Lewis Black

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Lewis Black
Born:	August 30, 1948 (age 58) Silver Spring, Maryland, United States
Medium:	Stand-up, television
Nationality:	American
Years active:	1981-present
Genres:	Satire (political)
Subjects:	American politics Current events
Influences:	George Carlin, Lenny Bruce, Richard Pryor, Bill Hicks, Lily Tomlin, Bob Newhart, Shelley Berman
Notable works and roles:	Back in Black
Website:	www.lewisblack.net

Lewis Niles Black (born August 30, 1948) is a Grammy Award-winning American stand-up comedian, author, playwright, and actor. He is known for his regular appearances on Comedy Central's The Daily Show delivering his “Back in Black” commentary segment, in which he ridicules (often simulating a nervous breakdown or rant) recent trends and cultural phenomena. He currently lives in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, USA.

1 Biography
2 Published works
3 Media releases
- 3.1 CDs
- 3.2 DVDs
4 Selected acting roles
5 Footnotes
6 External links

Black was born in Washington, D.C., USA to a middle-class Jewish family.^[1] He was raised in Silver Spring, Maryland, graduating from Springbrook High School in 1966. He was exposed to playwriting as an undergraduate at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill where he was also a brother of Pi Lambda Phi International fraternity. He earned a Masters in Fine Arts at the Yale School of Drama in 1977. Originally, his career was in the theater as a playwright. He served as the playwright in residence and associate artistic director of Steve Olsen's West Bank Cafe Downstairs Theatre Bar in Hell's Kitchen in New York City, where he collaborated with composer and lyricist Rusty Magee on hundreds of one-act plays from 1981 to 1989. Also with Rusty Magee, Lewis wrote the musical The Czar Of Rock and Roll, which premiered at Houston's Alley Theater in 1990. Black's stand-up comedy began as an opening act for the plays as he was also the master of ceremonies. After a management change at the theater, Black left and began working as a comedian as well as finding bit parts in television and films.

Lewis Black’s style of comedy is that of a man who, in dealing with the absurdities of life and contemporary politics, is approaching his personal limits of sanity. Sarcasm, profanity, shouting, and trademark angry finger-shaking bring emphasis to his topics of discussion. He once described his humor as "being on the Titanic every single day and being the only person who knows what is going to happen."

Some examples include:

"We are the only country that reminds everyone else, on a daily basis, that we're the greatest country on Earth. If there was a guy at your office, who every day stood up and said 'I'm the greatest fucker here! And you sniveling shits would all die without me! Gahaha!!' I guarantee by the end of the week, you would've killed him...and eaten him, just to see if you could possess his power."
"I was at the International House of Pancakes when, from behind me, a young woman of 25 uttered the dumbest thing I ever heard in my life. That was until Dan Quayle was elected the vice president and things took a turn. She said 'If it weren't for my horse, I wouldn't have spent that year in college.' I'll repeat that. I'll repeat that because that's the kind of sentence that when your brain hears it, it comes to a screeching halt. And the left-hand side of the brain looks at the right-hand side of the brain and says, 'It's dark in here, and we may die!' She said, if it weren't for my horse -- as in, giddyup giddyup, let's go -- I wouldn't have spent that year in college, a degree-granting institution. Don't, DON'T think about that for more than three minutes or blood will shoot out of your nose."
"Soy Milk...that's bullshit on a stick. I know there is no such thing as soy milk because there's no soy tit, is there? I don't know a lot but, I know you need a breast for milk."
How to stimulate the economy: "Now what you do, is build a big fucking thing. I don't care what it is! As long as it's big and it's a fucking thing! And then the economy will explode, because people would say "I want to see the Big Fucking Thing!". Then there'll be a Big Fucking Thing restaurant, a Big Fucking Thing hotel and casino, a Big Fucking Thing SPA!"
"Back when I was a kid, you knew that milk was good... because there was only one type... Moo Cow Fuck Milk. But now, you've got two percent, one percent, skim, whole, low fat. Acidophilus milk? What the fuck are you talking about? Milk doesn't need a friend. That shit belongs in the yogurt section. Lactose intolerant milk, kiss my dick. If you're lactose intolerant, you can't drink milk... Then what's in the fucking carton? GET IT AWAY FROM MY MILK! It is TALKING to my milk and making it feel BAD about itself!"

