What happened when I produced a Jerry Sadowitz TV comedy special…

WARNING! THERE ARE MULTIPLE USES OF THE ‘F’ WORD AND THE ‘C’ WORD IN THIS PIECE… PROCEED AT YOUR PERIL IF YOU ARE OF A NERVOUS OR EASILY-OFFENDED DISPOSITION… OTHER BLOGS ARE WIDELY AVAILABLE TO READ ELSEWHERE…

The Last Laugh with Jerry Sadowitz in September 1990

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Yesterday’s blog was an extract from the late Malcolm Hardee’s 1996 autobiography I Stole Freddie Mercury’s Birthday Cake in which Malcolm recalled being, for a time, Jerry Sadowitz’s manager/agent in the 1980s.

I encountered Jerry through Malcolm during that time and later, in 1990, I produced a couple of TV shows for BSB (the precursor to BSkyB) via Noel Gay Television.

One was Malcolm Hardee: 25 Years in Showbiz, a variety show interspersed with various people, including Jerry, paying tribute to Malcolm.

The other was an episode of Noel Gay’s series The Last Laugh.

The Last Laugh with Jerry Sadowitz was recorded to be a 55-minute show though it was later transmitted as a 45-minute show (for general scheduling reasons, not because of content).

BSB had a fairly liberal remit for comedy content. 

Comedians were allowed to swear, within reason, and could use the words ‘fuck’ and ‘cunt’ if they were an integral and essential component of the routine – ie if removing or changing the words would weaken the gag.

However, as Jerry tended to have a high level of expletives in his act – and, indeed, at one time used to say, with some justification, that “The word ‘cunt’ is a term of affection in Glasgow”, I thought trying to bar him from using the F and the C words altogether would damage the flow of his delivery of the lines.

So I told him in advance something like (I can’t remember the precise words nor the exact number):

“Try not to swear but we can probably cope with a couple of ‘cunts’ and four or five ‘fucks’. We won’t cut them out or bleep them but, if you try not to use them at all then, if a few slip through in the nature of the act… that’s OK.”

Imagine my surprise when he did the whole comedy and magic act, full-on for 55 minutes without a single ‘fuck’ or ‘cunt’. And he was still able to maintain the offensiveness of the act.

There was one, not really surprising, problem though.

During the show, there were two lesbians in the audience whom Jerry spotted and, inevitably, he started making them the butt of some of his material.

Afterwards they made clear to me and others how outraged they had been by all this “offensive” material aimed at them.

I can’t remember whether Jerry was there when they complained or whether I told him afterwards.

But he was, in my opinion, genuinely taken aback that anyone would or could be actually offended and complain about the content of his comedy show. His reaction was – and again I paraphrase here – “But it’s a comedy show!” 

I tend to agree with him. 

(The lesbians were cut out of the transmitted show for flow-of-the-programme reasons, not for offensiveness reasons.)

The Last Laugh with Jerry Sadowitz but without lesbians, for time reasons…

President Obonjo on the Pleasance’s dangerous Edinburgh Fringe decision

Benjamin Bankole Bello, who performs comedy as President Obonjo, is rather concerned by the Pleasance venue’s banning of comedian Jerry Sadowitz’s show at the Edinburgh Fringe…

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For well over 11 years I have performed as self-exiled dictator, President Obonjo, living in the UK – bombastic, loud and terrorising the audience – a great conduit for jokes.

The press statement from the Pleasance included this:

“In a  changing world, stories and language that were once accepted on stage, whether performed in character or not, need to be challenged”. 

This has more implications for Character Comedy than Straight Stand Up. There is a difference and I have always believed that, when performing Character Comedy, you can get away with anything you say on stage… and I mean absolutely anything.

Displaying the characteristics of a dictator on stage has been warmly received over the years, The audience automatically assume he is a tribute act of the late Field Marshall Idi Amin. 

They know what to expect once they attend the show. They could end up with their heads in a fridge. They are expecting to be shot for comedy effect

The audience “could end up with their heads in a fridge…”

President Obonjo will never get his knob out to the audience, do racist, sexist or homophobic material. But audiences who come to see him know what to expect.

