Yesterday, I rewatched Sunset Strip on a lark, and thought on it, and realized that one-way of watching the film is not to think of Pryor as a stand-up comic, but as a theater dude doing a comedic one man show. Sunset Strip is really funny, don't get me wrong. But there are moments of great seriousness. It felt like memoir.
The chief tool is Pryor's vulnerability, and a Niebuhrian humility. (Can you tell I read the Irony Of History in the last year? Can you tell I really like that word?) Pryor is not so much commenting on the world, as he's commenting on how the world (God?) keeps inverting his own assumptions. He goes to prison talking black pride, but comes out thinking "Thank God, we got prisons." He picks up a hitch-hiker in Africa and is offended by his odor, but then finds that the African is so offended by Pryor's odor that he asks to be let out the car. He talks about trying to do how his "scary black guy" doesn't actually work on all white people.
All of this is really, really late. People smarter than me, older than me, and wiser than me have likely already said as much. I actually remember them saying it, but I was to young and dumb to get it. But I understand, now. I understand why Cosby, and others, were so incensed by Def Comedy Jam. Don't get me wrong, I love a lot of those guys--Bernie Mac, D.L. Hughley, Cedric etc. But I'm put in the mind of my reflections on the great Biggie Smalls. I loved Biggie for his technique, not for the stuff about cars, drugs, girls etc. He was just a nasty technician, subject matter be damned:
Recently niggers frontin, ain't saying nothingBut the MCs who came up after big didn't see the rhyme-scheme or how he played with the rythym. They saw "Cubans" "Jesus piece" and "Brooklyn." And so what we got was a grip of rappers claiming Biggie, but not really aspiring to what made Biggie great.
So I just speak my piece, keep my piece
Cubans with the Jesus piece with my peeps
Packin, asking who want it, You got it nigga flaunt it
That Brooklyn bullshit we on it.
I think for old-heads, who came up on Richard Pryor, watching Def Comedy Jam must have been what it was like for me to hear a Fabolous album. It's a facile imitation. Almost every comic today can curse like Richard Pryor. But I don't know a single one who exhibits the artistic courage you see in this clip, where Pryor tells millions of people, precisely, how he set himself on fire.
It makes you vunerable to discuss precisely how and where you were wrong. This isn't just about art. Our media is filled with people brandishing one essential message, "I'm right and here's why." Some of them undoutbly are. Most of them are not. I think young writers can find a lot of gold in examining their past convictions, and their fragility when pitted against experience and history.
Richard Pryor Live On The Sunset Strip Clip
The Beautiful Struggle: A Father, Two Sons, and an Unlikely Road to Manhood 
Irony of American History... uh oh. It sounds like something I really should have read.
Irony is interesting because Niebuhr wrote it during perhaps his most conservative phase--he had gone from being a socialist and pacifist to a Cold War Democrat trying to avoid attention from the CIA for his past political affiliations. And he's not what you would call a beautiful writer, though the book contains some particularly rich passages. But it's a fantastic and thought-provoking read, with the central highlight being what Ta-Nehisi notes above--a recognition that while we have certain ideas and preconceptions about the world, the world (and in Niebuhr's case, God) keeps providing us with ironic experiences that call those ideas into question. Niebuhr viewed Soviet Communism as a perverse and dangerous regime, but he recognized that Cold War America didn't exactly have the moral high ground, either.
Anyway, it's well worth the time and money.
I've never read Niebuhr but it sounds like I should. Especially since about a year ago I came to the conclusion that irony is THE governing force in the universe.
Irony is the only book of his I've read so far, but I'd like to read more. I've read more books ABOUT him than by him, ironically. :-) A good one to check out is The Constant Dialogue by Martin Halliwell, which situates Niebuhr in relation to some of his contemporary intellectuals and writers: John Dewey, William James, James Baldwin, etc. It's an academic book and a bit heavy-going, but really helpful in explaining the various strands of Niebuhr's thought, including the influences behind Irony.
Martin did the self reflection, "how did I end up naked in the middle of the street?", thing in RunTelldat, but it wasn't particularly funny. Or at least not early Martin funny.
It's interesting how the 70s were a crappy decade in a lot of ways (economically, politcally, fashion-wise) but managed to produce some brilliant, edgy comedy. National Lampoon started up and went on a brilliant run and, in many ways, begat Saturday Night Live, whose first five seasons shame its current incarnation. Stand-up was the same way, too. Cheech and Chong, George Carlin, Steve Martin, Robin Williams, and Richard Pryor produced some brilliant work.
