Jimmy Carr - Use Mind Games & Live Better (4K Podcast)

1. 0:00 – 1:12

   High-velocity touring and the case for collecting memories

   1. DJDavid McIntosh Jr0:00

      Jimmy Carr, welcome to the Development by David podcast. How are you?

   2. JCJimmy Carr0:02

      I'm, I'm very well. Very well indeed. It's a pleasure to be here with you. Thank you very much for reaching out. It's very, uh... It's a, it's a nice thing, I think, sometimes, the internet. Someone reaches out and, [laughs] and, uh, name-checks someone that you admire, and you end up doing a podcast with them. Bloody perfect.

   3. DJDavid McIntosh Jr0:16

      You're terribly funny, um, Jimmy.

   4. JCJimmy Carr0:18

      Yes, I am.

   5. DJDavid McIntosh Jr0:19

      You are terribly funny.

   6. JCJimmy Carr0:20

      Thank you.

   7. DJDavid McIntosh Jr0:21

      But your tour Terribly Funny is well underway right now. You were in Austria, Hungary. Last night, Cardiff. Um-

   8. JCJimmy Carr0:27

      Yeah, I had a, I had a hell of a week. I had a week where I was... I s- kicked off in... I did South Africa. So I did one night in South Africa, two shows. So I flew into Cape Town, did... Uh, no flew into Jo'burg, did, uh, Pretoria, and then went down to Cape Town and just flew out after the gig. And then I went to Paris to see a band. [laughs] And then I went to Istanbul. Then I went to Bucharest. Uh, no, Budapest, not Bucharest. Don't make that mistake. And then Vienna, and then Cardiff last night. Yeah, it's been a, it's been a hell of a week.

   9. DJDavid McIntosh Jr0:50

      Mm-hmm.

   10. JCJimmy Carr0:50

       But I kinda love that thing about... I, my theory is I don't think people want more time. People think they want more time. They don't. They want more unique experiences. People want more memories. So in life, I think doing things that are unique and, and different is a really sort of good rule of thumb. If you, if you get an offer, always go for the thing where you could have more luck.

   11. DJDavid McIntosh Jr1:10

       It's what this-

   12. JCJimmy Carr1:10

       George Mac's theory. It's a good theory

2. 1:12 – 2:05

   Lockdown, slowness, and why monotony kills memory

   1. DJDavid McIntosh Jr1:12

      ... it's what this podcast was born out of during COVID. Our novelty and our intensity was stripped away from us. We were having the same routines, going the same walk, eating in the same places.

   2. JCJimmy Carr1:22

      Uh, there's a gift to that though, isn't there? There's a, there's a great book by, uh, I think it's Milan Kundera called Slowness, and in the book, he posits a theory that memory and speed are inversely proportionate. So it's that great line by Chairman Mao, who's, I mean, an ocean-going cunt, but he was right about this. "You can't smell the roses from a galloping horse." So sometimes life, you're moving at such a pace that you can't kind of [inhales deeply] slow down and, and, and take a moment, and that's a, it's a really sort of valuable thing. So that thing of, like, you know, lockdown was... We ha- we made no new memories because we had the same day and the same day and the same day again and again and again. You wanna kind of vary things a bit in life, which is, which is great. I mean, I do the same thing every night. I tell jokes. But it's different. You're in a different place, different audience, different, you know, state of mind.

3. 2:05 – 3:01

   Friendship, filters, and laughter as instant intimacy

   1. DJDavid McIntosh Jr2:05

      Do you think that's why you enjoy doing so many different podcasts as well, because you have different conversations surrounding the same themes?

   2. JCJimmy Carr2:11

      I think that's why I like different people. I think we're, we're, um, incredibly egotistical individuals, and I think the reason we love other people is because we like who we are when we're with them. I think when I think about my, uh, my friendships, and, and we don't spend en- uh, people spend a lot of time thinking about romance and not enough thinking about friendships. Friendships are so important in life. When we think about who your best friends are, well, it's the people you have the least filter with.

   3. DJDavid McIntosh Jr2:35

      Mm.

   4. JCJimmy Carr2:36

      And that's a choice you make. And as a comedian, you make a choice to stand up in front of 1,000 people and go, "Oh, well, I won't have a filter. I'll just say shit I think is funny."

   5. DJDavid McIntosh Jr2:44

      Mm.

   6. JCJimmy Carr2:44

      "And I'll treat you as if you're really good friends." And there's a lovely intimacy to that, that... I love that quote, that, "Laughter is the shortest distance between two people." It's a Victor Borge quote, I think. But isn't that a lovely thought, that you kind of laugh together and you go, "Oh, all the barriers are down. We're just being, we're just being open here."

4. 3:01 – 6:45

   Writing a ‘self-help’ autobiography and the core rule: serve your future self

   1. DJDavid McIntosh Jr3:01

      I've heard you quote that, and I love it. And I think the second closest distance between two people is an origin story. I read your book, uh, recently, and one thing I love about it is that it is not only an autobiography but also a set of lessons for life.

   2. JCJimmy Carr3:17

      It's very self-helpy. I mean, I think that thing of the publisher def- wanted a celebrity, uh, biography. But the, the problem with celeb- celebrity biographies, they're quite boring, and they're very, um, middle class. Um, I, I know how I present, but I'm a first-generation Irish immigrant, so I'm quite working class in my, in how, in, in my character, in what I know about myself. My reputation is what the rest of the world think of me, and they think I'm fancy and went to public school or some bullshit. Um, but that thing of going, um, you, the, the, the... In the book, it's like you don't wanna just talk about how you did it because it's, it's not... There's nothing you... That doesn't grow corn. That, "Oh, I'm a genius, and I did this thing, and it was really, uh... And then I g- I had a lucky break and then another lucky break, and it was great." You want something that people could take away and use. So when I sort of sat down to write the book... And that, that's the stuff that's always inspired me, the kind of, um... And the self-help thing, I love self-help books. I really like that, but they are a bit po-faced. So there's a sense in which you kind of want... I think podcasts are really great at this kind of teasing out that same material and making it slightly more palatable, sugaring the pill with conversation.

   3. DJDavid McIntosh Jr4:24

      That's why I loved your book because of I've consumed the Jordan Petersons of the world, the Neri Yals, the very theoretically heavy books. But hearing self-development theories and practices and frameworks through a voice that I admire and relate to, it made it more palatable and digestible.

   4. JCJimmy Carr4:43

      It's very nice, very nice to hear. I mean, really, all self-help, right? If we're gonna boil it down, if someone's not got the time to read the book or any self-help book 'cause they're getting on with life, um, prioritize later, right? That's the whole thing on self-help. And not just self-help. That's the whole thing on religion. All religion, right? Religion, God, is a proxy for the future, right? Work hard now for a better future. That's the whole thing. Work, in a sense, is like God. Work is, well, you do, you do it now, so a better future. So it's that thing of li- I've been chatting to Chris Williamson a lot. You know Chris-

   5. DJDavid McIntosh Jr5:18

      Yeah

   6. JCJimmy Carr5:18

      ... who does Modern Wisdom? I love Chris. He's amazing. Him and George Mac are good friends of mine, and very interesting conversations. And we're talking about that thing of, like, we all have to serve someone, right? Everyone has to serve. So who are you gonna serve? Well, if you're gonna be selfish about it, serve yourself, but 24 hours in the future. What could you do today that you tomorrow would be glad you did? It's a great way to live because you think about what you eat, what you drink, who you spend time with. It all... Like tomorrow when you wake up, "Oh, God, I had a good day yesterday." Great, and then you repeat, and it's just 24 hours ahead. But there's something... There might be a book in that. It's, it's an interesting concept to go living... 'Cause living five years in the future, like we don't, we don't rise to our goals We fall to our systems. You know, so those systems, those habits, those everyday things, it's what life is

   7. DJDavid McIntosh Jr6:08

      And finding joy in those systems and those processes opposed to attaching your self-worth to a goal or an outcome and just-

