Jason Cook: grit, determination, a cracker of a story and a new movie…

Jason Cook on his phone in Borehamwood

Jason Cook has turned up occasionally in this blog.

The last time was in December 2021 when my opening sentence was “You need grit and determination – and nowadays, ideally, the potential for sequels – to get movies made…”

Jason Cook has grit and determination, is indefatigable, has a staggeringly fertile creative mind and he has sequels and now a prequel. 

He also has dyslexia but has so far published four linked semi-autobiographical gangster novels, a children’s book called Rats in Space (the title explains it all) and a novel about the Rave scene, set in the 1980s and 1990s – Euphoria – Pirates of the South.

He has long had plans to film the first of his four semi-autobiographical gangster books There’s No Room For Jugglers in My Circus.

But now his first film is being released and it is a prequel to that, a set-up, for the planned four main semi-autobiographical gangster movies based on his novels.

Cookster: The Darkest Days is being screened this Saturday at the adventurous Genesis Cinema in Mile End Road as part of the London Independent Film Festival.

The plotline? 

“A dyslexic teen misunderstood by his family, abandoned by the system and desperate for respect, becomes a drug dealer struggling to balance his addiction and debt to a local gangster while a rival threatens to destroy his world, driving him apart from the woman he loves and a daughter he’s never known.”

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JASON: So, after 20 years, we managed to get the budget together from various investors and a film production company called Silent D Pictures.

Indefatigable Djonny Chen of Silent D Pictures

JOHN: That’s Djonny Chen’s company.

He is almost as indefatigable as you…

JASON: Yes. Djonny has made 27 films since Covid – directed and/or produced/executive produced.

And he’s lined up to do another two films with me – Pirates of the South and Rats in Space. as well as Cookster: There’s No Room For Jugglers in My Circus, the follow-up to Cookster: The Darkest Days.

JOHN: And now you’ve written a fifth Cookster book to go with the film.

JASON: Yes. That’ll come out this year.

JOHN: So Cookster: The Darkest Days is about you growing up in Borehamwood, where we both live.

JASON: Yes. We shot it over 18 days in Borehamwood and Radlett – all on location.

Craige Middleburg plays the slightly older, dodgy Jason

In this film, I’m played from ages 12 to 18. Two actors play me: one younger, one older. Samuel Staite plays young Jason. Craige Middleburg is the older me.

Then there’s Nick Moran from Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels who plays my dad and Tracy Shaw from Coronation Street plays my mum.

JOHN: You shot part of the film at the school you actually attended as a kid.

JASON: Yes. Parkside School in Borehamwood. It doesn’t have the same head as when I was there.

JOHN: Had they heard of you by repute at the school?

JASON: Yes. They’d heard I had been a naughty young lad and that I suffered from ADHD and dyslexia. Back then, they thought I was no use: I lacked confidence and lacked focus and they reckoned I would never amount to anything and I would end up in prison.

JOHN: Well, you did end up in prison, but now you’ve written all these books and co-produced this film.

JASON: I couldn’t read or write at the time when they reckoned I would never amount to anything. I spent most of my younger years standing outside the headmaster’s office: well, it was a headmistress back then.

JOHN: Did she ever amount to anything?

JASON: No. Not that I know of.

JOHN: Did the school welcome you back with open arms?

JASON: They were very helpful. We got the design team to come in and put the classrooms back to the early 1980s. We had the school uniforms, the chalkboards instead of the digital whiteboards they’ve got on the wall now. 

Cookster – The Darkest Days is coming

All the locations had to be re-dressed for the era. We’re talking about me from 12 to 18. So 1975 to early 1980s. We re-dressed my mum’s house.

JOHN: Do you appear in the film?

JASON: You’ll miss me if you blink.

JOHN: Djonny has links to Indonesia.

JASON: Yes, he has links to distribution over there.

JOHN: Any changes to appeal to the Indonesian market?

JASON: We changed one character in the script from British to Indonesian and it worked really well. The actress playing her is Elvira Devinamira. She’s Indonesian.

We leave the film on a cliffhanger, ready to go into the next film Cookster: There’s No Room for Jugglers in My Circus. The government has now given us more tax credits, so we can now claim up to about 70% on the production. 

JOHN: And other film projects?

JASON: I’m working on Rats in Space. We’ve got American producers involved now. It’s an animation, based on a true-life story that I wrote.

