Let me qualify by saying that Patrice may have been my favorite person who ever lived. Even when I didn't like what he was saying I couldn't stop listening to him.

But you couldn't love him 24/7. When he was on that 9/11 kick and would talk conspiracies, I fucking hated it. Around the time of the first Obama election I really got annoyed, too. I still remember in the weeks before the election Patrice said "This country's too racist to elect a black president," and then the day after the election Obama wins and they were playing McCain's concession speech and Patrice goes all quiet and pensive "this really showed me how racist the country is." I was seething. I wanted to go back in time and storm into the studio so I could grab his coogi hat and toss it out the window.

He was intelligent about a lot of things. His approach to women was well thought out at least, his breakdowns of people and their shortcomings. But I hate how people try to act like Patrice was this brilliant mind. He argued for 30 minutes one day that you have to fly north to get to New Zealand. I mean, I love the guy. I really do. But not a single comic that sits down in that studio is in any way particularly brilliant.

And I especially hate when people post "Patrice would have said..." "Patrice would have supported..." Motherfuckers, you don't know what Patrice would have done because what made Patrice hilarious was his angle was almost always unpredictable.

His 9/11 conspiracy stuff was fun till he started to get serious about it. When he was talking to Opie and Anthony them making fun of it and making Patrice sound ridiculous when called out was funny. But when it was just him on Alex Jones or anywhere where he didn't have a counterpoint it was very head strong and annoying.

Also Patrice when it came to race Patrice was brilliant but he had a few outliers to his positions that made it a little frustrating.

The dude was brilliant in his way of looking at things. But he was far from an expert on every topic, even if he always had something funny and unique to say about each topic.

Patrice did plenty of wrong. He was full of stupid fucking conspiracy theories and had transparently dismissive argument tactics, he was misogynistic and racist and loved Farrakhan, but that was why he was great. He made all of those awful things seem cool when he was talking about them. He had the personality and worldview of a dude you wanna check in with. Sometimes it would be the same old race shit (Tough Crowd) but other times it was something you didn't think about.

People don't miss him because he "did no wrong," people miss him because he dared to be wrong as frequently as humanly possible and through that process claimed some incredible wins. He was never "above human." He was aggressively human. People like him because he tried as hard as he could to be honest, and to not sell-out. At great detriment to his career and connections. If you're at all familiar with the industry, you live vicariously through that. Other comedians would say it, too.

Plus you get the feeling he was on an upswing, he was honing his personality and maturing. Chris Rock said "we were all getting ready to work for Patrice" cause everyone knew if he could stop being a fucking self-sabotaging asshole for 5 minutes he could find his lane. People miss him because they wanted to see him have his own show on FX like everyone else seems to be getting, they wanna see him show up on TACS, they wanna know what he thinks about the Ferguson shootings. They cherish him on O&A cause he didn't leave behind a large body of work. Fuck. I don't know how else to phrase that where it doesn't sound like a hack pun.

Listen to Patrice's last recorded interview, on Jay Mohr's podcast. He did some serious soul searching with Jay, and had an epiphany on the show why his career was stalled. It's fascinating to listen to. And sad, that it happened right before he got sick - if he'd gotten serious about his health six months before that, he'd still be here.

That's what I base a lot of my "upswing" opinion on. Mohr was great in that interview and basically pitched Patrice on podcasting. He was saying Patrice needs to just make more shit, establish more of a presence, which is true. The Marc Maron interview was great too.

I know a lot about Lennon, he has always fascinated me. He was an untapped resource, and Yoko had a lot to do with that, I think because of her, he never did his best work, as a writer, or performer, or musician. She wasted the best years of his life on nonsense. And now has the balls to say she was as talented as he was, or more talented. I fucking LOATHE Yoko Ono.

But, as I know a lot about Lennon...god like, no. He was terribly, terribly flawed.

Cobain...same. He was absolutely talented. He had a voice you enjoy listening to, and he could write. But he's over-blown, overrated, because he died. I don't think he would have gone on to better and bigger, I think he would have faded away into obscurity.

Same with hendrix. He was unique for his time, but once people got a taste, they ran with what he was doing, and would have left him far behind. He'd be playing Vegas just like the others, for retirement cash.

The test of time is who will be remembered 100, 200, 300 years from now. There's no way to tell who history will remember, and why. My feeling is Lennon, then Hendricks....and probably not Cobain. Go back 50 years. Who were the top musicians on the charts? That's my point.

Influential? Yes. Popular. Yes. It's the "godlike" thing I have a problem with. That's at the level of Mozart, or Beethoven. Any of them at that level...as much as I like them...the answer is no. McCartney, as far as talent goes, blows Lennon out of the water, always did.

Agree on all points: No one gives a fuck about Chuck Berry, the guy who arguably invented rock, because he didn't die early in his life. No folklore. Also, Cobain's fame had actually waned in. 94 after In Utero as compared to 91.

Lennon should've died after the Imagine album while the rest of the band should've died after the Beatles broke up. It would be a cruel joke if Ringo lives to be the longest

Everyone peaks at some point, obviously, and every member of The Beatles peaked while the band was together, but every member had decent songs as solo artists, including Ringo.

Peaked, as in a team, yes. The McCartney/Lennon team was done by Let It Be, and it showed. Harrison started to really show his chops around then, too. His skill at guitar blew past McCartney and Lennon around then.

Individually, I think Harrison and McCartney did just as well solo. I think a lot of Wings, and Paul's collaboration with Denny Lane was almost as good as the Lennon stuff he was part of. A lot of what they did certainly didn't sell as well, but musically, it's good stuff. Really good stuff.

