Lewis Black's Rantcast

Originating from yet another undisclosed location somewhere on America's interstate highway system, this week's episode features a rubber chicken who has had enough of overland transportation. It is no way to travel for a fake fowl more acclimated to a warmer, sedentary lifestyle. So, he, like many of his fellow Americans, is ready to go on strike to get the better working conditions that he deserves. And as they have both had enough of the cold, one area of agreement between management and labor is that the naming of winter storms has to stop, and that the invention of new terms for cold and cold-related weather must be curtailed. To keep warm, Lewis brings the healing power of ranting with some special rants about teachers and statuary hall in Congress. Plus an open letter from an anonymous author to their cousins. They know who they are. The rants come from the Williamsport Community Arts Center in Williamsport PA on 2/29/20. If you're in the Williamsport area and in need of superlative mens clothing, be sure to check out The Clothier. Check out Lewis’ Grammy-nominated special, Thanks For Risking Your Life https://tlbrecords.lnk.to/LewisWE New episodes arrive every Wednesday. SUBMIT RANTS TO LEWIS www.lewisblack.com/live SUBSCRIBE TO THE RANTCAST www.lewisblacksrantcast.com FOLLOW LEWIS www.lewisblack.com www.youtube.com/officiallewisblack www.instagram.com/thelewisblack www.facebook.com/thelewisblack www.twitter.com/thelewisblack www.tiktok.com/@thelewisblack For advertising opportunities/contact email: [email protected] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Coming to you from somewhere near the Kansas-Oklahoma border, this week's episode features your host using words that only someone who has spent too much time in the flat part of the country would use. Gussied? Check. Crinoline? Check. And while Lewis was not able to visit Tulsa's own Oral Roberts University, he did have time to address the current great effort at overweening religiosity, book banning. And all he asks of those banning books is that they turn their censorious eyes toward his literary contributions. It can only help sales. The rants come from the past weekend's shows in Salina KS and Tulsa OK, where Lewis greatly enjoying getting back to reading rants in front of a live audience again. Check out Lewis’ Grammy-nominated special, Thanks For Risking Your Life https://tlbrecords.lnk.to/LewisWE New episodes arrive every Wednesday SUBMIT RANTS TO LEWIS www.lewisblack.com/live SUBSCRIBE TO THE RANTCAST www.lewisblacksrantcast.com FOLLOW LEWIS www.lewisblack.com www.youtube.com/officiallewisblack www.instagram.com/thelewisblack www.facebook.com/thelewisblack www.twitter.com/thelewisblack www.tiktok.com/@thelewisblack For advertising opportunities/contact email: [email protected] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Recorded live somewhere on an interstate near the Colorado/Kansas border, Lewis recounts the news of the past week, which, very much like the terrain he is transiting, is a lot of endless gray sameness. The live rants come from the Broome County Forum in Binghamton, NY on March 5, 2020. Check out Lewis’ Grammy-nominated special, Thanks For Risking Your Life https://tlbrecords.lnk.to/LewisWE New episodes arrive every Wednesday. SUBMIT RANTS TO LEWIS www.lewisblack.com/live SUBSCRIBE TO THE RANTCAST www.lewisblacksrantcast.com FOLLOW LEWIS www.lewisblack.com www.youtube.com/officiallewisblack www.instagram.com/thelewisblack www.facebook.com/thelewisblack www.twitter.com/thelewisblack www.tiktok.com/@thelewisblack For advertising opportunities/contact email: [email protected] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Two weeks into 2022 and the disquieting sense of déjà vu persists. While the title of this week’s episode would be a great title for a disco song, it’s not great as an apt description of the new year. The same issues that plagued 2021, including an actual plague, continue to hamper any sense of progress or anything that doesn’t resemble a rudderless drift. For example, this past week the anniversary of the January 6th Insurrection passed, fortunately without incident, but we still have no idea what exactly happened. All we can say for certain is that the former leader is a poor loser and his behavior wouldn’t be acceptable from a child who struck out in T-ball. It was ever thus with the man. The real news this week was the passing of Bob Saget and Sidney Poitier, and this episode is dedicated to their memory and the great works of art they created. While Lewis was never fortunate enough to meet Sidney Poitier, the effect he had on his view of race and society was possibly equal to that of MLK. Lewis did have a relationship with Bob Saget, working with him many times. He was spectacularly filthy and spectacularly sweet, was a great headliner, and was overall a terrific human. The deaths of both seems to show that some people pass on and our society is not producing people of a similar caliber that have a positive effect on the world. In other news, get vaccinated, whether for Covid, or as your host did this week, against Shingles. The live rants come from the Paramount Theater in Charlottesville, VA on February 28, 2020. Submit rants to Lewis https://www.lewisblack.com/live Check out Lewis’ Grammy-nominated special, Thanks For Risking Your Life https://tlbrecords.lnk.to/LewisWE Subscribe to Lewis Black’s Rantcast Apple – https://bit.ly/rantcast Spotify – https://spoti.fi/3oNaPFh Google – https://bit.ly/37Zb35u Amazon – https://amzn.to/37bg8Za Follow Lewis Website – http://www.lewisblack.com Instagram – http://www.instagram.com/thelewisblack Twitter – https://twitter.com/thelewisblack Facebook – https://www.facebook.com/thelewisblack Youtube - https://www.youtube.com/OfficialLewisBlack New episodes arrive every Wednesday via The Laugh Button For advertising opportunities email: [email protected] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Lewis rings in the new year by taking a look back at all the wonderful and joyous events of 2021. And like many things in the media today, that previous sentence bears only a partial resemblance to the truth. While some ostensibly good things happened last year, it has mostly left us with more questions than answers. For instance, why will people refuse to get vaccinated but will avail themselves of every ounce of modern medicine that can be found in an emergency room? Who knew about the Insurrection beforehand and why wasn't more done to stop it? Why does the state of Texas have its own electrical grid? Why do people think it's a good idea to mass themselves in Times Square during a pandemic? And rhetorically, if three billionaires can launch into "space" but we can't continue the child tax credit, does that mean we have a problem with inequality? On the plus side, the usage of profanity has exploded which means that at least some of the populace is getting a better handle on their anger issues. And as studies have shown, the use of profanity is a sign of intelligence. So, F.U. to 2021, and onwards to a better 2022. The live rants come from the Sandler Center for the Performing Arts in Virginia Beach, VA on February 27, 2020. Submit rants to Lewis https://www.lewisblack.com/live Check out Lewis’ Grammy-nominated special, Thanks For Risking Your Life https://tlbrecords.lnk.to/LewisWE Subscribe to Lewis Black’s Rantcast Apple – https://bit.ly/rantcast Spotify – https://spoti.fi/3oNaPFh Google – https://bit.ly/37Zb35u Amazon – https://amzn.to/37bg8Za Follow Lewis Website – http://www.lewisblack.com Instagram – http://www.instagram.com/thelewisblack Twitter – https://twitter.com/thelewisblack Facebook – https://www.facebook.com/thelewisblack Youtube - https://www.youtube.com/OfficialLewisBlack New episodes arrive every Wednesday via The Laugh Button For advertising opportunities email: [email protected] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

In the final Rantcast of the year 2021, Lewis ponders the unfathomable contradictions and conundrums evident in the pluralistic American society. How can a group of people who can't seem to get anything done on time still manage to shop themselves into Yuletide oblivion and get all the Christmas gifts under the tree in time to perpetuate the myth of Santa Claus (or Father Christmas for the Anglophiles)? How can a civic body that would rather go to the dentist than actually vote get their knickers so in a twist about the right to vote? And have we so lost our minds as a country that nothing seems amiss when animated bears sell us toilet paper and a live, costumed emu hawks insurance? Maybe we can all agree that no one is waiting for Sunday night, especially when it involves the Washington Football Team getting trampled by actual Cowboys. With the assaults of insanity from all sides in politics, the media, and the marketplace, Lewis has an important message as we transition to 2022: don't let them get you crazy. You're not crazy, they are. Happy New Year! The live rants come from the Ulster Performing Arts Center in Kingston, NY on February 22, 2020. Submit rants to Lewis https://www.lewisblack.com/live Check out Lewis’ Grammy-nominated special, Thanks For Risking Your Life https://tlbrecords.lnk.to/LewisWE Subscribe to Lewis Black’s Rantcast Apple – https://bit.ly/rantcast Spotify – https://spoti.fi/3oNaPFh Google – https://bit.ly/37Zb35u Amazon – https://amzn.to/37bg8Za Follow Lewis Website – http://www.lewisblack.com Instagram – http://www.instagram.com/thelewisblack Twitter – https://twitter.com/thelewisblack Facebook – https://www.facebook.com/thelewisblack Youtube - https://www.youtube.com/OfficialLewisBlack New episodes arrive every Wednesday via The Laugh Button For advertising opportunities email: [email protected] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Having left the great state of Florida, the land where freedom goes to get sun-baked into insanity, Lewis reports in from a parking lot in suburban Baltimore. While he enjoyed his time in the sunshine state, the governor there seems to be lost in a florid freedom fog of Covid-denial, and the populace is following suit. Fortunately the audiences at the shows were able to enjoy their theater-going liberty and showed up en masse, vaxxed and masked. Meanwhile, the news this week is filled with the onslaught of Omicron and the meandering machinations of Sen. Manchin and his worries that funds to the citizenry will go to drugs and hunting. In all these stories, the news media does nothing to separate fact from opinion, and as usual relies on conflict narratives to keep the eyeballs fixed on the page and the screen. The good news this week is that the former leader was booed for getting a booster and Lewis got to see his mom. And a gift-giving tip from your host: at-home COVID tests make a great stocking stuffer. The live rants come from the Grand Opera House in Wilmington DE on Feb. 21, 2020. Submit rants to Lewis https://www.lewisblack.com/live Check out Lewis’ Grammy-nominated special, Thanks For Risking Your Life https://tlbrecords.lnk.to/LewisWE Subscribe to Lewis Black’s Rantcast Apple – https://bit.ly/rantcast Spotify – https://spoti.fi/3oNaPFh Google – https://bit.ly/37Zb35u Amazon – https://amzn.to/37bg8Za Follow Lewis Website – http://www.lewisblack.com Instagram – http://www.instagram.com/thelewisblack Twitter – https://twitter.com/thelewisblack Facebook – https://www.facebook.com/thelewisblack Youtube - https://www.youtube.com/OfficialLewisBlack New episodes arrive every Wednesday via The Laugh Button For advertising opportunities email: [email protected] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

