the comic's comic

Louis CK on Lucky Louie, Boston roots

Louis CK had just gotten finished with his controversial appearance on The View when he got on the phone with me to talk about his new HBO show, Lucky Louie.

The View's female panel took him by surprise with their stinging criticism. "All of a sudden, I'm watching life and they're having this f---ing debate over my show," he told me. "I'm about to go out there, and I'm supposed to tell jokes? To have Fonzie and Baba Wawa debate the social merits of my TV show, that's insane! That's great." As for Barbara Walters' accusation that CK's show is racist, he countered, "That's just ignorant. That just means somebody's uncomfortable about it."

CK, the 38-year-old longtime writing partner of Chris Rock, said he'd read most of the critical reviews of his show. "I like reading ones where they're really upset," he said. "A lot of people who write bad reviews, in the description of the show, pay it great service. People magazine -- they ended it with, 'It's like David Mamet doing a parody of Roseanne.' Who wouldn't want to watch that? Thank you! I actually wanted to put that on the poster."

He cares more what viewers think of his show, anyhow. "This show is very honest. It's very raw. All we're really doing is letting this show be a limitless expression of the characters. We're just letting it hang out," he said. That's the only way CK knows how to be. "I've been doing comedy for 22 years, and this is my first shot. This is my first TV show. And there's a reason it's this one and it's on HBO. If people want to see a family where the parents only make great decisions and no one speaks badly in a house that has a kid in it...then stay away."

Alonzo Bodden on Last Comic Standing

In 2006, Alonzo Bodden was the unknown winner of NBC's Last Comic Standing, and here is what he had to say about the aftermath of that (this is all before he came back in 2007 to be a judge on the show).

Ant, who never came close to winning on the second or third editions of LCS, somehow seemed to get more TV work than Bodden. What's that about?

"I guess it's because Ant's more of a Hollywood guy. Ant will talk s--t. Ant will stir up trouble, whereas I won't. Ant will play the game. He used the show to play a bitchy gay guy, and then VH1 hired him to play a bitchy gay guy (for Celebrity Fit Club and other programs). Ant can change his level of gay. The most fascinating thing in the world. He can be less gay and more gay."

What should viewers make of LCS? "There's no way viewers know this, but how do I put it? Creative editing. What they'll do is take segments and put them together to make it look like an argument was going on, or they'll make someone look like they had an attitude. Like they made Tammy (Pescatelli) look like a bitch. She wasn't. They just caught her when she was mad." Also: "It's kind of like a regular election. It's about popularity."

I'd opened for Bodden and Gary Gulman when they were both competing in 2004. Here's Bodden's take on Gulman: "You know what's funny about Gary, and they don't show that on TV, but Gary is smart. He's like a scholar. We were talking about dick jokes and he quoted Shakespeare. This guy is too smart to be a comic! And he is tall."

Winning LCS also has privileges such as multiple appearances on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno. What's that like? "I did my third one last month. You learn that the crowd is really hot. They're going to be with you right from the start so you just go out and rock it, right from the start. When I do a Tonight Show, I get, 'I can't believe they let you say that.'" In his first appearance, for instance, Bodden talked openly about ogling female gymnasts. "The most fun on the first show was making Tom Arnold near fall out of his seat laughing."

Nick DiPaolo, off the air

Nick DiPaolo sometimes give off the impression of an anti-comic, or perhaps a rather extreme example of the comic's comic, playing to his fellow comedians more than he does his audience. When I talked to him in June 2006, we began by talking about his online home, which, at the time, needed some updating.

"Trying to use a computer, I feel like I'm 78," he said.

Is it always that way? "Only when I'm on MySpace, trying to meet underage girls! Then I feel like an unemployed electrician from Woburn."

Him and everyone else, right? "Worked for Dane Cook, didn't it?" he joked.

