The Rant is Due features Emmy and Grammy Award-winning comedian Lewis Black performing diatribes submitted by his fans. For the first time, these hilarious rants, performed in front of a live audience, are available as a weekly audio program.
Lewis Black is an Emmy and Grammy Award-winning comedian and political satirist known for his regular appearances on The Daily Show, HBO and Comedy Central. He is also a voice actor for animated films – most recently as “Anger” in Pixar’s Academy Award-winning feature, Inside Out. He has written three best-selling books and more than 40 plays. Over a million followers connect with Lewis on social media every day.
"I could not be more thrilled that The Rant is Due has found a home at Audible,” said Lewis Black. “A new audience will hear the rants of their fellow citizens, and my two cents as well. It will not change your life but it will be a lot of fun. And if it’s not a lot of fun, it will piss you off and that’s a really good time in my book."
The Rant is Due is a premium, original Audible Comedy series. Listeners can find additional information about the show, latest episodes, and submit their own Lewis Black rants, at Audible.com/lewisblack.
Lewis Niles Black is an American stand-up comedian, author, playwright and actor. He is known for his comedy style which often includes simulating a mental breakdown or an increasingly angry rant, ridiculing history, politics, religion, trends and cultural phenomena. He hosted Comedy Central's The Root of All Evil and makes regular appearances on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart delivering his "Back in Black" commentary segment. When not on the road performing, he resides in Manhattan and also maintains a residence in Chapel Hill, N.C.
Black was born in Silver Spring, Maryland. He is the son of Jeannette, a teacher, and Sam Black, an artist and mechanical engineer. He was raised in a middle-class Jewish family in Silver Spring, Maryland, graduating from Springbrook High School in 1966, summa cum laude having the highest average of all males in high school. Black claims in his book that he scored highly on the math section of his SAT exam and later applied to Princeton University among others. Black matriculated at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill where he studied playwriting and was a brother of Pi Lambda Phi International fraternity and a member of Student Congress. He earned a Masters in Fine Arts at the Yale School of Drama in 1977.
Originally, his career was in the theater as a playwright. He served as the playwright in residence and associate artistic director of Steve Olsen's West Bank Cafe Downstairs Theatre Bar in Hell's Kitchen in New York City, where he collaborated with composer and lyricist Rusty Magee and artistic director Rand Foerster on hundreds of one-act plays from 1981 to 1989. Also with Rusty Magee, Lewis wrote the musical The Czar Of Rock and Roll, which premiered at Houston's Alley Theatre in 1990.
Black's stand-up comedy began as an opening act for the plays as he was also the master of ceremonies. After a management change at the theater, Black left and began working as a comedian as well as finding bit parts in television and films.
Lewis Black's style of comedy is that of a man who, in dealing with the absurdities of life and contemporary politics, is approaching his personal limits of sanity. Sarcasm, hyperbole, profanity, shouting and trademark angry finger-shaking bring emphasis to his topics of discussion. He once described his humor as "being on the Titanic every single day and being the only person who knows what is going to happen." He claims that he doesn't write his jokes down, he merely starts talking about something that makes him angry until he has to move on before he has a stroke.
Black describes his political affiliation as such: "I'm a socialist, so that puts me totally outside any concept...the Canadians get it. But seriously, most people don't get it. The idea of capping people's income just scares people. 'Oh, you're taking money from the rich.' Ooh, what a horrifying thing. These people really need $200 million".
Black lists his comedic influences as George Carlin, Lenny Bruce, Richard Pryor, Lily Tomlin, Bob Newhart and Shelley Berman.
In 1998, he starred in his first comedy special on the series Comedy Central Presents. He starred in two additional episodes of the series in 2000 and 2002. He starred in another special for the network in 2002 titled Taxed Beyond Belief.
In 2000, Black and fellow comedian Jim Norton were arrested for their involvement with "The Naked Teen Voyeur Bus", a specially designed bus with acrylic glass walls containing numerous (18 and 19 year old) "teen girls." This bus rode around Manhattan while being broadcast on the "Opie and Anthony" radio show. Unfortunately, radio station management did not inform the O&A show that the bus' route was also the route that President Clinton was taking that same day. Twenty-eight hours after the arrest, Black and Norton were released. Black appeared on The Daily Show the following night where he stated he was exercising his constitutional rights. He then joked that the location of
"The Rant is Due" is comedy in the same way that a dollar cheeseburger from McDonald's is fine dining. Black masks the absence of humor with his trademark anger, which has usually been funny in the past. Total waste of time.
I laughed a couple times, but it was mostly liberal bellyaching. Most of the recordings were from around the time Trump got elected. It was immediately going to be the end of mankind as we know it. Here I am, angry orange man is no longer in office, Biden is and everything seems worse. I'm paying more for literally every single thing I purchase than I did before. Trump was a warmonger that never started a war. *eyes Ukraine/Russia. Crickets.
I think that Lewis Black is a very funny, profane and intelligent person. I did this book as an audible book and must say that it was hilarious. Mr. Black present these rants from ordinary people and gave them his best. Many people will probably find these to be vulgar because of the language used by Mr. Black. But sometimes profanity has a place and it is here that it is needed. If you want to hear Lewis Black deliver the rants of ordinary people to be heard by one and all then check out this one. Just remember that small children should not listen it is raw.
Mediocre at best. Some of it was funny either times it felt like I couldn't wait to get on to the next one. Maybe it's because I wasn't in the mood for it at the time I listened. I've heard better, ranchier, comedy though with better use of the words "fuck" and "shit", than it's occasional overuse here.
From Lenny, to George, to Lewis. There's no place like New York for comedy like this. The PNW doesn't laugh the way New Yorkers do. Or as often. Or is it the time? I'm no longer bi-coastal. But when I realize how many people love Lewis, I know that it's not dead. 8-)
Lewis Black has always been one of my favorite comedians. This was laugh out loud funny and it makes me want to submit my own rant for him to read. I loved every second of this!
To be sure Lewis Black is funny however with all the foul language in I couldn't finish it maybe I'll try it again after a while.If you can put up with the language funny stuff
This is an audible free book adult comedy. I rarely make it through an audible book, amassing a lot of credits set aside for long lengths of time, the audio book hoarder in me will always take another free book. Full disclosure this was a painful format to navigate one chapter at a time feeling more like a podcast. I selected this based on audible rave reviews. The cover image of Lewis Black looks like he’s a cross between Cheech Marin and Louis CK, and the first voice impression was close to a Louis CK mixed with Gilbert Godfrey.
There are a lot of drawbacks to the audible format that involved not keeping your place if you didn’t mark a section aka chapter as finished. The rants were largely said original from rant emails on a wide range of topics from differing age, gender, health issues, neurosis, and differing unique styles of rant and position. The frequency of each chapter disclosure of cussing, a live comedy club introduction,state locale and an ice breaker, cuss words, was redundant, some real gems are found sporadically. For the rants that Lewis Black liked he threw everything into it, and in other areas he seemed a voice over simply reading their lines.