Louis C.K. Praises Tig Notaro Live

On the day Tig Notaro Live became available for purchase on LouisCK.net, Louis C. K. sent out an e-mail to all of us who are registered on his website. Louis’s e-mail summarizes Tig’s now-legendary set at Largo and how he came to want to release a recording of the set on his website. In the e-mail, Louis addresses his admiration of Tig’s performance in a very candid manner. I thought fans of Louis C. K. and/or Tig Notaro might be interested in reading Louis's e-mail, if they haven't already. (Read my review of Tig's set here.)

The following is that e-mail in its entirety:

Greetings to the people and parts of people that are reading this. Hi. This is Louis. I'm a comedian and you bought a thing from me. Well, I'm writing to tell You that there is a new thing you can buy on my website louisck.com. It's an audio standup set by not me but another comedian named Tig Notaro. Why am I selling someone else's comedy on my website? 

Well, Tig is a friend of mine and she is very funny. I love her voice on stage. One night I was performing at a club in LA called Largo. Tig was there. She was about to go on stage. I hadn't seen Tig in about a year and I said how are you? She replied "well I found out today that I have cancer in both breasts and that it has likely spread to my lymph nodes. My doctor says it looks real bad. ". She wasn't kidding. I said "uh. Jesus. Tig. Well. Do you... Have your family... Helping?". She said "well my mom was with me but a few weeks ago she fell down, hit her head and she died". She still wasn't kidding. 

Now, I'm pretty stupid to begin with, and I sure didn't know what to say now. I opened my mouth and this came out. "jeez, Tig. I. Really value you. Highly.". She said "I value you highly too, Louie.". Then she held up a wad of note-paper in her hand and said "I'm gonna talk about all of it on stage now. It's probably going to be a mess". I said "wow". And with that, she went on stage. 

I stood in the wings behind a leg of curtain, about 8 feet from her, and watched her tell a stunned audience "hi. I have cancer. Just found out today. I'm going to die soon". What followed was one of the greatest standup performances I ever saw. I can't really describe it but I was crying and laughing and listening like never in my life. Here was this small woman standing alone against death and simply reporting where her mind had been and what had happened and employing her gorgeously acute standup voice to her own death. 

The show was an amazing example of what comedy can be. A way to visit your worst fears and laugh at them. Tig took us to a scary place and made us laugh there. Not by distracting us from the terror but by looking right at it and just turning to us and saying "wow. Right?". She proved that everything is funny. And has to be. And she could only do this by giving us her own death as an example. So generous. 

After her set, I asked Mark Flanagan, the owner of Largo (great club, by the way) if he recorded the set. Largo is set up for excellent recordings. He said that he did. A few days later, I wrote Tig and asked her if I could release this set on my site. I wanted people to hear what I saw. What we all saw that night. She agreed. The show is on sale for the same 5 dollars I charge for my stuff. I'm only keeping 1. She gets the other 4. Tig has decided to give some of that to cancer research. 

Tig, by the way, has since undergone a double mastectomy. She is doing well. Her doctors say her chances of survival are excellent. So she went there and came back. Her report from the frontlines of life and death are here for you to... Enjoy. 

Please go to my site louisck.com and buy her show. You can buy it here: http://buy.louisck.net/purchase/tig-notaro-live 

Thank you. Have a terrific afternoon. Louis C.K.

If you haven't already, I wanted to encourage you to download Tig Notaro Live for just $5 from LouisCK.net. If you ran into any issues with the website during a short span on Friday, October 5, those problems have since been fixed.

Download Tig Notaro Live ASAP - Time Wastes Too Fast

Tig Notaro’s remarkable set at Largo in August of 2012 is now available for purchase on Louis C. K.’s website. If you’re not up-to-date on what’s been happening in Tig’s life, she’s had a tough year. In short, Tig contracted pneumonia, then a C. diff infection, then her mother died, then she was diagnosed with breast cancer in both breasts. (You can read the full details here.)

