Captioning sponsored by Comedy Central [ cheers and applause ] stephen, stephen, stephen, stephen [ cheers and applause ] stephen thank you so much. Weve got to get going. Thank you. Thank you. With a greeting like that, i feel like i just walked into a surprise party. Big story tonight, everybody. Over 500 Al Qaeda Leaders have escaped from abu ghraib prison in iraq and with iraq facing over a thousand sectarian killings a month, experts fear the country is plunging once again into a bloody civil war. For more, go some place else because theres a royal baby [ cheers and applause ] for yet another generation, the royal family was not rendered sterile through inbreeding. Which means its time for yet another installment of. Stephen colbert presents royal after birth labor party. Fetal attraction. Birthinghips hoorah the prince of wails stephen this afternoon the royal couple finally emerged holding the yet as unnamed new princecambridge. Of course kates a trend setter. Ladies, this is the new standard for what you must look like less than 24 hours after giving birth smiling, glamorous, hair perfect, radiant and fresh. Okay. Step up your game. Once the baby was out, it was time for the couple to go home. Theyre coming out again. Like every modern parent now, youve got to have your car seat ready. Im also impressed by how this baby is able to handle all of the noise. William is going to drive the range home. That is so cool. Reporter that is so cool. I cant believe it. I must say as a traditionalist, i am disappointed they didnt take the baby home on peasantback. Of course there are still major questions left unanswered what will his name be . We know it has a head but what will be on that head . A face . The child is likely to have kates eyes, dark hair and darker skin. And wills lips and royal nose, also seen on prince philip, charles and harry. Stephen maybe, but we hear at the report have our own computergenerated specujection of what the baby might look like if he gets the queens eyes, Prince Charles ears and an englishmans teeth. Theyre so cute at that age. Nation, ever since George Zimmerman was acquitted, we havent seen hide nor hair of him. Like most winners, i assumed he had gone to disney world. Well, it turns out he was back on the neighborhood watch. George zimmerman comes out of hiding just in time to play hero just four days after being acquitted in the shooting death of trayvon martin, zimmerman came across a flippedover s. U. V. In the sanford, florida, area. He and another person helped the family get out of the vehicle. Zimmerman stayed on scene until emergency crews arrived. He then simply left. Stephen it may be the first time anyone has ever said, im sure glad George Zimmerman was following me. And if youre one of the people who believes he should be in jail, that means that you wish that family was still trapped in their burning car. Whos the monster now . Ill give you a hint its you. Of course after the trial i had hoped that americans could just lock our doors and speed through the neighborhood of racial tension, but if anything, racial tensions are now worse than ever. It is hard to believe that only a few years ago, black and white americans put aside their differences to hunt aliens. How did we forget that so soon . All right. Right, right, yeah. Last week in a surprise appearance in the White House Press room, president obama weighed in with his personal experience, empathizing with those who see the events of this case as emblematic of the black experience. There are very few africanamerican men in this country who havent had the experience of being followed when they were shopping in a department store. That includes me. Stephen its true. Even as president , everywhere he goes, hes followed by cops. Especially when hes in his limosine. Maybe because its black. I dont know. Its sad. And, folks, he want to say that his words touched me because i too have been followed around in department stores. Every time i walk into a nordstroms, im approached by clerks offering to help me find the tommy bahama collection. Why . Just because im white and im going to buy something in a loosefitting breezy played . I am but thats not the point. Thankfully theres a way to achieve racial harmony. And its the subject of tonights word. Color bind. Nation, its time we caucasianamericans accept that when it comes to furthering the racial dialogue the ball is in our court even though having the ball on a court has never been our strong suit. President obama has taken the first step by frankly discussing as a black man how it feels to be in a room full of white people who are scared of him. Now i believe its my turn to be honest about the white experience. Black people are scary. And, folks, thats not just me saying that. I mean, just ask the tv. Here is the headline. Young black men commit homicides at a rate 10 times greater than whites and hispanics combined. Heres an inconvenient fact. Any time theres interracial crime, theres an overwhelming chance that the victim is going to be white and that the criminal is going to be black. When you look at the crime numbers, africanamericans this is astonishing africanamericans make up 13 of the population, but commit more than half the murders in this country. Stephen thats not prejudice. Thats just math. So if in 2011 out of 42 million africanamericans, 4,149 were arrested for murder which means we can reasonably be scared of 9 1,000ths of one percent of africanamericans. Now, doesnt sound like a lot. Until you consider. Until you consider that we dont know which 9 1,000th of one percent. So, to be safe, we have to be scared of all of them. Folks, its the same reason. Folks, this is the same reason i assume all arabs are terrorists and all irishmen are leprechauns. Im going to get your pot of gold, daniel day lewis. Now, i know what youre saying. Youre saying, stephen, thats outrageous. With those numbers, it makes no sense to be suspicious of all black people. You should only be suspicious of black men. First of all, i cant believe you just said that on national television. Second of all, okay, youre wrong. We have to be scared of black women too because thanks to hollywood, i know that many black women are actually black men. So now, okay, now that ive done this in the dialogue of racial understanding, white people have done our part. Okay. We have shown the courage to admit were terrified, but its a twoway street, black people. Which is why right now i would like to address all my africanamerican viewers. It is your responsibility to change how white people feel about you and according to president obama theres a simple way you can do it. And there are very few africanamerican men who havent had the experience of walking across the street and hearing the locks click on the doors of cars. That happened to me, at least before i was a senator. Stephen so the answer is obvious. Black people need to