{"id":4165,"date":"2012-11-27T20:35:08","date_gmt":"2012-11-27T20:35:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lbpost.com\/articles\/life\/a-conversation-with-comedian-lewis-black-2\/"},"modified":"2012-11-27T20:35:08","modified_gmt":"2012-11-27T20:35:08","slug":"a-conversation-with-comedian-lewis-black-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/hi-lo\/a-conversation-with-comedian-lewis-black-2","title":{"rendered":"A Conversation with Comedian Lewis Black"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

 \"Lewis
Lewis Black – Photo by Kyle Christy<\/em><\/p>\n

Lewis Black is best known as the acerbic, red faced comedian whose social and political commentary is regularly featured on The Daily Show<\/em>, in TV specials, films and on stages around the world. Black is performing at the Long Beach Terrace Theater this Saturday, December 1st and, in advance of his visit, I had an opportunity to speak with him just prior to the Election. <\/p>\n

You\u2019re coming to Long Beach in December, which sadly means it will be after the election. I imagine this is a really good time for you.<\/em><\/strong> <\/p>\n

It\u2019ll be a good time then, don\u2019t worry. This doesn\u2019t end. This is only an evolution of the idiocy that will continue. Much like a diamond has many facets, it\u2019s endless. Every time I think it can\u2019t go further… Don\u2019t worry, you know? <\/p>\n

Remember, by then, they\u2019ll be playing with the economy again, both sides. In their desperate attempt to destroy it, both sides will take us to the edge yet again. It\u2019s extraordinary. That\u2019s when we get into the, \u201cWe passed the Bush tax cuts; what do we do in between; what if we have to take all that off the military,\u201d all that. It\u2019s going to be splendid. People are going to say things that are unimaginable now. Who would have thought that \u201clegitimate rape,\u201d you just go, ‘Wow! Really?’ It just doesn\u2019t end. <\/p>\n

I can imagine them thinking it\u2019s 1957, a lot of them. I used to think we kind of go through the same arguments. I kind of get that, alright? I understand that, alright? Certain things haven\u2019t been settled, especially if you\u2019re going to have a war over it. But what\u2019s extraordinary is these people that continue to think they have black and white TVs and no air conditioning. <\/p>\n

You describe yourself as being a socialist. The thing I find fascinating about that is that, in the United States, being a socialist seems sort of strange, but in 90% of the rest of the world, it\u2019s a perfectly reasonable thing to be.<\/em><\/strong> <\/p>\n

Yeah. It\u2019s become unreasonable. It used to be, when I was a kid, we were at the very tail-end of it. You could still kind of think in that fashion. After they finished clubbing the communists then they went after clubbing the socialists. There\u2019s no threat, especially now. Do I think that\u2019s where we\u2019re going to end up? No. I\u2019ve got one congressman. I have no party, for all intents and purposes. If you want to go to a meeting of socialists, you can go to a graveyard. <\/p>\n

Exactly. Yet we see socialism working quite well in other democratic countries. I think a lot of people mistakenly think it\u2019s the same thing as communism, which, of course, it isn\u2019t.<\/em><\/strong> <\/p>\n

They do. Every so often I do have an argument about it. Somebody will say, \u201cI don\u2019t want it to be like Cuba.\u201d Well, it\u2019s not Cuba, you idiot. <\/p>\n

Do you find yourself challenged to support any candidate these days? <\/em><\/strong> <\/p>\n

Yeah. As a comic, I can\u2019t. I don\u2019t want them to talk to me anymore. I want them to do their job. I feel like, when I look at my career and the amount of time I\u2019ve spent on talking about this stuff, and the amount of time I\u2019ve spent talking about it now, the reason is because these people will not stop talking to me. Just talk to each other. That\u2019s what we elected you for. We didn\u2019t elect you to talk to us. Stop running for office all the time. You can\u2019t do that. Let\u2019s start with summer; you can\u2019t talk to us during the summer. That really is our time, and you\u2019re crossing a line when you do that. And they are. And you have to stop having conventions. You just have to. I watched that convention and I felt like I felt when I watched a convention years ago when I was on acid. I had the exact same experience: What are they doing, and why? <\/p>\n

Don\u2019t you think the problem begins at the municipal level? There\u2019s so much apathy, such a low turn-out. In Long Beach, for example, in our last municipal election we had a turn-out of something like 11%, depending on how you count it, maybe 30%, but either way, it\u2019s pretty shockingly bad. I think this is how these people in state and national government wind up getting into it at all because people at a local level just don\u2019t care at all.<\/em><\/strong> <\/p>\n

