I Am Sam Kinison (2017) Movie Script

Alright, alright.
You got the questions,
I got the answers.
Yeah!
This is Charlie Sheen interview,
take one.
And mark.
Good luck with what happens next.
How do you hold anything back
on Sam Kinnison?
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 triple X rated fucking comedian.
People count on me
for fucking bad taste.
We like rubbers guys?
We hate rubbers!
And how down and dirty
and nasty and offensive
and politically incorrect
can you possibly get?
And Sam Kinnison is my man!
Sam Kinnison is the beast!
My baby!
Come on you tight fucking...
It was so outrageous that you go,
wow, I mean you can do that?
Sam was like a human cartoon.
Argh!
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 Kinnison, okay?
Here we are, Sam here.
Alright, baby, here 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!
Argh!
Holy shit.
He's saying stuff that I've thought
before, but nobody 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 you?
Who knows how long this is gonna last.
Like, what is gonna happen?
Alright, there's gonna be a little
cardiovascular damage.
A little.
If your life isn't a fucking cartoon,
there's pain involved.
God damn it.
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!
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.
He was never married.
Because 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 Friday
afternoon with twelve other guys.
He comes home on the afternoon looking
like he hasn't slept.
Seems 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 twelve friends
who won't get a job?
How are they at?
Yeah, disciples my ass, they're losers!
Jesus is going,
oh, I don't need this shit.
No, I don't know anything.
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 it ruined
your week in 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 into the kingdom of God.
I go, wait a second.
I better go back because she
doesn't know where I've been.
So now I gotta fight the angel of
death, get my fucking soul back.
Crawl out of a 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.
And 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 brought
the wrong kid home.
He 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's office right across
the street.
I don't know what it is now.
Because we lived in the church.
Because 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 have still stayed married.
But it was my mother that pursued it.
When my mom and dad got a divorce,
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 Kevin, Sam was the big brother.
They had a relationship that was closer
than any of the rest of us.
They were inseparable.
And you have to understand, my
relationship with Sam and my brothers,
I was like the dad.
My dad never ever told us, I want you 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.
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.
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.
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 just have kind of a relationship with
God, you know.
Why did you leave it? That was
a good moneymaker, wasn't it?
I became disillusioned.
I was never into
the offering side of it.
You know, I would put out
a basket and I'd say, hey.
If I've 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 preached for seven years.
He never made $5,000 in any one year.
People come to be given to, not to be
taken from.
But Brother Bill, the spirit of 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 about women.
Amen.
Which is better than being married and,
well, I'm content.
No thanks. Amen.
I just as soon be happy.
Amen.
I'm in love with love.
If any time I need any joy, I just think
about the family God stuck me in.
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.
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.
If I can't be myself
with the Father, then
I'm going to stop
preaching this gospel.
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.
Because he had to let preaching go and
learn stand-up comedy.
And it served him very well.
The first time I saw him on stage,
I was the first guy to approach him
and I said,
you know, I think
you're going to do well.
You've got a lot of energy, you've 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.
Oh, Sam getting banned at the Annex.
They had this, oh, I don't
know what you call him.
Talent coordinator or 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.
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.
Just 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.
And 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.
Ketchup for blood and
stood on the sign and
crucified himself in full
view of the Annex audience.
You know, 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 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 came along and they went,
hey, 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 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?
He caught a couple Puerto Rican guys.
They were stealing something.
He goes, oh, man. Oh, no. Look.
It's the fucking cops.
And then these guys go like,
that's right. We're the fucking cops.
You know?
Pull over there.
Get up against the wall, buddy.
Oh, no, no.
Not the fucking cops.
You know?
And afterwards they go, OK,
kid, come here. You know?
I love you.
That fucking cops bit.
Oh, that was great.
You know?
You know, I think you could be someday.
You know what?
I hope you do.
Because you know what?
You're no competition to me at all.
You know? Because
nobody, he's not going to,
Rodney's not going
to do that kind of shit.
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.
Sam just got it into his head.
He 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
because Steve Martin's going to be on.
I saw Sam walk up to the box office and
then came 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 there.
Right by the stage.
Steve Martin just killed.
He just banged. 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 an RCA Victor dog,
awaiting his master's voice,
waiting his turn.
