Richard Pryor, R.I.P..

Digby, over at his blog, has a passage in his requiem for Pryor that sums it up better than I ever could. He describes going to a Pryor show at age 18:

I looked around me in that theatre that night, in which I and my little friend Kathy were among a fair minority of whites, and I realized that we were all laughing uproariously together at this shocking, dirty, racially charged stuff. As someone who grew up in a racist household (and had always had a visceral reaction against it) it was an enormous, overwhelming relief. I understood Richard Pryor, the African Americans in the audience understood Richard Pryor and Richard Pryor and the African Americans understood me. He was right up front, saying it all clearly and without restraint. He wasn't being polite and pretending that race wasn't an issue. And it didn't matter. Nobody, not one person, in that audience was angry. In fact, not one person in that audience was anything but doubled over in paroxysms of hysterical laughter. He had our number, all of us, the whole flawed species.

That last sentence should be Richard Pryor's epitaph. It's a rare comic--hell, it's a damn near unheard of comic these days--who could wrench so many laughs out of so much human tragedy and stupidity.

My favorite Pryor routine is memorialized in his first concert movie, and it describes his first heart attack. He does a little one-man show in which he plays not only his own terrified self, but his own heart...an angry, talking heart with the attitude of a particularly vicious mugger. At one point the heart makes him get down on one knee and beg for mercy for eating so much pork. And it's hilarious. It takes real genius to make something that raw that funny.

R.I.P. Richard Pryor. Your legacy lives on.

We Have a Winner!

For the most over-the-top Christmas light display of all time. Aren't you glad you don't live next door to THIS guy?

Your Holiday Viewing Guide

Latest Newspaper Column

Here it is, another holiday season. And you know what that means. It’s time to gather around with the family, stick a plastic bag of compressed turkey parts in the microwave, and bask in the warm glow of holiday TV specials.

This year’s selections include:

“CSI: North Pole”(CBS): The combined casts of all three “CSI” shows come together as they are magically transported to Santa’s compound to discover the identity of whoever killed and dressed out Blitzen the Reindeer. At the show’s climax, the group gets stranded on an ice floe without food, and viewers can call a special 1-800 number to vote on who gets eaten (David Caruso).

“A Capitol Christmas”(CBS): Our nation’s lawmakers put away their differences for one night of holiday cheer. Comedy ensues when Ted Kennedy gets into the eggnog and starts hitting on Nancy Pelosi. Musical highlights include Reps. Tom DeLay and Randall “Duke” Cunningham singing a heartwarming rendition of John Prine’s classic “Christmas in Prison” with special guest Lewis “Scooter” Libby. Rumors that they’ll be joined by Bill Frist and Karl Rove could not be confirmed at press time.

“Christmas in Crawford” (Fox News): We actually have very little information on this one. Rumors in Hollywood claim that the show may not even get made, since the president refuses to commit to a timetable for taping it. He says it might embolden the other networks.

“Dick Cheney’s Christmas at Guantanamo” (ABC): President Bush’s very own jolly old elf visits not only the Cuban prison camp, but other CIA “black sites” to explore how our hardworking intelligence community celebrates the season. You and your family will get a warm glow as the vice president plugs in the “Human Christmas Tree,” and so will the suspect picked to be the tree, you betcha!

“A Sopranos Christmas”(HBO): The lovable lugs of TV’s favorite Mob family celebrate the season with a live broadcast from Tony Soprano’s infamous strip bar, the Bada-Bing. Songs include “What Freakin’ Child Is Dis?” and “Grandma Got Whacked By a Reindeer (So You Guys Know What to Do).” Unfortunately, this being HBO, the special will not be seen till March of 2008.

Bill O’Reilly’s “Merry Christmas! Shut Up!” (Fox News): The blustery bully of Fox News’ “The O’Reilly Factor” takes to the street to save Christmas by leaping out of bushes and alleyways to scream at anyone who dares to say “Happy Holidays.” Original songs include “Turn Christian, You Punk, Or Else!” and “Joy to the World (Except Those Pinkos in San Francisco).” Sponsored with limited commercial interruption by the American Falafel Council.

“A Fear Factor Christmas” (NBC): Winning contestants from the show’s last three seasons return to face the most terrifying challenge of all: Aunt Martha’s fruitcake. Viewer discretion advised.

“TomKat’s Scientology Christmas Special” (OnDemand): This special starring famous Scientologists Tom Cruise and his brainwashed minion — er, sorry, new convert — Katie Holmes, is only available on pay-per-view. It costs thousands and thousands of dollars to see, and people who’ve seen it through to the end say you really won’t believe how stupid the big surprise ending is.

