Welcome to this week’s episode of MH&SS where I make you sit through 40 minutes of talk on current news events — China trade (I think we’re winning), creeping collectivism (also known as, “How individual freedoms keep the Amazon burning”), and the whining of journalists because they’re becoming victims of the very “cancel culture” they created — to get to the really good stuff at the end which is a review of the absolutely brilliant and hilarious “Sticks and Stones” (also known as Dave Chappelle’s latest Netflix stand-up special).

Sure, this episode concerns itself with new trade partnerships being developed with Japan and with an eye toward what looks like almost everyone else in the Western hemisphere. And absolutely I talk New York Times columnists who think trying to get people fired is the worst thing imaginable unless they’re called a bedbug. Then it’s on, friend.

But I’d like mostly to draw your attention to Dave Chappelle’s newest stand-up routine, filmed in my hometown of Atlanta, that will make you squirm in discomfort but also make you thank the Lord we still have people willing to absolutely buck the system and simply speak.

Dave knows he’s making you uncomfortable. He doesn’t care. And he dares you not to care either. He also throws the gauntlet down and pretty much assumes there will be people seeking to “cancel” him for what he says (and they’re already trying), but he opens the show with a story about how Anthony Bourdain — a man who flew around the world and ate delicious food with cool people for a living — killed himself.

And the message is: don’t let the oppressive nature of the world keep you silent. Don’t let that happen to you. Dave doesn’t plan on it happening to him. So he speaks. And he laughs. And so do we.

Thank God.

And they’ll try to place Chappelle in a box to make themselves feel better. But he defies them. He has guns, he says, for protection. But he hates them.

In the hidden ending (be patient millennials) he’s asked what he’ll do if Trump wins again and he says he’ll probably enjoy a significant tax break. But he also tells a story, clearly meaningful to him, of meeting Obama.

He makes fun of Asians and the LGBT community while being married to an Asian woman and counting many gay people as his friends.

He talks about understanding poor white people having been a poor black person — before he became a very wealthy black person. He relates. And he doesn’t. He gets it. But he thinks it’s all a bit ridiculous. Just like most of us, when we’re at our live-and-let-live best.

He’s enigmatic and unafraid. And really, really funny.

And we need him.

And remember, if you hear something you don’t like, as he reminds everyone watching at home, you were the one that clicked on his face.

You can catch more of what I think about “Sticks & Stones” and all the politics, too, at the Spotify embed below. You can also find me on iTunes and Spreaker. Give it a listen and shoot me tips about what you want to hear on Twitter @sarailola.