cannabisnews.com: Comedy Smackdown Comedy Smackdown Posted by CN Staff on May 13, 2005 at 09:18:46 PT By Neal Pollack Source: Salon Magazine The news that Dave Chappelle has checked himself into a mental-health clinic in South Africa quickly filled the Internet with the usual toxic mix of celebrity worship and Schadenfreude. At first, my reaction didn't diverge much from this. I think Chappelle is hilarious, but a year or so ago, when I hit a basement of burnout and self-loathing, I didn't have the option of hiding on the other side of the world. I got a prescription for Wellbutrin and hoped that this, too, shall pass. Things would have been a lot easier, as they would be for anyone, if I'd had a $50 million contract with Viacom. Still, this is different than the usual glee felt when, say, Tara Reid's boob flops out of her dress or when Lindsay Lohan goes on some ridiculous slutbag spree. There's a special joy in watching the reaper scythe of fate swoop down on the talentless and sleazy. With Dave Chappelle, it's different. Not only is he uniquely talented, he's also honest about his failings. And it's impossible now not to assume that his parodic portrayals of mentally disturbed loners are so dead accurate because he obviously knows the subject all too well. If you've been stoned even once in your life, stoner humor is funny. Jokes about alcoholism are as old as alcohol; almost everyone can relate to getting drunk. But hard-drug humor is different. Cocaine may be as prominent as dumplings on the Lower East Side, but for most people, it's as abstract as ayuhuasca. So this forces me to ask the question: Why do we laugh at Dave Chappelle? Can we really relate to a coked-up lunatic shooting dice, or to a junkie puppet singing about venereal disease? Chappelle may be America's most incisive and original comic mind on issues of class and race, but that's not what frat boys are thinking about when they buy his DVDs. It's "I'm Rick James, bitch," all the time. Chappelle made his own choices, and, like the rest of us, he has to live with the consequences, even if he is better funded. It's not our fault. But if that's true, why do I feel guilty for laughing? Not all drug humor is a cry for help. I don't think the writers of "Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle" were trying to tell us something was wrong. Cheech and Chong, Paul Krassner and pre-"Daily Show" Jon Stewart enjoyed getting high and enjoyed talking about it. The "Marijuanalogues" aren't popular in New York because fans are conducting a death watch on the comedians who participate. At the same time, not all problem comedians tip their hands through drug jokes. Chris Farley didn't do drug comedy, and neither did John Belushi, really, but they obviously needed help. You can also see when there are no drugs, and there are no problems. No one is worried that Jerry Seinfeld is heading for a coke-addled fall, or that Stephen Colbert is going to vomit on himself in public. On the other hand, if a comedian does appear to be crying for help, drugs are usually involved. In a way, comedy and drug abuse spring from the same source. Life is cruel and absurd, and both represent escape, which is why fans of drug comedy worship at their dual altars. Mitch Hedberg recently died the lonely, Lenny Bruce-style romantic comedian death -- alone, in a motel room, with drugs involved. Hipsters who made fun of the pope and Terri Schiavo spun no mockery about Hedberg, because his death, unlike those others, actually made them sad. Like them, he was supposed to be a cool, dispassionate observer of life's grand carnival. He died how they'd like to in their dreams, as did Hunter Thompson. There's something wrong in a culture when it's considered cool to wake up at dusk, do a lot of drugs, and stick a rifle in your mouth while your son is home. When people said, "It's not like you couldn't see it coming," that made me very sad, not because we could have done something to stop Thompson's suicide because, of course, we couldn't have, but because we found it entertaining, or even important. We're making a large mistake if we think that life is art, or even bleakly funny, when it reaches such a place. Because it's not art. It's just darkness. My hope for Dave Chappelle, an abstract hope for someone I don't know and never will, is that he pulls himself out of whatever muck is holding him down. Maybe he'll follow the example of Richard Pryor, one of the few comics to come out of the drug vortex on the other side, and turn his experience into confessional humor that is grown-up and true. But there's certainly a chance that he won't, that he'll go the way of Rick James, bitch, not Richard Pryor, and that's not funny at all. Note: Is drug humor like Dave Chappelle's a cry for help?Source: Salon Magazine (US Web)Author: Neal PollackPublished: May 13, 2005Copyright: 2005 SalonContact: edit salon.comWebsite: http://www.salon.com/Related Articles:Hunter