What happens in comedy clubs (usually) stays in comedy clubs

[MindPilot]

I used to do standup. I never made it big enough to do more than a couple gigs in LA; I didn't want it bad enough to quit my day job and live the starving artist lifestyle.

Not to excuse Richards in any way, but that kind of stuff goes on all the time. Not to that extreme to be sure, but had it not been a well-known TV personality, chances are you would have never heard of it. Hecklers can be a real pain and in many instances, the club owners don't do nearly enough to keep them in check. Comics will have a set of stock lines for hecklers and usually they will shut them up. Richards blew it when he went on a rant; he should have just stopped until the hecklers either settled down or the club's staff pulled 'em out.

Just to give an example, here's what happened when I was in the audience at a club in Madison. The club was packed, the comic was in the middle of an awesome set, he was "on", he was firing punch lines so fast people were spitting out their drinks and falling out of their chairs. The timing was perfect, the guy had the crowd and he was killing!!

Then this prissy little goody-two shoes stands up and interrupts his set to chastise the guy about his language!! The comic tears into her, but not nearly enough. She was still lecturing about the evils of profanity and how it demeans women. The crowd goes silent and I could sense that he was losing the edge and probably wondering "how far can I go before I don't get another gig here"?

I stood up and yelled something along the lines of "do you know you are in a fucking comedy club? There is going to be profanity. The rest of us want to see the show, so either sit the fuck down and shut the fuck up or get the fuck out!"

She stormed out to applause and I didn't have to pay for a drink the rest of the night.

Yeah, Richards screwed up, but the hecklers aren't completely innocent victims.

[Catherine Vincent]

1. Sorry. Comedy club or not....

that was no excuse for that outburst.

[WI_DEM]

4. I don't think the OP was making any excuse for that outburst.

[MindPilot]

12. No I wasn't and thanks for pointing that out.

I thought more than twice before posting this for that very reason. No matter how many times I say Richards went too far, over the top, outside the norm, off the map, screwed up, whatever, there would be a bunch of people who miss the point and think I'm defending him. Or that I'm saying that racist comments are OK as long as they stay in the "club".

[Catherine Vincent]

16. I didn't say that you defended Richards.

Chill.

[MindPilot]

18. Roger that! Just chillin' over here...

:hi:

[Bitwit1234]

2. I think the "N" word is degrading but

so is ...dyke, honky, and all the other racist and gender slashing names. If you are going to go all out to stop people from saying one, then they should all be banned. There is no reason for people on a stage to insult the audience they way they do..CUT IT OUT..ALL OF THEM.

[MindPilot]

8. Every person in a comedy club paid admission and bought two drinks

Do you think there should be censorship in an adult venue where adults have willing consented to participate?

I'll be willing to bet that Michael Richards could play to a packed house in any major city tonight.

Comedy clubs are like abortion clinics; if you have a problem with what happens there, don't go.

[Sydnie]

13. a packed house full of camcorders maybe

;)

[WI_DEM]

3. Thank you for this perspective

Of course Richards went way over the line, but hecklers can be, as you say, a pain in the ass.

[Bunny]

5. I can overlook a comic who gets a little too pissed at hecklers, and

responds too strongly. But the stuff that came out of Richard's mouth would not even by said by a hardcore KuKluxKlanner in polite company. Those comments came from a very dark place inside him and are very scary. I don't think anyone is calling the hecklers innocent victims either - they were probably asshats. But in no way did they "deserve" what Richards said.

[Esra Star]

23. I don't think Mr Richards knew that was inside him. Now he knows

and is shattered. I think he will deal with it and that thing won't appear again.
What does it take to make any of us snap? I don't know, but it is often ugly.
On the positive side there was no gunplay!

[BurgherHoldtheLies]

6. Hecklers cull the herd

Comedy, especially stand-up, is a tough business. IMHO, a skilled performer can handle the most obnoxious hecklers without losing his/her cool or timing. Richards had no structure to his rant...just hate. Anger works in comedy within structure but aimless, endless hate speech doesn't.

To me it showed how little talent the guy has for stand-up. There is no question in my mind that he is a racist.

[Tunkamerica]

10. So we've settled it.

He's a racist. Great! Now who cares? Seriously.

He said bad things. He's a bad man. He may or may not get what's coming to him, but unless you have some personal stake in this...who cares?

I guess a lot of people feel betrayed because they liked Kramer on TV. Hopefully this will show people that actors are acting. Brad Pitt isn't a boxer and Tom Cruise can't fly an f-16. Michael Richards isn't the hipster doofus he played on tv.

[LisaM]

7. Without excusing Richards, I wondered about the hecklers too

I get the feeling there are people who think paying for a ticket to a comedy club gives them the right to heckle comedians. People feel this way at sporting events, too - never mind that it can make it unpleasant for the people around them.

That said, I don't go to comedy clubs very often because I don't think using the "f" word every third word constitutes comedy. I don't mind some profanity, but sometimes I put on someone like Chris Rock on HBO and you'd think that they paid him an extra $500 every time he said fuck! Is that his whole schtick?

[Sydnie]

9. Comedians make their bones on such events

I have been friends with many well known comedians over the years. I gave Bobcat rides to CT from Boston when he had a gig but didn't have a car. I went to parties at Lenny Clark's house. Had a drink with Leno. Have pictures of Steven Wright with a tuna and hot fudge sundae he ordered in Cambridge one wild and crazy Saturday night. I don't have time to list all the people I hung out with in Boston that now have names you would recognize. some even made it to California and met with my brother (quite unbeknown to me ... until they would call me from that other coast, from his house to say hi) who produced comedy shows there for years.