And what came out of all of that? Some folks who realized comedy could become a 'cash cow' and the next thing you know, we've got pre-fab tripe. You're right about the Biggie analogy (and you can just as easily slip in Cobain's name in Biggie's place). Don't get me wrong, there's still some great standup out there (Chris Rock, Ron White, Chapelle), but for the most part you've got people who've followed Pryor's 'form' but missed the substance entirely. Rauch and shock can be great, but what's missing is real wit. Pryor had it, most comedians today don't.
It seems to me that most folks from about 33 - 35 and under don't really know Pryor's work particularly well. I know I don't, and that fact made me uncomfortable with myself when he died and the accolades came rushing in in the media.
But to the overall point of the earlier generation's disappointment with the Def Comedy Jam/ Comicview style of Black comedy, I mean, we did have Chris Rock, who had a fair balance between intelligent introspection and clownishness. And for a while, he was the biggest thing on earth. I guess I'll throw Chapelle into that mix, too. Just an elite handful of those typical DCJ types ever really hit the big time.
This is making me realize I'd like to look into the history of Black comedy to see the origins of both more more thoughtful styles and the more hoi polloi styles. I suspect they both reach way back.
A great read on the history of Black comedy is Mel Watkins "on the Real Side: A History of African American Humor"
http://www.amazon.com/Real-Side-History-African-American/dp/1556523513/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1247595255&sr=8-1
He does a great job of bringing it all together with Pryor as the apotheosis of Black comedy.
One thing I will and have researched is Pryor on sexuality. Anther level of his bravery and humility is his discussion of the limitations of the male sexual ego and the flexibility of heterosexual desire. Before we had named it in Ebony or on Oprah, Pryor in his early work was discussing, "the down low" and had implicated himself in it. I have yet to see any Black comedian go that route. Again Pryor is not a sign post but is the road itself.
Richard Pryor was amazing and one of the great tragedies is that he didn't get more dramatic roles in movies. One of my favorite films ever is the highly underrated directorial debut of Paul Schrader Blue Collar starring Yaphet Kotto, Harvey Keitel and Richard Pryor as autoworkers in Detroit. It's a mean, lacerating, tough movie that goes places in terms of class, race and money that few films dare. Pryor is extraordinary, blisteringly funny and wounded, it's one of the great unsung performances of the 70s. Anyone else seen this movie?
Yes. It's called Blue Collar and it is also if I recall a blistering critique of corrupt unions. It is an underrated film. I think Eddie Murphy suffers the same condition brilliant dramatic chops but is rarely allowed to display them.
I've often wondered why Pryor made so many shitty movies and immediately realize...duh! Cocaine habit, big checks and Hollywood trying to figure out what to do with him = lots of movies that suck. Happens to a lot of great - or even just promising - comedians when they hit the big time from Whoopi, to Robin W to Steve Martin.
Don't forget Belushi.
Yesterday, I rewatched Sunset Strip on a lark, and thought on it, and realized that one-way of watching the film is not to think of Pryor as a stand-up comic, but as a theater dude doing a comedic one man show. Sunset Strip is really funny, don't get me wrong. But there are moments of great seriousness. It felt like memoir.
That's the kind of stand-up I particularly love. Thee are times, in I'm the One that I Want and Notorious, that Margaret Cho does some of that, too (at least for this queer). It's a type of humor that can have you rolling in laughter then punches you in the gut. It's when comedy provides emotional catharsis.
What I've always loved about Pryor but especially this movie is how he paints one of the most acurate pictures of adiction I've ever seen on film. It's funny but it's also relatable. The great thing about Pryor is he had a sense of the tragically funny that made him absolutely priceless.
If anything I would say that this sense of tragic possibility is lacking in todays media culture, and I think that this is something that goes hand in glove with what you said about examining past convictions.
Richard Pryor, George Carlin, and Lenny Bruce are the comedy-god triumvirate who changed the game for everyone. After those three, you could either say some real shit, or you could be a hack. (This is not to demean Bill Cosby, who was the comic I loved most as a kid. Bill is definitely in the top five stand-ups of all time and was definitely more consistently -- and coherently -- funny than Lenny. But, Bill never scared anyone. And he didn't really make you think.)
