Andanh.com

Lewis Black once sat next to me at a Radiohead concert, and then left early in something of a displeased tiff. He looked angry. I wondered, is he angry all the time? Now I know the shocking truth: not really. He's mainly just gently ornery, in an agreeable, get-the-hell-off-my-lawn kind of way. Onstage, Black is what you call a screamer, a member of the hilarious but tiny fraternity of stand-up comedians whose brothers have included Sam Kinison and Bill Hicks. And, with those two long gone, few comics out there manage to touch absurd brilliance with flailing, shouting and cursing the way that Black does. Given the venom of his political material, it's surprising to realize that Black might be the biggest name in the comedy world not also reviled by some large sector of it, unlike cable guys (or Dane Cooks) that we could name. Part of the reason must be his affection and dedication to stand-up itself, along with a relentless touring schedule that has him coming back to Boston in a month for a book tour. We talked about Radiohead, his years as a playwright, and his impending 60th birthday. Oh, and we also talked about how his bus almost hit a car during this interview.

HOW ARE YOU?

Ah, it gets better every day, doesn't it?

I SAT NEXT TO YOU DURING A RADIOHEAD PERFORMANCE SOME YEARS AGO AT BONNAROO. YOU WALKED OUT EARLY.

It didn't make sense. I've never really listened much to them. And I was kind of excited. And then I thought, "Hmmm...this is a long night." Really, always, it bugs me, because it's like, if I can hear what they're saying, I've got a fighting chance. I'll listen to anything as long as there are words. It's just they never have that. You have to read them on the back of the album or go online. It's absurd. So, they're really depressed, and I don't know why.

WHY DON'T MOST PEOPLE THINK OF COMEDY AS AN ART?

Because there's a good portion of the country that thinks, "I can do that. I can be funny. Everybody at the office thinks I'm funny." The nice thing that's happening is that up at Emerson College, they're starting to deal with it as a subject.

YOU'RE A GRADUATE OF YALE DRAMA SCHOOL, AS IS ROBERT KLEIN. WHAT DO YOU THINK THAT EXPERIENCE GAVE YOU AS A PERFORMER?

Hopefully, it informs the way I write my act onstage. It gave me a drive to want a through-line in my performance. It was silly the actors I watched work there: Meryl Streep, Mark Linn-Baker, Christopher Lloyd and Christopher Walken. There's this endless list. A lot of people that are now household names I watched and hopefully learned something through osmosis.

OTHERS HAVE NOTED THAT ONE OF THE STRANGE THINGS ABOUT STAND-UP IS THAT, AT ANY GIVEN MOMENT, THE BEST PEOPLE IN THE FIELD ARE TRYING TO DO SOMETHING ELSE.

Sorry, could you run that back again? Because we almost just hit a car.

ARE YOU DRIVING?

No, no, no. We travel on a tour bus. We just went in to get gas, and this guy just—without paying any attention—almost drove ... unbelievable.

WHAT STATE ARE YOU IN?

We're in Nevada crossing the border now. We just stopped at the beautiful Whiskey Pete's, which is on the border of Nevada and California.

IS IT ANYTHING LIKE FEAR AND LOATHING IN LAS VEGAS? THAT'S HOW I PICTURE IT.

No, I wish. There are no bats flying around. Just assholes on the road.

WHAT I WAS ASKING WAS—WHY DO SO MANY PEOPLE TRY TO USE STAND-UP TO DO SOMETHING ELSE?

Well, I think you have a small group of people who get it and who focus on it. And, for a lot of people, and rightfully so, because of the nature of the beast that is entertainment, just use it as, "I'm going to do this, I'm going to do that." And, I can appreciate that. My thing has always been, if I'd known what I know now, why'd I go to drama school? I should've gone straight to stand-up. Fucking moron.

USUALLY, THEY SAY THAT IN ORDER TO BE A GREAT STAND-UP YOU HAVE TO FAIL AT A COUPLE OF OTHER THINGS. ARE YOU SAYING YOU DON'T THINK THAT'S TRUE?

No, I'm glad I did it the way I did it. I think I was successful in theater and that was part of the reason I left it, because I wasn't going to do the stuff that had to be done to work with the people that I didn't even want to work with. There are a lot of people who run American theaters who are assholes. I don't even want to argue about it. I did it, I lived it, I don't know what the problem is, but I was treated better by alcoholics in bars where comedy is done than I was by the people I was trained to work with.

IS STAND-UP MORE SATISFYING THAN THEATER IN TERMS OF THE IMMEDIACY OF THE AUDIENCE'S REACTION? IS THAT SOMETHING YOU LIKE BETTER?