Jason has plans for Rats In Space – based on a true story ??

JOHN: Yer what? A true life story??

JASON: A French rat was put in a rocket and shot to the Moon. He never made it to the Moon, but he managed to get back alive. So I wrote a story about how he became an astronaut.

JOHN: Will the rat do any promotional interviews to publicise the movie when it comes out?

JASON: That’s difficult to say.

Hirsute Jason is a man of many hats and movie ideas but he has no dandruff…

Our trip from a Canadian strip club via US neo-Nazis, South Africa to Rhodesia

David Hughes in the 1980s…

This all started, three blogs ago, as a piece about David Hughes, who worked as a doorman/cashier/DJ at the Le Strip club in Toronto from 1982 to 1994. 

It then began to divert via undercover work for the CSIS (the Canadian Security Intelligence Service), neo-Nazis, a massive counterfeiting scheme, planned terrorism in the 1980s, a far right Christian Identity religious group, a Ku Klux Klan gathering and a South African apartheid regime connection to, at the end of the last blog, membership of the Rhodesian Army.

“Hold on!” I said to David Hughes. “The Rhodesian Army”?

So, I think not unreasonably, I asked him for more background…

He responded…

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David serving in the York Regional Police, in the 1970s…

As far as the Rhodesian Army was concerned, I became aware of the conflict ongoing in that country while attending Police College in Alymer, Ontario as a member of York Regional Police Force in 1976. 

One of my classmates, Ken, was a member of Peel Regional Police Force and had recently immigrated to Canada after spending several years in the BSAP (British South Africa Police) who were the equivalent to our RCMP in the then-country of Rhodesia.

He was about ten years older than me and I looked up to him as a mentor with his worldly experience – not only as a police officer in Rhodesia but also because of his prior service as a ‘bobby’ in the Birmingham police force in Great Britain.

Ken told me I was too young to be policeman and that I should travel the world and join either the BSAP in South Africa or the Rhodesian Army.

So, in December 1978, I took him up on his advice and quit York Regional police.

By January 1979 I had flown to Rhodesia and joined the Rhodesian Army. 

David Hughes says: “The Rhodesian Army was 85% African during that era and these are some of the African soldiers served with at the time – tough, disciplined soldiers…” (Photo taken April 1979)

May 1979: David Hughes in the Rhodesian Army “in my ‘blackface’ – We called it “black is beautiful camo creme”.

Initially, I was posted as a recruit to the Rhodesian SAS regiment where I underwent three months of their recruit training and selection – but I ultimately dropped off the course and transferred into the Rhodesian Armoured Car Regiment where I served under American Major Darryl Winkler (a former US Army Vietnam veteran who had received a battlefield commission during that war).

I served in that unit throughout the remainder of the Bush War until Rhodesia ultimately became Zimbabwe in 1980.

Obtaining an early discharge from the Zimbabwe Army, I traveled to South Africa and went to the SADF (South African Defence Force) recruiting office in Pretoria and was given an offer of employment. 

I was all set to join the SADF and engage in the war that was beginning in earnest in that country when I got homesick and returned to Canada.

I tried to get hired by 13 different police forces in Canada when I returned but no police force would touch me because of the ‘racist’ connotations associated with the Rhodesian conflict.

I spent the next five years working three jobs (one of which was at Le Strip) in order to make a living before I was hired by Canadian Pacific Rail in 1986 and my fortunes began to change for the better. Even then I still hung on to the the part-time job at Le Strip until 1994 because my level of seniority at the railway was such that I still needed part-time work to make ends meet.

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… and that sort-of takes us back to the start of the first of these four blogs.

The Canadian spies, white supremacists and South African secret agents affair…

This all started three days ago with a blog about a Canadian striptease club called Le Strip.

Life seemed so simple then.

Yesterday’s follow-up blog was titled: THE NOT-SO SIMPLE TALE OF A CANADIAN STRIP CLUB AND TERRORISM IN THE 1980s.

It was about David Hughes, who worked as a doorman/cashier/DJ at Le Strip 1982-1994… and as a trainman on the Canadian Pacific Railway system 1986-2019…  and as a ‘Confidential Informant’ for the Ontario Provincial Police… and for CSIS (the Canadian Security Intelligence Service) around that time.

