Jerry Sadowitz C/D

As an aside, the line that got him clobbered at Just for Laughs wasnt the "moosefuckers" bit, it was the bit about the French language. People have been killed over language rights in Quebec.

As far as I can tell her main thing is to get more serious about climate

calling the audience "moosefuckers" or whatever term for the Scotch would cause equal offense

funnily enough, the term that would cause equal offense for many Scots is Scotch.

Which is why deems delighted in using it on here.

ffs. i'd generally have zero tolerance if an english person used that but would cut an american some slack and assune they just didn't know any better, but if they do they can eff right off.

assume.

lol I did have that thought. Is it Stewart Lee who has a bit that revolves around that?

for the record i am, in fact, an ignorant american and meant no disrespect to the... scots?... by the term. mainly i was thinking of ivor cutler's _life in a scotch sitting room, vol. 2_. not sure whether it's that "scotch" is an acceptable adjective for sitting rooms but not for people, if acceptable usage has simply changed since 1976, or both.

honestly i'm half tempted to just refer to scots as "moosefuckers" from now on. i mean y'all wouldn't actually take offense to that, would you? i know i wouldn't take offense to being called a "moosefucker".

for the record given what i know of the policies of maurice duplessis, it makes perfect sense to me language rights is such a serious issue in quebec.

regarding the "unsafe to remain in the venue", again, this is a concern i probably take more seriously than a lot of people here. if me and tiny toese are in a room, i'm not going to wait until toese physically attacks me to get the fuck out.

is jerry sadowitz tiny toese? no, just some old guy who regularly gets his dick out on stage. so at what point are women _justified_ in feeling unsafe around men's unprovoked sexual behavior? are we supposed to wait until he starts jerking off into a potted plant?

same way, women who go to a jerry sadowitz gig are supposed to _know_ that they're putting themselves in a potentially dangerous situation. he's spent forty years waving his dick around on stage, apparently, and we're all supposed to know this going in, it's our fucking fault if we don't. we were, you know, we were _asking for it_. right?

There's obviously nothing wrong with feeling you might need to get out of a place, or indeed getting out of a place.

It's the implication that a performance possibly having engendered that feeling or reaction makes it unacceptable that needs qualifying at least.

Content *doesn't align with your values as ana organisation"? OK... whatever, maybe you are missing something but that's your call.

Do their values really include "nobody must feel anything they don't want to feel in the presence of a performance" though?

In what sense is someone getting their dick out dangerous?

Jesus, it might be very unpleasant, it might well be literally triggering, but presumably all attendees are adults at least. Having PTSD doesn't make you not an adult.

In what sense is someone getting their dick out dangerous?

― thas baked, Zarathustra (Noel Emits)

to you, or to me, noel?

like, you've heard of the phrase "hostile environment", right? what does that phrase _mean_ to you?

Well, unless the dick is somehow wielded as a dangerous weapon in a physical sense, let's say anyone who has the wherewithal to buy a ticket and attend a show for adults.

The question being... in what sense?

I think I like Jerry, certainly I've supported him over the years, but at times like this I'd like to hear at least some people saying he is terrible and should fuck off.

thinking about it, once i get past the immediate defensive response, it's an interesting question. i mean, i empathize with what you're saying. i relate to it. five years ago, i wouldn't have found the prospect of some gross old dude waving his dick in my face at all threatening. i've just had different experiences over the past couple years. i'm a different person now. a lot of women do in fact find it threatening when some guy gets his dick out and waves it in her face. it's kind of... self-evident why that would be threatening? it's kind of weird to me that guys would _not_ find that threatening? yet at the same time i know pre-transition, i wouldn't have found it threatening in the slightest. gender is weird.

anyway, you're trying to put the burden of proof on me to demonstrate to you that having a dick waved in your face is threatening, and i'm honestly, i'm not going to accept that. i don't really want to try and _prove_ anything to you. i'm asking you to trust that, as a woman, i have experiences that you, as a cis man, don't. to accept that women have a right to, when in this situation, act to protect other women from having those same sort of negative experiences in the future. that our right to not have dicks waved in our face is more important than a comedian's right to expressing his "free speech" by waving his dick in our faces.

it's a big ask, and five-years-ago-me wouldn't have accepted my argument, so i certainly don't _expect_ you to. at the same time i think it's a reasonable enough argument!

not sure whether it's that "scotch" is an acceptable adjective for sitting rooms but not for people, if acceptable usage has simply changed since 1976, or both.

it was never acceptable but has got even less acceptable since 1976. Ivor Cutler, being Scottish was of course at liberty to use it as he pleased.

i can't imagine (m)any Scots would be offended by being called moosefuckers, or even highland cattlefuckers, but just watch the Scotch use.

being naked on stage isn't the same thing as waving a dick in someone's face. which is sadowitz supposed to have done?

