Heresy: Louis CK is a better, more relevant comedian than Bill Hicks

Hmmmm...there might be something to what you're saying here.  I like the comparison to Cosby.  That feels pretty spot on.  I'd say the people who compare Hicks (who is my all time favorite comedian, by the way) to Lenny Bruce got it right, in that he's going to remain as this hugely influential force in comedy while nonetheless being totally rooted in the time he was performing.  I don't think he'll ever stop being "relevant," but he won't be quite as relatable (that's not a word?  Ah, well) as someone like Louis CK.

ETA:  Also, I forgot to add that I don't think CK is better than Hicks, but that's because for me, Hicks is pretty much the pinnacle of stand up.  That's not to say that Louis CK isn't great, because he is, I just like Hicks more.  I guess it all boils down to personal preference.

To me, Hicks is like Syd Barrett's Floyd & Louis is like Post-Barrett, DSotM Floyd. The former had those few intense flashes before vanishing & the latter was able to distill those same elements into a more palatable, populist form, primarily because they had the time to evolve & do so.

If CK continues on this path I foresee no problems in classifying him as one of the greats. If not the greatest. As for Hicks, of course topical humor will have diminishing returns. Jokes speaking about more fundamental to the human condition stuff will always play. I like to think that I have a better than average knowledge of stand up comedy and I certainly have a darker and meaner sense of humor than most. Even with that in mind, I can guarantee you that if I watch an hour of Bill Cosby and an hour of Bill Hicks, I'll laugh at Cosby the most.

It has been said by many people and I agree that especially later on Hicks wasn't giving much of a shit if he was making anyone laugh. He had (often important) stuff to say and no time to make them funny.

No eggs or tomatoes from me.

Stelios is correct, Hicks' humour was very similar to David Letterman's -  he didn't give a rat's ass if anyone laughed.

When I first heard Bill HIcks back in '90 I was amazed and enraptured by his comedy but as time goes by I think less about the humorous view of his material and more on the message he was trying to get across to people, he was angry at a lot of things and that was the main thing I have taken from his Albums.  If he were still with us I imagine him to be more spoken word than comedy though he certainly could do both.  Of people I am aware of at the moment, Henry Rollins and what he does when he tours his Spoken Word shows reminds me of Bill.  Rollins talks about a lot of things and gets angry about a lot of things, throws in funny stories and experiences and makes you think about things.  Not a popular view with most people I know, but there it is.

Louis C.K. I have heard some of his stuff and seen bits and pieces online (his stand up stuff, not the tv shows) and I do enjoy his stuff but he doesn't really dig much deeper than most when it comes to a message.  I have no doubt he will stay, relevant? as time goes on but that's down to the timelessness of his material, it isn't going to date as much.  Complaining about general things is always going to be there, moan about your kids/wife/job always going to happen.

I think it also helps Louis that he was able to live a full life. (It still blows me away that Hicks was only 32 when he passed.) We'll never know how Hicks' comedy might have evolved. I think if he had continued he would have been similar to Doug Stanhope.

Hicks is overrated. Not only did he often forget to be funny, but would say some of the most obvious, eye-rolling things and try to pass it off as profound statements on the human condition. Like the stand-up special he did in which he closed the show by saying if we end all war we could use the money we save to feed and clothe the poor, and go into space and live together forever in peace and harmony. Or something like that. Such maudlin crap doesn't belong in a discussion among rational adults, let alone in the set of a supposedly edgy comedian. 

Louis CK, on the other hand, offers a lot of nuanced and interesting thoughts on the human condition, without resorting to being cheap and obvious. And as an added bonus, he manages to be gut-bustingly funny in the process.

Edit: Here's that clip of Hicks:

Sorry, but that just comes across to me like it was read from the transcript of a 3 AM conversation between bong hits in a freshman dorm room.

I have to agree that TCD is correct, Hicks is overrated. A fantastic comic, and a deserved legend, but nevertheless overrated. Louis CK is forging brand new territory, planting flags where none existed before. Like Patton Oswalt tweeted (yes, I just said that), we're living in a time where Breaking Bad and Louis are on every week. You'll be able to tell you're kids about this shit.

