I’ve got a strong video recommendation for you, in case you have Netflix (which is most of you). The Mark Twain Prize for Dave Chappelle ceremony. I’m not sure how I missed it, unless it came out very recently, but it was a presentation from late last year which honored Chappelle.
There were a galaxy of stars at the event, as you can imagine, including Jon Stewart, Lorne Michaels, and Sarah Silverman. In his acceptance speech, Chappelle held out special praise for his mother, who was there. He told the audience that, as a child, he was very sensitive and cried easily, and she said the following to him, which knocked me out: “Sometimes you gotta be a lion to be the lamb you really are.” Beautiful!
As he was uttering those words, there was a camera shot back to his mother who was silently mouthing the words as he spoke them (which was really cool, since it was the spoken equivalent of someone doing great air guitar). The amazing thing is that Chappelle has the legendary status that he does, and he’s still only 46 years old. Anyway, it’s a terrific show, and if you want a taste of his recent work, here it is below, and it is brilliant, as always.
