#32 Louis CK Inspiration

David runs a creative restraint exercise after stumbling on a Louis CK quote and finds a lot of potential standup material he's now excited about.

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Transcript

Welcome and Podcast Introduction

Speaker 1 0:00

Hey , welcome to Starting Stand-Up . My name is David Walton . I'm so happy you're here . If you're new here and I suspect some of you are because my friend , jake Johnson from New Girl Fame has a wonderful , very popular , very popular podcast . If you haven't checked it out , it's called here to Help , where they get calls from people who are having some pretty comical problems and then two extremely unqualified human beings try to help him . And Jake had me on . You'll have to listen to see , but it was . He needed a bathrobe guy and he has a bathrobe guy and that guy is me , and so we sent a couple bathrobes to the man who's having the problem with some nudist neighbors . And so if you listened to that and now you're here , I thank you .

Speaker 1 0:43

This is a podcast that is fairly unhinged . I am just tracking . It's like an audio journal and I track my quest to become good at stand-up in this weird , weird world . I'm learning along with you and I'm not good yet , but I am getting better . If you want to learn about stand-up and you want to just track a very confused man in a creative process , you're in the right place . So today's episode is I have no clue . Yeah , we just pressed record . I'm doing some limitations . The creative process supposedly gets better with limitations , so I'm giving myself two hours soup to nuts to do this entire episode . So what do you hear ? The following all happened within two hours . Okay , let's rubbish , that's rubbish .

Louis CK on Honest Comedy

Speaker 1 1:59

I just discovered Louis CK talking about something I've spoken about on this podcast , but of course , because he's a master , he just articulates it so well and ultimately , this is what I want my stand-up to be . I want it to be honest and he says this quote I like to do stand-up . That's very honest . I don't think it's the only way to be a comedian . Some people , the whole point of their act is that they're lying or being fantastic or really silly or absurd . I think Stephen Wright is a great comedian . Nobody says God , he's so honest . He's not one of those guys . He's just a whole different thing that makes him funny and makes him great .

Speaker 1 2:45

But for me , what guides what I decide to say or do on stage or not is is this shit really true ? Is this really shit you're thinking ? If it's not , you're going to feel phony and stupid . I don't like phony . I don't like it . For me , there's times I've been getting huge laughs with a bit and then I look up , I look at it and I go but it ain't real , I don't really mean it , I just knew where to go to find laughs . So sometimes I throw that kind of material away after I kill with it a few times .

Speaker 1 3:23

To me it's not important on an integrity level . It's just that it's so much more fun to say shit that's really inside you , that really gnaws at your brain , and to share those thoughts with other people , and especially if they're thoughts that people aren't used to sharing in a humorous way , things that people aren't even used to saying out loud . I mean , beyond saying fuck and talking about sex , the really embarrassing unsaid truths those are really fun to tell an audience and have them laugh , something that I really enjoy . That's why I'm doing standup this way . It's because I like it . End quote , quote , end , end quote . I always like doing those feel so good , okay , so that's just such inspiration for me .

Speaker 1 4:15

It's like what am I doing ? And if ? If you've been listening , you know that whenever I do come up with a joke or I do I did a whole thing about my dad . I was trying to make my dad's dementia funny and then afterwards I was like everything I just said in this set , some of which got laughs , wasn't true . I wasn't messing with my dad , I was just saying stupid shit and I , I was upset with myself . And here I am and I look and I see this kind of obscure interview with Louis CK and I find it and he says it it's just like a dagger to the heart and I just want that . So , in the spirit of just stating real things , true things , stating real

Diet Confessions and Self-Loathing

Speaker 1 5:08

things , true things . Now , these are , of course , things that I'm sure aren't that special , but they're special to me . No , here we go , ready , this is a segment called facts about the things I beat myself up for , and then it just devolved . I kind of just jotted some things down .

Speaker 1 5:27

So I've been on every diet known to man and I want to tell you what I just ate today . I ate an entire softball size mozzarella cheese . I've been 195 my entire life . I am an actor , I'm supposed to be fit , and now I'm going full Will Ferrell mode . I ate the oh they're so good the Costco chicken pita with American cheese wraps . You throw them in the microwave in a paper towel for about a minute and a half and then they just have this designed flavor that just makes you feel like you're stoned in college , but it's a little bit better . So I had three of those . I had a Mexican Coke , I had some almonds , two Corona beers about an hour and a half ago , own of beers . About an hour and a half ago I had a pretty sizable amount of Gouda . Gouda is a funny word . I'm going to try to get Gouda into the set , into the little Gouda .

Speaker 1 6:33

And then I started the morning with three strips of bacon , couple shots of espresso . I'm off , completely off the rails . You know , the weird thing about diets is I had tremendous energy all day . I'm off , completely off the rails . You know , the weird thing about diets is I had tremendous energy all day . I'm not fucking like . That diet gave me more . I felt better and had better energy than when I'm eating like a , a niçoise salad and then having like a sensible chicken , whatever , like there's something . It's almost like I am . It's almost like I'm doing drugs and feeling dangerous as I just hammer cheese , coke and beer . But I will loathe Tomorrow morning I will wake up and those will be the first thoughts in my head what on earth did you just do yesterday ? And that won't be fun . But then I'll just watch those thoughts pass , because of course , that's what meditation teachers do .

