Jeremy Murphy – US PR’s “snarkiest publicist” is past caring and hates Woke

“…I just don’t care any more. I just don’t…”

If you are offended by four-letter words, read no further. This is your final warning.

New York based PR man Jeremy Murphy has his first book out.

Its title is: F*ck Off, Chloe: Surviving the OMGs! and FMLs! in Your Media Career.

The publicist’s (and publicists’) publicist claims it  is “America’s most offensive book about media, woke-ism and GoogelSharedZoomDrive”… that it “invites the writer’s inevitable cancellation”… and that “its title is almost as offensive as its contents”…

So, obviously, I had to have a transAtlantic video chat with him at the weekend via Zoom.

(Other equally good or better services are available).

Another warning for over-sensitive Americans: the word ‘humor’ is correctly spelled as ‘humour’ throughout what follows…

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“Their parents wanted to be their best friends… which is just weird…”

JOHN: Who or what is Chloe?

JEREMY: Chloe is like a stereotype of Generation Z.

It is a unique species. I’m sure (a lot of) Generation Z are very hard workers. But the Chloes in Generation Z have too much self-esteem; they were raised by parents who liked them too much; their parents wanted to be their best friends, which is just weird; and they’ve been raised on Social Media. 

So anything they say has to have Likes, Comments and Shares. They expect this and have grown up on this. So, when they enter the workforce, that’s where their mind is. They think anything they say should get attention. They are very sensitive and want constant validation. And they are WOKE. So woke. They have these ideals.

They want to know your carbon footprint, your stance on Black Lives Matter, your minority makeup… I’m sorry. Look, you’re lucky to have a job. Why don’t you just do the job?

I’m over 40 and I’ve been in media for 20+ years. Once you’ve worked in media that long, you get a little jaded and you see things as they are. The Chloes come in and they want the corner office on Day One. They have such expectations – and I find great humour in that.

JOHN: Your name is Murphy. Presumably you have Irish ancestors?

JEREMY: Yeah! I think one of the grandparents. Definitely the great grandparents.

JOHN: Do you feel the Irish in you somewhere?

JEREMY: Well, I drink a lot!… But, yeah, I mean, the Irish are firebrands. They don’t mince words. They wear their hearts on their sleeves. There is no passive-aggressive. What they feel, they say. But what I love about the Irish is they say it and then it’s over and you go to the pub and have a pint and you’ll laugh and sing.

JOHN: So is this a definition of you too?

JEREMY: I’ve just reached that age where I just don’t care any more. I just don’t. I don’t have time for grudges. I don’t have time for micro-aggressions or passive-aggressive. I’m pretty honest.

I wrote a book. I own my own firm (360bespoke). There’s nothing you can do to me. You can’t fire me. So I’m gonna put it out there. I’m going to say what everybody else is thinking.

“The outcome was pretty much the title”

JOHN: Bigtime movie producer Julia Phillips dished the dirt on Hollywood in her book You’ll Never Eat Lunch in This Town Again and the outcome was pretty much what was said in the title. Are you worried?

JEREMY: I don’t care. I checked with my clients and they thought it was hysterical. There’s nothing anyone can do to me. If you don’t like it, don’t read it. It’s real salty and offends everybody, but I’m hoping that, in that, we all laugh… We are so sensitive right now. Everyone’s looking for something to be outraged about.

JOHN: You were only allowed two uses of the word ‘cunt’ in the book, not your original ten.

JEREMY: Well, that word is not so accepted in America. I have a lot of British friends and I know our ‘bitch’ is your ‘cunt’. I have so many British friends who use it like that and I kind of do and the publisher was Errmmmmmm…. So I had ten instances and I had to lose eight of them.

I had to lose a few things, because it was very very salty. I had a chart: MATCH THE TERRORIST GROUP TO THE PR AGENCY. That had to go. Then I had a list of HOW TO IDENTIFY THE OFFICE CUNT. That got nixed. And I had a whole chapter on body shaming and the publisher said: “Jeremy… Someone has to buy this book.”

JOHN: So you can, to an extent, offend cunts but not fat people?

JEREMY: Yeah.

JOHN: The Chloe problem exists in the US AND the UK?

JEREMY: Yes. We are SO similar. But dealing with the UK is a pleasure. People work at the same speed; you always get a response. Try dealing with the French! 

“Do you really want to be quoted?”

JOHN: What’s wrong with the French?

JEREMY: Well, they don’t like to work! 

JOHN: (LAUGHING) Do you really want to be quoted as saying that?

JEREMY: I WILL! I mean, they’re nice people! I mean, in Italy, they don’t even respond. Oh my God! I’m kind of jealous, because they’re not so obsessed with their jobs. What’s the old adage? WE LIVE TO WORK AND THEY WORK TO LIVE.

JOHN: It helps that the English language is…

AMAZON ALEXA: I don’t have an answer for that.

JOHN: Bloody Hell! That’s my Alexa breaking in. She must have been listening all this while. I didn’t even say “Alexa…”

Errmm…

It’s always said the Americans don’t have a sense of irony and the British do.

JEREMY: Oh, yeah, I mean, we DO have a sense of irony. But your sense of humour is so clever and very ironic. You guys can insult us and we don’t realise. We hear a British accent and we’re like: Ooh! It’s so sophisticated! I think it goes back to being a Colony. We hear that accent and, all of a sudden, you’re better.

