In this week's episode, Lewis remembers his friend Bruce MacVittie, an accomplished stage and screen actor who passed away earlier this month. Lewis met Bruce through their work with 52nd Street Project, a community-based arts organization that brings NYC tweens and teens together with professional artists to create a variety of works of art. Aside from working with the kids, there was also some time for the adults to share a glass of wine or two. During these tastings Lewis came to appreciate w...
May 25, 2022•42 min•Ep. 83
In an America where almost anything jurisprudence-related – no matter how unreasonable it seems in the current context – can be justified if you can find a quote from an old, dead Englishman, it's a good time to reflect on the Bard's sentiments regarding the legal profession. Among Shakespeare's most famous locutions, "The first thing we do, let's kill all the lawyers" (Henry VI, Part 2) can be interpreted in several ways but in the current moment let’s posit that it’s criticism of lawyers for s...
May 13, 2022•1 hr•Ep. 82
In this week's episode, Lewis delves into the history of May Day and why in the US we moved the celebration of labor to the end of the summer. Honoring the working class at the same time as the rest of the world was too communal an experience for our nation of rugged individualists, and it was stained by links with socialists and anarchists and by fears of association with the 1886 Haymarket Riots. President Grover Cleveland thus proposed having the celebration for those who labor in September a...
May 04, 2022•48 min•Ep. 81
In this week's episode, Lewis pays tribute to his friend and fellow comedian Gilbert Gottfried, a foul-mouthed angel who made a career out of finding the line of taste and then crossing right over it. He revived the Aristocrats joke as a way to recover from a post-9/11 moment of comedic transgression, and could make almost anything funny, including waiter’s trays. He will be terribly missed and if anything has happened “too soon”, it is Gilbert passing. In other news of the week, a federal judge...
Apr 27, 2022•57 min
The rubber chicken is on leave after pumping out an extraordinary quantity of eggs for Easter. And like his coworker, Lewis is also on vacation, enjoying some rounds of golf and some time away from America's work-in-progress infrastructure. The live rants come from the show in Huntington NY on April 3, 2020. The show went so well that Lewis will be back at The Paramount on May 15th to film his next special. Tickets are available here: https://paramountny.com/shows/lewis-black-special-live-taping...
Apr 20, 2022•27 min•Ep. 79
This week's episode comes from somewhere on I-20 near the Georgia/South Carolina border, possibly the bumpiest stretch of road for a locale that doesn't see much wintry weather. The bumps in the road (sorry) is a theme that carried forward from the previous night in Atlanta, where one of the patrons had had a little too much to drink and not enough talk about the current president. The gentleman in question, disinhibited by the night's imbibing, could not keep that sentiment to himself, and felt...
Apr 13, 2022•1 hr 1 min•Ep. 78
From a time when the Kansas Jayhawks don't exist, this week's Rantcast celebrates the brave, valorous young men of the University of North Carolina Tar Heels basketball team who defeated the despised Blue Devils and sent Coach K on his merry way. In another televised display of possibly manufactured animosity, there was the slap heard round the world at the Oscars ceremony, with slapper Will Smith valiantly protecting his family from a not-great joke made by slapee Chris Rock. This was followed ...
Apr 06, 2022•49 min•Ep. 77
Lewis is ready for spring temperatures, but the climate will not comply. While he's waiting for the vernal season to kick into high gear, and recovering from the Pat's vs. Geno's cheesesteak challenge, the main distraction from the madness of March is March Madness and the joy/trepidation of his UNC team facing the despised Duke Blue Devils. Go Heels! With the turn of the seasons, it is also a time to contemplate the larger questions of life and the world. A prime example at the moment is: how i...
Mar 30, 2022•1 hr 8 min•Ep. 76
This special Rantcast episode comes from the National Comedy Center in Jamestown NY. The Comedy Center is the only American cultural institution solely dedicated to comedy. Located in Lucille Ball’s hometown of Jamestown, New York, the museum documents the history of comedy through exhibitions about comedians, cartoonists, writers, and other artists whose work exemplifies the full range of comedic styles. In 2019, Congress designated it as the official American institution dedicated to comedy. I...