Now take a big breath…

BOSS, (the apartheid South African government’s Bureau of State Security 1969-1980) enters the story…

In yesterday’s blog about David Hughes’ undercover work in Canada, he said:

“Grant Bristow’s meeting with Max French at Le Strip was arranged by me… At the time, Grant was a Confidential Informant for CSIS (which I also had a indirect role in creating).”

So, obviously, I asked about this role.

He replied:

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The role I am referring to is how Grant Bristow came to the attention of CSIS and ended up becoming a CI for them.  It was as a result of his recruitment by the South African embassy in Toronto (around 1984?) to provide intelligence on ANC (African National Congress) personnel in the city who were organizing protests against the apartheid regime in South Africa at the time.

Grant had met a couple of the South African embassy’s “diplomatic staff” (BOSS agents, no doubt) and parlayed his friendship and knowledge of my serving in the Rhodesian Army in 1979/80 into a job offer from them to provide information that would assist the South Africans in their battle against the ANC.

At the time Grant was working for Kuehne+Nagel in Toronto… One of the services they offered back in the 1980s/1990s was private investigators (who were required to be licensed under Provincial legislation) to ferret out employee theft and fraud.

They had contracts with Canada Post to provide security services at the Gateway Postal sorting facility and Grant spent a lot of time there doing undercover work for the security company in addition to his part time work as a DJ at Le Strip. 

Kuehne+Nagel was where (I think?) he got his first taste of undercover work which was to stand him in good stead when he began to act as a CI for CSIS. He had a unique personality trait that I think helped ingratiate him into whatever role was required of him at the time. His personality could be demure as a sheepdog or as brash and bombastic as a WWE wrestler calling out his opponent in the ring combined with a chameleon like ability to instantly blend into whatever social environment he was enmeshed in at the moment. 

He managed to gather a handful of  would-be security staff into his plan and out of the blue one day called me up and asked if I would give his ‘recruits’ a lecture on the ANC.

I agreed and about a half dozen of ‘Grant’s Gaggle’ showed up at my apartment one weekend. I spent the next hour or so giving them the benefit of what I knew about the ANC as a result of my experiences in Rhodesia/Zimbabwe in 1979/80… which, honestly, wasn’t really much.

Grant was a little vague about exactly what he was up to… I could not figure out whether what he was telling me about the South Africans was legitimate or not.

Through all of this, though, Grant attracted the attention of CSIS and they managed to turn him into a CI and he began working against the interests of the South African Embassy in Toronto and gave CSIS information which ultimately led to the expulsion of a number of the South African diplomatic staff for “activities inconsistent with their diplomatic status”.

All of this occurred before his recruitment into the white supremacist neo-Nazi Heritage Front (see previous blog) and activities as a CSIS spy in that group for several years in what was called by CSIS, “OP Governor”.

When Grant’s role was exposed by the Toronto Sun in the mid-1990s, a public outcry led the Conservative Government of the time to convene an inquiry by the Security Intelligence Review Committee into the matter.

I gave in-camera testimony at the committee and their report, titled The Heritage Front Affair, under the Chairmanship of the Right Honorable Val Meredith ultimately determined that CSIS (while testing the limits of what was appropriate for the agency) acted within the limits of their mandate under the law and that Grant Bristow had performed an act of great benefit to his country and its citizens.

A conclusion that, in my opinion, was entirely correct.

Of course, Grant was given a new identity by CSIS and spirited to an unknown location somewhere in Canada where he was paid for the services he had rendered to the Government of Canada as a CSIS spy.

For me, life went on as normal and I worked often with Max French at CP Rail until I transferred to the London Division in 1998 and spent the remainder of my career working out of that terminal. Oftentimes I would run a train to Toronto and see Max in passing. In all of that time he never indicated that he suspected me during our association.

To this day, unless he reads this blog, I wonder if he ever did…

PS – I attach a photo of me back in those days…much better than the AI pic you created yesterday.

…and also one of me in the Rhodesian Army. 

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HOLD ON! HOLD ON!… “One of me in the Rhodesian Army”… ???

(…AND THE ANSWER IS HERE…)

The not-so simple tale of a Canadian strip club and terrorism in the 1980s

Yesterday’s blog involved reaction to a Comment on an October 2014 blog I posted about a Toronto striptease club called Le Strip.

