I don't think Rade has a case. Enough video evidence that he incited the entire thing, and he was the aggressor in charging, even though the comedian hit first.

Either could possibly have a case against the establishment for not providing security to stop the altercation before it escalated.

Its a clear case of self defense unless you are a BLM activist that thinks you need to wait until the other guy decks you before its OK to defend yourself

This is a more clear-cut case of self-defense than most. The guy was charging him and he prevented an attack from happening. Good on this dude.

I'm pretty sure you're presumed guilty as soon as you start calling yourself Rade Zone.



Anyhow, there's already a kickstarter to make a documentary about him because of this video, so this was probably a good career move all things considered.

I can't say I feel much sympathy for the kicker, though, it was completely disproportionate and unnecessary to kick an unarmed 60 year old man (who was clearly NOT attacking him, despite what that guy in the audience says) like that, plus we don't have footage of what he was saying about Rade that provoked him in the first place.

I didn't think Rade was attacking him either -- coming up there to yell at hum, not to hit him -- but I have the advantage of not being there in the moment, worrying about my pretty pretty face, so I can be all third person omniscient.

Andy Kaufman wasn't that funny either...

stars for kicks

I listened to the podcast that's suggested in the annotations, and it seems that this guy has a long history of this kind of shit. Also, this guy was that combative about not getting extra time for a crowd of all of... what ten or twelve people, including people who work there?

According to the Poe hipster hive mind, being purposely awful and not funny is actually the most funny thing and you just don't get it, maaaaan.

Being awful is funny, being purposefully awful is not. Being purposefully awful while maintaining the illusion of sincerity can be funny, but being purposefully awful and making it blatantly obvious that you know how awful and unfunny you're being, that's the worst thing of all.

Unless you're Andy Kaufan. Andy Kaufman was being purposefully awful and totally self-aware, but he made up for this by being legitimately good at certain things, and mixing his legitimate talents in with his anti-humor, in a manner which subverted your expectations. That was cool.

Consider Tim & Eric. If Tim & Eric would stop trying to suck for just five minutes, and in that time do something genuinely extraordinary, then maybe they'd become funny?

Basically, it all comes down to sincerity. Sincerity is funny. It doesn't matter if you've got talent or not; so long as you put your heart and soul into the thing you're doing, the results will be worth watching, for one reason or another.

It should be noted I never said this guy deserved being kicked to the ground or that Kaufman was a genius (I really think Kaufman's misses FAR out numbered his actual hits), I'm must pointing out that this guy is a well known figure in Vegas because he essentially ruins other people's acts and when he does his own material for open mics and such, it's literally just purposefully shit songs and over-the-top offensive comedy that clearly is not being written or scripted or anything. He has a fanbase, but it's mostly in that dumbshit "ironic" way of patting a mentally ill person on the back and saying "brave soul" while they do things that are sociopathic and place them in harm's way. They want to see him trainwreck, so instead of supporting him in a positive way (i.e. trying to see that maybe he puts this lifestyle behind him and gets help) they just celebrate his idiocy.

Stan, you are basically describing the entertainment industrial complex in a nutshell. Also: that was probably the funniest bit of the entire night.

Kauffman gets a conditional pass for being a bit of a trailblazer in that sort of thing. He also gets a pass because he would disrupt his own sets, and when he was doing it to others it was set up in advance (i.e. the Jerry Lawler stuff). This guy is welcome to be his own train wreck but once he's fucking with other people's effort then he's a dickhead.

The handful of aspiring stand-up comics I knew went through the "Kauffman was a genuis" phase at some point. Usually it's mercilessly brief before they lose all their friends because they forget that Kauffman was a dick to people who chose to be his audience and your friends get tired of the "sorry man, I'm just always on" excuse very quickly. This guy has kept the dream alive for decades or is just a late bloomer. Or mentally ill.

A brisk one-hitter-quitter to the breadbasket. I would have expected some barf, but I guess Street Fighter lies again

Holy shit, I had no idea Tripod was still up.

Once I was waiting for a Brooklyn bound train in the West Village and there was this old white junkie playing blues guitar. He sounds real good, and I was enjoying it, when another car came. The doors opened, and two popped collar frat bros tossed an empty beer bottle at him. The bottle hit his legs, and dropped unbroken to the floor. The train pulled away, we looked at each other, and he knelt down and picked up the bottle. Then he began to play slide style with the bottle. It was a magic moment, to be sure.

I've been working in the service industry for 12 years, have told about five customers to fuck off in that time.

I've never once been fired from a job and I've only had three different ones (four if you count my current self employment in my own business) all of which I only quit because of relocation. Maybe I'm just lucky?

Yeah, I was making a broad generalization. The job I had throughout college was at this little bodega where we actually filled our front window with "stupid customer questions" and had things like Midget Porn Thursday. So I never told anyone to fuck off but it was implied. But try accidentally implying that a 60 year-old law professor or doctor is an idiot because he or she can't read 3 simple words in their iPad users' manual.. god I feel for those guys. Hopefully the genius bar is stocked with whiskey.

It takes a while, but eventually you get numb to repeating basic things to slow people until osmosis kicks in.

Also you can pretend dumb people are just old people with memory problems

Until I see compelling evidence to the contrary, I'm going to keep operating under the assumption that nobody who chooses to work at an Apple store deserves my sympathy.

"What'd I tell you? What'd I tell you? What'd I tell you?"

She's probably just as mentally ill as he is.