October 30th, 2007Laughter now, no regrets later
NO REGRETS: D.L. Hughley doesn’t shy away from edgy humor in his stand-up act
October 11, 2007
BY JULIE HINDS
FREE PRESS POP CULTURE WRITER
Comedy means never having to say you’re sorry. Just ask D. L. Hughley, whose “Unapologetic” tour lands Friday night at the Royal Oak Music Theatre.
The older he gets, the more the 44-year-old funnyman sees the irony in the world at large, a perspective that’s good for edgy humor.
In conversation, as in his current stand-up act, he strides confidently through a potential minefield of touchy topics, finding the funny in don’t-go-there places like the Michael Vick dog-fighting scandal and the campaign to clean up rap lyrics.
“I don’t think people should have to apologize for feeling how they feel, even if it’s outside what the mainstream population thinks they should feel,” he says, elaborating on the title of his tour.
When he surveys the current climate of free expression, Hughley senses a cold front of caution.
“I think now we’re kind of this homogenized society where everybody says what they believe is politically correct and nothing more,” he muses.
This, of course, comes from a man who’s comfortable joking about politics, race, immigration and global warming along with the standard territory of marriage, sex and families.
His latest HBO special, also called “Unapologetic,” debuted last month. It’s a fast-paced, profanity-laced hour that tells it like he sees it, whether he’s riffing on the Don Imus incident or his wife’s rules on guest towels.
By speaking hilarious, occasionally uncomfortable truths, Hughley has achieved success on several fronts, from his star turn in the hit Spike Lee documentary “Original Kings of Comedy” to having his own sitcom, “The Hughleys,” which ran from 1998 to 2000 on ABC before moving for a few seasons to UPN.
This summer, he hosted BET’s “S.O.B.: Socially Offensive Behavior,” a “Candid Camera” of sorts that tested how much offensive or crazy behavior people would tolerate.
Last year, he was part of the ensemble of NBC’s “Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip,” the highly touted Aaron Sorkin followup to “The West Wing” that started off with glowing reviews, then died out as buzz and ratings declined.
He has a blunt assessment of what went wrong. “When I read that script and when we did the pilot, it was truly the best television I’d ever seen or certainly been part of, on any level. I thought it was genius, the first episode,” he recalls. “And that was the best of it. There were 21 other episodes, but they were all kind of diminishing returns. We set the bar so high, there was no way we could live up to it. We embraced the idea of being this show that was going to change things and we crumbled under the weight of everybody’s expectations and our own hubris.”
Hughley muses with the same frankness on the presidential race. “We have a black man, a woman and a Mormon running for president. It sounds like I’m getting ready to tell a bar joke,” he says. “The qualifications for president aren’t really real. You don’t have to be smart. You don’t have to have effective solutions. You have to be good on TV and loyal to a constituency.”
On the subject of protests against rap lyrics, he talks about stores where “you can’t buy the new 50 Cent album but you can get a .357. It’s like, ‘You’re not going to use that gun you just bought in a rap video, are you?’ “
He also has some thoughts about Michael Vick that include a Detroit reference. “And he plays for the Falcons?” he says. “If that same rule applies, how come he didn’t drown his wide receiver? It’s a good thing those dogs can’t talk because they’d say, ‘Yeah, I lost a fight, but you lost to the Lions.’ “
Hughley’s promise to audiences is clear. You come to the show. He’ll push himself to be as honest as he can.
“Comedy has to be about the individual artist’s truth,” he says, “regardless of how anybody else may feel about that.”
Contact
