The “king of rant,” comedian Lewis Black, is known to many comedy fans for his curmudgeonly rants and biting commentary. He became a household name with recurring features on “The Daily Show” during nearly its entire 25-year history and played the embodiment of anger in the Pixar film “Inside Out.” Now, Black is back on tour with his new show “Off the Rails,” a show that picks up where the previous one left off in March 2020. He’s performing at the Cobb Energy Centre in Atlanta on April 9. Black joined “City Lights” host Lois Reitzes via Zoom to offer an insider’s glimpse behind his ranting persona.
Interview highlights:
How Lewis Black weathered the pandemic:
“I was lucky because I had a place, a terrace, and I could walk on my terrace, and I would walk a mile or two miles a day,” said Black. “In the meantime, I did nothing … Apparently, a lot of people, you know, became better people — they learned how to sous vide, they, they learned how to do their own sushi, they learned all sorts of skills — none of which interested me. I didn’t even cook for myself.”
“I think that the reason you don’t cook for yourself is because it’s the road to madness, because of fractions.”
What Black’s recently been up to, besides 100 shows per year:
“I’m now the titular chairman of the board of the Kurt Vonnegut Museum and Library,” said Black. He later added, “They do a lot of things. They deal with banned books and trying to make sure that, you know, that nonsense stops, and they have banned book readings. And then the Writers Guild, which I work with too … hooked up with the Vonnegut Museum in order to also start doing some work on banned books, and they take up the subjects that were near and dear to Kurt’s heart.”
“I also think that the great thing about Kurt Vonnegut is … he’s simple and profound at the same time, so he’s a great way to get kids to start reading. Simple, profound and funny.”
The stand-up show’s closing livestream bit, “The Rant is Due:”
“It started as a Q&A kind of a thing and grew into comments about the town, and then it grew into ‘What’s bothering you,’ and then it really became, ‘What’s making you mad?’ And it could be anything from serious to some yelling and screaming about chunky peanut butter,” said Black. “I try to read what comes in from the audience that I’m performing for, from the city I’m performing in, from the surrounding area that I’m in, to the state that I’m in. I want it to be a show about the place that I’m at.”
“What happened just before the pandemic, about six to eight months were some of the best-written rants I’ve ever seen,” Black added. “Now I have to tell them for the first time ever, ‘Okay guys, um, let’s try to edit your stuff … you’ve been in shutdown so long … I understand that you really want to talk, but get to the point.’ But I do very little of that. They’re really good at what they do, and this stuff that comes up is completely and utterly surprising and goes from very, very funny to very, very sad.”
Tickets and more information for Lewis Black’s touring show “Off the Rails,” taking place April 9 at Cobb Energy Performing Arts Centre, can be found here.
