All In
Chris Rock’s new Netflix stand-up ‘Tamborine’ tucks valuable advice inside of comedy. But the comedian also shares love’s most important lesson.
It’s funny: when I saw that Chris Rock’s Netflix-exclusive stand up special was entitled ‘Tambourine,’ my first thought was that this song was going to be in the trailer.
And then it wasn’t. And I was sad for like three seconds. So my expectations were already thrown for a loop from the jump.
It’s surreal seeing the people you grow up watching, grow up as well. Jay-Z is two years removed from 50. At 47, he’s making an album like 4:44 because he knows he can’t be near fifty making a song about “Big Pimpin’.” (4:44 was released in summer 2017, and the man born Shawn Corey Carter wouldn’t turn 48 until December 4th of that year) Your priorities, the messages you send and things you talk about, can’t be the same, because what matters to you changes when you get older.
Similarly, at 53, Chris Rock is no longer ‘Bigger & Blacker.’ Mind you, he’s very much still Black, but with the grey hairs more present. He’s maybe ‘Blacker & Humbler.’ Prior to Tamborine, Chris Rock’s last recorded for television stand-up was Kill The Messenger… which premiered on HBO in 2008. Nearly an entire decade earlier. Assuming you don’t count Rock’s stint as host of The Oscars in 2016 a stand-up moment (and some well might).
All this to say that artists evolve and their subject matter ought to, as well. Tamborine — the first of two Netflix specials that Rock has signed on to do for the streaming service — is brutally honest from the jump. If you haven’t watched it yet, the first twenty minutes of the special may appear a bit ill-timed given the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School shooting in Parkland, Florida, just two weeks ago. Rock’s deadpan delivery about teaching Black kids how to “prepare” for life in America is hilarious, but his insistence that the white people in attendance at his show aren’t “the bad ones” seems more apologetic than it needs to be.
The real point of Tamborine comes later on in the special, when Chris Rock reveals some of the details behind his divorce from Malaak Compton-Rock (his wife of 20 years) and his ventures back into the dating world. Rock’s transparency about it all is eerily reminiscent of Richard Pryor’s timeless Live at the Sunset Strip performance where he recounted setting himself on fire. Pryor told the tale soberly enough to make the audience take it seriously; yet in a comical enough nature to make the audience laugh and not feel uncomfortable.
“Love hard or get the fuck out!” Rock tells the audience, and it’s funny… but it’s true. Maybe it’s funny BECAUSE it’s true.
In the present day when it comes to dating, especially among young Black people, this idea of “fall back” culture is embraced. It’s meant to show that you don’t catch feelings easily. Rather than “look stupid” or “chase after these hoes,” you fall back — or cease communication/interaction with — a person whenever you detect a lack of interest. It’s not a bad strategy: why waste your time and energy with someone you don’t see a future with (not even a future as in years from now, but a future as in next week)? Forcing it doesn’t help and it’s arduous, so you fall back and move on.
But sometimes we “fall back” from people we DO make connections with. It might be because of fear. We might worry we like them “too much too soon.” We might anticipate that they don’t “like” us back. Or we’d rather appear heartless so we can’t be taken advantage of and our vulnerability can’t be turned on us like the point-blank barrel of a sawed-off shotgun. We fall back so we don’t feel… and in the process, we hurt somebody. And sometimes the somebody we hurt isn’t just the person we fell away from — sometimes we are casualties ourselves.
“Loving hard” in a generation that advocates BEING hard is a radical notion. Perhaps Rock can make this proposal because he had it and he lost it. Because for some reason, humans seem much more willing to fight for something once it’s no longer in their grasp.
Rock doles out plenty of advice in Tamborine. The advice that may resonate most with young Black viewers is Rock sharing the two major keys for a couple(without kids)’s survival: “fucking and traveling.” Again, it’s funny, but he makes a valid point. Continuous intimacy, coupled with new experiences, keeps things fresh in a relationship. It allows you to learn more about each other and also create a lot of good memories… so when things go sour, you at least remember what you have to fight for and why it’s worth it. And, perhaps, when there’s consistent sex in a relationship, there’s a lower likelihood that one of the partners will stray. It’s often said, “What you won’t do, someone else will,” and that is way more accurate than it needs to be in 2018. So why not protect and defend what you have WHILE you have it, and enjoy what you’ve got with your partner, right?
