Lewis Black's Rantcast

Since the founding of the Republican party in the mid-1850s, politics has been dominated by a two-party system that clearly isn’t working too well anymore. Third parties have been tried before, from Teddy Roosevelt’s Bull Moose Party to Strom Thurmond’s Dixiecrats to Ross Perot’s Reform party to current incarnations like the Libertarian Party and the Green Party. None have achieved much lasting electoral success. So, given the current state of American politics, the time may now be right for the Rubber Chicken Party. The RCP has one platform: empathy for the citizenry. While many human elected officials seem to only have empathy for corporations, a legislative branch of rubber chickens will definitely have more compassion for the people, and will be better equipped to represent the voters rather than multinational corporations. Never mind a chicken in every pot, it’s time for a rubber chicken in every seat in Congress! (As an aside, it was not Huey Long, or Herbert Hoover who first said, “a chicken in every pot”. At his coronation in 1589, French King Henry IV vowed that he would make the peasants of France so prosperous that each would, “have a chicken in his pot on Sunday.”)

Our elected leaders could also take an empathy lesson from the search dogs at the site of the collapsed Champlain Towers South in Surfside, FL. Many have become depressed because after long hours of searching, they are not finding living people. If we can’t wait for the advent of the RCP, the least we could do is send our Representatives and Senators (and some Governors too) to Florida to take lessons on how to act with empathy, with reverence for the humanity in all our fellow humans. The alternative is more weeks where the cascade of news brings stories like the Supreme Court celebrating Independence Day by making it harder for people to vote and Bill Cosby getting out of prison. We could take a lesson from the Germans, who, while also pulling their troops out of Afghanistan, have prioritized removing all of their alcohol before a single soldier returns home. This is a move that is both culturally sensitive and eminently practical. If we can learn from other humans, maybe we will get more stories like the fact that the name Karen has plummeted in the baby name rankings. And that’s having empathy for your child, which is a good place to start.

The pandemic has broken many things about our society and as we emerge from its ravages, we are all acting a little strange. For instance, your host has taken to watching soccer as he needs the distraction and dreams of a European Vacation. And if the rants this week are any indication, the ability to handle interpersonal communications has greatly diminished. As such, we have submissions about working in customer escalations, calling customer support, doctors who don’t keep their appointments, and dealing with government bureaucracy. Plus, a rant about how living in Switzerland has made one ex-pat want to simultaneously be a capitalist and kill all the capitalists. It’s a great summation of the paradox of our times.

Lewis’ latest special, Thanks For Risking Your Life is available now!

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Do you follow @TheLewisBlack on Twitter? If not, you may have missed one of his recent posts about the irony of Senate Republicans voting to not vote about voting rights, thereby killing (for now) HR 1. The usual reactionary backlash emerged as some in the Twitterverse did not get the joke, or were under the impression that what Lewis says has an actual impact on what happens in the halls of Congress. The point was that if it’s so important to Republicans that this not become the law of the land, they could do the citizenry the favor of actually debating the issue, giving their side of the argument and outlining exactly what they think will happen if the law passes. Instead we got Grand Guignol political theater, minus the visible puppet strings.

The Rantcast was on vacation last week as Lewis ventured south to check in on his mom, and to visit his alma mater, the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill. UNC has been in the news lately as the board of trustees intervened in the hiring of Nikole Hannah-Jones to be a tenured professor in the university’s School of Journalism and Media. Some of the trustees were upset with Ms. Hannah-Jones involvement in the Pulitzer-prize winning 1619 Project, which reframed American history with the origins and consequences of slavery as its centering theme. This is an academic debate that should be left to the academic community to engage with, and whether they eventually give her tenure or not, the history will get told with or without the support of the UNC Trustees. [Breaking news: The Board of Trustees will hold a vote on tenure for Ms. Hannah-Jones on June 30th.]