Le Strip during its heyday in the 1980s…

The person who reacted to the Comment – David Hughes – had worked as doorman/cashier/DJ at Le Strip from 1982 to 1994.

In the reaction he posted, he mentioned an exotic dancer with the stage name ‘Black Magic’, a spy story, neo-Nazis and the largest counterfeit money scheme in Canadian history. He finished with “There is a lot more to the backstory that I won’t get into here but I have been giving some thought to writing a memoir about it in the future.”

So, obviously, I contacted him and said: “If you want to give the bare outline of the story/stories, without undermining any future memoir of yours, obviously I and my blog readers would be fascinated to know more…”

As I had no period photographs of David nor of ‘Black Magic’ for yesterday’s blog, I had asked Gencraft AI to come up with an imagined illustration. This was what I got:

I reckoned I would get no reply from David, but an email came back, starting: “Can I just say that Gencraft’s AI has made a remarkably accurate rendition of ‘Black Magic’ except it has made her a little heavier and doesn’t portray the black leather gear she wore that gave her the stage name ‘Black Magic’ – She wore a simple black leather outfit with motorcycle chaps and cat-of-nine tails.”

So, for this follow-up blog, I asked Gencraft to create an image of “a thin female dancer wearing a black leather outfit with motorcycle chaps and carrying a cat-of-nine tails”. 

Clearly, the phrase “cat-of-nine tails” is not one that has permeated the mind of current AIs. This was the image created:

Be that as it may, David did expand a bit on the backstory he had mentioned in yesterday’s blog. Yesterday, he said that there was a “spy story” involving one of Le Strip’s DJs named Grant Bristow. 

Bristow became a vital undercover CI (Confidential Informant) for CSIS (the Canadian Security Intelligence Service) during a lengthy investigation into the neo-Nazi/extremist far right in the mid-1980s/mid 1990s as a result of a meeting between Bristow and Heritage Front member Max French which occurred at the Le Strip club.

The Heritage Front was a Canadian white supremacist neo-Nazi organization founded in 1989 

David Hughes explained to me:

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Grant Bristow’s meeting with Max French at Le Strip was arranged by me… At the time, Grant was a Confidential Informant for CSIS (which I also had a indirect role in creating) after I had told Grant about a fellow employee (Max French) who had befriended me when I was hired on to the Canadian Pacific Railway in Toronto as a trainman in September 1986.

Max French was then a Conductor at CP Rail and, when he found out about my background (ex-cop/soldier and former armored car guard), he thought I would be a perfect member of the Heritage Front in which Max was thoroughly ensconced. He was a senior member of its hierarchy and leadership.

Max was very upfront with me. He told me about his role in the US in the early 1980s in a militia group called CSA – the Covenant, the Sword and the Arm of the Lord. 

This was an extremist far right Christian Identity religious group that had a fortified compound in the Southern USA.

The CSA was a group which spawned the terrorist group led by Robert Mathews known as The Order or Silent Brotherhood.

CSA confusingly adopted the shoulder sleeve insignia of the United States Army Europe and Africa

Max also told me that he and his Canadian colleagues were going to emulate the The Order’s tactics in Canada and that he felt I would have the inside information to help conduct armored car holdups which would help to fund the Heritage Front’s efforts to stir up racial unrest in Canada and so further the groups aims.

What Max didn’t know was I was already a Confidential Informant for the Ontario Provincial Police as a result of my inside role in the counterfeit money scheme that had occurred in 1984 at Le Strip. 

I refer to that as “How Le Strip saved Christmas” for Toronto merchants by preventing the laundering of $20 million US dollars during the peak Christmas sales rush and the seizure of said monies and the arrests of all the perpetrators involved which, sadly, included my ex-girlfriend ‘Black Magic’ and her husband.

In 1986 all involved were convicted and sentenced to jail terms in federal prison except for my ex-girlfriend who was found not guilty… I was the Crown’s chief witness during the trial.

When Max French told me what he had in mind for me, I immediately contacted the people in the Ontario Provincial Police (the OPP) who had handled me during the counterfeit money scheme and they in turn turned me over to OPP Security Service member Detective Sergeant Hans BrocVogel and OPP Intelligence Squad Detective Daniel Maclean.

…and so began my plunge into the fringe world of neo-Nazi and far right extremist groups… a world that I found horrendously sad and tragic.

