>> that's our show. here it is your moment of zen. >> the royal highness, eight captioning sponsored by comedy central [ cheers and applause ] >> stephen, stephen, stephen, stephen!

[ cheers and applause ] >> stephen: thank you so much. we've 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 there's a royal baby! [ cheers and applause ] for yet another generation, the royal family was not rendered

sterile through inbreeding. which means it's time for yet another installment of. >> stephen colbert presents "royal after birth: labor party. fetal attraction. birthing-hips hoorah: the prince of wails: >> stephen: this afternoon the royal couple finally emerged holding the yet as unnamed new prince-cambridge. of course kate's 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. >> they're coming out again. like every modern parent now, you've got to have your car seat

ready. i'm 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 can't believe it. i must say as a traditionalist, i am disappointed they didn't take the baby home on peasant-back. 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 kate's eyes, dark hair and darker skin. and will's lips and royal nose, also seen on prince philip, charles and harry. >> stephen: maybe, but we hear at the report have our own computer-generated specujection of what the baby might look like if he gets the queen's eyes,

prince charles' ears and an englishman's teeth. they're so cute at that age. nation, ever since george zimmerman was acquitted, we haven't 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 flipped-over 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, "i'm sure glad george zimmerman was following me."

and if you're 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. who's the monster now? i'll give you a hint: it's 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 african-american men in this country who haven't had the experience of being followed when they were shopping in a department store. that includes me. >> stephen: it's true. even as president, everywhere he goes, he's followed by cops. especially when he's in his limosine. maybe because it's black. i don't know. it's 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 nordstrom's, i'm approached by clerks offering to help me find the tommy bahama collection. why? just because i'm white and i'm going to buy something in a loose-fitting breezy played? i am but that's not the point. thankfully there's a way to achieve racial harmony. and it's the subject of tonight's word.

color bind. nation, it's time we caucasian-americans 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 it's my turn to be honest about the white experience. black people are scary. and, folks, that's 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.

>> here's an inconvenient fact. any time there's interracial crime, there's 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, african-americans -- this is astonishing -- african-americans make up 13% of the population, but commit more than half the murders in this country. >> stephen: that's not prejudice. that's just math. so if in 2011 out of 42 million african-americans, 4,149 were arrested for murder which means we can reasonably be scared of 9/1,000ths of one percent of african-americans. now, doesn't sound like a lot. until you consider... until you consider that we don't know which 9/1,000th of one

percent. so, to be safe, we have to be scared of all of them. folks, it's the same reason... folks, this is the same reason i assume all arabs are terrorists and all irishmen are leprechauns. i'm going to get your pot of gold, daniel day lewis. now, i know what you're saying. you're saying, "stephen, that's 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 can't believe you just said that on national television. second of all, okay, you're 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 i've done

this in the dialogue of racial understanding, white people have done our part. okay. we have shown the courage to admit we're terrified, but it's a two-way street, black people. which is why right now i would like to address all my african-american viewers. it is your responsibility to change how white people feel about you and according to president obama there's a simple way you can do it. >> and there are very few african-american men who haven't 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 you're electedded to the senate, no one's going to think you're going to do something to them. [ cheers and applause ] plus black men campaigning's is easy. all you have to do is knock on a lot of strangers' doors. what could go wrong? and believe me, once you've launchedded your political career, maybe some day you too can be president. then you'll never inspire irrational fear in white people again. and that's the word.

[ 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, drive-throughs, food trucks. legend even tells of some places where you can go inside to eat. but no one has found a solution to the age-old problem of "there are some places i can't get pizza" until now. >> how would you like to get your pizza delivered by a drone? domino's pizza is is trying it out. the reremote controlled drone has eight spinning blades. come knee's says it can deliver two large pizzas in ten minutes within a four-mile raid use snef but don't complain to the drone's manager. nation, domino's 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 wouldn't want to be targeted with a cali chicken bacon ranch? one of these and you are guaranteed to become a sleeper

cell. plus i've always thought blowing up terrorists who want to destroy america is letting them off easy. wouldn't it also be great if we could also burn the roofs of their mouths with cheese? my one concern about the come knee's pizza-continuer 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, i'm so hungry for food but other things. (bell ringing) that might be the hot delivery i've been dying to put in my mouth. won't you come in. i left my wallet over by the couch.

oh-oh. looks like i'm a little short. i may not be able to pay you. but i do have a tip. owe aren't 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 ?ç?çwóóooo?o?ó?ooosçwwwnwnwnwío

[ 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 we'll 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 don't 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, don't 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. you've got a new book called american death and disaster. did you write this? >> absolutely not. i never write any of my books. >> stephen: you didn't actually

write this. you collected it? >> i transcribed it. stephen: because this book itself is actually transcriptions of real-time reporting of deaths and disasters as they happen in the united states. >> absolutely. stephen: you start off with j.f.k. >> absolutely. stephen: it's a little radio station in dallas. >> k.l.i.f. stephen: that's dallas' news leader. it's just a warning in 1963. they're talking about having a nice turkey. we're 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. that's 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 pre-thngs 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 they're going to do their schtick and then a plane goes into a building. they're 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. what's 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 shouldn't do. what i'm doing is too easy for investigative reporters to do. by doing something that is that simple, we're 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 jackson's 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 it's an ordinary day don't know it's coming. when i read this, i feel like i'm some sort of time-traveling espy who is coming in sample other people's shock. i'm tasting their disbelief and the way... and the way it's changing them forever. i am tasting it while i read it. and it feels empiric. are you giving us a feast of other people's 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: what's the point to going back to looking at them? there will always be another one. >> why don't 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: that's 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, don't you cry for me. the book is seven american deaths and