JOHN: Surely we might also say something jokingly – and ironically – and Americans might take it seriously?

JEREMY: Exactly. It’s so clever. I love British people.

East? West? Jest publicity is the best publicity

JOHN: You have gone into PR mode.

Is there a difference between East Coast and West Coast? I think maybe New York understands irony, possibly because there’s a lot of Jewish humour in there. And the West Coast doesn’t understand irony at all.

JEREMY: Yeah. Not at all! Because everything’s about THEM. I HATE dealing with the West Coast.

JOHN: What’s the difference between the East and West Coasts, then?

JEREMY: IQ level…!

JOHN: (LAUGHS)

JEREMY: I think it’s about speed and urgency and getting shit done. In New York, it’s like rat-a-tat-tat. Now-now-now-now-now. We take care of business. There’s no bullshit.

In LA, it’s a little more relationship-based. Hey! Let’s do lunch! and I love you, babe! and You’re the real stars!… I don’t want to say it’s superficial, because Los Angeles is the entertainment capital of the world and they produce a lot of amazing stuff. 

But the cultures are totally different.

JOHN: Is that because of the weather? You were saying the Italians are more laid-back than the British and the Californians are more laid-back than New York… Compared to Italy and the Mediterranean countries, the weather is shit in Britain… and the weather in New York is not quite as good as it is on the West Coast, so New Yorkers concentrate more.

JEREMY: It could be. I know when New York people move to LA, their skin becomes orange, their hair becomes blond and they don’t eat.

JOHN: Donald Trump is a sort-of New Yorker and he is orange.

JEREMY: He is unique. Maybe more of a Palm Beach person.

JOHN: I read somewhere that Meghan Markle and Prince Harry use American PR people who don’t really understand the British public’s psychology. So the PR advice they give Meghan & Harry is wrong for the UK.

Chloe is like “an international plague”

JEREMY: No. THEY are wrong. They’re horrible. I’m sorry, I think they’re grifters. They’re looking for cash any way they can get it. I think Harry is communicating with us through eye-blinks. I think he’s really got Stockholm Syndrome, like he’s been kidnapped.

JOHN: Well that’s just lost you a potential lucrative Harry PR contract… Why should I buy your book?

JEREMY: I think it’s a funny read. It’s HONEST. I put on paper what people have to deal with and I think it’s maybe cathartic for people. I’ve got great feedback: Oh God! I experience that every day! I do think it will appeal to British people too because Chloe is universal. It’s an international plague.

JOHN: So, a sequel book?

JEREMY: Chloe Doesn’t Have Bandwidth.

JOHN: What?

JEREMY: This is the new thing. When you deal with a PR person or a journalist and they don’t want to deal with you, they say: “I don’t have bandwidth right now…” 

JOHN: What does not having bandwidth mean? The WiFi is going to crash?

JEREMY: Thankyou! It’s like I don’t have the mental capacity, I don’t have time… I don’t know what it means, but everybody says it… It’s the polite way of saying, “Fuck off!”

JOHN: Does ‘bandwidth’ vary between West and East Coast?

JEREMY: Oh, no! Everybody! Everybody! I think it’s an American thing at the moment; I’ve not seen it from anybody in Britain yet.

JOHN: Yet…

JEREMY: I’m going to get in so much trouble for this…

Too mild? Chris Rock should learn from Jerry Sadowitz and/or Malcolm Hardee

Last weekend, actor Will Smith (a former comic) slapped Chris Rock (a current comic) in the face at the Oscars ceremony for allegedly slighting his wife with an ad-libbed joke obliquely-referring to her alopecia-caused baldness/shaved head.

I can’t help but feel that Americans’ sensibilities are a little too touchy and their attempts at edgy comedy could do with a bit more edge-sharpening. 

Still… it was the slap that echoed round the world, making front-page news and generating much comment.

On Twitter, British comedian and writer David Baddiel observed: “As a comedy moment it’s still not up there with a member of the audience at Montreal’s Just For Laughs 1991 punching Jerry Sadowitz out cold for opening with Hello moose-fuckers!

The full line was: “Hello moose-fuckers! I tell you why I hate Canada: half of you speak French, and the other half let them.“

As David Baddiel pointed out, there is no footage of that particular punch, but there is a video of Clive Anderson interviewing comedians Denis Leary and Bill Hicks about it after the event…

In a comment on David Baddiel’s Tweet this week, Mr AR Felix (who describes himself as a “Ferrari supporter, casual artist and culture vulture”) wrote: 

“The rarely-quoted follow up line, which Sadowitz claims is what actually led to him being attacked was: Why don’t you speak Indian? You might as well speak the language of the people you stole the country off of in the first place.”

When I mentioned the Sadowitz attack on my own Facebook page, former Time Out editor Dominic Wells commented:

“Loved Jerry/Gerry Sadowitz — the reason for my G/J being that when I was still chief sub on Time Out, and editor Don Atyeo showed his new columnist round the office, I asked him (pre-internet): How do you spell G/Jerry? 

“Spell it how ye fucking want, son, ah don’t give a shite, quoth the comic. 

