Somebody told me that Chappelle is like Pryor. I disagree that Chappelle is like Pryor. I think he's more like Carlin. He's focused on observing the contradictory stuff that people do. DC is very precise with his words, but he does it with subtlety. In a way, he's like Lewis Black. Kind of like, you know where I'm coming from audience. But Chappelle messes with his audience too, because you can't escape his observations. He's like an inner conscience that we have but don't listen to, but most importantly, DC is unleashed.
He's rich. He ended his career. He didn't need the work. He's like the resurrected Christ. Dude, I already died. I'm still funny. I'm still telling the truth. Sorry not sorry. He's not pretending. He goes there. He has got nothing to prove. He can just be Dave. I think he will survive it. And I think like nobody else alive except for Seinfeld, he will have his full, undamaged confident self years from now. I don't think he can be hurt because he's living in truth. All he has to do is walk his straight line and the world will provide the funny. He's just the dude to say it out loud.
Now that Eddie Murphy is coming back, I'm really curious to see what Eddie will do. I can see that he is much more serious. Also Dave Attell and Jeff Ross are the bomb.
I don't know. I think right now Dave Chappelle is the Doctor Manhattan of comedy. He's just out there completely naked and still you look him in the eyes, and you are in awe of his power and you desperately hope he cares about humanity.
Watching Sticks & Stones was brilliant but now more than ever it makes sense to watch his other new releases, which I just did, especially the one recorded in LA where he's super intimate smoking a cigarette on stage. Which, when you think about it, is against the stupid law. So I have to tell my Dave Cheppelle story.
About 25 years ago I was hanging out in midtown Manhattan at the Houlihan's at 42nd and Lex. It was happy hour aka time for Dancing in Suits. It was that night that I hung out in the foyer with a man I am convinced was Dave Chappelle. It was one of the funniest times in my life, and I regret never going to hang out with him and see his show. This was the same time when Ray Romano was just getting started. So I did, within the short time frame, go to that comedy club in the Village. Romano's best joke was a bit about his prediction about people getting implants from their cell phones in which the punchline involved somebody getting a fax out of their ass. But I missed Chappelle's show. Nevertheless, we sat there in the foyer of Houlihan's for about an hour just ragging on people who came through the front door. We were cracking each other up. It was that memorable.
I often think about that evening. Now I think about how it was that I almost became the class clown, how my insult humor was devastating back in middle school and how I was almost ready to fight to become class clown. I touch of that came out when I watched Dave do a bit of ragging on the dude from Brooklyn in the tracksuit. How hard you can be and not really mean anything by it. And I see how comfortable he is doing just that. Sitting down smoking a cigarette and busting on people. "I say a lot of mean things." He said. Because everything's funny until it happens to you.
At the same time DC does something that I've only seen in Eddie and in Michael Jackson which is to be so bloody talented that they appear to be approachable. But I'm watching and thinking, damn it would be fun to hang out with Dave again, knowing I'm never going to get that chance. I'd done so with Reynaldo Rey. We hung out and had a hilarious time. I've done so with Paul Mooney, who is a friend of one of my NY cousins. I even met Dave's brother once. And it's weird because I also want to hang out with Neal Brennan. There's almost no other entertainer of any sort that I think it would be cool to hang with - although I haven't thought about it in a very long time. You see, I'm loving what comedians are saying today. They are the necessary jesters in a mad mad world.
If I had to do it. And desperation might get me there. I would do a little clown makeup and perform a sit down comedy act. It would be like a combination of Spaulding Grey, Joe Frank .. but let me shutup.
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