Richard Pryor: 1940-2005

Richard Pryor: 1940-2005

I remember eyeing my father’s record collection from time to time when I was growing up, wishing I could just get a hold of one of his Richard Pryor recordings so I could hear what Pryor had to say. That obsession with the forbidden continued through adolescence, and probably ended around the time I went to college and became more concerned about Eddie Murphy. Eddie was funny, chocolate brown, and hip as could be. That stuff my folks never let me listen to, I figured was too old school for me to be worried about anyway.
Fast forward about ten years or so, when I was finally able to afford cable television without having to worry about it getting cut off all the time. Anyone who grew up with cable television probably took a lot of what was on it for granted, but for me it was a chance to do some catching up on everything popular since the early seventies. Yes, it’s sad, but true. My parents did my brain a whole lot of good protecting me from many of the evils of popular entertainment, but boy, was my social situation awkward from time to time.
I remember scanning the cable lineup and I stopped dead in my tracks when I saw a listing for Richard Pryor Live on the Sunset Strip. It was as if several of life’s questions were going to finally be answered as I settled down and waited for the curse-fest to begin. As I began watching and listening, I chuckled here and there, having already heard a few of the jokes regurgitated by various people over the years, and already immune to the concentration of profanity packed into every sentence. I began to notice something happen as Richard Pryor continued on with his routine. My chuckles turned into outright laughter, and by the time the show was over, I had tears streaming down my face from all of the laughs he drew out of me.
Now if you have ever tried to endure BET’s Comicview, you probably have figured out that anybody can have a filthy mouth. And with that filthy mouth, any man or woman can tell you about any number of awkward sexual encounters and draw a laugh or two. But I bet if you watch an entire season of Comicview, you will not find one comedian on there who could make you laugh about a conversation with a crab like Richard Pryor could. And not just make you laugh, but have you sit there and actually see how it could have really happened.
I never understood up to that point how anyone could actually refer to him as a genius. I thought, how much actually goes into being really funny anyway? Growing up watching Flip Wilson—he had his Geraldine and Here Comes the Judge skits. Then fast forward to SNL with Eddie Murphy, more skits until he went to stand up like Pryor. Martin Lawrence, skits, then stand up. All very funny, but in comparison, Richard Pryor still stood head and shoulders above them all, skit or stand up.
His genius showed in the way he could really make you think. Sure, there’s only so many times any of us want to hear the ‘N’ word, I mean, even he got tired of it himself. But at the end of any of his routines, when my stomach muscles were tired and I didn’t think I could laugh anymore, I still had plenty to think about. His main appeal revealed itself in the fact that he wasn’t afraid to say what everyone else was thinking, which was highly unusual when he hadn’t even reached the high point of his career. And even though he made you laugh, you were also acutely aware of his pain. Pain regarding racism, his own life and/or lifestyle, or the woman he just couldn’t manage to get it together with for whatever reason.
The American Heritage Dictionary defines genius as: Extraordinary intellectual and creative power. He made many uncomfortable, but made most of us laugh, think, and change the way we view comedy and life. Sounds like a genius to me. Richard Pryor, December 1, 1940 to December 10, 2005.