   8. JCJimmy Carr6:15

      Well, the goals and outcomes are... You know, it's that, that... You're exactly right. It's that thing of the, the locus of control has to be within you. So if you're process-driven and you practice gratitude, it's much easier to, to enjoy what you're doing. You know, but i- is that, you know, it's the classic. You'll know the quote. Um, find something, you know, you love doing. Uh, find something that's, it looks like work to them but feels like play to you. So for me, that was, that was stand-up. That was the, the idea that you could-- I could do that for 16 hours

5. 6:45 – 8:08

   Why stand-up should be taught in schools (and what it really trains)

   1. JCJimmy Carr6:45

      a day and not really feel it because that's, that's my, that's my thing. That's my, that's where I find joy. I think it's, um, I think it's a, it's a teachable thing. I think a lot more people should be trying stand-up. I think, I think it's very much the beginning of stand-up. Like it really-- You could trace it back. You could say Richard Pryor and George Carlin started this thing in the early '70s. Obviously, you can trace it way beyond that, and there's great comedians from before that. But they were, they were not doing hour-and-a-half shows on stage in theaters touring around. It wasn't-- They weren't on the same treadmill that, that I'm... They, they, they, they kind of, uh, macheted their way through the jungle and left a path for the rest of us to kind of follow. They're incredible, incredible kind of, um... They're John the Baptist. Jesus ain't here yet. So it's a new medium, and I think it should be taught because I think most people at schools, like they, they might do sports, or they might do music, and they're useful. But if you teach stand-up comedy in schools, right, what, what does it teach you? Well, it teaches you to write down and order your thoughts. It's pretty important. Teaches you to sort of find your voice and to be able to communicate with other people and sort of a little bit of public speaking. And it teaches you to change your perspective, like to, to be able to recognize patterns and to change your perspective on life. Those are incredibly valuable skills in life. I mean, the tragedy is most people live and die, and they never hear their own voice.

6. 8:08 – 10:37

   Failure tolerance, ‘punching down’ debates, and the audience’s role

   1. DJDavid McIntosh Jr8:08

      And on stand-up comedy and the mechanics of it, the feedback loop is so instant unlike any other medium. Much like skateboarding. I think skateboarders and comedians have so much in common is that the pain from rejection or failing is so instant that it almost throws you into trying again.

   2. JCJimmy Carr8:23

      You make friends with failure. You know, failure is like-- Failure is a superpower. Just being okay with failing time and time again. Like I, I've written so many more jokes that don't work than you have. You're right. Most of my jokes do work.

   3. DJDavid McIntosh Jr8:36

      [laughs]

   4. JCJimmy Carr8:37

      This guy's, this guy did a spit take on that. No, Jimmy, shut up. Everything you say is funny. Correct.

   5. DJDavid McIntosh Jr8:45

      Another benefit to learning stand-up is that it gives you power as well. Usually, those who are the class clowns, especially in schools. I, I, I really think the, the joke is more, more violent than the punch because if I were to punch you in a classroom, yeah, you'd have instant pain, but people would run over to help you. However, my reputation for punching you in the face would be tarnished for a very long time. However, if I mock you through insult, not only do you look bad and your reputation is diminished based on what funny thing I had to say, my status actually elevates. So I think there's a lot of power in being the class clown.

   6. JCJimmy Carr9:21

      Yeah, I would agree with that to a point, but I don't view jokes as punches.

   7. DJDavid McIntosh Jr9:24

      Mm.

   8. JCJimmy Carr9:24

      I kind of think the whole concept of punching down is some nonsense because really when you pick that apart just a little bit, it's suggesting people are below me.

   9. DJDavid McIntosh Jr9:33

      Yeah.

   10. JCJimmy Carr9:34

       Really? Really? That's, that's-- You think people are below me? I can't joke about them 'cause they're below me.

   11. DJDavid McIntosh Jr9:38

       Mm.

   12. JCJimmy Carr9:39

       Fuck you very much. That's some crazy thinking to think that people can't take a joke. I think there's something about sharing a joke that's very, um, it's very egalitarian. Like I like to think of myself as a, as a equal opportunities o-offender. I find everyone and that we're all in this together. There's no sacred cows. We're all fine. We can all take a joke.

   13. DJDavid McIntosh Jr10:00

       And you often say that the audience is part of the performance too, right?

   14. JCJimmy Carr10:03

       Of course. Yeah, being in an audience is incredibly performative. I think people maybe see it more at rock and roll shows because a rock and roll show, you know, if you, if you're not standing there fist in the air clapping along doing the whole, it-- you feel like you're a tool. But that's a performance. You're doing-- You don't do that when you listen to it in the car.

   15. DJDavid McIntosh Jr10:19

       [laughs]

   16. JCJimmy Carr10:20

       I think it's the same thing with comedy where you can watch it on, you know, the new Netflix special, and you can watch it on the bus and think, "That's really funny. I like those jokes." You don't laugh in the same way. You don't release endorphins in the same way. It's quite a performative social tribal thing, and I think people are crying out for that. I think people really want that in their lives.

7. 10:37 – 15:56

   Self-authoring, identity rewrites, and Jimmy’s early life in Slough

   1. DJDavid McIntosh Jr10:37

      And the process of you writing your autobiography, given the fact that you probably had to do so much self-examination, what benefits did that bring to your life and your psyche and the fabric of your mind?

   2. JCJimmy Carr10:47

      Well, I suppose you could, you could, you know, you can go back to the, the life unexamined is not worth living. You, you sort of take stock. I think it was in the lockdown, so it was that thing of like I had options. You know, my manager called me and said, "Well, you can either write a book or start a podcast," and I took the dignified approach.

   3. DJDavid McIntosh Jr11:02

      [laughs]

   4. JCJimmy Carr11:03

      This frankly, what the fuck is this? Um-

   5. DJDavid McIntosh Jr11:05

      I took the easier road.

   6. JCJimmy Carr11:06

      Yeah. But it's, it's a, um, it's a fun thing to do. I mean, I would really, uh... I'd recommend actually, you know, if you're-- I, I, imagine your audience, and I don't know, but I imagine your audience are a little bit younger.

   7. DJDavid McIntosh Jr11:15

      Yeah.

   8. JCJimmy Carr11:16

      And I think that thing about Jordan Peterson's got this thing. I like Jordison- Jordan a lot. There's kind of, there's a lot of kind of, oh, he's-

   9. DJDavid McIntosh Jr11:22

      Your podcast was great with him.

   10. JCJimmy Carr11:24

       Yeah. He, he, he's a really nice bloke. He's a mate. And, uh, there's a lot of talk about him being somehow a force for evil. What the fuck are you talking about? He wants the best for people. And that thing of he's got a self-authoring thing. I really recommend. It's really good. It's a course. It's like $200 or something. It's not nothing, but it's not nothing for a reason. Could have done it for nothing. It's like you'll, you'll put some work in, but you have to write your story. And it's really interesting that idea of literally and metaphorically we are self-authored. We are a story that we tell ourselves, and what story do you want to tell? And if you don't like the story as it is now, well, you can change that And partly, you know, writing the book is about sort of going, "Well, I had a quarter-life crisis." I was, you know, 25, 26, and I had a good job, and the good is the enemy of the best. I wanted an interesting, fun adventure. Yo-ho-ho, a pirate's life for me. That's what I wanted, and that's what I, I took, and there's nothing special about me. Really, if there's any message in the book, if it's any different to your average sort of celeb biography, nothing special. There's no, there's no genius, uh, in me. I mean, there's, you know, g- genius as well as a, as a, it's a weird term. It gets overused, doesn't it? 'Cause there's, there's two types. There's, there's genuine genius, Bach and von Neumann, you know, geniuses, and then there's hyper-accelerated rationality. Not quite the same, but it's, you know, that's all I've got.

