For Lewis Black 'Nothing's Sacred'

Lewis Black is a stand-up comic, and contributor on "The Daily Show with Jon Stewart." His weekly political and social commentaries helped earn him the self-titled role of "America's Foremost Commentator on Everything."

And with the release of his new book, "Nothing's Sacred," Black can now add author to his title as well.

Why the title?

"Because there isn't a lot that isn't," Black tells The Early Show co-anchor Rene Syler, and pointing out Greeks used to make fun of what was sacred in their plays, he adds, "Essentially by saying nothing is sacred, everything is sacred then. Isn't it? Hello!"

And though he says it took him a long time to get to where he is targeting the things most people wish they could say, Black notes his humor is observational.

"How do you miss it?" he asks, "All of us see it. It is like the first time I went through airport security after Sept. 11. It was like, now we have lost our minds. They took a woman with an artificial leg who is in her 70s aside with me to check her out. Her daughter was there helping her. I pointed to the woman and I said, 'I'm so glad they finally got you.' She laughed. She knew this was crazy.

"A little kiddie, 5-year-old with a little kiddie bag; what could be in there? A possum? She's bringing her pet possum on board," he quips.

Black describes his sense of humor as dark moving towards bleak. He credits it to his genes. He says his grandfather had a bleak and dark sense of humor, and his mom's humor is very dark.

"She was a substitute teacher," he says. "She would go in there and just blast kids. She was in the same school I'm in. Actually, it worked all right. I mean, it's the kind of thing that could give a kid asthma for the rest of his life, to have his mother around the school. Kids would try to do their thing with her, and she would just level them."

Asked if he has a hard time when Congress goes on recess, wondering what to write about, Black says, "No. I take it like a vacation. I don't have to pay attention to them. I was born and raised around D.C., and I left there when I was in my early 20s, because there, local news is national news. You get a double dose. I would have been living on a grate in front of the White House as a homeless person, just screaming at people."

Syler's observation: "You'd be wildly successful."

"My parents are going to love that!" Black exclaims with laughter.

Black also has a DVD titled, "Black On Broadway."