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Louis C.K. has come a long way.
Once a struggling standup with a string of failed projects on his resume, he's become one of the defining comics of his generation, with a critically fawned over, game-changing sitcom and an audience big enough to fill Madison Square Garden—where he was scheduled to perform tonight, before New York's historic blizzard-that-wasn't forced its premature cancelation.
And to think, at one point, he was just another touring comic, slumming it through a week at Harvey's.
"When you could get a week at Acme [in Minneapolis], you know you could continue having the will to do this shit for another few months," he wrote today in a lengthy email to fans, announcing the surprise release of his latest standup special, Live at the Comedy Store, and musing on the significance comedy clubs have held to his career. "A week at the Punchline in San Fran could get you through the next week at Harvey's in Portland."
In his essay, C.K. name-drops practically every laugh-hole that existed in America from the '80s and '90s, from the Comedy Cellar in New York (which makes frequent appearances on Louie) to the legendary Sunset Strip institution where he recorded his new special, and even less-hallowed dives such as Go Bananas in Cincinnati and the Comedy Underground in Seattle. Only Harvey's gets called out specifically as an example of a place that could potentially crush the spirit of a comedic genius-in-training.
To be fair, that dig is indicative of just how far Portland comedy itself has come. In the last decade, the city has produced nationally recognizable names like Ian Karmel and Ron Funches, while Bridgetown has grown into one of the premiere comedy festivals on the West Coast. The scene has matured to the point where Harvey's—in the pre-Helium years, the only place in town to see live comedy—seems more like a quaint throwback than a place comics dread. Mostly because they're no longer forced to perform there, but still.
Of course, C.K. had already graduated from clubs to theaters before those developments took place, so he's probably just operating on old biases. But then, he hasn't performed here since 2011. So maybe flying into Portland still makes him break out in hives.
You can download Live at the Comedy Store at his Web site here.
WWeek 2015