Lewis Black is Back and He Wants Your Rant
Lewis Black fans rejoice. The ever-disgruntled standup comedian, whose signature
yell and keen sense of irony made him a Daily Show staple, is returning to
Binghamton for his The Joke’s On Us tour. And he wants our help! After each show, Mr. Black reads rants that have been submitted by his fans, which are livestreamed and available for later viewing on his website. And, as he made very clear, he prefers to read rants written by locals wherever he’s touring. Dear reader, now is your chance to have your gripes screamed onstage by the best in the business. But before you grab your notebook, learn from the master ranter himself, Lewis Black:
TRIPLE CITIES CAROUSEL: A couple of years ago, you were interviewed by my editor. A lot has changed since you last spoke with Carousel. We had a different president, and you had said that if Trump were to win, it would be a best-case scenario for comics.
LEWIS BLACK: Did I say that? In terms of what the choices were, yes. That’s just a given, but that doesn’t mean in reality that that’s the best thing. And also, what I truly didn’t realize is the level that he would satirize himself. That was something I didn’t expect. About a year ago, by the time I did my Comedy Central special on Broadway, I basically said that we were living on the intersection of reality and satire. I’ve updated my analysis—my comedy analysis—of the situation.
TCC: You mentioned that you felt that we are living in times that are like fiction.
LB: They are fictional times. If you read the newspaper this morning and look at it as a piece of fiction, it’s funny and interesting. As reality, it’s frightening.
TCC: What I found really interesting was that on your TV show Root of All Evil, you pitted Donald Trump against Viagra in 2008, and the polls voted for Viagra. But comedian Andy Kindler won you over with his argument that Trump was the root of all evil, and he even made a prediction that the world would explode due to him. What’s it like to reflect on that now?
LB: We did that, and then we did the thing on the Daily Show, a segment, in which we said that Trump should run in 2012 because America needed a third-world dictator. You think you’re doing satire, and you don’t realize that it’s… you think it’s satire. You think it’s partly impossible. It’s possible, but not really. That’s what makes it funny. Satire pushes reality to the edge, but you don’t think it’s going to fall of the cliff with you. I love Andy Kindler, and he’s one of my favorite comedians in the world, and I loved working on that show, but I never would’ve expected him to be Nostradamus.
TCC: The world seems to be, in some ways, spinning out of control, and as an artist it’s your job to hold a mirror up to society. At this point, do you hope to affect change, or have you reached a point of acceptance—or would that destroy your aesthetic? How does this effect you as an artist?
LB: It’s affecting me as an artist because it’s been difficult to find a topper to this stuff. How do you top it? To me, my comedy is dark enough, and to have the president calling Africa, African countries, Africa itself, you know, shitholes—that’s satiric enough. Because if you repeat some of what he says to the audience, they laugh, because it’s already a joke, but then how would you top it? The only way to top it is to say, ‘What if he was to do it the weekend before Martin Luther King Day?’ That’s the reality. It’s difficult to satirize what’s already satiric.
So, I’m talking about other things. I’m talking about mental illness—which, I think, he’s not helping any, he’s exacerbating—it’s an anxiety that’s being created among many people. And then, you talk a bit about the tax thing that nobody knows anything about. Nobody, nobody does. Even the people who passed the tax bill don’t know. They do their talking points and their little pieces. I know that something’s wrong with the tax bill. I know it because it helps me, and if it helps me, that’s kind of stupid, because I don’t need help. People already helped me out; the country’s already helped me out. The idea is for a tax bill to help those in the country who need help, not that somehow, those who’ve already gotten the help by then, by getting more help, will help others. It’s absurd. It’s just the dumbest. You know, the trickle-down theory, that kind of thing? You know, the idea that, eventually, if you drank a lot of beer and you peed in your pants, and then put a cup at the bottom of your pantleg, all of the beer—at least 70% of the beer would trickle down your pant leg? That’s absurd.
