Lewis Black's Rantcast The Laugh Button

Recorded live somewhere on an interstate near the Colorado/Kansas border, Lewis recounts the news of the past week, which, very much like the terrain he is transiting, is a lot of endless gray sameness.
The live rants come from the Broome County Forum in Binghamton, NY on March 5, 2020.

Submit rants to Lewis
https://www.lewisblack.com/live

Check out Lewis’ Grammy-nominated special, Thanks For Risking Your Life
https://tlbrecords.lnk.to/LewisWE

Subscribe to Lewis Black’s Rantcast
Apple – https://bit.ly/rantcast
Spotify – https://spoti.fi/3oNaPFh
Google – https://bit.ly/37Zb35u
Amazon – https://amzn.to/37bg8Za

Follow Lewis
Website – http://www.lewisblack.com
Instagram – http://www.instagram.com/thelewisblack
Twitter – https://twitter.com/thelewisblack
Facebook – https://www.facebook.com/thelewisblack
Youtube - https://www.youtube.com/OfficialLewisBlack

New episodes arrive every Wednesday via The Laugh Button
For advertising opportunities email: advertise@thelaughbutton.com
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Two weeks into 2022 and the disquieting sense of déjà vu persists. While the title of this week’s episode would be a great title for a disco song, it’s not great as an apt description of the new year. The same issues that plagued 2021, including an actual plague, continue to hamper any sense of progress or anything that doesn’t resemble a rudderless drift. For example, this past week the anniversary of the January 6th Insurrection passed, fortunately without incident, but we still have no idea what exactly happened. All we can say for certain is that the former leader is a poor loser and his behavior wouldn’t be acceptable from a child who struck out in T-ball. It was ever thus with the man.
The real news this week was the passing of Bob Saget and Sidney Poitier, and this episode is dedicated to their memory and the great works of art they created. While Lewis was never fortunate enough to meet Sidney Poitier, the effect he had on his view of race and society was possibly equal to that of MLK. Lewis did have a relationship with Bob Saget, working with him many times. He was spectacularly filthy and spectacularly sweet, was a great headliner, and was overall a terrific human. The deaths of both seems to show that some people pass on and our society is not producing people of a similar caliber that have a positive effect on the world.
In other news, get vaccinated, whether for Covid, or as your host did this week, against Shingles.
The live rants come from the Paramount Theater in Charlottesville, VA on February 28, 2020.

Submit rants to Lewis
https://www.lewisblack.com/live

Check out Lewis’ Grammy-nominated special, Thanks For Risking Your Life
https://tlbrecords.lnk.to/LewisWE

Subscribe to Lewis Black’s Rantcast
Apple – https://bit.ly/rantcast
Spotify – https://spoti.fi/3oNaPFh
Google – https://bit.ly/37Zb35u
Amazon – https://amzn.to/37bg8Za

Follow Lewis
Website – http://www.lewisblack.com
Instagram – http://www.instagram.com/thelewisblack
Twitter – https://twitter.com/thelewisblack
Facebook – https://www.facebook.com/thelewisblack
Youtube - https://www.youtube.com/OfficialLewisBlack

New episodes arrive every Wednesday via The Laugh Button
For advertising opportunities email: advertise@thelaughbutton.com
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Lewis rings in the new year by taking a look back at all the wonderful and joyous events of 2021.
And like many things in the media today, that previous sentence bears only a partial resemblance to the truth. While some ostensibly good things happened last year, it has mostly left us with more questions than answers. For instance, why will people refuse to get vaccinated but will avail themselves of every ounce of modern medicine that can be found in an emergency room? Who knew about the Insurrection beforehand and why wasn't more done to stop it? Why does the state of Texas have its own electrical grid? Why do people think it's a good idea to mass themselves in Times Square during a pandemic? And rhetorically, if three billionaires can launch into "space" but we can't continue the child tax credit, does that mean we have a problem with inequality?
On the plus side, the usage of profanity has exploded which means that at least some of the populace is getting a better handle on their anger issues. And as studies have shown, the use of profanity is a sign of intelligence. So, F.U. to 2021, and onwards to a better 2022.
The live rants come from the Sandler Center for the Performing Arts in Virginia Beach, VA on February 27, 2020.

Submit rants to Lewis
https://www.lewisblack.com/live

Check out Lewis’ Grammy-nominated special, Thanks For Risking Your Life
https://tlbrecords.lnk.to/LewisWE

Subscribe to Lewis Black’s Rantcast
Apple – https://bit.ly/rantcast
Spotify – https://spoti.fi/3oNaPFh
Google – https://bit.ly/37Zb35u
Amazon – https://amzn.to/37bg8Za

Follow Lewis
Website – http://www.lewisblack.com
Instagram – http://www.instagram.com/thelewisblack
Twitter – https://twitter.com/thelewisblack
Facebook – https://www.facebook.com/thelewisblack
Youtube - https://www.youtube.com/OfficialLewisBlack

New episodes arrive every Wednesday via The Laugh Button
For advertising opportunities email: advertise@thelaughbutton.com
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In the final Rantcast of the year 2021, Lewis ponders the unfathomable contradictions and conundrums evident in the pluralistic American society. How can a group of people who can't seem to get anything done on time still manage to shop themselves into Yuletide oblivion and get all the Christmas gifts under the tree in time to perpetuate the myth of Santa Claus (or Father Christmas for the Anglophiles)? How can a civic body that would rather go to the dentist than actually vote get their knickers so in a twist about the right to vote? And have we so lost our minds as a country that nothing seems amiss when animated bears sell us toilet paper and a live, costumed emu hawks insurance? Maybe we can all agree that no one is waiting for Sunday night, especially when it involves the Washington Football Team getting trampled by actual Cowboys.
With the assaults of insanity from all sides in politics, the media, and the marketplace, Lewis has an important message as we transition to 2022: don't let them get you crazy. You're not crazy, they are. Happy New Year!
The live rants come from the Ulster Performing Arts Center in Kingston, NY on February 22, 2020.

