Subtitles by explosiveskull
All right. All right.
You got the questions, I got the answers.
Yeah!
This is Charlie Sheen interview,
take one, and mark.
Good luck with what happens next.
Don't feel like
you have to hold anything back.
How do you hold anything back on Sam Kinison?
This is Ron Jeremy interview, take one.
Mark.
Oh, yeah, yeah.
As far as if there's any drugs or alcohol,
I'm not privy to this.
In his mind,
there was the Old Testament, there was the New Testament,
and then there was the Book of Sam.
Sam is an acronym, "Surface to Air Missile."
When he took the stage,
the world, from that moment forward,
was changed forever.
So intense.
It was like, so, like... crazy!
I'm a XXX-rated fucking comedian.
People count on me for fucking bad taste.
Do we like rubbers, guys?
No!
We hate rubbers!
How down and dirty and nasty and offensive
and politically incorrect can you possibly get?
And Sam Kinison's my man!
Sam Kinison is the beast.
Oh, you tight...
It was so outrageous that you go, "Wow!
I mean, you can, you can do that?"
Oh!
Sam was like a human cartoon.
Aah!
I'm just a comic.
Sam was deeply flawed as a person, by all accounts.
That doesn't mean he wasn't the greatest of all time.
Sam Kinison. Okay, here we are, Sammy.
Ah, there, there you are.
Most comedians have an anger,
either real or imagined.
With Sam, it was never imagined.
It was like a punch in the face. Bang, bang, bang.
You will beg God to forget my face!
Aah!
Holy shit.
He's saying stuff that I've thought before,
but nobody's said it yet.
Fuck you!
Sam let his devils take over.
Is it that bad, man?
For you to get a buzz? What's wrong with you?
Stop what you're doing. Take it in.
Hey, man, how are ya?
Who knows how long this is going to last?
Like, what is going to happen?
All right, there's going to be a little cardiovascular damage,
a little.
Your life isn't a fucking cartoon.
There's pain involved, goddammit!
Comedy is pain
that you turn around and make people laugh about it,
because they've had the same pain.
It's me!
Not from Celebrity Look-Alike, motherfuckers!
It's me!
Ah, I know they messed around with this guy's book.
I read the Bible.
I know they messed around with this guy's book.
I know Jesus was never married.
Guy never had a wife, no way.
He was never married,
'cause no wife would buy this story
in a hundred years.
The disciples will. The believers will.
No wife would buy this fucking story.
Good luck. Good luck with this story.
First of all, he leaves on a Friday afternoon
with 12 other guys...
He comes home in the afternoon, looking like he hasn't slept,
and he...
Looks like he's partied out, man,
and Mrs. Jesus is just waiting, going, "Oh, okay.
Well, I'm glad you could find your way home, Savior!"
"Where's your 12 friends who won't get a job, huh?
Where they at?
Yeah, disciples, my ass.
They're losers!"
Jesus is going,
"I don't need this shit."
"No, honey, I'll tell you where I've been.
Come here. Come here...
Come here.
I'll tell you where I've been.
First of all, not that, uh,
not that it ruined your weekend any,
but I was dead!"
"Do you understand that, you fucking bitch?
I was dead!
While you were sitting here on your ass,
I'm in a grave outside of town!
I'm fighting death, Hell, decomposure!
I'm about to come into spiritual form
and go in the Kingdom of God,
and I go, 'Wait a second. I better go back,
because she doesn't know where I've been.'
So now I've got to fight the angel of death,
get my fucking soul back, crawl out of the grave,
come home to this shit,
because I missed you, honey!"
Our father had been the National Evangelist
for the Church of God.
He had built a church in East Peoria...
literally built it by hand...
and sold it
and bought this Methodist church,
and so we literally grew up in that church.
That's what Sam was born into.
Sam, he was a very mellow kid, just kind of laid back,
and then the accident happened.
I was in school.
I heard an ambulance.
I don't know how I knew. I just knew it was Sam.
I thought they'd brought the wrong kid home.
It looked like Sam,
but didn't act like Sam at all...
Well, now he was aggressive, loud.
That totally changed his personality.
Our mom and dads were good friends.
Eight, nine years old when we first met.
He was kind of out of control as a kid.
You know, we'd be walking out of the store,
and he would moon someone.
And Dad was a pastor, and he'd say, "Sam!
Please, people know us here. You know, you can't do that."
He just always felt like he had to be outlandish,
always trying to make people laugh.
This was always the cleaners,
the East Peoria Cleaners.
This was a dentist office right across the street.
I don't know what it is now...
'cause we lived in the church.
Mm-hmm.
You know,
'cause my dad probably couldn't have afforded to preach
if we didn't.
My dad, every one of us just idolized him.
We didn't just love him, we idolized him.
We thought he was great.
We thought he was a hero.
My mother, he was 19 years older than her.
Eventually, he was getting old, and she wasn't.
She really wanted out of the marriage.
My dad would've still stayed married.
It was my mother that pursued it.
When my mom and dad got a divorce,
and I remember going to court... I was 16,
Sam was 11, Kevin was six,
and the judge asking my older brother, Richard,
who you wanted to live with,
and he told him, "Sir, I want to live with Bill."
So the judge was like, "Okay, well, where's Bill?"
So I stood, and he said, uh, "Who do you want to live with?"
And I said, "I want to live with my dad,"
and he asked me why,
and I said, "Because I love him,
and I don't think anybody should be by their self."
He ordered then
that Richard and I would live with my dad,
and Sam and my youngest brother, Kevin,
would live with my mother.
Sam was very upset about it.
Sam loved his dad dearly.
He had a lot of resentment for years against his mother.
To, uh, Kevin,
Sam was the big brother.
Had a relationship
that was closer than any of the rest of us.
They were inseparable,
and you have to understand, you know,
my relationship with Sam and my brothers,
I was like the dad.
My dad never ever told us, "I wantcha to be preachers,"
but you're kind of raised with this subliminal psychology
that the reason you're in this family,
and God put you in this family, and you're a boy,
is you're supposed to preach,
and you can't be happy if you don't preach.
Bill and Rich had gone on to be preachers,
so Sam definitely thought, "Uh, I have to do this."
We preached a lot in revival centers,
and you went 50-50 on the offerings.
It wasn't unusual for us
to make seven to ten thousand a week.
We did well.
Richard was a fireball,
and he could raise money out of the walls.
He had a gift like nobody...
and then, you had Bill,
and Bill was more conservative,
and just knew how to ask people to give,
and they would give.
We were very sincere about what we believed,
about what we did.
It's kind of hard to follow Bill and Rich,
and then, here comes Sam.
The first time that I heard Sam preach
was in a church called Bible Way Temple
in Houston.
Richard and I had always done great there,
and so we decided one night to let him preach...
and I remember him getting up, and...
I didn't think it was very good.
Amen. It's hard to...
oh, praise God...
to keep a consistent thought flow sometimes
with everything happening,
but God's good,
and he loves you.
Were you a serious minister?
Yeah, I was, I was.
I used to have, uh, kind of
a relationship with God, you know.
Why did you leave it?
That was a good money-maker, wasn't it?
I became disillusioned.
I was never into
the offerings side of it, you know?
I'd pull out a basket, and I'd say,
"Hey, if I blessed you and you want to bless me,
here's the basket."
I didn't do very well, actually.
You were not a good minister?
No. Well, not financially.
I didn't rake in the bucks.
He hated the part of having to ask people for money.
He'd say, "You know, those people went to work today.
They worked hard.
I can't ask them for their money."
It killed him, because in the ministry,
you had to raise your offerings.
That was your paycheck. That was your rent.
He preached for seven years.
He never made $5,000 in any one year.
People come to be given to, not to be taken from.
My brother Bill is spirited.
Religion does nothing but take.
His first wife, he caught her in an affair.
Got a divorce, and that was the end of that.
It so devastated Sam
that I think it kind of molded his views
about being married,
and, uh, about women.
He said, "I'm, I'm done."
He was... he was broken.
I mean, he truly was devastated and shocked.
We were all shocked.
Amen...
which is better than being married,
and, well, I'm content.
No thanks. Amen.
I'd just as soon be happy. Amen.
I'm... I'm, I'm in love with love.
Any time I need any joy,
I just think about the family God stuck me in,
and I always cheer up.
He'd preach,
and he'd make people laugh,
and the pastors would say, "You know, you can't do that.
You can't make people laugh."
Finally, he got tired of it, and he said, "You know what?
I'm going to go to a world that I can make laugh
and I'm not going to get in trouble for it."
Came up and talked to me,
told me he just couldn't cut it in the ministry,
and I said, "Well, take some time.
Forget about your brothers are preachers.
Your dad was a preacher. Your friends are preachers.
Look down in your heart
and find out what you've always wanted to do."
He took, like, three seconds, and went,
"I always wanted to be a stand-up comedian."
I've screamed at God at the top of my lungs,
'cause that's how much I believe in him!
Amen!
That's how personal I feel like my relationship is.
If I can't be myself with the Father,
then I'm going to stop preaching this gospel!
That's what Sam did, and shocked us all.
He found a comedy club in Houston, Texas
that was going to teach you how to be a stand-up comedian
in one week,
and that's where Sam started at.
I think he chose Houston
because it was the place
where he could get his stage legs as a comedian,
'cause he had to let preaching go
and learn stand-up comedy,
and it ac... it served him very well.