And it was Sam.
And it was love at first sight.
We liked each other too.
And they partied all
night, snorting and drinking
and talking 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 realized, no, this is a Tuesday.
You know, this is just what they do.
We made off with the coke.
Sam and I 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 emcee 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.
I have a different outlook on life than
most people you see up here tonight.
You know what your people are gonna
have in common?
What?
You're gonna wish to God
you never saw me.
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 be a regular.
And Mitzi just wouldn't do it.
When he came to L.A., the act he was
doing wasn't going over at first here.
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 started.
Set up for the comedians to develop,
get better.
As she herself had said in interviews,
a place for them to be bad.
Sam was always depressed.
He had no money.
He'd hope he even made
enough money in tips.
Or whatever to get
a ride back home.
If not, you know, he walked back,
him and Kevin.
I told him, I said, you know, if
you ain't got a place to sleep,
you got the keys.
After a while, 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.
And the gentleman doesn't
talk about these things.
You know, she'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 was 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, if 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
because we know she's not likely
to come down for a couple of drinks.
What we hear, uh uh uh.
We look over and a comic has Mitzi
by the arm.
And is 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.
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,
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.
Want to end world hunger?
Stop sending them food.
It was so dark, but it was so real.
And I said to myself, this guy,
he struck oil.
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 gave his version of truth.
And what he thought was
true and really believed it.
And that's what made it funny.
He spotlit what should have been kept in
the dark.
He just joke-fucked how we all thought
about everything.
When he says, it's a desert, nothing
ever grows here, it's fucking sand!
What are you gonna do, make a milkshake?
Get the fuck in the trunk!
He finally got to the point of,
fuck it.
I'm gonna let all
this shit inside me out
because you want to also, but
I'm gonna be the one who says it.
We have deserts in America,
we just don't live in them.
Not many comics were in-your-face.
Where Sam didn't mind being rude,
he'd come in, throw
punches and yell.
It was different than
other comics that way.
Hey!
Don't make me fucking draw attention to
you.
It's not a very pleasant experience.
He was doing his act and a couple got up
and started to walk out.
Did I say something wrong?
Is this not what you expected?
And they went, no, no, no, we're just
going home.
She has to get up early.
He goes, oh, okay, well, thanks for
coming.
And he would go...
Oh, Lord of Darkness.
Let us hear my prayer.
Curse their union.
May their child bear the Mark
of three sixes on their head.
And be Satan's own.
And they'd stop and they'd turn
around and go, oh, this is just nothing.
This is nothing.
I'm just messing with you.
Thanks for coming out.
So they'd turn to go and he would go...
Oh, Beelzebub, I read from the
Necronomicon the heart of darkness.
Condition the language of the universe.
Honor me, the hell hounds release.
And they would turn and look at him and
go, I'm just kidding.
I'm just kidding.
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.
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
from 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.
Because everybody waited to hear Sam.
How the fuck are you, Hollywood?
What was different about Sam's comedy?
Everything.
He walked in and everyone just had to,
either back off or sit down.
Or both.
I'm gonna try and do the show right,
but I, uh...
I think I did too much!
Argh!
I did too much!
Yeah, he did coke.
You know.
And then he would go on and do an
incredible set.
Somebody brought me to the Comedy Store.
And said, you gotta see
this Sam Kinison guy.
I was already laughing.
He hadn't even said anything yet.
He came on like a cyclone hurricane
tornado whirlwind.
He was always the last comic on, because
who the heck's gonna follow that act?
I was sad!
Jim Carrey, Dice Clay, Bob Saget.
I'd see these guys in the back of the
Comedy Store.
And I'd say to them, you
finished your act half an hour ago.
How come you guys are still here?
They'd say, we want to see Sam.
I think he is the comic's comic.
When he would do
that primal scream thing.
blaspheme the name of the Lord!
Really angry.
It was like frightening.
- It was so funny.
- Of Death in the fucking ass!
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 now you're a part of it.
He taught so many of us to just be okay
with living out loud.
Sam surrounded himself with what I call
yes people.
He could do anything and they'd be like,
man, that's great.
That was great, man.
That's 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
going to tell him the truth regardless.
I'd come out to manage Sam.