Hard to say he's overrated after reading this thread.

I'd say Louis CK is in a better position to be relevant right now seeing as he's not dead.

And hasn't been dead since 1994.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Erix 

Louis CK has a sitcom now. And it's arguably one of the most acclaimed, talked about programs of the current crop. He basically is mainstream without really being there. It's part of what will keep him "relevant" but I hope he's able to always maintain that balance between catering to expectations and delivering on his promise. Carlin was able to do it to a point. But even his most ardent fans have to admit those last albums were kind of awful.

 

I guess what I'm trying to say is I hope Louis CK doesn't become Bill Cosby.

I think the odds of that happening are pretty good, until he just doesn't have the material, anyway. A big part of what makes Louie the show that it is is just how drastically different the current media culture is. Back when Cosby was on, it was still all about the networks, and if Hicks had broken through and gotten a sticom or whatever, he probably would have been in a similar position to Cosby. I don't care how clean you are, big TV just neuters the hell out of stand up comics and leaches out what made them unique. It's what happens when the suits "take an interest", to paraphrase a line from Barton Fink. CK has the benefit of being in a media world where he can function at a maximum level with as much exposure as his material, which is natural to him, is able to attract. Would the theoretical Hicks of the hit 1995 FOX sitcom "Bill!" have had the same benefits? Probably not.

Louie is a half-hour show with comedy in it, but it's WAY more than a "sitcom." His gift is his honesty, and he's being rewarded for it. Seeing as how he already skewered the sitcom format on one of his eps this season, I think Louis becoming Cosby-ized won't happen.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Erix 

Something else though... Louis CK is on the cusp of becoming mainstream and that's another thing that will probably factor into his staying power. And that's a dangerous double-edged sword.

Everything is a double edged sword.

Reposting this from the Louie thread:

I don't know, fellas. Even Bill Hicks' magnificent mullets are en vogue again.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mangy 

Louie is a half-hour show with comedy in it, but it's WAY more than a "sitcom." His gift is his honesty, and he's being rewarded for it. Seeing as how he already skewered the sitcom format on one of his eps this season, I think Louis becoming Cosby-ized won't happen.

Plus there's Lucky Louie... He's been down that road.

I wouldn't even know where to start with the claim that CK is "better"... how do you qualify something like that? I mean I can sure as hell understand someone finding him funnier than Hicks. But I definitely don't agree on more relevant. If relevance is simply measured by doing observational comedy that's immediately relatable then I guess you can say a million comedians are more relevant than Hicks. But he had his finger on the pulse of a different part of the human condition. People can appreciate what he says whether they were witness to those events or not. And he entered comedy almost fully formed, which is pretty ridiculous.

Love CK to bits, buts Hicks is a god in the comedy world for very good reason.

Well, Louis will. Because he's got twenty years of material, much more mainstream exposure and isn't dead.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Erix 

I don't know why I didn't bring that up. You're right. But, even then, he was given certain liberties that many comedians don't get. So, we ended up with what almost amounts to a post modern sitcom.

 

I can see why it didn't work (Took too long to find its footing) but I might be one of the few who actually liked it.

 

I want to be clear that my thread title was only meant as a tease. I don't know that CK is "better" literally. I was just making an argument for his ultimate staying power. I'm certainly not disagreeing that Hicks is a God in the comedy world. But, at this point, so is CK. And I was just trying to make a case for who will be around longer. That's all.

 

 

I liked Lucky Louie too, it was good for what he was trying to do with it. Comparing it to Louie is apples and oranges really.