This week's Rantcast comes from an undisclosed location in Florida. As your host tours the Sunshine state, it's important for him to not just maintain social distancing, but to hide from the sun-baked masses entirely. The citizenry there acts as though there's no global pandemic occurring and mask wearing is not even an afterthought. Despite this alternate reality, the shows in Florida have gone well, with audiences who have not forgotten how to behave in a theatre and may be the only people in the state who civilly comply with a mask requirement. The only downside is that tickets for the show in Jacksonville have not sold well (this is not something new) leading Lewis to wonder what other excitement is to be had in Jacksonville. Meanwhile the news this week was dominated by the tornadoes in Kentucky and surrounding states, a meteorological phenomenon rarely seen at this time of year. Something is clearly terribly wrong with the climate for this to be happening as winter approaches. Not so rare, unfortunately, was that there was yet another school shooting, a event that can't even be called a tragedy any more, because a tragedy is something that you actually try to prevent, but it happens anyway. The responses from certain members of Congress were as predictable as the calls for thoughts and prayers, with one representative, coincidentally, sending out holiday cards asking Santa for ammo for Christmas. Would they be used to defend the Douglas fir in living room? This kind of holiday card leads one to wonder what kind of weaponry the wise men brought the baby Jesus along with the myrrh and the frankincense. Also, Lewis notes the passing of Bob Dole and recounts his own encounter with the former Kansas Senator and presidential candidate. The live rants come from Princeton, NJ with submissions about traffic, bad drivers, and bats. Submit rants to Lewis https://www.lewisblack.com/live Check out Lewis’ Grammy-nominated special, Thanks For Risking Your Life https://tlbrecords.lnk.to/LewisWE Subscribe to Lewis Black’s Rantcast Apple – https://bit.ly/rantcast Spotify – https://spoti.fi/3oNaPFh Google – https://bit.ly/37Zb35u Amazon – https://amzn.to/37bg8Za Follow Lewis Website – http://www.lewisblack.com Instagram – http://www.instagram.com/thelewisblack Twitter – https://twitter.com/thelewisblack Facebook – https://www.facebook.com/thelewisblack Youtube - https://www.youtube.com/OfficialLewisBlack New episodes arrive every Wednesday via The Laugh Button For advertising opportunities email: [email protected] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

After a hiatus to get ready for appearing in public again, Lewis is back with a new episode of the Rantcast. And while he spent his time away preparing his new act, the rubber chicken started working on getting his degree in psychology. That advanced education will come in handy as not a day goes by that doesn't traumatize the American psyche. From new COVID variants to the undermining of basic civil liberties to the trudging slog that is the Federal legislative process, the relentless flood of disturbing news assaults unabated. Hopefully we can hang on until the rubber chicken graduates. In the meantime, your host is back performing live shows, finishing this crisis of a year in the land that calls the climate crisis home, Florida. Appropriately, the live rants come from Sarasota, where Lewis performed on February 8, 2020. Submit rants to Lewis https://www.lewisblack.com/live Check out Lewis’ Grammy-nominated special, Thanks For Risking Your Life https://tlbrecords.lnk.to/LewisWE Subscribe to Lewis Black’s Rantcast Apple – https://bit.ly/rantcast Spotify – https://spoti.fi/3oNaPFh Google – https://bit.ly/37Zb35u Amazon – https://amzn.to/37bg8Za Follow Lewis Website – http://www.lewisblack.com Instagram – http://www.instagram.com/thelewisblack Twitter – https://twitter.com/thelewisblack Facebook – https://www.facebook.com/thelewisblack Youtube - https://www.youtube.com/OfficialLewisBlack New episodes arrive every Wednesday via The Laugh Button For advertising opportunities email: [email protected] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hello everyone and Happy Thanksgiving! As we all sit around and give thanks for making it another year during these uncertain times, we thought it would be great to revisit an older episode of Lewis Black's Rantcast. We decided to visit last year's Thanksgiving episode just to take a visit to where we were this time last year and remember that we've come a long way, even if it doesn't seem like we've had to. Also, yesterday news broke that Lewis' special, Thanks For Risking Your Life was was just nominated for a GRAMMY! Now is the time to take the long weekend to watch, buy, or stream it now - https://tlbrecords.lnk.to/LewisWE ________ As we embark on what might be a very non-traditional Thanksgiving for most across this nation, Lewis reflects on the last few weeks of turmoil. Is he able to bring levity to the situation? You will have to listen for yourself. For the second episode in a row Lewis pulls some fresh user-submitted rants before whisking everything to Austin, TX where he set up shop at the Moody Theater (where they tape the iconic Austin City Limits) in a city where memories of live performances and great food are sorely missed these days. OUR SPONSORS Better Help http://www.betterhelp.com/rantcast For 10% off your first month SUBMIT RANTS TO LEWIS https://www.lewisblack.com/live SUBSCRIBE TO THE RANTCAST https://www.lewisblacksrantcast.com https://thelaughbutton.podlink.to/Rancast FOLLOW LEWIS https://www.lewisblack.com https://www.instagram.com/thelewisblack https://twitter.com/thelewisblack https://www.facebook.com/thelewisblack https://www.youtube.com/OfficialLewisBlack For advertising opportunities email [email protected] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Last October, the folks at NY Comic Con asked its festival-goers to submit their rants about one of the nation's largest pop culture events. They then invited Lewis to perform those rants as part of a special edition of the Rantcast for their Metaverse online programming. As the 2021 festival just wrapped, Lewis is diving into his archives to deliver a never-before-available to the public NY Comic Con edition of Lewis Black's Rantcast. Enjoy and Excelsior! OUR SPONSORS Mint Mobile http://www.mintmobile.com/lewis For great cellular phone service for only $15 a month. Better Help http://www.betterhelp.com/rantcast For 10% off your first month SUBMIT RANTS TO LEWIS https://www.lewisblack.com/live Lewis’ latest special, "Thanks For Risking Your Life" is available now! https://tlbrecords.lnk.to/LewisWE SUBSCRIBE TO THE RANTCAST https://www.lewisblacksrantcast.com https://thelaughbutton.podlink.to/Rancast FOLLOW LEWIS https://www.lewisblack.com https://www.instagram.com/thelewisblack https://twitter.com/thelewisblack https://www.facebook.com/thelewisblack https://www.youtube.com/OfficialLewisBlack Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Lewis is finally back on the road, as the “It Gets Better Every Day” tour gets rolling throughout the lower 48. To start, he performed six shows in four days at Hilarities in Cleveland, a comedic version of spring training. There he was treated to some excellent food including a fantastic walleye and a great Greek salad. The shows there went well, with the support of the club’s owner Nick, who, unlike many a comedy club owner, knows how to treat the comedians, the staff, and the patrons with kindness and respect. Being in Ohio was a bit of a shock for your host as in his hometown of NYC people are still acting with COVID caution, maintaining social distancing and voluntarily wearing masks indoors. This is despite the relatively high vaccination numbers. Conversely, in the Buckeye state, there’s a general feeling that the pandemic is over and they are throwing caution to the wind. Other than performing before incredibly generous audiences, the highlight of the week for Lewis was seeing the Washington Football Team beat the New York Football Giants. And that about ends the good news, as this week provided another example of a country that cannot focus on what is important, on what actually affects people’s lives. Where did the news media point their attention? Did they focus on overarching issues like the federal budget negotiations, or employment, or the health and survival of the restaurant industry? No. Their attention was on the January 6th rally, where seemingly more journalists showed up than actual participants, and to the tragic story of Gabby Petito. It’s no wonder that in this prioritizing of lurid style over substance we are unable to educate ourselves and misinformation runs amok. Where the news media clearly has a problem doing the hard work of understanding the daily existence of most Americans, the ranters have clearly channeled their angry observations into a panoply of well-articulated insights. So this week we have submissions about the struggles of being a teacher at a school in the Caribbean, scam callers and gullible Americans, the search for an empty flat surface in the home, and a query asking if everyone has forgotten how to shop in a grocery store. And as Lewis is back on the road, we have live rants from a not-so-pre-pandemic Bob Carr Theater in Orlando FL. Submit rants to Lewis https://www.lewisblack.com/live Lewis’ latest special, Thanks For Risking Your Life is available now! https://tlbrecords.lnk.to/LewisWE Subscribe to Lewis Black’s Rantcast Apple – https://bit.ly/rantcast Spotify – https://spoti.fi/3oNaPFh Google – https://bit.ly/37Zb35u Amazon – https://amzn.to/37bg8Za Follow Lewis Website – http://www.lewisblack.com Instagram – http://www.instagram.com/thelewisblack Twitter – https://twitter.com/thelewisblack Facebook – https://www.facebook.com/thelewisblack Youtube - https://www.youtube.com/OfficialLewisBlack New episodes arrive every Wednesday via The Laugh Button For advertising opportunities email: [email protected] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Twenty years after the September 11th attacks it’s hard to say that we have learned any valuable lessons from that tragedy. Do we have more common sense and a better understanding of foreign relations? Nope. Do we care about the people of New York more than we did 20 years ago? Fuhgeddaboutit. And after two decades of daily being told to never forget, the one thing we can’t seem to remember from that day is how to act in unison with singular purpose. We don’t agree on the facts of that day, and it may be that on that day the last shreds of something approaching universal truth disappeared in a conflagration of jet fuel, printer paper, and copier toner. The full-on assault on the truth and common sense may have started soon after the towers fell when Larry Silverstein, who had signed a 99-year lease on the buildings a few weeks prior, sued his insurance companies saying that it was two attacks and not one, so he should get double the money. So from the very beginning of the rebuilding process, there was no agreement on what happened and 20 years later, everything is seemingly up for litigation. Nothing is ever over, there’s always one more court to go to or one more politician to try to buy off. If you wonder why Americans are exhausted, this is why. It is also the time of the high holidays for those of the Jewish faith, and while your host had an upbringing in that religion, he no longer finds it to be a place of comfort or sanctuary. Perhaps telling a five-year old that Yom Kippur is the day that his name will be written into the book of life or the book of death is what drove him away. Having received a full Jewish education your host knows for certain that to be written into the book of life, it would help to be vaccinated. (Note that despite untruthful internet rumors, Lewis does not get paid by anyone to say “get vaccinated”. But he’s happy to take offers.) And Lewis was able to celebrate his mom’s 103rd birthday with her this week. She’s a centenarian with nary a wrinkle on her face, and when asked what her beauty regimen is, she answered “nothing”. She just washes her face once a day. Jeannette has other important life advice: people really like it when you smile. It’s worked for her for more than a century. The rants this week don’t have as cheery or celebratory an outlook, as the patience of the vaccinated toward the unvaccinated continues to wane and the social fabric continues to disintegrate. There are also submissions about the Texas abortion/bounty law, the parental hell that is Disney World, bank customers who don’t want to show ID, even though it’s to protect their money, and the Kars4Kids jingle. And for the people made insane by high concert ticket fees, some more Jeannette Black-endorsed advice: join Lewis’ F.U.C.K.U. fan club to get pre-sale access to the best seats in the theater, without paying ticket fees or “convenience” charges. Submit rants to Lewis https://www.lewisblack.com/live Lewis’ latest special, Thanks For Risking Your Life is available now! https://tlbrecords.lnk.to/LewisWE Subscribe to Lewis Black’s Rantcast Apple – https://bit.ly/rantcast Spotify – https://spoti.fi/3oNaPFh Google – https://bit.ly/37Zb35u Amazon – https://amzn.to/37bg8Za Follow Lewis Website – http://www.lewisblack.com Instagram – http://www.instagram.com/thelewisblack Twitter – https://twitter.com/thelewisblack Facebook – https://www.facebook.com/thelewisblack Youtube - https://www.youtube.com/OfficialLewisBlack New episodes arrive every Wednesday via The Laugh Button For advertising opportunities email: [email protected] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Twenty years ago this week, the United States suffered the worst terrorist attack in its history. Following the horror of that triple death-from-above assault, the country was about as united in purpose as it can be, and in agreement, mostly, about what we saw happen. Not so much now when we cannot even agree on what reality is. Our views on the events of the world have become so distorted through our siloed lenses that the current lethal attack on the country has not corralled us to a similar unifying principle. Is it because we can’t blame foreign terrorists? Without humans to directly blame for the daily mortality that is approaching the death toll from that one terrible day, some people now think that doctors are the terrorists because of their incessant need to dispense medical advice based on facts and research. It makes one despair that we will ever escape the pandemic. So, your host has a singular message this week, with a hat tip to writer Wendy Molyneux: Get Vaccinated! Because until we get control of the pandemic, we can’t focus on the myriad of other problems we face. These issues are embodied in the threats to our democracy and personal and public safety from the radical conservative minority who would sacrifice everything the country stands for on the altar of a nihilistic definition of personal and religious freedom. As some in our community celebrate the Jewish holidays of Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, it’s worth remembering that the American political system is based on a separation of church and state and that there are many people who do not find the promise of potential rapture to be a good reason not to get a shot. And as we have also seen this week, the worsening effects of climate change are more and more evident as from coast to coast localities have been ravaged by 100-year weather conditions on a weekly basis, from hurricanes to flooding to wildfires to tornadoes. Whatever the aims of the 9/11 attackers, the subsequent twenty years have proven that left to our own devices, we can harm ourselves far more than any external threat. On a lighter note, happy 103rd birthday to Jeannette Black! The rants this week offer a range of gripes before taking a decided turn down COVID alley, with a brief excursion into the dialectics of Greek tragedy. Highlights include one veteran’s plea to stop saying “Thank you for your service” unless you are also going to vote for politicians who will support those who have served, a reminder that democracy is in danger in California where an entirely undemocratic recall election threatens the incumbency of Gov. Newsom, a plea for personal space, and a diatribe about the pointlessness of most news when it leaves the work of news gathering to the viewer. Also, get vaccinated. Lewis’ latest special, Thanks For Risking Your Life is available now! https://tlbrecords.lnk.to/LewisWE SUBMIT RANTS TO LEWIS www.lewisblack.com/live SUBSCRIBE TO THE RANTCAST www.lewisblacksrantcast.com FOLLOW LEWIS www.lewisblack.com www.youtube.com/officiallewisblack www.instagram.com/thelewisblack www.facebook.com/thelewisblack www.twitter.com/thelewisblack www.tiktok.com/@thelewisblack For advertising opportunities/contact email: [email protected] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The good news of the week: Lewis' Baltimore Orioles finally won a game! Also, he had a birthday. The bad news: the endless cycle of problems of the world. Hurricanes, COVID, Afghanistan, the assault on voting rights. The same horrors on repeat, all with a moronic dose of grandstanding and unnecessary risk. First up is Lewis’ mainstream media pal Al Roker, who, as he is wont to do, reported about a hurricane from within said hurricane. Is this really required? If we have announcers calling baseball games remotely, why can’t Al report about the weather from the comfort and safety of a TV studio. We know you’re committed Al, but this seems like a crazy level of dedication to the job. This particular weather system hit a little too figuratively close to home for your host, whose grandmother was also named Ida. For those of you familiar with Lewis’ mother, it really should have been called Hurricane Jeannette. Next, on the foreign affairs front, Sen. Lindsay Graham wants to impeach the current president for the debacle in Afghanistan. By that metric all of the last four presidents could have been removed from office, and while the focus on foreign threats is important, why does domestic terrorism always get treated like an unwanted step-child? Ignoring it won’t make it go away. Meanwhile the former leader has thrown his support behind former NJ Generals star running back Herschel Walker in his bid to win a Senate seat from Georgia. Some important context: the former leader owned that USFL team and paid Herschel Walker a lot of money in the 1980s, the former leader almost single-handedly bankrupted the USFL, and Herschel Walker lives in Texas. Finally, to round out the crazy train, a St. Louis taxi company is refusing service to riders who wear masks or are vaccinated. The owner of the company is proud that Missouri is one of the three states with the lowest vaccination rate. The lesson here is that there are two kinds of crazy: the Al Roker funny-crazy that leads one to maybe irresponsibly report about a hurricane from within, and the truly psychotic variety that not only denies reality, but actively promotes that delusional view of the world to the detriment of the greater society. While Lewis couldn’t celebrate his birthday with a grand party, the best gift you can give him is to send in your rants. And this week’s submissions were quite a present, with rants about the end of the American experiment in democracy, the tribulations of a spouse who forgets to turn off the bathroom light, a query into why Lewis’ fall tour dates mostly skip the Midwest, and a plea to the organizers of the Red Neck Rave to keep their toxic stew away from the nearby Mammoth Caves National Park. Also, this highly controversial stance: okra is inedible. Lewis’ latest special, Thanks For Risking Your Life is available now! https://tlbrecords.lnk.to/LewisWE New episodes arrive every Wednesday. SUBMIT RANTS TO LEWIS www.lewisblack.com/live SUBSCRIBE TO THE RANTCAST www.lewisblacksrantcast.com FOLLOW LEWIS www.lewisblack.com www.youtube.com/officiallewisblack www.instagram.com/thelewisblack www.facebook.com/thelewisblack www.twitter.com/thelewisblack www.tiktok.com/@thelewisblack For advertising opportunities/contact email: [email protected] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

