For some reason I’m fascinated by stories about destitute family members of rich and famous celebrities. Most recently we heard about Madonna’s homeless alcoholic brother. There’s also Josh Brolin’s homeless brother, who lives in his car. Then there are family members of the rich and famous who are struggling to get by, like Justin Bieber’s grandmother, who works in a factory, and Tobey Maguire’s grandfather, who lives in subsidized housing and is on social security. I don’t believe that celebrities should necessarily give their relatives a handout, I just like to learn the stories behind how one of them ended up rich beyond belief while the other can barely afford to live. Family relationships are complicated and we can find ourselves in vastly different places in life from the people we grew up with.

“30 Rock’s” Tracy Morgan is the latest celebrity who isn’t helping a down on their luck relative. What’s more is it’s not a brother or sister or distant cousin, it’s his own mom and her house is about to go into foreclosure. She only owes about $25,000 on it and she’s diabetic and recently lost her job. Here’s the story, from the NY Daily News:

Tracy Morgan ’s mother is about to lose her house — and she says her multimillionaire son won’t help her.

Alicia Warden, who lives in northeast Ohio (and spoke on the condition we not reveal the exact location), says she owes less than $25,000 on her home, but the most the “30 Rock” star — who is worth $18 million, according to Forbes — offered to give her was a one-time payment of $2,000.

The comic’s younger sister, Asia Morgan, 41, confirms their mom’s financial woes and calls her famous brother a “d– bag.”

She says she’s done keeping quiet about Tracy, 43. “Because of the way he’s treating our mother, all bets are off,” says Asia.

“He’s never been a nice person,” says Asia, who lives about an hour and a half away from her mother. “And money’s just made it worse.”

Warden, 61, says her mortgage company has notified her that if she doesn’t make a minimum payment by Feb. 23, it will begin foreclosure proceedings on her home. She adds that her utilities are about to be turned off and she’s about to lose her car as well.

“My mom’s house isn’t extravagant, but it’s her home, Her health is failing. She has diabetes, and her legs are giving out on her,” says Asia. “This would be a drop in the bucket for Tracy. She has a son that can do, and she’s done everything that she could possibly could for her family.”

Warden says she worked until February 2011, when she lost her job. Not long after that, she adds, she first approached Tracy about helping her.

She claims he initially agreed to pay off her house, but changed his mind after accusing her of giving an interview to the media. (She denies doing this.)

Her unemployment benefits have run out, and Warden says she asked her son for help earlier this month.

After explaining what she owed, she says a woman working for him called back and told her, “Tracy’s offering you a one-shot deal” of $2,000.

“I told her, ‘Thank you, but no thank you. I’m not some person in the street,” Warden says, adding “That was the straw that broke the camel’s back.”

“God don’t like ugly,” Warden says. “Karma comes back to you.”

Asia also reiterates what her mother told us last week about Morgan’s book, “I Am the New Black.”

“It’s 99 percent bulls—,” she says.

“My mother did everything she could,” Asia adds. “She ran numbers, but she did it to put food on the table. We were raised in the [Tompkins] projects [in Bed-Stuy, Brooklyn}, but we didn’t think we were poor.”

We wonder if this situation is part of the 99. Morgan writes that regardless of the estrangement from his family, “I love my mother and always will. She did the best she could.”

A spokesman for Morgan did not respond by our deadline.

[From The NY Daily News]

I once heard about a guy who won the lottery and promised to set his sister up. He won about a million bucks, but this was in the late 90s so it was worth more than it is today. I met the sister, who worked in a bank and told me this story after I went to deposit around $2,400 that I had randomly won in the lottery. (That’s all I’ve ever won and I barely play now.) She said that her brother told her to quit her job, but she didn’t and kept on working. The brother later blew the money on a bad business deal in Jamaica, where they were from.

I don’t know what the answer is when it comes to helping out your relatives. It seems like it would be easy enough for Tracy to bail his poor mom out of her house and car payments, but who knows what kind of a mother she was, or how their relationship is now. He offered her $2,000 and they acted like it was an insult. The fact that his sister is bad mouthing him to the press after he offered some money makes me think that there’s much more to this story than a poor old lady who can’t get a rich son to help her out.

