What's That Stink?

Oh. Louis CK is back.

So, who do you think he listened to during his self-imposed "listening" time-out after being publicly exposed for inviting young female colleagues to his place so he could masturbate in front of them, unsolicited-like.

Mel Gibson?

I'm not a REAL agent but I would have advised Louis CK that his best, maybe only, comeback route would be to mock himself, as opposed to mocking civically-engaged teenage victims of school shootings, LGBTQ youth bravely and at great physical risk expanding our understanding of gender, and arguably the most precious and vulnerable members of our human family, children with Down's Syndrome, making a super human go of life in spite of a million and one obstacles, but, like I say, I'm not a REAL agent.

I do remember very well seeing Louis CK at Ottawa BluesFest a thousand years ago and my face was literally frozen in a laugh the entire time. Ottawa in the right hands is mockable to infinity and we were in the right hands. But there was an off-note, too, and it had to do with a claim, not really a joke, that he preferred young women to middle-aged women because young women just wanted to talk (so listen) to him but middle-aged women just wanted to have sex.

He was pretending to feel appreciated by young women and used by middle-aged women and, like I say, it rang false. Really, it clanged, but I ignored it because nobody's perfect.

Right? Nobody's perfect.

Too good to be true? Well yes, as it turns out. He'd still be taking me in if I didn't know about his predatory behaviour, but I do know about it, so he isn't taking me in.

He did at first, I should add. I wasn't immediately off him. But then I remembered being a young woman, a young woman who was "out there" as I say, a participant in the after hours life that people then (and now) associate with risk-taking. And I remembered how often I was in situations where men would "turn", as it were, and it's very threatening. People who've never been out there the way some young women are ask, accusingly, so why didn't you just leave?

Sadly, those people are often middle-aged women, too. It's incredible to me, the forgetfulness of middle-aged women when it comes to what it's really like for young women.

Incredible.

But perhaps I was more "out there" than most, my contemporaries unknowing of what I speak.

Anyway, I don't know why I didn't just leave, except that I didn't. I couldn't. It was always the same, like being in one of those dreams where you're being chased by a predator but instead of running you're moving in slow motion, pushing against a wall of water, dawdling, stopping to tie a shoe while whoever/whatever's chasing you gains ground. Or there's a kind of paralysis that takes over, and you just go through whatever the situation is, because it would be too awkward to not.

It's really hard, or was, for young women who put ourselves out there to react "appropriately" because we didn't have the know how. I had the most confrontational mother on earth, a ball-buster non-pareil, a good-looking battle-axe, and STILL I couldn't bring myself to offend a predatory man's sensibilities - even when it was in my best interests.

I count myself lucky. Oh I do. I was Bambi in the forest but I had my Thumpers.

A thousand regrets but a million good times.

My own position is that the world is better now for young women in the West, and Millennials, no matter what you hear Ye Olds say, are good for the rest of us. They are why we know now that Louis CK is a big old phony, that we were had, because as Homer Simpson so famously said, "It's funny because it's true."

Well, Louis CK wasn't true.

Still, there's no point in being angry about Louis CK appealing to a lesser audience now. I watched Dave Chappelle's latest special and Ricky Gervais's latest special and they're not so different for me from Louis CK. Because they're not tackling sacred cows with their comedy, they've become them.

Funny how that works, eh?

Watch Ellen's "Relatable" on Netflix if you want the real deal. She's no sacred cow, she tackles them.