Does he miss being on Tough Crowd with Colin Quinn? You bet. "A lot of people miss it. I get 20 emails a day saying, 'What happened? Why isn't it on the air?' People come up to me, pissed off." So why isn't he still on Comedy Central? "You can only take so much Mind of Mencia, (expletive expletive)." DiPaolo cusses quite a bit, but creatively enough -- as a guy from New York City via Danvers, Mass., might be -- so fill in the blanks with your own expletives. "I still talk to Quinn every night on the phone, bust his balls," he told me. "Me and Quinn auditioned for a job, radio job on 92.3, the station (in New York) that hired David Lee Roth They offered us 10 to 2...for some reason, Quinn didn't want the job. I wanted to murder the (expletive)." But DiPaolo still went on the radio for time to time as a sub, and after our chat, even had a regular hosting gig for a while. "I did a week with Keith Robinson. You remember him. He was the black fella. It was even funnier, I thought, but they couldn't handle the racial material."

DiPaolo made his big move to New York City toward the end of 1989. "I did my first open mic in '87. So I did two years of one-nighters...Frank's Mexican Restaurant in Franklin...These are actual gigs? Dick Doherty's Comedy Vault. He gave me my first paying gig. I did Stitches...Dick came in...it was me, Vinny Favorito, Flynn...in '87, '88, '89, every pub and restaurant in Boston had a comedy night. It's weird. You never forget your roots. That sense of humor, that Boston, that vicious sarcasm. Even now...most people think I'm from New York. In Dublin, Ohio, they don't think any Italians exist outside of New York."

At the time, he had tested for a Comedy Central show that never made the air, but got to co-star on several episodes of HBO's Lucky Louie with Louis CK. "We were roommates," DiPaolo said. "We moved down to New York together. He's an eccentric funny bastard...I remember, the phone would ring and he'd actually write the message on the kitchen window in magic marker." He took credit for massive bruises seen on CK's arms in one episode. "Did you notice the bruises on his arms? That was from me! We filmed these (episodes) out of sequence...every time we walked up, we'd smack each other...every time he wasn't paying attention, I'd run up to him and smack him. While I was watching (that week's episode), I was saying, 'What, does he have AIDS? Why would she sleep with him?' He's got like melanoma!"

When Stand-Up Stood Out

You don't need to be from Boston to appreciate When Stand Up Stood Out, the film by comedian Fran Solomita about the late 1970s and early 1980s, when Boston was, in fact, the Hub of the comedy world (or so it seemed). Think of Boston comedy in that era as something akin to Seattle music in the early 1990s. So, actually, this movie makes even more sense for outsiders, who probably don't know or don't appreciate what these locals with the funny accents and bitterly honest takes on society did for stand-up comedy. Sure, it's quite nostalgic for those who, like Solomita, lived through the era.

Simply put, though, this film is required viewing. Watch Comedian to see the mindset of stand-ups, then watch When Stand Up Stood Out for a history lesson on what it was (and still is) like to practice the art. The archival footage alone is priceless, capturing early sets by Lenny Clarke, Bobcat Goldthwait, Kevin Meaney, Steven Wright, Paula Poundstone and others. Solomita said they got more than 100 hours of similar magic from the Ding Ho, Stitches and the old Comedy Connection. That footage needs to be saved by someone, somewhere, so future generations can learn why comedy matters. The DVD also includes a seven-minute conversation with Dane Cook -- who wasn't part of this generation -- about how the older guard inspired him. Yes, this is pandering to consumers, but we'll let it slide. DVD extras include additional performances from Wright, Goldthwait, Clarke, Kenny Rogerson and Don Gavin as well as classic examples of "Meaney on the Street" skits that occurred live on Commonwealth Avenue.

Solomita is now working for NBC in on-air promotions. He credited Doug Miller, a former employee of Boston's Ch. 5, for liking comedy enough to shoot all of those hundreds of hours of footage. As for the comics, Solomita said: "Back then, they didn't care, and then in the interviews, they were very forthcoming and honest. It made it less slanted. It let them talk about themselves." The distance in time also affected his nostalgia for 1970s stand-up. "Abbie Hoffman once said something to the effect of nostalgia is a mild form of depression, which I think is a great line...I realized when I got out (to L.A.) and started to hit middle age and was doing some comedy writing, that the beginning was a very special time...also the world landscape was different. This Boston scene happened in a bubble. I felt if somebody didn't do something about it, it'd just be something for 20 guys, for 60 guys to talk about and have a beer about."