The first time I saw him on stage,
I was the first guy to approach him,
and I said, uh, "You know, I think you're going to do well.
You got a lot of energy, got a lot of conviction."
He would always improv, no matter what.
Whatever was on his mind, he was going to do it.
You guys ready for a show?
Huh?
Look at it!
Here's your show!
He was all in for the art.
He was going to make you laugh, whatever the fuck it took.
Sam was free, a free man.
Nothing stopped him.
He did whatever the fuck he wanted
for the sake of comedy.
He never had a drink
until he's 25 years old and he got into comedy,
but having an addictive personality,
now that he's able to drink...
he really did.
It didn't take long to figure out it was a problem.
He'd never been around pot. He'd never been around drugs.
You know, and this just struck him as very exotic,
and he was like, "Oh, wow!"
Thanks, Charlie.
Like working overtime on the overtime.
Sam and Kevin, they'd always been inseparable.
They'd always hung together.
Kevin graduated high school.
I wanted him to go to college.
Sam wanted him to go down to Houston with him,
and he did.
Okay.
Whew.
All right, so now...
It was the first time I seen Sam,
who was 25 at the time,
ever successful at anything in life, anything.
Yeah, absolutely.
The ministry, the marriage...
he never ever held a job.
He didn't know what it was to get a paycheck.
Oh, Sam getting banned at the Annex.
They had this...
oh, I don't know whatcha call him...
talent coordinator, whatever,
and Sam's not his cup of tea.
I mean, it's like standard.
You have the wall and the stool and the mic,
and he sat on the stool...
and it broke.
It was like, "God, what a cheap piece of crap..."
and he smashed it like Pete Townshend's guitar,
smashed the stool into kindling.
Basically, he destroyed Annex property, you know,
so they banned him for that.
Well, Sam can't go quietly.
They have, like, a convenience store
across the street
with a big sign.
With a little help...
I guess from me...
he ties himself up to where he's Christ,
and he put a little cardboard crown of thorns
and ketchup for blood,
and stood on the sign,
and crucified himself
in full view of the Annex audience.
You know, they're, uh, "They're crucifying my art."
The way the Annex was,
the front of it was all glass windows.
So guys are trying to...
you know, they're trying to get up and do their act,
and everybody is standing there,
looking at this guy across the street
that has tied himself up to this, to this sign.
You got police out there trying to get him to come down.
And the cops were in a pretty good mood.
I mean, they, they came along,
and they went, "Hey, uh, Easter was two weeks ago."
His return became this huge event.
He's got to rent a limousine,
show up in a tux,
like he had won a victory.
And he's like... you know,
and everybody's cheering him, and...
and he goes, "All right, well, this is what got me banned,"
and he picks up the stool, and he smashes it again,
and that was his return.
One thing that did happen in Houston
that was pivotal in Sam's career
was he met Rodney Dangerfield there.
Rodney sees Sam on stage for the first time.
Sam did this bit, The Fucking Cops.
Did anybody tell you this one?
You got a couple Puerto Rican guys going...
they were stealing something...
and you go, "Oh, man! Oh, no! Look!
It's the fucking cops!"
And then these guys...
you go like, "That's right.
We're the fucking cops."
You know, you know...
"Pull over there.
Uh, get up against the wall, buddy!"
"Oh, no, no. Not the fucking cops!"
You know.
I told the bartender,
I said, "You know, whatever him and his group want,
let me know, and I'll take care of it."
Well, Rodney had me come over to the table,
not knowing I'm related to Sam.
I remember near the end,
Rodney turned around and goes, "Hey, this kid's a genius.
He's going to make it. He's going to be big."
And afterwards, he goes, "Okay, kid, come here,"
you know.
"I love ya.
That fucking cops bit, oh, that was great," you know.
"You know, I think you could be something some day,
and I hope you do, because, you know what?
You're no competition to me at all."
You know,
'cause no, nobody... he's, he's not going to...
Rodney's not going to do that kind of shit.
That was a very important friendship and relationship
that continued.
You know, I didn't know comedy like Rodney at all,
but to be successful at it...
it was like Sam got an inspiration
that, "I could do this.
I could get up there and do what he's doing."
Sam just got it into his head,
says, "Why don't we fly to L.A.?"
And we flew out.
He took me and Kevin,
and he was coming here to L.A. to break through.
If you're a comedian,
it's the World-Famous Comedy Store.
Everybody came through there. It was a legendary thing.
If you wanted to trade punchlines
with the best guys in the country,
if you thought you were really worthy,
then that's where you go.
When I met all the guys from Houston,
when they all came to The Comedy Store the first time,
and they wanted to come in, and I said, "Well, listen.
Come to the second show,
'cause Steve Martin's going to be on."
I saw Sam walk up to the box office,
and then come running back.
"We have to be here tonight! Steve Martin's coming."
I put them in a booth right up in front by the window,
which is right by the stage.
Steve Martin just killed.
He just... bang, boom, bam.
Then we fell in... I don't know how,
but somehow, Sam fell in with Argus Hamilton.
Our host comedian, Argus Hamilton.
Thank you all very much.
It's great to be here,
and welcome to Live From The Comedy Store.
I ain't that hip. I'm from Poteau, Oklahoma.
First time I met Sam, there was a party backstage...
and this real estate magnate was holding a softball.
What it was was,
it was a softball-sized ball of cocaine...
and he was scraping a runway on it,
and each scrape would be a line,
and there were about six or seven people standing around,
and I'm sitting there like the RCA Victor dog,
waiting my turn,
and I catch myself staring at another guy,
like a RCA Victor dog, awaiting his master's voice,
waiting his turn,
and it was Sam.
It was love at first sight.
We liked each other, too.
And they partied all night,
snorting and drinking and talking, and like...
and talking and drinking and snorting,
and I was like, "Did somebody get a sitcom?
Did somebody win the lottery?"
I mean, we are partying like it's New Year's Eve.
Is there something that they're celebrating?
And I realize, no, this is a Tuesday.
You know, this is just what they do.
We made off with the coke.
Sam and I, uh, partied for three or four days on that.
I said, you know, "You've got it.
You've got to come out.
You're wasting your time in Houston.
Get your butt out here."
Mitzi Shore
is the greatest woman there ever was
for stand-up comedy.
When you went up on open mic night,
if you had the charisma on stage,
that's all she cared.
She didn't care
about any amount of laughs she saw.
She judged only by charisma.
For eight years, I was the MC at The Comedy Store.
Sam came out.
I am the comedian that teed up his first showcase
at The Comedy Store.
I said to Mitzi, "You should watch this guy."
What?
He thinks that he come to L.A., he's going to hit.
Can't even hardly get a notice from Mitzi.
Mitzi Shore tells him, "You're not funny.
You're just not funny,
but you can be a doorman, if you want."
Sam is a doorman there for five years,
trying to... to be a regular,
and, uh, Mitzi just wouldn't do it.
It was really great,
because if you were a doorman at the Store,
not only you got to perform, but you also got to watch.
You got to see people who were magnificent,
and you got to see people who sucked.
It didn't matter.
The point was, you got to see everything.
That was Mitzi's system.
You got to watch the best guys in the country...
Robin Williams, Garry Shandling, George Carlin.
I mean, you know, these guys were coming in, doing spots.
The Comedy Store was like a college.
When he came to L.A.,
the act he was doing wasn't going over at first here.
He had a lot of trouble
because he was trying to find the medium.
He bombed.
He just ate it...
because people just didn't get what he was doing.
I saw him tank...
same nights I tanked,
so it had to be the audience.
And Mitzi thought Westwood would be a place for him to grow,
which was a really good space
and a good place to put people
before they're ready for the original room
at The Comedy Store.
The Westwood Comedy Store
was a satellite club that Mitzi Shore set up
for the comedians to develop, get better...
as she herself has said in interviews,
a place for them to be bad.
Sam was always depressed.
He had no money.
He'd hope he either made enough money in tips or whatever
to get a ride back home.
If not, you know, he'd walk back, him and Kevin.
Sam always felt responsible for Kevin.
He told him, "Move out here," you know,
"I'll get you an agent," you know,
and, you know, "and you can, you know, do the acting gig,"
and we didn't think it was a good idea,
but he did.
I told him, I said, "You know,
if you ain't got a place to sleep,
you got the keys."
After a while,
there was Sam and quite a few people
were living in the club.
He and Kevin used to pretend to lock up
and pretend to drive away,
when they'd actually go back inside
and sleep in the booths,
pulling the red-checkered tablecloths over them
as blankets.
He would sleep at The Westwood Comedy Store.
He would have sex at The Westwood Comedy Store.
The gentleman doesn't talk about these things.
You know, he'd wake up smelling like an ashtray.
"So what? It's comedy!"
They would eat the cherries
and limes and lemons
as food.
They had nothing.
Sam...
he didn't have the money.
I was sending it to him every month
until I found out
that he really wasn't paying apartment rent.
It's going to blow
and whatever drugs he was wanting to do.
I quit doing that.
I said, "I'll feed you, dude,
but I'm not going to feed your habit."
One time, before I lock up Sunset,
Sam and I are standing at the back parking lot
at Mitzi's car, the owner of The Comedy Store,
and we're smoking a joint,
'cause we know she's not likely to come down
for a couple more minutes...
but we hear...
