"I got some for you too"

Believe it or not, we may not have seen Mel Gibson’s career prospects hit bottom yet, despite the release of a secretly recorded audio tape in which the perpetually apoplectic actor threatens to kill Russian girlfriend Oksana Grigorieva. (Details and the actual recording at RadarOnline.)

Already under investigation for domestic violence, Gibson now has a deserved reputation as an anti-Semitic, racist, sexist, drunken, violent asshole, with sparkly blue eyes. His problem, of course, is that his repellent behavior and incoherent rampages are documented by both Oksana’s tapes and police reports. Could this Hollywood meltdown possibly get any worse?

Of course it could! Here are five ways Mel Gibson’s reputation in Hollywood and throughout the world could plummet even more.

5. Confesses to killing Nicole Brown Simpson and Ron Goldman, then setting up O.J.

4. Starts dating Dakota Fanning

3. Launches necrophilia website — Gibson’s Ghoulish Delights

2. During one-hour live special broadcast on ESPN, announces he’s signing with the Taliban

1. The Passion of the Christ, Part II

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Charlie Murphy’s Most Disturbing ‘True Hollywood Stories’

Early Memories of Dave Chappelle

‘Hey, Where’s Dirty Ol’ Bitch?’

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Charlie is the older brother of comedian and actor Eddie Murphy. When Eddie’s career began skyrocketing in the ’80s, Charlie was there, working as part of Eddie’s entourage. In “True Hollywood Stories,” Charlie recounts his experiences playing basketball with Prince, rolling (and fighting) with Rick James and, in this segment, his run-in with a paralyzed former New England Patriots receiver during a dinner in Chicago. The truly fucked-up shit begins around the 6:15 mark.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=r-tpzA4wt_o

Oh, and if the ignorant comment by a racist asshole who calls himself kotapaka is still near the top of the page, feel free to vote it down. Somebody should stomp on his fucking mouth.

So either 1) Wikipedia has his birthdate wrong, 2) Dave was 17 but said he was 19, 3) Whoever told me Chappelle was 19 either was wrong or high (or both), or 4) I was wrong or high (or both). All are equal possibilities.

I mentioned in the earlier post that the Comedy Cafe’s regular open-mic host, The Fat Doctor, always introduced Chappelle as someone who was “going to be a star.” And you could see why, especially knowing how young Dave was. It’s not like Chappelle was blowing the other open-micers off the stage, it’s just that he clearly was a cut above them. Dave had more polish than anybody there — no hesitation in his delivery, no forgetting jokes, no monotone, good eye contact with the crowd, a complete lack of discernible nervousness or fear.

Having said that, Chappelle still wasn’t great by any stretch. He was just the best of an open-mic crowd. Dave wasn’t nearly as good as any number of comics you’d see back then on “Evening at the Improv,” the Budd Friedman stand-up comedy show that ran for years on A&E. But how could he be? They were seasoned, professional comedians. Chappelle was a work-in-progress, someone who had training (he had gone to — or maybe still attended — a performing-arts high school in D.C.) but lacked the years-long experience of trying out jokes, honing them, discarding the weak ones — in other words, building an act.

In the video below, Chappelle uses a joke that was in his set back in early 1991. Actually, it was more than in his set, it was one of his big laugh-getters. He might even have closed with it at the time (at least at the open-mic nights). It doesn’t come until the 0:58 mark of the video. It’s his “Batman” bit.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=xsowYYv8suI

Word for word, Chappelle’s “Batman” joke in this video — which probably is from a performance in the 1994-1998 range — is virtually identical to the way I had seen him do it several times in 1991, especially how he delivers the punchline. What’s different in the video is his much stronger facial and body gestures, his use of space and vocal tone in the set-up — in other words, he now is performing the joke, not just telling it. Which comes from familiarity with the material, stage time and confidence. And if there’s one thing you sense from watching Dave Chappelle perform, it’s his confidence and apparent sense of ease.

I emphasize apparent because when you watch Chappelle in the clips below being interviewed by James Tilton for a segment of Inside the Actors Studio, he appears awkward and uncomfortable (though humble and honest). Dave talks about his early days in stand-up, bombing at New York’s Apollo open-mic night (and how it liberated him), and his fondness for weed.

There are some good clips from Chappelle’s show that I’ll feature from time to time in The Bonedaddy Kingdom because, well, they’re funny.

In the HBO series, Hank is the bumbling second banana on a nighttime talk show starring Larry Sanders (Garry Shandling).

I stumbled across this clip on YouTube. In it Hank is meeting the members of East Coast hip hop collective Wu Tang Clan before their appearance that night on the Sanders show. (You’ll also see Jon Stewart in the clip. Stewart, playing himself, often filled in as guest-host on Larry’s show.)

It’s been years since I’ve seen this, but the part I remembered was Hank commiserating with the Clan about Da Man after being told that Ol’ Dirty Bastard just got out of jail (“I know that dig, y’know? I got parking tickets coming right out of my ass. Fuckers. Cops, y’know? Fuckers!”).

After Hank leaves, Stewart is compelled to apologize “on behalf of all my people.”

www.youtube.com/watch?v=GEPu6tUDW0k

This clip comes from Season 6, Episode 6. It’s on the Not Just the Best of the Larry Sanders Show DVD collection, which you can rent on Netflix.