Jerry or Gerry Sadowitz takes Time Out with Ben Elton

“So I (unlike Wikipedia, now that it exists) spelt it with a G in all his Time Out columns and the cover he was on, throttling the Spitting Image puppet of Ben Elton, for which Ben apparently never forgave us. 

“G/Jerry was by a long chalk the funniest columnist I have EVER read, let alone subbed. I would hoot with laughter at his copy. Sadly G/Jerry proved too close to the edge even for Time Out. The editor couldn’t handle the letters of complaint and sacked him after just four or five, despite my entreaties. 

“I guess the tone was set by his very first column, replacing Muriel Gray, who had departed for the Guardian or similar. It opened with a poem: 

“See that Muriel Gray/ In a’ the Fleet Street papers/ You can read her if you want/ But I’d rather fuck the Proclaimers.“

After this Facebook comment, comic and cultural icon John Dowie reminisced:

“What’s the worst opening remark a comedian could ever say? asked Nick Revell, backstage prior to a 1980s comedy gig. Nelson Mandela – What a cunt! was the winning answer… Jerry opened with it… Of course.”

Then, returning to the subject of outrage caused at Montreal’s Just For Laughs festival, Rob Williams (who describes himself as a “writer of stuff” added:

“Malcolm Hardee at Montreal got told before going on that they love observational humour. Do observational stuff and you’ll be fine, they told him… So he opened with: Have you ever noticed that if you stick a carrot up your arse and lick it it tastes like shit?”

I can’t help but feel that Will Smith – especially as an ex-comic – was being more than a tad over-sensitive and Chris Rock could have been more offensive.

Geezer job: Dapper Laughs, Oscar Wilde and a bit of ‘buzz word’ offensiveness

Dapper Laughs – perhaps laughing all the way to the bank…

Daniel O’Reilly in his character (Is it a character?) of Dapper Laughs is the comedian who just keeps giving to journalists. He needs better PR advice. Or does he?

His ITV2 show was cancelled after phone footage emerged of him telling a woman in a live comedy show audience that she was “gagging for a rape”. Then he went on BBC2’s Newsnight show to apologise and say he was dropping the Dapper Laughs persona. Then he revived the ‘character’.

And now, yesterday, in a Sunday Times Magazine interview, he appeared to be saying that the controversy had all been because he was not actually taught that rape was wrong: “Not once was I invited to learn more about sexual violence, rape and sexism and the problem is the attitude toward men… Instead of attacking me, why not educate me? I would happily accept it and then help and educate the millions of men who watch my stuff. I haven’t been. Instead I’m told to fuck off and stop my comedy.”

Who knows if that is what he meant to say or did say or not.

The interview might or might not be a miscalculation and might or might not be unconnected with his upcoming tour Theory of Nothing and an upcoming DVD release.

Ben Adams and Lenny Sherman are successful podcasters

I talked to comedians Lenny Sherman and Ben Adams about him.

They record a regular podcast together: We’re Not Racist and We Love Gays. And Ben runs Broken Toaster TV which produces “dark comedy sketches and shorts” for online viewers.

“We used to run gigs for Dapper Laughs,” Ben told me, “and we got friendly with him that way.”

“Ben was the one who introduced all of us lot to Vine,” Lenny explained. “He got Dapper Laughs on Vine. I used to MC a weekly gig for Dapper Laughs – he’s very good at promotion and marketing and that sort of thing.

“You get exposure from Vine and our podcast has sort-of built-up from that: a cult following. We’ve got over 20,000 followers on Vine and about 3,000 listeners for our podcast. We’ve done over 40. It’s on iTunes. We’ve got the Twitter page, got the Facebook. We done a live show at the Lost Theatre last October. It all links up. It’s all publicity. We’re doing the Camden Fringe this year – two 25-minute sets of stand-up.”

Ben and Lenny live at the Camden Fringe

“Why the Camden Fringe and not the Edinburgh Fringe?” I asked.

Ben told me: “I went to the Edinburgh Fringe once and, unless you’ve got money and the proper marketing behind you, it’s almost worthless. you go up there and almost every single poster has got 4 Stars, 5 Stars. It becomes meaningless.”

“And,” explained Lenny, “I just can’t afford it, to be honest. I would love to go. to be at a comedy festival – probably the best one in the world – I would love to. But I just can’t afford it, John. I’ve been going four years.  The first year, I didn’t go up to Edinburgh because I was in prison.”

“For what?” I asked.

“Fighting at football. Millwall. I got attacked. I was defending myself. It’s not something I’ve ever hidden. I’m not really that sort of comedian. I’m more sort-of one-liners. I’m not really a storyteller, not personal – though there’s a lot of layers to my stuff. I play on the stereotype. People stereotype me. And it’s about switching the stereotype.”

“That,” said Ben, “is what I’m trying to do at the moment. I’m trying to become more of a storyteller. I started six years ago and it was joke-joke-joke and a lot of it was edgy, shocking stuff. But now I’ve got to a point where I don’t want to do that any more. I’ve got all this material that really works, but I want to move more into storytelling.”

“Someone,” said Lenny, “described my comedy as vulgar intelligence. But it’s not vulgar. Vulgar’s the wrong word, though it’s adult. It’s not mainstream; let’s put it that way. I mix it up as well. I done a lot of improv – I mix a lot in and try to be original and different. I am what I am. I can’t go on stage and talk about lentils.”

