Find Out What Lewis Black is Dreaming About This Holiday Season

Known for being in a general state of crankiness almost all the time, comedian Lewis Black told Imus today that he was finally feeling better, “now that it was all over”; “it” being the election.
 
“It’s all over but the stupidity now,” he noted.
 
And the stupidity will get even stupider as the holiday season approaches, which is why Black, a Jew, decided to write I’m Dreaming of a Black Christmas. That, and he’s enough of a sucker to believe his publisher, who said writing a third book would make Black a real author.
 
As a single, childless, Jewish man, Black’s perspective on Christmas is different from the average person’s. “It’s always interesting to me that families, at that time of year, get together, and it’s big family time, and the pressure is spectacular,” he said, grunting. “And you turn to your friend like a week before and say, ‘How are the wife and kids? How are things going? Is it going to be a good Christmas?’ And they go, ‘I don’t want you to think ill of me, but I’m going to kill them.’”
 
Lewis takes major issue with the Christmas tree at Rockefeller Center in New York; or, as he calls it in his book, “The Hooker at Rockefeller Center.”
 
“People who live in every place in the United States that has trees feels obligated to come and look at ours,” he said. “We’ve got one tree out there! Stay away from it!”
 
Imus’s issue with the tree is that when he used to work at NBC, the tree would block some lanes of traffic, which in his world are viewed as parking spots for the limo.
 
One of the highlights of I’m Dreaming of a Black Christmas is a carol penned by Black and sung to the tune of Carol of the Bells. It includes lines like “Where is the scotch? Please touch my crotch,” and for a real pre-Christmas treat, watch Black sing part of it:

 
Black normally divides his Christmas up into two parts. First, he lunches with some friends, their kids, and some of their extended family, where his role is that of “a rickety, old uncle who brings nothing to the table, and just comes to eat and drink.”
 
He feels simultaneously “awash in familial love,” and as though he has done nothing with his life. Then he moves on to another friend’s house, where he again he is surrounded by children, more friends, and more family.
 
“Finally, I get home and I’m alone, and I realize there’s nobody going, ‘How’s your day? What did you do? What are you thinking?’” Black said. “There’s this really golden silence that surrounds me.”
 
He paused. “And I realize that I may be one of the happiest people on Earth.”
 
-Julie Kanfer