When something happens with Dave Chappelle, it’s a near guarantee that my Facebook feed will be littered with my comedian friends all wanting to give their thoughts. An event that happened last week got some traction, so last night, I started seeing all kind of thoughts and comments about what happened to the comedian this week. You, dear reader, are now stuck hearing my thoughts.
This is the vicious circle.
For those of you unaware of what happened, here is the gist: Chappelle was doing a post-Christmas, pre-New Years run of shows at the Seminole Hard Rock Casino in Hollywood, Florida, which I can only assume is known as this nation’s “lesser Hollywood”. The comedian, like many others working today, is known for demanding that his shows be “device and electronics free”, and this usually involves asking concertgoers to place their cell phones, cameras, laptops, and smart watches in what is called a Yondr bag, which is a pouch which is locked closed upon entrance to the venue. As an example, when I took my son to see John Mulaney at Chicago’s United Center last year, I was asked to even place my Fitbit watch in a bag even though it has no camera ability or even possible connection to the internet. Wednesday night in Florida, however, one fan decided he was going to use his phone during the performance.
It’s unclear in all of the reporting whether Yondr bags were used for the show and this fan chose to ignore that or if he broke his phone out of his bag OR exactly what allowed this person to use their phone- this seems to be the difficulty of reporting a story when no one has video footage of the incident. That being the case, there is no doubt about what happened next. Chappelle- who, in promotion for the show, promised “to ignite the stage with his larger-than-life presence”- scolded the fan and then left the stage not to return, leaving the audience in this 7,000-seat venue with no more show. Every article I’ve read about this says that some people paid over $100 a ticket, and I get that’s a lot of money. But, honestly, if Chappelle were playing Chicago, the best seats in the house would run four to five times that.
So, that brings us to right now, where I’m trying to figure out exactly how I feel about all of this. What is surprising to me, is that I’m conflicted.
Before I give my thoughts, I want to state something that is a clear fact: recording a live comedy show, as an audience member, is wrong and you should never do it. If you do, you’re kind of the devil. At the very least, you’re a brazen shithead.
I’m not saying that I don’t see the appeal. You’re at a special event and you want to show people. And maybe there will be a heckler interaction or great riff you were able to record and you can share that with people. Also, you see all these clips of people who are recording Taylor Swift concerts. If she doesn’t mind, why should some comedian, right?
Wrong.
Comedy works best when an audience member doesn’t know what’s coming. A punchline is less funny if you know what you’re about to hear. And unlike a concert, when you see flocks of people rushing to take a pee when a band decides to break out “the new stuff”, at a comedy show, the new stuff is what you’re going to hear. So letting the public see that is kind of a dick move.
To close this thought: stop recording comedy shows. Just sit and enjoy yourself.
I think people who know me (or read the above portion of this) would assume that I would take the side of Chappelle. I’m all about rights of performers. I’m kind of a stickler about following rules. Also, that Mulaney show I mentioned earlier? One of the coolest experiences I’ve ever had, and part of that was being able to look around a pitch black arena and just know that everyone there was enjoying themselves. But it’s not just that. There was something that happened to me, as a comedian, that would lead everyone to think I would never want to see a phone during a comedy performance.
It’s July of 2010 and I’m opening for Nick Di Paolo at the Clearwater Theater in West Dundee, Illinois. Now, I don’t feel like I have to defend this, but I will say that this was years before Di Paolo took the hard ultra-right turn into the Steven Crowderverse and his political views were not so commonly known. However, to be fair to Di Paolo, he was nothing but kind and generous to me (both as a comedian and a person) and it, truly, was a joy working for him even though those shows were sparsely attended, mostly because they were held on the 4th of July weekend.
Before those shows began, Di Paolo pulled aside myself, the host of the show (a morning radio DJ) and the venue owners and asked us to do our best to try and shut down unruly audience members before he got onstage, so that the people who came to see him wouldn’t have to watch him try and put out any fires and just get down to the business of telling jokes. This basically meant two things: letting the audience know heckling would not be tolerated, and getting people off their phones. So, of course, for the late show on the first night, a table of six up front had the most annoying woman in the known universe, and she will not turn off her phone.
Here’s something important to know if you’re not a comedian: an audience member on their phone is very fucking distracting. Because almost every comedy show will either dim or turn off the lights where the audience is sitting, which means when you see someone with their phone out, they are clearly illuminated. So all you see, from the stage, is the literal manifestation of their disrespect as they choose whatever is on their screen over you.