“A Very Chickenhawk Christmas” (UPN): A group of 18- to 25-year-old Young Republicans who fervently believe in the Iraq War (but not enough to actually enlist) put on a Christmas special for the troops. As program host Tiffani “Muffy” Freeman put it: “We didn’t actually go to Iraq ’cause it’s, like, dirty and dangerous and stuff? So we got together and thought we’d cheer the troops up by singing them some songs? Like ‘I’ll Be Home for Christmas.’ That one’s like, really poignant and sad and stuff because, like, they won’t be? But we back President Bush and the troops, like, a thousand percent.” When asked if her backing of the president’s war meant that she or her friends would be enlisting, Freeman rolled her eyes and answered, “As if. I mean, we, like, have plans for our lives, you know?”

“Pat Robertson’s Bat-Crazy Christmas” (CBN): The maniacal televangelist’s Christmas message reminds us of what the season’s all about: Peace on Earth and Goodwill Toward Men, except gays, lesbians, anyone who’s against teaching Intelligent Design, the State Department, the president of Venezuela, Democrats, the media, the city of New Orleans, the city of Orlando, Episcopalians, Presbyterians, Methodists, Unitarians, atheists, agnostics, feminists, the entire ACLU, “secular humanists,” several members of the Supreme Court, Ellen DeGeneres and anyone in her audience, and parents of kids who dress up for Halloween. Ho Ho Ho!

Happy viewing and Joyeux Noel, y’all!

Reasons to Be Thankful, A Few Days Late

Latest newspaper column:

It’s Thanksgiving weekend, and as I look around me, I’m finding plenty to be thankful for.

On the personal level, I’ve got my family, my health (except for a slight chest cold), I’ve got a roof over my head, plenty to eat (believe me, you can tell), and plenty of good friends around. I’ve got one book on the market (coming out in paperback in January, by the way), another coming out in March, and the writing on the third one is coming along well.

But hey, it’s not all about me.

No, I’m thankful for a lot of the things I see happening in my country. This may seem a mite strange to some readers of this column, since it would appear that I spend a lot of words blasting and/or lampooning the things I see going wrong. But in this season of love and happiness, I think it behooves us to concentrate on the good things that are going on.

Such as:

* Jose Padilla got indicted. The so-called “dirty bomb” suspect, who’s been held without trial or even being charged for three years, finally will see the inside of a courtroom. A federal grand jury in Miami returned an 11-count indictment against Padilla and four other suspects, saying that they, among other things, “operated and participated in a North American support cell that sent money, physical assets and mujahideen recruits to overseas conflicts for the purposes of fighting a violent jihad.”

Good. About time. If he’s guilty (and this seems likely), convict his sorry butt and put him under the jail, for all I care, and his accomplices with him.

See, despite the hysterical chest-pounding of the drooling ya-hoos that call themselves “Patriots” or “conservatives,” no American wants to see terrorists just let go. If they truly are terrorists, we want them caught, tried, convicted and put away. We’re just not ready to trust the government’s bald assertion that someone is a terrorist just because Alberto Gonzales or some other appointed or elected official says so.

Why? Because we are Americans. We know governmental officials can be incompetent. They can lie. They can just be flat wrong about something. I mean, really, really wrong.

For example, Dick Cheney and other administration officials said there was “no doubt” that Saddam Hussein possessed weapons of mass destruction. Assuming for the sake of argument that they weren’t being dishonest but were simply mistaken, do you want to give people who made an error of this magnitude to have carte blanche to lock people up? So the fact that someone finally recognizes that there’s some check on that power is a very good thing for America.

* I’m also thankful for Crazy Jean Schmidt, the Republican representative from Ohio’s Second District. After Congressman John Murtha, the ranking Republican on the Defense Appropriations Subcommittee, suggested a plan for getting out of Iraq that involved an “over the horizon redeployment” of American troops and the creation of a “quick reaction” force to deal with threats to the Iraqi government, Crazy Jean went ballistic.

She decked herself out in an American flag dress and blasted Murtha, a decorated former Marine with more than 37 years of service to his country. She claimed she had just had a conversation with Ohio State Rep. Danny Bubp, a colonel in the Marine Corps Reserve. Bubp, Schmidt claimed, “asked me to send Congress a message: Stay the course. He also asked me to send Congressman Murtha a message: That cowards cut and run, Marines never do.”

Why am I thankful for this, may you ask? Because, first, Schmidt was immediately forced to withdraw her remarks. The rules of the House prohibit such personal attacks and specifically state that a member can be censured for such remarks.

But it gets better. Turns out Bubp never said any such thing. Bubp told The Cincinnati Enquirer that he never mentioned Murtha when talking with Schmidt, and he would never call a fellow Marine a coward. So, basically Schmidt got caught not only violating the rules of the House, she got caught lying while doing it. Any time lying extremist Republicans are exposed and embarrassed, it’s a good day for America. And there’ve been a lot of good days like that recently.

n Finally, I’m thankful that, in the face of George Dubbya Bush’s bullheaded insistence that there will be no timetables for withdrawal from Iraq, a call for just such a timetable has come from … the Iraqis themselves.

A “reconciliation conference” attended by Iraqi President Jalal Talabani and Iraqi Shiite and Kurdish lawmakers as well as leading Sunni politicians issued a resolution “calling for the withdrawal of foreign troops according to a timetable, through putting in place an immediate national program to rebuild the armed forces ... control the borders and the security situation.”

