Dave Chappelle: Sticks & Stones

December 2019?

I knew before it began that Sticks & Stones would be the last Dave Chappelle special I watch for a long time. I'd completed to my impossible satisfaction the full Dave Chappelle gamut and was achieving with him the kind of artistic/intellectual closure I constantly seek and rarely experience in my insatiable life. But I wasn't prepared for such an intimate and heroic experience as Sticks & Stones and its Epilogue. I dreamt a couple of weeks ago I was hanging out with my friend Dave Chappelle at his Manhattan flat. Today my friend rose in the sunlight amidst a crowd into a hero and an idol and at last a king. His specials are one thing; his Epilogue is deifying. Someday I will watch it all again from the beginning; someday I will feel bewildering distress when he releases something new; someday I won't believe he's dead who was once so alive. He's entered this echelon of icons for me. I don't think I worship him any more than I would a friend -- if I have a friend who's defining an art like this. He's like a very interesting and great friend. The difference is -- that I would speak of his glimmering ascension -- that he has thousands, literally and sometimes simultaneously, looking up at him in this way. I always think of a friend or lover differently who gains an audience like myself but not myself. I venerate that which has been venerated or taken from me. I relish the relished and neglect the neglected, and I plead the treasured trash back. Dave Chappelle is an unequivocal icon as merely the credits after his specials can reveal. A lot of his stuff over the years isn't that great! And it's a relatively small output to the general public. But we love this guy. In 2000 he was phenomenal like a kid genius; in 2019 he's accessible like the best friend you ever had. He must be the sanest great man in show business, flawed and joyous and ultimately beloved. Comedians emanate a fascinating magnetism. I am probably permanently tied now, in my artistic/intellectual soul, to Dave Chappelle's often mediocre comedy. Or maybe someday I'll leave this baggage behind and exit this world of triviality for a purer existence. Until then I love Dave Chappelle.