Dictators use intimidation, terror and the suppression of fundamental civil liberties.

He is likely to bring a gun out and threaten to use it, grab a woman and ‘marry’ her in front of an audience. He may threaten to waterboard an audience if they don’t laugh.  

Audiences have continued to accept this brand of comedy.

This statement from the Pleasance opens a can of worms for character comedy.

Saying something in character that is not in alignment with the organisation’s views could get your show cancelled.

Would President Obonjo survive performing at the Pleasance, if given the opportunity to do so, using the above characteristics? 

In fact, he did perform at the Pleasance as part of a compilation show AAA produced by Bound and Gagged in August 2019.  

The act has taken a new direction since 2019. What he says now is different from what he said in 2019. 

One of the President’s confidants recently said: “I think you need to go darker with your audience. They are  expecting it. You should do it and go darker.”  

I think the West is now so confused about Freedom of Speech, it is clearly exhausted with democracy.

President Obonjo (ironically) is the man to defend freedom of speech.

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…

ECCENTRIVIA: Man killed by own cock, penile routing and Mother’s Day

In my last blog, I mentioned that a 9-year-old of my acquaintance in London had adopted a kākāpō called Ralph in New Zealand. These are quirky, large, flightless, nocturnal parrots, not all called Ralph. They have a reported lifespan of up to 100 years. Over that period, they learn a trick or too.

My blog mention got this comment from a reader:

“I was in New Zealand a few years ago and took a bus tour from Queenstown to Milford Sound on the South Island. Somewhere along the winding and mountainous journey, the bus pulled up for a moment and a kākāpō strode up to the door and the bus driver fed him while tourists took photos. I don’t know how the kākāpō trained the bus driver to do this, but I am convinced that they are smart birds.”

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In other bird-related news, this blog’s occasional Vancouver-based correspondent, Anna Smith, sent me a report from the CTV Network in Canada about a man who was killed by his own cock in Southern India.

It seems a rooster fitted with a knife for an illegal cockfight in the Karimnagar district of Telangana state “inflicted serious injuries to the man’s groin as it tried to escape”. The cock was briefly held by local police before it was sent to a poultry farm.

According to CTV, “Specially-bred roosters have 7.5-centimetre (three-inch) knives or blades tethered to their legs and punters bet on who will win the gruesome fight. Thousands of roosters die each year in the battles which, despite the efforts of animal rights groups, attract large crowds.”

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On a peripherally-related subject, Andy Dunlop – President of the World Egg-Throwing Federation (also featured in my previous blog) contacted me with a story from the Welwyn & Hatfield Times about a man in Southern England who creates penis-shaped running routes to raise money for testicular cancer.

It seems Adam Linsell, an air conditioning engineer, wanted to get back into shape after Christmas and chose to start running routes in the shape of penises.

Some of Adam’s runs are fairly long (nearly 7km) while others are on the short side (around 4km). The Welwyn & Hatfield Times helpfully reports that “cold weather doesn’t put Adam off or cause the runs to shrink in size”.

Andy Dunlop bike ride route: sadly neither penis nor America

Adam is quoted as saying: “I’m chuckling to myself as I go along passing people who have no idea what I’m up to!… I uploaded the pics onto Welwyn Garden City Unhinged and they’ve currently had 4,000 shares, 3,000 likes and 2,000 comments.” 

Inspired by Adam, Egg-Throwing supremo Andy Dunlop tried to re-plan his bike ride routes across the North Yorks Moors to emulate his hero, but “only managed a bad map of America.”

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Meanwhile at home, in the last week, I have been bombarded by a barrage of spam/scam phone calls.

These included a pre-recorded phone call from 0118 348 2605 (a Reading number) telling me my British Telecom landline was about to be cut off and asking me to press key 1 on my telephone.

I have no BT landline.

On another day, two calls from different numbers told me that I was under investigation for tax fraud by HMRC (the taxman) and told me to press 1 or the police would arrest me.

