BurtReynolds wrote:Everybody thinks they are Louis CK now, but they don't have the wit, intelligence or empathy to pull it off.
Even Louis CK's stand up didn't get interesting until 2011.
Stand up died with George Carlin. God bless Louis for trying to keep it a thing, though. I appreciate his massive efforts.
I could listen to Carlin's stuff all day long and not laugh. Insightful, daring, irreverent, clever, all of that, yeah, but hardly funny to my ears.
Bill Hicks on the other hand...
I have listened to every one of George's specials at least a dozen times. I laugh out loud during each one of them every time I listen.
I miss that man. But, yeah, what I appreciated the most about him was his ability to be laugh out loud funny and daring and insightful all at the same time.
Yeah I never found Bill Hicks funny. I love George Carlin though, before he became just an old man ranting onstage about how the world is owned by billionaires.
Anders wrote:I do not have a «neoliberal assessment of geopolitics», so please stop writing that I do.
His last two HBO specials are probably his worst. But they each have moments that just get me. His 80s/90s stuff is untouchable though. That's not just classic George Carlin, it's classic all around stand-up. It's fucking benchmark.
"Being a stand up" seems like an extremely difficult thing to do these days; for better or worse, it seems like Louis CK is one of the only people who can get by on the Carlin model these days--i.e., you come up with material, you hit the road to test it, you tape a special, and then people laugh and nod along and say, "This guy is brilliant!" (and it's almost always a guy, to be sure). In the early 1990s, the model became: if you want to be successful, you better spin your act into a network sitcom (Seinfeld, Roseanne, Drew Carey, Tim Allen, Bob Saget, Ray Ramono, etc.), probably buoyed by appearances on Carson; by the mid-1990s and through the early 2000s the model seemed to be: tour for a while and become moderately well-known in the scene, then get on SNL, then develop a character/POV that was palatable to a wider audience, then get into movies. For young comics working today, there do seem to be lots of paths available, but it does seem extremely difficult considering everything that's expected of them: develop an act and go on the road; but also have a visible Twitter presence and get lots of retweets and mentions (it's also best if your act/your Tweets become clickbait headlines like, "So-and-so eviscerates rape culture / homophobia / PC pussies / Killary in a series of Tweets; the third one is just perfect"; you've got to have some other sort of web presence, whether it's a YouTube show or a podcast or simply rotating between a series of podcasts as a guest; once you've got some sort of foothold, you've got to be ready to play bit parts in awful romantic comedies; you've got to be ready to do whatever it takes to get a mention by comedy "tastemakers"--this isn't so different than being on Carson or Letterman back in the day, but now you've gotta fucking suck up to Chris Hardwick; you've got to constantly be working towards a Comedy Central pilot, even if it doesn't get picked up; especially if the CC pilot doesn't get picked up, you've got to work on an off-kilter, low-budget series that could work on a streaming platform like Seeso or Hulu; and if you can't be the face of a TV or web show, you better get on a few writing staffs and give your best material to somebody else; and the whole time you've got to deal with the fact that stand-up comedy isn't really seen as a niche anymore, and everyone thinks they know what makes it "good" or "relevant," so while you are just working on your act, you've got the weight and history of 50 years of comedy raining down upon you as you try to develop and unique take.
Two caveats: I'm not a comedian nor do I really know any comedians, this is just based on what I've seen written and heard said by people whoa re in the biz. Also, I'm not saying that comics in older eras necessarily had it easier or anything--rather, the tone of this post is supposed to be hopeful, a reminder that if you feel worn out by what "traditional" stand-up has to offer, I'm sure there are plenty of comics out there whom you would love, it's just that they're hiding in other places. So while it's still just as hard for them, it's really also harder for us to find people whose POV is fresh and who can make you laugh. Keep looking!
Quickly on Bill Hicks since people have mentioned him: I sort of categorize Hicks along with poets like Charles Bukowski, bands like Tool, other artists of their ilk. There's a time between ages 15-20 when POVs like this can hit you like a ton of bricks, they can really make you feel like your eyes have been opened and you see the world in a whole different way. Hicks had that sort of quality for me when I was a teenager, and even though I look back now and can say, "Oh, well, every cultural critic was saying the same thing at the same time--there was nothing really special about it," I still think it's important to stand him up as a signpost of my development as a thinker (Bukowski, not so much). Also, some of his material still holds up, I think; one of the first jokes he ever told on stage (as a teenager) went something like this: "One of the bullies at school said to me, 'My dad can beat up your dad!' So I said to him: 'No shit, really? What time can he come over?"
Also, I think I've discussed this in the movies thread, but: if you really like stand-up comedy, you should watch the documentary Call Me Lucky, which is about Barry Crimmins. However, be sure to only watch it on a day where you're fine with saying, "Hmm, I think I'd be okay with my day being ruined today." But it's absolutely un-missable.
Steve Albini wrote:Whenever there's active promotion on the part of somebody else, whenever I see somebody all dolled up for a fancy photograph and someone's handing out flyers or whenever there's active promotion for something like that, as an imposition on my day, I hate all those people and I want them to fail. I have a visceral reaction to advertising and promotion. There's just something about salesmanship that grates on me on a very base level and I react very negatively towards it. I want those people to suffer and I want their enterprises to fail.
Last edited by tragabigzanda on Sun January 11, 2026 2:02 pm, edited 1 time in total.
trag I liked all of your critiques of my post and will respond to them tomorrow when I don't have awful diarrhea and can only post from my phone on the toilet.
Simple Torture wrote:trag I liked all of your critiques of my post and will respond to them tomorrow when I don't have awful diarrhea and can only post from my phone on the toilet.
Steve Albini wrote:Whenever there's active promotion on the part of somebody else, whenever I see somebody all dolled up for a fancy photograph and someone's handing out flyers or whenever there's active promotion for something like that, as an imposition on my day, I hate all those people and I want them to fail. I have a visceral reaction to advertising and promotion. There's just something about salesmanship that grates on me on a very base level and I react very negatively towards it. I want those people to suffer and I want their enterprises to fail.
Last edited by tragabigzanda on Sun January 11, 2026 2:02 pm, edited 1 time in total.
All posts by this account, even those referencing real things, are entirely fictional and are for entertainment purposes only; i.e. very low-quality entertainment. These may contain coarse language and due to their content should not be viewed by anyone
Simple Torture wrote:trag I liked all of your critiques of my post and will respond to them tomorrow when I don't have awful diarrhea and can only post from my phone on the toilet.
Comedy gold, that diarrhea. You could probably get at least a couple minutes of material out of it.
