Scott Capurro

Wed, August 22, 2007
Standup and shout
Yuk yuk’s plays host to lineup of gay comics

By ANN MARIE MCQUEEN, SUN MEDIA
Wed, August 22, 2007
Standup and shout
Yuk yuk’s plays host to lineup of gay comics

Scott Capurro doesn’t hesitate when asked about possibly closeted Hollywood celebrities who are frequently the target of gay rumours.

The 44-year-old gay San Francisco comic, who headlines Ottawa Yuk Yuk’s 3rd Annual Laugh Out Proud weekend starting tomorrow, says show business is full of people putting on a straight face for their public.

“I think it’s pathetic and sad, but you know, show business, as an adult, it’s like drama in high school: Who’s attracted to it? All the queers, you know what I mean?” he says. “So many famous actors in interviews and radio shows and stuff, they’re all gay men. (Many) women in comedy in America, they’re all lesbians, too.”

Capurro says just like in pro sports, while their colleagues in the industry might be aware of their same-sex orientation, fans of big, closeted stars are not.

“The thing is, I’ve never dealt with it, because I’ve always been out. I don’t understand it. I don’t understand the stress and the tension people put themselves through just so they can make a movie,” he says. “But I do think there’s a lot of money at stake, and whenever there’s a lot of money at stake, then people start faking it.”

Capurro doesn’t see the point of trying to force celebrities out of the closet either, like gossip blogger Perez Hilton did with singer Lance Bass and actor Neil Patrick Harris. He just doesn’t buy the argument it will change anything, or inspire any youngsters struggling to accept and announce their own sexuality.

“Has it mattered?” he says. “Don’t the fag-haters still hate the fags?”

Capurro points to his mother, who despite being supportive of her openly gay son and remaining close friends with a gay ex-husband, still can’t bring herself to ask if he is dating anyone.

“She’s fine. But she still talks to me like, ‘Honey, have you made any new friends?’ ”

Capurro thinks the only thing that will truly bring about a general acceptance and understanding is time — decades of it.

“I think it’s a generational thing. I think older people have to die first,” he says, with a little laugh. “Sorry, I do.”

For GT Magazine, April 2007
Scott Capurro

French Farce

Sheathed penetration is hard to come by in France. To a Parisian, anything plastic or covered in rubber that stands between him and nature is artifice and unseemly. Even in the two-star hotels I frequent, fresh flowers line the front desk. Evian water in glass bottles adorn my tiny bureau. And the French boy in the elevator, babbling in his native tongue as if he’s interesting, follows me past his to my room, leaving my door ajar. Slightly. Nothing separates us from one another. A foreign - say, English - visitor might spy me tearing Pierre’s ass apart and be aghast. But I knew I’d be fine. Pierre is liberated. He’s also white and takes vitamin C.

The deals one brokers with oneself when avoiding becoming positive are a numbers game. I should know. I’ve been at this for a long time. Let me introduce myself. My name is Scott Capurro, Scotty to my enemies and Scotia to people who crave a broken nose, and I’ve been asked to write a column for this here magazine, possibly because I lead a notorious double life. By day I’m a yoga practicing lezzie wannabe who chants and drinks green tea. By night, I’m a sex addict who’ll fuck anything that can crawl or swim home. Oh, and I’m a stand up comic with a penchant for either shocking or offending. Or converting. Straight men get positively giddy around me, they flash their ginger pubes and share secrets about their favorite safe word, whilst their girlfriends look on, stunned. Problem with girls is, they don’t compliment their boyfriends. And men are the most vain. Say “Nice shirt”, and he buckles. Then confesses. Then barebacks, which is fine because he’s straight. Right?

If a guy is sober and clean and under 30, I’ll not bother with a condom. I open my bedside drawer, indicating with a nod cellophane packets nearby; then rimming him if he’s hairless, preparing him properly for a nice fuck. But when push comes to unwrapping, I slyly skip that step. My doctor in San Francisco tells me that the chances of getting HIV as a condomless top are about the same as swallowing semen, and baby, I’ve swallowed a lot. I mean, a boatload. I’m not bragging, I’m just thirsty. And 44. At Chariots last Sunday, three guys came in my mouth. One in the dark. I have no idea what he looked like, but I know how strong my stomach acids are, and really, if one got AIDS from swallowing, we’d all be AIDS-y, including, I have to imagine, my mother. Certainly my stepfather. And most definitely, ME.

Years ago, when I first moved to San Francisco, I would’ve been horrified by my current sexual behavior. In 1990, my friends were dropping dead and I was attending safe sex seminars. These were grim, acid-washed times. I would barely shake hands, so licking balls seemed way too close to the mark.

Then, when a stray drip of cum hit my tongue during a misguided hand job in a bookstore in 1995, it changed me. Like fresh blood to a tamed beast, my eyes grew red and the veins in both my necks practically burst. I was hooked again, not just on the taste, which is like fresh rainwater, but on the very consistency. In my mouth, cum melts like Honey Vanilla Hagen Dasz. It’s a flavor that’s been discontinued, but thanks to penises, not totally forgotten. At least, not by an indiscriminate cocksucker.

So if swallowing won’t infect me, then I imagine fucking a sweet hole won’t contaminate me either. The percentages are so low, less than 1 in 100. Or is it 1000? Either way, my turn won’t come around for, maybe, another 50. Or 500. So I have yards, miles of ass to climb. And really, if I were gonna get AIDS, I would’ve gotten it by now. HIV is so September 10th, and I’m quite trendy.

But do I want to live past 50? Ok, 60? When I was younger with a life partner and a Siamese, I pictured myself in elegant retirement, playing classical piano and refinishing patio furniture. That relationship dulled, along with my eyesight and hair color, and now I wonder, how much longer do I have to pretend I care about global warming? What if my lifespan were lessened? Would enthusiasm return? A compact life might feel as refreshing as an art-house movie, reflected off a French boy’s round, pale, juicy ass.

So I’m in the world’s coldest capital city, but it’s summer, so it’s ok. I guess. It’s raining and it smells like hummous, but I’m on anti anxiety pills so everything is ok. I was just in Toronto last week, working at Yuk Yuks, which was lovely. At the late show Saturday, however, a black woman threatened to shoot me. Twice. Other than that, Toronto was great.
Not sure what I’d said. Again, pills…the entire world is floating by. But she was mad, and I was bored, so I might’ve said anything. How can i be responsible for what comes out of my mouth, when I’m on stage for hours every night and lots of stuff flies outta there. I might have dropped the n-bomb. Not sure. The other comics laughed. I think. Pills…
Ottawa looks poor from the taxi, but I’m sure it’s gonna be great. Gay Pride weekend and all. You’re right, that is terrifying, but I’ll soldier on. I’ve checked craigslist and there’s nothing. I might have to bring in a hooker, but here a blowjob shouldn’t cost more than a bread roll and the use of my hotel shower.
Gays. In Ottawa. Part of me would rather be shot. Guess which part.
PS: the hotel desk guys are speaking French. I don’t, but it sounds weird. Like French with a BAD accent. Why is Canada so literal?
xx
PPS: One is hot. But chubby. But hot.

Scott Capurro
For GT Magazine
May, 2007
T-Cell Stew

While on a date recently, I went for a piss during cake. My urine burned, and since I hadn’t eaten razors for dinner, I squeezed the tip and oops! Big Scott got sick. A bit of white came up, and that’s when I knew, my drip and I were going home alone.

The next day, at the STD clinic in Whitechapel, I use the Guardian as camouflage whilst cruising black guys. They’re everywhere. Other than the stubby shaved-head Caucasian with big hands, and the oblivious Asian twins with their feet up by the men’s toilet, the room is filled with sinewy, baggy-jeaned brothers, some on their own, some obviously supporting each other. The three men near the nurses’ station, their backs to the wall unfortunately, are eyeing up the competition. They seem particularly interested in the HOT, ebony/ivory young lovers - or at least, I’ve identified them as such - who’ve just wandered in, powdered out of their minds, giggling and sipping coke from big plastic bottles. The white half is lisping into his cell, while his darker partner closes his eyes, lounging in his hard plastic seat. The three wise men look on, shaking their heads; oddly, the lightest skin and prettiest of the group - clearly the bitch, I tell myself - runs his hand up his shirt, lifting it enough to reveal his latte-colored, hairless belly as he pinches his own left nipple.

Suddenly, a mate’s hand drops onto the lighter black guy’s knee, and as the three laugh, I muse, hopefully, that the triptych might be having closeted sex together, or “Doing it on the downlow”, to quote a recent episode of CSI:Miami. One winks at me, and I admire how STDs level the playing field.

I waddle into the men’s, wondering if I loiter there long enough, the nipple pincher will saunter in. But he might have a disease, so blowing him here, now, though a good use of time, would be healthily reckless. We could just finger each other. Would that be wrong? Have I showered? Has he? Would it kill the staff to play some ABBA? Gosh, penile infections, especially in this romantic atmosphere, make me capricious.

I hear my name called, and when I’m brought into an examination room, the sweet, slightly chubby doctor takes my recent sexual history. He has such clean nails, and his jacket is so white. I swoon.

How many partners in the last six months?

I unswoon. “Around seventy.”

Jees, I think, that sounds like a lot. Am I bragging?

I recount, aloud. “Three a week, on average, including saunas. Yep, that’s around seventy.” I was right, but it sounds exhausting.

Doc asks, “Always using a condom?”

“Uh, I dunno.” Well I do know. “Almost always.”

When I say that, I sound like such a fucking bimbo. What would my dog do if I died? She’d be so judge-y.

The questions rattle on and on, and I realize, as I answer most of them with a wince, I’m trying to joke my way out of being stressed. As I spread my rectum, inadvertently I flirt, telling the Doc to finger around for a dozen roses. His eye rolling is deafening.

He dismisses me with a wry smile and I wait, in an even smaller room that’s really a hallway, facing the sweet, speeding couple, and a suited business guy on his computer. He’s barking into his hands-free, and we’re all tense, averting one another’s eyes.

It’s not that I’m ashamed. I’m embarrassed. Not because I have an infection, but because I’m the oldest guy here. I cross my legs and blush at the thought that I’m trying to feel young by hangin’ with the dudes, nodding like I’m one of them, when really I’m more of a twitching chaperone. They stare back, not because I’m sexy or even available, but because I shouldn’t be here. They’ve made their most recent mistake because they’re young. Little do they know that lugubriousness and callous failure follow you to your grave.

Eventually, a nurse jabs a swizzle stick into my Jap’s Eye, then gives me a pill and sends me on my way. And I hope, while passing a drunken, toothless straight couple battering one another in the ambulance parking lot, the memory of that sting will save my life, or at least save me from having to spend another ENTIRE afternoon tapping my loafer on scuffed linoleum in East London.

At least Doctor Chubby gave me, along with a few condoms, his card, in case I have any questions. I might have to call with some, just so the day wasn’t a total waste.