Growing up in the eighties, Eddie Murphy was the comic that all the kids loved -- and for good reason. He was Richard Pryor with all the pain and wisdom removed. He had all the raw talent and charisma, but he didn't have the depth.
Today, my top three for stand-up would be Chris Rock, Dave Chappelle, and Louis CK. (But, Chappelle needs to put out a new special or he's going to drop off that list.)
Quiet as its kept, Jamie Foxxx showed me something in his Fall 2001 (just after 9/11) stand-up special I MAY NEED SECURITY. If he werent busy building up his film and music pursuits, he could easily rival Rock or Chapelle for the crown.
As pure entertainment I thought Pryor's 1979 "Live In Concert" was the best comedy concert film ever recorded. "Sunset Strip" IS more of a memoir, which makes it something different. The pain is there, you can feel it. There's a point towards the end where the whole thing breaks down (as I recall, it's been 20 years since I saw it) when he has reached a transition point and somebody in the audience yells out "Do Mudbone!", and you can almost see his shoulders droop as he realizes the crowd wants the old, "funny" material.... and he gives it to them, but the heart is gone from the performance.
I was a HUGE comedy fan as a teenager in the late 60's/early 70's - I have a bunch of Pryor's stuff, old Cosby, Firesign Theater, Jonathan Winters, Gabe Kaplan, David Steinberg, an AMAZING Dick Gregory set called "The Light Side: The Dark Side".... and I agree that most of the comedians who followed that crew missed the point...
Hosono, I agree that "Blue Collar" is criminally overlooked.
Thanks for posting that clip, TNC. I hadn't seen that since college, in the early 80s. The clip you posted is the most profound, and saddest, thing that I have ever laughed at. I was crying at the Jim Brown section. Anyone who has had a substance abuse problem knows the truth of what Pryor says here -- and there's such beauty in that truth.
Deep down, Pryor was sad. When faced with the tragic dimension of life, his dominant emotion was sadness. My other favorite comedian, the equally dead Bill Hicks, felt angry instead of sad. That's how Louis CK swings, too. Ultimately, Pryor's reaction is more real, more vulnerable, and funnier.
Yeah, that talking pipe is right on.
Not only was he brave (and fierce!) but he demanded utter honesty of the audience.
I need to watch those two with the kids; they've seen a lot of Eddie Izzard, but I don't think they've ever seen Pryor.
great post - and thanks for the reminder of this great piece of theatre (i also would qualify this work as a piece of memoir theatre, or something like that...)
useful link for the book you mentioned:
http://www.press.uchicago.edu/presssite/metadata.epl?mode=synopsis&bookkey=285412
I've always loved the vulnerability of Richard Pryor's persona that shone through the funniest or most bombatic of his stories, vignettes and jokes. Having followed his comedy since the days of the Ed Sullivan Show I atually wasn't offended by his Sunset Strip Live LP, just as I laughed my butt off at "This Nigger's Crazy." It was so freeing and tht was the mantra in the 60s and 70s-freedom and progress. Maybe the button-down generation of the 50s who prefered the sanitized humor of Cosby and Newhart, and only wanted protest to go as far as the peaceful beatniked folk movement, found Pryor's humor abhorrent, but those coming of age in the 60s and 70s tied his humor to Carlin's as well as Lenny Bruce's. When Pryor appeared on Sullivan's show he told basically truthful stories of his childhood--being too skinny to fight the playground bullies on the basketball court and using humor for self-preservation. It was all in how he told it.
I'd seen him live twice--at he Hollywood Bowl and at the Comedy Store. I also was getting into a car as he was doing the same across the street, and when he noticed I was staring at him,he waved in an eaxaggerated fashion, making me laugh instantaneously. That he loved to make people laugh was wht we got instantly about him, regardless of e dginess.
I totally agree with your basic point - I'm an avowed old asshole who rarely passes a chance to make similiar observations - but it's unfair to hold young black comedians to the standard of Richard Pryor, simply because there are so few comedians of any ethinicity or background who can meet that standard. It's not just Def Comedy Jam. But you are right to suggest that "they", i.e. all younger comedians, should study him and aspire, not just imitate the superficial shit. That said, there are some great comics today - Rock, Chappelle and a handful of others... And Sascha Baron Cohen is a true pioneer - I don't think there's ever been a satirist more fearless. Sort of the twisted bastard child of Alan Funt and Lenny Bruce - with a nod to Andy Kauffman along the way - if one could imagine such a thing.