S. Thompson, R.I.P.http://cannabisnews.com/news/thread20270.shtmlTrick or Treatmenthttp://cannabisnews.com/news/thread15129.shtmlCalif. Drug Users Get Treatment, Not Jail http://cannabisnews.com/news/thread10600.shtml Home Comment Email Register Recent Comments Help Comment #21 posted by FoM on May 15, 2005 at 19:50:54 PT E-Online: Chappelle: Not Crazy, Not on Crack By Marcus Errico May 15, 2005"I'm not crazy. I'm not smoking crack. I'm definitely stressed out." That's the update from Dave Chappelle, who, after being MIA for the past few weeks, has turned up in South Africa, where he granted a interview to Time magazine for its new issue. The entertainer skipped out on Chappelle's Show, his hit Comedy Central sketch series, late last month, forcing the cable net to shut down production and indefinitely postpone the May 31 premiere date of the third season--and causing headline-making speculation into why Chappelle disappeared and where exactly disappeared to. Newsweek took a stab at the former, reporting last week that friends blamed Chappelle's meltdown on a combination of too much partying, overwhelming pressure to live up to his $50 million contract and creative sparring with Comedy Central over the direction of his show. Entertainment Weekly, meantime, reported that Chappelle checked himself into a psychiatric hospital in South Africa for undisclosed treatment. To Time, Chappelle cops to meeting with a psychiatrist for one 40-minute session after arriving in South Africa, but he says he's staying with a family friend. "I'm not in a mental facility," he says in a Q&A that took place Friday and lasted 90 minutes. A converted Muslim, he says he flew to the country last month for a "spiritual retreat." "I'm a difficult kind of dude....I have trust issues.," he says. "There were some things about myself that I didn't like. People got to take inventory from time to time. That's what this [coming to South Africa] is for. "I'm an introspective dude. I enjoy my own thoughts sometimes. And I've been doing a lot of thinking here," he tells the magazine. As for the other explanations for his abrupt absence. "There were things that overwhelmed me," he says. "But not in the way that people are saying. I haven't spent any of the money. All that stuff about partying and taking crack is not true. "I haven't smoked marijuana in months. My drugs these days are nicotine and coffee." What he does admit to is struggling with expectations--his fans', the network's, but mostly his own--for the third season of Chappelle's Show. "My personal feeling is I didn't like the direction of the show. I was trying to explain it to people, and no one was feeling me. There's a lot of resistance to my opinions, so I decided, Let me remove myself from this situation. "So I figured, let me just cut myself off from everybody, take a minute and pull a Flintstone--stop a speeding car by using my bare feet as the brakes." Chappelle says he first shut down production late last year after he became unsatisfied with the first batch of season-three skits. That led Comedy Central to bump the original February premiere date to May--a delay initially reported as due to a Chappelle "illness" and subsequent inability to stockpile enough scripts to meet the launch. Now, a peeved Comedy Central boss Doug Herzog, suddenly scrambling to replace one of his biggest hits, says he doesn't foresee Chappelle's Show back on the air in 2005. For his part, Chappelle tells Time he is unsure of when he will be back in the States or what will happen to his titular series. "When I get back, [I hope] everything will be up and running, or we'll make other arrangements. I don't know what the lay of the land is. "I want to make sure I'm dancing and not shuffling," he continues. "What ever decisions I make right now I'm going to have live with. Your soul is priceless." The first two seasons of his show "had a real spirit to them," he says. "I want to make sure whatever I do has spirit." http://www.eonline.com/News/Items/0,1,16556,00.html [ Post Comment ] Comment #20 posted by Hope on May 15, 2005 at 06:41:16 PT Time article only available to subscribers. [ Post Comment ] Comment #19 posted by Hope on May 15, 2005 at 06:32:12 PT The interview and explanation http://www.time.com/time/arts/article/0,8599,1061418,00.html [ Post Comment ] Comment #18 posted by Hope on May 14, 2005 at 20:31:45 PT Chappelle Apparently he's not in a mental hospital. He just decided to do a "Flintstone stop"...with his feet.Should be an interview from South Africa with Chappelle in Time tomorrow. [ Post Comment ] Comment #17 posted by FoM on May 14, 2005 at 09:05:58 PT Hope I wondered how it went to. I also use google and they had an article from 2002 recently. They don't often make mistakes but they have before. I don't know if we have anyone from Germany here on CNews. I get lots of hits from Germany on my Neil Young pages. They just love him over there. [ Post Comment ] Comment #16 posted by Hope on