The kid from Boston keeps kicking it out in New York City. Denis Leary rocked the comedy world in the early 90s, and became a voice of the city very early on in his career. If one can call the mid-thirties early. He’d struggled as an actor in Boston for years before scoring a break for MTV, becoming the fast-talking face for a series of short films that got attention. He was certainly seeking attention, and the delivery was so urgent, so impatient, and so impeccably funny, that people were compelled to listen, and the years of struggling started to pan out.

Years later, it’s still panning out. He became a celebrity known for his acting ability finally, after he’d switched from film to television, and became the voice of firefighters during a particularly rough time in an already rough history. Just because he’s hit the big time being what he loves to be, doesn’t mean he’s not still the fast-talking, angry, side-splitting comic. The Rescue Me Comedy Tour certainly proves that the iron is still hot, very, very hot. The show is coming to New York City for two dates at the end of June, and that’s more than enough reason to start booking the city hotel now.

Seeing him play in New York is a very different thing than seeing him anywhere else. The jokes are terribly, terrifically funny in Houston, Phoenix, and Los Angeles, but there are references to the city that only speak to the ones who live here. And the exaggerated bravado, and testosterone-heavy rants, seem to be echoing a sensibility of the east coast while they are also mocking it. That’s one of the most appealing things about this great mind, that he can skirt that line between inhabiting a role and simultaneously pointing out its hypocrisy.

That’s a line that few actors are able to walk, and in the lineage of stand-up comics, the list is even smaller. Sometimes Lenny Bruce could do it, and Moms Mabley may have invented it, but right now Denis Leary is living in it, and we get to enjoy the ride with him.

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