RIP, RP

Richard Pryor is dead. Massive heart attack.

They say he married 7 times, twice to the same women. Talk about a glutton for punishment.

The only stand-out memories I have of him is seeing his “Live At The Sunset Strip” movie which was just his stand-up. Up to that point in my young life, it was the nastiest, most vulgar thing I had ever seen or heard. But the only thing I remember is him imitating a jaguar or some other big cat, talking to the people safe inside their safari cars. With his shoulder up a little and staring at them, he said something like, “yeah, come on out of their you motha fuckas…”

The other memory was when he was in Jo Jo Dancer. I was a junior in high school and was working in a theater at a lame little mall that had seen its better days. No one ever visited that mall and less people went to see the movies there. We had “B” flicks and up to Jo Jo Dancer, the biggest film we ever showed was Short Circuit.

Every black person in Oklahoma City came to Jo Jo Dancer. I didn’t even know that many black people lived in OKC and every day we had more people crowding the ticket booth than I had ever seen. It was a strange sight in Oklahoma City.

So long, Mr. Pryor.