's all about the last like three seconds. It's just a huge setup to the most upsetting three seconds of cinema.

[Chris]

Damn.

[Guest/Interviewer]

Yeah.

[Louis C.K.]

Have you heard about this new movie that's banned now that's number one on Apple.

[Chris]

What is it?

[Louis C.K.]

It's about a guy, I think he's in Germany.

[Chris]

Oh, he's the Army Hammer movie.

[Louis C.K.]

It's already banned everywhere because he's going around killing Mike.

[Chris]

Yes. It's like Death. It's like Death Wish type movie.

[Guest/Interviewer]

Yeah, I just watched Death Wish.

[Chris]

Me too.

[Louis C.K.]

Really?

[Chris]

I just watched it.

[Guest/Interviewer]

I watched it and I watched half of two.

[Chris]

It's the Same plot, right?

[Louis C.K.]

It is.

[Chris]

The first one is wife.

[Guest/Interviewer]

And I skipped the rape.

[Chris]

You got to skip the rape. Yeah.

[Louis C.K.]

How is it that bad?

[Chris]

And Jeff Goldblum's one of the rapists.

[Guest/Interviewer]

Jeff's gold. He's wearing a kind of crown like Jughead in the Archies. And he says to this woman, he goes, you rich cunt. I kill rich cunts.

[Chris]

It's awful.

[Guest/Interviewer]

Jeff Goldblum said it's awful. Movie.

[Louis C.K.]

So funny. He's in his apartment going, you rich cuz. No, no, no.

[Chris]

There's eight other dudes in that audition room. Like, I got this.

[Guest/Interviewer]

Yeah, yeah. No, he nails you rich cunt.

[Chris]

But it's like it's.

[Guest/Interviewer]

There he is.

[Louis C.K.]

There he is.

[Chris]

But the plot of the movie is his wife and daughter are raped and his wife's murdered. And then. And he goes on revenge. Not those guys, but he's just like, you know.

[Guest/Interviewer]

Yeah, he never gets those guys.

[Chris]

But then the second one is just. It's just his maid and his daughter are raped and murdered. It's like. They didn't really. They could have gone a different way maybe.

[Louis C.K.]

They could have twisted.

[Chris]

This guy's got some bad luck.

[Louis C.K.]

Yeah. Give me something.

[Chris]

Yeah. He moves to LA too, right? It's like a different la.

[Guest/Interviewer]

It's kind of like Escape from New York.

[Louis C.K.]

I like how at the end of that movie, the cops are like, we know it's you, but just get the hell out of here.

[Guest/Interviewer]

Yeah.

[Louis C.K.]

What a fun. That's so 70s. Killing everybody in town. But just get the hell out of here. Yep, we get it. Look at that. I got to rewatch. I haven't seen this movie in 20 years.

[Guest/Interviewer]

These movies are very shoddily done to the very cheap. Kind of like right on the street movies. But they're really dynamic. It's like Mike to think of Michael Mann was going full circle, was making lush, gorgeous films. And this was a straight Ed. This is a huge hit. They made four or five of them.

[Louis C.K.]

Yeah. I never got Bronson's face. His face bothers me.

[Guest/Interviewer]

So he. He has one of the greatest movies ever, which is what he's. The problem is that guys get famous because they do something great. So then they have him do other things.

[Louis C.K.]

Right?

[Guest/Interviewer]

Right. Leo DiCaprio doesn't need to be fucking J. Edgar Hoover, you know?

[Chris]

Yeah.

[Guest/Interviewer]

He's good at other things.

[Louis C.K.]

You don't think he can nail it?

[Guest/Interviewer]

Well, that was okay.

[Louis C.K.]

Yeah.

[Chris]

That wasn't. That was considered.

[Louis C.K.]

I never saw that.

[Chris]

I didn't see it either.

[Guest/Interviewer]

But Bronson did a movie Called Hard Times.

[Louis C.K.]

Oh, the fistfight movie. Yeah.

[Guest/Interviewer]

James Coburn. It's a really phenomenal movie because it's not just this. These great fist fight scenes. It's a weird. It's a portrait of New Orleans.

[Louis C.K.]

Yeah.

[Guest/Interviewer]

During the Depression, which is where you're from.

[Louis C.K.]

Right, that. Right.

[Guest/Interviewer]

And I don't know how they did it because they. It's like. Well, I mean, you go to New Orleans, it's like the 30s there.

[Louis C.K.]

That's true. It's law, so.

[Guest/Interviewer]

Yeah, but it's really. It's a gorgeous, funny, interesting movie.

[Louis C.K.]

Weren't they in. What is it? The. Not the Good, the Bad and the Ugly together?

[Guest/Interviewer]

Dirty Dozens.

[Louis C.K.]

Mega seven.

[Chris]

Yeah.

[Guest/Interviewer]

Yes, they were together.

[Louis C.K.]

Coburn and him.

[Guest/Interviewer]

I'm sorry. And I'm thinking. Well, I don't know if Coburn was in the Dirty Dozen.

[Chris]

Yul Brenner, I think was in.

[Louis C.K.]

Yeah.

[Guest/Interviewer]

Oh, yeah. I mean, well, did you ever see the original Japanese?

[Chris]

I gotta watch that one.

[Louis C.K.]

It's good.

[Guest/Interviewer]

Great.

[Louis C.K.]

I was nervous. I was like, here we go. Old black and white. But it's, you know.

[Chris]

You know what I watched the other day for the first time? That was crazy. If you heard of this movie, To Be or Not To Be by Ernest Lubitsch. 1942 made it. Lubitz was great during the Holocaust. And it's like anti Hitler movie. It's just mocking the Nazis. It's a comedy. It's a straight up comedy with Jack Benny. So controversial when it came out that Jack Benny's dad walked out of it like disgrace.

[Louis C.K.]

I mean, 42. They're right in the heart.

[Chris]

They're right in the heart of it. And, you know, he's a Berlin Jew. He left Hitler, hates him, obviously. And Carol Lombard dies, like two months before it comes out in a plane crash. That Orson Welles is like, Nazi agent, shot at that. I mean, it's probably bullshit. No, it was a war.

[Guest/Interviewer]

Oh, okay. During the.

[Chris]

42. Yeah.

[Guest/Interviewer]

Well, there was. War movies right after the war are way better than war movies after.

[Louis C.K.]

Like, process it a little.

[Guest/Interviewer]

Yeah, well, the ones that were right after were great because they were made by veterans and they were like, Samuel Fuller made a shitload of war movies and he. He was in really deep shit in World War II. And there's another one called Decision Before Dawn, I think it's called. So I don't know how they did this movie because. What year is it?

[Louis C.K.]

51.

[Guest/Interviewer]

Okay. I mean, think about that. That's six years after World War II.

[Louis C.K.]

Yeah.

[Guest/Interviewer]

What was six years ago today? 20. 20.

[Louis C.K.]

Yeah.

[Guest/Interviewer]

So it's like a movie about the pandemic would still be like, we just did that. So this is like. There's still rubble everywhere.

[Louis C.K.]

Yeah, right.

[Guest/Interviewer]

And so they made this movie and this really incred, incredible actor, the lead. What's his. There he is.

[Louis C.K.]

Oscar.

