Bill Burr’s new Netflix special exposes the problem with both-sides comedy
‘Live at Red Rocks’ finds the comedian in a familiar angry mode, mostly about the same things, while the country around him is in chaos.
One of the many folks who pop up in HBO’s recent George Carlin documentary to praise the legendary comedian is Bill Burr. His inclusion makes sense; much like Carlin, Burr is an incredibly successful, rant-prone stand-up, with an aversion to political correctness and a penchant for nihilism. In his testimonial, Burr recalls attending the taping of Carlin’s 1988 special, What Am I Doing in New Jersey—and being shocked. He’d expected more of the same wordplay-heavy comedy Carlin had leaned on for years, perhaps a rehash of his celebrated My Stuff routine. Instead, he found that Carlin, at 51, had reinvented himself as America’s preeminent shredder of political and cultural hypocrisy. He’d evolved.