Comedian Lewis Black talked to RhodeIslandComedy.com and 630wpro.com on July 14 in advance of bringing his tour, In God We Rust, to the Mohegan Sun on Friday, August 5. Here’s the advice he gives, when asked, by new comics:
“You set out. You go on the road. You go from club to club to club and you work night after night after night. That’s the only way to learn this. The only way to learn stand up is to do it. You can’t talk about it, think about it, discuss it.” You just have to do it.
Black finds that even taking a little time off – he hadn’t performed in about four weeks when we talked – can slow you down. “You lose a bit of your timing. It doesn’t look like a craft, but it is, and you have to spend as much time on it as any other craft.”
He finds the craft of comedy is more appreciated now than it was when he first started. “It’s one of those things. People don’t go, I can be a doctor, I can be a lawyer, but they do say, I could be a comic. Well no, you couldn’t. There’s a ton of funny people. But it’s the funny person who can get up from the table where they’re sitting being funny and walk five feet to a stage and be funny to a bunch of strangers.” That’s the one who can be a comic.