Much more happened this week, especially in the world of academia, but the big news is that Lewis will be performing live, for the first time since the start of the Pandemic, at the Chautauqua Institution. So, if you’re in the middle of very rural upstate New York on Monday, July 26th, check it out.

While one of the ranters this week has been disappointed by Lewis’ occasional failure to pronounce words correctly, he nails the hard ones in what is almost certainly the first rant from Iceland. Not everyone is so critical as another submission describes the importance of the Rantcast to the listener’s mental health. Also we have rants about how recipes always leave out one crucial step, waiting on hold for 175 minutes with customer service, online shopping, and more.

Lewis’ latest special, Thanks For Risking Your Life is available now!

https://tlbrecords.lnk.to/LewisWE

New episodes arrive every Wednesday.

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Did you know that the rubber chicken is not just the mascot for the Rantcast, he is also an accredited member of the press? Along with many news outlets, the rubber chicken can officially report that, in a huge surprise, rich people do not pay taxes. The bird’s usual beat is natural resources, and while on a failed fact-finding trip to Washington, he witnessed Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-Texas) espouse two utterly confounding theories about the climate crisis. First, in a House committee meeting, the Congressman asked if it was possible to fix climate change by changing the orbit of the moon around the Earth. Later, he promulgated the hypothesis that caribou need the warmth from oil pipelines to aid in their dating prospects. He said these idiocy-inducing statements at the exact moment that the southwest is in a megadrought and the man-made Lake Mead is at its lowest level since the Hoover Dam was built. Not to be outdone on being a slave to the petrochemical industry, a Louisiana legislator wants to make his dominion a fossil fuel sanctuary state. This in a state whose official motto is “Union, Justice, and Confidence” but is unofficially “Cancer Alley”. Lots more happened this week, but as your host says, the more he pays attention, the less he knows. That’s why he had to send the chicken out to report the news.

Back in the real world, Lewis is going on tour starting next month! If you are planning on seeing a show, it’s worthwhile to join the F.U.C.K.U. fan club. Membership includes ticket pre-sales for great seats, so no ticket brokers, scalpers, or dealing with a certain, shall-not-be-named ticket monopsony.

If you have listened to the Rantcast recently, one of the recurring subjects has been bad customer service from various package delivery services. While we have heard about FedEx, UPS, and DHL, this week it’s the post office’s turn. That’s followed by submissions about getting good at video games, traffic during the pandemic, and moving back home for small town living and finding that small town living is terrible. The balance of the episode is one big civics class with rants about Social Security, the filibuster, NYC elections, America being a bad neighbor to Canada, and the state of Maryland not teaching much Maryland history in Maryland high school history classes. Maybe Louie Gohmert will tune in. It can’t be a worse education than the one he’s already received.

Lewis’ new special, Thanks For Risking Your Life is available now!

https://tlbrecords.lnk.to/LewisWE

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As the collective COVID-induced confusion begins to abate (maybe), one thing has become abundantly clear: the tolerance for nonsense and magic thinking in the country has reached new heights. From the Federal government to state legislatures to your host’s humble center-of-the-universe metropolis, the onslaught of balderdash, hogwash, and malarkey rampages unabated. It starts with the former leader’s delusional warblings about the election having been stolen, which has unleashed a torrent of state laws restricting voting rights when no voter fraud in fact occurred. Many of those very same legislatures have then moved on to an area of expertise they know even less about than voting rights: health departments. In their blinkered understanding of the scientific method and human biology, they have determined that scientists and doctors should not be the people giving out advice about health-related subjects. When you follow the turtles all the way down you reach the point where some Republicans are blaming President Biden for the one dipping sauce per item limit at Chick-Fil-A. It should be obvious now that for all the manufactured desire for a return to normalcy, we were never normal.

And, in completely un-Louis DeJoy-related postal news, did you know that working at the post office is what led Lewis to start smoking?

