You know you matter when Lewis Black books a stop in your town. Portsmouth has come of age. Not only did he do a show here, at the gilded and gorgeous Music Hall, but the place was packed, despite the heat, which strained the air conditioning but not the tempers of the crowd.
Black alluded to his age, and his fear that as he gets older, he gets less funny, because, maybe he's mellowed a little.
But, if anything, his mellowing has added bite to his shtick because it has added a dollop of sadness to the notion of the absurdity of life which so irritates him.
He noted, among other observations, the transience of modern life and the 24/7 news cycle. Those 50,000 refugee kids in detention centers along our Southern border--so yesterday's news. He looks at the audience, incredulously, and asks, "So, what? They don't matter any more? Oh, them. They're just there."
His warm up act, a friend whose humor reflects his own, mentioned Scott Brown and his pick up truck. Driving a pick up truck qualifies him to be a Senator? Oh, so you are now one of the guys?
Black has done a lot of shows in Arizona and Texas, but that doesn't mean he likes anybody down there. It warmed the heart of the Phantom to see him identify those two abscesses in the soul of this nation. He did neglect to mention, South Carolina, but that can wait.
He's just got back from Europe, and the experience obviously was not wasted. Speaking of Norway, Sweden and Denmark, three socialist countries, he observed, "Obama is no socialist. I am one of the seven socialists extant in this country and he has never shown up for one of our barbecues."
And as for "Obamacare," he's outraged at the perversion of language. It's a terrible law, poorly written and poorly conceived and poorly executed, "But," and here he does his slapped in the face moves, "We had to do something." It is, he says, the Affordable Care Act, and why would any of us want our healthcare to be affordable? Why would we want to give up going into bankruptcy with the first big time illness we get?
Disarmingly, he dwelt on things he actually loves, as opposed to his usual rant. Tahiti really is paradise, he revealed. And it's just two hours beyond Hawaii. He urged everyone in Portsmouth to move there immediately. Never been, myself, but I might consider a visit. Black recounts ordering a Coke and being served a Ginger Ale, and thinking, "Hey, okay. I'll have a Ginger Ale," with a beautific smile. So what? This place is paradise. What's the big deal?
In Copenhagen, he was entranced by the photographs of beautiful female breasts on the external advertising panels of buses. What he did not have to say is you would never see photos of bare female breasts in the USA, but the point he was making is, female breasts, large or small tend to be beautiful, why would you want to undergo surgery to enlarge them? That's what these billboards were--ads for augmentation surgery.
And that was one of his strongest riffs--time and again he returned to what we have done to women in this country, to diminish their value, to laden them with burdens, to prevent their ascendance.
Of course, he was not without his barbs for the establishment. Where were our vaunted intelligence services when ISIS was forming? We learned, recently, the American government had been spying on Germany. "A little late, don't you think?"
A great night on the Seacoast. Another reason to believe we are very lucky to be living here, at this time, as Portsmouth is in resurgence. Gone are the bar brawls, the red light district, the disheartening level of street crime--gentrification can be good.
We walked out of the Music Hall and looked in the direction of the new steel framework for the new Whole Foods going up across from the Sheraton. This is a place which could be great, if only we can keep it going.
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