Archive for September 27th, 2005

Last Saturday night I went to see Lewis Black’s Nothing Sacred tour at Carnegie Hall. For those of you who are saying “Who is that?” let me remind you that he is regularly featured on The Daily Show in a segment called “Back in Black”. Remember now? He is one of today’s best political comedians, able to make you laugh about everything from Tax Rebates to Homeland Security to Reaganomics. He notices all the completely irrational things that people do, and won’t hesitate to make fun of anyone’s behavior. He’s also been in many movies, TV shows and as a playwright has had over 40 plays produced all over the country.

The show had two opening acts. The first one was a jazz duet, which was a strange choice and didn’t seem to go over very well. I ended up leaving my seat to go grab a drink and found the lobby packed with like-minded people. We all piled back in when comedian, John Bowman, came on. After performing an interpretive dance (during which I think he honestly hurt himself) he proceeded to contribute to my insanity by getting the hemorrhoids commercial theme song stuck in my head. For days. Which was the whole point, but really . . . it’s still there. Bowman was funny, but the show should’ve just been Black, he didn’t need the openers, and I think it just brought the energy down, at least it did for me.

After a 20 minute intermission, Bowman came on stage to introduce the main act of the evening, Lewis Black. I had seen Black before at a surprise performance at Eating It, a monthly show of local comics at The Zipper Theatre. The venue was small and intimate and Black had the crowd doubled over. His show at Carnegie Hall was large and impersonal, but everyone still went crazy for him. I was waaaay up in the fourth mezzanine, so I wasn’t able to see any of his trademark facial gestures or wild, uncontrollable finger gesturing, but he killed nonetheless. All of his material was new, including his opening, during which he expressed his amazement of being allowed to play Carnegie Hall. After this, he said, the only thing left for him to do is become a drug addict, lose everything, go to rehab and try to work his way back up, so that he can eventually play Carnegie Hall again.

Forty minutes of pacing up and down the stage and yelling ‘FUCK’ over and over again, and the show was over. He had entertained us with stories of the time he performed for Dick Cheney, and how it made him a whore. He told us about all the strange names he’s encountered, including Asshole (pronounced Ash-hol-e) and Abcde (pronounced ab-ca-de) — and how it’s names like these which prove it should be legal for the person filling out the birth certificate to say “Ummm . . .no.” And he encouraged us to vote for Ronald Regan in the next election_because the only way to fight an insane enemy is to be even more insane, and wouldn’t it be great if we propped up a dead president on inauguration day.

The moral of the story is, if you ever get a chance to see Lewis Black in person . . . do it. I think I prefer the smaller venue, because watching this guy is comedy unto itself; but even just hearing him in a big venue like Carnegie is worth it. Keep your eyes peeled, because he sometimes plays the smaller clubs, and you wouldn’t want to miss it.