Let me take a moment to note the passing of two extraordinarily influential Americans, both of whom passed away yesterday:
First, former Democratic presidential candidate Eugene McCarthy. From Knight-Ridder:
Eugene J. McCarthy, a former U.S. senator from Minnesota, a writer and presidential candidate whose 1968 campaign toppled a sitting president and changed the course of politics for a generation, died Saturday. He was 89.
A poet and politician known for his keen intellect and caustic wit, McCarthy died of complications of Parkinson’s disease at a retirement home in Washington, D.C., according to his son, Michael McCarthy.
Funeral arrangements were pending, but burial is expected to be near his home in Virginia.
“He was a giant of Minnesota and national politics,” said former Vice President Walter Mondale. Along with former Vice President Hubert H. Humphrey, McCarthy “changed the American view of Minnesota,” Mondale said.
McCarthy’s son, Michael, was with him when he died at 6 a.m. “What distinguished him was that he was thoughtful, principled and passionate,” the younger McCarthy said.
“Even though he was involved in the sharpest debates of the time, he never got personal. It’s hard to imagine. Politics is very different today.”
Eugene McCarthy’s brother, 87-year-old Austin McCarthy of Willmar, Minn., said, “He was a great, great man. He should be remembered as a statesman, not as a politician.”
“He didn’t kowtow to people to get a vote. He spoke his piece and if they accepted it, that was it.”
I wasn’t a fan of McCarthy’s politics, but he certainly had the passion of his convictions—and many in the counterculture, including Hunter Thompson, believe that his defeat in the primaries marked the disappointing end to the 60s political movement.
Second, comedian Richard Pryor. From Reuters:
Richard Pryor, who helped transform comedy with biting commentary on race and often profane reflections on his own shortcomings, died on Saturday at age 65 after a long illness, his wife and associates said.
Pryor died of heart failure on Saturday morning after efforts to resuscitate him failed and after he was taken to a hospital in the Los Angeles suburb of Encino, his wife, Jennifer Pryor, told CNN.
Pryor had been suffering from multiple sclerosis, a degenerative nervous system disease, for almost 20 years.
“He was my treasure,” Jennifer Pryor said in a telephone interview. “His comedy is unparalleled. …He was able to turn his pain into comedy.”
Credited for paving the way for a generation of comic performers, including the likes of Robin Williams, Dave Chappelle and Chris Rock, Pryor began performing in New York in the 1960s but found his voice with an edgier kind of comedy after moving to California in about 1970.
While he appeared in successful mainstream movies, it was Pryor’s confessional style of stand-up, in which nothing was off-limits, that made him a controversial star.
Racism was a major theme of his routine and he co-opted a racial epithet in punch lines, although he said after a 1979 trip to Africa he regretted having brought the word into the entertainment mainstream with Grammy-winning comedy albums like “That Nigger’s Crazy” and 1976’s “Bicentennial Nigger.”
“I decided to make it my own,” Pryor wrote in his autobiography “Pryor Convictions.” “Nigger. I decided to take the sting out of it. Nigger. As if saying it over and over again would numb me and everybody else to its wretchedness.”
Pryor, who battled drug and alcohol abuse for years, also famously joked about a 1980 incident in which he nearly died after dousing himself with cognac and lighting himself on fire while freebasing cocaine.
In the incident, which Pryor later called a suicide attempt, he jumped out a window and ran down a Los Angeles street, burning. (“You know something I noticed? When you run down the street on fire people will move out of your way,” he joked in 1982’s “Richard Pryor Live on Sunset Strip”).
Pryor, who marked his 65th birthday on December 1, had survived two heart attacks, triple bypass surgery and several run-ins with the law, including a 1978 incident in which he shot up the car of his then-wife when she tried to leave him.
[…]
Pryor grew up in a Peoria, Illinois, brothel run by his grandmother. After a stint in the Army, he pursued a comedy career that landed him spots on the Ed Sullivan and Merv Griffin shows in the 1960s.
He eventually grew unhappy with the “white bread” humor those shows sought and revamped his act with inspiration from the hustlers, pimps and other characters he had encountered at his grandmother’s brothel. The result was a routine he later called “profane and profound.”
“People can’t always handle it, but I knew that if you tell the truth it’s going to be funny,” Pryor said in his memoir.
Mitzi Shore, who runs The Comedy Store club in Los Angeles where Pryor performed through the 1980s, said in a statement that Pryor turned his brand of comedy into “a one-man art form.”
[…]
“He was an innovator, a trailblazer,” director Spike Lee told CNN. “It’s a great loss.”
****
Related: From the AP: “Reactions to the death of Richard Pryor”
God bless ‘em. Or whoever.
May Eugene McCarthy, seditious scum and all around worthless son of a bitch roast and rot in the darkest, hottest corner of hell forever and a day…
Don’t sugarcoat it, Russ. Tell us what you really think.
Don’tcha just love the gushing hyperbole of the Vietnam-enamored establishment media?
I was six years old in 1968, and so I’m going on memory of what I’ve read about it since, but it seems to me what happened was, McCarthy outscored LBJ in one Democratic presidential primary (NH?), and LBJ lost his nerve and withdrew from the campaign.
By spring, the frontrunner was Bobby Kennedy, who had pretty much took the anti-war wind out of McCarthy’s sails because, well, I mean, Gawd he’s a Kennedy!!!
In the end, McCarthy was forgotten, Kennedy was assassinated, and the nominee was LBJ’s vice president. The closest thing to an anti-war candidate in the fall campaign was Richard Nixon.
