What makes it even more strange is the fact that they were making a movie together. Creepy.
Speaking of Isaac Hayes, Hot Buttered Soul is my father's favorite album. One of my fondest memories is when I was around ten or eleven and me and Pops drove from California to Minnesota to visit my uncle's family. Although he drove a Honda station wagon in his civillian life, Pops insisted on renting a Cadillac Deville ("It's called a hog, son") for our trip and spent hours creating these elaborate funk mix tapes for us to ride to. Hayes' Walk on By was a staple and I remember being awed not only by the song's lush orchestration, but also it's intimate and painful portrait of a man at his most vulnerable. We gone miss you, Mr. Hayes....Oh yeah, I almost forgot: Isaac Hayes was also funny as hell (long before he was Chef on South Park) and played a central role in one of the funniest comedies ever, I'm Gonna Get You Sucka. Check this scene with Jim Brown and a young Chris Rock.
3 comments:
Abdel,
this is Dave from Baltimore, the dude who helped you out at with the Guilford Elementary afterschool program. I'm trying to go the teaching route out here in Cali and need proof of my past work, but you know how Baltimore can be. definitely meeting some roadblocks.
if you could hit me back at ddittell@yahoo.com, that'd be beautiful, and I'd also wanna pick your brain on this Chicago teacher stuff I see here.
ps Hot Buttered Soul is incredible. that's my favorite version of Walk on By, not the least because it's a song that actually takes its time to truly play your emotions,
Dave
I remember seeing Bernie Mac on the Kings of Comedy tour when it swung through Chapel Hill. He was visibly tipsy when he got onstage (the last of the 4 to perform, iirc), and he had to cup his hand over his mouth a few times to keep from laughing at his own jokes. Smoking a fat cigar--my boy Jason had a 2nd-row floor seat and said it stunk to high heaven.
Steve Harvey had this kind of indignant streak in his humor, an overwrought outrage that drove his act. Cedric narrated his life as the everyman in caught in comical situations. D.L. Hughley made light of the realities of growing up poor and "keeping it real" even after obtaining celebrity.
Bernie's act, though, was harder to pin down; he wasn't as overt with signaling to the audience what "character" he was playing. It was almost like he was challenging you to figure him out, to make sense of the mumbled ramblings that were part nostalgic, part scary and almost off-putting, and wholly hilarious. He was the drunk uncle telling and reliving a story that was so gritty and absurd that you just had to laugh.
And as you did, he'd flash you those glaring eyes with a stonewall expression and mutter, "Summamabich."
That's a perfect way of describing his comedy. It was dangerous because you weren't sure what parts were real and what parts were the act. To me, that's the best kind of funny.
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