Mar 23, 2022•1 hr 26 min
There's on old adage about New England that if you don't like the weather, just wait. And just like the wearying vicissitudes of the northeastern climate, the wider human experience provides an endless variety of new ways to redefine insanity. From war to pestilence to trading for Carson Wentz as your solution at QB, no amount of reason can sway certain members of the species from terrible decision-making. The news media may be the only people happy with the situation as it gives them license to...
Mar 16, 2022•1 hr 5 min•Ep. 74
Coming to you from somewhere along the treacherous, no guardrail road from Loleta to Redding, this week's episode answers the timely question of what kinds of infrastructure in Humboldt County need to be fixed. The answer: all of it. From the bumpy roads to the lack of phone and internet service, the pot basket of America is in sore need of better streets and the ability to connect to the outside world. If it were possible to pave the roads with marijuana, Humboldt would have the best thoroughfa...
Mar 09, 2022•52 min•Ep. 73
Amidst the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Lewis escapes to the real magic kingdoms in California, Napa Valley and Humboldt County. They are lands of free-flowing wine and wondrous strains of weed, and great places to be while the world reaches a new level of self-immolation. From the horrific images on television to the absurd support for the Russian leader from members of the right wing, the cups are not deep enough to truly obliterate the acute sense that things have gone completely off the rail...
Mar 02, 2022•28 min•Ep. 72
While stuck in traffic somewhere on I-80 west of the Donner Pass, Lewis recounts his travels in the Golden State and while highlighting one of the best rants from the weekend, gives his review of the George Romero film "Monkey Shines". The live rants come from the shows in Reno, NV, Monterey, CA, and Turlock, CA. Check out Lewis’ Grammy-nominated special, Thanks For Risking Your Life https://tlbrecords.lnk.to/LewisWE New episodes arrive every Wednesday. SUBMIT RANTS TO LEWIS www.lewisblack.com/l...
Feb 23, 2022•56 min•Ep. 71
As Lewis traverses the frigid upper Midwest, the news from unseasonably warm Washington is as surreal as the weird Mid-Atlantic weather. First, Georgia Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene claimed that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is spying on members of Congress with a reconnaissance force called the “Gazpacho Police”. Gazpacho of course being the Gestapo of soups (h/t to whomever first uttered this idiom.) Then the RNC said that what happened on January 6th is “legitimate political discourse”. ...
Feb 16, 2022•1 hr 8 min•Ep. 70
Originating from yet another undisclosed location somewhere on America's interstate highway system, this week's episode features a rubber chicken who has had enough of overland transportation. It is no way to travel for a fake fowl more acclimated to a warmer, sedentary lifestyle. So, he, like many of his fellow Americans, is ready to go on strike to get the better working conditions that he deserves. And as they have both had enough of the cold, one area of agreement between management and labo...
Feb 09, 2022•41 min•Ep. 69
Coming to you from somewhere near the Kansas-Oklahoma border, this week's episode features your host using words that only someone who has spent too much time in the flat part of the country would use. Gussied? Check. Crinoline? Check. And while Lewis was not able to visit Tulsa's own Oral Roberts University, he did have time to address the current great effort at overweening religiosity, book banning. And all he asks of those banning books is that they turn their censorious eyes toward his lite...
Feb 02, 2022•41 min•Ep. 68
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. Check out Lewis’ Grammy-nominated special, Thanks For Risking Your Life https://tlbrecords.lnk.to/LewisWE New episodes arrive every Wednesday. SUBMIT RANTS TO LEWIS www.lewisblack.com/live SUBSCRIBE TO THE RANTCA...
Jan 26, 2022•56 min•Ep. 67
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 w...
Jan 12, 2022•55 min•Ep. 66
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 Insurre...
Jan 05, 2022•1 hr 2 min•Ep. 65
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 knicker...
