Third Beat

Anyone who follows Louis CK online by any means – his blog, Twitter, posts on AST, etc. – knows that he puts a lot of thought into his communication with his fans, whether it be for informative purposes or for entertainment.

The last to get this memo? The Huffington Post.

Louis tweeted up a storm yesterday, during one of his “drunken” twitter rants. He’s done this before, and it always involves cracks about Sarah Palin’s nether-regions that are so straightforwardly douchey that you have to lol.

The “angry drunk tweeting” shtick is entertaining. He knows it’s entertaining. And he knows that because he’s not actually a crazy drunk person.

But the Huffington Post, trying to hold onto what dignity it once had as a legitimate news source, has decided to frame this scandalous drunken twitter rage as an actual scandalous drunken twitter rage. They’ve posted screencaps of the offending tweets, along with a concise play-by-play of the events.

“The rant was pretty offensive and contained plenty of slurs, but we have to say Palin took the most blows. Later, C.K. even tweeted a confusing and offensive rant directly to her by using her Twitter handle.”

Huffington Post, you sweet little thing. *pat* *pat* I’m going to let you in on a secret: sometimes, comedians say things known as “jokes”. It’s what they make their living doing. And sometimes, these jokes aren’t real. I know, I know, it’s shocking! Imagine my horror when I learned that Jerry Seinfeld didn’t lose a sock in the dryer EVERY time he did laundry.

(And at the risk of completely robbing you of ALL your innocence, I’ll tell you that Louis and Todd Barry don’t actually hate each other. I’ll give you a minute to digest that.)

I think the lesson here is obvious: comics, just stick to pimping out your tour dates and nothing else. Because according to the HuffPo, tweeting is serious business.

This was my night to be on the run — hitting up 3 shows, or, perhaps more accurately 1 show and 2 chunks.

I was shocked to learn before departing for the 8pm Double Threat show at Yuk Yuk’s that it was not sold out. What? This was a double bill of Todd Barry and Noel Fielding, for cryin’ out loud. Easily one of the best shows of the whole Festival. Thankfully, there were only a few empty chairs by showtime, otherwise I’d have some strong words for my fellow Torontonians.

Todd Barry rocks out his half hour at Saturday's Double Threat show.

The couple I spoke with in line had no idea who they’d be seeing, so I did my best to school them whilst picking my jaw up off the sidewalk. Turns out, they weren’t alone in their random choice. It seemed that almost half the crowd was a blank slate, with the other half being fans of Fielding.

Montreal’s Derek Seguin got the show off to a killer start, even when endangering the audience’s goodwill with a cutting Leafs slam. Todd Barry went up next and was his regular kick-ass self. Unfortunately I had to miss Fielding’s set, a hiccup in my schedule that hurt just a little bit more after becoming a newly-converted fangirl at Comedy Bar the night before. But I wouldn’t leave until hearing the piercing female screams that accompanied Fielding’s ascent onto the stage.

A harrowing cab ride later (really, a cellphone AND pager while driving?) I slid through the stage door of Massey Hall just in time to witness early show host Brad Garret exit and greet a hoard of flashbulbs and autograph seekers. From what I saw, he accommodated everyone. Thumbs up.

Unfortunately I had to take my place in the house before the anticipated arrival of last year’s gala host Sarah Silverman, in town this summer to shoot a movie. She reportedly hung out in the dressing rooms all night, as evidenced via Jimmy Carr.

When host Louis CK walked onstage to host, it seemed the ovation in the hall surprised even him. When someone like Louis gets such a deafening welcome, it kinda gives you faith in the tastes of the comedy-consuming public.

I would be there only long enough to see Louis deliver his opening set, which was 100% new-to-me (I last saw his full show in November). I will never forget the image of his female masturbation impression. And probably neither will the stagehand who had to deliver a new mic after Louis broke the first by dropping it on the ground as part of the bit.

Upon his surprisingly sweet introduction of Todd Barry, I had to tear myself away.