Well, that’s it, then. After all, Dubbya said that when the Iraqis want us to leave, we’ll leave. And Dubbya, as we know, is a man of his word, right? So I just bet we’ll be seeing some timetable real soon for turning things over to the Iraqis and coming home, right? That’s something to be thankful for, right?

Right?

Interview With Your Humble Blogger, With Colors

Jeff Shelby, author of Killer Swell and one of the fine bloggers over at First Offenders, interviews me via the magic of the Internets. I manage not to make an utter fool of myself. I think.

A Modern Fable

Latest Newspaper Column

Once upon a time there was a village. It was a happy and prosperous place and the envy of all the other villages around it.

Then, one day, the village was attacked by wolves. Several of the people were killed, and the entire village was plunged into mourning.

Then the village shepherd boy spoke up. “We need to go find the wolves in their dens and kill them so this never happens again!” he said.

The villagers loudly agreed and cheered the shepherd boy. They sent their finest and bravest men to that part of the forest where the wolves hid. They killed many in their dens and scattered the rest into the forest. They were going to pursue the wolves and wipe them out, but the shepherd boy said, “Wait! Now we need to go and kill the old bear who lives in another part of the forest!”

“What?” some of the people said. “Why? The old bear isn’t the threat. He's weak and sick. Your own father fought him years ago and left him crippled.”

“The bear is still dangerous!” the shepherd boy insisted. “He’s got long sharp teeth!”

“We doubt that,” some of the villagers said. “His teeth were pulled years ago.”

“I know people who’ve seen his teeth!” the shepherd boy said. “He’s bitten people in the past, hasn’t he? And I know that he’s hiding some of the wolves who escaped!”

“Wait,” the people said, “How do you know that?”

“Someone told me!” the shepherd boy said. When the people still expressed doubt, the shepherd boy grew angry. “The wolf attacks changed everything!” he yelled. “You must want your neighbors to be eaten by wolves! Traitors! Wolf-lovers! Wolf! Wolf!”

The shepherd boy and his friends shouted so long and so loud and were so insistent that anyone who didn't want to attack the bear was putting the village in danger, that eventually the doubters were outvoted. Some even allowed themselves to be convinced by the shepherd boy. So the village’s finest and bravest men went to the old bear's cave with their swords and pikes.

When they got there, the old bear looked up blearily. He wondered why the villagers were coming after him, since he hadn’t left the area around his cave for years. When he saw they were coming to kill him, though, he reared up on his hind legs and tried to fight. He was old and weak and hadn't any teeth, but he was still a bear. The villagers killed him, but a few of them were killed as well.

“Now,” the shepherd boy said triumphantly, “you’ll see I was right about the bear!”

He pulled the dead animal’s lips back to show the villagers his long sharp teeth. But the bear didn’t have any teeth.

“See,” the doubters said, “we were right! The bear was no threat to us! What did those men have to die for?”

The shepherd boy shrugged. “Hey,” he said, “you had the same information I did!”

“What do you mean?” they demanded. “We had the information you told us! By the way, where did you hear that the bear still had teeth? Who told you?”

The shepherd boy shuffled his feet and looked around. “Ummm…” he said “the Town Drunk. “

“What!?” the villagers yelled.

“And the Village Idiot.”

“Are you crazy!? “the people said. “You didn’t tell us that!”

“We’re fighting to the death against the wolves!” the shepherd boy yelled back. “Wolf-lovers! You’re dishonoring these brave men who fought the bear! You’re dishonoring the memory of the people who died in the wolf attacks! Wolf! Wolf!”

Soon things got worse. With the bear gone, some of the remaining wolves actually did come and live in his cave. From there, they raided the surrounding villages and killed many people, including some of the people who lived in the forest.

“Hey,” the shepherd boy's friends said, “Better them than us.”

The people in the surrounding villages began to grumble.

“Who cares what they think?” the shepherd boy’s friends said. “I hear they eat cheese. Ha-Ha! Cheese! That's funny.”

The men of the village had to go into the forest again and again to fight the wolves, and many were killed.

“Because we killed the bear,” the shepherd boy claimed, “we don't have to fight them in the village. They haven’t attacked the village, have they? Huh?”

“That's because we've posted guards at the edge of the forest 24 hours a day, you dolt,” the people responded. “It doesn't have anything to do with the bear.”

“You voted to go after the bear, same as me,” the shepherd boy said smugly.

“Yes,” the people said, “it's our fault.”

“Told you,” the shepherd boy said.

“It's our fault for trusting you.”

“You love wolves, you wolf-lovers! Wolf! Wolf!” the shepherd boy yelled. This time, no one listened. But it was too late.

The moral of the story is: Pick your shepherds carefully or it won’t be the sheep that get fleeced.

Dusty Rhoades lives, writes and practices law in Carthage. He says for the record that he’s not pro-bear.