Richard Pryor: Omit the Logic

The two most beautiful words in the world of comedy -

Richard Pryor.

Good evening. Wait for the people to get from the bathroom.

They're in there pissing. Wait, the shit's started.

Richard Pryor, undisputed champion of the world.

The 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 Niggers have stole their seats.

"We were sitting here, weren't we?" "Yes, we were sitting right there."

"Well, you ain't sitting there now, motherfucker!"

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

What you taking my picture for?

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

Just flash and ain't nothing flash. Sit your ugly ass down.

Most of us saw Richard and thought, he's free flying.

I want to free fly. I love when white dudes get mad and cuss.

Cos you're all some funny motherfuckers when you cuss.

Says, "Like, come on, pecker head!"

"Come on, you fucking jerk-off. Come on!"

Yeah. You fucking ain't right, buddy.

Niggers speak like, "Buddy this."

Always talked about making them brave enough to see themselves.

And the demons he wanted to exorcise 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 going to say anything about cause or determination

until we know anything for sure.

Is there any indication there might have been some manufacturing of drugs on the premises?

I can't say that either at 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.

Er, 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 Peoria, Illinois. And, er...

Thank you.

I'm from an average type family - 11 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 mesmerised.

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'll be dancing away, having a heck of a time.

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

Everybody else will be dancing. One guy in the corner... Hm. Doo.

Richard and I would have to goes through the material,

rehearsing and preparing.

And it was never to make it funny. It was to make cleaner.

I went to the opening night at his first legitimate gig

at The Living Room, which was a chic East Side boite.

And it was very crowded.

The maitre d' said, could Nipsey Russell join you?

Sure. Nipsey sat down.

All during the show, Nipsey's going... Hm. Tsk.

I said, what's wrong? At the end of the show. What was wrong?

He said, "He's doing Bill Cosby."

Bill Cosby did what they called the crossover.

He'd gotten white people to like him.

I think Richard thought he had to imitate Bill to get

over to become part of the circus or whatever it was.

Success came within a year. Yes.

How is it up here? Oh, wow! How does it come out?

Oh, hostile. Really? Oh, yes. I go out. I don't know. I go crazy.

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

A big thing that's going to happen is, I'm going to Las Vegas.

He plays Vegas in 1966. He's a huge success.

That world that he so aspired to join, wanted to impress

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

Suddenly, there's a hollowness to that price.

Richard Pryor.

APPLAUSE

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

My home's in Midwest, Illinois. Peoria.

Peoria where? 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 any more.

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'd better get out here, because Richard Pryor has just gone nuts

and he's 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, he had a Vegas gig. That's what every comic wants.

And you blew it?!

And I guess everybody thought, 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.

A lot of this in here, logic is omitted.

At some time to understand Richard, you had to first omit logic.

And then you come close.

What you think it ought to be, it ain't going to be nothing like it.

# Talking, talking to the people

# Try to get them to go your way

# Tell the girl not to worry... #

Richard has to start all over again. He had a new name.

It was Edward or Edwin or something stupid.

It's what I'm going to call myself.

I'm going to come and pretend like I have nothing and see how,

get to know these people here, the hippies, I'm going to be one of them.

He gave up everything.

He gave up his driver's licence, 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, um, we weren't apart for like six years.

I am. I am. A revolutionary.

There was a lot of things going on.

People asserting their rights. Demonstrations.

A lot of ferment in the big areas.

Something different was happening with African-American culture.

It had come into its own.

Richard showed up. And gave it new life.

There used to be some beautiful black man,

would come through the neighbourhood,

dressed in African shit.

Really nice shit, you know. They'd be, "Peace, love, black is beautiful.

"Remember the essence of life. We are people of the universe.

"Life is beautiful." My parents go, "That Nigger crazy."

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

He was just starting to do that. He was tiptoeing into it.

In comedy, you'd just never heard anything like this.

Richard would nudge this audience to some kind of feeling

about who they really were. So, he's telling the joke.

And, er, white guy in the back says,

"You ought to be glad I've got a sense of humour."

Richard said, "Yeah, I am glad you've got a sense of humour,

"because I know what you do to us Niggers."

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

I'd hate to be white...

This audience that he was playing to was as hip

an audience as you could get.

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

That's how radical Richie was.

I think he was very conscious of what he was doing.

Richard knew how to drop atomic bomb words.

He knew that words were powerful.

They accidentally shoot more Niggers out here than any place in the world.

Every time you pick up a paper,

"Nigger accidentally shot in the ass."

How do you accidentally shoot a Nigger six times in the chest?

"Well, my gun fell and just went crazy."

He was fully blown as Richie Pryor. It was astonishing.

His point of view, his attack on the culture from every version.

No holds barred. Not thinking about a career.

Not thinking about what you have to do to be right and wrong.

He wasn't a civil rights leader,

like you would say Louie Newton or Martin Luther King.

But he was somebody who inculcated the spirit of the movement.

Richard, in Berkeley, was, you know, a lovable person.

But Berkeley's not the world.

You had to meet the monster. You had to go through Hollywood.

# Where do I go when this world forsakes me

# Who do I turn to when they put me down?

# You are my hope when they all can't stop me

# You're my beginning, my middle My end... #

I met Richard Pryor in 1972.

At an upscale garden party in Beverly Hills.

I asked him what he was doing, and he said, "Nothing."

I said, "I know you're doing nothing,

"but what are you working at?"

He said, "I'm not working at anything. I'm unemployed."

I said, "How long have you been unemployed?" He said, "A long time."

I said, "Really? Who's managing you?" "Nobody."

"Whose agenting you?" "Nobody."

He didn't really have any place to go at that time,

so he took a job, doing punch-up lines for Red Fox.

I thought, "This is not right."

So, I said to Richie, "Let's record an album."