Review: Paul Mooney's 'Black Is the New White'

[Blue_Tires]

When Richard Franklin Lennox Thomas Pryor III died in December 2005 - at age 65 of a heart attack, after years of treatment for multiple sclerosis - the comic was acclaimed for his role in blazing a new trail for American comedy, opening wide a window on the bitter corners of African-American life, and placing that life in a perspective that made that pain not just palatable, not even just funny, but truly, deeply universal. What's gotten less attention have been the contributions of Paul Mooney, a close friend of Pryor, a standup comic in his own right, and the writer of many of the gags and routines that Pryor made famous.

"Black Is the New White," a memoir of his life in the orbit of Pryor and others in Hollywood, has a pace and energy that make it read more like a conversation -- or a long and pungent standup routine -- instead of a conventional narrative. Mooney takes us through Hollywood of the '60s and '70s, when prospects for black actors and actresses were more dismal than they are today. Combining observations of American race relations with a cautionary tale of the price of success in L.A., Mooney challenges readers the way he challenges his audiences: directly, no holds barred.


Born in Shreveport, La., in 1941 ("the same year a scientist creates plutonium ... Me and plutonium, born simultaneously, both with designs to blow up the world"), Mooney lived there until the age of seven, when he and his family moved to northern California. Showing a talent for dancing and improvisation, Mooney eventually enters and wins area dance contests at age 14. He achieves a breakthrough at age 18 when he stars on "Dance Party," a local West Coast version of "American Bandstand."

"As the 1960s dawn, I'm getting more and more restless," Mooney writes. "y first taste of celebrity is sweet, but suddenly Oakland, Berkeley, San Francisco -- the whole place seems too small to hold me. ... The Dance Party gig ends abruptly when I get drafted into the army and sent to West Germany."

After two years in uniform, Mooney returns to California with few options that could help him as a breadwinner (one with three children to feed, at that).

His life changes again after a chance visit to Ann's, a San Francisco nightclub. Onstage: a largely unknown comic named Lenny Bruce. "I stumble out of Ann's a changed man," Mooney writes. "He talks onstage like the people around me talk in real life. Plus his laughs have bite. His routines have switchblades concealed inside them."

Hollywood beckons, calling Mooney loudly enough to put him behind the wheel of "my baby blue 1959 Bonneville convertible, tailfins sweeping off the back like a Cadillac." With two friends in tow, Mooney makes for Hollywood.

The mad, outrageous rush of these pages yields a kind of Pilgrim's Progress in the entertainment biz. Mooney joins the Second City comedy troupe, then joins a circus that travels the Southwest. Eventually, all roads lead back to Hollywood, a place on the wrong end of Sunset Boulevard, and a chance meeting at a party with Pryor, the "twisted imp" who'd change his life, and standup comedy, forever.

http://www.thegrio.com/2009/12/when-richard-franklin-lennox-thomas.php