Guest Post by Hardscrabble Farmer
“I can’t live in this world you’re proposing…”
-Dave Chapelle
For purposes of full disclosure I have never worked with Dave Chappelle and though we were both signed with the same agency at the same time we rarely crossed paths on the road. We’d worked showcase clubs in NYC but I’ll admit that I was never impressed with his lackadaisical comedy stylings and his reputation for being a no-show or showing up late and pissing off the crowd only to walk off early. I considered his behavior bad form and his brand of humor lazy so I never paid much attention as his star rose, never watched his show or any of his subsequent work after that.
I found his episode of facing down Bill Cosby’s Dark Crusaders and his subsequent flight back to Africa after walking out on his hit show at the peak of his career to be the funniest stuff he’s ever done, but I’m told he was serious, so maybe it’s just me. I will admit that he has managed to convince millions and millions of people that he is uniquely talented, and you can’t argue with success.
This afternoon I took a break and decided to give his newest Netflix hour long stand-up routine a watch and see if maybe I hadn’t misjudged him. Based on the plethora of articles I’ve seen about it there appears to be some divisive and animated discussions going on around the proverbial water coolers of America. On the one hand he has triggered those who will be triggered- the perpetually offended victim class- and on the other he has earned the esteem of many on the side of free-speech and truth-telling, both things I enjoy very much. It is almost impossible for anyone who has ever performed comedy professionally to watch it casually. All of the little tricks and mannerisms that combine to make a set look effortless require a great deal of work and hardship. Clearly Dave has put in a lot of both in the twenty years since I’ve last seen him.
According to the trades Netflix paid Chappelle 60 million for his performance and if that’s true it says a lot more about Netflix than it does about Dave. The set I watched was at best mediocre by any standard, so the joke is, as they say, is on them. There were only five spontaneous applause breaks during the entire hour excluding his closing bit, which was actually his single best joke of the evening, a callback to an earlier joke and an abrupt wave good-night. My first response was a giggle at 33 minutes in. I know because I paused to look the moment I made a sound to mark the event. It happened once more near the end during his Jussie Smollett bit where he pantomimed a weary Chicago cop writing his report while Smollett narrated.
Chappelle explained to his audience that the reason the Blacks were so reticent in their support for the gay actor was their sure knowledge of his guilt, based on the details- “You seen any rope in Chicago? This isn’t 1850.” Aside from that the rest of the show was fairly lackluster. He roamed around the multi-leveled stage at times pausing for effect and at others- especially when he delivered a line that clearly stunned some in the audience- he ran offstage theatrically, like a guilty little boy trying to make cute in order to avoid the response. And it worked. One thing that no one can deny is that Chappelle clearly has the confidence to win over his audience and the audacity to risk losing it.
He does however know exactly just how far he can go in order to make sure that check for sixty very large clears on Monday. It’s safe to say that the people in the audience during that filming were Dave Chappelle fans, not comedy groupies and they stuck it out with him while he meandered from point to point, but he didn’t kill. I was expecting, considering the price tag on the evening, a barnstorm of jokes, but it never happened. His storytelling was compelling, but in the same way watching Monster In A Box was entertaining, a nod of the head in agreement every five minutes or so followed by a lull in the action. We learned that he has a wife and children and he lives on a farm- and here I was suddenly glad for him despite his ego to reality ratio.
He’d settled down, gotten away from the NY-LA Axis and discovered what was important in life and here, for me at least, was the payoff I’d been waiting for. In the past he always gave the impression that he didn’t give a shit, but it was an act. Now, at last, after all the money and acclaim it was authentic. Near the 50 minute mark he paused and I saw in his eyes the look of a man who really doesn’t care about the fame anymore, not the money, not even the material, but what was waiting at home for him. I respect that.
While he is clearly charismatic he has never been a writer. His show has always been Dave telling stories in a funny manner, not a series of tightly constructed jokes with taglines and callbacks that work the audience into fits of uncontrollable laughter, something that did not happen once in the entire sixty minutes he was onstage. His most talked about bit- alphabet people- was awfully derivative of something a real comic, and ironically a performer blacklisted and perpetually hounded out of work in the US, Owen “Big Bear” Benjamin. While I have no idea who came up with this bit first, there’s no question that one of them lifted it from the other, for a variety of reasons, but judge for yourself.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J339SNH8Kis
I came away from the viewing at the end feeling sorry for anyone who would find anything that he said during that time offensive because the very idea of listening to something that upsets you to be odd at best, but at worst some kind of deranged, self-inflicted punishment. I have never understood people’s predilection to censor or shut down anyone else for their opinions or views, but I am also aware that very few people still share that viewpoint. Dave insulted pretty much everyone and while it didn’t strike me as particularly funny, but neither was it upsetting in the least.