   11. DJDavid McIntosh Jr12:53

       This podcast aims to use origin stories as a self-development tool to showcase essentially a library of digital role models. People might look from the outside in and hear your accent and see how you're dressed and perceive you as this upwardly mobile class, polished man, which you are now, but it was never always that. You went on a trajectory to get to that point through both your education but also your first big decision. Can we go back in time and analyze or bring to life what the raw components of Jimmy Carr's genesis story were? So to speak.

   12. JCJimmy Carr13:24

       Yeah, uh, so, um, Irish Catholic immigrant parents from Limerick, uh, and they moved to Slough. So from Limerick to Slough. So they, they, they liked a shit town.

   13. DJDavid McIntosh Jr13:33

       [laughs]

   14. JCJimmy Carr13:35

       They're very much their thing. "We like shit towns." So they moved, uh, there and we, I grew up in the, uh, in the shadow of the Mars factory on the Farnham Road in Slough. That's kind of my first, uh, memory. I think we were in Isleworth before that, but the, yeah, anyway, Slough. And it was, uh, it was nice. Y- you know, I, a nice enough childhood, and I think the thing that I'm very conscious of that didn't exist back then is there was no, um, there was very little mimetic desire. So that kind of, um, I'm sure you're familiar, uh, the René Girard, that French philosopher. G- you know, this theory of mimetic desire. So we've got real desires. We're hungry, we're thirsty, we're horny, da, da, da, all that, and then we've got s- other, what other people have, and the idea that we want what other people have. So that hedonic treadmill of whatever you've got, you're kind of constantly looking. You get used to what you have, and you want more, you want more, you want more. And actually, my childhood was very, I didn't really know people that went on foreign holidays or went skiing or, um, went traveling. I d- I wasn't exposed to that. Everyone was sort of in the same boat, and it was a lovely, it's, it was very nice. I feel slightly bad for kids now that are constantly looking at Instagram at people having a better life than, or even people looking at their own lives and going, "This looks, I'm always happy in this," but in the real world, because Instagram is a highlights reel and life is a bloopers reel.

   15. DJDavid McIntosh Jr14:51

       It's a sad statistic.

   16. JCJimmy Carr14:51

       Anyway, so childhood, I w- wasn't the brightest. Very dyslexic, uh, as a, as a child, so couldn't read really with any level of, um, competence until I was about 11. And I still, I'd be very embarrassed now to show you my handwriting. I've got quite bad handwriting and penmanship, and, um, I find it embarrassing. And so I think partly the drive to, to get to Cambridge was to prove something to myself and to make my mother proud. I wanted to be, I wanted, I wanted a different narrative. And then I switched schools when I was 16, and that really was the, I didn't know it at the time, but that was so great because you, you found that you were able to kind of rewrite who you were.

   17. DJDavid McIntosh Jr15:36

       Yeah.

   18. JCJimmy Carr15:36

       Like, if you speak to people that went to school with me when I was, you know, 16, it's like, "Oh, he's, he's a terror. He's not gonna do anything." And then when I was 17, I was at this other school, and I kind of reinvented myself as, "Oh, yeah, I'm pretty academic, yeah." And that was a really interesting kind of switch of like you can't beat your environment, and sometimes it's like you don't want the thing from the past, so you have to change it up.

8. 15:56 – 23:30

   Education, gender incentives in comedy, and a controversial case for free elite university

   1. DJDavid McIntosh Jr15:56

      What are your opinions on the schooling system? Is it designed to churn out the class clowns into professional comedians?

   2. JCJimmy Carr16:03

      Uh, well, certainly not. I mean, I think, I think there's a weird thing where there's a gender imbalance in my business, which I don't like. I think there should be more female comics, uh, and I think it's because of the incentives, right? So if you're the funny guy in school, there's a reward for that. There's status that comes with that. If you're the funny girl, there's a, it's changing, but it's changing too slowly for me. There seems like there's more status given to funny young guys, and obviously a, a tiny percentage of those become professional comedians, and there's less status conferred on the girls. And that kind of the grassroots changing that, and that's why I think, again, it should be taught in schools because actually I think that's where you've got a, that's where the problem lies early on, that we're not rewarding that. But we all know from our lives, men and women, there's no difference in who's funny.

   3. DJDavid McIntosh Jr16:56

      Moving on to you entering Cambridge for the first time as a working-class dyslexic young man, did you feel like you fit in there? Did you-

   4. JCJimmy Carr17:03

      No, but no one feels like they fit in there, and it's good.

   5. DJDavid McIntosh Jr17:07

      Why?

   6. JCJimmy Carr17:08

      Well, because imposter syndrome's good. People talk about imposter syndrome like, "Oh, I don't feel comfortable. I'm out of my comfort zone. I don't know if I belong here." And then you don't. So then you work really hard 'cause you don't feel like you're enough, and then you do. Okay, well, that system seems to work. You should be out of your comfort zone every 18 months. As you level up at every stage of your career, you should feel like you're out of your comfort zone. So I'm like, I'm playing arenas next year. I've no need to play arenas. Why am I doing it? Well, because I wanna feel uncomfortable. I wanna put on a show in an arena for 12,000 people that's fucking great, and that's a tall order. That's a difficult thing. It's much easier for me to go, "Well, I'll just do, you know, two, 3,000 seaters and, and do multiples." But I've done that before, so I'm gonna try something new. I'm writing a book now about teaching jokes and, and, uh, with my friend Amanda and, and trying to share what I know and trying to be... And that's- That's a big step up. That's a big thing of going, "Oh, I'm so good at this, I'm gonna teach other people." But that, it's for me, not for them, right? It's that, it's that thing where you go, "I get told something, I forget it. I read something, I remember it. I teach something, I know it." I wanna teach. I wanna share that 'cause it's, it's been an incredible gift to me, and I think it's a transferable skill set. And I think also I just want more people to give it a go. It's not like... It's that thing, I didn't know what the Edinburgh Festival was until I was in my, uh, maybe early 20s. I, I'd no- I'd never heard of it. I didn't know what it was. Actually, no, it was later than that. It was maybe 25. Like, I'd go into comedy. I was going to a lot of comedy just before I, I got into being a comedian, and people talked about the Edinburgh Festival, and I went, "Well, who's that for?"

   7. DJDavid McIntosh Jr18:50

      [laughs]

   8. JCJimmy Carr18:51

      "Who's it for? It must be for posher kids than me. It must be for..." And someone at college took a play up there, and I was going, "Well, what?"

   9. DJDavid McIntosh Jr18:58

      [laughs]

   10. JCJimmy Carr18:58

       "What do you mean you're taking a play to Edinburgh, and you're raising money to do that? Why would you be taking a play to Edinburgh?" Went, "Okay, we're going to Spain to sit on a beach." Like, I didn't know what it was. And I feel like that's, that's... I don't know what the-- I don't know how you communicate that. But I think, like, if I was g- if, if there's young people listening that are 18, 19, and they're thinking about spending, just getting a summer job and saving up and going to Ibiza for two weeks, don't fucking bother. Go to Edinburgh for two weeks.

   11. DJDavid McIntosh Jr19:24

       [laughs]

   12. JCJimmy Carr19:25

       That's where the fun's happening. What do you want from a holiday? Fun.

   13. DJDavid McIntosh Jr19:29

       Fun.

   14. JCJimmy Carr19:29

       Fun's what you want. Where are they making fun? Edinburgh. Uh, uh, Ibiza, you might have fun when you're there. Whatever. It's gonna be sun. Stay out the sun. You save a fort- y- 90% of aging is sun damage. Stay out the sun.

   15. DJDavid McIntosh Jr19:40

       I'm ginger. I can't hang about in-

   16. JCJimmy Carr19:42

       You fucking, you're, you're basically an X-ray of a normal human.

   17. DJDavid McIntosh Jr19:44

       [laughs]

   18. JCJimmy Carr19:45

       You look as if you get sunburnt opening the fridge.

   19. DJDavid McIntosh Jr19:47

       [laughs] Don't take a photo with me with the flash on.

   20. JCJimmy Carr19:50

       Yeah, factor 50 just to check your iPhone. Anyway.