On yet another day, I had a text message from HSBC bank to my mobile phone checking if I had authorised a payment of £240 to Mr C Jones and telling me to click on a link to security.hs-online-authpayee.com if the payment was not legit.

I have no HSBC bank account and I imagine that clicking the link would probably have connected me with some vastly expensive premium phone line in some far-flung country.

The (I hope) final scam was a pre-recorded call to my mobile phone from the National Insurance Office (surreally via a mobile phone number 44 7836 703246) saying I should phone them back immediately by pressing 1.

I do not recommend phoning that number, because of the potential ‘vastly expensive premium phone line in some far-flung country’ factor. But there seems to be some as-yet-inexplicable love of Button 1 by scammers.

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I also got a (I think) perfectly legitimate email from London’s Natural History Museum asking me if I wanted to opt out of receiving “Mother’s Day themed emails” from them – presumably on the basis that, if your mother has died, being reminded of the fact would upset you.

A worthy thought but, methinks, an email asking if you want to opt out of emails about Mother’s Day would equally remind you of the bereavement and be equally upsetting.

ECCENTRIVIA – Mis-gendering, Tit-Bits, Potato Heads and Janey Godley

In yesterday’s blog, I mentioned the NHS wasting time and money sending out three letters when only one was required. That referred to a local hospital appointment I am (still) having on 11th May with the Respiratory Department.

Today I received a text on my mobile from the same hospital about a telephone appointment I have with their Physiotherapy Department on 4th March. The text tells me that my telephone appointment has been changed to a telephone appointment.

Apart from the surrealism of my telephone appointment being changed to a telephone appointment, there is the quirkiness of the fact that they could have saved money yesterday by sending me one text rather than three physical letters. The technology seems to be not unknown to them.

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The NHS is an organisation that just keeps on giving. After reading yesterday’s blog, a care worker I know sent me a message she received from the NHS’s ‘Health Education England’ – presumably sent to all NHS workers in England who interact with members of the public – advising her what to do if she should “misgender someone by accidentally using the wrong pronoun”.

Her reaction to me was: “FFS, I think I’ll stay in lockdown”.

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In other gender-bending news, Hasbro’s Twitter account announced that, from Autumn this year, its iconic Mr & Mrs Potato Head toys will be getting “a 21st-century rebrand” as ‘Potato Head’ so that the toy could “break away from traditional gender norms” and, when the new brand is unveiled, “kids will have a blank slate to create same-sex families or single-parent families”.

This would mean the toys would not “impose a fixed notion of gender identity or expression”, freeing kids to do whatever feels most natural to them. A girl potato might wear trousers and a boy potato might wear earrings. Hasbro would also sell “boxed sets that don’t present a normative family structure”. This approach would allow kids to project their own ideas about gender, sexuality and family onto their Potato Head toys, without necessarily offending parents who might have more conservative notions about family.

After some surprised reaction on social media, Hasbro then re-Tweeted yesterday that, although the toys would indeed be re-branded as Potato Heads, they would also still be identified as ‘Mr’ and ‘Mrs’ on the packaging.

So Mr Potato Head will now be called Potato Head to avoid gendering the toy, but the toys will be identified on the packaging as Mr Potato Head or Mrs Potato Head.

I am undecided whether this is good publicity – lots of coverage of the brand – or bad publicity – too much ducking, dodging, diving and weaving in the PR.

Collins Dictionary currently defines ‘Potato-head’ as “[slang] a dumb or stupid person”.

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Meanwhile, on Facebook, Man-of-All-Arts Peter Stanford has spotted a piece in a 1884 edition of Tit-Bits magazine.

Peter’s reaction was: “I so want some reputable magazine to offer this service. I would write my own, and send it off with my subscription, just in case.”

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All publications are desperate for readers and ever have been.

In yesterday’s Daily Record (basically Scotland’s national equivalent to England’s Daily Mirror), there was a prominent article on comedian and author Janey Godley ‘dividing the internet’ by posting a picture of her dinner: a plate of toast, mince, peas and onions.

According to the Daily Record, “many were outraged by her choice of dish”.