While the tribulations of the world were on an endless loop of Haiti, COVID, and Afghanistan, Lewis' anger this week comes from a very personal place, but with a universal lesson. After a year and a half of being extra careful with everything germ-related, Lewis and a group of fully-vaccinated, often-tested friends had dinner together last week, only to find out the next day that one of their fellow diners has COVID. And that friend was supposed to go on a well-deserved trip to Italy the next day. The unfairness of it all made him angry. Very angry. So, there was some yelling that happened, and thus the lesson. What we hear a lot of in the public discourse is the fevered fanaticism of a loud minority, whether about vaccines, masks, guns, or climate change. Their reactionary amateurish spewing brings neither beneficial relief for themselves nor does it serve any higher societal function. It is just noise going out into the unmediated void, propped up by ads for gold, CPAP machines, and catheters. In contrast, your host proffers this professional advice: the true purpose of yelling should be the healthy expression of anger. Not in and of itself, but as a means to find your own vulnerability. He’s an expert on the subject. So, send in your rants and get that anger therapeutically out. You'll feel better. The rants this week offer their own range of personal anger therapy, with submissions about pooping geese, bad manners, e-scooters, flat-earthers, pandemic hygiene, Cuomo-esque unwanted touching, the Davenport IA police department, an insightful lesson on the meaning of the 1st Amendment, and Germans. Also, a doleful rant about the seasonal confusion caused by retail establishments having already started playing Christmas holiday music even though it is 150˚degrees outside. And more! Lewis’ latest special, Thanks For Risking Your Life is available now! https://tlbrecords.lnk.to/LewisWE New episodes arrive every Wednesday. SUBMIT RANTS TO LEWIS www.lewisblack.com/live SUBSCRIBE TO THE RANTCAST www.lewisblacksrantcast.com FOLLOW LEWIS www.lewisblack.com www.youtube.com/officiallewisblack www.instagram.com/thelewisblack www.facebook.com/thelewisblack www.twitter.com/thelewisblack www.tiktok.com/@thelewisblack For advertising opportunities/contact email: [email protected] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

A week off did nothing to temper Lewis’s anger or his sense that history has folded in on itself. Twenty years of US intervention in an Asian nation and it all ends in an ill-planned fleeing on overcrowded flights. Kabul in 2021 or Saigon in 1975, either way the images of departing Americans should forever dispel any further imperialist notions. Your host has himself visited Afghanistan, having performed there on two USO tours. From his observations from flying over the country, it was obvious from the haphazard nature of the terrain that the country could never be conquered. So here we are, unable to get our act together to defeat enemies foreign or domestic or viral, each attempt at a solution confounded by our own idiocy and delusional sense of self-worth. While the Taliban overwhelms the Afghan forces, COVID continues its resurgent march through the unvaccinated. America leadership seems to be defined by a hubristic inability or unwillingness to accurately assess any problem beyond what the personal political consequences might be. How else to explain certain governors stopping local schools from having mask mandates? These leaders look only to their own political advantage and criminally refuse to comprehend that their job is first and foremost to protect those who are unable to protect themselves. Instead they are willing to gamble the lives of children to make a nebulous virtue-signaling point about “freedom”. What about the freedom to not get COVID? The vaccination situation has become so ridiculous that some people in Missouri are wearing disguises when they go to get vaccinated. So, there’s freedom for those who won’t wear a mask or won’t get vaccinated, but not for those who choose to get vaccinated. But, it’s not all bad news on the vaccination front, some dominatrices are demanding that their submissives get vaccinated. Whatever it takes. From one end of the English-speaking world to the other, Lewis’ global reach persists as this week we have a Kiwi’s perspective of American politics likening it to the death rattle of a failed state, some fan appreciation from down under, and from north of the border, a discursive deconstruction of how Canadian politics isn’t so much better than American politics, they just do it in a quieter fashion. We have several perspectives on vaccination and the pandemic, and from Texas, a local’s view of Gov. Greg Abbott’s destructive antebellum governing strategy. Plus, what’s up with all the shopping cart traffic jams in the aisles of Sam’s Club? Lewis’ latest special, Thanks For Risking Your Life is available now! https://tlbrecords.lnk.to/LewisWE New episodes arrive every Wednesday. SUBMIT RANTS TO LEWIS www.lewisblack.com/live SUBSCRIBE TO THE RANTCAST www.lewisblacksrantcast.com FOLLOW LEWIS www.lewisblack.com www.youtube.com/officiallewisblack www.instagram.com/thelewisblack www.facebook.com/thelewisblack www.twitter.com/thelewisblack www.tiktok.com/@thelewisblack For advertising opportunities/contact email: [email protected] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

After a nearly 500-day hiatus, due to the biblically cataclysmic global plague, Lewis made his “post”-pandemic performance debut. Was it outdoors? Yes. Was it in front of physically present live humans? Indeed! And while he may have had the comedy equivalent of the "twisties", the audience at the Chautauqua Institute could not have been more gracious or appreciative. All in all, a great way to get back on the road. Originally founded as a Methodist adult camp, the Chautauqua Institute is located in western New York state, and features a wealth of programming where adults speak intelligently to each other. Amazingly, this kind of place still exists in America. Followers of Lewis Black will know that in nearby Jamestown is the National Comedy Center which features a treasure-trove of material about the history and development of comedy in America, including exhibits on Ernie Kovacs, the Smothers Brothers, George Carlin, and Muppet Fozzie Bear. It also hosts the Lucille Ball Comedy Festival, which is happening this week (August 3-7)! So, if you’re in the greater Chautauqua County area it’s an experience you won’t want to miss. The NCC is also home to the Lucy-Desi Museum, which honors the contributions to comedy that Lucille Ball made (she grew up in nearby Celoron), and the entire NCC serves a monument to Lucy’s legacy and her vision of the place of comedy in American culture. Lewis’s performance went well, though preparing for it was one of the hardest things he’s ever done, up there with getting ready for his Bar Mitzvah. Preparing for a show and writing his set without an audience is not his normal approach. He had to work in isolation and without his usual facilities and faculties, similar to the pandemic-restricted training regimens of the Olympic athletes now in Tokyo. But like them, once he’s on the big stage, the muscle memory comes back and the joy of performing comes through. His set went well and now he’s looking forward to hitting the road starting in September. So, assuming the vaccine situation gets a little better, Lewis's fall tour will begin next month with club dates in Huntsville, AL, Cleveland, OH, and Omaha, NE. If that isn't incentive enough to get vaccinated, what more do you need? The rants this week touch on the state of the vaccinated and the un-vaccinated, with a decided lack of empathy for the latter. We also have submissions about the difficulties of buying a pillow, the sacrilege that is fruit on pizza, and one about how Canada is not so much better than America. And more. The live rants come from Lewis' performance on Feb. 6, 2020 at the Coral Springs Center for the Performing Arts. Lewis’ latest special, Thanks For Risking Your Life is available now! https://tlbrecords.lnk.to/LewisWE New episodes arrive every Wednesday. SUBMIT RANTS TO LEWIS www.lewisblack.com/live SUBSCRIBE TO THE RANTCAST www.lewisblacksrantcast.com FOLLOW LEWIS www.lewisblack.com www.youtube.com/officiallewisblack www.instagram.com/thelewisblack www.facebook.com/thelewisblack www.twitter.com/thelewisblack www.tiktok.com/@thelewisblack For advertising opportunities/contact email: [email protected] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

