Smug gay student nazi bastards

[Spearmint Rhino]

We had a thread about Jerry Sadowitz quite recently on the old board, and anyway, it turns out he's playing a couple of nights at the Brighton Festival soon (inside an inflatable upturned purple cow with 'E4' on the side). I'm off to see if I can get tickets.

On his website, underneath these dates, it says "Dear God, I hate Brighton. Smug gay student nazi bastards."

This should be... eventful.

[WOM]

Smug gay student nazi bastards

Gah...missed opportunity. You should have started a second thread with the same info and a different name to see which got more thread views. That's called a 'creative test' in my biz.

[Gerontophile]

Smug gay student nazi bastards

That is quite a website.

I wish I could go to this. I saw him in the Jazz Cafe (I think... upstairs in some pub) in Camden, and I was completely gobsmacked. The guy's a fucking genius.

[Pinback]

Smug gay student nazi bastards

His personal style is probably the only positive thing ulcerative colitis has ever been responsible for.

[Spearmint Rhino]

Smug gay student nazi bastards

Got myself two tickets to the Tuesday 20th May show. Woohoo! Now I just need to prepare a few robust comeback heckles to the inevitable verbal assault...

[Spearmint Rhino]

Smug gay student nazi bastards

Fucking hell. I'm still in a slight state of shock. Last night's show was absolutely amazing.

Sadowitz hardly ever plays live nowadays. You get the feeling that, whether through his own fault or the cosy conservatism of the comedy industry (or a combination of the two), he's been frozen out. Is he bitter about it? Fucking right he's bitter, lashing out at Jimmy Carr and Ed Byrne and Chris Langham and Russell Brand, and even the deceased Linda Smith and Bill Hicks ("Bill Hicks is DEAD, and he's STILL doing better than me! CUNT!").

All of which makes the velocity and accuracy of his sustained verbal assault all the more impressive (he lost his thread maybe 3 or 4 times in over an hour), cos he hasn't had the chance to hone it on a stage. You picture him in his cracked-roofed, mouse-ridden Camden flat ranting at his own face in the mirror till he's got it down perfect.

He mercilessly carpet-bombs every topical or almost-topical subject matter you care to name (Burmese floods, Chinese earthquake, the McCanns, etc etc) but always goes the extra yard, always pushes things so far that you're turning to the people you're with, giving each other "what the fuck?!" glances. Like admitting that he found himself quite fancying Madeleine McCann, and that he hopes every lottery for the rest of the year is won by a rapist.

Oh, and his constant, really uncomfortable jokes about a disabled person in the front row. "Isn't that right, cripple? Nod your head. Oh. You can't."

He really fucks with your head, Sadowitz. You very quickly work out that allowing yourself to think "Oh, he doesn't really mean it, he's just being ironic" is a cop-out and a safety-valve allowing you to laugh without guilt, and you very quickly suspect that most if not all the time, Sadowitz does mean it. The next stage is to realise that if he's upfront about being a cunt, and you're laughing with him, what does that make you?

He also cleverly follows an anti-Scottish routine (tight-fisted) and anti-Jewish routine (sanctimonious and tight-fisted) with a card trick in which he tries to borrow a fiver from an audience member, then says "You're never getting it back from a Scottish-Jewish cunt like me!" (The after-effect being the unspoken message "Yeah, you laughed at that racist crap, but you don't have the right. I do. I may be a self-hating Scots-Jew, but you're high and dry without any excuse.")

His card tricks are stunning, but he deliberately pisses them away, refusing to milk them for applause. Instead, he breaks off mid-trick every few seconds to follow a train of thought, eg about paedophilia, starting every sentence with "Is it wrong if...?" ("Is it wrong if I watch a DVD of seven-year-olds, but it was made 30 years ago?"). When he does finally finish the trick, it's brilliant, but everyone's still too stunned by whatever he's just said to applaud properly. Prompting him to snap "Thank you for that smattering, I'll treasure it forever." Or "Thank you for that applau."