Dec 29, 2021•50 min•Ep. 64
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 o...
Dec 22, 2021•47 min•Ep. 63
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 ...
Dec 15, 2021•54 min•Ep. 62
After a hiatus to get ready for appearing in public again, Lewis is back with a new episode of the Rantcast. And while he spent his time away preparing his new act, the rubber chicken started working on getting his degree in psychology. That advanced education will come in handy as not a day goes by that doesn't traumatize the American psyche. From new COVID variants to the undermining of basic civil liberties to the trudging slog that is the Federal legislative process, the relentless flood of ...
Dec 08, 2021•48 min•Ep. 61
Hello everyone and Happy Thanksgiving! As we all sit around and give thanks for making it another year during these uncertain times, we thought it would be great to revisit an older episode of Lewis Black's Rantcast. We decided to visit last year's Thanksgiving episode just to take a visit to where we were this time last year and remember that we've come a long way, even if it doesn't seem like we've had to. Also, yesterday news broke that Lewis' special, Thanks For Risking Your Life was was jus...
Nov 24, 2021•46 min•Ep. 60
Last October, the folks at NY Comic Con asked its festival-goers to submit their rants about one of the nation's largest pop culture events. They then invited Lewis to perform those rants as part of a special edition of the Rantcast for their Metaverse online programming. As the 2021 festival just wrapped, Lewis is diving into his archives to deliver a never-before-available to the public NY Comic Con edition of Lewis Black's Rantcast . Enjoy and Excelsior! OUR SPONSORS Mint Mobile http://www.mi...
Nov 05, 2021•28 min•Ep. 59
Lewis is finally back on the road, as the “It Gets Better Every Day” tour gets rolling throughout the lower 48. To start, he performed six shows in four days at Hilarities in Cleveland, a comedic version of spring training. There he was treated to some excellent food including a fantastic walleye and a great Greek salad. The shows there went well, with the support of the club’s owner Nick, who, unlike many a comedy club owner, knows how to treat the comedians, the staff, and the patrons with kin...
Sep 22, 2021•58 min•Ep. 58
Twenty years after the September 11th attacks it’s hard to say that we have learned any valuable lessons from that tragedy. Do we have more common sense and a better understanding of foreign relations? Nope. Do we care about the people of New York more than we did 20 years ago? Fuhgeddaboutit. And after two decades of daily being told to never forget, the one thing we can’t seem to remember from that day is how to act in unison with singular purpose. We don’t agree on the facts of that day, and ...
Sep 15, 2021•1 hr 19 min
Twenty years ago this week, the United States suffered the worst terrorist attack in its history. Following the horror of that triple death-from-above assault, the country was about as united in purpose as it can be, and in agreement, mostly, about what we saw happen. Not so much now when we cannot even agree on what reality is. Our views on the events of the world have become so distorted through our siloed lenses that the current lethal attack on the country has not corralled us to a similar u...
Sep 08, 2021•1 hr 22 min•Ep. 56
The good news of the week: Lewis' Baltimore Orioles finally won a game! Also, he had a birthday. The bad news: the endless cycle of problems of the world. Hurricanes, COVID, Afghanistan, the assault on voting rights. The same horrors on repeat, all with a moronic dose of grandstanding and unnecessary risk. First up is Lewis’ mainstream media pal Al Roker, who, as he is wont to do, reported about a hurricane from within said hurricane. Is this really required? If we have announcers calling baseba...
Sep 01, 2021•1 hr 13 min•Ep. 55
While the tribulations of the world were on an endless loop of Haiti, COVID, and Afghanistan, Lewis' anger this week comes from a very personal place, but with a universal lesson. After a year and a half of being extra careful with everything germ-related, Lewis and a group of fully-vaccinated, often-tested friends had dinner together last week, only to find out the next day that one of their fellow diners has COVID. And that friend was supposed to go on a well-deserved trip to Italy the next da...
Aug 25, 2021•1 hr 35 min•Ep. 54