Tracy is shown on 1-26-12 on the set of “30 Rock.” He seems to be fine after his health crisis at Sundance. Credit: Fame

Tracy Morgan has had his share of health issues, including diabetes and renal disease, over the past few years. About a year ago, the comedian underwent a kidney transplant and had to miss the tapings for a few “30 Rock” episodes, but he has since continued his career unabated. That is, he’s done so until very early this morning when Tracy passed out after a Sundance award ceremony where he gave a very slurred speech. Hopefully, he wasn’t just drunk:

Tracy Morgan was rushed to a hospital moments ago at the Sundance Film Festival — after the actor fell unconscious at an award ceremony … TMZ has learned.

Tracy was being honored at the Creative Coalition Spotlight Awards in Park City, Utah — and sources tell TMZ, he appeared extremely intoxicated during his award acceptance speech.

We’re told Tracy was escorted out of the building soon after his speech — and fell unconscious outside the building.

Law enforcement sources tell us, an ambulance was then dispatched to Tracy’s location.

We’re told Tracy was picked up and rushed to a nearby hospital for treatment. Calls to Tracy’s rep were not immediately returned.

Amy Roberts, a spokeswoman for Park City Medical Center, tells TMZ no drugs or alcohol were found in Tracy’s system upon medical evaluation.

Morgan’s rep, Lewis Kay, also released a statement saying, “From a combination of exhaustion and altitude, Tracy is seeking medical attention.”

Kay adds, “He is with his fiancée and grateful to the Park City Medical Center for their care. Any reports of Tracy consuming alcohol are 100% false.”

[From TMZ]

Well, it is entirely possible that Tracy really was suffering from altitude sickness and exhaustion, but he might have also had a drink or two before his speech. Perhaps it’s a combination of all three, but I do hope he wasn’t drinking at all because of the dangers associated with diabetic drinking. Luckily, he seems to be on the mend and has the best people possible working to get him there.

Here are Tracy with his fiancé, Megan Wollover, last October outside the Ed Sullivan theater before Tracy’s appearance on Letterman.

Photos courtesy of WENN

This summer, everyone got really upset with Tracy Morgan. Tracy was doing standup in Nashville when his “comedy” went to a dark place. Tracy began talking about homosexuality, and how much he hates gay people, and how he would kill his theoretical gay son just for being gay. After Tracy’s comments/comedy went public, Tracy’s bosses at NBC responded, Tina Fey said something, GLAAD issued statements, and after all that, Tracy went on a big, gay apology tour, telling everyone who would listen that he loves gay people and he would totally not kill his theoretical gay son. Well, last night Tracy was on The Late Show, and he and David discussed this whole incident, and… Tracy made it sound like he wasn’t really sorry…?

Tracy Morgan has gone out of his way to make up for a homophobic on-stage rant this summer in Nashville, but during an appearance Monday night on the “Late Show,” he seemed more upset about people misunderstanding comedy than being offended by violent hate speech.

The “30 Rock” star, who was called out this summer for saying, on stage, that he’d kill his son if he were gay and that homosexuality is something kids acquire from the media, told David Letterman that he was mostly upset that people did not enjoy that show.

“At the end of the day, I’m a comedian,” he said. “I try to use my gift that God gave me to help the world, to heal the world, not to hurt anyone. I was hurt by it because people came to the show and were bummed out so I apologize to those folks that came and was bummed out.”

Promising that he loved his son, Morgan continued to push the comedy angle, saying, “I just think it was a misunderstanding, I was up there working. Sometimes when you have networks like maybe Comedy Central is premise, setup, punchline, premise, setup punchline. But I came up under the old regime, sometimes I have to get to it. And I guess that became a big misunderstanding.”

He continued to emphasize the impatience with his comedy, saying, “So whatever it was, I do comedy in the spirit of Richard Pryor and Lenny Bruce and George Carlin, and all the people like yourself that came before me. I see people sometimes at shows with cell phones, just right there, and I have to tell them please, when you come into a comedy club, that’s a place where we make fun of everything going on out there.”