What can new comedians learn? "I think it's tougher for the comics today," Solomita told me. "There are some really funny people out there. It's tougher to get stage time, but in cities like New York and Boston, Seattle, Chicago and some of the smaller cities, you can still do it. You have to be hungrier. You have to be nimble...you have to do cafes and other venues...you have to be more flexible."

The return of Last Comic Standing

Jay Mohr is out and Anthony Clark is in. Ponder that for a moment. Now let's move on to a new season of Last Comic Standing.

The first two hours aired last Tuesday. There's an hourlong recap tonight at 8 p.m., but while you wait, here are some things you likely don't know but probably should.
Past winners John Heffron and Alonzo Bodden get updates, while original LCS weiner Dat Phan...um...where is he now? Buck Star gets invited back, but not Dat Phan. Ouch!
Many comics "auditioned" in the other cities (rather than NYC and LA) for an easier chance.
Bob and Ross act as if they don't know who Gabriel Iglesias is, which is odd, considering they've booked him before on The Tonight Show. Same with Bil Dwyer (I hung out with him at a Cubs-Brewers spring training game in 2003, when he was appearing at the Tempe Improv and hosting TV's Battlebots -- he more recently hosted The 70s House on MTV and Extreme Dodgeball).
Doug Benson, best known from VH1's Best Week Ever but also part of a long-running touring trio gig called The Marijuana-Logues, what is he doing on this show?
Only a brief shot of Kyle Cease onstage...wha? Kyle is huge on the college circuit and just got a Comedy Central half-hour special and CD package, so he's going to be OK. Another face in the L.A. comic crowd...was that Yoshi? I think it was. Matt Iseman, too. How'd you like to be the comedians who made the live face-off but got zero face time? Is that a bad thing? Perhaps not, if they bombed. You don't want THAT to be how America first sees you. Marc Price (Skippy from Family Ties) and Theo Von (from MTV) get extra screen time, credit for past TV experience. And Theo, because his experience is all "reality" challenge-based, gets a pass to Vegas.

But first, the show heads to Tempe. Ah, Tempe. So many memories on that Improv stage. No sign of Dan Mer, but I see other familiar faces here. First up is Josh McDermitt, who I put in a Tempe Improv showcase/contest a couple of summers ago (and who has been working with the Tim & Willy morning radio crew there in Phoenix for several years). Good for him. Ron and Ryan, though, come off as two-bit amateurs. Not good for them. Their shtick never quite worked at the Improv, jumping around after making the most basic jokes, especially when they were supposed to be hosting the big shows there. April Macie, not local -- from L.A., and girlfriend of Gary Gulman. Hmmm. I saw Mark Cordes standing in the background onstage, but no jokes from him. Too bad. Didn't recognize a single face in the audience, though, and no glimpses of the staff. Argh. Of others making it through, it should be noted that Ty Barnett was on Star Search only a couple of years ago.

Austin? Um, whatever. Next. New York City. Angel Salazar? He was in Punchline, for crying out loud! Brody Stevens?! Yeah. Former Mass. comic Jon Fisch got a callback. But he'll be at the Comedy Studio this Thursday instead as part of a sold-out benefit show. Kerri Louise got relegated to background duty. Moody McCarthy -- no relation. Chicago: What was Jimmy Pardo doing there? And Larry Reeb, he was on a Rodney Dangerfield special in 1989 with Tim Allen, Jeff Foxworthy and Sam Kinison. Um, yeah. Gerry Dee has done both Star Search and a CBS golfing "reality" show. John Roy won Star Search, so, um, yeah. Then Miami, where Flip Schultz is a no-brainer selection: Another Star Search competitor (and I saw him in Aspen a few years back).

Greg Giraldo

Greg Giraldo should be a lot more famous than he is. Of all of the stand-up comedians working the circuit and talking topical, few know how to tell it like it is like Giraldo can. My interview with him ran on Friday, and I went to see his show Saturday at the Comedy Connection. He had me rolling throughout his set, taking on everything from the just concluded national spelling bee to the immigration debate and practically anything else that our society should be worried about. RELATED: Greg Giraldo's Web site (which has audio and video clips). Or watch other video clips of Giraldo on Comedy Central.