Saving Sarah Silverman

In 2005, when Sarah Silverman was the subject of media attention for her films "Jesus is Magic" and "The Aristocrats", The following story became the interwebs' de-facto reccount of her infamous "Chink Joke Incident". This piece was quoted on radio shows, newspaper stories, and on dozens of websites. While my regular readership quickly grew, I was also flooded with vicious e-mails from people who were still upset about Sarah's joke and my defense of if. Curiously, none of them, not one, had any problem with the flood of horribly repulsuive ethnic jokes that I myself made in this piece.



My friend, The Writer Ben Acker, has a show running at the Second City Theater. It’s a bit of a continuation of his previous works featuring zombies, a runaway beauty queen, and the corrupt corporation who’s out to get her. However, unlike previous work, it does not take its name from an attraction at the Wisconsin Dells. I think this is a creative mistake.

The current show reminds me a great deal of Ben Acker talking back and forth to himself in his singular style. That makes me love it, as I love Ben and enjoy his talking. It’s a fine show with a good number of laughs contained within. Go see it or something else he and his writing partner Ben Blacker write. They are immensely talented and excellent people.

I foretold of their impending career success a few months back when I was briefly the star of their show. Now, it seems, like it may be coming to pass. In six months they will have a TV series. In a year, there will be Acker & Blacker plush toys for the kiddies. In eighteen months, there will be Acker & Blacker Happy Meals with wind-up zombies. Six months after that, people will be wearing “Acker & Blacker” satin tour jackets at the mall.

Give them two years and they will be insufferable pricks. They’ll be total jackasses, strung out on blow, banging aspiring actresses who want to get a walk-on on one of their hit TV shows. One of them, likely Blacker, will go crazy, change his name to “#” and exile himself to a private island to live with naked Tahitian girls and a herd of goats. Don’t get me wrong. I am thrilled for them because they are my friends. I like and respect them. And after all, isn’t that what everybody in Hollywood wants? To be rich, powerful, insufferable pricks? I know I do.

After seeing the hit show, Acker, Blacker, and the beautiful and talented [Mrs. Blacker] and I went next door to the Improv bar for a drink. OK, they went next door for a drink. I went next door for several drinks.

[Mrs. Blacker] once drove the Oscar Meyer Weinermobile. She passed out hot dog shaped whistles and taught kids the Oscar Meyer song at malls around the country. Amazing, right? Plus, she can actually say that she taught kids how to blow wieners. (Yeah, thanks. I’m 12.)

One of the regulars at The Improv is comedian Sarah Silverman. She’s played small parts in big movies and was on SNL during the years you didn’t watch. She’s a beautiful, charming, young girl like your mom wants you to date... except that she has the dirtiest mouth this side of Bob Saget. (Some of you will get that. Some of you will only think you get that.) Her combination of sweet and sassy is extremely crushable.

She’s also unfortunately famous for being the flashpoint of a rather unpleasant bit of stand-up comedy drama because a joke she made on Conan O’Brien.

"I was telling a friend that I had to serve jury duty and I wanted to get out of it. So my friend said ‘When they hand out the questionnaire, write something horribly offensive like “I hate chinks” then there’s no way they will choose you. But I couldn’t bring myself to do it, to say something so hateful, so I wrote -- I love chinks."

This joke landed poorly with various ironically impaired anti-defamation groups. Some intelligent, worldly, well meaning yet humorless people failed to understand that it was a joke made funny by the ridiculousness of racism. Conan and NBC ended up apologizing. I was performing stand-up back east at the time and it was a big deal in the comedy circuit. Comics, as a whole, were furious that NBC and Conan caved and apologized because the joke was about racism. There is nothing that infuriates a comic more than people that complain about jokes they don’t understand. Well, that and having to pay for drinks.

Less than three minutes after I recalled this bit of comedy history to my friends, Sarah walks up and starts talking like we had been hanging out and she had just stepped away to use the bathroom for a second. We ended up talking for about 20 minutes. Damn fine time.

Sarah: Somebody just told me Leo DiCaprio and Toby McGuire are in the club.
Blacker: Petie Spiderman. A nice Jewish kid.
Sarah: No he’s not.
Blacker: I’m sorry, Peter Parker.
Sarah: No, he’s not. Is he?
Murphy: Toby McGuire is totally Spiderman.
Sarah: No, I mean, Toby McGuire’s not Jewish. Wait, (pointing to Blacker) you’re Jewish. (then to Acker) and are you Jewish?
Murphy: He’s the biggest Jew. I mean size-wise. I don’t know like his Hebe Quotient or anything.
Acker: Watch it.
Murphy: He may be normally proportionate. [Mrs. Blacker’s] the one good with math.

Sarah: Speaking of superhero movies, I’m going to see Batman tomorrow.
[Mrs. Blacker]: We saw it yesterday. It was really good.
Sarah: How about you?
Murphy: No, I hear it’s good though. I saw Mr. & Mrs. Smith last week. That’s pretty entertaining.
Sarah: Angelina Jolie. She’s a woman that women find sexy. It’s those lips. They’re like a vagina except horizontal.
Murphy: Like an Asian woman.
Sarah: What?
Murphy: You know, because their vaginas are sideways.
Sarah: They are?
Murphy: No, but that’s the old racist joke.
Sarah: That Asian women have sideways vaginas!?!
Murphy: Yeah, you hadn’t heard that? From back in the day. Whoa.., this is weird. I’m having a moment.
Sarah: What?
Murphy: Because here I am making an old stupid racist joke about Asians to you…
Sarah: And I… ahhhh… yeah.
Murphy: Yes….
Sarah: Yes.
Murphy: Uh-huh.

Sarah: You guys are cool. It’s like we’re all old friends or something. I’m Sarah.
Murphy: Yeah, totally. Murphy. Good to meet you.
Blacker: Likewise. I’m Ben. This is [Mrs. Blacker].
Acker: I’m Ben too. I had the show next door.
Sarah: Oh wow! That’s great! Say, do you guys have any pot?

Now, if I weren’t getting married in less than a month, this story as I would have told it – true or not - would have ended with me smoking pot and making out with Sarah Silverman by the dumpster in the alley behind The Improv only to be interrupted by her boyfriend Jimmy Kimmel who I would then kill in a dramatic knife fight.

But I am getting married. So it ends like this:

Murphy: Nah.
Blacker: No.
[Mrs. Blacker]: Sorry.
Acker: Nope.
Sarah: Man! Oh well. Nice to meet you Ben, Ben, [Mrs. Blacker] and… Murphy.
Murphy: Drive safe!