If you don’t know about Dick Gregory, you don’t know your standup history. Gregory was essentially the man who integrated standup comedy. He was eclipsed in the mid-to-late 60s by the personal comedy of Cosby and Pryor, but in the early 60s, he was the only black standup comic doing political and racial humor for mixed audiences. In 1964, he wrote his autobiography (it was a bestseller), and it was called “Nigger.” In 1964? That’s guts. My mom used to have a copy of his very funny book “From the Back of the Bus” around the house, and I read it two or three times as a kid. Like Gregory himself, it was hilarious.
Gregory’s career path, in some ways, mirrored that of Mort Sahl, another cultural commentator whose career peaked in the early 60s. As the civil rights movement became the black power movement, Gregory got more and more serious, and he lost much of his audience and became primarily an activist, rather than an activist comic.
I saw Gregory speak when I was in high school, and I was struck by two things. The first was that he was kind of nutty. His conspiracy theories were the conspiracy theories to top all conspiracy theories. Now, my dad helped found a super lefty organization in the 60s, and had his phones tapped and was on watch lists and all that stuff, so I can see where that comes from. COINTELPRO is no joke. But Gregory was talking about the CIA dissapearing 1000 people during the Rodney King riots and stuff. Stuff that, frankly, I’d put in the “wingnut” category.
The other thing that struck me, though, was that he was hilarious. You go to see a 65-year-old man give a lecture at a state college and you don’t necessarily expect it to be funny. Even a former comedian, at 65, is usually pretty corny. Especially if what they’re into now is juice fasts. But Gregory was quick-witted and genuinely hilarious.
He doesn’t do standup much, but he’s on this black comedy anthology series on Starz tonight, so we’ll see what it’s like.
Also, he was featured in this episode of Wonder Showzen, so that’s pretty awesome.