Posted on 06/18/2004 10:06:42 PM PDT by Pikamax
Chappelle lets rude crowd have it
By JIM CARNES, Sacramento Bee
(June 17, 9:04 am PDT) - Dave Chappelle got so angry with the crowd Tuesday night at Sacramento's Memorial Auditorium that the stand-up comic walked off the stage for nearly two minutes. Upon his return, he told the audience, "You people are stupid."
What got the comic so riled up? According to Chappelle, it was audience members who wouldn't "shut up and listen - like you're supposed to."
Chappelle is the creator and star of the No. 1-rated show on Comedy Central. It's that fame that helped the comic sell out the nearly 4,000-seat Memorial Auditorium weeks in advance of the show. And that popularity also caused the frustration for the performer, as audience members continually shouted a character's catchphrase from "Chappelle's Show" - it starts, "I'm Rick James ..." and ends with the b-word.
"The show is ruining my life," Chappelle told the crowd. Besides requiring him to work "20 hours a day," he said, it has made him a "star," which has resulted in the inability of fans to treat him as an individual.
"This (stand-up) is the most important thing I do, and because I'm on TV, you make it hard for me to do it," he said.
"People can't distinguish between what's real and fake. This ain't a TV show. You're not watching Comedy Central. I'm real up here talking."
Shouts continued to interrupt Chappelle's routine until he stopped to give a lecture on "how comedy usually works: I say something. You mull it over and decide whether you want to laugh or not, and then you do or not. Then I say something else, and you think about that.
"It's worked well all across the country, but you people ..."
Performing in Sacramento, the comic said, might turn out "to be a bad idea - like chocolate-covered fish."
Chappelle told the crowd he knew why they liked his sketch-comedy show: "Because it's good. You know why my show is good? Because the network officials say you're not smart enough to get what I'm doing, and every day I fight for you. I tell them how smart you are. Turns out, I was wrong.
"You people are stupid."
Much of Chappelle's act - with its jokes about genitals,and sex talk, tales of strip-club escapades and frequent use of the n-word - is unprintable in a family newspaper. But that's not the best part, anyway. Chappelle is most effective when he ventures into social commentary - race, poverty, the cult of personality.
One of his better rants had to do with children and at what age they might be responsible for their own lives. Elizabeth Smart, the 15-year-old Utah girl who was kidnapped from her home, figured prominently in the commentary. He contrasted her case - she was discovered about nine months after her abduction only a few miles from her home - with that of 7-year-old Erica Pratt, who gnawed through her duct tape bindings to free herself from kidnappers in Philadelphia and was responsible for the arrest of the two men who had taken her. Pratt is African American, and her story received much less attention than did Smart's.
Then Chappelle placed Smart's case in opposition to that of Lionel Tate of Florida, who was convicted of murder in the death of a 6-year-old neighbor. Smart, at 15, was considered a child. But at 14, two years after the crime, Tate was sentenced as an adult to life in prison without parole. (A previously rejected plea bargain was later accepted, and he is now free.)
"When is a 15-year-old a kid and a 12-year-old an adult?" he asked, indicating it might be because one was white and one was not.
Chappelle said race relations are at such a low point in America that, "You can't say anything real when it comes to race. That's why Bill Cosby's in such trouble for saying black folks have got to take responsibility for their own lives.
"I spoke at my high school last week," he said, "and I told them, 'You've got to focus. Stop blaming white people for your problems.' "
He then added, sarcastically, " 'Learn to play basketball, tell jokes or sell crack. That's the only way I've seen people get out.' "
Chappelle's harshest words were addressed to those audience members who worship entertainers and athletes.
"Stop listening to celebrities," he said. "They do what they do for money - that's all. I don't even know why you're listening to me. I've done commercials for both Coke and Pepsi. Truth is, I can't even taste the difference, but Pepsi paid me last, so there it is."
Celebrity worship harms the object of affection as well, Chappelle said. "One day people love you more than they've ever loved anything in the world. And the next, you're in front of a courthouse dancing on top of a car."
In case the audience didn't get the reference to Michael Jackson, he said, "You know why Michael Jackson's had so many surgeries? He wanted you to like him more."
Chappelle, obviously, will not pander to his fans. "You guys are the worst listeners in the country," he told the Sacramento audience. "It's like 'The Silence of the Lambs.' Without the silence."
