Tom Arnold Goes on 55 Tweet Rant After His Baltimore Opening Act Says He Behaved Badly at Weekend Gig
Tom Arnold 55 Tweet Rant Schools Opening Act for Publicly Complaining
Tom Arnold went on a 55 tweet rant/rebuttal after his opening act, Joe Robinson, called him out over his behavior at the Baltimore Comedy Factory last weekend. Robinson complained about Arnold over for a laundry list of bad behavior including taking over the green room and keeping Robinson out, going over on time and causing the emcee to get cut from the show, mistaking Robinson for the DJ, and putting Robinson on “merch duty” selling tshirts and taking photos of Arnold with fans for nearly an hour.
Monday morning Robinson went on the morning show at Baltimore’s 98 Rock and told dee-jays that the problems started when Tom asked him where he could change after the first show ended. Joe suggested he change in the green room. With that, he said Arnold closed the door and never opened it again, forcing Joe to sit in the audience throughout the rest of the weekend. Robinson said that he wasn’t thrilled about being brought up on stage like he was on the Price is Right- straight from the audience. Robinson says he also had to take over the emcee duties after the emcee was let go, says Arnold insulted his credits, and told him to keep his opening short. Later, while selling merch, Arnold asked him to handle to handle a woman’s credit card payment for a shirt. Robinson said “I’m not the cashier. You know I’m the comic right? I’m the guy who goes on before you right? I don’t know how to take a credit card.” After all of that, Robinson said he approached Arnold at the end of the weekend to say nice workin with you. Arnold responded, hey you didn’t play my right song. You played the wrong Black Eyed Peas Song. Robinson said, “I’m not the DJ. He thought I was the DJ.”
Arnold’s 55 tweet, two hour long response to Robinson’s complaints were eventually deleted, so we never saw them, but The Baltimore Sun reported that he basically said that he had no idea there was a problem, and didn’t realize he had been insulting. He also tweeted “Reality check Joe: you are not a Syrian refugee living hand to mouth with ISIS.”
Wednesday morning, the guys on 98 Rock’s morning show, Justin Scott & Spiegel summarized some of Tom’s other tweets.
“I’m calling bs on this,” one read.
“He did seem like a little bit of a malcontent. I didn’t stop anyone from the green room except when I was changing. I do need a quiet moment to gather myself. It is in my contract.
“The club provided me with someone to help with my charity t-shirts and pics. The manager told me it would be him and I appreciated that.”
“you are a comedy club emcee. You go with the flow. The people are there to see the headliner, period. Do your best to help him make the show better and don’t get your panties in a bunch because he needs a bit of privacy to change his shirt. He’s an effing headliner.”
“its your job to do your thing and make the crowd hyped up and ready for me. If I had any inclination you didn’t want to help with tshirts I would have asked the club manager for someone else. You apparently took things too seriously and made them about you Joe.
“Maybe its your radio schitck, but bad mouth me and the club with your nonsense hurts, mostly you. It also opens up criticism from folks who were not there.”
“I feed my family with this I’m sure you do the same. You have a bit of a warped sense of self entitlement. Just do your damn job make the show go better but I can tell you had your panties in a bunch. I don’t need that bs when I’m the out of towner trying to feel things along. Especially don’t need you dogging my act, that is amateur at best. We are a team and if all goes well and the crowd has a good time. Maybe its your way of calling attention to your victim self.”
He also included some apologies and claimed other things were just jokes. Robinson also called back in to 98 Rock to clarify and elaborate, and stood by his statements.
Robinson also stood by his statements in the Baltimore Sun article about the incident, and Tom Arnold responded to Sun’s request for comment via Twitter, saying there was no problem. Management at the Baltimore Comedy Factory, where it all went down, had not responded to the Sun’s request for comment.
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