Stand Up

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My boy Jake seems to be a real fan of stand-up comics. I even told him that I had tried it and loved it and that I'd been pretty dang good at it.

I really want to do it again, actually.

Anyway, Jake has found a bunch of new, young comics and he played a couple of them for me, and I laughed my ass off watching them. Yet I also wanted to play him a few of my favorites, so I of course, started him with a Carlin concert.

"That guy is a genius," Jake said a few minutes into it.

I told you that he could judge talent.

Well on Thursday night Jake took his turn.

"You ever see Louis C.K. do stand up?" he asked.

Of course I watch the show on FX, and somewhere along the line I'd seen an act or two, but not the particular one that Jake grabbed off of NetFlix.

I spent the next 40 minutes laughing until I was on the verge of tears. There were some really weird sounds coming from me as I pictured an adolescent Louis with cottage cheese and his dog.

And during it I thought about the very profession of being a stand-up comic. It really is something, isn't it?

Just a microphone and a bunch of stories...one story after another, designed to do nothing but make the audience laugh.

"Who was the best one ever?" Jake asked.

I thought of Buddy Hackett, who made me laugh hard. And Redd Foxx, and Eddie Murphy, and Richard Pryor, and Steve Martin.

"I'd still say Carlin," I said.

"Did you ever see him live?"

Sadly I didn't, but I did see Larry the Cable Guy, Seinfeld a couple of times, and Robin Williams.

They were all terrific.

"I have a few books Carlin wrote," I said.

"Of course you do," Jake answered.

Louis moved on to his observations about being married more than ten years. I was howling.

"I don't get it," Jake said at one point.

"You will someday," I said.

God it's good to laugh.

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