It is an incredibly hard thing to say goodbye to someone you love.
Even more so when that someone has been intrinsic in the development of your very own personality and humour.
Dave Chappelle has been an icon in the game. Not just the game of comedy but the game of life. Universally acclaimed, vaunted by his peers, the best of his generation.
Dave Chappelle embodied what it is to be a comedian. He embodied the art form. Social commentary, insight and knowledge all wrapped in a warm yet acerbic delivery.
The guy was a story teller, he was conscious, he was subversive, he was insightful and now he is gone.
Dave Chappelle died on June 12 at 8:46.
The death, tragic as it is, was not sudden. We had seen the signs. Those who knew Chappelle knew he was not well. For a while now a slow degenerative disease had been eating away at him, he has finally now succumbed to it.
The signs were evident as far back as 2018 when he went on tour with Jon Stewart. Jon Stewart the erstwhile host of the Daily show, a left leaning, white, political commentator, the very poor man’s Dave Chappelle, who is also, it seems, a stand up comic.
I actually caught the show at the Royal Albert Hall in London and it was … alarming to say the least. You see Dave Chappelle was not himself. He was compromised, limited. A shadow of his true image.
At the time my hope had been that Dave had simply taken in a stray — Jon Stewart — maybe Jon needed some money and Dave had offered him some clout. But now it is clear it was Dave who had strayed. Strayed away from his genuine path and into the wilderness … and the devil came and tempted him.
The first temptation
Apart from the obvious talent, the timing, the personable delivery, Apart from all that Dave had three qualities that set him apart from everyone else.
The first was his Authenticity, the second his Integrity and the third his loyalty.
Here is the story of how he has lost all three.
In 2005, Dave famously turned down 50 million dollars to complete the third season of his eponymous show.
‘The Dave Chappelle show’ was the sketch show that propelled Dave unto our screens and into our psyche. The show allowed him to use his talents to comment on politics, race, celebrity and life in general with humour and grace.
The Dave Chappelle show churned out so many phrases and scenarios that have now become part of the cultural fabric, you couldn’t name them all. “I’m Rick James B*tch” is still being printed on t-shirts around the world 15 years later. The show was immensely popular and made Dave famous, but it was turning down the crazy money to keep the show going that made Dave a legend.
later, Dave was never really able to articulate the reasons why he had turned down the money, In an Oprah interview in 2006, after the whole affair, he was vague and cryptic. He tried to explain things, he talked about conspiracies and how on some occasion producers had tried to pressure him into wearing a dress … it never really made much sense, but we understood. We understood why he had to go, we understood about the trying to make him wear a dress. We understood about what the 50 million would have meant. We understood it all.
You see what Dave was trying to explain is a truth most people refuse to hear or if they do hear it they refuse to believe it, It’s the Truth about what is really going on in the world.
It’s the truth behind the word ‘integrity’. integrity is structural soundness. If the structure is sound you have ‘faith’ in it. You have confidence in your purpose and situation.
Dave was a sound structure back then. He knew that to compromise his art, to take money for that compromise would be a betrayal. Like Judas and his 30 pieces of silver he would gain the world but lose his soul.
To put on the dress — a tacky gimmicky short cut with sinister undertones — for cheap laughs would have been a betrayal of his talents. A middling way of getting cheap laughs when Dave is anything but middling. It would have been like turning stone to bread. A betrayal of higher ideals for base necessities. Such men who debase their true selves thus are forever chained, they will be trapped by basic economies. Selling their souls for cheap
Dave kept his ‘stones’, built an oven with them and made lots of ‘bread’.
Dave resisted and won for himself both ‘integrity’ and ‘authenticity’
‘… then the devil took him to the holy city, to the highest point of the temple and said to him, if you are who you think you are, throw yourself down …’
The wilderness
For eight years after the end of the Chappelle show, Dave was in the wilderness. We didn’t see or hear much of him, but his legend remained strong.
He had turned down 50 million but he was still well off. He was not starving. Perhaps he was blackballed by the entertainment industry and could not work. Perhaps he was content and enjoying family life. It was of no import because Dave had already taken up everything unto himself. He was on top of the game, an icon, he transcended the art form. He was at the highest point of the temple.
He was the king of comedy, the example to all comics, the Legend.