So, I talk about that kind of stuff. And I was hospitalized in Ireland, which means I actually dealt with socialized medicine, so I talk about that—or what they call socialized medicine. They like to call it socialized medicine, because socialism is such a horrible word now. And then I talk about guns. I found some articles to read that are just better than me commenting on what’s wrong, in terms of the gun laws in this country, because there’s folks in the audience who believe that we’re on the right path. People can’t have enough guns and think all these laws are great. I found a couple of articles, that basically are reality, [to tell them] so here’s what makes your ideas kind of nutty.
TCC: So you have people coming to your shows who have political beliefs different from your own?
LB: Oh, sure. I have people who have been coming to my shows who voted for Trump. I mean, a lot of people voted for Trump, and of those people, a lot of them voted for Trump because they didn’t want Hillary, not because they wanted him. Then I have people who really wanted Trump who come to my shows, and they’re people who obviously gravitate toward me because they’re angry. So, they show up, and then when I yell about Trump, they get really crazy, and I have to tell them, “You can’t pull this nonsense, because I already yelled about all the other people. Don’t tell me this is the one that gets off. Fuck you, idiots!
TCC: That’s great that you have that opportunity, that those people are paying to hear you speak. If anything, that’s even better than people of the same mindset as you, because you’re not preaching to the choir.
LB: What I used to do was tell the audience that I was going to be mean, and I was going to be talking about Trump, and that if he was their be-all and end-all and they couldn’t live without him, that they could leave the room and get their money back. I really wasn’t there to upset them, and I’m not. And there’ll be comics who do that, who like to push people out of the room; I have no interest in that.
TCC: You just want to make people see things the way you’re seeing them?
LB: No, I just want to make ‘em laugh. I don’t give a shit what they see. Really. If you point at stuff…
TCC: Your stage persona is really distinct and strong. Is it something you cultivated, or are your just putting yourself on stage?
LB: It’s basically something I cultivated; I’ve been like that—if certain buttons are pushed, I’ll go nuts—but, mostly, it’s me taking myself… it’s really over-the-top me. If I was like that all the time I’d be dead.
TCC: You studied acting. Was this persona something you developed then, or during your standup career?
LB: It was a part of my persona; you know, I stumbled on it with a friend of mine, another comic, who said, “You know, you’re angry, and you ought to be yelling when you’re on stage.” And then I realized, when I was yelling onstage, that’s when I’m funny. I’m funny when I’m angry. I’ve always been funny when I’m angry. It took a long time to realize that.
TCC: So, on this tour, you’re really honoring your fans: you’re having people submit things for you to rant about, yes?
LB: No, honestly, what I’m having them do is write the rants. And they’re getting better and better. And they write about things that I don’t know anything about, like menopause.
TCC: Is that part of why you decided to do it, because you wanted to address things outside of your personal experience?
LB: I wanted them to rant, you know? In a sense, I was reading a TV show, and since I couldn’t get it on television, it was a matter of getting writers to write. And that’s what I’ve been trying to do: get people who actually weren’t writers, just people with a beef who work in offices or deal with insurance problems, or were in the navy and had problems, or the army and had problems. I don’t – what am I, supposed to make up stuff? You really want me to make up shit? ‘Why should I listen to other people?’ Well, then don’t! But you watch TV shows that are written by writers, you fucking moron! And it’s free! So, shut the fuck up!
TCC: You mean the livestreaming is free?
LB: Yeah.
TCC: Do you have a favorite rant that was submitted?
LB: There’s a bunch of them. Four of them were about pickles—all different types, and those were all good. The best was one that was actually left by a Mormon; he left the Mormon church. It was the day [after] Mormons made some other pronouncement about gays […] It’s a remarkable document. It was the first real breakthrough, Now there’s about two or three people who write regularly, and the writing’s gotten better and better. I get six a day! It seems every time I do a show that they’re well written, well thought-out.
