Thesis from Dr. Laslo.

I understand why ______ skips my comments, and I appreciate that she does so -- life's too short to spend time on something you know you don't care for.

I will say though, that there often are things being said beneath the stories.

In 'The Edgy Comic with Behavior Issues' I trace a character who finds the niche that gets him known, and ends up being swallowed by it: his choices cut him off from what he originally set out for, and -- in the end -- chooses to continue his course of action because it is what he believes people want from him, rather than change and be truer to himself.

It plays on the idea of Identity of the performer in context with their audience. And -- of course -- this is not just performers. We can fool ourselves into being what we think people want, and then wonder why we're not happy being liked by these people.

He has contorted his life in service to his desires, but can't seem to figure out that those desires are what is making him unhappy. Yes, you could read this as an analogy to drugs: for many people, the need for being liked IS a drug.

In 'The Stand-Up Comedian in Tacoma' we se a stand-up comic doing the cliche of stand-up comics: self-flagellation and self-loathing. Many people love the comics who do that -- it has been a staple for decades.

Over decades, though, it has become more coarse. And, in the case of Louis CK, we see the dichotomy of people laughing at those jokes but hating the idea of him acting that way in life, even though his routine is understood to reflect his life.

The idea of The Stand-Up Comedian in Tacoma is: can you preemptively tell these things to get the audience to accept you? Or, by telling these things, is the audience just accepting them as more funny stories that they will then hate when read in the New York Times?

How much manipulation can occur between the performer and the audience? The audience manipulates the performer to go farther, be edgier, be more funny, and in return the performer manipulates the audience to believe that doing so makes him more Real. There is an unspoken deal, but the deal is only a deal until it isn't: people can turn on you on a dime, and some people get off on seeing how far they can dance to that line.

There was also a lot of dirty words and imagery in these pieces, too. Because otherwise some of those comments would be as boring and dry as this one.

I am Laslo.