As the Delta Variant comes riding in like whichever of the four horsemen of the apocalypse represents Pestilence (it’s the white one), the Pandemic is turning downright biblical. And to paraphrase 1 Corinthians 13:11, the time for childish ways has ended, which means that if someone asks you if you've been vaccinated, answer the question like an adult. Yes or No. It's very simple. Too simple in fact for some Republicans in Congress who are afraid to say whether they have been vaccinated. In what world do they live in that they are too scared to declare their vaccination status because it might offend the followers of the former leader, when we all know that the former had COVID and was vaccinated. Whatever it was that they learned in their student government days, it was not how to lead. Your host served a term on his junior prom committee and managed a neat fiduciary trick that resulted in a free senior prom, which is a lesson in leadership many of our purported leaders could learn. It is time for us to get our act together, to wake up to the reality that getting vaccinated is what gives you your freedom to not wear a mask. Perhaps this is all a way of god saying that we have screwed up royally and enough is enough. And perhaps it is time for a third Testament called, “What The F$*k!”. In other news, Lewis visited his mom this week, who's very pleased to know that she has become a centenarian social media star, commanding her son to be sure “to talk about me because they like me”. And in travel news, now that fully vaccinated Americans will be able to travel to Canada starting August 9th, it’s a good time to remember that Vancouver is one of the most expensive cities on the planet. Be sure to check the apartment rental listings when you visit. It makes living in NYC seem reasonable by comparison. Speaking of our neighbors to the north, the rants this week include one from a disgruntled Canadian who would like to remind his fellow drivers that the laneway is for driving not for parking. Back in the states, we have rants that focus on the vaccinated, the unvaccinated, gun violence, and workplace surveillance. Plus, an epic diatribe/novella about a surreal experience at the DMV that serves as an archetypal summary of all that has happened in the last 18 months. Also, vaccinated lives matter! Lewis’ latest special, Thanks For Risking Your Life is available now! https://tlbrecords.lnk.to/LewisWE New episodes arrive every Wednesday. SUBMIT RANTS TO LEWIS www.lewisblack.com/live SUBSCRIBE TO THE RANTCAST www.lewisblacksrantcast.com FOLLOW LEWIS www.lewisblack.com www.youtube.com/officiallewisblack www.instagram.com/thelewisblack www.facebook.com/thelewisblack www.twitter.com/thelewisblack www.tiktok.com/@thelewisblack For advertising opportunities/contact email: [email protected] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

There are 50 states in the United States, 50 ways to leave your lover, 50 is the age when you become eligible to join AARP, and this is episode #50 of Lewis Black’s Rantcast! Those 50 episodes have contained many recurring themes from impending and present climate catastrophe to the Covid-19 pandemic to rich people not wanting to pay taxes to the sclerotic machinations of a nearly psychotic nation whose politicians, particularly those who follow the former leader, cannot seem to escape from a nihilistic doom cycle. And this episode does not disappoint. Around the planet, from the wildfires in the US west to the biblical floods in Western Europe, the ravages of global warming can no longer be ignored or escaped. Except that is, if you happen to be one of the nation’s benighted billionaires who launch themselves into what may or not be space on an almost daily basis. They say it’s for “space tourism” but we all know that it’s to save themselves from the defiled planet the rest of us have as our only residence. Back on terra firma, the vaccination rate in the US has stalled as many of the former leader’s followers apparently would rather die than upset him or accept that they are in a cult. These are generally the same people who continuously spout the same tired and false claims about taxation, voter fraud, and health care. As such, your host believes that there’s only one person who can save these lost souls from certain damnation. Tune in to find out who it is. Also, it’s time to retire the emu from selling insurance. This week’s rants also hit on some of the recurring themes, including voting rights in Texas, gun violence and the language of violence in a violent society, and the pandemic. Other rants hit a little closer to home with ones about children who want dessert for breakfast, dealing with contractors who won’t show up to the job, and a heartwarming story of a husband who knows that the less said about his spouse’s shopping habits the better. Lewis’ latest special, Thanks For Risking Your Life is available now! https://tlbrecords.lnk.to/LewisWE New episodes arrive every Wednesday. SUBMIT RANTS TO LEWIS www.lewisblack.com/live SUBSCRIBE TO THE RANTCAST www.lewisblacksrantcast.com FOLLOW LEWIS www.lewisblack.com www.youtube.com/officiallewisblack www.instagram.com/thelewisblack www.facebook.com/thelewisblack www.twitter.com/thelewisblack www.tiktok.com/@thelewisblack For advertising opportunities/contact email: [email protected] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Three billionaires are currently in a race to get to space, of course there’s nothing more pressing to the people of earth right now than to have the news spend a Sunday morning talking about it. In a time when people are having trouble paying for healthcare or a house, we have the news giving us commercials for something only rich people can do. It’s conflicting, because while space exploration is important, this is such a weird time for this to happen. When we have a cracked system from the pandemic it’s Virgins vs Amazons dominating the Sunday news cycle. But hey! With any luck, a petition to keep at least one of the evil overlords in space could help us out, right? Meanwhile, on the ground people are still fighting science. Both with the vaccine to bring the pandemic to its knees or the fact that half of the US is on fire because of climate change. Lewis is considering turning the articles he reads about it in to his act, just a reading the facts to get chuckles. The rants this week continue to explore people’s anger toward what it means to act like an American and degradation of what it means to fly the flag these days. The simple lack of respect people have when it comes to returning a shipping cart where they belong. The growing disdain for how bosses are treating their employees, whether it be blue collar work or on the healthcare frontlines; one in particular hitting Lewis personally as it relates to care for the elderly. A military vet who feels the current military has become soft. Ending with a rant about how the politicization of the COVID vaccines have divided families. Lewis’ latest special, Thanks For Risking Your Life is available now! https://tlbrecords.lnk.to/LewisWE New episodes arrive every Wednesday. SUBMIT RANTS TO LEWIS www.lewisblack.com/live SUBSCRIBE TO THE RANTCAST www.lewisblacksrantcast.com FOLLOW LEWIS www.lewisblack.com www.youtube.com/officiallewisblack www.instagram.com/thelewisblack www.facebook.com/thelewisblack www.twitter.com/thelewisblack www.tiktok.com/@thelewisblack For advertising opportunities/contact email: [email protected] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Since the founding of the Republican party in the mid-1850s, politics has been dominated by a two-party system that clearly isn’t working too well anymore. Third parties have been tried before, from Teddy Roosevelt’s Bull Moose Party to Strom Thurmond’s Dixiecrats to Ross Perot’s Reform party to current incarnations like the Libertarian Party and the Green Party. None have achieved much lasting electoral success. So, given the current state of American politics, the time may now be right for the Rubber Chicken Party. The RCP has one platform: empathy for the citizenry. While many human elected officials seem to only have empathy for corporations, a legislative branch of rubber chickens will definitely have more compassion for the people, and will be better equipped to represent the voters rather than multinational corporations. Never mind a chicken in every pot, it’s time for a rubber chicken in every seat in Congress! (As an aside, it was not Huey Long, or Herbert Hoover who first said, “a chicken in every pot”. At his coronation in 1589, French King Henry IV vowed that he would make the peasants of France so prosperous that each would, “have a chicken in his pot on Sunday.”) Our elected leaders could also take an empathy lesson from the search dogs at the site of the collapsed Champlain Towers South in Surfside, FL. Many have become depressed because after long hours of searching, they are not finding living people. If we can’t wait for the advent of the RCP, the least we could do is send our Representatives and Senators (and some Governors too) to Florida to take lessons on how to act with empathy, with reverence for the humanity in all our fellow humans. The alternative is more weeks where the cascade of news brings stories like the Supreme Court celebrating Independence Day by making it harder for people to vote and Bill Cosby getting out of prison. We could take a lesson from the Germans, who, while also pulling their troops out of Afghanistan, have prioritized removing all of their alcohol before a single soldier returns home. This is a move that is both culturally sensitive and eminently practical. If we can learn from other humans, maybe we will get more stories like the fact that the name Karen has plummeted in the baby name rankings. And that’s having empathy for your child, which is a good place to start. The pandemic has broken many things about our society and as we emerge from its ravages, we are all acting a little strange. For instance, your host has taken to watching soccer as he needs the distraction and dreams of a European Vacation. And if the rants this week are any indication, the ability to handle interpersonal communications has greatly diminished. As such, we have submissions about working in customer escalations, calling customer support, doctors who don’t keep their appointments, and dealing with government bureaucracy. Plus, a rant about how living in Switzerland has made one ex-pat want to simultaneously be a capitalist and kill all the capitalists. It’s a great summation of the paradox of our times. Lewis’ latest special, Thanks For Risking Your Life is available now! https://tlbrecords.lnk.to/LewisWE SUBMIT RANTS TO LEWIS www.lewisblack.com/live SUBSCRIBE TO THE RANTCAST www.lewisblacksrantcast.com FOLLOW LEWIS www.lewisblack.com www.youtube.com/officiallewisblack www.instagram.com/thelewisblack www.facebook.com/thelewisblack www.twitter.com/thelewisblack www.tiktok.com/@thelewisblack For advertising opportunities/contact email: [email protected] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Do you follow @TheLewisBlack on Twitter? If not, you may have missed one of his recent posts about the irony of Senate Republicans voting to not vote about voting rights, thereby killing (for now) HR 1. The usual reactionary backlash emerged as some in the Twitterverse did not get the joke, or were under the impression that what Lewis says has an actual impact on what happens in the halls of Congress. The point was that if it’s so important to Republicans that this not become the law of the land, they could do the citizenry the favor of actually debating the issue, giving their side of the argument and outlining exactly what they think will happen if the law passes. Instead we got Grand Guignol political theater, minus the visible puppet strings. The Rantcast was on vacation last week as Lewis ventured south to check in on his mom, and to visit his alma mater, the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill. UNC has been in the news lately as the board of trustees intervened in the hiring of Nikole Hannah-Jones to be a tenured professor in the university’s School of Journalism and Media. Some of the trustees were upset with Ms. Hannah-Jones involvement in the Pulitzer-prize winning 1619 Project, which reframed American history with the origins and consequences of slavery as its centering theme. This is an academic debate that should be left to the academic community to engage with, and whether they eventually give her tenure or not, the history will get told with or without the support of the UNC Trustees. [Breaking news: The Board of Trustees will hold a vote on tenure for Ms. Hannah-Jones on June 30th.] Much more happened this week, especially in the world of academia, but the big news is that Lewis will be performing live, for the first time since the start of the Pandemic, at the Chautauqua Institution. So, if you’re in the middle of very rural upstate New York on Monday, July 26th, check it out. While one of the ranters this week has been disappointed by Lewis’ occasional failure to pronounce words correctly, he nails the hard ones in what is almost certainly the first rant from Iceland. Not everyone is so critical as another submission describes the importance of the Rantcast to the listener’s mental health. Also we have rants about how recipes always leave out one crucial step, waiting on hold for 175 minutes with customer service, online shopping, and more. Lewis’ latest special, Thanks For Risking Your Life is available now! https://tlbrecords.lnk.to/LewisWE New episodes arrive every Wednesday. SUBMIT RANTS TO LEWIS www.lewisblack.com/live SUBSCRIBE TO THE RANTCAST www.lewisblacksrantcast.com FOLLOW LEWIS www.lewisblack.com www.youtube.com/officiallewisblack www.instagram.com/thelewisblack www.facebook.com/thelewisblack www.twitter.com/thelewisblack www.tiktok.com/@thelewisblack For advertising opportunities/contact email: [email protected] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Did you know that the rubber chicken is not just the mascot for the Rantcast, he is also an accredited member of the press? Along with many news outlets, the rubber chicken can officially report that, in a huge surprise, rich people do not pay taxes. The bird’s usual beat is natural resources, and while on a failed fact-finding trip to Washington, he witnessed Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-Texas) espouse two utterly confounding theories about the climate crisis. First, in a House committee meeting, the Congressman asked if it was possible to fix climate change by changing the orbit of the moon around the Earth. Later, he promulgated the hypothesis that caribou need the warmth from oil pipelines to aid in their dating prospects. He said these idiocy-inducing statements at the exact moment that the southwest is in a megadrought and the man-made Lake Mead is at its lowest level since the Hoover Dam was built. Not to be outdone on being a slave to the petrochemical industry, a Louisiana legislator wants to make his dominion a fossil fuel sanctuary state. This in a state whose official motto is “Union, Justice, and Confidence” but is unofficially “Cancer Alley”. Lots more happened this week, but as your host says, the more he pays attention, the less he knows. That’s why he had to send the chicken out to report the news. Back in the real world, Lewis is going on tour starting next month! If you are planning on seeing a show, it’s worthwhile to join the F.U.C.K.U. fan club. Membership includes ticket pre-sales for great seats, so no ticket brokers, scalpers, or dealing with a certain, shall-not-be-named ticket monopsony. If you have listened to the Rantcast recently, one of the recurring subjects has been bad customer service from various package delivery services. While we have heard about FedEx, UPS, and DHL, this week it’s the post office’s turn. That’s followed by submissions about getting good at video games, traffic during the pandemic, and moving back home for small town living and finding that small town living is terrible. The balance of the episode is one big civics class with rants about Social Security, the filibuster, NYC elections, America being a bad neighbor to Canada, and the state of Maryland not teaching much Maryland history in Maryland high school history classes. Maybe Louie Gohmert will tune in. It can’t be a worse education than the one he’s already received. Lewis’ new special, Thanks For Risking Your Life is available now! https://tlbrecords.lnk.to/LewisWE SUBMIT RANTS TO LEWIS www.lewisblack.com/live SUBSCRIBE TO THE RANTCAST www.lewisblacksrantcast.com FOLLOW LEWIS www.lewisblack.com www.youtube.com/officiallewisblack www.instagram.com/thelewisblack www.facebook.com/thelewisblack www.twitter.com/thelewisblack www.tiktok.com/@thelewisblack For advertising opportunities/contact email: [email protected] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

