The last hard bastard on Earth, Heath Franklin’s Chopper is materialising back from the future to try and avert the impending Softcockalypse.
Fuck yeah, fuck nah, it’s comin’ alright!
Chopper ambles on to the stage in a blast of theatre smoke. Designer-tailored wig moustache, aviator sunnies, one-keg beer gut under a grey t-shirt.
Channelling Brando/ Colonel Kurtz from the legendary Coppola movie rather than the trepidacious Sheen/ Capt. Willard. The smoke standing in for napalm fire burning up the jungle.
I love the smell of burning Woke in the morning. It smells of victory. Fuck yeah!
He may not actually say that but for the next 70 minutes of rapid-fire profane patter, skewering everything in liberal angst PC sight, it amounts to the same thing.
Heath Franklin has been playing this persona for close to twenty years now. The real-life Mark Chopper Read, who died in 2013, was a recidivist criminal who used to prey on other notorious gangsters. Like the worst of the Mexican drug cartels, his exploits could induce sudden prolonged vomiting.
Then the real Chopper also became an author and wrote children’s books. Franklin adapted the persona to create a vehicle to lampoon and desecrate all manner of pretentious wankers.
In Chopper terminology, desecrate is piss all over. Wankers is wankers.
The closest we had in New Zealand was the recently departed Sir Bob Jones. Similar irreverent sentiments and not giving a toss whom he offends. Jones used (slightly more) erudite language, whereas Franklin raises the F-bombs to the level of Beat poetry. Or Eminem style Rap.
T.S. Eliot. This is the way the world ends/ Not with a bang but a whimper. (The Hollow Men).
Chopper. Everyone’s whimpering themselves to death. (The Softcockalypse)
Amongst all the rapid one-liners, it is clear that Chopper is delivering open-palmed verbal slaps to the Whinge generation.
The perpetually offended, emotionally challenged, upset at everything, whiny give-us-all-a hug generation.
The idea of gentle parenting is given a good (verbal) kicking.
That’s why we’re all here. Just his appearance is enough to start the continual laughter, which erupts in paroxysms’ regularly.
The humour (or satire) we all need to release the pressure from having to swallow so much earnest, well-meaning, pious and pretentious BS for so long.
Swearing is liberating. Good therapy. Franklin observed in a recent interview that obscenity resides in a part of your brain separate from other language centres. Painful stimuli can elicit a faaaaar cough! Or a shit!
It stands to reason that continual rapid-fire profanity can give an endorphin high.
Hugely popular in New Zealand. He gives one reason. It is the language of the building site. Or the sharemilkers.
Big words may be eschewed. Here’s one that I recall from the show. ADADHD. Attention deficit attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. What you get when you are missing out on suffering from ADHD.
He engages the audience early on. He’s asking how you can cast bait to angle-fish for certain types.
MILFS? A pause for thought. The crooked wry smile. Ah, you bring them to a Chopper show!
Catholics priests? He’s on the fly now. We all know where he is heading, and he thanks the audience for not having to say it out loud.
Taboos are comedy gold. Somehow Chopper can avoid the spectre of cancel culture with this lovable persona of his. (Did I just write lovable?!)
Microphone in one hand, beer can in another, he can drop one to make the jack-off sign. Fart jokes will be funny forever. The oldest one? Pull my finger.
One reason why comedians are essential to a free society is that Totalitarians cannot stand them. A certain dictator had Charlie Chaplin on his hit list.
All comedians are obliged to address the Trump phenomenon, and Franklin skirts around the issue in similar fashion to Ben Elton recently.
Give him credit for elevating the US Presidency to the level of a comedian. Donald Trump may be Xi Jingping’s favourite stand-up.
Heath Franklin’s Chopper is certainly a vaccine (and not a genetic hack) for the coming pandemic of Softcockalypse.
Rev. Orange Peel