Original subtitles

- Patrice O'Neal!

- Patrice was the guy.

You know, he was a comic's comic

which is, I think, the dopest thing that you can be.

When the comedians love you,

it's just a different nod of approval.

- I don't mind a little racism.

I don't mind a little bit of it.

I'm afraid of going to hell for being, like,

a devout wrong shit.

Let's discuss harassment.

- It's not the subject.

Nobody owns a subject, it's what you say about it.

And what he had to say about everything he spoke about

was absolutely only his.

- Think about what cheating is.

Cheating is a guy going out trying to make himself happy

without knowing it 'cause he doesn't want to make you upset.

So really, it's for you.

- He was just always better than us,

so whatever we were struggling with, he was beyond it.

- One of the funniest, realest comics of all time.

- He's one of the greatest comedians to ever live.

He's a first-round Hall of Famer.

- He wasn't the most

well-known comedian in America

because there's no justice.

There's no justice.

- I mean, I know this documentary

is supposed to be, like, "Patrice O'Neal!

"Oh, my God! One of the best! The greats!"

[blows raspberry]

- Jackass! - Shut up!

- What are you trying to win?

- Patrice took it too far all the time.

All the time, he took it too far.

but that was part of his charm.

- Oh, my God, I'm finished.

See that white woman there? I'm done.

My career is over.

She's looking like she writes letters

to the governor and shit.

- Patrice was a genius

who constantly shot himself in the foot.

- This crowd stinks.

I don't really see myself as an entertainer.

Like, I realized I don't really like entertaining people.

- He said, "Be the truth at all costs."

- I thought that I would have a white slave by--

I thought-- [laughter]

Big old fat white girl going to warm my bed up.

Get upstairs, Susie!

- Yeah, he used to say this thing about,

you know, killing is easy.

Once you learn how to kill as a comedian, killing is easy,

and everybody in the room is laughing.

But that's not what he wanted.

He wanted the truth.

- Hey, look, I gotta go, man.

Y'all take care of yourselves.

Thank you very much.

Thank you. Thanks, y'all.

[laughter]

- Just relax. - Yeah, just be you.

- I couldn't be any more relaxed.

- Well, this is what you do. Go like this.

Breathe. [both inhale, exhale]

- There you go. [laughter]

- Yeah, there's gonna be a lot of casting directors

watching this, you know? - Yeah.

- It's gonna be your big break.

- You're gonna get a special out of this.

- Yeah. - Who's that fella?

That fella with the hat.

- You got fucking crow eyes. Look at you.

- It's crow's feet, you dumb fuck.

- I know, but yours are in the eye!

- Crow's eyes. [laughter]

- He would act like he hated it, but he would love it.

- But then he'd complain it took so long.

He would be annoyed that it wasn't made

literally the first year. - There's a lot of people

that weren't that sad when Patrice died.

- Yeah, and there was a lot of tears and a lot of balloons.

[laughter]

[funky music]

- I was born during when Black people named their children--

they had to name them after somebody important Black,

so there was a lot of Marcuses,

a lot of Malcolms, you know.

My middle name is Malcolm.

- During that time, you know, we were all finding ourselves,

learning about our African roots,

and my cousin wanted to name him Lumumba.

- After Patrice Lumumba, the first Congo president.

And my mother said, "No, I'd like him

to have some sort of life, so I'll make a deal with you

that I'ma name him Patrice instead of Lumumba."

Because it's better for somebody to go,

"Is that a girl's name?" than to go,

"What the hell

is a Lumumba?" [laughter]

- In the formative years, he was very inquisitive,

very inquisitive.

He always asked a lot of questions.

Of course, he was very talkative,

so he was frequently in trouble that way.

[laughs]

- You're from Roxbury, Massachusetts.

- Yeah. - Now most Americans

have no idea how racist Boston is.

- A lot of things I learned about racism

that you don't learn unless you live

in a place like Boston.

It was a summer camp. I think I was 10,

and this kid called me a nigger.

This little white kid called me a nigger and ran.

And I chased him, and he ran to where

there was adults, and I grabbed him,

and when I put my hands on him,

I got thrown out of camp.

I'm like, "He called me a nigger."

It's like, "Yeah, nigger."

So I learned a lesson

that you have the skin color of the enemy.

- I had to talk to him about a lot of things.

You know, he only had me to come to.

I had to be Mom and Dad, which most single parents do.

And so, you have to let them know

that as a Black male child, people are always

gonna judge you by what you look like.

- He was a good brother, a good older brother,

taught me a lot of stuff.

I remember we would go to the rec center every day,

and he would go play basketball with his friends,

and I would just sit there,

and I'd have my little book and have to read my book,

and then I would have to talk about my book.

He would say, "Well, what was the book about?"

"I don't think you read that right.

You need to read it again."

Like, well, that's what it was, and he's like,

"No, that's not what it's about,"

and he would tell me what it was about,

and I'm like, "Well, I didn't get that from it."

"Well, read it again!"

- This is where it all began.

This is the home of Patrice O'Neal,

you know, better known to us as Bruiser.

I guess you guys knew him as Patrice O'Neal.

We used to call him Bruiser. - Bruiser.

- You know, wasn't just a nickname

because that's kind of what you give guys

when they're 6-6, 350, 360, you know what I mean?

You give 'em big guy names, you know?

You give 'em big rough and tough names so, you know?

- This was the spot.

His house pretty much became the meeting spot.

- Yeah! - Story after story,

telling joke after joke.

- You know, comedy kinda was his thing, you know?

Bruiser, big as he is, you know,

dude wasn't the sexiest dude, you know what I mean,

but he had the gift of gab.

He had a mouthpiece. - That's it.

- I've been fat all my life, so funny used to--

it was a defense mechanism all the time.

You walk in the room, and I used to go,

"I'ma get a motherfucker before he get me,"

and I liked pretty girls, and I found out

that I can laugh my way into some pretty pussy.

- I remember times where we're wondering, like,

how to break ice, how to, like,

you know, approach, you know, females and stuff.

- Females and stuff, yeah. - Bruiser would kinda, like,

slice through all of that,

like, "Hey, yeah, it's whatever," you know?

- You know? If he said hello to you, better say hello back,

'cause if you don't say hello,

and try to get fancy with it-- - At least.

- Oh, he'd jump all over you. - At least, at least.

- And he'd break it down. - And he wasn't the typical

"Fuck you, bitch." - Mm-mm.

- You know, it wasn't your typical--it wasn't that.

- He had to get personal. He'd get completely personal.

- It was like, I'm gonna look at your shoes,

what you're wearing. - Whatever you look like,

your friends. - Your walking--right.

- Like, "I know why you're here.

Why are y'all here with her?" - Your hairdo.

You know what I mean? - "She driving," you know?

- Hey, she's making your whole team look bad!

You know what I mean? - "Y'all should leave her."

Exactly. - Just roaster, roaster.

- [laughs] - Yeah.

- He was always funny.

He must have woke up in the morning funny

because he came off the bus,

and he never shut up, and he was always talking.

And he was always surrounded by people,

and they were always laughing.

I had an open-door policy in my office.

Not a lot of the students for obvious reasons

would just come in and say hello.

Well, he did. He'd pop his head in.

"Hey, Mr. P. What's going on?"

Sit down, and he'd just talk

about anything he wanted to talk about.

But after he would leave,

you thought about some of the things he said.

He was talking about issues,

but he had a different slant on those issues.

- Even if it was something as simple as

the basketball court, for instance.

Bruiser would point out,

"Notice how when you go to the white side of town,

"you see the lines on the basketball court.

"You see the foul line, you see the out-of-bound lines.

"When you go to the hood, you don't see any lines.

"You just see a basketball goal down here,

"a basketball goal down there.

Oftentimes, they don't have nets on 'em."

You know what I mean?

So he kinda was, you know, aware of those things,

you know what I mean, and noticed the,

you know, unbalanced nature, you know, of that whole aspect.

- He was thinking on a whole different level

than we were thinking, you know?

- Very much so. - Very much so.

- I don't think I was lucky as a comic

in terms of the time I started.

I think that I was ready to be a comic.

I wanted to be one since I was maybe 16,

but when I was 22, I started,

and I think that was the perfect time.

- And of course, you know, Patrice's story

of how he started, you know.

- The legend was--I wasn't here when this story happened.

It was '92 at a club called Estelle's.

- I do remember going to Estelle's.

- We were all in the audience,

and there was a guy doing comedy.

[laughs]

I guess we can't say names, but--

- You can.

When did you first meet Patrice O'Neal?

- Him and his family came in to watch a show,

and I was on stage, and he tried to heckle me.

- The story has it that Patrice was heckling him

the whole set, and-- [both laugh]

- Because of course, he had his own opinions then

about what was good and bad.

- I asked him if he had voted, and he's like,

"No, I don't vote." I said, "Yeah,

that's 'cause your fat ass can't fit in the booth."

You know, and that's how it started.

- Here comes Bruiser, like, just a shit-talking dude,

life of the party, you know what I mean,

not really doing anything on a professional level.

