Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee (2012–…): Season 9, Episode 4 - Lewis Black: At What Point Am I Out From Under? - full transcript

This is a 1967 Cadillac
El Dorado in black,

with black and more black.

It has a 429-cubic inch V8
with 340 horsepower.

It has a turbo-hydramatic
automatic transmission.

It is also black.

The word "El Dorado" is

from a mythic city of gold

somewhere in South America
that doesn't even exist.

The name
was actually suggested
by a Cadillac secretary

in a company-wide
naming contest.

Cadillac advertising
in this era uses words



like "incomparable,"
"unmatched," "unexcelled."

And this car was
very much the dream

of many middle-class families
in suburbia in the 1960s.

And best of all,
it's a Cadillac.

Can't you see
how big our car is?

Which is the background
of my very special guest

this week,
Mr. Lewis Black.

Lewis became well known

as a correspondent
on "The Daily Show"

for his anger, his yelling,

his volume,
and his crazy fingers.

I never knew
he had such a silly laugh.

I thought Lewis needed
to be in a car that says
to the world...

-Shut up!
-..."Please give me
some room"...



And we're gonna make you
a car to calm you down.

...with improved
variable-ratio power
steering today,

in the world's finest
personal car.

Oops. Sorry, my fault.

- Hello.
- Mr. Black.

Mr. Seinfeld.

- How about this?
- This is... finally.

Finally. The collision
of two meteorites.

Two prickly,
pointy, unforgiving meteorites.

Exactly. I've had a quarter
of a cup of coffee.

Okay, well,
let's go get a full,
piping hot cup right now.

I'm Jerry Seinfeld,
and this is...

Look at you.

You can't
not turn into Florida.

The old Jew, the Florida
just attacks us, right?

- It does. I'm excited.
- You're ready for West Palm.

- No, not West Palm.
- No?

- No.
- Del Ray?

Wow. I'm very impressed.

- What do you think?
- I'm amazed, I...

- You remember these?
- I remember them.

- From the '60s?
- Yeah.

They... they show
such utter disregard

for anyone but yourself.

This car says,
"I am alone on the planet."

- It's too big.
- Can you drive at all?

I used to drive,
but I was horrible.

- I'm sure of that.
- It was terrifying.

-Yeah.
-I mean, to the point where
my friends would say,

"No, you... you can't drive.
Don't... don't drive us."

- Yeah.
- "We'll drive."

- Yeah.
- I found myself in traffic,

in the back seat of a car,
screaming at the other cars.

And I thought,
"If you're expressing road rage
in the back of a vehicle..."

- Yeah.
- "...it's time to wrap it up."

You better take a left, prick.

Look at this schmuck.
Really, you gotta get there?

What... where are you going?

Yeah, so he's going there.

- Yeah, that's gonna help.
- Yeah.

-So no marriage?
-Early on, there was
a bad marriage.

Lasted about eight minutes.
I saw that in your bio,

which really made me laugh.

When I saw the...
I think it was eight months
or ten months?

-Yeah.
-Yeah. That is a hilarious
amount of time.

The reason
political correctness,
I think, occurs

is because most people
in the middle of a joke...

- Watch out, we're coming through!
- you! We got a boat!

There you go, suck on that!

Okay, good.
I feel better.

You really don't seem like
a guy from Silver Springs,
Maryland.

- I know.
- Anyone would bet anything

that you were born
in Hell's Kitchen
and never moved one foot.

The family's from the B...
was the Bronx and...

- Oh, I get it.
- So they would bring me...

That makes a lot more sense.
Yeah, you're not from Maryland.

- It was all genetic.
- Nobody from Maryland

can say, "Suck on that,"
with that eloquence.

Do you always have this cough?

This is the end of a...
a sinus thing.

-And that's been
about 40 years, right?
-40 years of sinus... Hey! Hey!

When I started touring
as a comic,

what I found,
since my act

was kind of bordering
on being mildly psychotic,

is the nicer my clothing was,
the calmer the audience.

'Cause they were like,
"Yeah, but he can tie a tie.

He's insane, but boy, god,
what a wonderful Windsor."

-You fancied yourself
a playwright and producer.
-Yeah.

I wrote plays,
did theater, and thought...

and just did stand-up
on the side for fun.

-Right.
-I always felt like...
learning stand-up,

it was like as if you were
learning boxing...

-Yeah.
-...but your arms
are tied to your sides.

