want me to smiiiiiiile atcha?   (random re me)

I saw Chris Rock at Meyerhoff Symphony Hall on Tuesday. The event planning was horrible. They had the regular drinks (water, juice, coffee) in the same place as the alcoholic drinks, so the lines were ungodly long. So I bought some chocolate cake with a truffle on top (after trying to bribe the lady selling the cake into getting me a Maker's on the rocks) and it pacified me a bit.

Then I went back to my seat and hung out until the show "began." Began is in quotes because the MC came out and told jokes for a while (he was funny) but then frickin Big Daddy Kane or whatever came out and his DJ took like 20 minutes to set up. When the MC finally figured out that the audience was sitting there watching some random DJ hook up his turntables, he came out to do some more jokes, but the DJ was ready to go right in the middle of a bit about porno, which the MC readily left hanging so he could go finish his dinner. BOOO!

So we're here to see Chris Rock, and the MC is decent. But then some random washed-up rapper starts asking is if we're from the Old Skool and having his DJ play sound bytes of old songs. As charming as that is, get the hell off the stage. No, really.

Eventually, he gets the hint and goes backstage to slit his wrists (we can only hope) and a 15-minute intermission is called. Now maybe I don't understand how to plan an event, but I thought that was a supremely stupid idea to have an intermission right after the worst possible part of the show. At least have the MC come back on and finish his porno joke first!

I didn't have to use the bathroom or anything, so I stayed in my seat during the intermission. Now, granted, at least 60% of the theatre was snow white, but there is no excuse for playing country music on the house speakers at a Chris Rock show... Even if it does sound better (which it did, somehow) than the rapper who just committed suicide backstage because he realized how much he sucks.

But wait, this was a Chris Rock show, right? Right. Apparently, he hasn't done standup in a while, because that's the first thing he said. While that wasn't very funny, the rest of his act was. I was surprised how politically charged a lot of his comedy was, however. He spent probably a half hour or more making fun of everything from affirmative action to Arnold Schwarzenegger. But then he compared women to retarded children who need to think everything they do is special. Thanks, Chris, I haven't laughed that hard in a while. Apparently, it's pretty hard to screw up a Chris Rock show, even if everything but him sucks.