New York Post Reports: A Seattle comedy club canceled four comics because they didn’t align with its neighborhood’s “progressive values” — leading one of the funnymen to predict the club would go out of business.
The Capitol Hill Comedy Bar, which celebrates the “vibrant voices of the queer community” with a weekly “Queers to the front” open mic. had booked Jim Florentine, Dave Smith, Luis Gomez and Kurt Metzger for upcoming dates before the about-face, which the owner said was to “maintain the harmony within our community.”
Florentine, who voiced a mentally disabled teenage character named Special Ed on Comedy Central’s prank call show “Crank Yankers,” told The Post in a recent interview why he thinks he was snubbed from the club, which has a Dungeons and Drag Queens Pride Month brunch on its calendar and requires performers to use “respectful behavior and language.”
“I speak my mind on stage, I’m edgy, I don’t kiss the audience’s a–. I’ll talk about the transgender stuff,” the Brooklyn native and New Jersey resident said.
Florentine and the other comics, who share the same agent, were notified by the club’s booker, Jes Anderson, about the change of heart in a letter.
Anderson said in the missive that the club valued the “art of comedy” and “diverse perspectives,” but had been forced to draw a line after receiving “significant feedback expressing concerns about the alignment of these upcoming shows with the neighborhood’s ethos.”
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notwokeshows
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Mar 5, 2024
Do they also have cue cards for the audience, just so they know something is hilariously funny and what constitutes a no laughing zone joke? I'm so sick of these people trying to dictate what we're all supposed to like and not like.