Back in June, Morgan issued an apology for his comments, saying, “I’m not a hateful person and don’t condone any kind of violence against others. While I am an equal opportunity jokester, and my friends know what is in my heart, even in a comedy club this clearly went too far and was not funny in any context.”

He then went on a public relations onslaught, affirmed his support for gay marriage and giving a heartfelt apology to gay kids who may be bullied, in an interview with Russell Simmons. He then gave a press conference in Nashville, appearing with GLAAD and saying in a statement, “I don’t believe that anyone should be bullied or just made to feel bad about who they are. I totally feel that, in my heart, I really don’t care who you love, same-sex or not, as long as you have the ability to love. So now, at this point in my life, it’s an opportunity to make a difference, I don’t really see gay or straight, I just see human beings.”

[From HuffPo]

Look, I understand that there is great comedy which pushes the boundaries and makes people think and laugh at the same time. The problem I, and many others, had with Tracy’s homophobic diatribe was that it stopped being comedy and became more of public statement of bigotry. Incidentally, this is my same issue with Chelsea Handler, who is rarely, if ever, funny. There’s a difference between “comedian” and “scary, bigoted public commentator”. It’s the difference between Richard Pryor and Rush Limbaugh. Some people listen to Rush to laugh, but that doesn’t make it “comedy”.

Photos courtesy of WENN.

It’s horrible, but I actually laughed when I heard this. I wasn’t laughing at Tracy Morgan’s actual jokes, in his new non-homophobic comedic act. No, I was laughing at the sheer absurdity of Tracy’s train of thought, like “They don’t like it when I make fun of the gays, so I’ll just say ‘retarded’ a bunch of times, and everybody should be cool with that.” *headdesk*

So, yeah… Tracy’s new controversy – after his homophobic rant in Nashville a few weeks ago and the subsequent sh-tstorm and apology tour – is that he’s doing jokes about the mentally challenged. Oh, Tracy. I want to take you behind the middle school and educate you about political correctness.

Tracy Morgan stuck his foot in his mouth — again. Only weeks after profusely apologizing to the LGBT community for his homophobic rant at a stand-up performance in Nashville, he managed to offend another group of people: the mentally disabled.

“Don’t ever mess with women who have retarded kids,” Morgan, 42, said Saturday night at a performance in New York City, as reported by the New York Times. As groans of “uh-oh” were heard in the crowd, he continued, “Them young retarded males is strong. They’re strong like chimps.”

The 30 Rock star went on to tell a story about an alleged teenage romance he shared with a girl he described as “a cripple” with a prosthetic arm, a mechanical larynx and a portable dialysis machine.

Earlier in the night, Morgan said something went through his mind “that I can’t share with y’all.” When the audience encouraged him to spill, he said, “I can’t. I just got out of controversy man. This is diabolical.”

“I love you all so much,” he said. “Did I tell you that tonight? I’ve been in trouble lately, and this was big for me that you all came out.”

[From Us Weekly]

It sounds like Tracy was actually trying to bait the audience, not offend them with his offensively ribald humor. Did it work? Well, saying “retarded” once or a bunch of times doesn’t make you lose your job. When most celebrities say it, they face a strongly worded statement from some special-needs interest group, they make an apology and it’s over. Is it right that Tracy faced wide condemnation after anti-gay remarks, but saying “Them young retarded males is strong. They’re strong like chimps” will barely get a “meh” from Hollywood?

Photos courtesy of WENN.

We knew it was going to happen, and here it is. Tracy Morgan’s “I love the gays, seriously” tour has commenced. Several weeks ago, while performing a stand-up act in Nashville, Tracy went on an obscene and offensive anti-gay rant. There was no video of the event, but a gay activist named Kevin Rogers was in the audience, and he wrote a scathing Facebook post about Tracy’s gig. The post went viral, and within 24 hours, Tina Fey and NBC had to issue statements about Tracy, and there was a lot of fallout from the gay community. Tracy later apologized, over and over to several outlets, and quickly made plans for what I like to think of as his Big Gay Tour. Today, Tracy was back in Nashville (Homophbia Ground Zero for Tracy, it seems), where he did a press conference/event with GLAAD, and this Kevin Rogers guy. Here’s some video and some coverage:

Tracy Morgan returned to the scene of the crime Tuesday. The 30 Rock star traveled to Nashville, Tennessee to personally apology to audience members and gay advocacy groups who were deeply offended by his vile anti-gay rant during his stand-up show there earlier this month.

