The SBP Archives - Your less than frequent dose of SBP!

Chris Rock has kept a fairly low profile in recent years, lending his voice to a couple of animated features and appearing in the odd movie (usually horrible) but his strength is stand-up and seeing him appear in front of a live audience right in my backyard of Ottawa was definitely welcome. He didn't visit Montreal or Toronto for some reason; perhaps he heard of the record sellout times for Jerry Seinfeld's appearances a few years back but regardless, I was glad he came and he delivered the goods that I thought he would.

Rock actually started off quite tame and wasn't all that raunchy, but that changed quickly. And to be honest, that's when he was at his best. I love his profanity-laced tirades. I loved the fact he used every four-letter word you can think of. I was laughing so hard, there was a span of about 10 minutes where my throat was sore and tears were coming out of my eyes. The crowd ate it up. He was usually at his funniest when he made fun of sex and relationships, and also when he set up a 10 minute joke discussing if it's okay for a white person to use the word n*gger (Answer: Not really. Except under these conditions: it's Christmas Eve, between 4:30 and 4:49 am, after your Transformers toy you got your kid was stolen, you were beat up and pissed on...ah, maybe you had to be there!). He of course got audience approval when he discussed Barack Obama and threw George W. Bush under the bus for being the worst president in history (Think about it, now our money is worth nothing! I came up here to your country, gave the bank $3,000 to convert, and the teller gave me back a loaf of bread!).

Anyway, I had a really good time. Chris Rock, at age 43, still acts and looks like his 20 something self from back in his SNL days and had tons of energy. I hope he comes back on stage again...instead of assaulting us with Head of State 2.