Sam went, now you're
the personal manager.
The road manager.
Anything's manager, you're it.
I would try over and over to get agents
and managers to come.
I was willing for somebody
else to manage him.
They'd come.
I'd buy their drinks.
They would double over when Sam was up
there just 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, you know, 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
because Rodney always
showed up in a robe
and fucking pajamas.
He goes, hey, what's going on?
Hey, how are you?
And Sam goes, hey, Rodney,
you're the king.
You're the king, man.
Hey, it's good to see you're the king.
He goes, oh, don't fucking soft soap me,
you fat fuck.
Just like that.
And if anybody could do that to Sam,
it was Rodney.
There was nobody else could do that.
And that was the only time you'd see Sam
just become a little boy around Rodney.
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 O'clock in the
morning.
Hey, your brother's missing a good
opportunity here.
I'm doing 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 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.
Hi, baby.
Baby, love ya.
Well, I'm sorry I'm late.
I was supposed to be here a little
earlier.
But I spent the last two hours at a 7
Eleven going, Marlboro!
Marlboro!
Cigarettes!
It's staggering because
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 getting married,
if you ever think you've met the
right woman, you want to settle down,
change your life, will
you do me a favor, Mike?
Remember this face.
Argh!
Because if you get married, Mike,
that's going to be your
fucking face every night.
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 starving and very
depressed.
And I watch these things on
TV and I see those commercials
and I look at it and I go,
God, how cruel, you know?
I see a little kid
out there and I go,
fuck, you know, I know the film
crew could give this kid a sandwich.
You know the kid's
not out there, you know,
filming a letter from home
with a Betamax, huh?
You know there's a director five
feet away going, don't feed him yet!
Get that sandwich out of here!
It doesn't work unless he looks hungry!
But I'm not trying to make fun of world
hunger.
Matter of fact, I think
I have the answer
because I spend a lot
of time working it out.
And if you want to stop world hunger,
stop sending them food.
Don't send these people
another bite, folks.
You want to send them something?
You want to 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, I don't know, 34 years.
And we were driving out
here a day across the desert.
And it occurred to us there
wouldn't be world hunger
if you people would
live where the food is!
GET OUT OF THE DESERT!
You understand you
live any fucking desert!
Nothing grows out here!
Nothing's gonna grow out here!
You see this? Huh? See this?
This is sand.
Yeah!
It's sand.
You know it's going to be 100 years from
now, huh?
It's going to be sand!
You live in a fucking desert!
You're going to live without 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, asshole!
You see this? It's sand.
You know what it's
going to be in 100 years?
It's going to be fucking sand.
I still remember it word by word.
We have deserts in America,
we just don't live in them, assholes.
You guys have been a great crowd.
Thank you very much.
I love you. Thank you. Love you.
Nobody I knew said, hey, you
know what I'm doing this weekend?
I'm watching that Dangerfield special.
Nobody said it.
There was no anticipation, nothing.
Everybody, alright, see you 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.
Three appearance deal on Saturday Night
Live.
All this within a week.
Sam was very excited that he made it.
But there was the
other side of him that
five years I've been here
doing this every night.
Same thing.
And just now, they get it.
I've praised him so much, you think I
really love him or something.
There's nothing like that.
I appreciate talent.
Very seldom someone comes along who's
unusually different and gifted and.
Creative and 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.
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 the burqa,
you bloody prick!
And nuke them back into
the fucking Stone Age River?
How come?
Go on, say it. Say it!
All right. I'll say it.
Because Truman was
too much of a pussywimp
to let McCarthy 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 doing the movie.
They're, oh, oh!
They're doing 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
fucking years, man.
He was exactly what
comedy needed at that time.
There's a before Kinison and an after
Kinison with comedy.
There's 1986, man.
Before 1986 is BK.
It was 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.
The freshest male corpses.
I know these guys
were laying out on slabs.
They're in there going, well...
Well, I'm ready to spend eternity
in heaven and be with Jesus.
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 fucking you
in the ass even after you're dead?
Oh, never! Ohh!
If it's funny, you can get away
with anything because it's funny.
Funny is really the only rule.
I know about fucking the dead.
I do.
You know, it's like you
stick your dick in a corpse.
