How to get fired for Michael Jackson joke.

[Pianoman]

I was playing in a hotel in 2006 in May or early June.

That is the period when we get people who can't afford the exorbitant prices of July and August.

And some who can afford it, but refuse to be ripped off or taken for fools.

The audience also tends to be slightly older during May - June.
So I started the evening with easy listening swing classics.

Since the audience seemed ill at ease and passive, I thought I'd toss out a joke now and then to put people at ease.

I normally joke about myself and my clumsiness, and maybe sometimes my long suffering wife.

Or sometimes deliberately injecting silly words into a well known song.

It all went well till I started joking about Mike Tyson and Michael Jackson.

The Mike Tyson jokes went down ok, the usual jokes of him biting people, and going from being Iron Mike, to being a punching bag for every newcomer.

The Michael Jackson jokes went well in the beginning, till I said that I remembered the Jackson Five from the days of singing ABC on the Diana Ross show.

The days when the Jackson Five were healthy looking black children, before the oily curly hair of the 80s.

And how eventually Michael lost his mind, trying to change his appearance, from that of a young black man, into that of a middle aged white woman.

And having the nerve to appear in a courtroom in his pyjamas.

I had forgotten about hotel rules and what kind of audience was sitting in front of me.

I knew I was in trouble when there was almost total silence and no applause or laughter.

I, a black man, had told a joke about other black men, and people were afraid to laugh or applaud.

But what I didn't realise was that I had crossed a political correctness threshold that was a fireable offense.

The manager approached me after the show and said that some people had complained about the jokes over Mike Tyson and Michael Jackson.

He then called me a racist and informed me that I was fired, and needn't come back ever again.

I said, but, but but, look at me, I'm black.

I'm black myself, can't a black man joke about a black celebrity?

He said no, and thus I was fired.

To all budding giggers out there, watch what you say.

One moment people are laughing, the next moment you're out on the streets looking for a new job.

I only joke about myself now, even the wife jokes are gone.

That's show business nowadays, so please be careful when you're out there.

Best Regards,
Pianoman.

[SeaGtGruff]

"The times, they are a-changin'."

It seems like we, as a species, are losing the ability to laugh at ourselves. Surely that is not a good thing.

On the other hand, a lot of humor seems to rely on stereotypes about people with a certain skin color or hair color, or having a certain nationality, or of a certain gender or age or height or weight, or having a certain ***ual preference or gender orientation, etc. Surely that is not a good thing, either, if the joke itself hinges on a hurtful stereotype.

But at the same time, we should be able to laugh at ourselves, or I think we are in real trouble.

When telling a joke, it's difficult to tell where to draw the line, because you never know whether someone will take offense and complain. And if you are playing at a venue and someone does complain to the management, their tendency is usually going to be to side with the person(s) who complained, because they don't want to become the target of some viral internet outrage. "Last night I went to see this guy play keyboard and he told these horrible racist/***ist jokes-- just watch this video I made with my phone-- so I went to the management to complain about it AND THEY DID NOTHING!" The next thing you know, the national broadcasters are covering it in their evening news, and the CEO of the company that owns the venue has to immediately denounce the "horrible incident which we do not condone in any fashion" and fire whichever manager or employee had failed to take "appropriate action." And as for the individual who told the jokes, their reputation and career is basically toast.

So it's best to be very careful about what you say in an attempt to be "funny," whether it's in front of an audience or just sitting at home in front of family and friends, because what might seem like an innocent joke to you might be incredibly offensive to someone else.

And that's the part I worry about-- not that humor which relies on stereotypes is losing popularity (which I think is a good thing), but that we as a species have become so hyper-sensitive and quick to take offense. If an offense was intended, that's one thing. And as for someone taking offense about something where no offense was intended, that possibility has always been there-- but now we've got people filming everything with their phones and posting it on the internet, so if you don't watch what you say or do then you might find yourself the subject of some trending video that causes outrage among millions of people, perhaps even leading to anonymous death threats against you!

