Originally posted Saturday, August 11, 2018 by RODNEY HO/rho@ajc.com on his AJC Radio & TV Talk blog
Dave Chappelle and Jon Stewart, who completed the first of six nights together before a rapt sold-out audience at the Tabernacle in Atlanta Friday night, have more in common than meets the eye.
Both are children of educators. Both their parents divorced. Both were naturally funny as kids and found their calling in stand up.
Stewart first saw a 17-year-old Chappelle in 1990 at the Comedy Cellar in New York City on stage and immediately knew he was a natural. "We were doing comedy," Stewart said on stage during a Q&A with the fans. "He is comedy."
They both became Comedy Central staples who walked away from the shows that made their careers.
Chappelle has been touring heavily since 2013. He did 12 solo shows at the Tabernacle just last year. And he inspired his friend Stewart to get back on the road himself and build a new set.
After strong opening sets by Donnell Rawlings and "Saturday Night Live" Weekend Update co-anchor Michael Che (who is surprisingly apolitical by nature), Stewart and Chappelle each did 45-minute sets followed by a 30-minute Q&A together on stools making each other laugh.
Stewart opened by kvetching about the humidity in Atlanta and made self-deprecating jokes about how old he looks at age 55. He noted that “blacks don’t crack,” but Jews age like avocados and if he grew out his beard just a bit more, he could be your rabbi.
He couldn’t help but lament the Trump presidency but unlike the specificity he specialized in on “The Daily Show,” his jokes on stage were super broad. He noted how America tends to veer from one extreme to another in electing presidents but Trump was an “over correction.”
“It feels like he’s been president forever,” Stewart lamented. “The presidency is supposed to age the president, not the entire country!”
After a bit about getting an AR-15 (I won’t give away the punchline), Stewart told a lengthy but amusing story about a silly Twitter war he had with Trump back in 2013 that was a precursor to what the press obsesses over every day now.
And he delved into Seinfeld territory noting that Christians easily one up the Jews when it comes to holidays, especially Hanukah and Passover vs. Christmas and Easter. “Chocolate in eggs,” he said, sure beats “eggs inside eggs.”
Chappelle, who would burn through six cigarettes over 75 minutes on stage, came on as the headliner and jumped right into how he hates guns but owns a bunch anyway. He noted that the quickest path to gun control is if every black person registered for a gun.
He also complained how ridiculous school shooting drills are at his kid’s high school and how that simply helps inform a future shooter how to go about shooting more people.
But his funniest bit of the night was not political but scatalogical, courtesy of a detailed description of a (I kid you not) Chuck Berry sex tape he once saw.
He also teased his friend and Georgia resident Mo'Nique over her "terrible negotiating skills." Earlier this year, she called for a boycott of Netflix after being offered "only" $500,000 for a Netflix special. She said she deserved more knowing folks like Chappelle had been paid 40 times more. He noted that she garnered very little sympathy from most folks by characterizing it as "only $500,000."
Unfortunately, there was a bit of a “guys being guys” air during the night when it came to jokes connected to the #MeToo movement.
Both opener Donnell Rawlings and Chappelle questioned accusations made against Jamie Foxx in part because they were 16 years old. And during a Q&A session after their main sets, Chappelle and Stewart laughed over their friend Louis C.K.'s predilection for masturbating in front of women who didn't ask for it.
Once the two comics were together, they also made several jokes about how blessed Atlanta was in terms of strip clubs (though they used a more crass term for them.)
Stewart started telling a story from the 1990s when he, Marilyn Manson and Nine Inch Nails entered a strip club with a horse-shoe shaped bar. He couldn't recall the name but dozens in the audience immediately began yelling "Clermont Lounge"!
And when Stewart recalled a stripper who crushed beer cans between her breasts, someone in the crowd noted that Blondie is still at it all these years later. He seemed both bemused and frightened at the same time.
So if you want to catch Stewart and Chappelle in a more intimate setting, you might get lucky hanging at the Clermont Lounge the next few nights.
After the show Friday, according to a photo posted by Mark Arum on Facebook, Chappelle did end up at MJQ Concourse off Ponce last night. That happens to be all of a block from the Clermont.
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