Sam Kinison
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| Sam Kinison | |
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| Born: | December 8, 1953 Yakima, Washington, USA |
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| Died: | April 10, 1992 (age 38) Needles, California, USA |
| Medium: | Stand-up, Television, music |
| Nationality: | American |
| Years active: | 1978-1992 |
| Genres: | Black comedy, Satire |
| Influences: | Lenny Bruce, Richard Pryor |
| Influenced: | Bill Hicks, Chris Rock, Jim Carrey, Joe Rogan |
Samuel "Sam" Burl Kinison (December 8, 1953 – April 10, 1992) was an American stand-up comedian and actor.
Kinison was famous for his raunchy humor and wild, colorful outfits. A former revival-style preacher, his standup routines were most often characterized by intense, angry ranting and punctuated by his trademark scream.
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[edit] Biography
[edit] Early life
Born in Yakima, Washington, Kinison later attended high school in East Peoria, Illinois.He also lived in Tulsa,Oklahoma for a while with his parents who currently still live there. He was originally a preacher before becoming a comedian. Recordings of his sermons reveal that he used a "fire and brimstone" style, punctuated with shouts similar to the ones he would later use in his stand-up routines. He was forced to leave preaching when he divorced his first wife, at which time he took up comedy.
[edit] Comedy life
Kinison's appearance on Late Night with David Letterman on November 14, 1985 is widely considered to be his breakthrough performance. David Letterman's introduction of Kinison would prove to be prescient: "Brace yourselves. I'm not kidding. Please welcome Sam Kinison."
Kinison might be considered a "heavy metal comedian," since he was occasionally accompanied by a touring band; he also had a prodigious appetite for drugs and alcohol. In 1988, he recorded a novelty version of The Troggs' "Wild Thing." The record didn't make the Billboard Hot 100, but the video was a hit on MTV, featuring cameos from Aerosmith, Slash, bad boy Billy Idol, rock guitarist Steve Vai, guitarist Frank Zappa's son Dweezil Zappa, and a raunchy "roll on the mat" dance with Jessica Hahn. Sam hammered out some licks on a custom Stratocaster, with an airbrushed picture of his face frozen in his famous scream.
One of his albums featured four songs performed by him and his band, and during one notable The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson performance, he delivered what began as a straightforward version of Elvis Presley's Are You Lonesome Tonight, which descended into angry ranting during the spoken breakdown.
Some of Kinison's most spontaneous moments came during his frequent appearances on Howard Stern's radio show. He made an angry phone call on-air to Bobcat Goldthwait, and he embarrassed comedienne Judy Tenuta to the point of driving her off the show, as he sat in with Penn Jillette, Chuck McCann, and Jack Riley. His most notorious stunt resulted in a highly entertaining on-air feud with Stern: he made an on-air promise to bring to the show members of the rock-n-roll band Bon Jovi, with whom Stern was feuding, but they never showed up. It turned out that Bon Jovi had no intention of appearing. Stern's reaction was swift and vindictive, resulting in Kinison's eventual apology, but not before one of the show's funniest moments in which comedian Gilbert Gottfried and Stern both savaged an emotionally-charged phone call between Stern and Kinison, in which both stars used the words "man" and "dude" with each other so often that Gottfried and Stern went into stitches on hearing the playback.
Stern and Kinison eventually made up and paired on Stern's pay-per-view special, U.S. Open Sores. Today Howard Stern remembers Kinison fondly and acknowledges his comedic genius often on his radio show. In the mid-1990s, Stern purchased the movie rights to Kinison's biography Brother Sam, written by his brother Bill, but later revealed on the air that "no studio was interested in financing the movie," partially because of the comedian's controversial nature, and partially because the story had such a tragic ending.
Kinison sometimes seemed a romantic at heart, but his routines generally expressed a very cynical view of love, possibly as a result of a string of failed relationships; but, more plausibly, because of the women he attracted.
[edit] Death
Kinison was working to become clean and sober in the months before his death, and he married his girlfriend Malika Souiri in 1992. Just six days after the wedding, Kinison's white Pontiac Firebird Trans Am was struck by a seventeen-year-old drunk driver on US 95, four miles north of where it intersects Interstate 40, near Fort Mohave, Arizona and Needles, California. He was not wearing a seat belt, and his chest struck the steering wheel upon impact. A passerby immediately notified emergency services and attempted CPR, but with no success. Kinison was taken to the Needles Desert Community Hospital but died of his injuries on the way. He was 38 years old. Ironically, Kinison had often belittled the dangers of drunken driving in his comedic skits with such statements as:
- "You're just trying to get home, right?"
