Lewis Black

I enjoy books where satirists take aim at the hypocrisies of organized religion, while still working to honor the notion that spirituality itself is not a bad thing.

Black does this well...though with scatter shot organization.

The book reads like a mix of stand-up and essay, and that's a tricky blend. Black's stand up is a loud ALL CAPS shout. His approach to essay is more sincere and sedate. The mix of the two makes for a bit of a bumpy ride.

Still, whenever someone calls out folks like Falwell, Robertson, the Creation Museum in Kentucky, and George W Bush for being bad examples of what faith is supposed to be, I gotta stand up and applaud.

Lewis Black isn't the next Bill Hicks. Yet. But, if he'll keep honing his skills to mix sincere personal beliefs like this with his stand-up, maybe he'll get there.… (altro)

This book did not turn out as I expected: I expected a critique of religion and defense of humanism. I got that, but I also got a hodge-podge of stories about Black's spiritual experiences (not all of them drug-induced). He includes a ludicrous story in which he is flabbergasted that an astrology book pinpoints people who share his ex-wife's birthday as particularly incompatible with him. He falsely declares that the odds of this are enormous (no; they're only 1 in 30, since he was already looking at a book about HER SIGN, which only contains 30 birthdays!). Anyway, if you enjoy Black's screaming style, the book is mostly consistent with that. I could have done without the final CD, which seems to pad the book by tacking on a reproduction of a show he did some years back.… (altro)