After meeting with members of the gay community — including with audience member Kevin Rogers whose Facebook entry about Morgan’s act first cast a spotlight on the comedian’s comments — a contrite Morgan faced reporters at the Nashville Convention Center. (Rogers sat next to Morgan).

Morgan began by saying: “First thing I want to say is I apologize to Kevin and to people who were at the show for bumming them out. I want to apologize to my friends, and my family and my fans…. I didn’t know, I didn’t mean it…. I don’t have a hateful bone in my body. I don’t believe that anyone should be bullied or just made to feel bad about who they are… I really don’t care who you love, same sex or not, as long as you have the ability to love.”

During his June 3 show at Ryman Auditorium, Morgan said that homosexuality was a choice and that if own his son were gay, he would “pull out a knife and stab” him.

Speaking in Nashville on Tuesday, Morgan said he has the opportunity to change his message on stage and to make a difference.

“I don’t see gay or straight, I just see human beings,” he said. “From the bottom of my heart, I apologize.”

After the initial backlash for his remarks, Morgan was criticized not only by gay advocacy groups, but by NBC and 30 Rock creator Tina Fey. Since then, he has made several efforts to express his regret and has met with gay youth in New York City.

He has also agreed to record a PSA for GLAAD’s upcoming Amplify Your Voice campaign.

[From Radar]

I said it before, in the previous post about Tracy’s “I love the gays” tour, and I’ll say it again: he’s handling this situation surprisingly well. He’s not playing the victim, he’s not trying to blame anyone or anything else. He’s taking responsibility and apologizing straight out, and asking for our forgiveness. He’s also putting some time and effort into his series of apologies, and I think he’s honestly trying to make it right. I’m not saying I’m back to loving Tracy’s usually delightful insanity, I’m just saying that I’m willing to hear him out and I like that he’s doing this apology tour in the right way.

Photos courtesy of WENN.

And now for our continuing coverage of “Tracy Morgan: Homophobic D-bag or Just Misunderstood?” For the record, I thought Tracy’s initial comments – during a standup act in Nashville – were horrible and offensive, but I also think that we should accept his apology and listen as he tries to explain himself. And he is trying, probably because NBC and Tina Fey put him on notice. So this week will be full of Tracy doing things to help improve his image. Meh, I think we should let him. What does it hurt to let him try? First up, Tracy did an interview with Russell Simmons. Here are some highlights:

Tracy Morgan isn’t done apologizing for the violent, anti-gay jokes he made during a stand-up routine in Nashville on June 3.

In an interview with Russell Simmons for Global Grind, Morgan, 42, explains that “the reason I am successful is because I am so unfiltered. And sometimes as a result I say really stupid s***.”

During his act, Morgan joked that he would “pull out a knife and stab his son to death” if he announced he was gay — a joke that the 30 Rock star seriously regrets making.

“The truth is if I had a gay son, I would love him just as much as if he was straight,” he says. “I might have to try to love even more because I know of the difficulty that he would have in society.”

“Of all the sicknesses, there is probably none more abusive than homophobia. My heart is committed to giving everyone the same rights that I deserve for myself,” Morgan says. “I don’t care if you love the same sex as long as you have the ability to love someone. Also, you should have the right no matter who you are to protect and serve our country.”

“I am deeply sorry for the comments I made. What I am most sad about is the comments I made about kids and bullying,” he continues. “I would never want any young person to think that I wasn’t on their side.”

In hindsight, Morgan says the experience has taught him a valuable lesson about the power of comedy. “When all of this set in, I realized how hurtful my words were. Not asking anyone to feel sorry for me or pity me, but I definitely don’t want or need people to defend me. In my heart, I know that the words I used are indefensible,” he says. “I appreciate the love from my friends and fans, but I was wrong. Period. Now, I just gotta think of some funny s***, not some shit that gets me knocked upside my head.”

