This tidbit from U.S. News & World report resonates with me because when I’m not writing, I’m performing in my non-writing incarnation. Anyone who has been a singer or comedian knows that you can’t always please all the people all the time. In fact, Bill Cosby talks about “the face” in the audience — that no matter how well a comedian may do, he or she may focus on that one critical face that can be seen from the stage.

And in the age of the Internet, there are Tweets that go out ASAP that can be critical hurtful. But anyone who’s a performer knows that when an audience member doesn’t like you you need to roll with the punches — not deliver them. Apparently, not everyone knows that yet:

This year’s D.C.’s Funniest Celebrity contest may go down as the most memorable and not for what was going on onstage. Comedy headliner Dan Nainan — a professional comedian who in the past has performed for President Obama — got into a skirmish with Newsweek Daily Beast Correspondent Josh Rogin. Rogin sent out several Tweets during Nainan’s set. “Dan Nainan was funny until he dusted off his 2005 Katrina jokes in a gratingly bad [George W. Bush] impression,” Rogin wrote. “Dan Nainan makes his umpteenth joke about how Asians [can’t] distinguish between letters ‘L’ and ‘R.’ Election, erection we get it,” Rogin added.

Nainan then approached Rogin, who was sitting at the back of the DC Improv comedy club and punched him.

“Dan Nainan comes over to me and says, ‘Are you Josh Rogin,’ and I said yes and then he punched me in the jaw, then he pushed me, then he walked away and about 10 seconds later he came over and punched me again,” Rogin told Whispers directly after the fight. (Whispers was also an eyewitness to the incident.) “At that point I yelled, ‘What the hell are you doing?’ other people noticed and they courted him off and the bouncers escorted him from the show room and we called the police and he’s in the process of being arrested,” Rogin continued.

The item says Nainan was led out in handcuffs. Most likely he’s out of jail by now.

If the Tweets above are what set Nainan off, it’s surprising. MANY comedians are criticized for using older material. And, in fact, many comedy and other acts are the same act done over and over with a few variations. And these days it is risky to use the stereotype of Asians talking although my favorite comedian in the world John Pinette has gotten huge laughs with his Chinese buffet routine over the years.

The point is: those Tweets were not brutal ones. And, if anything, they were criticisms made all the time of comedians (doing the same act, doing stereotypical humor) that some comedians ignore and are still popular, even if they do the same material and do steoreotypical humor…because the act gets laughs.

UPDATE: Comedians are often criticized for using predictable material or formulas (this is considered less of a sin if it’s done by a singer in an intro, variety acts, or comedians making fun of such comedy by doing it). For those interested just look at THIS WEB PAGE.

So unless there’s something missing here, Rogin’s Tweets about a comedy act were hardly revolutionary.

UPDATE: The Washington Post:

The incident became an immediate social-media sensation: The room was filled with Twitter-happy Beltway types who had gathered for the semi-annual “Funniest Celebrity in Washington” contest, which — despite a questionable record of charity fundraising — has remained a favorite with media and policy types. Tax advocate Grover Norquist, CNN anchor Candy Crowley and columnist Clarence Page were among the “celebrities” doing stand-up shtick – with Nainan, a veteran comic popular on the corporate circuit, brought in to rev the crowd up with a professional routine.

In an e-mail Thursday morning, Nainan denied the accounts of other witnesses and the police report and said he was only standing up for other comedians on stage that night.

Rogin said he was surprised by the alleged attack. “I didn’t think I was being too harsh with him – he’s a professional comedian and I was being a professional journalist.”

Also: “My face hurts.”

Well, as they say: Other than that, Mrs. Lincoln, how did you enjoy the show?

“I felt that it was an unfortunate distraction,” Rogin said, “from an otherwise good event.”

SOME TWEETS FROM ROGAN’S TWITTER:

NOTE: In looking at his Tweets I do NOT see any other Tweets he did about Nainan other than the ones in the U.S. News report: a)his material being old b)using an Asian stereotype.

JOE GANDELMAN, Editor-In-Chief

Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.

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