GUILDERLAND — Louis C.K. is finding his way back.

That's the most optimistic conclusion to be drawn from the strong, original, at times boundary-pushing but almost always worthwhile 50-minute set he performed Thursday night at Funny Bone Comedy Club at Crossgates Mall. (Another show, added Friday morning for The Comedy Works in Saratoga Springs on Friday night, sold out in 12 minutes.)

For instance, on Thursday, Louis C.K. didn't mock teens who were students at a school that suffered a mass shooting. Instead, he mocked himself for having told such a joke. Referencing both the sexual misbehavior that made him part of the #MeToo movement, derailing his career in late 2017, and a December joke at a comedy club in Long Island that he made about last February's Parkland, Fla., school shooting, he said:

"If you ever want people to forget that you (masturbated) in front of some women, you make a joke about kids getting shot."

Although he asked how many people had heard the leaked recording from the Long Island gig and said he'd be repeating much of it, that wasn't the case. On Thursday, Louis C.K. also didn't deride nonbinary people who prefer to be called by a pronoun of their choice, another of the Long Island bits that drew fire.

Instead, often taking cues from notes, a reliance he acknowledged and made fun of, Louis C.K. worked through obviously new jokes that offered glimpses of his best material from the past, which at its most honed became cultural meta-commentary that reflected on American society and his own jokes until it refracted into genuine, and genuinely funny, insights.

The apotheosis – or, I suppose for some, nadir – came during an extend bit about pranks that including anal application of lipstick, a drunk friend and Louis C.K. trying to aim a gun over his shoulder at his own father while holding a mirror. Or maybe it was his speculation about how much easier it would be if no measures were taken to prolong the lives of those who were near death, which might include simply bulldozing wrecked cars, their injured passengers still inside, into a ditch and leaving them.

Sure, it's tasteless, gross, offensive or all three when paraphrased this way. But as Louis C.K. said in a strong defense of a stand-up's art, "Comedy is saying things you should never say. ... If you take comedy and put it in the real world, it doesn't work."

That doesn't get him off the hook for what he said last month. The fact that he didn't repeat the worst of it says that he recognizes the problem: It was poor comedy.

Here is necessary context for what I'm about to say: I believe almost nothing is off limits in comedy. Life is too nuanced and complex for me ever to be comfortable declaring a subject or an individual or a class of people so sacrosanct that humor is impermissible.

So school shootings are legitimate fodder for a stand-up comic. Among those who could do it well would be the pre-scandal Louis C.K. I can imagine a routine in which he criticized media and public officials for trotting out survivors of mass shootings as experts of sorts on gun violence. They're not, though they do have a different perspective. All they have to say on the matter, really, is that they were terrified, which I'd think is the reaction of almost everyone who's ever been shot at, unarmed civilians in particular.

As compelling as it may be to watch video of a fresh-faced teen tremblingly discuss the agony of a bullet wound or the anguish of seeing a friend die in front of her, we know that will change few minds in today's debates over guns. But since it's good video, such survivors are made media stars and spokespeople, and it seems legitimate to ask whether that is valid.

The Louis C.K. of old might have done that. In fact, he's already suggested something similar: In a performance at the Palace Theatre in Albany in late 2010, he said, "A 20-year-old is like a pretty orange that is still on the tree. If you're 20, ... you have nothing interesting or worthwhile to say."

But that's not what he said last month. Grouching that the teen survivors were getting TV time, he said, "'Cause you went to a high school where kids got shot, why does that mean I have to listen to you? Why does that make you interesting? You didn't get shot. You pushed some fat kid in the way, and now I gotta listen to you talking?"

In the comedy world, that's known as punching down — the powerful getting laughs at the expense of those with less status, money, success or attractiveness. It's cheap, facile and uninteresting, and it diminishes others' trauma and invalidates their opinions while throwing in a fat joke as well.

What was interesting about Louis C.K.'s Parkland commentary is what it revealed about his mindset then. He was focused not on the survivors or on the media, but on himself: He was mad that he had to listen. (In a hypocrisy that Louis C.K. would have pointed out had someone else done it, his semi-apology in late 2017, after he acknowledged a years-long habit of masturbating in front of women against their wishes, included this: "I have spent my long and lucky career talking and saying anything I want. I will now step back and take a long time to listen." (Apparently, for Louis C.K., a long time of listening was 13 months.)

The self-absorption was equally evident when he complained during the Long Island show about adapting to different pronouns.

He said then, using an affected voice clearly meant as mockery, "'You should address me as they/them, because I identify as gender neutral.' Oh, OK. You should address me as 'there,' because I identify as a location. And the location is your mother's (vagina)."

Once again it was about him, complete with vulgar flourish at the end, as it was about him in another earlier show when he said wide exposure of his sexual misconduct had cost him "$35 million in an hour" and when he said of people who walked out, "What're you, gonna take away my birthday? My life is over. I don't give a (crap)."

Self-deprecating can be very funny. So can self-aware, self-parodying self-pity. He did some of that on Thursday night, as when he started by admitting that he thought 2018 would be the worst year of his life, but 2019 began even worse. (The Long Island tape went viral on Jan. 1.)

Comedy review Louis C.K.

Dick Williams, Lynn Koplitz and Kevin Brennan When: 8 p.m. Thursday (1/10)

Where: The Funny Bone, Crossgates Mall, Albany

Length: Louis C.K., 50 minutes; others, 10 to 13 minutes apiece

The crowd: Sold out, at well more than 300, and vocally appreciative



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Louis C.K. seems to have realized that it was pathetic, grumpy-geezer material to simply feel sorry for himself because he got called to account, and suffered severe repercussions, for years of power-based, abusive behavior, without any self-reflection.

Redemption should be possible, even in his case. (I am unwilling to declare everyone swept up in #MeToo guilty merely because of accusation and thus worthy of permanent banishment.) Louis C.K. did terrible, abusive things that truly hurt people. He got caught. He got punished. The way back is a return to meaningful comedy, as he started to on Thursday night. That doesn't mean he has to be nice. We wouldn't want that from him; Louis C.K. making jokes about nagging mothers-in-law or the annoyances of air travel or would be even worse than no new material from him at all.

He was rarely nice in any conventional sense of the word. At a show at Albany's Palace Theatre in 2010, after riffing on the fact that he liked one of his kids much more than the other, Louis C.K. finished the bit with a line that brought howls of recognition from the audience: "You are not a real parent if you have not given the finger to the back of your child's head at some point." That's not transgressive by any stretch, but it's real, it's relatable, and it's about him and about tropes of parenthood, not a mockery of the child.

He's realizing that a good place for him to start back is material focusing on himself and his past behavior – abundantly offset by smart, zesty and, yes, offense-courting fresh subjects. Here's hoping the new stuff from Thursday is him trying to find the boundaries of edginess and acceptability, and that he's going to use his significant talents to work toward possible acceptance, redemption and even acclaim.

Three opening comics did 10 to 15 minutes apiece of solid work, including Schenectady-born Dick Williams, who emceed the evening.

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