Which story is better?
“I did this joke, saying, ‘If I can’t beat the guy up, I’d sue the bastard.’”
From the audience came a yell. “Hey, Jew-boy!”
In a beat the comic replied, “Listen, pal. I wouldn’t need my lawyer for you, OK? Knock it off.”
Again came the taunt, “Jew-boy!”
It was a hot moment as the comic turned to him, “You know, look at the size of you, you big Aryan man you. I’ll be honest with you. You’d probably kick the shit out of me. There’s really nothing I could do. And, yet, I feel bad for you, because I know that’s not somethng you learned in college, how to hate Jews. So it must be something you learned at home around the dinner table. Your father, working for a rich Jewish man, saying ‘Jew, Jew, Jew, Jew-boy’. Yeah, you’d kick the shit out of me.”
As the comic scanned the audience his eyes settled on a table of black students.
“Hey you black dudes out there! If he hates Jews, you know what he thinks about you guys. Would you take that shit? ” With their attention riveted on him, he asked, “Could you do me a favor? Will you escort this asshole out of here?”
“You got it, brother!” came the reply.
The black students stood up as a group of ten and turned to the taunter. One of them said, “Get your motherfucking ass out!”
“I said, ‘Thank you.’ They walked this guy right out the door. I called to him as he left, ‘Take it easy.’”
In most cases during trials the confrontation is with the witnesses, not with your opponent.
As a district attorney I was babysitting a death penalty murder case for a while. A high-powered guy–that’s a dangerous criminal brought in as a witness–came in to say some BS testimony. He’s in handcuffs.
When he got off the witness stand he goes, hauls off and slugs the baliff, cold-cocks him, knocks him about ten feet in the air, knocks his tooth out. This high-powered guy has no control.
The defendant is sitting at the other end of counsel table while this is all going on, saying to me, “I’m going to kill you.” That I took seriously. It was very cold, and left me fearful, in a state of disbelief. This guy is a cold-blooded killer.
The irony is he’s free and living with the attorneys in their house. They’re writing books together.