[Guest/Interviewer]

Werner.

[Louis C.K.]

Werner.

[Guest/Interviewer]

So Oscar plays a soldier, a Nazi soldier.

[Louis C.K.]

Oh, Klaus Kinski's in it.

[Guest/Interviewer]

Yes, he is. And the U. And it's based on a true story that the US started to take POWs, German POWs, and send them back in uniform to be spies. And so he was sent to do a major huge exploit, like killing a lot of people in Germany thing. And he. He hated Hitler. They'd have to. They'd interview these guys and see if they were really committed because otherwise they're going to go over and things. It's like a very dangerous thing to do to send a guy back as a spy.

[Louis C.K.]

Sure.

[Guest/Interviewer]

Because if he turns back again, he can really hurt you. So he plays a guy who goes over back into Nazi Germany to try to do some sabotage and cause a big thing. And you just follow him. And he's going around German towns and he's seeing friends and he's.

[Louis C.K.]

People he likes crazy.

[Guest/Interviewer]

And like his father is a doctor in a hospital. And he goes. He's outside the hospital and he calls his dad. And his dad comes to the phone, but he can't say yet. Say hi to him. And you just see him like start. And you're. And what you're watching is you're wondering if he's gonna do this thing. And the movie lets you have a lot of sympathy for Germans.

[Chris]

Yeah.

[Guest/Interviewer]

During the war. And a lot of movies after that were made right after. Because if you were really over there fighting, you came away with some sympathy. You just did the kind of jingoistic these people is like, that came later. Like John Wayne war movies.

[Chris]

Well, John Wayne famously never served. Right. I mean, there's that book about that in any war, five came back, all the directors like, fuck this guy. He's a pussy. He's playing tough guys. And they all.

[Guest/Interviewer]

John Ford went over there.

[Chris]

They went over all those guys.

[Guest/Interviewer]

Yeah, but so, yeah, the movies they made right after were more reflective, more like this, like more messy, that kind of thing.

[Louis C.K.]

Do you find this is a little gay interviewing question. But do you find that because you got some of the. The most, you know, out there premises. Do you think you see some of these, these crazy movie premises and you go, I can like, what is it? Putney, Swope.

[Guest/Interviewer]

Yeah.

[Louis C.K.]

You know That's a wacky film.

[Guest/Interviewer]

Yeah. Completely nuts.

[Louis C.K.]

But I think some of your premises, you're like, you go places no one else will go. You got this weird part of your brain I feel like you tap into.

[Chris]

I feel like you started super absurdist in your stand up and you've kind of gone back to that a little bit too.

[Guest/Interviewer]

Yeah, I kind of have. Well, yeah, thanks. I mean, I'll take it as a no.

[Louis C.K.]

That's a good. That no one else is going there.

[Guest/Interviewer]

Well, that to me makes it worth doing. Like, I guess a lot of what drives what I do is curiosity. So if I can see how something's going to work, I'm like, well then why, why, dude, it's like, I already seen the movie. You know what I mean? But if you start with something that's really up and strange.

[Louis C.K.]

Right.

[Guest/Interviewer]

What, what, what about, what about this? What would this be like? And jokes are like. Jokes are a more immediate version of that.

[Louis C.K.]

Totally.

[Guest/Interviewer]

Where you go like, why am I going to talk about this? This is not. There's things that people think are funny and we know what they are. And, and if you. And that's not easy. Nothing, nothing in stand up is easy. But I like starting with something where I'm like, they don't even want to hear about this.

[Louis C.K.]

Yeah. How do you get over that hump?

[Guest/Interviewer]

You know, it's curiosity, it's wondering.

[Louis C.K.]

But if they're rejecting it, it's like waves coming at you and you're. You keep swimming.

[Guest/Interviewer]

So it's a good question. To me, it's because I don't take those, the rejection personally, it doesn't hurt me. I just think it's interesting. Like if you were a scientist and you're doing an experiment, if you put this drop or liquid into this thing, it. Does it bubble or does it boil or what does it do if you got offended that it bubbles, you'd be out of luck as a scientist. But if you're like, I'm just curious to see what will happen.

[Louis C.K.]

Sure.

[Guest/Interviewer]

And also, I've been doing this for 40 plus. I mean in 1985, so whatever that is.

[Louis C.K.]

Yeah.

[Guest/Interviewer]

So when you do a joke and they just draw a blank, you go, oh, that's okay. But we're still all here. And I could do something now that I couldn't have done when you were la. When you're laughing, it keeps resetting. When you do a joke that makes people feel like, ah, that's so funny, they laugh and then they're like, here, give us another One you keep coming back to kind of the same place, but if you do a joke that makes them go, what the fuck was that? Now you're in a new. You've gone to a new place.

[Louis C.K.]

Yeah.

[Guest/Interviewer]

And there's a bunch of jokes. There's. That nobody else is gonna find because they feel more comfortable in this cycle.

[Louis C.K.]

But, I mean, I guess it's not even a personal. That. That's interesting. It's not even a personal thing for me. It's like, oh, no one. I'm gonna bomb, and no one's gonna come back. No one's gonna see me again. Are they gonna walk away going, that was a bad show. Yeah.

[Guest/Interviewer]

But, okay, for example, you're really skilled comic. You are a guy who clip.

[Louis C.K.]

That kills. Okay.

[Guest/Interviewer]

You're killer act.

[Louis C.K.]

All right?

[Guest/Interviewer]

And you're. It's clear you're in success mode on stage. Like, you're.

[Louis C.K.]

You're.

[Guest/Interviewer]

You're doing great. So why would one. It's incredible to me, actually, that, like, one, you're thinking, if they don't laugh at this, they're never gonna come.

[Louis C.K.]

Well, maybe that's a little extreme. But they're gonna be gonna walk away. That's.

[Guest/Interviewer]

But they're not gonna walk away. They're still there.

[Louis C.K.]

I mean, after it's over, they're gonna go, yeah, we saw the guy. He sucked.

[Chris]

Yeah. But also, Louis, there's not a lot of comics at your level who have the comfort bombing that you have. And, I mean, that's a compliment. I mean, I've seen.

[Guest/Interviewer]

Yeah, it doesn't bother me.

[Chris]

Yeah, it really doesn't. Like, we've both seen Louie, like, in workout mode, and he just. I've never seen. It's rare that dudes as famous as Louis are comfortable taking an L set.

[Louis C.K.]

That's true. It's true.

[Guest/Interviewer]

It's so fun to do. Like, I remember going into the Cellar one night, and it was the upstairs room. The lounge. Not the. The bar.

[Louis C.K.]

The bar.

[Chris]

Yeah.

[Guest/Interviewer]

I think at times that's the worst room.

[Louis C.K.]

Easily.

[Guest/Interviewer]

That's where they put the end of the audience that.

[Louis C.K.]

Yes.

[Guest/Interviewer]

Not gotten to.

[Chris]

But that kind of makes it the best room.

[Guest/Interviewer]

Sometimes. It's great.

[Louis C.K.]

Yeah.

[Chris]

Because when you go in with a

[Guest/Interviewer]

low bar and you can have a good time.

[Chris]

Yeah. And you're kind of like, if I get one line out of this set.

[Louis C.K.]

Right.

