CLEVER MONKEY OF THE WEEK

Barbra Strident
For Her Great New Hit, “People Who Heckle People”

Barbra Streisand appeared at Madison Square Garden to kick off her new tour and gave the fans a night to remember that doesn’t entirely have to do with belting out her usual list of exhausted hits.

She chanced to mix her politics with her performance and did a skit in which George Bush was, you guessed it, presented as a bumbling idiot. Suddenly, from among her adoring fans came some scattered jeers.

The skit went on, and so did the jeers, so Barbra finally called, “Come on, be polite!”

But, as heckling would have it, one heckler wouldn't relent. So, never known for her patience, Streisand fired off, "Shut the fuck up!"

She added, with mellowing intent, "Shut up if you can't take a joke!"

Her F-word, which she would later apologize for, had the desired effect.

She also reminded her audience of the little-recognized fact that "the artist's role is to disturb." Well, one of them. Another one is to entertain, which she finally got around to.

Among her list of chestnuts, she did expectedly include the usual stirring rendition of “People.”

Yet, given what had gone before, an alternate lyric could not but help be heard, along the lines of, “People who heckle people are the nastiest people in the world.”

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