As for the Louis CK VS Hicks thing, that is an interesting thing to think about. I had no idea Hicks was only 32 when he died, that's so young. If he had had more time to grow it would have been very interesting to compare them. As it is I'd say they are both comedy gods and will both probably be remembered for a long long time, but Louis has had more time to blossom (like a beautiful masturbating flower)

Also, I guess the relevance question would depend when you discover each. I bet a 20 yr old would enjoy Hicks more because Hicks is ranting from the heart, confronting head on the BS of the world in a punk-ish, get out of my way sort of way ("even Madonna hawks regular Coke") whereas LCK stuff is more lived in, precise rifts on divorce, parenting and the like that would relate much more with a 30+ yr old, in a more prog rock kinda way.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Love Machine 

Also, I guess the relevance question would depend when you discover each. I bet a 20 yr old would enjoy Hicks more because Hicks is ranting from the heart, confronting head on the BS of the world in a punk-ish, get out of my way sort of way ("even Madonna hawks regular Coke") whereas LCK stuff is more lived in, precise rifts on divorce, parenting and the like that would relate much more with a 30+ yr old, in a more prog rock kinda way.

This is why I don't really see the comparison.  Hicks is all about the anger of youth.  CK's stuff is about accepting that the world's shit and everyone's miserable, but it's not like we really deserve any better.   I have no idea why they're even being compared except that both tend to be loved by comedy geeks.

I'm not sure the specifics of a comedian's perspective matters all that much. It's about whether or not you're funny. A truly great comedian can make any topic accessible to the audience. This is what artists do - and at the risk of overstating his significance, I definitely consider Louis CK to be an artist - they express their personal experiences in such a way that anyone can relate to them.

I've never been married nor had kids, and have no points of comparison for Louis CK's rants on these subjects. But I find them utterly hilarious. I have no idea what it feels like to be a divorced father of two daughters, but Louis CK is able to translate that feeling so effectively that I can connect with it on a basic, visceral level. That is great comedy, and that is great art.

For sure CK is an artist. His TV series Louis avoids having a format, with every episode being a mini piece of art. But he is subversive as well. There is a touch of format, because he apes Seinfeld by having a bit of standup at either end of many episodes. But he uses his lesser material, despite it reaching his biggest audience. In one fell swoop he paints a real portrait of an artist at work, mocks Seinfeld and gets away with not using his best standup material.

I think there's an inherent problem in comparing Louis CK and Bill Hick's legacy as just "comedians." Hicks was and can only be remembered as a comedian while for better or worse (and I would certainly, with some high level of affection, say better) with 3 seasons of TV and a movie already in his belt (not to mention that he directed his comedy specials, didn't one of them play at Sundance or something?) Louis CK's "legacy" is too too deeply intwined with other facits of his professional/artistic output to make such a direct and stark comparison between the two.

Even if "Louis" was not as critically received as it was, if for say in the future after it was off air it lost its favor with fans and wasn't remembered as highly upon as some of us might think it will; it would still be monstrously influential. As far as my understanding of it goes, "Louis" is a new way to structure the internal production of a TV show, i.e. the allocation of its budget. In addition, it has certainly broken grounds in prime time television in terms of how it has such a singular force behind it. Louis will be remembered as not just a standup comic but also a director, writer, and producer and that can't help but muddle the comparison of the two.

Also, just to throw it out there because maybe you guys have some food for thought on this: I find it nearly impossible to separate Louis' stand up legacy, or really any relatively "new"/modern standups from this recent, new technology and resources driven, comedy boom. In Louis' case its the change in resources that enable him to have the control of his show as he does, as it costs less to make a show (he used a RED to film) and the changes in programing as a result of more cable channels and the internet. Then again with the internet in the way he delivered his latest stand up special, through a new direct pay option made available by the internet.

To make it a more general idea of whatever this comedy change or boom is (which I really hope I'm not alone in seeing), you've got to discuss the forfront of this movement: podcasts. Of which, LCK has managed to make some splash in. You could almost say, if you wanted to get carried away on his individual legacy, that LCK being on WTF w/ Marc Maron, made WTF culturally relevant in a way that pushed it over a certain relevancy-edge it hadn't yet managed to pass and with it the podcast in general. I seem to remember, all those articles, like the Rolling Stones ones, featuring Marc Maron always had at least a mention of the LCK interview in it. 