I was married for two fucking years!
I remember I was in high school.
You know, the VCR had just come out.
So somebody would have a VHS tape and
you'd just watch it over and over again.
Everybody fucking saw it.
Everybody was, like, doing his bits.
Oh, am I glad I got married!
I wish I didn't have to work so I could
stay here and fuck you all night!
Women in general, in marriage,
the way he was talking about it...
Man, I don't know,
some woman must have...
I don't know what happened, but she must
have fucked him over.
Love ya!
He got this fat guy up there telling
you, women screwed me over.
The white working man identified with
that.
No shit!
But I still love them.
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 that says,
the church where everybody's
somebody, but Jesus is Lord!
It was very cynical, and yet there was
charm behind it.
That's the secret of Sam.
Yeah, I read it, folks.
I read that book.
He's on the cross.
30, 40 Christians standing around going,
It's a shame that he has to die.
And Jesus is going, Well,
maybe I wouldn't have to
if somebody got a ladder
and a pair of pliers.
A ladder and 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 getting fucked in
the ass by psychopaths or Jesus.
It didn't matter.
Fuck you!
He was going in.
He was a comedy barbarian.
Yeah.
People say, you think Jesus is coming
back?
Sure. Sure.
What's it been?
What's it been, 2,000 years?
Boy, I sure don't want to
dampen anybody's optimism here.
I think his last words
may have been... Ow! Ah!
Oh, not the other way!
Oh, you jerk!
Not my left hand!
Not my left hand!
He's making 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 going, why don't
you go back down to earth?
Be a symbol of peace
and love to the world. Help.
And he's going, yeah.
Yeah.
Sure.
Help, huh? Yeah. Yeah.
I'd like to help.
Tell them I'll be there as soon as I can
play the piano again!
Thanks a lot. I can use this
hand as a fucking 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 would go, Sam, do you think you
could do it again?
Do you think?
Do you think you could ever be able to
preach again?
Do you think there's anything left
inside you that has any blood to it?
That can shine a light
into somebody's lost way?
Do you think if you had to,
if your soul was riding on the line
and you had to testify.
And you had to make it,
if it was your final answer.
What would you do?
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.
It says a lot of truth, you know.
That other people don't
have the courage to say.
And let's face it, he's having fun doing
it.
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.
That whole character, that whole look,
which is what he's got.
With the beret and everything,
it was a persona.
You waited with bated breath
for what was going to come
out of his mouth in that outfit.
Because you just didn't know
what the fuck this guy was about.
And it made me think, are you
acting like this all the fucking time?
I think he got lost.
Because you run into that
fine line of the character in 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, him kind of
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...
what are those scales all the
dealers had back in the day?
You'll finish the joke.
And yeah, we all dove in.
We all dove in.
You know, fucking...
When you get on a coke, you have this
powerful feeling that you can do anything.
You can come up with an answer to
everything.
And Sam did.
For a while.
It works for a while and then it starts
tearing down 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?
Just like a burial ground for stinky
hippies.
And I said, fuck, get me out of here.
Sam, why do you do 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 want to get busted with
something I'm not even involved in.
This is where I work.
This is my job.
You know, I just...
I just stopped going.
That's when it started getting
particularly worrisome.
When Sam would show up so loaded.
He was supposed to be on it, you know,
11 O'clock.
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 got to get him down here right now.
You know, people are freaking out.
He's going to do... Mitzi's going crazy.
She's going to throw
him out of the house.
He needs to get down here now.
He's like, dude, aren't you
supposed to be on right now?
I'm pretty sure, like, you were supposed
to go on at 11.
Yeah, I'll get there when I get there.
The wait, dude, the wait.
You know, and he always had coke ring.
You know, you
could, like, literally just
kind of come in with a
spoon at any given moment.
Scrape the outer
layer of his nose and
have enough drugs to
supply the Cuban army.
Sam, you might want to, you know,
clean that up before you go down there.
Because people are going to notice.
You'd be like, oh, I
got something to do.
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 because 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 doing?
How can you do this to yourself?
We had this movie with C.A.A.
called Atuk.
It was basically Eskimo Dundee
goes to New York.
That's basically what it was.
Sam agrees to do it because
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 going to 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?