“I have found,” said Ben,” that, since doing the podcast, I enjoy telling stories a lot more. I think that’s where my niche is.”

“People say to me,” said Lenny, “You should talk about when you was in prison and, if you done that, you would get a Perrier Award.”

“Your podcast is very successful,” I said.

Lenny Sherman knows a bit about merchandising and tattoos

“We do merchandise,” explained Lenny. “and, on the podcast, I done this story about some geezer I was banged-up with who had a Born Evil tattoo. The feedback we got from that was great. We even had merchandise with Born Evil written on it.”

“So,” I asked, “you have managed to make money out of Vine and the podcast.”

“I,” said Ben, “have made quite a bit of money out of Vine. Adverts and things. We got a free watch as well. You get e-mailed by companies. We were going to do something for Domino’s Pizza but that fell through.”

“Dominoes are always falling down,” I said.

“Dapper Laughs,” said Lenny, “will get: Will you wear our jacket? We’ll give you five grand. Or McDonalds: We’ll give you three grand. The more followers you’ve got…”

“… the more money you get,” Ben completed.

“What about Dapper Laughs losing his TV show?” I asked.

“I don’t want to pass judgment on that,” said Lenny.

“I think his show got taken out of context,” said Ben. “A lot of people never even saw it.”

Lenny Sherman & Ben Adams: maybe better PR than Dapper

Lenny added: “I felt he should not have gone on Newsnight. I thought: What the fuck you doing? Not only that, but that fucked it up for everyone else. I notice now, when I do jokes, if they hear buzz words… I’ve got a joke. This joke pretty much sums me up:

“A geezer says: What are your views on Muslims?

“I say: Pretty good. I’ve got a penthouse overlooking a mosque.

“When the audience hear the word Muslims from a geezer like me – working class Cockney – they think Ooh-ooh-ooh. But then I switch it to a harmless joke. I switch it.

“When Dapper Laughs did Newsnight, I thought: What the fuck are you doing? I don’t agree with everything he done – don’t get me wrong – but… I’ve got very strong opinions on edgy comedy. My comedy is what’s natural to me. I sort-of get both sides. I like all sorts of different comedy. But I don’t like this edgy comedy when they’re just talking about rude stuff for the sake of it. Come on, you’re a grown man or woman! Why are you acting like a schoolkid?

“What we do is natural. Everything we do is natural to us. There’s no false anything. We tell it like it is. Then you get people on the other side who react to buzz words too much. There’s this culture of Oh no, you can’t talk about that! Why not? You can talk about whatever you like, provided you’re not being an arsehole about it.”

Ben Adams – slightly offensive?

“If I do a joke that might be slightly offensive,” said Ben, “people never look past the offensiveness or that one buzz word. Because they don’t appreciate what kind of joke it is. They stop at the first hurdle and think: Hang on! I don’t like this!

“Someone described my comedy as Treading the line between offensiveness and playfulness expertly – which I thought was perfect. Frankie Boyle might say a joke and be a bit harsh., whereas I will be a cheeky little boy about it.

“I lost a lot of my love for stand-up recently. I wanted to change direction and it took a while to get the balls to do that. If you go one way, you might end up on TV on 8 Out of 10 Cats, then you might go on Never Mind the Buzzcocks, then you might get your DVD Ben Adams Live! But I don’t want any of that. It all seems unappealing. It sounds awful. I want to make my own way, which is why I film comedy sketches and we have the podcast and do our own shows. I like the idea of finding and playing to your own audience.”

“This is what we’re all about, really, really.,” said Lenny. “I’m not saying I don’t want to be on those TV programmes. I’ll do anything. If it’s right, I’ll do it. But I think the way forward is getting your own audience. With Dapper Laughs, I thought there was a lot of irony in that. People said: Oh! He shouldn’t do that! He’s going backwards! but a lot of what he done was very progressive and he’s shown people: Look! You can do it! You don’t need ‘them’. You can just do it yourself. That was really groundbreaking, if you take away the sexism and the other stuff. What he done was like really monumental.”

“You contacted me for a chat,” I said.

“The reason we asked to see you,” said Lenny, “is we wanna try and make a bit of noise now. We’ve been under the radar a little bit.”

“Well,” I said,  “Oscar did say: There is only one thing in the world worse than being talked about, and that is not being talked about.”

Janey Godley on awards, a rat and c**ts

Janey gave me a warm welcome this evening

My Scots comedy chum Janey Godley is down in London this week, from Glasgow.

I met up with her this evening for a chat.

“I’ll give ye a blog,” she told me. “What do you want me tae talk aboot?”

And, before I could reply, she started:

“I’ve stopped smoking for a month now,” she said, “and I’m on a diet, so my whole family have been put into the witness protection programme while that happens. And, if you talk to me about it, I’ll stab ye.”

“Well,” I said, “No change there, then.”

‘It’s hard to stop smoking,” she continued, “but to stop smoking AND go on a diet isn’t really that much harder cos you’re using the same willpower for both.”

“I would have thought,” I said, “that it must make you twice as angry as normal – but maybe that’s not possible with you.”

“That,’ said Janey, “is what (Janey’s nameless husband) says: How can we tell the difference?”

Janey looked over her shoulder.

“There’s really loud people behind me,” she said, “who deserve to be stabbed. But I’m really excited cos I’m up for four Scottish Comedy Awards on 27th April. have you voted for me yet?”

