Lewis: The New Black

By Matthias Zidarich
Contributing Writer

Within the confines of this interview, the reader can catch but a glimpse of Lewis Black’s comedic genius. For the full effect one must give him either a stage to play on or an empty book in which to write, and the results never disappoint. Lewis has gone, in the past ten years, from a position of obscurity to an internationally recognized name and one of the brightest stars on the comedy horizon. What you can sample here is the demeanor Lewis Black is famous for and the unending stream of snark which characterizes his comedy, a brief glimpse of his politics and beliefs, and where he stands on current events.

Soak the Rich

High Plains Reader:  Now Lewis, I don’t think anyone would describe you as a “happy person”. How would you describe yourself, and the role you play in society?

Lewis Black: Eh? the role I play in society? I don’t really know what the role I play is, I mean hopefully I make people laugh! But, um, I think I’m optimistic! I do, I don’t think I would get this upset if I didn’t really believe it couldn’t be better.

HPR: This is true, I know you certainly make me laugh.

LB: No I’m pretty sure it could be a lot better- that’s the reason I’m angry.  And I’ve seen it be better in my life.  You know, I just kinda find it amazing- it was better when I was a kid.

Interviewer: Yeah?

Lewis: There were places, you know, during the summer it wasn’t like “what camp do we send…” you know down the street there was a place that we could go from 9 to 5, and it wasn’t set up so mothers could go to work, it was set up so that we had a place to go and we wouldn’t lose our minds- run by the county!

Interviewer: What would you change right now to get back to that time?

Lewis: I’d tax people!  But don’t say that too loud!  I would tax rich people!  I think it’s absurd.

Interviewer: Well I think everyone would like to see that happen!

Lewis: Well it’s unbelievable, the argument is bogus!  Enough is enough.  The argument is: well, You know they already pay more than everybody, and they already do more this than everybody…  Well the fact is that they now make more than they used to too!  So, stop it!  You know, the interesting thing about taxing people is after you tax them, they’re still rich!  I mean you have to start somewhere, I don’t say you tax the middle class, and you can’t at this point because they almost don’t exist, and you can’t tax poor people, and you can’t say “Gee these poor people are taking stuff away…”, because there are people who work their whole lives, who are now poor.  All of your arguments are done, they’re finished.  It’s not worth the time and the energy having the discussion.  There will always be people in society who are not going to do their fair share, but that group of people is minimal compared to the people who deserve a break.  And enough is enough!  I am tired of the nonsense.  And the reason I can talk about this is because I’m rich!  I know I’m not being taxed enough!

Interviewer: So you would pay more taxes to help fix the-

Lewis: YES!  And I don’t care if the problem becomes “Well what are we going to do to the…(incoherent noises)”  I don’t care!  I DON’T CARE!  At one point you gave it to Red Cross, or to a number of charities, and you find out that 85% of what you give goes to the people who run the charity.  So don’t talk to me about government- I worked for the government.  People who work for the government- some of them are good and some of them are bad.  Don’t tell me business can do a better job when I’m watching oil belch into the gulf!  DON’T!  It’s all about competence, you idiot!  You can call it government, you can call it business- if the people are incompetent, THAT’S the problem!

Rhyme or Reason

Interviewer:  To the casual observer your act may, at times, seem to be a stream of consciousness, or more appropriately an unending cascade of anger.  Is there, in fact, a rhyme or reason to your act?

Lewis:  The rhyme or reason is really, in the end, to get people to laugh, I mean that’s really what I’m looking to do.  The character grew out of the fact that I realized that people found that character that I portray funny.

Interviewer: The Twitching Madman?

Lewis:  Exactly, and that the twitching madman is upset really by both sides… constantly.  Both sides are irritating him.
Interviewer: I appreciate that a lot about you!

Lewis:  If there is a rhyme or reason to it, that’s probably it.

Homework

Interviewer:  Your act requires a LOT of research!  Where do you get the news you use in your show?

Lewis:  I get it off of CNN, and sites that I stumble onto, my mother sends me clippings, the New York Times,  the New York Post, This Week, friends of mine who go “you should read this”,  The New York Times, they can scream about it all they want, the New York Times Op Ed page.  And once again, you know scream all you want, what’s really great thing about their op ed page as a comic is that, you may not like their opinions, but the fact is that a lot of the times I can find the facts that I need there so that I can actually think about stuff.