You know you have really succeeded in the fame game when a national paper starts reporting your dinner (with pictures) for the sole reason that, if they publish your name, people will want to read the article. All the more jaw-dropping because this week Janey started writing a weekly column for the Daily Record‘s competitor, The Herald.

 

 

ECCENTRIVIA – Political correctness, Facebook hoes, midgets and the NHS

Yesterday, my Yorkshire-born friend Lynn stumbled on this story in The Week from last month, which both of us had missed. She says: “I had to read it three times and I’m still not sure I get it. Whoever the morons are, they surely can’t be Yorkshire folk.

To be clear, the concept of the three wise monkeys became popular in 17th century Japan, before spreading to the West. It is associated with the Tendai school of Buddhism where monkeys are considered sacred and perceived as helpers for divine figures. They are “vehicles of delight”.

I always think people who censor monkeys for being racist should look at themselves in the mirror. Far be it from me to say “political correctness gone mad”… but I will.

That was yesterday.

Today, Lynn spotted this piece in Computer Active magazine about Facebook’s algorithm getting similarly censorious.

I told her: “Eat your heart out for any publican trying to make a living by running the Cock Inn, Scunthorpe.”

Afterwards, I Googled to see if there actually IS a Cock Inn, Scunthorpe.

Sadly there is not, but Google told me there is a Blythe Black Cock Inn. Arguably worse in Facebook terms, but un-censored by them.

I feel the good people of Plymouth Hoe have cause to be aggrieved about being picked-on by a US algorithm.

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Meanwhile, in other perhaps equally dodgy news, I got an email telling me that the admirable Vaudevisuals Press, whose slogan is “Celebrating the Eccentric Performing Arts”, have published a book on Rose’s Royal Midgets and Other Little People of Vaudeville.

“…both the Dark and the Dazzling sides”

It covers the period from 1890 when Ike Rose “started living the legendary life of a top vaudeville & burlesque producer” to 1957, when Billy Barty founded his “advocacy group” the Little People of America.

Ike Rose, apparently, was “one of show biz history’s great impresarios, now forgotten but once in a league with names like Barnum and Ziegfeld as men who delivered full value for the price of a ticket.”

He seems to have rivalled Barnum is hype.

The book admits: “each component of the troupe’s name crumbles into dust by light of day.

“‘Rose’ was a pseudonym; the company held no Royal seal of approval; and the word ‘midget’ has passed out of use in polite society.”

The selling line for the book claims: ”Without pandering nor passing judgment, this book documents in detail the performers, producers, the stage routines themselves and the various venues from those straight up and upscale to others shameful and shady. This book probes both the Dark and the Dazzling sides of the American Imagination. Only rare books like this seriously confront our more bizarre past and allow the new generations of show folk to revise, to re-invent, to reform American Theater.”

Rare indeed – apparently only 50 copies of the book are being published.

Tomorrow – well, tonight at 8.00pm in New York; tomorrow 1.00am in London – there is a free online Zoom conversation between author Trav S.D. (Donald Travis Stewart) and Vaudevisuals’ own Jim R.Moore.

As I haven’t had a full night’s sleep since May last year (medical conditions) and am currently sleeping on the floor at night because my back is buggered, the possibility of my listening in on this Zoom call is iffy. But it sounds interesting.

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I have also, this morning, just received a letter from the NHS saying that I should ignore the other letter they enclose in the same envelope cancelling  a future appointment.

Obviously, in this main letter, they don’t mention when or with whom the appointment is because that is mentioned in the letter which they are telling me to ignore.

 

They say, in the first letter telling me to ignore the second letter, that they will send me a third letter rescheduling the appointment.

 

Regular readers of this blog will know we have been here before (see my blog of a fortnight ag0).

 

Life is but a surreal dream, a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing….

The sinking of a boat in 2020 and the lesbian attack on Miss Canada in 1975

Anna Smith, uncowed by the Fraser River

My last posting here was about Anna Smith, this blog’s occasional Canadian correspondent. 

Just before Christmas, her boat – her home for the last 20 years – and all her belongings – were destroyed on the Fraser River in British Columbia – Vancouver to you and me.