We look over,
and a comic has Mitzi by the arm,
and he's just slapping the heck out of her.
So we run over to rescue the queen of comedy, our boss.
Sam does that slide move across the hood...
and kicks the guy off Mitzi.
We save her. We get her in the car.
She goes home,
and Sam is manager of The Westwood Comedy Store
in two weeks...
which means he's making three other people run the club
so he can be MC and control the scene,
and he's canceling all the acts after midnight
so he can experiment and go long...
and he grew about three years
in the space of about four months.
I looked at world hunger realistically,
and I go, "Wait a second, I can solve this shit.
I got a weekend free. I'll solve it."
You know what the problem is with world hunger?
We've been sending them food.
I went on the road in '83,
came back,
and Sam's act had changed.
You want to end world hunger?
Stop sending them food.
Send them U-Hauls...
luggage...
some buses...
It was so dark, but it was so real,
and I said to myself, "This guy, he struck oil."
It just occurred to us
that we've been doing this for, like, 60, 70 years,
bringing you pizza and fucking donuts and shit
out here every day...
making the trip...
and today, we thought we'd do something different.
Yeah, we thought we'd put your fucking ass on the truck
and take you to where the food is!
"There's no food there! Go where the food is."
He was like the preacher of the truth.
He just made it, like, in-your-face truth.
Sam give his version of truth and what he thought was true,
and really believed it,
and that's what made it funny.
See this shit? It's sand! You live in a desert!
You know what it's going to be in a hundred years from now?
It's going to be a fucking desert!
He spotlit what should've been kept in the dark.
He just choke-fucked
how we all thought about everything
when he says, "It's a, it's a desert.
Nothing ever grows here. It's fucking sand!"
You asshole! You live in sand!
What are you going to do, make a milkshake?
Get the fuck in the truck!"
He finally got to the point of, "Fuck it.
I'm going to let all this shit inside me out
because you want to also,
but I'm going to be the one who says it."
We have deserts in America!
We just don't live in 'em, asshole!
Not many comics were in your face,
whereas Sam, he didn't mind being rude.
He'd come in, throw punches and yelling.
He was different than other comics that way.
Hey.
Don't make me fucking draw attention to you.
It's not a very pleasant experience.
The last people that fucked with my act
have since chosen never to speak in public again.
They don't even order their own food in a restaurant.
They point at the pictures.
He was doing his act,
and a couple got up and started to walk out.
"Did I say something wrong?
It's not what you expected?"
And they went, "No, no, no. We're just going home.
Uh, um... she has to get up early."
Goes, "Oh, okay. Well, thanks for coming,"
and he would go,
"Oh, Lord of Darkness, hear my prayer.
Curse their union.
May their child bear the mark of three sixes on their head
and be Satan's infant."
And they stop and they turn around,
he'd go, "This is just nothing. This is nothing.
I'm just, I'm just messing with you.
Thanks for coming out,"
and so they'd turn to go, and he would go,
"Oh, Beelzebub, I read from the Necronomicon,
the heart of darkness...
shine the light...
...hellhounds of evil..."
And they would turn and look at him again,
and he'd go, "I'm just kidding. I'm just kidding."
God, please make them eat it.
"Take the gift of speech away from me,
rip out my fucking tongue!
I messed with Sam Kinison! Aah!
I never want to feel that again!"
Sam, he would chase them out the door from the stage.
"Get out, you lightweights. Don't want to hear the truth?"
And they would leave, they would always scurry,
as he cursed them and ridiculed them,
they would walk even faster toward the door,
and then the people he were left with
were his.
He could go to the depths of Hell
or the height of Heaven
and take them anywhere he wanted to go.
It was just them now,
and they could be themselves.
As he started getting a name as the late-night guy,
all of a sudden, he got hot.
Sam became a regular
at The Comedy Store on the Sunset Strip.
He was one of those guys
who, even before he became famous,
had this kind of notorious following
of rock stars,
all those, you know, movie stars.
Monday night,
that was the big night then at The Comedy Store.
That was such an amazing night.
It was packed.
There were a lot of bare chests and leather jackets,
a lot of fringe going on.
Seeing Sam the first time was scary.
I felt like my soul was at risk.
Sam at The Comedy Store
was like the king,
'cause everybody waited to hear Sam.
What was different about Sam's comedy?
Everything.
He walked in,
and everyone just had to either back off
or sit down, or both.
Yeah, he'd do coke, you know,
and then he would go on and do incredible sets.
Grab the mic... next thing you know,
he was just cussing everybody out,
cussing everybody out.
You know what I mean?
"Don't you leave!
I see you walkin' out there!
You come back here, you cunt, you whore!"
Somebody brought me to The Comedy Store,
and said "You gotta see this Sam Kinison guy."
I was already laughin',
and he hadn't even said anything yet.
He came on like a cyclone, hurricane, tornado, whirlwind.
He was always the last comic on,
'cause who the heck's gonna follow that act?
Jim Carrey, Dice Clay, Bob Saget,
I see these guys at the back of The Comedy Store,
and I say to them,
"You finished your act half an hour ago.
How come you guys are still here?"
They said, "We wanna see Sam."
I mean, he was the comics' comic.
Sam had a connection to the audience
that I don't think any audience member
had ever seen before.
When he would do that primal scream thing...
Like, was it angry, it was just...
It was, like, frightening, it was so funny.
There's a moment when your life peaks.
It's not Platoon, it's not this.
It's not Two and a Half, it's go fuck yourself...
Your life peaks
when the smartest person that ever put on pants
looks down at you mid-routine
and acknowledges that you're there,
and that you're, now you're a part of it.
He taught so many of us to just,
just be okay with living out loud.
When someone commands a room like that,
which he did,
there's a lot of people that become followers
and go, "Sam's got the answers.
Sam's saying something that's never been said before,
and he's got more balls than anybody else to say it."
Sam surrounded his self with what I call "yes" people.
He could anything,
and they'd be like, "Man, that's great.
That was great, man! That was great!"
And then he'd go, "What do you think, Bill?"
And I'd go, "It's shit!"
I think he always wanted me around,
first, because I had this father image to him,
and, second,
he knew I was always gonna tell him the truth, regardless.
Sam had always wanted me to manage him.
And one Sunday morning he got up and said, "I'm done,
and we're gonna move to California,
and we're gonna take on Sam."
I really didn't know what to think.
I mean, Sam wasn't making a lot of money
when we first moved out here.
I come out to manage Sam.
Sam went, "Now you're the personal manager,
the road manager.
Anything to manager, you're it."
He was married to Terry at that time.
And, oh, what a turbulent relationship.
I mean, I felt bad for both of them.
It was, it was ugly.
I was with Sam
the night that he had an argument with Terry.
We drove up, he said, "I'll be back in a minute."
He goes in.
He came out, and he was shaking with anger,
and I said, "Are you all right?"
He goes, "No, I'm not."
And he gets in, and he's just...
Really, and he takes his fist and he hits the windshield,
and...
We go to The Comedy Store,
and he gets up on stage,
"Anybody here thinking of gettin' married?"
Mike, if you ever think about gettin' married,
if you ever think "I've met the right woman,
I wanna settle down, this is her,
I wanna change my life..."
Mike, do me a favor, will you?
Remember this face.
Because if you get married, Mike,
that's gonna be your fuckin' face, pal.
There was nothing sacred on that stage.
If you had had a fight with him that day, if...
whatever he had done,
who he had sex with, who he'd partied with...
it was an open forum.
You were gonna know his life.
Every day you'll wake up, you'll look in the mirror,
you go, "What did I do? What did I do?"
I would try over and over
to get agents and managers to come.
I was willin' for somebody else to manage him.
They'd come, I'd buy their drinks.
They would double over when Sam was up there, just...
uh, laughing uncontrollably,
and after the show was over,
I'd be like, "Okay, well, let's talk some business."
"Well, we don't know what to do with him.
We just don't know what to do with him."
It was Rodney Dangerfield.
Every time they would run into each other,
Rodney would ask him, "How many minutes do you have?"
Sam would tell him, "Yeah, I got, I got 12 minutes."
"I got 15 minutes."
"I got 20 minutes."
Until the fateful night at the Comedy Store...
We'd all be out back smoking a joint,
and the limo would pull up.
The foot come out with a bedroom slipper,
and you knew it's Rodney,
'cause Rodney always showed up in a robe and fuckin' pajamas.
He goes, "Hey, what's goin' on?
Hey, how are ya?"
And Sam goes, "Hey, Rodney, you're the king.
You're the king, man.
Hey, it's good to see you. You're the king!"
And he goes, "Aw, don't fuckin' soft-soap me, ya fat fuck!"
Just like that,
and if anybody could do that to Sam, it was Rodney.
There was nobody else could do that.
That was the only time you'd see Sam
just become a little boy,
around Rodney.
Uh, he said, "I want you to do this Young Comedian Special.
I think you're ready."
Sam thought this was a contest.
So he tells Rodney, "I don't do contests."
So Rodney calls me, like, 3:00 in the morning,
"Hey, your brother's missin' a good opportunity here.
I'm doin' this Young Comedian Special.
I just bumped a guy."
So I tell him the same thing Sam tells him.
I go, "Rodney, he doesn't do contests."
"What the fuck is it with you two guys?
It's not a goddamn contest.
