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1. Brian McKim & Traci Skene says:

   December 18, 2005 at 5:05 pm

   Richard Pryor–An AppreciationBy Jamy Ian SwissCont’d.And again not in any way to diminish Carlin, but Carlin was and is in direct line of succession from Lenny Bruce. He doesn’t exist without Bruce. This observation does nothing to tarnish Carlin, a brilliant social satirist, a masterful wordsmith, and celebrator of silliness, all rolled into a skillful comic package that includes funny voices and funny faces– Carlin’s is a complete instrument. But to me, Pryor seemed untouched by influence. This is not of course literally true– in fact, he started out very much influenced by Bill Cosby, and you can see this throughout Pryor’s work, even after he twisted up and transformed that influence into something completely his own. Nevertheless, it’s clear that, like Cosby, Pryor was never a joke-teller, but rather a storyteller, a creator of character and narrative.Interestingly, Carlin and Pryor followed similar career paths. They both hit the big-time first as straight, clean-cut comics. They even both performed on no less than the Ed Sullivan show in these mild-mannered guises. Eventually they were both transformed by the counterculture of the 60s; Carlin grew his hair and became political; Pryor began speaking with the voice of the black ghetto whence he came. Both men explored the poetry and drama of obscene language, and brought that aspect of their work to the level of high art. Those who complain about the use of such language for mere “shock” value miss the entire point of the beauty and force of these words in the mouths of maestros like Carlin and Pryor, whose work would truly not exist without those words. Surely comedy is filled with performers with more foul words than ideas in their work; filled with performers who have nothing to say except to perform as an expression of their desperate desire to land a sitcom and walk off into the sunset of syndication salvation. But on Carlin and Pryor, the language is, and remains, as an exquisite, excruciating kind of music.When I saw Carlin perform in Las Vegas around 1997, I hadn’t seen him in quite some years, and I was thrilled to discover that he was as angry as ever. It’s easy to lose that edge with age– on stage or off– but Carlin was still furious, pounding his rage, and in turn enraging audience members before my eyes, like the young married couple who shared my booth at Bally’s, the man enjoying the show throughout, the woman sharing his pleasure for a time, but ending up infuriated.And this facet of Carlin also serves for me as a subtle contrast to Pryor. For Carlin has always been fueled by his outrage, whereas Pryor always seemed, to me, to be driven not by fury, but by pain, and especially, vulnerability. Pryor, even in the throws of a foul-mouthed rant, always seemed to me a gentle soul– wounded by what he observed, rather than enraged.And this is the one thing that Carlin does not reveal to us. The work of both these men is filled with honesty and conviction, but Carlin conceals his wounds, covering them with anger, while Pryor show us his all. Not in the movies, generally– the films he made showed his silly side, and a part of him reveled in that, in the fact that the Pryor on film could fill a crowded movie theater with raucous laughs, as Pryor’s comic movie heroes, like Jerry Lewis, had once done for him. But while I admired those skills of his, and his wacky collaborations with Gene Wilder, it was never the films that mattered to me. If anything, I preferred his small body of more serious work, like his Oscar-nominated performance in “Lady Sings the Blues,” and even his more comic turn in the 60s oddity, “Wild in the Streets.”But was the pain and gentleness of his standup concerts that seized me, and have forever stayed with me. I do not think there has ever been a better piece of performance art than Pryor’s “Live on Sunset Strip.” His visit to Africa yields playful animal portrayals, along with his deeply moving commentary on the word “nigger” and his own vow to cease using it, even among his fellow African-Americans. His complaint that a healthy fistfight could be suddenly ruined by a racial epithet. And, as best as I can recall his words now, his realization that “that word is an expression of our misery.”And then, of course, the piece about his crack addiction, and the fire. The three-character conversation between himself, his stalwart friend Jim Brown, attempting to rescue him from his addiction, and that third voice, the beckoning voice of the pipe itself. There has before been art this wrenching, this revelatory, this horrifying, this personal– but has there ever been, before or since, art that was all that, and still hilariously, tear-dripping funny?Not that I’m aware of. Not on my watch, not in my time. And who knows– maybe never again. I felt somehow personally devastated by the recent death of Johnny Carson, a hero in so many ways, a magician made good, a skeptic and artist and a model of class to the very end. Although I never met either man, by comparison I feel a more personal connection to Carson, perhaps partly because I know many who in turn had met and known him, perhaps partly because his voice and visage were in my home nightly for so many years. By contrast I admired Pryor from afar– not admired, but rather, stood in awe from afar, and loved him from afar. I am filled with that awe and love now, and I feel his absence now, and it seems that something terribly wonderful has been taken from me, from us. What is it about the human condition and its inescapable experience of struggle and loss, and the artists who capture and attenuate that experience, and mirror our pain back to ourselves? And in turn, we are somehow filled with gratitude.Jamy Ian SwissDecember 10, 2005< HREF="http://www.jamyianswiss.com" REL="nofollow">Jamy Ian Swiss<> is an internationally recognized close up magician and standup comedy fan

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