Lewis Black's profanely funny Elsinore show lightened my Trump-depression

Last night my wife and I saw comedian Lewis Black do his thing at Salem's Elsinore Theatre. His profanity-laced, darkly-intense, rant-filled brand of humor was strangely healing for us and the other mostly-liberal audience members.

I'm a big fan of Black's appearances on The Daily Show, where it seems a miracle that the top of his head doesn't pop off from the display of steaming outrage. (Click here for a comparatively mild example.)

I was wondering how Black would act during a lengthy stand-up show. Answer: pretty much the same, but more entertainingly. He's adept at handling shout-out comments from the audience. So adept, I quickly resolved to keep my mouth shut lest I find myself on the receiving end of a Lewis Black zinger. 

(Though this would have been an honor. Of sorts.)

My main takeaway from the show was this: being a blogger who frequently takes shots at local politicians via Salem Political Snark, after seeing Black blast Trump & Company for the fucking idiots that they are, using that marvelously descriptive word more times in five minutes than I do in five months (publicly, at least), I no longer am going to give a flying shit if some aggrieved denizen of our City Hall considers me a "bombthrower" -- a term intended as an insult, but which I've appropriated as a compliment. 

Compared to Lewis Black's virtual nonstop detonation of verbal nuclear weaponry against clueless politicians, mostly of the Trumpian variety, because that's who is in power now, my citizen activism outbursts are akin to a tiny firecracker with a wet fuse. Black, of course, is from New York City. People in New York have a much different conversational style than we do here in Oregon.

It seemed pretty clear that Black didn't know much about Salem. But he had quite a bit to say about Portland. He loved the mass transit system there, compared to which Salem's lack of even freaking evening and weekend bus service is a major embarrassment for Oregon's capital city.

 

Black spoke about how Portlanders will vote for improving some sort of public service (like the art tax), then some other group will say, "hey, this needs help also," and Portland voters will approve money for that also.  He saw Portland as an appealing blend of capitalism and socialism, so much so he said that Portland really was the capital of the Scandinavian countries like Sweden and Denmark.

 

A couple of times he joked about not wanting to praise Oregon so much that people from other parts of the country are going to want to move here, being one of the few refuges from Trumpist Republicanism. (Oregon is one of just four states where Democrats control the Governorship and both state houses.)

 

Lewis Black is cynical about politics, while also being darkly hopeful in a "this too shall pass" sort of sense. That's the power of political humor.

 

As Black's profane tirades against this-and-that idiocies being promulgated by the incompetents currently in charge in Washington, D.C. washed over me, a deeper realization of the ridiculousness of what the Trump administration is doing felt like a healing massage of my politically frazzled psyche. 

 

I mean, it didn't cure what ails me -- kicking these fools out of office is the only thing that will do that -- but it felt good to have Black say so loudly and powerfully what is obvious: the line between politics and satire has almost completely dissolved with the election of one Donald J. Trump.

 

Black repeatedly said, "The jokes write themselves." Which is clear whenever I watch a Sean Spicer press briefing, or read Trump's tweets. You couldn't make this stuff up, because no one would believe it. Yet it's true.

 

The Elsinore show wasn't 100% political, just mostly so. Black also had apt observations about religion from his "Jewy Jew" perspective, and some almost-serious riffs about mental illness. This video is similar to some of what he said last night.

If you want another serving of Lewis Black, check out “Democrats Are Psychotic, Republicans Are Idiotic.” (video doesn't embed, so click on the link)

Comments

[FJ Theurkauf]

I didn't realize that Salem has a comedy club so it's good to know that and I will keep an eye out for a gentler humorist if such an animal even exists in these ugly times. Even in my "other" liberal life I never found the repeated use of anti-social language particularly entertaining. But such is the nature of different tastes.

Glad you found a respite if only briefly.