Name: Louis C.K. | This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von #611
Uploaded: 2025-09-19T15:01:04.000Z
Description: Watch the stand-up comedy video 'Louis C.K. | This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von #611' from Theo Von on Comedy Buff. Published 2025-09-19. Transcript available.

Watch the stand-up comedy video 'Louis C.K. | This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von #611' from Theo Von on Comedy Buff. Published 2025-09-19. Transcript available.

Louis C.K. | This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von #611

Today's guest is one of the greats. There's nobody like him. He's a comedian,
he's a filmmaker,
and now he's a novelist. This is his new book, Ingram, and I've read it, and it's
great. It's
like this Huck Finn, like an emotional kind of Huck Finn. You'll love it. I
guarantee that.
I'm grateful to spend time with him today. He's one of my dear friends, and I
think he has a lot
to offer the world, so I feel lucky to ride on this planet at the same time as
him. Today's
guest is Mr. Louis C.K.
Yeah, man, I'm excited to see you guys perform tonight.
The Ryman's a beautiful place.
Yeah, do you feel uncomfortable ever saying certain things in such a beautiful
venue, and
not you particularly, but also definitely you?
Yeah, I mean, I don't know. The Ryman feels like, I mean, Harry Houdini was
there, and so
was Martin Luther King, and so was Johnny Cash and Elvis. A pretty good balance
of perverts
and...
Wizards.
Perverts and wizards.
Yeah.
I think so. I feel okay.
Yeah.
about talking about bad stuff that you shouldn't talk about.
There's places like a symphony space, you know, when you do like one of those?
Ooh.
Where it's like really hallowed, and there's like, you know...
Yes.
There should be a guy in a tuxedo playing a cello.
Yeah, there should be like a maitre d' of instruments or whatever that guy's
called.
What's it?
Yeah, the...
Maitre d' of instruments. Like a conductor?
The leader, yeah.
Yeah, when you have those guys, and then I'm on there, and I'm talking about
the hair on
the tip of my cock.
Yeah.
Oh, yeah.
But then again, I sold the tickets. It's just a bunch of seats.
Yeah.
But it is, though, you get into something, you're like, oh, this isn't it. Or I
had to
do a church once. This man invited me, and I don't want to say he was a pervert
or whatever.
Or I don't want to say... I don't want to say he was... He seemed like somebody
who was
willing to touch somebody that was probably young.
He was willing to touch somebody who's maybe probably young?
Yeah.
Yeah, it's borderline.
Okay.
He's willing.
Right. He was willing to. I'm not going to say he was.
Right. If somebody was like, hey, this kid's dick is bleeding.
Yeah.
Anybody... We all feel kind of weird about applying pressure. He'd be like, I'm
willing.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Right?
Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That kind of guy. Like an EMT for small cucks, you know?
Like that.
Shot his hand up a little too quick on that.
Yeah, like... Yeah, yeah, yeah.
I mean, I just would. Yeah.
Yeah.
Okay.
Like having a couple small tourniquets in his pocket, you know?
Right. He's equipped.
But yeah, so that guy invited me to do a show and it was in like Laughlin,
Nevada or something out in the middle of the desert and it was at a church and
he was a church man and he was like a pastor or a leader of a church.
We get there and I was like, oh man, this guy had only seen one of my bits and
it was just more of a safe bit. It just had nothing edgy in it.
Right.
And I got into the stuff and you could see a man get up with his family and
just... I mean, he was leaving the show. He was leaving the church though, too.
You could see.
Oh, no.
I felt horrible. And it's... I kept looking at him in the back and he's trying
to be supportive and I was like, don't support me. I was like, this shouldn't
be happening, you know?
And you felt that way?
I did.
Like you shouldn't have been doing it?
Yeah, but I couldn't just... All I have was my material. I could do some riffing.
But it's also in a church. It was... The lights were all on. But yeah, some
venues, it's just a little...
