Heaven Hell Dave Chappelle
None can imagine what it is like to be Dave Chappelle on this very night.
No one. Here he is,
the comic genius of America, curbside at the aristocratic
Beverly Hills hotel Raffles L'Ermitage, Hollywood's new celebrity magnet,
pacing back and forth, habitually fielding phone calls and thumbing through
his BlackBerry and inhaling Camel after Camel as he anticipates a ride
to the 2006 Grammy Awards from Chris Tucker, a longtime friend and funnyman
frat brother.
Disrobed of his customary hip-hop uniform of sagging, ballooned
jeans, agitprop T-shirt, tennis shoes (as they say in the Midwest), and
a charcoal-black hoodie, Chappelle is wearing a brown pinstripe suit, a
crisp white shirt, a coffee-colored tie, and tan leather shoes--very much
resembling a young man in a courtroom awaiting his fate. And appearing
very uncomfortable, as if he is in the wrong costume for a morality play
in which he is the reluctant lead actor. Certainly, it is hard to say what,
precisely, is running through Dave Chappelle's mind on this muggy February
evening in southern California. On the surface, at least, he is at once
excited and mad nervous.