TCC: Are there any topics that you are hoping for people to broach?
LB: People have been writing about everything. The only thing that I really wish for—you know, I’m coming to Binghamton—the only thing I keep telling people is, I’m coming to your town, you know there’s something in your town that pisses you off, write about it!
TCC: So, you’re taking local writings depending on where you are on your tour?
LB: That’s what I’m trying to do. If they don’t send them in to me, fuck it, then I’ll read something else.
TCC: So when you’re in Binghamton, if you get something from Binghamton, that’s what you’ll read over something from somewhere else?
LB: If it’s well-written, and smart, and funny—yeah.
TCC: I’m going to take this in a different direction now, having to do with some recent events, about people coming out with sexual misconduct allegations, but specifically, about what’s happened with your fellow comics, and former comics. Has this affected the way that you do your work?
LB: No, I don’t talk about it. It’s not what I talked about before. I’m just going to start talking about it? I don’t talk about sex. You know, the only time I talked about sex was when he got the blowjobs, old Bill Clinton. It’s not my thing. I talk about it a little in the rant stuff.
TCC: How has it affected the community of comics?
LB: I don’t really know … you know it’s weird, there are some women who are reacting stronger about it—saying, enough’s enough—than men that I know. And it’s not just women who are comics—women I know. I don’t want to get into it, because you put this stuff out in print, and then people respond to it, said somebody said something. Fuck ‘em. People don’t really like discussing it, because it creates kind of a maelstrom, as if I’m some fucking expert talking about this shit. I do know that I work in the entertainment industry—does it surprise anybody? I’ve said it for 30 years: it’s the largest outpatient clinic in the world. That’s who works in the entertainment industry: people who are not really mentally stable. I consider myself somewhat stable, and there are a lot of people who are stable, but a lot of the people I deal with in positions of power are out of their fucking minds.
And it’s the only profession, in many ways, in which people fail upwards. They do a shitty job in the position that they’re in, and then they get put in a better position. They were just a shitty development person, now they’re a shitty vice-president. That’s the business I’ve been in. That’s why, if you spend too much time in Los Angeles, you get tired of it. It’s a lot of lunches.
TCC: I don’t really know where to go from here, to be honest—part of my motivation was that I’m mourning the loss of certain entertainers who have fallen off the map due to recent allegations.
LB: If it’s Louis C.K. we’re talking about, you kinda go, ‘wow.’ [Some people think] it was rumors. I knew people who had problems with him, but he was fine by me.
TCC: When is it okay to separate the person from their art?
LB: I don’t really know. It’s something that I really don’t think about. There’s so much, to me, that’s occurring. I think that what’s happening up top is horrifying on so many levels, that somehow [those in power have become] the role models for kids, is beyond my comprehension. That, to me, is really horrifying. So, it’s hard for me to focus on questions of aesthetics. The question I really have is, who raised some of these people? Were they raised by wolves? I don’t think it’s a power question. Just to not know that you’re not supposed to go, “Hey, would you like to see my penis?” –that that’s not on the table. I don’t care what position of power you’re in, who the fuck raised you that that question would enter your head? That, to me, is the deeper issue. Who was raising these people? They keep talking about the power end, and I’m not sure if that’s as deep as the other end of it. But who raised you, that that would be acceptable behavior? I don’t think the power position is as important as the fact that a part of your brain was missing.
TCC: Is there anything you want to add?
LB: I’ll be funnier by the time I get to Binghamton. I’ll be funnier than I am in this article. I look forward to coming to Binghamton, and I’m lucky: I get to go on stage and get rid of some of this. And it beats the shit out of Poughkeepsie.
Lewis Black’s The Joke’s On Us tour will be stopping at the Broome County Forum Theatre (236 Washington Street in Binghamton) on Friday, February 23 at 8pm. For tickets, or to submit your rant (click “Live Lewis”), visit lewisblack.com.
