Louis CK honors George Carlin

Like others, our latest guest is an all-round comedian actor. I was an Emmy Award-winning writer and filmmaker. He's ranked 98th on Comedy Central's 100 Greatest Stand-Ups of All Time, but what do they know about us? He's number one tonight. Louis C.K. thank you, thank you, I'm really honored to be here, I'm happy to be here, ticket holder, just to see everything that happened, the Stiller family and that was crazy, and Kevin and the guy who looks like Dick Cheney in the end. You're a very, very nice version of Dick Cheney, he's not a lizard, I don't think, but I think I can tell you who George is.

I'm a comedian and I do what he did and he was the first person I met. He knew what comedy was. Children love to laugh, but most people who make a living making children laugh are bad. Clowns are not funny, that doesn't exist. A funny clown, if the person was funny, they do comedy because they make money without doing clowns. there are no HBO clown specials if you make a ton of money so clowns suck and kids just look at them and walk away please stop trying to make me anything worse than an unfunny person trying to be funny and that That's what a clown is. a guy waiting for a bus is funnier than a clown at a children's party, but children need to laugh, so the first time you really laugh means a lot to you and I remember my first big laugh as an adult and seeing George Carlin. on Saturday Night Live and he said, he said, what do dogs do on their day off?

They can't be lazy, that's their job and something went off and I couldn't stop laughing and the idea was born in my head at that moment I want to be funny I want to be a comedian I know that a grown person can be a comedian that's something incredible for me and I had other heroes Steve Martin Bill Cosby Richard Pryor but George was like me, who is from the East Coast a Catholic, you know, he had someone who identified with him and the first time I remember laughing I was in fourth grade and they asked class, the teacher said there are three bones in the skull, what's one called and I said the head and I laughed a lot and thought, hey, you know I could do this.

I could be like George, so I started writing it when I finished high school. I started doing monologues. I did not go to the University. I didn't look for anything more professional. I really started doing stand-up the first time I went on stage, I did a minute and a half and I failed, it was terrible, but I wanted it so much that I kept trying and I learned how to write jokes and I just had jokes, funny thoughts. and I, I don't know, 15 years later, I had been going in a circle that was getting me nowhere, no one cared who I was, and I didn't care either, honestly, I didn't often hear my accent say this.

It's and I hate it, but I've been doing this for 15 years and then stopping now is like getting out of prison. What do you do after 15 years of monologues? How do you enter the workforce? So I was in a really bad place. I hated so much that I had been doing the same hour of comedy for 15 years and I promise you and I worked in places like Chinese restaurants and this is what I do. I showed a Chinese restaurant where they don't do it. I even know there's going to be a show, they're there to eat and all of a sudden you're like, Hello everyone, and people are like, "I'm eating, I don't want to be made to sit in it," so I was doing a restaurant. chinese called the Kowloon in Boston everything is fine Saugus Massachusetts and I was sitting in my car after the show feeling like I did this this is all this was a big mistake I'm not good enough and I hate feeling like my jokes are trapped and I listened to a CD of George talking about comedy in the workshop, being serious, and what surprised me about this guy was that he kept putting out specials every year, there was a new George Carlin special.

George Carlin's new album kept coming out and each one was deeper than the next and I thought how can he do that, it literally made me cry because I could never do it. I've been telling the same jokes for 15 years, so I'm listening and they ask him how do you do all this stuff and I'm like, yeah, and I listen to him and he's like, well, I just decided that every year I'd be working on that year's special. and I would do the special and then I would just throw away the material and start over with nothing and I thought that's crazy, how do you throw away?

It took me 15 years to build this shitty hour, if I throw it away, I have nothing but me, he gave me the courage to try and I was desperate too, what else was I going to do with this idea that you throw everything away and start again and I thought, well, when you finish telling jokes about airplanes and dogs, you throw them in the trash, what do you have left? You can only go deeper, start talking about yourself, you know your feelings and who you are, and then you make those jokes and they go away, you have to go deeper, so you start thinking about your fears and your nightmares and making jokes about it and then They disappear and then you start to feel weird, eventually you get to your balls, but there's a whole, it's a process that I saw him do my whole life and I started trying to do it. and I started to think what do I do because he says what he wants, what do I really want to say, what I'm afraid to say and at the time I was a father, I'm still a father there too, but at that time I had started, still I didn't take off, the jury is out, my oldest son is eight, I could still part ways until now.

I'm still there. I was going through a very difficult time being a father and I wanted to say it on stage and one night I just did it. thought Kemp, forget all the old jokes. I'm going to start over and I thought about the first thing I said: I can't have sex with my daughter with my daughter with my wife because we have a baby and our baby is just what I was feeling and I said it and the audience said whoa and I thought oh I'm in a new place now and I said and I said something like I never used to throw babies in the trash but now I understand and they did that and I thought I'd rather have that than the lukewarm laughter of my 15 year old jokes so I started to follow this path and he was always the beacon for me, always this guy, always gave me the courage, he says, you know that line that Kevin quoted where he said that pro-abortion protests are used against abortion, while people who want they wouldn't want to do it, first of all, he opened a special with that at Carnegie Hall, yeah, he comes on stage, you have to see it. and he doesn't, he doesn't milk the crowd, plus they're applauding and he says, everyone's going to say George George because yeah, yeah, I have to get this out.

Do you ever notice the people and the pro-abortion demonstrations when I? To me, first of all, he and most comedians would pretend they knew a good half hour of really sweet material and delivered that joke and so much more, but he just had to get it out there, so he set that example for everyone. Me and that's the way I've done my act and since then I've done three comedy specials and started down the same path. It has been a huge change for me. I feel like every year I have something to work on. That's why I'm doing exactly what he taught me to do and on stage I feel the courage to say what I want to say because thanks to this guy and anyway a few years ago I was about to take my first and second positions. special and he was taping the same night in Los Angeles, he taped his last special the same night I taped one and I remember feeling like it's amazing that I do what this great man does and that we do it the same way. and he died and he kicked me in the balls when he died it hurts so much and then I remember that and I don't want to be doing this I'm sorry but then I was in a whatever, it doesn't matter and my phone rang and it was his daughter, which is Kelly and I have two children and they are girls, so I thought he has a daughter and his daughter is calling me and I know what it means to have a daughter because I have two and she calls me and asks me. for him to come in and say something about what he meant to me, so that was a big moment for me.

I'm very proud to do what George did. I know it was supposed to close in a funny way, but I'm just not good at doing the things in my act, so I'm sorry, but he was a great man and anything that happens to me that is good is because of this guy and I can tell you because I do what he did. that it was very difficult to say what he did and it took a lot of courage, it was difficult, so thank you for coming and honoring him and thank you for inviting me.