Robert Mathews of The Order/Silent Brotherhood

During a road trip with Max French to Howell, Michigan, where I attended one of Pastor Robert E. Miles‘ Klan gatherings, I met the widow of Robert Mathews and his newly-born daughter (who never met her father because Matthews was killed in a shootout with the FBI on Whidby Island in the Pacific northwest before she was born).

It was the only time I was ever paid by the OPP for any of my activities as a Confidential Informant – they reimbursed me for the gas money I paid to make the trip with Max to Howell, Michigan and back. 

When I signed for the money in BrocVogel’s notebook he and his Intelligence counterpart Daniel Maclean both wanted me to become further engaged with the Heritage Front. 

I balked at the idea after discussing the matter with my wife and so it was arranged that I would set up the meeting with Max French and Grant Bristow at Le Strip… which I did in the hope that Grant would ingratiate himself with Max and I could slowly exit, stage left.

If only things were to go according to the plan!

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Life for David Hughes is much quieter now – He retired from the Canadian Pacific Railway in 2019, after 33 years of service.

David Hughes in 2024, as imagined by the Gencraft AI…

Max French also retired from the Canadian Pacific Railway in 2016 or 2017. 

David says: “I have no idea what he is up to now.”

French was interviewed by Vice in 2017, for a piece sub-titled: When neo-Nazis are congregating at the public library without issue, something’s amiss…

Max French interviewed in 2017 for a piece about white supremacists… (Photo by Rachel Browne)

(MORE ON ALL THIS IN THE NEXT BLOG – “The Canadian spies, white supermacists and South African secret agents affair…” HERE…)

My blog and Canadian ‘Black Magic’, a spy story, neo-Nazis and counterfeiting

GenCraft AI’s idea of what this specific blog might be about…

One of the fascinating things about this blog, which I started in May 2010, is that people sometimes pick up on posts from the past and comment on them… and on previous Comments on them.

For example, today there was a Comment about a blog I posted almost ten years ago – in October 2014. 

The headline for that particular blog explained what it was about:

WHAT IT WAS LIKE TO WORK IN A CANADIAN STRIP CLUB IN THE 1980s

There have currently been 56 Comments on that blog over the years – all in the public domain.  

Today’s Comment was a response to a previous Comment.

This is what it said:

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Hi Sherri…I worked as doorman/cashier/DJ at Le Strip from 1982-94.

I was hired by my ex-girlfriend (who danced under the stage name “Black Magic”) as a result of a chance meeting with she and her boyfriend (soon to become husband) outside of McDonald’s in the summer of 1982.

At the time she and her boyfriend had a management agreement with Don Cullen where they would handle the day to day running of the club and she would appear once a month to perform there. At the time she was one of the highest paid strippers in Canada and could command a weekly fee anywhere in Canada that was hard to believe.

I can attest that the “spy story” you mentioned was indeed true and involved one of Le Strip’s DJ’s named Grant Bristow.

Grant became a vital undercover CI for CSIS during a lengthy investigation into the neo-Nazi/extremist far right in the mid-80’s/mid-90’s as a result of a meeting between he and Heritage Front member Max French which occurred at Le Strip.

Grant’s undercover role was exposed by Toronto Sun reporter Bill Dunphy in the mid-90’s and the rest, as they say, was history.

There is a lot more to the backstory that I won’t get into here but I have been giving some thought to writing a memoir about it in the future.

Did you also know that the largest counterfeit money scheme in Canadian history also had its genesis at Le Strip (both in conception and later discovery by authorities)?

But that’s a story for another time.

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CSIS is the Canadian Security Intelligence Service.

Obviously I have asked for more details on what sounds like an interesting story. 

I can only live in probably over-optimistic hope.

(IN FACT, MORE BACKGROUND WAS FORTHCOMING AND IT WAS POSTED IN THE NEXT DAY’S BLOG HERE…)

“Late Night With The Devil”. Not really a movie movie, but the eyes have it…

Late Night With The Devil poster

I don’t normally post reviews on here, but I saw a preview of Late Night With The Devil earlier this week. It opens in UK and US cinemas today and it opens up a whole can of interesting worms. 

I guess the elevator pitch was something along the lines of The Exorcist meets The Blair Witch Project on a late-night US chat show – although ads are plugging it as Rosemary’s Baby meets Network.