   21. DJDavid McIntosh Jr19:54

       [laughs]

   22. JCJimmy Carr19:54

       But that thing of, like, going, Edinburgh's really fun and really good, but, but working-class kids don't go there. Like, you know, kids from Slough don't go there. Um, so it's that, it's that thing. I mean, my, my view on education is it should be free. It, it should be difficult to get into university, and some people won't make it, and that's elitist. It should be elitist. It's fucking university. We should educate everyone well to the age of 18. Great. That should be a level playing field, and whoever does best in standardized testing should get into university. It sh- it should be... I mean, the first step would be free for STEM. But it was free when I went. Free. Sure, you had to pay for your accommodation or whatever, so you had to have a little bit of wherewithal behind you. But, but free. The education was free. That's how it should be because it's a better economy, right? That's better for everyone if it's free. So no bullshit subjects. Uh, we'd start with STEM and build out from there, and then make it free for everyone. And don't tell me we can't afford it 'cause that's just some fucking nonsense.

   23. DJDavid McIntosh Jr20:53

       We have it free up in Scotland, and that's afforded my sister and many of my friends through the, uh, upwards social mobility journey, which is fantastic.

   24. JCJimmy Carr21:00

       Well, your, your, your sister slipped through the cracks. Like, that, that's an error.

   25. DJDavid McIntosh Jr21:03

       [laughs]

   26. JCJimmy Carr21:03

       That's an error. That's a waste of a place. But that's, that's... We've only, I've only met her briefly-

   27. DJDavid McIntosh Jr21:07

       [laughs]

   28. JCJimmy Carr21:07

       ... but I made, I made a value judgment. I, yeah. What'd you get a degree in? International business. International business. Yeah. Yeah, you see?

   29. DJDavid McIntosh Jr21:16

       Worldwide.

   30. JCJimmy Carr21:17

       Yeah, but well, no one's, no one's, no one's doing a deal with a cartel without that kind of qualification.
9. 23:30 – 26:12

   Leaving the safe path: Shell, redundancy, and choosing the scary adventure

   1. DJDavid McIntosh Jr23:30

      You did the path that was well-trodden after Cambridge. You took a graduate job or a management fast track scheme.

   2. JCJimmy Carr23:35

      Yeah, I did, yeah. I've, and huh, I don't know. I don't know. I mean, listen, I'm not being... I don't wanna be sneery about that either. A lot of people get jobs, like nine-to-fives, and that's their thing, and they're, especially, like, doctors and lawyers or whatever. It's like, yeah, you work for a big organization, and you can do very well in that, and you can absolutely be, um, you know, creative and, um, get, you know, self-satisfaction from, from doing all that. I went a different way. It wasn't right for me, but it's, it's right for some people.

   3. DJDavid McIntosh Jr24:06

      How or when did you decide to make a significant change? Was there an indicator that you were-

   4. JCJimmy Carr24:11

      I don't think there was. I mean, i-it's, it's that weird thing with, uh- You sort of can't fake bravery because if you did it, then you were brave. But fucking hell, it's scary. You know, i- to leave and to go, "Well, I'm gonna just go out into the world and, and be a stand-up comedian," and you, you kind of ... You haven't done it yet. You haven't ... You know, I always think that thing about, you know, you have to give the world irrefutable evidence you are who you say you are, and I hadn't. I'd, you know, I'd done a couple of little shows and things, but it wasn't like, uh, uh, it wasn't like a, um, an unbelievable talent that needed to be ... It was, uh, something I worked incredibly hard at. But I knew as soon as I saw it, as soon as I saw that glimmer of, oh, that stand-up is a job, I knew I had to work for that. I knew I'd had to, I'd have to put the hours in.

   5. DJDavid McIntosh Jr24:54

      And you essentially quit Shell. You took voluntary redundancy.

   6. JCJimmy Carr24:58

      Yeah. I mean, that was just, uh, lucky timing that they were trying to get rid of some dead weight in the company. And I actually wanted ... Uh, but it applied, they had to, legally they had to give it to everyone, so I took it, and, you know, they paid me a, you know, proportion of your salary and you, you know, I had like a, had like a year's money, I guess. I, I, a y- uh, I think it was like five grand, but I had ... That was enough to live for a year because it's, you know, how much money do you need? It's the ... When, when you're doing something that you love, it's, it becomes unimportant. You get out of that. I, I remember Fight Club coming out and, and really, that really resonating with me, the idea that we spend our lives buying shit we don't need to impress people we don't like. And you, yeah, you ... But even now I sort of think that. I mean, I, I buy a lot of crazy shit, but there's nothing you can buy in the shopping mall you will give a fuck about in five years' time.

   7. DJDavid McIntosh Jr25:46

      O- one of the insights I love from your friend Chris Williamson is the Regent Beetle paradox. Have you heard him speak about that with Roland?

   8. JCJimmy Carr25:51

      No. Go on. What's-

   9. DJDavid McIntosh Jr25:52

      Essentially the concept whereby if things are worse, they can only get better. So, um, if your relationship with your partner is she's cheating on you or she's hitting on you, swearing at you, you're more likely to make a radical change and leave that relationship.

   10. JCJimmy Carr26:06

       Yes.

   11. DJDavid McIntosh Jr26:06

       But if things are quite comfortable-

   12. JCJimmy Carr26:08

       Well, this is, this is the ... Yeah, I mean, I've got that in the book. The, the good is the enemy of the best.

   13. DJDavid McIntosh Jr26:12

       Yeah.

10. 26:12 – 28:19

    Reps, agency, and ‘making your own luck’ by turning up everywhere

    1. JCJimmy Carr26:12

       It's that thing of, like, comfort and a comfortable life. But again, what do you, what do you want? You've gotta ... It's self-assignment. You've gotta give yourself an adventure. You've gotta go and do something. So I'm, I'm a big fan of, uh, a big fan of im- immigration. Immigrants generally are the best people 'cause they're high agency. You know, it ... And that kind of thing of like they've given themselves the t- They're like, they're sitting there wherever they're from, you know, Limerick with my folks or whatever, and going, " [sighs] Shit round here. Let's go, let's go somewhere else." That takes some ... That's, that's really to be admired. It's an incredible thing.

    2. DJDavid McIntosh Jr26:43

       Do you think that's what kind of propelled your career in comedy, the fact that you had no other choice but to make it? I heard through a friend that you, for one of your first gigs, you phoned a g- a guy called Jeff Whiting and asked him, "Can I get on your, your bill?" And he said, no. And you, you showed up anyway wearing a suit and said, "Well, I suppose I'm here now. Can I do five minutes?"

    3. JCJimmy Carr27:03

       Mm.

    4. DJDavid McIntosh Jr27:03

       And he said yes.

    5. JCJimmy Carr27:05

       No, I didn't do that. Uh, I did that with everyone. I turned up everywhere. I just turned up. I didn't call. I turned up at the gig. I'm a comedian. Can I get on? And more often than not, yeah, do five minutes. You're here. Great. So it's that thing of like, you, you, you turn up, you're p- you know, good or good, uh, good enough, you know, with joke-shaped things, and, uh, yeah, it was ... Yeah. You know, I was kind of, um, I was very ambitious and driven, and I, I just kind of, I, I loved it, so it wasn't work to me. So I went out I think it was, like, 300 times a year. Um, yeah. And even then I kind of think, "Well, you know, what was I doing the other nights?"

    6. DJDavid McIntosh Jr27:42

       [laughs]

    7. JCJimmy Carr27:43

       Well, a bit. Like, I did 300 shows last year. I can still do it. I can still, um, you know, put that ... And, and really reps in the gym. What else is there? I'm fairly stoic about it now. I try and be quite stoic. Do, do less better just seems like a really good ... Once you find it, specialize. Obviously, you know, early 20s, whatever, mm, I don't know what age, what, what, where the cutoff point is. It's different for different people. But that idea of going, look, you wanna, you wanna find what you're good at. Once you find it, edge. Just what could you do better than anything else? You don't have to be the best in the world, just what could you do better than anything else? Put everything into that.