[travlin-easy]

I kinda went through this many years ago when I was a freelance outdoor writer for one of the nation's largest news papers. I wrote a fishing report column every week, for 16 years, never missed a deadline and even got a couple awards for the column. One day, some guy called the editor and said I didn't know what I was writing about, even though the area he questioned was quoted via a taped, telephone interview with someone who owned a fishing resort and water sports resort on that particular river. I had been using this person as an informational source for at least a decade, and he never, at any time steered me wrong. I even drove 5 hours one way to check out the source, fished the river myself, shot some photos, and yet, a week later the editor called me on the phone and fired me. He didn't have the guts to talk to me face to face. I later found out that the guy that was complaining was some sort of county commissioner, and my source told me that this guy couldn't catch a smallmouth bass if his life depended upon it.

I was out of a job, a job that I worked very hard at, but it turned out to be a good thing. The next day I began concentrating on my musical skills and went back to being an entertainer, which I consider the best job on the planet. Now, I never told jokes during a performance. Instead, I just did my level best to be the best entertainer on the planet, keep the dance floors filled to capacity and have lots of fun doing so. For the past 30 years, I think I was pretty darned successful at doing this. So did my audiences.

In today's world of political correctness, if Donald Trump would suddenly discover a cure for all types of cancer, the politically correct, bleeding heart, liberal press would have front page headlines saying "Trump puts thousands of cancer researchers out of work!"  No doubt in my mind. If some gal gets on the dance floor wearing a see through outfit and you happen to look her way, there's a good chance that she will complain to the management that you were starring at her and making ***ual innuendoes while playing. If the same gal were to come up to you and proposition you and you turned her down, she would go online with a video claiming you were a ***est, or worse.

Sure glad I no longer have to deal with this kind of crap. However, I am very concerned for my children and grandson. What the Hell kind or world are we leaving them?

Gary

[Pianoman]

Crazy world Gary.

I told you a story about a brilliant comedian called Tony Stevens who quit comedy altogether.

When his jokes were censored and filtered to the point where he could only joke about cars, teaspoons, airport food and lost luggage, he gave up and became a Pub owner.

Before disappearing completely.

I think he went back to England.

In my case, this was before the invention of the iPhone, and Laptops weighed up to 15Kg.

So there were no people filming with their Smartphones.

When Michael Jackson displayed his baby over a balcony, and kept a judge waiting for almost two hours, before showing up in court wearing his pyjamas, it was tempting to joke about that. Irresistibly so.

Celebrities were public figures whose daily antics were on the front pages of newspapers everywhere.

Everyone joked about celebrities. They did crazy stuff in the hope of making the next day's newspapers' front pages.

You then joke about it and you're out.

I thought that as a black man myself, I could joke about MJ doing crazy stuff.

People were too scared to laugh. Or they were not sure if it was ok.

But, like Gary said, every cloud has a silver lining.

Getting fired from that particular hotel made me realise that it won't be long before others in the chain followed  suit.

I joined another hotel chain, starting with three nights a week, and ending with working full time for them.

And they paid twice as much as the previous hotel chain.

I am first and foremost a musician, but people expect the occasional wisecrack, to break the monotony between songs.

There are audiences that love to dance, and others love to listen and watch, while sipping their drinks.

The dancing audience would be the best choice. They are there to dance the night away and have fun.
The latter require a bit more work, and care.

They expect to be musically entertained  with a bit of humour thrown in.

Just don't overdo it. Or you'll be looking for a new job the next day.

They are the ones who need to be handled with care.

Especially in this day and age.

Best Regards,
Pianoman.

[pjd]

Man, humor is tough.

Fortunately, as a church musician, I just have to shut up and play.    But, X years of teaching made me careful about what I said in front of a classroom or in public. It's not a matter of political correctness or whatever; it's a matter of staying employed.

