Special Show: Louis CK / Jim Norton

Filed Under Aspen Comedy Festival, Stand-Up Comedy

This show was opened by Ryan Stout, who had a few bits that played like a sicker Jack Benny - saving 11¢ daily on the impoverish child he supports. He also nicely set up Jim Norton with a joke about getting our “strongest and fastest mongoloids” into the international special olympics.

Jim Norton continued the retard-a-palooza - “I love retards and I love fucking them more.” He talked quite a bit about how sitcoms used to have character that were mean to each other - Sanford & Son and All in the Family and how today’s shows you could “feed (him) mescaline and tickle me and I still wouldn’t laugh.” Probably gives a hint at Lucky Louie, Louis CK’s new sitcom will be like. My favorite part was him relating a threesome he had with Ron Jeremy and, as he makes very clear, a girl. He learns the biggest no-no in porn that night and just how deadly Ron’s dick is. He already so open with his jokes about escorts and his preferences in how vaginas look (“a bassett hound wearing a miner’s helmet”), so I can’t wait him branch into similarly honest storytelling.

Watching Louis CK evolve as a stand-up has been so impressive to me - he’s found ways to reach more people now without compromising his style, voice and language. It’s astonishing. I’ve never seen anyone talk publicly about kids like he does, almost dismissive of his 10 month old baby because “I don’t know anything about her. She’s a baby. There’s nothing to talk about.” His four-year-old daughter he has plenty of things to say, starting with “she’s an asshole.” As he details how horrible his child is at Hide ‘n Seek (“how can she live with herself?”), just by detailing the lengths that he goes through playing the game keep the bit humanized, relatable. In other words you can tell he loves his kid without him having to constantly say, “But I love my kid” to keep the audience on his side. Just dazzling.

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