It hurt so very much to abandon the Massey Hall lineup (which also included Mike Wilmot, Mike Birbiglia, Jimmy Carr, and Tommy Tiernan) to haul my ass uptown and see Chris Hardwick host Best of the Fest. The schedule for Best of the Fest made it logistically impossible to attend any other nights without wiping out my entire evening, so a hard choice had to be made.

But oh, it was worth it. I’ve quickly fallen in love with the Nerdist podcast and wanted desperately to see Hardwick this week, and he didn’t disappoint. Someone please bring him back up here to headline. I beg you.

The mystery lineup included Mark Little, Maryellen Hooper, Michael Mittermeier, and Sebastian Maniscalco. Not too shabby at all! If even a few of these names had appeared on the JFL website as teasers, perhaps it would have been a sell-out.

Well, that’s it — I’m beat! A great time was had this week, and I’m as exhausted as I typically am when I hit the Montreal edition. I’d say that’s a success.

My first reaction upon seeing the below poster artwork for the Invention of Lying was confusion. Isn’t it a little too soon for this film to have a p0rn version, with a cast that looks only vaguely like the original stars?

But no, I quickly realized that that is Ricky Gervais & co., having been airbrushed quite liberally. Because, y’know, nobody would want to go see the REAL Ricky Gervais in a movie. They’d much rather go see the Madame Tussaud wax figurine version of Ricky –much more believable as a leading man, as many a faux-confused journalist would’ve told you a year ago when Ghost Town came out.

This fact didn’t escape Gervais himself, who blogged yesterday:

I look like some sort of facelifted old queen. And fucking Louis… Jesus. Imagine what he looked like before. Fat ginger div kid. It’s a good job we’re comedians. We’re meant to look shit I suppose.

Purely for curiosity sake, I would’ve liked to see Jonah Hill on that poster, just to see what he would have turned out like. Or maybe that IS him in the upper left.

Design disaster aside, I’m thrilled to be seeing the World Premiere (capitalized out for pomposity sake, rather than CP style) of The Invention of Lying in a mere 10 days at the Toronto International Film Festival. I will certainly report back on the film itself, and any activities at the screening by our aforementioned Photoshopped friends.

Metropolis is the venue set aside for only the most rockin’ of Just For Laughs shows (my first experience there was in ‘04 for Rob Smigel’s 3-hour Triumph the Insult Comic Dog Live so I became quickly initiated how insane things can get there).

The lineup was, as expected, wrapped around the building upon my arrival. Tip: it pays to make friends with someone with one of those $25 JFL membership cards that gets you to the front of the line. When the doors opened, it was like the Winnipeg Folk Festival tarp run as people fought each other for a position as close to the stage as possible.

A francophone-accented voice came over the PA system to make seemingly standard announcements, revealing otherwise upon promoting Cher’s upcoming run of shows at the same venue, and that flash photography would be permitted only every 14 minutes and in increments of 14 minutes. The tone dropped and the voice was revealed to belong to Louis himself, of course. We didn’t have a chance to cheer appropriately before he introduced his opener, Jimmy Carr. Yep, you know you’re at a good show when Jimmy Carr is the opener.

Louis opened by telling stories about coming up to Montreal from Boston with friends when he was 17 to “get drunk in the park and bother Canadians.” He also marveled about the plethora of punk kids in Montreal who drive around listening to French rap.

The arc of his material through the show seems to go from observational, to social commentary, to personal relationships and kids.

He started with a bit he did in Toronto a week ago, about the inability to have fun in Buffalo no matter how much money you have. From there, a piece that has me laughing harder than I ever laugh: the impatience and drama of getting off a plane once it lands.

“There’s only room for 20% of people to stand in the aisle, and the other 80% of the people are standing sloped.”

He did a truncated version in Toronto last week, and this lengthier one gives me even more joy.

