Louis C.K. on Writing His First Novel and Returning to Stage

Tom Segura (0:00)

Alabama and South Carolina, what's up? This December, I'll be bringing my come together tour to Huntsville on the 4th, then on Friday, December 5th, I'll be performing at the Alabama Theater in Birmingham. After that, on Saturday, December 6th, I'll be in Columbia, South Carolina at the Township Auditorium. I can't wait to see you there. Get your tickets now at tomsegura.com/tour. Welcome to a special episode of 2 Bears 1 Cave live, not live, recorded from New York City with our special guest, Louis CK., who has a new book called Ingram. Uh, Louis? Yes. Welcome to the program.

Louis C.K. (0:41)

Thank you. Oh, by the way, I have another, um, I have another copy of that to give you because I signed it.

Tom Segura (0:47)

Oh, fuck yeah.

Louis C.K. (0:48)

So that one's for you.

Tom Segura (0:49)

Oh, thank you.

Louis C.K. (0:50)

Dedicated to you.

Tom Segura (0:51)

Thank you so much.

Louis C.K. (0:52)

That copy is not the book itself.

Tom Segura (0:54)

Okay, great. Uh, appreciate this very much. I very much enjoyed reading this. I actually visited you, um, and I was in your office.

Louis C.K. (1:05)

Yeah.

Tom Segura (1:05)

I think you had already written this. It was going to be, uh, it was like coming out soon, or, yeah, several months later, and you were working on a different book.

Louis C.K. (1:14)

Yeah, I have another novel I just finished a draft of.

Tom Segura (1:17)

A draft of?

Louis C.K. (1:18)

Yeah.

Tom Segura (1:19)

Um, and you, you are loving being a novel writer.

Louis C.K. (1:23)

I love it.

Tom Segura (1:24)

So much.

Louis C.K. (1:25)

I love it.

Tom Segura (1:26)

Writing every day?

Louis C.K. (1:27)

Yeah, every day.

Tom Segura (1:28)

And that, what, did this, you had aspirations of this, right? Like, did you always want to write?

Louis C.K. (1:32)

When I was a little kid, I wanted to be a writer. Like, that was a dream to me.

Tom Segura (1:36)

Yeah.

Louis C.K. (1:37)

Like, it was like being an athlete or something. Like, I wanted to be a novelist.

Tom Segura (1:41)

Did you romanticize the smoking and the drinking?

Louis C.K. (1:45)

Oh, yeah.

Tom Segura (1:45)

Yeah, of course.

Louis C.K. (1:46)

Because I got into Russian literature when I was a kid, like, kind of young, you know, and I would put... I would open the windows in the winter of my bedroom. Uh-huh.

Tom Segura (1:57)

To feel Russian?

Louis C.K. (1:59)

Yeah.

Tom Segura (2:00)

Yeah, that's great.

Louis C.K. (2:00)

Yeah. I just loved the... being able to write how horrible things could be, and somehow it was sweet to read that it was awful. You know what I mean?

Tom Segura (2:10)

Yeah, sure. And the Russians are really good at that.

Louis C.K. (2:12)

Yes, and they're funny. They're funny.

And they're not trying to be funny at all. They just say how awful something is, and you laugh. That's where I kind of learned that.

Tom Segura (2:20)

Yeah, I had... I think I had a joke about it, where I was in some Eastern European country, and I was... I always ask, like, about... You know, I like to say, please, thank you, greetings. I try to learn in different languages. I've always just enjoyed it, and in one of them, I was like, what's the whatever greeting here? And they told me that it translates to, hopefully, today is our last. And that was a straight face.

Louis C.K. (2:46)

I wonder where that was.

Tom Segura (2:47)

I was like, huh.

Louis C.K. (2:48)

Well, yeah, I mean, the best shows, to me, the best shows that I ever had have been in Eastern Europe.

Tom Segura (2:52)

Really?

Louis C.K. (2:52)

And Bucharest. In Romania? Sofia. Yeah, Romania and Bulgaria.

Tom Segura (2:58)

Yeah.

Louis C.K. (2:59)

And Bratislava, one place I played that was torn down like a week after I played it, some Soviet-feelings theater. But they really get into comedy there, and I've been to Russia, and...

Tom Segura (3:11)

I haven't been to Russia.

Louis C.K. (3:12)

It's really crazy. This book, the new book actually takes place in Russia. Oh, really? And I kind of went back to that, romanticizing that, yeah.

Tom Segura (3:22)

When I did Budapest last, my wife's, both of her parents are Hungarian.

Louis C.K. (3:28)

I'm Hungarian on my dad's side.

Tom Segura (3:29)

Yeah, on your dad's side. And so I've picked up phrases just from all these years together. And I, in Hungarian, said this, the only bad part, this is to the audience, the only part of this city that sucks, and I said in Hungarian, were the rotten gypsies. And there was like a minute long applause break.