The life of an iconoclastic comedian is not easy. You surf dangerous waves -- Mavericks-sized -- to the point break. Maybe you can be funny with airplane and 'men are from mars' jokes, but what you really want to talk about is the stuff that grates at you, that makes your audience just a little squeamish, that makes you just a little unpopular. In his most intimate special to date, Chappelle handles hot coals with bare hands, dishing the jokes lesser comedians wished they had the talent to write and the balls to actually say. Even edgy comedians perform a practiced progressivism that doesn't dare go beyond the buoys, even if it appears on the surface as raunchy or blue. Ours is a time when what you say is used against you in the court of public opinion, an exceedingly clamorous, outraged, offended, and craven entity. I can only say that I am glad that Chappelle has not acceded to the standard to which most now resign themselves. Still, as a comedian, one dictate looms large above the rest: Be funny. And man does he deliver.
