Scott Capurro

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.

That was not my intention in writing and I would ask that you would remove it.

Thank you,
Valia

When will she learn? The more you say or write, the more I’ll print, and the worse - or better, from my perspective - it gets.
If you have something to say, then stand by it. I’ve no problem with that, although I prefer ideas to feelings. However, for fucksake, if her ‘feelings’ mean that much to her, then she should be glad I’ve shared them with whomever gives a shit. Not that you do,
gentle reader, but it is fun to witness a minor melt down in action, right?

She and her 3 mates were 30 minutes late actually, and, internally, I dealt with that. We’re all stupid sometimes. But the chatter got up my nose, so I handled it, and her husband and the other spouse just stared at me, as menacingly as they could. I finally went back to them near the end of my set, and they seemed alright, but then persian men will flirt with anyone.
I’d forgotten they ever existed (of course) but when I got this, I laughed and laughed. You’ll see why. Especially around the black people stuff. I don’t talk about the floods in New Orleans that way, but now that she’s written I do, I think I might. It’s funny. Although why she’s funny she doesn’t understand. Really she lacks an intellectual grasp of, well, anything. And one wonders, why on this Christian Earth did they leave the house? Or go to live comedy? Or for that matter, come to see ME???
She’s attempting restraint, which I admire, especially in religious extremists, but we all know she’s just dying to call me a faggot. Or whatever disparaging word her people use. Something with spit and anger involved I’m sure, but then that’s the final irony, because again, middle eastern men prefer the company of men. In every way. Wonder what their word is for that. Her husband was hot, and he winked at me on his way out of the club. So maybe someday soon, I’ll hear the word, whispered in my ear. Praise Allah.

Good Afternoon Mr. Capurro,

I am not sure if you will remember me, but I was the “Iraqi” who showed up late to the 9:00 show on Saturday night with three “Iranians” (one of which was actually Afghani, go figure). We sat at the table to the left of the stage from your vantage point.

I guess I will start with the beginning. You “greeted” us by calling one of our friends a hooker as soon as we walked in, I am assuming you did this because she was talking, since you followed it by telling her to “shut the **** up”, and I just found that to be rather uncouth.

I was alright through most of your routine, even by making an assumption that we were terrorists, and wondering what we were doing to cause our late arrival. That was funny.

The other thing that was upsetting to me is that you apparently do not study the things you talk about. You kept on calling Iraq a sh**hole and saying it always was, but that just isn’t true. Before the gulf war, Iraq had a bustling economy… and it was actually more “westernized” than what you seemed to think. My mom did her undergrad there, and her college photos don’t look too different from her classmates at UCSF medical school who studied their undergrad in and around San Francisco.

Also, for the Muslims in the audience misrepresenting their holy word and using their holy book when you run out of toilet paper was really disrespectful. I really don’t know what else to say about this, because it just made my jaw drop.

In general, my husband Fred and I are not offended by comedians, because we understand what they are saying is all in good fun. Some of our favorite comics certainly use a lot of crass humor. But even he, who is way more easygoing than I, felt pretty uncomfortable at your show… and it wasn’t only the middle eastern issues that were disturbing. When you started talking about the black hurricane Katrina victims floating in the water face down, I was ready to walk out. Those people didn’t die solely because they didn’t know how to swim… they died because there was no one there to help them.

I think there are comedians who know how to make terrible things funny, and then there are people who try to make fun of terrible things and end up not accomplishing their goal.

I haven’t researched your name at all to know what type of audience you attract, but I can assure you, if you stay within that second group, your act will not grow to allow you to do more profitable things.

Lastly, I could have come at you in the same profanity-laden way you delivered your insults, and I didn’t. I only hope if you respond, you will honor that respect, by showing it as well.

Thank you,
Valia

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

The theatre is very intimate, it’s almost like an Edinburgh Fringe venue, which is sweet. And very warm. The UK ignores air conditioning, like it’s Black Magic. The play’s writing is good, I think, and I’m kind of loving playing this character. He’s an aging playwright using sex for approval, so the research was rough. But oddly, he feels familiar. I haven’t been on a legitimate (my mother’s word) theatrical stage in a very long time, and doing someone else’s writing felt awkward and foreign at first. But now it’s like a vacation. I just show up at work, do my bit and the show ends at 9 pm. The audience response has been very supportive and all my friends have liked the play. It’s all quite different from a comedy gig, where I fight my self-imposed, neurotic battles, stumbling from gig to gig, until i wander home, exhausted. Now i have a drink in the pub after, giggling with actors and sipping white wine. It’s sort of classy. Posh. Almost like the grown up job I’ve been looking for.

