Austinist Interviews Lewis Black

Maybe it’s just a rumor on the internets, but what's the deal with the Red State Diaries… can you tell me a little bit about that?
Yeah, we’re fucked… Comedy Central, I’ve only been on this channel about 12 years, 14 years, and they don’t know what to do with me. And they can’t figure it out. Like we did it, it’s in the can and it tested well, and that’s what I heard, they may dispute it, but I heard it tested well. And Dennis Leary, his company basically [produced it], Jim Serpico is the guy who produced it. I did it with Jeff Stilson the guy who’s the brains behind the Ozzy Osbourne thing [The Osbournes], so he’s pretty brilliant and gets it. I thought for the first time out of the box it was really good and everything that we wanted to do, we were in Tallahassee, and everything we wanted to do we couldn’t do because the Florida State University decided [against it], we were doing most of our stuff at Florida State. So we were there and literally within 24 hours had to change everything we were doing and I still thought it really came out nicely and Dennis [Leary] watched it with his family and said it was unbelievable to him because his family can’t sit together and watch anything and they all loved it.

So I don’t know, everyone we show it likes it. So Comedy Central [says] “he doesn’t yell enough.” Two of three big cheeses at Comedy Central liked it, but the biggest cheese didn’t feel it was what it should [be], even though they realized it was what I’d pitched to them. The upshot is that they’re still in a kind of negotiation to do something. The thing that they did that really set my teeth on edge was that they wanted to then do the next version of it around election time and do it with one of the Blue Collar comics [Larry the Cable Guy, Bill Engvall, Jeff Foxworthy, and Ron White]. I happen to like all of the Blue Collar comics, I wrote Larry the Cable Guy’s intro to his book, but if I’m going to do something with those guys I’m going to think of something else. This show I came up with Jeff [Stilson], Jeff and I were going to work on this. If they need numbers just get the Blue Collar guys, you know, don’t bother me. Get the Blue Collar guy and leave me alone, let them do Blue State Diaries.

You said in another interview that writing is a “brutal experience in many, many ways.” How do you feel about reading? Who do you like to read?
I don’t get to read enough. It’s pathetic. The last writer I read was the writer of High Fidelity, Nick… Nick Hornby and his new book is what I read, and I can’t think of the name of that [A Long Way Down], and it was brilliant. Unless I take a vacation I don’t get to read… I’m going through newspapers and stuff like that, so I don’t get to read as much as I want to read and every time I say well, I put a bunch a books aside, I take books with me…

It just becomes a stack to lug around...
Yeah, and sadly I just got the Sam Harris book they gave me the other day, The End of Faith. I want to read that and that’ll just sit in my suitcase… taunting me.

In terms of researching for your material you do have to read a lot of newspapers. Do you ever consult online sources? Or…
I don’t do that online crap. I don’t read that blog shit. Fuck that! I’ve never, you know... Blogs, I think it’s great and I’m glad people are getting empowered, yada-yada, but ultimately I feel like it’s a… what do you call it... it’s like American Idol with words. Some blog's going to rise to the top and it’s great if some writer gets found, that’s great. Part of it is I don’t know where to look. You know people send me stuff…

There’s a lot of crap out there.
There is, but I read USA Today. USA Today tells me what Americans may know and then if I need to research more, like when they came up with the pharmaceuticals bill, that you read some in USA Today and then you start tracking through the [New York] Times because there’s a little more detail. And the Times editorial page, which is actually like a Blog Page!, they actually kind of collate stuff for me. I’ll read that and find stuff. Maureen Dowd finds things. I hit where people find this stuff. I’ve been doing a quote that didn’t really appear anywhere else, but I saw it in her [column], and I couldn’t track it anywhere else, something that the president had said to these troops, these quadriplegics and amputees in San Antonio. So that’s where I get that stuff and I read Time, or Newsweek, and I watch CNN and FOX, I watch all of them.

Tucker Carlson had me on today, because there’s no big news today. The middle east is uh… we’re ten minutes from the rapture and he’s found something that I did the other day during one of my book things on CNN when I told them to take the [news] scroll off and CNN took the scroll off. It’s 8:30 in the morning or something and I’m doing this and Carlson’s [gripe] was "why is CNN listening to a comedian?" How do you take what the fuck I just did and take it completely and flip it out of context into some sort of power thing that I did as opposed to the joke… I know him [Carlson], that prick, when I see him he is in such deep shit. I don’t care what he needs for his show, you know. He has to know how stupid that scroll is.

That’s just the thing, news has become like a show, a spectacle. You mentioned the rapture… do you believe Ryan Seacrest is the second coming of Dick Clark, or just the second coming?
He’s just uh [laughs] they’re both right.

There was a big uproar in the blogoshpere about this, what do you take of the mainstream media’s reaction, or non-reaction, to Stephen Colbert’s performance at the White House Press dinner?
Here’s the thing, here’s why a blogger can do what they do, it’s so fuckin’ irritating, I just wish we’d get to the next point. If I’m not going to have television the way it was when I was a kid, right?, if it’s going to go to showing up on my computer, if newspapers aren’t going to be what they are then can we get to what the next thing is? Do I have to live through this transition? Newspaper guys aren’t basically, you know, the ones who talked about it were editorial guys who basically have a stick up their ass… because ultimately you can say Stephen Colbert was funny, he was seriously funny, however if you’re sitting in that room, you know, 50% of that room didn’t get it and they got the other guy [the Bush impersonator]. What can they say? I watched a few of the guys talk about it. If they’re reporting what they were in the room watching it’s like Last Comic Standing. The Bush prick [impersonator], I was talking to guy on the radio about it who was saying “as much as I thought Colbert was the funny one he made me cringe and the Bush guy got the laughs.” It’s an easier gig, but the job of the press isn’t to cover that. How important is that?

Not very.
It’s a dopey thing, I did one… what they should have written about is how do you hire him [Colbert]? How did he not get vetted and I was vetted up the ass? I was, I mean what I had to go through was I had to do my whole act for them [beforehand]. And [regarding] Stephen, they just went “nobody noticed,” but that’s the White House, it’s perfect. They could’ve have said “the White House once again doesn’t really pay attention to what’s in front of its nose.”

Very good point. You have been around central Texas before, what’s this rumor about a hole in one at Plum Creek in Kyle?
That’s in the Austin Paper. Yeah, son of a bitch, yeah I did. It was seven in the morning and we were going to San Antonio and we drove all night, I had this tour thing and my opening act, who’s really funny and a golfer found [this course], we wanted to play a “course” course. We’d been playing really hard courses and we’re not really great. We’re playing these courses and getting the shit kicked out of us. [We thought] let’s just play like a normal human being course and we did and I did get a hole in one and it was, possibly, the greatest moment of my life which was followed by a colonoscopy, which may be the second greatest moment of my life. Well, because the level of fear with which you go into it with and they knock you out. Everybody makes all these things, plus Katie Couric shows you the colon, I don’t need to see that. You know, just tell me it’s a nap. It was the best two hours, and then you wake up and go “that’s it?” and then I ask “can I eat?” and she [the nurse] says “here’s a couple of restaurants to go to, here’s what I’d suggest….” How good is that? It’s a great medical procedure, I said I’d come back the next week. I really have trouble sleeping, it was like “what’d you give me and how can I get it in the house?”

Beautiful. You’re not here for very long?
I know, It sucks!

Do you like central Texas?
I like this town. I used to perform at Cap City way back and I’ve performed at the Velveeta Room. And I like 6th street a lot, there’s great little places to wander into. I’ve seen great music on that street. I like it here.

*photo provided courtesy of Simon & Schuster*