What a week to be a high-profile comedian! On both sides of the pond, a comedian has made an error in judgement, and has had to go to maximum spin to prevent major career damage. With American Adam Carolla, it’s what he said, while with British comic Jimmy Carr, it’s what he didn’t say, and for a long period of time.

                 Earlier this week, it was revealed that Carr, a long time host of the comedy panel show 8 Out of 10 Cats, had been involved in a tax scheme which allows great sums of earnings to be siphoned to out-of-country accounts. Carr is not the only celebrity to invest in the scheme, but is by far the highest paid, and it was thus easier to catch him with his hand in the cookie jar. By merely resigning from his company, he was able to divert nearly all of his reported £3.3 million average salary from the past few years to interests outside England, leaving him owing approximately 1% British tax. That revelation hasn’t gone down too well with the fans that pay to see his concerts. They know they’re lining his pockets, they just didn’t know to what degree.

                   On one hand, you like to see rich stars get their comeuppance for showing such blatant greed. The rich DO pay less taxes, at least percentage-wise, because they can afford the very best accountants, who know all the loopholes. Many comedians I’ve worked with on the road have had difficulties doing simple tasks like posting a letter, so asking them to assess their taxes properly is asking a lot. Brilliant minds, many of them, but common sense sometimes in the minus category. While I was never a fan of Carr’s breed of comedy, I worked with him several times when I was first here and he was on his way up, then hung with him once after he’d gotten famous, and happily found him to be the same nice guy. While there was an awareness of his status, he chose to talk to me as a peer, and having dealt with comics before and after fame who seemed to transform into total cunts after (oh, hello, Seinfeld), I was impressed with Carr’s attitude. Perhaps it’s that same kind of innocence that allowed him to be talked into the scheme. This morning he has tweeted his apology for bad judgement, still a bit of a chicken-shit ploy when a public press conference would probably serve him better.

                  I met Adam Carolla on his way up too, working with him in 1998 at Pasdena’s Ice House. There was minimum conversation backstage, but I was impressed by his act, very political and out-spoken, plus we were coming from the same side on most of the main issues. Since then, he has made a career in talk radio, prevailing at a time when most liberal talk show hosts have a shelf life of your average carton of yogurt.  So I really can’t figure what made him become the latest in a succession of male comics to proclaim that there are no funny female comics. Just a bad move, no matter how you slice it.

                    Carolla’s apology has not exactly been sincere or endearing either, but even if you REALLY feel that way, you’re digging a Grand Canyon for yourself if you choose to publicly state such a ridiculous thing. It just doesn’t go down well, because not only do the PC forces come after you, but you end up looking the idiot. Jerry Lewis was the guest of honor at the Montreal comedy festival several years ago, and while being interviewed by Martin Short, he made remarks that were on the level of “Why do they try to be funny? Why aren’t they just in the kitchen where they belong?” Short gave Lewis several chances to redeem himself amidst the audience booing, asking him, “So you were never impressed by Lucille Ball?” and his response was on the level of “She was as good as her writers.”

                   So the funny may not always manifest itself with girls the way it does with guys, but you’d think Carolla, as liberal as he has professed himself to be, wouldn’t have gone there. To say there are no funny females is a blanket condemnation, and a stupid one at that. There are plenty that have made me laugh over the years (Tina Fey most recently), and admittedly some that have nauseated me, but the same can be said of male comics. The stand-up world has been male-dominated since time immemorial, so I guess it’s not that unusual to see remarks like Carolla’s surface from time to time.  

                   We should shed no tears over either Carr or Carolla (their names might show up together in some alphabetical listing of comics were it not for Allan Carr), their careers have merely taken little blows. Carr might face up to a huge fine, where Carolla might deal with a suspension. Ultimately, it’s just being human, and since none of us are perfect, we have all been guilty of ignorance, stupidity, or carelessness many times in our life. These two just happened to very publicly get caught, and we can breathe easier knowing it didn’t happen to any of us…. Not THIS time anyway.