And somehow it was McCarthy who “brought down” LBJ.
McGeehee,
You’re close. Now do a little more research on why ol’ Landslide Hisself decided not to run. In the process you might discover the name “J. Evetts Haley.” Interesting, in the way an explosion in a sewer plant would be interesting.
Regards,
Ric
McCarthy was the first eruption of the disease that is consuming the Democratic Party of today.
Well, a quick perusal of hits from a search on that name found basically that John Birchers and those who still consider the JBS a force in today’s politics, do seem to think Haley had something to do with creating LBJ’s bad image.
I guess kinda like Richard Mellon Scaife “created” Clinton’s image?
“… it seems to me what happened was, McCarthy outscored LBJ in one Democratic presidential primary (NH?), and LBJ lost his nerve and withdrew from the campaign.”
Hasn’t it since been determined that Johnson was also suffering from clinical depression? (i.e., it REALLY had nothing to do with McCarthy—he was “toppled” by a common illness.)
Eugene McCarthy helped enslave more people than Lincoln freed, he helped extend the life of communism another 20 years and he was complicite in the killing of almost as many people as Hitler.
But his heart was in the right place.
Burning in hell would only begin his deserved punishment.
Reading up on him, he was quite the character. Endorsed Reagan, because he hated Carter. Then worked with Left-wing parties and Nader, later calling Bush a bully/amateur. Supported trade protectionism, SDI/Star Wars [?], and was a big advocate for third parties. Later said that LBJ’s Great Society had turned into nothing but hand outs and affirmative action.
Anyone know if he turned against the war merely for politics [due to the split in the Democratic Party], or really believed what he was saying?
At the White House reception, President Reagan gave me a bear hug and thanked me for making it happen. He then hugged Richard Pryor, and confided that he and Nancy had been praying for him. Reagan paused for a moment, then leaned forward and said, “Thank you for remembering the legacy of Dr. King, because he showed us all how to get along as God’s children.”
Pryor and Reagan then exchanged anecdotes first about Hollywood, and then about Dr. King. Reagan talked about how he cried when he heard that Dr. King had been assassinated. Pryor’s eyes swelled with tears. President Reagan, Senator Thurmond and Richard Pryor stood there for quite some time, leaning forward in conversation, heads rolling in laughter.
The common theme, if there is one, is unintended consequences.
Eugene McCarthy was the first major politian to run as an anti-war candidate. It was a major turning point in the Vietnam War, which resulted in most of the Democratic Party turning against the war. In the end, it was the Democrats who refused to support South Vietnam against invasion by the north. The result was a communist takeover of southeast Asia.
Unintended consequence: the deaths of millions of southeast Asians, in the “re-education” camps of Vietnam and the killing fields of Cambodia.
Richard Prior was perhaps the funniest standup commedian ever. If you’ve never seen a performance, his routines and his timings are extraordinary. Other comedians used to do standup routines about how much funnier Pryor was in standup versus his movies.
Unintended consequence: Pryor was also one of the bluest of commedians. His use of obscenities worked for him, as it made his timing more effective. Unfortunately, it also opened the door for a lot of other comedians, few of whom have his talent. Many standup comedians nowadays, especially black ones, can’t complete a sentence without using obscenities. Many of them have apparently given up on humor entirely, preferring to specialize in obscenity.
Russ,
I want that fate reserved for LBJ. For sending us into that war with no intention of winning. And for every Senate Democrat who made sure the sacrifices of my friends and others like them were in vain.
TW= Russ, Paul. You’ll find his name on the wall. He was far too good a man to die so young.
“Pops” Gittleson, first man in my outfit killed, August 7, 1950. He would have been 82 this year.
War needs to be total. Cutting off a puppy’t tail an inch at a time is not a kindness.
Jay  Comics working blue predated Pryor by years, black and white. Red Foxx, Wanda Page, Moms Mabley and Buddy Hackett all come to mind.
And there was nothing unintentional by the Western left in the deaths of millions of Asians post-75. The purging of “counterrevolutionary” elements was a key part of their beliefs (and ever so earthy and exciting, when viewed from the safety of the faculty lounge and editorial room)…
Well we can see how Dominic Sandbrook sees Eugene McCarthy’s alledged role in unseating LBJ in his biography he wrote in 2004…
ANd that should have been LaWanda Page…
WWNRiatoMM,
Working blue goes back to burlesque. But Pryor mainstreamed it. Before Pryor, the only person even near the mainstream using obscenity was Lenny Bruce, and he kept getting arrested. After Pryor, everyone could do it, and it was only a few rare comedians, like Bill Cosby, who didn’t use it.
As for the deaths in SE Asia, I don’t think that most of the anti-war protesters in the 1960s expected them. I think many of them were stupid enough to believe that Communism would truly bring a worker’s paradise.
The best example of this is George McGovern. When he heard about the killing fields in the late 1970s, he actually suggested that the US should intervene militarily in Cambodia. Everyone regarded this statement as an act of deep stupidity.
I think the more accurate statement would be to say they didn’t care. If thousands or millions died, it didn’t matter, so long as the US got out.
The Left feels the same way about Iraq, today.
“Left my Jag in Kansas City” was a pretty good line, as was, “You ain’t sayin’ Shit now Mr. Big.”
alchohol abuse would always lead to liver cancer if not properly treated “
alcohol abuse is also deadly if you are not able to treat it at the right time **.