THE RANT IS DUE: AN INTERVIEW WITH LEWIS BLACK

They say that if you’re not angry, you must not be paying attention.

Lewis Black has been paying attention for years, and he’s angry as hell. The legendary comedian, playwright, and social commentator has made a career out of rage. His standup delivery is patently exasperated, notable for tirades that bring the 67 year old to levels nearing spontaneous combustion. This trademark style has earned Black a slew of specials on HBO and Comedy Central, two Grammy awards for “Best Comedy Album,” a gig as the longest running commentator of The Daily Show (“when a news story falls through the cracks, Lewis Black catches it for a segment we call ‘Back in Black’”), and steady work in Hollywood (most recently, as the voice of “Anger” in Pixar’s Inside Out).

Carousel spoke to Black recently in anticipation of his December 4th show at Binghamton’s Forum Theatre. On the phone and off the stage, he is soft spoken, though his disgust for the state of world affairs is evident still: *** TCC: What’d you do for Thanksgiving? Are you down in the city?

LB: No, I get out of the country, I have for the last, like 15 years. I just leave the country because it makes Christmas shorter. There isn’t a worse few days. Thanksgiving doesn’t exist. It’s like Christmas halftime.

TCC: I’ve seen Christmas decorations in the stores up here since August.

LB: Right. Thanksgiving is like we’re halfway through it. It’s like the third stage of a rocket launch. When the satellite goes into orbit. It’s crazy. It’s too crazy. It just becomes insane after a while. And then they talk about ‘there’s a war on Christmas.’ What planet are you living on? A war!

TCC: I suppose you don’t do any Black Friday shopping overseas?

LB: I don’t do anything. I get the hell out of here to get away from it and take a break. I discovered I wasn’t taking time off, and this is a good time to get out of here.

TCC: You’re a touring comedian, a political commentator- You’re all over the place. Is it important to separate from that?

LB: I don’t get away enough. I do find you’ve got to get away. Especially as of late- it’s insane. We’re living in, like, fictional times. It’s not the end of times. This is fiction. We passed from reality into fiction. And the response of these fucking idiots to what’s going on- the response of the people who say they want to lead. Their response is crazy. They act like they know how to deal with stuff. One thing we’ve proven for quite a long time is that we don’t understand the Middle East. We don’t know what to do there. We don’t get it. As much as I fear ISIS, I fear our leadership’s inability to deal with ISIS. Not only ours, but the whole world’s. It’s like they woke up a month ago saying ‘oh boy there’s a bunch of people leaving Syria.’ Really? It took a million of them? 100,000 of them wasn’t a tip off? The fact that Syria’s been levelled wasn’t a tip off? It’s unbelievable.

TCC: Do you feel like we’re witnessing the start of World War Three?

LB: No, we’re not that lucky. No I don’t. All of these people have too much invested. There’ll be skirmishes and stupidity, but I don’t think it’ll be a world war. Nobody wants to line up with anybody. They can’t even line up against their common enemy.

TCC: How do you feel about the social media reaction to the attacks in Paris- the French flag profile pictures and all?

LB: I do social media but I don’t pay much attention. It’s another vote of madness. We live outside of a frame, okay? The life that you have in the frame, okay, but the bigger life is outside the frame. I don’t give a fuck if the frame is on your phone or your computer or your goddamn iPad. It’s a frame. It’s ridiculous. And then the kind of spewing of nonsense that comes out! Then if you try to say a joke on it, they don’t get the joke. They tell me social media unites the world, but as much as it unites it, it divides it. The people who get it… basically the millennials to the five year olds get it. Donald Trump doesn’t have any clue what those mediums are about. It’s all numbers, and the whole thing is- we’re in a timeframe where you can get all of the knowledge that man has. Except facts. Because of the nature of Facebook and the rest of it- we can just make up facts.

TCC: We’ve got more power in our pocket than what sent people to the moon and yet we use it for porn and political memes.

LB: Yeah. And the other thing is, if I put out a picture- a joke of mine and some goofy picture- that’ll get a gazillion hits. If I actually say something like ‘here’s something to watch’ – there’s a thing that’s out right now, a show called Mentors. It’s on my website. If I ask people to watch- I helped produce it, and create it, and I wrote some of it. I’m in one episode of the six… that doesn’t get the response. I can’t get people to watch. ‘We don’t see enough on The Daily Show,’ they say. So then you give them something to watch but get one fifth of the hits.

TCC: Can you tell me a bit about the concept behind “Mentors”?

LB: It’s a comic view of mentoring in the arts and entertainment. So each episode is a different story. It’s a group of really fine actors that most people don’t know because they work in New York. A lot of them do theatre and have been doing theatre forever. A number of them have done movies. We’ll see if we can find an audience for it. It seems to be hard- if it was a mentoring program featuring giant rats, it might work.

