Thanks for Risking Your Life

Lewis Black walked onto the stage at the Silver Creek Event Center of the Four Winds New Buffalo casino in Michigan on March 13, 2020, and opened with a literal observation: “Well, thanks for risking your life.” It was the same day the United States declared a national emergency in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Because the venue sat on sovereign tribal land operated by the Pokagon Band of Potawatomi Indians, the show went on even as theaters across the rest of the country locked their doors. It became the final performance of Black’s tour, captured not with an elaborate television crew, but with the two-camera setup usually reserved for his post-show internet rants and casino projection screens.

The resulting hour is an accidental time capsule of a country on the precipice of lockdown. Rather than concentrating solely on the looming virus, Black vents his familiar frustrations at consumerism, pharmaceutical advertising, and political incompetence. He targets the specific promises of the brain-health supplement Prevagen, the hollow satisfaction of Amazon’s two-day free shipping, and the general state of public policy under the Trump administration. The delivery is classic Black: pacing, hand-waving, and building to a raspy crescendo of high-decibel indignation.

While the production lacks the visual polish of his earlier network specials, the audio version of the set was nominated for a Grammy Award for Best Comedy Album in 2022. It captures the unique anxiety of a comic trying to make an audience laugh on the very night the live entertainment industry ground to a halt.