Before this descends into the usual Dane Cook-bashing, I feel compelled to say that I do have some sympathy for the guy. Joke-stealing aside, he had a few okay bits, and if you’ve seen a lot of comedy, all things considered, you’d probably call him above-average. Then he got famous way too fast and it showed, and everyone hated him for it, and I’m not sure it was entirely his fault. He was more overexposed than terrible. (There are worse – have you ever seen Ant?)

Anyway, he stopped by the Laugh Factory for a drop in last night, and apparently it got ugly.

There were some, like Daniel Kinno, who found themselves bumped so that Cook could take the stage for as long as he wanted while he worked out new material, a raw process of discovery that Kinno describes thusly: “Watched him spiral for 45 minutes before I left. Could have been worse, he could have done his act.” YouTube star Jenna Marbles was slightly less charitable or pithy, saying, “Dane Cook took a sh*t on everyone. Might as well have been literally.” And stand-up comic and Late Night With Jimmy Fallon writer Ali Waller provided a more specific appraisal, saying, “Glad Dane Cook stopped by the Improv tonight, otherwise I’d never hear the story about how he ‘chainsaw-f*cked’ a ‘disgusting whore’s c*nt.’” [via AVClub]

To be fair, “chainsaw-f*cked a disgusting whore’s c*nt” is decent wordplay. And if he’d actually sh*t on everyone literally, he’d be hailed as an Andy Kaufman-level subversive genius. WHAT, BRO? THIS IS ALT COMEDY!

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_{(old picture, not from this event, in case that was unclear)}

Dave Chappelle at Cobb’s Comedy Club in San Francisco, April 16th, 2011

I know this post isn’t strictly movie-related, but then, when has this site ever been strict about anything? And anyway, plenty of people seem to be interested in what Dave Chappelle is up to these days, so why shouldn’t I be the one to bring you the first-hand report? Don’t answer that, just go with it.  So, did Dave really go nuts? Is he actually a Muslim? Is he planning a comeback? Is he still funny?  READ ON, FOR POSSIBLY DEFINITIVE ANSWERS TO ALL THESE QUESTIONS AND MORE!

Chappelle dropped in to Cobb’s Comedy Club on short notice this past Friday, and a friend of mine (one of the more generous ones, luckily) who’d just happened to be perusing the club’s website that afternoon, was able to procure me a $70 ticket (they started at $55, I hear). The line outside the club 40 minutes before showtime was evidence that Dave doesn’t need much time (an hour, reportedly) or any press to sell out a show, even at double what most other comics charge.  At least, not in a town where he filmed one of his more famous specials.  Starting his 10:30 show (the second of the night) a little before 11 (insanely punctual by Chappelle standards), Chappelle’s opener, a big black guy whose name escapes me (TJ something?), performed for about 15 minutes. When he was finished, he told the crowd that Dave would be coming up shortly, said that he would be trying out some new stuff.  In the nicest way possible, he warned any A-holes who might be in attendance not to shout requests for famous bits or yell dumb crap from The Chappelle Show (this will come into play later).  The opener then exited stage left, leaving an abandoned microphone while a DJ played tracks over the PA.  If leaving an empty stage between performers seems normal for a concert, it’s something I’ve never seen at any comedy show I’ve either performed at or attended, including past shows at Cobb’s (Jim Norton, Bill Burr) or the last time I saw Chappelle five or six years ago.  Like the old HBO tagline, it all had an air of “This isn’t comedy; it’s Dave Chappelle.”

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Sad Shark hates when Sad Shark shows up too ;-(

As if hangnails and Seltzer-Friedberg movies weren’t enough proof that God is a cruel prick, Greg Giraldo died today, succumbing to the drug overdose he suffered over the weekend.  The news was first broken by Jim Norton on his Twitter feed and has been since confirmed by TMZ.  It’s the second by-all-accounts-an-awesome-dude death after Bob Schimmel died in a car crash a few weeks ago. If you knew him from anywhere, chances are you laughed at at least one of his awesome roast burns:

[at the Joan Rivers roast] “What a night — a couple of trolls, a fairy, and a giant, all going after a sunken-eyed little monster who’s obsessed with jewelry. It’s like the Lord of the Rings.”

“There’s so many black d*cks in here, it’s like we’re doing this roast from inside Lisa Lampanelli’s mouth.”

“Soul Plane — that was such a horrible, embarrassment to black people, Brigitte Nielson tried to f*ck it.”

“Carrot Top — how did you find a plastic surgeon who could add a chromosome?”

“Gary Busey’s here, kind of.  Jesus, Gary, you horse-faced lunatic.  You look like Nick Nolte f*cked a Clydesdale.”

To which Nick Nolte responded, “Huh?  Yeah, I did that.  To be honest, it was kind of a dud in the sack.”  Seriously though, hey, God, could you stop killing all the funny, nice guys?  It’s like Heaven’s selection process is the exact opposite of network TV.  I’m honestly bummed about this, and I’m not lying like I usually am when I say that.

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I know this isn’t strictly film-related, but I liked the guy so he’s going on my page. If you don’t like it, feel free to suck a wiener. Comedian Robert Schimmel died last night in Arizona, incredibly, due to injuries suffered in a car crash a week ago. 

Schimmel was traveling in Arizona with his 19-year-old daughter, Aliyah, who was driving at the time of the crash.
The car rolled onto the side of the freeway after she tried to avoid an oncoming collision, according to Schimmel’s spokesman Howard Bragman.
Also in the car was Schimmel’s 11-year-old son, who was not injured. His daughter is expected to make a full recovery. [AP]

I used the AP’s account of the accident because they somehow managed to make it through the entire article without referring to Schimmel as “foul-mouthed.”  Thanks, you other assh*les, I can’t wait for tomorrow’s top story, ‘Breaking: Comedian Swears!’  F*ck you.

Anyway, I say “incredibly” about him dying in a car accident, because the car accident part of the story is a lot more surprising than the Robert-Schimmel-having-health-problems part of the story.  He had a heart attack in 1998, was diagnosed with stage-3, non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma in 2000, and after he beat that, he found out he had cirrhosis of the liver earlier this year due to a Hepatitis-C-tainted blood transfusion he’d received in the Air Force.  He was waiting for a liver transplant when he died.   In conclusion, Kim Kardashian bangs black dudes for a living and makes six million dollars a year and Robert Schimmel finally succumbed to a gypsy curse.  Thanks, God, great work on that one.

ADDITIONAL LISTENING: Here’s Schimmel on Adam Carolla’s podcast earlier this year. And here’s a longer appearance from October 8, 2009.

Apple has the latest trailer for Vince Vaughn’s Wild West Comedy Show up today.

I’m hoping this will be more like Comedians of Comedy and less like Dane Cook’s Tourgasm, which FilmDrunk reader Justin noted, "made me think all comedians were douchebags behind the scenes crying about their jokes not being funny and girls not liking them."

I’m still on the fence about it, but the fact that the funniest line in the trailer was delivered by someone they pulled out of the audience doesn’t bode well.