11. 28:19 – 35:00

    Luck, work ethic, and using envy as a compass for what you want

    1. DJDavid McIntosh Jr28:19

       I love a quote in your book that's, "There's two great myths: talent and luck."

    2. JCJimmy Carr28:25

       Well, I, I think ... Yeah, I think it's talent and hard work is the-

    3. DJDavid McIntosh Jr28:29

       Sorry. Talent and hard work

    4. JCJimmy Carr28:29

       ... It's that thing where you go, the, you know, the, people think Michael Jordan, oh, he's the most talented. He's this tall. He's really athletic. He could never ... There's lots of guys with the same physicality of him. Not lots. There's a few. And they didn't all make it 'cause they didn't all turn up to practice. He turned up to practice, and the work ethic. I mean, when you watch The Last Dance, you see the work ethic and the talent, amazing. But people see and they go, "Well, he's lucky." Yeah, and he, he is lucky, right? He's lucky that basketball's even a thing, right? He's lucky he wasn't born 100 years ago. He's lucky, you know, lucky in so many ways. And then you look at someone like, uh, Bill Gates, and people don't see the luck in the same way. They don't see, oh, he was born with an IQ of 170 and a work ethic. And the work ethic of Michael Jordan and Bill Gates, it's, it's heritable, that work ethic, to a large degree. So when we see luck in ... I, I think luck's a luck and gratitude. Uh, you know, seeing, seeing luck as a, um, you know, you can kind of make your own luck in terms of turning up at every gig, 300 shows a year for the first five years, just, you know, being there that much. I got lucky. Why? Mm, I was there. I was, I was in the right place. Where were you? Everywhere. When? All the time. Okay.

    5. DJDavid McIntosh Jr29:42

       I love that-

    6. JCJimmy Carr29:42

       I guess that thing as well, it, it, um, it deals with the other problem of success, which is success engenders envy and jealousy, and the best way to deal with that is allow people to know how hard you worked. But g- people want what I have. They don't wanna do what I had to do to get it. They don't want this pathology.

    7. DJDavid McIntosh Jr30:04

       What's the difference between envy and jealousy?

    8. JCJimmy Carr30:07

       Well, I think they're conflated words, I think, and it doesn't, it doesn't matter which way round you use it. Whatever works for you. But for me, uh- Jealousy is about not wanting someone else to have something, and that's very poisonous. Like, "Why have they got that? I, mmm, mmm." You c- Do you want that or do you not want that? Y- y- you know, you, you're agnostic towards it in terms of what you want, but it, like, you don't want them to have it, right? They... That's a, that's a horrible emotion. Envy, I think, can be very useful because envy can tell you what you want.

    9. DJDavid McIntosh Jr30:36

       Mm-hmm.

    10. JCJimmy Carr30:36

        And for me, that's kind of the crucial question in life. What do you want? That, that's a... I, for me, wishing wells work, but they work way before you think they work. There's no magic fairy granting your wish. But knowing what to wish for when you toss the coin in, ah, that's the thing. What do you wish for? What do you, you know, on, on, you're on the spot, and you go, "What do you want, what do you want?" And you, you sometimes you, you just let your subconscious throws out something. "Oh, yeah, I want that." Great. Once you know what you want, I think getting it is comparatively easy. The problem is if you don't know what you want in life. If you don't know where you're going, no wind is favorable. Marcus Aurelius. [laughs]

    11. DJDavid McIntosh Jr31:18

        When did you truly discover what you wanted to want?

    12. JCJimmy Carr31:21

        What you wanted to want? I mean, I think the, um... I think it changes over time. I think it's, uh, it's, uh... I don't believe in an afterlife, but I believe in a next life, and I think we have these, you know, stages that we go through, and I think I'm, uh, I think at, at one stage, it's, it's, uh, it's fame and fortune that you want because fame and fortune in a secular world have replaced heaven. That's the land of milk and honey that people go, "Well, if I was rich and famous and on Love Island, I would be, I would be happy and contented forever." And, uh, and it is good. I, I do like it. Um, but then another thing, you know, priorities change over time, and I think now, you know, from a career point of view, I just wanna be better. I j- I feel like I'm getting better at stand-up comedy. The more I put into it, the more I get. I think there was a couple of years there where I was, you know, I was very busy doing a million TV shows and, and, uh, I allowed myself to get a little bit distracted. And I think refocusing and getting better at joke writing and actually the, the experience of writing this book. So the first book, the, the biography, Before and Laughter, I had some help from my friend Amanda Baker, and then we're working together on this next book about comedy and teaching. And I think through doing that, I've kind of rediscovered this, "Okay, I need to focus on this." Um, and then you b- you become a parent, you become a father. It's a, it's, it's a... Becoming a father really is, if you think about what it does functionally, it's like standing in nature. It's, you, you're in awe. You feel very small because you're part of this kind of cycle of life. You're, you're, you're, you become m- uh, a dad, and you kind of go, "Right, okay, I've gotta take care of this thing, and it's, it's bigger than me. It's more important than me." And that's a, that's a lovely, that's a, that's a lovely recalibration because you're no longer the, the main character in your own life.

    13. DJDavid McIntosh Jr33:16

        Do you choose your sense of humor?

    14. JCJimmy Carr33:19

        I d- I don't think I did. I think I probably would've been a storyteller had I got to choose, 'cause then you've got, what, five funny stories in an hour? Fucking what? Workshy. I have to write 300 jokes to fill an hour.

    15. DJDavid McIntosh Jr33:32

        Do you think the-

    16. JCJimmy Carr33:33

        Be difficult

    17. DJDavid McIntosh Jr33:33

        Do you think the average person, the listener, do you think they choose their sense of humor?

    18. JCJimmy Carr33:37

        Hmm. No, I think it's pretty, um... No, because I think people aspire to liking stuff that they maybe don't like. I think sometimes there's like a, you know, if you, if you like, I don't know, dumb scatological stuff, it's, if that's what really makes you laugh, eh, that's what really makes you laugh. It's very exposing, a sense of humor, because it's, um, uh, your conscious kind of turns up late to the party. It's one of my favorite noises at a comedy gig-

    19. DJDavid McIntosh Jr34:02

        Mm, mm, mm, mm

    20. JCJimmy Carr34:03

        ... where you get cognitive dissonance, where people laugh at a joke about a terrible thing, and then they go, " [gasps] We shouldn't laugh at that." But they've already la- they're already laughing as they're, "That's terrible." It's a, it's a lovely... I don't know. It's, it's, it's nice to kind of play with people, and it's, it's a real sign of intelligence that, I think, to have those two thoughts at the same time. "We shouldn't be laughing at that, but that is very funny."

    21. DJDavid McIntosh Jr34:28

        I think you can also tell a lot about a person based on what they laugh at as well or what they've b- been through perhaps.

    22. JCJimmy Carr34:33

        Well-

    23. DJDavid McIntosh Jr34:33

        Um, growing up, like I had-

    24. JCJimmy Carr34:35

        Here's, here's an insight. Here's something for you. Donald Trump, you've never seen him laugh.

    25. DJDavid McIntosh Jr34:42

        Holy shit.

    26. JCJimmy Carr34:43

        Yeah.

    27. DJDavid McIntosh Jr34:43

        [laughs]

    28. JCJimmy Carr34:45

        He's a full-on narcissist.

    29. DJDavid McIntosh Jr34:46

        Holy shit.

    30. JCJimmy Carr34:47

        You've never seen him laugh.
12. 35:00 – 41:30

    Dark humor as resilience, grief, and the freedom that follows loss

    1. DJDavid McIntosh Jr35:00

       Yeah. Uh, I also believe that many people watch stand-up comedy in the same way that Jordan Peterson professes that people watch horrors to condition themselves for tragedy. I think some people watch stand-up comedy, especially the darker stuff like yours, to condition them for life almost.

