Louis C.K.: Chewed Up
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LOUIS C.K.: CHEWED UP (2008) is my first exposure to the comedy of Louis C.K. (the "C.K." is a simplification of his Hungarian surname "Szekely"), and thank goodness he's not one of these terminally hip too-cool-for-school smartypants who stroke their audiences' liberal political leanings or make incisive philosophical observations about society that evoke admiring applause.
He's also not one of your typical shtick comics with a "persona" who stays locked into character while mumbling dry, straight-faced witticisms that "make you think." Nope, he's just a typical middle-aged shlub like you or me (well, me anyway) who riffs on his everyday life and the somewhat skewed but accessible workings of his mind, and is funny as hell.

With the look and demeanor of a guy you might run into at a keg party--that is, a guy who screwed up and got married and had kids somewhere along the line--Louis skirts the fringes of offensiveness without either driving the more sensitive souls screaming from the room or, worse, being a politically-correct suck-up. Words like "c*nt" and "f*ggot" are amiably parsed, masturbation rears its ugly head in terms I could readily identify with, and the mysteries of the urgent, pre-pubescent boner are explored. He also gets a lot of mileage out of subjects like overeating and uncomfortably sweaty genitalia.

As the guy who wrote and directed POOTIE TANG as well as doing material for Chris Rock, it's no surprise that some of Louis' funniest bits are about race. I have no idea how black guys will react to his bit about how great it is to be white ("seriously, if you're not white you're missing out, because this shit is thoroughly good--if it was an option I would re-up every year"), but I thought it was pretty funny. I also liked his miffed response to people who use the delicate euphemism "the N word" because they're deliberately putting the entire word into his head without taking the responsibility for saying it themselves.

Possibly the best part is when he starts talking about the difference between girls and women ("when girls 'go wild', they show their tits to people--when women go wild, they kill men and drown their kids in a tub") and the horrors of being the father of two little girls ("boys f*ck things up--girls are f*cked up" and "boys just do damage to your house that you measure in dollars, like a hurricane--girls, like, leave scars in your psyche that you find later, like a genocide or an atrocity.").

And of course he goes through the whole "changing diapers" routine, too, along with other wonderful aspects of fatherhood. I like this kind of humor because it's such a relief that I don't have to go through any of these horrendous nightmares myself. Really, you married guys with kids are funny, and it's the one area in which I love to laugh my ass off while not having to nod knowingly and identify with any of it whatsoever.

According to the closing credits, this show (originally broadcast October 4, 2008 on Showtime) was put together mainly by Louis himself, who executive produced and co-directed (with Shannon Hartman), in addition to personally handling the editing. Which is good, since who but the comic himself knows how best to assemble the live footage in order to convey the gist of his own comedy. The show clocks in at about an hour and there's no extraneous crap--like a too-cute stage backdrop, music, or pre-recorded bits--to get in the way. Just a guy on a dark stage being funny for a while and then going away.

Added:  Wednesday, October 15, 2008
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