The Blog

Eddie Murphy has long been my favorite black comedic actor — but not my favorite of all American comedic actors. I’ve put together a list of my top five Eddie moments. Agree? Disagree? Suggest other moments in the comments section.

Warning: explicit language and content in some of the clips below. UPDATE: Some of the clips have been removed from YouTube. So that means you’ll have to rent them, now doesn’t it?

5. James “Thunder” Early in Dreamgirls (2006)

*Video removed from YouTube due to copyright claim.

4. Preacher Pauly in Vampire In Brooklyn (1995)

3. Ray Gibson in Life (1999)

2. Randy Watson in Coming to America (1988)

*Video removed from YouTube due to copyright claim.

1. The Klumps in The Nutty Professor (1996)

Seniors say the damnedest things. I was reminded that during an AARP event I covered today, at which New Jersey’s governor attempted to woo seniors citizens who are concerned over his proposed plan to cut their state benefits.

“Can I tell you something personal,” asked a modestly dressed 80-year-old black woman clutching a cup of coffee and croissant she generously buttered as I grilled her about the governor’s speech.

“Sure,” I said, expecting the woman to reveal heartbreaking details about senior life on a fixed income.

“You are dressed very well and you speak very intelligently,” she said, and then paused.

Oh Lord, I thought. Is she hitting on me? No, couldn’t be.

“You should lose the hardware,” she said after what seemed like several seconds of dead air.

Lose the hardware? I looked down at my hands. I was holding a yellow notepad, a pen, my job-issued Motorola Que and my iPhone. My press pass dangled from my neck. It has metal component. Hardware?

The octogenarian pointed to my left ear.

I don’t have a Bluetooth headset. Had one magically appeared on my head? Or worst, did I have wax in my ears?

“Your earring. You shouldn’t wear it. It’s inappropriate,” she said.

I tensed up. Although no one was standing within earshot of she or I, my first emotion was that of embarrassment.

“People like us,” she began, tapping her cheek to indicate she was talking about African Americans. I nodded to signal I knew what she meant. “We shouldn’t give the larger community ways to weed us out. You stand out with the earring. It’s a distraction. And people make assumptions about young men with earrings.”

She lifted her eyebrows to imply something she was trying not to say.

Wow, I thought. This is the first time in many years I’d heard someone bring up the issue of men piercing their ears and wearing studs.

I pierced my left ear in my junior year of high school, right after I’d returned home from my first ever trip to New York City. That year I’d made up my mind to move to the East Coast upon completing college. And move, I did. The earring, back then, represented a sense of independence and of ambition that I’d somehow discovered in the Big Apple. Cheesy? Maybe not. I made it to New York.

These days I barely remember that I have my ear pierced. I rarely take the stud out, except to clean it. I’ll admit I walked away from the awkward conversation feeling a bit insecure.

She told me she’d raised four boys of her own. Two of them were college professors. The other two were engineers. I assumed she was implying that they are “where they are” in part because they don’t wear earrings, a fashion long considered feminine (even homosexual) by black (religious?) women (and men) of her dying generation.

Do people of her generation really see me that way? And at first glance?

Before I walked away, I decided not to assume the woman was homophobic, or that she was assuming I’m signaling to others my true sexual identity by wearing a quarter karat diamond stud, or that my decision to wear it would place a glass ceiling over my career trajectory.

That would just be stupid. And she seemed like a reasonably intelligent, albeit old-fashioned, woman.

Her parting words: “It’s just something to think about. You don’t have to take my advice. As they say, do your own thing.” She winked.

I smiled generously, turned on my heels and headed for the sliding doors of the Marriot in downtown Trenton.

No moral to the story. Just thought I’d share the joys of being a journalist. Thanks for reading. Comments?