The plotline is: In 1977 a live television broadcast goes horribly wrong, unleashing evil into living rooms across the United States.

The title Late Night With The Devil explains the plot.

The idea is that you are watching a real videotape of a real late night TV chat show – Night Owls – which was broadcast live on Halloween Night, 31st October 1977. The transmitted sequences are in colour and the duration of the ad-breaks are filled with black & white documentary-like footage of what ‘actually’ went on off-screen (again in real time).

The Night Owls TV show you are watching throughout the film was supposedly in ‘also-ran’ competition with the Johnny Carson’s Tonight Show.

It is a good idea but I’m not really sure it is a movie movie, by which I mean it is not opened-up… 

Apart from an introductory set-up putting it into the context of the 1970s – and the ending – it is set entirely within a TV studio and takes place in real time.

So wide-screen spectacular vistas and big-scale it ain’t got: it’s more suited to be a TV movie than a movie movie. In theory that is bad. But this is more than counter balanced by the fact everything happens in real time (except for the intro and the ending).

What you see is “actually happening” and “actually unfolding” as you watch it. A real time plotline is almost always going to be more involving. The ‘willing suspension of disbelief’ which you need to watch the artificiality of normal screen plots and performances is less difficult because you appear to be watching reality unfold second-by-second as it happens.

Ironically, this – in my humble opinion – buggers up the end because, as I mentioned, the movie happens in real time EXCEPT for the introductory set-up and the ending. 

And we can’t, of course, talk about the ending.

Still, the rest of the ride is vivid and mind-grabbing.

The central talk show host is played by David Dastmalchian, who is very charismatic in a slightly creepy way.

David Dastmalchian in The Dark Knight

I mainly know his face as a bit-part policemen with piercing, haunted eyes in The Dark Knight Batman movie.

His face and eyes are once seen never forgotten.

He was also in The Suicide Squad, Bladerunner 2049 and the first Dune movie. 

Oh and Oppenheimer, but let’s only concentrate on watchable films.

David Dastmalchian’s performance in Late Night With The Devil is easily underestimated. It’s subtle, not showy, so it ain’t gonna get an Oscar. But it could lead on to much bigger parts for him. He pretty-much carries the film, although the central ‘devil child’ (Ingrid Torelli) has mesmerisingly staring eyes to rival his.

Ingrid Torelli and David Dastmalchian both have it…

The eyes have it.

Should you see it? Yes.

Should you see it on TV? Yes.

Should you see it in the cinema? Strangely, yes. 

I’m glad I saw it on the big screen.

AI picture generators prefer porn to Middle English, but do read Chaucer?

I tried inputting “Summer is icumin in” (and “Sumer is icumin in”) on an AI picture generator and got the reply: 

“This prompt doesn’t abide by our content standards. Please try again with a different prompt!”

AI is obviously trained in American porn but oblivious to Middle English …

Although, to an extent, it’s relatively keen on Chaucer.

When I suggested:

“Whan that Aprill with his showres soote, The droughte of March hath perced to the roote”…

…it produced the picture below. It must obviously know the language is ‘period’ of some kind and interesting that it has included water.

Just saying!

‘President of Africa’ cleared by Reuters of US invasion threat to support Trump

Last week, I blogged here about the fact that the Reuters news agency was investigating  – for a second time – whether ‘President Obonjo’ (aka comedian Benjamin Bello) really is the president of an African country.

In fact, this time, the worrying suspicion was that he is actually the President of the whole of Africa and that he had threatened to invade the US in support of Donald Trump. 

Reuters have today – presumably after a week of detailed research and fact-checking – come up with their conclusion… printed in full below…

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Fact Check: Video of ‘African President’ American invasion is a comedy skit

By Reuters Fact Check

March 14, 2024

A video of comedian Benjamin Bankole Bello playing his character “President Obonjo of Lafta Republic” has been shared online as showing the “President of Africa” threatening to invade America over Trump’s prosecution.

The clip shared on Instagram shows Bello saying, in part, “If Biden and his people continue to prosecute Donald Trump, then I tell you this much, we will invade America.” The video is overlaid with text reading,“The President of Africa threatens to invade America over Biden’s corruption” and “Imagine Trump being so racist he had the backing of all of Africa and their President.”