Here comes a dude who kinda just steps right into it.

- And the guy said, "Well, if you think

"that you can do better,

why don't you come up here and do better?"

- After the show, he came to me.

He was like, "Yo, I was just trying to,

you know, help you out, you know?"

I was like, "You're not helping."

He said, "Well, I always thought about

I should be up there." I was like,

"Well, if you really wanna get up there--"

and I gave him some names

and phone numbers of places to call

where you can go try out your stuff.

- I guess he got inspired by that,

and that's how Patrice

basically got into doing stand-up.

- Please welcome our favorite Patrice O'Neal!

- So ultimately, I always love him

because he finally got me to stop procrastinating--

- Right, right. - And actually do something.

- People told me, like, years later, you know.

He's like, "You know, Patrice gives you credit for

for getting him started in comedy,"

and I'm like, "Really?"

Damn, I could have been using that. [laughs]

- I got into this business 'cause I was a funny person,

and this was the natural, you know,

progression to a funny person can actually make money.

You know, if there was no such thing as comedy,

I'd just be a funny guy

working at the supermarket or whatever.

- Thank you. Thank you.

- When we first met, I just started doing comedy.

I started in '92, and I think he started sometime in '93,

and I was at the Comedy Connection, Faneuil Hall,

and he was a door guy there.

I don't remember that he was particularly funny

when I first talked to him.

I just knew that he was, like, interesting.

Like, "Oh, who's this guy?"

- I saw him once as a door guy.

And the next time I saw him,

I believe we were at Stitches.

- And this was, like, a place that new comics wanted to go.

We wanted to go and, like, try to get,

you know, 5 or 7 minutes,

and I remember my first, very first impression of him

is he kinda turned to look at me to be like,

"Is this where we can hang?"

And I was like, "Yeah, yeah, step right over here,"

and he stepped over, and he was kind of whispering,

and he was like, "Oh, damn, my first night in here.

Oh, how do they do it here?" And, like,

we kind of just immediately were going back and forth.

I said, "Oh, so you're here to perform?"

"I hope so,"

and he put his hand out, and it was Bruiser.

- What's up, guys? What's going on?

How you doing, Bill? - What a show.

I will tell you. - Yeah. Hey, Patrice.

What's happening? - Fuck you!

- Okay.

I'm going up on stage next, make these people laugh.

I'm gonna bring the camera right up with me.

I'm doing a documentary.

It's called "The Decline of Comedy,"

and I'm looking at the beginning.

- And the end. - [laughs]

- It was fun being together.

As soon as you saw Patrice or Billy or Dane

or any of those guys, that was the fun part of it

'cause we were in the car

just fucking making each other laugh.

- [laughing]

- That laugh, that was my favorite thing,

and so those late nights after,

it was kind of like,

"Let's unwrap what we did in comedy,"

but, oh, man, if you could get Patrice on a roll,

you kind of felt like you had two great shows--

you know what I mean, you had the show, and then,

man, I made Patrice laugh, like, the real Patrice laugh.

That was like a gift.

- We would hang out until, like, 2:00 in the morning.

Then I would drive Patrice home,

and I'd talk to him for another hour in the car.

- I remember when Patrice--

he would teach me shit.

I mean, he taught me stuff about,

like, Black hookers.

[engine starts] [indistinct chatter]

We were just sitting in my car one night.

This older Black hooker came by.

He's like, "You know, Black hookers don't go

with Black dudes, right?"

I was like, "Shut the fuck up."

He's like, "They don't. They only go with white dudes.

They like white dudes."

I'm like, "You're lying."

He's like, "I'm telling you, man."

He goes, "White dudes don't negotiate.

You just tell them how much it costs,

and they'll fucking pay you.

Black dudes are going to, you know, be like,

'Oh, I'll give you 10.'"

And I was like, "Bullshit." Then he called her over.

He was like, "Yo, come here for a second."

I remember she came over. He was like,

"Yo, you go with Black dudes?"

She's like, "Fuck that."

[laughs]

I was like, "What?"

- I don't mind a little racism.

I don't mind a little bit of it.

That's what makes America, America, man.

I don't mind a little bit. It's just I don't--

These fanatics, fanatical racists, man, that say,

"Ah, we should have never ended slavery,

should have kept 'em slaves, should have never freed 'em!"

Come on. Okay. I don't care

what your degree in racism is, right.

Think about this.

Racism or slavery in 1994?

What the fuck is that gonna be?

[imitating whip]

"Fax this, nigga." [laughter]

- I remember watching him and just thinking,

"Well, I'm not gonna be the best comedian in Boston.

This guy is the best I've ever seen."

And the joke I remember, I mean,

I remember most of the set, but one joke he told,

he opened up by saying, "I hate fat people."

[applause]

- Like, you know, fat strangers,

they speak to me in the middle of street

like we got some sort of,

you know, bond or something.

Like, you know, "Hey," you know, "Hey, I eat too."

I don't know you! [laughter]

- Every fat guy did fat jokes back then, and they would kill,

and you made a great living being the fat guy,

and then he went up there, and he says,

"I hate fat people."

- Get extra happy like, "You know, hey,

big man, represent, man, represent."

Ah, yeah, all right.

Represent what, you know, you know, fat people?

When I become the leader of fat people,

I don't want to lead fat people nowhere.

What are we gonna to do, march?

The 1,000,000-pound march.

We're gonna walk-- [cheers and applause]

You know, like I'm Malcolm XXL

or something like, you know? [laughter]

Hey, thank you very much.

Thank you. I appreciate it. Thank you. Thank you.

- I remember seeing him maybe six or nine months

after the Malcolm XXL jokes,

and he was doing something completely different.

He was doing longform, and he was telling stories,

And I remember saying, "He can go onto this new thing,

but he should still do the Malcolm XXL because it kills."

And somebody said, "Gary, he doesn't wanna be

"the guy telling the Malcolm XXL jokes.

He wants to be Pryor,"

And I thought, "Oh, then he probably will be."

[laughter]

- People are full of shit, man, really.

Just be honest. That's all I'm asking.

Like, I was on a train, and the train stopped.

It was during, like, rush hour,

and no one knew why the train stopped

till the conductor said, "Folks, uhh--

"there may be a half-hour delay in service.

A woman just was struck and killed by the train."

Everybody went-- "[gasps] My God."

[laughter]

[applause]

[mouthing]

And I'm sitting there-- why don't you just be honest

and do what you wanna do and go,

"Oh, my God, this dead bitch

is holding up my dinner!"

[laughter]

Damn, how long does it take to move a face off the tracks?

A half hour? [laughter]

- I remember one time, he goes,

"You gotta be the fucking truth.

"Be the truth up there, man. Be the truth.

"Stop trying to be what you think that they want you to be

"or what you did last week that--

"Be the fucking truth. Be the truth right now,

how you feel right now."

And that was his secret sauce. That was the trick.

If he was whimsical, he was whimsical on stage.

If he was feeling frustrated and annoyed,

he'd bring that to the stage.

- Can't remember the exact material,

but I just remember falling over laughing

and thinking he was so provocative

but in a way that made you love him.

- What people talked about, and they talked about him,

it wasn't just that he was good.

It was like, "This guy's different.

This guy is sort of insanely different, and he's good."

You know, we always like to break young talent.

We've done it with every show,

but this guy, I read about in "The Globe,"

and I heard about him from

some of the other comics in town.

Very funny guy. We're happy to have him here,

Mr. Patrice O'Neal, ladies and gentlemen, yes.

[light rock music]

- Hey. Yeah!

Fuckin' A.

Whole lot of white people, whole lot.

Plenty.

Make me feel uncomfortable. That's all right.

You know what's good about having

a lot of white people like this?

I can see my mother. [laughter]

- [laughs, claps] - Which, by the way, was true.

When you looked, she was literally the only Black person

in this sea of 15,000 people.

- They knew I was in the audience

because Boston, you know, is-- [laughs]

Boston is Boston.

- As far as, like, what was the racial dynamic of

Boston stand-up when we came in, it was non-existent.

It was just all white guys

and, like, maybe a half dozen female comics.

- He was doing material that crowds in Boston

weren't really accustomed to seeing.

- Part of his charm was this big looming presence

and as a Black man, big Black man just coming on stage

and immediately talking about race.

- When I was growing up, I had a racist camp counselor.

[laughter]

[exhales]

He was cool. I thought he was racist--

I was, like, one of those city kids that's sent to a camp.

You know, it was all suburban kids and stuff

and get that different exposure or whatever.

It was cool.

The problem was at night, I couldn't sleep because

he was singing lullabies to the kids

and crickets-- [imitates crickets]

and leaves blowing in the wind, and one night, I just said--

I wasn't-- I just said, "Excuse me, sir.

"Sir, I can't sleep.

"Please, help me. I can't get any rest, man.

"These sounds, these--I can't--

"Please, please help me get some rest.

"Can you do something? These sounds--

I can't sleep. Please,"

And he said, "Sure, little fella.