And so you're just getting...

the audience is just
punching you senseless.

And you finish up,
you go to the bar afterwards,

and you sit there with...
with others,

and you kinda go,
"You know, if I just lifted
my right arm there."

I write on stage.
I write little code words...

-Right.
-...down. I'll give you
some of the things.

There'd be "nuts and bolts,"
"Frusen Gladje,"

you know, "Hitler mustache."
You know, it'd just be little...

You have a Frusen Gladje,
Hitler mustache bit?

- I wish I had it.
- That would be great.

- I really wish I had it.
- Is Frusen Gladje still around?

- I don't think so.
- It was a '70s New York

Haagen-Dazs
wanna-be.

- Yeah, and that...
- Right?

Yeah, and now
it's Pinkberry.

-Yeah.
-Which is really the...
the strangest...

just the word,
there's something
vaguely... obscene.

- And medical. Yeah.
- Yeah. Yeah.

It looks
like Pinkberry, Mr. Black,
but I don't think it is.

'Cause I've seen a lot
of Pinkberry this summer,

and what you have...
I wanna reassure you
what you have is not Pinkberry.

Wow, you're gonna
go over the Brooklyn Bridge?

- Yeah.
- Wow. In this?

- Yeah.
- Wow.

I hope it can hold it.

I have my Lenny Bruce
at Carnegie Hall album
that I bought in the '70s,

and I've been wanting
to play it,

'cause I'm wondering...
I wonder what it will sound like
to me today.

They had crushed him.
He was rattling cages.

There was no freedom.
I mean, I-i-i-it's hard
to imagine for us...

-Hard to imagine.
-...what it's like to talk
about the Catholic churches,

you know, 'cause there was still
the... the Board of Decency.

Right.
You kind of wonder
what his comedy would be like

if he had the freedom.
But how interesting is it

that all those elements
that you described,

those are
conservative elements

of society
that were limiting him.

-Mm-hmm.
-And now, and you're talking
about political correctness,

that is the liberal side...
Yeah.

...of society that is now
enforcing censorship,
quote-unquote.

But I think that life
is like a pendulum,

and it'll go back
to the other side.
You think so?

- Yeah.
- You think political correctness

will eventually
be not important?

I think we're
gonna wear 'em out.

- Really?
- -Yeah, we're gonna wear those down.

It comes down to funniness.

There is a essential thing

of, "You're just funny."
You know what I mean?

You're just weird
and funny to people.
Yeah.

You get up on stage
and people think,

"This is something to laugh at."
Yeah.

"This guy's just funny.
He's like a talking fish."

I just kind of like the sign.

Coffee, bagels, croissants,
omelets, fried chicken.

- Everything is great.
- Yeah, and 100% halal.

- What does that mean?
- It means it's...

um...

I got nothin'.

-I got nothin'.
-But you had launched
into the sentence anyway.

- That means...
- Yeah, knowing...

-...hoping your brain
would give you something.
-It came up empty.

Black and white cookie?
Don't like 'em.

-No, awful.
-Despite my association
with that cookie

from the episode we did.
Yeah, right. Yes.

- Yeah.
- Right, exactly because...

- Don't care for it.
- No, it's awful.

That's a big secret
of the "Seinfeld" lore...

that I just let out.
I don't like black
and white cookies.

-Can I ask
how you came up with it?
-You can ask.

Of course you can ask.
"Can I ask?"

I've always liked
driving and talking.

I like to be
with someone in the car.

I like the privacy.
I like the view.

I like the things...
"What about this?

What about that?
What's going on over there?"
Right.

I like that. And I don't like
anybody but comedians.

If you're not going for a joke,
why are we talking?

-That is
the worst coffee I've ever...
-Baseball, I...

It's really ludicrous.
They forgot only one thing
in that cup of coffee.

Ah. Here it is.

How'd you end up
at the Yale Drama School?
How'd you get there?

I'd been writing plays,
and it was all about, um,
the importance.

It was really important.
Yeah.

It was so important,
that this is the most important
thing that will ever be said.

Importance is the worst thing
to put on art,

comedy, creativity of any kind.

-To drama,
even, you know? It's...
-Yeah. Even drama, yeah.

-So...
-If you think this is important,
you're screwed

before you write the first word.

I'm at the Laugh Stop
in Houston.

On one side
I notice a Starbucks,

on the other side
I notice there's a Starbucks.