become senators. Once youre electedded to the senate, no ones going to think youre going to do something to them. [ cheers and applause ] plus black men campaignings is easy. All you have to do is knock on a lot of strangers doors. What could go wrong . And believe me, once youve launchedded your political career, maybe some day you too can be president. Then youll never inspire irrational fear in white people again. And thats the word. We we [ cheers and applause ] stephen welcome back, everybody. Nation, folks, one of the many things i love about this country is that we are constantly innovating new ways to make food get in my face. We have delivery services, drivethroughs, food trucks. Legend even tells of some places where you can go inside to eat. But no one has found a solution to the ageold problem of there are some places i cant get pizza until now. How would you like to get your pizza delivered by a drone . Dominos pizza is is trying it out. The reremote controlled drone has eight spinning blades. Come knees says it can deliver two large pizzas in ten minutes within a fourmile raid use snef but dont complain to the drones manager. Nation, Dominos Pizza drone is a great way to make our Drone Program more appealing to americans. No one likes the idea of u. S. Citizens being targeted with hell fire missiles but who wouldnt want to be targeted with a cali chicken bacon ranch . One of these and you are guaranteed to become a sleeper cell. Plus ive always thought blowing up terrorists who want to destroy america is letting them off easy. Wouldnt it also be great if we could also burn the roofs of their mouths with cheese . My one concern about the come knees pizzacontinuer is that it could fundamentally alter the basic erotic nature of the customer pizza delivery guy relationship. I wonder what that would look like if i were to dream about it . Here i am in my living room. Gosh, im so hungry for food but other things. bell ringing that might be the hot delivery ive been dying to put in my mouth. Wont you come in. I left my wallet over by the couch. Ohoh. Looks like im a little short. I may not be able to pay you. But i do have a tip. Owe arent you. Oh, thank god. It was all just a dream. And you were there and you were there. And you were oh, my god. No oh oh, wow wow, it was just another dream. Or maybe this is another dream. But with [ cheers and applause ] stephen welcome back, everybody. My guest tonight has a new book out. Please welcome kenneth goldsmith. [ cheers and applause ] stephen thank you for comig on. So happy to be here. Tephen later well play some dixieland jazz or churn some fresh butter milk ice cream or recite some poetry. We could do that now. We can do it together. Stephen what have you got . What do you want to start with . I dont know. How about old susannah. Stephen i had myself a dream the other night when everything was still. I dreamed i saw my girl coming around the hill. Buckwheat cake was in her mouth and a tear in her eyes. I said i come from dixieland. Susannah, dont you cry. [ cheers and applause ] you are the poet laureate. Stephen of the museum of modern art. You have ten books of poetry. You teach writing at the university of pennsylvania. Youve got a new book called american death and disaster. Did you write this . Absolutely not. I never write any of my books. Stephen you didnt actually write this. You collected it . I transcribed it. Stephen because this book itself is actually transcriptions of realtime reporting of deaths and disasters as they happen in the united states. Absolutely. Stephen you start off with j. F. K. Absolutely. Stephen its a little Radio Station in dallas. K. L. I. F. Stephen thats dallas news leader. Its just a warning in 1963. Theyre talking about having a nice turkey. Were talking november 22 here. Slowly it dawns on this guy that this little shooting downtown turned into one of our greatest national tragedies. Why did you want us to hear every word of this . The radio sounded different back then than it does now. Thats what happens throughout the book. Every transcription has a mark on it. This is a beautiful sort of fantasy time that is punctuated by an assassination or a shooting at that point of a president. You know, it shatters the entire illusion of prethngs giving holidays. These guys that are broadcasting this are not prepared in anyway for this to happen. Suddenly they are improvising, riding by the seat of their pants and making it up. This happens again and again and again. One chapter of this book about the World Trade Center is remarkable because there are morning shock jock guys going into to work figuring theyre going to do their schtick and then a plane goes into a building. Theyre stuck in the studio narrating something that they have no idea about. This is incredible. How they have to make it up as they go along. Whats amazing to me is that there have been hundreds of books written about 9 11. To my knowledge, nobody went to listen to the way those events were describedded. Stephen maybe they listened to it but then they did additional work. But that work. Artists are dumb. Stephen artists are dumb . We do things that you shouldnt do. What im doing is too easy for investigative reporters to do. By doing something that is that simple, were uncovering something that nobody else has actually ever thought of. The poetic quality of what was unfurling linguistically at that moment. Stephen you have seven of these. Reporting on the death in realtime of j. F. K. , r. F. K. , john lennon, the columbine tragedy, september 11, the challenger disaster and Michael Jacksons death. All these things, these seven different events, we know what is happening when we read this. These people who are just living their lives thinking its an ordinary day dont know its coming. When i read this, i feel like im some sort of timetraveling espy who is coming in sample other peoples shock. Im tasting their disbelief and the way. And the way its changing them forever. I am tasting it while i read it. And it feels empiric. Are you giving us a feast of other peoples blood . These are the tragedies that mark our lives. Stephen why not go back to. both talking at the same time . Stephen just forget they happened. They happened. Stephen just forget they happened so we can move on to happy days again. Then we have things like the Boston Marathon bombing which could have made an 8th chap chapter of this book. Stephen whats the point to going back to looking at them . There will always be another one. Why dont you write the next book of the next eight or nine of these that happened. This book can go on forever. That really is. Stephen thats sad. My desire does not think about bad things. You must think about sad things. Stephen why . Because sad things happen. Stephen put on a happy face. Susannah, oh, dont you cry for me. The book is seven american deaths and . cwo . Kko . O . o . Oooscwwnwnwnwi . Zo