They were probably closer to death than I was. When Pryor had a heart attack scare, he says, ``My family worried themselves sick. What is so painful to read here is the way our culture's obsession with celebrity distances those who become famous from the honesty and love they once had. He recognized himself as ``the dark comic genius, the Bard of Self Destruction'' and calls MS ``the light'' that transforms his life, making him slow down and stop using drugs. As he recounts in the book, he was married six times, twice to the same woman, with countless affairs in between. His addiction to women was equally as destructive. His cocaine addiction and the escapades that addiction prompted led him on a wild road that some, like comic John Belushi, didn't survive. But as Pryor explains here, aided by Gold of People magazine, he never equated people's laughing at his jokes with their liking him. His foul language, his willingness to address race and racism directly and intimately revolutionized comedy in the '60s and '70s and made way for comedians such as Eddie Murphy, Martin Lawrence, and Joe Torry. Pryor has always been a fearless black man. Pryor reflects on a life of humor and hard living altered forever by the recent diagnosis of multiple sclerosis.
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