Comments in response include: “But people would still say trump is racist and he’s the problem. Meanwhile you have Presidents from other countries defending the man because they know he’s still is rightfully so the COMMANDER AND CHIEF” and “He’s sending his soldiers to infiltrate via the open south border.”

The circulating clip is a snippet from a TikTok video posted by Bello on his account “presidentobonjo” on Oct. 4, 2023, after Trump appeared in court in a civil fraud case on Oct. 2.

The comedian regularly shares skits dressed as the same character on his social media profiles.

Ian Hawkins, a spokesperson for Bello, said in an email that President Obonjo is a comedy character created by the comedian and parodies world leaders. “The President often comments satirically on news events and current affairs,” Hawkins added.

Reuters has previously addressed another video of Bello’s character misrepresented online as the “African President.”

VERDICT

Satire. The video shows comedy character “President Obanjo” played by UK-based comedian Benjamin Bello.

This article was produced by the Reuters Fact Check team.

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…and who is to say they don’t?

The Iceman melts himself via AI…

As my blog yesterday mentioned performer/artist The Iceman, I thought I would ask Gencraft AI to create an image of “a man made of ice attempting to melt himself with a flame-thrower”.

It seemed like a good idea at the time.

This was the result.

It’s an interesting idea, but is this an example of Artificial Intelligence taking the piss…?

Is Artificial Intelligence taking the piss…?

Writer Robert Wringham returns to live comedy. Plus a chicken sexing fall-back.

Robert Wringham is what Americans would call a hyphenate. He does all sorts of things. Basically he is a writer of humorous books; plus he has written two histories of alternative comedy; and he is editor of the New Escapologist magazine which “takes the stance that work has too central a position in Western life”.

He has appeared in previous blogs here and is currently co-producing Melt It! a documentary film about The Iceman.

We were supposed to be having a chat about Robert’s live performance at the Glasgow Comedy Festival this week. But I am not one to keep to the subject…

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JOHN: The Iceman has transitioned from a performance artist with added humour to a ‘proper’ painting-type artist… He’s sort of an outsider.

ROBERT: Yes. But he refuses to see himself as an outside artist. He was just given the chance to show his art in Paris under the premise that he is one of several ‘outsider’ artists. But he wasn’t happy with that, because he sees himself as an ‘insider’ artist.

JOHN: Define an outsider artist?

ROBERT: People who are not professional artists. They’re usually mentally ill or children or animals.

JOHN: I think he qualifies on all three. Do you think you are an outsider writer?

ROBERT: No… Well, yes.

JOHN: You’re a mad, childlike animal?

ROBERT: The thing I aspire to is… well, I always look to Simon Munnery. To many comedy fans, he’s the finest comedian there is, but he is not a household name and I think that’s the way to be. To try and create something integral, something different. He used to have a mantra: We aim to fascinate, not entertain. 

That’s what I like: Simon Munnery, Chris Lynam, The Iceman. People like that.

JOHN: You said ‘integral’ there. What does that mean in this context?

ROBERT: They haven’t ‘sold out’, they haven’t been chasing the Eddie Izzard market. 

JOHN: You mean they’re not recognised by the average punter standing in a bus queue?

ROBERT:  They have their own standards and been successful in what they want to do.

JOHN: They’ve become admirable cult successes. So what’s this show of yours: The Annotated Audiobook?

Annotated Audiobook annotated…

ROBERT:  I’m doing a live show for the first time in fifteen years.

JOHN: It’s part of the Glasgow Comedy Festival and you’re performing in the Peaks Bar of the Drygate Brewery.

ROBERT: Yes, it’s literally a piss-up in a brewery So what could possibly go wrong?

JOHN: It’s happening this Wednesday – which is the 13th. 

ROBERT: Like I said, what could possibly go wrong?

JOHN: Why did you stop doing live shows fifteen years ago?

ROBERT: Because really what I like to do is write. I got my start in stand-up comedy but I never considered myself a stand-up. I was basically just dabbling in something I was a fan of. I always loved stand-up comedy of the 1980s and speciality acts.

It was my start, but then I realised: Yes, I want to write funny stuff, but I don’t want the comedian’s lifestyle – I don’t want too be touring and fretting about performance all the time; I want to be writing short pieces and that’s what I’ve been doing all this time. But your real question is Why now?