"No problem 'cause we're all family here.

[imitating police siren]

[Indistinct]

Freeze! Get against the wall!

Get on the fuckin' wall!

[laughter]

You sleepy yet, son?"

- Where Bruiser gets most of his racial animus

is because of what happened

with that whole Charles Stuart thing.

- Police, Boston, record emergency, 510.

- My wife has been shot. I've been shot.

- Charles Stuart told the dispatcher from his car phone

that he and his pregnant wife Carol had just been abducted,

robbed, and shot.

He said they were shot by a Black man.

- This man killed his wife, his pregnant wife,

and he was able to say a Black man did it,

and the police department in Boston

tore up the communities looking for this phantom.

- The night it went down,

we were coming from Northeastern gym,

so as we were walking home,

that whole thing had just popped off, I guess,

and the police were in their lockdown state,

and we got jammed up behind that.

[siren chirps, radio chatter]

Bruiser and I both were held at gunpoint.

- The police were actually pulling down their jeans

and checking them in the middle of the street.

- The way we were treated

and the way we were handled in that moment,

I think, had a visceral effect on him.

- White women make me nervous. I'm horrified at white women.

Not now, 'cause there's witnesses,

but I'm talking about-- [laughter]

I'm talking about at night, you know what I mean?

You walk somewhere,

and a white woman is coming towards me,

and she's looking at me, and she's maybe a little like,

"Oh, my God, Jesus, he's a big guy.

I'm scared,"

and I'm kind of in the same mode in my mind like,

"Oh, Jesus Christ,

I hope nothing happens to her around me.

If she gets killed, let her get killed away from me.

I don't want to get blamed," like, I'm always prepared, too.

I always have an alibi.

Like, I keep my receipts all day long.

I just have a pocket full of receipts,

just a trail of where I've been just in case a cop is like,

"Where was you at 6:00?" I'm like, "Ohh, uh--

"I was buying a CD."

And I make sure when I bought that CD,

people in the store remember me.

I'm as loud and obnoxious as possible,

"And I'm buying this goddamn CD!"

- I remember driving home one night,

and he was trying to have me-- like, he was trying to guess

which comics he thinks regularly say the N word.

[laughter]

And he was doing it in this funny way,

and I was just throwing out names

because it kind of became like a game.

He said, "Oh, that motherfucker, you can tell

"by his fuckin' shoes and his tight-ass jeans.

"He probably wakes up, that's part of his yawn

or something like that," and it's just--

He had me dying laughing,

and it was one of those things where I think

I was really young where I was just kind of,

like, going, "Oh, wow, this is cool.

This sounds like, you know, those Richard Pryor albums

that I heard when I was growing up."

You know, I didn't understand, like the--

like, the pain that was causing him.

- The first time we all drove down, me,

Dane, Billy, Patrice,

we all came down together in this one truck,

I think Dane's girlfriend's fucking big SUV

or whatever the fuck it was.

I remember we all went down,

and we all just went to the Cellar.

Just kinda stood there and--

Okay, then we all went up

to the Strip and just stood there.

None of us were in.

Went to the Boston Comedy Club

and kind of just hung out there for a little bit,

and then we went to a peep show.

- He was coming back and forth a lot.

Then I say, "You just move to New York.

If you want to come through, I have room for you,"

so he said, "All right,"

and then he ended up moving in, in my kitchen.

That was his little thing, pull the curtain up.

It was just bad. [laughs]

- I mean, I started in Boston, but I made my bones, I think,

you know, I grew up

in the Boston Comedy Club in New York, probably.

They gave me more time. They gave me more space.

You know, I was able to kinda really work out

what's on your mind

without, you know, endangering your career.

- Boston Comedy Club was real hot at that time.

Everybody there was killing--

Dave Chappelle, Dave Attell, Jay Mohr.

Louie CK was coming through,

and I see a look in Patrice's eyes

'cause I said, "Yo, you wanna go on?"

He said, "Nah, nah, nah, nah, nah, I'm not ready."

I think that's the last time

I've ever seen Patrice be humble. [laughs]

- When he came to New York, he wasn't one of these guys

that had that dirty word, potential.

It's a dirty, dirty word. It means you're not there, bro.

If we walked in a room, I remember I was thinking,

"Okay, here he is.

There's only one wolf. It ain't me anymore."

- I remember the first time I watched him

do a set in that club, and it was just, you know,

kind of when you see somebody and you're like,

"Oh, my God, this is amazing. I can't believe

this is somebody I haven't seen before."

He was doing material about being a Black man

and, you know, if a--

Like, he would never litter. That was it.

- Like, I don't litter.

I don't throw garbage in the street

not 'cause I care about the Earth,

but I'm afraid that I'm gonna be walking through the park

drinking a soda or something, and I'm done,

I just throw it over my shoulder.

It'll fly over a bush and roll down a hill

and land on some dead white woman's head

with my fingerprints on the fucking can.

[laughter]

Now I'm the Pepsi-Cola Rapist

'cause I'm fuckin'-- 'cause I'm lazy.

- I've never seen him with a piece of paper.

I never see him wrote a joke down.

I never heard him go, "Yo, do you think this is funny?"

He would do everything in the form of philosophy.

He would just be like, "Yo, Bobby, you see this chick?

She was, you know, fuckin' a dog."

I'd be like, "What?" He would be like, "Yeah!"

And all of a sudden, he'd be talking about it like,

"Yeah, but if you came in--

"I know, but one second.

"If you came in-- just hear me out.

"If you came in

"and for one second you got a little heartbeat

in your dick, does that make you fuck--"

Then he'd go on stage that night

and bring all these conversations

he had about this subject.

Whatever the fuck it was, he would bring it up on stage

and kinda do that on stage.

You can kind of hear that in his comedy.

- I'm a dictator, a commentator.

I'm so absorbed when I'm up there.

I don't have--it's really--

it's like, you are doing what I want you to do.

Like, even when people come in the audience and they get mad,

I'm like, "Do you want me to-- what you want me do?

"Did you want me to, like, send you an e-mail early

to let you know what I wanna talk about?"

I always see how fast I can piss off a crowd

and see if I can bring them back.

It may not happen because there's not a lot of y'all,

and it's not good.

- Yeah, you know, well,

let's just continue to talk to you then.

[laughter]

- I'm not a big fan of making people laugh

every five fuckin' seconds.

Like, I'm not even--

I don't even see myself as an entertainer.

Like, I realize I don't really like entertaining people.

Like, I realize I'm not gonna try to do everything I can

so you can have a good time.

Like, I think a juggler is an entertainer

'cause he just does what he does,

you know, a magician,

but, like, I don't think a good comedian entertains anybody.

Look at that serious face over there.

- Not you, this fucking lady with the--

Oh, what--oh, you got really mad. Go ahead.

Like, you know,

you know, sometimes I like

running people out my show.

Get out. Go.

All right, bitch. Here. [laughter]

She leaves, then you give it to her outside.

[laughter]

[cheers and applause]

I hope you go someplace and have a lot of fun!

- Stand-up is really about dissecting humanness,

you know, the flaws of being human.

And as I watched Patrice,

it was a very honest take on sort of this destructive

human being that's on stage,

and for me, that was interesting to watch.

- I met Patrice at a college gig,

and he was such an asshole.

I don't remember when I started liking Patrice or why.

[laughter]

- When did I first meet Patrice? I don't even know.

All's I know is all of a sudden, we're good friends.

[laughter]

- Patrice, Keith, Nort and myself

would just hang outside Boston Comedy Club

till 3:00 in the morning just trashing each other,

and people would stick their head out the window,

yell, "Shut up!"

You know, people are trying to sleep.

- End of '99, 2000 is when I started going to New York,

and I was introduced to Patrice O'Neal.

Patrice was the name that you needed to know,

so I was very kind, and in return, I got,

"Who's this dummy? Ugh."

That's what I remember, "Ugh." [laughs]

- [laughs] Nothin'! You gotta go.

- I have things to do.

- Patrice O'Neal at that time was an asshole.

I'm pretty sure there's some people that are lying

on this documentary

to talk about how sweet he was

'cause in death, you say good things about people.

But in the vein of Patrice O'Neal,

I'll keep it honest.

He was a fucking asshole.

But he was a funny asshole.

He was a likable asshole,

and he had the honest voice.

- My favorite memories besides my kids being born

and my ex-wife leaving me

were hanging out with our crew.

- Just hanging out in the Comedy Cellar.

They used to have a table in the back.

- It was like Patrice, Bobby,

Kev, Colin, Billy, Norton, Keith.

- What was good about being in with that crew

is that we let nobody get away with nothing.

- We used to fuck with each other bad.

Me and Norton and them, we used to have Hack Court,

where we would-- - Oh, is that great!

- Oh, Hack Court, yeah.

- We would put your bit up on trial.

Like, you go-- - Oh, that's so cruel.

- "I think that this bit sucks that you do."

- What was so funny about him being such a dick to people

and breaking their balls

just because no matter what he said,

everybody knew that he was better than them.