"Well, unless the dick is somehow wielded as a dangerous weapon in a physical sense, let's say anyone who has the wherewithal to buy a ticket and attend a show for adults."

someone with experience of being a CSE victim or a sexual assault/rape survivor might bed to differ with you there matey

*beg, fucking wretched autocorrect/typo

My sister was sexually abused in the UK care system, but she's an adult now - so I guess her damage doesn't really count. Just don't turn up at *adult* comedy shows you idiot.

being naked on stage isn't the same thing as waving a dick in someone's face. which is sadowitz supposed to have done?

― oscar bravo

i will grant you, off the bat, that i am making a theoretical argument, and this perhaps is my major mistake in this thread. i do tend to avoid theoretical arguments, as they make things confusing and complicated. whatever sadowitz is supposed to have done, i want to make it clear, he did not do it to me. i have not seen his penis. i realize that i may have described his cock upthread in some uncomplimentary ways, and i would like to apologize for this. for all i know jerry sadowitz has an absolutely _beautiful_ cock.

to state plainly the premises of my theoretical argument: if i went to a jerry sadowitz show, and jerry sadowitz exposed himself on stage, would i be within my rights to attempt to dissuade the venue from presenting another show by sadowitz on the grounds that this act made me feel "unsafe"?

note that this theoretical argument does not bear any real relation to what actually happened. we don't know _what_ happened, why people told the venue that they felt "unsafe", what sadowitz did or said during the show.

i make a hypothetical argument, y'all respond by asking hypothetical questions, fair enough.

that said, it's hard for me not to point out that the gist of the arguments does... tend a little towards the absurd. again, not a negative judgement, i think that's the thing about sadowitz in general, about this sort of exaggeratedness in general, it does tend towards these absurd situations. but if you don't mind, i want to take a step back here.

like, the central issue here isn't the _exact manner_ in which hypothetical jerry sadowitz hypothetically exposed himself, that's not what i was trying to get at. perhaps i muddled the issue a little by describing the act a little too colorfully in an attempt to portray the vividness of the subjective experience i, as a woman, experience when a guy (or a lady, though ladies tend to do this less often) shows me their cock without my prior consent.

the argument i was trying to make, perhaps with a little less rigor, in retrospect, than i ought to have employed, is that i might be within my rights to both feel "unsafe" and act on my feeling of being unsafe if, in the course of a comedy show, jerry sadowitz were to remove his trousers and show the audience, including me, his beautiful, beautiful cock.

and i _love_ noel's response to this argument. it is just such a perfect response. when i bring up the prospect that an exposed penis might somehow contribute to a "hostile environment", his immediate concern is that the penis might perhaps be used to bludgeon someone. yes, of course, that is every woman's foremost fear when someone pulls their cock out - the possibility that someone might rip it off and conk us over the head with it.

ok first off there is something of a distorted sense of scale inherent in that framing. i've seen quite a few cocks, including some impressively large ones, but i've yet to see one where i thought "i'd better watch out for that one, it could possibly be effectively used as a cudgel". i'm sorry. i know the term "pound" is a common euphemism for intercourse but it's not something that's easily literally accomplished with a cock.

to state it plainly, the reason exposed cocks make me feel unsafe now when they did not before is because i am at a dramatically increased risk of sexual assault. of course, it is not _only_ men who rape, not _only_ women who are raped, and certainly by no means do _all_ men rape. however, prior to my transition my risk of being sexually assaulted was so low that, honestly, it seemed more likely that someone would bludgeon me with a penis than that they would sexually assault me with it. going from that to a life where sexual assault is a daily fact of life, something that has happened to one of my friends, something that is not unlikely to happen to me, no matter what precautions i take... that's hard. knowing that i will be held responsible for being sexually assaulted if and when it happens, just as has happened to my friends, that's difficult too.

and of course it's hard when we're blamed for _wanting to take precautions_. noel suggests that my belief that i would feel unsafe were the fictitious jerry sadowitz to show me his beautiful, beautiful cock might be indicative of "ptsd". i'm not sure where he gets that conclusion from. it's kind of weird. i guess it doesn't matter. what matters is that by acting to literally cancel jerry sadowitz, it's presumed that we're _enacting_ violence against sadowitz.

it's really not about sadowitz personally, either the real jerry sadowitz whose cock i haven't seen or the fictitious jerry sadowitz with the unutterably gorgeous cock. it's about, well, _structural_ violence, _systemic_ violence. whether or not jerry sadowitz exposes himself on stage is of less concern to me than the possibility that i might go to a comedy show, whoever's on stage might show me their cock, and that behavior will be defended as _normal_ and _acceptable behavior_ for that environment. treating a man showing off his cock in public as normal and acceptable _doesn't_ set a dangerous precedent. that precedent was already set, long before i was born. all i can do is try to minimize the personal consequences to me.