Yeah, it's funny. I used to be more defiant. I used to feel more like, you know,
hey man, this is what I, you know...
Right.
Fuck you. But I feel less that way. I'm not going to change what I do.
Yeah.
But I don't want to upset anybody. I'm not trying to.
Yeah.
But I'm not as defiant. I'm not as like, we'll show them.
I was talking about something on stage recently and somebody in the balcony
yelled, ah, got angry.
And I said, what's wrong? And this person, I don't remember what the bit was,
but they were like, that's not cool, man.
And I said, are you offended by what I said? He said, yeah. And I just said, I'm
really sorry.
Like I had never done that before. I was just like, I'm really sorry.
Yeah.
Anyway, I'm going to keep doing it.
Yeah. Yeah, we got to keep going.
I mean, that's... Yeah, you got to keep going.
Yeah.
I did a club in Florida down in Key West.
Oh, yeah.
And it's a good... I love the guy who runs it, this guy Tom, and it's a fun
club.
But a lot of the crowd is like people that are on a cruise and they jump off
and they had no context for what...
I was like getting pure silence on some stuff.
And at some point I just said, listen, I just want you to know I'm not trying
to upset you.
Oh, yeah.
I just want you to know that this is all... I don't have another way to go.
Right.
This isn't me antagonizing you. This is just you and I are very different.
Yeah.
And if you could try to open your heart a little bit, I can't... I'm opening up
to you, but I can't invent jokes for you right now.
Wow.
And they are like, okay, okay. And I can see these sort of old people in pink
and coral blue shirts going, all right, we'll try a little harder.
Yeah.
Because at first they just thought, well, he's just, he's, you know, sometimes
if somebody's upsetting you, you think they want to.
Right.
But sometimes it's just that they're just being what they are. And if you can
know that, I think it helps.
Oh, even as you're saying that, it makes me think like even when I was a kid,
if my mom would have every now and then, like I know I bring back things to
childhood all the time.
Yeah.
But it's like, or if a parent would every now and then be like, hey, I know
this is not good.
I know this sucks for you.
Right. And I know this is, everything we're doing here is really, it's a Barnum
and Bailey.
Yeah.
It's a real shit circus.
I've tried to say that to my, yeah.
But that's all we got.
Right. And like, I used to think that about my kids when I would say no about
something.
Uh-huh.
Because when I was a kid, no was mean. It was always like, no. And like, no,
because I said so.
Oh, yeah.
Stuff like that. And no, because you don't deserve it or whatever.
And I don't think no has to be a bad thing. I think every, the life is full of
yes and no, right?
And the first few years of a kid's life were just yes. You're just trying to
keep them alive and just let them know they're loved.
And then you have to start going, not that though. And it's tragic for them.
Like what the person I love is saying no, why would they do that?
And because you feel guilty about saying no to your kid, you put a little spice
on it.
But you can be nice about it as long as you're firm. You know what I mean?
Like you don't roll over because you just go, no, I'm sorry, honey. Yeah, that's,
I know how much that sucks.
Yeah.
But it's not changing.
Yeah, we just can't do it.
And think of something else, but it ain't, that's a wall. That's a brick wall.
Yeah.
And you'll be okay. Also let them know you'll be okay.
Yeah.
And then they'll know that no is just a turn. It's not a wall. It's just a, it's
just a, it's a curve. That's all. Go look something for something else.
Yeah. And that's a great way to think about it too. Cause then it keeps you in
a space of like, well, what else could I, what's possible?
How else would I figure this out? You know, it almost puts a little challenge
into the child.
That's it. And also for when my kids would, uh, uh, complain about, and, and,
um, if they just harangued and said, come on, I just, no, I'm not even going to
discuss it.
Yeah.
But if they're like, wait, and they reason and they try to lawyer through it, I
go, I'm here. I'm listening.
Yeah.
You know, that I'll listen to. That's a good skill for them to build. You know?
Yeah. I remember at night, if we got, if we got in trouble, like if we got
suspended from watching television or something by mom, we could go down and do
a performance. Right.