The boat was destroyed partly because of sexism (as mentioned in my Christmas Day blog) but – whatever – there is currently a crowdfunder to put Anna back on her feet again. In the meantime, she is living, thanks to friends, at the Queen’s Hotel – a former strip club which stands a few blocks away from where her boat used to float.

Yesterday, she updated me on her situation and sent me a photo of herself, holding a turkey enclosed in an infant’s snowsuit.

She wrote:

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Anna holding a turkey in a snowsuit

The situation is somewhat static here. The boat is still beached at low tide. Everything is pretty much shut down until Monday, as New Year’s Day was just before the weekend. 

I am still at The Queen’s Hotel in New Westminster. I used to work here for the previous owners, in the coffee shop, when the place was more a motel, and run by a quirky Croation family. 

I used to secretly call it Fawlty Sewers. 

It is now completely renovated. There is a motorcycle in the lobby for people who want to take selfies of themselves with it.

In its glory days, they had a terrific diner-style menu, featuring fresh home made pies every morning… and their famous “Skookum burger”.

Skookum is jargon word originating from the (First Nations) Chinook Language and it is in popular use here, It is one of the few words that made it into working class English-speaking vocabulary here – possibly via fishery workers.

(Skookum means impressive, exceptional or impressively strong.)

In the list of people who have donated to the crowdfunder for my boat disaster I was surprised to see the name of one lady… She is one of my former room mates when I was 18 and living in a house full of radical lesbian feminists. 

My roomate Adrienne started a lesbian courier company to deliver Chinese food for the two biggest Chinese restaurants in downtown Toronto.

The women in the lesbian house (including me – I was the youngest) ‘invaded’ the Miss Canada Pageant in November 1975 (which the U.N. had declared International Year of the Woman).

I guess it would be considered a terrorist act today.

Terry Lynne Meyer, winner of Miss Canada 1975

About twelve of us stormed into the television studio and completely disrupted the pageant which had an audience of a couple hundred people and was being broadcast live across the nation.

We were wrestled from the stage (in front of a row of twelve screaming and sobbing beauty queens) and dragged by our legs out of there.

There were photos of our leader Adrienne, raising her fist in the air, her statuesque blonde girlfriend Helen gazing at her in ecstacy, with the row of shocked beauty queens wearing identical long gowns in the background, looking on in horror, gasping, hands to their mouths…

It was quite a radical act for the time, but most of the participants just got on with their lives after that, so it wasn’t properly recorded in history books… it was before there was ‘Women’s Studies’ in universities. 

I have tried looking for a tape of it, unsucessfully, on YouTube… I think the TV station may have excised it or destroyed it.

I did find a video of the pageant continuing  to its finale, all sign of lesbian interference edited out…

Andrew Doyle on Titania McGrath’s new book, satire and annoying people

Andrew talked to me via Skype

Andrew Doyle is an interesting and controversial writer/performer.

He’s a stand-up comic in his own right. He co-wrote the Jonathan Pie character for three years. He currently writes political columns for Spiked internet magazine et al. And he writes and Tweets as the character Titania McGrath.

Until the coronavirus struck down live comedy, he also co-ran monthly Comedy Unleashed shows in London’s East End. They were billed as “The Home of Free-Thinking Comedy”.

For the last three nights, Comedy Unleashed has returned to the Backyard Comedy Club in Bethnal Green. They were restricted under COVID rules to only having one-third of the venue’s capacity audience, so they ran a show on two consecutive nights. Both shows sold out well in advance – within a day of tickets being on sale – and they added a third night.

But I really wanted to talk to him about his recent Titania McGrath work: a faux children’s publication My First Little Book of Intersectional Activism.

I had seen the non-existent Titania McGrath (played by actress Alice Marshall) perform at Comedy Unleashed last year. A live tour was planned for March this year but, because of COVID, it has now been postponed until next March. Coronavirus allowing.

This is the first of a two-part blog…

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JOHN: So My First Little Book of Intersectional Activism says its target audience is six month old to six-year-old females… They are going to have trouble reading it.

