The Day the Laughter Died

While it’s not a huge shock, I was indeed saddened by the death of Richard Pryor. As a child of the 70’s and 80’s, most kids in my neighborhood had parents who owned at least one Richard Pryor album. And since we were too young to listen we would wait until our parents weren’t home and would listen to the records clandestinely, or put a tape recorder to the stereo speaker and record the album, playing it at the bus stop or in the woods later, laughing uncontrollably. Even as a young child I had experienced bigotry and I knew a little something about the civil rights movement and all that led up to it. Richard Pryor made it bearable to be black in America, made it cool and hip. And this was before hip hop invaded suburbia.

When I was 10 or 12, my dad took me to see the movie “Richard Pryor Live on the Sunset Strip” after I begged him for weeks. We watched it together in the theater, and replayed all the funny bits in the car on the way home. It was then that I knew with absolute unwavering certainty exactly what “funny” was. It was Richard Pryor. Live, raw, real, true. He forced us to confront the ugly side of ourselves and not only examine it, but laugh at its ludicrousness. Race, sex, police brutality, drugs, alcohol. All the things we thought we were too good to deal with, Richard forced us to deal with, if we were to be honest.

Richard Pryor was the funniest man who ever lived. Bar none. He will be greatly missed.