What actually happened at the Dave Chappelle show in SF

My first time watching stand-up comedy was in college, and it was a blast. I made several trips across the Bay to go to Punchline Comedy Club with friends, and it was (almost) always a good time. I’m not sure why I stopped going as often after college, but it’s still on my radar whenever I travel or see that famous comedians are in town.

That’s why I bought Chris Rock / Dave Chappelle tickets when I heard they were coming to San Francisco. Funny thing, though — I hadn’t even watched Dave Chappelle prior to last year…and I only watched The Closer because of all the controversy over his (allegedly) transphobic comments.

So there I was, at the Chase Center on Sunday evening, when Dave Chappelle invited Elon Musk on stage at the end of his show. I kind of wanted to see Elon do stand-up comedy, but the crowd was in no mood for it.

More unfortunate, though, was Chappelle’s performance: He. Was. Terrible. According to people sitting next to me he was high AF, which made sense given that he was extremely crude and nowhere near as funny or intelligent as he was in The Closer.

And this is the problem with stand-up comedy: it could be hit-or-miss depending on the comedian and how intoxicated they are. I still remember a show I went to in college headlined by Zach Galifianakis, who showed up stoned and was not funny at all. I was super annoyed, and never watched anything with Galifinakis in it ever again.

Chris Rock, on the other hand, was hilarious. He poked fun at woke culture and the selective outrage we have — like, we’ll listen to Michael Jackson but not R. Kelly. “It’s the same thing…except one has better music,” he quipped.

Even the opener, Rick Ingraham, was funnier than Dave Chappelle. Ingraham (who’s white) joked about how he thought white people were the best at being racists…until he found out how racist Asian people were. True that.

In a strange way, seeing Elon Musk booed on stage made the experience worth it in spite of Chappelle’s performance. Because there’s something to be said about experiencing news being made firsthand versus reading about it the next day. Not only that, but it’s nice to judge for yourself what really happened versus relying on somebody else’s narrative.

In that vein, I’m appalled that not one article mentioned how bad Chappelle was on Sunday night, and I’m perplexed as to why. Surely it’s not because I’m the only person with good taste writing about this. My friends also agreed that Rock was much better than Chappelle, and again, not one article alluded to this fact. I’m tempted to boycott Chappelle since he was such a waste of time, but I’ll probably watch his next special on Netflix…I need to judge for myself if it’s actually bad or if the media is still trying to cancel him.

Even though it can be hit-or-miss, this whole experience made me want to visit comedy clubs like I did in college…if anybody ever wants to go, let me know.