“Yes,” I said quickly.

“I won the Podcast one last year,” she told me. “This year, I’m up for Best Headliner, Best Compere, Best Podcast again and Best Festival/Tour Show.”

‘Tell me why are you in London in some way that’s repeatable?” I asked.

“I’m in London this week,” she explained, “cos I had a couple of meetings with the BBC about future projects and I’m doing a couple of gigs – Banana Cabaret in Balham and Soho Comedy.”

“Is that the one in the gay street?” I asked. (It is not.)

“A gay street in Soho?” laughed Janey. “That must be a fucking hard task to find, eh?”

The Admiral Duncan pub in Soho (Photograph by Ewan Munro)

“Old Compton Street,” I said, “I didn’t know the street was supposed to be gay until the Admiral Duncan blew up when the nail bomb went off.”

“You didn’t know it was gay,” said Janey, “because not one gay man has ever approached you in your entire life. They’ve all went: No, you’re on yer own, John.”

“Not even women,” I said. “I once had a pigeon approach me at Oxford Circus.”

“I bet,” said Janey that even it bolted when it saw you.”

“No,” I said. “You know the barriers at the kerb to stop you walking across the street? I was outside one of those, walking on the narrow bit of the kerb, and this pigeon was strutting towards me and I thought it would give way to me, but it didn’t. I had to step into the road so it could walk along past me on the kerb.”

“That happened to me,” said Janey, “in Earls Court with a rat. You remember that hotel I lived in in Earls Court? There was a rat in the middle of the pavement and I thought: Well, clearly, if I bang ma feet, it’ll bolt. No. It stayed. I had to go into the road and I almost got hit by a car cos I was walking round a rat. And, see, when I went to the other side of the street, it turned its head to look at me and never moved. I am thinking like: Ya fuckin’ bastard! It was the size of a small poodle. I was frightened.”

“It was a very self-confident pigeon,” I said. “Its shoulders were going like it was an Essex Boy.”

“It’s the only bird that would come near you,” said Janey.

“Any other jollities for the blog?” I asked.

“I’m still,” said Janey, “having a fight with people on Twitter over the word cunt. They still can’t believe you can say that word. The other day, Ricky Gervais put up a post with the word cunt in it. That’s OK cos he’s rich and middle class. But, if I say it…”

“But you won’t,” I asked, “have had any Scottish people objecting?”

“A lot of people,” said Janey.

“Really?” I asked, surprised.

Janey’s current Twitter page has 16.5k followers

“Yup. It’s really weird that nobody will say anything to me (At the time of writing, Janey has over 16,500 Twitter followers) but, the minute I say cunt, people start to come on Twitter and moan. I always then put up this post that says: If the first time you’ve contacted me is cos you’ve saw the word cunt but, whenever I’ve asked you to donate to the Food Bank and you’ve never contacted me, then that means you’re a cunt.”

“But I mean,” I said, “in Glasgow, it’s the equivalent of an Australian calling someone a ‘bastard’. It’s not strong.”

“They still have an issue with it,” said Janey. “It’s unbelievable that the word cunt makes you bad.”

“When you think,” I said, “of the things they asterisked-out in Victorian novels – H*ll possibly and certainly d***ed.”

“In London in 1960,” said Janey, “they had the court case over Lady Chatterley’s Lover – about the language in that – cunt – and it was found to be not obscene. So I can say the word cunt specifically.”

“Some of us,” I said, “lost the same court case in Norwich in 1996.”

“Did you?” said Janey.

“I was,” I told her, “found guilty of Malicious Communication for calling someone a fucking cunt.”

“You called somebody a cunt?” asked Janey.

“A fucking cunt,” I said. “I thought it was fair comment. The judge said in his ruling that both the words fucking and cunt were ‘clearly indecent’. As far as I could see, that overturned the decision in the Lady Chatterley case under Common Law.”

“You got taken to court for calling somebody a cunt?” asked Janey.

“Yes,” I said.

“You’re a dick,” she told me. “Who did you call a cunt? The Queen?”

“It’s a long story,” I said. “You should read my blog.”

“I usually do. It’s fuckin’ brilliant. Ashley (Janey’s daughter) is obsessed with your North Korean blogs. They’ve made Ashley want to go to North Korea.’

“Everyone should go to North Korea,” I suggested.

“She’s no going to North Korea,” said Janey firmly.

“It’s safe,” I said, “provided you don’t say anything. I used to go to lots of Communist countries because they were safe.”

Jonathan Ross as I remember him between my holidays….

“I have to say,” said Janey, “that the best laugh I ever had on Twitter was when I contacted Jonathan Ross and asked: Do you remember John Fleming? And he Tweeted back: Is he still going to weird Communist bloc countries? And I said: Yeah. You definitely remember him.”

“That’s it finished,” I told Janey. “That’s the way to do a blog. Pretend it’s about someone else, but it’s really all about Me, Me, Me.”

Frank Sanazi, hijab stripping and Jesus Christ flying in for Hitler’s birthday gig

Pete covers up a nasty or potentially Nazi spot on his neck

This blog was supposed to be posted on 1st April, until I realised there might be a credibility problem if I posted it on that date.

