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In the landscape of American comedy, one over-achiever is blowing the curve for everybody else.

His name is
Louis C.K.
September 1, 2014
Look at you.
You're on the verge of being a comedy rock star.
Actually, you're a barista at Starbucks.
But you can make people laugh.
And you're doing five sets a week. Some of them even pay.
You've been at it a couple of years, and you're getting better every day.
Sure, there are a lot of comics ahead of you, but 		you'll soon hold your own with them.
Most of them, anyway.
Some may be a problem.
One in particular.
Sure, you like Louis C.K.—it's almost a rule.
But is he really that good at everything?
Is he just some weird outlier or the model of what a modern comedian should be?
Will he push other comedians to up their game and make it harder for you to compete?
The answer is "yes" to all of the above.
And it's much worse than you think.

It's easy to tell yourself that successful people are just lucky, or they've just got momentum that's letting them fail upward.
That's not Louie's story.
He's been learning his whole life how to be good at what he does today.
Louie's mom was a computer programmer, so they were always around for him to work on.
He took AV repair classes in junior high school.
He was an intern at a local television station in high school.
He started doing stand-up as a teenager.
He directed countless short films, "The Chris Rock Show," and "Louie."
He was one of the writers that helped Conan O'Brien reinvent "Late Night."
And he played one hell of a role in American Hustle.
More than anything, he learned from Francis Ford Coppola, after watching the documentary Heart of Darkness, to never wait for permission to make something.
"He said, 'If I start making the movie people start joining along.' That's how I've done everything since then. Just start making it, give it a life."

For the past few years, an interesting phenomenon has been taking place in comedy agents' offices.
It's a painful conversation for all involved, one that starts with the comedian saying,
"Get me the 'Louie' deal."
Here's the problem—
You're not Larry David.
You're not Marc Maron.
And you're definitely not Louis C.K.
No comedian will come to a network with the clout, experience and street cred that Louie had when he arrived at FX.
When comedians see 'Louie,' they see a show that makes them a household name.
They see the autonomy, the edginess, the profanity, and the adulation of their peers.
They see a guy that said "no notes" and took a year off because he felt like it.
They don't see the aenemic budget, the likes of which are only seen on 11-minute Adult Swim episodes.
They don't see how hard it is to direct a show in which you're in every scene.
They don't intend to edit most of the season on their 13" Macbook Pro.
And they don't have two failed incarnations of shows based on their life to learn from.
Which brings us to our next point...
   
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