Hey, New York Times, Louis C.K. Doesn’t Need Your Help!

When a newspaper has only one stand-up comedy critic, they actually have none.

I’m trying something. If you just want the meat of this post skip ahead to the section that starts with The Steak. If you want the whole thing start below at The Sizzle.

The Sizzle

By the end of 1962, stand-up comedian Vaughn Meader was the hottest star in show business. At the time, his debut album The First Family was the fastest-selling album in the history of the United States of America. Not the fastest-selling comedy album, THE FASTEST-SELLING ALBUM! (To be fair, this was pre-Beatlemania.) The First Family was the country’s number one album for twelve weeks. Record stores couldn’t keep it in stock. For a time it sold a million copies a week. (A MILLION COPIES A WEEK!) This year’s best-selling album is Morgan Wallen’s I’m the Problem. (Of course you are, buddy.) If that album ends up selling two million copies total, Morgan will be drunkenly celebrating in the streets. I mean that literally.

Vaughn Meader who thought his biggest problem was that people would never stop wanting him to do his JFK impression. (credit Getty Images / Bettmann

In its first year of release, Vaughn Meader’s The First Family sold more than 7 million albums. Vaughn’s album was so big that President John F. Kennedy gave copies away as Christmas presents. In 1963, it won the Grammy for Album of the Year. Not Comedy Album of the Year. It beat out music albums to be THE ALBUM OF THE YEAR. That year, Vaughn beat Ray Charles and the Tony Bennett album that has the all-time banger “I Left My Heart in San Francisco.” Damn!

Just a few months after The First Family’s release, a follow up album was rushed into production. It was given the cash-grabby title of The First Family Volume Two. (Imagine Michael Jackson’s follow up to Thriller being named Thriller Two!) While the sequel did not do as well as its predecessor, it did peak at number four on the charts. The world was Vaughn Meader’s oyster.

Then the bottom fell out.

Front page of The New York Times reporting President Kennedy’s assassination.

Almost exactly one year after the release of The First Family, President Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas, TX. Vaughn’s career never recovered. “Why?,” you may ask. Vaughn was an impressionist. His best, most famous impression was -- you guessed it -- President John Fitzgerald Kennedy. Those two chart-topping albums were built entirely around Vaughn’s JFK impression. Vaughn was so known for the impression that days after JFK’s assassination comedian Lenny Bruce went onstage, stood in silence for a few moments, and finally uttered, “Boy, is Vaughn Meader fucked.” Lenny wasn’t wrong. That was probably the last big laugh Vaughn Meader ever got.

After JFK’s tragic death, the public didn’t want Vaughn’s impression anymore or even Vaughn, himself. It’s not that Vaughn’s impression of the president was politically hard-hitting or critical. It was quite the opposite. It was more like Dana Carvey’s President George Bush or Will Ferrell’s Dubya than Trey Parker and Matt Stone’s skewering of Trump on South Park. JFK, himself, found the impression so inoffensive that in addition to giving it out as holiday gifts, he joked about it at a press conference. But after JFK’s tragic death, Vaughn’s face was a reminder of how truly dark the days were getting. Civil rights activist Medgar Evars was assassinated by a Klansman and now JFK was gone. It was too much.

Even the folks behind the record thought so. They pulled all of the remaining copies of Vaughn’s albums from the shelves.

Vaughn made several attempts to reboot his career, but nothing took. Understandably, It weighed heavily on him. By all accounts he had a hard life. He died in 2004 at the age of 68.

Vaughn Meader was a comedian who got canceled. Maybe the only one ever.

The Steak

The New York Times only has one dedicated stand-up comedy critic. When they first hired him in 2011, I thought, “YAY! The New York Times is taking comedy seriously!” But within a short period of time, I came to realize that a newspaper that only has one comedy critic only has one sense of humor. This is a problem because comedy is as diverse a discipline as any other artform. It would be like if The New York Times only had one music critic. We all know that would be ridiculous, because the classical music critic has no business reviewing pop music. When you google “New York Times music critic”, you get a bunch of different names. Only one name comes up when you do the same with the phrase “New York Times comedy critic”: Jason Zinoman.

