Jun 16, 2015

Dave Chappelle on Rachel Dolezal: Wait--There's An Emotional Context Going On.......

copied from the Washington Post:



Exclusive: Dave Chappelle

 won’t be making jokes about

 Rachel Dolezal anytime soon.

 Here’s why.

   

Anyone who remembers great comedy from 2003-2006 remembers “Chappelle’s Show,” Dave Chappelle’s eponymous sketch program that aired for just over two glorious seasons on Comedy Central.
One of his most memorable conceits was the racial draft, in which various groups selected celebrities (usually multi-ethnic) before they could get snatched up — for example, the black delegation used their first pick on Tiger Woods, while the Latinos selected Elian Gonzalez “before the white people try to adopt him as one of their own.”
So where would Rachel Dolezal go?
“I think black,” Chappelle said Sunday, referring to the Spokane, Wash., NAACP president who last week was outed by her own parents as a white woman who had been masquerading as black for 10 years. “We would take her all day, right?”
Chappelle, 41, was in town to deliver the commencement address to this year’s graduating class of his alma mater, the Duke Ellington School of the Arts. In explaining why artists are important to contextualizing the world, he cited Dolezal.
“The world’s become ridiculous,” he told the awestruck grads at George Washington University’s Lisner auditorium. “There’s a white lady posing as a black lady. There is not one thing that woman accomplished that she couldn’t have done as a white woman. There’s no reason! She just needed the braids! I don’t know what she was doing.”
Despite the mention in his speech, backstage and no longer held to the constraints of a 15-minute time slot, Chappelle revealed why he would wait a while before he incorporated any Dolezal jokes into his act, if he decides to do so at all.
“The thing that the media’s gotta be real careful about, that they’re kind of overlooking, is the emotional content of what she means,” Chappelle said thoughtfully, between drags of American Spirit cigarettes. “There’s something that’s very nuanced where she’s highlighting the difference between personal feeling and what’s construct as far as racism is concerned. I don’t know what her agenda is, but there’s an emotional context for black people when they see her and white people when they see her. There’s a lot of feelings that are going to come out behind what’s happening with this lady.
“And she’s just a person, no matter how we feel about her.” Yes, the man who came up with the  idea of Clayton Bigsby, a blind black Klansman (who doesn’t know he’s black), was reserved when it came to Dolezal.
“I’m probably not going to do any jokes about her or any references to her for awhile ’cause that’s going to be a lot of comedians doing a lot. And I’m sure her rebuttal will be illuminating. Like, once she’s had time to process it and kind of get her wind back and get her message together.”
Even though Sunday’s address marked a warm homecoming for Chappelle, complete with standing ovations as he entered and exited the stage, the comedian said it was “nerve-wracking” to address the students. He was clearly humbled by the honor. Chappelle graduated, “barely,” he said, in 1991.
“It seems like just yesterday, when they announced my name to walk across the stage, it was like I had won a prize,” Chappelle told the crowd. “It didn’t feel like something I had earned. And then — I’ll never forget — I opened up the little book and there was no diploma in it.”
Chappelle asked why.
“They were like, ‘You owe books, man.'”
Chappelle recounted the time his algebra teacher told the students they would need to pay close attention because they would use the information for the rest of their lives.
“I have never needed a single algebraic equation,” Chappelle said. He paused. “And I have made millions of dollars.
“The world’s a changing place. Turns out, you don’t need to be smart because the Internet. Most of the things you need to know — somebody’s already thought about them.”
Chappelle also drew huge laughs when he shot back with his own version of events after he was booed in Detroit earlier this year on his comeback tour.
