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Comedian Lewis Black is often billed as "America's Foremost Commentator on Everything", a good description, but perhaps more specifically should be worded "America's Foremost Commentator on Stupidity" the root evil behind almost every subject he touches onstage. Nothing is safe: Republicans, Democrats, the Weather Channel, all are skewered mercilessly with Black's trademark exasperated, verge-of-a-heart-attack brilliance.

Promoting his new CD, Rules of Enragement, and DVD, Lewis Black: Unleashed,

Lewis called me on a break from his tour with fellow Comedy Central-fixture Dave Attell:

Keith Daniels: So you've just returned from the tour with Dave Attell?

Lewis Black: Yeah, and then we start again Thursday.

KD: Your styles of comedy are very different. He talks a lot about his own misadventures, like you've said you used to do when you were starting, and it's more light-hearted. Have you learned anything from each other?

LB: Yeah, I do. Anybody who's really good you learn something from, and he's terrific.

KD: One of the things I like about your work is that a lot of comics who work with anger seem like assholes, but you do it in such a way that we have sympathy for you.

LB: [laughs] Yeah, well I always do it as if I'm getting put upon.

KD: You talk as if you're going crazy, but you seem like the sanest person in the room.

LB: Yeah.

KD: Where did you pick that up?

LB: It's just years of putting it together, really. There's this fine line between being angry and playing angry, and knowing that you've gone over the top and you've got to go back that you've crossed the line.

KD: You've got a new CD and DVD out. Does it make you nervous to have your material down in a recorded format? Like it puts it in a time-capsule and you can't ever do it again?

LB: Well, it's weird because then people start asking to see it again. They remember it.

KD: Like they're yelling "Freebird" or something.

LB: It is. I mean it. People make requests. "The International House of Pancakes," they can't get enough of that. I've never repeated it. I haven't done it since I put the CD out, but boy they ask for it all the time.

KD: How long does a typical routine last?

LB: Ideally, if all goes well, a bit will last about eight months, and then I'll move on. It seems to be about the time it takes for me to come back [from a tour].

KD: You've said that when you perform overseas, the audience there seems to care more about our politics than we do. Do you still find that to be true?

LB: Yeah, they do. Now it's starting to become a little more equal with what's occurring.

KD: So you think people are becoming more interested here.

LB: I think they are, because I think this was really unbelievable. When does a country go to war and then discuss why they went to war after they went to war?
Nobody does that.

KD: And there was no discussion beforehand, really.

LB: There was no discussion beforehand, and the Democrats should be taken out and put in some sort of camp for a while in order to punish them. They can scream and yell about Bush all they want, but the Democrats really deserve an absolutely equal amount of criticism for the way they acted. It's really despicable.

KD: What's really fascinating is that they've had to call in a general in order to have some backbone. What do you think about Wesley Clark?

LB: Yeah. Well, he's good on CNN. This group of Republicans are like rabid dogs, and you need somebody who can take a punch. It's partly a response to Gore. You need somebody who can handle one quick shot to the head, and Clark can handle that. Those idiots use that stinking trump card -- the fucking Republicans screaming about how good they are at national security. Are you kidding me? So they've got to come up with somebody who at least gives the vague appearance of it, and then I listened to Wesley Clark speak and found it very similar to the first time I heard Mike Tyson speak.

KD: How's that?

LB: Did you ever heard Tyson talk? With that lisp? You think, "Boy, there's a tough guy," and then [in Tyson's voice] "Boy, I really..." Wesley Clark, you expect this macho guy, and it's just... light. He's not a good speaker.

KD: On The End of the Universe you mention that you've met Dick Cheney, but you don't really elaborate on it.

LB: I did an event for Larry King. It was this huge heart fund-raiser, and I was the comedian. They said, "You can go shake hands and get a picture with Dick Cheney." My mother said, "I don't wanna fuckin' be next to Dick Cheney." My father said, "Great!" So we got in a line, and I shook his hand. One of his closest friends is the brother of a friend of mine, so I was just going to say, "Hi. I know...," but he was glazed over. I might as well have been talking to fruit.

KD: Did you get a picture taken with him?

LB: Yeah!

KD: [laughs] Did he actually develop on film?

LB: He developed, but my father looks the best of all of us. It's pretty amazing.

KD: I heard on the news yesterday that Hummers are now tax deductible.

LB: Yeah, and why not? Seriously. You don't know, when we are invaded the people who have em are the people who can save our lives. It's unbelievable. They did that thing with certain SUVs, made em tax deductible. It's some very fucked up law.

KD: You were in Hannah and Her Sisters. Would you have wanted to be in any Woody Allen movie since then?

LB: Bullets Over Broadway is pretty good. There's a couple of them. He's been hit-and-miss.

KD: Have you seen the new one?

LB: Nah. I couldn't believe... who'd he hire for that?

KD: Jason Biggs, I think.

LB: Yeah, you know, I haven't got the energy. Oh man.

KD: I've read that you admire Will Rogers. What do you think the difference is between a comedian and a humorist?

