I saw Lewis Black this evening. Although I count on him weekly to bring me the news that falls between the cracks, his political material was rather hit or miss this evening; his attack on Dick Cheney was predictable, when it wasn't just confusing. He had some amusing observations about San Diego and Southern California; his diatribe against Bakersfield was warmly received. Later, when he bashed Fresno (you can't fly directly between San Diego and Fresno, of course; "you don' t have a treaty with them"), saying he hears it's as bad as Bakersfield, someone shouted out, "It's worse," to which Black laughed for about a minute straight before wondering, "How?" He then went off on a stream-of-conscience rant about the giant lizards of Fresno, and hilarity ensued. He was a bit over-the-top, but what do you expect? The opening acts, whose names escape me, ranged from not-to-bad to god-awful (he claimed to be drunk; I believe him). Something about how the sniper must just have bad vision, everyone looks like Bush from a distance. That's hi-larious.

Speaking of hi-larious, I thought it odd I found Lewis Black's bit about candy corn would make me laugh so hard, especially seeing as I'd heard it before. It reminded me of how hard I laughed when I saw Paula Poundstone recently, when she talked about the slogan on the side of the bag of raisin bread: "Twice the raisins required by law." I like to think myself a sophisticated sort, yet its candy corn, raisin bread, and Fresno which really gets me in the gut.

See Paula Poundstone if you can, incidentally. I've seen her twice in person, both post-arrest. The first time was her second performance as a parolee, and she had a lot of directed rage and dealt in-depth with her legal issues, in a very funny manner. The second time I heard her, the first hour or so was just whining, not much different from the first performance, but she was trying a little too hard to push herself into the role of victim. Not to the point that you wanted to turn on her, but it didn't lead to much laughter. But once she got into a more normal comedian routine, with occasional references to parole officers and alcoholism, of course, she is really hilarious, and a dynamo. She "joked" about her obsessive-compulsive tendencies leading her to never shut up, so she's found the perfect job, and its really true. They practically had to pull her from the stage. Over two and a half hours of just her. Hard worker.