Name: Louis C.K. Doesn’t Miss The Fame And Notoriety
Uploaded: 2023-03-16T22:22:35.000Z
Description: Watch the stand-up comedy video 'Louis C.K. Doesn’t Miss The Fame And Notoriety' from Theo Von Clips on Comedy Buff. Published 2023-03-16. Transcript available.

Watch the stand-up comedy video 'Louis C.K. Doesn’t Miss The Fame And Notoriety' from Theo Von Clips on Comedy Buff. Published 2023-03-16. Transcript available.

you had this mainstream success that is very glitzy and glamoury and it's like
a lot of us
chose podcasting because there wasn't that opportunity there so this
alternative universe
kind of was created um what is what has one been like and the other been like
well i mean i had
first so many years of just struggling you know like uh i started when i was a
just 18 i think
the first time i ever did it i was 17 but i started really trying at 18 in 1985
it's a long
time ago it's 38 years now but from nine from 1985 and when i was 18 till i was
you know i was a
boston comedian for years just trying and failing and and uh and then i moved
to new york and i
started to get some sense of power but but and i tried writing for tv as a way
to make a living
because i just wasn't making it as a comic but as a stand-up i worked until it
wasn't really until i
was like 40 that i started to really like hit so i had all those years so that's
like a whole other
you know right right people kind of forget about that you know i wasn't trying
to discredit you
no no i don't feel that at all no but after that then i had yeah i had this big
and the biggest part
of it was the stand-up i mean that's what fueled it all was that i was selling
out theaters all of a
sudden and they couldn't get be big enough like i would double the size and
sell it out i would put a
show on sale and it would sell out in a minute and um and there wasn't a room
in the world like there
wasn't an indoor space in the world i couldn't book like we would me and my
agent would talk about
where do you want to play like let's go to london royal albert hall if you feel
like it wembley arena
yeah just any place stonehenge yeah fucking madison square garden weird amphitheaters
in
mr mcgregor's garden yeah anywhere anywhere it was crazy like i remember i
would talk to
one point about playing central park you know like simon and garfunkel did like
it was crazy
and then the tv thing you know i mean i had that show and it hit but it wasn't
like friends or
something it wasn't like you know what i mean it wasn't a network show with a
huge reach there's still
a ton of people that never saw it it had pretty low ratings for my show it got
a lot of press and
awards and stuff and not even as many awards as other shows it wasn't like the
office or something
right but i loved the work i loved i was getting to do the show exactly the way
i wanted so i had
huge fulfillment that way and yeah it was weird i was getting awards and i was
at awards shows and
stuff like that and i would meet somebody like brad pitt and he'd be like oh
dude and that kind of
strange feelings and um i'm sure and your ego has to build even if you don't
know it the ego is so
that's right that's the thing that's you that you got to be careful if you don't
know what your ego is
doing you're just success is very dangerous because there's no warning signs on
it there's nothing
cautionary about it in the experience you just believe in it you're just like
this is all happening
because i'm good at this and because it's my time and and here we go and
anything good that happens
you go sure i'll do that too yeah and you just keep letting it load on and you
don't think about
like you ever seen the uh american gangster it's a denzel washington yes there
is a the you're watching
him quietly build this huge empire and then it's when he goes out in the white
uh fur coat to the
fight he goes to a boxing match in white fur coat and then the head cop the russell
crowe goes who's
that guy like and he's not aware that somebody has just gone wait a minute who's
the guy in the
white fur so when you're like big getting bigger and bigger somebody out there
is going like what's
going on with that guy that guy's flying awfully high and you you just don't
you're not aware of
that you just go this just keeps being good i'll do next year i'll do 10 shows
at the garden i mean
where does that where do you think that's going like now i look at it like
where do you think that's
headed like it just can't things that expand explode right yeah it's unsustainable
for most
artists in the world i mean every comedian has that's even gotten that big
there's been some comeback
to earth moment every but every buddy who gets that big right has whatever
their vulnerability is
whatever their thing is their achilles heel it's going to get hit yeah because
the world tests you
and it's also just more interesting to watch somebody go down it's just part of
life life
is a zero-sum game you know oh yeah so but so yeah but having done stuff like
hosting saturday night
live like a bunch of times like that was never that wasn't in my in my sights
like i didn't think
these things would happen to me i had completely really not i completely had
given up on those things
happening to me and just admitted to being a writer you think yeah i thought i'd
i'll never stop doing
stand-up i thought because i love it it's it's the thing i love but i can write
i'm a good writer
i tried making films early and they crashed and burned so i'm like i'm not
going to be a film
director either those are the big dreams like direct movies be a comedian i'm
gonna do comedy but no one's
ever gonna love it and i'll go down for whatever i was maybe pulling in you
know a few hundred people
a night down it'll just diminish and someday i'll have to give it up and i'll
write and that'll be
okay i'll make other people famous make chris rock famous make conan you know
help other guys get
there and there's joy in that i chris yeah i i love chris i love he was my
favorite growing up yeah
he he astonished me when he came back to stand up after snell and get inspired
me a lot he was he's
one of the best friends i've ever had and uh he was a great boss when he was
just my boss i just loved
him he was the greatest greatest guy he used to say like you know i'm not it's
not about me we're all
because he he hired writers that were all really good and he said we're all the
yankees i'm i'm i'm in
the i'm in the cleanup spot but i'm just the guy who has this one role but you're
all you know you
made us feel like we're all part of it right so i liked that work but i had no
i had really decided
and i started i had a kid and i was like this is not it's not gonna happen
never gonna happen for me
and then it's something changed because when i went on stage i just didn't i
didn't care anymore about
my career so i just and i was really cranky and i was starting to really i went
through a new cranky
phase and i was a tired father and and i started talking about that and then
things then things
changed you know did it surprise you yeah really it really shocked me and then
when i got the this
show on fx the the the they paid me the minimum i got paid like you know scale
yeah and the show had
the smallest budget of any show on television but the point was and it was on fx
which was nowhere at
the time i mean they had a few cool shows yeah but people didn't know about it
no so i thought
i'm gonna do a show and i'm gonna love it and it's never gonna take off it's
just gonna be a little show
my friend laura keitlinger had done this show yeah called uh the adventures of
jackie something and
laura's one of the funniest people i knew and she did a nice season on like amc
and i thought that's
what i'm gonna do right one season of this weird little show and then i'll go
back to then i'll get
another writing job that's what i figured i had no and then we're like you know
then we're getting on
the big lists and then we got emmy i was totally shocked that that happened um
but then after a few
years i'm like yeah this is you know it's like if you play blackjack you start
winning you get stupid
right away you're like i'm good it's because i'm good at blackjack yeah because
i know what i'm doing
and then they just then you're busting every hand you're like no i'm a asshole
so yeah i was in a place
where i thought like i this is happening because i know what i'm doing now and
because i'm earning it
ah but a lot of it is just so weird you caught a wave you caught a wave it was
good timing
yeah it's interesting how some comedians don't even get the time it's like they're
where they're what they're funny is in their life span it just doesn't match
with the wave of like
where society is sometimes that's right there's some people that are incredible
but they weren't
that at the right time that's one of the biggest challenges in comedy is just
staying good when
nobody's paying attention yeah and continuing to progress because it's like
this searchlight that
maybe finds you sometimes and if every time it finds you you're you're getting
better and better
then the then someone in the somebody in the world will start to go this guy is
a good bet
they'll start putting money on you yeah hope you enjoyed that video and you can
watch another
and you can watch this one you can watch this one different options different
choices
some guy just brings you one option not this guy two options watch one this one
or this one