I don’t care if he hates White people or gays, that’s his business, but I was a bit taken aback by his frequent and unnoticed use of the word nigger (77 times by my count) as it has been considered one of the greatest crimes of the PC era. There was one short bit about the folks at Codes and Practices who, during his television run, made it clear that certain words were verbotten unless you were one of the people the words referred to (“But I’m not a nigger, Fiona.”) but this felt scripted, in a false way. As I’ve said before, either we all get to say it or no one gets to say it. Dave has, ironically, opened that door with a bang.
I wish that I could tell everyone that this was some kind of heartbreaking work of staggering genius, to borrow a phrase, but at it’s best it was solidly average. There are plenty of comics who tell better stories- watch Nate Bargatze if you get the chance- and lots of guys who write circles around him, but I can say with absolute authority that there isn’t another comedian in the known galaxy that can get a media giant to cough up a million dollars a minute to deliver a lackluster set before he heads home to his farm in Ohio to sleep with his wife and keep an eye out on his children. He appears, as he always has, to be supremely confident in himself and in imparting that to his audience. His life, after all the tumult and controversy, appears to be perfectly normal, and for that, I applaud the man.
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My wife and I watched the special earlier in the week. Not being a professional comedian, I just judge something by whether I laugh or not. You are right that there are no moments of side splitting laughter, but I found myself chuckling during the entire 65 minutes. I was never bored. Was it worth $60 million? No.
We watched his show back in the day and we liked it, especially the Keeping it Real stuff.
I think the commotion it has caused isn’t because it is unbelievably funny, its because he takes on every politically incorrect taboo subject matter and makes fun of the SJW crowd. He ain’t Richard Pryor, but he is still better than 99% of the comedian drivel out there.
I really debated whether or not to critique it because comedy is like beauty, it’s subjective. Some people love the guy and some people just don’t get it. Just because it doesn’t do anything for me doesn’t mean that the audience doesn’t appreciate it. I was more interested in how someone in the current era not only gets a pass to say some of the things he does, but makes a killing at it from one of the biggest corporate proponents of progressive ideology, while another guy who does the exact same thing with more originality is quite literally run out of the business and ruined. And God forbid some nobody posts something on the Internet that even approximates the observations of Chappelle. They’re crucified for it.
I was really happy to see where he wound up personally- he seems very at home in his skin these days, far less of an asshole and more contented to just speak his mind with a genuine sense of humor. Of course doing it for 30 years helps polish the rough edges away. I actually envy his freedom to do so, it would be great if we could all have that opportunity.
What Admin says taps into why I can appreciate the material’s effects, without adoring David.
For all who are just sick and tired of the PC that the SJW crowd constantly hammers, it is refreshing to see the occasional push back, which has risks for most who dare to voice it.
Chappelle’s latest seems to be a defiant mockery and rejection that has potential to reach, and influence a much wider audience.
So, there’s that, at least.
Scrabble, your insights are interesting to read.
I’d enjoy watching your best performances onstage if any are available.
I think he uses the word “nigger” because 1) he knows he’s not one and therefore it doesn’t offend him 2) since he’s black, he can get away with it. 3) to allow a single word to have that much power over an entire population is insane. And 4) he hates real niggers and it’s his chance to lay them out. Kind of like how Jeff Foxworthy is able to lay out shitty white people and get away with it.
I find him funny in a different way. He spits in the face of correctness. Sweet.
Thanks for posting these clips, I loved his show.
I bet most people never caught the footage pasted on the end after the credits of the Atlanta show. He took questions from his New York audience and there was a story about meeting Obama.
Interesting technician’s appraisal; and an excellent point on the n-word. It is paradoxical that the use of that word is not being mentioned more by Chappelle’s detractors. Speaking of which, I saw this one (below) last night. It was written by another black guy who doesn’t share Chappelle’s humor:
The Worst White People Love Dave Chappelle’s Sticks and Stones
Hey, if you disagree with someone just call them names. It’s the old ad hominem defense.
Indeed, I also found it interesting that also on Hollywood Rob’s “Correlation” thread from yesterday he brought to attention the new angle of the “bored” defense.
