He Knew Comedy's Political Power
Total Page：16
File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb
AUGUST 24, 2017 For more entertainment coverage, events, photos and giveaways SECTION D go to detroitnews.com/entertainment. Follow the Detroit News GO! section on Instagram and Twitter @detroitnewsgo. EATS & DRINKS GO! INSIDE >> ENTERTAINMENT GUIDE Clarence Tabb Jr. / The Detroit News A plate of queso fundido, salmon chorizo, poblano and flour tortillas are available at Grey Ghost. See Molly Abraham’s review on 9D. COMMENTARY HE KNEW COMEDY’S POLITICAL POWER BY CLARENCE PAGE Chicago Tribune ick Gregory died Saturday at age 84 after leading a Dbunch of lives. He was at various times a stand-up comedian, social critic, political activist, political candi- date, nutrition regimen en- trepreneur, diet consultant and, increasingly in his later years, obsessive purveyor of conspiracy theories. But my favorite memories of Gregory come from 1961 when I was a Midwestern kid watching his fame rise on TV like a Jackie Robinson of black standup co- medians. Robinson broke Major League Baseball’s color bar. Gregory broke the nightclub color bar, and did it with contro- versial political subjects long before Larry Wilmore, Trevor Noah, Wanda Sykes or W. Ka- mau Bell. Until Hugh Hefner hired Gregory to fill in at the Chicago Playboy Club, blacks tended to be hired in white-owned clubs as singers or dancers, not to stand flat-footed and talk. Otherwise, Gregory explained to me in an interview in the 1980s, “the System would know how bril- liant you are.” Understanding “the System” helped him to beat it. He learned, above all, to be entertaining before trying to Turning Cobo Center into a make a serious point. He ex- plains how he studied audiences gallery space with more than in his best-selling 1964 autobiog- raphy, which he titled “n-----” 80 works by local artists with a lower-case “N.” In the “big white night clubs,” BY MICHAEL H. HODGES he decided, “I’ve got to go up Detroit News Fine Arts Writer there as an individual first, a he towering, white walls inside Cobo Cen- ter are starting to fill up with some very Please see Gregory, Page 7D cool artwork by Detroit and regional artists. It’s a logical place. Cobo does a booming convention business, and why shouldn’t visitors have something to look at while Thustling from, say, the Grand River Ball- room to the Cityview Lounge? Work by five more local artists was unveiled at a private party last week, another step by the non- ART profit Art Foundation of the Detroit Regional Con- vention Facility Authority and its plan to create a gallery feel within the vast convention center. Please see Cobo art, Page 7D BLOOMS “After Completion,” is a 1984 oil-on-linen painting by Nancy Mitchnick. Matt Sayles / AP Michael H. Hodges / The Detroit News Dick Gregory was a comedian and Contact us: You can reach Felecia D. Henderson, assistant managing editor, by calling (313) 222-2557, faxing (313) 496-5249 or at [email protected]. activist who used comedy to break racial barriers in the 1960s. Clio • Flint • Madison Heights Pontiac • Sterling Heights • Warren Call Blue Lake Charters & Tours for locations and reservations. (866) 2-ROLLEM (866) 276-5536 MotorCity Casino Hotel and MotorCity Casino Hotel design are trademarks of Detroit Entertainment, L.L.C. ©2017 Detroit Entertainment, L.L.C. All rights reserved. Offer subject to change or cancellation anytime without notice. GO! ENTERTAINMENT GUIDE The Detroit News | Thursday, August 24, 2017 | 7D Photos by Michael H. Hodges / The Detroit News Valerie Macon / Getty Images A hopeful detail from Sister Jane Mary Sorosiak’s 2016 ceramic mural Dick Gregory, left, and singer Stevie Wonder attend a ceremony “Legacy of Gabriel Richard in Detroit.” honoring Gregory with a star on The Hollywood Walk of Fame in 2015. been on display for some time enough. In 1964 he joined the Cobo art include Shirley Woodson, Joce- Gregory civil rights movement. He lyn Rainey, Tyree Guyton, Nancy traded nightclubs for college Continued from Page 1D Mitchnick and Roslyn Grosky. Continued from Page 1D campuses. He became a “Maureen and the art team healthy food apostle and a “We’d kind of like Cobo to are doing such a fabulous job Negro second. I’ve got to be a political activist. become a destination,” authority curating the collection,” said colored funny man, not a funny In 1967, at the height of his curator Maureen Devine said glass artist Wagner, whose “Sol- colored man.” popularity, he ran a write-in afterward. “It’s a public building, stice” was introduced with the He also prepared himself for campaign for mayor of Chicago even if we often forget