I do. And, what I really like about it, ultimately, and probably why I ended up there, is that it's just me and the audience. Nobody else. So, somebody can tell me what they think, and I know what happened. I can have a critic come in and talk about something I did as a stand-up, and I have just as much of a sense of what occurred as they did.

AS A POLITICAL COMIC, HOW DO YOU KEEP YOUR AUDIENCE ON EDGE AND UNCOMFORTABLE AND MAKE SURE YOU'RE NOT JUST PLAYING TO PEOPLE WHO ALREADY AGREE WITH YOU?

Well, there's stuff I'm saying that I think is nuts. The people who subscribe to my point-of-view are both Republican and Democrat, so it's not this homogenous audience. It's 18 to 85.

DO YOU TALK TO THE REPUBLICANS AFTER THE SHOW? DO THEY THINK YOU'RE NOT DIRECTING YOUR CRITICISMS AT THEM?

Oh, they know. They know much more now than they did before. They certainly know from the last special. Because now I just say, "You're more delusional than I was when I was on LSD."

I just met a guy yesterday who said to me, "I like you, and I'm a Republican." And, I said, "I'm not a Democrat. Both make me sick. When are you guys going to grow up?" It's really quite simple. Just look at what the Republicans and the Democrats have to say about each other. If both sides are telling the truth, then it's really time to move on, isn't it?

YOU'LL BE COMING BACK TO BOSTON IN JUNE FOR YOUR BOOK TOUR FOR ME OF LITTLE FAITH. YOU'VE SAID THAT'S A MORE PERSONAL STORY ABOUT RELIGION.

It is. There are all sorts of really good books written about why religion might suck. All sorts of diatribes about organized religion. It's been done, it's been done well. My Catholic pals who are stand-ups do a much better job of talking about the priesthood than I can as a Jew.

So, it's my relationship to religion. I think religion is important. It's comparable to those books by people about how they found Jesus. This is about how I found a couple of things that helped me. There are all those fucking books. Book after book about meeting a guru, meeting Jesus, meeting Mohammed. This book is "I went here, I went there. I saw this. I read that."

YOU'RE TURNING 60 IN AUGUST. ARE YOU ESPECIALLY REFLECTIVE NOW?

I don't really like this getting-old shit. It really blows. Mortality is not fun. I don't have that "Oh, inner peace. I'll become a part of the universe" crap. I think it's great if people have it. I don't.

WHAT'S THE WORST PART? DO THINGS START FALLING OFF WHEN YOU'RE 60?

Every time you have a fucking conversation, it's like a game of charades. "It sounds like—what? Just give me a vowel, I'll remember the name." I'm lucky though, because mentally I don't feel it. Except when I can't remember shit.

HOW DO YOU FIND COMIC ABSURDITY IN THE NEWS WHEN THE NEWS ITSELF IS ALREADY ABSURD?

That is the problem. It's trying to come up with a framework that's larger than the psychotic framework that we're living in. And, really, it's exhausting. It's like this thing that was on page 8 that I just read to the audience the other day, where Iraqi soldiers are now pulling people over for violations of the seatbelt law. I mean, that's all of Catch-22 in a headline. It's the entire book.

Then, the president shows his support for the troops by going on Deal or No Deal. That's how you show your support? Are you serious? You go on a show that is the dumbest show in the history of television? The show should be called America's Braindead. Watch!

IS IT IMPORTANT FOR YOUR COMEDY TO KEEP SOME EMOTIONAL DISTANCE FROM THESE PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATES?

They do a tremendous job of distancing me. I don't even have to do the work anymore. Obama did it from the very beginning, even when Barack looked like supposedly this golden light. I felt it was beyond cynical for those senators to be running around the country when they should've been back in the Senate. There's work that's got to be done. We don't have a president right now. He's on Deal or No Deal.

[Lewis Black at the Boston Opera House, Thu. 5.8. 8pm/$62.50-$72.50. 539 Washington St., Boston. 617.259.3400. lewisblack.com]

The overdue Academy Award win for The Fog of War, his 2003 documentary on LBJ Defense Secretary Robert McNamara, is really the least of Errol Morris' remarkable achievements in his one-of-a-kind career. The documentarian's work has exonerated a man wrongfully convicted of murder (The Thin Blue Line), journeyed inside the mind of Stephen Hawking (A Brief History of Time), and reinvented talking head movies as engrossing art. Morris' newest film is Standard Operating Procedure, a disturbing and revealing probe of the Abu Ghraib photographs.