Interviewer:  You said that this is one of the hardest times for you, as a comedian, just because there is so much stuff that you want to make funny.  How much of that stuff that you see, do you actually then go and work into your act?

Lewis:  Probably about a third of it.  I mean I’ve got these notes all over the place.  But when I’m doing my act… I don’t write my act, I kind of do it on stage and keep it in my head.  So a lot of the times I’ll put something new- it can’t be a lot ‘cause I’ll forget stuff.  But I was thinking, I get these little bits and pieces and then eventually they coalesce into something.  It’s just tough- there’s so much stuff!  And certain things coalesce around a theme, so it becomes easier to talk about it, you know they may all have to do with the same problem.

Interviewer: You kind of hold a list in your head of what you want to talk about and work off that?

Lewis: Yeah, I mean I think that during the entire argument over health care- which was an argument that really left me feeling at the end that what I needed was to go into a hospital and be treated-  was that if, over that eight months, if we had actually taken the time- the argument was a waste of time.  The Democrats said they had something for us, and they couldn’t say what it was, the Republicans said we were going to lose something, they couldn’t explain what it was…  And I read EVERYTHING that I could, that I thought that an alternative that would have been nice, is that we would have spent an hour a day exercising.  That would have actually accomplished more.

Interviewer:  Government mandated exercise hour!

Lewis:  Yeah, and not even government mandated, just shut up, and exercise!  You’re worried about what they’re going to do to you in the hospital… exercise idiot!  And if they’re gonna kill the elderly, you would be able to run faster when you’re elder!

Interviewer:  Sort of a “running of the bulls” sort of thing?

Lewis:  Yeah!

Influences

Interviewer:  If one looked at your particular brand of comedy as a recipe, which comedians would be the ingredients?

Lewis:  You mean like other comics that I’ve liked… or?

Interviewer:  Yeah, well like Kathleen Madigan or George Carlin?

Lewis:  Madigan and Carlin, and Leni Bruce, and Richard Pryor, and Bob Newhart, and Greg Giraldo, and a guy named Dom Irrera,  all the guys who were on my TV Show- The Root of All Evil,  I could go on forever… Shelly Berman, Lily Tomlin, Laughin.

Interviewer:  I think you’re leaving someone out though- your mother!

Lewis:  My mother, yes!  My mother and father!

Self-Censorship

Interviewer:  You display a remarkable lack of self-censorship on stage- are there any topics you won’t discuss, any language you won’t use?

Lewis:  Uh…. abortion.  I talk about it now a little, but I talk about the fact that it’s impossible to come up with a joke for it.  I mean that’s something I won’t joke about, because it’s not worth the energy.  But I found a way to kind of come at it that I think calms both sides down long enough so that you can actually say something.  But people bring so much to the table over that issue, and they have since I was a kid.

Interviewer:  They have since abortion was invented.

Lewis:  Yeah, what’s amazing is that word is more powerful than the F-word.  The F-word, compared to that word, in terms of what it does- you say that word in front of an audience and you can feel them tighten up.  The F-Word is like a festival in comparison.

Interviewer:  Well the F-Word seems to create a catharsis for your audience at times, it serves to release emotions.

Lewis:  Yeah, and the other word just kinda bundles everybody up and they get lactic acid in their muscles.

Interviewer:  It acts as a screwdriver, and makes everything tighter

Interviewer:  Conversely are there any topics you absolutely love to discuss?  I think we all know what word you love to use!

Lewis:  Yeah that’s my favorite word, because it get’s rid of a lot.  But I’ll be honest I’ve had certain bits, from the time that I’ve started, on every CD or special that I’ve done that have been hard things to let go of, and they have nothing thematically do to with each other that I know of I’ve never really thought about it, but now I do a thing, that I may or may not do in Fargo, I’m trying to let go of it, about opening for Vince Gill and about how I went from being, ten years ago not well known at all, and now I’m considered a main stream comedian, and when Vince Gill opens for you it doesn’t get any more main stream than that.  We were in a line up of people- and when I get a really great story that I like to tell that’s really more so than topics.  So when Janet Jackson had that malfunction, that sent me to heaven because I was ten feet away from the TV set and I couldn’t see it, I never saw her breast and I just went “really?”  I could go on and on about it.  The first one that I ever did, “If it weren’t for my horse…”,  that was hard to let go was a piece that I talked about being in Los Angeles and how some one behind me said the following: “If it weren’t for my horse I wouldn’t have spent that year in college…”

Interviewer:  I was actually going to mention that one.