While I do occasionally read Zinoman’s work, I read it because it concerns my industry, not because I need his particular critic’s eye. And yes, a big part of the reason I don’t seek him out is because when he found space to mention me, it was clear he is not a fan.

Here’s the time he squeezed a short review of my Netflix special Private School Negro into one of his columns.

“[Bell’s] new special seems a little tepid. His stand-up was never dense with punch lines, but Private School Negro veers further from a tight club set, toward a mix of storytelling, jokes and arguments. It’s a rambling, sometimes overly familiar hour.”

Dude that’s a lot of words. Just say, “W. Kamau Bell? More like W. Kamau Boooooring!

And “overly familiar”??? Let’s put a pin in that.

But whatevs. Zinoman is totally in his right to condescend to my work, and I am totally in my right to block him on Twitter just to make sure that I don’t accidentally stumble across his opinion of my or my friends’ work. Luckily, I have a thick skin and have had way worse days on the Internet than that.

Zinoman is like many of the people who write for The New York Times, in that he sees New York City as the center of the known universe. The rest of the universe is only important in as much as it wants to relate to New York City. So the comics he prefers are the New York-iest. Maybe, I’m too West Coast-ian for him.

Luckily, I am a full grown adult with too many kids to care about which comics The New York Times comedy critic loves and doesn’t love. However, I do care when he uses his credentials as the nation’s preeminent stand-up comedy critic to celebrate a stand-up comic who in 2017 admitted to masturbating in front of multiple women without their consent.

A New York Times headline from an article that Jason Zinoman didn’t write.

On November 21, Zinoman reviewed one of Louis CK’s recent stand-up shows at The Beacon Theater. Zinoman’s lovingly crafted prose describes in detail the current “evolution” of Louis’ career. See, Jason is concerned that too few people know that Louis is still a great comedian. This concern seems particularly bizarre and unfounded because Louis is in the middle of a comedy tour that’s mostly sold out. And it’s not like Louis is playing small clubs. Louis is playing at the kind of venues that you play when you are a super successful touring act, but you don’t want to play the enormodome in the town, so instead you play a bunch of shows at the giant theater in town. In other words, Louis is literally living the stand-up comedian dream. Louis doesn’t need Zinoman’s help spreading his word, but Zinoman does it anyway. Why?

The review opens with Zinoman writing about how he saw the first of Louis’ three sold out shows at New York City’s Beacon Theater. We get five paragraphs of Zinoman’s Timesian prose before he even attempts to address the elephant cowering in the corner of the room.

“Louis C.K., 58, is not making a comeback. He’s been here.”

Duuuuuuuuude! Louis C.K. doesn’t need to make a comeback. He’s fucking been back! It is certainly true that Louis is not the critic’s darling that he once was back during the run of his hit FX show Louie (2010-2015). Louis is no longer regarded as the 21st-century-evolved-man-who-is-adorably-rough-around-the-edges, but there is a very good reason for that. The reason is… IN 2017 YOUR NEWSPAPER BROKE THE STORY OF HOW OVER THE COURSE OF MANY YEARS LOUIS C.K. MASTURBATED IN FRONT OF SEVERAL WOMEN WITHOUT THEIR CONSENT.

Not only are the things that Louis admitted to doing super gross and abuses of his power (all the women were below Louis on the showbiz ladder), Louis has not publicly demonstrated that he learned anything from this. There has been no report of Louis making any significant amends to the women he harmed. I’m guessing I would have heard about it if he had, the same way I heard the “rumors” of him masturbating in front of women for years before it was confirmed. But fine, let’s assume that he did, and it was private. Louis also never had any kind of public mea culpa. Of course he doesn’t have to do anything. He can just do what he did--take a super short break, go back on the road, and reconstruct his audience.