Tig Notaro Live--pronounced like the verb, not the adjective--is a must-have comedy album. When Tig took the stage on August 3, just four days after receiving her cancer diagnosis, she shared with the audience her struggles and her pain all the while finding humor in loss, poking fun at human frailty. Throughout the 30-minute set, Tig's honesty and vulnerability are perfectly balanced by her well-honed comedic voice. Tig Notaro curates her difficulties--and her almost-proportionate successes--with equal parts clarity and bewilderment, simultaneously coping with her own anxieties and expressing a comforting concern for the uneasiness of others. That's why Live is genius. It records a beautifully human event in which all of the fears and worries of mortality are placed in the open and shared between Tig and the audience. In the final accounting, no matter how many times I hear it, Tig Notaro Live never leaves me feeling helpless in the face of adversity. Tig's set is filled with hope for the future and reasserts the resilience of the biological imperative to live. 

I cannot recommend this album more highly. Download Tig Notaro Live for only $5. A portion of the profits go to various breast cancer charities. If you don't want the album for yourself, you can always gift it to someone.

I have not received any compensation for writing this post. I have no material connection to the brands, products, or services that I have mentioned. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255: “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.”

A Whole Heap of Good News for Tig Notaro

There is some good news concerning standup comedian Tig Notaro, but her life has not been without incident this past year. Earlier in 2012, Tig was fighting off pneumonia when antibiotics prescribed to eliminate the pneumonia actually eradicated all of positive bacteria that lived in her intestinal tract and left room for C. diff (Clostridium difficile) to move in. This C. diff infection caused Tig--an already small woman--to lose 20 pounds. Tig beat C. diff, but not long after leaving the hospital, Tig’s still-young mother died from falling and hitting her head. During this time, Tig and her girlfriend split, and the show pilot on which Tig was working with Sarah Silverman was not picked up. Not long after that, on July 31, Tig revealed on her podcast Professor Blastoff that she had been diagnosed the day before with stage II breast cancer in both breasts.

Despite that crapstorm, Tig has also found a large measure of success in her career during that same period of time. In December of 2011, Tig made her first--and a very memorable--appearance on Conan. Tig was then a guest on This American Life with Ira Glass in May. Tig’s KickStarter campaign for her project “Clown Service” hit its funding goal in June. Tig appeared on the Conan After-Hours Stand-Up web-series on July 6th. Additionally, Tig also landed a job writing for an upcoming Comedy Central sketch series created by Amy Schumer. And when, just four days after her breast cancer diagnosis and during her "Tig and Friends" show at Largo, Tig decided to use her time on stage to openly discuss her troubles, she found not only that the audience wanted to hear everything she had to say, but also that her honest dose of reality makes for some amazing stand-up. Concerning Tig’s set, Louis C. K. tweeted, “[I]n 27 years doing this, I’ve seen a handful of truly great, masterful sets. One was Tig Notaro last night at Largo.”

Still, no amount of success can take away the uncertainty of a cancer diagnosis. Tig underwent a double mastectomy on September 4 and I’m very happy to relay that on the September 20, 2012 episode of Conan, Tig announced that her prognosis for the future is great. What’s more, Tig received a call from Louis C. K. who insisted that her amazing Largo set should be released. After some initial hesitance, Tig accepted Louis’s offer. Tig Notaro: Live (pronounced like the verb, not the adjective) will become available through Louis’s website starting October 5th at a cost of only $5. A portion of that money will be donated to various breast cancer charities. Also, Ecco (a HarperCollins imprint) announced earlier today (Septermber 24) that they have signed a publishing deal with Tig for a collection of autobiographical essays to be published sometime in 2015.

No matter what is thrown at Tig, she seems to come out ahead. If you aren’t familiar with Tig’s work, I have included some funny stand-up and interview videos following the recent Conan interview in the playlist below. Also, I highly recommend checking out the podcast Tig co-hosts with Kyle Dunnigan and David Huntsberger called Professor Blastoff, and Tig’s stand-up album Good One.