Comedian Lewis Black’s cultural saturation is such that, for many of us, the opening chords of AC/DC’s “Back in Black” instantly call to mind his indignant news commentary on “The Daily Show.”
But Black, 64, is more multifaceted than his sometimes Kinison-esque delivery suggests. Trained as a playwright at the University of North Carolina, he’s had various plays produced over the years, even while doing 200 stand-up dates a year.
Now he’s home in New York for a new Broadway show, “Running on Empty,” playing from Oct. 9 through the 20th at the Richard Rodgers Theatre. The Post caught up with Black for a preview.
What rants can we expect this month?
It’s the only time in a long while when I really come down on an issue: There is global warming. There’s nothing to discuss. And if we want to get things rolling, we have to listen to our scientists. There’s a thing going on now where people treat scientists as if they’re a coven of witches. These people, they work with Bunsen burners. You have to start to trust them. And also, we’re watching the separating of one of the polar ice caps. There was a huge chunk of polar ice that just fell away. Just because we don’t defrost our refrigerators anymore doesn’t mean you can’t remember what that means.
What’s your take on social media?
I was told I have to have a Facebook page, so people would know to go to my Web site. Now I’m on Twitter to tell people to go to my Facebook page. It’s really unbelievable. For all the talk about social media and it making the world smaller, it’s decimated my ability to tell people I’m coming to town. It was easier when I first starting touring. When I came to a town, people knew. Now, I walk down the street — I’m in Austin today, and I went to this taco stand here that’s kind of famous, and the woman who owns it came out and said, ‘What are you doing here in town?’ I said I was performing last night. She said, ‘I can’t believe it, I had no idea.’ It gets lost in the volume of information. I’m in the midst of competing with 2,000 other events. I don’t know how you reach people anymore!
In addition to your Broadway show, you’ve got a play running — how different is it from your stand-up?
“One Slight Hitch” is going on simultaneously at the George Street Theater in New Brunswick, NJ. It’s a play I started writing 30 years ago, and now, hopefully, I’m almost done with it. It’s a romantic comedy. It’s kind of old-fashioned. I had a soft spot for that when I started, and if I didn’t write something people liked, I would die of hunger. There still seems, to me, something very sad about it. But basically it’s an upbeat ending. I kind of want audiences to leave happy.
Are you secretly an optimist?
I am optimistic about the future. The bulk of the country is in the middle, not at the extremes. I’m even optimistic about the present. I wake up every morning thinking it’s gonna get better. And then by eleven I know I’m wrong.
Did you go to the conventions this year?
I won’t go anymore. I’m way over those. It’s like getting too close to radiation. You don’t want to walk into it and be near its core.
And the election in general?
The Democrats, they’re incapable of speaking English, so I don’t really know what they’re saying. And they want everybody to feel good, which is exhausting.
And it’s just astonishing what’s going on with the Republican party — it started off socially liberal and fiscally conservative. Now it’s become socially less liberal and fiscally deranged. Their favorite word is entitled. Which used to have to do with the wealthy, and they’ve turned the word around on the poor. Who are getting handed bags of s- -t. You can’t call that an entitlement. You have to come up with another word.
And the attacks on reproductive rights — those have been so weirdly extreme as to seem kind of absurd.
All that stuff about women — you’re allowed to think those things, because it’s a democracy, but you don’t get to say them. You have to keep that s – – t to yourself, because it’s nonsense. What’s really disturbing to me is these guys are my age. It’s really offensive. They’ve continued to follow this old-school nonsense horses – – t. It’s like they’re still in the ’50s. They’re still wandering around disturbed that women can vote.
What local issues get you worked up?
At some point New York and New Jersey need to get together and figure out about cars. There has to be a tipping point of what makes it really livable. I [take a cab] out to Newark at like 10 a.m. and there’s still bumper to bumper traffic. I was in Hong Kong, where if you put all the cars end to end there’d be half a mile of roadway left. Eventually that will happen here. The cars will be stacked up and we’ll say, “I wish we’d worked on this.”
You’ve been doing the “Back in Black” segment since “The Daily Show” first started. How has it evolved?
It started off as just yelling about stuff. We didn’t even have an audience. I’d do it three times, on the fly. Then when Jon came, and we got an audience, it was really tightly scripted. Now we bring it out when it’s necessary for someone to bellow like a loon.
Have you been surprised at the enduring success of the show?
Five million hours of news without any real information kind of helped us come to the fore. Jon really knew what he wanted to do. I mean, [Steve] Carell, [Stephen] Colbert, [John] Oliver — it’s turned out some great people. And it’s a terrific group of writers. I don’t think they get their due sometimes, but my hat’s off to them. A lot of the time they write me better than I do.
In your Grammy-winning 2006 Carnegie Hall special, you did a bit about candy corn. This season they’ve come out with a candy corn-flavored Oreo. Have you encountered it?
Yeah, there’s an Oreo limited edition. You can’t limit it enough! I think that’s a crime against nature. It really makes my skin crawl.