Black is back, and angry as ever

Monday, July 9, 2007 | 7:12 a.m.

Lewis Black told the audience he came to Las Vegas a day early to see the magnificent fireworks display he knew there would be on the Fourth of July.

After all, this is Vegas, the Entertainment Capital.

"Nothing!" he screeched.

Fans laughed. They, too, had been disappointed by the scarcity of fireworks along the Strip on America's most patriotic day.

"What did they make last year ?" Black sputtered. "Two katillion dollars? OK, we'll put a sparkler in your room.

"Nothing! I'm standing out there for an hour and a half. I started to hallucinate."

The evening of Black humor went that way - a night of apoplexy, one in which the comedian's head seemed on the verge of exploding and he would shake it quickly from side-to-side several times as if to defuse it.

He was stunned when President Bush commuted the sentence of Scooter Libby, who was convicted of lying and obstructing justice during an investigation into a leak that revealed the identity of a CIA agent.

"He (expletive deleted) obstructed justice," Black roared. "Make him spend a week in jail.

"It's appalling ... If that's the deal, then OK, everyone of us gets a get-out-of-jail free card."

He was astounded that Congress agreed to build a 700-mile-long wall along the U.S. border with Mexico.

"The border is 2,000 miles long," he opined. "Therefore, they might as well have said we're going to build a 1,300-mile door."

Walls, he pointed out, are ineffectual.

"The Great Wall of China, back when walls were supposed to work, didn't do (expletive deleted)," he said. "And they certainly haven't done the job since the invention of something maybe Congress didn't notice - they invented planes. It means walls are obsolete. You fly over them."

At times Black seemed so consumed with rage he stammered and fumbled for words. He jumped up and down. He cursed. He gave the finger.

He railed against Hanukkah.

"The difference between Christmas and Hanukkah," said Black, who is Jewish, "is that Christmas is great and Hanukkah blows. Christmas is spectacular. Christmas makes Hanukkah look like a dopey crafts fair."

He raged against golfers, saying they aren't all that interested in nature.

"A golfer can get behind the largest tree, the oldest tree in America and look at it for a second and the only thing he's thinking is, 'If I had a (expletive deleted) chain saw, that son of a bitch would be down.' "

He ranted against simple things, such as toy tops.

"What do you do with a top? You spin it. Are you going to spin it again? I don't (expletive deleted) believe so. Giving a boy a top and telling him to play with it is like giving a young girl, instead of a Barbie doll, handing her a stick and telling her to name it."

He complained about complicated things, such as immigration.

"Eight months ago it wasn't a problem," he mused. "I keep a list of problems by my bed. It wasn't on my list. Locally it may have been a problem, but not nationally. But I woke up one morning and there were Mexicans everywhere. They're going to take the food right out of your mouth and eat it."

He fumed about topics as diverse as virginity and frozen embryos, the weather and Congress.

"They're out of their minds," he said. "They voted for two nonbinding resolutions. Nonbinding means we don't have to do it. Resolution means we have to do it. So we don't have to do what we have to do. There's nothing I like better than not having to do what I have to do. "

If humor is a catharsis that allows you to vent your emotions and live longer, Lewis Black should live to be 100.