The Man = Iceberg Slim

So, I went to see Dave Chappelle last night. Hopefully people who were there can help me share this wonderful experience. I'm having problems remembering stuff. He was funny.. of course. It was a free performance, the one he told Oprah he wanted to do. He donated 100 percent of the ticket sales to his high school Duke Ellington in DC. It's a performing arts school, and we had to watch a video about it before we could see Dave Chappelle. I was like, damn, I already donated $50, now I have to watch a recruitment video?! Naw, just kidding, it made me feel warm and fuzzy inside to see the yutes that will hopefully benefit from the show.

I know you don't give a shit about that.. Here's some of what Dave said:
Selling oranges is an authentic Mexican hustle.
Even if a brother went to see Brokeback Mountain he wouldn't rave about it in the babershop.
Crystal Meth is God's punishment to white people...
It doesn't look as funny on screen, you should have been there.

He told a great joke about a fight he got into while high on weed with a white dude who was high on crystal meth. He said it was like 8 black dudes( including Dave) who jumped him and they fought for like 40 mins. But the white dude couldn't feel a thing and took them all on. Then they got tired and invited the white guy to get something to eat with them under the condition that he stop calling them n-ggers, cause they don't like that. The white dude was like, I'm sorry n-gger, I can't help it. I'm only 11.
OH, he gave a hilarious observation of the show "Cheaters" that was great.

Dave nearly gave a guy sitting two people away from me an asthma attack. He couldn't catch his breath because he was laughing so hard, even when Dave wasn't saying anything. Think, Eddie Murphy in Nutty Professor when [ironically] Dave Chappelle was on stage.

Then he had this line "It's not funny, but it's interesting." He used that when he talked about his situation with Comedy Central. He talked about being in Africa. He told a long story about a book he read that was written by a pimp named Iceberg Slim who lived in the 40s- 50s. He said that reading that book helped him understand the entertainment industry. Basically industry rule No. 4080 also applies to comedy. Dave ended on a story of how Iceberg conned a ho into staying with him far longer than she should, knowing that she was near her wits end. Because according to Dave, since I haven't read the book and don't believe in research, every ho is good for a certain number of fucks before she losses it. And anyway, the moral of the story is that the industry is basically a pimp. So are our bosses. We're basically all hos. He didn't tell us how to end this cycle of abuse, but he did say that once you understand human nature the way pimps do, that you'll do one of two things: 1. Go crazy or 2. Get your money right. Dave talks about "them" a lot, the man is a pimp to him. I think everyone wants to know who "they" are by name, but I'm starting to feel like there aren't any individuals. I think at first there were, but now Dave sees them all as part of one big system..

I agree with Dave, a lot of his shit, especially what he ended the show with, wasn't funny- just interesting. Overall, dude seems ready to get back to work. And he knows that life could be so much worse. I have a hard time believing that you can travel to Africa (not to insinuate that the entire continent is underdeveloped) and not feel stupid for wigging out over the complications from a 50 million dollar deal. He made a joke about that too.

Lastly, this dude at Slate claims that Dave's problem is that he can't escape white people. Why would he want to do that? I think this idea is kinda bullshit. I think the observations made in the article are good, but the headline seems to be created by an editor who just doesn't get it. They must really think Dave's crazy. Go here to read it: http://www.slate.com/id/2139034/