I havent seen the film,"JoJo Dancer, Your Life is Calling" but the review was pretty compelling and gives a lot of clues as to why Richard was such a great performer.
http://www.avclub.com/articles/my-year-of-flops-that-case-files-crazy-edition-115,2410/
It seems almost fated that Richard would begin life in a situation where nothing was as it is supposed to be, his own mother was a prositute, all of the adults around him were unstable, and then make the humor of inverted expectations his life.
On a personal note, as someone who does stand-up at the amateur level, operating in the post Pryor and Carlin era can feel like a real double-edged sword. There is no training period with comedy, when you're onstage it feels like shadow of those men (and others) is hanging over you. Meanwhile you have five minutes and there are five people watching. But, it is maybe the greatest thing I`ve ever done and with Pryor and Carlin, you can tell yourself, maybe someday I`ll be that great.
Kudos - I think standup comedy, especially when you're starting out and can't be that good, takes way bigger balls than boxing.
Kudos, as Brucd says. Keep at it.
You don't have to be Carlin or Pryor right away. Pryor and Carlin weren't Pryor and Carlin until they'd been at it for years. (And they were both much, much more conventional as apprentices.) Just keep putting your minutes in, and writing. Oh, and keep your left up.
@brudcs and Doctor Cleveland, thanks so much! Yeah great comedy takes years, but its something you slip into-making comparisons, feeling in awe and kind of inadequate, I`m sure even Lewis Black and Chapelle get that way sometimes.
Heading into a way different category, a section of Genius, James Gleick's biography of the physicist Richard Feynman, deals with one of the sadder sides of Feynman's larger-than-life stature -- the frequency with which budding physicists who met him suddenly decided that physics wasn't for them, for how could they compete with that?
It's an easy trap to fall into, and one you have to avoid. I'm starting to suspect that this may be much of the point behind the Buddhist idea that if you meet the Buddha on the road to enlightenment, you have to kill him to progress. Learn dauntlessly.
Wanted to say thanks for this link and jump on the "keep in there bandwagon." You don't have any Youtubes of yourself do you?
Not yet, but everything does revolve around Youtube now and Myspace, also that would also be totally revealing my TNC comment board identity. Thanks for the support.
"also that would also be totally revealing my TNC comment board identity"
Which, of course, takes way bigger balls than standup...
Did I say also twice? Wow, super.
Somebody above mentioned the Ed Sullivan show - you know that stiffback sonofabitch launched some great shit on his weird variety show. There were the dancing elephants and the opera singers, but he also had great R&B performers very early on before Elvis, Elvis himself, the Beatles, the Stones, Carlin, Lenny Bruce, Pryor, Jonathan Winters. Sullivan LOVED Jackie Wilson and had him on many, many times.
...the Jackson Five, Bill Haley, the Doors...just a veritable Who's Who.
Hey is there an Ed Sullivan's Greatest Moments DVD out there?
There are volumes of Ed Sullivan Shows, just like American Bandstand--two seemingly colorblind hosts whose shows my young life seemed to revolve around. Sam Cooke, Harry Belafonte, Odetta, Miriam Makeba, The Coasters, James Brown, Jackie Wilson. In fact he was so apologetic that he hadn't given Sam Cooke enough time, that he had him return the following week. He also took a chance having Redd Foxx on because he knew Redd didn't give a damn and was liable to say anything. Yet, Redd behaved for Ed. Ironic that the only person Sullivan had a problem with was Jackie Mason...
Hey brucds, I did stand up for a short time in the 80s, (I really wasn't all that funny, it turned out), studied under the late Staney Myron Handelman and did a performance at the old Variety Arts Theatre across from what is now the Staples Center. Remember the heavy set, perpetually-deadpanning, self-abasing white dude with the clicker bit? (blanking on his name) He was there too. Comedy makes drama look too easy. What i took away though was that good comedy tells a story in one form or another, unless it's Henny Youngman shtick, and there is lways some element of truth buried under the core. It's the surprise element, the irony, that makes us laugh.
Remember Ron Carey? Carey did the preacher bit, witha congregation backing him up, when he begins yelling about society's "mental morass," as the congregtion yells "More ass! More ass!"
It's why that opening scene in Friday always grabs me--"Are you prepared to...because if you're not...well, F U!"