[laughs]

- It made us tough.

And it made us more comfortable.

There was nothing that you could say to any of us

that would bother us.

I remember one of my spots at the Boston Comedy Club.

I'm excited. I got a spot!

It's, like, four people in the crowd, maybe five.

Nobody's laughing.

Back of the room, I hear, "Ugh."

At this point, I'm sweating.

I'm just nervous.

And then out of nowhere, "Boom!"

- Patrice and I, from the back of the room,

are heaving fuckin' phone books at Kevin Hart.

- And Patrice said, "Call anybody in there

"and ask them if you made the right decision.

This ain't for you, man! Ugh."

Ugh, and they all walked out the door one by one.

"Boo, boo."

[laughter]

- We would sit there, and comics would walk in,

see all of us and look and just make a U-turn and say,

"Fuck it. I'm not going back there,"

'cause they knew they were gonna get fucking beaten down.

- I used to do that. - You used to walk away?

- I used to come down, and I would have, like,

I would have five insults ready

for everybody just to get you off me

so I could come down and see what time I was going on.

- Patrice beat down Eddie Ifft so bad

no one else could say anything.

He'd call him Eddie Ugh.

He'd beat him down for 45 minutes.

- One of the funniest lines he ever had,

Eddie was going back and forth,

and Eddie is like, "I do a lot of colleges,"

and Patrice said, "Yeah, you do PU 'cause you stink."

[laughter]

- PU.

- You're lying. You did good, man.

- He's, like, speechless right now.

- Fucking zero convention. Come on. Let's go.

- A zero convention. - Why with the phony act?

[laughter]

[overlapping chatter]

- This here is a zero convention!

[laughter]

- There was no elitism in Patrice,

but I think there's just--

You have to be a certain type of person

wired in a similar way to Patrice to handle him.

- Being funny, you gotta take chances,

and sometime a chance you take may hurt somebody's feelings,

and you go, "Oh, I went too far,"

but you want that laugh, too.

- Really? - He had a big heart,

but he didn't show it.

He had armor around it, but if you got to know him

and he liked you, he would do a lot for you.

- He was loud, and he's 6-7,

so that's automatically intimidating.

So when you got into just a discussion with him sometimes,

some people thought this was a serious argument,

But it's not.

- This comedy thing, a lot of it's a mask.

You know, we're all assholes together

and assholes to people.

But deep down, he was a good person.

- I remember one time he was on the phone.

He was in his car. He was driving, and he said,

"Yeah, yeah, yeah, I ate her pussy out.

"That's what I thought. I always eat the pussy out.

"Yeah, well, then if she don't want to suck my dick,

"I don't care. I'm still gonna eat her pussy out.

Right. All right. I'll talk to you later,"

And I go, "Yo, who was that?"

He goes, "That was my mom."

- Everything, he talked about everything because he lived

in the truth about who he was.

- I remember the first time I got my asshole licked.

I cried like a--I was like--

I made a sound like this. I went--[moans]

I was mad at her and loving her at the same time.

- He tells one story

about his first pornography book

which happened to be my book,

"Our Bodies, Ourselves,"

and he read that book back to back,

and then he would talk about things out of that book.

"Oh, my favorite is this, and my favorite is that,"

and it taught him about women.

- I remember when I started poking, first touch a pussy.

Like, I remember I hit the little ball

in the back of the-- I didn't know what it was.

You remember the little--

remember you first hit the ball?

I thought it was her kidneys. I was like, "What--is that?

"What the fuck is that? Is that your liver?

I just touched a ball in your pussy."

And I'm just poking, getting carpal tunnel syndrome

and shit just--

That's not my steez no more. Mine's is this.

Mine's is what I guess they call it

the come here, the change.

They call it reach for the change.

[laughter]

Just slide it in, and you just--[imitating]

And you can just hear-- [imitating]

- I remember watching Patrice's set one day

and grabbing my chest,

and that's something you do when you get old.

That's a old woman or old man trait when you're, "Oh, God."

- Man, I love stinkin'-ass bitches, man.

Like, spitters and too--

Yeah, I like girls that spit, gag--[retches]

[laughter]

But my dick ain't that big, so if a girl gag on my dick--

[retches] I'll be like, "For real?"

- He was funny about sex.

He tried to get my wife into swinging. It's like--

- You ever been a mistress? Be honest.

You ever been a side girl?

You ever mess with a guy that had a girlfriend?

- No. - Never? You never did?

There's girls out there that sleep with women's men, right,

and they feel bad.

What about them? I want to love her too.

I don't want to just fucking go over to her house

at 2:00 in the morning

and fucking drink her orange juice.

[laughter]

Talk to her for 30 seconds

and get the fuck out there to go home to my real woman.

I wanna bring you there, introduce you to my girl.

Maybe y'all will get along.

- There's no big secret about Patrice.

That's an ongoing question.

Was he different on stage or on TV versus at home?

No. [laughs]

He was that all the time.

- I get mad at my girl 'cause I look at myself naked,

and I go, "I would never fuck me."

[laughter]

Then I start looking at her like,

What's this bitch up to?

She just love me.

I don't deserve her fucking love.

Goddamn.

- When we first met, I don't think he liked me very much,

but there was something about him that I liked

because he just had that presence.

You know, he was confident. He was charming, but, yeah,

it was a slow process of us getting to the point

where we were in a relationship.

We didn't have sex for, like, the first year.

- Oh, he didn't have sex for a year?

That's a good question.

I know I wasn't having sex.

He probably was.

- Listen, how long have y'all been together?

- Almost two years. - Almost two years.

You sure? All right.

'Cause my girl has been with me for eight years.

I've been with her for three.

- That was our life, you know. Our life was material.

Our life was on stage.

- Let me ask you a question. Here's a question.

Here's a question. Serious question.

Okay, ladies, if you didn't have a vagina,

like, say there was a terrible train accident,

right, and the doctor was like,

"We have to remove your pussy right away,

or you're gonna die."

How would you keep your man past--

you get a two-month guilty,

"I can't leave the bitch right away

'cause she just lost her pussy in a train accident"?

[laughter]

Can't just walk right out on her.

How would you keep your man

past that if you didn't have a vagina?

[audience shouting]

Suck his dick, okay, mouth.

[audience shouting]

Asshole, okay, great.

You see what I'm saying?

Now I've been getting pussy beamed

the whole show, right,

but I give women an opportunity to say,

"I'm going to make myself worth,"

but you just classified yourself as a series of holes,

but, you know, I'm-- [cheers and applause]

I'm supposed to treat you special,

but you're just a bunch of holes to yourself.

[laughter]

No one said learn how to play Xbox,

learn how to play pool, tell better stories,

get another bitch that got a pussy to come on in.

[laughter]

- When you listened to him, you really felt like

you were taking the red pill.

"Oh, I can see now," you know, "This is how it really is."

Is that the right one, the red pill?

I never know if it's the red or the blue.

[rock music]

- Welcome to "Tough Crowd," folks.

- The vision of "Tough Crowd"

was a combination of the Comedy Cellar table

and the fact that it was the beginning of people

being offended and political correctness.

Yet, I'd walk to the bathroom at the Comedy Cellar,

you have to use the bathroom,

and there would be people on stage

saying all these things that were supposedly offensive

to a very multinational, multiracial crowd,

and everyone's laughing, so I was like,

"Wait, this should be at least shown."

You know, so that was the vision to me.

- The hell did you just say?

I don't even know what you just said.

[laughter]

First of all, here's the reason--

This is what white people don't understand.

White people have been stealing stuff for years.

You took Jesus.

You took rock and roll, tried to claim it's yours,

and I'm saying you as the same color, not Irish.

White people would be slaves if they could just to steal it.

[laughter]

- You got a whole thing developed 'cause of a dynamic

that was started by Patrice O'Neal.

- "Tough Crowd," he would stand up.

- Oh! - Shut your mouth, stupid.

- Oh, my God! That's the [BLEEP].

Look! Listen! Shut up!

You're 14, drinking coffee!

- I remember the first couple episodes, we were all going,

"He's hogging the Goddamn camera."

- John didn't even believe a word he's saying,

just wrote it, and he was stuck by it.

Goddammit! - I think he and Colin, too,

wanted--they wanted an honest discussion,

but you're gonna be working with comics that don't know,

that just learned about the Iraq War last night

while they were doing their homework

after they got the list of topics.

- Shut the [BLEEP]-- Shut up, Laurie!

- He had an instant opinion.

Great comics have instant opinions.

Ask 'em something. They'll tell you,

and it's probably not what you thought it was gonna be.

- I love Bush.

- You're not condemning him for that, are you?

- Look, if we die, everybody else dies.

That's why I like George W., GW, 'cause if we die...

- Jesus Christ, shut up! Shut up!

- Everybody else dies. - He's right.

If we die, everybody else dies. - Christ!

- My memories of Patrice on "Tough Crowd" is, like,

that first of all,

half the comedians wanted to kill him,

and they wanted to kill me 'cause I indulged him.

