Australian-born comedian Jim Jeffries calls his most recent tour "Freedumb."
Here's why: Not long ago, he told a joke about Americans' obsession with their guns.
He got hate mail.
The letters would open with “I don’t expect you to understand freedom” or “In this country, we fight for freedom”
“It was always like that and so I started to delve into that,” said the Los Angeles-based standup known for turning bad behavior into a cottage industry.
Jeffries is from Australia and back home, guns have been nearly completely outlawed since the horrific 1996 Port Arthur, Tasmania, massacre. The result, Jeffries tells his audiences, has been remarkable; not a single mass shooting in the 20 years since.
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Jeffries, 39, will likely relate that bit of trivia when he hits the Casino del Sol Conference Center stage Friday, March 11. We're getting him as he hits the homestretch to his May show in Nashville, Tennessee, that he will film for a TV comedy special.
“I want to get the show as smooth as possible before I record it. You are right at the end of me trying ot get it ready," said the father of a 3-year-old boy. "What you don’t want to see is a show right after I’ve recorded a special, when it’s all brand new and I don’t know what to do with it.”
We caught up with Jeffries on the phone at his Los Angeles home to talk about his first-ever Tucson show and what we can expect.
A little profane, a little political or a little of both.
“It depends on what mood I’m in on the day. If I’m feeling political, it will be a lot of political stuff. I’ll tell sex jokes. There will be stuff about my kid and some stuff on religion, and some stuff on social commentary."
Drawing humor from the headlines.
“All across the world is funny politics. I find it amusing that (in the United states) it always rotates about three subjects that they talk about over and over and over again: It’s healthcare and it’s abortion and gun control. Basically the same three things over and over again. In Australia, they are not even really (discuss) those things. Everybody has healthcare and it’s sort of seen as a given. Abortion — there are no pro-lifers who are going to get upset — and gun control isn’t an issue, either. We usually talk about how we’re going to educate our kids and what are we going to do with elderly people and tax reforms and immigration.”
Bagging on America.
“I live here and therefore this is what I know the best. When I lived in Britain, I bagged on the British. When I lived in Australia, I bagged on Australia. It’s the environment around me that I’m going to (focus on).”
But he's not doing it from afar.
“I could have done this (TV) special in Australia. I could have done it in London. But it’s gutless to give my opinion on a country in front of a foreign audience. So I’m doing it right in the heart of America in Nashville. That takes balls. Then all the people can say alright, shut your mouth. But it takes more balls to do it there and more respectful. Just because I don’t believe in the Second Amendment doesn’t mean that I don’t think America is a wonderful place to live and I’m happy to raise my child here. ... I don’t agree with some of its rules or some of its way of living or some people’s way of thinking, but it turns out you watch these political debates and none of us is agreeing with any of us. You have a country of people that can’t agree on anything. .. The only reason people are offended by me giving my opinion is because I’m foreign. That’s the only reason because everyone else seems to be giving constant beatings to everyone. So if I hate America for speaking out against things I don’t like, then we all (expletive) hate America, because you’re all giving your opinion — ‘We should have guns.' 'We shouldn’t have guns.’ ‘We should have healthcare.’ ‘We shouldn’t have healthcare.’ You’re all doing it to each other so you all hate America then. It’s lunacy to think that any person on this planet has to move into a country and say ‘I think this is perfect'.”
