No Apologies

The comedian added some new riffs to the Don Imus flap as a guest on "The Tonight Show." He told Jay Leno the Rutgers basketball women weren’t "hos," but were indeed "nappy-headed" and "some of the ugliest women I ever seen in my whole life."

The comment enraged black ministers enough to announce a picket of his show in Fort Worth, Texas, two weeks ago.

But Hughley says he was disappointed at the light turnout. "One guy was so old he didn’t even know what he was picketing. It said ‘Stop the War’ but it was the Civil War," he quips.

Another guy "paid to come in the show and he booed, and they put him out and we still kept his money. What was the purpose of that?" he says. "I don’t understand that. I should have spent it on something a preacher wouldn’t like, like hookers and a dime bag of weed."

But the proportion of advance news coverage about the planned protest compared to the result proves a point Hughley plans to hammer home in his next stand-up special, "Unapologetic."

"Now we take ourselves so seriously that we can’t laugh at anything," he says of the special which was taped June 3 and is scheduled to air on HBO in September. Fans can get a sneak preview of the new material when Hughley headlines the "Comedy Explosion" at the Orleans Arena on Saturday.

"Nobody jokes about anything. At work you can just feel the tension: ‘I don’t want people to think I’m this. I better not say anything.’ Everything is so stuffy and censored, and I just don’t know if that’s productive."

The title is a direct reference to recent apologists such as Imus, Mel Gibson and Michael Richards. Apologies "make people believe all will be forgiven and you can go back to doing what you’re doing," Hughley says. "But it’s an empty apology if you don’t really mean it." He compares it to school kids made to shake hands by the teacher, who then go right back to fighting again. "What was the purpose?"

New Jersey Gov. Jon Corzine "almost was killed speeding to go watch Don Imus apologize. Is it worth dying over? It was a dumb innocuous joke."

Hughley also will host a new hidden-camera show, "Socially Offensive Behavior," that debuts on BET next month. It promises to expose "how people really feel" about hot-button topics.

If the founding fathers were alive today, Hughley says they’d be surprised by two things: "That black people can vote and that freedom of speech was under attack like it is."

He says he is pragmatic about his defense of the First Amendment. "It’s how I make my living, so of course it means more to me. … A comic’s right, his best weapon, is his ability to call it like he sees it. If all of a sudden you can’t do that, it diminishes your ability to make a living. So to me that’s very personal."

Hughley, 44, grew up in South Central Los Angeles and became a comedian only after disavowing gang life. A big break came in 1997 after he toured with "Kings of Comedy" Steve Harvey, Bernie Mac and Cedric the Entertainer.

Now he’s the biggest name on Saturday’s bill, a one-off concert that includes Rickey Smiley, Don "D.C." Curry, Lavell Crawford and Dominique.

Black comedy as a genre was lampooned on the now-canceled series "Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip." Hughley’s character was a star on a "Saturday Night Live"-style show who walks out in disgust on a comedian performing "White people say this …" material at a club.

Hughley says he enjoyed working with series creator and writer Aaron Sorkin, but in real life he’s not so judgmental of stand-ups who are more "silly" and "slapstick" than political. "You can’t begrudge anybody for being what they are," he says.

Though he didn’t always agree with Sorkin’s point of view, he is again pragmatic. "If I could take a check for ‘Soul Plane,’ I could take a check for this."