Lewis:  Yeah and that one was one I couldn’t let go of.  The Starbucks routine I couldn’t let go of…

Interviewer:  The end of the universe being between two adjacent Starbucks?

Lewis:  And the Dick Cheney stuff where I talked about doing the Congressional Correspondence dinner.
Interviewer: Well who could let go of that?

Current Projects

Interviewer:  Over the years you have gotten quite famous as a comedian, as a playwright, and recently as an author.  Will you continue to write, and if so- what about?
Lewis:  I have a new book, I just finished a book, another one called I’m Dreaming of a Black Christmas and that comes out November 2nd.
Interviewer:  Well I’ll definitely have to buy it! And I’m kind of pleased with it, which means it probably sucks.  It’s about how somebody who doesn’t have really a family that celebrates Christmas, or a family, what Christmas is like for me.  So it’s a lot of digression, so where somebody with a family is wrapped up in Christmas, all of those symbols mean something else to me.

Interviewer:  You said it was a bit like Santa taunting you, something like “See what I do for the Christians Jew-boy!”

Lewis:  Yes!  (Laughs)

Interviewer:  Now you have a DVD coming out soon- tell us about it!

Lewis:  Yeah the DVD comes out June 15th and the bit about Vince Gill is in that, and the rest of it is… none of the stuff that’s in that DVD really remain in the act that I’m going to be doing in Fargo.  It’s last years tour pretty much.  It’s 80 minutes of stand up.

Interviewer:  Is that the “Let Them Eat Cake” bit?

Lewis:  Yeah it would have been called “Let Them Eat Cake” but we called it “Stark Raving Black”, and it’s actually shot as a film.  And then also in that, in the DVD, is about a 70 minute documentary about how I went from Theater to Comedy.

Interviewer:  Well that will be interesting to watch.

TV Show

Interviewer:  Your show, The Root of All Evil, was… well less than successful.  Do you intend to continue to pursue a career in television?
Lewis:  Well yeah I mean, as much as they let me.  I come to the door and they go “come on come on” and they slam the door on my fingers.  I’ll keep trying, this last go around was- David Kelly had written a pilot for me, but NBC really wanted a star so that was so much for that.

Interviewer:  They cast a better you than you, right?

Lewis:  Yeah they went way outside of me- they cast a female.  But they wanted a star so it didn’t matter.  ‘Cause I was the center of the show, and that’s the way they think, that somehow I would do anything to destroy NBC?  That I’m going to do anything to hurt NBC?  How could I make it worse?

You Can’t Go Home Again

Interviewer:  To begin this question I have a quote from you: “In my lifetime, we’ve gone from Eisenhower to George W. Bush. We’ve gone from John Kennedy to Albert Gore. Now if that is evolution, I believe that in about 12 years, we’re gonna be voting for plants.”  You have witnessed an enormous revolution in politics.  What are your thoughts on the state of American politics today, and do you think there’s any going back to the way they were before?

Lewis:  Well there’s no going back, even they’re going to try and go back.  You know there really seems to be an interest that, somehow, we should be living in 1956 again.  And then today I was reading that there’s a big interest by some states that want to revoke the 17th amendment, which would mean that you wouldn’t vote for senators any more, they would be picked by the state legislature the way they used to be.  I just think that we have devolved in the sense of we can’t figure out- to me it’s always been quite simple.  To be born in raised in a time period where Democrats and Republicans worked together- that’s the deal.  It’s not “oh boy this is the end of the universe!”  No, the republican reaction to what is going on is as if it’s some sort of crazed socialist conspiracy is politically insane.  It really is just insane.  You just have to work with people, okay?  And in the case of the democrats I don’t think they really made the attempt to work with the republicans, I think both sides are as much to blame in this.
Conservative Radio Celebrities

Interviewer:  On one of your Back in Black segments you went on a spectacular tirade against Glen Beck. Are there any people who share Mr. Beck’s beliefs to whom you’d like to give similar treatment?