One other thought comes to mind. Back in the old neighborhood (Cleveland), it was OK to poke fun at my own ethnicity. Flash forward to a different town and job, and those same jokes would have deeply offended some coworkers. Something about the local culture, whether the culture is self-assured enough to handle it (or not).

Definitely playing with matches. My mouth gets me in enough trouble around the house. 

-- pj

[Robert van Weersch]

we should be able to laugh at ourselves
(...)
we as a species have become so hyper-sensitive and quick to take offense

I agree 100%. In my opinion, everyone should be able to make jokes about everyone or anything, being celebs, religion, countries, races, skin colour, profession, politics, etc. Humour is a part of life, a way to make processing and relating to problems more bearable. For instance, I can really laugh at a joke about white skin colour or jokes about the stereotypical Dutch people in wooden shoes. But dark skinned people are often not humoured about dark skin jokes.  Of course, that is caused by a history of slavery and racism, so I really understand why people react that way. But I think laughing at yourself, or having some self-cynicism, could help to overcome these issues in a much better way, than getting angry over it and calling it racist, because as long as we keep on doing that, frustration, racism and ultimately wars, will never end.

Mankind faces countless problems and challenges all over the world: floods, storms, famine, diseases, poverty, the list goes on and on. Humanity would be much better off battling these problems and not each other.

One of the best TV shows, which illustrates this, is Tosh.O (on Comedy Central). It features internet video's, commented by Daniel Tosh. His comments are rude, harsh, racist, ***ist, to say the least, but because nothing (and I mean -nothing- ) is sacred and all races, religions, ***es, countries etc. are treated equally, he gets away with it and all the people in the mixes audience laugh equally hard at his jokes.

Just my two cents

[1-man-band-berlin]

Today's political correctness is hard to understand. In Germany there is a law keeping political correctness in Twitter, Facebook etc. This forces Twitter and co to remove or withheld postings by threat of forfeiture. The companies goes the easy way and censor. So they have to play judiciary and there is no chance against this.
You are allowed to make jokes about white people, you are allowed to make jokes about Christians.
But they call you "racist", when you make jokes about black people, also when you are black by yourself and the same with Islam and Muslims, also when you are Arabian.
There is a religious fanaticism about political correctness, the last time we had this in the age of inquisition. The best would be, to make no jokes, to play simply songs or to do it like comedians did in dictatorships where they never finished a sentence and leave the punchline with the forbidden words to audience's fantasy, as Werner Finck did.
He said "Ich stehe hinter jeder Regierung, bei der ich nicht sitzen muß, wenn ich nicht hinter ihr stehe."
In the translation, I can't keep the pun with "sitting" (what stands in German for being in jail) and "standing" (what means to be loyal in this context).
The meaning is "I am loyal to any government, as long they wouldn't put me in jail, wouldn't I be loyal"

But one quote is easy to translate. In his shows were SA people watching him carefully and so he said:
"Do I speak to fast? A short question to the people in the back row who make stenographic records: Can you follow me? Or have I to follow you?"
This was in 1933, after Hitler became leader.

[DonM]

Very familiar with the subject . . .
A lot depends on knowing your audience.  I sometimes play music from the computer when I take breaks.  One of the lists I use, the first song happens to be "I'll Be There" by MJ.  If I feel I can get by with it, I'll go by a table and say "That song was made before Michael turned white!"  Black people laugh harder at it than the white ones, probably because they know more about his history.
Each year around the celebration of the end of WWII, I tell a joke that goes like this:
"Did you hear about the guy who was half Japanese and half Black?  Each year on December 7 he attacks Pearl Bailey.
Now I don't care who you are, that's funny! 
Peace to all!  Good subject.

[Pianoman]

Hello Don.

It's great to see that you're back on your feet again.
Up and running again, so to speak.

Best Regards,
Abby.

[pjd]

It's great to see that you're back on your feet again.

That's a double! -- pj