While some popular comedians tickle their audiences with good ol’ fashioned feel-good comedy, Lewis Black kills his audience by making light of the darker side of life.
Black – best known for his specials on Comedy Central, a weekly segment on “The Daily Show With Jon Stewart” and appearances on “Late Night with Conan O’Brien” – never made it as a playwright after he graduated from Yale despite his aspirations. One professor told The Boston Globe that Black was a “malcontent,” “dissatisfied” and “irritable.”
On his recently released “Carnegie Hall Performance,” the angry, ranting comedian proves that stand-up fans need cynical political commentary. This newest CD release showcases another classic Black performance at a venue he dreamed of performing at since he began as a comic.
He touches on light topics such as Dr. Phil, candy corn, air travel, holidays and marketing, while joking about more serious topics such as aging, religion, Hurricane Katrina and the media. Black attacks each subject matter with anger.
He comments on the scrolling news ticker board on CNN, for example: “That’s why we have ADD. … I liked CNN until you started that writing on the bottom. I don’t know why it’s there. Why do you put writing on a television set? We watch TV because we don’t wanna read. We want somebody to read the shit to us so we can close our eyes and touch our nuts!”
Elevating the informal and personal nature of stand-up comedy, half the fun of the Carnegie Hall performance is listening to Black stumble. He’ll stutter or start telling a joke before he knows how to finish it.
“There’s a joke there, but I don’t even know what it is. They’ll get me for that. That’s the rule. If you tell a joke and don’t complete it, I have to pay extra,” Black tells the New York audience.
While most of Black’s jokes revolve around political commentary, there are some easy jabs thrown in, too. Black says about Michael Jackson: “I would let him go if he could tell us what color he is. That’s all I want to know. What color are you? I have never seen that color in the crayon box.”
The track “Congressional Correspondents Dinner,” which plays for more than 17 minutes, is too long and builds into a flat joke. The track details his success of making Vice President Dick Cheney laugh but then reveals that Black actually felt as if he tried too hard.
Overall, the two-disk set showcases Black’s ranting commentary that weaves into many aspects of American life. It is worth buying if you enjoy listening to an extreme, cynical viewpoint.