The Unbearable Blackness...

…of being Richard Pryor.

He, along with Steve Martin, Hawkeye Pierce and Archie Bunker shaped (warped? twisted?) my sense of humor as a kid. Made me the deeply conflicted and confused man I am today.

One time in the early 80s, a colleague came into work and said to me, "OhmyGod Fang, I saw a comedian on TV last night and he sounded just like you!” God help me, she was talking about Richard Pryor. My generation of young white kids didn't want to be cool like P. Diddy or Tupac, we wanted to be cool like Richard Pryor.

My heart has hurt with the loss of Richard for years. I've tried to explain to the Missus about him, what he meant to me, but most of what she knows is the string of shitty movies he made in between his groundbreaking stand-up comedy films. Most of his 40-some odd movies-for-hire are regrettably disposable, but his stand-up… His stand-up changed everything for me.

Richard Pryor changed the way I looked at issues of race, mortality and morality. Really made me confront my own racism for the first time. I am a better man for having been exposed to Richard's work, and poorer for having lost his voice to MS so many years ago.

It's funny. All the shit Richard did to try to kill himself (either passively or deliberately) over the years, and it finally took a Higher Power - whether vengeful god or capricious fate - to silence his genius with debilitating illness, a decade before it released his spirit from its mortal bondage.

I miss you Richard, and I hope you've found the peace at last that eluded you in life.

Good journey, my friend. I bet they're holding a seat next to Rosa for you at the front of the bus.