My “novice” and non-comedic” and “non-practitioner’s” take on Rob’s thread was as follows and posted here for posterity purposes:
Also, an addendum; Chappelle’s alphabet people bit does appear to be a direct rip-off from the comedian Hardscrabble posted above
I watched the special for free online(not sure how netflix is gonna get 60 mill out of this.
I found his set amusing enough and like how he hits everyone in his routine,same reason I like the show South Park,everyone gets their turn.
Was the show worth 60 mill,no,but you have to admit Chappelle must have one hell of a agent!
My parents would have never , for one minute sat and listened to the degrading filth that is modern comedy much less paid to see it. And this is indicative of the culture of rot we expose kids minds to today, yet everyone is amazed and appalled at human waste and needles blanketing the sidewalks of urban America. This did not happen in a vacuum. America was steered in this direction . How we got here is no mystery. Carroll Quigley knew this in 1962.
African culture is not conducive to civilized society. An empire of filth will not stand.
https://archive.org/details/TragedyAndHope_501
Chapter 75 — The United States and the Middle-Class Crisis
Its chief characteristic is rejection of parental values and of
middle-class culture. In many ways this new culture is like that of African tribes: its
tastes in music and the dance, its emphasis on sex play, its increasingly scanty clothing,
its emphasis on group solidarity, the high value it puts on interpersonal relations
(especially talking and social drinking), its almost total rejection of future preference and
its constant efforts to free itself from the tyranny of time. Teen-age solidarity and
sociality and especially the solidarity of their groups and subgroups are amazingly
African in attitudes, as they gather nightly, or at least on weekends, to drink “cokes,” talk
interminably in the midst of throbbing music, preferably in semidarkness, with couples
drifting off for sex play in the corners as a kind of social diversion, and a complete
emancipation from time. Usually they have their own language, with vocabulary and constructions so strange that parents find them almost incomprehensible.
This Africanization of American society is gradually spreading with the passing years to
higher age levels in our culture and is having profound and damaging effects on the
transfer of middle-class values to the rising generation. A myriad of symbolic acts, over
the last twenty years, have served to demonstrate the solidarity of teen culture and its
rejection of middle-class values. Many of these involve dress and “dating customs,” both
major issues in the Adolescent-Parental Cold War.
Strong, and cutting very close to the bone, analysis.
Daniel Moynihan says “hi”.
Let me see…..
This Chapelle is about as funny, and his content nearly the same, as a colostomy bag.
Eye of the beholder Pee. Eye of the beholder.
chappelle is unfriendly to whites so i don’t watch him anymore. what most don’t know is his self-titled show wasn’t just him. neal brennan was the better half and is a better comedian.
I’ll only say that if Chapelle and a handful of white Globohomos are all mainstream comedy offers today, then it’s sad for this younger generation compared to what I grew up with in the 80s to early 90s.
All forms of art have been hijacked by dark forces, even comedy.
http://mileswmathis.com/mofo.pdf
I was reflecting on this very thing yesterday afternoon. How many truly talented artists, architects, musicians, comedians, etc. have been denied success because of the color of their skin and/or religion or unwillingness to abide the casting couch? No, we got Piss Christ, Seth Rogan and Amy Schumer.
I think that Marc’s most important point is that comedy, like all art forms, is in the eye of the beholder. Each one of us gets to decide whether we want to laugh or smile, or frown. Our choice for us alone. I would say that the brief parts that Netflicks has allowed us to see for free seem to me to be a comedy that I would enjoy, and I will make the effort to find it and watch it. It will take a while as I don’t support big media although I am really glad that Netflicks decided to pop for the big bucks to entice Dave back off his farm.
In all human endeavors there is a skill that can be learned and a talent that I have always interpreted as your own personal interest in developing your skill. No matter the creative direction that your inspiration takes you, it is your willingness to practice, to hone your skill into what will eventually become your art form that is the single greatest driver of anyone’s success. Marc speaks to this in his post most eloquently. He can see that which we can not. He can see the subtle timing developed over years and the little changes in intonation that encourage the audience to side with the comedian, not against him. These skills are not natural. They are learned through years of hard slaps and sleepless nights in the car and it would seem that Dave Chappelle has not only taken the hard slaps and driven through the night to the next gig, but he has sharpened his skill to the point where a major Big Media player will hand him a really big check.
He worked hard for that check and it took him his entire life to get to the point where he got it. I too applaud him, and I haven’t even seen the entire show yet.