[Chris]

You know, if I get something.

[Guest/Interviewer]

But it was not a good night. And everybody was sitting at those tables outside of the curtain, and everyone's just. It just was fucking bad.

[Louis C.K.]

Yeah.

[Guest/Interviewer]

And they're all looking at me. I kind of feel other comedians eyes on me as I'm about to go on stage. And I'm. And I've got a list of bits that I want to try that aren't. They ain't been working. And part of me wants to just go up there and smoke the place.

[Louis C.K.]

Yeah.

[Guest/Interviewer]

You know what I mean? And show them this is how it's done. But I just want. I came here to accomplish something, so I went up and I'm trying these bits, and the crowd's like. Like, no, like, not beyond bombing to, like, what the.

[Louis C.K.]

Yeah.

[Guest/Interviewer]

Like, it's. Because that's the kind of people that kind of go to the cell.

[Louis C.K.]

Totally. Totally.

[Guest/Interviewer]

There's a lot of girls in black dresses, and they're, like, together, and they're like, what? So they're not. And I'm older and I'm doing these weird things.

[Louis C.K.]

Right.

[Guest/Interviewer]

Like, no. And I kind of get off, and I walk by that table, and they're all looking at me, the comics. And I said, that was horrible. And they were all. They all smiled, like it made them happy that I acknowledged that I ate it and that we all ate it. We're all the same. You know what I mean? I like being in that world of bombing is. There's dignity in it, you know? Kind of gives me a good feeling and kind of. You can feel it. It heats you up. Like a fever kind of burns off.

[Louis C.K.]

Oh, yeah.

[Guest/Interviewer]

Demons.

[Louis C.K.]

Well, Bill Burr has that, too. Where he can kind of go far and then win him back.

[Guest/Interviewer]

Yeah.

[Louis C.K.]

I. I equate. I like boxing. And, you know, Rocky Marciano had the. Had a. They found he had a padding on his head. Like, add extra weird cartilage on his head, really take more hits. And I think some comics have a thing where they can take more abuse. Yes.

[Chris]

You can take a lot.

[Guest/Interviewer]

If you can take a lot of beatings. But there's a level beyond winning them back.

[Louis C.K.]

Yeah. For sure.

[Guest/Interviewer]

There's another thing.

[Louis C.K.]

But if you can get all the way out and come back, like.

[Guest/Interviewer]

But it's different. It's. You go way out.

[Louis C.K.]

Yeah.

[Guest/Interviewer]

There's no cord.

[Louis C.K.]

There's no more spaceship. Yeah. This.

[Guest/Interviewer]

This umbilical.

[Louis C.K.]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Guest/Interviewer]

It ain't there. I know you've taken them somewhere where they're like, we don't even know why.

[Louis C.K.]

Now you're floating.

[Guest/Interviewer]

This is not entertainment.

[Louis C.K.]

Yeah.

[Guest/Interviewer]

And you're just like, all right, guys. Well, here we are. There's no up or down here. I'm. But you're all Freaking out. You're worried because they don't. Like, the audience doesn't like feeling like they're in a struggle or in a bad place. But I'm okay. My brain's working right. And I learned that a little from boxing. Because when you're getting beaten up in boxing, the only way out is your brain. You have to be smart. You can't. It's not just hitting back. It's like having a good idea. But they're upset because I've done sometimes two, three things in a row that haven't worked deep in. And I'm okay. I'm breathing okay. I'm not panicking. I'm not struggling to get them back. I'm like, we're in a really interesting place way out here now. And there's jokes out. His comedy you haven't considered out here. And if you can start a new garden of comedy there instead of coming back right now, you got a whole other. You got a whole range of shit. Stuff you can do.

[Louis C.K.]

Like, I know your whole career and all that. You started with the same hour. You did the same hour for 10 years.

[Guest/Interviewer]

I did.

[Louis C.K.]

And now you're doing the complete. You went the complete other way, where you did a new hour every year for a while.

[Guest/Interviewer]

That's true.

[Louis C.K.]

So how did you go from, hey, I'm the hour every year, play it safe, guy. Same hour, you know, live in Houston, that hour. The. The. The breakfast order, the eggs on a

[Chris]

nail every night, every guy getting hit by the car.

[Louis C.K.]

Yes. The peach.

[Chris]

Yeah.

[Guest/Interviewer]

Yeah.

[Louis C.K.]

How did you go from that guy, Play it safe guy, to out in the atmosphere with a new garden?

[Guest/Interviewer]

Good question.

[Louis C.K.]

Well, and one of that. What that was, that flip was a gradual.

[Guest/Interviewer]

If some of it was gradual and some of it was just getting really sick of it because I. The. The opening joke to that set was, I live in New York, and it's the only city in the world where you have to say things like, hey, that's mine. Don't pee on that. That was the joke. I did that joke thousands of times, and I hated it so much every time I would say it. I hated the way my mouth felt. Like, do you know that kind of thing where you've done a joke too many times? I didn't even know what I was saying. I was just making breath go through my throat.

[Louis C.K.]

Yeah.

[Guest/Interviewer]

Sounds. And they'd laugh and I'd hate.

[Chris]

On autopilot.

[Guest/Interviewer]

Yes. And all of the jokes in that first hour, I just did them for years and years, and I started to rot and feel like I got nothing.

[Chris]

Was there a comic that made you. That gave you, like, the bump, or was it just you?

[Louis C.K.]

Was it just hating it?

[Guest/Interviewer]

Well, there was a few things that started it. One of them was I was. Me and a bunch of comics in New York were just, like, doing our same sets. You do the same five when you audition for Letterman in the same 20 when you try to get on this thing, you know, whatever.

[Louis C.K.]

Yeah.

[Guest/Interviewer]

No one's getting an hour special that was like, nobody was getting that. And you try to get money at the clubs sometimes. And SNL once in a while, auditions, it was just miserable. And then Chris Rock, who had been on SNL but then vanished for a while. Yes, he came back and he was at Caroline's headlining. And I was friends with him earlier, but I hadn't seen him a long time. So me and a bunch of comedians went to Caroline's, and we were all sitting in one booth, and it was astonishing. He was leaning forward and he was doing these jokes that I was like, I didn't know this was an option to get this good.

[Louis C.K.]

It was bring the pain, probably.

[Guest/Interviewer]

I think so. And we all sat there at the end of the show, everyone was standing, and we were all just, wow, so

[Louis C.K.]

that woke your ass up.

[Guest/Interviewer]

It made me realize, funny, that has

[Chris]

the opposite impact on a comedian.

[Guest/Interviewer]

Yeah.

[Chris]

Just like, I fucking hate myself so upset.

[Guest/Interviewer]

Yeah. It's like if everybody was high jumpers together and everyone's like, three feet, man. How'd you fucking do three feet? And then some guy does, like, eight, and you're like, no, no, no, no, wait a minute. Three is a lot. He's like, no, it's not. It's nothing.

[Louis C.K.]

Right?

[Guest/Interviewer]

And I was, I think, close to 30 or something. I don't remember how old I was,

[Chris]

but that lit a fire under your ass.

