I think that celebrity worship is among one of the most inane things one can do. I understand admiration for a celebrity’s work but to constantly have to hear about what Tom Cruise is doing or where he is, has no bearing on anything at all. I mean, unless he is behind me with a knife getting ready to stab me, I could care less where he might be. Having established that, I am now going to talk about a couple of celebrity related incidents that actually are kind of relevant because they represent things that are a lot bigger than the situations they actually are. I am talking of course about Katie Holmes wedding dress and who was at the wedding of the century! Not really.
Earlier this week Michael Richards, the comedian who played Kramer on Seinfeld, was on stage at a comedy club and unleashed a torrent of racial epithets that hasn’t been heard since Roots, or that time my Uncle Phil drank too much. This was apparently in response to some guys having heckled him while he was doing his act. There are a couple of things that I want to address about this.
I have done standup and have been heckled. Anyone who has done standup has been heckled at some point. It is inevitable because stupid people breed and apparently like to converge on comedy clubs. Heckling is infuriating because you are on stage trying to be funny and someone in the crowd thinks that either A) They are funnier than you or B ) Everyone else in the room wants to hear their conversation, neither of which is ever true, unless you’re name is Carrot Top. The common thread among hecklers is their lack of consideration. I’ve been heckled by dumb rednecks and shallow sorority girls and the only thing they had in common was their selfishness. Heckling isn’t funny and it just makes you come across as a moron.
If you’re on stage and you do get heckled you have to make sure to never lose control of the room by screaming and yelling at the person or people who heckled you. That’s what they want. They want to be part of the show because they clearly don’t have the talent to be truly funny which is why they resort to cracking ‘wise’ in a room full of people who could care less about anything that isn’t taking place on stage. If it does get to the point where you have to respond, it is best to not take the racist route. Perhaps this is too little too late for a one Mr. Michael Richards.
I get being angry about being heckled. I get being so angry you have to cuss someone out and crack on them in a public setting. People bring it on themselves in that type of situation. Did Michael Richards have a right to get angry? Yes. Did he have a right to yell at the hecklers? Yep. Did he have a right to call them what he did? As much as it may pain me to say it, yes. I disagree with a lot of things that a lot of people say. That covers things said by some of the most powerful people in the country to inbred Klansmen, but I have to recognize their inalienable right to say it. I’m not saying that Richards is a racist, because I honestly don’t know if he is or not. His argument for his not being a racist isn’t fairing too well at the moment however. I do think he pushed it and I do think that what he said was horrible, but the same freedom that allows me to say the president is inept or racism is stupid or Klansmen are all inbred paint huffing morons, allows him to say what he did.
There is talk now that the people he heckled are going to file a lawsuit because of getting picked on. Ok, look. I don’t care what your color, if you can start suing for getting insulted at a comedy club, we’re all screwed. Yes this was a lot more than pointing out a bad shirt or someone’s horrible haircut, but who draws that line? I agree that Richards pushed it. I agree that he should apologize and perhaps even donate some money to an African American charity as a goodwill gesture but to have to pay someone for insulting them will set an unhealthy precedent for things said in a public setting. If someone can sue over spoken words, then who is to keep someone from suing a black comedian for cracking on white people, no matter how true it might be? What if all women wanted to start suing Snoop because he says ‘ho’? It is a slippery slope that leads into a pit of stupidity that will end up rivaling the stupidity exercised by Richards the night of his tirade.
The other thing this week that is a bit disconcerting is the so called battle of the Lady Hosts! So called because I just called it that. Earlier this week Clay Aiken was filling in for Regis Philbin as co-host of Live with Regis and Kelly. At one point Clay put his hand over Kelly Ripa’s mouth and she later remarked that she thought that was rude and besides the etiquette factor involved, she didn’t know where his hand had been. This caused Rosie O’Donell, co-gossip on The View, to call Kelly Ripa homophobic and that she said Ripa would have never said what she had if it was a straight male that had put his hand over her mouth. This is an interesting thing to say seeing as how Aiken has yet to officially declare his sexuality to the world.
Clay Aiken’s sexuality is no one’s business but his and his boyfriend’s. Ok, that was wrong but Clay Aiken is gayer than Liberace’s wardrobe or a conservative Christian leader from Colorado. However, as he has not confirmed or denied it, we have to let it go at that. It is his business and his alone. The last thing he needs is for a friend of his to blab it on national television. “Thanks a lot ‘friend’ for outing me on television.”
Aside from this silly hand debacle, I would like to address how silly it is to be homophobic. I cannot think of a more inconsequential thing to be concerned with. I don’t understand how one’s body of work is somehow written off if they come out of the closet. We love to label I suppose. I say that because I know someone who is a huge Clay Aiken fan, but I know that if (when) he comes out of the closet, this person will immediately discount everything Aiken has done. Just because you like something that was done by a gay person doesn’t make you gay. If what you listened to determined who you are I would be a weird combination of Jay-Z and Ben Folds. I’d be some sort of brooding gangsta nerd. That might be alright actually.
The chosen ignorance of others is best left for another blog entry so we’ll go ahead and get back to what I was trying to say before I was sidetracked by logic.
I do not think for a moment that Kelly Ripa is homophobic. I think that Ripa would have said what she did to whomever put their hand on her mouth. I would have said that to someone if they put their hand on my mouth. I hate being touched by strangers, let alone strangers who just shook the hands of an audience full of strangers just as Aiken had prior to his hand muzzling The Rip. That’s my nickname for Kelly Ripa.
I get defending your friend if you think they’ve been wronged. Good job Rosie. I don’t get the jump in logic from an off handed statement about one putting their hand on you to one being homophobic. Let’s go ahead and slow down before throwing that label out there so quickly. I mean it’s not like The Rip was on stage screaming at a table full of gay guys.
That’s Michael Richard’s job apparently.
RIGHT NOW
SONG - Trouble by Jay-Z off of Kingdom Come. It’s not as good as the Black Album but few things are. And no, I didn’t forget about pumpkin pie.
MOVIE - Cinderella Man - I haven’t finished watching it, but so far it’s good.
- Joel David
www.myspace.com/joeldavidd
www.chkona.com