He was, like, I let him get away with murder on that show.

- Many of you hate me because some of your favorite comics

come on the show,

and they can't get a word in edgewise.

Trust me. They ain't got nothing to say.

- But it's because it was so compelling and interesting

to watch somebody working that I was like,

"All right. Let him finish. I want to see where this goes."

- If Black people had one face to call the leader of race,

like, of slavery, like, 'cause it's too broad.

We just hate too many of you.

If y'all, if you just made, like,

one dude with a funny mustache and a big bike, like,

"He was the dude that made slavery!"

We'll be like, "All right. We hate him,"

and then we can move on!

- Yeah. - Yeah.

- Yeah. - Yeah.

- That's very smart.

- "Tough Crowd" was my thing, man.

I loved it with all my heart. I haven't done anything

since that I love as much as I love "Tough Crowd."

[laughs]

What is was is, like, for me, I would love

to tell my point of view no matter what it is

and just really talk shit and tell my opinion.

I'm going to strap one of your jokes to myself

and run through Palestine.

- He changed the dynamic of the room,

but I honestly think it has something to do

with being an original thinker,

and it's so rare

that people are really attracted to it.

- Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome Patrice O'Neal.

[cheers and applause]

- We'd hustle to, you know, open up any opportunity,

any door we could,

and at that time, he walked through,

and he pretty much walked through any door

that, you know, presented itself.

So, acting-- - Seven years, man,

that shit ain't no joke.

- Damn - Oh, damn.

- Little ass teeth, he's got dolphin teeth.

[laughter]

- We had him on two animated shows--

- [BLEEP] you, bitch.

- And "Arrested Development."

- Bananas, where banana is our business.

May I interest you in a banana this day?

- T-Bone, what are you doing here?

- Oh, your dad gave me this job.

- He had a lot of fans in the business early on,

people who really wanted to champion him.

- I'm Patrice O'Neal, and I'm your host of VH1

and ifilm.com's "Web Junk 20."

- And in "The Office," that was the case.

- Damnit, Michael. Pay attention, man.

- But from my understanding of it

was that he was just exhausting on set.

You know, that was it.

He'd just give everybody shit.

- His thing was he didn't like lesser...

talent telling him what to do.

You know what I mean? [laughs]

We were sitting in between takes one time,

and he just expressed to me that just certain people

he just didn't like, like, telling him,

"And this is, uh--

This is how it's done. Uh--"

That didn't sit well with him.

- You know, folks, when friends see other friends messing up,

you don't talk behind their back.

You pull an intervention.

Patrice O'Neal needs my help.

He goes out to Hollywood recently--this is all true,

doesn't get the fame and money he deserves.

Why? He's got what they call an attitude problem.

Let's take you back to L.A. three weeks ago

and reenact Patrice on the set of some TV show

he's doing a guest spot on.

First, you get there early in the morning.

First person you meet is the young production assistant,

an enthusiastic innocent, usually.

- Are you excited?

- [giggles] It's six in the morning.

What are you--I don't-- No, I'm not excited.

All I'm doing is three lines on this stupid show.

What are you doing? You're just the call-sheet girl.

- Well, I just-- - Well, you just what?

You're meaningless. Your life--

You're a phony. Beat it.

- Oh, my God.

- What?

I'm just trying to help her, Colin.

- [laughs] He really believes he's trying to help her,

and you people are saying, oh, we made up the dialogue.

- She was being a phony.

- That was a nice version of what he said to her.

- It was six in the morning. - Patrice's flaw was--

he didn't want to succumb to what he felt

was the bullshit of the business.

- Okay, let's say the show's star showed up.

- Oh. - Hey, man. How's it goin'?

- Hey, man. Hey, everything's cool,

but that script, that sucks, man.

- Some of those things were the baby steps

that should've been taken

to ignite the next levels of his career.

I just don't think that he ever gave

that side of it a true chance.

- He went after everybody.

He went after people in the business who could hurt him.

He went after directors and producers.

You know, I was on the set of "Furry Vengeance" with him,

and I wanted to choke him.

You know, it was me and him.

We're doing this dumb film together.

Then we're sitting there, and the director

is telling us something.

- Real quick, wait. After the jump--

- And Patrice is making it known

that he was disgusted.

And I'm like, "What the fuck is he doing?

He's gonna get fired," and I'm saying to him,

"What are you doing?"

He didn't give a shit.

He was letting the director know.

"Ugh!"

He just couldn't--

Patrice lived his life

as if he thought a movie of his life

would be shown to his friends after,

and he'd get called out if he didn't talk shit

when he was supposed to.

- Hey, my name is Patrice O'Neal,

and I've been fighting with crackers my whole life,

and it's gotten me no place.

I just wish I'd have took some time to understand them

a little bit more.

I wonder what my life would've been.

- Perfect. - Hey, let's get it.

- He had an opportunity with Comedy Central to do a pilot...

- Now pay attention.

- Which turned out to be a disaster. He just--

He believed in his idea so much,

and he just saw it all falling apart.

- One, two? - I liked one thing.

- I wrote a few pilots for him,

and he kinda made me a partner.

Network execs were so put off by him, and, like,

sitting in meetings with him that you think

would be going so well, like, oh, slam dunk,

we're totally getting this pilot,

and then he would just...

be extra him all of the sudden, and we just--

Oh, you could just see the deals and see, like,

the possibilities

just completely disappear because of it.

- Sure, do you know what you're gonna say?

- Nope.

- As a Black guy

coming to a business like this,

when you meet with folks, mostly white,

that don't know you, you don't know them,

so how do you come across to someone that's not familiar?

The frustration is the adjustments

that you feel as though you gotta make

and adjustments that you actually got to make,

it's a mind-fuck,

And then it's a long journey to yourself again.

- Come over here. I wanna show you something: The future.

[organ music]

- That man had real talent, man.

- He was my idol coming up, man.

- Shut up, stupid. - You see, Patrice?

Your friends can't believe you died. They're very sad.

You died of poverty because nobody wanted to do a show

with a 300-pound angry you-know-what.

- What is it that you're trying to do here? What are you--

- That's a good question. - Yeah.

- I'm not impressed with making it.

Like, I don't-- But at the same time, Ron,

I don't wanna be no martyr, either.

I hate when people--when people--I'd rather some people

come up to me and be like, "You suck," other than going,

"You're the best comic I ever seen,"

and then I dig in my pockets, I go, "Really?"

- Yeah. - That's my struggle is--

All right, I'm just gonna do it for the money.

'Cause my mother--everybody

wants me to do it for the money.

See, a lot of things in this game is weird

is they try to give you golden handcuffs all the time,

and golden handcuffs is when, like, if you're out of control,

somebody just gives you something to control you,

so if you've got nothing, they give you five Gs,

give you something, make you scared

of losing five Gs, and then they start--

That's how they beat you into being a slave.

It's like, "Hey, man. We're gonna give you this,

but you're gonna have to spin in a circle

and do this on top of your head and spin it."

Nah, nope, Nah, I ain't gonna do it.

- Patrice had a very clear idea of the kinds of material

he wasn't interested in,

but he was also torn.

He was torn between wanting to have attention

and wanting to have success

and not caring about having attention or having success.

- You know, it's--

I mean, it's difficult to tell the truth,

but you gotta start telling the truth 'cause it kills you.

It takes something out of you when you are phony.

You know, I'd rather die than be phony, really,

'cause it kills me, and I'm-- there's nothing worse.

Like, I'm depressed, but I'm not suicidal.

Do you know how, like, horrible existence

that is, is being wanting to killing yourself,

but you just can't, you won't killing yourself?

Do you understand what that is, so I have to figure out a way

to make myself happy, and that's not to lie.

- You know, comedy is an interesting phenomenon in that,

really, to do the best work in the art form,

you really have to not give a shit about what anybody thinks.

But you're in show business,

and what people think is your bread and butter.

- So say that again. I'm sorry. - I know my history.

I know my propensity,

what I am inclined to do

or inclined to be, so I'm, like

if I can't present myself a certain way

'cause I know my inclinations to be who I am

would destroy that anyway.

Like "Web Junk." I used to do "Web Junk."

You know, I was the "Web Junk" guy.

Hey, everybody. You know.

I probably could've been a celebrity

if I just hung in there and stayed doing "Web Junk,"

But then I woulda had 18-year-old girls at my show,

at my live show, going,

"This is not funny.

This is not the 'Web Junk' guy."

I think this is weird. I don't know."

He's talking about fucking fingers in girls' butts,"

and it just sounds stupid. I don't want--"

- His ultimate mission was to be himself and be honest.

That's the thing that rang out from him.

That's the thing--

That's the force that he couldn't turn off,

and that directed him, and then that--

Sometimes, that path and that force,

which was stronger than his desire to make it,

would clash and hinder

the one to make it in comedy and be in show business.

- I remember when he got the Showtime thing.

He was staying at my house.

He was screaming, got into a big fight

with the production, the director.

I remember he cried 'cause he was like,

he's like, "Why can't I just be me?