“Here’s the thing,” he said. “They said I got booed off stage on TMZ. I got booed, but I didn’t leave. I was contracted to do an hour and that’s exactly what I did. And then a few people got mad and said, ‘we want our money back!’ And I said heeell no. I’m Evel Knievel. I get paid for the attempt.”
He started sneaking into comedy clubs when he was 14. His audition for Ellington wasn’t his best work. The night before his audition, he went to a bookstore and asked for a monologue. “Any monologue,” he said. “Just give me something.”
He tried, unsuccessfully, to memorize five minutes of Mark Twain and the next day, “it was terrible. I kept forgetting the lines.” Finally, a teacher asked Chappelle why he wanted to act.
“I told them, ‘I don’t!” Big laugh from the crowd. “I hang around comedy clubs and a comedian told me if I wanted to be a successful comedian, I should learn how to act. So, that’s why I’m here.”
It was the first time during the entire process that the teachers smiled. And it was enough. He was in. And 24 years later, he was back, a hometown boy who made good.
In those years, Chappelle learned some things. And one of the most valuable lessons, which he gleaned from another comedian, was that he didn’t have to be constantly funny as long as he was always interesting.
“Most comedians gauge success solely on laughter,” Chappelle said backstage. “But basically, he put me on to the idea that it’s other metrics besides laughter to gauge whether the show is going well. A guy who only thinks about laughs is like having a 64-[crayon] Crayola box but only using about 13 colors.”
So if laughs aren’t the metric, what is?
“Well,” Chappelle said, “I’m not going to give you the secret recipe, but I’ll tell you this: I have done, on many occasions, shows that have gone as long as six hours. Nobody left. They weren’t uproariously laughing the entire six hours, but I was interesting and they were fine with that.”
At its height, before TiVo and other methods of delayed consumption became ubiquitous, “Chappelle’s Show” was appointment television. Sketches such as the racial draft and Clayton Bigsby still hold up as prescient social commentary. Limited to just over two seasons, it became a part of valued pop culture ephemera after Chappelle famously walked away from a $50 million deal with Comedy Central, then jetted off to South Africa and disappeared.
The years that followed weren’t necessarily the kindest. Everyone wondered if Chappelle had lost his mind. When he started doing the late-night circuit to promote shows at Radio City Music Hall last year, Chappelle had to address what everyone was wondering: What kind of man walks away from $50 million? He told David Letterman he had $10 million in the bank, and that the difference between a life with $10 million and a life with $50 million was “minuscule.”
In April, the industry site Comedy Hype sent Chappelle fans into a tizzy when it deduced that he was taping footage for a comedy special during a tour stop in Austin.
Chappelle wouldn’t confirm or deny whether a special was forthcoming, just that he had in fact been taping.
“I don’t know if I’m going to put it out or not,” Chappelle said. “There’s a few things I filmed I’ve been sitting on. … In an hour on television, it’s hard to encompass everything you’re doing in a particular time in your profession. You’ve got to look at it as a snapshot of a much-larger picture. It’s like taking a class picture. You just want to die when it’s over.”
So, after all that’s happened, is he happier?
“I’m a more mature version of happy,” Chappelle said, contemplative again. “When I was making the show, I was very happy. It was a very difficult show. It was very exciting, it was fun, but I was happy to do it. … But life is like the Crayola box I told you about. I use more crayons now and I have a much rounder, happier experience, a fuller experience, a more interesting experience just for doing it. And I know myself and my preferences better than I did when I was a little younger.
“I’m happier in the way a guy gets happier when he starts to mature,” the comedian said. “It doesn’t make things easier, but I’m so much better at handling them.”