I mean, lol. this is the most terminally middle class comedy festival in the world. Be ready for cocks or just gtfo

something that has happened to one of my friends

_more than_ one of my friends

My sister was sexually abused in the UK care system, but she's an adult now - so I guess her damage doesn't really count. Just don't turn up at *adult* comedy shows you idiot.

― calzino

god it'd be nice if i could still talk to guys like that

I actually used to know Jerry Sadowitz - well, to be accurate he was/is a good friend of my best friend, I say "good friend", they've known each other for years but I'm not sure how good JS with friendships. Given that we were very much pub people and he doesn't drink and hates pubs, I didn't get to know him too well. Perfectly charming but incredibly neurotic and fucked up, he is a comedian after all. The other connection is my brother's future wife once poured a pint over his head at some kind of book signing thing.

yeah he doesn't seem like a pub person at all and his skin complexion looks teetotal

I can't help but think he'd have been much happier sticking with magic but I don't really know him well enough to say - no money in it though. Not much money in comedy either.

the card tricks element to his game has never been in question has it? An old friend of mine who was into all that shit told me he was one of the best in the UK. Albeit he was a postman amateur card trick enthusiast, but still!

Yes, I believe he's considered one of the best.

I actually used to know Jerry Sadowitz

i was very, vaguely acquainted with him. he left glasgow around the same time i moved here but he was back often, we had some mutual friends and we were introduced. i was surprised how quiet he was (the couple of times i met him, at least). he did do some great card tricks - about the best i've ever seen. i saw him perform one time and remember finding it very funny but don't recall any of the content.

A statement from Sadowitz:
I don’t wish to humiliate The Pleasance but they are doubling down on their position and I don’t want to be made the victim of that. I repeat... I did a 75 minute show for 600 people that went pretty well and left with no hint of anything going wrong.
In addition to now being told there were multiple walkouts and "abuse of staff" my act is now being cheapened and simplified as unsafe, homophobic, misogynistic and racist.
I am not J** D******* folks… a lot of thought goes into my shows and while I don’t always get it right, especially at the speed of which I speak… and I don’t always agree with my own conclusions (!)...I am offended by those who, having never seen me before, HEAR words being shouted in the first five minutes before storming out without LISTENING to the material which I am stupid enough to believe is funny, sometimes important and worth saying.
Additionally, there's a lot of silly, exaggerated irony and nonsense, real and exaggerated anger and bile, and even getting my dick out is for the purpose of the funny line which follows it. (No I won't tell you what it is… see the show for yourself… or better still... just stay at home).
I ask nobody to agree with anything I say or do on stage... God forbid they should end up like me... and I have never ONCE courted a mainstream audience to come to my shows because guess what??? In real life, I really DON'T don’t want to upset anyone… including Anthony Alderson.
The show is what it is, for those who enjoy it. The rest of you... please stick to Carry On films.
P.S. If the Pleasance can't apologise to me they should at least apologise to the 300 people who paid for and travelled to see the show on Saturday.

Not sure why he felt the need to asterisk out Joy Division.

He's personalizing it. That's why the statement sits weird with me. I mean, he's being systemically ground to bits by the Discourse Machine, which is a fucking horrible thing to watch, every time. It's not _personal_, that's the most horrifying thing about it. There's no such thing as justice, just random people being targeted for reasons that aren't really about _him_ personally. Hell, that's what I've been doing here. I really, genuinely have nothing against Mr Sadowitz. The stuff I'm complaining about has basically fuck-all to do with him personally. This is just what a world without justice _looks_ like, in practice.

you're trying to put the burden of proof on me to demonstrate to you that having a dick waved in your face is threatening

No, I asked you IN WHAT SENSE is "waving his dick around on stage*" "a potentially dangerous situation".

It's a question - as in, do you mean dangerous in the sense that it might make you feel really bad, or do you mean it indicates some realistic possibility of physical danger. The latter is usually what people mean when they talk about danger, and yes I would question the extent to which [offensive comedian on stage getting nob out] obectively indicates likely physical danger.

But if the former, I cannot possibly have anything to say about that, that shouldn't need saying (although I did say - "There's obviously nothing wrong with feeling you might need to get out of a place") . Feelings are feelings. Only, it's a little suspect eliding any distinction.

* if it's now "waving in face" being "threatening", that's surely further along on the "threatening gesture" scale, but also "threat" is partly in the peception and feeling threatened doesn't necessarily correlate with degree of threat to person, while it is identical with how threatened you feel, obviously not something I would be arguing with.

noel suggests that my belief that i would feel unsafe were the fictitious jerry sadowitz to show me his beautiful, beautiful cock might be indicative of "ptsd".