I had a chat with Pete Perke aka Pete Sinclair aka Pete Cunningham aka Tom Mones aka Frank Sanazi. Frank Sanazi sings like Frank Sinatra but looks like Adolf Hitler.

“So,” I said to Pete,  “you are going over to Austria as Frank Sanazi to celebrate Hitler’s birthday.”

“Well,” he said, “Kulture Banane,  the Austrian boylesque troupe, have become massive in Austria and have asked me to go over and do my show Das Vegas Nights (Zis Time We Win) on 18th April, two days before Hitler’s birthday. Actually, I only recently realised that Hitler was born on 20th April, which is Aries. That would make him a genuine Arian.”

“They’re just boylesque?” I asked. “Not Nazi boylesque in short trousers?”

“Well,” said Pete, “one of the guys – he could be a woman for all I know – performs a hijab act which is basically strip burlesque.”

“You’ve played Frank Sanazi in Berlin, haven’t you?” I asked.

“Yeah. Five or six times.”

“How do they react?”

“The first time I did it, the crowd were a bit…”

“Stunned?” I suggested.

“Well, I was told they loved it, but you can never tell with German audiences. There’s not laugh-out-loud vocal appreciation. When I play to an older crowd in Germany, they can be uncomfortable-squirmy a bit, but the young crowd just find it hilarious. Time has moved on so much they don’t feel part of anything their forefathers did.”

Frank Sanazi at the 2014 Malcolm Hardee Awards Show

“I suppose Hitler will never die,” I said. “Malcolm Hardee and I booked The Rockin’ Gorbachev on a couple of TV shows and, of course, his career died when Gorbachev got ousted. But you’re not just a one character act.”

“Yes, I’ve diversified,” said Pete. “I do a lot of straight singing and I have Frank Sanazi and Tom Mones (an old Tom Jones).”

“How is your Vladimir Putin act doing?” I asked.

“I’m not sure if he has legs,” said Pete. “Putin is still very ‘in’ at the moment. As long as he keeps in the spotlight, I’m OK. At the moment, I sing Ukranian Men (to the tune It’s Raining Men) But Crimea River (Cry Me a River) is an obvious follow-up. And then there’s Putin on The Blitz (Putting On The Ritz).”

“Are you doing him at the Edinburgh Fringe this year?” I asked.

“No,” said Pete. “This year I’ve got the Voodoo Rooms to take my whole Iraq Pack show. I’ve got Pete Storm playing Dean Stalin (Stalin singing like Dean Martin) and I’ve written a great song for George who’s going to play Osama Bing Crosby and Saddami Davis Jnr is singing Arranged Marriage to the tune of Love and Marriage:

Ar-ranged marriage
Ar-ranged marriage
To a woman called Fatima Mohammed
This I’ll tell you mother
She looks just like her brother

“I wrote a new song recently for Osama Bing Crosby. He said he needed a song on his own because we were just doing a duet:

I have heard to the Taliban
You are now a forgotten man
Well, dead Jew ever
What a swell party this is

“So I wrote him:

How unlucky can one guy be
They shot her, then they shot me
Like the New York Times said
Ain’t that a shot in the head?

“I’ve never,” I said, “heard you ever talk about getting bad reactions from audiences.”

A singing Hitler – apparently less offensive than a dead Elvis

“I used to do an act called Dead Elvis,” Pete told me. “I used to come out of this coffin in a mask with worm holes cut out and I did send-up songs: Are You Hungry Tonight? (Are You Lonesome Tonight)… and The Burgers Went Straight To My Heart… those sort of songs. And I got more stick for doing that than I ever have for Frank Sanazi. Because people love Elvis so much they treat him like Jesus. I stopped doing that act because I was getting so much grief for it.”

“And you’re trend-proof,” I said. “because you play the comedy circuit, the cabaret circuit and the fetish circuit.”

“Yes,” said Pete. “There’s a Festival of Sins show this Saturday, a new fetish night. It ran before, five years ago. It was always overshadowed by the Torture Garden but Festival of Sins was possibly the second biggest in London – run by a guy called David de Vynél and he’s re-kickstarting it. It went tits-up when he married the woman he ran it with.”

There is a clip on Vimeo from the Festival of Sins show in 2010.

“I performed at his wedding and the wedding cake was an entire woman just covered in cake: you had to eat the cake off the top of her. It was very well-presented. This guy turned up – the best man – completely stark bollock naked. All he wore were a couple of little bits of tinsel round his penis and a couple of baubles for balls. And he had a massive dong – I think that’s why he went round naked.”

“Just to annoy people?” I asked.

“Mmmmm….,” said Pete.

“I went to one Torture Garden years ago,” I said. “I blogged about it.”

“I remember one Torture Garden,” said Pete, “where there was a guy in a cage and he had a Superman-style cape on and nothing else and he was peeing on people as they walked past. The other thing they had was like an iron lung from Barbarella with perspex over it, so you could put your hands in the gloves and feel whoever it was inside.

“And you know those things they have in Post Offices? Big thick latex things that hang down. I think they do it for health & hygiene. They have them in abattoirs – almost see-through plastic that you can push our way through…”

“Your local Post Office,” I said, “is more interesting than mine.”

“Well,” said Pete, “they had these people just chopping meat up. They had carcasses of sheep. I don’t know how they got away with that, because blood was spattering over everybody as they were going through.

