"There was some shit in my face a minute ago, I know that"
When I was about ten, if you had asked me who my top five favorite people in the world were except for my relatives, Richard Pryor and Ali definitely would have been on the list. You toss Steve Carlton up in there, Larry Holmes (ooh that Holmes/Ali fight was hard on Little Large) and probably Harold Carmichael... it's hard to say in retrospect but I think there's a very good chance that would have been my list right there.
Richard Pryor and Ali have always been linked in my mind because of how much I idolized them when I was a kid, but I think there's more to it than that. Without a doubt, the two of them shared an attitude and a unique historical moment. In the racial hothouse of the late 60's and early 70's, a boxer jailed for civil disobediance and a coke-snorting madman of a comedian were two of our culture's most profound, original voices - African-American men who took no shit from nobody, white or black. To call one a comedian and another an athlete I don't think does either of them justice. Pryor on the stage, Ali in the ring and out – it was high-wire performance art. They were manic, virile, hilarious performers, both of them, and each self-destructive in a way that would extol a heavy price – Pryor obviously, with the coke and the booze, but Ali too, in those post-Rumble years with the clowning rope-a-dope, when he took way more punches than he should have, all because he’d learned he could take a punch.
Their diseases late in their lives, their silence - with Richard it was an enormous loss for all of us, and with Ali it still is. But if it was the ferocity of their genius that ultimately consumed them, it still doesn't change the fact of their mammoth impact on the American twentieth century, two fast-talking highly intelligent badasses who spoke truth to power and changed the way we all think about each other forever.
Below is a Richard Pryor routine about boxing that begins with him riffing on a sparring session he had with Ali in a benefit. If you've never seen it before, trust me, shit is off the hook.
Richard Pryor and Ali have always been linked in my mind because of how much I idolized them when I was a kid, but I think there's more to it than that. Without a doubt, the two of them shared an attitude and a unique historical moment. In the racial hothouse of the late 60's and early 70's, a boxer jailed for civil disobediance and a coke-snorting madman of a comedian were two of our culture's most profound, original voices - African-American men who took no shit from nobody, white or black. To call one a comedian and another an athlete I don't think does either of them justice. Pryor on the stage, Ali in the ring and out – it was high-wire performance art. They were manic, virile, hilarious performers, both of them, and each self-destructive in a way that would extol a heavy price – Pryor obviously, with the coke and the booze, but Ali too, in those post-Rumble years with the clowning rope-a-dope, when he took way more punches than he should have, all because he’d learned he could take a punch.
Their diseases late in their lives, their silence - with Richard it was an enormous loss for all of us, and with Ali it still is. But if it was the ferocity of their genius that ultimately consumed them, it still doesn't change the fact of their mammoth impact on the American twentieth century, two fast-talking highly intelligent badasses who spoke truth to power and changed the way we all think about each other forever.
Below is a Richard Pryor routine about boxing that begins with him riffing on a sparring session he had with Ali in a benefit. If you've never seen it before, trust me, shit is off the hook.
2 Comments:
First off, Large you are killin' it today. This one was maybe the best of the lot, combining 2 of my favourite things: boxing and Pryor. You got two of the greatest right there: King of the Ring and the one and only King of comedy. Just killin' it.
amazing. simply amazing.
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