Best of Fall 2012: the surprisingly funny appeal of Louis CK’s middle-aged libido
Louis CK may be the most wanted man in comedy, with a rule-breaking sitcom that’s hailed as the best thing on television and a highly anticipated North American fall tour that includes a spot headlining Just for Laughs’ Toronto edition. The 45-year-old CK (née Szekely) didn’t get big because of a T-shirt-ready catchphrase or a charmingly over-the-top character. Instead, he took the most overused items in the comedian’s tool box—anger and self-loathing—and stripped away all of the accumulated artificiality and schtick, leaving only the moments that are the most uncomfortably human and therefore the most hilarious. He can be shockingly tender and vulnerable (when talking about raising his two daughters), inarticulate with frustration (ditto) and jaw-droppingly raunchy—as when he lays out, in graphic and painfully funny detail, the realities of being a middle-aged man at war with his own raging libido. To his fans, CK’s grump-against-the-world persona is a large part of his appeal. It also pays off: irritated by people pirating his previous movies, he produced his most recent concert special, Live at the Beacon Theatre, himself, released it through his website at $5 per download and, to his surprise, netted more than $1 million in less than two weeks.
Comedy
Louis CK
Sept. 27 and 28
Sony Centre for the Performing Arts
(Image: Chris Buck/August)
 didn’t get big because of a T-shirt-ready catchphrase or a charmingly over-the-top character. Instead, he took the most overused items in the comedian’s tool box—anger and self-loathing—and stripped away all of the accumulated artificiality and schtick, leaving only the moments that are the most uncomfortably human and therefore the most hilarious. He can be shockingly tender and vulnerable (when talking about raising his two daughters), inarticulate with frustration (ditto) and jaw-droppingly raunchy—as when he lays out, in graphic and painfully funny detail, the realities of being a middle-aged man at war with his own raging libido. To his fans, CK’s grump-against-the-world persona is a large part of his appeal. It also pays off: irritated by people pirating his previous movies, he produced his most recent concert special, Live at the Beacon Theatre, himself, released it through his website at $5 per download and, to his surprise, netted more than $1 million in less than two weeks.
Comedy
Louis CK
Sept. 27 and 28
Sony Centre for the Performing Arts
(Image: Chris Buck/August)){kind=link}