It's been 20 years since I saw Sadowitz, but after last night I've vowed to follow his (scarce) activities as closely as I can. Because he is, and I try not to use the word lightly, a bona fide genius.

[Tubby Isaacs]

Smug gay student nazi bastards

He seemed to be on at the Soho Theatre a lot where I saw him twice. Maybe he's fallen out with them.

He did indeed fuck with my head for the way I'd laugh at something "not very nice" and then feel outraged at something else. But don't I have to allow him the "irony defence" (if indeed that is one) in every case? Perhaps the difference was that he meant it in one case and not another, but probably the difference was in me, that there are some sick things I'll laugh at and not others, and not for any good moral reason.

[Hofzinser]

Smug gay student nazi bastards

Agree one hundred per cent. He really is an absolute genius. Probably the only comedian I'd actually travel long distances to see (indeed, I'd have gone to Brighton for it last night if it wasn't for the fact it was my fiancee's 30th birthday).

I saw him (for at least the sixth time) last autumn at the Bloomsbury theatre and he left me gasping for breath. His rants are astonishing; his sleight of hand barely less so (and the latter also provide a very valuable service in giving some sort of structure to the former).

Incidentally, was he really talking about fancying Madeleine McCann? When I saw him, it was Kate who was the object of his "affections".

[Spearmint Rhino]

Smug gay student nazi bastards

Hofzinser wrote:

Incidentally, was he really talking about fancying Madeleine McCann? When I saw him, it was Kate who was the object of his "affections".

Ah, he started with Kate, but that was only the set-up. 15 minutes later, in his paedophile material, he was saying "You can bet that if the child was an ugly cunt like me, it would have been a small story tucked away in Horse And Hound. But she had a cute face, and after seeing her posters everywhere for weeks, I found myself thinking 'Actually, I can kind of see what the guy who took her was thinking.'"

[Hofzinser]

Smug gay student nazi bastards

Ah, sounds like he's modified the material somewhat since I saw him then. Man, I hope he does another gig in London soon.

[Gerontophile]

Smug gay student nazi bastards

The man is a genius/nutter. I wish I had been there.

Incidentally Mr Rhino, were there many there? Did you get picked on? Was it close up stuff with an overhanging mirror? Did he have that big girl (with the perpetual fag hanging out of her gob, possibly not allowed this time due to Health & Safety) as his assistant?

Fuck it... I wish I had been there.

And when I was at his doodah years back, he did a card trick where the card someone chose, ended up in a MELON, under my ex's seat... that was spooky.

[Spearmint Rhino]

Smug gay student nazi bastards

It was a sell-out, as far as I could see, although the 'Udderbelly' (upside-down inflatable cow thing with E4 branding) is quite a small space.

I didn't get picked on. I took the precaution of sitting at the very back. I was still bracing myself, though.

He used an overhead camera. No assistant.

[Spearmint Rhino]

Smug gay student nazi bastards

Oh, and he's playing again tonight, if anyone's tempted. (I'd go again myself, but I'm off to London for Sparks.)

[Gerontophile]

Smug gay student nazi bastards

my dear I think you just said a cotton picking mouthful!

Enjoy Sparks. Us poor trash will have to sit and endure/enjoy football.

Which album is it tonight?

[Gerontophile]

Smug gay student nazi bastards

and thinking about this, I cant remember a 'showman' whom I have seen, who has thrilled me to the same degree... if anyone can find his TV shows for the unafficionados, I think there will be some shock and awe regarding his comments... I know that he will never be back on TV because of them. But, they were absolutely stunning in their disregard for TV protocol: he attacked everyone, everytime.

[Mumpo]

Smug gay student nazi bastards

[Edit: Ignore me, I've completely misread the post above]

[Spearmint Rhino]

Smug gay student nazi bastards

gerontofiel wrote:

my dear I think you just said a cotton picking mouthful!

Enjoy Sparks. Us poor trash will have to sit and endure/enjoy football.

Which album is it tonight?

Indiscreet. My favourite.

