Urbanite talked to some waaayyy pissed off folks this morning who attended the Dave Chappelle fundraiser last night for Kevin Powell, who is running to unseat 8-term incumbent Ed Towns in the 10th Congressional District covering Fort Greene and Bed-Stuy.
Besides what attendees describe as an hour-long wait in the rain to get in and cramped conditions once inside, the coup de grace was that headliner Chappelle, expected to make one of his rare stops on the stand-up circuit, failed to show.
Attendees, who paid between 50 and 100 bucks a pop to attend were told after several hours of waiting around that there had been a plane mishap, but that if they put their name on a piece of paper then they would be able to attend another Chappelle/Powell event, if there is one.
“It would have been fine if they had just said, ‘Look guys, we can’t apologize enough for this, there was a problem with Chappelle’s plane and we promise we’ll get you in the next time we have an event,’ but instead they just go, ‘If you have a pen put your name down on a piece of paper on your way out and we’ll try to get you credit for another event,”’ said Vic Drabicky, who attended because he saw the event listed in amNewYork.
“I thought it was going to be one of those cool experiences you only get in New York, but it turned into just being a complete mess. If you can’t get the right message out to 500 people who support you, how are you going to convince Congress to go along with your agenda?”
The crowd was also told that Chris Rock was there (as were RZA of the Wu-Tang Clan and ?uestlove of the Roots) but Rock didn’t perform. Perhaps the organizers wanted to let everyone know that the celebs in attendance were getting screwed too?
To make matters worse, and this was shocking and deeply offensive to City Hall Dispatch, apparently most attendees were there not to learn about Powell’s plans for health care and the economy, but to see this Chappelle character, who is apparently a comedian of some sort.
We’re awaiting word from the Powell campaign.
Meanwhile, more on Powell can be found in tomorrow’s edition of amNewYork.
And fortunately, Azi’s got the video of Powell’s speech.