CHAPTER 192

Weeks earlier, Noam speaks to Louis on the phone. The author asks about the call,

Noam: I contacted him through a friend of a friend to say I wanted to speak to him.

Author: On the phone?

Noam: On the phone yeah.

Author: How was it?

Noam: It was fine, he was nice.

Author: Did he apologise?

Noam: No. What he said was, ‘Noam, I love you,’ and this is almost a direct quote, ‘And if it’s not good for you or the club that I perform there anymore just tell me, I won’t come in anymore and I will still love you just as much as I love you now.’ That’s what he said.

Author: How do you know that’s a direct quote? Did you write it down?

Noam: Well it’s pretty memorable. It’s only a couple of days ago and it’s a pretty memorable phrase coming from Louis CK. He and I have never really had many conversations ever, so … And that’s not exactly verbatim, but it’s almost verbatim, it’s definitely the … Where he said, ‘And I’ll still love you just the same.’ You know, he used the word love and he offered not to come anymore if it was better for me, and he made it clear that if I asked him not to come it would not change the way he felt about me personally, he wouldn’t be angry.

Author: How did you react?

Noam: I said, ‘Look, I would hope that you speak to the people around you who are closest to you and you trust most, and gather all the advice that you can about what’s the best way to do this. And once the best option becomes clear that’s the way you should do it, but I’m not going to tell you not to perform anymore. I just want to make sure it’s done in the best way.’ I said, ‘This is from your point of view Louis, this is not about the world or anything like that, it’s like, you want to come back, so from your own point of view you want to do it in the best way that you can.’

Author: Did you talk about the sign?

Noam: No, no, I thought of that afterwards.

Author: Right. So now your goal is to get the message through to his friends to get them to advise him.

Noam: Yeah, I hope it’s the people that … This is the thing, nobody who I know who cares about him, and I speak to people who are close to him, think that, ‘No, no, it’s fine.’ Everybody believes he’d be better off handling it slightly different, so you would hope that his friends would tell him so, but the thing is, when you’re that famous and that revered, it’s hard for people to talk to you like that, it’s hard for them.

Author: Even comedians who are his friends?

Noam: Yeah, even with those people. I believe so. So, you know, when I prepared myself to speak to him I made a decision. I said, look, I’m just going to speak to him like he’s anybody, because I want to be able to, you know, have my piece. I told him what I felt. I’m going through a lot because of this guy. A lot.