    2. JCJimmy Carr35:18

       Yeah, well, look-

    3. DJDavid McIntosh Jr35:18

       It creates a callous

    4. JCJimmy Carr35:19

       ... here's, here's the, here's the truth of it. I feel very bad for the people that get offended. Right? Uh, not, not in a patronizing way, but genuinely, right? I've got a very dark sense of humor, and the people that come and see me have got a very dark sense of humor. So we can laugh at stuff that's awful. So death, right? Who hasn't been affected by death? I mean, everyone, right? Grieving, disease, bad news. You've got financial worries. You've got political chaos. Terrible things happening, right? If you can laugh about those things, it at le- it, it just makes the worst days just a little bit more livable, and it connects you to other people in those moments when you desperately need to connect. And, uh, the people that get offended, they've just gotta white-knuckle that shit. It's a fucking terrifying thought. Just, uh, like even in depression and anxiety and, and, and hopelessness, you can find glimmers of humor and fun. And I, I mean, I'm trying to talk about that in the new show actually. I'm, I'm talking a little bit about kind of mental health and suicide, um, in the show. I'm trying to make that funny. Which is, uh, yeah, I think it's, it's, it's important. It's good

    5. DJDavid McIntosh Jr36:28

       One thing that's bonded my sister and I together through hardship, through losing my mum, was humor.

    6. JCJimmy Carr36:33

       When did you lose your mum?

    7. DJDavid McIntosh Jr36:34

       I was 21, uh, so during 2020. And when I-

    8. JCJimmy Carr36:38

       Let's, let's take a moment. What was your mum called?

    9. DJDavid McIntosh Jr36:40

       Pauline.

    10. JCJimmy Carr36:41

        Pauline, yeah. Mine was Nora. I lost her when I was about 26, and I don't think I'm over it yet. I think it's, it's an amazing sort of... That thing of, like, grief is the price we pay for love, and I, I, I get that. I get that it would be sad if it wasn't sad. But it's such a huge... I don't know what your relationship was like with your mother, but for me, I was so enmeshed. I was so close to my mother. I couldn't imagine anything worse than losing her. And then when you lose her, there is... The, the, the benefit that comes with it is a sense of freedom.

    11. DJDavid McIntosh Jr37:10

        Yeah.

    12. JCJimmy Carr37:11

        Is a sense of pushing the fuck it button and going, "Well." Like, you get mortality in a way that you didn't get before. Like you-

    13. DJDavid McIntosh Jr37:17

        Secondhand mortality

    14. JCJimmy Carr37:19

        ... like, like you get that thing of, uh, what's the great, um, uh, quote? "We're, we're, we're between two eternities of darkness, and this is a little shaft of light." We die, and we're the lucky ones because we get to live. There, there's, there's like... Mark Twain said it brilliantly. He said, uh, "I, I, I wasn't alive for billions of years before my birth, and it didn't inconvenience me in the least." People are always looking at that end of the telescope like, "Yeah, we die. That's terrible." But so we weren't, we weren't around before.

    15. DJDavid McIntosh Jr37:52

        [laughs]

    16. JCJimmy Carr37:52

        This is, this is why life is so special. It's just this little shaft of light in the middle of it all. And, you know, your, your mother's passing, I mean, that's very young to lose your mum. It's so, it's also, it's young and it's old. It's like you're a grown man, but you're s- you're not. You know, no one's finished at 21. Christ.

    17. DJDavid McIntosh Jr38:11

        It propelled me into doing stand-up. It's the exact reason I did a stand-up comedy course and performed my first gig, which was all about the tragic loss of my mum, but I shed light on it. I put on these kind of rose-tinted comedic glasses that allowed me to process what seems to be such a tragic event, which it was, in such a new lens. Um-

    18. JCJimmy Carr38:32

        Yeah

    19. DJDavid McIntosh Jr38:32

        ... and being able to revisit and process the whole end-to-end journey through the lens of comedy helped me just get over it in general and accept it. And I'm not sure if perhaps humor and the shared laughter that you experienced with your mum helped you through grieving her as well.

    20. JCJimmy Carr38:47

        Yeah, I think so. I'm, I mean, I think really the, the question for comedians, if you ever have comedians on the show, is would your parents were sick? They've always got a sick parent. They always had to kind of, um, be the emotional thermostat in the house.

    21. DJDavid McIntosh Jr39:02

        Yeah.

    22. JCJimmy Carr39:02

        Or the vast majority of them had to kind of fulfill that role. Yeah, it's not, not an easy thing to, uh, to lose a parent and, and yet kind of, you know, grief people don't really... I don't know. I don't think we talk about it un- enough. I think, uh, our society's kind of set up to hide it away. Um, we don't really... It's one of those things that religion does very well, and the secular world does very badly, talking about death and, you know.

    23. DJDavid McIntosh Jr39:27

        Did you have people around you to support you through that journey?

    24. JCJimmy Carr39:31

        Um-

    25. DJDavid McIntosh Jr39:31

        Like friends and close connections?

    26. JCJimmy Carr39:34

        Yeah. I mean, I think it was, it was, uh, not, not so much. It was a, it was a, it was a pretty, pretty tough time, uh, I would say. Uh, but I think that's also how much you let people in.

    27. DJDavid McIntosh Jr39:48

        Mm-hmm.

    28. JCJimmy Carr39:48

        I think that's about, maybe that's a lesson learnt from that thing of, like, not letting people in and being quite sort of self-reliant in that, which is I think, um, quite a, quite a sort of masculine trait of, like, going, "Well, I'm just gonna, uh, just deal with this and crack on." Um, so I just, I kind of worked through it. I found, like, the time on stage was very joyful, so I just got on stage more, uh, as much as I possibly could, uh, which probably not the most, uh, healthy thing.

    29. DJDavid McIntosh Jr40:16

        Given you've transcended into TV and selling out shows worldwide, and your mum's not around to see or hear that, is there a missing chair or a missing person in one of the audience, audience's chairs when you're at those gigs? Are you ever aware of that?

    30. JCJimmy Carr40:33

        Sorry, Dan.
13. 41:30 – 48:38

    Cancellation: tax controversy, joke backlash, and how to respond

    1. DJDavid McIntosh Jr41:30

       It's fun. One of the most memorable things, unfortunately, that I s- remember you f- for in my childhood was being publicly canceled.

    2. JCJimmy Carr41:42

       Oh, yeah. Well, which time?

    3. DJDavid McIntosh Jr41:45

       [laughs]

    4. JCJimmy Carr41:45

       I've had a few of those. Pick a, pick a favorite. I'll talk about any of them.

    5. DJDavid McIntosh Jr41:48

       Well, the one time that you were attempted to be canceled for your personal life, not your professional life.

    6. JCJimmy Carr41:55

       Oh, with the tax thing.

    7. DJDavid McIntosh Jr41:56

       The tax thing, yeah.

    8. JCJimmy Carr41:56

       Yeah, yeah. I mean, that was, that was-

    9. DJDavid McIntosh Jr41:57

       How did you navigate that? That must've been so heavy for you.

    10. JCJimmy Carr42:00

        It was, uh, well, it was heavy, but it was quite... There's a couple of things about cancellation. Firstly, I got canceled. Mine was pretty easy-

    11. DJDavid McIntosh Jr42:05

        Mm-hmm

    12. JCJimmy Carr42:05

        ... because we cannot forgive what we cannot punish, right? I got, I got dragged for tax avoidance, right? So tax evasion, tax avoidance, you know the difference?

    13. DJDavid McIntosh Jr42:15

        Yep.

    14. JCJimmy Carr42:15

        18 months in prison.