Part of that is because people at the local level are just worn out, you know? They\u2019re worn out. They\u2019re basically trying to make ends meet. A lot of people are. Part of the job of leadership is to inspire, and these people don\u2019t inspire. They don\u2019t do the job they\u2019re supposed to do. Maybe we need to have more leadership camps, where people learn how to do these things, like how to talk to people. Becoming a leader is now about the same thing as becoming a teacher. It became that over time. Actually, I don\u2019t know how it became that, except that maybe what became important was how much you made, you know? People weren\u2019t a business when I was a kid. <\/p>\n

That\u2019s another shift, too; this disdain for education. It seems strange to me that there would be this push-back against intellectualism. That seems like something that would be celebrated a bit more.<\/em><\/strong> <\/p>\n

It\u2019s shocking. I mean, it\u2019s shocking. It\u2019s disturbing. When someone like Rick Santorum says some of the things he says about it\u2014The people in his party who really give a shit need to chastise him. You don\u2019t leave it to the other party to chastise someone in your party who is promoting ignorance, because essentially that\u2019s what they\u2019re doing. They do the same thing when they challenge science. \u201cIt\u2019s a coven of witches somewhere and they\u2019re all doing alchemy.\u201d Stop it. That kind of thing doesn\u2019t help the Republican Party. \u201cThe profit is more important than the planet.\u201d It\u2019s stupid, at this point. Climate change is a real thing. It\u2019s not up for discussion anymore. And the reason we know this is because of scientists. And it\u2019s the one thing I won\u2019t discuss with people. There\u2019s nothing to discuss. You watch a chunk of a polar icecap astonishingly float away, you watch a chunk of Greenland disappear, and you don\u2019t know what that means? You have a group of scientists telling you this, so you go on the internet to find the people who agree with you? Scientists aren\u2019t wandering around trying to come up with scary ideas. <\/p>\n

People I know personally, people I think of as reasonably intelligent, have adopted all kinds of really bizarre and false beliefs. Have you heard about chemtrails?<\/em><\/strong> <\/p>\n

No. <\/p>\n

It\u2019s a myth, a completely false belief, that the vapor trails behind jets are somehow a government plot to pollute the air, land, and water.<\/em><\/strong> <\/p>\n

Wow. I mean, wow. You know, part of it\u2019s the internet. Until there\u2019s some sort of vetting for information sources, you don\u2019t need to have a resume to put up a website. That\u2019s why I love newspapers. It\u2019s the thing that\u2019s most important. For whatever their failures are, for whatever you can scream about newspapers, someone reads a resume before someone is hired to go on to work. <\/p>\n

The other thing, I think, is that people are lazy and they don\u2019t vet themselves. They don\u2019t stand back and say, \u201cWait a minute. Is this reasonable at all?\u201d It seems pretty bizarre to me.<\/em><\/strong> <\/p>\n

It\u2019s unbelievable. Especially coming out of the time frame I came out of, which was kind of the end of education as we know it. <\/p>\n

Something I didn\u2019t know about you until today is that you have a strong background in theater. I know you\u2019ve done a lot of acting over the years, but you started out as a playwright. Have you had any desire to return to that?<\/em><\/strong> <\/p>\n

I have returned to it, sadly, because I don\u2019t get enough humiliation anymore, so I\u2019ve gone back to where I was really humiliated and abused. I have a play that I wrote about thirty years ago that then I spent the last ten years doing workshops with a friend of mine, a director, and we got it into a shape that I felt was really\u2014The Williamstown Theatre Festival did it and then the ACT Theatre in Seattle, a really good theater up there, did it, and now a nice theater in New Brunswick, about 15 minutes from New York, is doing it. It\u2019s called the George Street Theatre, and it opens October 2. It\u2019s called \u201cOne Slight Hitch.\u201d And it\u2019s in pretty good shape now. I\u2019m pleased with it. Once it\u2019s performed at George Street, we\u2019ll see where it goes from there. <\/p>\n

That\u2019s wonderful. How does that feel, to get back to that part of yourself?<\/em><\/strong> <\/p>\n

It feels really good. I feel like it\u2019s a thread that got lost. I feel like I didn\u2019t really understand play writing. I used to do a lot of guessing. I think I have more of an understanding of it now. I still don\u2019t think\u2014I mean, the people who write really great plays are\u2014they somehow\u2014I think writing really great plays is like the level of Einstein, you know? In terms of just your connecting\u2014coming up with this equation and coming up with a reality that people enter, it\u2019s really extraordinary. And I\u2019m still not well-versed in it, but at least I feel like I now, at least, have a much better perspective of what I\u2019m doing. <\/p>\n

Do you think this is going to result in you creating something new? <\/em><\/strong> <\/p>\n