LB: I don't really know what the difference would be. A humorist is like somebody who you might find their stuff on a placemat in a restaurant. The thing with Will Rogers was that he could stand in front of these people and have a really charming way of calling them pricks. He was really good at it. He's great. I think he was one of the very best.

KD: You started out in theater, and then you went into comedy. I read an interview with you where you were asked why comedy is considered a "lower" art, but you really didn't have time to answer it. Have you thought any more about that?

LB: It's always been treated as if there's no craft to it, that somehow we're really this group of drunks who come in with clown shoes on, and can entertain the other drunks. Theater has this history of, most-importantly, a certain quality of elitism that makes it appear to be more than it is. Theater is important, but it's got better P.R., y'know? It's been around longer, and it has more history to it. You don't go get a Master of Fine Arts in comedy. The other thing, too, with theater is that text seems to elevate shit.

KD: That ties into my next question. I don't think I'll surprise you by saying that a lot of your humor is in your delivery; you getting exasperated. Do you think your material would work as well in written form?

LB: I don't know. I've written stuff for people and they go, "It's not really like you." So, I don't know. You'd probably have to have more exclamation points, and attempt to create a different kind of punctuation. [laughs] Have this thing with just a little finger on it, the middle finger comes up.

KD: You talk a lot about music in your act, and you seem to really care about it. You wrote a play called "The Czar of Rock and Roll". What do you listen to?

LB: I listen to pretty much everything but hip-hop, because there are too many words! It's like a conversation. It just never hooked me, but everything else... I listen to bluegrass, southern rock, SevenDust, whatever catches me. It's impossible... I wish I had more time to at least go into Virgin and go from thing to thing listening to shit. Fountains of Wayne, I got. There's one really great cut that they play a lot here. I don't know if you've even heard of the group...

KD: Yeah, I've actually interviewed them.

LB: There's a couple of other really good cuts, but the rest of it I'm not that intrigued with. What's disappointing now is that you're lucky if you can get three cuts out of a CD, and the rest of it is like some sort of Cheez Whiz. Then they go, "Boy, we can't believe these people are stealing shit." Well what the fuck do you want? There's only three cuts, ya fuckin' moron!

KD: Do you think the internet is the way to go now? For example, would you ever release one of your records over the internet?

LB: I would do stuff on the internet. I'm glad people steal my stuff. I'm hoping people record my stuff. If it weren't for the internet... I think one of the things that helped me is that The White Album [ed. his first CD] went onto Napster the day it came out. You can't beat that. For me it was great, because it gave me an audience!

KD: What's important for you is that people come see you live.

LB: Yeah. This is what I find difficult about it... I understand the artist certainly deserves his cut, and there's certainly guys who wrote music who will get fucked when it comes to this kind of thing. The bottom line is that for these adults to pontificate that this is really horrific... [laughs] when I'll be god-damned if ninety-eight percent of those fuckers, when they were young, wouldn't've done the same thing. There isn't one of them who, if given the opportunity to get something for free, wouldn't have taken it. I've got a lot of people who burn my CD, come to my concerts, and buy the CD at my concert. How has it fucked the Dave Matthews Band? Those guys don't even give a shit.

KD: They facilitate some of it, actually.

LB: Yeah! So you've got to wonder what part they're talking about... We'll see.

KD: If I was going to put you in a TV show, it would be something like Welcome Back, Kotter where you were a teacher...

LB: Well that was the last one we were trying to pitch, thank you. We've tried to do one where I was the head of a library. That was something that we've worked on and worked on. It's kind of on and off, but we'll see what happens.

KD: What's going on with that? I don't know anybody who knows who you are that doesn't think you're hilarious.

LB: It's Los Angeles. They don't get it. "He's really angry, nobody's going to like him." They really don't see it. They don't understand it. They think that it's too much for audiences. I really don't understand what their logic is.

KD: Why do you think people evolved the capacity for humor and laughter?

LB: It probably was a way to let off steam; a way to regulate the system. It would either be that, or we'd be barking at each other. People say, "Do you look at the audience?", and it's hard for me sometimes, because watching people laugh sometimes can be pretty odd. The sound is great, but the physical action can be a little... Unless you really get somebody going and they're crying and banging the table, then it's pretty neat.

KD: [laughs] Do you see yourself keeping on with comedy until you literally can't do it anymore? Like George Burns or..

LB: Oh God. Not at this fuckin' way I do it. I thought about working for a while more, and then making the transition to this continual farewell tour where I'm on a gurney with an IV drip.

KD: With Cher. How do you keep up your energy every night? There must be some nights where you just don't feel like being funny.

LB: I've actually rarely felt that, because when you've got all those people out there waiting to see you it's fun. It does give you the energy. Then I take a lot of fuckin' naps.

Lewis Black can be seen on his Back In Black segment Wednesday nights on Comedy Central's The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, on tour, and on the new DVD Lewis Black: Unleashed.
Did we mention the new CD, Rules of Enragement?

Keith Daniels