May 14, 2005 at 08:55:01 PT FoM, about Berlin...Expatica...Google News That's just weird. It's being reported as fresh news, now it shows it's "19 hours ago" at my Google News...which is customized to catch marijuana and cannabis news.I count on Google News for up to date news. Wonder how that happened?Since it is old news, I wonder how things in Berlin developed, and if they actually did make cannabis use non-criminal. [ Post Comment ] Comment #15 posted by FoM on May 14, 2005 at 08:52:31 PT Mayan I know he is very high strung and maybe he just is burnt out. Maybe he needs help with a drug problem or maybe he is just overwhelmed by his success. Stress can do bad things to people as we all know. [ Post Comment ] Comment #14 posted by mayan on May 14, 2005 at 04:40:34 PT FoM There are zillions of rumors floating around but nobody seems to know for sure. The author of the Salon article is a little presumptive.unrelated...Petition calls for legalizing marijuana: http://www.press-citizen.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20050514/NEWS01/505140315/1079Alameda considers risks of pot plan: http://www.montereyherald.com/mld/montereyherald/news/state/11647706.htmGovernment claims about marijuana are a lie: http://www.rapidcityjournal.com/articles/2005/05/14/news/opinion/opin215.txt [ Post Comment ] Comment #13 posted by FoM on May 13, 2005 at 21:40:39 PT Hope I saw the date and did a search and it's the same article as this one. I don't know why they posted it again.http://cannabisnews.com/news/thread18508.shtml [ Post Comment ] Comment #12 posted by Hope on May 13, 2005 at 21:30:06 PT The Expatica piece on Berlin I don't understand what the March 2004 business at the bottom of the article is about, but I went back to the front page of the Expatica site before I posted it here, to try and make sure that it wasn't old news. The article was on their front page headlines...so I don't know what the deal is with that March 2004 business. It looks like a current article, though, except for that. [ Post Comment ] Comment #11 posted by Hope on May 13, 2005 at 21:02:38 PT Cannabis combats heart attack, stroke http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5744,15268075%255E23289,00.html [ Post Comment ] Comment #10 posted by Hope on May 13, 2005 at 21:01:19 PT Berlin Decriminalizing "Bowing to reality"http://www.expatica.com/source/site_article.asp?subchannel_id=52&story_id=5589&name=Dope+laws+up+in+smoke [ Post Comment ] Comment #9 posted by FoM on May 13, 2005 at 20:05:42 PT mayan The only thing I've read is he was really working very hard and that's what caused him to enter a mental health clinic. He probably feels used up right now. They do that to talented people. [ Post Comment ] Comment #8 posted by mayan on May 13, 2005 at 18:24:13 PT curious Does anyone know what Chappelle checked himself in for?unrelated...Sprinter stripped of medal over cannabis: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/main.jhtml?view=DETAILS&grid=&xml=/sport/2005/05/14/soaths14.xmlMedical marijuana rules changed: http://www.sonomanews.com/articles/2005/05/13/news/top_stories/news06.txtTHE WAY OUT IS THE WAY IN...C-SPAN posts video archive of Griffin speech -- to air again date TBA: http://911citizenswatch.org/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=538&mode=thread&order=0&thold=0Martial Law 9/11: http://martiallaw911.info/Reopen 9/11: http://www.reopen911.org/9/11 Sites: http://www.911sites.org/ [ Post Comment ] Comment #7 posted by Sukoi on May 13, 2005 at 12:00:34 PT FoM So do you :) [ Post Comment ] Comment #6 posted by FoM on May 13, 2005 at 11:54:10 PT Sukoi You've Got Mail! [ Post Comment ] Comment #5 posted by FoM on May 13, 2005 at 11:34:56 PT Sukoi Thank you. Do you have my address? I'll send it to you again. It does sound funny. [ Post Comment ] Comment #4 posted by Sukoi on May 13, 2005 at 11:30:18 PT: Hi FoM I have the Dave Chapelle video that mastercy was talking about (it is quite good) and was going to send it to you but I lost your email address when I redid my confuser. Email me and I'll send it to you [ Post Comment ] Comment #3 posted by FoM on May 13, 2005 at 10:39:49 PT mastercy No I didn't didn't see that but it sounds funny. I do my best to watch The Daily Show and sometimes miss other shows. I appreciate Jon Stewarts take on the news. [ Post Comment ] Comment #2 posted by mastercy on May 13, 2005 at 10:33:05 PT thc free pot FoM, Did you ever see the fake commercial on the Chappelle show for THC-Free Pot, All the flavor and none of the guilt. It was pretty funny [ Post Comment ] Comment #1 posted by FoM on May 13, 2005 at 09:24:24 PT Just a Comment I really enjoy the Dave Chappelle Show but it always seems to be about hard drugs and it seems so foreign to me. I find humor about marijuana really funny but when it comes to other drugs legal or illegal I find it hard to laugh.http://www.comedycentral.com/tv_shows/chappellesshow/ [ Post Comment ] Post Comment