Of all the possibilities of what might have become if Bick Hicks had lived to see this age, I am fascinated most by one that has not been brought up yet, and I guess led me to write much of the above, but that of what that man could have found in Podcasts. I mean just thinking about it now and I've already created an parallel universe in which Marc Marron never did become relevant again and I gratefully knew less about his cats. 

Sorry if I derailed slightly there, I'm new at this and have a lot of respect for a lot of the posters here. Long time lurker, first time caller. 

Great first post, dude.

First of all, great first post. You should stick around.

Since you brought WTF up, what you're saying was also kind of discussed in the last one with Bill Lawrence, the guy who created Spin City, Scrubs and Cougar Town. About how Louie and what Louis CK does in general, or even what Maron does would have been literally impossible back when they were starting. And how this is an undeniably great thing. You think you're funny? Fuck managers, fuck agents and club owners. Take a camera and put yourself online. Go on Youtube, go on  Funny Or Die. There's almost no way you won't be seen by more people than those present in your average open mic night.

These are good times for comedy fans.

I'm with TCD, Zw, and Love Machine on this for the most part. If I missed giving anyone else kudos, I'm sorry, I'm whacked out on codeine because apparently the universe hates me and wants me to die from either the flu or pneumonia, the diagnosis of which was indeterminable thanks to the one doctor who was standing in for my regular MD.

Anyway, yeah. I loved Hicks when I was about 20-21 and we were still in the throes of the Bush II: Bush Harder administration - all of his critiques seemed relevant, what with the resurgence of Saddam Hussein as a political enemy and the rampant insanity of the GOP - likewise, when the Democrats crunched that one midterm election, I blasted "The Elephant Is Dead" so many times that people probably thought I was leading some sort of tribal ritual whereupon we all sacrificed shitty voters for the well-being of mankind. But then all of my political fervor subsided, all of my anger at the stupidity of mainstream America subsided, and I was kinda left at an impasse in my comedy fandom. 

The first time I listened to "Chewed Up", I totally did not find it funny. I completely, profoundly missed the point.

Then I gave myself a few years. I went through a harsh break-up of a five-year relationship with a woman I genuinely loved (and still do on some level), but we just had too many differences and I had grown apart from her in a lot of ways (both good and bad), and then had to suck up the monotony of a day-to-day that I hated but still stuck with because it paid well, then moved to a new place (still in L.A., though) where my life changed drastically and I suddenly had to mold an entirely new social life along with the added challenge of dating after feeling like I had spent five years in cryogenic freeze as well as learning to use parentheses a lot less...so I ended up meeting a lot of people and steadily getting into stand-up. I had a little bit of fun with it, but the problem with L.A. comedy is that generally, it's full of people who are just doing that to get their break in the entertainment biz. They go onstage, do their 5 to 7-minute bit that they've done a billion times, and go off. It's boring. Almost sterile. So I got really, deeply, profoundly bored with that, and just started following other comics.

That's where Louis CK came in. I decided to go back and give "Chewed Up" a shot, and was positively DYING with laughter. I found the guy incredibly funny on a base level - not just when he was onstage, but just in his observations. He hit home for me way more often than he had that six or seven years prior. He was prolific. Writing an ENTIRE FUCKING HOUR OF SOLID COMEDY PER YEAR on top of working on a show/etc. blew my mind. So now I'm totally a fan. His brand of humor just hits better with me, because it's not as caustic and angry as Hicks's stuff was, and also I'm not as caustic and angry as I was at that time in my life. Maybe that'll change. Maybe I'll look at Louis CK in five years and be like "Pfft shit give me the crafty comedic stylings of Dane Cook to be the salve for my emotional wounds and my midlife crisis", but I don't think so. It's not just the dead thing, though I'd be endlessly interested in seeing where Hicks would be had he survived, but it's the level of delivery, the relatability, and as was mentioned before, the shifting perspective of new media ventures. I do think podcasts are on the way out in a way - sure, there are a lot of them, but at the same time they're wearing out their welcome in a massive way because EVERYFUCKINGBODY has one. I got sick of Marc Maron's daddy issues, I got bored with the routine-ness of Nerdist, etc. etc. But even if LCK doesn't stay all the way on top of his game, he's likely got enough perspective to say "Screw it", and take a bow before he ends up being irrelevant.