Why do I have to fucking fold for these people?"

- In comedy, he always knew what he fucking wanted.

He said no to so many people

'cause he just didn't want to do it.

I mean, he told fuckin' Puffy no, Spike Lee no.

He told fucking major players,

"No, that's not what I"-- - He made mistakes.

- Yeah, but some of that-- - He made mistakes.

- Some of that was fear-- fear of failing, and, like,

when you're actually up to bat,

and now it's your turn, then you do it,

and it's right there, and you're saying,

"Hey, you're the guy," and now you got to perform,

and I think a lot of it was, like,

"Am I going to be really good at this?"

- Yeah.

- The thing is with that, you know,

I don't wanna set myself up for a fall from grace,

meaning that you get caught being who you are,

like Pee-wee Herman jerking off in public.

That's what he is,

but he was being a kids' superstar, and it's like this:

When I do my shit I want to make sure, like--

"Web Junk" would've been my Pee-wee Herman

'cause I have the propensity to jerk off in public,

so I gotta find out who the fuck

is gonna ride with me as who I am.

- Mm-hmm.

- Rich Vos is in the studio.

Vos, what's up, man?

- He looks like, like, a proud papa--

- I'm not a proud poppa.

- 'Cause he's introducing Patrice to Ant and I

and our listeners.

Patrice is a really funny guy.

Is he funnier than you?

- Yes. [laughter]

- "O and A" was a hugely popular

radio show in the shock-jock genre.

It was a place for a lot of comics

to showcase their talents.

- I like when Vos is plowing

through the same old crap, and you're--

- "The same old crap." - It's awful, isn't it?

And he won't write.

Lenny Bruce got more new jokes.

[laughter]

- It was just like doing "Tough Crowd,"

hanging at the Cellar.

It's just us hanging out, and now we're on radio.

- He fell in love. Norton got dumped by a prostitute.

- Patrice was the most honest person I ever met in my life.

He knew where the gray areas were in topics,

and he explored that all the time.

Patrice has a very interesting way--

- Holy shit.

- To look at women. - I told my girl

she's the fourth most important thing in my life.

- Fourth. - I look at, like, the whole

kinda radio era and all that stuff was like--

It was like a show.

- And I'ma tell you what the three ahead of her was.

- I'll guess. - It was me, my career...

- Family? - My mother, and then her.

- Jesus. [laughs]

- Then she goes, "I consider you to be the person

"I'm gonna grow old with,

so I kinda put you ahead of, like, my mother or whatever."

And I go, "Oh, wow, well, thanks, but you're fourth."

[laughter]

- And he was great at it.

I just didn't want to see him become a crony.

Like, you're the angry Black dude

who's gonna come in, and you're hugely opinionated,

and I just knew he was more than that.

- All right. Let's get back to the phones.

Let's go to John in Utah. John?

- Patrice saved my marriage.

I was the doting husband, and it was all about her,

so I started going, "Well, what would Patrice do?"

- What would Patrice do? - It was bad at first,

but it's turned her around,

and we're happier than we could possibly--

- Did you hear what he said? We're happy.

A happy man is a happy relationship.

A happy woman is a miserable man.

- You've got to do a relationship-advice show

for this channel. - Oh, my God.

- A lot of people are calling you the Black Dr. Phil.

- Black Dr.-- [laughter]

- What about women that settle with these piece of shit men?

- Low self-esteem. - Low self-esteem.

That's where a lot of this anger comes from Patrice

'cause he has low self-esteem, too,

and he's covering that with his anger.

- The thing is, I don't agree with that

that's low self-esteem for a woman

to be with a guy who's an asshole.

- It's settling.

- That's their innate nature to wanna be with a guy

that they feel is better than them.

- I would never, ever date a guy that's like that, ever.

- That's why you don't have love in your life.

- Not true.

- People think I'm a woman-hater.

I'm not a woman-hater. I'm a woman-helper.

I like to help women. I like to give them advice,

and as men, we are so afraid of losing sex

that men cancel out their-- you have to say,

"Look, sweetie. This is how it is."

- It was red--I mean, I didn't listen to it a lot

'cause it just didn't make sense to me

'cause I know this idiot, but he was through this--

I think he read that book, the "Pimps Up, Ho's Down,"

Iceberg Slim or some shit,

and he adopted a philosophy and shit.

- There was a lot of dynamics, like the dynamics

of happy life, happy wife

and guys kind of emasculating themselves because of this.

That was kind of the movement, to emasculate yourself,

and he was-- he felt like it was unfair.

- I'm a complete misogynist to my fuckin'--

through my gut, I am a misogynist.

I just believe in that. I just think, men,

we're just--we're better.

[laughter]

And I'm not saying it like no rah-rah shit.

We're just better.

[laughter]

- The style of what he was doing was not to make you feel

necessarily better as a person or a human being.

It was supposed to get out

all of the ugliness of relationships,

of the dynamics between female and male and get it out there.

Not a lot of people have patience for that now.

- I love making motherfuckers feel uncomfortable

because we don't need to feel like this, dude.

We need to make them feel uncomfortable. Be honest.

That's how the relationship work.

I fucking make my girl feel-- She hate me.

You can't even have a relationship

if your girl don't hate you.

If your girl don't hate you, your relationship is in danger.

She has to hate your fuckin' guts.

She has to hate that she love you so much.

- It was like he had this one model

of what men and women together are like,

and then he just kept beating that same drum.

It's, like, ugh.

- I love looking at women when they go--[growls]

This is how we fucking feel. We don't like you because

of the way you're not laughing at me is why we don't like you,

'cause you don't laugh at nothin'.

Nothing's funny to you, nothin', and you're not funny,

and then nothing funny is funny.

- Female fans would come up

to me after shows and stuff like,

"What the fuck? How do you deal with this every day?"

- What the fuck is wrong with y'all?

And you're always trying to fucking push your girl-ness

into our world.

I'm not your friend.

- And I would be like, "What am I dealing with?

What is so wrong with what I'm dealing with?"

I have a man that loves me, that takes care of me,

that doesn't lie to me, that doesn't cheat on me.

- Sometimes, you know, I get that pussy feeling

when I talk shit to me girl.

I tell her the truth and all that, and she gets sad,

but I gotta stay on her 'cause she's abusive.

- I just took it as, this is just how he is.

This is just how he talks, and I'm from that place

where that's how men talk,

not all of them, but a lot of them, so--

[laughter]

- Here's how crazy girls are.

I got my girl cursing me the fuck out

'cause she saw some girl's boots in my closet.

It was some girl I used to date.

Her boots was in the closet, and it was raining out.

She had these new shoes on, so I said, "Hey, listen.

"I had another girlfriend, you wear those boots.

They're rain boots." She went crazy.

What the fuck? What're you gon' to do?

Have--what're you gon'-- What're you gon' do?

What, she's going to come back and get the boots?

She was going off on me, and then I was like,

"Wait a minute. You got a kid that ain't mine."

[laughter]

Those boots don't ask you to help with homework.

Bitch, I don't-- [laughter]

Those boots don't have nightmares

and I gotta talk the motherfuckers through shit.

How dare you?

- He was the first and only other person

besides my father that my mom had ever introduced me to.

- And she's like, "You know, hey, Aymil."

Her kid's name is Aymil.

"Aymil, this is Mr. P. Mr. P"--

Aymil is like, "Hi, Mr. P."

I'm like, "Hey." You know, in my head, I'm like,

"Hey, what's up, other guy fucked your mother?"

You know? [laughter]

- Patrice was around for basically the majority

of my life--adolescence and middle school life.

He, you know, raised me through all of that.

- This is how I'm being, and she just keeps,

"Mr. P, hey! Hey!" [laughter]

"I'm hungry, Mr. P." Here's some food.

"That was good. I love you, Mr. P."

You should. [laughter]

I'm feeding someone else's kid. You should be fucking

very happy I'm doing your daddy's work.

- People may not agree with the way he did things all the time,

but, you know, Patrice making a joke

out of everything really did help me

because he just showed me

that a lot of things that I overreacted about

were not really that serious, you know?

- "I love you, Mr. P." I'm like, uhh.

[grumbling]

"You should."

And she laughs like, "Ha-ha, you're funny,"

and I'm like, "Fucking motherfucker."

Now I love the kid. I love somebody else's

fuckin' kid like it's my kid.

- He wanted to be a good dad, and he figured it out,

but we didn't feel like we needed

to have kids of our own to be a family,

and I remember, I peed on a stick, and

I was like, "Yeah, we're pregnant,"

[light music]

And we sat down, and he said, "Listen. You're a woman.

I'm not going to tell you what to do with your body.

But I want to be honest and tell you

I don't feel comfortable

leaving you here with a baby."

He was like, "I'm not gonna live a long life,

and I can't leave you like that."

So we didn't have the baby.

A couple weeks go by, and I remember I was cleaning,

and I picked up a bunch of change,

and I go to put it in the drawer,

and I saw the stick, the pregnancy stick,

and he was laying on the bed,

you know, watching TV with the remote control.

