Acerbic wit carries over to Black’s ‘Faith’
Comedian Lewis Black points to the refrigerator in his office at Hollywood Center Studios.
“Why’d they even give me the fridge?” he asks in his trademark rasp, which manages to be simultaneously gruff and good-natured. It’s a fair question; the air in Black’s office is icebox-chilly. So he leads his visitor to table and chairs on the deck, where the day is perfect, the temperature 68 degrees.
Why’s the air conditioning on at all, given a day like this? For that matter, why is his visitor a literary critic? Why isn’t Black being interviewed by a TV critic? Black’s staff, after all, is at work on another installment of Comedy Central’s “The Root of All Evil.” On the show, Black serves as funnyman/judge while other jokesters debate the demerits of, say, cultural touchstones such as Paris Hilton vs. Dick Cheney, Oprah vs. the Catholic Church, or YouTube vs. pornography.
But Black has a new book out, too. In “Me of Little Faith,” Black explores his own murky views on spiritual issues even as he skewers just about every religion you can think of.
Given Black’s irreverent style, one shouldn’t be surprised to read passages such as this:
“Why do we need religion at all? Wouldn’t life work just as well if we kept ourselves higher than kites on an assortment of drugs … or why don’t we just choose to live without any morals at all so we can constantly satisfy the insatiable wants and needs that haunt us humans, thereby insulating ourselves from the fears that are at the underbelly of everyday life?”
His answer, or at least one of them: fear of death.
“Religion gives us a destination to head toward. It’s the Orbitz of death, and if you are as good as you can be, then you get to end up in first class and you don’t have to go through the security line. You won’t even have to take your shoes off.”
“Me of Little Faith” is written like a series of good punch lines. The chapters – actually mini-essays, each of them – tend to be two or three pages long with a good zinger at the end.
“I have a tendency to write that way because it suits my style,” Black says. Chuckling, he adds, “Maybe if I write another book, I’ll learn how to write longer chapters.”
In this day and age when you can’t say two words about politics, sex or religion without brassing someone off, “Me of Little Faith” definitely isn’t for everyone. Open-minded readers, though, will find a book that really is as much quest as it is comedy. In one piece, “Ron the Archangel,” Black ponders why he felt such a sense of peace when his brother died – and why, in the months and years that followed, many pieces of his life began to fall into place.
“Career doors that had been closed to me began to swing open,” Black writes. “I have no doubt that my brother was the one who was helping to unlock them.”
The birthday bunch
Guitarist-inventor Les Paul is 93. Sports commentator Dick Vitale is 69. Keyboardist Jon Lord (Deep Purple and Whitesnake) is 67. Actor Michael J. Fox is 47. Actor Johnny Depp is 45. Actress Gloria Reuben (“The Agency,” “ER”) is 44. Bassist Dean Felber (Hootie and the Blowfish) is 41. Actress Michaela Conlin (“Bones”) is 30. Actress Natalie Portman is 27. Actress Mae Whitman (“Arrested Development”) is 20.