BEFORE: Kevin Hart carries over from "Fatherhood", and it's FINALLY here, both Summer and my documentary programming block. This year I worked at DocFest when it came to the theater where I work part-time, so I made a mental note about the documentaries I wanted to see, then I added them to the list I already had, and I put together the best (I think...) possible chain from there, then I added a few more just for funsies. It's going to take me the next month and a half to get through them all, so I'd better get started - the sooner I start, the greater the chance I can get to reviewing some summer blockbusters like "Jurassic World 8" and "Thor: Love and Thunder" before August is over. Yes, there is a rough plan to work those films into the mix but I can't cover everything (sorry, Minions and "Bob's Burgers", you'll have to wait your turn...)
2018 was the year I really started hitting documentaries hard-core - and I covered nearly every rock group or pop star who had a doc made about them, and all of those films linked together, because of course they did. I did some clean-up work in 2019 and 2020, but last year I had to split my docs into several smaller chains, that's just how the linking worked out. Still, in 2021 I managed to review docs about Michelle Obama, John Lewis, the-former-president-who-shall-not-be-named, Walt Disney and Jim Carrey/Andy Kaufman in the first block, then Joan Jett, Frank Zappa, Divine, the Bee Gees, Dolly Parton, Linda Ronstadt, Pavarotti, the Go-Go's, Jimmy Carter, Martin Luther King, and Tina Turner in the second. There were also docs watched about Bill Murray, Steven Spielberg and Robert Klein, but it made more sense to work those in among the narrative films, I couldn't have made it to October without the connective tissue provided by that Robert Klein doc, aka Fred Willard.
So far 2022 has been documentary-free, which means I'm raring to go - I'm starting this process a month or so ahead of when I usually do, but still, it seems like it took forever to get here. Think of this as a giant summer music and/or comedy festival, with other surprise guests, like politicians, actors chefs and more. It's just a big summer event where I DON'T announce the acts ahead of time - but tickets are free, so you've got nothing to complain about. Please, let's not let things get out of hand, visit the souvenir stand when you have a chance, and remember to stay hydrated, it's very important. Now, let's welcome to the stage our opening act, he passed away in 2017 but he didn't let that stop him from being here tonight, comedian and activist - Dick Gregory!
THE PLOT: Chronicles the incredible life and times of legendary comedian and activist Dick Gregory.
AFTER: For several reasons, one being my age and another being the giant career break that Mr. Gregory took in the 1960's, I've never heard much of the stand-up comedy performed by him. He was a bit before my time, I discovered stand-up in the 1980's through the comedy albums of Steve Martin and other comics whose work was played on the Dr. Demento show, like George Carlin's "A Place For My Stuff", and then of course those became like my gateway drugs to other acts. Dr. Demento played records, he was a big vinyl collector, and mostly he featured funny songs, but if a comic released an album, and did a routine on a theme that Dr. D liked, he'd drop some cuts into his program. Back then you didn't "make it" as a comedian unless he featured you on his syndicated show.
I don't remember him playing any Dick Gregory bits, but I sort of learned about Dick Gregory in the 1980's through his TV appearances - later on he was "that old guy" who would turn up on that Byron Allen stand-up show "Comics Unleashed", where Byron basically just lobbed a bunch of set-up fungoes to four comics for half an hour. That show's been on late-night TV since 2006, and I think it's still going - the records on IMDB are very incomplete, which is a shame - that means there's no proof about how many episodes there really are, it could be more than "The Simpsons" and "Gunsmoke" combined, but sadly, we'll never know. It seems that 2 am is the cut-off for relevant TV, with anything that airs after that, nobody gives a shit.
But it turns out that Dick Gregory accomplished more in his lifetime than about any other random 5 people. He lived to be 84, and if all that he'd done was break racial barriers in the realm of stand-up comedy, that would be something to be proud of. And he did it by poking fun at bigotry and racism, and STILL being able to make people laugh. He could have been as big as Richard Pryor, although now that I say that, I'm not sure, because Gregory's routines worked at a particular time in U.S. history, the late 1950's and early 1960's, and Pryor's material was targeted at the world of the 1970's and 1980's. Who's to say Gregory still would have been popular, after paving the way for Pryor and Chris Rock and Dave Chappelle? Maybe he would have burned out before then, maybe the world needed Richard Pryor to be Richard Pryor, and that might not have happened if Gregory stuck around?
It's a moot point, because after breaking through at nightclubs, and then appearing on shows hosted by Jack Paar and Merv Griffin, Dick Gregory was contacted by Medgar Evers, and got involved in the Civil Rights movement, beginning in 1963. He criticized the MLK assassination, also the findings of the Warren Commission, and protested the Vietnam War by not eating solid food for close to two years. Feminist rights, Native American rights, animal rights, he supported them all, plus spoke out against pollution, especially in black neighborhoods. All of this was more important to him than being a stand-up comic, or perhaps he turned the energy needed to BE a comic into the work he did for those causes. Again, if this was all that he accomplished, that would be a lot.