Yeah.
And we didn't have a lot of like, we had a little bit of face paint. I don't
want to say it was like, it would seem racial, but some of the shit probably,
we didn't have a lot of colors.
Okay. What colors did you have?
I mean, we just didn't have them.
Like black, red, and yellow?
I mean, we had some.
Yeah.
No, we just didn't have a lot of colors, right? And we didn't, and we loved a
lot of black stuff.
So I think we probably did In the Heat of the Night or something. We would do
scenes from that, you know?
Oh, that's happy, yeah.
They call me Mr. Tibbs.
Yeah.
Why not?
In the heat of my...
God, dude, we love that show. I love Carol O'Connor. He was so, God, he was so
multifaceted.
Well, did you ever see the movie? The movie's amazing.
In the Heat of the Night? Yeah, I have.
With Sidney Poitier?
Yeah, and Rod Steiger.
Oh, is that the other guy in it?
Hmm. A raisin in the sun, man.
Sidney Poitier was something great, huh?
Yeah, he was.
And what do you call it, also, To Serve With Love.
I haven't seen that.
Yeah, he plays a British teacher teaching... He's a well-educated black teacher
teaching cockney white kids how to be gentlemen and ladies.
Oh, that sounds good.
It's beautiful.
Oh, I've seen scenes from this, though, just online and stuff.
But, yes, but if we went down and performed, and we would also had, I think we
had a kite that we would kind of do this Japanese dragon kind of thing.
So we had a couple of, like, kind of motifs that we would use to win back the
ability to do something new.
But that was a way of us, like, at least show up and show me something, right?
Yeah.
Don't just sit there and whine.
Put on a kabuki and, like, have, like, an allegorical play that says, let us
have the, you know, let us eat the Captain Crunch for dinner.
Yes, let us have this chance.
That's all we wanted.
Yeah.
And sometimes it would be nuts.
Sometimes you had to sing Mammy to get it.
You had to...
Swing low.
Yeah.
It got...
I mean, there were times, yeah.
I wanted to emulate black people when I was a kid.
When I was a kid, it was...
Oh, yeah.
All my heroes were black.
I mean, Muhammad Ali was, like, the greatest thing in the world when I was a
kid.
And Bruce Lee.
And, like, I mean, everybody who I admired, Bruce Lee was black, right?
Bruce Lee?
No.
Oh, Bruce Lee was the Asian...
Yeah.
But, dude, black guys were like, yeah, that's a real...
Yeah.
That's a real one.
Reggie Jackson.
I mean, I grew up different generation than you.
Yeah, yeah.
No, but those are still some real heroes.
Yeah.
Yeah, there was something about being black that just seemed...
I went to a...
Fun and risque at the same time.
Yeah.
Yeah, it wasn't...
Well, at my school, I went to public school in Newton, Mass.
And we had a...
There was a program called Metco, where kids from inner city Boston were
brought in buses to our schools.
Yeah.
And so there was a contingency of...
Kids that were not only black, but living in a very different place.
And so they would sit at...
There would be tables at the cafeteria of just black kids.
And I would just go sit with them.
I just wanted...
I wanted to be part of that.
Yeah.
And I would sit with them and they'd kind of go, all right.
Hey, fellas.
And I just...
I felt like...
I just was reaching for that, you know?
But you think it was because...
Because I definitely noticed that, too.
I like being around black kids.
It was fun.
It was interesting.
You didn't know what was going to happen.
Yeah.
There was an element of, like, kind of crossing the tracks a bit.
Yeah.
Because where I grew up in Newton...
I mean, I lived in Mexico when I was younger, but I mostly grew up in Newton.
And it was a suburb that was already split because there was a working class
side and a rich people side.
And I grew up right on the...
Literally on the tracks.
Like, the train tracks, the mass turnpike, was a block behind my house.
Like, one block.
I fell asleep to the sound of traffic.
And so we were right on the line, m