If the submissions to the Rantcast are any guide, a year of isolation from other humans has not diminished our capacity to be irritated by other humans. As evidence we have rants this week about becoming a misanthrope, annoying grocery store employees, and Boomers who have had it up to here with Zoomers, Millennials, and Gen-Xers. Also, rants about Facebook’s nudity standards, reparations, shipping, Zoom meetings, virtual schooling, two canine-related rants, and an epic tale of pandemic isolation from a merchant mariner.

Lewis’ new special, Thanks For Risking Your Life is available now!

https://tlbrecords.lnk.to/LewisWE

New episodes arrive every Wednesday.

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While there is an effort afoot to add our nation’s Capital as a new state, it may be time to let certain other states to secede. The Lone Star state is high on the list to go their own merry way. There are myriad reasons for this, but it starts with the Republican-controlled legislature, who took it upon themselves to honor the sacrifices memorialized on Memorial Day by passing extremely restrictive voting rights laws (enactment TBD). As if infringing the rights of voters wasn’t enough, they also passed an extremely restrictive reproductive rights law, basically telling half the population that they do not have autonomy over their bodies. Also Ted Cruz. The machinations by Texas lawmakers belie a pervasive attitude among GOP politicians that their main purpose is to win elections, by any means necessary, not to actually govern. They are dinosaurs heading to their own oblivion, trying to hurt as many people as possible on the way out. What is needed instead are leaders who have vision and who understand that the point of representative government is to help the people you are representing, not just rich people or the people who donated to your campaign. It’s the decent thing to do.

Also, Supreme Leader Kim Jong-Un has banned North Korean men from wearing skinny jeans because they are decadent (he’s not wrong), and in this week’s edition of alternate reality news, anti-vaxxers are embracing social distancing to protect themselves from the vaccinated.

While your host does not see himself as a self-help guru, he does know that writing a rant will make you feel better. Your fellow citizens of Rantcast-land produced many excellent submissions this week (and they definitely feel much better), including a few on the benefits and pitfalls of technology, and ones about online dating (with some tips for the gentlemen in the audience), trash pandas, so-called spill-proof gasoline cans, and clothes hangers. To keep things light, we also have rants about the Israel/Palestine conflict, gun rights and Ted Cruz, the Anthropocene, and the Insurrection. Plus, this inscrutable question: why are blue bears used to advertise toilet paper?

Lewis’ new special, Thanks For Risking Your Life is available now!

https://tlbrecords.lnk.to/LewisWE

New episodes arrive every Wednesday.

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As the unofficial start of summer approaches, and we emerge (maybe) from the pandemic, now may seem like the time for hope and optimism. This is not the place for that. Instead, as your host points out, we are living in a continuous Sisyphean loop of politics, where just as it seems we may actually get something done, the boulder of democracy comes rolling back down. Among the things Congress is not getting done: infrastructure, voting rights, and a Jan. 6th insurrection commission. They have plenty of time to grandstand and make specious claims about liberties being infringed, but they can’t actually do the work that they were elected to do. Whatever the cause, it is Congress that is keeping the country from living up to its potential. Simply put, they need to grow up. The view outside the Beltway isn’t much better as the same disputes keep popping up, as if history itself is also stuck in a loop. This can be seen in the conflicts between the Israelis and the Palestinians, between governments and the journalists who dare to criticize them (Belarus), and between the profit motive and a responsible, informative press (Chicago Tribune). The essence of these conflicts is power vs. people and perhaps if we would acknowledge all the differing narratives of history, rather than enforce one overarching story, we could finally get the stone over the hill. 

The homework assignment for this week: use the Memorial Day holiday to discuss the meaning of liberty on both a personal and community level and read the Constitution. Extra credit for anyone who sends in a good Ninth Amendment rant.

This week’s submissions feature responses to rants about transgender athletes and using UPS to ship packages. We also have rants about toddler drivers, having a given name that causes pronunciation and gender confusion, organizing the kitchen, the insurrection, robocalls, and Memorial Day. Plus an extraordinary account from an infection control nurse about the plague of misinformation during the pandemic.

