Lewis Black's Rantcast

Many subjects divide the denizens of the United States and the list easily comes to mind. Now, we must add the legendary rubber chicken to our culture war. Some consider the chicken’s caterwauling the epitome of crass comedic laziness, while others, including your host, believe that the rubber chicken is a celebrated figure in the history of comedy going back to at least the Vaudeville era as a gag mainstay. Also, Lewis couldn’t afford a real sidekick.

In other areas of American division, there are problems at the southern border, where people from other countries are trying to enter the US; maybe we should stop telling people how great America is if we don’t want them to come here. Mitch McConnell is upset that CEOs are getting involved in voting rights; Kaitlyn Jenner is considering running for governor of California as a Republican, a group of people doing their best to do away with trans people; and to continue the hypocrisy train, the former leader called on his supporters to boycott Coca-Cola products and then was seen drinking Diet Coke. In the really important news of the week, Lewis visited his mom Jeannette at her assisted living facility in Maryland and he got to play golf. So, things are looking up.

The rants keep pouring in, and the diversity of subject matter keeps getting bigger. One submission this week asks why Americans have so much hostility towards the rest of the world, especially the developing world. Another proposes a constitutional amendment that would tie Congressional pay to the minimum wage. And Lewis’ friend Nancy Stanley recounts an incident where she went full mask vigilante at a Trader Joe’s. Plus, we hear about the broken US medical system, bad behavior at national parks, returning to school while the pandemic persists, cheating on your taxes, fun at a Burger King playland, and this conundrum: how do you fix your reading glasses when you need your reading glasses to see so you can fix your reading glass. Also towels.

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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The signs of spring and renewal are in the air, as Lewis forgoes celebrating Passover and Easter isn’t his thing either. So, no hunting for eggs and no mom’s brisket (not a big loss as Jeannette’s version involved boiling the meat until it was the consistency of rubber). Another sign of spring comes from the start of the baseball season, where Lew’s Baltimore Orioles opened the season with a sweep of the hated Boston Red Sox. Despite this early season success, they are still an insult to birds nationwide. In other baseball news, the 2021 All Star Game was moved out of Georgia as a protest against their recently enacted restrictive voting law. This is not cancel culture, but an otherwise conservative organization understanding which side of history they want to be on. Renewal was also a theme in the political world, as the Biden administration proposed a sweeping (but not sweeping enough for some people) infrastructure bill. Will it cost a lot of money? Yes, but it’s necessary to bring us into the 21st century. You get what you pay for, and right now we are paying just enough to be 13th in the world. And in further signs of renewal, a gay pride-themed lifeguard tower in Long Beach, CA that had been burned down will be rebuilt “gayer” then before, and Lewis ventured out into his bustling metropolis and got a haircut.

A bevy of rants arrived this week, so there’s no live replay. Instead, we have diatribes about the struggle to retrieve a forgotten iPad password, New York legalizing weed, gay self-identification, car auctions, assembling furniture from an unnamed (Swedish) store, escargot, the hematological dangers of blister packaging, and the importance of doing your research. We also had several pandemic-related rants including ones about online dating, working at a supermarket, and neighborhood games. Also f*&k Ted Cruz.

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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Another week, another mass shooting. And Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) had a completely inappropriate, but totally within character response, wherein he disingenuously claimed that any attempt to curtail gun violence can be seen as mere theatrics. (It bears repeating that Sen. Cruz attended Princeton and Harvard Law School and their admissions departments have a lot of explaining to do.) The parade of bad faith policy making rolled on, this time in the Peach State, where Georgia Republicans passed a 90-page bill severely restricting voting rights. That’s a lot of words to obscure the simple message, “we don’t want black people to vote”. It wasn’t all bad news down South, as the Alabama legislature relaxed the ban on teaching Yoga in schools once it was explained that stretching is in no way an endorsement of Hinduism. The little ones still must be shielded from speaking a non-English word, in this case “namaste”. In other good news, Lewis had successful Nitrous-aided dental surgery, he filled out an application for a job at a Sonoma County vineyard, and it was announced that his play “One Slight Hitch” will be performed at a Covid-restricted 25-seat theatre in Bengaluru, India. It’s not Broadway, but at least they are open for business. Also, unlike some people, Lewis has nothing but good things to say about Dominion Voting Systems.

Not all the rants are funny this week, and not all the rants need to be rants. Need some advice? Lewis can be a great resource for all your interpersonal relationship questions, such as, how do I politely disinvite my mother-in-law-to-be from my bachelorette party she invited herself to? And maybe it’s the ongoing pandemic, but the nitty-gritty annoyances of procuring foodstuffs also took a big place in the rants. Pizza, circus peanuts, cinnamon buns, and Happy Meals all showed up along with some lighthearted rants about racism, sexism, the minimum wage, police brutality, poverty, and millennials. Also parking.