- "Yeah…give me a fuckin bus pass…"
- "Bus pass, please"
- "It's the only way to get the fuckin' car back to the house!"
The other driver received only minor charges because Kinison was found to have very slight traces of cocaine in his bloodstream, though friends and relatives insisted that the comedian was 100% sober at the time of the collision.
Friend and talkshow host Howard Stern did a tribute to Kinison for several hours a few days after his death, and the show featured a fairly touching song parody, "The Sound of Kinison" (featuring the melody from Simon & Garfunkel's The Sound of Silence). Portions of the 1992 tribute show have been replayed at least once during 2006 on Stern's new satellite radio show on Sirius Radio.
He is interred with family members at the Memorial Park Cemetery in Tulsa, Oklahoma.
[edit] Famous bits
- An end to world hunger
- Kinison ranted about people who traveled to such places as Ethiopia and filmed commercials to induce viewers to send money to help feed the kids; meanwhile, he pointed out, the film crews were five feet away and maybe could have given the starving kids a sandwich. He claimed that if you really wanted to help starving Ethiopian kids, then you needed to stop sending them food. Instead, you should "send them somebody like me, I'll walk out there. Send them somebody who says, hey, we just drove 700 miles with your food, and it occurred to us, there wouldn't be any world hunger if you people would live WHERE THE FOOD IS!!! YOU LIVE IN A FUCKING DESERT!!!" He went on to explain -- to the Ethiopians -- that they couldn't plant food in the sand, which, in a hundred years, would still be sand. He ended the routine by screaming "Get your kids get your shit, we'll make one trip! We'll take you to where the food is!!! We have deserts in America, we just don't live in them, assholes!" ([http://kinison.com/video.php (Strong language).
- Sex
- He often claimed "I'm just trying to help" and would offer the audience suggestions for stronger relationships and better sex. One of his more notorious comic routines included the suggestion that while performing cunnilingus one ought to lick the letters of the alphabet. He even went so far as to suggest keeping amyl nitrite by the bedside.
- On the subject of safe sex, Kinison maintained a passionate anti-rubber stance: "If you don't trust the pussy, why are you fucking the pussy?...I don't think you should fuck unless you're really in love. It may be for a really short fucking time, doesn't mean it's going to last a lifetime, but it just makes it more special, know what I'm saying?"
- Breaking up with his girlfriend
- Accompanying himself on the piano, Kinison, in his most earnest voice, told the story of a special girlfriend, their extremely close bond, and how her sudden lack of interest in the relationship coincided with the zero balance of his bank account. As the piano accompaniment built to a climax, he dedicated to her this song: "YOU LYING WHORE!!! You used me! You never loved me! I hope you slide under a gas truck and taste your own blood! DIE! DIE! DIE! I want my records back! I want my records back!" This bit closed his debut album, Louder Than Hell (which has yet to be reissued on CD),(This is now on CD and as of this writing, the only one of his recordings in print on CD) his first HBO special Breaking the Rules, and various other live performances and television appearances. You can watch it here; it's the second to last link--Saturday Night Live (the second one)
- Jesus
- Religion was a favourite topic with Kinison. He often mocked Christ in his act, saying that Jesus would be coming back "real soon now, just as soon as he can PLAY THE PIANO AGAIN HE WILL BE RIGHT THERE!". He once did a bit in which Jesus was on the Cross, while various Christians were standing around wondering what to do. "It's a shame that he has to die," they commented, to which Jesus replied, "Well, maybe I wouldn't have to, if somebody would get a ladder and a pair of pliers!" Kinison offered some speculations about the Resurrection: "Every horror movie in which the dead come back to life had people freaking out, but when Jesus does it, everyone's really happy to see him." Kinison cited this as evidence that Jesus was never married, because no wife would ever believe that her husband was gone for three days because he was dead and then magically came back to life. He added that he wasn't afraid of going to Hell, because "I was MARRIED for TWO FUCKING YEARS! Hell would be like Club Med!".
- In spite of the religious mockery and blasphemy in his comic acts, Kinison professed to be a deeply religious man.
- The 1986 Bombing of Libya
- Kinison's first record, Louder Than Hell, was recorded shortly after the 1986 Bombing of Libya. This provided Kinison with the opportunity to do a bit that was both topical and patriotic for his American audience. Virtually all Americans at that time considered Libyan dictator Muammar Qaddafi to be a maniacal tyrant and benefactor of international terrorism, so Kinison was not taking any great risks when he did the following jokes.
- "I'm just in that fuckin' mood. Ever since we bombed Libya, ya know, I'm just in that fuckin' tear everything up mood. BLAST 'EM! That was just too cool man, American bombers going in going, 'WHERE'S THE BABY'S ROOM?' BLAM!!!"