“A couple came in when I was performing- I only knew they were a man and woman because of their size and shape. They had full Nazi outfits on and full gimps masks with zips so you could just see their eyes. They sat right in front of the stage when I performed, watched me for about 25 minutes, then stood up, clapped their gloves together and walked out. It was the most surreal thing.”

“Who else is on the bill with you for the Hitler birthday gig?” I asked.

“Jesus Christ is flying over from Glasgow,” said Pete.

There is a clip on YouTube of Frank Sanazi singing Strangers On My Flight.

Chris Dangerfield on Dapper Laughs: the victim of class prejudice & jealousy?

A selfie of Chris Dangerfield “hard at work”

In my blog yesterday, comedian Lewis Schaffer gave his view of the recent kerfuffle about ‘offensive’ and ’sexist’ comic Dapper Laughs whose career appears to have imploded after criticism from the media and other comedians.

A couple of days ago, while he was picking a lock (that is true) comedian Chris Dangerfield told me he was angry about several things.

So I had a chat with him yesterday.

Basically, like setting off a firework, I started it off then stood well back.

WARNING: As this is a blog involves Chris Dangerfield, some people may find the language and opinions offensive. If this is likely, then do not read it.

“How are your armpits?” I asked.

“I use that Magnum 24 Hours,” Chris told me. “Look, I don’t know what it’s called. Mitchum? It just stops your body functioning normally so you can’t get rid of all the toxins that will poison you and your body doesn’t smell for years. And, when you don’t bath ever, like me – Don’t put that in your blog. I’m actually very good at bathing. But it’s a heroin thing. The feeling of water on your skin is not that good.”

“Why’s that?’

“I dunno. Odd, though. It’s almost alright once you’re in, but getting out is a bit prickly. The water’s just unwanted.”

“So,” I said, “at the moment, some comedians are talking about forming their own trade union and having people sign a Code of Conduct.”

“I got into comedy for a love of performance,” said Chris, “for a love of challenging things, for some kind of dissident voice in a world where there aren’t many left. And now comics are policing comics. All those fuckers that signed that fucking thing. Half of them ain’t even comedians. Who are these people? They’re blatant opportunists. Oh, I’ll sign it! I’ll sign it to be on the same list as some other Nobody comic! Jesus! It’s all bullshit! It’s an awful, awful situation.”

“I think originally,” I said, “it was because people were pissed-off because they were not being paid by Jongleurs, but now this ‘code of conduct’ thing has got muddled-in with the Dapper Laughs thing. Did you read my blog today where Lewis Schaffer talks about Dapper Laughs?”

Chris Dangerfield is always very clean

“Comedy is almost the last free speech,” said Chris. “It’s an interesting framework. Once you label it ‘comedy’ you can kind of do anything… But these fools recently who had anything to do with that whole censorship thing.”

“What?” I asked. “Dapper Laughs?”

“Yes. They’re doing the dirty work of comedy’s biggest enemy.”

“Which is?” I asked.

“Censorship,” said Chris. “Comedians play with language. Comedians play with morality. They can play with what’s right and what’s wrong. They can turn it on its head. That’s what we do. It’s an amazing, exciting thing. It’s certainly what got me involved. And suddenly they’re all twits.

“Look, I don’t give a shit about the bullshit personal private greedy agendas of these liberal fucks who draw arbitrary lines to serve their own agendas – and that’s what they’ve done. That’s why they’re not talking about Russell Brand, Doug Stanhope, Bill Burr. But Dapper Laughs – some working class shitbag from nowhere who has said a couple of pretty unfunny things – he’s a target. He hasn’t said anything anywhere near as ‘bad’ as any of that other lot. I don’t care what they say, myself. I love it. But, if you look at the criteria these people have used when talking about Dapper Laughs, then these people – Brand, Stanhope, Burr – are far ‘worse’. It’s all bullshit.”

“But,” I argued, “Dapper Laughs telling the woman in the front row of the audience that she was ‘gagging to be raped’ is way beyond acceptability.”

“Why?” asked Chris. “Did you see the clip? If she had seen his material and chosen to go to that show, there is a certain expectation. In context, it’s fine. Absolutely fine. A comedian can’t offend anyone. People offend themselves. How do you offend someone? If there was an objective ability to offend, the whole world would be offended by things. The reason why one person can be offended while another person isn’t is because offence is in the ears of the beholder.

“I could give you ten or twenty comics who have said things along the same lines as that, but they are not getting attacked because there is the elephant in the room here about class. And the massive jealousy that Dapper Laughs had not ‘earned’ his TV series and his success because he just became famous through a technology (Vine on the internet) that other people have failed to use in the same way. It’s a disgrace. It is so disappointing.”

Chris Dangerfield’s Sex With Children poster at the Edinburgh Fringe billed “anus, star-wars, anus, bum, frenchman, anus, magician, willy, switchblade, anus, boy, conductor, anus, lobster, bum” – and still some people who went to see the show got offended and walked out

“At the Edinburgh Fringe,” I said, “you had walk-outs in your Sex With Children show which none of us could understand given the title, the poster and the publicity.”

“It’s the same as Dapper Laughs,” said Chris. “This selective understanding of his act. “If you watch the Vines, there’s this massive homosexual undercurrent.