It was an illustration of an extreme example of "emotional danger" (as a concept), in the event that's what you had meant. Absolutely nothing to do with you as a person or what you might feel, believe you might feel, what might cause you to feel a certain way etc.

it is just such a perfect response. when i bring up the prospect that an exposed penis might somehow contribute to a "hostile environment", his immediate concern is that the penis might perhaps be used to bludgeon someone. yes, of course, that is every woman's foremost fear when someone pulls their cock out - the possibility that someone might rip it off and conk us over the head with it.

ok first off there is something of a distorted sense of scale inherent in that framing. i've seen quite a few cocks, including some impressively large ones, but i've yet to see one where i thought "i'd better watch out for that one, it could possibly be effectively used as a cudgel". i'm sorry. i know the term "pound" is a common euphemism for intercourse but it's not something that's easily literally accomplished with a cock.

It was SUPPOSED to be a ludicrous image of the potential for PHYSICAL danger, as opposed to something else, which remained the quite simple question I had asked you about what you'd said.

someone with experience of being a CSE victim or a sexual assault/rape survivor might bed to differ with you there matey

Not sure what you're getting at, primarliy because what you replied to was part of a question that still hasn't been answered, not a statement as such. That being in what sense is the supposed sitation "potentially dangerous"? I'm not saying it isn't, I'm asking in what way?

It SEEMS like you decided, or understood, that when Kate talked about a "potentially dangerous situation" she definitely meant "dangerous to FEELINGS". And then... you mean to imply I would have been doing something like disputing how people say they feel?

Or the alternative is that you mean to argue that a trauma / fear response is likely to make for an especially realistic assessment of the potential for a triggering situation to become physicaly perlilous? I'll assume that's not what you meant.

Hi Noel! Just letting you know I'm adding you to my ilx killfile script, so unfortunately I won't be reading or responding to any more of your posts. Just wanted to give you a heads up about that. Cheers!

In the meantime, thinking a little bit more about how the concept of "justice" relates to the Sadowitz thing. I think my feeling is that justice _on an individual level_ is no longer a meaningful concept. Which is a weird thing to think about! 2022. I tell you.

Quite liked this reading of the story.

sadowitz story is about post covid labour markets. power for staff to object to working for a guy taking his dick out and saying slurs is elevated massively by staffing shortages at the 2022 fringe

— josh (@lobstereo) August 14, 2022

I mean, that's not _terribly_ far removed from my take. I don't know if it's labour markets or the sheer levels of dystopia we're all trying to survive in or what, but the fact that I can even come into this thread and say that it's legitimate for some people to feel unsafe because Jerry Sadowitz took his dick out on stage, legitimate for the venue to cancel him, and have some of the men in this thread actually take me seriously... I mean this isn't a typical Internet Discourse space in a lot of ways but I'm still kind of reeling in disbelief that I wasn't immediately dogpiled into nothingness. If ILX was a larger board it would've happened by now, certainly.

There is absolutely no way a venue would cancel a show because of a shortage of Front of House staff. The theatre manager or admin staff just steps in, or the performers' entourage, or you just grab someone from the bar if necessary.

do you know anything about fringe? They’ve had a lot of problems finding staff and volunteers this year.

a lot of the Fringe runs on temporary workers - these are people who don't have the ties and reliance on the job, they know it's going to end in a matter of weeks, so it makes sense if something is bothering them that they'll feel a lot more comfortable walking away than if it was their "career job"

yeah, I thought the tweet was saying they were muddling along with staff shortages and because of this they have more say on what is an acceptable working environment.

I worked for years in the theatre in Scotland ( & like others in this thread got to know Sadowitz a bit when stand-up was huge for a time in the mid-90s). An absence of ushers is not a serious problem. Ditto for tech or stage management. The only absence that would stop the show is if Sadowitz cancelled.

Yeah and also as per other posts in that thread, they are significantly stretched everywhere. It depends on the roles too I guess but you probably just can’t get someone in for most things in time. Looks like they are required to know their way around fire safety and handling difficult patrons as a condition of licensing (and for a high profile thing like fringe, you’d bet they don’t want to take chances on that).

xp was that pre or post pandemic, cos nobody can get staff anywhere.

you need to have experience of working at the fringe in the post covid era to really know what you are talking about here

Were other shows at the Fringe cancelled due to a lack of front of house staff? Or just the one with the famously offensive Scotch person?

I mean sure, refund thousands of dollars of ticket money and engender tons of ill-will because noone is there to tell people where the toilets are.

one upside to being American is not knowing a single thing about whoever this guy is

He's kind of American too.

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shaking my d*** head

milkshake dick move