Paul Mooney - Black is the New White

BLACK IS THE NEW WHITE

A MEMOIR

PAUL MOONEY

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First Simon Spotlight Entertainment hardcover edition November 2009

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Designed by Jaime Putorti

Manufactured in the United States of America

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Mooney, Paul
Black is the new white / by Paul Mooney.

p. cm.

1. Mooney, Paul, 1941 2. Television comedy writersUnited States
Biography. 3. African American comediansBiography. I. Title.

PN1992.4.M66 2009

792.7028092dc22 2009019572

ISBN 978-1-4165-8795-8
ISBN 978-1-4169-6853-5 (ebook)

To my beloved Mama

BY DAVE CHAPPELLE

When I was a young black boy growing up in Washington, D.C., during my formative years, my comic inspiration came from various comedy idols, particularly Richard Pryor and Eddie Murphy.

Richard meant so much to me. Richard Pryor was the real King of Comedy. Then I found out that Paul Mooney was the writer behind my idol!

We all remember that famous sketch from Saturday Night Lives first season, where Pryor plays a prospective employee playing a word association game with the interviewer (played by Chevy Chase). The two get into a verbal fight when Chases character begins to use racial slurs.

Well, Paul Mooney wrote that sketch!

To see a black man on TV, holding his own with a white man, that was television history. It changed everything, not only TV, but also my course, and it gave me the direction my life was meant to go in.

The Eddie Murphy Raw tour in the 1980s was the hottest ticket in town. When the fans came in wanting to see Eddie Murphy, for the first half of the show, they got Paul Mooney. I thought, That nigga had a lot of balls to open up for a crowd that was only there to see Eddie Murphy.

Years later, I asked Eddie about it: Why did you put Paul Mooney on to open for you?

When you have Paul Mooney in front of you, Eddie said, you have to be on the top of your game when you come out to perform. You cant slack if Mooney is the opening act.

I had the good fortune to work with Paul on Chappelles Show and I have some stories of my own. Paul Mooney is a genius, brilliant, a legend, and a force to be reckoned with.

But I will say this: you dont fuck with Paul Mooney, you dont fuck with his writing, his material, his sketches and you certainly dont tell him what to do! Trust me, Ive learned, especially when I worked with him on my own show.

When I started gearing up for my show, I knew I needed Paul Mooney to be part of it. I just wanted his comedic genius. I wanted to be around someone who has so much history and success. Mooney was the writer, the casting director, and the director for some segments of The Richard Pryor Show in 1977 for NBC.

That was classic television, never to be duplicated. Working on The Richard Pryor Show, Paul Mooney helped launch the careers of so many talented comedians and actors: Robin Williams, Brad Garrett, Shirley Hemphill, Marsha Warfield, Johnny Witherspoon, Tim Reid, and Sandra Bernhard, to name a few.

There are a lot of things people remember about my show. Some things that I did, yeah, but a lot of people remember Negrodamus and Ask a Black Dude. It was classic Mooney.

Now, many of you reading this book may not have even heard of Paul Mooney, and thats a shame. Why isnt Mooney a mainstream star? As you read through the pages you will find out why Paul Mooney was too black for Hollywood!

Say what you will about Paul Mooney, he always delivers the goods. What comes out of his mind is comic genius at its best.

Paul Mooney: the face that launched a thousand quips

Im sliding into a booth in a coffee shop on Santa Monica Boulevard, slapping the table to wake Richard Pryor from his hangover nod.

Man, I say to him, I just saw a lady so pretty, somebody should suck her daddys dick for a job well done.

Richard stares at me. Early afternoon, too early for Richard. I smell the brandy he doses his coffee with. He is a little slowed-down by all the poisons in his blood, but even slowed-down Richard Pryor is quicker than any other human being on earth.

He laughs. Im not saying Richard just laughs like an ordinary person laughs. I mean he laughs. His face lights up like a Times Square billboard and his whole body wags like a dog happy to see its owner.

You know you can die happy when you can make Richard Pryor laugh. Its this huge blast of appreciation, hipness, and intelligence. He gets it. His laugh is like ripping open a bag of joy, letting loose a storm that blows you head over heels. It is that powerful.

The greatest comicsand Richard is bar none the great-estalways have the greatest laughs.

Later on, as the hard living takes its toll and the MS takes over, most of Richards laughs will turn into fits of coughing, as though hes trying to hack up his liver. But a Richard Pryor laugh is still and always will be like getting a high five from God.

California yellow sun and Pacific blue sky. That September day in 1968, Richard and I are in Dukes Coffee Shop, the original one, in the old Tropicana Motel. Two dudes, two dudes, like Richard starts one of his routines. We are the only black guys who can make the scene in Hollywood. We are groundbreakers, accepted at all the clubs, invited to all the parties. When we break into it, Hollywood is still a closed, racist town. The place has never seen anybody like us. We are fearless. We go everywhere. We break down barriers. We still get harassed by bigots and cheated by the system, but it never stops us.

Later that night my wife, Yvonne, gets dressed up and we go to Troubadour on Santa Monica to hear Richard perform his stand-up routine. Hes a different comic when I am in the audience. He hears my laugh and he shifts gears, elevating his act to a higher, edgier level. I can tell he is trying to make me laugh, but Im not going to give it up that easy. I make him work for it. He pushes himself.

From the stage of the Troub that night, I hear Richard do the line I gave him earlier in Dukes coffee shop.

Coming here tonight, I saw a woman so motherfucking beautiful gorgeous that it made me want to suck her daddys dick for a job well done.