In this week's print edition we interviewed Lewis Black, a comic who is just angry enough to make you laugh. In addition to the Grammys he has under his belt for standup, Black is also a playwright, author and a regular recurring guest on the Daily Show. Standup comedy started as a fascination and after fifteen years Black finally found a voice worth shouting about.
Space constraints prevented the entire interview from making it to print. Here is what was left on the cutting room floor.
Kelsey McClure: Hello Mr. Black; how are you doing?
Lewis Black: Oh, it gets better every day doesn't it?
I don't know. You tell me!
Uhhhh... I don't think so. [Laughter]
No?
I don't think so; I really don't think so.
I was going to say, that sounded very strangely optimistic.
No. I mean, I kind of wish it would get better every day, but we just seem to backpedal. It's really like we're going nowhere.
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...[On the topic of coming back to comedy]
When you say "a long time to find your voice," I think in comedy speak for some people that could be five years, it could be ten years, it could be twenty years, it could be six months...
Well I was working, from the time I really started doing it until the time I got my voice, was about fifteen years.
I would have thought with your theater and drama background that you would have had a leg up on other comics just from being around performance and being comfortable. When you were doing the drama/theater stuff were you onstage or just doing the writing?
I was mainly writing. I was actually on stage some, but I was really writing. And the problem with standup is I was doing it, and then I wasn't doing it, and then I was doing it, and then I wouldn't do it. You can't do it that way.
Yeah; all or nothing.
You gotta go out and do it as much as you can. You can't just stop and then go back. The only way is you learn it over time. Even now I stopped for ten days, two weeks, a month... Going back the first few shows are, you know... Wow. It's not like a bicycle. You don't remember.
Continue to page two for more of our interview with Black.