Lennon, the only thing I really like post-Beatles is "Imagine" and "The Marriage Of John And Yoko". The rest is just nonsense, really. He gave in to Yoko, and wasted all of his time on pure nonsense. He peaked in the Beatles, but I think he had a lot more in him, that he never got a chance to let out.

Ringo...meh. I think Ringo's dabbled, but I think he knew he couldn't compete as a drummer, so he just played up the celebrity angle, and had fun. He didn't contribute that much to the Beatles, and I think he was okay with that, too - it was fun just being part of it. Can you blame him?

"Double Fantasy" was Lennon "at the peak of his career"?!?

Lennon pissed away the vast majority of the last 10 years of his life, creatively speaking. There are a few decent tunes in his solo catalog, but I don't actually listen to them.

Barring a reunion with McCartney (which Lennon retardedly resisted for years: "here's your lifeboat, sir! no, thanks; I'm good!"), it was "over, Johnny!".

But there were rumblings that John was finally coming around to the idea of reuniting with Paul, and it is a shame we didn't get to hear the fruits of those labors.

Cobain had the most potential ahead of him, imo, if he could have gotten free from that insufferable cunt in a way that didn't involve heroin and a shotgun.

I really dig (most of) "In Utero". And what a fantastic song to go out on!

Jimi? I think we got the best we were gonna get. And Michael Jackson hadn't made a good record in the last 10-15 years of his life.

The funny (sickening) thing is: I don't think we would have heard about the kids if he had made another "Thriller", just like we didn't hear about Ahnold's sexploits until he started flopping at the box office.

It's the "Patrice/beast" thing; if you're making money for the machine, I think you can do just about anything you want: young girls, young boys, farm animals.............whatever you want.

So what you're saying is, if I want a threesome with a young girl, a young boy and a farm animal I have to be making them box office dollars?

George Clooney could get that done. Probably has.

give me a fucking break. all over rated. yes, patrice too.

uh oh...here come the Patrice white knights.

wouldn't it be dark knights?

There is something that gets romanticized about celebrities who die before their time and die with good art left on the table. The what if game gets played with those guys who still have some good or even their best years ahead of them.

The sad thing about Patrice was that he died at the height of his career. He finally learned to play the game little bit and got that breakout moment with the Charlie Sheen Roast. Right when things looked like they were starting to take off it happened.

Patrice was my favorite comedian of all time so maybe I am bias. But whenever anyone asks me how big do I think he could have been, I always say that he could have been as big as Dave Chappelle and at worst he would have been as big as Louie CK (Which is still pretty dam big).

It would have been something for Patrice to have gotten his own show with a lot of creative control.

[deleted]

"Michael Jackson was mocked and ridiculed and exiled until he died"

Mocked, sure. But he had a rock solid, MASSIVE fan base. He could have put out an album of him trimming his toenails, and it would have sold several platinums. All he had to do is schedule tour dates, and people lost their minds trying to get tickets. His popularity may have been waning in the US, but worldwide he's still one of the biggest pop stars EVER - and the way things are going, doesn't look like anyone will top him.

His exile was self imposed, too. He didn't have to live like a hermit, he chose to.

Regardles of what he did to kids, you cannot minimize who he was, who and how many loved him, and still do, and how much of his behavior was his choice.

"Regardless of what he did to kids, you cannot minimize who he was" reminds me of Jim Jefferies' bit about "How talented do you have to be to fuck a kid"

Yeah, I remember that now that you mention it, god I love Jim. Don't get me wrong, I think he was creepy as fuck, with the nose, and the kid touching and all - it does ruin his music for me, but, sadly, a LOT of people give him a pass...

That's fucked up, right?

Very fucked up.

He was exceptionally funny and also incredibly, indefensibly dumb sometimes. there's audio somewhere of the boys (louis ck is there too) doing that trick with money ( i forget which american bill) where you fold it and it looks like the twin towers burning and patrice loses his mind and thinks its parts of some great conspiracy. He also couldnt understand how vaccinations work, the guy thought one of the most important aspects of medical science and civilisation was bullshit with NO actual education whatsoever. Face it, he was fueled more by paranoia and gut disdain than any kind of inquiring mind.

So, yeah, i understand liking him for his jokes but thinking he was some kind of street philosopher, guru type worthy of sainthood is just stupid.

Michael Jackson was not mocked and ridiculed until the allegations came out that he was a child molester, and even then, he sold out stadiums world wide. Cobain wasn't a god. He was a less than average guitar player with a unique vocal style. The sound Nirvana created wasn't their own, it was stolen from the Pixies, and Kurt admitted this. As for Patrice, he was an average comic with amazing insight and analytical skills from a black perspective. I miss him on the show but I certainly don't rank him up there with the best comedians of all time.

I'd say he was an above average comic, not on the highest tier but much further from the lowest. He infuriated me plenty, but I think that was his goal a lot of the times. He was as good as Andy Griffith at playing dumb to the "smarter" people, pretending to be what their preconceptions were, and then eviscerating them.

I wish he wouldn't have died. He was great on the show, was about to really hit his stride it looked like. From what I know of him, a very self destructive person with an obscene amount of self respect. He put credibility above all else (At times, but remember he also did that fucking baby show with DiPaolo.) He has gotten a lot of rose colored glasses since he died, but I don't mind it, because that's all he'll ever be able to get from now on. Posthumorous praise. Not an average comic, not a legendary comic, but a really good comic, with potential to be alot more.

As a comedy fan, it really sucks that Patrice died, and yet, all this milquetoast unfunny shit keeps getting recognition, admiration, and revenue. Comedy Central is full of horseshit. Primetime sitcoms are almost universally unfunny and cater to dipshits. I hate to call Patrice "average" because he's light years funnier than just about anyone on TV.