MANY OF YOUR FILMS FEATURE SLOW-MOTION REENACTMENTS. WHY DO YOU USE THEM?

I'll hear a word in an interview. Robert McNamara will start talking about automobile safety, padded dashboards, collapsible steering wheels. He tells me a story about how he dropped skulls down a stairwell at Cornell. I hear the line, I like the line and I reenact it. It has some strange visual power in its own right. It's strangely suggestive. It's ironic, because, I remember thinking at the time, McNamara—even when he's trying to save lives—is dropping things from the sky. It's taking you into some odd place. It's not taking you into some real scene. It's taking you into an idea.

It's hard to know how you reconstruct the past, in a movie or anywhere else for that matter. I've pointed out that interviews are reenactments, in some very real sense. You're asking someone to re-enact an event in the past with words—an event in the past that they know now from memory. So, it's all a tool.

IN A NEW YORK TIMES BLOG, YOU WRITE THAT WE SHOULDN'T ASK WHETHER A PHOTOGRAPH IS TRUE OR FALSE BUT RATHER "TRUE OR FALSE IN REGARD TO WHAT?" WHERE IS THAT IDEA IN THIS FILM?

<b>

I don't think photographs per se have truth value ... Photographs provide evidence, absolutely. To say that a photograph is neither true nor false does not say that a photograph has no evidentiary value. It certainly does. The question is, evidence of what?

The impulse [behind this film] was I think that photographs are very interesting and odd. And, I asked this simple question: Why've the photographs been taken? What did the people taking them think they were doing? What's really shown in the photographs? Is our conception of what they are a reflection of what actually happened or some groupthink that's completely divorced from reality?

IS EVERYTHING NOW UP FOR DEBATE?

I think it's a really big problem. As newspapers decline, as the blogosphere grows by leaps and bounds, political discourse seems to be endless posturing and arguing, based on nothing. Someone has to remember that independent of left and right is a world where you can actually find things out, if you bother to look.

One of the things that scares me about the torture debate, by the way, is that there's no real way to win the torture debate. Someone could say, "I don't think democracies should be involved in torturing people. Has no place in our society. Blah blah blah." Another person comes up with some cockamamie scenario, "Ticking nuclear bomb set to go off at such-and-such an hour." I find it utterly dreadful. First of all, I don't think that the central issue is torture at all. The central issue is what kind of a society we want to have in this country. Right now, we have a society that's deeply polarized. People are semi-hysterical, I might add, including myself. There seems to be a paucity of any kind of rational discourse. And the whole government doesn't seem to be working. It's a very odd time. It seems very different to me than Vietnam. I can't quite put my finger on it.

<b>

Cate Blanchett blah, blah, blah. How about Christian Bale? Heath Ledger? Er ... The narration of Kris Kristofferson? Todd Haynes on direction? What people really forget is this is a movie about the greatest living songwriter of our age. An icon who maintained control of his image by not trying to make every buck he could. A songwriter who toured until his feet bleed and hardly ever sang anything the same way. He paired up with the Dead, Tom Petty and George Harrison, Jesus Christ, Allen Ginsburg and the XM Satellite Radio Network. If you don't have his book Lyrics, drop this godforsaken paper and go pick it up RITE NAO. So he had Jakob, what're ya gonna do?

WEINSTEIN COMPANY

RATED | R

RELEASE DATE | 5.6.08

PRICE | $29.99

The Working Waterfront Festival invites artists 16 years and older to submit a creative design for the 2008 festival T-shirt. Designs should convey festival's emphasis on the commercial fishing industry and the working port.

The second annual General Aviation Fun Day will take place from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. Saturday at New Bedford Regional Airport, 1605 Airport Road. Attractions include:

They're putting the fun in fundraiser.

This evening, be inspired by the "Changing Facade" of a cultural city as the May AHA! night highlights the new and expanded businesses of the past year, young entrepreneurs and innovative artists, and exciting programs offered by the AHA! partner venues...

The Viking Theatre Company this weekend will present the Tony Award-winning musical double feature, "A Day in Hollywood/A Night in the Ukraine."

20 Cent Fiction, UMass Dartmouth's offbeat production company, is presenting Frederick Knott's chilling thriller, "Wait Until Dark," tonight through Sunday on the Angus Bailey Jr. Stage at UMass Dartmouth.

The Department of Conservation and Recreation (DCR) is launching its second annual Great Park Pursuit, a six-week series of free family adventures in Massachusetts State Parks.

There's something tremendously appealing about a musical that takes on deeper themes than usual and fills the stage with soulful black actors and their rich voices.