[Guest/Interviewer]

Yeah. And then I started thinking, I should actually, like, study what I do. I should actually be deliberate. And I. Chris and I rekindled friendship. And he gave me certain advice, like, if you're driving to a gig, turn the radio off. And I mean, forget phones back then, but sit there and stew in your car. You need to get uncomfortable, and you need to play clubs where they don't like you. And I started thinking, like, oh, no, you actually have to be, like, training. You have to actually, actually try. You don't just sit around like, here's my act. Where's my fucking deal? Yeah, you go, forget getting attention from anybody and just think, what can make me better? And I. I started to listen to Guys, More, more. I started. I got all the Richard Pryor put out just around then a big CD set of all of his. You could buy them all at once. All his albums. I listened to them all and I listened to.

[Chris]

What did you take from Pryor?

[Guest/Interviewer]

Just this fluidity and this like, you know, add an easy Richard Pryor and owning moments. The thing about Prior is that people, I think, felt was really like, opinionated. And he said big things, but he was silly as fuck. Yeah, funny and fucking silly.

[Chris]

People forget that about Bill Hicks too. They always. It's always like the heavy clips. But there were moments where he was so damn silly.

[Guest/Interviewer]

The reason Bill Hicks was great was because he knew how to use a microphone. Like, he made funny noises and shit. He was just a great comic. But anyway, so, yeah, Prior. And then I heard Carlin in an interview talk about his process and he said that he looked at it like, I'm writing this show now and I'm writing. It just had never occurred to me, like, I'm doing this show, I do it for about a year, then I do one of my. Because he was the guy doing a special all the time. And then he said, then I kind of start working. He had a more gradual thing of throwing it out gradually and starting to. But the idea of, like, I did this show, this show's done, let's start again, was so deeply exciting to me that that was an all at once thing. Well, it's like I'm doing that from now, because I did. I. When I did Lucky Louie, the show never had a chance. Yeah, definitely getting canceled. And I knew it. So I. But I was in.

[Chris]

Why do you think it never had a chance?

[Guest/Interviewer]

It just was not something people wanted. And it was, you know, a lot of reasons, but I was there, I was inside hbo. So I asked them, can I have an hour?

[Louis C.K.]

Yeah.

[Guest/Interviewer]

And they said yes. So the show got canceled.

[Chris]

Was that shameless?

[Guest/Interviewer]

Yeah. And I went on the road for a year and I built that hour.

[Chris]

And you had done a half hour with.

[Guest/Interviewer]

I had done a half hour where a lot of stuff I'd been working on every. It was everything since that album to the half hour went into that.

[Chris]

Well, you had that closer. The talking your kid, the wipe it.

[Louis C.K.]

That's a great.

[Chris]

That was. That was the bit where I felt like. I mean, just as someone, as a spectator, I was like, oh, he's turned a corner. I think creatively. I think when you started bringing your kids into it, there was something like no one had talked about kids that way.

[Louis C.K.]

No, for sure. Throwing them in a dumpster, that was a big bitch.

[Guest/Interviewer]

So that was a big. And then also there was this general feeling also that I didn't care anymore, that if they didn't laugh, it was okay with me.

[Louis C.K.]

Yeah.

[Chris]

Like, which some comics say, but they take the wrong way.

[Guest/Interviewer]

That's right. I don't mean it like you. I just mean like, I think if I don't get a laugh, we're all going to be okay. And there's something past it.

[Chris]

It was a control.

[Guest/Interviewer]

Yes. It was like, why not try it? It's gonna be okay. It's just one joke. And the first one that I joke I came up with, that was. That was the thing about the World Trade Center. The joke was, you know how bad a person you are by how soon after 911 you jerked off for the first time.

[Louis C.K.]

I remember that.

[Guest/Interviewer]

And every time I would do that joke, people would go, no. Like, out loud. No, no. And it would just get silenced. But I'm like, I know, it's a great joke. So I'm gonna do it every night until it starts working.

[Chris]

And the turn at the end.

[Guest/Interviewer]

And then. Yeah, I remember the turn was for

[Chris]

me, it was in between the two.

[Guest/Interviewer]

Between the two planes.

[Louis C.K.]

That's a great.

[Guest/Interviewer]

Between the two buildings going down.

[Chris]

Because you took something awful and you. And you found a light angle.

[Guest/Interviewer]

I found a really, really selfish, silly angle to it.

[Chris]

You made yourself the bad guy in

[Guest/Interviewer]

9 at 9 11. That's right. If that. That's pretty great.

[Chris]

But that's kind of the beauty of that joke is like, I'm the asshole.

[Guest/Interviewer]

Yes.

[Louis C.K.]

Yeah. I'm gross. Look at me.

[Chris]

That's.

[Louis C.K.]

Yeah. Loser.

[Guest/Interviewer]

Yeah.

[Chris]

Yeah. That was. That was in Shameless, that one.

[Guest/Interviewer]

That was. No, it was shoot up.

[Louis C.K.]

I don't. I don't remember.

[Guest/Interviewer]

It wasn't.

[Louis C.K.]

I think so.

[Guest/Interviewer]

I don't know if that. I do it in a.

[Chris]

That was a joke that, like, was an example to me that I. Or for me that I would tell someone when they'd say, like, oh, you shouldn't do a 911 joke. Like, that's a great 911 joke. You know, it's. It's no subjects off limit.

[Guest/Interviewer]

No. But also it isn't for who likes it. So it's like if somebody says you shouldn't, well, then they shouldn't watch that kind of comedy.

[Chris]

Right.

[Guest/Interviewer]

But it doesn't. There's no universal collective what we should be doing or not. There's just you do. You do what you do. And then the results Are the results in terms of how many people like it? Where do people like it? Where do people not. I never had in any quarrel with people saying, I don't like jokes that are like that. That's fine. That's their thing. Then they like another kind of humor. You know, there's lots of kinds.

[Chris]

But my point about that is that I think it's such a strong joke that it can turn people who might. Not necessarily.

[Guest/Interviewer]

And then there's so. Well, look, what comes and goes but seems to always be there is that people are open to comedy. Oh, comedy is a place where people are open. In other words, I'll listen to something. I don't. I'm not. That's not my kind of thing. Because I might laugh. Laughing is fucking rare. And it's fun.

[Louis C.K.]

Yes.

[Guest/Interviewer]

So you're like, I don't like jokes about abortion. I don't like. I don't like. Abortion is a touchy subject for me. But I'll give this a listen because I might laugh. And if they find themselves laughing, you know, there's a connection there. That's good.

[Louis C.K.]

That's great point.

[Guest/Interviewer]

So.

[Louis C.K.]

Damn it. I had a thing, but I was so involved in that.

[Chris]

I'm curious when you write because you say, like, Carlin puts on. You know, this is my show. This is a new show. When you're writing, is it free association? Are you reading the paper? I've seen you at the store getting the paper. What's your process when you sit down?

[Guest/Interviewer]

I get the paper because I like the crosswords. I read the Wall Street Journal. I get that at home, but I go by the New York Times on the weekends for the. I like the crosswords, but no, I don't. I mean, it's a cycle, so I don't know where you started. Like, I just did a special, so I'm off. I'm out.

[Louis C.K.]

You're back to zero.

[Guest/Interviewer]

Yeah. I got no ch jokes. I got two or three left over.

[Louis C.K.]