I don\u2019t know. If it does, it will really be a sad day for me, because it\u2019s really hard. It means a lot of sitting down. It might. I have some ideas I\u2019ll pursue now because of it, and we\u2019ll see if it goes anywhere. But if it\u2019s not a play, it\u2019ll be a book. I want to write something else. <\/p>\n

Fantastic! You have a number of books out. Most of them comedic in nature, would you say?<\/em><\/strong> <\/p>\n

Yeah. Each one became more serious, but the thread is comedy. The last book is probably the most serious, but it\u2019s generally funny. One was about growing up and how I ended up. I wrote it, really, for kids. Like, \u201cNone of this makes sense.\u201d I\u2019m like, \u201cDon\u2019t worry about it. It will make sense and you\u2019ll find your way,\u201d and how I stumbled into my way. I had a lot of shit I had to go through. Not traumatic, emotional shit, but just shit you go through to try to get from point A to point B in this idiotic maze. In my case, \u201cYou shouldn\u2019t do this. You shouldn\u2019t do that,\u201d you know? When you work for bosses who are idiots, you deal with those kinds of things. <\/p>\n

The second book was about\u2014I talk a lot about religion, so really, it\u2019s a book about why I believe what it is I believe, and how I arrived at that conclusion, because I have odd instances within the midst of\u2014I don\u2019t buy any of the organized stuff, but I do have this belief. So, it\u2019s how I ended up with the belief. <\/p>\n

The last book was a Christmas book. It\u2019s a book about living my life single. I\u2019ve lived most of my life single. I\u2019ve been in relationships and lived with women and stuff, but I was married only once, and since then I\u2019ve not even contemplated it. So, it was a book about being single disguised as a Christmas book. Because it\u2019s that time of year, more than Valentine\u2019s Day, really, that\u2019s it\u2019s all about family, and if you don\u2019t have one, there\u2019s a certain level of trauma you go through every year, like the fact of what you\u2019ve done with your life. <\/p>\n

How do you reconcile that?<\/em><\/strong> <\/p>\n

Well, I reconcile it with the fact that I\u2019m happy. [laughs] I\u2019m content. Some of us choose not to get married. And you have a lot of people cheering for you not to get married. Who wouldn\u2019t prefer being in a really great relationship? But you look around and\u2014Some of my friends are in really great relationships. Some of my friends have been in horrific\u2014 There\u2019s a lot of just horrific relationships out there. The last thing people want to be is single. They really want a good relationship first, then second is a bad relationship. They\u2019d rather be in a bad relationship than be single. It\u2019s absurd. (laugh) <\/p>\n

The other thing I wanted to talk about was what I consider to be one of the greatest TV shows ever produced, \u201cThe Root of All Evil.\u201d Did you write that? How did it come to be?<\/em><\/strong> <\/p>\n

Thank you. It came to be because of Scott [Carter] and David [Sacks]. They came up with the idea. Scott is an executive producer of Real Time with Bill Maher, and I\u2019ve known him for years. David wrote a pilot for Fox for me, and he\u2019s written on hundreds of shows [The Simpsons, Murphy Brown, 3rd Rock from the Sun, The Tick, Malcolm in the Middle]. It was their idea, and I thought it was a really good one. <\/p>\n

I was lucky because I\u2019ve known a bunch of comics forever and they really wanted to do the show. What\u2019s sad is that Comedy Central, in their infinite wisdom, gave us the first season, then the second season, rather than putting it on when they put on the first season, which was either the fall or winter, put it on in the summer. And we said, \u201cIt\u2019s not going to sell, because kids aren\u2019t home. And it didn\u2019t. And it was a better show the second season and it would\u2019ve been a really good show the third season because I really had learned what I had to do. We all kind of knew better what we needed to do. We all understood it better, and it would\u2019ve been a great show. <\/p>\n

I think it stands as a definite high-point in comedy television. Just the idea of bringing comedy and this sort of intellectual discussion together, I thought it was a joy. It must have been fun to do, too.<\/em><\/strong> <\/p>\n

It was a lot of fun, and it would\u2019ve been more fun as we went along. The problem, as it always is, was the suits. It was Comedy Central. And the reason the show went off the air was that they said, \u201cWell, why don\u2019t you come in and re-pitch the show to us?\u201d And it was like, \u201cNo, we\u2019re not doing that. We\u2019ve done it. I\u2019ve done enough for your channel and you\u2019ve done enough for me that we don\u2019t need to sit down. If you don\u2019t think we can carry this off, then you\u2019re crazy.\u201d Look who we had: Patton Oswalt, Greg Giraldo, I mean we had Paul F. Tompkins. We had a remarkable cast of comics working on that show. Andy [Kindler] was on it, Kathleen Madigan, you couldn\u2019t beat it. And they walked away from it. And I blame them. I don\u2019t give a shit. They\u2019re left holdin\u2019. <\/p>\n

