My Jokes are Increasingly becoming like Art works (extract)

Jason looked at his hands, they were dripping with sweat. He

couldn’t
understand what it was about the group that made him so nervous.
He knew
everything would be fine as long as he didn’t look directly at Johnny
who was
In a particularly aggressive mood tonight. Johnny was on some kind
of
sprawling rant, angry after Daniel spouted some rude poem earlier
in the
session. Jason phased into Johnny’s talk “I've never liked the Irish,
you know.
Dr Johnson said they were a very truthful race, they never spoke
well of each
other, but then how could they have?” Jason noticed that the group
were sitting
tense – very disconcerting. He channeled back into the rant. “Big,
thick,
stupid heads, large cabbage ears, hairy nostrils, daft eyes, fat,
flapping hands,
stinking of soil and Guinness. The niggers of Europe. Huge,
uncontrollable
wangers, spawning their degenerate kind wherever they're allowed
to settle.
I'd stop them settling here if I had my way. Send them back to the
primordial
bog they came from. Potato heads.” Johnny stopped only to slurp
from that
massive paper coffee cup – the famous 4 shot black americano.

1
Everybody in
the comedy group drank coffee black, wankers. Johnny was kind of
short and
stocky New Yorker, with long flailing wisps of sweaty hair – half
peroxide half
root. Beyond the comedy circuit it had been said that Johnny used
to be a
boxer. He looked like a boxer right then sparrow eyes, shoulders
above his
ears, spitting his words at the group. “Or Jews, for that matter.”
Jason stared
stunned at Johnny’s quivering lips trying to get at what he was
saying. “They
have a greasy quality, do jews. Stick to their own. Grafters. Fixers.
Money.
Always money. Say Jew, say gold. Moneylenders, pawn brokers.
They have
the nose for it you might say. Hitler put it more bluntly: 'if we don't
take steps
to maintain the purity of blood, the Jew will destroy civilization by
poisoning us
all.' The effluent of history. Scarcely human. Grubs.”
Sheena the older lesbian nervously spoke out with “he must’ve met
the wife’s
family then” followed by a deathly embarrassing quiet.
What was Johnny saying?? Had he finally lost it? Jason had always
thought
that Johnny was Jewish. In fact he thought almost half the class were
Jewish.
But without time to think, the diatribe continued: “Negroes.
Cripples.
Defectives. The mad. Women. Workers. Dirty. Unschooled. Shifty.
Grabbing

2
all they can get. Putting coal in the bath. Chips with everything.
Chips and
beer. Trade Unions dedicated to maximising wages and minimising
work.
Strikes for the idle. Their greed. And their bottomless stupidity. Like
children,
unfit to look after themselves. Breeding like rabbits, sex-mad. And
their mean
vicious women, driving them on. Animals, to be fed slops and
fastened up at
night.”
Daniel rasped quitely “ its gone very dark in here”.
Silence.
Perhaps the oddest thing about being in the group was that the
whole thing
was being videoed for some kind of video podcast. It was there for
those who
couldn’t make the class. The guy behind the camera was in his mid
twenties
but looked like he was going on fifty. He wore a long greasy
ponytail, with his
forehead receeding and missed big patches of hair either side of his
face.
More Silence.
Despite the seriousness of the mood in the room, Jason was
distracted by the
camera setup. The cameraman aimed at such odd angles, generally
showing
the back of Johnny’s head, surely missing all the important bits. He
wondered
why they didn’t just make an audio file of the class – who wants to
see
themselves online as a quicktime movie anyway? Jason could just

3
about see
the laptop screen. The pc used some special software that he hadn’t
seen
before, very dark looking, very pc, very doom. There was something
about the
guys that write applications for pc’s, something really dark. The
cameraman
looked like he could be a programmer himself, black T shirt,
probably had
webbed feet inside his black boots. Jason had long thought that
computer
programmers all lived in underground caves and eat fish? No Fish
bones.
Still Silence in the class
Matthias the Italian was next to try and break the nervous deadlock
- “ I don’t
get it mr Golding, is it some kind of joke what you just said?” Jason
had always
been a bit aggravated by Matthias – he was the previous new guy,
starting 4
weeks earlier. He was often difficult to understand but he usually
had razorsharp
wit, very good with hecklers. He continued “I mean, there’s good
and
bad in everyone, your always saying it. ‘a comedian draws pictures
of the
world. The closer you look the better you draw”
Matthias despite being Mr. wit also could be Mr. dense, especially in
Johnny’s
presence. He was a real sycophant and Johnny seemed to really
cloud his
judgment. Most of the others in the group were smiling now, the
penny had

4
dropped for them, Johnny was pulling a cunning stunt. But Matthias
still had
the kid-like question on his face. Daniel jumped in boastfully
“Lesson three:
sterotypes!” The room started to breath again. Shuffles, coughs,
stretches,
glances and grins. Matthias still hypnotised by Johnny went on “you
were
having us on Mr Golding, that’s such a relief. I was beginning to get
worried.”
“What a Wanker” thought Jason.
Johnny bowed his head, took a very deep breath and then a final
swig of
coffee. A power swig. He slammed the empty cup down on the table
and
began to rumble “If I've told you once, I've told you a thousand
times. We work
through laughter, not for it. If all your about is raising a laugh, OK,
get on with
it, good luck to you, but don't waste my time. There are plenty of
others who
will take your money and do the neccessary, not me not Johnny
Golding.”
Mattias looked like he was about to shit “So, a few crappy jokes Mr
Golding??” Johnny looked at him, like a dangerous animal looks at a
chicken.
“It's not the jokes, it's not the jokes. It's what lies behind them. It's
the attitude.
A real comedian - that's a daring man. He dares to see what his
listeners shy
away from, fear to express. And what he sees is a sort of truth,
what's hard,
above all what they want. A joke releases the tension, says the