A good portion of Black's political material seems to be aimed at exposing both the comedy and tragedy of staunch conservatism, as well as disbelief at the mystifying combination of thick-headedness and condescending attitude in authority figures. Black seems just as disenchanted with Democrats as Republicans. He is quoted as saying: "You elected Bush, so that's who I'm going to rant about. If you elect Kerry, I'm going to rant about him too. My problem is with...authority!" He decided that the best way to find the next president is to "throw a dart at a map of the United States, go into the jungle, find a monkey, take it on a plane, parachute it out to the location the dart hit, and whoever the first person the monkey touches, that is the new president." He is also quoted as saying "what is the difference between a Democrat and a Republican? A Democrat blows, and a Republican sucks" and "the only thing dumber than a Democrat or a Republican is when these two pricks work together." He has also stated that the way in which bipartisanship works is that "A Republican stands up and says, 'I got a really bad idea!' and then a Democrat stands up and says, '...and I can make it shittier!'"

Black describes his political affiliation as such: "I'm a socialist, so that puts me totally outside any concept ... the Canadians get it. But seriously, most people don't get it. The idea of capping people's income just scares people. 'Oh, you're taking money from the rich.' Ooh, what a horrifying thing. These people really need $200 million".^[2]

As a political comedian, Lewis Black is also not without negative response and criticism. However, his rage-like comedy style often defuses potentially difficult situations. In a performance of "Red, White, and Screwed" in Honolulu this year, Lewis Black responded to a heckler by saying, "Look -- all I'm trying to do is get these little shit pieces of information the government gives us and put in a little pile and piss on it!"

In Konocti, California, when a drunken heckler shouted, "Three thousand dead children!" in the middle of a Dick Cheney rant, he spent ten minutes yelling angrily at her until she left. He said, "That's definitely on my list of top 10 weirdest heckles."

Black lists his comedic influences as George Carlin, Lenny Bruce, Richard Pryor, Lily Tomlin, Bob Newhart, and Shelley Berman.^[3]

In 1998, he starred in his first comedy special on the series Comedy Central Presents. He starred in two additional episodes of the series in 2000 and 2002. He starred in another special for the network in 2002 titled Taxed Beyond Belief.

In 2000, Black and fellow comedian Jim Norton were arrested because of their involvement with "The Naked Teen Voyeur Bus", a specially designed bus with acrylic glass walls that contained numerous (18 and 19 year old) "teen girls". This bus was to ride around Manhattan while being broadcast on the famous "Opie and Anthony" radio show. Unfortunately, management at the radio station failed to inform the O&A show that the route the bus was planning on taking was also the route that the President was taking that same day. Twenty-eight hours after the arrest, Black and Norton were released. Black appeared on The Daily Show the following night where he stated he was exercising his constitutional rights. He then joked that the location of this particular right was unclear, but that it was "between 'all men are created equal' and 'don't shit where you eat.'" Additionally, at a fundraising event for New York Attorney General candidate Mark Green on June 28, 2006, Black talked about how he was unable to make a previous fundraising event for Green because the arrest occurred on the very night of the event.

Since 2003, Black has hosted the World Stupidity Awards ceremony at Montreal's Just for Laughs comedy festival for the three years the awards have been presented.

In 2004, he had an HBO stand-up special titled Black on Broadway. That same year Black appeared in an episode of Law & Order: Special Victims Unit as a shock jock. He also released his autobiography, Nothing's Sacred, in 2005. Since November 9, 2005, Black has been making appearances in small segments on The Weather Channel. In December 2005, he appeared in an animated holiday special The Happy Elf, as the voice of the extremely tightly wound elf, Norbert.

On April 21, 2006 Lewis performed at the Warner Theatre in Washington, DC for an HBO special, Red, White, and Screwed. It aired on June 10, 2006, and a DVD was released October 3, 2006.

He plays Dean Ben Lewis of the school "South Harmon Institute of Technology" in Accepted, a film about high school graduates who create a college when they fail to get accepted into any. He also appears in the 2006 films Man of the Year and Unaccompanied Minors. Black hosted Comedy Central's Last Laugh '06, which aired on December 10, 2006.

On February 11, 2007, Lewis was awarded a Grammy award for "Best Comedy Album" for his album The Carnegie Hall Performance.^[4]

Nothing's Sacred (2005)
Nothing's Sacred (Softcover Version) (2006)
Nothing's Sacred (Audio Book) (2006)

The White Album (2000)
Revolver (2002)
The End of the Universe (2002)
Rules of Enragement (2003)
Luther Burbank Performing Arts Center Blues (2005)
The Carnegie Hall Performance (2006)

Unleashed (compilation of his 4 Comedy Central specials plus his appearances on The Daily Show: Indecision 2000) (2002)
Black On Broadway (2003 HBO Special) (2004)
A Pair of Lewis Black Shorts (Sidesplitters: The Burt & Dick Story and The Gynecologists) (2006)
Red, White, and Screwed (2006 HBO Special)