To: Comedy Central
From: Mitch Berg
Re: Lewis Black
To whom it may concern,
It seems odd to be lecturing “Comedy Central” on the subject of comedy. But it seems intervention is in order.
Lewis Black is not funny.
He has never been funny.
He will never be funny.
I know – he’s supposed to be a “dyspeptic crank”. Sure, it could work; George Burns and George Allen and, what the hell, Dennis Leary have all made careers – and gotten a billion laughs – playing cranky misanthropes.
The difference, of course, is that with each of ’em there was something behind the dyspepsia; something you could identify with. And I can’t even imagine the dissociative guy on the bus identifying with Black.
Summary: Lewis Black – not funny.
Thank you for your consideration.
That is all.
Mitch observed: “George Burns and George Allen and, what the hell, Dennis Leary have all made careers – and gotten a billion laughs – playing cranky misanthropes.”
That “macaca” line sure was a riot. At least Lewis Black is still working.
Better he stays in comedy. Minnesota voters seem to like comedians.
Not the carpetbagger from New York.
Kerm, somebody without the good sense to leave Minnesota has no business in the U.S. Senate.
This is the area I think George Carlin gradually drifted in to after his wife died. He does more and more material that is less and less funny but ever more bitter and ranty. At least Dennis Miller and Dennis Leary (especially in “Rescue Me”) manage to be funny while complaining.
At least I still have the great back catalog of Carlin material. You can easily listen to his stuff up to (and including much of) “Jammin’ in New York”. “You Are All Diseased” is tiresome and requires too much effort to enjoy.
I realize that New York has a proud tradition of farming out it’s representatives. That and electing adulterous whoremongrers. Us old-fashioned folk out here on the prairie tend to prefer having people represent us, not the Democratic National Committee.
If you can’t make it there, you can’t make it anywhere.
“somebody without the good sense to leave Minnesota has no business in the U.S. Senate”
Surely the words of a clown.
Great point. Somebody stupid enough to live in San Francisco has no business in the U.S. Senate. Flawless logic.
The late Richard Jeni did an utterly wonderful — and, by they way, quite angry — riff on politics. He started off by talking about how 911 had pushed him to the right:
Cause after that 9/11 I was so mad I said: ‘That’s it! I’m becoming a hard core, hard assed, right wing Republican Fucker!’
So you run all the way over to the far right side, and there they are! There’s your right wing crew.
A bunch of: Money Grubbing, Green House Gassing, Seal Clubbing, Oil Drilling, Bible Thumping, Missile Firing, Right-to-Lifing, Lethal Injecting hypocrites!
There they are! There’s your crew. There they are.
People whose idea of a good time is strapping a dead Panda to the front of a Lincoln Navigator and running over everybody in the Gay Parade! I can’t deal with them.
Get outta here!
I’m going over here to the left side, to be with all these Looney, lefty liberal people. And there’s the crew!
A bunch of: Bong Smoking, America Bashing, Flag Burning, Yoga Posing, Incense Burning, Dolphin Saving, Salmon Eating Hypocrites!
There they are. There’s the crew.
These are the sensitive liberal people who are always yelling about everybody’s freedom of speech and expression. Unless you say something that pisses them off!
Then they can’t wait to tie your ass to the back bumper of a Toyota Hybrid and drag you to the Berkeley Campus and drop your carcass in front of the Fidel Castro Building for the Continuing Study of Why America Sucks!
Lunatics!
The only place that makes sense to me, I think, is a little more moderate, in here, right? The Centrists, the middle, like me, yeah!
Yeah! A bunch of: Flip-flopping, Fence Sitting, Half In, Half Out, Half Assed, Non Voting, so they can bitch no matter who wins. Those are your guys.
But the ones that annoy me slightly more than all the rest of us are the Trillionaire Bleeding Heart Liberals; People who are going to change the world, if they have to spend every buck of your money to do it.
The Limousine Liberal People!
People living in a mansion that’s got twenty rooms that nobody’s in – they’re air-conditioned.
Got a pool that nobody goes in – it’s heated.
Flying across the country in a twenty person jet all by themselves ‘cause they don’t want to be late for a speech – about energy conservation.”
I think he was funny, in part, because he was an equal opportunity attacker.
Black could learn from that.
Joel,
Jeni’s bit you quoted (which is great) wasn’t angry at all… at least not when I saw it on his HBO special (I think it was “A Big Steaming Pile of Me”).
Jeni was hillarious.
He was hilarious, but — to me, YMMV — he came across as angry about human stupidity, including — no, particularly — his own.
I found that utterly charming. Still do.
Ever see him live? He was a real treat to see.