Lewis Black for President

By: Elaine Furst

“It’s absolutely stupid that we live without an ozone layer. We have men, we’ve got rockets, we’ve got saran wrap–FIX IT!!!”

Such is the wisdom of the man that I worship, that is the cream to my coffee, that sees the world with the same skewed vision as I. He’s comedian Lewis Black. (God even his surname is perfect!)

Dubbed “the angriest man in showbiz,” Black was born colicky, and that irritability has stayed with him his whole life. Born to a teacher and a mechanical engineer, and educated at Yale Drama School, Black’s parents instilled in him the importance of education and the necessity to question authority. And boy does he ever question authority. From politics to the environment to American Idol, Black gives the middle finger to anything and anyone that sticks to his craw.

Here is a small sampling of some of Black’s more witty rantings:

Politics:
“A republican stands up in Congress and says, ‘I GOT A REALLY BAD IDEA!’ and the democrat stands up after him and says, ‘AND I CAN MAKE IT SHITTIER!’”

Homeland Security:
“And then there’s the Homeland Security system–they had it color-coded, like we’re in fucking elementary school! Simplify it–there should be just three levels of security; Jesus Christ, Goddammit, FUCK ME!”

Nuclear Holocaust
“You know what they would do? They would come to my elementary school with films to show me how to protect myself from a nuclear-fucking-holocaust. They would show this giant nuclear-fucking-bomb just blowing the shit out of everything. Goats and monkeys flying everywhere. The windows of the elementary school blown out, the teacher banged up against the fucking blackboard. But there were the children…hiding safely under their desks.”

Genius, I tell ya, pure genius!

The best way, though, to appreciate Black’s rantings is hearing him spew them himself (and if you’ve ever seen Black perform, you know he doesn’t recite a line. No my friend, he SPEWS them).

You can now catch Black in all his cranky glory on his new Comedy Central show, Lewis Black: The Root of All Evil. The show is part People’s Court, part comedy showcase, part Lewis Black monologue. But mostly it’s a place where Black can air his grievances about the things in pop culture that make him want to stab himself in the eye with a burning stick (and Lord knows there’s a lot of that!). Each episode pits two of Black’s particular peeves against each other, as his funny friends–Patton Oswalt and Paul F. Tompkins among them–make their arguments for which is less despicable. Among the topics debated are: Oprah vs. the Catholic Church, Kim Jong Il vs. Tila Tequila, and my personal favorite, American Idol vs. high school.

Brilliant, absolutely brilliant!

Black’s comedy is certainly not for everyone, and I’m quite sure if you told him so, frankly, he wouldn’t give a damn. He’d probably give you his middle finger, tell you to go screw yourself, and then go on to the next. Ah, my kind of man…

Lewis Black: Root Of All Evil appears on Comedy Central at 10:30pm on Wednesdays.