Lewis’ new special, Thanks For Risking Your Life is available now!

https://tlbrecords.lnk.to/LewisWE

New episodes arrive every Wednesday.

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Lewis continues his southern sojourn, this time from multiple undisclosed locations in the Tar Heel state. And while the eastern seaboard dealt with the gas shortage, Lewis has a diagnosis for the true cause of what ails America: an intelligence shortage. As evidence: hoarding gas because people thought there was a gas shortage caused the gas shortage. As a sidebar, Lewis thinks all squirrels are rabid, based on no proof, which is confirmation of his own intelligence shortage. It’s OK, because he went to North Carolina to try to find his mind again, and thanks to the comforts of the undisclosed location, and some relaxing rounds of golf, he may be up to 1/3 functional. This is more than can be said for many in our leadership, especially those in charge of our emergence from the pandemic. They appear to be playing a game of three card monte, rather than defining a clear process to return to normalcy as a group. Finally, Lewis encountered an intelligence shortage of the artificial kind. On a customer service call with a major express shipping company, he had to interact with the automated system — he never spoke with a human — and it went about as well as expected. Despite all the differences in the US, we can all agree that you should be able to talk to a human as quickly as possible.

This week we have a special guest ranter and the Rantcast’s reach to the Commonwealth countries keeps going with entries from Australia and Canada. The range of rant topics continues to impress with submissions about unappreciative panhandlers, noxious clouds of now-legal weed, ungrateful customers at various retail establishments, transgender athletes, riding public transportation, having a terrible mom, and guns in Florida. And in a sign of hope for the future, we have a rant about how to behave at a live comedy show.

Lewis’ new special, Thanks For Risking Your Life is available now!

https://tlbrecords.lnk.to/LewisWE

New episodes arrive every Wednesday

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This week’s Rantcast comes from an undisclosed location in the Tar Heel State, aka North Carolina, where Lewis has traveled to hit the links and visit supermarkets. Did you know that the 12th state’s motto is esse quam videri, Latin for “to be, rather than to seem”? It’s advice that many of our lawmakers have never learned, as from coast to coast “seem” has taken on a higher value than “be”. There’s no need for a resume anymore, BS alone can see you through to the highest reaches of government. In Arizona, a hitherto unheard-of cabal called the Cyber Ninjas was hired to help count the votes that have already been successfully counted and verified. In Florida, Gov. Ron DeSantis signed a bill that eviscerates the state’s voting rights and only invited Fox News to the ceremonial signing. This was appropriately evocative of coverage by the Soviet-era TASS News Agency. And in the hallowed halls of Congress, Liz “waterboarding isn’t torture” Cheney (R-WY) may be replaced in the house leadership by noted acolyte of the former leader Elise Stefanik (R-NY), because she dared to question the Big Lie. Back in the real world, Lewis appeared on the PBS show “Finding Your Roots”, where host Henry Louis Gates, Jr. revealed that he has a cousin who is also a podcast host. Must be in the genes. More importantly, Lewis celebrated Mother’s Day with his mom Jeannette who, in a moment of centenarian clarity, remarked that we shouldn’t celebrate Mother’s Day, because every day is Mother’s Day. Indeed.

The rants this week take on a bit of a British whinge with submissions from the UK praising the NHS and decrying the deterioration of manners. From this side of the pond we have rants about how to make a proper cup of coffee, being whiter than white, the lack of a minority presence at Lewis’ shows, getting dental insurance, (un)equal pay, the changing definition of the American dream, and not one but two rants about dog poop. And more.

