LOUIS CK

New England native at the top of his game

By ROB TURBOVSKY

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With his unsparing talent for filthy, gut-wrenching insights into all the ugliness of domestic life, Louis CK has lately become one of the must-see comedians of our day. For those who hear him vent about fatherhood and society and recognize their own inner voice, he's a fearless truth-teller. For comedy nerds, he's John Cassavetes with jokes. The Newton-raised CK returns to town just a year after filming his Chewed Up special here. The name of the all-new show is Hilarious. He earned it.

IN HILARIOUS, YOU DESCRIBE SEEING YOUR DAUGHTER SHIT ON THE FLOOR. HOW HAVE THE CROWDS BEEN RESPONDING TO THAT?

That's my favorite bit right now because it unites the audience. Because I always have two crowds. I have the family crowds that are there because they enjoy the stuff about kids and the material about being the age that I am. They relate. Then, I have young, crazy comedy fans who just want to see the most fucked up shit they can. Throughout the show, things generally lurch back and forth. Some of the younger people look a little distracted when I'm talking about kids, and some of the older people look a little uneasy when I'm talking about Hitler or duck vaginas. But, then, when I do the bit about my kid shitting on the floor, the whole place goes bananas.

IT'S UNUSUAL FOR A COMEDIAN TO HAVE THAT KIND OF AUDIENCE. YOU GET COMEDY NERDS, AS WELL AS MORE BLUE-COLLAR FOLKS WHO CAN RELATE TO THE MARRIAGE AND KID STUFF YOU'RE TALKING ABOUT.

I like that it's a wide range of people. I don't like the idea of having a target audience. People come from all different places to enjoy the stuff. It's funny, because I get people who comment on half of the audience like, "Where did you find these folks?" They don't like each other. After the show, I get a couple of "Who are these faggots in your audience?" And, then, I'll get all my friends going, "Why do these people like you?" But, hey, whatever brings people together.

I REMEMBER WATCHING YOU INTERACT WITH FANS AFTER A SHOW IN RHODE ISLAND LAST SUMMER, AND I'M PRETTY SURE THAT A GUY TOLD YOU THAT HE HAD JUST NAMED HIS SON LOUIE.

I kind of remember that. I have no idea where to put that. At least it's not a bad name.

AS YOU LOOK AT THE PROGRESSION OF YOUR MATERIAL, FROM THE HBO ONE NIGHT STAND YOU DID IN 2005 TO SHAMELESS TO CHEWED UP, YOU SEEM TO BE MORE INTERESTED IN DOMESTIC LIFE OR EVERYDAY SITUATIONS. IT'S HARD TO IMAGINE YOU DOING THAT BIT ABOUT RACIST FARM ANIMALS (FROM 2001'S LIVE IN HOUSTON CD) NOW, FOR EXAMPLE.

Yeah. I think that stuff was me playing around with funny ideas because I didn't have a lot to actually talk about. That definitely changes your act.

SO, DO YOU STILL WRITE THAT KIND OF STUFF AND JUST CHOOSE NOT TO USE IT?

Silly thoughts do occur [to] me, and they don't make it into my act as often as they used to, or I find ways to fold them into thoughts about something. That happens very often now. I do stuff that's really absurd and/or microcosmical, and somehow it becomes a detail in a story. I just put it in a story where it doesn't even belong. You know, part of the process of writing this stuff is throwing shit in and grouping stuff together. There are a lot of scattered ideas and I'm learning how to put them into the stream of actual thought.

HOW DO YOU THINK YOUR PERFORMANCE STYLE HAS CHANGED IN THE LAST FEW YEARS?

I think I have higher skills as far as making this material work. I'm just more practiced, that's all. I have a bit now about raping a baby gorilla that knows sign language. That's not something that I thought I'd be able to do, and it's working great. The message is that you shouldn't, by the way.

WHEN YOU START WORKING ON A NEW HOUR, DO YOU IMMEDIATELY THROW AWAY THE OLD MATERIAL OR DO YOU GRADUALLY PHASE IT OUT?

For the most part, I chuck it because I'm really excited to get rid of it. It's really fun to do shows where I don't have any jokes. I'm like a new comic. It's like a rebirth, it's a great feeling. It's scary and it's a struggle onstage. But, I don't do shows that way where people pay a lot of money to see me. I don't go back on the road with big advertisements until I've built a new hour.

EVERY SPECIAL YOU DO HAS AT LEAST ONE DEFINING BIT. DO YOU ENJOY THE CHALLENGE OF HAVING TO TOP YOURSELF EACH TIME OUT?

Right around Shameless, I started this trick, because there's a tendency to open strong, kind of skate for 45 minutes and then close strong. And, what it tends to do is weaken all the material. It even weakens the closing because you just keep doing it the same way every time. After the One Night Stand, I really had no material. I had to start from scratch—and I realized, well, that's 30 minutes that I'm not growing anymore and it's because I've been doing these shows at 48 minutes. I get through them and nobody minds because I close strong. So, I started opening with my strongest bit. I opened with a closing bit. I started opening with "Suck a Bag of Dicks."

And, that puts you in this position, which is the audience is going crazy and you have to follow your own strongest material with shit that's weaker and you don't have a closing bit anymore. And, they don't know this. They don't know how much trouble you've put yourself into. They're just think, "Wow, he is great. I'm sure he will continue to be." What that does is that it forces you into a system of refining the weaker material, so you have to get better, or else you'll start bombing. The material that wasn't that strong becomes closing material. Like, the "Sad Hand Job" bit was just a story I was telling onstage, and "Suck a Bag of Dicks" was my big close. And, once I started opening with "Suck a Bag of Dicks," the "Sad Hand Job" bit just had to become that great and all the rest went that way. They all took turns until it was as if I had 10 closing bits inside of a special. Then, you just hit people really hard, pull back a little, hit them really hard, pull back a little.

I INTERVIEWED YOUR FORMER ROOMMATE, NICK DIPAOLO A FEW MONTHS AGO, AND I ASKED HIM IF YOU WERE MUTUAL INFLUENCES ON EACH OTHER. HE SAID THAT HE DIDN'T THINK SO BEFORE, BUT THAT YOU'VE GOTTEN ANGRIER IN THE LAST FEW YEARS. WOULD YOU AGREE?

Oh, definitely. Nick definitely got there quicker than I did. I don't know what was making him so mad in his 20s. It took me until my 40s to get there. But I'm definitely influenced by him. Nick is just a poet, I don't know anyone who can put words together better than that guy. I grew up watching that, and I definitely bite his rhymes a little bit. There are moments in my act where I'm being Nick in my head. And, some of those are definitely the angrier moments for sure.

ON YOUR WEBSITE, THERE'S A CLIP OF YOU PERFORMING AT CATCH A RISING STAR IN HARVARD SQUARE IN 1987. WHAT DO YOU THINK WHEN YOU WATCH THAT?

I don't watch it is really the answer. I can't look at that. It's a different person. I don't see myself in that face at all. I can kind of conjure up the feelings I had in that time. But I had a Boston accent that was fake. I was trying to act like a dude in a "bah." I didn't know how to fit in with people, let alone be a comedian, so it was an awkward age.

LOUIS CK

SATURDAY 3.14.09

ORPHEUM THEATRE

1 HAMILTON PLACE

BOSTON

617.482.0106

9:15PM/ALL AGES/$16.25-$32.50

LIVENATION.COM

LOUISCK.NET