Planted in a red mini-loveseat backstage at the Comedy Connection in Boston, Lewis Black looks relaxed and loose, maybe even satisfied, as if he's just ended a marathon session of sex.

To be fair, Black did spend the previous hour in serious release mode, flailing his arms and vigorously wagging his index fingers. Dressed in black from his pants to his shirt and jacket to his trademark black trim glasses, the 57-year-old comic delivered his act like an angry preacher on the verge of a rage-induced seizure. The crowd hung on Black's every tirade, diatribe and odd placement of the f-word, as in "Cracker Fuck Barrel" or "Dr. Fuck Phil." So now it's time to mellow.

It's a wonderful thing to see Black air out this way. He's seen most every week in his "Back in Black" segment on "The Daily Show With Jon Stewart," where he sports a loose tie and opines loudly on that week's political misdealings, shoddy media coverage thereof and the general stupidity of human beings. Although his language is restricted on Comedy Central, viewers still get the message: He's angry.

The idea for the segment was born 10 years ago from his stand-up routine, which springs liberally from headlines. "I don't know why I even do this for a living anymore," he says during his set. "I should just come up here with a newspaper and say, 'Hey, did you read about this ...?' "

Throughout the set, Black hits on Dick Cheney, Arnold Schwarzenegger, North Korea, Iraq, Iran, the handling of Hurricane Katrina and the immigration debate. And in light of his belief that voting is a fairly outdated and ineffective way of choosing our leaders, he also proposes a new way to pick our next president: Throw a dart at a map. Fly a monkey over whatever city was hit. When he's over the city, push the monkey out of the plane. The first person he holds hands with is our new president.

This technique of suggesting ludicrous ideas to solve the country's woes is a common one for Black. It only makes his overriding message clearer. That message: We are all screwed.

Lewis Black: Black on Broadway

'A mighty sledgehammer'

On "The Carnegie Hall Performance," Lewis Black's fifth live stand-up album, Black does a masterful job of not only brandishing jokes about what you'd expect from him -- Rick Santorum being a bigoted jerk-off, how Congress interfered with the Terry Schiavo case, the problems with airport security -- but also of presenting a slightly softer side to his otherwise agitated persona.

He tells some endearing anecdotes about his parents and about growing up Jewish, he laments growing older and he manages to do more than a few minutes on the evils of candy corn. At a measured, deliberate pace and at a soft volume -- the same he uses when he's talking about world atrocities -- he philosophizes about this famous Halloween treat.

"Nothing proves [long pause] just how dumb [short pause] we are collectively [short pause] as a people [pause] ... nothing proves it more [pause] than candy corn."He has a great mind and a great way of presenting his dissatisfaction with things," George Carlin said of Black in a Playboy interview last year.

"I like Lewis' relentlessness. I love his overkill. I love the fucking sledgehammer. Lewis wields a mighty sledgehammer.

"I think I get forgiven by the audience because my character is so fucking nuts," says Black. "But I think I'm also kind of even-handed. Also, there's a huge, massive frustration that's been built and nobody's talking to these people. I think the reason "The Daily Show" works and my comedy works and the reason ["The Colbert Report"] works is because no one else is trying to speak English to the American people. They just keep saying, 'Don't worry, everything's OK. Look, the economy's good!' And they know it's not good.

"What gets me angriest is when I'm watching 'Meet the Press' or that Bob Schieffer one, I forget the name of it," he says, "because it's the only time politicians have to talk for more than three or four minutes, and they actually have to speak. And that's when I realize just how bereft we are of leadership. I just get crazed because I start thinking, You've got to be kidding me. Where do you get the balls to say that?"

Theatrical roots

Black was born and raised in Silver Spring, Md., barely eight miles from the nation's capital. His love of the theater is why he went to the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where he majored in drama. It's why he and some friends bought and ran a theater in Colorado Springs, Colo. And it's why he would earn his Master's of Fine Arts from the Yale School of Drama.

There was nothing deliberate about Black's introduction into comedy. After he graduated from North Carolina, a friend who played in a band asked him if he would mind doing some stand-up between sets at their weekly gigs at the Cat's Cradle in Carrboro, N.C. "I was awful. I mean really dreadful, like scary bad," Black wrote in his book "Nothing's Sacred."Between the dry mouth, the shakes, the vertigo and the nausea, I was a mess." Oddly enough, he returned week after week. "Something about the pain of it all must have intrigued me."

After graduating from Yale, Black eventually moved to New York City, where he became the West End Cafe's playwright in residence. He always emceed the shows he produced there, indirectly finding his comic voice and honing his stand-up chops. After a decade, he left the Cafe and became a full-time stand-up comic. Nearly 10 years later, Black is one of the nation's most popular comics and social critics.

As if Black weren't busy enough with "The Daily Show," touring to support his latest DVD, "Red, White & Screwed," and appearing in movies such as "Unaccompanied Minors" and "Man of the Year," he also spent part of 2006 working on "Red State Diaries," a show for Comedy Central, in which he visits Republican states in an effort to learn more about the people there. "I basically try to comprehend how they're different or if they are different," he says. "We tested the show, and it did well. I think Comedy Central is rethinking it [for the future]. Who knows what they're fucking going to do."

The question is whether Black will have time to relax, which for him means golfing. "I'm most at peace when I golf," admits Black. "Which is sad because it's really a disturbing, sick game."

Even if he can't manage to squeeze in nine holes, or if shuttling between movie sets and comedy stages becomes a tad stressful, Black recognizes that things could be worse. "These are problems anyone would be thrilled to have," he says. "What a terrible life."

  • Dylan P. Gadino is editor in chief of Punchline Magazine


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