On top of all that, though, he was an advocate for health and nutrition - those non-violent fasting protests wouldn't have been possible without developing a juice-based nutrition plan, plus drinking a lot of water each day. The now-standard "8 glasses of water per day" that is currently recommended by people all over the place? Yeah, that was him, he popularized that AND he ran across the country, Forrest Gump-style, powered by nothing but juice and water. People thought he was crazy, but nowadays there are vegetarians and vegans and many of those people play sports - meat's probably only good for sumo wrestlers and body-builders, runners can probably live on fruits, vegetables and pasta and do just fine. Gregory himself lost about 200 pounds during his protest, and then maintained his health for another 52 years after becoming a vegetarian.
I remember when Dick Gregory made the news for coming to the aid of Walter Hudson, who for a time was the fattest man in the world. Hudson lived in Hempstead, Long Island and weighed over 1,200 pounds at one point - the world learned about him when he got stuck in a doorway in his home in 1987 and rescue workers took hours to free him. Mr. Gregory arrived on the scene and put Hudson on his juice-based diet, and he slimmed down to 520 pounds at one point. But then Dick Gregory tried to convince him to step outside his house, which he had not done in 18 years, and found he couldn't do it. At that point Dick Gregory stopped helping him, and Hudson died of a heart attack three years later weighing 600 pounds.
Still, Gregory's expertise led to something called the "Bahamian diet" and he made some money selling weight-loss powdered shake mix, along with a diet plan that was intended to increase the health and life-span of African-Americans. Gregory obviously meant well, and his efforts also combated malnutrition in Ethiopia, but at the same time, he made millions from the products and the licensing of his diet plan. Well, he did have 11 kids to feed - he moved them to a farm in Plymouth, MA and reportedly had strong opinions about what they should and shouldn't eat. No refined sugar, no sweet snacks, what kind of life is that for a kid? I bet his kids couldn't wait until he went out to run across the country again...then they could eat whatever they wanted!
So, based on what's in this documentary, Dick Gregory should be lauded for his work on the Civil Rights movement, breaking down racial barriers in comedy, and helping morbidly obese people lose weight safely. But then he went down some paths and supported causes that I just can't get behind, like running (God, isn't life tiring ENOUGH?) and vegetarianism (I love my BBQ meats...) and diet programs (seriously, just shoot me already). Maybe he was right, maybe nutrition science will someday catch up with Dick Gregory and say he was way ahead of his time - but nothing's going to change in this country as long as Big Farma (the meat industry) and the chocolate lobbyists have anything to say about it.
NITPICK POINT: There's nothing in this documentary about Dick Gregory running for Mayor of Chicago or U.S. President as a write-in candidate, shouldn't that at least be worth mentioning? Or his comedy album, his work on radio, his book...
Well, there you go, the Summer Rock & Doc Block is off and running - I think about 5 people interviewed or seen here are going to stick around for tomorrow's film, too, that's how strong the linking is this year. It's a bit like Woodstock or Lollapalooza, once you get a day-pass you can stay in your seats and enjoy several acts in a row. (But if you take a bathroom break, you'll lose your seat near the stage, sorry.). Join me tomorrow to find out who's next in the line-up, it's going to be a while before the our headliners show up!
Also starring Dick Gregory (last seen in "The Leisure Seeker"), Harry Belafonte (last seen in "Da 5 Bloods"), W. Kamau Bell (last seen in "Sorry to Bother You"), Nick Cannon (last seen in "Shall We Dance?", Dave Chappelle (last seen in "A Star Is Born (2018)), Christian Gregory, Lillian Gregory, Steve Jaffe, Robert Lipsyte, Lawrence O'Donnell (last seen in "Rigged: The Voter Suppression Playbook"), Chris Rock (last seen in "On the Rocks"), Rob Schneider (last heard in "Norm of the North"), Wanda Sykes (last seen in "Breaking News in Yuba County"), Lena Waithe (last heard in "Onward")
with archive footage of Bud Abbott (last seen in "A Kiss Before Dying"), Lou Costello (ditto), Muhammad Ali (last seen in "Jimmy Carter: Rock & Roll President"), Ed Bradley (last seen in "Spielberg"), Don Cornelius, Bill Cosby (last seen in "Recorder: The Marion Stokes Project"), Martin Luther King (ditto), John Lennon (ditto), Yoko Ono (ditto), Walter Cronkite (last seen in "The Trial of the Chicago 7"), Phyllis Diller, Medgar Evers, David Frost (last seen in "The Bee Gees: How Can You Mend a Broken Heart"), Judy Garland (last seen in "Capone"), Merv Griffin (last seen in "Robert Klein Still Can't Stop His Leg"), Jack Paar (ditto), Richard Pryor (ditto), Ed Sullivan (ditto), Arsenio Hall (last seen in "Zappa"), Hugh Hefner (last seen in "Linda Ronstadt: The Sound of My Voice"), J. Edgar Hoover (last seen in "MLK/FBI"), Michael Jackson (last seen in "13 Going on 30"), Jimmy Kimmel (last seen in "Down to You"), Mantan Moreland, Eddie Murphy (last seen in "Coming 2 America"), Nipsey Russell, Shirley Temple (last seen in "Walt: The Man Behind the Myth"
RATING: 7 out of 10 jokes about the Klan
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