Thanks Marc. That was a great review.
How can you be so lucid in a comment like this and so out to lunch in other comments? Is there another Hollywood Rob, a dopple?
…
Greetings,
I thought his special was hysterical. I probably thought this for two reasons. First, I live in the most elite liberal place on Earth and his entire set would make every single person around me furious. No one I know will even admit to watching the show such is the fear. He said things that NO ONE here would ever dare say in a million years and that is a fact. Second, I grew up in farm country in Ohio so I very much could relate to much of what he said about poor white people in Ohio.
The L’s and G’s and B’s thing seems to me to be an obvious take-off point. Unto itself not very inventive. Norm Macdonald has also done some of that. The difference between Owen Benjamin and Dave Chappelle is that Chapelle is funny. Maybe it’s just the delivery, but Benjamin just seems angry all the time. But “just the delivery” is kind of a stupid idea. The delivery is kind of the whole deal. Jokes that are assembled with tag lines and callbacks can work sometimes – maybe a lot of times – but sometimes feel like when you’re backed into a corner by a salesperson – like if they can get you to concede points A and B then you’ll have to accept point C – buying whatever they’re selling.
I think we can probably all agree that Sebastian Mancow is the worst comedian out there, loved only by dolts and therefore a great success.
“I can’t live in this world you’re proposing…” -Dave Chapelle
I don’t watch comedians. I might catch a small bit once in a while because it is inevitable, like catching a cold. You take a look at some of the Carlin clips and you see how his comedic mindset infected the modern outlook; he facilitated the demise of propriety in the media and the rejection of Christianity in modern America.
Maybe I would like to watch Chappelle’s show to hear more of this context around the quote above. None of us can live in the world proposed by bankers, racists, millennials, prudes, queers, Antifa, communists, and the rest of the Utopian social planners. The answer to the question, what is to be done? always involves plunder, mass murder, incarceration and genocide.
@ EC (or whoever stole his moniker),
True dat.
Think about the world they’re proposing. Take abortion, for example, as promoted by the (as you say) “utopian social planners”:
A dude knocks up a girl and she has the choice to abort the kid without any say from him.
As they say: “My body, my choice“.
So, Chappelle agrees with them during a bit in his routine. He said he supports a woman’s right to choose and this puts him on they’re side. But then Chappelle added this: If the woman decides to have her baby, then men shouldn’t be forced to be involved. Because if the mother has a right to kill her baby then the father should have the right to abandon it. Says he: “My money, my choice”.
After all, fair is fair. It’s about equality. Right?
Or is it? Because, how did they respond? First by outrage, then by boredom. It had to be boredom in the end for them because a black guy said it who professed to be on their side.
And that was the cleverness behind Chappelle’s moderately humorous Netflix special. He tricked them all. Good for him, and us. At least for now.
Thanks, Uncola. I appreciate HF’s technical review. I also appreciate your analysis. After they hijacked the civil rights movement, women stacked the deck in their favor and turned baby-making into a business, an industry where quantity trumps quality. In a sellers market, it’s the women who decide the product.
El Doggie insists that men safeguard their sperm; women have stooped to reinserting the elixir left in a condom and claiming later that it was defective. Of course, there are those young men on the other side who pierce the condom with a pin to give piece a chance.
In a world that wants nothing to do with humans, nature finds a way to overcome obstacles like condoms, pills, abortion, abandoned newborns, etc.
Are you OK? Because you seem a little less edgy today; a little more chewing gum and less tinfoil, as it were.
?
Just kidding. Kind of. Not that I mind, of course.
BTW, when I said above that Chappelle tricked them all, I meant to add “especially Netflix”.
Maggie is my muse, she is my upper where HR is my downer.
BTW, did you see how I got my ass kicked on FF?
It’s a fool who places his trust in women.
Pick yourself up, soldier, and dust yourself off. What you do next is all that matters. We never lose our mojo, just our focus.
So don’t make decisions when you’re angry and don’t make promises when you’re happy.
Have the courage to live a life true to yourself, and not the life others expect of you.
Remember, you can be the ripest, juiciest peach in the world, but there will always be someone who hates peaches.
And if you treat a woman like a queen, and she treats you like a jester, then your princess is in another castle.
That’s all that shit is, man.
Now get back out there and have some fun. I ain’t askin’.
