Watch or listen to the stand-up comedy special 'Sincerely Louis CK' (2020) by Louis CK on Comedy Buff. Transcript available. Tracks include: Mom, Little Towns, and Wheelchairs and Legs and Retarded People.

Louis CK

Sincerely Louis CK

My mom died last year, and we asked her, like, what do you want, like, before she died, we didn't, we didn't, we didn't ask her, mom, mom, fuck. I asked my mom what we wanted, what she wanted us to do with her body, and she said, just burn it, that's what she said, burn it. What, in the yard with leaves, what the fuck? She didn't want a funeral, no pageantry, nothing, so she booked it herself, that was her last act as an American consumer, she went online, with a credit card, and she booked her own cremation.
It's true, at a place called Boston Crematorium, just this place that berms bums and dogs all day, and they just folded my mom and did a workload. We didn't even know, just this guy showed up, I'm here for your ma. All right, Sully, she's in there, and he went in there to prepare her, my sisters are waiting in the hall, and he was in there for a while. I didn't say anything, I'm just saying he was in there with my mom for a long time, that's all I'm saying, and also that I was worried he was fucking my dead mother.
Anyway, then he brought her out in a kind of a nice bag, and he put her in a van, just his van, it was like a 98 Ford Windstar, with a bottle of red Gatorade rolling around in the back. It's the last time I saw my mom. It's what she wanted. Because she didn't believe in this god shit. Just didn't. Well, it's nice to be in Washington, D.C. I was born here, and I like it here. 'Cause I like any city.
I like cities. I don't like cities that are too advanced. You know, I was like, I was in Zurich, and they have so much, you know, they're like, "Here's the bike you do in the bicycle, it's yours. "Just have it, it's nice." And they have the garbage with the eight fucking holes of different shapes. It's like an IQ test for a monkey. I don't know what the fuck. This one hole has a picture of a cup, and the next one has a picture of a cup that's a little different.
I'm standing there with a dead baby. I don't know where I'm supposed to... What am I supposed to do with that? It doesn't go in the newspaper slot, but otherwise, I don't know. I like cities. I don't like little places. When I go to Europe, I go to the big cities. Everybody tells you that. Don't go to Madrid. Yeah, just go to Madrid for like a day. And then you gotta take a train, and you have to go to...
It's a beautiful little old village, and you're going to love it. Fuck you, you don't know me. I'm not going to love a village in Europe with a bell that goes pang like whenever, and a dog walking alone. I don't like cute little places. I don't like little towns in America either, with little shops. Oh, look at that little shop. Let's go in that little shop. Now let's get a divorce. Isn't that a better idea?
You go in there. I'll just walk away. Just tell the kids I was a pilot, and I got shot down. I don't like little shops. I'm uncomfortable in a little shop. You go in and it's like cli-li-ling-ling. Cli-li-ling. Now it's just you and her. You're surrounded by her dream. And you can't just go ugh and leave. She saw you. You have to go all the way in now, and look at all the little crafts that she made.
You made this? Really? You made this instead of killing yourself? I fucking wish I was that mean. I really do. All my fantasies are about being mean, just having the balls to like walk in a little store like that and just go like, oh, I don't like this at all. I don't like it in here. What's your name? Debbie? Fuck you, Debbie. I don't like your store. I was in Florida recently. I don't like Florida at all.
That's a shit state full of shit people. That's what I think. I hate Florida. I hate it. I hate the whole thing. The whole, the entire. It looks like a, it doesn't look like a dick. People say that. It looks like a shit coming out. If you look at it, it's like America's ass. And it's a shit that's just, that you're trying to. And there's a little, Cuba's like a little, that came first. That's what I think of Florida.
Every time there's a hurricane, I'm like, yeah, get them. Get them all, Melissa. No, I don't mean any of that. It's just fun. It's fun to pretend. I was in a sushi restaurant in Florida and it was empty. You ever go in a restaurant and it's open, but it's, you're literally the only person in there. You walk in, the staff is like sitting at the tables, you know, and you walk in, you're like, are you open?
They're like, yeah. And you go, oh, good. And you, and they're like, oh, we're going to fire up the whole fucking restaurant for this one guy now. So I ordered a lot of sushi because I felt bad for wasting their time. And, um, and I didn't eat most of it because I don't like sushi. And, um, so the waitress comes over, she's Japanese. And, uh, she says, are you not finished? Which is what she said.
I'm not. It's just what she said. I can't, I'm not going to change what she fucking said. I'm not going to lie to you and say that she said, you're not going to finish that. Because it doesn't happen to be what she said. And I have to do the accent. Because it's weird if I tell you that she said, you no finish. So I'm stuck. I'm just telling you what happened. She said, you no finish. That's exactly what she said.
