Jimmy Carr - Laughing and Joking Page #11

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And the wording was just perfect for me.

She said, "Do you know how often

- "people die from AIDS?"

- I said, "I'm not an expert,

"but I'm guessing just the once."

I saw an extraordinary

anti-AIDS thing recently.

I was in Johannesburg last year

doing some gigs.

And I saw in Johannesburg

this charity had printed a leaflet

with everything you needed to know

about HIV and AIDS,

cos there's a lot of myths

about AIDS in South Africa.

So they printed out this leaflet and, cos

they raised more money than they needed,

they decided to attach a condom

to every leaflet. Good idea.

So they stapled a condom...

Genuinely true.

The Everest of f***-wittery.

It's weird...

Are there any South Africans in?

(A FEW SHOUTS)

There's quite a few. It's weird,

the linguistic differences

you notice when you travel.

Like, in this country when you say, "I'm

not racist," what you tend to mean is,

"I'm not a racist."

In South Africa...

when someone says, (SOUTH AFRICAN

ACCENT) "I am not a racist,"

it means, they're about to say

something f***ing racist!

Is this racist?

Do Chinese people have Guess Who?

(LAUGHTER)

I tried that joke for the first time in a

tiny little 50-seater theatre above a pub

and there was a Chinese lady, front

and center, and she laughed enough

that she sort of bent forward

and it looked like I'd gone, "No."

It's freaky.

Genuinely Weird.

I like to think...

I like to think of myself

as an equal-opportunities offender.

I like to think I offend everyone,

and therefore no-one.

Cos it's like a blanket-bombing

approach to of fence.

I'm not picking on any group and also

I'm not really making any points, am I?

I'm just trying to make you laugh

for a couple of hours.

That's my only job in this World.

I'm not trying to make any points or

change anyone's mind about anything.

And the best defence of a joke is always,

"It's just a joke. I was only joking.

"Relax. I was just trying

to make you giggle."

When you try and say something

that's true, earnestly from the heart,

that's when it can f*** up

much more spectacularly in your face.

I've got a story about this.

Do you want to hear it?

- AUDIENCE:
Yes.

- It's a story about PC

blowing up in a friend's face.

So, this mate of mine... It's quite

a long story, which is unusual for me,

but it's a doozy. You'll enjoy it.

This mate of mine

runs a comedy club out of university.

He's in his mid-SOs now.

He's been running it since the early '80s.

It's a legendary club.

Anyway, he runs this thing.

He's quite a right-on kind of guy.

lf there's a petition to sign,

he's signing it and forwarding the e-mail

to me.

If there's a march to go on,

he's on the march.

Very right on, political,

involved kind of guy.

Anyway, he runs this comedy club. This

incident happened about 12 years ago.

He decided to put on a night

of American stand-up comedy.

There happened to be three American

stand-ups in London the same Weekend.

OK? So he decided, "Instead of just

booking one, I'll book all three of them,

"make it like a themed evening,

like the Fourth of July.

"We'll get hot dogs

and Budweiser and what have you.

"It'll be fun."

So, everyone comes to the evening.

There's 300 people in the club

and he's all excited about it.

The first act goes up on stage.

He's a black American stand-up

out of New York City

and he does what I would refer to

as an Uncle Tom routine.

If you're not familiar

with the terminology,

that means he did a racist routine.

All his jokes were based

on negative racist stereotypes.

He got away with it.

He was a very charismatic performer,

he was very handsome,

but the material was...

It was terrible.

I mean, at best, it was...

White guys drive like this

and black guys drive like this.

Nonsense. Ill-observed nonsense.

At worst, it was stuff that would

make your skin crawl, OK?

He totally got away with it that night.

He got a big round of applause at the end

of a half-an-hour set.

And he walked back to the green room

at the club and my mate went in after him.

And he went up to him

and he said, "I want a word.

"You'll get paid for tonight's gig,

there's no problem with that.

"But you would not be Welcome back

at my club telling those kind of jokes.

"I think it's racist, I think it's wrong.

"I don't think it's OK for you

to tell racist jokes

"just because you're a black guy. I think,

if anything, you should know better.

"I think it denigrates the struggle

of the African-American people,

"and you can never say that no-one's told

you so cos I'm telling you so right now.

"It's racist and it's Wrong."

And the comedian went...

agree.

"When you're right, you're right.

"But I'm the other black comic.

"I haven't been on yet."

I've been Jimmy Carr. Thank you very much

for coming out. Cheers. Appreciate it.

(CHEERING AND APPLAUSE)

(LAUGHS)

Ta-da!

Thanks very much. Cheers.

Thanks for coming out.

Couple of quick things.

Sometimes if I buy a girl a drink after

the show, she gets the Wrong idea.

She thinks I'm just a nice guy

buying her a drink.

No, no, no.

Who's going out after this?

Who's going out tonight?

(AUDIENCE SHOUTS)

Loads of you.

Well, I've got nothing but admiration.

I mean, well done,

but I can't Wait to get home to bed.

I've had a lovely night,

I've really enjoyed talking to you

but I want to get to sleep now.

I've got to an age Where I talk about

sleep like I used to talk about sex.

You should have seen me last night.

I was at it for eight hours.

Eiderdown sheets, blackout blinds,

the f***ing lot!

This morning, the snooze button

did not know what f***ing hit it.

Well, let's break out some rough stuff.

It's that time of the evening.

Tell you a couple of jokes that

Channel 4 told me were not acceptable.

(CHEERING)

It was the week of the tsunami.

Remember the tsunami?

All I wanted to say was

the tsunami was terrible.

Tokyo was covered in raw fish

and seaweed,

a situation the mayor described

as "delicious".

Could have been Worse.

I could've said "dericious".

But I didn't because that would have

been razy lacism.

I had a similar thing

with Hurricane Sandy.

Remember Hurricane Sandy that devastated

the eastern seaboard of America?

All I wanted to say was

it was the worst thing to hit New York

since those two planes.

Possibly they got it right on that one.

I tend to get into trouble with the papers

for a joke once a year.

Obviously last year I went rogue.

But I tend to get in trouble for a joke

with a journalist once a year.

Last year the joke that got me into

trouble with a journalist was this one.

You probably remember it

from the last show.

Why are they called

Sunshine Variety Coaches

when all the kids on board

look the same?

Now, the word "variety" is doing a lot of

the heavy lifting in that joke. Right?

It's not that bad.

The journalist in question said,

"You can't say that about

retarded children."

(AUDIENCE GASPS AND LAUGHS)

Time out.

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