All right.

[Guest/Interviewer]

That I came up with towards the end of the tour. I have a bit about farts that I'm really proud of.

[Louis C.K.]

All right.

[Guest/Interviewer]

And so when I come back, I'll have that. It's a pretty decent bit.

[Louis C.K.]

Yeah.

[Guest/Interviewer]

And so usually there's a couple like that, little things like. Like one or two. And then. And so I just put it out of my. I put comedy out of my mind, though. I don't think about it for months.

[Louis C.K.]

Yeah.

[Guest/Interviewer]

Try to go as long as I can. Like last night I was texting with Daniel Simonson because About the World Cup. He loves soccer and he said, I'm gonna miss the game because I'm going to the cellar. And I was like, I want to go to the cellar. Like, I want to be on stage.

[Louis C.K.]

Yeah.

[Guest/Interviewer]

But I right now is the stage where, like, I'm actually prohibiting it. Like, just don't do it.

[Louis C.K.]

Really.

[Guest/Interviewer]

Don't think about jokes. Don't touch it.

[Louis C.K.]

You want to live.

[Guest/Interviewer]

Yeah. And also, just stay off the muscle. Just stay off of it completely. Let it bury the potato under the ground and let it just sit there and.

[Louis C.K.]

Yeah.

[Guest/Interviewer]

Get fermented.

[Chris]

You want to live?

[Guest/Interviewer]

Yeah. And yes, I want to live my life, but I also don't for the sake of the stand up. I don't want to be doing it right now. It needs to cool off. Like in Hungary, they take a cow's head and they fill it full of crazy spices and shit and snails, and they wrap it in a rag and they bury it under the ground out in their yard, and it sits under there for like months. And then they. And then they dig it up and they eat it. It's like the best thing you ever ate.

[Louis C.K.]

Come on, give that a goo.

[Guest/Interviewer]

Give that little Hungarian be. I don't know. Do your best. You know what you're doing?

[Louis C.K.]

Cow's head berry.

[Guest/Interviewer]

Yeah, something like that.

[Louis C.K.]

Wow. I mean, the months is annoying because you're like, I want to eat the thing.

[Guest/Interviewer]

Yeah.

[Louis C.K.]

I gotta wait months. What if I'm starving?

[Guest/Interviewer]

No, I don't think you're on the right track. But anyway, it's something they do with. I think it's in Hungary. No, say delicacy.

[Chris]

For delicacy, you could just say you want to take some time off too,

[Guest/Interviewer]

you know, I just want to take some time off, man.

[Louis C.K.]

I just.

[Guest/Interviewer]

Guy.

[Chris]

No, I get it. You want life, you want. You need to live. You need stuff to write about, you need to recharge. You've done this, as you said, 41 years.

[Guest/Interviewer]

Yes. The last time I stopped, I took. I took a full head beef year and a half. And my thought was, I'm not doing it anymore. I was quitting.

[Louis C.K.]

I knew that was never going to take.

[Guest/Interviewer]

Yeah, I thought. I honestly thought it would because I loved. I felt so good. And once I live near the. I live right between the cellar and the stand. So once in a while I see comedians walking by from one to the other, and they have this pasty look on their face. I'm like, I'm going to do a spot. And I'm like, I don't Fucking miss that at all. It's like seeing people going on the river sticks. They just have, like, no soul anymore.

[Louis C.K.]

Yeah.

[Guest/Interviewer]

Stand up is such a up lifestyle, so I don't miss it.

[Louis C.K.]

True.

[Chris]

But you kind of romanticize it. I feel like watching Louie made me feel like. It felt like being a comic was cool.

[Guest/Interviewer]

It ain't, man.

[Chris]

But in the show. But in the show. In the show. In the show, it felt cool. I mean, like.

[Louis C.K.]

Yeah. And the road is great.

[Guest/Interviewer]

Nah, you're right, it is.

[Louis C.K.]

Yeah.

[Guest/Interviewer]

I mean, cool.

[Chris]

Even the episode with Jim Florentine where you guys are in a comedy condo together and Jim is playing a hack.

[Louis C.K.]

He's hilarious in it.

[Chris]

And there's a line where you're being arrogant about your craft. And he goes, it's a fucking bar trick.

[Guest/Interviewer]

Yeah.

[Chris]

There was something. I love that you kind of would shit on yourself and like.

[Guest/Interviewer]

Well, we shot that show in new. In Long island at the Governor's.

[Chris]

Yeah.

[Guest/Interviewer]

Yeah. And it was great. Cause I asked him, just be a huge hack.

[Chris]

Yeah.

[Guest/Interviewer]

Just go on and be just. And he was like, yeah, all right. And he's like, sir, you got three girls at your table. You must be hung like a elephant. And he's just doing the basics. Yeah, he's crushing. It was so fun to watch a guy who. You just go, don't have any. Just do it.

[Louis C.K.]

So he just did his act.

[Guest/Interviewer]

I mean, he's a thousand times funnier and more inventive than that. I love Jim.

[Chris]

Florida. Yeah.

[Guest/Interviewer]

And anyway. Yeah, so he was great in that. That was really fun.

[Chris]

But you would. But, like, you would call yourself out. But then also there were times where I thought you, like, looked cool as a comic in it, whereas I know that you. You know, we're self deprecating, but,

[Louis C.K.]

I

[Chris]

mean, the lifestyle seemed cool to me. Maybe. Maybe it hit me at the right time. Like, I was. I know.

[Guest/Interviewer]

It was. It was. It did feel cool. It does a lot of the time. Yeah, it does. Sometimes it feels incredibly cool sometimes.

[Louis C.K.]

But you feel like.

[Guest/Interviewer]

I can't believe what you're. What you're in the middle of.

[Louis C.K.]

Yeah. Like when you're running from one club to the next and, like, the jokes kind of start to work better, then you get more exciting. That's the fun part. It's not the running around or the bombing or whatever. It's that, like, tinkering.

[Guest/Interviewer]

No doubt. That's what I was talking to Keith Robinson, and he had done some joke about a girl vandalizing his scooter, you know, because he's got. He's got a stroke.

[Louis C.K.]

Yeah.

[Guest/Interviewer]

And so he has like a rascal. And he said some girl in his building wanted him to have sex with her and he wouldn't, so she vandalized his scooter. She fucked up his.

[Louis C.K.]

Wow.

[Guest/Interviewer]

And he. He was telling the story and he didn't really. Wasn't a joke yet. And afterwards I was like, there's something there. And he goes, yeah, I don't know what it is yet, but there's something there. And then somehow the conversation turned into talking about how long should we do stand up for in our lives? And he said, as long as I'm curious about bits like that. As long as I have that sort of like, how do I make that work? Yeah, I'll keep doing this. And it really is. It's a small thing that makes you love it.

[Louis C.K.]

Yes.

[Guest/Interviewer]

It's that little, like, right in the tunnel.

[Louis C.K.]

Oh, I see something there.

[Guest/Interviewer]

I see something there. And you fit. And then when you really.

[Chris]

Yeah.

[Guest/Interviewer]

Come up with the thing. Oh, God.

[Chris]

Keith still turned on material is pretty insane. It's pretty awesome that, like, that he's walking from set to set, you know, after two strokes and still writing really funny new.

