My Ode to Dave Chappelle
Dear Blog Diary,
The thing that I love most about Dave is that he’s a story teller. He just so happens to be funny. George Carlin was always my main man. Long winded rants of profound truth with a very harsh slap in the face to boot. Dave is not that.
He’s an orator that grips you with profound truth and there are funny bits in it.
When 2020 happened, what a wild world that was. Covid obviously, race riots, the world. This was when Netflix already gave us a handful of Dave’s specials. I waited for the next one. I actually cared what Dave would have to say about all of it.
He’s the kind of writer that I’ve grown to actually give a fuck about his perspective. He’s not an expert on medicine, or even race relations really, or politics, or anything of that nature. He’s rich and a lot of things, but I do believe he’s a man of the people, in the same light as Bourdain.
Last year Dave dropped his special, Dreamer. I love how they never announce his specials. Life goes as it should and then, today’s the day.
Every special, there’s the black and white photo reel at the end. Here is a guy that meets/knows some of the most interesting people on earth, makes a reel of it, and yet he is one of us.
If you do read the junk I write, hey thanks for being part of my world. If you even pay attention at all to what I project into this social media world, you’ve seen my posts. This year I only posted pictures in black and white, my tribute to Dave’s reel and a reflection of my life.
The thing about it though, it wasn’t simple. On the one hand, I don’t take pictures! I don’t pause the moment to capture who I’m with and yet I always wish I did. There are so many people I love that I don’t even have evidence we’ve been in the same room. I forced myself to do it.
On the other hand, I found myself chasing the feeling of being interesting. I do know some fascinating people, and if I wasn’t out and recording it, well then I wasn’t interesting, feeling like I can never live up to Dave (debatably the greatest fuckin comedian in history. You see how foolish that is.)
What I realized is that for some, unless you see me in person, you only see me in black and white. I’m just a screen. I’m not a real person. You don’t know what’s really going on in my life and you see only what I choose to put on the internet, in black and white.
The song from Dave’s Dreamer reel is “The Man” by Aloe Blacc. Last year I listened to that song walking down the street in Denver. I started weeping, thinking not just about moving to Colorado by myself but my whole life. I’m not one to give myself even a little bit of credit but in that moment I felt tall. I let myself feel my accomplishments and everything I’ve been through, the triumphs and bitter lows. I sobbed, thinking about how I liked the person I had become. I still do.
Whatever it is anyone is going through, I wish for you that you take a moment and feel your accomplishments. Give yourself some grace that you’re still going. Bonus points if you haven’t let an indifferent world turn you cold, and you don’t lash out.
I take this opportunity for myself to look back at this year. Even I haven’t seen these pictures in color since they were taken. There are so many people in my life that I get to love. There are so many that I got to see and some that I didn’t get to see. There are those I didn’t stop to get a picture with. Then there are some who only see me in black and white.
Thank you to everyone who got to share a little life with me. I have so much more to do in 2025.
E
#ARTiculate