5
unsayable,
any joke pretty much. But a true joke, a comedian's joke, has to do
more than
release tension, it has to liberate the will and the desire, it has to
change the
situation.” Johnny paced around the room looking at each of his
prey,
stopping at Daniel “There's very little that won't take a joke. But
when a joke
bases itself on distortion - a stereotype' perhaps - and gives lie to
the truth so
as to win a laugh and stay in favor, we've moved away from a comic
art and
into the world of entertainment and slick success.“ He paused and
stared like
a maniac at Daniel. “Your better than that damn you. And even if
you're not,
you bloody well should want to be.”
Matthias jumped back in “I want to be famous. I want to be rich and
famous.
What’s wrong with that Mr Golding?” Jason looked at Daniel with a
sly and
horrible grin, they were both thinking that Mattias was about to shit
or maybe
he had already shat. “You want to be famous? More than you want
to be
good?” boomed Johnny.
“What’s wrong with being all three?”
Johnny went in for the kill “There’s nothing wrong with being all
three, As long
as your good first. Because you’ll never be good later”
Daniel had never really liked Matthias – so Jason wasn’t allowed to
either – it

6
was kind of fun being on the bully’s side. Apparently Matthias was a
good
example of an artist who can be very articulate in the comedy arena
but
reduced to baby language when talking about art. Even his own art.
Its funny
to think that so many artists want to be comedians and so many
comedians
think they are artists.
Daniel Jumped back in trying to get Johnny’s attention. he wanted
the talking
stick more than anything. “was is my limerick? Was it my limerick?
Is that
what all this is about?” Johnny stared at him “I don’t want to
personalize this
discussion Daniel”.
“Oh right . You think talking to the seven of us makes it impersonal
does it?”
Sheena leaned across “oh come on Daniel, don’t argue”
“why not? Johnny’s accusing us ….me…. of doing something….
Immoral, I
want to know what he means, its pretty important to me.”
“Aright, lets here it again Daniel”
“What?”
“Will you recite it for us?”
“What for?”
“To give us a chance to look it over and see what we’re dealing
with”
Daniel started biting his lip staring at Johnny. Locking horns with
Johnny. He
breathed very slowly. This was boxing, this was fucking boxing!!
“Alright, here goes:
There was a young lady called Pratt

7
Who would hang from the light by her hat
With a frightening cough
She would jerk herself off
By sinking her teeth in her twat.”
Johnny paced toward the front of the room, turning his back to the
group who
were sat at tables in a horseshoe formation. The cameraman was
uncertain
whether to try and keep Johnny in shot or to keep the focus on
Daniel who
was currently sat directly in the firing line. Jason noticed that the
cameraman
had moved his glasses up onto his baldy forehead and had switched
pose
from nonchalantly sitting back to a half crouch with eye fixed in the
viewfinder.
For the cameraman this was his calling. these were the kind of
moments he
had taken the job for – elevated from the role of mere technician
momentarily
to academy award winning director. He was a war journalist in the
thick of it –
he was David Beckham taking a penalty – any move he made now
could seal
his place in history.
“Its clever, is it your own work?” spat Johnny finally picking up a
blue white
board pen.
“You could say that”
“How do you mean?”
“I made it up just then”
Matthias was writing away in his fucking notebook again, analyzing
the

8
limerick, he was clearly impressed with Daniel.
“Its very clever”
“Look, Johnny, I don’t want compliments, just say what you don’t
like and we
can get on”
“What do you think it says?”
“I don’t know, you tell me, I felt like saying it”
Johnny kept the intense gaze on Daniel and ripped off the pen lid.
He started
writing furiously on the board.
“Pratt. Pratt sounds like twat. Lady, twat. Twat bad word.
Unsayable. Iv'e said
it will say it, might say it, hat fooled you, build the suspense, cough,
cough,
jerked herself off, women masturbate, naughty, must say it now,
dadadadada
twat. There!!”
“So?”
“Its a joke that hates women Daniel. When you walk into an arena
with a joke,
you've gotta know why you're there.”
“Maybe Im just frightened”
“Maybe. But who do you blame, with your joke? Your lady who
‘jerks’ herself
off. Is she a man?? A joke that feeds on ignorance starves it's
audience. We
have the choice. We can say something or we can say nothing. Not
everything true is funny, and not everything funny is true. Most
comics feed
prejudice and fear and blinkered vision, but the best ones, the best
ones...
illuminate them, make them clearer to see, easier to deal with.
We've gotta

9
make people laugh till they cry. Cry. Till they find their pain and
their beauty.
Comedy is medicine. Not coloured sweets to rot their teeth with.”

10