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Denis Leary: PC Rules Silencing Young Comics

Denis Leary crashed the stand-up scene by chain-smoking cigarettes and singing their praises – sans apology.

His 1992 “No Cure for Cancer” special featured the following bon mots:

Smoking takes ten years off your life. Well it’s the ten worst years, isn’t it folks? It’s the ones at the end! It’s the wheelchair, kidney dialysis, adult diaper f***ing years. You can have those years! We don’t want ’em, alright?

Happiness comes in small doses folks. It’s a cigarette butt, or a chocolate chip cookie or a five second orgasm. You come, you smoke the butt you eat the cookie you go to sleep wake up and go back to f***ing work the next morning, THAT’S IT! End of f***ing list!

Today, Leary isn’t regularly extolling the virtues of smoking. He’s more likely to be starring in cutting-edge TV shows like “Rescue Me” and FX’s “Sex&Drugs&Rock&Roll,” now in its second season.

Leary talked up the latter recently with The Daily Beast.

The comic says older, established stars like Jerry Seinfeld and Jim Gaffigan can survive the new PC rules. What about tomorrow’s great comic?

That’s a different story.

“You have these young kids who are trying out new material and acts, playing in clubs that only hold 75 people, and they’re being shot with people on cell phones and taken to task for pushing the envelope,” explains Leary. “To me, it goes back to jazz, man. If you don’t have the place where you can go and really test your instrument then you’re not going to find anything worthwhile and new. It’s hypocritical because you don’t really get complaints from my fans, or Louis C.K.’s fans, or Chris Rock’s fans, but it’s these young kids who are getting the short end of the stick.”

“Sex&Drugs&Rock&Roll” airs at 10 p.m. EST on FX.

Photo credit: Gage Skidmore via Foter.com / CC BY-SA

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