[From Us Weekly]

I like this lip service/apology, mostly because of this: “When all of this set in, I realized how hurtful my words were. Not asking anyone to feel sorry for me or pity me, but I definitely don’t want or need people to defend me. In my heart, I know that the words I used are indefensible.” That’s something that people like Chris Brown and Mel Gibson have never been able to choke out, you know? It’s not just “I was wrong” – it’s “I’m so wrong, I’m not a victim, I have literally no defense.” In the Age of Victimhood, where every d-bag who does something bad tries to play it like he’s the victim of something, I’m just saying that Tracy’s attitude is refreshing.

If that interview isn’t enough (and it’s not), Tracy is also going to go on something resembling a “I Love The Gays” tour. Later this week, Tracy will be meeting “gay youth” who have been pushed out of their families because of their sexuality. Tracy will also be going back to Tennessee for an event with GLAAD protesting the passage of the “Don’t Say Gay” bill which “outlaws the discussion of homosexuality before the ninth grade in public schools.” No joke. Oh, and he’s filming a PSA! AND there’s another interview, this time with E!:

“I know how bad bullying can hurt,” Morgan tells me exclusively. “I was bullied when I was a kid. I’m sorry for what I said. I didn’t mean it. I never want to use my comedy to hurt anyone. My family knew what it was like to feel different. My brother was disabled and I lost my father to AIDS in 1987. My dad wasn’t gay, but I also learned about homophobia then because of how people treated people who were sick with that,” he continued. “Parents should support and love their kids no matter what. Gay people deserve the same right to be happy in this country as everyone else. Our laws should support that.”

[From E! News]

All of this maneuvering is so well-done, I have to think that Tina Fey has organized it. I feel her presence here. But seriously, I welcome “Tracy Morgan: Friend, Advocate and Supporter of the Gays.” It could totally be worse, you know?

Photos courtesy of WENN.

This Tracy Morgan thing continues to be a Thing. Go here for Friday’s post on what went down. Just a quick recap – about a week ago, Tracy was performing in Nashville and he pretty stopped his comedy routine to do a full-blown rant full of ridiculously offensive anti-gay hate speech. No one said anything until a gay activist – who was in the audience – blogged about it on Facebook, and then everything went crazy. After the story came out on Thursday and Friday, Tracy released an apology. Shortly after Tracy released his apology, Tina Fey released an interesting statement:

I’m glad to hear that Tracy apologized for his comments. Stand-up comics may have the right to “work out” their material in its ugliest and rawest form in front of an audience, but the violent imagery of Tracy’s rant was disturbing to me at a time when homophobic hate crimes continue to be a life-threatening issue for the GLBT Community.

It also doesn’t line up with the Tracy Morgan I know, who is not a hateful man and is generally much too sleepy and self-centered to ever hurt another person.

I hope for his sake that Tracy’s apology will be accepted as sincere by his gay and lesbian coworkers at 30 Rock, without whom Tracy would not have lines to say, clothes to wear, sets to stand on, scene partners to act with, or a printed-out paycheck from accounting to put in his pocket.

The other producers and I pride ourselves on 30 Rock being a diverse, safe, and fair workplace.

[From Deadline]

I think Tina struck the right cord there, basically giving the impression that while she accepted Tracy’s apology, he was on notice, all while standing up for him as a friend. Meanwhile, Tracy’s 30 Rock costar Cheyenne Jackson, an openly gay actor, went to Out Magazine to release a statement: “I am disgusted and appalled by Tracy Morgan’s homophobic rant. The devastating repercussions of hate-filled language manifest in very real ways for today’s LGBTQ youth. I’ve known Tracy for two years, spent many long hours with him on set, and I want to believe that this behavior is not at the core of who he is. I’m incredibly disappointed by his actions, and hope that his apology is sincere.” Other performers and Hollywood types have been tweeting and blogging about all of this too – you can see some coverage here as well. My take is that people who KNOW Tracy and who have a comedy background seem to think that this was just a comedy bit that went way, WAY off-base, and that he’s not really like this as a person.

