The last angry man

Q: You're about to launch the Dual Citizenship tour of Canada. What will you be talking about?

A: I'll be talking about trying to get me [Canadian] citizenship, and do it as quickly as possible. A lot of it will be trying to explain why the economy went south on everybody, part of it is about alternative energy, and the fact that it's insane we don't have it and can't figure that one out. I'm going to spend about a month in Canada, so I'm hoping finally to get some real material about you guys. And then — I turned 60, so a lot of it is also about turning 60 and what that's like, how it sucks. This aging thing's no fun.

Q: Can you elaborate? What has it been like?

A: It was horrible. Approaching it was really horrible. Thirty's a bitch because everybody turns 30, and unless they're insane, they're minorly depressed because they were supposed to be somewhere by the time they're 30. Back then, it took me six months to realize the person who was projecting where I'd be when I was 30 was a 15-year-old who knew nothing. So what kind of a schmuck is making goals like “I'll be the Shakespeare of my generation.” Are you insane? So you get through that.

If you're lucky, by 40 you have your career, so there's some sense of accomplishment, so you feel a little bit better. But it's like, Oh, I better pick up the pace. Fifty is, like, at least I'm not 60. At 60, you start thinking, Can we move a little quicker on the stem cell stuff, the cancer thing, that heart stuff? Supposedly, they're creating this pig that can grow a bunch of livers. Can we work on that? Can they get two pigs going in case I need a transplant every six months? There's that sense of mortality that enters the equation. When I was a kid, 60 was considered really old. Now, it's not anymore. But when I was a kid, people were dropping dead at 60. People were having breakfast and passing away. My generation came up with “60 is the new 40.” And it's like, Please, don't. Forty is 40 and 60 is 60, and that's why they're different numbers.

Q: You have an extensive theatrical background – you wrote a lot of plays. In your stand-up act, how much of what we see is actually you and how much is a construct – you pretending to be angry?

A: Basically, it's me, but it's me if you took me and just blew it up. I've gotten to where I am on stage just sitting at a table and somebody says something [stupid]. I can get that crazy, but mostly it's taking that part of me that used to be a big chunk of my personality for a long time – which diminished over time – and now I just bring him out on stage. But if I'm in Los Angeles for more than an hour, I become that person.

Lewis Black accepts the award for best comedy album at the 2007 Grammy Awards. (Mark J. Terrill/Reuters)

Q: Why'd you shift from theatre to stand-up?

A: A lot of it was financial. I could not keep doing theatre. We [were running] a theatre in New York City, a pub theatre, a bar in the basement with a stage, and I was surviving. I had no health insurance and nothing in the bank, but on a week-to-week basis, I was flush. But finally I realized, “I have nothing!” And in order to live like that I was living in an apartment that no one in their right mind should be living in, and I realized I could make the same amount spending six nights in a club as I could for a play that I spent three years writing. And then I thought it's time to move on.

Q: How did the gig with The Daily Show happen?

A: That came about because I'd been around the city, and I was kind of known. I was, in a sense, someone who was sitting on a ton of material, because nobody had really seen me. I hadn't broken on Conan (yet), I'd had no national exposure. So I had all this material nobody knew, and they knew I could yell about something once a week. Lizz Winstead [co-creator of The Daily Show] and Hank Gallo — who's edited both my books and was a producer — both came to me and said, 'Do you want to do this?' I said, 'Great,' and I just would go in, yell, and I did that for about eight, nine months, and that evolved into the Back in Black segment.

Q: It's been stated many times that people are actually getting their news from The Daily Show and The Colbert Report. How do you think this has happened?

A: One of the hooks for The Daily Show and Colbert was that 24-hour television news networks were a bigger presence. We fit conveniently in terms of style, so stylistically, it worked. Instead of pulling the news to say this is what happened today, really what we're saying is, this is what was funny today. So we actually do present the news, through humour.

Q: What did you make of the recent skirmish between Stewart and MSNBC host Jim Cramer on The Daily Show? That was an example of the show actually making news.

A: I want to ask Jon, because I think I would say that Jon in retrospect probably thinks that he wasn't funny enough. He took it a little seriously. I think he's always very conscious of that.

Q: A lot of people have said that Obama's presidency will mean hard times for comedians. What's your take on that? Personally, I don't see hubris or stupidity diminishing at all.

A: Yeah, that's exactly my take on it. I've said, just because Bush left office doesn't mean that stupidity left the country. I see it as a whack-a-mole — you know the game with the heads? As soon as you get rid of one idiot, another two idiots will pop up. I now open my show by saying, 'You know, we've been through a little rough patch, but now, everything is going to be perfect, so my job is done. I can't go on as the bitter comic anymore; people will just not accept it. Within a year, I'll be working with puppets.' I don't really think it affects comedians at all. I think it's just as nuts now as it was at the height of the last idiot. And as smart, and as intelligent and as concerned and interested in getting people's involvement as Obama is, he's a Democrat, and they're no better. They really are no better.

Q: Has your success made it harder for you to do satire?

A: Nah. Not really. In fact, at times, it allows me to be fairly forthright, since I have money for the first time in my life. I know the difference between having money and having no money, and I know what that means, so I can yell about that.

Where it does affect you is you're in a bubble. When I was a comic running around the country and playing clubs, I'd have to get a plane. I'd literally take my suitcase down five flights of stairs, and walk across the street to get in a bus to go to Newark to fly 600 miles. So I was really in the midst of it. I'm convinced this is the problem leaders have. They're insulated.

Q: So, how do you deal with being insulated?

A: I read the paper a lot. And I try to keep my eyes open. The other thing the bubble affords you is that kind of thing that you have when you're at college: you're in this bubble, so you can actually spend the time thinking about stuff and trying to find out what is the joke. Because that's the tough thing, trying to find that thing where you go, 'This is funny.'

Q: I know that Lenny Bruce was an influence, and that the recent passing of George Carlin really moved you. Do you see yourself in that comedy tradition?

A: I come from that kind of school of comedy, but I just see it as being funny. With Carlin and Bruce, to me, what that school of comedy really means is I can say anything I want to say as long as it's funny. And that's the best.