It's a showcase."
Here's a guy who's rather unusual.
And I love people who are different, you know?
When I say "rather unusual,"
you'll know what I mean when you meet him, okay?
We all love him here.
Let's have a nice, warm reception for Sam Kinison.
Okay, here we are, Sammy.
Ah, there you are.
Baby, I love you.
Well, I'm sorry I'm late.
I was supposed to be here a little bit earlier, but, uh,
I just spent the last two hours at a 7-Eleven
goin', "Marlboro!"
Marlboro!
Cigarettes!
It's staggering,
'cause what he did
was he employed what he did in a club
on television.
What's your name?
Michael?
Well, Michael, if you ever think about gettin' married,
if you ever think you've met the right woman,
you wanna settle down, change your life,
would you do me a favor, Mike?
Remember this face.
'Cause if you get married, Mike,
that's gonna be your fuckin' face
every morning.
Sam was a voice of a lot of people
that hadn't had a chance to have that kind of anger released.
I'm like anybody else on the planet.
I'm very moved by world hunger.
I see the same commercials,
those little kids starvin' and very depressed, and, uh...
Yeah, I watch these things on TV,
and I see those commercials,
and I look at it, and I go, "God, how cruel," you know?
To see the little kid out there, and I go, "Fuck," you know,
"I know the, uh, the film crew could give this kid a sandwich."
You know, the kid's not out there, uh,
you know, filming a letter from home
with a Betamax, huh?
You know there's a director five feet away goin',
"Don't feed him yet!
Get that sandwich outta here!
It doesn't work unless he looks hungry!"
But I'm not tryin' to make fun of world hunger.
Matter of fact, I think I have the answer,
'cause I spent a lot of time workin' it out, and, uh...
If you wanna stop world hunger, stop sendin' them food.
Don't send these people another bite, folks.
You wanna send them somethin'? You wanna help?
Send them U-Hauls.
Send them U-Hauls, some luggage,
and send them a guy out there that goes, "Hey, you know,
we've been driving out here every day with your food
for like the last, uh, I don't know, 30, 40 years.
And we were driving out here today across the desert,
and it occurred to us
there wouldn't be world hunger if you people would live
where the food is!
You live in a desert!
You understand that? You live in a fucking desert!
Nothing grows out here!
Nothing's gonna grow out here!
Come here, come here, come here.
You see this, huh? See this? This is sand.
Yeah, it's sand.
You know what it's gonna be a hundred years from now, huh?
It's gonna be sand!
You live in a fucking desert!
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 'em, asshole!"
"You see this? It's sand.
You know what it's gonna be in a hundred years?
It's gonna be fuckin' sand!"
I still remember it word by word.
"We have deserts in America.
We just don't live in 'em, assholes!"
You guys been a great crowd. Thank you very much.
My name's Sam Kinison. I love you. Thank you.
Thank you.
Nobody I knew said,
"Hey, you know what I'm doin' this weekend?
I'm watchin' that Dangerfield special."
Nobody said it.
There was no anticipation, nothin'.
Everybody, "All right, see ya on Monday."
Monday came around, everybody saw it.
That six minutes changed his whole life.
It was his explosion onto the scene.
I think they had to do roof construction
after he finished.
I got calls immediately, for a week.
Four-special deal with HBO.
We did a four-record deal with Warner Brothers,
three-appearance deal on Letterman,
a three-appearance deal on Saturday Night Live,
all this within a week.
Sam was very excited that he'd made it,
but there was the other side of him that,
"Five years I've been here
doin' this every night, same thing,
and just now they get it?"
I've praised him so much,
you'd think I really love him or something, you know,
I'm...
There's nothing like that.
I appreciate talent and, uh, he...
Very seldom someone comes along who's unusually diff-different,
and gifted, and... creative, and is...
presents something that's unusual, right.
And the money from last week?
Yeah.
Good, okay.
Rodney wanted to put him in this movie.
They actually shot all of his scenes, uh,
all of it improv.
There wasn't any scripts.
The Korean conflict?
Yeah, where we failed to achieve victory,
how come we didn't cross the 38th parallel
and push those rice-eaters back to the Great Wall of China
and take it apart brick by brick,
and nuke them back into the fuckin' Stone Age!
How come? Tell me why!
Say it! Say it!
All right...
I'll say it.
'Cause Truman was too much of a pussy-wimp
to let MacArthur to go in there
and blow out those commie bastards!
Good answer.
There were teenagers in the audience, teenage boys,
and I heard them, when he came on screen, go,
"There he is.
That's him, yeah. There he is, yeah, yeah!"
They were applauding and screaming along with him...
...while he's doin' the movie.
They're, "Oh, oh!" They're doin' it with him.
So I went to The Comedy Store right after that.
It was a Saturday night, and there's Sam,
and I walked up and I went, "Dude, you've made it.
They're gonna follow you the next 40 fuckin' years, man."
He was exactly what comedy needed at that time.
There's a Before Kinison and After Kinison with comedy.
There's 1986, man.
Before 1986 is BK, is different.
When you're not afraid to make the crowd scared,
uncomfortable, sad,
all of those other emotions,
and having the ability to end on the laugh,
you can really just take them
into such a weird, uncomfortable place.
A group of homosexual necrophiliacs...
I felt the same way.
I read this thing and went, "Oh!
Oh, thanks for the visual!"
The homosexual necrophiliacs
who are paying money
to be undisturbed for a few hours
with the freshest male corpses?
And I know these guys who were laying out on slabs...
They're in there goin', "Well...
Well, I'm just...
now I'm ready to spend eternity in Heaven,
be with Jesus, and...
♪ Rock of ages... ♪
Hey!
Hey, what's this shit?
Oh, I don't believe this!
There's a guy's dick in my ass!
You mean life keeps fuckin' you in the ass
even after you're dead?
Ah, it never ends! It never ends!
If it's funny, you can get away with anything
because it's funny.
Funny is really the only rule.
I know about fuckin' the dead, I do.
I know what it's like to stick your dick in a corpse!
I was married for two fuckin' years!
I fucked the dead a lot, pal!
I remember I was in high school.
You know, the VCR had just come out,
so somebody'd have a VHS tape,
we'd just watch it over and over again.
Everybody fuckin' saw it.
Everybody was, like, doin' his bits.
Still love ya, honey!
Oh, am I glad I got married!
I wish I didn't have to work
so I could stay here and fuck you all day!
Women, in general,
and marriage, the way he was talkin' about it.
Man, I don't know, but some woman must have...
I don't know what happened, but she must've fucked him over.
All of Sam's women in his life helped create his act.
You're as pretty as when we met!
Love ya!
You got this fat guy up there tellin' ya
"Women screwed me over."
The white workin' man identified with that.
No shit!
Ah, but I still love 'em.
What are you gonna do?
I still love women.
He built up the anger in relationships,
and if you, you know, watched his comedy,
that's what he screamed about.
But I learned one thing, guys.
Don't tell the truth.
Even with all of Sam's demons,
there still was a lovable thing there.
He had a lot of deep thoughts about Heaven and Hell,
and Satan,
and trying to reckon with it all.
I love those churches out there, man.
I saw one the other day.
It says, "We're the church where everybody's somebody,
but Jesus is Lord!"
He wasn't just doing jokes.
He was talking about his anger toward things.
Yeah, it's a little tough for me, folks.
I'm from the Midwest, from that Bib...
I'm from one of the notches in the Bible Belt.
What a name, the Bible Belt.
It was very cynical,
and yet, there was charm behind it.
That's the, that's the secret...
of Sam.
Yeah, I read it, folks.
I read that book.
He's on the cross.
30, 40 Christians standin' around goin'...
"It's a shame that he has to die."
And Jesus is goin',
"Well, maybe I wouldn't have to
if somebody'd get a ladder and a pair of pliers!"
A ladder, a pair of pliers,
could have been a different book, folks.
Anything that he sees that's comedy,
he's gonna attack it,
and it didn't matter whether it was
dead people gettin' fucked in the ass by psychopaths
or Jesus.
It didn't matter.
Fuck you!
He was goin' in.
He was a comedy barbarian.
Yeah, people say, "You think Jesus is comin' back?"
Sure...
Sure.
What's it been?
What's it been, 2,000 years?
Boy, I sure don't wanna dampen anybody's optimism here.
I think his last words may have been...
"Oh, ow!
Oh, not the other one... Oh, you jerk! Ow!"
"Not my left hand! Not my left hand!"
He's makin' fun of Jesus, for God's sakes.
I loved it, I never found them to be offensive.
I thought they were funny.
I think God's got a sense of humor.
He's up in heaven right now.
They're goin', "Why don'tcha go back down to Earth?
Be a symbol of peace and love to the world, help."
He's goin', "Yeah.
Yeah, sure...
Help, huh?
Yeah, yeah, I'd like to help.
Tell 'em I'll be there
as soon as I can play the piano again!
Thanks a lot!
I'm the only savior
who can use his hand as a fuckin' whistle!"
Nobody was a living metaphor
for satirizing these televangelists
like a real preacher,
like Sam.
He stood up there
and did a perfect caricature of a televangelist,
yet ripping the very tenets of Christianity to shreds.
I used to preach, I used to study the Bible.
It was a pretty fascinating book.
People go, "Sam, do you think you could do it again?"
"Do you think?
