T-M-I from T-I-M

Chappelle's Show: The Comedy/Jokes (Installment 3)

Dave Chappelle’s overall comedy skills are the at the apex of comedy and not just because of his mind and writing.  His timing, voice inflection, facial expressions and body movement are unparalleled.  Having been a comic for a while his ability to go “into the crowd” is nearly without peer.  He uses a lot of the core things that many stand up comics do…he just does it….better.

SOOOO, to the content, if you’re one of the ones triggered by content, may be best to just move on from my post.  I found almost all of it funny and on about a dozen occasions I said out loud “I can’t believe he just said that.”

Some of this may be things you’ve heard before, but I never had.

He told stories or jokes about:

A friend who got called the n-word in a strip club in Asia and his friend was wearing an Ascot at the time (laugh OUT LOUD hilarious) (which by the way someone in the audience asked after the story if his friend was black in the story which he absolutely loved)

How he opens his Asian wife’s iPhone11 with facial recognition (yes, you are imagining correctly)

Sarah the midget hooker (his word)

Mo’nique complaining about getting paid by Netflix and her bringing him into it

A story about a white guy coming into a group of his friends all black named Richard and the eventual Dick reference and a “showing contest” with an absolutely hilarious which ended with only one participant, our man Richard who said he wanted to kill himself (he didn’t) which became humor

A KILLER joke about Caitlyn Jenner getting voted woman of the year

A HILARIOUS take on betting on fights where a woman fought a transgendered woman and a man fought a transgendered man in the ring (hint, back the one with more testosterone)

An absolutely mindblowing joke about how pussies could be gay that he wrote while on mushrooms

The difference between millennial and historical gay people (LOTS of glory hole jokes) and unbelievably linked it in a crazy way to slavery (this man is brilliant and courageous….and drunk and high…)

Greta Thunberg in what I thought was a really funny way

He did a few quick things where his DJ played sound effects that were about him taking his penis in and out of his pants and one sound effect of a couple of gay guys realizing some pants they love were on sale (I swear it’s hard to imagine this but they were hilarious, and I may have laughed harder at this than anything else)

Randomly ending up at a trans bar in North Carolina of all places (and of course a few bathroom jokes about NC)

Someone who had transitioned from the waist up and realizing it, way too funny to accurately describe

Even, jokingly, seeing Taylor Swift’s name written in feces in a bathroom and attributing it to one of his white musical friends

He also covered, not quite comedically:

The presidential race and how he supports Andrew Yang and he’s not thrilled about candidates that want to take huge amounts from rich people….kind of an awkward moment for folks holding $125 tickets

How he LOVED Louis CK’s current show (which set a few of the woke folks off near me which made me laugh and convinced me that if he comes to SF I’m going to the show) and that Ali Wong is an SF treasure

Several stories about Nipsey Hussle, I don’t think I really know what he meant to folks

Not getting properly paid for the value of the content he created for the Chapelle show

The one other joke/story he told really summed up my entire experience at the show.

He told a long story about a transgendered woman, who I think was named Paula who had gone after him on social media and lived in SF.  He ended up meeting her in person and asked her to open up for him one night when he was in SF.

Paula had done stand up like 8 times before going in front of a huge crowd similar to the one I was a part of….and….she bombed.

But she was in the audience for the rest of the show and this is the only joke/story he told that I’ll actually share as close to what he said because it was brilliant. 

Somebody in the audience at that show that she performed in back then yelled out to Paula (who had blond hair) “Does the carpet match the drapes?”.

Chappelle drew us in to the moment.  He is an absolute genius of engaging us into the moment he said:

“Without missing a beat…..she said…..”I’ve got hardwood floors”” 

The entire crowd went bananas laughing. 

He then told us that shortly thereafter, Paula killed herself. He didn’t go into why but he did tell us that he has put some of his money aside to take care of her son.

You may choose to believe that this is him propping himself up.  It’s him trying to make himself feel better.  That’s fine and I can even see that point of view. I know he’s got a checkered past with transgendered people, but honestly how many of us really, truly understand it?  (And I have a number of transgender friends)

I’d never heard the story before so I don’t see it as being publicized.

What I chose to take away from it is this is a man who legitimately lives on a different side of the street as Paula did.  But even when he makes fun of her he genuinely cared about her.  And when the call was there for him to help in some way to this person that impacted him in some way he answered.

