Tuesday, April 7, 2009

Of writer's block and unintentional comedy

Sorry, I know the pace of posting here has slowed down over the past couple of days. I've been wilding out and fighting through a mean case of writer's block.

I expect to resume a semi-regular posting schedule by this evening. But who really knows?

On another note, my mother was horrified to know that I admitted to previous drug use in yesterday's post. Sorry for that. Consider it a "Dreams From My Father" moment - I'm getting it out in the open now before someone can dime me out.

In the meantime, how about some Eddie Murphy?

2 comments:

Jack T. said...

It occurs to me that Eddie's biggest problem musically (other than very, very poor song choice) was that he lacked an overall style, which made all of his vocal performances seem like parodies of his influences (James Brown, Michael Jackson) instead of his own voice. Eddie drew heavily on Richard Pryor as a comedian, but found his own voice by injecting his personality into movie roles that would have been stale in someone else's hands (think when Billy Valentine breaks the "fourth wall" in Trading Places). But when Rick James is involved at the start of your career, things like artistic development and long term thinking probably go out the window. As Rick once said "Cocaine is a hell of a drug."

blackink said...

You know, Jack, that sounds about right. I've always felt the same way about Jamie Foxx - like he was impersonating someone that could actually sing. So I could never take him seriously as a singer in his own right.

With Eddie though, I'm not even sure he's got a good voice. He just has a exceptional gift for mimicry.

My thing is, Eddie had to have known some funny shit was going down on the set of those videos. I mean, "Party All the Time"? Come on. You tellin' me Eddie wasn't in on the joke?