And I look.
I mean, it was...
there was that whole...

you know, when Starbucks
first encroached on us.
Yeah, yeah.

Right. Yes.
'Cause it was the beginning
of the Starbucks, the beachhead.

-Right. Right.
-But now, really?
That there's that many...

is this like
a community of people with...

who have Alzheimer's?
Is that it? Is that...

you come out...
you come out of there,
and you go, "Wow.

"You know what I could use?
I could use a cup of coffee.

Look, there's a Starbucks!"
So, you walk across the street.

Maybe the people that
were building the Starbucks,

they didn't know
that these other people were
also building one, you know?

-Right.
-Maybe there's a communication
problem in the company.

I only eat a lot of fruit
when I'm at a buffet.

That could be
the most boring statement
I've ever heard in my life.

I knew you were
going to be an insane eater.

Food is flying out
of your mouth. You're talking...

-I'm talking.
-...and chewing
at the same time.

- I know. It's terrible.
- Yeah.

You have not disappointed me.

So, what's going on with women?

I was never one
of those guys who could go,

"You know what?
We'll just get married,

and we'll see how it work... "
no! No. Not gonna...

And did your parents...

try and push you into it?
No, my mother said-

I said, "Mom,
you want grandkids?"

My mother's kind of brutal.

She said, "I think you
and your brother were enough.

Your father and I,
we don't need to go
through this again."

Did you ever
want to write a book?
No. I wanna hear a laugh.

But you wrote the cartoon.

- Yeah, I wrote that.
- Yeah.

What is the fun part?
I... I don't...

I don't understand the fun part.

I go in the back
of the movie theater

and I listen to like
a "C-" laugh?

Whoopee.

That only took four years.

That was the thing
about writing...
when-when...

the writing plays,
and I'd be standing...

and they'd be rehearsing,
I'd be standing out front.

And they'd go,
"What are you doing here?

Are you in the play?" "No."

"Eh."
Yeah.

- And then it would...
- I agree with them.

Like, I agree with them.

- They didn't wanna come.
- No.

And then I'd have people
who would come in

and see me in the audience,
and go, "You're not in it?"

Because you're
one of those people
who can actually make us laugh.

And you know how many of those
there are? There's four.

There's four.
And two of them,
I don't care for.

You're connected, okay?
You're a connected guy.

Your anger
is connected to your face,

it's connected to your voice,
it's connected to your fingers.

Your fingers are the key
to your whole career,
by the way.

When your fingers get going
and they start working,

it's like... they're like
little sparks of lightning.

And it's funny.
Yeah.

Thank you.
There you go.
Thank you so much.

- I can... I can get that.
- No.

- Please.
- I insist.

It's outrageous, by the way.

Absolutely outrageous.

I've never seen a number
like that on a check.

You have a really funny laugh.

I had a Facebook joke.
"This is the final whoring out
of the word 'book.'"

"How is this a book?

"Looking at pictures of Timmy
and Tammy drunk in Cabo.

Is this the same
as 'Moby Dick'?"

- Don't you...
- Let 'em have it.

Don't you even think about it!

And he didn't have anybody...

unbelievable. Shut up!

- Oh yeah, you're gonna honk?
- For what, you?

What do you think...
and it's the same guy.

Now he's picking the other eye.

-SoulCycle,
you do a lot of that right?
-Oh, tons.

I love the music,
I love the people.

I like being part of something.

Bigger than me, yeah.

What was
the Valentine's Day bit again?

You're celebrating
the holiday of love
at the height of flu season.

"Honey, do you love me?"

"I'll tell you when I can get
this hock out of my throat."

Valentine's Day was
six weeks after Christmas.

So, "Really? I didn't
buy you enough?

Now you need
more ? Really?"
Right.

-"How much crap
do I have to get you?"
-Yeah.

"At what point
am I out from under it?"

Watch out, we're comin' through!

Shut up! Get a date!

There you go, suck on that.

"Comedians in Cars
Getting Coffee"

will be right back
after this brief word
from our sponsor.

...your own Cadillac.

Come... oh, you.

Are you me?

Oh, you've got to be kidding me.

Shh... God dammit.
God damn you.

See if it works this way.
That's better.

God dammit.
sucking.

Yeah, this is...
well, you can see why
I don't have my own TV show.

Well, that's a big finish.

That's...

that's a James Brown finish,

that's what that is.