Da Slap- Part 2!

Finally made my way to Chris Rock's new comedy special. Now, I usually would've jumped upon first hearing, but truth be told, his previous performance (Tamborine) was surprisingly... lackluster, and the clips I caught from the current special sadly seemed to echo that trend. Rock has been my personal king of comedy for a good decade plus; one can't sustain that indefinitely, and ironically, it was he who would actually note how the powers of his comedic peers would start to tarnish and diminish. I suppose both age and living large (and in increasing isolation) do little to maintain an edgy, punk, comedic persona.

Rock's number one super power is/was his genius level prowess at observation- translated into his frenetic, in your face delivery. He could organically riff on his acute observations with an ease and fluency that would leave one convulsing in laughter (eg- his description of middle aged church woman stuffing their ample feet into their dainty Sunday best footwear until the tops of their feet resembled warm loaves of bread fresh from the oven). LOFL!

This special was different however, it marked the advent of an equal amount of... proclamations. He was actually preaching, pontificating as opposed to merely presenting the evidence, and letting his comedic presentation draw you to its own conclusion(s). It struck me as being both intellectually and comedically... lazy- like aging rock stars who find they've lost a step or two on stage and now rely on grand gestures instead of the more nuanced, natural motions of a now faded youth.

Finally, the issue of the slap itself. And frankly, I expected more- both on a comedic sense and a philosophical one (yes, Rock can go there- both with relative ease, and truly revelatory results). He has repeatedly proven his powers of insight and scathing self reflection on a wide variety of topics- he goes wherever the evidence leads him. But we didn't get that this time 'round, instead we got something more like Trump's current Retribution Tour. He succeeded in landing his counter punches at last- but little else. I expected more, simply because he's been so exemplary of it.