Remember when we wanted Dave Chappelle to explain why he dropped out of Chappelle's Show? Don't you wish now that he'd just shut up about it? He's told James Lipton, Oprah, and anyone else who will listen, and now he gets a 10-page spread in Esquire (an article you can read online for a fee) to explain what the Associated Press calls the ''cultural, professional, and personal''

reasons behind his decision. The short version: He felt pressure not to do his best work (AP's summary doesn't specify pressure from whom). Plus, showbiz ''forces dysfunctional relationships in people'' (Well, okay, but fleeing to South Africa without telling your wife or colleagues, leaving the latter all unemployed, seems kind of dysfunctional). Also, he says, white people own everything, ''and where can a black person go and be himself or say something that's familiar to him and not have to explain or apologize?'' (Uh, not Oprah, I guess, since that was a key stop on your explain-and-apologize tour.) Dude, make comedy or don't, but quit with all the whining.