The live rants come from the Soaring Eagle (NOT Spread Eagle) Casino in Mt. Pleasant, MI. And as always, we want to thank the Saginaw-Chippewa Nation for being such gracious hosts.

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

https://tlbrecords.lnk.to/LewisWE

New episodes arrive every Wednesday.

SUBMIT RANTS TO LEWIS

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The madness in America continued this week on many levels and in many forms. Spring breakers descended on Miami causing chaos of near catastrophic proportions. No masks, no problem, as the Florida free-for-all mentality meant that everything was allowable, as long as someone was making money from it. March Madness, a.k.a. the NCAA Tournament began and Lewis felt guilty for watching but it provided a necessary distraction. What did he need a distraction from? The sinister madness, the one that leads people to kill other people because of how they look or where they come from. That madness is compounded by law enforcement officials who characterize the perpetrator as “having a bad day”. In addition to the madness, there was the usual stupidity. Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) did something stupid. Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL) did something stupid. And a bank robber used a loaner BMW to do something stupid. Ingenious, but also stupid. Finally, and in an unrelated matter, if you’re in the Tulsa area, take a tour of Oral Roberts University. It will be worth your time.

The rants keep rolling in, and this week they take on the gamut of subjects including spam email, school funding, sexism, racism, not-so-durable durable goods, daylight savings time, judge-y fellow parents, the difficulties of being a nurse during the pandemic, and for the first time in the history of the Rants, one about being an identical twin.

The live rants come from one of the classic Vaudeville venues in America, the Coronado Theater in Rockford, IL. To promote the show, Lewis tried his hand as an advertising maven, ordering splashy billboards on the local highways. Apparently what works for casinos doesn’t necessarily apply to comedians, as the exact same number of people showed up as the last time he performed there. But it was a great show in a great setting.

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

https://tlbrecords.lnk.to/LewisWE

New episodes arrive every Wednesday.

SUBMIT RANTS TO LEWIS

www.lewisblack.com/live

SUBSCRIBE TO THE RANTCAST

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FOLLOW LEWIS

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Another week, another Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI) verbal inanity. This time he claimed he was more afraid of Black Lives Matter and Antifa, than the insurrectionists who actually attacked the Capitol on January 6th. In further "I'm Just A Bill" news, the American Rescue Plan passed and was signed into law by President Biden, all without a single GOP vote, leaving Lewis to wonder what exactly Republican lawmakers think their job in Washington is. Helping the American people doesn't seem to be it. This week also marked the one year anniversary of the beginning of the Covid-19 lockdown, and every news outlet spent it memorializing and remembering a hell that is ongoing. What does Lewis remember? The vertigo-inducing moment when he realized the leader was going to nothing to protect the American people. And it was one year ago, on March 13, 2020, that Lewis performed for the last time prior to the lockdown. He then fled the scene and hightailed it back to New York to spend the next 10 weeks in isolation. On the plus side he got to visit a Walmart for the first time.

This week's rant subjects include a list of new Amendments to the Constitution, a Norwegian perspective on safe social distancing, Fruity Pebbles coffee creamer, skeuomorphic design in software UI design, cell phone bills, the corporatization of children's gifts, teachers being deemed non-essential during the pandemic, people driving while using their cell phones as speaker phones, and a rebuttal to last week's rant about Netflix and having to read subtitles for foreign films.

The live rants come from the historic Hoyt Sherman Theater in Des Moines, IA. 

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

https://tlbrecords.lnk.to/LewisWE

New episodes arrive every Wednesday.

SUBMIT RANTS TO LEWIS

www.lewisblack.com/live

SUBSCRIBE TO THE RANTCAST

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FOLLOW LEWIS

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Congress managed to actually pass a law, the American Rescue Plan, but not before Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI) used valuable legislative time to have the full text read on the Senate floor, rather than discuss why he’s opposed to it. The House also passed the For The People Act, and Lewis, a voting rights ambassador for the ACLU, has some choice words for those who act to restrict the franchise. Also, something happened with Meghan and Harry and Oprah.

This rants this week include an interesting perspective on the pandemic lifestyle; a 10-point diatribe about how the Netflix interface operates; a plea to let the pharmacists on the front lines of Covid testing and vaccines do their jobs, without corporate interference; a trilogy of takes on the Dr. Seuss publishing controversy; a rumination in wonderment on where the class consciousness is; and finally, a combustible and epic tale of chasing an insurance payout check through the labyrinthine complexities of the American banking, insurance, and mail systems.

In a nice reminder of why voting matters, the live rants come from Iowa City, IA, where Lewis performed just before the 2020 caucuses.