[evilC]

Smug gay student nazi bastards

Put me down as one of the 'Sadowitz is a genius' crowd. Sounds like a great show you saw, SR.

Y'know, I don't imagine him rehearsing the material at all! I imagine him just thinking "Heh! I'll mention that" and working some twisted idea into a monologue. Whatever his methods, I love him for 'uttering the unutterable'. Along with Sarah Wotsername, he really pushes the boundaries of so-called 'acceptability'. Fantastic!

Is it true that he was at one point fully retired from comedy and just working as an assistant in a cornershop until someone with the right combinations of contacts and enthusiasm bumped into him in that role? I seem to remember a Time Out article that said something like that. Can't remember where this shop was, though.

[Gerontophile]

Smug gay student nazi bastards

you may well be spot on there evilC... I read/heard something about that too. But, I think/am pretty sure that he was researching close up stuff from various sources, and practising (sic).

His 'comedy', I believe is unrehearsed, and is aiming to make the punter as uncomfortable as possible, whilst he pulls the rabbit out, so to speak. Having said that, he has the uncanny knack of nailing exactly what is funny AND uncomfortable at the same moment.

[meregreen]

Smug gay student nazi bastards

I saw Sadowitz a couple of times in the late 1980s. One of his standard putdowns to any woman was something like “suck my cock bitch!” Not especially funny written down, but in the incredibly PC comedy clubs of the time it was quite a provocative retort.

On one occasion, he was shouting at someone and came out with the cocksucking line, at which point a woman in the audience said: “Alright then”, climbed onto the stage and started trying to pull his trousers down. Sadowitz’s mask slipped, he started laughing and was eventually chased off the stage by the woman. His bluff had been called. After that night, and despite his confrontational demeanour, I’ve always seen him as a bit of a pussycat. I figured that her response was more ballsy than anything he could come up with. Still, a brilliant performer mind.

He’s an amazing magician. I read somewhere that he’d been thrown out of the Magic Circle for explaining how the tricks were done, although this may have been a myth he put about himself. He certainly explained a few basic ones but would then confound you, by producing something completely unexpected.

[Gerontophile]

Smug gay student nazi bastards

yes, I heard that too mere... I dont know or to be honest, care. Who is there who is better? The only person who may come close (and soon) is Derren Brown. But I suspect that he will mine other rich veins before putting his substantial mind to something which basically earns no money.

*sorry that sounds as if I actually know what I am talking about. The only magicians I know are all trying to hide the great wall of China etc... since that guy got eaten by the tiger, perhaps they may calm down. Bring back Penn & Teller

[Hofzinser]

Smug gay student nazi bastards

He may well have been expelled from the magic circle but I'd be surprised if it was for revealing how his tricks are done.

Sadowitz is, more than most magicians, almost obsessive about keeping his secrets "within the trade". He won't, for instance, sell his regular magic publication "The Crimp" to anyone except established professional magicians, and is scathing about those who reveal his secrets (or attempt to take credit for them).

[Hofzinser]

Smug gay student nazi bastards

evilC, Sadowitz has worked for some years in Universal Magic on Theobald's Road in London - is that what you're thinking of? As far as I know he still does shifts there.

He in fact encountered and mentored a young Derren Brown while working there.

[Hofzinser]

Smug gay student nazi bastards

It would be absolutely outstandingly brilliant if some of Jerry Sadowitz's TV shows became available either online or (much less likely) on DVD.

There was the Pallbearer's Revue, of course, and then The People vs Jerry Sadowitz. But I think my favourite (although I was a bit too young to appreciate the Pallbearer's Revue when it was on) was the Jerry Atrick show, which I think was his most recent TV series - it was very much like his live shows - a mixture of comedy and magic - but with a few sketches thrown in - and it was great.

I used to have every episode of the latter on video but if the tape still exists it's in a box somewhere in my mum and dad's house. I really should try and look it out, I suppose.

[Gerontophile]

Smug gay student nazi bastards

Please, someone, if you have them, share them. They are platinum.