Cem Yılmaz: Diamond Elite Platinum Plus

A NETFLIX COMEDY SPECIAL

Turn it on.

We have to do this. This is a municipality thing. Rule.

Whatever is on the poster... Otherwise people complain about it.

To avoid "It's on the poster, he went on with a T-shirt" complaints.

Look, I did the whole thing. I didn't skip it because of the pandemic.

Welcome.

Just because I've never had a big stage costume,

I wanted to do something like this with a cape, you know?

It's cool, isn't it?

Right? Because you don't use the cape in daily life.

Actually, I'm personally very sorry that it's outdated.

Look at this. Imagine yourself in this in Zincirlikuyu. Right?

I mean, who can cut in front of you in line for the metrobus, you know?

Who can ask for your HES code? Look at this.

You, standing there like the Duke of Bağcılar.

Cool, isn't it? I'm leaving my cape here.

Just to clarify, you know,

it's not like I'm passing the torch here.

I never had a beautiful costume. I started this tour in London first.

I wanted to take my cape and baton for the tour.

They didn't allow this on the plane, dude.

They said, "You can't bring that into the plane."

As if I was trying to shove it into the plane.

"You can't bring it into the plane."

They asked, "What are you going to do with that in England?"

I mean, it's clear that it's a baton, right?

I don't know what comes to your mind, but...

I'd get the concern if this came in a set with some lotion.

Can't take this on the plane, can't take that on the plane...

I swear, I'm tired of it.

Do you know why our show is called "Diamond Elite Platinum Plus"?

I went to a faculty of theology in Bursa for a talk.

Someone said on social media,

"Cem, beware, this is theology!"

God. As if the Vatican sent me to Bursa.

With incense in my hand.

"Green Bursa will be ours."

What's gonna happen in the faculty of theology? God created me, too.

I was chatting with the young students. One asked,

"Why is your show called 'Diamond Elite Platinum Plus'?"

I said, "Dude, it represents you, it's not about me."

"You're the diamond, you're the elite, you're the platinum."

"You don't deserve regular treatment. You deserve much better, that's why."

"What will you talk about?" he asked. I said, "What I know."

I said, "I've seen that many people have benefited from the things I talk about,

so I'll continue doing that." I hadn't been on stage for some time.

I saw you make your own comedy, you're creative.

Like your TikTok videos, Instagram videos...

Your jokes while driving a car... Like this, like that...

You made jokes with a teapot when I wasn't around.

Didn't you? "Alala mamama, fuck your grandma..."

But I kept my patience...

I decided to do a show before Ata Demirer makes another Aegean movie.

You know, he has those movies with a clarinet. "Fuck, what is happening, yo?"

I said, no more.

Time for me to talk now.

But nobody owns the rights to make comedy. Of course you'd make your own.

Not only that, to me... I'm someone...

I tell the jokes that make me laugh... Seems like my rivals were closer to me.

The enemy is within.

I brought my son to one of my shows so he could see what I do.

He keeps getting diamonds for his iPad games, tap, tap, tap.

I wanted him to see his poor old man getting 100 liras, one by one.

This is how we get our diamonds.

It's very laborious for a celebrity to have a kid, you know?

With your kids, you guys are freer. You're on each other's Instagram accounts.

People write nice comments. Send "Namaste" and heart emojis. "Such an angel!"

If we uploaded a video of our kid dancing,

they'd comment, "The kid must be a moron."

And it doesn't matter if the kid has the accumulated IQ of his whole family.

I'm not looking for a diamond in the rough, but he's a brilliant kid.

He says really smart things.

Young people ask me, "Cem, sir, should we have kids?"

If you have a tablet, go for it. You have an iPad, do it.

If not, don't even think about it.

Honestly.

Experts complain, "Oh, they give the child a tablet right away."

I dare you not to!

What happened with the pandemic? Everything's on...

Can you take the tablet away from the kid?

All his school life would end.

As far as the experts are concerned,

whatever is trending, keep your kid away from it.

When I was a kid, they used to say, "Don't let them watch too much TV."

Dude, they would turn the TV on at 7:00 p.m.

There was only one channel. With my brother,

we would play in front of the turned-off TV,

to see our reflection on it and have fun.

Poor us. The '70s kids.

