![\"220px-Louis_CK_2012_Shankbone\"](\"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/culturecrash\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/04\/220px-Louis_CK_2012_Shankbone.jpg\")
<\/a>\u00a0\u00a0 \u201cBecause we\u2019re the future, and you don\u2019t belong in it.\u201d<\/p>\nThe woman is only slightly more pedestrian than chic, but still attractive, stylish, self-assured, and impeccably smug. What is her vaulting claim for such unarguable sense of place, her grand accomplishment in the universal scheme of things?<\/p>\n
\u201cI own a store,\u201d she tells him.<\/p>\n
Let\u2019s put aside for a moment the notion that Napoleon\u2019s comment about a nation of shopkeepers, made in reference to Great Britain, was hardly intended as a ringing compliment, or that the woman looks so far to have been spared serious disappointment, if not betrayal, and hasn\u2019t yet had to pull back from the abyss of despair so harrowing that the image of a grave suggests optional comfort. Such experiences return a scarred caution, if not humility. Her arrogance is breathtaking. Yet there\u2019s just enough challenge in her remarks, as when she implies that the ills of her generational world have been inherited from his, to beg reply of some kind, if not retort.<\/p>\n
So you wait. Come on, Louie. Say something. Make a case. Give the team some minutes. What\u2019ll happen twenty or thirty years down the line, when she\u2019s his age and someone comes up to tell her the same thing she\u2019s told him? How will she feel then? Being twentysomething, is that all there is? Are we all so locked down in the precepts of generational identity that we don\u2019t see their drywall hollowness?<\/p>\n
There are universals that transcend age, gender, ethnicity, sexual preference, the whole categorical checklist that\u2019s plunged society and culture into squabbling irrelevance and recriminating censorship. There are young minds in old bodies; there are 19-year-old fuds. To age is to wonder about roads not taken and feel the looming shadow of mortality, to question it all again. A certain amount of stupidity and recklessness is a virtual requirement of youth where, as Lawrence Durrell wrote, \u201cI move through many negatives to who I am.\u201d We\u2019re more defined by our mistakes than our successes because we tend to think success has followed an immutable plan, when in fact a lot of it is greased with dumb luck.<\/p>\n
What does the girl know? What\u2019s she done? Where\u2019s she been? What makes her notable? What\u2019s she giving back? What\u2019s the there there?<\/p>\n
Let\u2019s jack it up a notch. What does she have to say about her part, however miniscule, in the long run of buccaneer capitalism that\u2019s corrupted our political systems, enslaved people to the ethos and the fact of the almighty buck, and poisoned the planet? What does she have to say about our Huxleyan brave new world, where nearly every development of technological gadgetry brings us one step closer to mind control via the unlimited assault of commercial advertising and the atomization of private, inner space through constant interruption of our attention span? Any thoughts, opinions?<\/p>\n
We needn\u2019t be so grand. Who cares about you when you\u2019re down and out? Or if you\u2019re broke and need a root canal? Or a bank loan to get back on your feet? What if you can\u2019t pony up the price of a McMansion to get a decent education, which really isn\u2019t about knowledge, history, culture, thought, language, ideas, and fields related to yours, but scoring a certificate for a better job? How long can you get through a day without binging on screen time and copiously punctuating every text message with OMG! and WTF? And okay, miss, or ms., how good a salesperson are you if you don\u2019t just antagonize a customer but send him away feeling like a piece of toilet paper stuck to society\u2019s industrious heel?<\/p>\n
Just asking.<\/p>\n
The woman is of course a fictional projection of the male fears of Louis C.K., who wrote and directed the show. Improbable in some ways, real in others. Still, You wish Louie had said something, anything really. If it\u2019s closing time, how about a latte to talk things over, maybe forge an interesting bond? Learn from each other. But Louie is a schlub. Things happen, life happens, absurdly, weirdly, just in its everyday self. Larry David would rant. Saul Goodman would find an angle to get around her. Louie just more or less takes it. But artfully enough for us to do the rest.<\/p>\n
Most things we laugh at aren\u2019t really funny; they\u2019re turned into humor so we can live with them. But how do you wake complacency from its slumber?<\/p>\n
That\u2019s a tough room.<\/p>\n
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[contextly_auto_sidebar id=”Af28w71jYaGhUSvBJL3VamJOvXqLnshM”] HOW do you respond when someone handsome and callow cuts you off? Our guest columnist Lawrence Christon goes on a tear here about how we’ve gone wrong. With no further ado. A FEW THINGS I WISH HE\u2019D SAID By Lawrence Christon Though spoken in a TV show, it\u2019s one of those crystalline moments, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[552,607,77],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-3191","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-consumerism","7":"category-lawrence-christon-guest-column","8":"category-television","9":"entry","10":"has-post-thumbnail"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/culturecrash\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3191","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/culturecrash\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/culturecrash\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/culturecrash\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/culturecrash\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3191"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/culturecrash\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3191\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3193,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/culturecrash\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3191\/revisions\/3193"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/culturecrash\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3191"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/culturecrash\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3191"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/culturecrash\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3191"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}