    15. DJDavid McIntosh Jr42:16

        [laughs]

    16. JCJimmy Carr42:16

        So I was on the right side of that. Didn't do anything illegal, and then got called out by some fucking, I mean, Tory cunt, um, for being morally abhorrent. I mean, fuck you, man. But that to one side, I'd fucked up I fucked up. I'd, I'd, I'd done something that's ... Okay. So I just, I went, "Well, I'll pay it back." Super, super easy, right? But, uh, some people get canceled over stuff, and it's a bit more nuanced and difficult, and there's d- uh, and you can't ever forgive them. I paid the money back. It's k- it's, it's good, right? Uh, and then it's a, it's a filter. Being canceled is a filter, and you find out who your friends are.

    17. DJDavid McIntosh Jr42:53

        Yep.

    18. JCJimmy Carr42:53

        And that's very painful, um, in a way, but you don't have to waste your life on the people that are fair-weather friends. The people that are there in tough times, right, we're good. We're ride or die. And you don't get to find out until that shit happens. It's surprising. It's surprising the people that throw you under the bus, and the people that are a little bit gleeful, and, "Oh, he's been brought back d- down to, uh..." Yeah, okay. Let's see. It's a long road. And then it makes you a better person. It makes you, getting canceled, it makes you much more empathetic, and it makes you much better at calling on the day. Always call on the day. If someone dies or a friend gets an abortion or, uh, I don't know, fucking the boyfriend leaves or something awkward happens, and you become aware of it, call on the day. And call and go, "I don't know what to say, but I wanted to be the person that called."

    19. DJDavid McIntosh Jr43:46

        What did that day one look like for you?

    20. JCJimmy Carr43:49

        What, being canceled? It was pretty, uh, it was, it's interesting because it's the, it's the ... Falling feels like flying. You know, you're kind of, you're, whoa, this is ... And then I got kind of canceled, like I was bungee jumping. But I didn't know I was bungee jumping. So you're falling, and whoa, this is all fucked. I remember, like, going to record 8 Out Of 10 Cats with, uh, with Sean and sort of, um, and, and sort of saying, "This might be my last time making a TV show." And he was like, "Oh, no, it'll be all right. You'll be all right. You're gonna get a tough time, but it's gonna be all right." And then, you know, getting rinsed by him, but, like, in a very good way. Uh, and then it was all fine. It was kind of, it was a very tough couple of days. But again, you can't have a great character and an easy life. You've got to go through a couple of things, right?

    21. DJDavid McIntosh Jr44:36

        How does that compare to being canceled or attempt to be canceled for your professional life, for the jokes that you tell?

    22. JCJimmy Carr44:42

        Oh, I, I tr- I tr- I try not to engage. I try as best as I can to go, "Look, it's absolutely valid that people don't like some of my jokes." Jokes are like magnets. They attract some people, and they repel other people. Some people are repelled by my sense of humor. They, they, they, they do not like it, right? And they don't come to the shows, and they don't watch the Netflix specials. But when the new Netflix drops, a clip will go up online, and it'll show up in someone's feed, and they'll watch it and go, "Well, this is, ban this filth. This joke's so terrible, I've got to send it to everyone I fucking know." Okay. And, but you've got to right-size that, right? I remember James Corden was very sweet last time I got canceled. He phoned me and went, "What's happened?" And I went, "I, uh, uh, uh." And he went, "No, no, no. I'll tell you what's happened. You told a joke, and some people didn't like it. That's it. That's it. Let's, let's get lunch."

    23. DJDavid McIntosh Jr45:35

        And you're known publicly for telling dark jokes. You were centered and aligned. When you, when you told whatever joke it was that canceled you, you were doing your job. You were doing the thing that you do.

    24. JCJimmy Carr45:45

        Yeah.

    25. DJDavid McIntosh Jr45:45

        You weren't maligned.

    26. JCJimmy Carr45:46

        Oh, it won't be the last time. It's, it's coming around again, I'm sure. But I think if you're gonna ... As soon as you start defending jokes, as soon as you start, um, uh, apologizing, you're just in a world of pain. It's, I mean, I got, I got a plan. There's a bit on the new special where I talk about this, um, uh, on, on Natural Born Killer. So I say, "Look, you can't go around apologizing for jokes. They're jokes." So what I'm gonna do the next time I get canceled, next time I upset people with a joke, I'm gonna say, on the day of the cancellation, the day the news story comes out, and I've rehearsed this, I'm gonna say, "I'm sorry." And the people that were offended will say, "You don't really mean that apology." And I'll say, "So you're saying I can say something and not mean it?" Now you're getting it.

    27. DJDavid McIntosh Jr46:28

        [laughs]

    28. JCJimmy Carr46:33

        It's the, but it's true, right? It's a fucking joke.

    29. DJDavid McIntosh Jr46:36

        Because as soon as you defend, it becomes a belief.

    30. JCJimmy Carr46:39

        Well, it's also, it's the, it's the, uh ... I mean, journalists, have you ever spent time with journalists?
14. 48:38 – 58:27

    AI, hecklers, comedy’s biology, and why laughter is social technology

    1. DJDavid McIntosh Jr48:38

       Are you threatened at all by the introduction of AI in comedy?

    2. JCJimmy Carr48:43

       No. AI is a covers band, man.

    3. DJDavid McIntosh Jr48:45

       [chuckles]

    4. JCJimmy Carr48:46

       I'm about as scared of AI as I am of China. It's a fucking covers band. They're fuck all. I'm serious. And like it can, it can come up with something that's an Ozalts, uh, Ozats, uh, Jimmy Carr joke, right? So it can come up with something. But it really, when you, when you pick it apart, it's like, oh, that's... Well, you've taken that joke and you've just changed the, the, uh, okay. I can see what you've done there. So I don't think it's, it's artificial intelligence, not artificial consciousness. We're a long way from artificial consciousness. And if, if, if computers can write jokes, fine. If they start laughing at jokes, that's consciousness. That's, that's how we know we're humans. It's, it's, you know, it's how we know we're free. We must laugh because when we laugh, it's the first sign of freedom.

    5. DJDavid McIntosh Jr49:35

       What- one of my favorite things to watch of yours is compilations of you responding to heckles. I see you as the GOAT, or the greatest of all time, when it comes to responding to heckles.

    6. JCJimmy Carr49:44

       You know what the story of GOAT is?

    7. DJDavid McIntosh Jr49:46

       No.

    8. JCJimmy Carr49:46

       You know who came up with the term greatest of all time? Muhammad Ali.

    9. DJDavid McIntosh Jr49:50

       Really?

    10. JCJimmy Carr49:50

        Yeah. Isn't that great? The fucking GOAT thought of it.

    11. DJDavid McIntosh Jr49:54

        [laughs]

    12. JCJimmy Carr49:55

        The GOAT came up with the term GOAT. It's fucking perfect.

    13. DJDavid McIntosh Jr49:59

        [laughs]

    14. JCJimmy Carr50:00

        Anyway, interesting fact. Um, yeah, no, I'm, I'm pretty good with a heckler. But I mean, you know, you, the, it's a, it's a very fun thing. I think it's almost like it's, it's a bit of the show people really enjoy because it feels very in the room, a very... I mean, occasionally we catch it on camera, and it's fun to put out, but it's really the moments in the room.

    15. DJDavid McIntosh Jr50:22

        I believe you received a s- a heckle or a interaction with an audience member where you essentially learned that you saved their life during a suicidal time when they were watching one of your compilations.

    16. JCJimmy Carr50:33

        Oh, yeah, that's, I mean, yeah, I, I mean, we've, uh, I've been blessed that that's, that's, uh, that's maybe happened a few times. But yeah-

    17. DJDavid McIntosh Jr50:39

        Really?

    18. JCJimmy Carr50:39

        ... I, I think the time that I talked about on Mike Birbiglia's podcast was when a lady, uh, we... I get people to send me texts.

    19. DJDavid McIntosh Jr50:45

        Mm-hmm.

    20. JCJimmy Carr50:46

        And she sent me this te- and it was kind of a weirdly worded thing about the, um, celebrating, you know, 13 years of extra life.

    21. DJDavid McIntosh Jr50:52

        Mm.

