Delirious

DELIRIOUS

Eddie Murphy’s Delirious was my first introduction to stand-up comedy. I have no recollection how, but my sole brother who is two years older than I, somehow acquired the cassette tape. This was around 1985 and up until that point I don’t think I knew who Eddie Murphy was or what he looked like. I never stayed up late enough to watch SNL, and Beverly Hills Cop- which came several years after Delirious- was the first movie of his that I ever saw.

Although, it was the mid nineteen eighties, so our house phone did get several calls on the regular asking for Eddie- being that my last name is Murphy- my dad’s name is Ed- and I grew up in an era when prank calls were made by immature teenagers shuffling thru several hundreds of local inhabitant’s names, addresses, and numbers, in a large five-pound PHONE BOOK.

I don’t know if that is the exact weight, but I clearly remember my first part time job delivering said density to every surrounding household in the neighborhood, and at that time it felt like at least thirty pounds.

Nobody was safe at that time! Pre- answering machine era, blindly answering the home phone not knowing if it will be an important call from the doctor or a degenerate kid asking “If your refrigerator was running” so that when you innocently answered ‘Yes” I’d say- “Well then go catch it!”

I loved that one…

The house phone was such a Ferris Wheel of fun. When I wasn’t checking on the status of my neighbor’s appliances, time was productively spent calling radio stations to request songs so I could sit by the tape recorder and record them once they came on the radio.

There was no extra money for purchased music in my household. I didn’t care. I thrived on pirated music and Top Ramen.

My adrenaline and cholesterol were both already through the roof before I could even spell such large words.

Back to my original train of thought though-

My very first stand up special- DELIRIOUS

My older brother Charlie snuck away to his upstairs bedroom, lying on the floor, sharing a pair of headphones, secretly listening and laughing hysterically- out of sight from our strict church going parents.

I liked church also, but more for the intoxicating incense and free donuts.

At that time I was eleven and my brother thirteen.

Almost 30 years later, Delirious is still my most revered comedy special and I still watch it at least a couple times a year.

I know it by heart… yet almost every time I watch it, I still find small new hilarious nuances that I hadn’t noticed before. His talent is so vast and subtle.

Eddie Murphy’s presence in anything he does is a huge inspiration, and an anti-depressant at the same time.

My days with Eddie may have been secret, but my nights with Cosby were a family event-

Thursday nights were the best night of television.

At that young age I knew no difference between black and white, and I can say that with one hundred percent honesty. It wasn’t till early adulthood that it became something to be talked about. All I knew at that age was that Eddie provided joyous laughter and Dr. Huxtable was a cool colorful sweater wearing dad who delivered babies in the daytime and loved to sneak hoagies and what closely resembled Lay’s potato chips when his wife was away.

Today felt like a strange day with the holiday. My childhood seemed so normal being surrounded with different races, yet it still seems to be an issue all these years later for ignorant and uneducated people.

June is the start of warmer weather, celebrating graduates, the beginning of vacations, rainbows meant for embracing people who have a more open mind then just “a penis only belongs in a vagina”, and a day on the nineteenth of the month to acknowledge- We probably shouldn’t have segregated and destroyed all those people who looked different and had darker skin then us.

It's weird how the older you get the more you realize a U.S. “holiday” usually does not derive from “a happy event.”

I started this document two weeks ago just writing about my brother and I watching Delirious as kids- but here I am at Mr. Furley’s in Sherman Oaks, CA pondering how humans are capable of such acts that caused me to get free metered “holiday” parking at my yoga studio today.

Thanks for reading if you made it till the end.

And if you didn’t like this article- Go watch Delirious! And I promise you’ll go to bed happy.

Unless you’re under thirty…then you’ll just be mortified at the type of jokes a comedian could get away with before the internet.

xoxo