FREEDOM OF SPEECH

by Christopher J. Lundstrom

     "Here it is, the way it is. the people of this society are so pitiful and void of any semblance of creative skills that they are forced to bring their hard earned money and give it to me in exchange for some laughter, some release from the painful sad truth that is their lives. You are incapable of fulfilling your own needs," says comedian Emery Emery.

     "Oh, you try, you listen intently to your coworker as he or she drudges through the latest joke making the rounds. 'There's a priest, a rabbi and a Hara Krishna...' As the teller goes on you lose your train of thought because you cannot achieve suspension of disbelief. You become obsessed with why a Hara Krishna would play golf with a priest and a rabbi. Christ, Hara Krishnaâs have to take a vow swearing off golf shoes, don't they? Then comes the punch line. You try to listen as it's delivered. You try to focus because you want to laugh. Truly, you do. But, deep down you know it won't be funny. So, the Hara Krishna says, 'I just wait to be paged to gate five.' You realize that you were right. The joke sucks. And you've heard this one. 'Dammit!' you think as you realize you couldn't entertain yourself if someone held a gun to your daughter's head and promised to spare her life if only you could be self fulfilled for three seconds. You know that you would be forced to drop to your knees, sobbing as the vile thug releases your daughter from a life of embarrassment. She is, after all, your daughter. Why would she want to live anyhow?"

     Emery Emery is a selfproclaimed purveyor of filth. His words are words he calls the psychotic ramblings of a chronic masturbator. Yet, one can't help but wonder, while listening to the rest of his spoken word and comedy routine, exactly where the psychotic part is. Emery Emery speaks the truth, as he sees it and as many of his audience members are afraid to admit that they see it as well.

      Having been a professional comedian for the past 13 years, Emery got his start in the Kansas City area. Growing up in Overland Park, he saw a need to break people from that inability to achieve suspension of disbelief. He wanted to make people believe that what they see in the world around them are the truths of life, no matter how profane, obscene or offensive they may seem. Emery sees that the best way to do that is through laughter. Bringing light to the issues that the world blindly takes so seriously.

     Has Emery achieved this goal? Definitely so.

     Emery's material ranges from explicit sexual commentary to innocent pokes at life in Mississippi. The latter material has been construed as racist by many who have seen his  performance. In a club in Seattle, Emery performed his show two consecutive nights. Finally, on the third night a patron complained.

     "It was a black lady who was very offended, " Emery explains. "The club owner asked me to drop the piece of my show that offended her. I felt, if someone asks me to not say the word f*** as much or the word c*** or something of that nature, I could soften up a little in that way. But that didn't happen. It was just one women who thought no white guy should say the word nigger, no matter the context. There are a lot of black acts that say nigger in their show, and it's the context that makes the difference.

     "Now, if you have a comic on stage who says, 'Hey, shut up, nigger,' to a black guy, then it would be appropriate for the club owner to say you can't do that type of comedy in his club. But, from a right and wrong stand point you can't tell a guy who is white not to say nigger just because he's white, and that's what happened in my case. I refused to drop the piece and I was fired."

     The owner thought it was the politically correct thing to do, says Emery. "That's what gets me. Nobody thinks that they are a bigot nobody does. The biggest bigot the biggest racist jackoff in the world thinks he has an open mind for some twisted reason."

     In Mississippi, says Emery, he gets plenty of applause doing redneck, racist jokes. "I'm dumbfounded because I'm portraying them as such idiots," he says. "I expect them to lynch me, and they give me a standing ovation. I surmise that no one thinks that they're the guy I'm making fun of."

     Besides the controversy of Emery's inappropriately construed racist material, his pieces concerning women seem to dominate the show. Women are his most consistent hecklers, which Emery seems to bring upon himself. During his most recent Kansas City show at Guitars, he responded to one women heckler in the audience by saying, "Don't make me rape again!" which was followed by cheers from the audience. If you consider his remark offensive, you must ask yourself what caused that applause which followed that comment. Certainly, Emery didn't hold a gun to the head of every pair of clapping hands in the crowd. Emery merely achieved his goal. The audience accomplished suspension of disbelief.

     Emery says he wants to take the envelope and shred it. "I want to make people believe that they have power over what offends them and to stop being offended simply for the sake of being offended. Everything is your choice. You make the choice to be offended."

     Although the interaction he partakes in with hecklers isn't Emery's favorite part of the show, he admits it is one of his strongest suits. "It's probably one of the things I do the best," he says,

     "but I can't stand it because there's no artistic quality there. I mean, every once in a while there's a gem, but it doesn't have the same quality as the written material, the power and message."

     A large part of Emery's show at Guitars on Aug. 8, was comprised of crowd interaction. At one point during the night, Emery got on the topic of divorce with Doug, who was sitting in the audience. Before anyone realized what was happening, Doug had given Emery three things: his exwife's name, phone number and his cellular phone.  What happened next was instant anticipation on the part of the rest of the audience, and Emery had to please them. Emery called up Doug's exwife, told her he had gotten her number off a bathroom wall, had his five dollars and wanted the advertised oral sex. Later in the show, Doug's cellular phone rang and everyone knew who it was.

     Doug's exwife was not amused and had somehow figured out Doug's involvement in the call. After the show was over, Emery talked to Doug and found out his exwife blamed him for the call and implied she would take legal action against Doug. The next day Emery called Doug's exwife to apologize and explain that Doug had nothing to do with the call, it was all part of the show and he hadn't meant any harm.

     Such situations do nothing to inhibit Emery's shows. If anything, they have encouraged him "Any attempt to censor my material has only served to enhance my comedic style," Emery explains. "It's made me realize that I have one thing to fight for and that's freedom of speech, period and end of conversation. Nobody can tell somebody what to say, and that's what this issue is all about. When we're living in a society where the people who are speaking out against hatred and ignorance are being censored and being fired, then we're moving backward in time, and that's what I want to fight. Lenny Bruce fought it, and he lost. Bill Hicks fought it, and he died. So, it seems that I have a pretty bleak future. But it won't stop. My comedy is my release, it's my therapy. I do this because I'd be standing on top of a billboard picking off bystanders otherwise."

     If you look beyond all the controversy and you look beyond all the questionable issues which Emery so effortlessly conquers, you will find one very prominent fact standing in place, Emery Emery is definitely funny. The choice is yours.

Emery Emery's CD' Purveyor of Filth is available at Borders Books and Musicland.