In the Navy, you're around a lot of people from different parts of the country. They've got different accents, different upbringings. I learned to love country-western music.
If you look at my acting career, I never played a role that was similar to anything my brother played. I was always cast as the bad guy or a gangster, because my brother didn't do those kind of roles.
I would say I was an all-American teenager.
I've been in a lot of different arenas of life.
When I was nine years old, I was in a movie called, 'Landlord' with Pearl Bailey, Lou Gossett, and Beau Bridges.
Back when Sammy Davis, Jr. and Dean Martin were doing roasts, they were all friends. They knew each other's children, each other's wives, each other's families. It wasn't about being disrespectful. It was about being funny.
Eddie had the perfect template of what not to do. His big brother did all the wrong things.
You have comedians who just do jokes, and they're called comics, not comedians. You have comedians that do bits - a person that has a lot of jokes that have a beginning, a middle and an end, but it's not a real story. And you have someone that does great stories, the one that blends those things together - that person is doing comedy.
I was a bodyguard for somebody I love. That's not a good combination. I was always ready to beat somebody up.
I bombed in front of 5,000 people. Anybody that's ever stood in front of 5,000 people that don't like them can tell you, it's an energy associated with that. You don't want to feel that. You ask yourself, 'Do you really really want to do this?'
I was the dude you didn't wanna go to school with, because I would come to school and get on your shoes. If you had a hole in your pants, I'd talk about it all day long. If your hair was messed up, if you had buck teeth, I'd talk about it all day long. And I made people laugh doing it, but it wasn't like I thought I was a comedian.
I don't need to wait for someone else to get a bright idea and say, 'I wanna work with this guy.' I can do my own thing and drop it right on the Web and bypass you and your bright idea.
Aaron McGruder is a straight-up G. I call him Champ.
There are many styles of standup, but the comedians I like are people like Dick Gregory and Richard Pryor. Because Richard Pryor told the truth. Chris Rock. I love Chris Rock. He's funny, but he's also poignant. He's not there just to make people laugh; he's there to make people wake up, too.
Most of my good friends have fights with me. Those guys know that I was in martial arts for 12 years fighting on the circuit.
Other comedians got love for me. But don't get it twisted - I'm not a clown, I'm a comedian and work hard as an artist. Clowns go to college.
It's easy to go on television and say horrible things about somebody. And it's cowardly.
I don't think there's a person in the industry that wouldn't love to work with Dave Chappelle. That's a no-brainer.
When you're in the military, you get accustomed to sleep deprivation.
I wake up every morning, and I am ecstatic.
