Is Crackhouse All Cracked-up?

Crackhouse Comedy Club’s owner Rizal Van Geyzel has been permanently blacklisted from registering a business license for any premises in the capital. Deputy Federal Territories Minister said Kuala Lumpur City Hall’s (DBKL) licensing committee decided to revoke the comedy club’s licence effective July 30. The owner is blacklisted for life from registering business licenses in Kuala Lumpur.  He cannot register any businesses in the city even if he is using another name and company.

Crackhouse came under heavy scrutiny recently over controversial performances that touched on Islam, which saw a woman and her boyfriend arrested.  

Rizal later landed in hot water too when several old videos of controversial comedy performances resurfaced.

Source: https://www.freemalaysiatoday.com (Facebook pic)

He was arrested by Bukit Aman Criminal Investigation Department’s Classified Investigation Unit on July 14 and remanded. He is currently facing three charges under Section 233 of the Communications and Multimedia Act (CMA).

Is this too much? The action itself (by DBKL) is comic relief! How can the owner ensure a performance will not affect the sensitivities of some people? In a multi-racial society, there are some idiosyncrasies which are laughable and in good spirit we accept as very Malaysian! 

Many may have heard the joke that there were two Chinese shops selling cooking gas right opposite each other – “Wee Kien Fatt” and the other “Soh Kien Wee”. So, does that make me an anti-national social element? Or, how about why Indians cannot win the World Cup? Because every time they get a corner they set up a mamak shop!

As long as we are open-minded and little tolerant of each other we can enjoy names/culture/language of each other. Let’s have a “Merdeka of Jokes” and laugh at each other’s peculiarities and temperament. No malice was intended nor taken, otherwise we will only have serious jokes on LCS and 1MDB!

Reference:

“Sad day for stand-up comedy”: Netizens question logic behind DBKL blacklist, Bernie Yeo, Focus Malaysia, 17 August 2022