When you see an advertisement heralding the arrival of “dark comedy,” and the poster involves people who all pass as white and are mostly men, you can put your money on the evening being the sort of thing that makes you wish you’d stayed home and attended to an infected wound instead. At least then, the bacterial muck ends up in the trash instead of your eardrums.
“The Riot Presents Sick Fux” is an evening hosted by Los Angeles comedian Ryan Joseph, a man who tells jokes in exactly the same pissy tone of voice that grackles use to claim ownership of a dropped French fry. Five minutes on his Twitter account makes it clear that the “demented jester” is a shallow, humorless dude with less stage presence than the brick wall behind him. His sets are these strangely angry performances where he seems to actively hate the audience for showing up, which is coincidently how I feel about folks who enable bad comedians and their persecution complexes.
Since Texas is now actively a transphobic hellscape, I’m going to focus on the fact that Joseph and his merry band of Waffle House enthusiasts are essentially here to do the propaganda work of the Texas governor like all real outlaws do. Joseph’s contributions to LGBT comedy include such gems as “Gender is a word that describes the objective reality that there are two sexes in the human species DUDE cut your dick off in your own home wearing a mask” and retweeting a story about swimmer Lia Thomas with the caption “Lol dudes rule chicks drool.”
Don’t worry, though. He hates cis women, too.
He’ll be joined by New York comedian Leonarda Jonie, who is nice reminder that transphobia is an increasingly intersectional endeavor. She’s currently promoting a video where she holds her baby up to the camera and declares him trans and makes fun of parents who seek lifesaving, gender-affirming care for their kids. This is heralded with a cry that the video got taken off of Instagram.
The utter obsession with being cancelled that wafts from the “Sick Fux” crew like pollutants from a tire fire is more desperate than a freshman reaching for scissors to get their date’s bra off. I almost didn’t write this article because I know any pushback makes Ryan’s erection hard enough to hang his trucker hat from. They’re part of this vicious and incredibly stupid cycle where they tell bad jokes marginalizing groups they aren’t in, wait for someone to say that’s fucked up, scream about censorship, and then repeat until their audience no longer has money for Joe Rogan merchandise.
What’s really frustrating about this is how Rudyard’s has apparently just embraced their title as the best place in Houston to hear an attack helicopter joke. Between this parade of regressive pilot fish and doing surprise Dave Chappelle sets, it’s a wonder the venue hasn’t put up a “no lib cucks allowed” sign. I’m reminded that the last time I was there I ended the evening by holding a strange woman’s hair as she threw up on my shoes in the parking lot, and now that seems like something between a metaphor and an evil omen.
It is frankly astounding how many mediocre, talentless hacks will ride the wave of conservative resentment into careers. These are people who can’t even spell Saturday correctly on their posters and say the show starts at “May 14 PM” and yet expect average thinking humans to harken to their call as free speech mavericks. It’s aggrieved, reactionary drivel that actively shits in the punchbowl of life, and no, I don’t think it’s comedy because the shitter and his shitty shitter friends laughed like they just invented The Aristocrats.
These losers wouldn’t know dark humor if it reported them to Human Resources, and they feel entitled to constant validation because their Nazi-adjacent buffoonery makes good people nauseous. About the only nice thing I can say of the event is that maybe all the COVID deniers will be in one place for an evening so it might be safe to go catch the new Doctor Strange flick.
The Riot Presents Sick Fux featuring Joseph Ryan, Leonarda Jonie, Jordan Shelby, Chris Rees, Adam Luckey, and Britney Ledesma is scheduled for 11 p.m. Saturday May 14 at The Riot Comedy Show Rudyard’s, 2010 Waugh. For more information, visit RudyardsHTX.com or call 713-521-0521.$12 – $110.
This article appears in Jan 1 – Dec 31, 2022.