Think you could ever be able to preach again?
Do you think there's anything left inside you...
...that has any good to it
that could shine a light into somebody's lost way!
Do you think if you had to,
if your soul was ridin' on the line,
and you had to testify,
and you had to make a commitment
if it was a final answer, what would you do?"
Well...
His resentment was against organized religion.
It wasn't against God,
which sounds weird with the kind of act that he did,
but he was a very spiritual person.
He says a lot of truth, you know,
that other people don't have the courage to say,
and, uh, let's face it, he's havin' fun doin' it.
Sam! Sam!
The difference of Sam being a celebrity
and before he was a celebrity,
wasn't much difference,
except now he had money.
With Sam, it was just...
everything all at once.
He's a guy who wants everything all at once,
but not necessarily a guy
that could handle everything all at once.
Go for it.
All right, get ready.
- Okay, I'm goin'. - Let's go!
Let's do it!
♪ See, C.C. Rider ♪
Let's hear it for Sam Kinison!
That whole character...
that whole look, with the beret and everything...
it was a persona.
You waited with bated breath
for what was gonna come out of his mouth,
in that outfit...
Because you just didn't know
what the fuck this guy was about.
That whole persona...
I mean, if you talk to Dice off-stage,
yeah, he's a little bit like Dice, but not really.
Emo Philips is nothing like Emo Philips on stage.
Sam met Emo Philips,
and then said to me, "I met Emo Philips.
He's nothing like he is on stage.
What a phony,"
and I said, "No, that's his stage character."
And it made me think,
"Are you actin' like this all the fuckin' time?"
I think he got lost,
'cause you run into that fine line of...
of the character and you.
There was the Cresthill house.
Everybody came to Cresthill.
Sam was, you know, this was his kingdom.
This was his lair, you know.
Mitzi owned Cresthill.
She wanted a place for comedians to live.
You just had to come down the hill and go to work.
When I first went there,
he had this kind of side room on the second floor,
and then, it went from that
to him kinda working his way up the domination chain
to where he had the main quarters,
and it was now his place.
He ruled that empire unequivocally.
He wanted to be the master of ceremonies
all the time.
He liked being the guy with the bag in the pocket,
you know, so that he could dole it out.
Sam...
would pull out a bag of drugs that...
I didn't give a fuck who you were,
how famous, how rich...
you were suddenly so jealous
of the weight
of what he just dumped on the, um...
What are those scales
all the dealers had back in the day?
You finish the joke.
And, yeah, we all dove in.
We all dove in, you know?
Fuckin'...
When you get on the coke, you...
you have this powerful feeling that you can do anything.
You can come up with an answer to everything, you know?
And Sam did, you know.
For a while, it works for a while,
and then it starts tearing down the...
your, your body.
We'd go upstairs at The Comedy Store,
and, of course, it's like an outtake from Scarface.
I thought,"Are there really people this stupid still,"
with the cocaine, and the meth, and the crack,
and the dope, and the hashish, and the...
just like a...
a burial ground for stinky hippies,
and I said, "Fuck, get me outta here.
Sam, why do you this?
You stupid motherfucker," and I walked out.
I lost interest
when it wasn't about comedy anymore.
This entourage of people
were obviously not comedy people,
and I said, you know,
"I don't wanna get busted with somethin'
I'm not even involved in.
I-I'm... this is where I work.
This is my job.
You know, I'm... I just..."
I just stopped goin'.
That's when it started
getting particularly worrisome,
when Sam would show up so loaded,
he was supposed to be on at, you know, 11:00,
and he'd be up at the house party.
You know, and it's the main stage
of The Comedy Store.
Everybody's paid money to see this show.
"Where is the star of the show?
He's not here."
They're doing everything they can
to kind of coax the crowd...
just calm, calm,
"Stay calm, he'll be here, we promise."
Get the call from somebody down...
you know, Todd, or whoever, down there.
"You gotta get him down here right now," you know.
"People are freaking out.
He's gonna lo... Mitzi's goin' crazy.
She's gonna throw him outta the house.
He needs to get down here now."
It's like, "Dude, um,
aren't you supposed to be on right now?
I'm pretty sure, like,
you were supposed to go on at 11:00."
"Yeah, I'll get there when I'll get there.
They'll wait, dude, they'll wait."
You know, and he always had coke ring.
You know, you could, like, literally
just kinda come in with a spoon at any given moment,
and scrape the outer layer of his nose
and have enough drugs to supply the Cuban army.
"Sam, you might wanna, you know, clean that up
before you go down there,
'cause, uh, people are gonna notice."
He'd be like, "Ah, I got something, dude?
All right, cool, let's go,"
and we'd usher him out the door,
and then he'd get in there...
and he'd be so inebriated
that he would walk on stage mumbling.
I mean, literally mumbling,
'cause he hadn't slept for three days.
I saw some stuff where I would just, like,
my head would just go down.
"What are you doin'?
How can you do this to yourself?"
We had this movie with CAA called "Atuk."
It was basically Eskimo Dundee goes to New York.
That's basically what it was.
Sam agrees to do it
'cause he wants to be in movies.
"Atuk,"
and here's a big feature film with a lot of money behind it.
He dyed his hair black to play an Eskimo.
He was gonna use a lot of his friends.
He offered me a cameo, too, I said, "Of course."
When I was at the bon voyage party for Atuk,
and he's shooting in, like, four days,
and I asked him, "How's the script?"
And he said, "I don't know, I haven't read it.
I'm gonna read it on the plane."
Sam, you haven't read the script?
Everyone read the script but Sam,
and every one of us that read the script told him,
"It's crap, dude."
And he said, "No, I'll make the changes when I get there
if I don't like stuff,"
and I tried to explain to him,
you've had it three months.
Now you're gonna go there and you're gonna...
they're gonna say you're a fuckin' prick.
We were both positioning me as Sam's writer.
I left my girlfriend here back in L.A.
I quit a job to go do this.
We showed up in New York to start shooting Atuk.
His idea was
let's shut down production for two weeks
and rewrite the script,
and we had some ideas.
I thought the ideas we had were good,
but Sam was trying to execute them
with all-night writing sessions.
You have to fuckin' take it serious, you know.
I... I... I don't think he, I don't think he did.
I think he thought he could do whatever he wanted.
He thought he could stay up all night,
and party and carry on,
and then show up for work the next day be on...
But that didn't happen.
There were, like, three or four hotels
he was banned from in Manhattan
'cause of all the noise and ruckus and...
and we were at the Omni International.
I think that was about to be on the list.
I was, yeah, hanging out with him
when they were doing their rewrites,
and I'd come by and say hi, have a bite to eat.
They would stay up till, like, 3:00 or 4:00 in the morning.
Hollywood's kind of about, can you make the 6:00 a.m. call.
Can you be there at 6:00 a.m.?
Drinking coffee, and, like, all right.
Are we gonna do something here?
You know, I mean, and he didn't get that,
and this all came to a head with the production of Atuk,
which shot for exactly one day.
There's a meeting, and we go in.
There's, like, six...
six big shots there,
and one chair on this side, which is Sam.
I don't even have a chair.
"W-what is this?"
"That's the rewrites."
"We never said you could do any rewrites."
Sam then tells 'em, "You know, the movie is shit, dude.
It's a bad movie."
"I think maybe we'll just pull the plug."
Well, I think they was expecting Sam to go, "Wait a minute.
You know, wait a minute, guys, you know.
Let's, let's try to, let's try to work this out."
Instead, Sam says,
"Okay, then, I'm going back to L.A."
Sam was unnegotiable.
Guy had balls of steel.
He said, "Nope, not making a bad movie.
My fans deserve better."
It was a genuine debacle.
It was a genuine perfect storm.
They're two drastically different visions.
And believe me, he was right.
Unfortunately, he was absolutely right
about the changes he wanted to make.
It's just he... It's too fuckin' late.
I began to realize that, you know,
this guy is blowin' it.
These opportunities are not gonna come around again.
Sam and Kevin, they were house-sitting in Hollywood.
Kevin is not eating much.
He's wantin' to get his weight back down,
and, well, Sam, he's gonna party every night,
and some of these parties will last two or three days.
They were at some place,
some house up in the hills,
and I would be up partying with Sam all night,
and we would try to outdo each other
for who could stay up the longest.
Not just whose lines were the longest,
but who could stay up the longest.
I think what happened was,
they were staying at the house,
and I think he got a hold of... was stealin' the guy's weed,
and then the guy, to fuck with him,
put somethin' in the weed.
Maybe it was Angel Dust or somethin',
but, you know, you take that kinda stuff,
it, you know, fucks with your mental capacity, and...
They said Kevin was never right after that night.
We all thought
that maybe he had gotten some drugs, and...
you know, bad drugs or whatever,
so we actually put him in a rehab.
He's fuckin' detoxin'.
I called one up for a friend about a month and a half ago.
A friend!
Don't give me that look.
"Yeah, sure, it was a friend.
It was for you, you fuckin' loser!"
I called to have access for my little brother,
'cause he tried to hang out with me for a week.
They checked him,
said, "No, he has no drugs in his system at all."
So they said,
"We'd like to move him over to the psych division,"
so they moved him over there.
While he was there,
he was diagnosed with manic depression
and with bipolar.
And it was just weird.
