[Marxism] Richard Pryor

[Ggregray@xxxxxxx]

The news of Richard Pryor's death is very sad.He was a passionate performer
and hilariously funny.

I remember the first time I saw him perform. It was in the early  1970's that
I saw a showing of a fascinating film "Wattstax" at the Queensland
University's theatre. If you don't know of this film it was a great record of a 
huge
concert in the Watts area of Los Angeles featuring the stars of the much missed
Stax  soul  music label. The footage of the concert was interposed with shots
of Pryor performing at a night club or some such venue.

I had never seen or heard anything like his brilliant performance. Even to a
still relatively young man who had grown up in Australia it was obvious that
Pryor's comedy was rooted in a very real and harsh experience of growing up
black in the USA. But what was also obvious was that he processed that 
experience
so that while the rage it induced was clear he presented it in a way that
reduced his audience to helpless laughter.

When I came out of the cinema I thought I was priveleged to have seen Pryor's
 performance and ,as he was thern unknown to me, that I might never have the
opportunity to see him again. Of course I was wrong he became a proclaimed
international star and ,in my opinion, unsurpassed by any subsequent performers
as a comedian. As others have mentioned his film work did not always keep the
highest standards which was something that even he acknowledged. But even the
greatest performers in any field of the arts produce  fluctuating levels of
work and Pryor was one of those performers who brought a touch of brilliance to
even pedestrian films.

There were also the personal problems he had suffering horrible burns in a
drug-related accident. And then the slow decline through the insidious disease
MS. I know two wonderful musicians in Sydney who have this disease. One of them
is able to continue performing as his  instrument is the blues harp and he
can still play that even though he is now wheelchair bound . The other is a jazz
man who played mainly sax and clarinet. He virtually does not perform anymore
but as a writer and producer has continued to make transcendentally beautiful
music. A work colleague of mine also has this disease in its relatively early
stages. She continues to work and deal with this health burden with dignity
and courage.

Pryor's death takes away a great person and a great performer for whom I felt
a totally irrational particular connection as I had become aware of him in
advance of his fame being established in Austrlia.

It  should again put on the agenda just how horrendous it is that blinkered
church-ridden goverments in the US and in Australia restrict stem-cell research
which could led to cures for MS and other horrible afflictions. That's real
irrationality and something that socialists and marxists can campaign on with
Pryor-like passion.
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