“He will talk to a woman in the street and then turn away and say I want cock in my bum as if he can’t hold it in, as if he’s got these desires and they over-run his heterosexual desires.

“And that’s not once or twice: it’s frequent, this homosexuality. And also his failure with women. He is a failure; he doesn’t do well with women. That’s the main thread of the Vines. None of that gets talked about.”

“But,” I started to argue, “his critics would say…”

“They’re opportunist cunts,” said Chris, “and I hate them all and they have made me SO disappointed. Comedy in this country was shit, but now it is shit and celebratory in its sense of shit. I would have thought an act that puts you in the position of the male gaze – for all its stupidity and ignorance – is essentially feminist and yet everyone is Nweugh Nweugh Nweugh complaining about it. Why aren’t they complaining about Russell Brand, Jim Jefferies, Doug Stanhope, Sarah Silverman? They’ve all offended people.

“Vonny Moyes. She’s a writer. She writes for The Skinny. Done a lovely interview with me. Done a lovely review of my show. But, when Dapper Laughs pulled his show and was bullied on Newsnight where they were quoting bits of his show out of context and the poor lad looked like he was going to start crying, I put on Twitter: Oy! Dapper. If you’re jacking that character, I’ll have it. And Vonny Moyes said: It’s not so funny when you’ve been on the receiving end of rape. 

“Well, actually, I have. I have. And that’s nothing to do with the debate. People have been on the receiving end of war. I don’t see these people moaning about war jokes, of which there are millions.

Dapper Laughs – Is he a working class hero unjustly censored?

“The whole Dapper Laughs thing has been opportunist at best. People like that prick Xxxxx Yyyyy has seen something and got jealous because he’s a failed, shitty comic who had an awful TV show. Everyone thought it was crap; it was rubbish. He saw Dapper Laughs’ show and was jealous and thought: How can I get part of this? Oh, I know, I’ll complain about it.

“Who is he to tell all these people – these millions of people who found Dapper Laughs funny – that they’re wrong. And then some cock from the Huffington Post is saying: We should not have banned this show. We should have used all his followers and educated them.

“Them? Them? What? He means people he thinks of as working class idiots. Well, they don’t want to be educated; they want to be made to laugh. They didn’t go see Dapper Laughs as part of their schooling. The cheek of it! Fuck you! I was angry. Now I’m just disappointed.”

“You are getting more mellow with age,” I suggested.

“It must be the quality of the smack I brought back from Cambodia,” said Chris Dangerfield.

… TO BE CONTINUED …

The Newsnight interview with Dapper Laughs is on YouTube and includes clips from both his ITV2 series and his live stage show.

Anne Frank with her clothes on proves offensive to UK comedy-going audience

It’s Springtime for Hitler and SE London

Sometimes it is strange what people find offensive.

Last night, my eternally-un-named friend and I went to Vivienne and Martin Soan’s monthly variety and comedy club Pull The Other One in Nunhead, South East London.

Ending the night was Frank Sanazi, the wonderful act that sounds like Frank Sinatra but looks like Hitler.

Three people walked out.

The problem was his new sidekick ‘Anne Stank’ who talked about being lonely up in the attic and sang Björk’s Ssshhhhh….It’s Oh So Quiet.

Anne and attic antics

“I don’t understand,” my eternally-un-named friend said afterwards, “why they didn’t find Frank Sanazi offensive but they did find the Anne Frank bit offensive.”

And, indeed, the three walk-outs did seem to have found Frank Sanazi’s re-versioning of Sinatra’s That’s Life as Third Reich entertaining and found the re-writing of the Strangers in the Night lyrics as Strangers On a Plane (as in the 9/11 hijacks) perfectly OK.

But Anne Frank they walked out on.

I had never seen the Anne Frank part of Frank Sanazi’s show before – his Das Vegas Night is returning to the Edinburgh Fringe this August (it got a 4-star review last year) – but ‘Anne’ told me after the show that I had blogged about her during last year’s Fringe.

“I was the one wearing a lettuce,” she told me.

“You didn’t recognise her with her clothes on,” Frank Sanazi added.

This is the reference from my blog last August:

__________________________________________________

I was walking down Niddry Street, and found comedian Bob Slayer standing in the street outside his Hive venue.

“I had to get naked in my show,” he told me. “I think it was the worst show I’ve ever done so I had to get naked. Jamie the sound guy sees my show every year and he told me: You failed on so many levels there, but it was definitely my favourite show. I had to get naked and there was a lady in the audience who turned up just wearing a lettuce.”

“Just a lettuce?” I asked.

“Just wearing a lettuce on her fanny,” said Bob.

“She had nice tits,” a female staff member added, tweaking one of Bob’s nipples. Passers-by ignored it. This is the Edinburgh Fringe.

“The lady with the lettuce was a friend of Frank Sanazi’s,” said Bob.

“That might go some way to explaining it,” I said.

__________________________________________________

Frank Sanazi’s 2012 Christmas show

The boundaries of offensiveness vary.

A girl wearing nothing but a lettuce leaf  over her frontal bits was almost normal in Edinburgh last August. But a girl with her clothes on (never referred-to as Anne Frank) in South East London last night triggered three people walking out of an always-bizarre monthly comedy show.

Personally, I thought it was slightly eerie and very funny.

But, then, I like Chinese pickled ginger with scrambled egg on toast.