He would have these... be very lucid,
and then would have these moments,
and freak-out moments,
and people tried to treat him different,
and I think that's what really fucked with Kevin,
because I don't think Kevin felt any different.
Sam felt like that his, uh, lifestyle
had made Kevin the way that he had got.
He sincerely felt he was responsible.
It affected all of us.
Uh, Kevin was our baby.
He's the baby of our family.
I remember walking into a party,
and I was told Sam was there, and he wanted to see me,
and he wasn't doing well, and he was really depressed.
"Dude, did you hear what happened?"
I said, "No, man, what happened?"
"I lost 150 pounds."
I said, "What?"
"I lost 150 pounds!
Can you tell?"
And I said, "No, Sam.
To be honest, you look exactly the same."
Very somber, kind of "heh-heh," uncomfortable laughter.
I said, "What's goin' on?"
And he looks up at me and he goes,
"My brother killed himself.
"I lost my brother, and I'm lookin' for a new one.
You want the gig?"
and I was like, "Sure.
Okay."
And he was like, "Well, good, that, that'll work."
Then he just gave me, like, a big hug, and...
It was just one of those very rare,
honest moments from Sam
where he was just, you know, helpless,
which you didn't really see much.
You didn't see Sam helpless much.
Kevin committed suicide,
and I think Sam tried to douse the pain
in cocaine and alcohol,
and even more so than he was before.
I think the thing he felt guilty about was
he made a deathbed promise to his father
that, "I will look after Kevin."
He came to The Comedy Store, and he was real upset.
Real upset, that's a fuckin' understatement.
The guy was like... already gone,
literally out of fuckin' control,
out of his mind, over his brother.
He's smackin' people around.
He's goin' nuts.
He's screamin' at people.
"Fuck you!"
It gets really ugly,
and finally, somebody called the cops.
When you're a Sunset comic, you don't hurt the club,
and that hurt the club.
That was the day Mitzi threw him out.
She said, "Sam, you're done here."
He wanted to keep working.
He immediately...
I'm talkin' about within three, four days after the funeral...
was up there wor...
That's how he got through it,
was being on stage, and, uh...
Even then, he had funny stuff.
You know, you gotta deal with it the best you can.
I just had to go to court.
I just had to go to fuckin' court
'cause they're suing me for $5 million
for not making a bad movie. But...
He just couldn't find a subject
that he wouldn't breach.
If Sam found a funny angle, he was goin' in.
Well, I'd better not get started on that gay issue.
I'm not mad at gays.
I'm not mad at gays, I don't understand it,
but, fuck, I'm sure they don't understand me.
I made one joke about AIDS.
Maybe it was in bad taste,
but I'm a XXX-rated fucking comedian.
People count on me for fuckin' bad taste!
So I did one joke.
I did one joke, I said...
I said, "They say heterosexuals die of AIDS, too.
Name one!"
All right, just...
just as like a little social commentary.
And I'm sittin' in the green room goin',
"Oh, God, tell me he didn't just say that."
All right, man,
they came out of the fuckin' woodwork.
"You fuckin' son-of-a-bitch,
how could you make fun of such a..."
It was a serious deal for a while,
and that was the biggest controversy
we ever dealt with.
They started carryin' fuckin' protest signs,
comin' to my shows.
"Sexist, racist, anti-gay, Sam Kinison, go away."
Two, four, six, eight.
Is Sam Kinison really straight?
It's not funny!
Think before you laugh.
I bet he couldn't give a fuck about gay people,
or straight people, or cr...
All of it.
It was like he was there
to find whatever the sore spot was
and stab it with a fuckin' spear.
Then they said "You're sick, and insensitive."
And then I... wai... Hey!
"You can't say this, and you can say that,"
and he just wanted to... "Nah, fuck all that."
He just broke every rule there was for stand-up comedy.
They're jokes!
I'm a fuckin' comedian.
Although it was funny in retrospect,
ooh, it was so, so off-color.
You know, all that stuff always helps,
especially if you got a line full of people
in the news protesting.
"Hey, Sam Kinison's in town?
Let's go get a ticket."
We're...
Sam was really one of the first guys
to take, like, four really funny guys
on the road with him.
Jesus, I mean, I was a kid.
I was 25, 26, I'm on tour
with one of the most notorious, outrageous comedians
in the country.
I mean, what's not to love here?
Everybody's on tour at the same time.
You run into everybody.
He got involved with all the rockers.
Sam was actually a real player.
I mean, Sam could play guitar.
He could sing, and he could play the piano.
He loved that stuff.
Sam and I became rock 'n' roll, comedy blood brothers.
We actually did a gig together
where I got up on stage and jammed with him.
We played "Cat Scratch Fever."
He fancied himself a wannabe guitar player.
There were some outrageous rock stars
in the '80s,
But none of them ever came close to what it was
when you were around Sam.
We shared the same management company.
He was being groomed...
...as the rock 'n' roll heavy metal comedian.
For really a stand-up comedian
to be part of the MTV generation...
Oh, yeah!
...you're gonna start playing
in front of arena-sized crowds, you know,
and that is huge.
You also worked huge halls, right?
Yeah, yeah.
So what's the biggest audience you ever worked?
Oh, well, this is gonna sound like I'm bragging...
I probably am, but...
it was, um, Giants Stadium.
It was 82,000 people.
How are ya?
I love you, New Jersey!
He wasn't performing in clubs,
he was performing in arenas,
the same places that our band was performing at,
to sell-out crowds.
One guy...
with a microphone.
You gotta have confidence
to go out there in front of all those people
with a microphone.
That's all you got.
We consistently played
to 5,000- and 10,000-seat venues.
Sam was the first stand-up comedian ever
to fill and sell out Madison Square Garden.
He was it.
When someone comes along,
and they totally change the face of comedy, like Sam,
and to be witnessing it,
and the elevation of stand-up comedy
from being a small, intimate experience
to happening in the stadiums,
I mean, it was fuckin' awesome.
He reached that audience
that was listening to...
molten rock from the depths of hell!
You know, Metallica. Oh, God! You know?
They're all long-hairs
with shirts with the fuckin' heavy metal.
He hit the rock 'n' roll nerve.
To hear and feel the whole building shake
because people were stomping their feet...
all coked up and stomping their feet...
"Kinison!"
It seemed impossible.
It was, like, wow.
Shit's about to go dark.
Hollywood!
He presented himself like a rock star,
and he was a rock star.
He would have two women,
two, very pretty, assistant women.
It made me envious,
because it was so fuckin' awesome.
Hollywood!
It's like, "Why can't I be the girl on the leash?"
You know what I mean? "Why?"
These, of course, are my babies.
The lovely Sabrina.
The lovely Malika,
ladies and gentlemen.
He'd say, "Hey, yeah,
I'm gonna have my girls come out here.
Bring me the phone, bring me the phone."
And it was so great,
because he'd ask somebody in the front... a guy,
"So whaa..?"
"Yeah, yeah, she broke up..."
"She broke up? Okay, well, what's her name?"
And... and they'd call.
Whoo!
These are the operators we have standing by.
What's your name?
Kevin.
Well, what did she do to ya?
I come home from work, and, and, you know,
he's with my girl on the kitchen table, and...
The kitchen table
where you have to eat your breakfast?
He would actually call the girl.
It was real!
Is the phone ringing?
Hello?
Is Kate there?
- Kate? - Yeah.
Uh, yeah, hang on a second.
Yes!
You are the winner of a very special prize.
And what's that?
Well, we were lookin' for a girl
who is a fuckin' cunt
that fucked her boyfriend's brother, and you won!
Yeah, you fuckin' cunt!
You fuckin' bitch!
Some women would say, "Well, isn't he sexist?"
Well, no.
I'm, I'm just laughing.
I can't help it.
You fuckin' bitch!
How do you live with yourself?
Oh, fuck political correctness!
He just had to tell his truth,
which was very intense and raw.
Malika and Sabrina are sisters.
Sam met his match with Malika.
How the fuck are you?
Oh, God...
Oh....
You tight, fuckin'...
Oh.
Oh!
Malika...
she's this exotic, beautiful, firm, young babe.
Sam and Malika's relationship was very volatile,
very volatile.
Ow!
In Sam's mind, that was the perfect woman for him.
This is Malika, and this is Sabrina,
ladies and gentlemen.
She was beautiful,
and he could still go out and do whatever he wanted to do,
'cause she wasn't goin' anywhere.
And he did.
He went out and did whatever he wanted to do,
and she didn't go anywhere.
Oh, God.
I love my work, folks.
He wasn't changing.
His priority was he partied every night,
he's gonna party every night.
Being on the road with Sam was...
it was a traveling circus, that's for sure.
Because you're in the limelight,
because you're a celebrity,
and you look like you're a party animal,
they, people assume
you can do supernatural amounts of narcotics,
of drugs.
You go, "Oh!
Oh, it's Kinison!
Oh, oh!
Here's your line!"
You know.
It's like two feet long.
"Go, man, go! Go! Go! Go!"
You know?
So I'm tryin' to be like...
I'm trying to live up to the image.
"Oh, get out of my way!
Watch me!"
And I would sniff all this shit up.
About 10 minutes later, I'm walkin' around the party...
The partyin' got scary.
Sam was, like, on really severe heart medication.
That didn't stop him.
Yes, yes, we all know what I've done.
We all know!
We all know about that sports car
that was found abandoned up on the canyon road.
