Chris Williamson (139:36)
Well, I don't think he ever stopped thinking about things the same way. And he wasn't as sharp when he came back. There's one, like, famous video from him in Hartford, Connecticut, where he bombed, where I always tell people, stay out of Connecticut, but just that's not the point. It's like, you know, I think England's depressed. But the point was then eventually he started touring regularly, got it all back, plus then some, and then is now widely regarded as, if not the greatest of all time. He's in the consideration. There's like, prior him, Murphy Kinison, Lenny Bruce, Carlin, for some. There's like a bunch of different people that you put into, like, the greatest of all time. And Dave is certainly in that group, but he's very happy. He's a happy guy. I mean, certainly there's cultural issues that play that trouble him and life issues that everybody goes through that trouble him. But genuinely a pretty balanced guy for someone who's ultra successful. But he's not stepping outside of his lane either. What he's really concentrating on and almost exclusively Concentrating on is doing standup comedy. And he will travel. He would get in a jet and fly to New York, New York, unannounced and just show up at clubs and start doing stand up. And he's done this forever. One time I was in Colorado and I've known Dave forever. I met Dave when he was like 19 and I was like, I guess I was like 23 or 24. We were both very young and even back then I was like, this kid is so talented. It was, it was like remarkable how poised he was on stage. Like as a 19 year old kid. Kid. He will just show up places. I was in Colorado doing standup. I was at the Comedy Works. I get off stage, it was on a Friday night. I go into the green room and Dave's there. He doesn't live in Colorado. He just flew to Colorado because he knew I was going to be there and he wanted to do comedy. And so I go, do you want to do a set? He goes, should I go, yes. I go, hold on. So I went back on stage, the show was over. I go, everybody yell at the people that are on the stairs to come back. Back. Dave Chappelle is here. And the half the crowd had already like got up and left. They all come back. Everyone, everyone tells everyone they're yelling it up the stairs. Dave Chappell's here, come back. I bring him on stage, everybody goes crazy. And he does like 45 minutes just around. It was back in the. Grab him by the days. So he had this whole, like he said, grab him by the puss. This whole bit like it just happened that week. And he had this like giant and he just wanted to just go places and do comedy. So he's not doing it for money. Money, right? He's not getting paid to do this show. He would show up in New York. He's not getting paid to do the stand or wherever these clubs that he just shows up in. He's just working. He's just working on the craft of comedy. So his mindset is not try to make the most amount of money with stand up because if he was doing that, he would do an arena every night, right? But he could do an arena every night of the week all over the world and make way more money. But that's not what he's doing. What he's doing is working on the craft of comedy. He has plenty of money. Money, right? He has all this money from all these Netflix specials. They pay him an exorbitant amount of money and he makes all this money, when he does do the big show. So he's got plenty of money. So it's not money, it's just the craft. It's just the art. The new set, the new bits, the new thing. He has a guy who films all of his sets, so he's got, like, a guy there filming every one of his sets. And they break them down like this rant, that rant, because he'll, like, ask questions to people in the audience. He'll do like an hour and a half on stage, just around with a small crowd somewhere, but there's a gem in there somewhere. And then they take that gem and then they expands upon it. He'll go over it and break it down. So his process is all just about the art. And I think because of that, the love of the art is what keeps him happy. I think if it's just the love of the money and you're constantly keeping score, who's the number one touring act? And you're looking at the fucking Ticketmaster. Oh, Jesus Christ. Kevin Hart's got me beat. Son of a pitch. I gotta do two shows a night now.