Correction: In his quotes about Rachel Dolezal, Chappelle was mistakenly heard as saying “context” instead of “content.” The article has been updated.


Soraya Nadia McDonald covers arts, entertainment and culture for the Washington Post with a focus on race and gender issues.

Jun 15, 2015

Radio's Bell is sound example for entrepreneurs....from USA Today

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from Steve  Strauss at USA Today:


Q: "Hey Art Bell! This is Stan from San Dimas. First time caller, long time listener. Anyway, I wanted to tell you about the time when I was driving home from work and was abducted by aliens . . . . "
A: No, I am not Art Bell, and yes, I made that up. But if you ever listened to Art Bell's old radio show, Coast to Coast AM, you know that this would be a tame call for that one-of-a-kind show.
Like millions of other people (at one time, there were more than 500 stations carrying the show and 15 million listeners), I used to love listening to Art Bell. The mix of Art's voice, tempo, and smarts combined with great guests, unusual topics, and interesting callers made for too many late nights.
Sadly, Art retired in 2010, Coast to Coast has never been the same, and except for a brief return on Sirius/XM two years ago, he hasn't been on the airwaves. Nevertheless, at 70, Art Bell is coming back, only this time I am happy to report, he's ditched his corporate gig and instead is going to do it on his terms, his way.
Starting July 20, Art returns to the airwaves on his new show, Midnight in the Desert, streaming live over the Internet using the TuneIn app and on the Dark Matter Digital Network; a network he has created with his longtime friend and webmaster Keith Rowland. Here's how he put it to me recently:
"If there's anything I learned it's that I want to do this myself. I had the most fun in my life before my old show was purchased by Clear Channel. Winging it, trying new things -- it was a blast. That's what we are going to be doing with the new show. Lots of new and fun things."
Art started out on terrestrial radio in the '80s with a single station in Las Vegas and grew that into a large syndicate by the mid-90s with his mix of unusual topics and high entertainment. Not surprisingly, a courter came-a-calling and he eventually sold the show to the Clear Channel Network, staying on doing the show for a few more years.
But, like many of us, Art learned the hard way that corporate life was not for him. He went into semi-retirement in 2003 and fully retired in 2010. In 2013 he teamed up with Sirius/XM, but for various reasons that gig only lasted six weeks. But, as he says, "radio is not a job, it's a way of life. You can't really ever leave it."
And so, knowing that he had a two-year hiatus, Art and Keith began to plan for his return again, only this time he was going to be completely in charge of the process and do the show they way he's envisioned it for some time: live streaming and free over the Internet, with a truly worldwide reach and audience.
"This is going to be great," he says. And it sure sounds like it. He had spent the last few months building a brand new studio with state-of-the-art equipment. "The sound quality is going to be excellent." Keith also has new facilities that are going to make the streaming top-notch as well.
You know your new endeavor is on the right track when things start to break your way. That's what's happening for Art right now:
■ Music played an important part in his old show – "it sets the mood" – and he needed it to again. But the cost to stream mainstream music is not inexpensive. Suddenly, an affordable solution presented itself. Problem solved.
■ While he planned on having it available only online, to date 20 terrestrial radio stations have already signed on to carry the show. The catch? They have to agree to carry only six minutes of commercials an hour. "Why is that a requirement?" I asked. "Because I want content and more content!" he bellowed happily in that unmistakable voice.
"I'm doing this to have fun. This thing is taking off and I don't know where it will take me, but it's going to be a blast. I'm excited about being able to do what I want."
Spoken like a true entrepreneur.
Today's tip: Looking for a good business book? Let me recommend Jim Blasingame's latest (and Axiom award winner), The Age of the Customer. In it, Blasingame, host of the Small Business Advocate radio show, explains how we are leaving the age-old age of the seller and entering into a paradigm-shifting new era, the era of the customer.
The rules have changed and The Age of the Customer helps you navigate this new world. Great stuff. Steve says check it out.
Steve Strauss, @Steve Strauss on Twitter, is a lawyer specializing in small business and entrepreneurship and has been writing for USATODAY.com for 20 years. E-mail: sstrauss@mrallbiz.com. Website: TheSelfEmployed.

from Chloelouise...San Diego......


Here is the other thing....Art always makes it sound soooo easy....the show is easy listening and perfect for the night. He has and had the good sense not to make the show political and not to yell at the guest. Like any other personality that makes everything sound extremely interesting and smooth, Art is gifted annd super talented at running a radio show. I love politics but I can't take an extremely one-sided political agenda coupled with how can I always try to make more money in the night. At one point when I was listening to Art's old show I realized it wasn't just the show --it was Art Bell. He makes every guest seem as if they have the most important information we can't live without--but he does it in the most relaxed way. Good luck to Art Bell and his new show.......cl--the ronnie republlic radio round-up

Jun 12, 2015

from the ronnie republic radio round-up: Carl DeMaio and Sully--News/Talk Radio--KOGO 600 AM San Diego

Carl DeMaio likes cats

Chloe Louise


Long time KOGO listener and Sully fan for a very long time.............


Sully, Merrill, Kevin Finnerty...........they make news/talk radio enjoyable in San Diego........Sully's conversations re:  the individuals without permanent housing in San Diego is admirable........former mayoral candidate, Carl De Maio is a brilliant addition to the afternoon line-up.

KOGO and the San Diego listeners are lucky to have his opinion on local and national political topics. 


Carl....love your radio show on KOGO 600 and listen to it whenever I can. 

While I am a dem and disagree with many of your policies I still always want to hear both sides and you present your case very well without anger and bashing. 

By the time you and Sully are finished discussing an issue I feel well informed. 

I really like getting to know you on the radio and you have so much to offer about San Diego politics and that kind of information is always interesting and valuable. 

Well done on not just being a one dimensional angry Republican. 


Seriously, the GOP can use more people like you and less like Bill O'Reilly.......good job.......always listening to the radio.....chloelouise from the ronnie republic.