JOHN: Is it? Oh… Why now?

ROBERT: Good question. People are nostalgic about the pandemic now because they’ve all had to go back to work. But, for me, the pandemic was utterly depressing – stuck in my flat, alone, without much to do. So, when we came out of the pandemic, what I wanted to do was live, real entertainment again. Collaboration with people. Going out. Engaging with real life again. Not just the internet.

I thought: How can I turn my comedy writing into performance again? And I think I’ve found a way. 

The Iceman book, currently being shot as a documentary

So I’m working with other people. There’s the Iceman film Melt It!, of course, with Anthony Irvine and Mark Cartwright – YouTuber GingerBeardMark. And I have a novel in progress with an American artist called Landis Blair.

JOHN: An artist? So he’s illustrating it?

ROBERT: He is writing long-form for the first time. It’s a comedy fantasy. There will be illustrations, but it won’t be a comic book. It’s a novel. 

JOHN: Lke Charles Dickens’ novels, which had illustrations?

ROBERT: Yes. If you think of those Sherlock Holmes novels where there’s occasionally an illustration.

All these works are not just me on my own; they involve other people.

JOHN: So you’re basically just being lazy and letting other people do the work?

ROBERT: (LAUGHS) I wouldn’t go that far.

I want to get my works out and actually read them in public. I’ve always wanted a theatrical premise to go with the reading. Whenever you go and see someone doing a reading, it’s fine if you know what you’ve signed up for. But, in a comedy environment, you kinda want something a bit extra. You want a premise.

So my premise is it’s an audio book recording for which I want a live audience; so the audience are coming to play a part in that. A little bit of participation from the audience and, if nothing else, I’ll capture their noises.

That’s the premise of The Annotated Audiobook and I’ll be riffing around the material. It won’t just be me reading it verbatim from the page, I’m going to be telling the story behind the story, commentating on what happens in the room and things like that.

So what do you think, John. Is it a clever idea or is it all doomed to failure?

JOHN: Everything’s doomed to failure. We’re all going to die. Eventually, the sun explodes and destroys everything.

ROBERT: I was thinking a little more short-term than that.

JOHN: It’s a one-off, isn’t it? You can’t say every time you perform that it’s for an audio recording.

ROBERT: Originally, I had no interest in actually recording it. It was just a theatrical premise. But I think next year you could see a Robert Wringham audio book come out of it.

JOHN: Will that sell as well as a printed book?

ROBERT: What I hear is a lot of people don’t read ‘old-fashioned’ books; they only want audio now.

Robert Wringham with two of his own many ‘old-fashioned’ print books

JOHN: So have you a grand tour planned?

ROBERT: No. The Glasgow show will either be the beginning of something or the end of something. Kind of a pilot. If it goes well, I’d like to do more shows like The Annotated Audiobook. I’d like to do them occasionally. 

I want to bring my books to the stage and I think I’ve found a cheeky, crafty way to present that.

JOHN: …and you’ll make loads of money out of all this, like Simon Munnery and The Iceman…?

ROBERT: Of course not. No. Simon Munnery recently worked as a cleaner in a chicken processing plant.

JOHN: Is this common knowledge? Can I print that?

ROBERT: Well, he talks about it in his act. It’s all real stuff. He brought some innovation to the job. He made some sort of extended vacuum cleaner that could get into places the regular vacuum couldn’t get. 

JOHN: I’ll tell you where the money is: chicken sexing. I once met a man who travelled the world chicken sexing. He was making an absolute fortune because it’s really commercially important to know whether these tiny chicks with tiny genitals are male or female.

ROBERT: You’ve told me that before.

JOHN: I am a man of few anecdotes.

ROBERT: It’s very strange, because The Iceman once worked in a chicken factory as well. It seems like that’s the social safety net for comedians who don’t make fortunes.

JOHN: There was Chic Murray… but what did The Iceman do in the chicken factory?

ROBERT: He was a security guard.

JOHN: To stop chickens escaping or cats invading?

ROBERT: He says they were worried about Animal Rights protestors getting in. But he says, as a vegetarian, that if they had broken in he would have just let them carry on.

JOHN: I may have gone off-subject.

ROBERT: Yes… The Annotated Audiobook at the Glasgow Comedy Festival this week…

JOHN: Oh yes.

The future of comedy…