jon lovitz said come on, you re making it sound worse than it was. [ laughter ] i was like holy [ bleep ]. we laughed for a half an hour and nobody would have found that funnier than phil heartman. it s a life-and-death experience. you go up there, you take your life in your hands. my stomach hurts, badly, and i ve been nauseous all day. you re overthinking what you re wearing, how you re going to say the first thing you re going to say. i feel horrified. i wonder, why tonight? why again? ladies and gentlemen, robin williams! patton oswalt! richard pryor! when i walk on stage, i m riddled with fear and excitement, because i have no idea what i m going to do.
you wish you could change. you wish you were smarter, you wish you were better looking, you wish you were had more confidence. but you don t. i had to be funny. i had to be likable. i was a bedwetter well into my teens, you know. there s a lot of humiliation to overcome. and being the funny one at camp is a really good deal if you re also the one that smells like pee. if you re a comedian, there is a part of you that is unhinged and more importantly, unhappy. i m friends with mostly comedians. most of us are on antidepressants. and i don t think that s a coincidence. as you see in the news, comics can mess up. you know, we do everything from shoot at our cars to o.d. and we re the people that make people happy, you know. richard pryor grew up in a very unusual situation.
okay. let s watch the princess bride 11 times in a row. oh, depression, this is the best day you ve ever had. either in small or big ways comedy has kept someone out of depression or suicide or helped them cope with a loss. and you remember that. if you can talk about something openly and you find the right way to do it, it takes away all of its power. that s really beautiful. i find comics to be pretty honest people in terms of looking at stuff from both sides or all sides and presenting you with like, here it is. in the process of looking for comedy, you have to be deeply honest. then doing that, you ll find out, here s the other side. you know. you ll be looking under the rock occasionally for the laughter. a comedian who lives on making fun of everything around him, the ridiculousness of everything. to come through something horrendous and be alive, you got to have a sense of humor.
you like her. but you d like her better if you made more money than she does. don t get mad at @just marea. get e trade. finally tonight, comedian richard pryor is feeling better. doctors at his sherman oaks, california, hospital have taken him off the critical list. pryor is responding well to skin graft treatments for burns he suffered at his home three weeks ago. you ve gone through a tragedy. you re a comedian. you re going to go up on stage and talk about that tragedy. that s what the comic mind does. you re compelled to tell your experience. i m going to tell y all the truth tonight. okay?
fame and you ve got the money and a fair amount of enablers around you, it s easy to keep going and keep on a self-destructive path. and it s hard to stop. the actor and comedian chris farley was found dead in a chicago apartment today. farley followed his idol john belushi s path of success, and along the way friends say he succumbed to the same excesses. food, alcohol, and drugs. when you have that kind of brain, and i don t want the get into that stuff, except that you re wired dark. you can go dark real fast. dad couldn t take it anymore. and he wanted it to stop. he just was like, i want it to stop. richard pryor, the comedian and writer, was badly burned in an accident at his home in california last night. the burns cover the upper half of his body. they are severe enough to endanger his life. are you ready to shape up your makeup? new infallible shaping sticks, by l oreal.