From The Times
May 29, 2008
F***ing Men at Finborough 4 STARS
Tim Teeman

It’s a hard sell, imagining the Finborough’s postage stamp-sized stage to be a whirligig of locations in which a group of New York gay men sleep with and seduce one another; each encounter subtly, sometimes radically, changing their lives. But under Phil Willmott’s direction, the stage manages to convince as sauna, hotel room, house and apartment. Each encounter in Joe DiPietro’s play (it is a contemporary take on La Ronde) is all too plausible and, given that only half the actors are American, all the accents are pretty faultless too.

Half the fun is watching who ends up with whom. Both the prostitute John (Shai Metuki) and the handsome lecturer Marco (Chris Polick) encounter the closeted beefcake soldier Steve (Nicholas Keith) whose anguished outpourings in a sauna may – depending on your sexual tastes – occupy you less than his six-pack.

DiPietro is interested in how gay men have sex, meet for sex, use sex, and trade in sex. One couple, played by Morgan James and Timothy Lone, love each other but cheat on the quiet. What use is monogamy, one of them wonders – and while you may be swayed by his argument you believe their mutual devotion is for real. The bombastic title doesn’t match the tone of the play, which is more wordy and thoughtful than violent and shocking.

The comedian Scott Capurro is Sammy, a screenwriter who can’t believe his luck when a secretly gay Hollywood star, Brandon (Guy Fearn), comes on strong. Capurro plays Sammy astutely, half for laughs and half not, and his exposure of Brandon in the press leads to the actor’s off-stage confession on the talk-show host Donald’s (Patrick Poletti) show. In turn, Donald is frozen by the death of an old lover and employs John for sex.

Di Pietro’s conclusion – gay love and desire are jolly complex and not easily defined – is wittily conveyed. And if that message doesn’t drive you wild, the lack of clothing just might.

Box office: 0844 8471652. To Jun 7 2008

Scott Capurro, Udderbelly, Brighton, May 14
By Seth Ewin

Scott Capurro takes no prisoners

Scott Capurro – Laughtershock
Unlike Josef Fritzl, Scott Capurro takes no prisoners, however he does give the Fritzl family some abuse, along with Maddie, Anne Frank and just about any other supposed no-go area you care to mention. The US comedian is on the warpath, only unlike his home country there is a method in his madness. The real target is liberal guilt and what he sees as an unhealthy obsession with insignificant events (in the wider scheme of things), which, he’d say, includes the missing Madeleine. Amidst material eye-poppingly offensive and painfully funny, the venom-tongued comic turned his devilish gaze on Maximus, a hetero in the second row - Capurro didn’t hesitate to describe what he wanted to do to him. Half clown, half demon, his destruction of a heckler was terrifying.
Udderbelly, 14 May, 10:30pm, £14.00 (£12.00), fringe pp 20.
tw rating 5/5
[se]
*****

From me: I did enjoy performing this show, Brighton is a hot bed of middle class, white, suburban extremism, and the audience seemed enthusiastic, even for such a late hour (1030) on a week night. But I was tired, my guard was down, and when a relatively mild heckler implied that all Americans are war mongering cunts - at least, that’s what I heard - I kind of lost my mind. For about 10 minutes. Now, I enjoyed the vitriol, it was purging, but I wasn’t sure what the crowd ‘felt’, like, as I’ve realized, I care. The thing is, an exchange of ideas is great, if someone out there wants to bark back their thoughts, their well-considered thoughts, I’m thrilled. But ‘feelings’? Fuck off, frankly. I’m not your therapist or babysitter or mommy, so if you feel hurt by what I say or if you feel cornered or saddened or, horror of all horrors, ‘offended’, then buy a ticket to the Hay Festival and wank off over your dead Father’s memory. Ideas are arguable. Feelings are disastrous.
After all, I’m working. And when I’m stage, I’m an autocracy. A crumbling, fading autocracy, but one with a bull horn, so no one wins when the whinging begins.
I am SO looking forward to doing this show in Edinburgh. I get to argue for 4 weeks. Hallalujah! I wonder if I’ll be shot before, or after, Obama. First one assassinated gets the biggest casket. Wasn’t MLK buried in a plastic bag?
scott xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

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.