"Chris Rock did have a good bit about the difference between "black people" and "niggers" and how education isn't valued among many blacks."
Yes because counter productive blacks consider a positive education acting white. Rolls eyes.
Talk about self imposed de-evolution by an entire race.
It's funny how one silly skit on the show has pretty much ruined rapper Lil Jon's career. Everytime I see him now, people are like "do the line!" and he's forced to belt out Yeaaaah or What!? Sad.
"Chris was letting him have it about behaviors of the black underclass for which JJ was making excuses."
Jesse made excuses because he and his family have made millions off their volunteerly enslaved and unenlightened bethren for decades.
Not from me you won't.
If the press (and Army) had been more balanced in their reporting we'd have had two brave and (by today's standards) heroic ladies in the news and both would have had a chance at better lives in the future. As it is, no one remembers Shoshanna and Jessica has lost all of the aura built around her. On the other hand, you don't typically enlist for the headlines and they mostly managed to be in the wrong place at the wrong time; happens a lot.
However, what's most irritating today is that this thread WAS about a black comedian, someone not really expected to step out of character in front of 'fans' who stood up and told those fans they needed to change THEIR act. That makes two in a very short time.
Instead of seeing this as a sign that there are more potential positive leaders in the black community (i.e. Cosby versus Jackson) FR is wound tight over contrasting a 7 year old with a 15 year old. Well folks, in fact, Elizabeth Smart did squat to help herself. She accepted her fate and would have gone on for a long time accepting her fate...I'd say that had more to say about some back woods Mormon families than race but the comparison remains valid.
Let's live with the one fact and let's focus on the other; there are increasing indications that the black communityin America is growing within. Give Chappelle his due, he is smart, funny, and he has stepped up to the greatest problem within his community. Not a bad resume.
Awesome!
The few times I've watched David Chapelle and Chris Rock, I thought they were funny. When you live in a ghetto, surrounded by people with a ghetto mentality, the same problems,etc. it's very hard to be different. That goes for just about everyone. When you want to be different and outside the 'mainstream' you pay the price.
I didn't know their was a real person- I thought it was a made uup character..... I gotta whatch him on VH1
roll with skunks...smell like skunks...
true... Herman Cain 2008
If you see the Wayne Brady and R. Kelly skits, you wont say that anymore. My girlfriend forced me to watch Chappelle one night, where those skits were played, and now Chappelle has a permanent place on my TiVo.
If I am not mistaken, Dave Chappel grew up in Washington, D.C.
Dave Chappelle's Show co-writer is a white dude, Neal Brennan. Dave and Neal met years ago and have been friends and co-writers ever since.
For those of you who have the Chappelle's Show DVD, make sure you watch some of the episodes with the audio commentary on. It will give you some interesting insight about the show and how it was written.
Any chance some of the people who helped make him "famous" could have been white? If a white comic used the "N" word on their TV show like Chappelle does and as many times, you would still be hearing the outrage. He is correct, no one should be taking advice of any kind from "celebrities."
A Real McCoy?, any kin to this guy lol?
I don't see how this guy can compare Smart and Tate and call it racism.
Smart was a victim; Tate was a killer.
Smart did nothing wrong, and may have been afflicted with the "Stockholm Syndrome" where captives identify with their captors to survive. Did he want to send Smart to prison for being kidnapped?
Born in DC, grew up in SW Ohio.
*I* remember Shoshana...( and the few times I saw her pic in the media, I cried thinking of the little girl, knowing that the Bad Guys had her Mom! )
You are right, she didn't get as much coverage, sympathy.... but I thought about her a lot and I was SO happy the day she was free... heck, I believe she had been shot in the leg and I remember seeing her and the other survivors running to get away.....
I'm glad her little kid has her Ma back!
So who is this Chapelle guy? I've pretty much given up watching TV... ( except for the news and I obsess over it!) Is he funny?
Well wardaddy says I should live a little, and watch the Chappelle Show *LOL* He's funny but I don't think I want a nice mommy like you watching Chappelle Show :)
Sorry!
Had thought you were a fan!
What in the world makes you think I'm a NICE Mommy?
MOM is an acronym for "Mean Old Mother"!
( Eat your veggies. Clean your room. Take a bath...etc)
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