Dave Chappelle Nearly Ends Portland As We Know It

"Don't tell a secret in Portland. I told four people at the gym, and look what happened." - Dave Chappelle to a crowd of somewhere around TEN-FUCKING-THOUSAND at Pioneer Square in Downtown PDX

Edited to add the best video yet of Dave onstage, courtesy of OregonLive.

Who knows how his innocent comment spread so wide and so quickly. Oh wait, I do -- Twitter! Myself, I got home around 6pm today and see this from a friend on my own account:

Is this Chappelle thing for real? Or is he just trying to punk the whitest city in America?

Whatever do you mean, Michael? A new project from infamously reclusive Chappelle, perhaps? A quick search brought me here , and thus commenced a few hours of furious page resetting and Tweeting (I even hit up this dude for info) and watching the Pioneer Square live cam for signs of a stage. Dave had apparently been spotted all over town, particularly in the Southeast (at Zach's Shack) and supposedly five blocks from my damn house. It didn't seem like there was any way this was real -- him dropping in unannounced at some local comedy club (well, one of the...one), yeah, but doing a set at midnight in the middle of downtown with no permit? It seemed more reasonable to believe he was just in town for Carmelo Anthony's party at Saucebox on Thursday (why the hell 'Melo is throwing a party in PDX is another question altogether).

I went to Pioneer Square at 11, and along with about 100 people, there was also an empty stage -- that had been there all day because of their summer concert series -- and, interestingly, no P.A. As the crowd swelled over the next hour, it became clear that unless Dave parachuted in with a sound system strapped to his back, this shit just couldn't happen. People were crawling all over the fucking place -- on top of walls, pillars, the nearby Starbucks. I didn't necessarily think anything really bad was going to happen -- this is mild-mannered Portland, after all -- but the rapidly growing crowd, lack of a visible police presence near the stage, and some bug-eyed weirdo muttering to himself next to me got me feeling agoraphobic, so I stepped back from a primo spot behind the stage.

Midnight comes, midnight goes, no Dave, expectedly. I travel down to the Heathman, where he's supposedly staying, just to see how much of the throng had relocated there. Only a few people milling about (including Willamette Week expat and gay-about-town icon Byron Beck), so I take off, expecting that's the end of the whole thing, and someone pulled off a pretty great new media hoax.

Then this apparently happens, what must've been moments later:

Dave Chappelle in Portland

Literally the second I get home and step out of my car, I start getting texts that Dave is actually there and performing out of a fucking practice amp that no one can hear. Bullshit? As I quickly found out, no -- true shit:

Dave Chappelle at Pioneer Square

Oh, and also this:



Obviously, this was a guerrilla operation all the way, right down to the people stripping on top of Starbucks, I guess just to remind Dave that, yes, he is in fucking Portland, and we can't go two minutes without taking our clothes off. According to OregonLive, Dave eventually got some actual speakers set up and did a truncated set, although based on Tweets of the people I know, the sound never really improved, and I can't find any YouTube evidence to the contrary as of yet.

What is the lesson of all this? Well, that Twitter owns your soul, obviously. And that Dave needs to do something legit again. Also, I knew there was a reason I moved to Portland, but I had no idea it involved one of my heroes using a tiny speaker to attempt a standup set for a crowd of thousands. Even though I missed the best part of it all, I guess.

Well, if Dave is indeed here until Thursday for 'Melo's party, I don't have a job yet, so if you need me, I'll be lurking around the Heathman.

Cook-blocking

From CNN:

WEST HOLLYWOOD, California (AP) -- Dave Chappelle has broken his own Laugh Factory endurance record.

The 34-year-old comedian topped his record of six hours and seven minutes, set in mid-April, by taking to the stage Sunday and telling jokes for six hours and 12 minutes.

"Dave was determined to keep his record because he recently heard that Dane Cook was planning on trying to break (his) record," club owner Jamie Masada said Monday.

Masada said Cook held a record of three hours and 50 minutes in early April. The mark had stood at two hours and 41 minutes, set by Richard Pryor in 1980.

Chappelle, who walked away from a $50 million deal to continue his hit Comedy Central show in 2005, told audience members he's been traveling, most recently to Ecuador, Masada said.

Holy Christ, six fucking hours of Dane Cook. Just to be safe, Dave's gonna have to do, like, two days of straight stand-up. He only has to be funny for the first 30 hours; he can make gurgling noises into the mic for the last 18. As long as he keeps the world safe from 90-minute riffs on beer pong and hair gel or whatever the hell that doofus talks about in his act, it doesn't matter.

And what's with Cook trying to break the records of African-American comedians? Sounds like somebody doesn't like to see a black man succeed.