He said, I don't know.
I haven't read it.
I'm going to 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 going to go there and they're
going to say you're a fucking prick.
We're both positioning
me as Sam's writer.
We showed up in New York
to start shooting Atuk.
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 fucking take it serious.
You know, 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 show up
for work the next day and be on time.
But that didn't happen.
I was hanging out with them
and they were doing their rewrites.
And I'd come by and say hi,
have a bite to eat.
They would stay up until like 3 or 4 in
the morning.
Hollywood's kind of about,
can you make the 6 A.M. call?
Can you be there at 6 A.M.?
Drink a coffee and like, alright,
are we going to do something here?
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
and there's like six big shots there.
And one chair on this side,
which is Sam.
I don't even have a chair.
What is this?
That's the rewrites.
We never said you could do any rewrites.
Sam then tells them, you know,
the movie is shit, dude.
It's a bad movie.
I think maybe we'll just pull the plug.
I think they were expecting Sam to go,
wait a minute.
Yeah, wait a minute, guys.
Let's try to work this out.
Instead, Sam says, okay, then I'm going
back to L.A.
Sam was unnegotiable.
I had balls of steel.
He said, nope, I'm 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, it's too fucking late.
I began to realize that, you know,
this guy's blowing it.
These opportunities are not
going to come around again.
Sam and Kevin, they were
house-sitting in Hollywood.
Kevin is not eating much.
He's wanting to get
his weight back down.
Well, Sam, he's going to 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
sitting in the house.
I think you got a hold of some...
was stealing the guy's weed.
And then the guy, to fuck with him,
put something in the weed.
Maybe it was angel dust or something.
But, you know, you
take that kind of 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'd got some drugs.
Some, you know, bad drugs or whatever.
So we actually put him in a rehab.
These fucking detox centers.
I called one up for a friend
about a month and a half ago.
Friend!
A friend!
Don't give me that look.
Yeah, sure, it was a friend.
It was for you, you fucking loser!
Called and I asked
this for my little brother
because he tried to hang
out with me for a week.
They checked him and 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 was 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.
I think that's what
really fucked with Kevin
because I don't think
Kevin felt any different.
Sam felt like that his lifestyle had
made Kevin the way that he had got.
He sincerely felt he was responsible.
It affected all of us.
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?
He said, I lost 150 pounds.
Can you tell?
And I said, no, Sam, to be honest,
you look exactly the same.
Very somber kind of uncomfortable
laughter.
I said, what's going on?
And he looks up at me.
And he goes, my brother killed himself.
I lost my brother.
And I'm looking for a new one.
You want the gig?
And I was like, sure.
OK.
And he's like, well, good.
That'll work.
And he just gave me like a big hug.
And it's 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 fucking understatement.
The guy was like already gone.
Literally.
Out of fucking control.
Out of his mind over his brother.
He's smacking people around.
He's going nuts.
He's screaming 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 says, Sam, you're done here.
He wanted to keep working.
He immediately, I'm talking about within
three, four days after the funeral,
I was up there working.
That's how he got through it.
He was being on stage and, you know,
you got to deal with it the best you can.
You can't say this
and you can't say that.
Fuck all that.
He just broke every rule there was for
stand-up comedy.
They're jokes!
I'm a fucking comedian!
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 and 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 and roll heavy metal comedian.
For really a stand-up comedian
to be part of the MTV generation.
Argh! Yes!
You're going to start playing
in front of arena-sized crowds.
And that is huge.
- You also work huge halls, right?
- Yeah.
So what's the biggest audience you ever
worked with?
Well, this is going to sound like I'm
bragging.
I probably am.
But it was Giants stadium.
It was 82,000 people.
How are ya?
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 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.
The elevation of stand-up comedy,
from being a small,
intimate experience.
To happening in a stadium, I
mean, it was fucking awesome.
He reached that
audience that was listening
to molten rock from
the depths of hell.
You know, Metallica. Oh,
God. You know. You know.
You know, all long hair, shirts with the
fucking heavy metal.
He hit the rock and roll nerve.
To hear and feel the
whole building shake
because people were
stomping their feet,
all coked up, stomping their feet.
Can I see?
It seemed impossible.
Yeah!