That’s the Dave Chappelle that I saw that night and it will be hard to convince me of anything else.  Thank God I got to experience in such a clear open hearted way.

Chappelle Show: The experience (Installment 2)

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.

Tom Hanks & Dave Eggers @ SF City Arts

Reflections on Tom Hanks interviewed by Dave Eggers last night (who was an incredible interviewer, weird Tom Hanks pic in that link btw) in no particular order:

Tom Hanks had a mix and match upbringing in the Bay Area that included his “original parents” as he said getting divorced.  He said he was kind of big deal because his parents got divorced at a time when only people named Zsa Zsa got divorced.

At some point during his youth, he realized that acting was not just something to goof off and have fun with but something to be studied.  He talked about a class where they read a play, went to see it and wrote a paper on it and that was part of the transformation.

He said he thought one movie could be done over and over:  That Thing You Do!  He also talked about the inspiration being a song called Little Honda by the Hondells and how they got sick of singing that hit song.  He kind of wanted the movie viewers to get tired of the song “That Thing You Do” in the movie. 

My truth is I wish he would have played the full song every time because the camera work each time they did it and the setting of the story was different each time.  I also binge listened to that song with my daughter when she was like 10 and we loved it.

He talked about how he writes pages and pages of backstory for characters when he does movie that go beyond the script.  I didn’t even know actors did that.  The idea is to create a past story for the context of the current character’s motivation.

This is probably really basic for most, but I didn’t know that each scene in a movie has a purpose:  to move the story forward.  He talked about how one director told him they need to find the “Red Dot” in the scene.  (I couldn’t help but think of the Seinfeld Sweater episode or a few of my married Hindu friends)

He has a book of short stories and so many of them are founded either in history or in the lived experience of both discovering our tiny part of the universe and the related gigantic reality of our lives in that context.  I really appreciated how he shared that he doesn’t feel drawn to the classic protagonist/hero narrative. 

He told the story about how his Father In Law came to America which was a compelling 2 hour chat.  When he mentioned how incredible the story was to his wife, his wife said basically I’ve never heard the story, what was it?  It’s funny how we have people in our lives where there is tons of back story that we may not even be aware of.

He did a great physical imitation of writers who are confused and uncertain.  About that time, he also touched on how a writer thinks a story will go one way but upon writing it, the story follows tributaries to the river down all kinds of other paths.

This is not an exact quote, but he sort of said “Hubris and celebrity are not qualifiers for leadership” or something like that as he reflected on politics.  Not long after that he responded that he would not run for President.  He said that the level of commitment and ideological certainty at a minimum don’t fit.

One of the best stories was when he shared about the scene in John Adams where Adams was the lawyer for the British Soldiers who shot into the mob.  It was a substantial reframe of a historical event for him.  It is a totally compelling scene from a series I’ve watched twice from beginning to end.

He brought up how when he watched movies he assumed everything was totally accurate.  (he told a really funny side story about how he talks to people he portrays in movies saying he’ll do things they’ve never done, go places they’ve never been and his single desire is to play them truthfully!)  He feels a responsibility to be as close to accurate as possible because he understands kids sometimes watch it.

One funny quote:  “Politics is Hollywood for ugly people”

The quality he thinks is most important in work of almost any kind and I’m guessing life is perseverance.  He talked about when the phone is not ringing with opportunities you have to keep fighting for your dream.  I know it seems like a throwaway quote, but for some reason it felt real for him.  He seems like a really hard worker.

He talked about the abuses of power in the industry and not surprisingly strongly called it out as wrong.  He also asked the women in the audience to basically clap if they’ve been harassed or assaulted in the work place and it seemed like 80-90% of the women clapped.

Finally, three reflections on how he talked. 

First, I’ve seen other actors/actresses talk and they tend to talk about acting at a level that is just not relatable.  He takes on the same topics but does it understandably.  It made it totally engaging.

Second, dude swears like a sailor at times.  He dropped f-bombs like he was auditioning for a Scorsese mob flick.

Third, he’s funny, like really funny.  I don’t know why but I was surprised he was that funny.

My trip to Qatar

I just got back from what I call a peak life experience in Doha, Qatar working with the Qatar Science and Technology Park Research to Startup program.  We brought an incredible group of entrepreneurs to work with equally incredible researchers of the Qatar Computer Research Institute. I was so blessed to be asked to be a part of it by my very close friend Chris Yeh.

