Yeah, that's right, we bad!

R.I.P. Richard Pryor. Obviously, his prime in comedy was before my time, but I still have some memories of his work. My favorite was an old SNL skit with Chevy Chase, who was interviewing Pryor for a job. Chevy asks him to participate in a word association game. Eventually, Chevy starts saying various racial and stereotypical words about blacks, and Pryor responds each time with some negative word about white people. At one point, Pryor says "honkey". Then Chevy drops the n-word, to which Pyror, with a dead look on his face, responds, "Dead honkey!"

Also, R.I.P. to Stanley "Tookie" Williams, the ex-gang member and "alleged" co-founder of the Crips (there have been some disputes about whether that's true or not), who was convicted of killing four people in two separate robberies in 1979, sentenced to death in 1981, and executed by lethal injection today one minute after midnight. How quickly the wheels turn on our criminal justice system. I don't condone the death penalty or state executions, but if you sentence someone to death, why wait almost a quarter of a century to carry it out? Is it to give them a chance to possibly turn their life around and try to earn another chance to live? Because if being nominated for a Nobel Peace prize, writing children's books warning them of the dangers of gang life, and becoming one of the most prominent anti-gang figures in the country doesn't qualify as that, I don't know what does. I guess it's right what they say -- you never get a second chance to make a first impression (who knew one could get such wisdom from a Head & Shoulders commercial?). Hopefully, L.A. doesn't erupt into some Rodney King-state any time soon.

I can understand the stance of not wanting to grant clemency to Williams -- he has now claimed innocence regarding the murders which he had took credit for at the time, and subsequently refused to offer any apologies. But considering the inconsistencies with which death sentences are handed down, and the amount of protest in the wake of Williams' execution, maybe it would've just been better for Gov. Schwarzenegger to let this one slide as opposed to coming off like a hard-ass politician (it certainly ain't helping his approval rating). For now, this will be just another stop on Schwarzenegger's "Farewell Tour" of CaLEEfornia. Who will he make dislike him next?