Lewis Black
Grammy Award-winning American stand-up comedian, author, playwright and actor.
Michael Jackson? That's all I gotta say. ...He's become a punchline. He has! Michael Jackson is a punchline. To any joke you want. If you ever forget the punchline to a joke, just say 'Michael Jackson.' "Two Jews walk into a bar...Michael Jackson!" "Why did the chicken cross the road? Michael Jackson!" "So the farmer brings his daughter to the dinner table--Michael Jackson!" It works for fucking anything!
If you don't drink 56 bottles of water a week, scientists say you should take a garden hose at the end of the week and shove it up your ass.
I would love to have the faith to believe that the world was created in seven days... but I have thoughts... and that can really fuck up the faith thing, just ask any Catholic priest.
You don't want to go to Miami. Everybody's always delighted with it--no! Listen! The temperature down there is always over ninety and the humidity--and here's the problem--is way over 100%, way. And you know how it's over 100% humidity? When you're walking down the street for five minutes thinking to yourself, "You know, I should have put deodorant on my balls." That's over a hundred. Because that's not something you'd think of on your own.
The toughest thing about performing here is, where do you go from here? Next week, I'm at the Fort Lauderdale Performing Arts Center.
[on Public Works Projects] You see what I felt they should have done for our first public works project is build a giant wall across the entire border of Canada...because THAT'S where the cold air comes from!
"Equestrian," by the by, is the gayest word in the English language. In fact, I thought Brokeback Mountain should have been called "Two Equestrians."
The Catholics have it right. I love what they do. That whole "the pope's infallible" thing is tremendous. Let's face facts: If you took somebody with no religious leanings whatsoever and locked that person in a psych ward with nobody around and no stimuli, the Catholic church is exactly what he'd come up with. "Listen to this. There's this old guy in a dress, see? He wears all these great costumes and wherever he says about anything from birth control to what to watch on television, that's it, 'cause pope knows best. He can't lift his head up, but, fuck, he's a genius.
Health clubs aren't healthy. In New York City, which has the most stairs of anywhere in the country, people pay money to go to a health club and use a stair master. When you live in a city, that has nothing but stairs and you pay money to use special stairs, that is not healthy behavior. It's fucking PSYCHOTIC!
[On Yom Kippur] The rabbi intones that today is the day that God will put your name in the Book of Life... or the Book of DEATH. I'm five, and I'm going, "Uhhh, what the fuck is that? The book of WHAT?!?" Death? Death was not anything that had ever occurred to me. My greatest fear was that my parents were going to leave me in a grocery store.
Here's why I think there's something a little odd with George [Bush]. Because a lot of the times when he speaks, his words don't match his face. Something is askew. You can't talk about the war with a smile on your face. He does it constantly. IF you're the President, you should go "We're going to talk about the war, I must have a frowny face." The only time you can smile when you're talking about the war in Iraq is when you go, "Well, two Iraqis walk into a bar, hahaha."
[talking about hunting quail] You shoot them with bird shot! Not like a BB gun, which would do the job. No, bird shot which is just a spray of fucking metal and shit, just [does hand gesture and blows raspberry].
There are things about the Jewish religion that I carry with me to this day. Chief among them is Yom Kippur, or the Day of Atonement, as it's so happily called. It had a profound effect on my innocent young mind. The service opens with the organ playing "Kol Nidre," one of the spookiest pieces of music ever written. You hear it and literally are surprised bats and shit aren't flying around.
The only thing dumber than a Democrat or a Republican is when those pricks work together. You see, in our two-party system, the Democrats are the party of no ideas and the Republicans are the party of bad ideas. It usually goes something like this. A Republican will stand up in Congress and say, "I've got a really bad idea." And a Democrat will immediately jump to his feet and declare, "And I can make it shittier."
I'd rather go ice fishing, which is the dumbest thing a man can do. You're sitting essentially in an out house and it's 30 below. You've cut a hole in the ice, and you're fishing for fish that you shouldn't eat, ‘cause any fish that is down there is fucking stupid.