Submit rants to Lewis
https://www.lewisblack.com/live

Check out Lewis’ Grammy-nominated special, Thanks For Risking Your Life
https://tlbrecords.lnk.to/LewisWE

Subscribe to Lewis Black’s Rantcast
Apple – https://bit.ly/rantcast
Spotify – https://spoti.fi/3oNaPFh
Google – https://bit.ly/37Zb35u
Amazon – https://amzn.to/37bg8Za

Follow Lewis
Website – http://www.lewisblack.com
Instagram – http://www.instagram.com/thelewisblack
Twitter – https://twitter.com/thelewisblack
Facebook – https://www.facebook.com/thelewisblack
Youtube - https://www.youtube.com/OfficialLewisBlack

New episodes arrive every Wednesday via The Laugh Button
For advertising opportunities email: advertise@thelaughbutton.com
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Having left the great state of Florida, the land where freedom goes to get sun-baked into insanity, Lewis reports in from a parking lot in suburban Baltimore. While he enjoyed his time in the sunshine state, the governor there seems to be lost in a florid freedom fog of Covid-denial, and the populace is following suit. Fortunately the audiences at the shows were able to enjoy their theater-going liberty and showed up en masse, vaxxed and masked. Meanwhile, the news this week is filled with the onslaught of Omicron and the meandering machinations of Sen. Manchin and his worries that funds to the citizenry will go to drugs and hunting. In all these stories, the news media does nothing to separate fact from opinion, and as usual relies on conflict narratives to keep the eyeballs fixed on the page and the screen. The good news this week is that the former leader was booed for getting a booster and Lewis got to see his mom. And a gift-giving tip from your host: at-home COVID tests make a great stocking stuffer.
The live rants come from the Grand Opera House in Wilmington DE on Feb. 21, 2020.

Submit rants to Lewis
https://www.lewisblack.com/live

Check out Lewis’ Grammy-nominated special, Thanks For Risking Your Life
https://tlbrecords.lnk.to/LewisWE

Subscribe to Lewis Black’s Rantcast
Apple – https://bit.ly/rantcast
Spotify – https://spoti.fi/3oNaPFh
Google – https://bit.ly/37Zb35u
Amazon – https://amzn.to/37bg8Za

Follow Lewis
Website – http://www.lewisblack.com
Instagram – http://www.instagram.com/thelewisblack
Twitter – https://twitter.com/thelewisblack
Facebook – https://www.facebook.com/thelewisblack
Youtube - https://www.youtube.com/OfficialLewisBlack

New episodes arrive every Wednesday via The Laugh Button
For advertising opportunities email: advertise@thelaughbutton.com
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This week's Rantcast comes from an undisclosed location in Florida. As your host tours the Sunshine state, it's important for him to not just maintain social distancing, but to hide from the sun-baked masses entirely. The citizenry there acts as though there's no global pandemic occurring and mask wearing is not even an afterthought. Despite this alternate reality, the shows in Florida have gone well, with audiences who have not forgotten how to behave in a theatre and may be the only people in the state who civilly comply with a mask requirement. The only downside is that tickets for the show in Jacksonville have not sold well (this is not something new) leading Lewis to wonder what other excitement is to be had in Jacksonville.
Meanwhile the news this week was dominated by the tornadoes in Kentucky and surrounding states, a meteorological phenomenon rarely seen at this time of year. Something is clearly terribly wrong with the climate for this to be happening as winter approaches. Not so rare, unfortunately, was that there was yet another school shooting, a event that can't even be called a tragedy any more, because a tragedy is something that you actually try to prevent, but it happens anyway. The responses from certain members of Congress were as predictable as the calls for thoughts and prayers, with one representative, coincidentally, sending out holiday cards asking Santa for ammo for Christmas. Would they be used to defend the Douglas fir in living room? This kind of holiday card leads one to wonder what kind of weaponry the wise men brought the baby Jesus along with the myrrh and the frankincense. Also, Lewis notes the passing of Bob Dole and recounts his own encounter with the former Kansas Senator and presidential candidate.
The live rants come from Princeton, NJ with submissions about traffic, bad drivers, and bats.

Submit rants to Lewis
https://www.lewisblack.com/live

Check out Lewis’ Grammy-nominated special, Thanks For Risking Your Life
https://tlbrecords.lnk.to/LewisWE

Subscribe to Lewis Black’s Rantcast
Apple – https://bit.ly/rantcast
Spotify – https://spoti.fi/3oNaPFh
Google – https://bit.ly/37Zb35u
Amazon – https://amzn.to/37bg8Za

Follow Lewis
Website – http://www.lewisblack.com
Instagram – http://www.instagram.com/thelewisblack
Twitter – https://twitter.com/thelewisblack
Facebook – https://www.facebook.com/thelewisblack
Youtube - https://www.youtube.com/OfficialLewisBlack

New episodes arrive every Wednesday via The Laugh Button
For advertising opportunities email: advertise@thelaughbutton.com
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices