Scott Capurro

GT
October 2008

The Brazilian found the half empty lubricant packet while I was away from the rented flat, doing my show at a Fringe fair. I’d left the sticky plastic bullet on a shelf near the front door. I could have thrown it away. I even ogled it while leaving on the way to the train station to retrieve my boy, and thought, as it swept past the corner of my right eye, I should really dump that with the rest of the garbage. It looks suspicious. Salacious. Slightly wicked, like I’ve behaved badly since I left London, and I require redemption. Or hot post-break up sex, whichever might come first.

I’d laid him down for a nap and took off to torture the local inbred, kiddy diddling, drunken cunts. 15 minutes later, I received a text. An angry text that didn’t coincide with the cooing and kissing and whispering of how much we’d missed one another. It read: “You are a liar. I want to leave now.”

Right then, I knew he’d also confiscated the used condom I’d left in the toilet’s rubbish bin. He’s such a Virgo. So efficient, like an episode of CSI: Edinburgh, he’d probably sent it off to a DNA lab and was tracing the user. Sadly, that Mormon had returned to France, so I wouldn’t see a showdown on Castle Terrace. The two would never terrify unsuspecting, photographing tourists by dragging up in cowboy gear and whipping out big guns, protecting their honor by killing each other, leaving me with a great Edinburgh show for next year.

Rushing home an hour later, I expected civil war in the sitting room, Brazil pumping my southern border with firepower, so angry he might chop off my circumcised cock and feed it to the little foxes. Or hungry hookers. Or whoever eats cock in Scotland, which at this point might be the Labour Party.

My fidelity is demanded. Once denied, he rapes my moist pond like it was the first, or last, boy pond he’d ever rape, because that’s what I deserve. I anticipated liquid bombs, in one form or another.

Instead, all lights were off. I shivered, imagining an ambush. Him a thief in a balaclava, me in distress, his gloved hand covering my mouth from behind while he takes me on the longest Tube ride ever, and I yelp, ‘Mind the Gap. Mind the Gap.’

My skeleton slid in. I gingerly opened the door. Disappointedly, he was curled up on the sofa, his face hidden in the pillows, weeping. Weeping? When did my top become a lady? I patted his shoulder, and he jerked away. I paused, and then asked him what he wanted from me. We’ve never had a conversation about monogamy, and when I labeled him my boyfriend, he scoffed. He’s lost, or so he says, and unsure where his life is heading. I figured we were just lovers, one of which is sexually unsatisfied, so we’d become my parents, and guess whom I was playing. My nagging mum appeared daily, oiled up and ready for action in pink American Apparel. He lounged about like my dad, complete with a big smile and a diminishing libido. So I never thought he’d display any sort of heartbreak.

He leered at me, then jumped up and rushed into the bedroom. When I followed, I found him facing the wall, still crying, softly, like a Blair Witch Project victim, only without those glamorous tiny handprints everywhere. When I moved toward him, he moved away. Eventually I went to the kitchen. Childishness makes me hungry, and I wanted to hide the knives.

I turned to my right, and saw him rushing out of the flat with his backpack. An hour later he returned, because it’s Scotland and there’s nowhere to go. This time I left, and he called.

“Where are you,” he said, softly.

“Walking. I thought you wanted time alone.”

“Come back now.”

I got into bed and held him. Our eyes met, prolonged, and he grinned a bit. While I fucked him, for only the third time in four months, he placed his hand behind my neck pulling me toward him, kissing me, letting my tongue delve. I rolled him over, forcing my cock inside his tight hole, while, wincing, he twisted his head and licked my face.

“I want to be near you, all the time,” he whimpered. I wrapped my arms around him, twisting my legs amongst his, and didn’t let go for three days.

I like this guy. But our problems persist. Apparently, I’m a complicated, difficult ‘catch’, to quote a friend. Why? Just because I want to marry the Rabbi’s son? It’s a reference from Fiddler on the Roof. If you’re not a jew or a gay or a gay jew, then forget about it and read on.

Scott Capurro
GT September 2008

I met a handsome Brazilian in a sauna. He was so shy, I had to take him home before I could pack his ass like a drug mule. Talk about ‘liquid bombs’, but then he was being deflowered.

“You are my first,” he growled on all fours, whilst looking back at me; before my ego grew too large, I thought, well, let’s see if my dick touches both sides. And it did! In fact, the entire experience was stumbling and awkward and felt rushed, like my first time as well. Which, if not satisfying, was at least endearing.

English isn’t his first, or even second, language. And because yo hablo a bit of Spanish, and he’s eager to struggle through my tongue, we’ve quickly discovered a strange sort of linguistic trail all our very own, complete with guttural utterances that aren’t words at all. Like those Austrian cellar children discovered after decades of captivity, he snarls and chirps and whinges when he mispronounces my name, calling me Scotch, while I try desperately to push him back into bed as often as possible. His cock is 8 inches long. I need it inside me like it’s my liver.

There are so many warning signs. Or maybe my recent choice of romantic interests have been so convoluted, so misguided, that I trust myself even less than I trust him. I see patterns everywhere. He’s closeted and evangelical, like Martin, the hooker from Texas. He’s dark and swarthy and slightly resembles a monkey, like Maurino, the directionless Puerto Rican. And he’s manipulative, withholding sex while telling me he misses me, like Fat Matt, the bulimic waiter who stopped fucking or even liking me when we got close. Is Streisand right? Can we only recognize patterns, but not change them? Or has it gotten so bad that I’m now blindly quoting Deepak Chopra?

I trace ‘my gay love crisis’ in the steamy bathroom mirror. My shaved reflection looks serene, but I’m used to hiding my feelings. I realized I was gay at 4. At 12, when my sister informed me only faggots joined the swim team, my defenses went up and stayed up. I was tall and nerdy and desperately in need of a man’s approval. Too bad ‘nerdy’ isn’t hot when you’re 45.

I’ve had some success. John and I lived together for many years, but we were young and he was a top so I succumbed. We found solutions, because he was also generous and supportive. My first choice was my best.

Or maybe the Brazilian is great, and I’m scared. He has lovely eyes, green like pond leaves. I want to help him, he’s being stalked by a one-night stand that’s offered to marry him so he can stay in London, but when I write a grammatically correct email response full of rejection, the Brazilian tells me to “not send”.

“Tell him I might change my mind in a month or two.”

Maybe he’s trying to protect this veritable stranger’s feelings, letting him down lightly. Is the Brazilian kind? Or crafty?

“You said you wouldn’t change your mind. You said you never liked him.” I’m sounding like a disappointed teenager.

“Scotch, I need time. To think.”

He prepares to leave for his janitorial job, taking with him his boxed food from a supermarket. He eats crap. Every organic meal I serve is met with disdain. He grinds salt on already salted sautéed chicken, which is free range and was decapitated like, I dunno, yesterday, so it’s fucking expensive. Usually he falls asleep on the couch, giggling when I say I have to work.

“You don’t work,” he snickers. “You do yoga. You swim. I work.”

Fat Matt was jealous of me too. He’d pin me on my sofa, tickling me until I cried in pain and begged him to get off me. It wasn’t until after we broke up that I realized he’d been abusive.

I grab the Brazilian, trying to deep kiss him, but he pushes back my arms, which hurts. He’s 26 and solid, with a hairy belly that, though not photogenic, I adore. We struggle in the hallway, I’m hungry for his cock, I want to crawl inside his skin and fuck me the way he has, infrequently. Briefly. I want to fuck me for hours. I bite his earlobe and he brays.

Then he whispers, “You are boring,” and leaves me alone, under an orange ceiling shade. The kind of shade you see a lot of, near Brick Lane.

Thing is, I’ve changed the other person’s name. Barely. So that’s ok, right? Why am I so fucked up? Maybe this impending Fringe festival in Edinburgh is making me anxious, poisoning my rational narrative. Or maybe I’ve lost control because I want to. Someday I might find peace. In the meantime, struggling, stifled romance will have to be enough. In fact, I just wrestled a Brazilian into bed, and he left claw marks on my right breast. But that’s for next month’s column.

Scott Capurro
GT August 2008

After a return to the ‘legitimate’ (my mother’s word) theatre, I found myself surrounded by actors. Ten of us in total, stuffed into the tiny, grimy dressing room of a small, respectable fringe theatre in Earl’s Court. Over a four-week period, two of us built a sort of partnership, a bond that intensified by the intimacy of the play, and life, as they say, imitated art.

The play, Fucking Men, is about men who fuck. Though each of the scenes have two persons, the characters intersect; each action effects the other, each affair feeds the circumstances of the next; as my character states, ‘sex is about connecting’. I played a failing playwright using sex for approval. Obviously the research was strenuous.

When I arrived at the theatre for my first rehearsal, the director was late, leaving me alone with my new scene partner, Alan. I’d been warned he was pretty, so I did what I do when I’m nervous. I flirted, awkwardly, suggesting this insolvent actor try prostitution. Alan’s from Minnesota, and though he’s lived in London for nine years, he, like packaged crisps, retains his freshness. Pale and sloppily dressed in baggy denim, his hair combed into a fin, he seemed disturbingly young. Forgetting momentarily I didn’t have a ‘type’, I reckoned he wasn’t mine and we’d get along just fine.

Initially, I thought Alan was a bad actor. Our scene involved two gay men circling one another, wondering how, or even if, one would pounce. He seemed distracted. I was of course bouncing off walls, sputtering and mugging with forced charm. Alan looked down, shyly. When we did make eye contact, he consumed me. I wondered why he disliked me so much. In fact, Alan was wryly responding to my showmanship. He was listening, as any skilled actor would. We – sorry, I - had a lot of work to do.

Unfortunately we had little time, so I innocently requested we meet alone, in Hackney, on a sunny day, to run lines. We ended up eating lunch, and as I asked him loads of personal questions, Alan cruised just about every bearded man that traipsed by. He asked me almost nothing about myself. In a way, I was relieved. He was a self-centered actor who couldn’t wait for opening night when he could get drunk. Again, though talented, I thought him plain. I praised myself for my own discretion.

When I made him dinner, he lightened up. “Can I just say that everything in this apartment is totally cute?” Yes, I said, you may. And that includes me I hope. “Don’t be ridiculous. You’re as pretty as a princess.” I showed him photos of my mom and he told me about an extremely painful break up. We wandered to Shoreditch, and before he scurried off with his posse, we spent an hour on the street, alone, laughing and making fun of everything. Each joke made the other better. Intermittently, Alan leapt at me, excited, and hugged me.

Then, before a show, we discussed his father’s passing. He was still very upset, and we stood next to one another, in a cramped, warm hallway, my left shoulder pressing against his right, as I stroked his damp forehead. We looked at one another, and I brushed his left earlobe. Then his cheek. He stared so intently I thought he’d cry. I wondered if he wanted me to kiss him, and I worried what a sexual touch would feel with someone with whom I’d grown so intimate. Instead I walked away, then, later, watched jealously, as, in the scene before ours, Alan kissed an actor several times, longingly.

Eventually, we talked. Well, I did. I have feelings so infrequently, I think it best to reveal them when they do happen. We were on a bench in London Fields, so many passers by knowing Alan’s name. I was terrified of his sexuality; that he was young and still in demand, but I felt his coyness with me was forced. I hoped it was hiding something deeper that only my honesty could unleash.

Yet he stared off, like a slack jawed retard. He asked if I wanted to be friends, and of course I said yes. We parted, promising to speak soon. We haven’t. Though I miss him terribly, my ego won’t allow me to be familiar with someone who finds me unattractive. And that’s sad, because briefly, this feeling I’m foreign and misunderstood and abstract, diminished. With him, I felt necessary. I felt love. Which, for now, I’ll have to live without.

Why do audiences take themselves so seriously? I could understand if we were trapped at the National Theatre watching Bosnians burying babies, but for fucksake this is comedy and I’m a dick joke teller. It even said ‘comedy’ on the wall behind the stage. Are these seated cunts illiterate? Or just unimpressed? My arm hurt for two weeks.

GT July 2008
Scott Capurro

NEWS FLASH: I’ve discovered a boundary! Usually I value free conversation, like free trade, and I’m capable of at least comically bull-shitting my way through most subjects. Who knew I’d hit a wall in Belsize Park?

Admittedly I was stressed. I’ve returned to the legitimate (my mother’s word) theatre, and that day, I’d dropped my pants twice, in both a matinee and an evening performance of Fucking Men in Earl’s Court. At 9 pm, I rushed to Chalk Farm tube so I could stumble, exhausted, up a slight incline to a posh pub full of checkered shirts and disdain.

Once on stage, I flitted through my impressions of Sheffield homophobes and misogynistic Obama supporters when I noticed that some blond woman had been whispering to her male partner through me ENTIRE act.

Knowing I had a cab waiting to rush me to another gig, I still went to her. I couldn’t help myself, and that’s why I’ll never be content.

“I must punch a lot of your buttons, hon”, note to all: when I say ‘hon’, it’s not good, “cuz for the last 20 minutes you haven’t shut your cunt.”

“You’re boring,” she slurred, in any one of a variety of eastern European accents.

“No, I’m not. I might be annoying, and you’re a lazy, stupid Polish whore who doesn’t get the joke, right?”

“No, you’re just…” I hate redundancy “boring.”

I turned slightly to her male neighbor, and said, “You brought this? Or, sorry, bought this? Have you checked her for worms? Either way, I bet your flat has never been cleaner.”

Then she said, “I don’t have to take this from some fucking queer.”

The room went quiet. But I didn’t.

“Oh, so that’s what this is all about.” I had a glass of water in my hand. Clever me. “I suggest you cool down.” And I pitched the water her way. She was drenched.

But wet or not, the gal could throw, and she quickly retrieved her beer bottle and chucked it my way. I blocked the glass with my arm, now scarred, and my back was soaked with beer.

A battle ensued. The comedy room became a schoolyard, and I was 12. My snotty, sweaty peers were throwing food at me, leaving dissected squids, which made me squeamish, in my parka pockets, telling my girlfriend I was a ‘fag’, poking sticks in my orange, slightly camp bicycle wheel so my bike froze and I flew over the handlebars. The Grouse brothers, both ginger, pinned me down, shouting ‘faggot’ at me as Brian, the taller, spat in my face. I was surrounded, like I used to be in the boy’s toilet, and I felt threatened, but in comedy, I’ve learned to never apologize.

I ran to the window behind her, but I couldn’t open it, because of its fucking 18th century decrepit design, and it must have looked like I planned to toss her out. Actually, I wanted to dump her purse onto the sidewalk two floors below, so she’d have to leave. Instead, I grabbed her black leather and ran back onto the stage. Search it? Unconstitutional. Run with it? I had an act to finish. Which I did, to numbing silence. Some people were walking out, maybe to piss, who knows, and one woman in the front row, dyed black hair and pinched, gave an approving thumbs up to the Pol. Nobody came to my defense.

I know the Brits like to see a fight, especially in a pub, and yes, I’m confrontational, but I was the comic. I was joking, which I’d, almost to the painful point of needling instruction, pointed out. Had I been dark skinned and she’d dropped the n-bomb, the crowd would’ve rioted. However middle class guilt doesn’t extend itself to sexuality.

Obviously gay men are not only the last office joke; we’re also the last people to be openly bullied. Even the homeless get money thrown at them. We get bottles, or worse. And frankly, throw what you like, but don’t call me ‘queer’. That’s my word, our word, like ‘fab’. We’d like that one back too, please.

The show’s host wanted to continue with the evening. I protested, and the lovely barmaid walked the ‘lady’ out, who stared menacingly, as I collected my 80 pounds and dashed off to Crouch End, for more verbal abuse, because the show biz glamour never ends. Luckily, I took the later show much less seriously. And the chatty females played along, flirting, giggling, matching my charm.

Please include:

Scott Capurro will be delving, barking and biting in Scott Capurro Goes Deeper at the Edinburgh Fringe, August 1 - 25, Underbelly Venue, 9:15 pm

I’m hungry, so I’ll make this fast: It’s not like I’m not attracted to women. I am, but I don’t feel romantic toward them. I don’t want to go on a date with a woman, but I do fantasize about everything. And women make me feel safe. Oprah would say I’m self hating, but I actually hate Oprah. She’s not a woman. She’s the beast.
Enjoy.

Gay Times
May 2008
Scott Capurro

Yoga brings out my hetero side. I don’t mean my arrogance surfaces, nor does my hair thin. Instead, my body becomes less ornamental and more functional. Attention leaves my dick and travels to my outer extremities, as I balance, in handstand, staring out, facing Annette Benning. We smile at one another, or frown, since we’re upside down. She wears white tights and a light blue v-neck jumper. I happened into the workshop she regularly attends in LA, and she has lovely, small, very pale feet.

Asanas, or poses, are sensual, in that the practice wakens the senses. They’re not sexual, because when challenged, students fart and cry. And in that warm studio, where erotic touch has no agenda, I comfortably flirt.

Classes are filled with women. Many are fit, having been athletic and suffering an injury, which is the reason some show up. They’re healing and vulnerable. Aren’t we all?

In fact, I went to Hawaii recently with some Iyengar acolytes from San Francisco, because my knee was becoming intolerably painful. A car hit me while out jogging in 1989, which my leg’s ligaments sometimes remind me of by tightening or wobbling, depending, it seems, on my flailing career.

I needed this trip to Maui, with the discipline of five hours of yoga a day and spiceless vegan food. I could feel the brick of candy I ate at Christmas, the well of booze I gulped at the New Year and the strain of a fight I had with a close friend, all locked up in my bloated belly and tightening calves. I hadn’t breathed deeply since Nixon resigned, and I wanted a full release. I got one, unexpectedly.

When I arrived at the renovated pineapple factory, now a retreat center, I was told I’d be sharing a room with a woman. Arabella is an electrician by trade, and has a soccer player’s body. She’s 5’6”, with strong arms, sinewy, smooth legs and a subdued six pack. Her eyeteeth protrude a bit, and her dark eyes are almond shaped and very bright. We’ve spoken, usually about yoga, in hushed tones before and after class. Arabella’s often accompanied by her recently acquired boyfriend, who’s tall, thin and has a wide smile and big hands. Genetically, they’re the type of couple that should be procreating. Emotionally, she’s demanding and he’s in San Francisco.

Whilst unpacking in our tiny bungalow, Arabella takes a call. Her beau, it seems, misses her and after hanging up she stares at the floor, her freckled forehead wrinkled.

“He’s just broken up with me,” she finally admits. “He does this all the time.”

I stack t-shirts, not remembering what I’m meant to say. Gay men dump each other habitually. After two martinis and a flick of the ‘update profile’ button on Gaydar, they’ve moved on. It must be different for a 36 year-old woman, no matter how hot, with all that ‘clock ticking’ mythology I’ve seen on Trisha.

“Maybe I should be gay,” she moans, as she lies back on her bed, her back arched.

I alert her that lesbians can be just as moody as jealous boyfriends.

“No. I mean, maybe I should be a gay man. Gay men are always attracted to me. Why is that?”

“Because you seem fearless.” I can feel my cheeks warming. “And you have a tool belt.”

“Wanna have sex?”

I’d barely unrolled my denim.

“Let’s pace ourselves,” I say, jokingly.

Arabella giggles and rushes off. When she returns with green tea, she praises my neatness.

“How do you fold everything the same size?”

“They teach you that in prison.”

“You’ve been in prison?”

“No. But I can dream.”

She tosses her pile of sport wear into a corner, and leaps onto her mattress, resting on her stomach, her ankles crossed, her feet pointing, like an anxious teenager. She’s wearing burgundy lycra shorts and she’s reading Kierkegaard. I swoon, theoretically.

Later, our first grueling yoga class over, we gnaw on lettuce and stumble off to our cabin. Arabella, prancing from shower to bed, slips between her sheets, removing her white towel. The night’s very dark, and devastatingly quiet, except for her throaty breath. I shut my eyes tightly like it’s Christmas Eve.

The warm hand I feel must be hers.

“You trim,” she says, as she sinks below my waistline. Her hair is thick, her lips very moist, and her nails soft, as she rummages inside my digestive canal. I grab her bicep and lift her as she pulls me to face her. We kiss. She bites. I get nearer.

And my joint pain goes away.

I suppose the complainers are miserable twats, sure, but worse, they’re uninformed and unevolved. I thought they’d appreciate the recognition, most people walk by or over trannies and hope that they’re an imagination’s figment. I instead paid them respect through recognition, but frankly, like the Diana inquest or the war in Iraq, I fear time has been wasted.
But I do love this piece.

GT Magazine,
April 2008
Scott Capurro

What does one do about trannies? One must do something because they’re using our NHS. One should have a stance. The new trend is the transition from male-to-female, both the unresolved pre- and the braver post-op, with their shiny, pubescent facial hair and round, soft features. With innocuous names like ‘Bob’ (once Katherine, a sweet local actress) and ‘Roy’ (previously a macrobiotic mother of two), they’re even employed by my gay sauna, manning the front desk, offering locker keys and coy, chubby smiles.

Gender lines blur as sexuality takes a back seat. Let’s face it - these days, being gay is as common as poverty. Queers are everywhere, doing everything. I never thought in my lifetime I’d see homos behaving normally, raising monsters and appearing on Judge Judy, but then who could predict Labour’s collapse? Perhaps an evolutionary scholar who understands that liberal politics, when successful, has no common enemy and so nowhere to turn except down. The Greeks should’ve despised the Romans more, and Gordon Brown should bomb Sheffield, although with one eye I fear he’ll miss. And I have friends in Derby. They’re not good friends of course, but they are a potentially rarified breed known as ‘birth males’.

Are men, we, I, even you, so successful, even in Sheffield, that everyone wants to be us? Perhaps because women make less money and in exchange get raped and beaten a lot more, many real chicks are molding their clits into cocks. Which seems odd, since boobs on a girl are hot, but man boobs on a tranny man are definitely not. And all the trannies at my sauna have moobs. Floppy piles of sweaty flesh, sticking to their black t-shirts, leave a bottom rim of moist for one to gawk. Where else should one look? Their eyes are feminine, giving them away, leading me to say ‘Thanks, ma’am’ when grabbing my white towel. And ‘ma’am’ in a gay sauna is as welcome as, frankly, a ma’am, which is to say not at all.

One assumes the sauna owner, perhaps a recent cock convert, prefers his trannies matronly, but when I’m banging away at an out of towner, I don’t want to be stared at by my mom. Like lesbian wardens they peruse the hallways, denim-covered thighs whooshing, replenishing condoms whilst checking for unsuitable sexual behavior, ignoring the fact that their being there is most inappropriate. Because no matter how many male hormones they consume, they’re still full of, if not femininity, then female power, which is infinite and, if one is at all perceptive, distinguishable.

I stare at the porn to distract, and there are more trannies, three in fact, on all fours, being fingered by someone off screen. Like Mark Twain, I’m deluged and slightly nauseated. I stumble into someone bald and small, flat chested and tattooed, bent forward and orally available. I run my hand over their smooth white ass, then reach between their pale legs, expectations lowered by circumstance, and I discover that yes, less is sometimes less. Not bad. And in fact, the mouth is expert. But I can’t suspend my cravings.

When leaving, the same little tranny, now back in uniform, giggles.

“You’ll never guess what happened,” he says.

One shudders, imagining the surprises that might unfold.

“I saw someone I liked, and he passed right by me to have sex with you. Can you believe it? I’m never turned down.”

Pity soars. The blatant hatred and mock disbelief, even within his community, that this person faces must seem insurmountable. I place myself, momentarily, in his tiny shoes. Cock, whether bought or not, doesn’t make the man. Unabashed competitiveness can, and he has that in spades.

I leave, loving my penis. Mine’s not big but it works, and it’s sort of pretty, or so I’ve been promised. But if I were having something surgically sewn to my groin, something that would make me feel more valuable, I can think of so many better options. Like, I dunno, a bottle opener. I’d be the life of any party. How about a Nintendo game, for long flights? Or a cash dispenser, saving me the torture of stumbling through Soho late on a Saturday night. Although for the delivery of bills, a slit would have to be added, which seems to defeat the purpose, unless dropping cash out of my ass is more than just a metaphor for my mortgage. Maybe I’d have a mirror glued to my pelvis, since all anyone really wants to see is a reflection of themselves.

Gay Times
March 2008

The script I’ve penned for my show at the Soho Theatre (March 21/22, 25-29, if you’re interested) has set off warning sirens at my management’s office. Apparently some of my jokes might incite cultural racism and homophobia, which is now, in London, illegal.
“Homophobia is illegal?” I coyly ask my agent, attempting to cut the tension I so gravely admire. “There goes half my act.”
“This is serious Scott.” From miles away, and with British telecom between us, I could still hear Brian’s squeaky black marker editing my words. “If you perform this show, (squeak) we’ll find it very difficult (squeak, squeak) to get you on Jonathon Ross.”
How could I have forgotten? Heterosexuals want a makeover, not a migraine. After ridiculing George Bush for using the word (squeak) to describe Pakistanis, I was asked to tone it down in Sheffield. ‘Look around,’ I replied. ‘Clearly I’m not the problem.’ We didn’t see eye to eye, because mine are parallel.
My politics? Not wet enough. My sex life? Far too wet. What’s left? Censorship. Or mincing. Nobody minds if Alan Carr is gay, because nobody wants to (squeak) Alan Carr. I get laid all the time because I’m tall and because I never say no. Never! That, I suppose, makes me scary, and J-Ross nervous.
In Cape Town, I was asked to not discuss the Koran. ‘Even if I (squeak) up?’ One can discuss these issues, but only if one is black, supposedly. Their answer: ‘What about your hair?’ South Africans are without irony, but to their credit, extremely practical. In the end, I wore a yarmulke and told the gags. After all, I’d read the Koran out of respect, because I wanted to write some jokes about it. And the audience was filled with male to female trannies that’d survived (squeak). How frightening could I be?
As for homophobia, I’ve earned my wings by taking cock(squeaking) to its limits. Or so said the Brazilian whose (squeak) I tried to pack like a drug mule. Talk about liquid bombs. But all he wanted was my cock in his mouth. And that’s ALL!
“Don’t (squeak) in my mouth,” he kept chirping, in a high, bird-like pitch. “Don’t (squeak) in my mouth. Don’t (squeak) in my mouth…”
“I won’t (squeak) at all. It’s like (squeak)ing a doorbell. Ding-dong my dick is dead. Why is your voice so high?”
I made the mistake of telling a hot, closeted Nigerian that my grandmother is from Virginia. He almost lost his mind, so excited was he of my racist lineage. My family is racist, but not because they’re from the south. It’s because they’re cunts. Sorry, (squeak)s. But that’s not part of his fetish.
“Call me your black (SQUEAK).”
I didn’t want to say it. ‘Black’ and (‘squeak’) are redundant. However he was a guest.
Shyly, I said, “You’re my (squeak).”
“Say it with a southern accent!’
He was raised in France and he’s in the British military. How he came up with this craving is anyone’s guess. But aren’t we bombing Iraq so he can be called whatever he wants? I just don’t want the terrorists to win.
“You’re my (SQUEAK), so you’d better do me, my (SQUEAK)!’
He shot like a wildcat. I didn’t do so badly either. White (squeak) on a (squeak) belly. Very Diane Arbus. While he slept, I asked myself, why are some black men so angry? Is it bad P.R.? I’d seen them floating facedown through New Orleans, and even then I wondered, is a repressed black men’s self-hatred, his internalized homophobia, like my (SQUEAK), merely disgust toward a hardened system that predicts they’ll fail?
Speaking of women, I prefer ladies stop appearing in public. Their breasts, it seems, threaten most of the world.
I used to think comedy audiences moaned their disapproval when a woman’s name was announced because, frankly, they were worried that the lady would discuss being fat or having a (squeak). Or having a fat (squeak). But now I know, audiences are concerned for our national security, and their own safety. Why risk our lives in comedy clubs when chicks aren’t funny and most should never wear a bikini in the first place?
Women should stay indoors, whilst men work out this democracy thing. Confinement is a sacrifice, but everyone is making sacrifices – women, black people, women – because what price freedom?
Anywhere between 10 pounds and 17.50, depending on which show of mine you see at the Soho.

See Scott Capurro squawk away in Laughtershock at the Soho Theatre, London, March 21/22, 25-29. For tickets: www.sohotheatre.com

Oh, and here’s the Time Out piece.

Scott Capurro on the right to be offensive
Wed Mar 19 2008
Time Out London

Headline:
At a time when many comedians are becoming increasingly conservative, American comic Scott Capurro stands up for his right to be very offensive, outrageous and fabulously filthy.

My bit:
It’s as sad a fact as ‘Big Brother’ but we have to face it: most alternative comedy is mainstream now. Audiences are less interested in social satire than they are in a comedy club’s late drinking licence. Uppity, arms-crossed Brummies pay for chicken in a basket with a side order of dick jokes. Anything peculiar, different or challenging is circumspect and met with stares. Backstage it’s crowded with comics, yet as silent as a glory hole. We’d all rather be somewhere else fulfilling our true potentials but the harsh reality is we all have a mortgage to pay. I’m as bad as the rest. Uninspired gags from long ago appear in my act, as I struggle not to lampoon the kind of embarrassed IT failures sat gormlessly in the front row.

What’s even worse is that, since 9/11, everyone’s opinion is meant to be of equal importance – except, of course, those voiced by the working classes or, apparently, me. At a recent gig in London I was not only labelled a Holocaust denier but, to add insult to injury, the club manager informed me that veering away from my gay sex material was dangerous.

‘Flirt with the front row, that I can defend, but leave the Holocaust alone.’ So I can talk about cocksucking as much as I like because that’s as common as poverty but if I stray off that well-trodden path I’m in trouble?

A case in point: my set in Sheffield. Admittedly, it was doomed long before I stumbled on to the stage, but that’s not the point. The host, Toby, warmed up the crowd with several ‘poof’ jokes. That’s not offensive though, because as the whole world knows, we gay men have learned to go to Ikea and to dance our troubles away. Kick, two, three, four. However, when I mentioned the time George Bush had nonchalantly mumbled the word ‘Paki’ in front of the Queen – while Prince Philip, on hearing it, beamed with envy – I was labelled racist. That’s right – I was the one labelled a racist.

Racist? Did you hear the gag? ‘Nope,’ said Toby. ‘But I heard the word, and we’re funded. You’re fired.’

Fired? I was actually fired, for the first time in my whole career. Fired for being, as Jade Goody would say, ‘racial’? But how can I be racial? I’m a gay, black Jew from San Francisco. I’m every minority. At least, they’ve all been inside me.

I’m not a racist. I’m an American. Race doesn’t threaten me. Nor does graphically discussing the Palestinian I met in Cardiff (or the Arab, or whatever they’re calling themselves this week – ‘the enemy’) fill me with any of that prissy middle-class trepidation. I merely avoid labels, as would any other classically educated, world-travelled, erudite social commentator who not only has a keen interest in political theory but also has a bevy of Muslim booty calls he can make any night of the week.

However, I myself also have beliefs, and what I firmly believe is that good comedy is boundless and I’m prepared to prick audiences’ sensibilities because a) they’re strangers and b) that’s my fucking job. I didn’t tick ‘mime’ as a career choice, I ticked ‘clown’. So, I’m loud, nasty and annoying. Otherwise why would I be risking my life in my set by ‘joking’ that when I get an Iraqi into bed, they’re so desperate to have sex they’ll do just about anything? Like most religious extremists, fanatical Muslims spend so much time imagining what fucking a clean, crying virgin might feel like, anything I can do would only be anticlimactic.

In case you hadn’t realised yet, I don’t recognise taboos. Apparently Brighton does though, which strikes me as a little odd. All I said was, ‘People only really care about Maddy because her mother is hot and white, right?’

‘Too soon,’ a male impersonator growled. Then the other lezzies banged beer bottles to silence me.

C’mon ladies, I felt obligated to point out, admit it: black girls disappear all the time without anyone noticing, and not only because it happens at night.

You see, when an audience pushes, I pull hair. For instance I’m not a paedophile – in fact I hate children, they’re so needy – but I am an equal opportunity offender, and any resistance from a cautious crowd reveals a gold mine of comedy material. To me, whatever transgressions someone feels offended by are their issues. I’m not a therapist or a babysitter.

I might be comically autistic but, surely, if one lives in Britain shouldn’t we accept secularism as the norm and immunise ourselves from censorship. Otherwise, move to America, where everything, even healthcare, is suspect.

Diana was only funny the moment after she ate cement. And Aids jokes are hilarious if HIVIPs are lolling in the audience. Comedy is scary: it’s artistic cliffhanging, because a comic takes risks. Just because those drunk cunts at Jongleurs Bow wouldn’t know a political punchline if it raped them, does that mean I should whip out a guitar and sing a happy song?

What tune would I strum anyway? What would alert those queers in Croydon that feigned religious tolerance is misguided and, from an American perspective, 500 years too late? Wasn’t it the English who expelled the Puritans for wearing buckled shoes? But when someone kills their daughter to save the family’s status, we have to incorporate the misguided ‘honour killing’ tag into our vocabulary? Can’t we just say, or sing, ‘She was murdered by a bigoted, misogynistic, medieval old fuckwit’? What? That’s going too far as well? Really? In that case I fear the terrorists really have won.

Scott Capurro will be appearing at the Soho Theatre, Mar 21-29.

GT Magazine
Scott Capurro
February, 2008

Surely we’re not still celebrating Valentine’s Day. Lovers dancing in the streets whilst tossing rose petals over one another is at best gloatingly showy and at worst environmentally unsound; and Hallmark cards that read “I love our kind of love” are as embarrassing as right-wing Zionism.

On February 14th, can’t we just say ‘well done’ after an efficient blowjob, and return to the Guardian? Regular, expedient sex is the most decent gift one partner can give another. So who needs cupid?

There are simply far too many problems to read about, and romance, according to Rachel, the dwarf hooker working outside my building, is a big time waster. Speaking of ‘big’, she’s tiny, or, as Oprah might claim, a person of restrictive growth. Vertically, Rachel is 34 inches, but she’s packed a whole lot of love into that diminutive frame. In fact I’ve seen her in action.

One day in October, while dumping my rubbish, I came almost face to face with a tall man standing behind my buildings’ large, round, metal garbage bin. His eyes were closed, his head tilted back, so he didn’t notice me, and I thought, oh great, another taxi driver with a bladder problem. Then I spotted, peeking out from behind the bin, two small, curled up lady shoes. I thought, ok, either the sky has fallen and we’ve lost another wicked witch, or this dude is getting a hummer from a mini-me. Happily, the witch and the munchkin were one and the same.

When returning late from a gig, I often see Rachel tugging on her denim skirt and readjusting the black wig she wears to make her look less like a little girl, because pedophiles are scary. But cruising for cock on the desolate streets of East London? “I can take care of myself”. She’s from Swansea, and high above from my living room window, I’ve witnessed her doing pushups. She’s 37, has diabetes and Hep C and a child in care. There are two Christian girls that bring her coffee sometimes. “The nice side of Christian”, she tells me, as she checks her phone for messages. Who’d be calling her at 3 am, I have no idea, and I ask if her phone ever rings while she’s fucking any of the dimly lit businessmen into whose cars I’ve watched her crawl.

“No. I don’t fuck. I’m too compact.” It’s true, she is. She can’t clap. Her hands don’t reach each other.

“I use a stick to wipe my bottom.”

What kind of stick? Birch? Walnut?

“I don’t fucking know. It’s made for me. Being the NHS, it’s probably pulp.”

She owns a very long dildo that she’s personalized by engraving her nickname, Bullet, onto the side.

“In the crap place where I live, the other girls steal everything.” She shares a room in a hotel in Hackney. “And really, that dildo…sometimes it’s me only friend.”

I supply her with small, square bars of gourmet chocolate, because she’s the kind of diabetic that needs sugar, and I don’t know what else to do. I always buy from this charming shop in Spitalfields, where they stack the bars, then tie them together with a thin red and black bow. I’m sure the shop girl thinks I have a sweetheart. Or that I’m very sad. I suppose both are true. And whenever there’s a holiday, I stop by with Rachel’s favorite, chocolate with streaks of raspberry.

