Modified On August 1, 2009
Some folks were dropping this in its entirety into their websites and forum posts (a violation of WWW ethics, credited or not), so we decided to bring it up topside. It’s a comment from Louis CK on our post entitled “Tear up the Hack List.” In it, Mr. Szekely makes some good points.
Very interesting conversation. Being a self-googling whore, I stumbled upon it this evening.
First of all let me say that the whole idea of a hacklist is offensive to me. But where are these lists? From my perspective it’s been many years since anyone has bothered to talk about hack comedy or hack subjects. I too have read many articles that refference airplane jokes as hack but to me those articles have themselves become hack. Those shitty articles that start with “comedy is serious business’ or whatever, written by a shitty HACK journalist who is no student of comedy and not even curious about comedy as an artform.
anyway I think it’s crazy to suggest that a subject is hack. That there would be something inherently hacky about an entire topic. It’s true a lot of really boring and repetitive jokes have been made about airplanes and travelling. But to suggest that brands the subject itself is so narrow minded that it makes me mad. Just like the idea that guitar comedians are hacks just for having a guitar. There are far more hacks standing there with no guitar than there are guys with one. DJ Hazard, one of my favorite comics of all time, did beautiful stuff with a guitar. i still sing his songs to myself when I’m walking my kids to school.
I find it so boring when people talk about purity in comedy. About how doing standup without cursing is somehow better or more couragous. People who measure the strength of a comedian by these metrics just don’t really get what is great about comedy so they are trying to find a simple way to quanify it. Did that make any sense? Sorry. Nobody cares what I think about any of this.
But here’s something I can tell you that you might find interesting. The origin of that particular material I did on that Conan appearance. It actually came from watching comedians talk about airplanes. This is actually material that I wrote many years ago, did for a short while and dropped. The very first time I did it, I actually refferenced comedians that talk about airplanes and how tired I was of hearing that kind of material. Not because it was “hack” but because of the nature of the material. I kept hearing these smarmy comix nitpicking at every little facet of air travel and acting all cunty and it occured to me one night that they are totally ignoring the beauty of flight and that there was lots of comedy in general that kind of bummed me out. The sort of goods and services griping that got really big in the 80s. I felt like comics, as a community, were getting to be a cheap and boring bunch. It frustrated me (and still does) because I love comedy. I am not a purist or a snob. I like every kind of comedy. I can appreciate any comic who shows some energy, some uniqueness some great craftsmanship, some strange courage, balls, hilarious lack of balls, weirdness, or just a really solid comic with a terrific fastball. I’m a fan of all of it. From Carlin to Pryor to Ron White to Don Gavin to Steve Sweeney to Todd Glass to Norm Macdonald to JB Smoove to George Lopez to Bernie Mack, Moms mabley, Father Guido Sarducci, Emo Phillips, Todd Barry, Marc Maron, Andy Kindler and Andrew Dice Clay at the Comedy store in front of eight people for an hour. I eat it up as long as they’re trying.
But in the eighties we hit a rut. We were a boring ass bitching about a sales lady with an additude or the awkwardly worded instructions on a shampoo bottle or the minutia of air travel. Understand I never thought of this as hack. It just started to feel… weak. And there was a lot of it.
But I NEVER thought of the subjects as bad to talk about. If you think any subject is hack, go to youtube and watch Jay leno’s appearances on the old LEtterman show. There are a ton of them and they’re amazing. He was SO Fucking good and everything he talked about was “hack”. he did airplane humor in at least five different segments on the same show. he never let it go. Just kept hammering and hammering at it, but with such beautiful percision, such energy, gorgeously worded bits. To frown on them because of the subject matter is to be a self-serving idiot.
Anyway, so the first time I did the bit that’s in that conan clip, I was talking about comedians who talk about airplanes. But nobody wants to hear a comedian making fun of comedians so I turned it into talking about people in general complaining about flying.
After a while I dropped the bit. But then after the market crashed in october I started exploring this stuff about how good things are and how little happiness it’s bringing people and I stumbled back into the airplane stuff. I used a little of what I had in the earlier material and built on it, coming from a completely different angle and energy this time.
So to read this debate or discussion sparked by that material made me want to bring that up. But now I wrote far too long a comment and it made very little sense. Sorry. My best to all you fellow comics.
regards,
Louis C.K.
# posted by Blogger Louis : 2:51 AM, March 01, 2009