Lewis
Black performs Carnegie
By Sarah Church
Online Forty-Niner
Contributing Writer
Lewis Black is back. His religion-mocking, political-party-bashing, celebrity-knocking
hilarious stand-up routine that packed Carnegie Hall in New York City Sept. 24
was recorded on a two-disc set that hit stores nationwide April 25.
Black is notorious for his make-your-grandmother-cringe stage etiquette, a foul
mouth, sarcastic smile and jabbing hand gestures throughout his routine.
This makes his cynicism shine twice as bright when he opens his routine with
a sketch about performing at Carnegie Hall.
“
I know a lot of people in this room this evening. I don’t belong here.
You don’t belong here,” he begins. “...there are a lot of rules
here, which makes it an interesting evening for me. You don’t fuck with
Carnegie Hall.”
“
Lewis Black: The Carnegie Hall Performance” features Black’s infamous
White House farce, including the measures President George W. Bush’s “congressional
correspondence committee” demanded Black take before performing his comedy
for the president, various members of the U.S. Congress, lawyers and lobbyists.
Black jokes that in a phone call with one of these correspondents, he was asked
specifically to refrain from using the word “nipple” because first
lady Laura Bush would be present. This prompted Black to teasingly question, “Is
there something I should know?”
Black has released three comedy CDs on Comedy Central Records, authored his first
book, “Nothing’s Sacred,” and recently re-released a DVD of
his HBO special, “Black on Broadway.” He received a 2005 Grammy nomination
for last year’s “Lewis Black: Luther Burbank Performing Arts Center
Blues.”
“
America’s Foremost Commentator on Everything” sits alongside Jon
Stewart as a weekly political commentator for Comedy Central’s award-winning “The
Daily Show with Jon Stewart.”
Black jokes that he chose to perform this “bar mitzvah in hyperspace” at
the esteemed Carnegie Hall to attempt to fulfill his cliche Jewish mother’s
unrelenting expectations for her son’s career – the goal to become
a doctor, marry one or “at least [get] a degree in health administration.”
He is a self-described socialist, rejecting the ideas of both major parties and
calling each of them to agree on the “fact-facts” of life. When the
two parties disagree on the “facts” of a situation, Black claims,
obviously the ideas presented are not “facts.”
“
The only place you get real information in this country, that you can absolutely
count on and be able to work from and rely on…” Black
said, “is if you go to an elementary school…and it says ‘Tuesday
lunch: Meatloaf and Peas’, and you walk in on Tuesday, it will be meatloaf
and peas.”
“
Is there a book the priests look at to figure out how many of these [Hail Marys]
you have to do? You know if somebody went to the church and said, ‘I fucked
a monkey,’ he’d have to get on the phone and call the Vatican: He
fucked a monkey! What do you do about that? It’s not in the book!”
Black throws jokes at everyone and everything.
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