Did you know that in 2023 Louis sold out Madison Square Garden? That’s 19,500 seats. So why does The New York Times’s comedy critic Jason Zinoman feel the need to wash Louis C.K.’s dirty and crunchy laundry? If I was Louis, I would be like, “Hey Jason Zinoman, don’t remind the haters I’m out here. I’m doing fine without you.”

This is not just a needless puff piece. It’s worse.

“In the seven years since [Louis C.K.] admitted to sexual misconduct the comedian has produced four different hours of comedy. It’s a large, underexamined, formally audacious body of work that represents a break from the past, but also continuity.”

“Underexamined”? UNDEREXAMINED??? Mr. Zinoman, are you trying to make us feel bad for not keeping up with Louis C.K.’s work after his admission of his non-consensual masturbating at people? Are you saying that Louis C.K.’s work is somehow so good that it will make us forget that he whipped out his dick in front of his colleagues who wanted his dick to remain in his pants? Are you saying that Louis C. K.’s punchlines are so hilarious that we will forgive an act of both male cowardice and male bullying? Maybe, Mr. Zinoman, you are saying that we, the public, actually owe Louis an apology for not getting over his dick. Talk about “overly familiar”.

Louis C.K. isn’t owed anything from the public. His work isn’t “underexamined”; it is utterly discarded. It is discarded by the audience who thought they could trust him. That audience doesn’t need to cry for him, because the only thing Louis lost was the trouble that comes with being in the bright light of scrutiny. Now that no one expects anything from him, he is free to do whatever he wants. He is free to make big money (which he is), and he is free to book whatever shows he wants, including Saudi Arabia’s Riyadh Comedy Festival (which he did).

Louis C. K. wasn’t cancelled. He was found out. Like most of the men of the Me Too era. Kevin Spacey wasn’t canceled. He was found out. Harvey Weinstein wasn’t canceled. He was found out. Russell Simmons wasn’t canceled. He was found out. P. Diddy wasn’t canceled. He was found out. Director Brett Ratner wasn’t canceled. He was found out.

Through Louis C.K.’s story and others, it has become increasingly clear that being “found out” is often not a permanent state of affairs. It was recently announced that Paramount is making Rush Hour 4, because–wait for it–Trump wants to see another Rush Hour movie. Well, if they are going to make it, they need a director. Luckily, the director for the first three Rush Hour movies is available: Brett Ratner. After years of being persona non-grata, Trump persona re-grata’ed Ratner. (Must be something like a presidential pardon.) Ratner is back to direct Rush Hour 4.

Even Dave Chappelle, who people still seem to think was canceled, was never canceled. Chappelle just used the headlines criticizing his transphobic jokes as a marketing gimmick. Chappelle is in fact so uncancellable that Netflix buys whatever he gives them. Chappelle is the only comedian in history to take a poorly filmed speech that he gave at his old high school and sell it as a comedy special. I wish I was canceled like that! (I don’t really.)

For all the criticism that cancel culture received, Trump’s very existence as a two-time president is not only proof that cancel culture didn’t go far enough. It is also proof that the patriarchy pushed back so hard against cancel culture that even the temporary positive effects it had seems to have been erased. Remember when the aforementioned Morgan Wallen was “canceled” when we saw a video of him casually tossing around the “N” word? Well, that was soooooo four years ago! Now Wallen is the hottest musician in the country! Still not as hot as Vaughn was though.

Louis C.K. was never going to be the hottest comedian forever. No comic gets to retain that title forever. Cancel culture, by the way of Tarana Burke’s #MeToo movement, just brought Louis’s “comedy darling” status to a close a few months earlier than it would have ended anyway. But that’s not enough for Jason Zinoman. Zinoman needs you to know that Louis C.K. is still a good comedian. And Zinoman is going to make sure you know whether you want it or not.