Lewis:  I mean I’d like to do it with Sean Hannity, but the show kind of clubs him on a regular basis.  But he’s another one that’s just like, “really?  You’re gonna take that fact and twist it to mean this?”  It’s when they’re taking facts and turning them into something else, and taking a fact that is there in front of you, and in black and white, and saying “No, this is what the fact really means…”  No, that’s the fact, the fact means in and of itself, it is not what it really means.

Interviewer:  It’s one of those fact facts.
Lewis:  Yeah, no he drives me a little crazy for sure. And Bill O’reiley, when you put Bill O’reiley up against Hannity and Beck, Bill O’Reiley starts to look like a sane person.  Limbaugh is another one that is just beyond belief, the republicans respond to him like people used to respond to McCarthy, and what I find amazing is that there are 8 million people who listen to him.  There are 300 million people in the country, come on!  Hello!

Interviewer:  What do you think of the Westboro Baptist Church, the people who picket soldier’s funerals?

Lewis:  Oh I think that’s, especially since I’ve been over to do two USO tours, beyond belief. I’s the activity of the clinically insane.  These are people protecting you, what are you doing? Especially if there are so many other ways you can use your energy, you don’t do that to the people who sacrifice the most in the country, at a funeral.

Interviewer:  And there are other venues they could do that at too.

Lewis:  Yeah, it shows a complete lack of, on the simplest level, etiquette.
President Obama

Interviewer:  You expressed concerns about President Obama’s credentials prior to his election. How do you think he’s done given his lack of experience?

Lewis:  I think his contribution is threefold.  1: Whether people like it or not, or whether people think we need the rest of the world or not, the rest of the world- we freaked them out when we told them to go screw themselves and we were going to attack Iraq, whether they liked it or not, and I think that he helped, in a rather rapid fashion, and just by his presence, not by anything that he did, and by the fact that he was voted in, changed the way the world looked at us. Massively.  2: The family that he has seems to be a real family, and I think it’s a great model for people.  If you watch them there seems to be genuine love, I think that’s really important.  And finally: he speaks in paragraphs and that’s exciting.  Now, whether all of that amounts to great leadership I don’t know, but in terms of what we have in terms of what we have as leadership in my lifetime, it’s as good as we’ve had on any level.  In terms of the first two years in office, I think when you go from somebody who couldn’t speak in a paragraph to somebody who get’s what a paragraph is, it’s really important. It’s as important as what bills are passed.  It’s important, not for us older people, but for younger people it’s important to hear someone who speaks in paragraphs and tries to explain something.

Interviewer:  I think it’s definitely refreshing to have a president open his mouth, and we actually know what he’s trying to say.

Lewis:  Exactly.

North Dakota

Interviewer:  And to conclude; During your stand up routine Rules of Enragement you described, in loving detail, the madness you felt was required to settle a place like Minnesota. What are your thoughts on North Dakota?

Lewis:  Wow, I don’t even know if I’ve been there!  I’ve been trying to work there for years, you know I’ve worked Idaho, and Montana, and Wyoming even, so this was really the opportunity to study just how insane you people are.

Interviewer:  Well it is a little warmer here now, at least.  It get’s to be -40° where I live at times.

Lewis:  -40?!?  That’s not temperature, that’s an emergency condition.  I don’t know how you guys made it out there!

Interviewer:  Hot chocolate.

Lewis:  (Laughs)

Interviewer:  Is there anything else you’d like to say to the people here in Fargo?

Lewis:  In Fargo I’d just like to say, I’m thrilled to finally be coming there, and to see what you folks are up to, and I look forward to spending time there, and I hope it’s pretty, because there’s gotta be a reason you’re out there.

Interviewer:  Oh, it actually is right now.

Lewis:  Well that’s what I was hopin’ ‘cause I’m coming out there in the tour bus.

Interviewer:  It’s actually green, and not it’s usual shade of February gray.

Lewis:  Well good!

For a more full impression of Lewis Black one can refer to his books, Nothing’s Sacred, and Me of Little Faith, or to his plethora of DVDs and online interviews.For a chance to see Lewis locally, come to the Fargo Theater on June 26th, tickets cost $47.

[Matthias Zidarich, a Language Arts Student at Concordia College, writes a comedy blog, which can be found at ]http://comedieparexcellence.blogspot.com/]

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If You Go

What: Lewis Black
When: Sat, June 26
Where: Fargo Theatre
Info: 239-8385