Thanks for the pep talk, Uncola, you’re a true friend. I don’t have a need for it right now. Things are chill willy, when I have time to focus on other people’s problems, you know I ain’t got nothing to complain about. It’s a shitty song but it describes my happy mood right now:
Pure class.
Very wise words Uncola, especially about not making decisions when you’re angry or promises when you’re happy. I am passing this on to my son to read to plant this seed of wisdom for future reference.
When u ignore injustice, it comes for you. Block her address jfish.
In the epic saga of The Life Maggie you are a genuine hero and you faced your Larger than Life Moment with flair! E.C…u are worth more than all these white hippos in the crit.
The title is TEA BEA PEA
Whimsical wordsmithing wad of words whittled with wit while wandering and wondering toward wondrously wordy websites winking wildly on the World Wide Web.
Collusion and conspiracy mean you are part of the other side, jfish.
You should block Maggie too.
I wonder if you can tie in the movie Lost Horizon to one of your essays? Yokes has been yearning for a return to Shangri-La. That is the real, nonviolent, way to bring about Utopia.
Remove you know who from your blog notifications unwhatever.
You will not like the auto reply if I do it.
Did Dave say anything about mass shooters? They are coming in faster now and likely will culminate at election time. It’s a damn shame our electoral system is devolving into a Hatfield and McCoy feud.
i know next to nothing about comedy craft. i just like the way chapelle says some stuff. or is it dave attell? i always get them confused…
Sir HSF,
Thanks for the technical review of these guys, always interesting about entertainers technical issues. It is indeed most interesting to see the alphabet soup of today’s PC gender classifications getting some comic feed exposure. That is a telling for the times!
I have a quite smart country cousin who was running the Solvang / Santa Barbara Shakespeare theaters, and went from there to create the fabulous Denver Center for the Performing Arts. Interested parties can check out the current and long running status of those multi decade institutions.
He had a one liner that I think you will find interesting, “Art Reflects Society”, which your considerable experience experience, and these two guys are reflecting, seems to me.
For us geriatrics, I long for another Robin Williams, or Red Skeleton, Marx Brothers, Bob Hope skilled delivery guys.
If you have not seen Robin Williams hour long gig in the MET in N.Y., it is one for the history books. U Tube is a wonder.
I enjoy his material and think he delivers it well. yes, there are plenty of funny comedians. I enjoyed the Chappelle bit about blacks thinking he is from the hood, then he talks about growing up with poor white kids. His white guy voice is funny. I like Bill Burr also.
[I came away from the viewing at the end feeling sorry for anyone who would find anything that he said during that time offensive because the very idea of listening to something that upsets you to be odd at best, but at worst some kind of deranged, self-inflicted punishment.]
Not exactly; kinda, sorta?
The court jester could make fun of the King’s odd nose, fat belly or lisping speech; what made it worthwhile is that he was speaking the TRUTH: the King HAD a freaky nose, fat belly or lisp. Ordinary people could not make fun of him for that (“lese majeste” being a death offense), but the Fool could, and if the King took offense it would seem petty and cruel, since the jester had no power. But the bottom line was that the jester spoke the truth about the king, and everyone with eyes could see he spoke the truth.
In America, we have been lied to 24/7/366 for decades; we expect the NYT, WaPo, CBS/NBC/ABC/PBS and all their demonic children to lie to us. Conversely, in comedy we expect TRUTH. It may be framed as a joke, but truth could be seen whenever honest comedians told us about D.C., trending fads, fashion, food, you name it. Bobcat Goldthwaith made fun of starving people in Africa – but what he said was TRUE! And it was obvious he was not hating on anyone, just pointing out the obvious inconsistencies he saw in the world.
And to address your last point, the truth is offensive – almost always, because we see the perfect, the beautiful, the true and the noble and fall so short of our own ideals, personally that we hate ourselves, the truth of our own imperfections and the painful realization that no matter how long we live we will never achieve them. I’m not a saintly senior citizen, beloved of most and respected by all, but an ugly fat old man, unknown to nearly all and hardly respected by anyone. However, I live in a sick society full of perverts, idiots and grifters of all sorts, so being basically honest, mostly solvent and fairly moral makes me admirable – just not in a society of perverts, idiots and grifters! It’s all upside down – the good people are supposed to be running things and the scum scuttling in the gutters, but that’s backwards of what it IS – and that is a TRUTH, and it SHOULD make you uncomfortable!
And maybe, just maybe, inspire you to change towards your ideals, and not towards expedience, greed or debauchery.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bjO7QMP4h-Y