Of course there is a distinction between Dave Chappelle the comic and Dave Chappelle the person. You cannot ‘look up’ to a ‘person’. You cannot exalt a person with flaws like your own, with limitations like yours. No, When you ‘look up’ you look up to an ‘image’, A representation of qualities. The image, not the person is what you idealise or idolise — same thing.
In Dave we had someone who reflected ‘Truth’. So we were not idolising or admiring other gods. We were not deifying mere mortals, but we were listening to the eternal through it’s own aspect. We appreciated truth through truth’s messenger.
This light hearted article has taken a heavy turn. what can you do? it was initially meant to be just a quick ‘why Dave Chappelle ain’t funny no more’ but of course it goes deeper than that.
Dave knows it. He has spoken about it. We can’t pretend not to see what’s really going on. “When I kept silent my body wasted away through my groaning all day long …” It is what it is.
Ultimately, inevitably we are talking about life and death. If you don’t have the one then you have the other. An inextricable aspect of life is death. So you can choose to be a servant in one or a king in the other. Servant of life or king of death. Just as with Christ we access the eternal through Humility — this is what the Christ personified — , Dave spoke Truth through his comedy, he himself acknowledges that we trust what he says because he is honest with us — used to be honest with us.
When Dave spoke the Truth he was an agent of the Truth. He became more than a person, he became a reflection of an aspect of the eternal. He was an angel. That is what angels are. Forces beyond temporal bounds, transcendent forces.
So here it is. Here is why Dave Chappelle who previously shared an aspect of the Eternal and could live forever. Here’s how we know he has crossed over back into the bounds of death.
Death does not nourish, it does not create, it is not insightful. death traps, it holds, it oppresses and it disappoints. it is empty.
“..By their fruit you shall know them..”
Dave’s 8:46 was devoid of anything nourishing. It was dead.
The Conspiracy
From his exalted position, from the lofty heights he had achieved, Dave was unassailable. He could not be brought down for as long as he cleaved to his purpose and served the Truth. Something needed to be done, an agent was needed to obfuscate his path. to make him jump from his lofty perch.
It had to be the right agent, one innocuous enough to get close, a wolf in sheep’s clothing, unobtrusive, non threatening but utterly lethal. ‘They’ sent Jon Stewart.
Why do so many forget that the devil comes with a handshake and a smile.
Exalted positions are powerful yet precarious. How do you Assail the unassailable? how do you penetrate the impregnable? you cannot. You have to corrupt it from within, then it will decay on it’s own.
You have to attack the sound structure by introducing corrosion then the whole building will crumble on it’s own
The fall
There is a pattern to temptation.
The first stage, the ‘hedo’ stage, tests the courage of your convictions, you will be given a short path to relief, a quick fix, some bread in exchange for your stone. If you fall here you will always take the easy road. you will never build anything but live always in tents, always moving always chasing, tossed here and there by the winds of chance, for you have no anchor. You have no authenticity.
The second stage, the ‘ego’ stage, tests your integrity, you have made it past the first test and are rewarded with a status that is beyond the material. you embody a higher ideal, one that cannot be bought. So you are enticed to prove ‘you’ are indeed the chosen one. the trick here is to undermine what got you to this position in the first place. The values that set you on these lofty heights. These are the ideals that established you, and made you great.
The second value that made Dave great was his integrity. Not in a general sense but to his art form. You see Dave, understood this himself he acknowledged people want to hear from him because he is ‘honest’ with them — he is authentic. What he missed out was that people ‘listened’ to him because of the purity of his art. His stand up was not base or self serving. this was proven. 50 million times proven. they listened because Dave back then had integrity.
In going on tour with Jon Stewart Dave should have known he was testing God. He was testing his own authenticity by pairing with the inauthentic. Testing the truth by mixing with lies. He threw himself down from his unassailable apex to fall to Jon Stewarts level.
This is nothing against Jon Stewart, but the two of them going on tour together was an indication of the malignant forces at work.
Jon Stewart is not a great comic for precisely the same reasons Dave Chappelle is one. It gets spooky when you realise Jon Stewart is the exact antithesis of Dave Chappelle. The exact inverse of him. Jon Stewart is the anti-Chapelle!