Qatari leadership is visionary in that they realize they need to look beyond the oil and gas economy.  It’s a fascinating study in the intersection of business and humanity.  There is a lot culturally to break through to really shift to an entrepreneurial mindset for the investors and entrepreneurs to thrive but the vision and energy is there.

It was really invigorating to be a present part of a 20-30 year vision.  So much of what I’m surrounded with in business has a less than 5 year horizon.  That longer term vision gives importance and space for achieving lasting and meaningful impact.

It was so rewarding to see the researchers light up as they saw the possibilities roll out of how their years of work, their babies essentially, could be taken to market successfully by entrepreneurs who care.  I was totally blessed to bring my piece of the puzzle in helping them with their presentations.

The long term vision is to help shift the researchers into a commercialization oriented entrepreneurial mindset ala Silicon Valley.

It will be fascinating to see what comes of it.  More to come.

And, here are a few quite random reflections from my trip to Doha, Qatar:

There is construction EVERYWHERE.  So much so that they are actually running out of SAND!  So they are fighting against illegal importation of sand….in the desert.  They are building world class facilities and have a TON of capacity to fill.

I met the ONLY couple in the world that is a marriage between a Qatari and Norwegian and they were delightful.  In certain cases, there is an approval process for Qatari citizens to marry different nationalities.

I had a heartwarming experience when a totally likeable and brilliant engineer/researcher pulled me aside at an event and told me that I had given him the incredible gift of teaching him “how to laugh”.  My rather big and full laughter is unusual and he loved to laugh along with me and others as we joked around.

I LOVED the times when there was singing over the loudspeaker to remind those who observe it to pray.  I honestly wish that we could somehow do something like that here that would be free of denomination or even belief in God (plenty of my atheist friends meditate).  A reminder a few times a day for all of us to pause and reflect in some way would have a substantial beneficial impact. 

There is a GIANT yellow bear at the airport.  I found out it cost almost $7 Million.  That’s one expensive relative of Winnie the Pooh.  I only pray that they don’t open a honey store in the airport.

Their salt shakers are much better than ours because yield per shake is much higher (or put less business-y their salt comes out of the shakers faster with more of it each time I shook it).

They use Kleenex as napkins.  It took some getting used to but ultimately it’s good because it’s more eco-friendly as I didn’t find myself using more of them.  Oddly, for whatever reason I became more careful about how I ate so as to minimize my use of them.

Not surprisingly, without a shared pop cultural reference point my blue ribbon comedic material at times is met with confusing looks and crickets rather than laughter.

It’s hot.  Like REALLY hot.  I would go for a walk at 5:30 am and it felt perfect, by 6:30 am my walk ended luckily because it was already steaming hot.  One upside is the AC in all the buildings I went to was phenomenal!

I’m not particularly surprised by this but was comfortably reassured.  Parents there love their young daughters as much as I did/do, that made me really happy.

I played hoops with an international key and three point line on a wider court.  And oh my GAWD it was a lot harder to do.  Shots that normally drop were falling well, well short.  (Oh and as a bonus the court was blue so I kinda felt like I was playing football at Boise State.)

Finally, I was reminded again how to be awake and aware to visitors to the USA as I walk around throughout my day.  San Francisco in particular brings a confluence of all types of different cultures and perspectives.  I was treated wonderfully while I was there.

It reminded me to be a little more patient, tolerant and kind and that my friend is, indeed, what is all about.

Spiritual Wackiness

I was sitting on the bus listening to an audiobook about how to live in the present moment this morning. A guy got in, who I’ve seen before. He wears a fedora hat and fingerless gloves (judgment already arising…) and seems to act fairly brusquely (judgment arisen) when he rides the bus.

The bus is pretty packed and he has to stand…next to me and he turns and whacks me with his bag (ok he actually probably BARELY brushed me…)

I spend 2 seconds in a self-righteous fueled anger story about how he’s a jerk, he doesn’t care what he’s doing, confirming my story about him, etc. as I am still listening to how to be “in the moment”.

He turned around to me and gave me a gigantic smile and apologized, completely disarming me.

The person sitting next to me got up and fedora hat, no finger glove guy sat next to me.

I tapped him on the shoulder and told him the story of what I was thinking and the impact his smile and apology had. We had a big laugh about it and told me he works on exactly these kinds of issues personally and professionally.

He told me that like me, he struggles with this. We figured out in short order that on so many levels we were the same.