[Guest/Interviewer]

That's how fun it is.

[Chris]

Yeah.

[Guest/Interviewer]

To come up with a bit and to know. Oh, I just like when you're doing a special and you've been doing the bits all year, and then you come up with just.

[Louis C.K.]

Oh, yeah, right.

[Guest/Interviewer]

And sometimes that happens right after too late. Yeah, unfortunately.

[Louis C.K.]

But that's why we see these guys do the same act for 10, 20 years. They seem sad about it, you know, and they seem kind of like road hard and weary. Just kind of like, I'm going to do a set. But when they see the guys who are always working, that's a different kind of pain. But there's hope at the end of that. There's hope involved in that pain.

[Guest/Interviewer]

Well, you're in pain because you want something.

[Louis C.K.]

Yeah. Yes, exactly.

[Chris]

Bombing sucks. Even if you're going towards something, it's like, you know. You know, it's part of the process. But you get off stage some nights, even though you're like, I got one night, and you still feel like a piece of shit.

[Louis C.K.]

A little bit. Of course, you totally. Yeah.

[Guest/Interviewer]

Well, it's like when you watch an athlete. Like, I remember watching Derek Jeter once coming around third base to try to score on, like, you know, where he shouldn't have gone around third, and he's. His teeth were gritted. It was like a great moment because he scored. But he looks upset.

[Louis C.K.]

Yeah.

[Guest/Interviewer]

Because there's a great video of Tom Brady out of that whole ESPN thing. I didn't like most of it, but there's one thing he does where he talks about every time. He knows a lot of the great athletes, and every time somebody wins a championship, he calls them and says, hey, you did it. Great. And the guy always goes, that was hard, man. That, like, they're never happy. Oh, that was real. And he goes, yep. It's because if you want to do great things and achieve your dreams, it's fucking hard.

[Louis C.K.]

It's hard. It really is.

[Chris]

When you were doing an hour a year, which I feel like you were the comic. That is the reason a lot of comics are doing an hour a year now.

[Louis C.K.]

Thanks a lot.

[Chris]

Yeah. I mean, seriously, though, I think Carlin was doing it, but then for Modern Comics, I think you were the one who set the bar there. And then not every comic, other guy's doing that.

[Guest/Interviewer]

And in England, they do it a lot. Cause they have that thing in Edinburgh. So in your. You know, I never did it, so I don't know.

[Louis C.K.]

No, there's just a bunch of, like, life story. Yeah.

[Chris]

Yeah. It's a little more emo. It's a little. It's not as dense. It's not as dense.

[Guest/Interviewer]

Right.

[Chris]

But. But you. You're doing. You're editing your show, you're writing your show, you're directing your show, you're starring in your show, and you're doing our year. When you're talking about, like, it not being fun, are you talking about that? A little bit.

[Guest/Interviewer]

You mean because it's such hard work, you just.

[Chris]

Yeah. You probably, like, you're talking now about living. Do you feel like you. I don't want to say you're like a retired athlete, but that. That's, like, what it sounds like a little.

[Guest/Interviewer]

No, back then, I was more. I was really in the bigs. Yeah. I was big league guy. And there's stuff that I did back then. It's just. I think I can do a lot of the things I used to do. It just takes longer, and I got to be more measured about it. Like, this last tour I did was too. It was just too many.

[Chris]

Well, you were going like, you were Belarus everywhere around the world. Yeah,

[Guest/Interviewer]

Yeah. I was in India and Crazy Turkey, all these Hong Kong. But that was too many shows. And I, I. I built a tour that was more shows than I'd ever done in my whole career. And there were times out on the road where I was like, I can't keep doing this.

[Louis C.K.]

Yeah.

[Guest/Interviewer]

There were years where I just was, like, inexhaustible. And I could do. When I did the tour that ended in this special call, hilarious. The shows were often 90 minutes and sometimes two hours.

[Louis C.K.]

Jesus.

[Guest/Interviewer]

And I used to do this thing where this was, like, at the height of, like, I felt anyway. I could do anything where I had a good 15 minute closing chunk. Like, this is all closer. Right. And so I didn't. I used to get off stage without it and come back and do it as an encore. So I had a set that was strong enough without my actual closer. And I close really strong. Good night. At whatever, an hour 20 or something.

[Louis C.K.]

Damn.

[Guest/Interviewer]

Get off stage. And then they'd go nuts. I'd come back on and I'd go, all right, here we go. And then I'd have 15 minutes of closing grade nuclear material. And people go, what the fuck did I just see? That's what it felt like. That was the experience I was having.

[Louis C.K.]

Yeah.

[Guest/Interviewer]

I go back sometimes and, like, sample some of my specials. Hilarious is not one of my favorites. I think I got pretty crazy thinking I was better than I was then. That's the way I look at it.

[Louis C.K.]

But you say it is one of your best or not one of your.

[Chris]

Not one of my.

[Louis C.K.]

Oh, really?

[Guest/Interviewer]

But I'm not that guy anymore. I mean, when I did the Beacon to do my special, the show was so great. It was about as good as it gets. And I never do encores anymore. Like, I don't. I just. I have them turn the music on right away because I just think it feels cheesy. And encore. But I told the guy that runs my stuff, I said, you know what? Tonight, let's. Let's see what happens. Leave the lights down. Let's see what happens. I. I had a great set. I got off stage, and as soon as I left the stage, they're like, all right, let's go. Like, all right. Those days are well over. They got enough.

[Louis C.K.]

Yeah, yeah.

[Guest/Interviewer]

They got just enough.

[Louis C.K.]

Now do you find it gets easier? Even said you were doing 40 plus.

[Guest/Interviewer]

Yeah.

[Louis C.K.]

Does the bit get easier, like, to crack? Can you see where the funny is?

[Guest/Interviewer]

Because I think you can see more of. You could see funny from different. More angles.

[Louis C.K.]

Okay, I hope.

[Guest/Interviewer]

But they're on to me. They know me. So.

[Louis C.K.]

Right.

[Guest/Interviewer]

There is a level of this where if you do it long enough, you become the context for your own material. There's nothing like being a new comic who's really strong because people like, where the did this come from? Like, I've never heard a guy like this. Sure you have that, and you have that. You guys are both like, I never heard your voices before. New comics.

[Louis C.K.]

Hey, all right.

[Guest/Interviewer]

Yeah. Both super strong and. And original. So it's, like, exciting to watch. Because I'm not watching a. Kind of like, oh, yeah, I know this.

[Louis C.K.]

I'm not.

[Guest/Interviewer]

This isn't his new special. Not for me, anyway. I don't watch as much as I used to.

[Louis C.K.]

Yeah.

[Guest/Interviewer]

But people have seen me and seen me, and there's some. I evolve in some ways.

[Louis C.K.]

Yeah.

[Guest/Interviewer]

But the tour before this one. The reason. One reason I thought of quitting is because I started hearing my own bits and going like, yeah, I know what you're doing.

[Louis C.K.]

Oh, wow. You saw the trick.

[Guest/Interviewer]

I'm starting to see the trick.

[Louis C.K.]

Oh, God.

[Guest/Interviewer]

If I can see it, I bet they can fucking see it.

[Louis C.K.]

