Getting right Black into it
Comedian pens a new book, ‘Me of Little Faith’
INTERVIEW. When speaking to Lewis Black, it’s hard not to think of AC/DC’s “Back in Black,” the intro music to his screaming fits on “The Daily Show” — front man Brian Johnson’s howls almost match Black’s growling outbursts on politics and authority of all stripes. In Black’s latest book, “Me of Little Faith” (Riverhead, $25), the comedian is screaming (in print form) against various absurdities in organized religion. Yesterday, just before his national book tour, Black spoke with us about his previous career as a playwright and how it fueled his rage against authority.
Do you ever consider writing plays again?
I have to sell the old ones first.
It seems like your name recognition would help with that.
When the name recognition started, certain theaters started to ask for my plays. I’d send my work to them, and they would go, “Nah!” And I’d be like, you know, I didn’t ask for this.
Is that kind of writing still your first love?
If your first love was an abusive a--hole. There’s a quality to the abuse of playwriting. There’s nothing tougher in terms of discipline, as far as I’m concerned. A lot of the people working in theater are people who shouldn’t be working in theater. I’ve never been treated as
badly.
Both of your books are very anti-hierarchy.
Yes, they are. “Nothing Sacred” was written partly for people my age that went through what I went through with authority, but also for kids. I wanted to say, “You may feel like you’re out of place, but you’re not.” “Me of Little Faith” came out of the fact that you go into a bookstore and there are 12 million books about what pieces of s--- organized religions are or “How I Found God After 12 Pounds of Blow.” But there are very few books that were written in terms of, “I kinda know there’s something going on; I’m not an idiot, and I’d like to have some faith in it.” So it’s an “I get it, but I don’t get it” book.
Did your publisher try to limit your use of the f-word?
No. They took me at face value.
Did you change spiritually after working on the book?
No. I was just trying to clarify what I was thinking.
Friday, 6 p.m.
Coolidge Corner Theatre
290 Harvard St., Brookline
$5, 617-566-6660
www.coolidge.org
Saturday, 7 p.m.
First Parish Meetinghouse
Mass. Ave and Church St. Cambridge
$5, 617-661-1515
www.harvard.com