I put my headphones back on and after a minute took them off and put out my hand and said:

“My name is Tim, what’s yours?”

He said, “My name is Tim”.

The life of Tim

I live an unusual life.  Or maybe it's usual and I just notice the unusual.  Here are two examples:

From the YMCA:  I was about to leave the gym after wailing on my pecs and lats and a friend who is like 6' 5" giant of a man came walking by. I pulled off my headphones to chat with him.

After about 45 seconds I realized I left my music on loud enough that he could hear the song playing...Mmm Bop by Hanson. Shortly thereafter, a look shot across his face, lasting for about 2 seconds.

It was that uncomfortable realization that he knew what was playing on my headphones but neither of us were spiritually advanced enough to address the truth. After a few discombobulated moments, I did one of those awkward put my fist out to get pounds and he put his open palm up for a high five.

I palmed his fist and we both exited the conversation with a sure to be unspoken secret that he knows I listen to Hanson while working out and I know he knows.

From the Bus:  I sat next to someone on the bus who took up about a seat and a half. I didn't realize it until I sat down.

The net result was I was side riding with one butt cheek gripping to the seat for dear life. The net result: The seated butt cheek started to cramp and the unseated butt cheek fell asleep.

However...I was too co-dependent to get up because I didn't want to make the person next to me feel bad (there were other seats open).

So, in the interest of not hurting someone's feelings I got off the bus and for five minutes walked around like a combination of JJ from Good Times and John Cleese from the Ministry of Silly Walks.

Thank you God for giving me the life I've got.  #timlife 

Comical Silent Meditation Retreat

I'm going on my first silent mediation retreat this weekend.  A weekend of silent, peaceful, communing with God along with powerful, caring men.  Sounds like a recipe for calm and placid community right?

SO WHY AM I SCARED SHITLESS???  I've thought of many reasons why I shouldn't go and strangely enough the ideas seem to increase in frequency as the time draws nigh. 

My longest times not saying anything is when I sleep (and even then I'm told I'm pretty chatty).  And I meditated once for 45 minutes, but I think I may have slept for about 35 of them.

I don't get to use my phone and I'm acutely aware how addicted to it I am. OMG I'm like TOTS important and how will people feel about me like NOT responding to their texts or liking their photos/posts.

It would be hilarious to have a mental stenographer with me to record what are sure to be many entertaining thoughts I'll have.

That's enough, I'm going on this retreat and I'm going to be the WORLD'S BEST MEDITATOR.  After this weekend I'm going to start training for the Olympic Meditation Competition.  And who knows what performance enhancers I'll find to win it!

Wow, definitely time for me to practice being silent.

My awkward canine moment

Aboput 2 weeks ago I told a friend that I needed some doses of humility in my life.  Humility has been coming at me as freely as if from a Pez dispenser.  I learned yesterday how creative humility can actually get.

You know how awkward it is when someone's walking towards you and they are waving with a big smile and you think it's for you....but it isn't.  I have, many times.

Yesterday I sunk to a new low in the awkwardness department with a dog.  As I walked backed to work after lunch yesterday, strolling along with head held relatively high a dog about 5 feet in front of me started going bananas with happiness.

I thought to myself "Yes, I'm the modern day St. Francis, not only do people really like me but, yes, ALL SENTIENT BEINGS are drwand to me.  I am at one with the universe..."  I smiled wide and even said, out loud "Oh puppy, you're so happy to see me!!". 

It was a little fluffy dog with eyes as big as your typical Japanese cartoon character.  Eyes that typically make me wonder if said canine hadn't recently done a heaping rail of narcotics all bulged out like that.

As 5 feet became 2 feet, his big eyes which seemed transfixed on me ever so slightly started to move to the left.  And as 2 feet became 1 foot, my heart sinking by the moment, his big eyes fully turned their attention to someone behind me, said canine's owner.

As I passed the dog, nervously searching the surroundings to see how many people may have seen this embarrassing moment happen, my shoulders noticeably slumped from the happy go lucky, shiny person I had been just 5 feet ago.

Thank you universe for your wonderful, wily ways....

Is it God or god?

My relationship/friendship with God has taken an interesting turn.  For the majority of my life I ascribed the capital letter G to God out of fear and necessity I guess.  It was a sort of forced exultation.  And apparently he was the only one around.  He was kind of like this ultimate bouncer.  Because he decided who got in to the club and who didn't.