Lewis’ new special, Thanks For Risking Your Life is available now!

https://tlbrecords.lnk.to/LewisWE

New episodes arrive every Wednesday

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After a one-week dental surgery-induced hiatus, the Rantcast is back! A lot happened in that interval, but the eternal question remains: when will we ever get back to being smart? That time is clearly not now as the stupid train rolls on, this time stopping at the door of Rick “Google It” Santorum. The former Pennsylvania Senator propounded the inanity that there was nothing of significance happening on this continent before white Europeans arrived. He seems to be forgetting both the fact that millions of people already lived in the Americas and that the British deemed it a good idea to go to battle wearing bright red coats. The backlash came as expected, with the backlash to the backlash forgetting that there’s a difference between so-called “cancel” culture and the consequences of being dumb as a post. The continuing pandemic revealed more stupidity as the goal of herd immunity slips away because some of the herd have decided they don’t want to wear masks and don’t want to get vaccinated either. This seems like a good moment to point out that the root of the word vaccine comes from the Latin for cow. Speaking of things down on the farm, we now have a chicken wing shortage to add to all our other woes and tribulations. Also infrastructure, lots of infrastructure.

The rants (26:06) get off to a fast start with a tryptic covering mask wearing, gendered Happy Meal toys, and how sweet tea has become the default when you ask for iced tea. They pick up steam from there with submissions about fixing the roads (and taxing the rich to do it), the unexpected perils of getting the second vaccine shot (and not in the way you would think), being judged for what you eat, a trip to the auto parts store that becomes a parable of our decrepit infrastructure, privileged parents who have decided the pandemic is over, wasted military spending in Iraq and Afghanistan (somehow also about infrastructure), online shopping and the tyranny of the star ratings system, and a playlet about a trip to Walmart that turned into a math problem for the stupid. And more.

The live rants (1:22:00) come from another Vaudeville-era gem, the historic Genesee Theatre in Waukegan, IL, where Lewis performed on Feb. 1, 2020.

Lewis’ new special, Thanks For Risking Your Life is available now!

https://tlbrecords.lnk.to/LewisWE

New episodes arrive every Wednesday.

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Back when Lewis was barely AARP age-eligible, US forces invaded Afghanistan and now, nearly 20 years later, your esteemed host is fully qualified for Social Security. And come September, the US military will have fully withdrawn from the Central/South Asian Republic. What did it all mean? Did the US occupation amount to anything? From having done three USO tours there, Lewis has some personal observations: The experience of being there was a truly life-changing experience, akin to an insane LSD trip (not in a bad way); the level of sacrifice from the soldiers there, whatever the justification of the mission, was astonishing; and that saying “thank you” to those who served is meaningless without actually supporting the troops with whatever they need once they return stateside. In other news this week, the Duke of Edinburgh, Prince Philip passed away and so did Ponzi scheme perfecter Bernie Madoff. Lewis was once in an ABC miniseries about the latter which featured Richard Dreyfus as Bernie and Blythe Danner as his wife, an experience Lewis felt made drama school finally worth it. Many Republicans have stepped in to fill the chaos void left by the former leader, typified by the proposed America First Caucus, a group of representatives keen on returning the US to its supposed Anglo-Saxon roots. Lewis has a modest proposal for them: if they want to return to a pre-21st century time, let’s take some of that infrastructure money, build a time machine, and send them back to whatever time period they would feel comfortable in. Maybe a plantation would do.

After the mass shootings a few weeks ago, Lewis went on a rant of his own about the need for common sense gun control legislation, and as part of that, asked for rebuttal submissions. So we start this week’s rants with a counter response averring that many proposals to curb gun violence by restricting gun ownership are based on false premises. From there things perk up a bit with rants about the inanity of planning an indoor surprise party during the pandemic, packages being delivered to the wrong address, personal products application confusion, mask wearing, running a small business during the pandemic, and roundabouts. Plus, the rubber chicken controversy continues.

Lewis’ new special, Thanks For Risking Your Life is available now!

https://tlbrecords.lnk.to/LewisWE

New episodes arrive every Wednesday.

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