Forty comedians will celebrate the 40th birthday of Guy Earle on Saturday night, but the public gathering won't be a roast — it’s a rally designed to raise funds and attention for the outburst that has given the Toronto-based stand-up a surge of celebrity. For now, the spotlight is mostly being shone by those crusading against the influence of human rights commissions in Canada. Last month, a couple days after the death of George Carlin, the BC Human Rights Tribunal announced their intention to hear the case against Earle for a May 22, 2007 outburst at Zesty’s Restaurant in Vancouver. Licensing laws meant a group of women weren’t allowed to drink on the patio after 11pm, so they relocated indoors, where Earle was emceeing a Tuesday open-mike. An insult or two hurled from the audience led to retaliation from the stage, followed by the women attempting to show him up with a display of spontaneous sapphic smooching — which resulted in Earle calling them all out as “fat and ugly.”
“These women weren’t even fat,” Earle tells Scrolling Eye. “And they weren’t ugly by any measure, either.”
But one of the women, Lorna Pardy (attractively pictured on the set of The L Word here), brought her story to the west coast edition of Xtra, which detailed a tirade leading to water thrown in Earle’s face. The comedian then broke one woman's sunglasses, offering to replace them after things simmered down.
Somehow, the fracas became a matter for a human rights commission to decide, under the premise that the whole episode interfered with the provision of service.
Earle now has an unlikely high-profile ranting champion in the form of Ezra Levant, who is currently crusading against the human rights commission after complaints were filed about the magazine he published, the Western Standard, for re-printing the contentious Danish cartoons of the prophet Muhammad. Maclean’s magazine was similarly the subject of three complaints filed against a featured book excerpt from acerbic columnist Mark Steyn, “The Future Belongs to Islam.”
While the federal and Ontario commissions dismissed the complaints against Steyn’s story, it became the subject of week-long hearing in June at the British Columbia Tribunal.
That’s where Guy Earle expects to be defending his performance style on behalf of the owner of Zesty's — especially because the complainant rejected the initial offer of an undisclosed settlement.
“I hated Toronto my entire life,” says the Parkdale resident, “until I lived in Vancouver.”
A career physicist, Earle got a job with the University of British Columbia that provided him with the luxury to spend much of the week either drinking Mojitos, or producing viral videos. A few days after the Zesty’s incident, he pocketed $5,000 for creating the funniest online commercial for BC beer Shaftsbury.
Born in Guildford, UK, Earle inched from one coast to another, growing up on a steady diet of Steve Martin records, regarding stand-up as his true destiny. His professional career started in Halifax around age 19 — a regular at their Yuk Yuk’s location, always eager to help pick up visiting headliners from the airport.
Yet after eight years of honing his act across the country — and having the customary fall-out with Yuk’s owner Mark Breslin — Earle decided by age 27 to finish his physics degree and pursue comedy through more alternative routes.
“I was in a basement apartment realizing that my life hadn’t really changed since I left high school,” he says. “I might have become really proficient at what I did onstage, but comedy wasn’t giving me anything tangible in the material world.”
A subsequent decade of steady research work — in areas like cryogenics, aerospace and brain imaging — and even traveling the world for conferences, wasn’t quite doing it for Earle, either: “I was asking myself daily whether I wanted to win a Nobel Prize for science, or sit in a trailer on a movie set.”
The relocation to Vancouver was an attempt to somehow try doing both, even if it meant taking gigs before sparse audiences on a Tuesday night at Zesty’s. Earle nonetheless regarded the opportunity as something more than just paying dues.
“There are moments at these little shows that leave me brimming with pride,” he explains. “It’s part and parcel of my love of the art form, where it can be so heartwarming to get that flash of clarity, and provide a stage for other people.”
Not that Earle would react with kindness to an amateur act that bombed — but the assumption is that anyone taking such a stage is familiar with the overall context.
Those watching such a show by accident may have a different reaction, especially if they end up on the receiving end of some strident remarks. The complaint against Zesty’s is presumed to fall in line with the original intent of a human rights commission, designed to censure those suspected of discrimination when it comes to renting an apartment or filling a job post. Shouldn’t a woman be able to drink a pint and eat some nachos without having her apparent sexual orientation commented on via microphone?
Thing is, Earle doesn’t disagree with the enforcement of this philosophy as a cornerstone of society. Plus, some of his best friends are dykes.
“I think the people interested in covering this case are looking for a homophobe,” he says. Last week, Earle was set to appear on Canada AM, then they change their minds — suspecting the pre-interview wasn’t what they expected. “I’m an articulate, calm guy. My political affiliations are extremely left-wing. Generally, I’m on the same page as the lesbians. I am very lesbianic, in fact.”
However, the one Toronto media pundit on the record as thinking Earle is deserving of the complaint is NOW senior entertainment editor Susan G. Cole, pitted against Levant for an argument on CHCH-TV's Live@5:30. Cole stated that George Carlin never uttered anything that could be construed in Canada as “hate speech,” a claim debunked immediately afterward via YouTube.
This level of attention is surreal to Earle, who has eschewed the comedy establishment — working without an agent or manager, and performing at places like Queen Street E. “hemp boutique and vapour lounge” Clandestiny. Last week, he co-headlined at The Dark Show at Absolute Comedy at Yonge and Eglinton.
“I’ve been onstage 1,200 times by now,” he says. “And this can still be as electric an experience as the first time. When the audience is looking back at me enthralled, and digs what I’m doing, that feeling of togetherness never stops affecting me.”
The show of Earle’s life, so far, takes place Saturday night (July 19) at the nascent Comedy Bar (945A Bloor St. W.) The list of performers doing one-minute routines for free speech features a few household names from the local scene, although many are relative outsiders. (This week, many in the local comedy establishment are preoccupied with being scouted for deals at the Just For Laughs festival in Montreal.)
Designing custom applications for a research laboratory is paying Earle’s own bills for now, with his spare time spent for defending the right to be belligerent on stage.
“This might sound ridiculous except it’s also for real,” he says. “Last year, I was distraught, thinking no one was listening to me. My resolve has totally changed.”
Does he regret that things escalated to the boiling point that got him in trouble?
“I think all comedians regret having to deal with hecklers,” he says. “But if I found myself in this same situation all over again, I would do it in the exact same way.
“What I do regret is that there was a 20-year-old blonde from Montreal who I was going to go for drinks with after the show. When things got heated, I saw her get up and leave. And that was supposed to be the end of my eight-month Vancouver drought.”
Previously on the Scroll: Free-speech follies [June 30]
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