30 Days and 30 Blogs: Day 15

“Really, Tim? You couldn’t wait 24 hours? You bastard!”

Tragically, Patrick Swayze passed away yesterday. I learned about this about 40 minutes before my first of 3 performances that night. I decided to mention it on stage all 3 times I performed. (“Too soon” has almost no meaning to a comedian)

The first two times the joke went over pretty well. The third time, however, it drew a very passionate complaint. Here’s the joke:

“So tragically Patrick Swayze passed away a few hours ago. But fortunately you can still talk to him when he possesses Whoopi Goldberg and makes Demi Moore cry.

I wish Patrick had died a while ago…not because I dislike him…I actually DO like him. That’s why I’m sad he lived long enough to see Michael Jackson’s memorial. Because you know he went to his grave thinking ‘Man, I’m not getting anything like this!’ I mean, c’mon I liked “To Wong Foo…” but no one is renting out the Staples Center for this guy. Nelson Mandela is not writing a letter to the family of the co-star of “Point Break.”

So, after my set, I heard I had drawn a complaint. I figured maybe it was a little too soon to make jokes at the expense of Mr. Swayze. I could see why someone might get rubbed the wrong way by that…but that wasn’t the complaint. This lady was fired up not because I made light of the death of Patrick Swayze, but because I compared him to Michael Jackson. “You can’t compare Patrick Swayze to Michael Jackson! Michael Jackson was a genius…that’s just not funny! I know funny! (clearly not) I want to talk to a manager. This looks bad on your establishment!”

Wow. First of all, I wasn’t even really comparing the two. Secondly, you’re an idiot who probably became a Michael Jackson supporter on June 25th…all my MJ songs were in regular rotation on my iPod on June 24th…so eat a bag of crap and die.

…and when you do die, you won’t get a service at the Staples Center either.