With starch, cracked wheat and tarhana soup, that's all we could do.

We achieved all of this just on potatoes. Our generation is the real deal.

They say, "Oh, the new generation..."

"They are so smart."

Dude, if you gave me that much folic acid...

Folic, folic, folic, folic... "Did you get your folic?"

"Take your iron. Take your folic acid."

The baby gets all that folic...

When he gets out, he asks, "What's the iPad's passcode?"

Yeah...

I even saw a kid who was registered for school

as he came out of the delivery room.

Comes out, all wet...

"I want to attend Robert College."

The generation before ours, poor things, thought there were people in the radio.

Fucking idiots!

What were you fed? "We thought there was a man inside the radio."

Twisted generation.

New generation is so smart... For their own parents.

We have a saying: "You can't pay your debt to your parents."

Yeah, but it can be calculated, bastard.

Honesty is important.

Our elders who raised us, our role models,

that's the way they were. My dad, my mom, really...

I can give examples of men.

My maternal uncle, my uncle-in-law,

they were important figures. We learned a lot. My uncle,

he's one of the most important alcoholics.

You know who my uncle is? My uncle... You know AMATEM?

Addiction treatment center. My uncle graduated from it twice.

My uncle is the big boss at the end of the game in AMATEM.

You need to defeat heroin to fight my uncle.

He hasn't been drinking for 15, 16 years.

He was an important alcoholic.

And his tragedy saved our lives.

My dear uncle, during the '60s, '70s, '80s, '90s and early 2000s,

because he was drinking all this time, neither me or my brother nor my cousins

ever had anything to do with alcoholism.

Because my uncle would drink everything.

He drank it all, so we had nothing to drink.

His drinking was off the charts.

Unbelievable.

Nobody could compete with the amount he was drinking.

In '87, he had a car accident.

In Yedikule, his car rolls over five times.

My uncle flies through the windshield.

He is on the road like this, 300 meters away from his car.

Lying on the ground like this.

For half an hour.

Half an hour later, this happens.

He sees a car crash ahead.

Decides to go help them.

He asks the police officer what's going on.

Buttoning his jacket and all.

The policeman says, "There's been a huge crash, but we can't find the driver."

My uncle says, "Humanity is not dead," so he starts looking for the driver too.

Really.

He is a very important man.

He hasn't been drinking for 16 years. My advice to young people is,

it really is not something I'd recommend. For example, me, I don't drink much.

I drink. But I drink responsibly.

Sometimes, just because I have Instagram photos or videos drinking rakı,

people go, "You godless..."

Man, I drink normally.

That's all I drink. Don't get shocked to see me drinking on Instagram...

"He posted rakı on Instagram." Yes.

Because normally, I drink, that's why.

Should I have done this instead,

shown hot dipping sauce, icy almonds, melon, ice,

but no rakı?

Just like, "Allah doesn't follow me on Instagram anyway."

"He sent a request, but I didn't respond." Like that?

How shameful. If I drink, I drink.

If I burn in hell, so be it. What can I do?

But of course, it's not something I'd recommend.

The answer to what I really talk about is this.

My show is about eliminating the things that drain the happiness out of our lives.

Seriously.

Look, we have serious problems with having fun.

It's the same all around the world,

but our people have extra issues with having fun.

There's a thing called genetic poverty.

Like "poverty of happiness."

I'm included in this group, too, but...

if we can remove these from our lives...

For example, that's the "plus" I'm talking about on the poster.

Pay attention to the man who says this while laughing:

"We're having so much fun. Wish we had seen this before."

Listen to that.

"Oh, very funny. Really."

"Isn't it?"

"Better record it, so I can laugh again later."

These are key indicators.

A moment... You know, people have learned this during the pandemic,

"I've learned to live in the moment."

Fuck off! We know nothing about the moment.

"Moment" was important in the 1970s or '60s.

There's no such thing as a moment now.

It's in our photos.

Look at the birthday photos of my generation.

A single frame. Cake and friends.

Our vacations, a single frame.

Ephesus ruins and us.

Living in the moment was then.

Now, at a kid's birthday, at a special occasion...

Man, there's a button called "burst" on the camera.

Just as they're about to slice the cake...

Two hundred and seventy-eight shots of this.

Which one is "the moment"?

None.