We all know!
That was after the recording studio all night
with Cheap Trick.
They offered to give him a ride.
"Sam, we got a limo. That's why we take a limo.
We'll give you a ride back."
He goes, "You see what I gotta fuckin' deal with."
And you could tell he was fuckin' hammered.
I've seen him...
"Do you see what I gotta deal with?"
And sure enough, I'm in my car, he takes off in the 'vette.
Here's what happened.
I live with this 'vette.
The car and I have become very close,
much like Wilbur and Mr. Ed.
Matter of fact, I call the car "Mr. Vette,"
and Mr. Vette and I have a very close relationship.
I woke about 7:30 one morning, and I heard the car running.
I went down to the garage,
and the car was goin'...
"Come on, Sam, let's go!
Let's go find some pussy!
Let's go get fucked! Come on!
Let's rock 'n' roll!"
I said, "Mr. Vette, no!
No, Mr. Vette!
Kids are goin' to school.
People are on their way to work.
It's time to go to sleep."
"No, fuck you!"
And he took off down the street...
by himself, trying to drive himself.
Next thing I know, I get a phone call.
"We have found Mr. Vette wrapped around a phone pole,
and we need a Mr. Explanation."
I come around the corner, and the 'vette is just lodged.
I mean, if he hit the telephone pole,
it's fuckin' over.
Couldn't even get out, couldn't open the door.
I snap out the fuckin' driver's window,
jumped in, drove him up to the house.
We look down, saw the cops show up.
Call his fuckin' guy,
"You gotta take the heat for this."
So he just got outta there.
Took his drugs, himself, and just left,
and, you know, the bodyguard just took the fall.
You know, "What happened to your guy?"
"Oh, man, yeah, he had to go."
Where did he go?
You know, probably jail.
Uh, you know, dodged another bullet.
But, you know, that's the kinda shit that happens
when you're...
when you're living your life like that, you know?
With Sam, I mean, he let his devils take over.
Some people that were too close to him got hurt.
Anybody that's friends with someone
who changes by the... by midnight,
turns into, you know, Mr. Hyde,
better get out of their way.
I tried nitrous oxide.
That's the shit they give you at the dentist's office.
You know, so I'm sittin' there.
I'm higher than fuckin' God, you know.
I remember once we were in a hotel,
like, I don't know, Kansas or somewhere,
and he'd gotten a hold of a case of nitrous oxide.
Jimmy and I were staying in the room next door,
and we just hear this...
And he just...
And I heard Malika goin',
"Why are you doing this to yourself?
Why are you doing it..."
and he would mumble something, and she would leave.
"You go talk to him, Dan. He'll listen to you."
"Who is it?"
And I say, "It's Dan."
And he would say, "Go away, Dan."
An average bender for Sam was three days,
and his record was seven.
Seven days, no sleep.
Sam might have had a hard time...
loving himself,
forgiving himself,
and accepting himself.
He missed Kevin terribly.
Are you happy?
Yeah.
Yeah, I'm, uh...
I had some tragedy in my life about a year and a half ago,
but I'm dealin' with it pretty well...
- Your brother. - My little brother passed away.
It was kind of a...
He had achieved his greatest dream.
He'd become a famous comedian,
but at a price,
that if you asked him,
"Are you willing to pay this price?"
he would've said, "No.
No."
Ladies and gentlemen,
the undisputed king of comedy,
the leader of the band,
Mr. Sam Kinison!
Hi, Liz!
Hello?
This is Sam Kinison.
Who?
Yeah, Sam Kinison. I'm a comedian.
I'm down at Bally's, and we're havin' fun...
There were some shows
that he had been up for a few days, partying and...
He was not on.
He was not the typical Sam.
Well, then, let me re... recreate...
Let, let me fuckin', uh, apologize
for the first part of this bit.
His delivery was off.
He would forget jokes,
and stumble and stammer on stage,
and, uh, some people would be heckling him.
You would look around and say, "Wow."
These people are actually happy
that Sam is having such a bad night.
Oh, God.
I'm havin' so much fun.
It's so good to be back at Bally's, man.
I'm tellin' ya, man, I'm havin' a blast.
Got a lot of surprises.
They were there to watch the train wreck.
Uh...
He's just...
fucked it up.
He didn't realize how bad he was,
and I knew that in every one of those casinos,
they record your show.
I said, "I want you to watch something."
And I put it in, and he watched it.
He watched the show.
Well, then, let me re- recreate...
Let, let me fuckin', uh, apologize
for the first part of this bit.
He goes, "Man, I was, uh, I was really messed up."
I said, "Yeah, well, that mess-up there,
that's gonna cost you half a million dollars a year.
'Cause I can tell you right now,
they're not gonna renew."
The high is that you're becoming successful
at what you love doing.
The high is writing a new hour.
The high is going out
and performing for 5,000 people.
You can't continue to carry on, and snort cocaine, and drink,
because you have professional obligations,
responsibilities.
People are spending millions of dollars.
They need you on a film set.
I mean, I watched the guy blow off, uh...
He had a Learjet waiting at the Van Nuys Airport,
and he's gonna fly out and do a gig
where he was making $35,000.
And he got so fucked up on coke and booze
that he blew it off,
and I'm sittin' there goin',
I'd have given my fucking left nut
to jump on a Learjet and go make $35,000,
and you're fuckin' gonna pass out
on your fuckin' Nicholas Canyon fuckin' floor
like a fuckin' homeless person
with a fuckin' nice house.
That when it... it really got ugly,
and it was kinda hard to get business done.
Uh, I can remember going to the house.
One day I needed some papers signed by 3:00 for something.
I just started kicking him
and saying, "Sam, get up, it's business.
"Get up.
Go take a shower."
You know, this is ugly.
I don't like it.
To me, it was just a waste of life,
and I hated it.
We were gettin' ready to go on tour.
We drop our bags off at fuckin' LAX.
I should've known when we pulled up, man.
There isn't a soul,
except for one skycap walks by,
and I asked him, I said,
"Hey, you wanna give us a hand here?"
And he stops and looks, and says, "No way, brother."
And so he takes off.
Well, there's another...
looks like a skycap,
has got his foot up against the wall,
lookin' at me.
And he goes, "You need some help?"
And I said, "Yeah,"
and he goes...
And outta nowhere, there's like 30 DEA,
FBI, LAPD,
you name it, man.
So they start pullin' the luggage out,
and they've got these dogs.
They're sniffing through the luggage.
"We got one! We got one!"
So they throw it out.
Well, they ended up, I think,
with, like, seven pieces of the luggage.
Apparently someone called them,
and said, "Sam's gonna be transporting some cocaine."
Well, Sam now comes to me,
'cause I'm tryin' to talk to this Sergeant Evans, you know.
"What are we doin'," you know?
"We gotta get a plane," you know.
"How do we work this out?"
Sam goes, "Hey, brother.
They wanna check your, uh, black bag."
Well, the black bag is his carry-on bag.
So I'm goin', "What's in the bag?"
And he goes, "I got a little bit of pot."
So I'm like, "Oh, God.
All right."
So I go to this sergeant, and I tell him,
"Hey, those two bags are mine.
Uh, the black bag,
you're gonna find a little bit of pot in there."
So he goes, "Don't worry about it.
It's a misdemeanor, $150 fine."
Well, they opened it up,
and the little bag of pot is over two ounces.
It looks like a soccer ball.
So now, all of a sudden, I'm facing three felonies.
I end up goin' to court,
and I end up goin' to rehab for five months
for his pot.
They were brothers.
I'm telling you, they would do anything for each other.
So Bill took the hit.
My daughter at that time
is about eight, nine years old.
So I gotta get ready to go.
I take her into, uh, the room, and I tell her,
I said, "Ginger, I'm gonna be gone for a while.
Sam got in some trouble,
so I gotta go, uh, take care of it for him.
It's gonna take me..."
"Well, how come he doesn't go?"
And, uh, that was one of the hardest things I ever did,
to have to stand there and tell my daughter
that, uh, I'm goin' to a rehab,
and I don't even drink.
He loved Ginger.
He worshipped her,
and for her to have to know the truth,
and the reality of what happened,
it was embarrassing for him.
I shamed him.
I said, "Look what you did.
This isn't funny now,
so don't get up on stage
and make a joke outta this shit.
This is not funny."
That was a turning point for Bill and Sam,
and Sam realized, "Wow,
look what my brother just did for me."
That's kind of when a light bulb went off to Sam,
and he thought,
"Okay, it's time to maybe start making changes."
Oh, I think it was a come-to-Jesus moment.
He looked like crap, stunk...
"You have $300 in your account.
That's what you got left."
I said "I'm... I'm quitting.
I'm off this party train.
I've ended up with shingles,
end up in divorce,
end up you owing me all kinds of money.
I'm not doin' it anymore.
So I'm done."
For the first time, he admitted that "I have a problem."
I said, "Well, if you do,
then from now on, you're in AA meetings,
Log Cabin out in Malibu,
and, uh, if you're not there, I don't work,"
and, uh, he was there.
I hadn't seen Sam in about six months.
"Dude, you gotta go to AA meetings with me, man.
It's where it's at, dude.
We're gonna do this. We're gonna get sober together,"
and I was really messed up at that time on heroin,
and I was just like,
"I don't know what you're talkin' about, dude.
