TELEVISION Comedian Chappelle: I'm just trying to figure things out

The actor lives near Columbus, but residents are cool with it.
By TERRY MORROW
SCRIPPS HOWARD
The late Rick James is haunting Dave Chappelle.
Ever since Chappelle popularized the catchphrase "I'm Rick James, [rhymes with 'witch']!" in a sketch earlier this year, hecklers have picked up it and run with it.
Now whenever Chappelle does standup, hecklers are squashing his punch lines by screaming out the phrase. It got so bad at one recent show that Chappelle complained to the audience, then walked offstage.
"We're all there to enjoy the show, and five or six or seven or eight drunk people who are relentless enough can destroy an audience, if they're screaming out 'Rick James,'" says Chappelle, whose manning the standup special "For What It's Worth."
This is a case where the comedian is getting the next-to-the-last laugh. (James, who died Aug. 6, was well aware of the catchphrase and even appeared on "Chappelle.") Chappelle sees it as a side effect of sudden fame -- despite the fact he's been working with a relatively high profile for well over a decade. Before his sketch-comedy show was raking in 3 million viewers each week, he was mainly known for movies such as "Half Baked."
Don't get Chappelle wrong. He's married and the father of two, so he's happy about his newfound fortune, but he's also trying to wrap his head around it and what it means.
'An ongoing process'
"It's an ongoing process, and I'm trying to learn the lay of the land, and I'm trying to do it with a degree of grace," the 31-year-old comic says.
"But, you know, I give myself a lot of slack with these kinds of things. And there are parts of this experience that are just absolutely hilarious."
He lives on a farm near Columbus, Ohio. After the residents there got used to seeing him around, he says, they ignored his celebrity.
"Chappelle's Show" on Comedy Central, which will begin its third season in early 2005, has sent his popularity into the stratosphere. It transformed him from a standup doing stoner humor to the kind of guy college students love to mimic.
Recently, Comedy Central announced that it had a new contract with Chappelle. He'll do at least two more seasons of "Chappelle," get a huge slice of the show's DVD sales and host specials.
Some reports say the deal is worth at least $35 million.
Meanwhile, Chappelle is also in talks to do a feature film about James' life. But it is standup comedy, Chappelle says, that has always been his way of coping.
"Whenever I have stress, I always go to a comedy club and try to talk it out," he says. "In some ways, I am more comfortable there than anywhere else."
Onstage, "people allow you to exist as you," he says. "It's the one place where you can have the floor, and people will listen. At this point, I am going through all these things, and this is a good way for me to talk about it."