STDs, putting your parents in a nursing home, diarrhea and other taboo subjects; nothing was off limits for Louis C.K., one of the most iconic comedians of our time.
Closing out the 21st annual New York Comedy Festival, the comedian brought his new tour “Ridiculous” to the Beacon Theater in Manhattan on Nov. 15. In his typical style, C.K. opened with a gut-puncher to a sold-out house of nearly 3,000 seats and had the audience roaring into the night.
“I got an AIDS test today,” he said as the crowd murmured. “I haven’t had sex in years. I just wanted some good news.” The audience burst into laughter. As they quieted, C.K. took a beat and said, “Turns out I have AIDS.”
Midway through the set, he had an audience call back.
“I’m so old,” he said.
“How old are you?” the audience replied.
“I’m so old my mother’s dead.”
C.K.’s comedy takes a magnifying glass to the horribly mundane and ubiquitous moments of life, preying on the quiet thoughts of humanity that reek of insecurity and self-consciousness. His words flow like a monologue and right when the audience thinks he’s going left, he makes a U-turn and flies to the moon. Laden with hilarious discomfort, his jokes are abominable in the funniest way. From a bee getting shot in NYC to an orgy with gay rats, C.K.’s mind goes to take out the trash and runs away with the garbage truck.
“His comedy is heinous,” said Ethan from Westchester who currently resides in NYC. Despite laughing the entire set, he admitted not being too familiar with C.K. “I’m not really a fan, but my uncle is.”
“He has a keen perspective on life, but I thought the Holocaust joke was too much,” said Ethan’s uncle, who did not want to give his name and who booed loudly when the comedian told a controversial joke comparing someone to looking like a Holocaust survivor.
“Ridiculous,” which kicked off in Canada this spring, is the comic’s first headlining show in NYC since “Back to the Garden” at Madison Square Garden in 2023. Although he’s four decades into his career and had his first one-hour special, “Shameless” in 2007, it was his hit TV show “Louie” which debuted in 2010 that captivated audiences and skyrocketed him to fame. But the comedian hasn’t been without his controversies.
In the height of the MeToo movement in 2017, C.K. was called out by several women who accused him of performing lascivious sex acts in front of them, as reported by the New York Times. C.K. owned up to the allegations almost immediately in a statement widely published across several media outlets.
“These stories are true,” he wrote. “But what I learned later in life, too late, is that when you have power over another person, asking them to look at your d— isn’t a question. It’s a predicament for them. The power I had over these women was that they admired me. And I wielded that power irresponsibly.”
Consequently, he was dropped by Netflix, FX and HBO and disappeared from the limelight. In the following years, he worked at some smaller clubs, but made his big return to the stage in 2020 with his special “Sincerely,” where he addressed the allegations in the only way he knew how — with his signature dark and self-effacing humor.
“Do you understand how lucky you are? That people don’t know your [expletive] thing?,” he said in his stand-up. “’Cause everybody knows my thing now. Obama knows my thing. Do you understand how that feels? To know that Obama was like, ‘Good Lord.’”
C.K.’s quick apology and openness resonated with fans, and like a phoenix from the ashes, he returned to his pedestal of fame and adoration. “Sincerely” won a Grammy for Best Comedy Album in 2022.
In September, C.K. appeared as a guest on the podcast “This Past Weekend” hosted by fellow comedian Theo Von. In the 144-minute interview, C.K. spoke about attending Sex and Love Addicts Anonymous which he said Von recommended.
“I had tried to manage these problems I’ve had inside me for so many years and I tried to feel like I was like a normal person — but I was doing [stuff] in the background of my life that I was ashamed of. I was hurting people and trying to tell myself I wasn’t and you know, those things on the edge like using another person but you got their permission first, you’re still using another person – that took me a long time to learn about that stuff,” C.K. said on the podcast. “Some of the early versions of talking on stage really honestly were me trying to get out and say ‘I’m corrupt. I want everybody to know it.’”
He also touched on his first venture into book-writing with his newly released novel, “Ingram,” published by BenBella Books.
“It’s the first thing I ever wanted to be,” C.K. said about being a novelist and then adds that his dream was derailed by doing too many drugs as a teen and young adult, mostly marijuana.
The 272-page book was available for sale at the Beacon show for $35 with a dedication to his family and Chris Rock, who was in the audience Saturday night. It follows the story of Ingram, a young boy in rural Texas who was neglected by his parents and forced to find his way through life alone at the age of 10. The novel reads like a watered-down version of Cormac McCarthy’s “Blood Meridian” and reminiscent of Mark Twain’s “Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.” The language is basic and repetitive and told from the perspective of this destitute boy.
“I started to hear this kid and I thought, I wonder if I can make a connection with somebody who sounds like that,” C.K. said of his titular character.
If you’re looking to laugh or get an inside look into C.K.’s mind, this book is not it. It’s an extreme departure from the comedian’s familiar voice. The story is terribly depressing and sometimes droll, but in his interview with Von, C.K. said the tone was intentional and compared it to authors like Mark Twain, Flannery O’Conner and Harper Lee. C.K. talked about romanticizing the simplicity of small-town America and imagining this shoeless boy who lives on a farm and has no knowledge of what a burger is or a pickle or a Coke.
For die-hard fans, “Ingram” might be a disappointment, but “Ridiculous” hits it out of the park.
C.K.’s new tour comes to Kings Theater in Brooklyn Nov. 20, 21 and 22 and returns to the Beacon for two shows on Nov. 25 and 26. On Dec. 31 he returns to the Brooklyn venue for one night only and then takes the show overseas.
Reach ET Rodriguez at etrodriguez317@gmail.com. For more coverage, follow us on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram @amnewyork