The closest I ever saw anyone come to anything like Richards did was Lenny Clark ... and even HE wouldn't go that far. Lenny was very blue when he was on stage (this was when he still drank ... a lot!), and he would NEVER have gone to that level. Get personal, absolutely, but not something that was that personal nor that apparent to others in the room. After all, the people in that room didn't need Richards to tell them what the color of their skin was ... all could see that. Tell a mother joke, an intelligence joke, or question their sexual prowess ... absolutely.

This was beyond the beyond. No comedian worth their salt would go there. As Carlin used to say, "That won't get you on the panel with Johnny, Ed and Doc".

I hate to admit it but the guy hit the nail on the head in his response to Richards. When he said that he had no career left, even before that, he was right. Seems that might be where Richards was nursing his hate. He wasn't going anyway and no one was really buying what he was trying to sell. If he was working on new material, anyone worth anything doesn't take it to a big club. They take it out of town to small clubs that no one has ever heard of and hone it until it's perfection. Richards thought this crowd would stand by while his act had technical difficulties ... and they were more savvy than that.

I've seen many disarm a heckler. Richards loaded the gun for him instead.

[MindPilot]

14. Excellent post and spot-on

It's a sad thing about show business where in many cases it's more important to put a name on the marquee than talent on the stage.

I think that's what happened here and this time it bit them in the ass. And you're also right about working out new material--nobody does that at a paying gig. That's what open mike night is for.

[Karenina]

17. I cannot help having a soft spot

in my heart for him. He's a typical American "stealth racist," still in denial. Confronting one's deepest inner demons in public is not something for the faint-hearted. Did you hear his interview with Jesse Jackson? Jesse held his feet to the fire but deftly steered clear of further blistering him while getting to the POISON that Richards has keeled over from. It's like burning teflon and a caged bird. At one point, Jackson rattles a list of the new Minority Whip's accomplishments (a piece-o-work "cracker" indeed! :evilgrin: ) and quips "...and MICHAEL is on the hot seat!?!" :rofl: I HOWLED!

[Sydnie]

21. I didn't hear the interview with Jackson

although I knew it would be a scream when I heard about it.

As for the soft spot, you have to understand what motivates a comedian to do what they do. They want the attention, absolutely, no doubt about it. Actors want attention too, but they want to be adored, often shallowly for things like their looks. Comedians want to work out their issues and be paid for it, rather than pay a therapist to do it in private. Richards was being himself up there ... raw and open like an oozing sore.

comedians make others laugh to keep themselves from crying a good deal of the time. They live more on the edge than any identifiable group of people I have ever had the privilege to identify with. One merely has to look at Robin Williams during an open ended interview to see that in all it's glory.

I understand your soft spot, but I can't afford him the same. He needed to take that issue in private to a therapist and leave the funny to someone still on the sane side of the line.

I was once at dinner with a comedian that I was dating. During the conversation between courses, I looked at him and told him he had no scruples ... that he often tiptoed around as if he were Achilles, afraid to put his heels down. I was being serious. He grabbed my napkin and wrote it down. The next week, I saw that worked into his act. I must admit, the way he told it, it was damn funny!

[Karenina]

22. Robin and I attended the same conservatory.

Stand-up is indeed brutal. Closest I ever got was being the foil. JOB ONE. DON'T LAUGH. It was close enough.

Jesse and Michael started to cut away the fat during the interview. My best hope would be that the "incident" will trigger a broader dialogue. America is DYING from RACISM POISONING...

[Auggie]

11. A comic told me there are "key" words or phrases that will alert a bouncer

to remove hecklers when they get out of control.

As far as I'm concerned, heckling is mean-spirited and an annoyance to the audience. You don't heckle a magician or lounge singer. If you think you're so damn funny, get up on stage and do your own act.

[MindPilot]

15. "You don't heckle a magician or lounge singer."

It's still OK to heckle mimes isn't it? :D

[OnyxCollie]

19. Absolutely. Be relentless.

Oooh, I'm walking against the wind. Oh, look. Now I'm in a box.

YOU SUCK AND YOU DON'T TALK 'CAUSE YOUR BREATH STINKS!

[Bluebear]

26. Yeah, darn those hecklers in the Richards audience.

:eyes:

[Lost-in-FL]

20. That wasn't an outburst, that was HATE SPEECH...

A professional comedian is able to handle hecklers. It's very arrogant of him to think that he wouldn't

have to deal with hecklers. Who the hell he think he is?? He is getting PAID by the audience and his

celebrity status is not an excuse to insult people (even hecklers). I have been is shows where comedians

literally insult some of their audience by making fun of them. So it is ok to insult the audience but NOT

o.k. to be disturbed by hecklers in a show? :wtf:

If you can handle the heat, get the hell out of the kitchen.

[KatyaR]

24. If it hadn't been "Kramer," this would have never made the news.

Thanks to his little outburst, how much free publicity has he gotten? As far as I was concerned, once "Seinfeld" went off the air, he lost his career. Now he's back in the public eye, and I'll bet you that he gets at least one gig out of this "mistake."

If anybody else at that club that night had spewed the same language, you would have never known it.

[Catherine Vincent]

25. Who knows, maybe this could be a good thing in disguise?

I just saw this comedian on Olbermann that said he used to use the N word all the time and since Richards' outburst, he will no longer use it. He is using this situation to change his routine. I hope the other comedians follow suit...including those rappers that constantly use it in their raps.

I would cringe every time I hear one of my own use that word and it would piss me off. How do they expect the white man to not use that word when they use it themselves? I got where they were trying to take the power from the word or whatever but to me, it didn't work.

[Bluebear]

27. "Not to excuse Richards in any way, but . . . "