TCC: Speaking of giant rats: Donald Trump. If he wins the Republican nomination, is that the best or worst case scenario?

LB: It’s the best case for a comic, but it’s the worst case I’ve ever heard of. Outside of when Wallace was running for President when I was a kid. We can talk about it all you want, but he’s a hate-monger. And he’s never met a fact he likes. And he seems to believe that if he says something, it’s true.

TCC: Why do you think he’s getting so much support?

LB: I don’t think he’s getting that much support. I think he’s getting one quarter of the Republican Party, of the people who are vaguely interested in the nominating process. So 60% of the American people vote, so you’ve got, let’s just say 30% Republican, 30% Democrat. Let’s just say. He’s getting a quarter of 30% There’s sixteen people running- that helps him. And the fact that the TV loves him. TV news loves him… What it really shows is something that’s been around for quite a bit of time, and it continues to be- in that both parties don’t pay attention to the only purpose it serves, which is to show how far most of the people in the country are disenfranchised. You might has well have sealed off a portion of the country, hermetically sealed. ‘You know what? You’re not going to have any effect in your lifetime on what happens to you and how you’re governed. So they come up with a shmuck who just barks like a dog and they go ‘well, this is great.’

TCC: You’ve come out as a Bernie Sanders supporter. Do you think he’s got a chance of winning the nomination? The election?

LB: I have as much of a chance, and I’m not on the ballot. I think it’s tough. I think saying you’re a Socialist is not going to make it easy. I think saying what he says, and the repetition of it is really important. The Democrats don’t seem to be able to push that agenda, you know? What he really continues to do is go ‘look, here are the facts- this and this and this and this- don’t you think we should do something about it?’ And to me that’s the really important purpose that he serves. But once you take what he’s saying and put it together with ‘hey, I’m a Socialist,’ no matter what he says, people in the country have been taught that ‘Socialist’ is a dirtier word than ‘cocksucker.’

TCC: Remnants of McCarthyism or just ‘the American Dream?’

LB: No McCarthyism- a little bit’s there but the push has been on that for years, even since I was a child. So the push continues. It used to be, there was a romantic quality to robbing from the rich and giving to the poor, you know? Now they just use ‘you’re robbing from the rich and you shouldn’t do that.’

TCC: Rob from the poor instead?

LB: Rob from the poor, make sure that these people don’t have a pot to piss in, and make sure they don’t ever have a pot to piss in. They’re worried about the 5% of the American people who don’t do anything. They haven’t figured out that that’s the number. And they exist everywhere, and you’re not going to change that. You’re not going to inspire these people to go to work- that’s not the way it works. Some of these people- I’m not even including the mentally ill- there’s 5% of people who ‘oh, fuck it, I don’t feel like doing shit.’ Everybody’s got a cousin who doesn’t. So what’s the big shock? We act as if there’s bazillions and zillions of those people, but there’s not. It’s one thing to whack at that 5%, but they’re not. They whack the 15% above that who are actually looking for work and need real help. They will do stuff. It’s absurd. And it’s about as un-Christian as it gets. I don’t give a shit, figure it out. ‘If we give these people handouts then they’re not going to do shit.’ Alright, then figure out another way to do it. But figure it out. But don’t tell me that somehow their motivation is undermined. They’re motivation is undermined because there’s nothing the fuck for them to do. We as a society- capitalism functions best, I gather, at 4.5% unemployment. Well if that’s how it functions, then figure out how to help that 4.5% Send them to school or something… This should be funnier. Like this is the type of shit that gets people to pour into a theatre. ‘I can’t wait to hear him bitch about this.’

TCC: So, The Daily Show. With Trevor Noah having taken the place of Jon Stewart- is it still The Daily Show?

LB: Yeah, I think so. I think that there’s been some really good hires. A lot of the new reporters and correspondents are excellent. It’s a matter of time for it to find itself. You follow something that was so revolutionary, you get excited for the guy coming in, you know? It’s tough enough following Derek Jeter, let alone Jon Stewart.

TCC: Your Binghamton show is the second to last show on your Rant is Due tour. What are you doing in December?

LB: I’ll be working. I’ll be wrapping gifts and sending out good cheer. I’ll be working on the next tour, the next special.

TCC: Lewis, thanks for talking. Happy Chanukah!

LB: And a Happy Cha-nu-kah to you. I hope I didn’t depress you.

*** Lewis Black takes the stage at Binghamton’s Forum Theatre at 8pm on Friday, December 4th, the penultimate show of his ‘Rant is Due Part Deux’ tour. Tickets range from $40-$50, and are available through Ticketmaster and at the Forum Theatre Box Office. For more info on Lewis Black, including links to his new web series “Mentors,” check out lewisblack.com.

(Photo by Clay McBride)