Lewis Black

continued

sorts. It was a tour de force, deconstructing myths, prejudice, pretense, and religion.

But what I remember most about that performance isn't the mastery of material, the perfect comic timing, or the sheer intelligence (Black has a way of skewering inanity that is both logical and outrageous). It was his remarks to the audience, which indicated a fine grasp of Ann Arbor sentiment. Several times after making a politically incorrect remark, he pointed out how most of the audience had started to laugh but then stifled its amusement. Black was contemptuous. "You know what you just did?" he scoffed.

Finally, after four or five such moments, Black stopped his routine, walked around the stage in what seemed to be genuine rage, and sputtered loudly: "There! You did it again! You started to giggle and then--silence! You have to stop doing that! That kills comedy!"

Black is such a cauldron of indignant anger--it's what fuels his comedy, and it never lets up--that the rage seems more than an act. And in his scolding of the Ann Arbor audience it was both genuine and merited. Political correctness does eviscerate Black's humor. One of his main targets is pretense of all stripes--and he is an equal-opportunity ridiculer.