John, my ex of seven years, was born on February 14th. Thus the holiday was doubly special, or, as our relationship withered, doubly trying. John is short but still normal size – I know what you’re thinking and no, I don’t have that fetish - though he is strong and a dancer and so, yes, I suppose he’s compact. He’s 46 and on stage in the city of Chicago, shaking his money-maker in a musical about naked boys singing, and apparently, the show plays as the tin reads: He’s actually unclothed, every night, singing gay love songs for, mostly, cheering, screaming straight females. The Valentine’s Night show is their most attended.

Over tea in Styrofoam, Rachel wonders why married women love looking at cock.

“I have to see it all the time, and really, once you’ve sucked one…”

“Yeah,” I gobble down some skittles, “but they’ve probably only seen one. Or maybe two.”

“I’ve seen one too many. I’m calling it a night.”

After she’s gone, I take her position, perched on a cement wall. Cars drive by, slowly, and then race off when they see it’s me.

Columnist Scott Capurro
Subject Sore Spot

PQ “I was sure that by 45 I’d be a huge international success, loaded with plaudits, wearing tweed blazers and seducing 19-year-olds at book signings”

As a youth, I looked forward to my 40s as my semi-retired, mostly vacationing decade. I was sure then that by 45 I’d be a huge international success, loaded with plaudits and far too recognisable to journey from my mansion in daylight hours. My fame as the world’s greatest novelist would be both a blessing – allowing me to wear tweed blazers and seduce 19-year-olds at book signings – and an albatross, robbing me of Sample Sale shopping. Secretaries and stylists would whisk in and out of my vestibule almost daily, my life a whirling dervish of lecture tours, literary discussion programmes (in French, of course) and dinner parties in my ‘modeste honneur’.
A sophisticated slip-on wearer, my intellect would be both praised and less competitive, having achieved professional goals far beyond my family’s anticipation. Compared to two Pulitzers, an Oscar for ‘Best Screenplay Adaptation’ of my own Man Booker Prize-winning novel would seem rather gauche. I’d be brave for my fans, donning the mantle of a fine sportsman, sliding into a slim, classically-styled black evening suit, revealing my jauntiness and, to only the cleverest of acquaintances, my disapproval, with brightly colored Art Deco cufflinks. Oh, such a cad am I, I’d whisper to myself, holding my statuette high.
However my domestic life, I assumed, would surpass my laureate success. At 25, I’d ended a seven-year long relationship. I was sure, while driving to San Francisco to start my creative career, that only a better, longer relationship would follow. I considered myself a monogamous monologist, and I imagined someday reclining on outdoor furniture, petting a puppy with one hand as I gestured wildly with another, my doctor-lawyer-lover rotating a roasting animal. Many loyal friends would surround me as we’d laugh, lie and lisp our way into a mulled wine-induced dither. Their shoeless children run quietly through the house, while cats hiss, phones ring, singers sing and helicopters hover overhead, trying unsuccessfully to snap lurid shots of my warm, supportive extended family. It’s a scene as kind and affectionate as a modern-day, mildly camper Jimmy Stewart movie – with me in the Lana Turner role, naturally.
So then why, on the eve of my 45th birthday, am I travelling Standard on a lurching train somewhere between Hull and Grimsby? Stoic England rolls by, grimacing passengers resting their tired faces in poorly manicured hands. A cool reception last night in Edinburgh left me feeling abandoned on stage, and I’m wondering, have the sacrifices been worth a two-bedroom flat with wood fiber floors in East London? After 12 years of telling dick jokes in every shithole off the scenic route, I terrify TV people, I make Christians tremble with resentment and, apparently, as I was told by a pale, small Scottish creature in the front row, I’ve ‘denigrated the memory of Anne Frank’. Had I that sort of power, I’d have used it to ascend and fly away. But to where? An empty nest overlooking a few stumbling prostitutes in E2 is not my idea of a safe place.
I’m doing all this alone. I’ve lost so many friends in the last few years. Not to Aids – that was in the early ’90s. Now I’m being discarded. Good friends, some of whom I’ve known my entire adult life, have changed locations or changed their minds. Suddenly, I look around and find my ‘mansion’ devoid of any camaraderie. Not only do I travel too much to have a pet, but apparently having a pet name is too demanding. Everyone refers to me as Mr Capurro, because I only meet hotel clerks.
My ex-best friend Julie, whom I’ve known since I was 13, cut off communication because I’m told I was once dismissive toward her oldest son during a meal. Lee, a bookshop owner I lived with nearly 20 years ago, decided that, offstage, I’m too much of a performer. Richard, an actor, just never returns calls. Never. And lately, Mark seems very angry. That one I halted. The list goes on and bloody on, and I’m isolated, with very few good mates left, and my immediate family, never the easiest companions, 5000 miles away.
I know the New Year is about the metaphoric peeling of skin, refreshing one’s life and discarding what is unnecessarily heavy. Perhaps, like Jesus, in the flurry of youth I made poor character judgments. Maybe I’m inadvertently tripping into a second social life; Spartan in number, but the friendships I do make will be deeper and even longer-lasting. But making new friends? At my age? Prostate cancer seems more likely.