I want a Golden Ticket...

On the hush-hush, I snuck out to see Dave Chappelle tape an episode of "Inside the Actors' Studio" at Pace University a few weeks back (The episode airs Sunday, Feb 12. Get your TiVo game straight). Me+300 other cats for whom three hours of evening's a load of pish-tosh compared with a live glimpse of post-(supposed)meltdown Dave. Will fool be all bugged out? Smoked out? Weirded out [by Lipton (almost certainly)] ? Turned out, it was just 'out'. Our 3hrs were spent waiting for Dave to show up. From Ohio. JLip came out twice to soothe -- he might say assuage -- the crowd, both stemming and stoking our ire by playing Season One on DVD on the bigscreen and telling us that Dave's private jet was stopping to refuel somewhere in Pennsylvania. I thought it all a great Dada joke, or hoped it was, but probably only to keep from hating his, and Dave's, ass for making us wait.

Supposed to start at 7pm. Homey walks out on stage at 10.30. Word.

But well worth the wait. Of course funny happened, and frequently, but what about the Sherman Helmsley, the Peeskie-Weeskie, the cocaine in crystalline form? None to speak of. And what of the demographic-sized crater in ComCent's programming? D.C. alluded to shadiness on the part of industry heads/haters -- whether business, personal or both [I'm unsure] but surely a bit of both -- and pretty much everything he said here, and better here. The word "PRESSURE!" was uttered often, usually followed quickly with, "AFRICA!"

Wasn't over 'til 1.30am. And student questions followed after a brief set change. We got bananas with the time-commitments. Weirder still was Doug Liman (who directed a young Chappelle in 1994's schlocky Getting In) walking in at around 11/11.30, straightaway for the front row. Appeared perpetually stunned, but it seemed like he was as keen to hear Dave speak as the rest of us were.

But we're off topic, if on we ever were. Mentioned: Dave Chappelle's Block Party. Could we be any more excited? Have you seen the bill? dead prez, Mos Def, Kweli, Common, Erykah, The Roots? Could something like this have even happened back in, say, '99 without Brooklyn imploding with self-love? Without my head gladly exploding from Rawkus overdose? Whatever, the Fugees reunite on stage, and John Legend and Kanye show up just for giggles and maybe music-making. But it's Dave Chappelle, son!

Okay... "We're gonna sell this thing right now. We're playing these white people for our freedom!" SOLD.