---
title: "No Pryor Conviction: we just lost a good man"
date: 2005-12-12T20:05:55Z
modified: 2005-12-12T20:05:55Z
permalink: "https://redmonk.com/jgovernor/no-pryor-conviction-we-just-lost-a-good-man/"
type: post
status: publish
excerpt: ""
wpid: 421
categories:
  - Uncategorized
timestamp: 2005-12-12T20:05:55Z
tags:
  - Uncategorized
---

The intelligent designer will surely find a nice corner room with a view for Richard Pryor. The positives massively outweigh the negatives, and Richard’s greatest gift, as with so many great comics, was empathy. I would advise you to go read this solid and heart-felt [obituary](http://chervokas.typepad.com/trickster/2005/12/keep_some_sunsh.html) by [Jason Chervokas](http://chervokas.typepad.com/trickster/).

> TO CALL RICHARD PRYOR the greatest stand-up comic of his generation is just so inadequate a measure of the man, his gifts, his power, his insight, his towering and continuing influence on the whole of American culture that the praise would be funny, if it weren’t so sad. It’s like calling William Shakespeare the greatest Elizabethan playwright.