Photos courtesy of WENN.

CB sent me this story earlier this morning, and all I did was skim it and think to myself, “That doesn’t sound right.” I happily went along, not realizing what a gigantic mess this was. Now it’s a Thing. A Thing that can’t be ignored. Tracy Morgan, formerly of SNL and currently starring in 30 Rock, was performing standup in Nashville, Tennessee when he seemed to stop the comedy to go an obscenity-laced rant against all gay people, forever, everywhere. This isn’t “Oh, I know what he meant to say” or “Meh, standard-issue bigotry.” This is full-on WTF hate-speech.

The scandal erupted when a man named Kevin Rogers, an activist who has worked on the Tennessee Equality Project, posted the following essay on his Facebook page. He titles it “Why I No Longer ‘Like’ Tracy Morgan — A Must Read”. I am only editing it for language:

I have very thick skin when it comes to humor; I can dish and I can take. What I can’t take is when Mr. Morgan took it upon himself to mention about how he feels all this gay sh-t was crazy and that women are a gift from God and that “Born this Way” is bullsh-t, gay is a choice, and the reason he knows this is exactly because “God don’t make no mistakes” (referring to God not making someone gay cause that would be a mistake). He said that there is no way a woman could love and have sexual desire for another woman, that’s just a woman pretending because she hates a f–king man. He took time to visit the bullsh-t of this bullying stuff and informed us that the gays needed to quit being p-ssies and not be whining about something as insignificant as bullying.

He mentioned that gay was something kids learn from the media and programming, and that bullied kids should just bust some ass and beat those other little f–kers that bully them, not whine about it. He said if his son that was gay he better come home and talk to him like a man and not [he mimicked a gay, high pitched voice] or he would pull out a knife and stab that little N (one word I refuse to use) to death. He mentioned that Barack Obama needed to man up and quit being all down with this just because he has a wife and two daughters. All of this being followed by thunderous cheer and ‘You go Tracys’. Tracy then said he didn’t f–king care if he pissed off some gays, because if they can take a f–king d–k up their a**… they can take a f–king joke.”

[From Facebook via Dlisted]

I looked up old Tracy Morgan stories, and I discovered that calling homosexuality “a choice” was part of Tracy’s act as far back as 2009. So… it wasn’t just an off night or something, I guess. This is how he really feels. It’s pretty disgusting, especially considering that Tracy is able to speak with such heartbreaking compassion about other subjects.

Anyway, it’s a Thing now. The Advocate and the hate-speech watchdog group Truth Wins Out are putting Tracy on notice. Truth Wins Out’s spokesperson says, “No comment is not acceptable. If someone had accused me of making such remarks in a presentation, I would drop everything I was doing to clarify it. To try and sweep it under a carpet and pretend it doesn’t exist is offensive in itself.” The Nashville venue where Tracy performed is also distancing itself, with a spokesperson saying “The Ryman Auditorium regrets that people were offended by statements made by Tracy Morgan during his June 3 appearance. The Ryman does not control the content presented by people appearing on its stage, nor does it endorse any of the views of, or statements made by such persons.”

UPDATE: Morgan gave an exclusive statement to Gossip Cop: “I want to apologize to my fans and the gay & lesbian community for my choice of words at my recent stand-up act in Nashville. I’m not a hateful person and don’t condone any kind of violence against others. While I am an equal opportunity jokester, and my friends know what is in my heart, even in a comedy club this clearly went too far and was not funny in any context.”

Photos courtesy of WENN.

Mild 30 Rock Spoilers in quoted text below
Comic Tracy Morgan had a kidney transplant on December 10 and will have to miss at least two tapings of 30 Rock. Morgan has diabetes and recently explained that he keeps it in check after being warned by a doctor that he might need a foot amputation. I had no idea that he was so sick. Apparently Morgan is recovering nicely, though. He was seen out at a Nicks game just last Friday and his rep says that he’s doing well.

Morgan — who plays Tracy Jordan, the star of the NBC comedy’s show within a show, TGS — will be absent from at least two episodes this spring as he’s currently resting from a recent kidney transplant.