I think we all end up outgrowing comics in a way. We can still appreciate them for their contributions, but the name of the game itself immediately relegates people to a certain point in history. Jokes date themselves the moment that they exit your mouth. Or your fingers, if you're one of them newfangled "Twitter Funny People". Look at Eddie Murphy or Sam Kinison - in a way they still kill it, but the rampant homophobia and the other bullshit just makes it that much more unbearable in a day and age when people are generally more tolerant of "alternative lifestyles" (whatever that means, since that implies that there's a benchmark for normal lifestyles) and we look at (and down upon) dumb mega-macho conservative assholes to make faggot jokes, because that's practically all they have now. Comedy is inherently progressive, in a lot of ways. Comics spend their entire lives flinging poop at culture's ivory towers, because that's what makes the horrible shit that much more tolerable - that we can joke about rich white male dickheads telling women what to do with their bodies, that we can thumb our noses at the fact that multi-millionaires piss and moan about taxation, that we can just shake our heads at privileged white men treating immigrants like shit...because if you don't laugh at this nonsense sometimes, you will literally tear your own hair out and scream until you die from a lack of oxygen.

I don't know where I'm going with this at this point, I'm just rambling and this turned into something bigger than I was mentally willing to take on at 10:something in the morning with a head full of Robitussin and codeine. But yeah, Team Louie at this point.

EDIT: Also relevant - look at Hicks's popularity during the huge late 80s-early 90s surge of popularity in stand-up. These days, half of the people that got popular during that time would be fucking drawn and quartered for being hacks, and rightfully so. He managed to stand out amongst that crowd, which is a big deal in and of itself, but I also can't help but wonder how much of his popularity may have been bolstered by that cultural phenomenon alone.

Louis definitely has some wisdom when it comes to relationships, especially relationships ending. "Louie" premiered when my first longish relationship ended and I had to start dating again, and that show and his standup were there like a friend. His breakup humor is undeniably funny, but not in a bitter way. More in a commiserative "yeah dude, this sucks" kind of way. Some people listen to torch songs when they miss someone that they know they shouldn't, I listen to Louis C.K.

He's Woody Allen meets Wong Kar Wai, basically.

I can't see myself ever outgrowing Hicks, as I still find a lot of what he said to contain a lot of truth, but that doesn't mean I can't appreciate and love other comics as well.  Having said that, I'm definitely drawn toward comics who are of his ilk, like Marc Maron, David Cross, and other guys who spend as much time speaking truth to power as they do bringing the lulz.  But I also dig the hell out of Louie CK, because he is also speaking truth to power, just in a different way.  I don't know...I love a lot of comics for a lot of different reasons, and I'm discovering new guys (and gals) all the time, but Hicks will always be my favorite.

Louis doesn't target institutions or politics directly with his material, is I think the important distinction.  I'd say he speaks truth to privilege rather than power.

One is a man looking inwards to address the outside, the other is a man looking outwards to address the inside. Couldn't be more different.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Schwartz 

Louis doesn't target institutions or politics directly with his material, is I think the important distinction.  I'd say he speaks truth to privilege rather than power.

Agreed. That's a good distinction.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Schwartz 

Louis doesn't target institutions or politics directly with his material, is I think the important distinction.  I'd say he speaks truth to privilege rather than power.

Privalege, selfishness and misplaced entitlement, yeah. He's fighting the fight, just as a weary guy in mid-life rather than an idealistic raging twenty-something.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Schwartz 

Louis doesn't target institutions or politics directly with his material, is I think the important distinction.  I'd say he speaks truth to privilege rather than power.

Thanks for that - it hadn't crossed my mind before, but Louis is actually timeless because he doesn't reference popular culture at all. No jokes about iPhones for example. Perhaps that's why the title sequence is in 70s style - his way of saying the era it is made in doesn't matter. Life, death, kids, fear, work and romance are his topics. The Big Topics

Hicks died 18 years ago, today. 