So formulaic.

[Guest/Interviewer]

I started to feel like I had a formula.

[Chris]

What do you. What do you do? What do you do when that happens, though? Do you think, like, okay, I'm doing too many, like, bit bits, and I need to go into stories more. Like, do you shift up the, like, the approach or what do you do?

[Guest/Interviewer]

I think you gotta empty out, take a long time off. And if you're doing a show because it's time to do another show, there's something to that. I mean, when you first come out of the gate, where you guys, I think still are, you don't have to worry about that. Just keep generating, and it's all going to be pretty fresh. You're a new. You're a new son. But once you've kind of supernovaed out.

[Louis C.K.]

Yeah.

[Chris]

Yeah.

[Guest/Interviewer]

And you're a red Dwarf, you got to come up with a reason to be out there. You got to go like, why am I doing this?

[Louis C.K.]

Yeah.

[Guest/Interviewer]

So I stopped and I thought I. But it's also just like Jim said, this is all a bar trick. It's. This is kind of. Because I. I left for a year and a half. I took sculpture classes, and I. I wrote a novel and all this stuff. I remember our. What's his name? Ranan.

[Louis C.K.]

Yeah.

[Guest/Interviewer]

I ran into him somewhere, and I was excited. I'm like, I'm taking drawing classes. I'm taking sculpture classes.

[Louis C.K.]

Like a fat chick at a rom com.

[Guest/Interviewer]

Yeah.

[Louis C.K.]

Reinventing wine. Yes.

[Guest/Interviewer]

And Renan said, which one of your. Which one of your retirement activities do you like the most? And he made me feel old. And I was like, yeech. But anyway, I took all that time off, and I thought, I'm gonna Have a reason to come back to the stage. That's gonna feel like new. A new approach.

[Louis C.K.]

Yeah.

[Guest/Interviewer]

But all that happened was I thought of a joke.

[Louis C.K.]

Sure.

[Guest/Interviewer]

For the first time.

[Chris]

But are you not.

[Louis C.K.]

Are you.

[Guest/Interviewer]

I was out on a vacation with a friend, and I said. I said, are you getting any on our phone?

[Louis C.K.]

You know, bars?

[Guest/Interviewer]

And she said, no. And I said, I only have one bar, and it's a gay bar there.

[Louis C.K.]

That's in the Hour.

[Guest/Interviewer]

Yes, it is. That's the first one. And I was like, yeah, okay. What am I gonna do with one joke? Like, I can't let it sit. I can't let it die.

[Louis C.K.]

Yeah.

[Guest/Interviewer]

So I just. I went like, okay, I've got a notebook now. So I just wrote it down. And then I thought of another one. I think the second one was about breastfeeding. What was it? Oh, yeah. I bit my mother's nipple when I was. My mother told me that I bit her nipple when I was breastfeeding, which I don't remember because I was drunk.

[Louis C.K.]

There we go. It's like a bird.

[Guest/Interviewer]

That one reminded me of you.

[Louis C.K.]

Oh, okay.

[Guest/Interviewer]

Yeah, it was a little bit. A Norman.

[Louis C.K.]

Yeah, I like that one.

[Guest/Interviewer]

You get other guys in your head a little. Took your rhythm. Of course, I don't remember because I was drunk.

[Louis C.K.]

A little more.

[Chris]

Do a comedy after that.

[Louis C.K.]

Yeah.

[Chris]

Well, you're open to the AIDS joke. I think I'm. One of the first times you tried that. I was. I think I saw you do it and I was like. Like, oh, that's a great opener because it's so.

[Guest/Interviewer]

I remember you saying that.

[Chris]

That is so silly. And then I didn't see until the special. You added it. You go, rats. I got it from rats.

[Louis C.K.]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Chris]

I mean, there's.

[Guest/Interviewer]

That's one that I came up with the best tag after the special, like a week after. Because it's like, oh, rats. That's how I got it. Rats. You can get AIDS from a rat. They don't even have to be gay. Yeah, but this one was gay. And then I added after. Well, at least he is now.

[Louis C.K.]

That was good.

[Guest/Interviewer]

That's not in the special.

[Louis C.K.]

Damn it.

[Guest/Interviewer]

Because I came up with it after.

[Chris]

That's how it goes all the time.

[Louis C.K.]

Yeah, it goes.

[Guest/Interviewer]

Yep.

[Louis C.K.]

Damn, boy, I could do this all night. But I know you got those places. You got children.

[Guest/Interviewer]

I got life.

[Louis C.K.]

Well, do you ever have the thing where you're like, how did I write those jokes? The old ones.

[Guest/Interviewer]

Of course. You'll never write another one. Right.

[Chris]

Which is especially. You look Back at. You're like, oh, that's my favorite one. I did like.

[Louis C.K.]

How did I do that?

[Guest/Interviewer]

The one that's called. Sorry. That one.

[Louis C.K.]

Oh, really?

[Guest/Interviewer]

Has a run about the elephant. No, but that one's pretty great. But the panty. About the panties, little girls panties that a friend sent to me is a joke. Oh, yeah, girls panties. And I'm talking about how I can't get rid of them because you can't dispose of them without, you know, I don't want somebody finding them in my garbage. And so I thought about, like, cutting them into little pieces, throwing them all away in different towns. Went on and on about it. That. That felt like a great special to me. And I guess maybe because it's more recent, I think that the Comedy Store one was really good. I'm proud of that one.

[Louis C.K.]

Oh, yeah.

[Guest/Interviewer]

I think Chewed up was really good. Although when I look back at those days, I don't. I think I talked too fast. I was frenetic. I said fuck as a. As a filler. Too much? Yeah, my. I kind of. I try. I. I had a rule with fuck for a few years, which is, if it comes out clean, take it out. In other words, that guy's a fucking asshole. Take it out. That guy's an asshole. You know what I mean? But if it's like, I fucked her in the ass, you can't take fuck out. Do you know what I mean?

[Louis C.K.]

You need it.

[Guest/Interviewer]

It needs to be integral to keep it right. But in the last couple years, I said. Said that. It's a word. It's a condiment. It's a sound, it's a twang. It's a guitar.

[Louis C.K.]

But that's how dialed in you were where you're thinking about the.

[Guest/Interviewer]

I was thinking of taking out. But that's what you're doing.

[Chris]

You're at the top of your game, I think. You think maybe you're like, oh, how can I handicap myself a little bit?

[Louis C.K.]

Yes, that's right, man. All right. We could do two hours here. All right, you gotta go take a

[Guest/Interviewer]

new special on Netflix.

[Louis C.K.]

There you go. Check it out. Ridiculous. Please watch Netflix now. It's great. The old folks own bit. Check.

[Chris]

Oh, yeah. They don't make you show your id. They're not valuable. That's the line.

[Guest/Interviewer]

Yeah. They're not valuables.

[Chris]

They're not valuables.

[Guest/Interviewer]

Yeah. That was a really fun bit to build.

[Chris]

Yeah.

[Louis C.K.]

And it's gotta be fun doing something. And you're like, I'm gonna get a bit out of this. Like, you're at the old folks. And there's so much comedy coming at you.

