Lewis Black

01

PLAYBOY: You're widely revered as the angriest comic in America. Have you ever had nights when you're just not in the mood to go up there and be pissed off? BLACK: Never. That has never occurred. I swear to God. Never, ever. There's always something that happens during the day. I may be yelling that they don't know what to do with Social Security, but I'm really yelling about the fact that my AT&T cell phone doesn't get shit in a variety of zones. I've lost calls, and it's a pain in the ass

02

PLAYBOY: Most people know your rants from The Doily Show With jon Stewart. Do you worry that people who get their news from The Daily Show instead of real news outlets are dumb? BLACK: Well, at least it kind of keeps them focused on the news It gives kids a way into the news We're a gateway drug. You take us. and then you go to the hard news.

03

PLAYBOY: Do you watch TV shows like

The O'Reilly Factor?

BLACK: Oh no. I consider those kinds of

shows doses of caffeine They wire me up. I may as well stick a needle of meth in my arm I used to drive across the country listening to Rush Limbaugh, but I had to stop because I thought I would get speed­ing tickets. I would be in such a rage.

04

PLAYBOY: Speaking of your legendary tem­per, does organized religion get you fired up7 BLACK: It's exhausting. What really gets me fired up is. if it works for you. great: now shut up. The thing is. if you really want me to get interested in your fucking religion, show me an example, asshole. If I §o. "Wow. what a great person you are. How did that happen7" "Well. I let Christ into my life." Then I get it But don't tell me you let Christ into your life and assume I'm supposed to think you're a great person. In terms of that stuff, the worst are the Jehovah's Witnesses. They're just crazy.

05

PLAYBOY: Your new book. Me of Little Faith, is about your tempestuous relation­ship with religion Which part of the book will piss off Cod the most7 BLACK: It's not him. I'm not so much worried about God as I am about religious

fanatics. That can be any group, from Jews to Hindus. They all spawn them. The smallest part of the book is about Muslims, but they'll bitch that I didn't write about them. It's impossible. After I finished it I thought. It's not mean except for maybe what I wrote about Judaism. There's not a lot for people to get upset about. Then my mother read it and said, "Oh boy! You're in for it."

06

PLAYBOY: Certainly you like at least one religion.

BLACK: If there's a group of people to look at in terms of what I want from a religion, it's the Amish. They're quiet, they do their stuff, and they're not out there say­ing. "Follow us." If anyone has the right to think we're evil pissants. it's them. And they raise great chickens, really tasty.

07

PLAYBOY: Did your publisher censor the book at all?

BLACK: No. When you ask for me, you know what you're getting. If you ask for Rin Tin Tin. you don't get Lassie My pub­lisher gets it. The only thing the editor said was they (concluded on page 137)

LEWIS BLACK

(continued from page 101) didn't want me to use the word runt. It was in just one sentence. That was it.

OB

pi-avbov: Do you believe in God? black: I believe in something. If there is a God, he gets the joke. The only proof I have of God is laughter. It's the only thing I know that is totally inexplicable. Humans are the only ones who do it. It's such a release. It's the one thing that makes me think there may be a God.

09

PI.AVBOV: You were 20 years old in 1968. Was that as great as it sounds? black I was lucky. It was a great time to be alive. It was kind of like when the Christian right had its moment of power. We had an inordinate amount of influence, considering we really didn't have the numbers, much the same as the Christian right. I was at the University of North Carolina, and I spent my sum­mer vacation at my folks' house. I tried to go to the Democratic convention in Chicago, but since I was living at home my mother wouldn't let me. She said, "No, you're staying here. If you want somebody to hurt you, I'll hurt you."

010

i'iavbov: What was better back then, the drugs or the sexual liberation? iii.vck I'd have to say the drugs. I didn't really experience the sexual liberation. During the two and a half to three years of what was considered that period, I didn't stumble across it a lot. I have friends who did. I think there were pockets of it, but I never found those pockets. Every so often you would meet somebody and the negotiations would go more quickly. That is what sexual lib­eration really meant.

on

pi.avboV: You got your start in stand-up at folk clubs, not comedy clubs. Why? Bl.ACK: I was doing it for fun, and I didn't see myself being a comic. Occasionally I performed stand-up but mostly in the Village and at folk places. That was kind of what I did. I would show up, try to be the odd one in the group, do it and get out of people's hair. I'd do 15 to 20 minutes about what happened dur­ing the week. I would take newspaper clippings 1 had torn out. go through the week and yell about it. It evolved pretty simply.

