I need my niblets!

As a big fan of Lewis Black, I was thrilled when I found out he would be coming to Knoxville. I know he is a frequent guest on The Daily Show, but I'm too disorganized to remember to watch it. I "discovered" him on the XM Comedy Channel. His rants on current topics are always very funny and hard to disagree with. The show wasn't totally sold out, but the theatre was very full. The opening act (whose name I've forgotten) was a bit of an unnecessary "potty mouth." I have no problem with bad language now and then, but this guy seemed to be from the "Eddie Murphy School of Stand Up Comedy", where every other word is "the 'f' word." Quite hard to separate out all those exclamations from whatever it was he was trying to say. Lewis Black, on the other hand, was wonderful. He was at first, he said, a bit worried about the future of his career -- what with all the problems of the world now being solved upon the ascension of the new president. It will be interesting to see how his rants go during the Obama years! He had plenty of anger for both Clinton and Bush, so he's an equal opportunity critic. He also had unkind words for the local coal ash spill, the bank bailout, and the wasteful use of food for fuel (as referenced by the title of this post). He was at his sputtering, finger twitching best! (As an unexpected thrill, between the opening act and Lewis Black, Chelsea Hotel by Dan Bern was played over the loudspeakers. Oddly, I was the only one singing along . . .)

The Academy Award nominations were announced this morning, and I was pleased that my two predictions came true: that Happy-Go-Lucky was mostly shut out for nominations (it did receive a screenplay nod) and that Michael Shannon received a Best Supporting Actor nomination. Ha! Take that USA Today!

On a sad note, the BBC reported that John Mortimer, the author of the Rumpole of the Bailey series, has died at the age of 85. Of course, it seems as if "Rumpole" actually died in 2002, when Leo McKern, who so wonderfully brought Rumpole to life, passed away.

Final Verdict for Lewis Black Let Them Eat Cake Tour: Four Gherkins -- Lew was great, but the opening act guy is a turn-off