A Quote by Mark Curry
I opened up for Richard Pryor in 1992. I had a conversation with him. All those other comedians can say what they want about what they did, but I opened up for the man. Paul Mooney and I are probably the only ones that can say that.
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I've paid attention to guys growin' up like Richard Pryor or Paul Mooney. The message that they were sending with what they did was so much bigger than them.
Radical Islamic terrorism came into effect even more so than it has been in the past. People like what I say. People respect what I say. And we've opened up a very big discussion that needed to be opened up.
I wasn't one of those kids who stole Richard Pryor records. I wasn't a comedy-nerd kid. I had no concept of stand-up. Actually, the only inkling of stand-up I had was I read one of Paul Reiser's books when I was, like, 12. I found it at a yard sale, and I carried it around with me for six years.
Richard opened his hand, and the key stared up at him from his palm. "By my crooked teeth," asked Richard, remembering, "who am I?
There's only going be one Richard Pryor. You know how many came out after Richard Pryor and died trying to be compared to him? Or Bernie Mac? You got to be like you.
There are many styles of standup, but the comedians I like are people like Dick Gregory and Richard Pryor. Because Richard Pryor told the truth. Chris Rock. I love Chris Rock. He's funny, but he's also poignant. He's not there just to make people laugh; he's there to make people wake up, too.
Stand-up can take you in so many different places, man. So many doors can be opened up from stand-up comedy, and the first one that was opened up for me was acting.
What would a man of God say, who felt aright, when Joseph asked him for his money? He would say, 'Yes, and I wish I had more to help to build up the Kingdom of God.' Or if he came and said 'I want your wife?' 'O Yes,' he would say, 'here she is, there are plenty more.' ... Did the Prophet Joseph want every man's wife he asked for? He did not... If such a man of God should come to me and say, 'I want your gold and silver, or your wives,' I should say, 'Here they are, I wish I had more to give you, take all I have got.'
There's not a lot of comics with anything to say. It's entertaining, but when you think of Chris Rock, Richard Pryor or Bill Cosby, they all had something to say.
When I became a standup comic, my hero, one of them, was Richard Pryor, and you know, I think that comedians, like, comedians talk about hacks, and what a hack is, is someone who does stuff that's not original.
I had an opportunity to move to L.A. back in 1999 and start up a horse racing network of all things. At the time, I was younger and married but didn't have kids; so we thought, Let's just go to L.A. for a while and have fun, and we can always come home. One thing led to another; and once I was out there, I had my eyes opened to this other world and quickly got a home and gardens show and did a game show and then The Bachelor ended up falling into my lap in 2001. And 'the rest is history' as they say.
I just like to build. Don't get me wrong: I think stand-up is great, and when someone like Richard Pryor or Steve Martin does stand-up, there's nothing better in the world. But I don't want to watch a lot of stand-ups for two hours. So I can do 45 minutes of stand-up and then say, 'Can we do something else now?'
When Richard Pryor did comedy, it was like he was having a conversation.
I've always loved American stand-up. Richard Pryor is one of the main reasons I got into stand-up. After Pryor, I made my way through the other great American comics, then finally got into the British ones over here.
In 1983, when I did 'Sindhu Bhairavi' and played the other woman, many men came up to me and said it opened up a lot to them. The film showed that a man and woman could have an intellectual and artistic relationship.
The end he had been born to serve yet did not see had led him to escape by an unseen path and now it beckoned to him once more and a new adventure was about to be opened to him.
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