Anything else in the works, as far as TV?<\/em><\/strong> <\/p>\n

No. Things keep popping up, people are always, \u201cDo you want to do this? Do you want to do that?\u201d Twice a year, something\u2014I\u2019ve been involved with stuff, off and on, for the last 15 years, 20 years. There were two or three things that came up and they say no. Inevitably, they say no. I kind of don\u2019t go out west anymore, to come to LA to try and sell the stuff. I don\u2019t need it, you know? I like what I\u2019m doing and I don\u2019t need them kind of going, \u201cOh, you know, we really want to work with you. Oh, we were just kidding.\u201d <\/p>\n

That must get old really fast.<\/em><\/strong> <\/p>\n

You get tired of it. I don\u2019t need rejection. I have rejection in long-time supply, right now, and I don\u2019t need it now. I know what I can do when I\u2019m on television. I\u2019m on, this segment that\u2019s run for 16 years that people gravitate to. Don\u2019t tell me it\u2019s going to be a problem selling me on television, you know? <\/p>\n

Thanks for your time, and even though you\u2019re coming out to Southern California, Long Beach is not LA. We\u2019re going to be really glad to have you here.<\/em><\/strong> <\/p>\n

I\u2019m looking forward to it, I\u2019ll tell you that. I can\u2019t wait. We\u2019ll have a lot of fun. I can guarantee you that. Election or not, we\u2019ll have fun.<\/p>\n

—<\/p>\n

To purchase tickets, or learn more about Lewis Black’s various endeavors, visit LewisBlack.com<\/a>. <\/em><\/p>\n

To find out about upcoming events at the Long Beach Convention & Entertainment Center, which includes the Arena, Terrace Theater, and Center Theater, visit LongBeachCC.com<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n

Many thanks to Lee Adams<\/a> for her excellent transcription services.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\"Lewis<\/p>\n

In advance of his appearance on stage at the Terrace Theater this Saturday, Culture Agent columnist Sander Roscoe Wolff speaks with comedian Lewis Black about politics, science, theater and the vagaries of working in television. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":69353,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"newspack_sponsor_sponsorship_scope":"","newspack_sponsor_native_byline_display":"inherit","newspack_sponsor_native_category_display":"inherit","newspack_sponsor_underwriter_style":"inherit","newspack_sponsor_underwriter_placement":"inherit","inline_featured_image":false,"newspack_ads_suppress_ads":false,"newspack_popups_has_disabled_popups":"","_EventAllDay":false,"_EventTimezone":"","_EventStartDate":"","_EventEndDate":"","_EventStartDateUTC":"","_EventEndDateUTC":"","_EventShowMap":false,"_EventShowMapLink":false,"_EventURL":"","_EventCost":"","_EventCostDescription":"","_EventCurrencySymbol":"","_EventCurrencyCode":"","_EventCurrencyPosition":"","_EventDateTimeSeparator":"","_EventTimeRangeSeparator":"","_EventOrganizerID":[],"_EventVenueID":[],"_OrganizerEmail":"","_OrganizerPhone":"","_OrganizerWebsite":"","_VenueAddress":"","_VenueCity":"","_VenueCountry":"","_VenueProvince":"","_VenueState":"","_VenueZip":"","_VenuePhone":"","_VenueURL":"","_VenueStateProvince":"","_VenueLat":"","_VenueLng":"","_VenueShowMap":false,"_VenueShowMapLink":false,"_":"","_author_alias":"","cap-aim":"","cap-description":"","cap-display_name":"","cap-first_name":"","cap-jabber":"","cap-last_name":"","cap-linked_account":"","cap-newspack_employer":"","cap-newspack_job_title":"","cap-newspack_phone_number":"","cap-newspack_role":"","cap-user_email":"","cap-user_login":"","cap-website":"","cap-yahooim":"","newspack_article_summary":"","newspack_email_html":"","newspack_email_type":"","newspack_featured_image_position":"","newspack_hide_page_title":"","newspack_hide_updated_date":false,"newspack_post_subtitle":"","newspack_show_share_buttons":"","newspack_sponsor_byline_prefix":"","newspack_sponsor_disclaimer_override":"","newspack_sponsor_flag_override":"","newspack_sponsor_only_direct":"","newspack_sponsor_url":"","newspack_article_summary_title":"Overview:","newspack_show_updated_date":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"newspack_spnsrs_tax":[],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["post-4165","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-hi-lo","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4165","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4165"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4165\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/69353"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4165"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4165"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4165"},{"taxonomy":"newspack_spnsrs_tax","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/newspack_spnsrs_tax?post=4165"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=4165"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}