Yesterday I wrote about how I ended up at the Dave Chappelle performance in San Francisco. The show lasted 3 ½ hours and I took a bunch of notes down and decided to share it.
I wanted to share something I’ve been reflecting on since I saw him. And after I wrote all this out I realized it’s kinda long, so I’ve written all about the bits he did in the show but I’m going to share that tomorrow.
The 3 ½ hour show included a ton of him talking to the audience and us shouting out questions/responses. It dawned on me that there are at least two possibilities (both of which could be wrong and both are meaningful to me).
First, I wonder if he was actually “writing” what will ultimately be a final show that he’ll perform and put on Netflix or something like that. He’s deep, thoughtful and extremely quick on his feet, even when drunk and high. And it was like he was creating and testing premises that he’d either thought of before or that night.
One example was he asked the crowd if there were any black gay men in the audience. There was one.
He asked him an earnest and quite funny question:
“Which one of the two, black or gay, makes you more angry that you are?”
I legitimately believe that he cared about the topic AND it’s really funny with a well developed comedy bit around it. He went back to that guy about 6 or 7 times during the time he performed. I don’t know if he thought of that premise before he got up there or not but it was magical watching him work with it.
He made it really clear he’s not gay and he deeply wanted to actually understand this man’s experience.
And if at some level he wanted to “write” some of his work he picked a great city to do it. The Bay Area is a great place to get all kinds of relevant topics “tested” with the people who live here.
Things like:
Being way too “woke” and comparatively easily triggered folks (CRAZY to hear some of the people getting “offended” at his show that night….)
Ridiculous wealth in SF with LOTS of misery and LOTS of folks who can’t afford it living elsewhere
Tons of perspective around issues like homosexual and transgender folks
Heck even early adopter technology folks and Asian influence came into play
I could name a number of others and from my perspective it makes sense, we’re a good test market for a lot of what he does and oddly, good writing partners too because a lot of folks here are creative.
The second thing I thought about with his 3 ½ hour set is maybe some part of him just honestly wants to figure things out. Somehow make sense of what is often madness, mock it at times and truly try to get it at other times.
There was a moment in his set where he got quiet and just said something to the effect, I just feel weird or I’m weird.
For any of you that read my Mr Robot review that hit me right in the heart.
After seeing him do his thing I’m convinced he has a set of extraordinary God given skills that can be expressed comedically.
And those same skills also create this darkness that make it hard at times to see and really understand.
And for those of you that really know me beyond my social media presence which is pretty darn open given what people tell me, you won’t be surprised that all of this resonates VERY deeply in me.
A friend yesterday reminded me of when I saw Robin Williams live in a small venue. He was so frenetic and could react to whatever was said to him on stage.
And while he was at the same level of Chapelle, he never really took a deep breath and just seemed to ask “Why?”.
At the very end of the evening he intentionally said a few things that I can’t remember the exact words but I do remember the message. It was about treating each other with kindness and genuinely try to understand each other.
And even when he’s pitching fire humorously about stuff that taken in the wrong lens I’m more confident than ever that he while he doesn’t care a ton about what people think about his takes, he cares deeply about how we treat each other.
That’s inspiring and in some basic way that’s exactly what comedy at the highest level is meant to do.
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