    22. JCJimmy Carr50:53

        The fuck does that mean? And then we got talking to her, and it transpired that she was, um, she was gonna kill herself. She was gonna hang herself, but she was waiting until everyone in the house had gone to sleep, so she was watch- she, filling some time, so she started watching YouTube, and somehow a video came up of, um, uh, something that I'd done. I, I don't know what it was, and she laughed, and she really, really liked it. And so she watched another, and then she watched another, and she kind of fell down a rabbit hole of watching tons of comedy, um, lots of UK comedy. And, uh, and she didn't kill herself that night, and then she's still around, and it's a, it's a lovely thing. But I mean, I think this is, uh, we talk about suicide nearly enough. I think there's a, there's a, there's a real kind of, um, we don't think of it as being the symptom. It's the symptom. It's not a thing. It's a symptom of a mental health crisis, and the issue with it is that we don't talk about it enough. We should be telling young people this. It's a permanent solution to a temporary problem. It's, it's yes, you don't wanna feel this anymore, but you don't wanna feel nothing.

    23. DJDavid McIntosh Jr51:56

        Mm-hmm.

    24. JCJimmy Carr51:57

        And this too shall pass. Th- th- this, th- this'll be gone. Like it's a, it's a perspective issue. Fuck, in only five years' time, this will be forgotten. So it's, um, I mean, that's a, that's a, it's a strange thing to get a message like that and to, uh, meet someone that you've, you've had, uh, that sort of effect on. It's very, uh, humbling, and, uh, I don't quite know what to, to make of it. You just get... You, you're putting stuff out there, and you go, "Well, sometimes the people really need it." Sometimes people really need to laugh, and this is their, this is... You know, comedy is a, uh, if you're going through hard times, it can really help because it just puts you in another state.

    25. DJDavid McIntosh Jr52:32

        And I can imagine this lady and the others that you've received messages from are the vocal few. There's probably an extrapolated amount of people who haven't reached out to you to tell you the exact same thing.

    26. JCJimmy Carr52:42

        Well, also, they can't because they can't have. We don't know how many people kill themselves after watching one of my specials.

    27. DJDavid McIntosh Jr52:47

        [laughs]

    28. JCJimmy Carr52:48

        So there's that. That can't be zero, can it?

    29. DJDavid McIntosh Jr52:51

        [laughs] Oh, my God. O- o- o- of the many that are remaining, though, given the fact that if you could extrapolate that out, if you were to really absorb that, does that feel like a heavy weight to hold as a comedian?

    30. JCJimmy Carr53:04

        No, I, I don't think... I, I, I can't process that. I can't think about that. That's like, that's, uh, that's crazy.
15. 58:27 – 1:03:14

    Natural Born Killer, creative growth, and defining self-actualization as process

    1. DJDavid McIntosh Jr58:27

       Are we in the gold rush of comedy at the moment?

    2. JCJimmy Carr58:29

       Yeah, I think so. I think, I think it's, there's never been a better time. I mean, really, when you look at, uh... And Netflix has been a huge part of that, putting those specials out. Um, but really YouTube has been huge for comedy. Um, clubs are doing great. The theaters around the world are fantastic. People wanna come out and see it. I, you know, I'm doing 45 countries on the tour. That's a lot. That's a lot of places. And it's a lot of places where other people don't go, but they will.

    3. DJDavid McIntosh Jr58:56

       You- as this podcast is released, your new special, Natural Born Killer, will be released. What should or could the audience expect of you, given the fact that you are in your greatest decade?

    4. JCJimmy Carr59:06

       Uh, well, I mean, it's better than the last one, and the last one was pretty funny. I mean, if it's the kind of thing you like, you'll enjoy it, if, if you like that kind of, uh, sense of humor. But it's, um... I directed this one, uh, with, uh, with Brian Cline, and, uh, so it's got kind of, it's got, it's pretty interesting visually in terms of, like, I think most stand-up comedy specials are just three shots r- on, on repeat. So this one's got a little bit more to it. It's got very nice tracking shots, and it's cut to the rhythm of the joke. Um, and it feels to me like it's, like the attention to detail is there. There's sort of beautiful lighting changes for each sequence. There's a bit at the end of the show where I give a young man advice on, uh, the facts of life and consent, and we have the talk. That's pretty fun and gets a message across. There's a nice bit about being a father where there's a few moments where I open up and share a little bit more about my life than I, than I have in the past. So it, it feels like it's, um, a progression. Feels like it's, uh, I'm growing as a performer. So I've got the fastball still. I've got that, you know, I can do the one-liners, and then I'm trying to experiment with doing other things and trying to do them well. So it feels like there's a bit of growth there.

    5. DJDavid McIntosh Jr1:00:11

       Do you have an image of what self-actualization looks like for Jimmy Carr?

    6. JCJimmy Carr1:00:15

       Um, I mean, this is it, isn't it? It's the process. It's the process. It's not like something you get to. It's not the journey or the destination. It's who you become on the journey. So this is it.

    7. DJDavid McIntosh Jr1:00:26

       You must enjoy the process, not what the process buys you.

    8. JCJimmy Carr1:00:28

       Yeah.

    9. DJDavid McIntosh Jr1:00:31

       This podcast uses origin stories as self-development tools. I've got to hear yours. If you were to use one of... If you were to share one of the tools from your story that you've learned as a unoma- unanimous pill or unanimous tool for our younger audience to grab a hold of and take forward-

    10. JCJimmy Carr1:00:47

        What, so what-

    11. DJDavid McIntosh Jr1:00:48

        ... does it come to mind?

    12. JCJimmy Carr1:00:49

        What the greatest lesson, the, the- I mean-

    13. DJDavid McIntosh Jr1:00:52

        From your own story.

    14. JCJimmy Carr1:00:55

        I, it's hard to pi- it's, it's kinda hard to pick one. I mean, I suppose prioritize later would be the, the axiom that sums it all up of like the, you know, work for the future. And it's, it's that thing where you go-- I su- I suppose it's that thing where you go, hard work and discipline give you freedom. And I think it's hard to get that when you're young. It's hard to get that idea that freedom comes from, uh, the discipline. But the, that idea that it's the, your, your systems are gonna be what really makes the difference, what you do every day. How you do anything is how you do everything.

    15. DJDavid McIntosh Jr1:01:39

        What's next for Jimmy Carr?

    16. JCJimmy Carr1:01:41

        I'm gonna try and teach. I mean, I've got the new tool. I'll do that. I'll be pretty stoic, um, on stand-up. I'll write that. I'll do a little bit of TV as a side hustle. But, you know, you've gotta be-- I think you have to be slightly detached from that in terms of ego, because at some stage people go, "Yeah, we're not hiring you anymore." Great. Okay. I had a great run. Um, and then touring the world, all that, you know. Uh, and I've written this book with, with a man which I think's pretty good, uh, in terms of music has a language. So it's pretty easy for a musician from Nigeria to talk to a musician from Tokyo, and they've got a shared language and they can, they can play along together. And comedians don't really have that language. So there's a lot of magical thinking in my business. There's a lot of people sort of, uh, sort of go, "Well, I just get on stage and it just comes to me and it flows and it..." Uh, and it's, um, it's, it's, it's bullshit. You, you don't need to think like that. There's a craft, and you don't need to think that-- It doesn't, it won't spoil that part of it, the, the, the inspiration part, to know how it works and to know how to deconstruct it and to know how to, to, to write it. Um, I think that's... I don't know. I think it'd be a, that'd be a lovely thing, be a lovely way to say thank you, to demonstrate and practice gratitude for all that it's given me, to give a little something back. And, you know, I'd also become a fucking legend.

    17. DJDavid McIntosh Jr1:03:07

        [laughs]

    18. JCJimmy Carr1:03:09

        So there's that.

    19. DJDavid McIntosh Jr1:03:10

        Jimmy Carr, this has been amazing. Thank you for coming on the podcast.

    20. JCJimmy Carr1:03:12

        Yeah, no, it was very good of me.

Episode duration: 1:03:15