Black Ready To Rant

Lewis Black says all he has to do to get material is wake up every day.

"It's unbelievable. The people running this country are crazy. You couldn't make up stuff this absurd," he says during a telephone interview. "It's just astonishing, like watching bad fiction."

Black's mad-as-hell take on politics, pop culture and life in general has earned him legions of fans.

His red-faced, head-about-to-explode rants on Comedy Central's "The Daily Show" put him on the map. But before that he already was an accomplished playwright, author, actor, voice-over artist and comic.

Now he's the host of his own show, "Lewis Black's Root of All Evil," also on Comedy Central. He sits in judgment over two comics who argue about an absurd issue.

He also has a new CD, "Anticipation," and a new book, "Me of Little Faith."

And his "Let Them Eat Cake" comedy tour rolls in to the Tampa Bay Performing Arts Center tonight.

"I've got plenty to talk about with the $700 billion bailout, off-shore drilling, the crazy presidential race, tax breaks for millionaires and it just goes on and on," he says, sounding exasperated by the list.

"Just look at this bailout," he says. "They're going to give money to rich people who swindled poor people out of their money - and they aren't going to hold them accountable? That's nuts. And they're going to give astonishing amounts of money to the companies who sold bad mortgages to people who couldn't afford them."

On off-shore drilling: "You think that drilling offshore is somehow going to force other countries to drop their prices?" he says. "It's going to take 15 to 25 years before we get that oil, and by then gasoline will be ridiculously high anyway. Go ahead and drill, I'll be dead by then anyway."

Black, who turned 60 last month, grew up in Washington, D.C. He has a master's degree in drama from Yale University. His comedy career grew out of his onstage introductions to his plays. "I can still get more people to a theater to see me than to see one of my plays," he jokes.