King of Cool
In it’s basest explanation, Murphy’s Law states that: anything that can go wrong, will go wrong. Ironically, everything appears to have gone very right for one Edward Regan Murphy.
You’ve heard the narrative: a black ghetto child can’t make it out the ‘hood. Eddie burst out of the hood and took over the Hills. He owned Saturday Night Live and his comedy specials, Delirious and Raw still keep audiences laughing hard, decades later. With a long list of movie classics to his credit, audiences say he’s fallen off because his more recent offerings have been more kiddie fodder than adult frolics.
I’m not going to go into detail about whether he has soared or sunk. Everyone is entitled to his or her opinion but one should consider that his kiddie movies have kept the man PAID! However, sticking to character, I digress 🙂
Why have I all of a sudden decided to write about one of the funniest famous people ever (I know non-famous people that are HIGH-larious)? Well, two reasons:
1. I caught the TV special, Eddie Murphy: One Night Only recently on Comedy Central and the tales told, tributes paid plus footage aired brought back memories of his comedic genius and also reminded me that Eddie Murphy is the definition of bad ass!
2. Of late, the unintentional comedy of Lagos ‘big boy and girldom’ has had me fascinated, so this Eddie tribute put ‘big boyism’ in perspective and the wheels started turning…
If you are unfamiliar with Lagos Big Boys and Girls, count yourself lucky (because you don’t have to put up with that BS) or unfortunate (because you’re missing out on some good comedy). Basically, they reckon they are the biggest, baddest and best at everything. They pop bottles in the club for everyone to see but what they hide is the fact they more often than you’d believe pop on credit. It’s a marriage of keeping up with the Joneses and Keeping Up Appearances. Hyacinth Bucket would be very proud.
Anyway, watching stars, past and present, share tales about Eddie (yes, he’s one of those super-duper stars with single name recognition like Michael, Elvis, Madonna, Jack, LeBron), I couldn’t help but think, ‘So called Big Boys and Big Girls, you need to STUDY Eddie Murphy to understand what it really means to be a BIG.’ To paraphrase Jay-Z, “He be the only Big Boy that the Big Boys watch!”
Two stories in particular stood out for me. One by Chris Rock and the other by Keenan Ivory Wayans.
According to Rock, himself, Eddie, Keenan and a bunch of other black guys were out and this white girl came about gushing how Eddie was her favorite, how much she loved him and all that. She really wanted to kiss Eddie and asked if she could, pointing out that she’d never kissed a black man before. As Rock tells it, Eddie responded, “Well, you can’t start at the top baby, you’re gonna have to kiss one of these broke ass niggas.”
The ‘hood’ response to that is, “Like a bawse supposed ta!” A fitting Nigerian response would be, “See levels!”
The Keenan story truly defines what you would expect a Big Boy to be. Boss of all bosses type stuff. The way Keenan put it, night clubs back in the day had a “two brotha minimum” and himself and Eddie were at the door with about 10 other black dudes. The bouncers were like, we know it’s you Eddie but we can only let like four of you in. So Eddie says no problem, instructs four members of the crew to go in and tell every beautiful woman in there that there was a party at Eddie Murphy’s house and in 10 minutes, the club emptied out and everyone headed over to Eddie’s house. About two weeks later, Eddie returned to the club about 20-deep and the ALL GOT IN!
Big Boys and Girls, real or imagined, that’s how the Biggest Boy does it. In the words of Tip Harris, “What you know about that?”
To quote my favorite writer, Bill Simmons, from this fantastic piece about Eddie on his Grantland site, “He was a [Saturday Night Live] cast member at 19, the show’s meal ticket by 20, a movie star by 21, and a full-fledged superduperstar by 22. Tell me when we’ll see that again.”
I honestly can’t tell him – can you?
Yes, you just read about Eddie Murphy flossing like it was a serious issue
I Am Random!
I Am Random
MURPHY’S LAW
King of Cool
In it’s basest explanation, Murphy’s Law states that: anything that can go wrong, will go wrong. Ironically, everything appears to have gone very right for one Edward Regan Murphy.
You’ve heard the narrative: a black ghetto child can’t make it out the ‘hood. Eddie burst out of the hood and took over the Hills. He owned Saturday Night Live and his comedy specials, Delirious and Raw still keep audiences laughing hard, decades later. With a long list of movie classics to his credit, audiences say he’s fallen off because his more recent offerings have been more kiddie fodder than adult frolics.
I’m not going to go into detail about whether he has soared or sunk. Everyone is entitled to his or her opinion but one should consider that his kiddie movies have kept the man PAID! However, sticking to character, I digress 🙂
Why have I all of a sudden decided to write about one of the funniest famous people ever (I know non-famous people that are HIGH-larious)? Well, two reasons:
1. I caught the TV special, Eddie Murphy: One Night Only recently on Comedy Central and the tales told, tributes paid plus footage aired brought back memories of his comedic genius and also reminded me that Eddie Murphy is the definition of bad ass!
2. Of late, the unintentional comedy of Lagos ‘big boy and girldom’ has had me fascinated, so this Eddie tribute put ‘big boyism’ in perspective and the wheels started turning…
If you are unfamiliar with Lagos Big Boys and Girls, count yourself lucky (because you don’t have to put up with that BS) or unfortunate (because you’re missing out on some good comedy). Basically, they reckon they are the biggest, baddest and best at everything. They pop bottles in the club for everyone to see but what they hide is the fact they more often than you’d believe pop on credit. It’s a marriage of keeping up with the Joneses and Keeping Up Appearances. Hyacinth Bucket would be very proud.
Anyway, watching stars, past and present, share tales about Eddie (yes, he’s one of those super-duper stars with single name recognition like Michael, Elvis, Madonna, Jack, LeBron), I couldn’t help but think, ‘So called Big Boys and Big Girls, you need to STUDY Eddie Murphy to understand what it really means to be a BIG.’ To paraphrase Jay-Z, “He be the only Big Boy that the Big Boys watch!”
Two stories in particular stood out for me. One by Chris Rock and the other by Keenan Ivory Wayans.
According to Rock, himself, Eddie, Keenan and a bunch of other black guys were out and this white girl came about gushing how Eddie was her favorite, how much she loved him and all that. She really wanted to kiss Eddie and asked if she could, pointing out that she’d never kissed a black man before. As Rock tells it, Eddie responded, “Well, you can’t start at the top baby, you’re gonna have to kiss one of these broke ass niggas.”
The ‘hood’ response to that is, “Like a bawse supposed ta!” A fitting Nigerian response would be, “See levels!”
The Keenan story truly defines what you would expect a Big Boy to be. Boss of all bosses type stuff. The way Keenan put it, night clubs back in the day had a “two brotha minimum” and himself and Eddie were at the door with about 10 other black dudes. The bouncers were like, we know it’s you Eddie but we can only let like four of you in. So Eddie says no problem, instructs four members of the crew to go in and tell every beautiful woman in there that there was a party at Eddie Murphy’s house and in 10 minutes, the club emptied out and everyone headed over to Eddie’s house. About two weeks later, Eddie returned to the club about 20-deep and the ALL GOT IN!
Big Boys and Girls, real or imagined, that’s how the Biggest Boy does it. In the words of Tip Harris, “What you know about that?”
To quote my favorite writer, Bill Simmons, from this fantastic piece about Eddie on his Grantland site, “He was a [Saturday Night Live] cast member at 19, the show’s meal ticket by 20, a movie star by 21, and a full-fledged superduperstar by 22. Tell me when we’ll see that again.”
I honestly can’t tell him – can you?
Yes, you just read about Eddie Murphy flossing like it was a serious issue
I Am Random!