RichardPryor.com Forums

Robbie,
next time I am in LA I will have to look you up. Hopefully I can get some stage time when I am there. I love the informatin and the encouragment you give on the site. Ralphie May was here about two weeks ago and it was
painful. I am eager to get back on stage and rip it up.

Jenny and funky-c,

Thank you for the well-wishes and I send them to you and your family too Jenny. That is just too young and a horrible tragedy... My friend's young son couldn't find the phone to call for help so he e-mailed a relative who then notified the authorities. I hope that your beautiful angel didn't suffer too much in her final moments.

My old friend's timing was off for sure and she litterally fell on her face and has no chance of ever getting back up again. Her guy, I'm not sure what to think there. It pisses me off, I do know that. What's his excuse going to be when he reaches the gates of Olympus? It isn't bad enough that he commits a murder and then to top it off he goes and commits suicide too, the pinnacle of the cardinal sins. What chance in hell does the guy now have of getting in?

I just got back from a late stroll, as I often do to clear my mind and let off steam, where I'd passed a church and a services sign on it read:

Sunday Services
Contemporary 11:00 a.m.
Traditional 8:30 a.m.

They're finally getting the idea that with most folks having to get up so damn early all week for work and life's numerous obligations, and Sunday being a day of rest, that us contemporary folks just aren't going to make it to the 8:30 a.m. sermon, much less to the 11:00 a.m. time-slot. They should try to spice it up a bit with an 11:00 p.m. full food and drink service sermon/disco and pack the place out.

When I was a little boy my mom would dress me in my Sunday-best, adjust my little bow-tie and send me out the door, bible in hand. After the obligatory nod and wink of approval from her I'd circle the block and head out back behind the house to my shed that I'd made into the neighborhood fort, complete with full bar and a nudie magazine box, and wait out the hour, maybe smoke a Swisher Sweet cigar or two while leafing through an issue of Hustler, I really enjoyed the Beaver Hunt section, then head back around the block and my step-dad, whom my mom would sometimes affectionately refer to as "that son-of-a-bitch", was none the wiser.

I wasn't too sure about him as a little boy but he really did turn out to be a great dad who took on us kids, who weren't even biologically his, and really sacrificed a lot for us over the years and still does to this day.

I think he was just sending us to church and Sunday School more so as to appease the religious right of the family than to make sure that we had a correct and proper religious upbringing.

What does that story have to do with anything in this post? Probably not much of anything... I was just reminiscing to myself out loud and thought I'd share it with you. I had a really different and wonderfully rich childhood, even though our family was wonderfully poor, than most kids did growing up.

Falling down is to getting up as taking a shit is to properly wiping your ass afterwards.

Inkblot