“Tracy is doing well and taking some much needed time to recover after the surgery,” a rep for the funnyman, 42, tells UsMagazine.com. “He is looking forward to going back to work after the holidays.”

Tina Fey and the rest of the writing staff reportedly plan to explain his absence by saying his character has some sort of meltdown after a good thing happens to him.

Morgan, who was spotted at a Knicks game Friday, told Us in June that he dropped 10 pounds by following NutriSystem.

“I’m not obese or anything, but I wanted to come down off the weight and lower my blood pressure,” he explains. “And I’m diabetic — it’s great for that.”

[From US Weekly]

Entertainment Weekly, which broke the news about Morgan’s kidney transplant, has a quote from Morgan from last year about how he realized his diabetes was serious. He said “I feel fortunate to have the disease but not have it affect me. My first season on 30 Rock, I wasn’t taking the disease seriously. Then one day I got really sick. The doctor was like, “Hey, listen, we may have to take your foot.” That was it for me. Now I take my insulin every day. My blood sugar doesn’t get over 120.”

Thank goodness he’s ok now and was given a donor kidney. He probably had serious renal disease to be eligible for a kidney. We didn’t even hear that he was on dialysis so he must have been keeping his medical issues under wraps. Best wishes to Morgan for a quick and full recovery!

Tracey Morgan can stop hoping for a dinner invitation to the White House. Something tells me he never had his heart set on it in the first place, but in case he had a secret yearning to meet the president, he can definitely cross that dream off his list. On Friday the comedian performed at Carnegie Hall and gave a performance so shocking and raunchy that many audience members walked out. There were graphic impressions of sex acts, insults towards gays, and the statement that the Obamas would release the first presidential sex tape. Classy.

Fans expecting to see Tracy Jordan at Tracy Morgan’s Carnegie Hall performance Friday night got a rude awakening. The bawdy comedian packed the venerable performance venue with fans expecting his “30 Rock” character’s prime-time humor. But minutes after Morgan started his routine, many walked out in disgust.

It turns out that some New Yorkers really can’t take a joke — especially when it’s unspeakably filthy. “People seemed to not be laughing at his jokes, but more because they were shocked and appalled with what was coming out of his mouth,” reports one audience member. Morgan talked trash about homosexuality (saying it’s “a choice,” which drew gasps), drugs, pornography and what he calls “politricks” — far edgier subjects than what his alter ego, Jordan, gets air time for.

“There was a continuous flow of people getting up and leaving throughout the show,” our spy reports, adding that many in the crowd clearly didn’t know what they were getting themselves into. Middle-aged women were the most flabbergasted when he started mimicking explicit sex acts on stage.

When Morgan found something shocking, he held onto it for minutes on end. Some of the controversial jabs he made included a set about the First Family. “Obama is really changing the White House, because he and Michelle will have the first presidential sex tape out,” he said to a stunned crowd.

No one knew better than Morgan himself that the crowd got more than they bargained for. At one point Friday night, he addressed shocked showgoers, saying, “You want the clean Tracy? Turn on the TV.”

[From Gatecrasher]

Not to be uptight and stodgy, but I think I’d prefer T.V. Tracy. I know a lot of the crazy things his character does on “30 Rock” are based off real-life Tracy, but they somehow always make it seem innocent. No matter how dirty or inappropriate, they always bring it back Tracy having good intentions but being stupid and immature. So you just enjoy the joke. Real-life Tracy, not so much. Comedians obviously try to push the envelope. There’s only room for one nice, friendly comic to be famous, and Ellen’s already taken that spot.

Thus if you want to get attention, you’ve got to be outrageous. Tracy obviously gets this. I find his character so likeable that I forget that Tracy Morgan isn’t Tracy Jordan. Same thing with Alec Baldwin. I have completely forgotten how much I disliked Baldwin as a person, because he’s so great on the show. Calling your little daughter a pig? Totally fine with me now. It’s easy to forget that good actors aren’t necessarily people you’d want to hang out with. After all, you never know when they might do an oral sex impression.

Here’s Tracy Morgan at the VH1 Hip Hop Honors at Brooklyn Academy of Music on September 23rd. Images thanks to WENN.com .