It's a perfect replica. No, it was subtle. She said, you no finish. And I said, no, I, no finish. Because I think that's, I think that's polite. To repeat people's bad English to them. Otherwise, you're being a dick. It's like, you no finish? No, I am not going to finish. You left out a lot of words. I took the liberty of restoring them. Thank you. i was in upstate new york in a small town and i was standing in front of a drug store and in the window of the drug store they had a wheelchair on display in the window is that really an impulse purchase i should get a wheelchair that would really help with my paralysis then i wouldn't have to drag myself everywhere i go like i've been doing for 10 years since my legs were blown off at the marathon okay okay a bunch of hypocrites apparently because let me point something out to you let me point something out to you motherfuckers you were just like seconds ago laughing at a man with no legs crawling on the ground you're just and then at the end you're like oh but not those particular legless people we thought you meant just some with a childhood disease who deserves to be laughed at not one of those now we're laughing at all legless people equally however you lost your legs ha ha you haven't and weave legs i have legs i have two legs two fucking legs that's the maximum amount i can love having two legs i wouldn't like having no legs i really don't think i would like it i think it would suck i think it would suck out of the balls of christ it's an old southern expression it's not used like it used to be i think two legs is better than none that's what i think that's just my opinion it's not popular you're not supposed to say that because you're supposed to always be very positive about disabled people but i think that puts pressure on them to be positive what if they don't want to be because the only story we want to hear is about the amazing disabled people he's amazing he lost his legs and then he won the leg having contest what about disabled people who aren't amazing we're just ordinary with a sweatshirt and some potato chips and he's going fuck i wish i had legs no no this is better it's better with no legs why is it better because you can do anything now i can do four things fuck off i just don't know that our positive non-disabled attitude really helps like retarded people let's we're going to talk about retarded people for 20 minutes just that's what's going to happen we're going to discuss retarded people for 20 minutes it's not okay to not never speak of them no we're going to talk about them first of all i want mostly i want to talk about the word retarded okay because the word retarded it's a bad word and people do not like the word retarded they find it very offensive now i'm a little confused by this because it wasn't always a bad word and i grew up in the 70s and it wasn't bad back then and you most bad words were always bad you know cunt never had a day in the sun there was never a time where the santa claus at the mall was like come here you little cunt tell me what you want for christmas and then in the 90s we're like let's lay off a kind a little bit there gang no the word we use the word retarded in the 70s we used it to identify people who were retarded it wasn't controversial it wasn't like he's retarded it was like he is retarded this fellow right here is retarded right i told you yes you're still retarded he is retarded everyone and i grew up in boston we didn't say retarded in boston we said retarded he's retarded god bless him he's that's the way we used it with love help the retarded that's what people said in the 70s help the retarded there was a lady outside the supermarket near my house every christmas with the bell she's like help the retarded help the fucking retarded you're gonna tell me she was a bad person she was helping them retarded and i feel like we had more of them around back then i haven't seen one in years in the 70s there was a retarded guy in a windbreaker on every street corner they we were using the word and they were more in our lives i swear to god they were more they were in our culture there was tv movies about retarded people all the time tonight on abc a retarded boy's dream there was one i remember with sean cassidy i don't know if you remember sean cassidy some of you too young but sean cassidy he began his career as a teen pop idol he was a 13 year old boy with a very hit song called the do run run and uh he had feathered blonde hair and juicy lips and uh he's on the cover of teen beat magazine like and everybody liked sean cassidy because he was sexy he's a sexy boy i thought he was sexy i did i thought he was really sexy i was six years old but i already had inappropriate sex feelings for teenage boys when i was six i was an old soul i was a pedophile when i was six i used to go up to teenage boys when i was six like hey how's it going that kid's weird he's got a boner anyway not anymore i outgrew it but no i'm not i'm not sexually attracted to teenage boys i'm not i'm not but i don't not get it i mean i i get it i'm not like what like you can see it like i was in an airport once and i'm walking along that where people walk in in the airport and there's these chairs facing the aisle and there's this family sitting there a mom and a dad and two teenage boys and they're like just both sitting with their phones with their legs there weren't like these shorts one had cut off shorts and one had basketball shorts and they both just had their legs open because they don't give a both legs just splayed and then just this just smooth you know just very and and i saw it it didn't give me it didn't do anything to me but i kind of wanted to stop and go hey fellas let's let's close that up huh you're not getting me but i know you're causing a problem for somebody in this let's close it up i did not say that otherwise i wouldn't be here anyway let's return to the comfortable subject of retarded people shall we so sean cassidy sean cassidy was a teen singer who then grew up he was about 18 now he was you know old and gross nobody wanted to fuck him uh so he started to act and he had a movie on tv called normal people where he played a retarded man who wants to live a normal life it was very inspiring actually and at one point he goes to he didn't do like a big retarded character he wore thick glasses he talked like elmer fudd that was the whole thing so he goes up to the guy who runs the group home he lives in and he says i want to get a job and the guys who runs it is like you know republican conservative so he's like you can't get a job you're a retarded you know but but then there's a liberal lady who works there and she says of course he can get a job he's as good as anyone so they let him get 