As the collective COVID-induced confusion begins to abate (maybe), one thing has become abundantly clear: the tolerance for nonsense and magic thinking in the country has reached new heights. From the Federal government to state legislatures to your host’s humble center-of-the-universe metropolis, the onslaught of balderdash, hogwash, and malarkey rampages unabated. It starts with the former leader’s delusional warblings about the election having been stolen, which has unleashed a torrent of state laws restricting voting rights when no voter fraud in fact occurred. Many of those very same legislatures have then moved on to an area of expertise they know even less about than voting rights: health departments. In their blinkered understanding of the scientific method and human biology, they have determined that scientists and doctors should not be the people giving out advice about health-related subjects. When you follow the turtles all the way down you reach the point where some Republicans are blaming President Biden for the one dipping sauce per item limit at Chick-Fil-A. It should be obvious now that for all the manufactured desire for a return to normalcy, we were never normal. And, in completely un-Louis DeJoy-related postal news, did you know that working at the post office is what led Lewis to start smoking? If the submissions to the Rantcast are any guide, a year of isolation from other humans has not diminished our capacity to be irritated by other humans. As evidence we have rants this week about becoming a misanthrope, annoying grocery store employees, and Boomers who have had it up to here with Zoomers, Millennials, and Gen-Xers. Also, rants about Facebook’s nudity standards, reparations, shipping, Zoom meetings, virtual schooling, two canine-related rants, and an epic tale of pandemic isolation from a merchant mariner. Lewis’ new special, Thanks For Risking Your Life is available now! https://tlbrecords.lnk.to/LewisWE New episodes arrive every Wednesday. SUBMIT RANTS TO LEWIS www.lewisblack.com/live SUBSCRIBE TO THE RANTCAST www.lewisblacksrantcast.com FOLLOW LEWIS www.lewisblack.com www.youtube.com/officiallewisblack www.instagram.com/thelewisblack www.facebook.com/thelewisblack www.twitter.com/thelewisblack www.tiktok.com/@thelewisblack For advertising opportunities/contact email: [email protected] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

While there is an effort afoot to add our nation’s Capital as a new state, it may be time to let certain other states to secede. The Lone Star state is high on the list to go their own merry way. There are myriad reasons for this, but it starts with the Republican-controlled legislature, who took it upon themselves to honor the sacrifices memorialized on Memorial Day by passing extremely restrictive voting rights laws (enactment TBD). As if infringing the rights of voters wasn’t enough, they also passed an extremely restrictive reproductive rights law, basically telling half the population that they do not have autonomy over their bodies. Also Ted Cruz. The machinations by Texas lawmakers belie a pervasive attitude among GOP politicians that their main purpose is to win elections, by any means necessary, not to actually govern. They are dinosaurs heading to their own oblivion, trying to hurt as many people as possible on the way out. What is needed instead are leaders who have vision and who understand that the point of representative government is to help the people you are representing, not just rich people or the people who donated to your campaign. It’s the decent thing to do. Also, Supreme Leader Kim Jong-Un has banned North Korean men from wearing skinny jeans because they are decadent (he’s not wrong), and in this week’s edition of alternate reality news, anti-vaxxers are embracing social distancing to protect themselves from the vaccinated. While your host does not see himself as a self-help guru, he does know that writing a rant will make you feel better. Your fellow citizens of Rantcast-land produced many excellent submissions this week (and they definitely feel much better), including a few on the benefits and pitfalls of technology, and ones about online dating (with some tips for the gentlemen in the audience), trash pandas, so-called spill-proof gasoline cans, and clothes hangers. To keep things light, we also have rants about the Israel/Palestine conflict, gun rights and Ted Cruz, the Anthropocene, and the Insurrection. Plus, this inscrutable question: why are blue bears used to advertise toilet paper? Lewis’ new special, Thanks For Risking Your Life is available now! https://tlbrecords.lnk.to/LewisWE New episodes arrive every Wednesday. SUBMIT RANTS TO LEWIS www.lewisblack.com/live SUBSCRIBE TO THE RANTCAST www.lewisblacksrantcast.com FOLLOW LEWIS www.lewisblack.com www.youtube.com/officiallewisblack www.instagram.com/thelewisblack www.facebook.com/thelewisblack www.twitter.com/thelewisblack www.tiktok.com/@thelewisblack For advertising opportunities/contact email: [email protected] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

As the unofficial start of summer approaches, and we emerge (maybe) from the pandemic, now may seem like the time for hope and optimism. This is not the place for that. Instead, as your host points out, we are living in a continuous Sisyphean loop of politics, where just as it seems we may actually get something done, the boulder of democracy comes rolling back down. Among the things Congress is not getting done: infrastructure, voting rights, and a Jan. 6th insurrection commission. They have plenty of time to grandstand and make specious claims about liberties being infringed, but they can’t actually do the work that they were elected to do. Whatever the cause, it is Congress that is keeping the country from living up to its potential. Simply put, they need to grow up. The view outside the Beltway isn’t much better as the same disputes keep popping up, as if history itself is also stuck in a loop. This can be seen in the conflicts between the Israelis and the Palestinians, between governments and the journalists who dare to criticize them (Belarus), and between the profit motive and a responsible, informative press (Chicago Tribune). The essence of these conflicts is power vs. people and perhaps if we would acknowledge all the differing narratives of history, rather than enforce one overarching story, we could finally get the stone over the hill. The homework assignment for this week: use the Memorial Day holiday to discuss the meaning of liberty on both a personal and community level and read the Constitution. Extra credit for anyone who sends in a good Ninth Amendment rant. This week’s submissions feature responses to rants about transgender athletes and using UPS to ship packages. We also have rants about toddler drivers, having a given name that causes pronunciation and gender confusion, organizing the kitchen, the insurrection, robocalls, and Memorial Day. Plus an extraordinary account from an infection control nurse about the plague of misinformation during the pandemic. Lewis’ new special, Thanks For Risking Your Life is available now! https://tlbrecords.lnk.to/LewisWE New episodes arrive every Wednesday. SUBMIT RANTS TO LEWIS www.lewisblack.com/live SUBSCRIBE TO THE RANTCAST www.lewisblacksrantcast.com FOLLOW LEWIS www.lewisblack.com www.youtube.com/officiallewisblack www.instagram.com/thelewisblack www.facebook.com/thelewisblack www.twitter.com/thelewisblack www.tiktok.com/@thelewisblack For advertising opportunities/contact email: [email protected] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Lewis continues his southern sojourn, this time from multiple undisclosed locations in the Tar Heel state. And while the eastern seaboard dealt with the gas shortage, Lewis has a diagnosis for the true cause of what ails America: an intelligence shortage. As evidence: hoarding gas because people thought there was a gas shortage caused the gas shortage. As a sidebar, Lewis thinks all squirrels are rabid, based on no proof, which is confirmation of his own intelligence shortage. It’s OK, because he went to North Carolina to try to find his mind again, and thanks to the comforts of the undisclosed location, and some relaxing rounds of golf, he may be up to 1/3 functional. This is more than can be said for many in our leadership, especially those in charge of our emergence from the pandemic. They appear to be playing a game of three card monte, rather than defining a clear process to return to normalcy as a group. Finally, Lewis encountered an intelligence shortage of the artificial kind. On a customer service call with a major express shipping company, he had to interact with the automated system — he never spoke with a human — and it went about as well as expected. Despite all the differences in the US, we can all agree that you should be able to talk to a human as quickly as possible. This week we have a special guest ranter and the Rantcast’s reach to the Commonwealth countries keeps going with entries from Australia and Canada. The range of rant topics continues to impress with submissions about unappreciative panhandlers, noxious clouds of now-legal weed, ungrateful customers at various retail establishments, transgender athletes, riding public transportation, having a terrible mom, and guns in Florida. And in a sign of hope for the future, we have a rant about how to behave at a live comedy show. Lewis’ new special, Thanks For Risking Your Life is available now! https://tlbrecords.lnk.to/LewisWE New episodes arrive every Wednesday SUBMIT RANTS TO LEWIS www.lewisblack.com/live SUBSCRIBE TO THE RANTCAST www.lewisblacksrantcast.com FOLLOW LEWIS www.lewisblack.com www.youtube.com/officiallewisblack www.instagram.com/thelewisblack www.facebook.com/thelewisblack www.twitter.com/thelewisblack www.tiktok.com/@thelewisblack For advertising opportunities/contact email: [email protected] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