It was like, wow.
Shit's about to go dark.
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 all envious because it was so
fucking awesome.
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, yeah, 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,
uh, what, yeah, yeah, she broke up, she
broke up, okay, well, what's her name?
And they'd call.
These are the operators we have standing
by.
- What's your name?
- Kevin.
Well, what does she do to you?
I come home from work and... he's
with my girl on the kitchen table.
The kitchen table where you have to eat
your breakfast?
He would actually call the girl.
It was real.
Is the phone ringing?
- Hello?
- 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 looking for a girl
who was a fucking cunt that
fucked her boyfriend's brother!
Yeah, you fucking cunt!
You're fucking bad.
Some woman would say, well, isn't he
sexist?
Well, no, I'm, I'm just laughing.
I, I can't help it.
You fucking bitch!
How do you live with yourself?
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.
Oh, you.
Tight fucking...
Ow. Ow!
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
because she wasn't going 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.
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,
people assume you can do supernatural
amounts of narcotics, of drugs.
Oh! Oh, it's getting
us in! Oh, ah!
Here's your line! EEEEEE!
You know, it's like two feet long.
Go, man, go! Go! Go! Go!
You know.
So I'm trying to be like, I'm trying to
live up to the image.
Oh, get out of my way! Watch me! Oh!
And I would sniff all this shit up.
About two minutes later, I'm walking
around the party.
The partying got scary.
Sam was like on really severe heart
medication.
That didn't stop him.
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 sitting there.
I'm higher than fucking God, you know.
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 had some tragedy in my life
about a year and a half ago.
But I'm dealing with it pretty well.
Your brother.
My little brother passed away.
That's 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 have said, no.
No.
Ladies and gentlemen, the undisputed
king of comedy, the leader of the band,
Mr. Sam Kinison.
- Hi, Laura.
- Hello?
- This is Sam Kinison.
- Who?
Yeah, Sam Kinison.
I'm a comedian.
I'm down at Bally's,
and we're having 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-correct.
Let me fucking apologize for the first
part of this bit.
His delivery was off.
He would forget jokes and stumble and
stammer on stage.
Ah.
He has 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-correct.
Let me fucking apologize for the first
part of this bit.
Because, man, I was really messed up.
I said, yeah, well, that mess up there.
That's going to cost you half a million
dollars a year.
Because I can tell you right now,
they're not going to 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 and
responsibilities.
People are spending millions of dollars
they need you on a film set.
I mean, I watched a guy blow off...
he had a Learjet waiting at the Van Nuys
Airport.
And he's going to fly out and do a gig
where he's making $35,000.
And he got so fucked up on
coke and booze that he blew it off.
And I'm sitting there
going, I ought to
give him my fucking left nut to jump
on a Learjet and go make $35,000.
And you're fucking going to pass out on
your fucking Nicholas Canyon fucking floor
like a fucking homeless person with a
fucking nice house.
That's when it really got ugly.
And it was kind of hard to get business
done.
I can remember going
to the house one day.
I needed some papers signed by 3 o'clock
for something.
And 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 getting ready to go on tour, but
he dropped our bags off at fucking LAX.
I should have known when we pulled up,
man, there is no soul.
Except for one skycap
walks by, and I asked him,
said, hey, you want
to give us a hand here?
And he stops and looks, no way,
brother.
So he takes off.
Well, this other looks like
a skycap has got his foot up
against the wall looking at me
and goes, you need some help?
And I said, yeah.
He goes...
And out of nowhere, there's like 30 DEA,
FBI, LAPD, you name it, man.
So they start pulling 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 luggage.
Apparently someone
called them and said,
Sam's going to be
transporting some cocaine.
Well, Sam now comes to me because I'm
trying to talk to this Sergeant Evans.
What are we doing?
You know, we've
got to get a plane.
You know, how do we work this out?
Well, Sam goes, hey, brother.
They wanted to check your black bag.
Well, the black bag is his carry-on bag.
So I'm going, what's in the bag?
He goes, I've 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.
The black bag, you're going to find a
little bit of pot in there.
So he goes, don't worry about it.
It's a misdemeanor, $150 fine.
Well, they open 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 going to court.
And I end up going to rehab
for five months for his pot.