You know, this isn't very cool, but I loved that guy with the puppet head in the box, Senor Wences. He cracked me up. Also remember seeing Mike Nichols and Elaine May when they were sort of weirdos doing very low-key, off-beat humor.
Pryor was a genius, and that art is painful and brave. And yeah, it's like theater. Pryor did characters, like Mudbone or his street preacher, as observation and art, rather than the "characters" you see on tv lately. Listen to the classic "Wino Dealing with Dracula" which is all characters, and completely heartbreaking.
As for Cosby not making audiences think: Cosby makes an end run around the audience thinking. He's a much stealthier comic in some ways, a guerrilla fighter compared to Pryor's brilliant frontal assault. Cosby isn't about talking you out of what you think. He's about seducing you into another point of view. And if one of the tests for comedians of that generation is how they deal with the audience's racism, I'd argue that Cosby can make inroads on the gut level, even with people who didn't consider themselves racist.
I know people like to knock Cosby because he's too bourgeois or whatever, but I don't think of Cosby or Pryor as a real or necessary choice. There's also the option of having Cosby and Pryor. And I'd actually submit that you need both. Having both is the only option that works.
Hey, I wasn't putting Cosby down. While I don't put him in the comedy triumvirate that completely changed the artform, he still deserves honorable mention. While it's more hip among comics to cite Richard (or even Lenny) as an influence, most of the good ones have a good dose of Cosby in them, too.
When I was a kid, I wanted to be a stand-up comic and it was all because of the hours I spent wearing the grooves out of my parents' Bill Cosby records.
I didn't mean to jump on you, Ogdred. My response was more about the discourse around Cosby and Pryor. As you say, it's hipper to cite Pryor, although lots of comedians, of all races, borrow from The Cos, it's actually unhip to cite him. It's also been hip, and easy, to make fun of Cosby. A little of it's earned (there's a classic SNL bit with Eddie doing a Cosby whose references were no longer recognizable), but most of it is thoughtless. And it leads to ugly moments like the Wanda Sykes-Cos kerfuffle, with the great man ungenerously backhanding a younger talent who's unthinkingly disrespecting him.
Cosby didn't change the artform in the way Bruce did. But he did integrate the artform, and that's a pretty serious change. And while he was at it, he integrated American TV. Cosby may be one of the few African-American trailblazers in the 20th century whose contribution actually gets underrated, who's a more singular figure and less one part of a movement than the hagiography makes him.
It's hard to describe how big the transition from pre-Cosby to post-Cosby is. He's the first black comedian who can attract a wide multiracial following without playing the subordinate role at all. You may not think his work was confrontational enough, but if you watch it again it's impossible to be embarrassed by it. And before him you can't really say that about any black comedian in front of white American audiences. Cosby doesn't play the ingratiation card. Period. Before him, everybody had to, and after him they don't.
Cos is great, and doesn't even Pryor cite him as an influence? The think that, I think, grates on people is his idea that all comedians should adhere to his standard. The Wanda Sykes thing is a good example.
It's hard to calibrate the impact of Bill Cosby's role on "I Spy" (let's all try to forget the Eddie Murphy remake) on my then young teenaged brain. HUGE! Later, watching "The Cosby Show" with my husband and our young children (same ages and genders as Theo and Rudy) it was as if Kelly Robinson was what I wanted to be and Cliff and Claire was what I had become.
I normally try to avoid cheerleading comments that don't add anything, but... nothing to add here.
You effin' said it, dawg. Start to finish.
The thing I loved about Cosby was that when I was a kid he was doing material from the point of view of a kid... and as I grew up and became a parent (or surrogate parent to my friends kids) he started doing material from the point of view of a parent.
Richard Pryor is the love child of Mark Twain and Moms Mabley. He was pure genius and as American as apple pie.
In the early '70's, I was a stewardess (that's what we were called and I still prefer it to flight attendent) for United Airlines which had a non-stop from NYC to Portland Ore with a 36 hour crew lay-over. Flight crews stayed at the Benson Hotel, the best in town. One the hotel's door men, a young Radar (from "Mash") look-a-like always had great "weed" and of course, he loved the stewardesses as much as we loved his "weed." One night he invited us all over to his apartment for dinner, just him and about 6 of us. First he broke out the weed, then the Richard Pryor ('That Nigger is Crazy.) I was the only Black person in the room but we were all on the floor, laughing til we cried. The best part, I didn't have to translate one word.
