I talked to Earle by phone yesterday afternoon to get his side of the story.
During our 35-minute chat, the comedian was incredibly candid and forthcoming about the details of that night.
He was also clear about the following: he will take this current ruling to the Supreme Court and he has absolutely no intention of paying the $15,000 fine; in fact he doesn’t even recognize the ruling, for all of the reasons listed above.
For comedians worldwide, the ruling sets a scary precedent and forces performers to ask some serious questions, namely: “Will the next thing I say onstage cost me $15,000?”
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(I lose my temper in the comments.)
UPDATE: Brian Lilley and Charles Adler of Sun News talked about the Guy Earle affair. Sun News was basically the Guy Earle Channel all late last week:
More from my site
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Paul Simonon wrote ‘The Guns of Brixton’ to get a slice of those Clash songwriting royalties- Revelations 21:15 — ‘And then did John Podhoretz make something almost like a joke’