Norm! column

Aug. 9, 2007

Entertainer has some choice words

[hear the whole conversation with The Amazing Johnathan here]

Las Vegas comedy magician Amazing Johnathan has re-ignited the Michael Richards n-word furor, saying the "black people should have been thrown out" because anyone who disrupts "my job" is the n-word.

The Sahara headliner used the word six times in a local interview after he cited the Richards incident to make the point that "everybody's really uptight, and it's really hurting comedy."

He told local freelance journalist Steve Friess of TheStripPodcast.com that condemnation of Richards was "the perfect example" of political correctness gone too far.

Had the situation been reversed and "there was a black guy on stage," there would have been no repercussions, the entertainer said.

"If they were heckling him during the show, they were wrong," he added. "If you're heckling a comic and interrupting a show, you're a (n-word) at that point."

He said he's never used the word on stage, but he acknowledged that he uses it "around the people I hang with. They're educated and they know it's just a word and it's a funny word, y'know."

He said he's used the c-word on women he's thrown out of his shows "and gotten away with it because they were." There is, he said, "a right way to do it."

His comments are sure to be a hot topic at the national convention of the National Association of Black Journalists, which opened Wednesday at Bally's and runs through Sunday.

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