The social commentary in a few of his bits is heavy-duty stuff, even on paper, but somehow doesn’t feel weighty in the moment. One of my favourite newish bits is about how his friend’s cousin from out of town and saw a bum on the streets of New York. She offered to help him, which Louis and his friend immediately corrected her on.

“Oh no, he needs you desperately, but we don’t do that here… Just a little cultural nuance that we ignore suffering constantly.”

Further on that theme, there’s the “there are people staving, and I drive an Infinity” bit. He could trade his car in for a Ford Focus, make $20,000 and feed thousands of people, but “every day I don’t do it and I choose to let them die with my car. I’m a piece of shit.”

He can say something like “I think about killing myself sometimes, but it’s completely narcissistic. I just picture people crying and shit,” and get a huge laugh off it. I can’t even begin to analyze that.

20somethings dominate his fanbase – at least the group that came out to last night’s show – and it’s incredible how relatable his large chunk of material about being a middle-aged divorced guy with kids is. These people haven’t lived through half of what he’s lived through. Is knowing they would be equally frustrated with that lifestyle that makes it connect? Is it the relief of hearing him say things about parenting that parents never have the balls to say?

The cool thing about watching a guy like Louis do shows a week apart is that you can note the differences in wording and inflection in jokes. It struck me last night that he isn’t married to any particular precise wording in a lot of cases. Example: in Toronto, he said milk cartons had been “invented by some Dutch faggot in 1740″. Last night, he said “that some Dutch fucking loser invented in 1783″.

It doesn’t have to be 1783. It doesn’t have to be 1740. It doesn’t have to be “loser” or be “faggot”. And if he wanted, it probably doesn’t even have to be “Dutch”. So many comics make definitive choices down to that level of detail, and program their autopilot to whichever seems funniest. But Louis doesn’t memorize down to that level of detail, and it’s primarily the ideas themselves that do the heavy lifting. When you think about it, doesn’t that sound like… I dunno… the correct way to do this? No wonder other comedians love him so much.

He returned to the stage for a lengthy encore, treating fans to his already-classic “everything’s amazing and nobody’s happy” bit.

“I’ve been looking forward to this show for a long time,” he said in the end. Same here, Louis.

Friday night at Toronto’s Massey Hall, Sarah Silverman summed up every audience member’s thoughts in six words:

“Can you believe this lineup? Seriously.”

Just For Laughs Toronto indeed blew its alt-comedy load in twin 90-minute shows with Silverman as host, and featuring John Mulaney, Arj Barker, Todd Glass, David Cross, and Louis CK. It’s the kind of freakish cosmic event that you imagine only happens once a century.

Silverman kicked things off with straight standup, opening with the requisite reference to the local municipal workers’ strike:

“They’re making us feel so at home here. They feed us, put us up in a nice hotel, put all this garbage in the street to make it feel like New York…”

In true Sarah style, she recounted a story about her pubescent niece, and mused bout the power of the word “pussy”. At the midway point we were treated to a few songs (3 in the early show, just 2 in the late show due to some red light disobedience in the first half).

Mulaney, in his first visit to Toronto, mused on crime investigations before the days of DNA, why drag queens’ perception of what a woman looks like is based on a housewife from a Far Side cartoon, and provided the night’s best throwaway line:

“In my spare time, when I’m not trying to figure out who Tyler Perry is…”

Barker started off his 12 minutes with a meta bit about a hack airplane joke, leading to a Star Wars themed variation on it to prove “my shit’s fresh and original!” Barker’s Toronto reference du jour: contemplating the amount of pot he’d have to smoke in order to enjoy the Bata Shoe Museum.

Introduced by Silverman as her favorite comic, Glass opened both sets by toying with his relative lack of name recognition. For the early show, he had the band play him on at great length as he “modestly” acknowledged the long-ago petered-out ovation. Late show, he simply asked “where are all the people I drew here tonight?” His fantastic rant about how making rape jokes doesn’t mean a person endorses rape only made it into the first set. A shame, considering how many rape-related jokes were indeed scattered throughout all the comic’s sets. It couldn’t have been more relevant.

