May 08--Is Richard Lewis a basket case or does he just play one on TV?
Surely anyone who has watched him kvetch on Larry David's HBO series "Curb Your Enthusiasm" or nervously pace the stage of Zanies on North Wells Street or otherwise moan, fret and despair in TV and film roles knows the man has issues.
For Lewis has built a busy career and a vivid public persona trumpeting his psychic woes. These include parents who didn't understand him, women who haven't understood him and a world that ... well, you know.
That he's also paranoid, pessimistic, confused, frustrated and desperate doesn't help.
Or is he? For those of us who have known him the past few decades, Lewis at 67 seems a bit mellower and, dare we say it, happier -- at least offstage -- since he married Joyce Lapinsky in 2005. But, of course, the neuroses are always there, dug deeply into his DNA, ready to pounce at the slightest provocation. Or the perception of one.
That much is clear from every page of "Reflections From Hell: Richard Lewis' Guide on How Not to Live" (powerHouse Books), a startling collaboration between Lewis and artist Carl Nicholas Titolo. The book pairs Lewis' darkly autobiographical one-liners with Titolo's still-darker visual responses to them.
Imagine Salvador Dali painting his impressions of Woody Allen's zingers, and you have a very rough idea of where the Lewis-Titolo partnership begins. The two worked for a couple of years on the project, the comedian providing thousands of terse observations, the artist picking those that piqued his imagination and developing them on canvas.
What follows are excerpts of "Reflections From Hell," plus observations Lewis shared with me as we paged through the book.
Creating the volume was "like having a therapy session," Lewis said to me. Once Titolo's images started coming in, Lewis thought: "Whoa. I've got a lot of work to do."
Richard Lewis and Carl Nicholas Titolo discuss "Reflections From Hell" with Howard Reich at 6:30 p.m. May 12 at City Winery, 1200 W. Randolph St.; $28, $47 with copy of book at http://www.tribnation.com/events.
