P-J file photo Lewis Black pictured at the Reg Lenna Center for the Arts in 2018.

JAMESTOWN — When it comes to touring, Lewis Black is putting on the brakes.

For more than 35 years, he has toured as a comedian, and although Black is ending his touring career, he is not retiring, but shifting his focus on other endeavors.

“I want to get back to writing,” Black said in a telephone interview. “I do a Rantcast. I want to do some of that live.”

While touring, Black delivers the Rant Is Due livestream, where citizens of the world write in to tell him whatever is making them upset, according to lewisblack.com. On Lewis Black’s Rantcast (podcast), he channels that anger in ways only a man who has devoted his entire life to ranting can do. The tirades are sometimes big. They are sometimes small. But when filtered through the comedic mind of Black in a live environment, they are always hilarious, the website noted.

Black said he was doing close to 150 shows a year, but will miss performing.

“Yeah, I will, because it’s something really nice about showing up in a city where you maybe know two people and 1,000 show up really excited that you’re there.” “It really is something – the energy you get from them,” he said about his his audience.

As part of his Goodbye Yeller Brick Road – The Final Tour, Black will be performing at the Reg Lenna Center for the Arts in Jamestown on Friday at 7 p.m. The Reg tour stop is sponsored by The National Comedy Center.

The comedian said he got the idea for the name of the tour from Elton John. John’s final tour was named the Farewell Yellow Brick Road Tour. Black said he had seen a show in London and really loved it. So, his tour manager suggested that Black borrow the phrase and use it on his touring posters.

Black is a two-time Grammy Award winner and the longest-running correspondent on Comedy Central’s The Daily Show and is currently starring as the voice of the character Anger in the Disney and Pixar film, Inside Out 2. He also starred as Anger in the first film, Inside Out.

“The first one was huge for me because it kind of put me in that Pixar Universe, which was pretty extraordinary,” Black said.

Black is a longtime supporter and donor of the NCC and a NCC Advisory Board member. When the NCC opened in 2018, Black went on Stephen Colbert’s late night show specifically to promote the NCC and Jamestown.

Black said the NCC was built at the right time because people would end up using Google to research historic comedy sketches and bits by stand-up comedians.

“It lifted something that was happening in the culture to where it should be. It defined comedy as a craft, and as an art form,” Black said about NCC.

And Black’s advice for people who want to break into comedy is to perform as much as they can.

“I would just say, do it. You do it again, and again, and again, and again,” Black said.

Black said people have the option now that they didn’t have before which is filming, and getting their stuff “out there” on different social media platforms.

“Don’t believe that just because you got your stuff out there and got 20,000 likes that you are the next George Carlin,” Black said.

Newbies have to continue to hone their acts, he added.

“In order to really do it, you need to go into clubs, and you need to work on your act. That’s where you really learn it. You don’t learn it just by filming.”

On Thursday, Black also will be performing at the Riviera Theatre in North Tonawanda.

“It’s always been a thrill for me to come to Jamestown and Buffalo, spend time in this incredible museum and perform for National Comedy Center audiences,” Black said on comedycenter.org, NCC’s website. “It means a lot to me to take the stage on this final tour, for these two very special shows, performing for friends and fans who love comedy as much as I do.”

For more information tickets for Black’s Reg show, visit comedycenter.org/LewisBlack.