Speaker 1 7:37

Speaking of , I led a meditation today . This is another thing I'll beat myself up for . I led a meditation at nine today . I sat down to write , but then I got a call from an old friend that I hadn't talked to forever and we got to gabbing and this is why I don't take a lot of calls , because it's sometimes a real gab fest . I went an hour and a half Then I had to take my son to the doctor and then I had to rest because I did crash after the Mexican Coke , I believe , or the Gouda , and then it was 20 minute .

Speaker 1 8:11

I did a yoga Nidra yoga Nidra If you haven't heard of that excellent way to recharge , it worked . Just look it up , watch it . Do a 20 minute yoga Nidra , n I , d R a on YouTube . Excellent recharge . Then my daughter , who's sick , had it was like begging me to go with her to look for sea glass . So I had to go and do that . I mean , pretend that it was meaningful . No , it was , it was . It was a little bit sweet , a little bit Um . And then I sat down to do this , so I didn't even write and now we had to come up with this bullshit . Two-hour thing , okay , but actually I kind of like the two-hour thing . I think there's going to be a lot of energy that gets infused into this podcast by creating constraints .

Speaker 1 8:55

Another thing I'm self-loathing

Sex, Testosterone, and Life Reflections

Speaker 1 8:57

about , and this is I'm just not having the venery that I require . There's a lot , I don't I'm not Myself or anyone else . There's a lot of forces out there , but I am just not having as much sex as I need . And it's hard for me as someone who believes that skin-on-skin sex with people you love is the meaning of life . So I don't feel like a man . So I don't feel like a man , you know .

Speaker 1 9:40

And and however , I did just go . I'm back in the sort of nice strength training regimen and I did some squats , I went pretty hard on the final set and I , I , I woke up today full mast . I mean , just I couldn't get it down . It was like you know , rotting old woman in the shining , rotting old woman in the shining , rotting old woman in the shining bathtub , and it wouldn't go down . I think it was an instant testosterone boost and that's pretty cool . That's going to get me in the gym squatting a tremendous amount . It felt really great .

Speaker 1 10:18

I went to the neurology office today for my son , who has a mild form of epilepsy and hasn't had a seizure in a long time because of some meds . But he had to get hooked up to an EEG and there were people in there all sorts of neurological conditions kids in wheelchairs , grown men like alone , checking in clearly something wrong neurologically and it just made me feel like life is so hardcore . It's just and I think and now we're going to put on some weird hat I think we have to just really trust life people . We have to just really trust life people . We have to just trust it like you got , to just trust the horrible shit , like it's like you , just to trust that it's exactly what your soul needs . All your pain and hurt and all your bad luck , all your misery and frustration and regret , all of it , all your delusion and self-deception it's all leading somewhere . Maybe there's a new way of looking at life . Maybe it's fucking . Every single person's life is perfect , even if you're a victim of some horror . What if it's actually perfect and that as a soul level , you are right now exactly where you are supposed to be , and that the past in so many profound ways doesn't matter .

Speaker 1 11:41

So one thing that popped , a fact about my childhood that popped in was I was young for my grade at this private school in boston and so kids were hitting puberty . This I , this came to my mind because one of my son's friends is his age and rolled in after a year at age 11 and was like deep voice and I was like Whoa , that is young , 11 . And he's a great kid . But then I remembered it flashed back me to my pubescent years , which is so hard as a boy in the 80s . Now I'm pretty sure my son is never going to see another penis Maybe ever just because of the privacy and the fear For

Communal Showers in the 80s

Speaker 1 12:29

those younger audience members .

Speaker 1 12:30

In the 1980s in Boston there was no private showers at school . You had a huge communal shower and you showered with your teachers and there was never funny business that I know of . I mean it was so normal . But in hindsight you cannot believe that this was going down . I mean I would have to just muscle it with just a button , a button , hairless thing and Dick in like seventh and even eighth grade . I still hadn't hit puberty Because I was only 12 .

Speaker 1 13:14

But there were kids like there were fully grown eighth graders , just fully muscled out , full , full length , like grown units . So then you had , let's call him , sam Roach . He was like an eighth grader and you'd just be like , oh man , like I got to be his friend and be on the football team with him and he looks like he has a wife and kids , and so you're already feeling a shame about that . And then your teacher would roll in multiple teachers , be like good tackle in practice today as his monster . I mean I'm not exaggerating , gk had a monster , seven inches limp , just a beast , and you weren't like , you didn't want to stare , but you were just like , wow , I hope so much that something happens and we get to there , but it doesn't only for a lucky few . I mean , it's got to be top 95 , 99 percentile .

Speaker 1 14:22

And I think nowadays if you enrolled in a private school and there were third graders in there , fourth , fifth , sixth , if you enrolled in a private school and parents didn't know that this was a communal shower situation and their boys would be showering with their teachers , I mean I think the FBI would burst through the doors , take down the teacher fully nude . It would be snuffed out immediately . But again , there was no funny business . There was no molesto at my school . It was totally cool to shower . The teachers have conversations and just comment on whatever happened . They would continue coaching you after football practice , as he was just soaping his python . It was just completely normal .

Speaker 1 15:12

I miss the 80s . Thank you , louis CK , for the inspiration . Let's see if something opened up there . Okay , that's it for the

Episode Wrap-up

Speaker 1 15:21

episode . Thank you so much for being here . If you enjoyed this , you think someone a friend of yours might like it . Go ahead and text it to them . You can subscribe as well . That's a great way to support me and if you're feeling particularly generous , particularly full of love , give me a little comment somewhere . It's very helpful and this is growing and it's exciting that it's growing and I thank you from the bottom of my heart for listening . Have an incredible week full of love and peace and adventure and fun , and I'll see you next week . Bye .