Dog Belly

Big Jay Oakerson is at his most comfortable leaning over the lip of a stage, trading filthy observations with a room full of strangers. He shifts away from his usual long-form crowd work in Dog Belly to deliver a set of structured material that remains intensely conversational. Much of the hour is spent painting unsettling pictures of human intimacy, whether he is imagining a young adult’s parents hooking up in view of the Las Vegas Strip or detailing a head-on collision method for two men to resolve a tie over who has the larger penis. Filmed at Notoriety Live in Las Vegas during the 2022 Skankfest comedy festival, the hour was directed and executive produced by Ari Shaffir and released on YouTube in April 2023. At this stage in his career, Oakerson was already a fixture of the New York club scene and a busy broadcaster, co-hosting podcasts like Legion of Skanks and SiriusXM’s The Bonfire. Dog Belly arrived as an experiment in self-funding, distributed directly to his audience on a pay-what-you-want basis. The resulting set features routines about his own sexual insecurities, cancelled celebrities like Michael Jackson, and the bizarre experience of being called a Nazi as a Jewish man.