12/2/2023 0 Comments Causality game halloweenYou’re circling failure in a rapidly decaying orbit. In ten years you’re gonna be teaching comedy at a community college to support your kids, and falling asleep to the Late Show with Jerry Seinfeld. “Look Louie, we’re talking about the big game here, so forgive me if I use big terms. This is Satanic temptation meets genie meets, I don’t know, Indecent Proposal. Who puts that idea-that crazy enormous modern-day Rise of Silas Lapham of an idea-into the mouth of a CBS executive? HOLY COW. “ĭo you have chills? Because that’s a novel right there. You’re gonna crack your head on the ceiling and you’re gonna go down, probably for good. If America hates you, no one’s gonna blame me. And then, if you’re a hit, everyone will think I’m a genius, and I’ll have saved the network about 12 million. “If the test is good, I’ll put you on the air. The CBS guy is part Wizard and part Sphinx, just as powerful, just as vast in its perspective, and just as honest about how the world works: … I’ve seen it, and I’ve seen it turn around.”ĬBS knows EVERYTHING. You think it’s over and you’re afraid to try. ![]() You make 80,000 a year on your club dates. “Five years ago you probably peaked,” says the CBS guy, one of many Men Behind the Curtain in the Late Night series. And that’s what differentiates Louis CK from Lynch: where Lynch withholds information and turns plot points into shallow riddles, Louis just keeps giving you all the answers. Here’s what late-show negotiations are like. I’m drawing the curtain back! Here’s comedian world. He’s SO the Wizard of Oz after Dorothy’s gone behind the curtain.Īnd that’s what Louis CK keeps offering us- here! He keeps saying. Not that I don’t like Twin Peaks-I have real affection for it in retrospect and I think parts of it are amazing mood pieces, but that doesn’t change the Disappointment With Dave. Crazy lady with an eye patch! Ha, she’s strong! Um, cousin who looks exactly like Laura! Evil owls! A fake diary and a real diary! Dwarf! Giant! Billy Zane! It stinks, because you’ve invested so much energy and thought in a show, trying to work out its premises, how it’s coding its mysteries, and then it turns out it was all just sort of slapped together with no real plan. When it ended I understood how everyone who watched Lost and complained about it endlessly truly felt. Speaking of surrealism going outside the stadium, I watched all of Twin Peaks this last spring. The distinction I’m asking for is exactly the one he makes in Late Night: Part 2, when the show cuts between Louie watching Jackie Doll on the monitor with the music-glory vs. Louis CK’s at his best when he’s showing us the inside of Louie’s head while showing us the outside world too in a way that shows the angle of distortion. If you’ve ever taught creative writing, then you know how legendary the And Then I Woke Up ending is, and by legendary I mean universal and lame. When the surrealism gets too broad, it starts to get too dream-sequencey. Ramón and all of Miami is in, along with Maria Bamford, Mark Maron, crabs, and even the crazy pharmacist grilling the lady on her bowel movements. ![]() Never causing traffic accidents and eating raw meat is out. Never-the-kid shitting in the tub is in-so’s throwing the rug out the window. If I had to group the show’s balls (So To Speak) into two camps, then Uncle X and Bizarro-Louie are In, and so is everything up to and including the window breaking in Dad, but the runaway scene is Out. It’s a home run, sure, but I’d rather see the ball, catch it, take it home. It’s not like surrealism is new to Season 3 of Louie, but sometimes (for me, anyway) Louie’s been hitting his uncanny baseballs out of the park. This, in some deep, deep way, is the world we live in. These are chains of causality we know: a crazy person explains to you that a remote control is counterintuitive, then murder suicides his whole family. The maid refuses to Not Disturb, and it’s thanks to her that he gets up, checks his phone, and makes it to his meeting with the head of CBS. Tom Cruise doesn’t like surprises, so Louie goes on The Tonight Show. Loved ‘em for the thrills, the gossipy content (Late Night wars!), but also, and mainly, because of their weird chains of causality.
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