012

pi.avkov: So that's where the yelling

started?

black Not immediately. Not until Dan

B.ill.n(I. a comic from Michigan who's a

friend of mine, came up to me and said,

"What the fuck's the matter with you? You're onstage, you're actually angry, and you're not yelling. I'm onstage yell­ing, and I have nothing to be angry about. The next time you go onstage I want you to start yelling. I want you to yell during your whole act." And I did. It was like a revelation. There was an immediate difference. I went. Oh fuck, this makes perfect sense. What the fuck have I been doing?

013

P1.AYBOV What were your early stand-up bits like?

bi.ac:K: Most of them were about sex because I had a pretty funny sex life. One bit was about the first time I tried to lose my virginity. I was 20. We tried, but we never got to the right place. She kept saying, "I don't think that's it. I'm not sure. I don't think so." Well, I didn't know—it's not mine. In my sex-education course you might as well have read the back of the math book; at least that had answers. You try to look at that fucking sex-education drawing in the dark. I said to her at the time—I will repeat this story for the rest of my life, and I will be as kind as I can—"This is one of the most extraordinary moments of my life because if you don't know-where it is, this is going to be the longest night we've ever spent."

014

l'l.\YBOY: How does your Comedy Central show Lewis Black's Root of All Evil work? black: We have a great group of guys who are basically like lawyers—come­dians such as Kathleen Madigan. Greg Giraldo, Patton Oswalt and Andrew Daly. They plead their case about which of two things is more evil. There's Oprah versus the Catholic Church, You'Tube versus porn. Las Vegas versus the human body, Donald Trump ver­sus Viagra. The shows are all just fuck­ing funny—sometimes stupid funny, sometimes really smart. You have these really good comics screaming and criti­cizing these things.

015

PLAYBOY: We know you're a sports fan, so here's our example: New Kngland Patri­ots coach Bill Bclichick versus pitcher Roger Clemens. Who is more evil? black: Wow. It's kind of a toss-up. I would have to go with Roger Clemens. He's more in my mind right now. And when you say "misremembers" the way he did, it really puts you into one of the lockboxes of evil. You can't use that word. You can't do that at all, not in your own defense.

016

playboy: What's the solution to the immi­gration battle? black: II you really don't want those

people in the country, if you are really that big on it, then you have to deal with it at the border. You have 12 mil­lion people in here now, okay? Most don't seem to be a threat on any level, so why don't you take the time you're using to focus on them and worry about the border, where the threat may actu­ally come from. And instead of fining the companies that hire illegal work­ers, do this: Idaho, North Dakota and the South have a lot of land: tell Mattel that since it fucked up and didn't know how to keep things in China going properly, it has to bring everything back and start making shit in Idaho. It has to build a factory there. Then you ask immigrants, "Are you illegal? If so, then you have to go up there. You have to work for two years—like government service—for Mattel. When you've done your two years, we'll give you citizenship."

017

playboy: You split youi" time between New York City and Chapel Hill, North Carolina. How do you handle the South­ern pace of life?

buck: It's not too bad in Chapel Hill. I'm used to Chapel Hill, so it's easier. I understand its pace. But when I travel around the country on a bus and we get off at a town where I'm not used to whatever its pace may be, it's like, What do you mean? How long does it take to make a fucking cheeseburger?

018

playboy: Should people be allowed to sell their votes on eBay? black: The only reason you can't is because nobody would buy them. We've got a country where people don't even like to vote once. For all the people who preach democracy, if they had to pay for their vote, nobody would vole here.

019

pi.-VYBOY: Did you expect the Democratic primaries to drag out as long as they have? bl-xcK: This is my read on the whole cam­paign: By the time it's finished, voters will be so tired of whoever wins that they'll feel that person has already been president. Therefore, they should focus on John McCain now so that by the time the whole thing is done, when they actu­ally have to vote, they'll feel as if he has been the president and they'll want to vote for somebody else entirely.

020

playboy: Before you go, give us some dirt on Jon Stewart.

Bi.\cK: There's nothing to rat on him. It really makes me sick.

Head the 2 hi question at playboy.com/21q.

AMERICA'S ANGRIEST COMEDIAN KNOWS HOW TO FIX IMMIGRATION, EXPLAINS WHY

LAUGHTER PROVES THERE'S A GOD, INSISTS RUSH LIMBAUGH CAUSES SPEEDING

TICKETS AND TELLS WHY JON STEWART MAKES HIM PHYSICALLY ILL