I'm not goin' anywhere near there."
And he's like, "No, dude.
Let's do it, let's go together.
I want you to come with me to an AA meeting.
It's important.
I've been sober lately.
I've got it together, I'm doin' great."
I'm like, "Really?"
He's like, "Yeah."
March 2nd, 1990, I stopped doing coke
because I didn't know it was illegal.
Thank you.
Thank you, for you that believe me.
Thank you very much.
For you that don't believe me,
eat me.
I'm alive, all right.
We were in AA,
and Ozzy Osbourne was a sponsor.
Who outdoes you?
Who outdoes me, well,
I was, I was freaked to meet this guy,
because I, you know, I heard so much
about how crazy he was and outrageous, and...
So I met him at an undisclosed location.
We ran into each other, and it was Ozzy Osbourne.
What was Ozzy like?
Oh, Ozzy's great!
He's so funny, he's so mellow.
You know, I was expecting...
"Oh, you got any bats on ya?"
"Gonna get some raw meat!"
And he's not like that at all.
He's so kind, you know. He's so British.
He's like, "Hello. How are you?
I've always been afraid to meet you."
That's what he told me.
"I've been afraid to meet you,
'cause I heard you were too wild for me to hang out with."
And I'm... Yeah, I'm like, "Yeah.
Great, Ozzy Osbourne is afraid to meet me?
Yeah, my reputation isn't too exaggerated."
When I say he cleaned up, uh,
once every three or four months,
he would have a night.
I could live with that.
I could not live with every night.
He was genuinely clean and sober,
and really buoyant,
and you could communicate better with him.
He actually did clean up,
and he stayed out in Malibu,
and he grew a beard,
and he started to lose weight.
I had a place in Malibu, he had a place,
and we'd go, "What are you doing here?
"Oh, I got a place here." "Oh, me too."
"Oh, oh, well, come over to the house."
I walk in,
and I notice he had a drum kit
with a neon sign,
and it was dedicated to his brother,
who had passed away.
That showed me a lot.
You know, and I thought, hmm,
he had a fall,
and he started to pick himself up,
and I think he really wanted to get in touch
with the real Sam.
Honey!
I'm home!
Aw...!
Happy Anniversary, pumpkin face!
I don't believe it,
you remembered,
even after three months of rehab!
Rehab? Hey! How about a drink?
When he joined in with what we were doing,
he absolutely understood
that we were making fun
of extreme nature of his stand-up,
making fun with what he's created,
"And I'm gonna be in it."
Like, who does that?
I think he was making fun of his persona in as much as...
He's in on the joke,
but he wants it to be super accurate.
We, like, we went to the wardrobe department.
Like, "Show me, like, what, what are we doin' here?"
And he was like, "I'm gonna wear this
'cause I kinda like do this thing
where I, like, tie this head scarf."
You know, as he was like sort of doin'
a Pirates-of-the-Caribbean kind of affair
with, like, you know... at a jaunty angle.
And then he did that for me.
He was like, "I've got all this jewelry,"
all this crazy metal stuff, like leather bands, and...
just crazy rock 'n' roll, like, swag, you know.
It was very impressive.
...steak from a dead cow that died six years ago!
His completely crazy, animated face
is, like, inches from mine,
and I'm really trying very, very hard not to laugh.
But I was like, "I will make it work.
I will not break!"
I only met him
the day that he came to join me on In Living Color.
I really did love him,
and have known ever since I met him
what a special thing that was.
Are you ready for Sam?
Are you sure?
With him being clean,
his material got more political.
But he still did, you know, crazy crap.
He was back to his old self,
and even... better.
He was back to topical material.
He's comin' into a new chapter of his career,
like he'd kinda...
found his rhythm again.
And it was funny.
You could not sit there and just not belly laugh.
It was so unique to watch Sam,
and just to sit there and think,
"Wow, this poor kid.
He fought for life,
and he got where he was gonna be.
And I really do think
he was trying to come back to be himself.
It was like the old Sam,
and it felt warm,
it felt for real.
He really loved Malika, that much I know.
He connected with Malika
on my video shoot,
they hung out a little bit more together.
They got married.
Voilà.
Uncle Ted, the ultimate matchmaker.
The guests may be seated, please.
Best man and bride's attendant,
step right in beside them, please.
Samuel, or Sam,
and Malika...
When he became big as life,
he always wanted a family.
He always wanted a wife that would love him
and be passionate with him.
...I pronounce you husband and wife,
and you may kiss your bride.
Congratulations to you, sir.
Ah, good job.
Brother James, God bless you.
Malika, how do you pronounce your last name?
"Kinison."
He married Malika.
I mean, everything was working exactly,
for probably the first time,
the way we wanted it to.
I heard that he had to do some make-up shows.
He was going out to Laughlin,
to the middle of nowhere, to do these shows.
He is supposed to fly into Vegas,
take a limo down to Laughlin.
He decided he wanted to drive.
We met at, at Barstow.
Malika was in the passenger seat.
He has to get gas, so we pull off.
Then, he pulled out in front of me,
which he never did,
because usually he just followed wherever I went.
He pulled out in front of me,
and we're following behind him.
We're just startin' to go up this river road.
It's dusk.
It's like 7:00 at night.
We could see this pickup.
He's passin' all these cars.
So I'm talkin' to Sam,
but I mean, he can't hear me.
I'm in, I'm in the van,
but I'm telling Samuel, "Slow down, man.
Let this guy get back in.
Slow down," and he is.
Well, he's probably slowed down to 15 miles an hour.
And, uh, at the very last second,
this kid gets back in line.
Problem is,
behind him was another pickup and kid.
They hit head-on.
I went over and checked on Malika.
She was unconscious.
When I jerked the door open.
Sam was sittin' in his seat,
was leaned over into... like where the armrest is.
Uh, the steering wheel was non-existent, uh...
his head had hit the windshield...
and, uh, I opened up the door,
and he's, uh, starts telling me "Why?
Why now?
Why?
Why now?"
And I'm saying, you know, "Sam,"
you know, "Just lay still, we've got help on the way."
It was like he was lookin' at somebody.
"I don't wanna die,"
and it was like he was negotiating with somebody.
"I don't wanna die.
"I don't wanna die."
Then he went, "Okay. Okay. Okay,"
and that was it.
He was gone.
I called my mother.
I said, "Well, uh, Mom, this is the..."
I said, "This is the toughest phone call
I'm ever gonna have to make,"
and she said, uh, "What' goin' on?"
I said, uh, "Sam was in a car accident tonight,
and, uh, was, was killed."
She just...
dropped to the floor.
Bill called and said,
"Sherry, Sam's gone.
We've lost him."
"What do you mean you've lost him?"
It was a life-changing moment.
"Ah, fuck!"
Goddammit.
Great man, good man,
focused man, gifted man.
I was so fuckin' pissed off.
As quickly as Sam Kinison had entered my life,
Sam Kinison was taken from my life.
He was my brother, you know, and he was gone.
Just in a flash, that was it.
Hey, Sam...
Sorry.
Here's to you.
Cut, please?
I always thought he would end up taking himself out.
I always thought that he would take the pills,
and drink the booze,
and dial the wrong combination, and...
wake up dead,
you know, just be from an overdose.
I didn't think he would go the way he did,
but that's a classic show business death,
on the road to a gig.
It wasn't stupid and useless.
It was on his way to a gig.
All along Sunset Strip,
all of The Comedy Store, The Laugh Factory,
everything was "We love you, Sam."
The Improv...
Because they knew that... he was a prophet.
I loved Sam.
He had a charm, and he had those eyes.
He had the eyes of a star, is what he had.
His story is an amazing story
that goes from a kid getting hit by a car,
to becoming a preacher,
to having your heart broken,
to screaming about it on stage,
to changing an American art form.
He was a true original.
What comic was Sam most like?
I have no idea.
He was most like... Sam.
Such a special night... it's our last show...
that I thought it was, uh, appropriate to do a love song.
I wrote this about this girl
that I met about five years ago.
I was gonna come out with some money, you know,
and try to live out here for a while, and, uh...
I met this girl,
and I wanted to impress her, you know,
so we went through all my cash in about a year.
Then one day, she said, "You know, Sam, it's, uh,
there's somethin' missin' from our relationship."
I said, uh, "That wouldn't be the cash, by any chance,
would it, honey?"
She said, "No, uh...
we found so many special things about each other, I just...
I hate to see it all go to waste
because the passion's gone."
She says, "Can't we still, like, see each other once in a while
and, uh, have lunch, or see a movie, or...
just to be friends?"
I said, "Yeah, friends.
I think I know whatcha mean.
I become some kind of emotional tampon
that you need four or five days a month."
"Because no one else will take your fuckin' bullshit.
But we don't fuck.
Ain't that about right, honey?
That's what friends is, we don't fuck, right?"
She said, "Well, yeah, that's kind of it."
I wrote her this song, it goes like this...
♪ You fuckin' whore! ♪
♪ You used me! ♪
♪ You never loved me! ♪
♪ I hope you slide under a gas truck ♪
♪ And taste your own fuckin' blood! ♪
♪ Die! Die! Die! ♪
♪ I want my records back! ♪
♪ I want my fuckin' records back! ♪
I appreciate you comin' out, Hollywood!
I love you! Good night!
I love you!
Subtitles by explosiveskull