[Guest/Interviewer]

Yes, that place. It's very hard, stressful to be there. I hate visiting my father. And. And I went once. It was towards the tail end of the pandemic. It was like, you starting to be okay without masks. But they were still careful. So I went to see him in his room and I'm like, I just don't want to be. This is horrible. And then the lady comes in and she goes, it's time for dinner. And he goes, can my son come to dinner with me? And she goes, no, no guests at dinner. I'm sorry. And I was like, sorry, dad. So then I'm in an elevator with a lady my age and I said something like, yeah, dinner at 6 o', clock, we can't stay. And she goes, that's why I always get here at 10 of 6.

[Louis C.K.]

Whoa.

[Guest/Interviewer]

She wasn't kidding.

[Louis C.K.]

Whoa.

[Guest/Interviewer]

And I was like, damn, Jesus Christ. And I realized this is a place that people come to that's really grim and really hard to be in these. There's bits here. So I started building that.

[Louis C.K.]

Whoa.

[Chris]

That's such a funny reason to visit your father. Some material here, I'm gonna check it out.

[Guest/Interviewer]

Jokes, jokes. Anyway.

[Louis C.K.]

All right, all right. Are you going on the road? Are you taking a breather?

[Guest/Interviewer]

I'm taking a long, but I'm not. Have no gigs for the foreseeable future.

[Chris]

Go see Louie in a finger painting class near you.

[Guest/Interviewer]

That's right. Your gigs. What are those?

[Louis C.K.]

I'm back in the clubs. I'm trying to build a new hour.

[Guest/Interviewer]

Side splitters. Great club.

[Louis C.K.]

Great club. Tampa. I'm doing something in the Hamptons, one night only. Then Cobbs, San Francisco, Houston. Improv.

[Guest/Interviewer]

Nice.

[Louis C.K.]

Zany. Nashville, Pittsburgh. Improv. Some casino.

[Guest/Interviewer]

Nice.

[Louis C.K.]

Calgary. I love Calgary.

[Guest/Interviewer]

Calgary's great.

[Louis C.K.]

Minneapolis.

[Guest/Interviewer]

Oh, Acme.

[Chris]

The best.

[Louis C.K.]

Great.

[Guest/Interviewer]

Lewis Lee. Great place.

[Louis C.K.]

Hey, you know everybody?

[Guest/Interviewer]

Of course.

[Louis C.K.]

How about. How about Denver?

[Guest/Interviewer]

I love the city.

[Louis C.K.]

Oh, go on. Comedy on State. Come on, man.

[Guest/Interviewer]

State. Great club.

[Louis C.K.]

One of the greats. Charlton musical.

[Chris]

And you're canceling all these, by the way, for when we shoot. Oh, yeah.

[Louis C.K.]

We're working on the movie and the cap city and Austin. Austin?

[Guest/Interviewer]

What movie? What are you talking about?

[Chris]

We wrote a road.

[Louis C.K.]

A movie. We're shooting it.

[Guest/Interviewer]

You are? Yeah, yeah.

[Chris]

October.

[Louis C.K.]

We're excited.

[Guest/Interviewer]

So you have to cancel some of these games?

[Louis C.K.]

Some of them?

[Chris]

I just got The Brea Improv. August 21st through 23rd.

[Louis C.K.]

We'll see what happens.

[Chris]

Lisbon, Athens, Budapest, Zagreb, Vienna, Warsaw, Helsinki, Stockholm. And Copenhagen. I'll add a bunch of dates coming up soon. But a bunch of new stuff's coming soon and.

[Guest/Interviewer]

Gotta go to Kirk near Warsaw. What do you call it?

[Chris]

Crack out.

[Guest/Interviewer]

Yeah, Krakow's great.

[Chris]

Gotta go. I don't have time on the ship. I'm gonna go for sure. I want. I really want to go there.

[Guest/Interviewer]

Good, man. You're doing the other.

[Chris]

Love it.

[Guest/Interviewer]

That's good.

[Chris]

I love it, man. Well, it's good to see you. Congrats.

[Guest/Interviewer]

When are you back in New York doing this hour? I want to see her do a new hour.

[Louis C.K.]

Oh, it's not ready yet.

[Guest/Interviewer]

What? That's what I want. I want to see.

[Louis C.K.]

I'm embarrassed. I'm trying to do stories now, and it's. It's ugly.

[Guest/Interviewer]

Oh, I want to see that.

[Louis C.K.]

It's sloppy and clunky.

[Chris]

No, I heard it's good.

[Louis C.K.]

I need some endings. I need some punches in the middle.

[Guest/Interviewer]

Maybe not. Maybe not.

[Chris]

We'll get back on the thing.

[Louis C.K.]

What about you?

[Guest/Interviewer]

When Are you in there?

[Chris]

Yeah, I'm not. I just tape. So my shit's really. My shit's really not ready. I got like. I got like a passable seller set right now. That's new, but that's good, you know, But. But yeah, I want to build to. I'd love a new 30 by the time this comes out. If I can get.

[Guest/Interviewer]

That'd be nice.

[Chris]

Yeah. So that's my goal.

[Guest/Interviewer]

But it's great when you get a new hour. It feels like you just strapped on a. Some guns.

[Louis C.K.]

Yeah, exactly.

[Chris]

We just said this.

[Guest/Interviewer]

Yeah. Healed.

[Louis C.K.]

Yeah.

[Guest/Interviewer]

It's like you're just naked without it. But once you have the hour, it's like, I can go to any venue on the planet.

[Chris]

Yeah.

[Guest/Interviewer]

And put on a show.

[Louis C.K.]

Exactly.

[Guest/Interviewer]

Like, literally, there isn't. That was the craziest feeling when I got to that of like, there's literally not a building with seats in it that I can't go. Royal Albert Hall. Can I do a stadium here where it was like, there is just anywhere there.

[Louis C.K.]

Yes. And once you have the hour, you

[Guest/Interviewer]

just go buying them. Go over here.

[Louis C.K.]

It's been a globe.

[Guest/Interviewer]

Yes.

[Chris]

Well, I'm not there yet. Yeah, working on it.

[Guest/Interviewer]

But I could do any club in the Northeast anyway.

[Louis C.K.]

Are you gonna run out of money? Okay. On money?

[Guest/Interviewer]

I mean, that's the. You know. No, I spend too much. Spending too much.

[Louis C.K.]

Yeah.

[Guest/Interviewer]

But the Netflix is nice.

[Louis C.K.]

All right, good.

[Guest/Interviewer]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Louis C.K.]

Just making sure you got the hat on. I don't know what's going on with your finance.

[Guest/Interviewer]

Do you think I was advertising?

[Louis C.K.]

I feel like the guy Louie started

[Chris]

talking about Ford towards the end of the. It's a really good vehicle.

[Guest/Interviewer]

Really good card. Really good card.

[Louis C.K.]

Thank you, guys.

[Guest/Interviewer]

All right, guys, thanks. Sunday's the day for my next bender. A bit of peck, you know, the beard juice.

[Louis C.K.]

Close.

[Guest/Interviewer]

I've had a little too much burping and Norman's talking about the Post And I get down in the same way up on the roof like the cops coming and naked Samuel is feeling dangerous I'm out to lunch here in New Orleans this woman doesn't look like I remember her And I get down in the same way we might be true.