- "'Where do you keep the little girl?' (ballistic bomb whistling) BLAM!!!"
- "We only fucked up one place, we accidentally dropped a bomb on the French embassy. 'Whoa-whoa-whoa-whoa-whoa, shit! Aw, sorry about that. I'm sure our aim would have had better if we had more FUCKING SLEEP! Thanks for those 6500 extra air miles, you fuckheads, BUILD A NEW HOUSE!' BLAM!!!"
- Marriage
- The comedian ardently warns members of the audience against getting married. Screams directly into male audience member's face saying, "This is going to be your face if you get married!" Once he said "I don't worry about terrorism. I was married for two years!"
- Gays
- Kinison was notorious for his homophobia. In one 1986 bit, he called gay men the source of AIDS in America. He once mused onstage, "I love women. I don't think you oughta be mean to 'em, well, you don't have any choice, what are you going to do? It's either love women, or suck a big dick. Thanks, God! Thanks for the big menu down here, thanks a lot!"
- "How does a guy look at another guy's hairy ass... and find love?"
- "I might be a little jealous, I'm a little overweight, but... I guess if you're gay you'd probably lose a lot of weight, folks. 'Cause who the fuck wants to eat after you've had a DICK IN YOUR MOUTH ALL DAY! (gagging) MORE PIZZA?"
- "A group of homosexuals were going around to mortuaries offering them money to come in at night to spend a couple of hours undisturbed with the freshest male corpse." [Source: Sam Kinison - Breaking the Rules DVD]
- "Recently a lot of gays have spoken out against me for telling AIDS jokes that were "medically incorrect". Because I remember when I was going to medical school learning how to write fuckin' jokes, I promised myself I would never write any medically incorrect jokes about AIDS."
[edit] Trivia
- Kinison was voted #20 in Comedy Central's 100 Greatest Stand-ups of All Time.
- Tony Scott's 2005 film "Domino", starring Keira Knightley and Mickey Rourke, featured the Sam Kinison Monument in Needles, California. No such monument exists. The "monument" in the film was merely a foam prop.
- Kinison was considered for the role of Al Bundy in the sitcom Married... with Children, but producers thought he would be too controversial, so Ed O'Neill won the part. However, Kinison did make an appearance on the series as an angel during a Christmas episode when Al had an It's a Wonderful Life-like moment. That performance is at this link, in two parts; the links are partway down the page
- He had a supporting role as a history teacher in the 1986 Rodney Dangerfield movie Back to School; the link is here, the first link on the list
- He had a supporting role as a Mexican bandit in the 1986 movie ¡Three Amigos!, but his scene was cut. Kinison believed this was due to Chevy Chase being jealous of how Kinison stole several scenes in Back to School.
- Comedian and impressionist Craig Gass has also performed the voice of Sam Kinison on the Howard Stern Show and in his comedy routine.
- In the late 80s, Sam was linked romantically with Seka the porn star, who made an appearance during the sign-off at the end of the episode of Saturday Night Live that Sam was hosting.
- In Pauly Shore's movie Pauly Shore Is Dead, the closing shot is an epitaph to Kinison. Kinison also "appears" several times in the movie to give Pauly advice. Again, his voice was provided by Craig Gass.
- Comedian Chris Rock said among his fondest memories from his early days in stand-up was the pleasure of "hangin' with Sam."
- In the early 1980's, Blackie Lawless was so inspired by Kinison's routine at the Troubadour that he proceeded to write the lyrics for the debut single of W.A.S.P., Animal (Fuck like a beast), based on it. In the routine, Kinison went on and on about his (alleged) wife, whom he hated, calling her a beast.
- Heavy metal band Anthrax sampled one of Kinison's famous screams in their 1987 song I'm the Man.
[edit] Discography
- Louder Than Hell (1986)
- Have You Seen Me Lately? (1988)
- Leader of the Banned (1990)
- Live From Hell (1993)
[edit] Filmography
- Charlie Hoover (1991) (TV) ... Hugh
- Bon Jovi's Bad Medicine music video ... himself
- Mötley Crüe's Kickstart My Heart music video ... himself
- Back to School (1986) ... Professor Terguson
- Savage Dawn (1985) ... Barber
[edit] External links
- Official Sam Kinison website
- Sam Kinison at the Internet Movie Database
- Sam Kinison at the Notable Names Database
- Interview with Sams Brother Bill
- A Multimedia Tribute to the Life and Comedy of Sam Kinison
- Sam Kinison Tribute Site by Comedian Screamin Sam
- Clip featuring an example of Kinison's stand up routine
- Sam Kinison's Gravesite
