Jalylah Burrell

Hello, Babar

Seattle-bred, Brooklyn-based cultural critic Jalylah Burrell riffs on anything and everything.

Life Imitating "30 Rock"*

Posted 01/15/2008 at 8:00 PM | Comment?

Last year, one of the most entertaining bits of YouTubery was this Tracy Morgan appearance on an El Paso,Texas, Morning Show:

Morgan's absurd outbursts kill, in part, due to the fan-boy host and hearty off-camera laughter but also Morgan's lucidity and spot-on timing. Morgan may be a sloppy drunk in his personal life (so much so that his wife Sabina just threw in the towel after 21 years) but he's a professional comedian with an expertly crafted persona and act.

But this unsettling clip from last Thursday's "Late Show with David Letterman" suggests his personal vices might be impairing his performance:

He's sluggish and struggling to get his bits out. Morgan's always fumbled his words and that's part of the spontaneous charm of his ribald comedy but it just seems like a substance has thrown him for a loop. It's sad to see because he's got something vaguely Bill Cosbyish (in the speech), a tad Martin Lawrenceish (in the physicality) and quite good. Not that he doesn't have his weaknesses. He's a lazy comic but what Black comic these days isn't. Watch him reach for the sassy Black women joke when he runs out of things to say. There was a choice line amidst all the awkward laughter, though. David Letterman, or DL as Morgan christened him, brings up the writer's strike and Morgan, in a feigned fit of strike-induced career anxiety let his feelings be known.

Tracy Morgan: I don't want to have to join one of them black plays, Man.
DL: What do you mean? What are you talking about?
Tracy Morgan: Once you in play with Cock-a-roach from the Cosby Show, your career is... Black Plays. (Mumbling) I don't want to be in one of them Black plays.

If Hollywood is flat, then Black plays aren't even at its edges, they're in Davy Jones' Locker. And what better segue to Morgan's pithiest comment of the evening.