The Funniest Man Ever

The first time I saw Paul Mooney, I was 16 and sitting in a packed auditorium in Princeton, NJ, waiting for a purple-suited Eddie Murphy to come out on stage and perform Raw. Paul Mooney was the opening act, and on that microphone he was angry and sharp and brilliant and blindingly intelligent. He was so damn smart, I think that's the main reason why it took more than two decades for a random skit like Negrodomus to put him on the map.

When I went to pick up the first batch of Drop softcovers from Bloomsbury in 2001, I was walking down 5th Avenue and saw Mooney walking with a friend. I ran up to him and gave him a copy just so that I could tell my kids that the great man once held my book in his hands. I knew I was playing myself and that the book was destined to be discarded wherever he was going next, but I didn't care. It was still worth it.

A Paul Mooney interview is a glorious thing. It's then that you can see how quickly his mind works, or the true sharpness of his wit.

If you want to see just how funny and smart he is, check out Paul Mooney on Fox News responding to the Kramer Incident. My wife found the clip, so she won the rights to keep it on her site.