ANDREW: It points out in the opening chapter that Titania doesn’t believe in talking down to children. So she will use words like “intersectional” because she thinks here is an innate wisdom in childhood, which is why she’s such a great fan of Greta Thunberg. She says that, when she was a baby, her first words were: “Seize the means of production”. She believes babies have this innate politicised wisdom.

Of course, what it means is that kids can’t read the book. Although a copy was sent to a friend of mine recently and her husband assumed, from the design of the book, that it was for their 4-year-old daughter and gave it to her. She was delighted.

But then her mother had to explain to her that it wasn’t for her and, of course, it’s full of swearing, so… It’s marketed to look like a children’s book. It has all the accoutrements of children’s literature. But I hope in a way kids don’t get hold of it.

JOHN: Might bookshops put it on the wrong shelves?

“I thought they were in on the joke…”

ANDREW: A couple of weeks ago, an American bookstore posted a display of all their favourite books about diversity and inclusion and Titania McGrath’s first book Woke: A Guide to Social Justice was there, next to Ibram X. Kendi and Robin DiAngelo and all the rest of them. At first, I thought they were in on the joke. But no. When they found out it was a satirical book, they took the Tweet down and presumably the display down and also took the book off their website so you can’t even buy it from that bookstore any more. They were obviously very angry about it

JOHN: One of the drawbacks of very sophisticated satire is that people may actually take it for real.

ANDREW: Even today, some people think Titania is real. There are all sorts of people out there who haven’t heard of her, which is great: the joke can keep going. I like getting into arguments as her with people who don’t know.

JOHN: You like getting into arguments generally?

ANDREW: Actually, I don’t, because I’m a very non-confrontational person. It’s something I avoid as much as possible in my life. But, through Titania, I’m not getting into an argument. I’m enacting a character. So that’s fine.

JOHN: Does that mean Jonathan Pie and Titania McGrath are ways to be aggressive and argumentative without putting yourself personally under pressure?

ANDREW: I suppose you’re really asking does that explain my attraction to the satirical genre? But I don’t think it does. I don’t think I’m looking for an outlet to be confrontational. It’s just a corollary of satire; you can’t avoid it. 

When you’re writing satire you are exposing what you perceive to be the follies of Society and, by doing so, you’re bound to make enemies – particularly because you tend to be having a go at people with some sort of cultural or political power.

I don’t think satire can exist without offending people. Unfortunately, it’s a by-product of what I do, but that does not equate to having a confrontational personality. I go out of my way to avoid conflict in real life.

JOHN: Your work isn’t a way of getting something out of your system?

ANDREW: Probably my stand-up does that more. Because you get to embody a version of yourself that doesn’t exist. Often I can exaggerate my worst features. My onstage persona is a lot more waspish and – yes – more confrontational. Maybe – possibly – that’s me enacting the type of person I wish I could be.

JOHN: How does Alice Marshall cope with this? She must get hassle for saying things as Titania McGrath that she didn’t write and maybe doesn’t believe.

ANDREW: I spoke to Alice about this a couple of days ago and what was interesting was that she told me she did NOT get any hassle. I get a lot of abuse online but I think she doesn’t because people recognise she’s an actor.

JOHN: Is what Titania says going to change anybody’s opinions?

ANDREW: It depends what you mean. I had one woman who claimed I had effectively de-radicalised her. That kind of thing is very gratifying.

Satire does believe it can make a difference, otherwise you wouldn’t do it. But does it make a difference or just annoy people more? That has always been a conflict in my head.

When I get emails from people thanking me for standing up to this current creeping authoritarianism, that’s really gratifying and a good way to offset the anger that Titania generates.

JOHN: If you can’t change people’s minds, would you be just as happy simply annoying people?

ANDREW: No. I DO try to change people’s minds. That’s why I write political articles and articles about culture. I’m not doing that just to get it off my chest. More than anything, I’m interested in discussion and persuading people of my view – and also refining my own view.

By putting my argument out there in the most persuasive way I can, people will come back at me with counter-arguments that either refine what I believe or make me realise where I’ve gone wrong. And that is a really positive thing.

