In this morning's New York Times, an article on Chris Rock by David Carr:

By this point in his career Mr. Rock, 42, has done thousands of interviews and is not content to accept the nomenclature that is handed to him. He complains about nothing and is nobody's victim. The responsibility, as he sees it, is all his, here and on the stage. The audience is there for the winning, but it takes work.

"When you get up there that first time and you don’t do well, you're basically hearing 'No'," he said, looking out the window of an office from which you can see all the way to Harlem. "How are you going to approach this 'no'? Are you going to respect it and put the blame on yourself and improve who you are, or are you going to blame the audience like an idiot?"

"It's never their fault," he said. "No matter how late it is, no matter how much they did or didn't drink, no matter what the sound system is like, no matter how hot the building is or how cold the building is, it ain't the crowd's fault. You want to get up there, you want to be a good boy, you want to headline, that's what you have to go in there with."

Mr. Rock watched Eddie Murphy take over the Garden many years ago, and he has not forgotten.

"There were moments you could hear a pin drop, and that's really what it's all about," he said. "Anybody can just say stuff and get people to scream. If you're really good, you can get them to be quiet. Quiet is true ownership of the room."

On a not-unrelated note, Jay Lake literally charts his writing career.