This week’s Rantcast comes from an undisclosed location in the Tar Heel State, aka North Carolina, where Lewis has traveled to hit the links and visit supermarkets. Did you know that the 12th state’s motto is esse quam videri, Latin for “to be, rather than to seem”? It’s advice that many of our lawmakers have never learned, as from coast to coast “seem” has taken on a higher value than “be”. There’s no need for a resume anymore, BS alone can see you through to the highest reaches of government. In Arizona, a hitherto unheard-of cabal called the Cyber Ninjas was hired to help count the votes that have already been successfully counted and verified. In Florida, Gov. Ron DeSantis signed a bill that eviscerates the state’s voting rights and only invited Fox News to the ceremonial signing. This was appropriately evocative of coverage by the Soviet-era TASS News Agency. And in the hallowed halls of Congress, Liz “waterboarding isn’t torture” Cheney (R-WY) may be replaced in the house leadership by noted acolyte of the former leader Elise Stefanik (R-NY), because she dared to question the Big Lie. Back in the real world, Lewis appeared on the PBS show “Finding Your Roots”, where host Henry Louis Gates, Jr. revealed that he has a cousin who is also a podcast host. Must be in the genes. More importantly, Lewis celebrated Mother’s Day with his mom Jeannette who, in a moment of centenarian clarity, remarked that we shouldn’t celebrate Mother’s Day, because every day is Mother’s Day. Indeed. The rants this week take on a bit of a British whinge with submissions from the UK praising the NHS and decrying the deterioration of manners. From this side of the pond we have rants about how to make a proper cup of coffee, being whiter than white, the lack of a minority presence at Lewis’ shows, getting dental insurance, (un)equal pay, the changing definition of the American dream, and not one but two rants about dog poop. And more. Lewis’ new special, Thanks For Risking Your Life is available now! https://tlbrecords.lnk.to/LewisWE New episodes arrive every Wednesday SUBMIT RANTS TO LEWIS www.lewisblack.com/live SUBSCRIBE TO THE RANTCAST www.lewisblacksrantcast.com FOLLOW LEWIS www.lewisblack.com www.youtube.com/officiallewisblack www.instagram.com/thelewisblack www.facebook.com/thelewisblack www.twitter.com/thelewisblack www.tiktok.com/@thelewisblack For advertising opportunities/contact email: [email protected] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