And I turned around, I was like,

"You kept this?"

And he didn't even look up at me.

He just kept, you know, flipping channels.

He was like, "Put that back in the drawer."

I was like--

And we never talked about it again.

- And that's another thing that's fucking me up, man.

I'm starting to think about death, 'cause I'm 38,

and that's young, relatively, but Black years,

you know, I'm-- [laughter]

I'm an 186-year-old white man.

[laughter]

My fucking girl's love is tremendous.

I'll tell you a story, and this is why

I try to try my best to stay alive now.

When we fuck, we're dirty. Me and my girl are really--

Our filth level is on a--

We go out there,

so after a good sex session,

right after, she goes,

"I think you better go to the hospital."

I go, "Why?" She was like,

"You know, your pee tastes like birthday cake."

[laughter]

That's love, nigga. Like, she didn't go,

"Ew, you nasty motherfucker, you peed in my mouth."

She just-- "Ooh, that--

It's delicious, and it shouldn't be."

[laughter]

- I remember one time

when we did a gig at the Coconut Grove Improv,

and we were at the-- a wing place after,

where I'd go, and I'd get, like, a dozen wings,

and he'd get, like, two dozen wings

and then finish and be like,

"You want to get some more wings?"

And so, we were sitting there one night,

and he was like, "Oh, man, diabetes, eh, eh."

But in classic Patrice fashion, it was, like--

It was that, then a joke and a tag,

and you're like, "Okay, where's--okay."

- I'm diabetic, and that's that--[exhales]

That's one of them diseases, like,

whatever, man, for real.

It's a fucked-up disease,

but it's like, you know, if you say, "Hey, man.

I got pancreatic cancer," everybody goes, "Oh, man."

You say diabetes, they go,

"Oh, really, can't eat cookies, fatty?"

[laughter]

"Yeah, your sugar is going up, huh?"

- He would be talking and joking,

but the struggle with food was a struggle.

- And addiction is a motherfucker, man.

You addicted to something-- some people still smoke.

That's heavy 'cause if you smoke, you still--

You know you're gonna get cancer. Like, you know it.

You can't even talk to yourself, like,

and convince yourself you won't get cancer.

You be like, "Shit," you know?

- Some people have addictions to alcohol, drugs.

His was food, and he was a great cook, so he loved food.

- Just angry, man, because they know they're killing themself.

It's weakness,

and I'm not saying that to judge anybody who smokes.

I'm saying I fucking saw

some white-chocolate-dipped Oreo cookies.

- But he was definitely trying to figure it out.

We were vegan for three years.

- So I started praying for help.

Like, I prayed to God for help to not eat cookies.

Like, I was praying to God.

Like, I didn't pray for a cure for nothing.

I didn't pray that the Haitian people get food, nothing.

It was for me to not eat cookies.

- At one point in his career, he would sit down on stage,

and people thought he was doing that--

He told me that people thought he was doing that

because that was, like, his style,

but at that point in time, he said he was depressed,

so he would just sit down.

- So I understand motherfuckers that can smoke

and be sucking in that poison and still do it

because you just got to tell yourself something.

Like, if I eat the cookie, I say to myself,

you know what? I don't need both my feet.

[laughter]

I ain't no ballerina. I'll just--

Maybe God will take the left foot,

and I can still drive.

[laughs]

It's fucked up, being addicted.

- If I wasn't a funny person in this business,

I'd probably kill myself, being that the level of respect

that I might get as a comic in conjunction

with where I am in the business.

Only funny can keep me going.

I know there's times that if I wasn't a funny motherfucker

and just laughed at just how awful things were,

I'd killing myself. I know it. Now I'm not suicidal,

but you feel where a motherfucker that don't have

the fortitude of being funny would take themselves out.

- What have you been wanting to do lately?

- Me? - Yeah.

- Nothin'. - Nothing?

- I haven't been thinking about anything.

Like, I need a break, like, mentally.

- Yeah.

I went to this company,

and it was, like, the first company

that just wanted to produce web series,

and I was like,

"Patrice, I have carte blanche to, like, sign

and do whatever I want with people,"

and he said, "I want to do this.

I want to do that. I want to do that."

I'm like, "We can do it."

- Hey, welcome to "The Patrice O'Neal Show,"

brought to you exclusively by the Vudu network.

A bunch of white guys behind the scenes,

and I'm sure a Jew or two,

let me and my friends kind of have their studios

and produce our own TV show

and do whatever the fuck we want.

Not many people get to say that.

[glass shattering]

[laughs] You fucking buncha

trying-to-make-it motherfuckers. [laughs]

You can just feel the smell of desperation on all ends,

starting with me.

Maybe podcasts will do it. [laughter]

Maybe that'll be my career move.

It's podcasting, yeah.

- We didn't know what we were doing.

He just knew that this was an opportunity to be in control.

- I have my own weekly web series called patriceoneal.com,

unga bunga!

- We never had a bigger goal.

We were never like, "This is gonna to make us."

- I am Malcolm X.

Why? She hate noise!

- The whole reason we did the web series was just,

finally, like, he was given the opportunity

to, like, say and do and create things with the people

that he wanted to create things with.

- But I know a lot of stuff about show business,

it messed with him a lot.

This was his stuff.

And he was going to put it on the Internet

and see what happened.

No networks telling him what he can and can't do.

- He did that for free for nearly a year.

- [screaming, laughing]

- I feel like it was almost therapeutic for him, in a way.

- I think in this business, you've only got about four

or five times to get on the amusement ride.

I think I've been on the ride twice,

and the thing about the roller coaster is--

It's interesting, it clicks up.

The click up is just great. You're like,

"I feel this click up. I feel it. I feel"--

- People are excited. - Yeah, they see me.

They see I'm clicking up. They see I'm on the come-up.

They feeling good. It's feeling right.

Then you go, "Whee." And you hold your hands up,

and then all the money flies out your pocket,

and then everything is gone.

And then you--there's a long line to get back on,

and then you're in the back of the line going,

"This fucking ride ain't even that great,"

And you're like, "I don't know--

If I get on the ride again, dude,

I'm probably not going to get back on,

but I gotta stand in line, it's a long line,"

and I'm, like, just waiting.

- I first met Patrice, and I remember he told me,

"It's not gonna be easy

"because a lot of people don't like me,

and I know I've pissed a lot of people off in the business."

He did have a moment of--

where he was sort of self-reflective, and he said,

"You know, I've pissed off a lot of people."

- I think there was that moment of thawing out

that made him go,

"Ugh, I'm not that guy.

Like, I don't wanna hurt people."

You know, you look at him with his fucking dog, he was gentle.

Like, there was a gentleness to him, too.

- The biggest thing that I was focused on getting him

was a special because I think

the hour is the most important thing

in a stand-up comic's career.

The one thing I know was he was ready for it.

- He had all of this material

that he had been working on for years,

and he really--he was funny, but it was profound.

It was thought-provoking. It was everything that he is.

- He was very excited about that.

This was like a, you know, the crossroads for his career.

- I got the chance to see "Elephant in the Room"

being filmed, you know,

just being part of the family that got to see it.

He was a little nervous.

You know, like, you're straight up like,

"Why are you worrying about us? We're fine.

"I'll get your mom there. Don't worry about it.

"You know, the car is coming.

We'll be dressed. We'll be there, man."

- He kept saying, "This could set me--

"If this doesn't go we'll,

"this could set me back in comedy

and my career for, like, seven years."

He was like, "I don't have seven years left."

[upbeat music]

- I don't care who you are. You're generally nervous

before you're about to do an hour,

but in the case of Patrice, he was very loose.

He was having fun.

[cheers and applause]

- Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you. [laughs]

I'm thanking one, in particular,

pair of titties in the front row.

Thank you so much. Thank you, audience coordinator,

for putting those titties up in the front row.

God bless you. [laughs]

- He was revealing.

He was very forthright about who he was,

and he had a point of view about all of this stuff.

The race material in there in particular is so smart.

- Congratulations, my friend. Very good, yo.

Congratulations to you, my friend.

Look at that white woman you're with. God damn!

[laughter]

- You know how you can tell how pretty a white woman is,

the value?

You look at her, and then you wonder how long

they would look for her if she was missing.

[laughter]

I saw you look mad, sweetie. How long--

If you was missing, how long do you think they would?

How long do you think they would?

Exactly. She don't even-- She went--[exhales]

[laughter]

You know the deal. I ain't said nothing wrong.

A white woman's life is valuable.

What's his name, Joran van der Sloot, right?

We found out he was a serial killer.

Man, he kills women. That's what he do.

He do it well, you know what I mean?

We know the girl that he, you know, supposedly had--

What's the girl in Aruba?

Natalee Holloway, right?

But the one-- He just killed a girl in Peru.

What's her name? Exactly.

[laughter]

- He made everyone feel comfortable, and then

he got white people to admit that they were racist.

Like, he didn't even tell them,

"Oh, you don't know the name of the Peruvian woman."

He got them to tell him.