Vaughn Meader was canceled. It sounds like comedian Abby Schachner felt like she was canceled, too. In The New York Times article that pushed Louis to admit his abuses, Abby talked about how Louis masturbated while she was on the phone with him without her consent. She revealed that the incident made her feel so awful and conflicted that it was part of why she stopped pursuing her comedy career. The following year, in 2018, Dave Chappelle made fun of Abby in his Netflix special, The Bird Revelation. I knew Abby back in the day, before the Louis thing. It sucks that she quit. She was incredibly funny, way funnier than me. It is our loss, too.

The thing that sucks the most is that if Jason Zinoman only wants to review comedy shows that he can take the subway to, there are a ton of other New York City comics who could use some ink in The New York Times. There are even more comics throughout the country who I would hasten to say have never masturbated in front of someone who didn’t want them to masturbate in front of them. That should be a low bar to clear, but somehow Zinoman couldn’t do it.

Respectfully Mr. Zinoman, it tells me a lot about you that you think that Louis C.K needs and is worthy of your good seal of approval. Louis doesn’t need saving. He’s gonna be fine. He’s got the patriarchy. He’s got the U.S.A.’s good ole red, white, and blue, white male supremacy. He also has the Rogansphere and Bill Maher on his side. Trump can’t be far behind from pledging his love for Louis.

For the record, Mr. Zinoman, you can skip any of my future comedy content that comes across your critic’s eye. I would hate to take the chance that you liked something I did. What would that say about me? I do hope that one day The New York Times hires more comedy critics, or maybe just goes back to zero.

WHO’S WITH ME? And who’s with Vaughn Meader?

Get Tickets for my show in Rochester, NY on December 6

Photo by Jim McCambridge

Come see my rambling, overly familiar style of stand-up comedy on my WHO’S WITH ME? tour, this Saturday, December 6, Saturday Rochester, NY at 7:30pm.

Myq Kaplan: A Good Person Who Does Good Comedy

Myq Kaplan is a good stand-up comedian who by all accounts is a good person. He is also a comedy friend of mine, in that we only know each other because of comedy and have never hung out as people. But he also regularly sends me encouraging, positive, and funny text messages that lead me to believe that he would be fun to hang out with. We are very different on the surface. I’m a tall, giant, married, Black guy who focuses his act on politics, his children, and storytelling (according to The New York Times). Myq is a not so tall, slender, polyamorous, white, Jewish, childless (as far as I know) guy who focuses his act on tightly written jokes that often feature wordplay and positive messages. Maybe, we aren’t that different. Anyway, he has a new comedy special out entitled, Rini. You can watch it for free on Youtube.

Greg Proops: One of My Comedy Heroes.

Greg also has a new comedy project out. Because he is old school, it is a comedy album. But because he understands. you aren’t going to go to the record store to get it, you can also get it on YouTube or the other online platform where you do your listening. Greg is more like me than Myq. Greg is political. He’s from the Bay Area. He enjoys telling jokes that the audience don’t all laugh at, and he enjoys making fun of them for it. But he is also like Myq in that he is childless and likes tightly written jokes with wordplay. He is as anti-Trump as they come. He was probably anti-Trump before it was cool. He did every cool thing before it was cool. His new comedy album is called Free State of California. Recorded on New Year’s Eve 2024. A simpler time!

Wanna Know More About Vaughn Meader?

Listen to Mo Rocca’s podcast Mobituaries. Mo did an episode about the life of Vaughn Meader. It is really good.

An Incredibly Well Done Video Essay on Louis CK

I love video essays. This one sums up a lot of what I think about Louis but from a white, British man perspective. I was never as big a Louis fan as this essayist, but Louis’ effect on comedy was huge. I listened to this essay in the middle of working on this. And it has a title I’m biased toward.

Kelly’s Fun Fact!

“Morgan Wallen covered a Jason Isbell song (Cover Me Up) and that cover got really popular. Jason donated every penny he made off of the cover to the NAACP.” — Kelly Rafferty