Dave Chappelle’s Rare NYC Gig– “Black Lives Matter is the Worst Slogan I’ve Ever Heard”

Showbiz 411:  He began the hour by saying, quite jovially: “This will be a racist show. I’m telling you now.” His jokes about blacks and white were evenly divided. But the subjects of the day were right up there. “Black lives matter is a terrible slogan,” he said. He much prefers Dwayne Wade’s hashtag “enough is enough.”

As for the killing of Wade’s cousin, and Donald Trump’s immediate vulgarizing of it, Chappelle said: “Oh yeah, now I’m voting for Donald Trump.” That drew peals of laughter from the mixed race crowd. But I couldn’t help wonder what black comics and their audiences are saying around the country in similar clubs. Trump’s message–“What do you have to lose?”–is now a set up for various punchlines.

Chappelle talked about wanting to vote for Hillary Clinton. But it also turns out that he and his wife are friendly with outspoken conservative black actress Stacey Dash. That gives the argument balance, although he conceded that he and “Stacey are not soulmates.” He also touched on the very recent stabbing at Cornell. Is it too soon? “Who stabs anymore?” he added: “Very OJ.”

The most recent text you sent is now the slogan for your Presidential campaign. What is your slogan?

Reddit top voted comments...

"I am outside your door"

"Lol Sorry"

'Not sure I'm up for this tbh.'

"Yea, I can cover your shift tomorrow, what time?"

"Arrival of food imminent"

"Thanks for the invite, but I slept all day lol"

"I need your Hulu password"

"Hugs and kisses!"

"Seeking America’s ‘lost’ greatness and finding Trump most appealing"

"Interviews with Trump supporters across the country find a profusion of perspectives on how and when America lost its mojo; what bonds them is a sense of frustration so abiding that they’re willing to take a chance on a man they readily admit is anything but presidential, at least the way the term has historically been defined."

“The way he talks is just silly sometimes — he sounds like a fourth-grader,” said Holly Martin, a freelance technology writer who recently moved, in search of a lower cost of living, from the suburbs of Washington to the exurban town of Winchester, Va. But Martin, 59, attended a training session for Trump campaign volunteers recently because “he talks like a regular guy, and he actually loves this country. He’s not afraid to say that we’ve lost our good character.”...

Cimbal doesn’t view Trump as an optimist of the Reagan stripe, but she’s okay with voting for a harsh critic. “He speaks his mind,” she said. “So many of the others are wishy-washy. Mr. Trump isn’t a provocateur to annoy people but to get them thinking.”

Cimbal, a loyal Republican, wants people to think about how to curb illegal immigration and protect Second Amendment gun ownership rights, but she’s mainly drawn to Trump because she thinks his plain talk can get things done. Her goal is to restore a time “when there wasn’t as much animosity toward each other, when everything wasn’t about race and people just got along.”

Joe McCoy, who is 31, says he started out this campaign season “laughing at this Trump guy like everyone else.”

Still, the more he heard Trump, the more the greatness slogan resonated. “He boasts a lot, he’s got trophy wives, he’s not exactly Mr. Clean, so I was skeptical,” said McCoy, who lives in Norwich, Conn., where he does tech support from home for a multinational company.

“Mitt Romney was more my kind of guy: practical, a nice guy. But you know, people don’t like a nice guy. They like this guy because he’s right about us losing our country. I really don’t think we should be letting kids go into whichever bathroom they want to in school. The Democrats are really reaching too far on the social issues. And there’s no retirement anymore, no pensions.”