that. It’s other new additions Thursday. hecklers. He enlisted his wife to against incumbent Richard J. meant for everybody.” “I’ve been so impressed every call him by the N-word over Daley and in 1968 for president Part of the point, she noted, time I’ve walked through Cobo,” dinner, so he could prepare of the United States. He lost, of was to use art to encourage she added. “Maureen’s intro- funny comebacks without los- course, but he provided a mod- visitors to get out and explore duced a sense of flow I don’t ing his cool. el for later African Americans the actual city. remember from before.” Fortunately, he prepared who would win. So here’s a concept. Find “Solstice” is a multi-part glass A detail of spiral glass elements in April Wagner’s 2017 “Solstice.” himself well because his big In recent decades, Gregory’s yourself downtown and feeling a installation that wraps around a break came in January 1961 at obsessions with conspiracy little art-starved? Consider a stairwell connecting the second the Playboy Club before an theories made him something leisurely stroll through Cobo. and third floors. audience of “frozen food exec- of a joke, even among his The new arrivals include Located close to huge win- utives from the South.” He friends. Yet here, too, he had a glassworker April Wagner, sculp- dows overlooking the Detroit might have backed out, he re- following among fellow con- tor Sergio De Giusti, photog- River, the piece catches light in called, had he not been broke. spiracists. Conspiracy fanatic rapher S. Kay Young, ceramic- dazzling ways, practically beg- Instead, led by making fun of Alex Jones’ InfoWar website muralist Sister Jane Mary Soro- ging you to wander down the himself: “Just my luck. I bought eulogized Gregory as a “Jedi- siak, and the late painter Gilda stairs and follow its contours. a suit with two pair of pants level infowarrior.” Snowden. “Maureen and I walked all today — and burnt a hole in the Yet I could not fault Gregory Also in the spotlight last week around Cobo looking at spaces,” jacket!” for believing in conspiracies. was muralist Hubert Massey. His Wagner said, “and I was immedi- Then he broadened out to According to papers obtained 30-foot-by-30-foot Detroit his- ately drawn to that wall. I knew the elephant in the room: by a Chicago Tribune reporter torical fresco is at present a huge just what I wanted to do.” “Wouldn’t it be a hell of a thing in 1978 under the Freedom of black-and-white preparatory There followed six months of if all this (gesturing at his face) Information Act, FBI director J. “cartoon,” mostly out of view in blowing glass, and beginning to was burnt cork and you people Edgar Hoover ordered the the artist’s temporary studio assemble the hundreds of the were being tolerant for noth- bureau’s Chicago office to within Cobo. ridged and curved pieces. After ing?” secretly “neutralize” the come- But come the New Year, if all that came the challenging task of Heckling quickly gave way to dian-activist in 1968, perhaps goes to plan, the $500,000 work installing the bits on three sides Sculptor Sergio De Giusti’s 2004 “Eye of the Storm” (a detail) by laughter, applause, encores and by informing Mafia bosses will be painted on wet plaster on of a very tall wall. “Transcending” is at Cobo Center. Gilda Snowden, painted in 2001. a regular gig at the Playboy about some impolite remarks a highly visible Cobo wall some- “The installation I thought Clubs, which led to a Time Gregory had made about them. time after the 2018 North Amer- would take two days actually Devine has hung near the river, I wanted to make something magazine profile, “The Tonight “Look, if the FBI was going ican International Auto Show. took four,” Wagner said with a “Solstice” invokes the water, as bright and accessible to all view- Show” with Jack Paar and a to contact La Cosa Nostra, they Right now, Devine estimates laugh. “But it was really impor- well as the sun. ers,” she said, “remembering that heroic sort of national stardom. had to know who was in La there are about 80 pieces of art tant to me that the edge flowed Wagner says she was basically they might be walking through He was the black comedian who Cosa Nostra,” a stunned Grego- scattered around the convention correctly where it wraps around reaching for something joyous. Cobo to a Red Wings game.” could have white audiences ry told the Tribune after he was center’s 723,000 square feet of the corner.” “A lot of good Detroit art is [email protected] laugh at the absurdities of rac- told about the memo. “And if exhibition space. Artists who’ve Like many of the works that intense and heavy,” she said. “So (313) 222-6021 ism.