Cross displayed his Toronto research while recounting his search for poutine earlier in the day, which he figured he’d find by walking up Yonge “’til it peters out.” During the early show, he mocked the festival’s hour-long rehearsal that afternoon, noting how useful it was to confirm his ability to shake hands with Sarah, and to prevent him from going to the side of the stage and taking a nap in the middle of his set. My favourite Cross bit of the night centred on how Coors Light treats their customers like retards, making cans with a bigger mouth and making the mountains on the can turn blue when it’s cold (“Thanks, I was using some of my other senses.”)

And then the man himself, Louis CK, closed out the show to the loudest ovation of the night. As I wrote about after he last played Toronto in December, these are some damn dedicated fans, and rightfully so. It’s been 6 months, so of course he unloaded material I hadn’t heard before. When he’s back in Toronto in October, he’ll likely have a whole new hour (presale password for those tix is “cklive”). Hell, when I see him in Montreal next week, he’ll probably have a new hour. An hour from now he’ll have a new hour. Dude writes a lot, is what I’m sayin’.

As in December, I’m at a bit of a loss for what to say about Louis because nothing I can write will do him justice. I’ll try to work on that before next week’s show. In the meantime, a tiny morsel from him: describing having to help kids open their milk cartons because the design was “invented by some Dutch faggot in 1740″.

The only negative moment of the evening? The genius in the balcony during the late show who yelled out “Jimmy Kimmel!” to Silverman. In what state of mind does this seem like a good idea? She handled the shout-out to her ex-boyfriend well, responding with “thank you for breaking my heart on stage….You must be an awesome friend.”

It should be said: Toronto galas are far more enjoyable than Montreal or even Winnipeg Comedy Festival galas, purely because they aren’t televised. At taped galas, the house lights are kept half-up to capture audience reactions. Slightly, counterproductive as people laugh harder in the dark. Massey Hall is a great venue for comedy, even though the venue staff seem to live on a whole other logic plane. But that’s a story for another day.

All photos by yours truly. Full set of 42 shots available here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/sharilynj/sets/72157621644293902/

I moved away from my hometown of Winnipeg in late 2007 to be closer to comedy. Mission accomplished. But if I were still stuck back in the ‘Peg, I wouldn’t be complaining about comedic starvation today: Louis CK will be crossing Canada (or part of it) this fall.

Immediately my thoughts turned to this epic rant Louis made on the alt.comedy.standup newsgroup in 2001, in a thread entitled “Your Worst Gig”. Behold…

…Read more of The More Things Change…

The Colbert Report is in the midst of taping shows in Iraq – yes, the Iraq – which will air this Monday through Thursday of this week. (Spoiler alert: he got a buzz cut.)

Since the days of Bob Hope, it’s always a huge undertaking for American entertainers to travel – with the help of the USO (http://www.uso.org/whatwedo/entertainment/) – to a war zone. Physically and emotionally, it puts them through more than most of them have ever experienced. While we’re unlikely to get much out-of-character discussion of his experiences out of Colbert, I want to direct you to the words and images of comedians who’ve recently come before him.

…Read more of Punchlines on the Frontlines

Two shows sold out.

A third added, sold out.

A fourth easily would have, and a fifth and sixth *may* have given scalpers some inventory (the week leading up to the shows, the “wanted” listings on Craigslist vastly outnumbered the “for sale” posts).

It’s hard to pinpoint exactly when Louis C.K. became big in this country.  My first time seeing him live was in Montreal at the 2007 edition of Just For Laughs, and I remember being startled by the audience’s (very vocal) devotion to the man during his set. I spoke to a few people at the show in Toronto who were also pleasantly stunned by the demand for tickets and the excitement among the crowd as showtime approached. Louis CK fans up here don’t realize how many of us there really are.

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