That was one of the hardest things
I ever did,
to have to stand there
and tell my daughter that
I'm going to a rehab
and I don't even drink.
Time is about eight, nine years old.
So I got to get ready to go.
I take her into the room and I tell her,
I said, Ginger, I'm going
to be gone for a while.
Sam got in some trouble, so I got to go
take care of it for him.
It's going to take me a while.
How come he doesn't go?
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
out of this shit.
This is not funny.
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 quitting.
I'm off this party train.
I've ended up with shingles,
ended up in divorce,
ended up you owing
me all kinds of money.
I'm not doing 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 if you're not there, I don't work.
And he was there.
I hadn't seen Sam in about six months.
Dude, you got to go to AA meetings with
me, man.
It's where it's at, dude.
We're going to do this.
We're going to get sober together.
And I was really messed up
at that time on heroin.
I was just like, I don't know
what you're talking about, dude.
I'm not going 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.
Doing 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, alright?
When I say he cleaned up,
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.
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.
And I thought, hmm, he had a
phone and he started to pick himself up.
And I think he really wanted to get in
touch with the real Sam.
Honey!
Happy anniversary, pumpkin face!
I don't believe that 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 the extreme nature
of his stand-up.
Making fun with what he's created.
And I'm gonna be in it.
Like, who does that?
He's in on the joke, but he
wants it to be super accurate.
We went to the wardrobe department.
Show me, what are we doing here?
And he was like, I'm gonna wear this.
Because I kind of do this thing where I
tie this headscarf.
So he was sort of doing
a Pirates of the Caribbean
kind of affair at
a jaunty angle.
Leather bands and just
crazy rock and roll swag.
It was very impressive.
raised 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?
Very good.
One of the best comedians I know.
Many can duplicate, they try to imitate,
but they can't duplicate him.
Mr. Sam Kinison!
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.
and Bill Clinton.
Yeah, there's another fucking cool guy.
Why doesn't he just campaign like this?
You know in a home state.
Okay. I didn't know I
was hanging out there.
Excuse me, ladies.
He's coming into a
new chapter of his career
like he'd kind of
found his rhythm again.
Well, I'm from Los Angeles.
It's a different kind of show.
We expected to be more fit
than... We expected to be more shy.
And it was funny.
You could not sit there
and just not belly laugh.
You guys have been absolutely wonderful.
Thank you for welcoming me
to your hometown.
All right buddy scream!
You. You're great. Thank
you very much. Good night!
He was trying to come
back to be himself.
It was like the old Sam.
Okay. Let's go.
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. Vala.
Uncle Ted, the ultimate matchmaker.
The guests may be seated, please.
Best man, bride's attendants,
step in beside them.
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.
Good boy.
Oh, my God.
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 makeup
shows.
He was going out to Laughlin to the
middle of nowhere to do these shows.
He was supposed to fly into Vegas take a
limo down to Laughlin.
He decided he wanted to drive.
We met at Barstow.
Malika was in the passenger seat.
He has to get gas so we pulled 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 starting to go up this river road.
It's dusk.
It's like 7 o'clock at night.
We could see this pickup.
He's passing all these cars.
So I'm talking to Sam but
I mean he can't hear me.
I'm in the van but I'm telling
Samuel slow down man.
Let this guy get back
in. Slow down. And he is.
We probably slowed down to 15 miles an
hour.
And 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.
I jerked the door open.
Sam was sitting in his seat.
But leaned over like
where the armrest is.
The steering wheel was non-existent.
His head had hit the windshield.
And I open up the door and he starts
telling me why.
Why now?
Why?
Why now?
And I'm saying Sam just lay still.
We got help on the way.
It was like he was looking at somebody.
I don't want to die.
It was like he was negotiating with
somebody.
I don't want to die.
I don't want to die.
Then he went okay.
Okay. Okay.
And that was it.
He was gone.
I called my mother.
I said well mom this is a...
I said this is the toughest phone call
I'm ever going to have to make.
And she said what's going on?
And I said Sam was in a car accident
tonight and was killed.
She just dropped to the floor.
Bill called and said I 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.
God dammit.
Great man.
Good man.
Focused man.
Gifted man.
I was so fucking 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.