Richard Pryor: Omit the Logic

The two most beautiful words... in the world of comedy... Richard Pryor.

Good evening!

Waitin' for the people to get from the bathroom.

People in there pissin'... "Wait, the show just started".

Richard Pryor, undisputed champion of the world, greatest of all times. Case closed.

Period. Exclamation point!

This is the fun part for me, when the white people come back

after intermission and find out niggas then stole their seats.

We were sitting here, weren't we?

Yes, we were sitting right there.

Well, you ain't sitting here now, motherfucker.

It was just amazing to see him live. It's like saying that you saw Coltrane play.

What you taking my picture for?

You know you ain't got no film in the camera.

You're just flashing. Ain't nothing flashing. Sit your ugly ass down.

Most of us saw Richard and thought, he's free-flying. I want a free-fly.

I love when white dudes get mad and cuss.

Right?

Because you have some funny motherfuckers when you cuss.

Right? They be saying shit like, yeah, come on, peckerhead.

Come on, you fuckin' jerk-off. Come on!

Yeah, you fuckin' A right, buddy.

Niggas be talkin' about, buddy this.

I always talked about making them brave enough to see themselves.

And the demons that he wanted to exercise in the audience

became demons that he found hard to exorcise in himself.

Richard Pryor, the comedian and writer, was badly burned

in an accident at his home in California last night.

Authorities say Richard Pryor either walked or ran

nearly a mile and a half from his house to

this location where an ambulance rescued him.

There was an indication that a butane lighter exploded on Mr. Pryor.

What can you tell us about that?

Right now, I'm not gonna say anything as

cause or determination until we know for sure.

Is there any indication that there might have

been some manufacturing of drugs on the premises?

I can't say that either this time.

Pryor's attorney talked with reporters and disputed

the LAPD theory that Pryor was using freebase cocaine.

He had a glass of rum in his hand.

He was lighting a cigarette when 'boom'.

No cocaine?

No cocaine.

If anyone is monitoring the intercom, let me inform you

that we have the right to check the premises for flammables.

We intend to make entry by force if necessary.

We have a verbal search warrant.

Fire and police investigators obtained a search warrant

and forcibly entered Pryor's home to look for clues this morning.

But police said someone had already cleaned up the

scene of the fire and they could find no evidence.

Everybody had this sense that something was

ultimately going to happen and it finally did.

This is it.

He's finally killed himself.

For the first time on television, Richard Pryor.

I'm going to tell you a few things about myself

because a lot of you probably don't know me.

I'm not a New Yorker.

My home's in Pierre, Illinois.

And, uh...

Thank you.

I'm from an average-type family.

Eleven kids.

No mother and father, just kids.

I was roaming around Greenwich Village, and I wandered into the Cafe Au Go Go.

And I saw this guy do a set, and I was completely mesmerized.

I thought, this guy is going to be a major star,

if I can get him to be able to put two sentences together

without fuck, motherfucker, cunt.

The next party you go to, everybody will be dancing away, having a heck of a time.

There will be one guy in the corner by himself, checking himself out, right?

Everybody else will be dancing, one guy in the corner.

Richard and I would have to go through the material, rehearsing and preparing.

And it was never to make it funny.

It was to make it cleaner.

I went to the opening night, and his first legitimate gig at 'The Living Room',

which was a chic Eastside Watt.

And it was very crowded, and the maître d' said, could Nipsey Russell join you?

I said, sure, of course.

Nipsey sat down.

And all during the show, Nipsey's going,

I said, what's wrong with you?

And they said, at the end of the show, what was wrong?

He says, he's doing Bill Cosby.

Bill Cosby had did what they call the crossover.

You know, he'd gotten white people to like him.

And I think Richard thought he had to imitate Bill to get over,

to become part of the circus or whatever it was.

All the success came within here.

Yes.

How is it up here?

Oh, wow.

How does it come out?

Oh, hostile.

Really?

Yes, I go out.

I don't know.

I go crazy.

Tell us the big things that are gonna happen to you.

Well, the big thing that's gonna happen to him, I'm going to Las Vegas.

He plays Vegas in 1966.

He's a huge success.

And that world that he so aspired to join,

wanted to impress everybody,

wanted to be a big star with his name in lights.

And suddenly, there's a hollowness to that prize.

Richard Frye.

I want to really tell you, it's really, wow, being here.

My home's in Midwest Illinois, Peoria.

Peoria.

Peoria.

Yeah.

Peoria where?

Peoria, Illinois.

When he was in Las Vegas performing,

he looked out in the audience and saw some white people.

Dean Martin was in the audience and he was looking at him.

And Richard said, I looked at Dean Martin through his own eyes

and saw me looking like a damn fool.

It was like an epiphany.

I don't want to do it that way anymore.

I want to do it the way I hear it.

That was probably when Richard Pryor decided to become Richard Pryor.

In the middle of the night, I got a call.

You better get out here because Richard Pryor has just gone nuts

and he is literally hanging from the chandeliers in the lobby.

I want him out of the hotel and he is finished.

No, nice talking to you, you know.

It was all over town.

You heard what happened last night.

And I think he was fired the next day.

It was so public.

You had a Vegas gig.

That's what every comic wants.

And you blew it?

And I guess everybody thought that, well, that's the end of Richard Pryor.

I did not hear from him.

I did not know where he was.

Richard was gone.

Don't try to find no logic,

because a lot of this shit here is logic is omitted.

And sometimes to understand,

Richard, you have to first omit logic.

And then you come closer,

because what you think it ought to be,

there ain't gonna be nothing like that.

Talking, talking to the people.

Try, get them to go your way.

Oh, that's the way.

Richard, he says, I'm gonna start all over again.

He had a new name.

It was Edward or Edwin or something stupid.

So I'm gonna call myself him.

He said, I'm gonna come and I'm gonna pretend like I have nothing.

And see how I get to know these people here.

The hippies.

I'm gonna be one of them.

He gave up everything.

He gave up his driver's license.

He gave his bank account.

He gave up any kind of ID.

He lived in this horrible little clapboard boarding house.

He invited me to go to an after party.

And we weren't apart for like six years.

I am.

I am.

I am.

There was a lot of beaverous things going on.

People asserting their rights.

Demonstrations.

There was just a lot of ferment in the Bay Area.

Something different was happening with Afro-American culture.

It had come into its own.

And Richard showed up and gave it new life.

There used to be some beautiful black man would

come through the neighborhood Dress in African shit.

You know.

Really nice shit.

You know.

And they'd be peace, love.

Black is beautiful.

Remember the essence of life.

We are people of the universe.

Life is beautiful.

My parents would go, that nigga crazy.

No one had heard him using the n-word the way he does.

And he was just starting to do that.

He was tiptoeing into it.

And in comedy, you just never heard anything like this.

So Richard would nudge this audience to some

kind of feeling about who they really were.

So he's telling the joke.

And white guy in the back says, you ought to be glad I got a sense of humor.

And Richard said, yeah, you know, I am glad you got a

sense of humor because I know what you do to us niggas.

He was acutely aware of the dynamics of political racial segregation.

This audience that he was playing to was as hip an audience as you could get.

And they weren't sure that they were going to go along.