The popular subcategory of macho documentary-style programming continues with "Tougher in Alaska" (10 p.m., History). Like the History channel's hit "Ice Road Truckers," this series chronicles hard workers using dangerous equipment in the 49th state.

"Speed Racer" stars Emile Hirsch and Christina Ricci are better known for smaller independent movies than summer blockbusters.

Charlotte Jones's highly acclaimed adult comedy, "Humble Boy," the final major production of Your Theatre's 61st season, began its nine-performance run last evening.

During the weekend of May 16 through 18, an enthusiastic gathering of art lovers will engage in all things scrimshaw at the New Bedford Whaling Museum.

"Audrey, Wait!" a young adult novel by Robin Benway. Razorbill/Penguin. $16.99. 314 pages.

"WHAT HAPPENS IN VEGAS"

"Speed Racer"

On Saturday, Atlantic Aviators will hold their second annual General Aviation Fun Day at the New Bedford Regional Airport from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. Admission is free.

Allʼs busy on the Tom Short front. Short is helping prepare a new CD from Pumpkinhead Ted for this fall. Theyʼre recording with local knob stud Rob Pemberton. The CD Release gig should be at Gallery X.

A family meal for four at a restaurant can be prohibitively expensive these days. But so can a home-cooked meal, especially when it's for a special occasion.

The fevered response to the latest loopy Paula Abdul episode, where she judged a phantom performance, just goes to show how "American Idol" continues to dominate television in its seventh season.

A lovesick former mental patient was convicted Tuesday of stalking and harassing Uma Thurman for more than two years, showing up on her front doorstep and movie set, and sending the actress a series of creepy love letters.

Charles Gibson and friends salute an esteemed colleague on "Audition: Barbara Walters' Journey" (10 p.m., ABC). Walters discusses her family, her decades in the business and the friends and lovers she has met along the way. They'll be joined by Hugh...

Di Fara Pizza in Brooklyn is home to 71-year-old Domenico De Marco, perhaps the greatest pizza maker in a city obsessed with the age-old Italian dish.

That's right, sometimes you just have to embrace the blur. Like today. Today is a good day for blur. First, it's raining. When the light is flat and everything is a bit grey around the edges, a little blur can do wonders to add interest to a photo. Second, when you've for some reason used water to make 2 cups of coffee but then put in enough grounds to make 3 cups of coffee and then drank the entire pot anyway, blur just kind of happens. The combination of the two scenario's can make for some interesting shots. Don't fight it, embrace it people!

© Laura L. Merwin 2008 - all rights reservedEmbrace the accidental blur.

The above photo is an example of an unintentional, accidental, I could fly around the room I've had so much freakin' coffee, blur. If you should decide to attempt this technique, I strongly suggest that you not attempt to drive, apply mascara, wander more than 30 feet from the only available bathroom, or operate any heavy machinery. As always, the author of this blog accepts absolutely no responsibility for anything she may say or encourage you to do here.

Ok. So we've covered the "all my pictures came out like crap today - what do I do with them" issue, let's move on to those times when you actually want some blur. A waterfall is always a prime example of when blur is really good.

© Laura L. Merwin 2008 - all rights reservedMostly intentional blur.

Here I knew I wanted blur on the water to make the falls more dramatic. I switched over to "Tv" (time value) or shutter priority and set my shutter speed to 1/6th of a second. Not a very long shot really, but I was shooting hand held, so I split the difference and went a little shorter so I could still get a blur on the water without (hopefully) totally murdering the rocks and surrounding trees. To do this the 'proper' way, I would have had to schlep back to my car, wrangle my tripod out of the trunk, huck it back to the falls, realize I really should be using my cable shutter release which is also in the trunk of my car, forget the idea of going back to the car for the cable release, set up the tripod, applied the camera, and then shot the falls at an even longer speed but it was Sunday and I was a quart low on my coffee intake, so you get what you can.

So go forth and shoot the blur. Blur is good. Embrace the blur.

Spec-u-lations

Not much was done to these shots as I processed them this morning after the liberal application of the turbo boost coffee and I'm finding it a little difficult to focus. So, we got a tweak on the curves of the lilacs to really brighten up the green leaves, an exposure correction on the waterfall, an unsharp mask on both, a resize and an upload.

Ok.. so it's lame.. but what can you do? My husband Mike has gotten kind of addicted to shooting little videos on his BlackJack phone... He really is very creative. Me? I never even think in terms of video until he's already pulled out his phone and shot his. I'm going to have to try and change that.