… CONTINUED HERE …

Noel Faulkner, outspoken comedy club owner, quits London after 40 years

Outspoken Noel Faulkner, the veteran (he will hate me using that word) club-owner is leaving London after about 40 years  (though with an interlude of about 18 years of that in the US). He started and ran London’s Comedy Cafe venue and, through his management agency, helped establish acts including Jimmy Carr. Last night, I met up with him to ask why he is leaving.

I had been seeing a comedy show and we met outside the venue after the show finished. That was his choice.

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Noel Faulkner in London yesterday

JOHN: So you’re leaving in around 9-10 days. Do you have a set date for departure?

NOEL: No. I’m out of my house in London in about a week, then I’m going back to Galway. I’m from Galway. I’ve got a house there; I’m buying a boat – 40 or 45ft – and I’m going to sail six months of the year in the Mediterranean.

JOHN: I thought you were from Killarney.

NOEL: My parents moved a village in Connemara when I was a teenager. I was only there for a few years. Galway’s my home town.

JOHN: So why are you going back?

NOEL: Mainly because everybody I know in London is working. I never see anybody. All my friends are comics and I don’t want to hang round in comedy clubs. There is nothing more boring. I’d rather watch a proctologist operate.

JOHN: But you ran comedy clubs for…

NOEL: It’s all gone. After the Comedy Cafe closed, we tried it in a hotel but the people there were fucking idiots; they kept wanting to change the opening times. It’s done.

JOHN: Aren’t you going to feel pangs of nostalgia?

NOEL: I never want to see another comedian perform. I could have gone to this show you went to today. But I thought: I’m not going to sit in that. I just can’t be around comedy. You know the punchline and then the fuckers don’t hit it and you go: Oh! Fucking hell! I have no interest in comedy now. None.

JOHN: But you have an active mind. Galway is lovely. But you will get bored after six months, just sitting around.

NOEL: I’ll have a sail boat: you are permanently fixing something on a sail boat. I can fuck off anywhere I wanna go.

JOHN: And you are going to finish your autobiography in Ireland?

NOEL: Yeah. When I started writing it, there was only one Panama Canal. Since then, they’ve built a second one.

JOHN: Is it basically your 2005 Edinburgh Fringe show Shake, Rattle & Noel?

“…a Tourette-fuelled Helter Skelter ride through three decades” (New York Times)

NOEL: Yeah. But longer. More facts and craziness.

JOHN: What’s the last page? Leaving the Comedy Cafe?

NOEL: It doesn’t matter. Who’s going to buy it?

JOHN: You have amazing stories – Robin Williams, the drug cartels, being on the FBI’s Most Wanted list, the…

NOEL: Yeah, it’s a great book but I’m nobody, so I won’t get a publisher. I just wanna finish it for me. I have no ego any more about anything. I don’t give a fuck. 

JOHN: That’s age.

NOEL: Yeah. My mates are dying all around me. My brother’s girlfriend just died. I just want to get up every day and for it to be a good day and joyful.

JOHN: Paul Sinha has Parkinson’s Disease.

NOEL: Yeah. He’s a sweet man… Ian Cognito just died last month. I knew Paul (Cognito’s real name). He was a lovely man. Very sad.

JOHN: His death must have had an effect on you.

NOEL: Scary.  That’s why I realised… Just get the fucking boat… I might be dead in five years time.

JOHN: He was 60. But he had lived a fair old bit…

NOEL: A brilliant singer. I saw him sing with Peter Graham’s orchestra at the Hackney Empire… white tuxedo… beautiful. Highly talented but totally self-destructive. Permanently on self-destruct.

JOHN: I’m amazed Keith Richards of the Rolling Stones is still alive.

NOEL: It’s in the genes.

JOHN: Do you have long-living relatives?

NOEL: I have a great-great-great-grandfather who lived to be 125.

JOHN: Was he fairly compos mentis?

NOEL: I don’t know. I wasn’t born then.

JOHN: Comedy moves on. Jo Brand got into trouble. People in the UK have been throwing milk shakes at politicians. She joked on a BBC Radio show: “Why bother with a milkshake when you could get some battery acid?” Nigel Farage complained; the police investigated but decided it was not an incitement to violence.