So, I ask the woman on her phone to please turn off the phone and explain how distracting it can be. As a comedian, with issues like these, I always find it best to start non-combative. Usually, when having a bad behavior brought to their attention, a person will apologize and then stop whatever they were doing. This woman took a different approach, as she chose to yell out, “I was just googling you! You seem funny!”
I “seem” funny? That came off more hurtful than she definitely intended.
So I tried to explain to the woman that she didn’t need to google me. I was right onstage. Ten feet from her. Anything I want her and her table to know about me is going to come out in the form of a joke that she’ll be able to laugh at. Put the phone away, miss. Enjoy the show. Her response, “You’re on youtube!”
And then she began playing a youtube clip of me with the volume loud enough for people to hear. Keep in mind, I was performing many of the same jokes from that clip, only LIVE!
From the side, I head Di Paolo laughing super hard. Then he steps out and yells, “Miss, he’s being much nicer than I will! Get off your fucking phone!” The room cheers and claps and this woman looks around, sees that the rest of her table is not on her side, and puts her phone away. I finish my set and get offstage and Nick is still laughing. He told me I was too nice and sometimes, you have to put people in their place. I asked him if he thought that would have gotten the woman off her phone.
“No,” he said, “but you would have felt better.”
Every moment I think about what happened with Chappelle on Wednesday is another moment where I think Dave did the wrong thing. I’m not saying he should have ignored it or not torn the person on their phone into pieces. But I think about this experience not from the perspective of a comedian, but of a comedy fan.
I cannot imagine how I would feel if I dropped hundreds of dollars for tickets, dinner, a babysitter, drinks, parking, and whatever else goes into your date night to see a person widely regarded as the greatest comedian working today, only to watch him yell at an audience member and then leave. That’s not true… I know EXACTLY how I would feel. Cheated. Betrayed. Pissed. I would have wanted to take a shit into my Yondr bag and convince everyone around me to do the same.
You can defend Chappelle’s actions, and that is fine. But you also have to admit that he had options. He could have asked to have the person removed. He could have returned to the stage and finished his set. He could have instructed the people sitting next to this offender to throw his phone into the Atlantic Ocean. But, instead of doing any of these things, Chappelle chose to do the thing that hurt the most people. And not just people… his fans, all but one was following his request to the letter.
I’m not going to pretend that Dave Chappelle isn’t one of the best comedians to ever hold a microphone. But I also understand that I have soured on him in the past few years. Some of that involves some of his more controversial material, some of that involves things he has done offstage, like his embrace of being someone who upset the “cancel culture”, whatever he thinks that means. I also understand that there are still people who will stand by everything he does because of how great of a comedian he is. There is, however, one event where I think we all can agree Dave was a real asshole. And because there were no cameras at the performance, it didn’t really get talked about.
Back in October, Chappelle played two shows at Boston’s TD Garden and chose to speak about the Israel/Palestine situation. According to fans at the event, he condemned the Hamas attack on October 7 while expressing displeasure for the actions of Israel’s government. Fans in the arena got upset and began chants and heckles, some of which included “Free Palestine!” while others yelled, “What about Hamas?” According to reports, many Jewish fans left the venue claiming they did not feel safe.
Now, I want to say as clearly as possible that I have no problem with anything I’ve talked about so far. In fact, I credit Chappelle for making the decision to bravely discuss an issue that clearly means so much to so many, and trying to see the whole picture. Furthermore, I will never stop believing in his first amendment rights to speak his thoughts on the matter, no matter what my own thoughts are. This was not the problem.
My issue came when reporters tried to ask Dave what his thoughts were about the performance. When the Wall Street Journal reached out to get a comment, a spokesperson for Chappelle gave an answer so bold that it’s almost comical: Dave “denies being in Boston” at the night in question.
What a fucking coward.
There are a hundred different responses you could give, even to a situation so fraught with tension and anger on both sides, but to say that you were not in the city would be laughable if it wasn’t so pathetic. I guess Dave would have us ignore the stadium full of tickets sold for that show (and the second show that happened that night) or the eyewitness testimony. Here, the comedian (who has often talked about how comedy should be used to speak truth and shine a light) was able to use the Yondr bag as a shield: Hey, if no one has pictures or video of the show, then how do you know I was even there? Honestly, this is the best possible answer I could think of if someone asked why fans should be allowed to use their phones during a show.
So many defenders of Chappelle speak of his willingness to say and do anything and to stand up for his beliefs, and every single one of those people was silent as a fucking church mouse after this event happened. And so, I guess this is the state of comedy in 2023: if you can stop people from being able to record what you say, then you can say anything. And, when asked about it, you can just say nothing at all.
Fancy Boys Club 