And as far as I could tell, he didn't only let in slutty looking hot chicks immediately and leave an average looking, likeable fellow like me in purgatory until I bribed him or until he looked at me and just said...dude, you are so going to hell.  He was that friend I could never really "connect" with but basically I had to say I knew him because everyone else I knew said they did.  And I always had to go hang out at his house to see him once a week.

Then we had kind of a break-up.  I decided that instead of trying to be God's groupie, that I was going to ignore him entirely.  Fine dude, if I ONLY can see you at your place, then I'm just going to do my "own thing".  So I started seeing other people. 

I hung out with this one spirit that was a like a colorful liquid rainbow slowly advancing life.  I spent some time with this man/woman combo type thing for a while.  I even spent some time without a God because I figured I knew best.

It was cool because they came over to my place and I never felt rejected by any of them because they weren't really "friends" per se, they were just people that told me whatever I was doing was fine, even though it wasn't so fine.

So I came back to someone I decided to call god.  And this god was super cool.  god handled a ton of stuff for me that I couldn't handel myself.  And god knew its place because by not capitalizing its name, it no longer was better than me or getting what I deemed to be a forced term of admission that goes beyond someone's regular name.

Just recently it changed again.  I've decided to call God God.  But see God's name could be Bill or Juan or Herbert.  It's just the name of my friend.  And like Bill or Mohammed (the most popular name on earth, THANK YOU Superbad) a lot of other people I know can be friends with someone named God too.

This friend however has a few twists.  God doesn't get all worked up if I don't call.  Actually, the only who seems to get worked up when I don't call God is me. 

God comes over whenever I want, but ironically, even when I don't want God is still there, but not in that like annoying dude who always wants to be around me because he saw me do stand up comedy "that one time". 

My friend God seems to always know how things are going to turn out and he knows they will always turn out ok.  It's cool though because I can watch a movie with God and he won't be like "OMG, it's so cool when they find out that the letter was actually written by HER, not his ex-wife"  (THANK YOU Silver Linings Playbook).  When I start freaking out, he's the cool one who says, dude, it's all good trust me and while sometimes I do and sometimes I don't, it is all good.

My friend God has a ton of other great qualities, but the best one of all is my friend God will never leave me.  I can get like super pissed or like talk bad about him to other peeps (come on dude, ANOTHER war, WTF???) and he's still like it's ok Tim that you talked me down.  My friend God doesn't talk to me about other peeps who have other friends like my friend God and say that they are like totally fucked come time death rolls around, I'm down with that.

God's the friend that is everything I've ever dreamed of and some things I've never even thought of.  God digs me and I dig him, he ain't heavy, he's my brother (THANK YOU the Hollies).

And brother, what a friend God is.

Why try stand up comedy?

I gave stand up comedy a good try for about a year and had a blast doing it.  I met some awesome people, had tons of laughs and learned some awesome lessons.

Most people told me I had huge balls to go up on stage (which made me wonder what they say to women comics).  It doesn't seem that way to me but I learned a couple of great lessons by trying something creative out.

1. If you're gonna do it, really do it.  I took classes at the San Francisco Comedy College and went up at least once or twice a week.  Now that's not a bunch, but I definitely put the effort in.  It's real easy to justify "failure" if you don't really invest in it.
2. If you're gonna do it, you will succeed.  Nothing's better than being on stage killing a crowd.  It can be as small as one joke going really well and you're hooked.
3. If you're gonna do it, you will fail.  One of the greatest lessons I learned doing stand up was how to deal with failure.  Comedy has the unique dynamic of giving you immediate feedback on whether you're killing or not and it's sure hard to deal with silence, a great lesson.
4. If you're gonna do it, you'll meet different people.  I'm pretty sure I wouldn't have met most of the cats I met doing comedy in my regular life.  That's a blessing, embrace it and you're sure to broaden your perspective.

I also learned a few things about comics.

1. We're neurotic.  At least the good ones are.
2. We love the spotlight.  Even the bad ones.
3. We're resilient.  It's a frickin' grind but many of us keep at it.
4. We're not very realistic.  There are tons of us and we all (in the back of our minds) think there's an outside chance we'll make it.
5. We all love my jokes.  Not really, but I couldn't help myself.

I don't think stand up comedy is for everyone, but I do think creative endeavors of some sort are.  It will challenge you in ways that you can't even imagine. 

That's why I tried it.