“We can’t start censoring. You’ll have Dialogue Police.”

NOEL: It was just a fucking joke. Listen, we can’t start censoring. You’ll have Dialogue Police. When I had the Comedy Cafe in Shoreditch, they were doing a test attaching microphones to lampposts. If someone was murdered, they would hear it and the CCTV guys could start looking at the… That’s how fucking… So we could be sitting here outside a cafe having a conversation and you swear 12 times and say this word and… We are right up to that!

JOHN: 1984.

NOEL: We can’t have it! If I was doing stuff on stage now, I would fucking tear into everybody and go: Fuck you all! It’s like “Good evening ladies and gentlemen and everyone with a sexual preference from A to fucking Z”… Now I haven’t offended anybody, ya cunts. It’s fucking ridiculous. I don’t even know what the initials LGBTQ… Does ANYbody fucking know what they stand for? NO. But some guy’s got a penis transplant to his forehead and a vagina in his ear… For fuck’s sake!

JOHN: You should seriously think about doing an Edinburgh Fringe show where you just go up and rant.

NOEL: I don’t want to spend a month up there. It’s depressing. Really depressing.

JOHN: But, if you don’t give a shit, it’s OK.

NOEL: You’re still depressed. I’ve been up there with money in my pocket. Hated it.

JOHN: When you did your show in 2005? But you probably cared then. The trick is not to care.

NOEL: Yeah, but you’re spending fucking £10,000. Edinburgh, for a comic, is the greatest illusion ever.

JOHN: In what way?

NOEL: That you’re gonna make it.

JOHN: Are you gonna have a farewell ‘do’?

NOEL: No.

JOHN: Oh go on… A farewell rant.

NOEL: No, I’m not. I don’t want to stand round in a bar having to talk to people. They can fuck off. I’m gone.

Are the Facebook PC police about to ban me because of my sexually risqué name?

I have a Facebook account in my own name – John Thomas Fleming.

On it I post links to articles which I think are interesting and/or funny.

The Daily Mash is a satirical British website.

Today I tried to post a link on my Facebook page to one of the Daily Mash articles.

The Daily Mash’s satiric article was headlined:

MUSEUM OF 1970s SEX EUPHEMISM TO OPEN IN LEEDS

My comment accompanying the link was… “Surely it should open in Bristol?”

A reference to a jolly British euphemism for a lady’s breast.

My post was blanked-out by Facebook because:

“This post goes against our Community Standards on nudity or sexual activity”

and I was banned from posting on Facebook for 24 hours.

Robin Askwith in Confessions From A Holiday Camp (1977) (Photo by Columbia/Kobal/REX/Shutterstock (5871814a)

I am not sure if Facebook objected to my use of the word ‘Bristol’ or the Daily Mash‘s somewhat risqué picture which was a still from one of the 1970s series of Confessions of… films… These were ‘naughty yet acceptable’ films in the genre of the Carry On… movies.

Britain has a long tradition of family filth Stretching back to Shakespeare and Chaucer and certainly including – perhaps most surprising to Americans – the traditional (ideally utterly filthy) British Christmas pantomimes for children.

The Confessions of… films were more permissive than the more innocent Carry On… films. But were still considered middle-of-the-road even then.

Obviously Facebook’s image-searching computers and more puritan-minded American tendencies need a re-tweak.

The worrying thing is that I was given the name John Thomas Fleming by my innocent parents. I was named after my two grandfathers. I believe the origin of the phrase ‘John Thomas’ is Lady Chatterley’s Lover, a novel which I nor I am certain my parents never read.

I now fear for the good citizens of Bristol city, who face a potential blanket ban from Facebook for living where they do: a conurbation which shares its name with an example of Cockney rhyming slang.

This is all a bit reminiscent of the early days of censorship on the internet when farmers found that innocent references to their common farmyard creatures were getting them banned as pornographers… in particular, any reference to their cocks.

Oh, alright… the bloody Facebook image-searching computers actually took exception to the photo… But, really, do me a favour.