Jon is pigeon holed into a very specific box. He is a ‘political’ comic occupying the left sided spectrum of that debate. This is the space he occupies. The only space he inhabits and every joke every perspective, every opinion is slave to that standpoint. This is what he is. He cannot be objective, he cannot be neutral. He cannot transcend base political rhetoric. He is a creature of the left and a slave to it’s agenda.
Whereas Dave transcended political delineations, his comedy was about higher issues even when he was political. He tackled difficult subjects like, “how old is fifteen really”, and freely confessed to not voting but if he did vote voting on the basis of personality not policy.
Dave had originality (authentic) and had integrity, Jon Stewart has neither. When you declare for a side, that is always going to be your narrative, your agenda. You are biased and as such cannot be original in your thinking.
In touring with Jon Stewart, Dave was pigeon holing himself, he was falling. he was identifying with the left and a leftist agenda, which is fine for the average comic but much much lower than where Dave had been.
The twist
And that would have been that. The end of the story. Another great man brought down by his ego, except, there is something that niggles about the sequence of events.
You see Dave had already resisted ego in quitting the Chappelle show. He had overcome the second temptation. He had already proven his integrity.
So how is it that he falls now?Did he wilfully throw himself down from his lofty heights to test God? To prove he was the chosen one?
There is something off about the timeline too. You see Dave did not hook up with Jon Stewart until 2018. Before that Dave was in the wilderness 8 years from 2005 until 2013 when he started making infrequent appearances and eventually resumed touring as a stand up.
In 2016, Netflix announced a deal with Dave for 3 specials for 20 million each. This was a 60 million dollar deal ten years after he turned down 50 million. Amazing. We were happy for Dave, his integrity and authenticity had paid off . The specials were a hit. Dave was on top of the world. All was well.
But the devil had one more trick up his sleeve. The most audacious trick of them all.
The Third Temptation
“…then the devil took him to a high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world, saying, all this is yours if you bow down and worship me…”
there is a pattern to temptation
the final stage has been called the ‘material’ stage but it is more than just ‘material’. It is about being Loyal to your ‘Self’.
In this stage you are offered ‘rulership’. For sure wealth and power are offered, but even more than that the devil offers you conversion from you being merely an agent of the divine — a reflection of a great ideal, to being an ideal yourself. Conversion from someone who serves a greater purpose to being your ‘own’ purpose.
For the last temptation the devil takes you to the top of the world and shows you all the kingdoms, not just the one you were ordained for — the temple, the field you glorify God through, in Dave’s case comedy, no he shows you all of them and says you can have it all, if you worship him.
If you stop deferring to a higher ideal -people will not look up to the ‘image’ a reflection of the greater ideal ‘God’, they will look up to you — your ‘self’ the person and not the ideals you represent.
The Ideals that got you to this point in the first place.
The question is would you rather be a king in a tent or a slave in a house. The house is a solid structure that will stand and protect. the tent will blow away and crumble before the storm.
When you worship yourself, you soon lose the other qualities. you become arrogant enough to hold a special where you do not feel the need to worship in the temple of your ideals but have now set yourself up as the temple, now it’s not about your craft it’s about you.
How else can you have a comedy special with ‘no jokes’? No preparation? No deeper meanings?
Now you can just sit on a stage and offer your opinions, your own opinions, not from the perspective of the ideal but your own personal perspective and opinions. now you have taken up rulership for your ‘self.’ You are worshipping your self and inviting others to do the same. you are sailing with no compass.
When you fall like this good becomes bad, lies become truth. You are the very inverse of what you were before.
In a speech to graduating class not long ago, Dave spoke of his father quitting his job rather than work on a contract for apartheid South Africa. The very same South Africa (now free) that Dave ran to in 2005 to escape the madness surrounding the end of the Chappelle show.
Dave said of the incident that it made him realise the difference between doing what is ‘good’ rather than doing what is ‘best’ for your self.
He understood the significance of his father suffering for a higher nobler cause.
The significance of that was not lost on Dave. So the significance of this, his ‘fall’, should not be lost on him either.
The contrast between the old Dave Chappelle and this one is as stark as Day and night. Perhaps 8:46 was what was best for Dave, it certainly was not good. His performance was one indulgent musing after another, pock marked with crude personal attacks, and basic name calling, the very opposite of good.
As for Dave he has become parody of himself now. A victim of his own wit. Because like heonce famously quipped about Ja Rule the rapper “ Who gives a F*#k what this guy has to say at a time like this”?