Anna, you have had an enviably interesting life!
So far, so good!
"the love child of Mark Twain and Moms Mabley" - this isn't as far-fetched as it sounds. Twain was a fervent afficiando of "Negro spirituals" and often sang and danced to black songs when he was entertaining friends. And he was surley one of the originators of the "marginalized voice" as narrator that is a feature so much great black literature - and comedy . It's probable, in the research of one prominent Twain scholar, that the inspiration for Huckleberry Finn's manner was actually an extremely voluble black kid he encountered in his travels (See "Was Huck Black?" by Shelley Fisher Fishkin.)
Uh..surely, not surley. And that was Twain's travels, not Huck's.
How odd: I was listening to this very show two days ago -- there's an audio version, too -- and I was struck, among other things, by what a great person Jim Brown was. Pryor talks him at length elsewhere. What a mensch -- what a man -- Brown is.
I always thought if I wrote an autobiography I would call it, "the things I used to believe".
so I'm sitting at the 5th and Hill bus stop across from Pershing Square in LA one night after work, headphones up loud, head down in whatever I was reading. lights hit me and I look up to see an LAPD cruiser cutting across Hill to t-bone the bench I was on. two cops jump out of the car, guns drawn, yelling something I can't hear because I got the music too loud. my hands are in the air- amazing TV conditioning or natural instinct?- and I am frozen because it is the first time this kid has had a couple 9's pointed his way. the cops are still yelling at me to do something- sit down? turn around?- and my mind is looping 'I'm gonna get shot by LAPD, I'm gonna get shot by LAPD...' when Richard Pryor's voice materializes, speaking calmly in my head, telling me what to do: I yell very loudly and slowly 'I AM GOING TO REACH DOWN AND REMOVE MY HEADPHONES SO I CAN UNDERSTAND YOU- I AM GOING TO REACH DOWN FOR MY HEADPHONES! PLEASE DO NOT SHOOT ME!'
whenever I think about that incident, I am always a bit amazed that it was Richard Pryor who took control of my fight-or-flight mechanism and not the myriad other influences and educations of my life. that dude was a human's human.
OK, you've got me hooked (er, so to speak). What did the cops want?
dude wearing a beanie and a backpack had pulled a gun on someone a couple blocks over- they were rounding everyone up who was wearing a hat and a pack. alleged perp was black so they weren't holding whites (me) and hispanics after checking them out briefly- I had my kniferoll on me and guy next to me was sweating cuz he had just come out of his dealer's spot holding. but once they checked ID's, people walked and they kept up with the swarm- so many cops and lights for about 30 minutes before my bus came. the whole experience has helped inform my thinking on some ish; the Pryor thread took me back today.
You're lucky. The voice in my head sounds like Bobcat Goldthwait.
Richard Pryor, Bill Cosby, and George Carlin are my top 3 favorite comedians of the past. Eddie Murphy and Robin Williams round out the top five. You could throw some Redd Foxx in there too.
As for modern comedians Dave Chappelle and Chris Rock would be it really.
There are some others like Louis CK and Margaret Cho. Wanda Sykes has moments. But nobody really comes to mind.
I have this great recording of him in the late 60s or early 70s doing a prolonged (and perfect) impression of HAL 9000's death while the audience, baffled and clearly not digging it, is almost completely silent.
It's fucking great is what it is.
Anyways, good post, Ta-Nehisi. I'm glad you hit on Pryor's intense vulnerability and how he worked it into his act, creating a narrative of a broken man seeking redemption. People don't talk much about it, but that's why I keep going back to him (you could say the same about Bill Hicks, my second favorite standup of all-time).
That and the complete public disintegration of machismo (which I guess is pretty much a part of male vulnerability), something that really stands out seeing as how it's coming from a 1. straight 2. black man 3. in the 1970s. Try finding that on Def Comedy Jam. The dude is confessing shit that should be making us squirm in our seats.
Sidenote: In the mornings, I leave on a Richard Pryor playlist before me and my fiancee leave for work. For some reason, it soothes our dog. The few times I've forgotten to leave it on, I come home and she's peed and gotten into the garbage.
This is great writing, Ta-Nehisi, and pretty insightful to boot. An impressive post.
I had the same reactions to Raw (funny) and Sunset Strip (not). Maybe I'll give Sunset Strip a second look.