On a side note, he read The Lord of the Rings before he died.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Art Decade 

To me, Hicks is like Syd Barrett's Floyd & Louis is like Post-Barrett, DSotM Floyd. The former had those few intense flashes before vanishing & the latter was able to distill those same elements into a more palatable, populist form, primarily because they had the time to evolve & do so.

Another musical analogy would be Brian Jones' Rolling Stones, although comparing Louie to the money-grabbing, tax-evading, corporate monster that is Jagger-Richards might be in bad taste ...

To be honest I find it hard to find a common denominator between Bill & Louie other than comedy. And since both make me laugh equally hard I'm happy to recognise equal genius.

The only comedian I can think of who comes close to (and sometimes equals) Bill's nailed-to-the-wall political rhetoric is Stewart Lee. But his particular form of genius is more to do with the dizzying sophistication of his irony, whereas Bill was peerless at transmuting the rage that boiled inside him into humour. Comedy was his therapy and without it I think he would have been overwhelmed by demons. 

The better comparison to Hicks would be his libertarian successor, Doug Stanhope.

I think that ultimately their difference could be comparted to the diffence between Chris Rock and Dave Chappelle.  Chris Rock performs his act in a frank and straightfoward way.  He comes across as nasty to some people.  Dave Chappelle has a more laid back and easy going approach.

And Sam Kinison died 20 years ago yesterday.  Man alive.

To Quote Rodney Dangerfield "that one hurt he was so talented" in regards to Kinison.

This isn't saying much. Hicks is mostly just terrible and loud and shrill. He's not naturally funny at all, and his stuff isn't that insightful (not half as insightful as he thinks it is), which puts him well below someone like Carlin.

CK is extremely naturally funny, and clever, and insightful. And human in a way that allows everyone to relate to his stuff in a way we can't with Hicks. Plus Hicks is always angry and mean in a very aggressive way that makes one feel under attack, where CK can attack all members of modern society but do it gently and humorously, show he's sympathetic in a way, and also usually implicate himself. Hicks is a jackass on a mountaintop raining down fire on everyone else, always angry and not even in a funny way. CK isn't. 

edited to add

The Hicks diehards remind me very much of the Ron Paul diehards and the militant atheist diehards. I suspect there are many people who are all three. These are some of the dumbest, shrillest, most thoroughly unpleasant people in our society, and all the worse for their not just thinking they're not dumb, but in fact thinking they're the only people around who have a clue. They think only they know the real truth - about anything, about everything. And meantime they're nasty and humorless (but they think they're clever and funny) and belligerent.  They're also among the most intolerant people in our society. They HATE people with different views. They are FURIOUS with them. 

PWT3, no offense, but most comics today - including Louis CK - would say you are talking out of your ass, and they would be right.

The above post also shows that some folks today have no appreciation for context. 

Quote:

Originally Posted by Subotai 

PWT3, no offense, but most comics today - including Louis CK - would say you are talking out of your ass, and they would be right.

 

The above post also shows that some folks today have no appreciation for context. 

No, they would be wrong, if they would say that. I'm talking out of my mind - my own mind, and my own experience and judgment. I'm not dealing with or regurgitating received opinion.

I appreciate context just fine. Context, however, doesn't make him more funny, more insightful, less angry or self-righteous, or less shrill. 

Sometimes the emperor has no clothes. I don't care what he was raging against or how oppressive things may have been or seemed at the time (and they weren't *that* oppressive - Carlin and Pryor and Lenny Bruce and countless other such people had already been, or still were, working), none of that's going to make his stuff funny. I say it again - he's insightful and inspiring in the same way Ron Paul or Richard Dawkins are insightful and inspiring - which is not at all, to an intelligent person. He has the added burden of having been unfunny and unlikable in a profession in which one really ought to be funny and likable.

What the fuck does Dawkins have to do with comedy? 'Militant atheists'? Ron fucking Paul? Jesus. Get back to us once you've stopped patting yourself on the back for how intelligent you imagine you are.