Tragedy + Time = Comedy

Lewis Black isn’t angry. He just can’t believe this shit. Nothing makes sense. He is a man in black, standing alone on stage 250 nights a year, totally at a loss about the society swirling around him, shaking his head and looking up at nothing in particular, seeking guidance. (It doesn’t come.) It’s all about the White House, the Democrats and Republicans, and the way his beloved “moo-cow-fuck-milk” now must share shelf-space with acidophilus and soy milk, which isn’t milk at all. “It’s soy juice,” he says, and starts to gag.

Black is also a man with an audience, bridging the gap between hardened news commentator and curbside crank every week on “The Daily Show” with Jon Stewart. It was there that the larger world finally became acquainted with his outrage and analysis of disbelief, turning the 56-year-old comic and playwright into a minor media giant on an endless comedy tour. He’s done comedy albums and a celebrated HBO special. And earlier this year, he published “Nothing’s Sacred,” a book that was part comedy, part genuine memoir.

After growing up in suburbia just outside Washington, DC, and graduating from the Yale School of Drama, Black survived the decades writing, acting, and performing standup, even appearing in Woody Allen’s 1986 “Hannah and Her Sisters.” Other things have come and gone, but now he’s hit the big time. Next month, he begins work on a film starring Robin Williams and directed by Barry Levinson. So, Black is in a peaceful mood as he talks about all this, including his Friday return to the Wiltern.

His core comedy inspirations are obvious and monumental: George Carlin, Shelley Berman, Jonathan Winters, Bob Newhart, Richard Pryor, Lenny Bruce and Paul Krassner’s magazine The Realist.

What exactly was he supposed to add to this staggering lineage of comedy?

“Nothing,” he explains. “I wanted to be a playwright. How dumb is that?”

PW: There has been a lot of praise and hand-wringing about the influence of “The Daily Show.” What impact has it really had?

Lewis Black: It’s provided an alternative. It allows people to take a step back from the news and take a breather. Seriously, I do think the reason we’re getting watched is that things are so absurd that we have become the alternative, partly because the regular news avenues are not doing the job they should be doing.

It seems like the show is reaching an audience who wouldn’t be watching the news anyway.

Absolutely correct. People say, “Are you sad that kids get the news this way?” And I go, “What made it a requirement for kids to watch the news?” People 10 years ago weren’t racing home to watch news. It’s never been a requirement of any young adult. Maybe once you get out of college you might be interested. Until the world has an effect on you, get a grip!

You graduated from Yale, where George Bush and John Kerry also studied.

I went to the drama school, so that’s kind of sissy. What you have to realize is that gives you an indication the education at Yale isn’t all that it’s cracked up to be. If you look at Kerry and Bush, you go, “Well, they sure don’t teach much in terms of common sense.”

Is it easy to make jokes about some of this, even when there are serious issues like war and possible criminal activity in the White House?

Some things take time. Tragedy over time equals comedy. Certain things are not worth discussing until people have some time to back away from it. But if something came up, or I thought of something, sure. The only thing I’ve ever found difficult to make a joke about — because it’s such an issue that bothers people to the point of distraction — is abortion. But now I’ve found ways to talk about it without talking about it. I talk about how we don’t know when life begins or when life ends. We consider ourselves the greatest country on earth, and we don’t know when we’re dead and when we’re alive. That would be a good thing to figure out before we work on anything else.

You grew up in Washington, DC, so you’ve been around politics all your life. But I’ve heard the city described by people who live there as something like a small town.

It is, but it’s a small town that changes every four years, depending on who’s president. It’s a small town with lobbyists. How stupid is that?

How do you feel about what’s happening there lately?

It is beyond anything I ever imagined, even in my darkest LSD hallucinations. They went much crazier than I thought was possible in my lifetime. How do you end up, on both sides of the aisle, with no leadership whatsoever? It’s a whole new level.

It may suck for you, but as a comic, this is spectacular. You don’t even have to write the stuff. You might make a joke about Michael Brown, the [former] head of FEMA: “Who was this guy? What did he run, horse shows?” And it’s real.

Onstage, you often come off as a frustrated, angry guy. Is there part of you really like that?

When I’m in Los Angeles for more than 24 hours, I can reach that point. The traffic and the delight that is the entertainment industry. The well-known story is of me auditioning to be myself and not getting the role. It was for a pilot for CBS.

So the part called for a “Lewis Black type”?

No, it was “Lewis Black.” I was reading my lines. It’s phenomenal, isn’t it? There was a better me.

You offer equal criticism to both ends of the political spectrum. Is that intentional, or does it come naturally that way?

It started with Reagan, when I realized a lot of the things were being done economically — that whole trickle-down theory and that kind of nonsense — and I said, look at this Reagan. And then I realized the Democrats were voting for this stuff. I started to realize that there are only a few good leaders, some of whom are Republican, and some of whom are Democrat. The rest are like, you’ve got to be kidding me!

In April, you performed at a Washington correspondents dinner. Dick Cheney was sitting right behind you. Have you met many of these people?

No, this was the first time. A third of my act at this point is about performing there. It was horrible. As an audience, we’re talking congressmen, lawyers, judges, lobbyists, congressional correspondents, it’s the most uptight audience on the planet Earth. The only thing that might be worse in terms of being a tough crowd would be for me to play a Baptist convention. That won’t be happening.

It was surprising to see you there. Not because you’re a partisan, but because you are so pointed in your comedy.

I was shocked. What I did was, I took my act and turned it into a highly refined series of knock-knock jokes.

What do you think that says?

It says I’m a whore.