After a one-week dental surgery-induced hiatus, the Rantcast is back! A lot happened in that interval, but the eternal question remains: when will we ever get back to being smart? That time is clearly not now as the stupid train rolls on, this time stopping at the door of Rick “Google It” Santorum. The former Pennsylvania Senator propounded the inanity that there was nothing of significance happening on this continent before white Europeans arrived. He seems to be forgetting both the fact that millions of people already lived in the Americas and that the British deemed it a good idea to go to battle wearing bright red coats. The backlash came as expected, with the backlash to the backlash forgetting that there’s a difference between so-called “cancel” culture and the consequences of being dumb as a post. The continuing pandemic revealed more stupidity as the goal of herd immunity slips away because some of the herd have decided they don’t want to wear masks and don’t want to get vaccinated either. This seems like a good moment to point out that the root of the word vaccine comes from the Latin for cow. Speaking of things down on the farm, we now have a chicken wing shortage to add to all our other woes and tribulations. Also infrastructure, lots of infrastructure. The rants (26:06) get off to a fast start with a tryptic covering mask wearing, gendered Happy Meal toys, and how sweet tea has become the default when you ask for iced tea. They pick up steam from there with submissions about fixing the roads (and taxing the rich to do it), the unexpected perils of getting the second vaccine shot (and not in the way you would think), being judged for what you eat, a trip to the auto parts store that becomes a parable of our decrepit infrastructure, privileged parents who have decided the pandemic is over, wasted military spending in Iraq and Afghanistan (somehow also about infrastructure), online shopping and the tyranny of the star ratings system, and a playlet about a trip to Walmart that turned into a math problem for the stupid. And more. The live rants (1:22:00) come from another Vaudeville-era gem, the historic Genesee Theatre in Waukegan, IL, where Lewis performed on Feb. 1, 2020. Lewis’ new special, Thanks For Risking Your Life is available now! https://tlbrecords.lnk.to/LewisWE New episodes arrive every Wednesday. SUBMIT RANTS TO LEWIS www.lewisblack.com/live SUBSCRIBE TO THE RANTCAST www.lewisblacksrantcast.com FOLLOW LEWIS www.lewisblack.com www.youtube.com/officiallewisblack www.instagram.com/thelewisblack www.facebook.com/thelewisblack www.twitter.com/thelewisblack www.tiktok.com/@thelewisblack For advertising opportunities/contact email: [email protected] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Back when Lewis was barely AARP age-eligible, US forces invaded Afghanistan and now, nearly 20 years later, your esteemed host is fully qualified for Social Security. And come September, the US military will have fully withdrawn from the Central/South Asian Republic. What did it all mean? Did the US occupation amount to anything? From having done three USO tours there, Lewis has some personal observations: The experience of being there was a truly life-changing experience, akin to an insane LSD trip (not in a bad way); the level of sacrifice from the soldiers there, whatever the justification of the mission, was astonishing; and that saying “thank you” to those who served is meaningless without actually supporting the troops with whatever they need once they return stateside. In other news this week, the Duke of Edinburgh, Prince Philip passed away and so did Ponzi scheme perfecter Bernie Madoff. Lewis was once in an ABC miniseries about the latter which featured Richard Dreyfus as Bernie and Blythe Danner as his wife, an experience Lewis felt made drama school finally worth it. Many Republicans have stepped in to fill the chaos void left by the former leader, typified by the proposed America First Caucus, a group of representatives keen on returning the US to its supposed Anglo-Saxon roots. Lewis has a modest proposal for them: if they want to return to a pre-21st century time, let’s take some of that infrastructure money, build a time machine, and send them back to whatever time period they would feel comfortable in. Maybe a plantation would do. After the mass shootings a few weeks ago, Lewis went on a rant of his own about the need for common sense gun control legislation, and as part of that, asked for rebuttal submissions. So we start this week’s rants with a counter response averring that many proposals to curb gun violence by restricting gun ownership are based on false premises. From there things perk up a bit with rants about the inanity of planning an indoor surprise party during the pandemic, packages being delivered to the wrong address, personal products application confusion, mask wearing, running a small business during the pandemic, and roundabouts. Plus, the rubber chicken controversy continues. Lewis’ new special, Thanks For Risking Your Life is available now! https://tlbrecords.lnk.to/LewisWE New episodes arrive every Wednesday. SUBMIT RANTS TO LEWIS www.lewisblack.com/live SUBSCRIBE TO THE RANTCAST www.lewisblacksrantcast.com FOLLOW LEWIS www.lewisblack.com www.youtube.com/officiallewisblack www.instagram.com/thelewisblack www.facebook.com/thelewisblack www.twitter.com/thelewisblack www.tiktok.com/@thelewisblack For advertising opportunities/contact email: [email protected] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Many subjects divide the denizens of the United States and the list easily comes to mind. Now, we must add the legendary rubber chicken to our culture war. Some consider the chicken’s caterwauling the epitome of crass comedic laziness, while others, including your host, believe that the rubber chicken is a celebrated figure in the history of comedy going back to at least the Vaudeville era as a gag mainstay. Also, Lewis couldn’t afford a real sidekick. In other areas of American division, there are problems at the southern border, where people from other countries are trying to enter the US; maybe we should stop telling people how great America is if we don’t want them to come here. Mitch McConnell is upset that CEOs are getting involved in voting rights; Kaitlyn Jenner is considering running for governor of California as a Republican, a group of people doing their best to do away with trans people; and to continue the hypocrisy train, the former leader called on his supporters to boycott Coca-Cola products and then was seen drinking Diet Coke. In the really important news of the week, Lewis visited his mom Jeannette at her assisted living facility in Maryland and he got to play golf. So, things are looking up. The rants keep pouring in, and the diversity of subject matter keeps getting bigger. One submission this week asks why Americans have so much hostility towards the rest of the world, especially the developing world. Another proposes a constitutional amendment that would tie Congressional pay to the minimum wage. And Lewis’ friend Nancy Stanley recounts an incident where she went full mask vigilante at a Trader Joe’s. Plus, we hear about the broken US medical system, bad behavior at national parks, returning to school while the pandemic persists, cheating on your taxes, fun at a Burger King playland, and this conundrum: how do you fix your reading glasses when you need your reading glasses to see so you can fix your reading glass. Also towels. Lewis’ new special, Thanks For Risking Your Life is available now! https://tlbrecords.lnk.to/LewisWE New episodes arrive every Wednesday. SUBMIT RANTS TO LEWIS www.lewisblack.com/live SUBSCRIBE TO THE RANTCAST www.lewisblacksrantcast.com FOLLOW LEWIS www.lewisblack.com www.youtube.com/officiallewisblack www.instagram.com/thelewisblack www.facebook.com/thelewisblack www.twitter.com/thelewisblack www.tiktok.com/@thelewisblack For advertising opportunities/contact email: [email protected] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The signs of spring and renewal are in the air, as Lewis forgoes celebrating Passover and Easter isn’t his thing either. So, no hunting for eggs and no mom’s brisket (not a big loss as Jeannette’s version involved boiling the meat until it was the consistency of rubber). Another sign of spring comes from the start of the baseball season, where Lew’s Baltimore Orioles opened the season with a sweep of the hated Boston Red Sox. Despite this early season success, they are still an insult to birds nationwide. In other baseball news, the 2021 All Star Game was moved out of Georgia as a protest against their recently enacted restrictive voting law. This is not cancel culture, but an otherwise conservative organization understanding which side of history they want to be on. Renewal was also a theme in the political world, as the Biden administration proposed a sweeping (but not sweeping enough for some people) infrastructure bill. Will it cost a lot of money? Yes, but it’s necessary to bring us into the 21st century. You get what you pay for, and right now we are paying just enough to be 13th in the world. And in further signs of renewal, a gay pride-themed lifeguard tower in Long Beach, CA that had been burned down will be rebuilt “gayer” then before, and Lewis ventured out into his bustling metropolis and got a haircut. A bevy of rants arrived this week, so there’s no live replay. Instead, we have diatribes about the struggle to retrieve a forgotten iPad password, New York legalizing weed, gay self-identification, car auctions, assembling furniture from an unnamed (Swedish) store, escargot, the hematological dangers of blister packaging, and the importance of doing your research. We also had several pandemic-related rants including ones about online dating, working at a supermarket, and neighborhood games. Also f*&k Ted Cruz. Lewis’ new special, Thanks For Risking Your Life is available now! https://tlbrecords.lnk.to/LewisWE New episodes arrive every Wednesday. SUBMIT RANTS TO LEWIS www.lewisblack.com/live SUBSCRIBE TO THE RANTCAST www.lewisblacksrantcast.com FOLLOW LEWIS www.lewisblack.com www.youtube.com/officiallewisblack www.instagram.com/thelewisblack www.facebook.com/thelewisblack www.twitter.com/thelewisblack www.tiktok.com/@thelewisblack For advertising opportunities/contact email: [email protected] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Another week, another mass shooting. And Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) had a completely inappropriate, but totally within character response, wherein he disingenuously claimed that any attempt to curtail gun violence can be seen as mere theatrics. (It bears repeating that Sen. Cruz attended Princeton and Harvard Law School and their admissions departments have a lot of explaining to do.) The parade of bad faith policy making rolled on, this time in the Peach State, where Georgia Republicans passed a 90-page bill severely restricting voting rights. That’s a lot of words to obscure the simple message, “we don’t want black people to vote”. It wasn’t all bad news down South, as the Alabama legislature relaxed the ban on teaching Yoga in schools once it was explained that stretching is in no way an endorsement of Hinduism. The little ones still must be shielded from speaking a non-English word, in this case “namaste”. In other good news, Lewis had successful Nitrous-aided dental surgery, he filled out an application for a job at a Sonoma County vineyard, and it was announced that his play “One Slight Hitch” will be performed at a Covid-restricted 25-seat theatre in Bengaluru, India. It’s not Broadway, but at least they are open for business. Also, unlike some people, Lewis has nothing but good things to say about Dominion Voting Systems. Not all the rants are funny this week, and not all the rants need to be rants. Need some advice? Lewis can be a great resource for all your interpersonal relationship questions, such as, how do I politely disinvite my mother-in-law-to-be from my bachelorette party she invited herself to? And maybe it’s the ongoing pandemic, but the nitty-gritty annoyances of procuring foodstuffs also took a big place in the rants. Pizza, circus peanuts, cinnamon buns, and Happy Meals all showed up along with some lighthearted rants about racism, sexism, the minimum wage, police brutality, poverty, and millennials. Also parking. The live rants come from the Soaring Eagle (NOT Spread Eagle) Casino in Mt. Pleasant, MI. And as always, we want to thank the Saginaw-Chippewa Nation for being such gracious hosts. Lewis’ new special, Thanks For Risking Your Life is available now! https://tlbrecords.lnk.to/LewisWE New episodes arrive every Wednesday. SUBMIT RANTS TO LEWIS www.lewisblack.com/live SUBSCRIBE TO THE RANTCAST www.lewisblacksrantcast.com FOLLOW LEWIS www.lewisblack.com www.youtube.com/officiallewisblack www.instagram.com/thelewisblack www.facebook.com/thelewisblack www.twitter.com/thelewisblack www.tiktok.com/@thelewisblack For advertising opportunities/contact email: [email protected] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The madness in America continued this week on many levels and in many forms. Spring breakers descended on Miami causing chaos of near catastrophic proportions. No masks, no problem, as the Florida free-for-all mentality meant that everything was allowable, as long as someone was making money from it. March Madness, a.k.a. the NCAA Tournament began and Lewis felt guilty for watching but it provided a necessary distraction. What did he need a distraction from? The sinister madness, the one that leads people to kill other people because of how they look or where they come from. That madness is compounded by law enforcement officials who characterize the perpetrator as “having a bad day”. In addition to the madness, there was the usual stupidity. Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) did something stupid. Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL) did something stupid. And a bank robber used a loaner BMW to do something stupid. Ingenious, but also stupid. Finally, and in an unrelated matter, if you’re in the Tulsa area, take a tour of Oral Roberts University. It will be worth your time. The rants keep rolling in, and this week they take on the gamut of subjects including spam email, school funding, sexism, racism, not-so-durable durable goods, daylight savings time, judge-y fellow parents, the difficulties of being a nurse during the pandemic, and for the first time in the history of the Rants, one about being an identical twin. The live rants come from one of the classic Vaudeville venues in America, the Coronado Theater in Rockford, IL. To promote the show, Lewis tried his hand as an advertising maven, ordering splashy billboards on the local highways. Apparently what works for casinos doesn’t necessarily apply to comedians, as the exact same number of people showed up as the last time he performed there. But it was a great show in a great setting. Lewis’ new special, Thanks For Risking Your Life is available now! https://tlbrecords.lnk.to/LewisWE New episodes arrive every Wednesday. SUBMIT RANTS TO LEWIS www.lewisblack.com/live SUBSCRIBE TO THE RANTCAST www.lewisblacksrantcast.com FOLLOW LEWIS www.lewisblack.com www.youtube.com/officiallewisblack www.instagram.com/thelewisblack www.facebook.com/thelewisblack www.twitter.com/thelewisblack www.tiktok.com/@thelewisblack For advertising opportunities/contact email: [email protected] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Another week, another Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI) verbal inanity. This time he claimed he was more afraid of Black Lives Matter and Antifa, than the insurrectionists who actually attacked the Capitol on January 6th. In further "I'm Just A Bill" news, the American Rescue Plan passed and was signed into law by President Biden, all without a single GOP vote, leaving Lewis to wonder what exactly Republican lawmakers think their job in Washington is. Helping the American people doesn't seem to be it. This week also marked the one year anniversary of the beginning of the Covid-19 lockdown, and every news outlet spent it memorializing and remembering a hell that is ongoing. What does Lewis remember? The vertigo-inducing moment when he realized the leader was going to nothing to protect the American people. And it was one year ago, on March 13, 2020, that Lewis performed for the last time prior to the lockdown. He then fled the scene and hightailed it back to New York to spend the next 10 weeks in isolation. On the plus side he got to visit a Walmart for the first time. This week's rant subjects include a list of new Amendments to the Constitution, a Norwegian perspective on safe social distancing, Fruity Pebbles coffee creamer, skeuomorphic design in software UI design, cell phone bills, the corporatization of children's gifts, teachers being deemed non-essential during the pandemic, people driving while using their cell phones as speaker phones, and a rebuttal to last week's rant about Netflix and having to read subtitles for foreign films. The live rants come from the historic Hoyt Sherman Theater in Des Moines, IA. Lewis’ new special, Thanks For Risking Your Life is available now! https://tlbrecords.lnk.to/LewisWE New episodes arrive every Wednesday. SUBMIT RANTS TO LEWIS www.lewisblack.com/live SUBSCRIBE TO THE RANTCAST www.lewisblacksrantcast.com FOLLOW LEWIS www.lewisblack.com www.youtube.com/officiallewisblack www.instagram.com/thelewisblack www.facebook.com/thelewisblack www.twitter.com/thelewisblack www.tiktok.com/@thelewisblack For advertising opportunities/contact email: [email protected] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Congress managed to actually pass a law, the American Rescue Plan, but not before Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI) used valuable legislative time to have the full text read on the Senate floor, rather than discuss why he’s opposed to it. The House also passed the For The People Act, and Lewis, a voting rights ambassador for the ACLU, has some choice words for those who act to restrict the franchise. Also, something happened with Meghan and Harry and Oprah. This rants this week include an interesting perspective on the pandemic lifestyle; a 10-point diatribe about how the Netflix interface operates; a plea to let the pharmacists on the front lines of Covid testing and vaccines do their jobs, without corporate interference; a trilogy of takes on the Dr. Seuss publishing controversy; a rumination in wonderment on where the class consciousness is; and finally, a combustible and epic tale of chasing an insurance payout check through the labyrinthine complexities of the American banking, insurance, and mail systems. In a nice reminder of why voting matters, the live rants come from Iowa City, IA, where Lewis performed just before the 2020 caucuses. Lewis’ new special, Thanks For Risking Your Life is available now! https://tlbrecords.lnk.to/LewisWE New episodes arrive every Wednesday. SUBMIT RANTS TO LEWIS www.lewisblack.com/live SUBSCRIBE TO THE RANTCAST www.lewisblacksrantcast.com FOLLOW LEWIS www.lewisblack.com www.youtube.com/officiallewisblack www.instagram.com/thelewisblack www.facebook.com/thelewisblack www.twitter.com/thelewisblack www.tiktok.com/@thelewisblack For advertising opportunities/contact email: [email protected] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The rubber chicken joins the fight for $15, as the junior senator from Texas, fresh off his quick sojourn to Cancun, popped up at the CPAC convention. Ted Cruz was in Orlando alongside the former leader and a mob of maskless minions, all there to pretend that Joe Biden isn’t president and that nothing happened at the Capitol on January 6th. Sen. McConnell, now the minority leader, plays it both ways in the fallout of impeachment number 2, showing that there is no issue he can’t squirm his way clear of. And to fix all that ails our country, Lewis proposes a new constitutional amendment that would create pyrotechnic consequences for officials who lie to the public. Let’s get Amendment no. 28 on the books! Finally, in international news, the oldest living person, a 117-year old woman from France has survived the pandemic. In true Gallic fashion she celebrated with Champagne and foie gras. Lewis heartily approves. This week’s rants include a discourse on how to properly cook chicken, the state of school safety in the Covid Era, the plight of a gay man in Kentucky where things took a turn for the worse in 2016, the fine art of laziness, and as if travel weren’t hard enough right now, why, oh why, do they not serve alcohol on airplanes. The live rants come from Rochester, MN, home of the Mayo Clinic and the best muffins in America. Lewis’ new special, Thanks For Risking Your Life is available now! https://tlbrecords.lnk.to/LewisWE New episodes arrive every Wednesday. SUBMIT RANTS TO LEWIS www.lewisblack.com/live SUBSCRIBE TO THE RANTCAST www.lewisblacksrantcast.com FOLLOW LEWIS www.lewisblack.com www.youtube.com/officiallewisblack www.instagram.com/thelewisblack www.facebook.com/thelewisblack www.twitter.com/thelewisblack www.tiktok.com/@thelewisblack For advertising opportunities/contact email: [email protected] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Just when its citizens needed help the most, Texas leaders take vacations and Lewis has a few thoughts about leadership from Ted Cruz on down. Speaking of leadership, our former Leader is having a bit of an issue with his tax returns, but that’s okay! According to Q-Anon he’s going to assume the Presidency again on March 4th, hooray! This week users brought Lewis yet another constitutional amendment followed immediately a risk analyst who really wonders about the liability 55 gallons of personal lubricant. An old school complaint re-emerges with a modern twist, a rant in 3 codas, people with odd company loyalties, a lady requesting Lewis curse for her, the age old debate about senses of humor, and a woman who wonders why her son is averse to hygiene. By pure serendipity, the live rants come from Houston this week, much love to the people of Texas right now. Submit rants to Lewis https://www.lewisblack.com/live Lewis’ new special, Thanks For Risking Your Life is available now! https://tlbrecords.lnk.to/LewisWE Subscribe to Lewis Black’s Rantcast Apple – https://bit.ly/rantcast Spotify – https://spoti.fi/3oNaPFh Google – https://bit.ly/37Zb35u Amazon – https://amzn.to/37bg8Za Follow Lewis Website – http://www.lewisblack.com Instagram – http://www.instagram.com/thelewisblack Twitter – https://twitter.com/thelewisblack Facebook – https://www.facebook.com/thelewisblack Youtube - https://www.youtube.com/OfficialLewisBlack New episodes arrive every Wednesday via The Laugh Button Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The rubber chicken might be running for a Senate seat in 2022 because we all know it would’ve voted to impeach had it been in office. The second impeachment of our leader brings back memories of when Lewis was involved in an impeachment during his college senate years. After thinking about it, that might’ve been the moment he realized he wanted to pursue a career in comedy. This past week brought the birthday of Lewis’ father so he was reminded of a moment about a prejudice epiphany as the passing of jazz great Chick Corea, brings up a great story about when he and Lewis met when they were both accepting their Grammys. For the rants this week Lewis reads some new constitutional amendments; someone who heard a previous rant about Weetabix and provided some Swedish translation on the subject. A lady who accidentally labeled her neighbor with the wrong political affiliation, an expat in South Korea who might be okay with strict COVID guidance, a man who has a serious bone to pick with common sense, and finally some really great advice from your old High School classmate about sliding into DMs. The live rants from the road come to us from Biloxi, MS where if you ever find yourself in town near the Beau Rivage theater, you’d be doing yourself a disservice if you did not stop by Mary Mahoney’s. Lewis’ new special, Thanks For Risking Your Life is available now! https://tlbrecords.lnk.to/LewisWE SUBMIT RANTS TO LEWIS www.lewisblack.com/live SUBSCRIBE TO THE RANTCAST www.lewisblacksrantcast.com FOLLOW LEWIS www.lewisblack.com www.youtube.com/officiallewisblack www.instagram.com/thelewisblack www.facebook.com/thelewisblack www.twitter.com/thelewisblack www.tiktok.com/@thelewisblack For advertising opportunities/contact email: [email protected] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

