Steve Martin's audience gets a refund prompted by emails during the show. | Hacker News Reader

Steve Martin's audience gets a refund prompted by emails during the show.

salon.com

29 pointsda5e9 comments

Sean McCarthy over at The Comic's Comic has a pretty good write up on what exactly happened.

http://www.thecomicscomic.com/2010/12/when-a-comedy-chat-goe...

I'm glad you posted this. I think the Salon article frames this as something it wasn't. This wasn't the audience objecting to "art" it was the company realizing they'd promoted the discussion as something it wasn't and wanting to keep its customers happy. I don't see anything wrong with that.

How about a retroactive refund for Norman Mailer because he wasn't portraying a murderer?

Jon Stewart's interview at 92Y was neither funny, nor satirical (I mean, beyond his natural humor,) can people get refunds for that?

These examples are probably a bit unfair, but seriously, I think a man of Steve Martin's stature has earned the right to talk about whatever the hell he wants.

Stature or no stature, if a man who writes a book about art talks to an art critic, I think refunds would only be due if they talked about comedy.

I remember when Tony Curtis reinvented himself as a painter. Sure, people were interested in Jack Lemmon and Marilyn Monroe, but who could blame him for talking about Art?

Wow—now I kind of want to see what could have provoked that kind of response...

I like Steve Martin as a comedian, but he's pretty talented in other areas as well (e.g. banjo). Sounds like a lot of people missed a chance to see another side of him.

His writing is pretty good as well (both for the screen and print).

Sounds like someone mis-marketed the event.

Not a new phenomenon in the respect that fans have wanted their stars/objects of their adoration to be "always on" 24/7.

Personally I find it interesting to see a different side of people known for one thing, be it comedy, science, politics, whatever. Sadly however this is the age when a tramp named Snooki is a celebrity for some reason and a flaky and unqualified egomaniac thinks she could be president in 2012 (with a fan base of the same mindset).

People can talk all they want about appropriate topics for an interview, but the bottom line is this is simply excellent customer service on the part of 92nd Street Y.

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