About four years ago, an African-American gentleman who was a patron of the Hollywood Laugh Factory threatened to shoot me in the face with a glock.

I know what you’re thinking: that doesn’t sound very gentlemanly.

In his defense, I’d only been doing comedy about two years and hadn’t figured out how to handle race jokes with a great deal of finesse yet. I had gone to a predominantly black public school called TC Williams High School outside Washington, D.C., and racial ribbing was as standard as the oily pizza rectangles we had in the cafeteria for lunch. One of the greatest satisfactions I can remember from high school was garnering the following praise from a black guy: “Dat white boy is stupid!” If a black girl conceded: “You know what, dat white boy IS stupid!” I glowed for about a week. My ability to be a ‘stupid’ clown got me through a rough school and was probably the inchoate stages of my life as a standup.

But the sensitivity on and surrounding the ‘color line’ is still one of the more delicate lines a comic can walk today. I can do 30 minutes on Asian stereotypes and everyone, even the Asians, are raughing out roud. I can rip on gay clichés for another 20 without one homosexual snapping his fingers in disgust. I can even blast Mexicans for a todos of 30 minutes before I hear the first ‘puta.’ However, jokes about black people and black culture… If you put your ear to the ground, you can hear the collective asshole of the audience pucker.

Particularly, if you were like ME three years ago, sans good material and sans a sensitivity chip for deciphering whether or not I went too far…

I was onstage at the Hollywood Laugh Factory shortly after Katrina and, like many people, I felt that Kanye West’s ‘George Bush doesn’t care about black people’ line next to a flummoxed Mike Meyers was the best moment in the history of television. I tried to find a way to put it in my act so I shoehorned it into a very mediocre George Bush impersonation. I guess the whole thing overall is pretty offensive…

AND HERE IT GOES! (imagine a spot-on Bus impersonation…okay, now imagine my so-so Bush impersonation):

“My fellow Americans, I just want to say Dick Cheney is a great American. Regarding recent events, it’s important to point out that Vice President Cheney did not indiscrimin… indiscriminatively… indiscriminitatively — it’s a word, seriously — SHOOT that person. It was intentional. He thought it was a Mexican.”

I got some okay laughs for that one. It’s kind of a lousy joke, so I’d like to think it was because of my awesome W impression. I looked out and saw that one of the people laughing was a black guy in shades, an enormous fur coat, every finger blinged out like a Nelly video. He had a little grin on his face and was nodding. He liked it! I continued:

“I’m also deeply concerned people feel like I don’t care about the African-American people. I do. Seriously. As a matter of fact, some of my best friends — some of my cabinet members — Colin Powell, Condaleeza Rice… combined they equal ONE black person.”

I looked out and saw that Thug Life was still digging the joke. He even flashed his grill as he smiled. I’m killing him, I thought! Time to bring it home:

“As a matter of fact, I grew up with coloreds.

My daddy even let me keep a few in the basement.”

If I could give an analogy, it was like the classic record needle being suddenly yanked off a vinyl. No one laughed. Even the silence seemed to be silenter. My face went beet red… probably because I was expecting SOMETHING… at least a laugh-groan – a graugh. It went vulture circling quiet. Then the pimp daddy looking guy said ‘Boo’ and snickered.

I looked at him and imitated his snicker. Then I said, “Boo YOU! I should boo you for your fur coat! And I know it’s real fur too. Hey, Kool Moe Dee, what horrible creature had to die in order for you to wear that coat… Hmmm, lemme guess… Your auntie?”

At that point he stood up brusquely.

Unable to not be a douche, I said: “You don’t want to screw with this cracka! I’m craaaaaaaaaazzzzzzzzzy!” Then I pulled the bottom of my shirt up through my neckline so I had that sweet Daisy-Duke knot and said: “You want some of this!!!!?”

Not my finest moment, I admit. But I was back in high school again! I was trying to get the black guy about to kick my ass to say, “Dat white boy is stupid!” and then hug it out with me.

Just then, I noticed two women stand up on either side of him. I said, ‘Alright, peeeeemp, I guess you and your ho’s are leaving. Take care playa!”

He stood there for a second, wearing a fur and hide pimp coat made of Kangaroos, Polar Bears, and Honkey Epidermis (that thing must have weighed 250 pounds). Then pointed at me with a bejewelled finger and mimed shooting at me.

“Ow, those mimed finger bullets really hurt me, Mr. Cool Jay!”

After the fake shooting, he walked out, his ladies in tow.

When I finished my set and walked outside, I saw Jamie Masada, the owner, with a very disappointed look on his face.

“What’s wrong?” I said.

“Since I’ve been here, buddy, there have been only two death threats against comics at this club. One was Andrew Dice Clay.”

“Yeah?”

“You are the second one.” (Note to reader: this was almost two years before the Michael Richards debacle)

I was shocked. “Oh, come on, was there really a threat against my life?”

Jamie said, “He came up to me and said ‘If I wasn’t with my auntie right now, I swear I would have waited for him after the show and shot him!’”

I still wasn’t sure if I believed it until Jamie produced the man’s business card, which looked very legit, and informed the reader that he was a producer at the notorious “Death Row Records.”

“He was very upset and very serious,” Jamie said. He handed me the card, shook his head at me, and walked away (why was I always disappointing him?).

In my defense, what are the chances that I would make a reference to his “auntie” dying while his actual “auntie” was sitting right next to him?

I looked at the card and shuddered a bit. There was a red stain on it that looked like blood…

However, it could have been barbecue sauce.

This entry was posted on Monday, July 6th, 2009 at 5:38 pm and is filed under All blog entries. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.