This week, Lewis is surprised to learn he was “selected” as a COVID-19 benefit winner. After reading that email, he also might know a Saudi prince that wants to give him millions of dollars as well, okay!? The second impeachment of Donald Trump is underway and if the incompetence of members of Congress doesn’t make you mad, you might just not be paying attention. But it’s not all bad news! After too long a delay, Lewis’ mother will finally get her vaccine this week and the fine folks at the NFL decided to pay tribute to frontline healthcare workers by holding a super spreader event so they will have someone to take care of. How nice of Roger Goodell and the gang? This week’s rants are top notch, as Lewis hears from a few ranters that feel public servants both don’t represent us well and spend too much time on social media. Rants about the lack of understanding about social distancing. A Canadian who adores a British accent (Lewis is not great at it), a woman who has a real problem with call volumes, and a Brit who really doesn’t need any more fiber during the quarantine. The show then rolls into Hattiesburg, MS for some live rants read at first Lewis’ tour date stop of 2020, when times were a little bit simpler. Lewis’ new special, Thanks For Risking Your Life is available now! https://tlbrecords.lnk.to/LewisWE New episodes arrive every Wednesday. SUBMIT RANTS TO LEWIS www.lewisblack.com/live SUBSCRIBE TO THE RANTCAST www.lewisblacksrantcast.com FOLLOW LEWIS www.lewisblack.com www.youtube.com/officiallewisblack www.instagram.com/thelewisblack www.facebook.com/thelewisblack www.twitter.com/thelewisblack www.tiktok.com/@thelewisblack For advertising opportunities/contact email: [email protected] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

We have new conspiracy-theory embracing people in Congress and Lewis is seriously considering running the rubber chicken for office. Why not? It can’t do any worse. When are we going to declare enough is enough? Lewis’ mother finally got her stimulus check, but not in check form because nothing can be easy these days. For the rants, Lewis received some more user-submitted rants and the start off with two back-to-back ones in different countries that both tackle the McDonald’s drive-thru. Additionally it appears Canada is not handling COVID response any better than we are in the US, a 15 year-old learns how to use a can opener, and Robert presents Lewis a few ideas for a new Constitutional Amendments. Lewis’ new special, Thanks For Risking Your Life is available now! https://tlbrecords.lnk.to/LewisWE SUBMIT RANTS TO LEWIS www.lewisblack.com/live SUBSCRIBE TO THE RANTCAST www.lewisblacksrantcast.com FOLLOW LEWIS www.lewisblack.com www.youtube.com/officiallewisblack www.instagram.com/thelewisblack www.facebook.com/thelewisblack www.twitter.com/thelewisblack www.tiktok.com/@thelewisblack For advertising opportunities/contact email: [email protected] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Well, we have a new administration in White House but our outgoing Leader departed in an interesting manner, would we have expected anything else? Lewis also received his COVID vaccination this week and tells the story. While the loss of Hank Aaron stings losing Larry King was a bit more personal for Lewis since he’s been on Larry's show and did a benefit for the Larry King Cardiac Foundation. While the live rants this week take us to Conchord, NH fans also submitted their quest to get the vaccine in Plano, TX. A transgender woman who can’t wait to leave Missouri, the little things when it comes to grocery shopping, and all things Pennsyltucky. Lewis references comedian Mike Wilmot’s stand-up bit “Sandwiches Will Overcome Racism” watch it here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9E47BI39mPk Submit rants to Lewis https://www.lewisblack.com/live Lewis’ new special, Thanks For Risking Your Life is available now! https://tlbrecords.lnk.to/LewisWE Subscribe to Lewis Black’s Rantcast Apple – https://bit.ly/rantcast Spotify – https://spoti.fi/3oNaPFh Google – https://bit.ly/37Zb35u Amazon – https://amzn.to/37bg8Za Follow Lewis Website – http://www.lewisblack.com Instagram – http://www.instagram.com/thelewisblack Twitter – https://twitter.com/thelewisblack Facebook – https://www.facebook.com/thelewisblack New episodes arrive every Wednesday via The Laugh Button For advertising opportunities email [email protected] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

It's Inauguration and Inoculation Day for Lewis as he's celebrating the peaceful transfer of power with a needle in his arm. Just perhaps it will be enough to get rid the vibe of the last 4 years have generated. The bus is not rolling this week but that just allows for an episode of fresh listener-submitted rants. Some people have the state of affairs on their mind and let them rip, while others would rather bide their time by simply airing their grievances about Fitbits or the classic terrible reward for a job well done. Lewis’ new special, Thanks For Risking Your Life is available now! https://tlbrecords.lnk.to/LewisWE New episodes arrive every Wednesday. SUBMIT RANTS TO LEWIS www.lewisblack.com/live SUBSCRIBE TO THE RANTCAST www.lewisblacksrantcast.com FOLLOW LEWIS www.lewisblack.com www.youtube.com/officiallewisblack www.instagram.com/thelewisblack www.facebook.com/thelewisblack www.twitter.com/thelewisblack www.tiktok.com/@thelewisblack For advertising opportunities/contact email: [email protected] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The United States had a really dark week and like many of us Lewis is grappling with how to make sense of it. One thing is certain, he knows there are plenty to blame on the assault on our democracy and he has their numbers. As do many of the people submitting rants, from serious inquiries about how to explain it all to a child, people still not taking the pandemic seriously, the red tape our healthcare system provides, and a man from Iowa who was part of a COVID test group. Before you think this episode is nothing but doom and gloom, have faith because TV commercials are still enraging people and one young man might just have the best car out there just to spite his father. Then Lewis pulls an episode of rants straight out of Montclair, NJ. Where the locals don't want you there, they got out of the city already, there's no more room! Lewis’ new special, Thanks For Risking Your Life is available now! https://tlbrecords.lnk.to/LewisWE SUBMIT RANTS TO LEWIS www.lewisblack.com/live SUBSCRIBE TO THE RANTCAST www.lewisblacksrantcast.com FOLLOW LEWIS www.lewisblack.com www.youtube.com/officiallewisblack www.instagram.com/thelewisblack www.facebook.com/thelewisblack www.twitter.com/thelewisblack www.tiktok.com/@thelewisblack For advertising opportunities/contact email: [email protected] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Happy New Year! The year is 2021 - has the ticking over of the new calendar solved all of our problems yet? Probably not, and like many of us Lewis is trying to hold on as best as possible. Which is tough, because the world and its leaders are doing their best to throw the worst at us. And you know things are truly crazy when his Washington Football Team wins its division. Luckily we have some great listener-submitted rants that prove we're not all losing our minds. Then we roll into Shippensburg, PA's at the Grove Theater for some live rants straight from the folks at Shippensburg University. Lewis’ new special, Thanks For Risking Your Life is available now! https://tlbrecords.lnk.to/LewisWE SUBMIT RANTS TO LEWIS www.lewisblack.com/live SUBSCRIBE TO THE RANTCAST www.lewisblacksrantcast.com FOLLOW LEWIS www.lewisblack.com www.youtube.com/officiallewisblack www.instagram.com/thelewisblack www.facebook.com/thelewisblack www.twitter.com/thelewisblack www.tiktok.com/@thelewisblack For advertising opportunities/contact email: [email protected] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

It's the final Rantcast of 2020 and Lewis is coming in hot as he attempts to even begin to figure out how to wrap up the year. In a nutshell, it will take an entire 365 days to summarize everything that happened. On this episode, Lewis fields rants from an American abroad who just returned after spending the last few months attempting to explain how the U.S. handled the pandemic to foreigners. Someone also has a bone to pick with those preaching "love thy neighbor." How little St. Louis is doing about contract tracing, and even some anger about hot chocolate. But it's not all negative... Lewis also learns he played a small part in someone's encouragement to start to pay it forward during the holiday season. The live rants come from Worcester, MA where Lewis has some fond memories yet also had some of the worst Chinese Food of his life. This episode is brought to you by Better Help - Listeners get 10% off their first month by visiting http://www.BetterHelp.com/rantcast Lewis’ new special, Thanks For Risking Your Life is available now! https://tlbrecords.lnk.to/LewisWE SUBMIT RANTS TO LEWIS www.lewisblack.com/live SUBSCRIBE TO THE RANTCAST www.lewisblacksrantcast.com FOLLOW LEWIS www.lewisblack.com www.youtube.com/officiallewisblack www.instagram.com/thelewisblack www.facebook.com/thelewisblack www.twitter.com/thelewisblack www.tiktok.com/@thelewisblack For advertising opportunities/contact email: [email protected] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Here's something you don't see everyday... a coyote in the Bronx. But that's just what happened to Lewis this weekend when he was headed to the golf course. Perhaps it's a metaphor for these times we live in, or maybe the coyote was just playing through on his way to track down its prey. If you're also thinking metaphorically, the US also got its vaccine this week - good news since its also been unable to execute the most basic of civic duties to prevent the spread, but who is keeping track? The live rants pick up again in Springfield, MA as Lewis also fields some user submissions from around the globe including an Australian who has a bone to pick with delivery drivers, someone who was was horrified to see what her neighbor did with hand sanitizer, a healthcare professional that calls bullshit on it all, and the age-old rage against some good avocado toast. This episode is brought to you by Better Help - Listeners get 10% off their first month by visiting http://www.BetterHelp.com/rantcast Lewis’ new special, Thanks For Risking Your Life is available now! https://tlbrecords.lnk.to/LewisWE SUBMIT RANTS TO LEWIS www.lewisblack.com/live SUBSCRIBE TO THE RANTCAST www.lewisblacksrantcast.com FOLLOW LEWIS www.lewisblack.com www.youtube.com/officiallewisblack www.instagram.com/thelewisblack www.facebook.com/thelewisblack www.twitter.com/thelewisblack www.tiktok.com/@thelewisblack For advertising opportunities/contact email: [email protected] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

A special rant from Lewis Black titled, "He Didn't Lose" written by his friend Richard Dresser. It takes a look at the past 4 years of Donald Trump's presidency. Lewis’ new special, "Thanks For Risking Your Life" is available now! https://tlbrecords.lnk.to/LewisWE SUBMIT RANTS TO LEWIS www.lewisblack.com/live SUBSCRIBE TO THE RANTCAST www.lewisblacksrantcast.com FOLLOW LEWIS www.lewisblack.com www.youtube.com/officiallewisblack www.instagram.com/thelewisblack www.facebook.com/thelewisblack www.twitter.com/thelewisblack www.tiktok.com/@thelewisblack For advertising opportunities/contact email: [email protected] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Lewis notices that the McRib is back and if that's not a metaphor for some people's happiness, what is. Fresh rants come pouring in from fans, some long, some right to the point. Before we roll into Rochester, NY Lewis takes this opportunity to read a special rant by an old friend and writer Richard Dresser titled, "He Didn't Lose." It sums up the world we've been living in for the last 4 years quite nicely. This episode is brought to you by Better Help. Get 10% off your first month by visiting www.betterhelp.com/rantcast Lewis’ new special, Thanks For Risking Your Life is available now! Watch, buy, or stream it now https://tlbrecords.lnk.to/LewisWE New episodes arrive every Wednesday. SUBMIT RANTS TO LEWIS www.lewisblack.com/live SUBSCRIBE TO THE RANTCAST www.lewisblacksrantcast.com FOLLOW LEWIS www.lewisblack.com www.youtube.com/officiallewisblack www.instagram.com/thelewisblack www.facebook.com/thelewisblack www.twitter.com/thelewisblack www.tiktok.com/@thelewisblack For advertising opportunities/contact email: [email protected] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices