If you are for some reason a regular reader of this blog (and why would you not be), you will know that I am a great fan of stand-up comedy. Sad news then that this week the world lost the great Don Rickles who died at the age of 90. Rickles was a fearless stand-up comedian and actor who has been making movies and doing stand-up from the early 1960’s. In 1970 he starred alongside Clint Eastwood in the heist movie Kelly’s Heroes. In 1995 he starred alongside Robert De Niro in the Martin Scorsese gangster movie Casino. He was recently better known as the voice of Mr Potato Head in the Toy Story movies.
While the comedy world mourns this sad loss and, as I have said already, because I am a huge fan of stand-up myself, I thought it somewhat appropriate to maybe do a blog post involving stand-up comedy in some shape or form.
This neatly brings us to another stand-up in the mould of Rickles, the one and only Louis CK. Louis is an accomplished stand-up with over 25 years on-the-road experience. He recently did a new Netflix special, Louis CK 2017, in which he spoke about many things including abortion, gender issues, parenting, his strange relationship with the movie Magic Mike, and how Christianity kind-of-somehow won the whole religion thing. Even though Louis is an agnostic, he does hold some type of belief, as he says in one of his many faith-based routines:
I have a lot of beliefs and I live by none of them. That’s just the way I am. They’re just my beliefs. I just like believing them, I like that part. They’re my little ‘believees’, they make me feel good about who I am. – Louis CK
Despite this weird lack of faith, the 8 minute clip below on Christianity and the concept of time is nothing short of comedy genius, something that I know you will enjoy.
As a bonus, there is also a clip featuring a Saturday Night Live monologue where Louis again shares his musings on many topics, including God. As always, enjoy!
You’re supposed to teach your kids right from wrong. I don’t know, it’s confusing, you know. Some people raise their kids religiously and that kind of covers it. They kind of go, “All this. Do that.” I’m not raising my kids religiously because I don’t feel like it. Get up on a Sunday? Fuck that. Fuck that. Let your souls rot, kids. I don’t care. I’m not getting…
“Daddy, who’s Jesus?”
“None of your business. Go back to bed.”
But my kids, you know, they’re living in the world, and there’s a lot of religion in the world. So you do have to teach your kids. If you’re not raising them religiously, you do have to teach them about religion, you know. I always tell my kids the same thing. I tell them that there are many religions in the world, and they’re all equal. But the Christians are the main one. That’s what I tell them. The Christians won. They’re the winners. So, act accordingly. Congratulate Christians when you meet them. Because they won the world. And it’s true. It’s true. We love to tell ourselves, like, “Every religion is exactly…”
No! No, they’re not. The Christians won everything. A long time ago. If you don’t believe me, let me ask you a question. What year is it? I mean, come on! What year is it according to the entire human race? And why? What year is it? Anybody? Sir, just yell out the year. Thank you. 20…2016? No, it’s 20…That’s right. It’s 2017. What is that? That’s a number. It’s not just any number. It must be a very important number. ‘Cause we’re counting to it in unison as a species. For thousands of years, we’ve been going:
“One, two, three…Come on, everybody, four…Now, come on, Africa, five, six…”
What is this number? We’re counting the days since what? Since there was ever people? Or since the sun did something? Not at all. It’s been 2017 years since what? Anybody, yell it out.
[Man from audience yells “CHRIST!”]
Yes! CHRIST! CHRIST! That’s right. It’s been 2017 years since CHRIST! Jesus! We are counting the days since Jesus. Together. Which makes sense if you’re Christian. But what the fuck are the rest of us doing?
“Jesus was here. Jesus was here. Jesus was here.”
Everybody. Scientists, historians.
“Jesus. Jesus. Jesus plus two, Jesus plus three, Jesus plus four.”
Jesus plus 2017 years, four months and three days is when your license expires. How is that not a win for the Christians? How is that not a complete win? That’s not a Monday off in October. That’s, “There was no time before Jesus.”
And the whole world went, “Okay. Sure.”
Then somebody was like, “What about the years before him? There were billions. I mean, infinity.”
“Those go backwards.”
“You want us to measure most of history backwards? To accommodate one religion?”
“Uh-huh.”
“All right, we’ll do it, it’s fine. We’ll do it.”
The whole world. You ever watch New Year’s Eve around the world? They always show you like how every country celebrates. It’s kind of cool. The first is one little island. It’s the first place that’s actually the place that it’s the year. It’s a little island in the Pacific. I forget what it’s called, but they do a little ceremony for New Year’s Eve every year. And they just wear grass. ‘Cause they don’t even have sticks yet. They’re in the grass age. They have no clocks. But they do a dance.
[Starts chanting and dancing]
“2017.”
And it goes around the world.
[Speaks with a Chinese accent] “Oh, the 2017.”
[Speaks gibberish]
[Speaks in a Middle-Eastern accent] “Death to all Christians in 2017.”
The Jews are quietly keeping track. It’s really 5,766. But that’s for us. We’re just…That’s okay. We’re just keeping track for when you snap out of it. It’s all right. I’ll…I’ll write yours on my check. I don’t want a problem.
What about Chinese New Year? Yeah, what about Chinese New Year? All right, next time you’re doing your taxes, just write “monkey” where the year goes. Just put “monkey.” See what happens to your funds. No. It’s 2017, year of our Lord!…Jesus o’clock on the nose. And they made it up, that’s the weirdest part. They got to rename years that had already taken place. ‘Cause, you know, that’s not what those years were. You know that, right? That the year three wasn’t the year three during the year three. Nobody was walking around back then, “Hey, what year is it?”
“It’s three.”
“Yeah, but I’m 28. How can I be 28 if there’s only been three?”
“Oh, well, see, you were born in BC 24. And there’s a zero. Remember it went backwards?”
“Oh, shit. That was stressful. I hated those years.”
What was that like?
“What year is it?”
“Ten.”
“What year is it now?”
“Nine.”
“What the fuck is gonna happen?!”
So, I don’t know what to tell my kids.
The Bearded One 