- She's mad as hell. Fuck that white bitch.

What about--Come on. Come on. Ain't nobody looking for you.

I might look for you, but the news ain't.

You--

Let's just be honest.

Look, I'm at an age now where, [sighs]

Like, a lot of the things that--

I look back on the past, right? Okay, I reflect.

You know, I'm 40, and I'm going to tell you,

if you're over 40

and you're trying to better yourself, just stop.

It's just--you're not going to better yourself,

and when I say you're not going to better yourself,

I mean better yourself, like, go back to

when you tried to capture the things you used to do

when you supposed to had did it,

but you didn't do it. You feel me?

Like, I can't type, but I didn't realize

how important typing was till right now.

I fucked up all my good typing years

calling people gay who was going to typing class.

It was just like

me and six other dudes, like,

"What you doing? Type-- You gonna be a secretary?

What the--" [laughter]

[laughs]

And now I can't type.

- He had reached that point with that special

and with the material he was working on and his performances

where he was just getting better.

Now he really had all the tools finely honed.

I thought he was just taking off.

- Let's discuss harassment for a second.

Why can't...

I harass you? [laughter]

Sometimes, sometimes?

I can never harass you, never?

- I always say he was like Socrates.

You know, like, he had that Socratic thing

where he liked to ask questions

and then keep asking people different questions

and then work spontaneously, trying to provoke things,

trying to start things up, you know.

- I think you should be able to comment

on any part of the body that you see.

If you--I'm serious.

What's your name? What's your name? Jeanie.

Now, Jeanie, no disrespect, but if I work with you,

I should be able to walk in and go,

"Oh, Jeanie, beautiful titty meat you have there."

[laughter]

And--

'Cause I see that, and I'm not being foul.

Just, you know, oh.

- He really had a lot of fun doing stand-up.

When I picture him on stage, I always picture him--

the laugh he would do after a crowd would either totally

get what he just said or be like, "What the fuck?"

which I think a lot of times, he liked that better.

- Like, I think-- Look, I think

there should be a holiday,

for lack of a better word, Harassment Day, but not--

That sounds whatever, but I mean, a day--

I say the Tuesday before Thanksgiving,

and it's a beautiful day, flowers and everything.

You buy her flowers. You're just real cool.

You walk up. You're respectful. You say, "Hey, how are you?"

and you go, "Happy Harassment Day."

And you just--you, like, say,

"Listen, I was wondering all year

if you would suck my dick in the broom closet."

[laughter]

Hey, I got to go, man. Y'all take care of yourselves.

Thank you. Thank you very much.

[cheers and applause]

Thank you, guys.

- You know when a comic kills. He killed.

And he said something that I never expected him to say,

and we were in the hallway at the backstage,

at the Skirball.

He was still there, but he was, like, there was a car

waiting for him, and there was people,

and he was going to go, and I remember he was like,

"Jon, that was a good job, man,"

And I--like, it was sincere. It wasn't--I was like, "Wow."

- I remember when he called me up, like,

"Keith, what is the barbershop saying?"

'Cause I'd always tell him, "If the barbershop

ain't talking, nobody gives a shit."

And the barbershop was talking, you know, like.

He had arrived to where he wanted to be at

in the "Elephant in the Room."

He knew that was gonna be the thing.

- I'm very happy with this special,

I'm very happy with the... - Well--

- Fuckin' people that did it.

I'm excited, and I'm never like that.

I don't--I really want this thing to push.

- Are you willing to play the game

a little bit with these people?

- I want to, badly. I'm trying,

but I think fame might call in about six months to a year.

[somber music]

- He was right there in the chair,

not saying anything, and, you know,

but for the first time in the 10 years I knew him,

I saw a tear come down his face,

and I just wiped it off, and I was like,

"Oh, no, no, no, no, no, no, we're not doing that."

- I got a phone call from Von, and I took the phone call,

and when she said he had a stroke,

I--I was numb.

- I just remember I wanted to get to him, but I couldn't.

I remember I just wanted to go to him.

- I think Jim Norton had called me and said,

"Look, we gotta meet and go to a hospital."

I'm like, "What?"

- It was terrible. You're just seeing him lying there just,

you know, this guy that was so, you know, so alive.

- And you're not--

'cause you don't know enough, so you're thinking,

oh, he's gonna get out of this, yeah.

Okay, he had a stroke,

and he'll be fine in a couple days or whatever.

- I was in his room, and I went over to,

you know, kind of wake him up because he could open his eyes,

and he didn't wake up.

- His mom was with him,

and when I walked into the room,

his body was there, but you knew he wasn't.

- It sucked.

'Cause no one's gonna understand it.

'Cause it's mine. It's my thing I had with him.

You weren't there, driving in my two-seater Nissan

for hours, and you weren't taking a bus with him

and leaning on his shoulder and falling asleep

like he was my fuckin' father, you know, like a--

I mean, all these times I had with him, you know,

and now they're just memories.

- We were all home, and--

and my daughter came out of her room,

and she was like, "Mommy, I wanna speak at the funeral."

And she said, "Everybody is gonna be there,

talking about how funny he is and comedy," and she's like,

"They don't know what a good dad he is.

I got to tell them he's a great dad."

- Mr. P was truly a spectacular,

special, intelligent and helpful person.

He's been there for me and my mom every step of the way.

He truly was a blessing.

I don't think I would be the person I am today

without Patrice O'Neal.

- Patrice was my best friend.

Like, he is a huge part of my confidence,

like, what I have today.

Like, I laugh at my big head

'cause Patrice told me I had a big head.

Like, that's the only reason

why I'm confident in my big head

is because of Patrice O'Neal.

- Put your glasses on, and don't worry about her.

- Patrice always told me, "You cannot give a crap

what anyone says about you. You have to love yourself,"

and he's always gonna be close to me.

I have his fingerprint right here.

I still feel like losing Patrice is like a part of me

that I can never get back.

[cheers and applause]

- Oh, man, so how's everybody, good?

[cheers]

[laughs]

You ever feel evil for nothing? Like, you just go, "Wow."

Like, I even asked how you're doing, but it really--

I really didn't--

It was a lie.

Like, that question was a lie, you know?

It's hard to be honest, man.

Honesty is not the greatest thing to be.

It's not--it's just, no one wants to hear, eh--

- He said this thing to me one time,

which I never forgot,

and then when you guys were talking about doing this,

I made sure that I wrote it down again.

He goes, "I ain't up there telling jokes. Fuck jokes.

"I'm up there explaining how I fuckin' feel,

and a lot of times, how I feel is fuckin' complicated."

And I thought that was just, like,

such a great explanation

of his approach, you know?

'Cause he was funny, and there were obviously jokes in there,

but that's not what he was doing.

- Like, I mean, I believe in God,

but, you know, I'm not deep into religion.

Like, I'm too afraid to not believe in God, you know?

Like, I'm not an atheist. I'm, like, before that, like--

Like, I believe in God when I'm on planes.

Like, I really believe in God.

- His style was just like, "I'm gonna say

what I believe, and it's gonna be obnoxious

and maybe inappropriate and offensive

to a lot of people."

- When I get on planes, I look at some old lady

struggling with her bags,

having trouble putting it in overhead, and I'm like,

"Wait a minute, lady. Let me get that for you, ma'am.

"Let me put that heavy bag up there for you,"

"'Cause, you know--

"Look, God.

"Look what a great a guy I am,

"helping this woman with her bags.

"You ain't going to let the plane crash,

are you, Lord Jesus, 'cause I'm a good person."

- And then, I'm gonna explain my situation

in such a way that it's so funny

that even the people going,

"I don't like what you're saying.

I don't like you--"

- And then when the plane lands,

the lady's looking at me like, "You wanna get my bags?"

I'm like, "No, like, what--"

I kept the plane in the air, you selfish bitch. I--

- I'm laughing because he just--

He pulled it off.

Not everybody can do it or should do it.

He was the master at it.

- Hey, I got to go, man. Y'all take care, man.

Thank you very much.

[cheers and applause]

- Literally, I think about him every day.

I'll never not think about him.

I mean, he was too big a part of my life.

You wish he was around to see--

Oh, would he have hated this Cosby thing.

Oh, fuck, Trump is the president.

Oh, my God, this movement, that movement.

You know, what would he say about this?

What would he think about this?

- He was just about to be one of the greats.

Not that he isn't, but he was about to be forever.

- And we'll always celebrate him.

We'll always speak on his behalf

when it comes to the greats and some of the best

and baddest to touch the microphone.

He's in that group.

He's in that group, whether you like it or not.

- Do you mind playing us out with that, Warren?

- Sure.

- Man, you know I've been

Enjoying things that kings and queens will never have

And good times, mm

- Great googly-moogly. - Great googly-moogly.

I have had my fun

If I never get well no more

Oh, my health is fading on me

Oh, yeah, I'm going down slow

Please write my mama

Tell her the shape I'm in

Tell her to pray for me

Forgive me for my sin

- [laughs]

- Hey, man, that's all right, man.

Patrice, that's all right.