Lewis Black is Back, and on the Attack

Comedian Lewis Black appeared with Imus today because, as with many guests, he was promoting something: the debut of his latest comedy special “Lewis Black: Stark, Raving Black” on Comedy Central this Saturday, June 12, at 9pm.

Filmed nine months ago in Detroit, Black thinks the material still holds up. For the first time in his act, he discusses aging.

“People come on TV, they’re 62 and say they’ve never felt better in their lives,” he said. “What did they have, polio when they were 12? Really? Were they in the woods covered with ticks during their 20s?”

Like Imus, Black is more prone to forgetfulness now than he was in previous years, which he blames on the computer, the phone, and the scroll on television news channels.

“You can’t look at the person talking, you have to have information on the bottom and the sides,” he whined.

Neither Imus nor Black was willing to excuse Helen Thomas’s anti-Semitic remarks that Jews should go back to Poland and Germany, the two countries where they were exterminated during World War II. But as his mother is 91 years old, Black is familiar with the inability of older people to “edit” themselves.

“My mother said, ‘I saw your Comedy Central special last week, it’s six years old, and you know what’s great? You still have the same amount of hair now as you did then,’” Black recalled. “There was a pause, and she says, ‘Which means you’re just as bald as you were then.’”

In his new special, Black also rails about the financial industry and the so-called “regulations” they put in place after the meltdown of 2008.

“One of the first things the Securities and Exchange Commission wanted to put into the law was that the lender should be sure that the buyer has the financial resources and income in order to pay back the lender,” said Black. “Really? If you’ve got to write that down for them, that’s just the beginning.”

And don’t even get him started on the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.

“We invade BP!” he offered as a solution. “Invade ‘em! What are we doing? They’ve attacked us with oil! It’s the first outright attack on the United States, really, since 9-11. It’s an attack! I don’t care if they’re a corporation—they act like states anyway. Invade them!”

BP’s failure to enumerate exactly how much oil is spewing from the damaged well has left Black wondering just one thing…

“Did every scientist forget how to count?”

-Julie Kanfer