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

https://tlbrecords.lnk.to/LewisWE

New episodes arrive every Wednesday.

SUBMIT RANTS TO LEWIS

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The rubber chicken joins the fight for $15, as the junior senator from Texas, fresh off his quick sojourn to Cancun, popped up at the CPAC convention. Ted Cruz was in Orlando alongside the former leader and a mob of maskless minions, all there to pretend that Joe Biden isn’t president and that nothing happened at the Capitol on January 6th. Sen. McConnell, now the minority leader, plays it both ways in the fallout of impeachment number 2, showing that there is no issue he can’t squirm his way clear of. And to fix all that ails our country, Lewis proposes a new constitutional amendment that would create pyrotechnic consequences for officials who lie to the public. Let’s get Amendment no. 28 on the books! Finally, in international news, the oldest living person, a 117-year old woman from France has survived the pandemic. In true Gallic fashion she celebrated with Champagne and foie gras. Lewis heartily approves.

This week’s rants include a discourse on how to properly cook chicken, the state of school safety in the Covid Era, the plight of a gay man in Kentucky where things took a turn for the worse in 2016, the fine art of laziness, and as if travel weren’t hard enough right now, why, oh why, do they not serve alcohol on airplanes. The live rants come from Rochester, MN, home of the Mayo Clinic and the best muffins in America.

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

https://tlbrecords.lnk.to/LewisWE

New episodes arrive every Wednesday.

SUBMIT RANTS TO LEWIS

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Just when its citizens needed help the most, Texas leaders take vacations and Lewis has a few thoughts about leadership from Ted Cruz on down. Speaking of leadership, our former Leader is having a bit of an issue with his tax returns, but that’s okay! According to Q-Anon he’s going to assume the Presidency again on March 4th, hooray!

This week users brought Lewis yet another constitutional amendment followed immediately a risk analyst who really wonders about the liability 55 gallons of personal lubricant. An old school complaint re-emerges with a modern twist, a rant in 3 codas, people with odd company loyalties, a lady requesting Lewis curse for her, the age old debate about senses of humor, and a woman who wonders why her son is averse to hygiene. By pure serendipity, the live rants come from Houston this week, much love to the people of Texas right now.

Submit rants to Lewis

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

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The rubber chicken might be running for a Senate seat in 2022 because we all know it would’ve voted to impeach had it been in office. The second impeachment of our leader brings back memories of when Lewis was involved in an impeachment during his college senate years. After thinking about it, that might’ve been the moment he realized he wanted to pursue a career in comedy. This past week brought the birthday of Lewis’ father so he was reminded of a moment about a prejudice epiphany as the passing of jazz great Chick Corea, brings up a great story about when he and Lewis met when they were both accepting their Grammys.

For the rants this week Lewis reads some new constitutional amendments; someone who heard a previous rant about Weetabix and provided some Swedish translation on the subject. A lady who accidentally labeled her neighbor with the wrong political affiliation, an expat in South Korea who might be okay with strict COVID guidance, a man who has a serious bone to pick with common sense, and finally some really great advice from your old High School classmate about sliding into DMs. The live rants from the road come to us from Biloxi, MS where if you ever find yourself in town near the Beau Rivage theater, you’d be doing yourself a disservice if you did not stop by Mary Mahoney’s. 

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

https://tlbrecords.lnk.to/LewisWE

SUBMIT RANTS TO LEWIS

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This week, Lewis is surprised to learn he was “selected” as a COVID-19 benefit winner. After reading that email, he also might know a Saudi prince that wants to give him millions of dollars as well, okay!? The second impeachment of Donald Trump is underway and if the incompetence of members of Congress doesn’t make you mad, you might just not be paying attention. But it’s not all bad news! After too long a delay, Lewis’ mother will finally get her vaccine this week and the fine folks at the NFL decided to pay tribute to frontline healthcare workers by holding a super spreader event so they will have someone to take care of. How nice of Roger Goodell and the gang?

This week’s rants are top notch, as Lewis hears from a few ranters that feel public servants both don’t represent us well and spend too much time on social media. Rants about the lack of understanding about social distancing. A Canadian who adores a British accent (Lewis is not great at it), a woman who has a real problem with call volumes, and a Brit who really doesn’t need any more fiber during the quarantine. The show then rolls into Hattiesburg, MS for some live rants read at first Lewis’ tour date stop of 2020, when times were a little bit simpler.

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

https://tlbrecords.lnk.to/LewisWE

New episodes arrive every Wednesday.

SUBMIT RANTS TO LEWIS

www.lewisblack.com/live

SUBSCRIBE TO THE RANTCAST

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FOLLOW LEWIS

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