Veteran comedian and actor Chris Rock’s new Netflix stand-up special, Tamborine, debuted on Wednesday and sees the Hollywood director paint police officers as trigger-happy racist killers, claim Donald Trump’s presidency will end with the return of Jesus Christ, and cynically explaining why there will never be gun control in America.
“You would think that cops would occasionally shoot a white kid just to make it look good,” a black t-shirt and jeans-clad Rock belted at his audience in the Brooklyn Academy of Music. “You’d think every couple of months they’d look at their dead nigga calender and go… ‘Oh my God, we’re up to 16! We gotta shoot a white kid quick!'”
An “equal world,” Rock says, would be one where white mothers are mourning their children “standing next to Al Sharpton.” He also noted that calling a police officer who “gun[s] down an innocent black man” a “bad apples” is a “lovely name for a murderer.”
Rock also rationalizes a real-world need for law enforcement:
“On one hand, I’m a black man who’s like, ‘Fuck the police.’ On the other hand, I own property, so when my house gets broken into I’m not calling the Crips.”
Rock, in his first stand-up special since 2008’s Kill the Messenger, next declared that “America’s insane” and “there’s never going to be gun control.” He briefly quipped that gun laws won’t change even after the horrific mass shooting at the Route 91 Harvest country music festival in Las Vegas last October that left at least 59 people dead and more than 500 injured.
The 53-year-old Saturday Night Live alum spent the next several minutes mining through his life as a father to a high school freshman and the importance of teaching children that they can’t be “anything they want to be.”
The special, directed by fellow comedian Bo Burnham, was filmed late last November.
In rhythm, Rock seamlessly slides into why “we need bullies,” because the absence of character-building bullies led to the election of Donald Trump.
“That’s how Trump became president,” Rock declares. “We got rid of bullies. A real bully showed up and nobody knew how to handle him.”
It took Rock a third of his 64-minute show to drill down on President Trump, attempting, next, to offer some solace to his adoring crowd.
In a back-handedly complimentary way, Rock attempts to rationalize why Trump’s election could eventually “work out” and lead to the Second Coming of Jesus Christ. “Bush was so bad he gave us Obama. You forget that shit, don’t you? Bush was so bad that people said, ‘Hey maybe this black guy has the answers.’ I think people forget George Bush’s contributions to black history … Trump is so bad he’s going to give us Jesus.”
Rock rifted on religion, seemingly calling out Islamic extremists who “extremely believe in God and occasionally blow shit up.” Questioning those who say God doesn’t make mistakes, Rock counted porcupines, quicksand, and the state of Mississippi — “a big hunk of racist dirt” — among God’s greatest gaffes.
Halfway through his special Rock drops the politics for the personal, revealing the rigors of his failed marriage, his infidelity, and his addiction to porn.
“It’s my fault, because I’m a fucking asshole,” Rock says of the cheating that ended his 16-year marriage. “I didn’t listen, I wasn’t kind. I just thought I was the shit, man.”
“When you watch too much porn, you know what happens? You become, like, sexually autistic,” Rock said of his ever-increasing addiction to smut. “You develop sexual autism. You have a hard time with eye contact and verbal cues. You get desensitized. When you start watching porn, any porn will do. Then, later on, you’re all fucked up and you need a perfect porn cocktail to get you off. I was so fucked up — like, I needed an Asian girl with a black girl’s ass that speaks Spanish just to get my dick to move an inch… I’m a lot better now.”
Chris Rock’s Tamborine is now streaming on Netflix.
Follow Jerome Hudson on Twitter @jeromeehudson
COMMENTS
Please let us know if you're having issues with commenting.