“Sometimes you have to be the tambourine…”
But about thirty minutes into Rock’s special, he finally gives some clarity to why this stand-up is called “Tamborine.” While admitting to his own faults in his former marriage, Chris Rock shares this nugget: “You can’t always be the lead singer… sometimes you‘re gonna play the tambourine.”
It’s so simple yet such a perfect analogy. Rock reminds his audience that a relationship can’t function if two people are trying to be “the stars of the show” all the time. It’s about working together, being a team… playing your part when the time calls for it. That means skipping the playoff game if your partner has a work function and she/he really wants you to be there (plus, we have the technology now that allows you to save a television show and come back to it and watch it later if life happens. I’ve heard it’s called… “DVR”). That means going to a concert for your partner’s favorite artist even if you don’t like the music because you know it’ll make them happy… and maybe, possibly, for one night only, learning the lyrics to that one song (the song you REALLLLY hate and that your partner loves for some reason, that you’re not wholly sure they only love because they know you don’t like it) just to sing it along with them at the concert. It’s about sacrificing.
You use so much “me”… that you forget it’s supposed to be a “we.” And in general, many of us are too stubborn to play the background in relationships. We don’t communicate and even worse, we don’t listen. We loathe ceding our ground because we feel like we’re giving up something. But you do have to give up something to make it work. You can’t be single-minded in a relationship. That’s how you end up with one person in the relationship that’s in an entirely different place or at an entirely different pace than the other person. She’s thinking about you and you’re thinking about Black Panther… or you’re thinking about HER and she’s thinking about Michael B. Jordan in Black Panther! (I’m kidding. I think.)
You can’t half-ass it, either, or the masterwork of getting along in life together that the two of you are supposed to be creating, won’t be nearly as great as it’s supposed to be. Time is too short and too precious of a commodity to be wishy-washy when it comes to love. Sure, you won’t know someone is “it” at first sight, but you should have an idea of whether you see things going SOMEWHERE… even if that’s as simple as a second date. You have to know you want some of the same things, and that you’re willing to do the work once the conversations til 3 AM and the “good morning, babe’s” and the “just because” gifts become less frequent. You have to want to fight for the spark if the fire starts dwindling. Why NOT try?
On the flip side, if a person you’re dating isn’t giving you the love or appreciation you know you deserve, you should let them go. They might not have it in them to free themselves — possibly because they’re enjoying being WITH you while not actually being with YOU. You can care for someone deeply and realize that they do align with what you want for yourself in the future. And that’s nothing to feel guilty about. You can never get back the time you spent trying to make someone feel something for you, because the right person wouldn’t need to be told how they should feel about you.
It’s true that love is not all sunshine and roses. And it’s true that it won’t always work out. I share Jay-Z’s sentiment that “the try and the fail” are “the two things I hate.” It’s also true that you should give yourself a break and room to breathe if a certain potential something ends up hurting you. But if you meet someone that’s worth it, if you meet someone that’s willing to try, then you owe it to yourself to try, too. You owe to yourself to not half-ass it, but to go ALL in. You owe it to yourself to be willing to bang and rattle the hell out of that tambourine when it’s your boo’s time to shine, because that’s your boo! The baddest thang in the room! The biscuit and mashed potatoes to your two-piece spicy!
I personally want something that’s worth fighting for. Outside of listening to music, my musicianship could use a lot of work, but you can bet when she comes along, my tambourine will be ready to go.
Because if you aren’t willing to play the tambourine to keep what y’all have intact, if you want all of the solos all of the time, if you don’t want to do the work… then maybe you should get the fuck out. If you won’t get out (no Jordan Peele) for yourself, get out for the person you’ve been stringing along who still believes there’s something where there is nothing. Get the fuck out of the way. You’re blocking the road from those of us who DO want a chance at something real.
