by Howard Stern
We got to the first house and Dice and Johnny decided that they were going to run around. I didn't know if they were putting this on for my benefit but it was as if I was the dad now, and I was in charge of these two little boys.
At each house we went to, Johnny turned on the video camera and he and Dice went running through these people's homes -- while the people were there! Meanwhile, the realtor was looking at me as if these guys were crazy but she knew Dice had to have some serious dough because he was looking at really expensive houses.
One thing you find out when you go house-hunting is that the owners are very emotional about their homes. And one of the things you don't do, even if you don't like the house, is say anything negative.
But Dice would just turn and, at the top of his lungs, right in front of the people, bellow at the poor realtor, "This house is no good! This is not what I asked to see! You're not showin' me what I asked to see! C'mon, next house, next house." He wouldn't even go through the houses out of courtesy.
Finally, I pulled him and Johnny aside. "Listen, you two fuck-heads, number one, put away the fucking tape recorder -- you're making me crazy. Number two, you gotta fucking lighten up. This is this
poor woman's whole fucking gig. You're being totally rude."
"SHE LIED TO US!" Dice yelled back, right in front of her. "SHE TOLD US SHE HAD HOUSES THAT I WOULD LIKE. AND THESE DON'T EVEN FIT WHAT I LIKE!"
"Andrew," she said calmly, "I'm trying to get an idea of what you like, and by seeing what you don't like ..."
"NO! NO! NO!" he interrupted her. "I know what you guys do. What youse do is you don't have anything to show us, but you wanna hook us in. You knew you didn't have what I wanted. I want a ranch!" He was all pissed off. Meanwhile, he was talking about a house that didn't exist anywhere except in his head.
This went on all day, and I was going out of my mind. We took him through new construction -- everything -- to no avail.
That night the realtor called me. "What's with this Andrew?" she said. "He's a little wild." I said, "Let me call him up and see what he thought of the day." So I called him up.
"Ahh, I don't know, that realtor, I didn't like her," he said.
Dice wanted to live in my neighborhood, but Satan chased him away.
"Listen, you really did her a disservice," I said. "Why don't you just go out with her a couple of times? Now she has a good idea of what you want, she'll be able to find you something you'll like." So he called her up and he made an appointment to go out with her. And they went off on their own, thank God, because I didn't want to be there for this.
So they went out and Dice found a house he liked. It was a new construction, and the guy who built it needed some quick cash. Dice called me up. "I don't know, you think it's a good house?" So I sent my architect out. The guy did me a favor, he looked it over. He said the house was a steal -- it was fantastic. I told this to Dice.
I didn't hear from Dice after that. I figured he was going ahead and buying it. Next, the realtor called me. "Do you know what happened with the house?" she said. "Andrew didn't call me. We went to contract and then I never heard from him again. Does he still want to buy the house?"
I called him up and he said, "Look, I had a problem with that house, I couldn't buy it. I just couldn't buy it."
"What do you mean you couldn't buy it? We spent weeks working with you."
"I don't want to say. You'll think I'm crazy. Don't tell the realtor. Don't tell anyone." Okay, so I agreed to keep it a secret. "The house had a bad vibe." "What do you mean a bad vibe? What happened?" I asked.
"Well, we was going to contract, and I walk into the lawyer's office, and I sit down and the guy's got voodoo heads all over the walls," Dice said.
"What do you mean, voodoo heads?" I said. "The walls was lined with voodoo heads. They were like shrunken heads," Dice explained to me. "Okay, I tried not to react to that, but then, when she handed me the key -- 'cause I wanted to take someone to see the house -- on the key chain they had a voodoo head. And then I still was hanging in there, but I said to the real estate lady, 'How could I reach you at your phone?' So she says, 'Here's my number,' and it had 666 -- sign of the devil." "Yeah, so? What's that got to do with the house?" I said.
"Howard Stern is one of the most positive people I ever met. He believes in winning. Even at times when the media was all over me, Howard would tell me, 'Never back down and show no fear, ya hear?' I hear you." -- Andrew "Dice" Clay
"Hey, those are too many bad signs, so I just backed out," he said.
"Okay, Dice, I was just curious because the realtor called me," I said.
"Well, don't tell her what I said," he cautioned me.
So I called her back and I said, "Look, Dice backed out for various reasons. He was uptight about your phone number, because it had 666."
"Everyone in this area has 666. It's the exchange," she said.
"Well, he told me not to tell you this, but he said the lawyer for the other guy had voodoo heads all over the wall."
"Voodoo heads?!" she screamed. "The guy is an African art collector. He's collected some of the most expensive artwork in the world and he has it on display in his office. It's the most beautiful African sculpture and art that anybody could ever find!"
That's the last time I'll ever go house-hunting with Dice.
SAM KINISON
I remember when Sam Kinison first burst onto the comedy scene. It was with rage and fire and I never laughed harder in my life. He really changed the face of comedy. Only Sam could do a bit about the people in Ethiopia who were starving to death from the drought and scream at them for not moving. "Why don't they go to where the water is. THEY'RE LIVING IN A DESERT! IT'S ALL FUCKING SAND!"
Then he'd do a bit about the people who worked in funeral parlors having sex with corpses. He'd talk about dying and his body would be on the slab in the morgue, and it would finally be over. No more worries, no more pressure. Then a guy would come into the room and start boning him up the ass. "IT NEVER ENDS! IT NEVER ENDS!"
As great as he was on stage, I think he was at his best on my show, ad-libbing and talking about his life. It was like a spiritual purging for him. He'd come in and just open up. Nobody would consistently exorcise demons on the air the way Sam would on the show. He would not hold back one iota. And afterwards he would say to me, "I'm ruined, I'm ruined. Thanks a lot, man," as we walked him to the door. Meanwhile, he was the one who brought up all these subjects ... but I ruined him!
He was a true outlaw -- of comedy and of life. A friend of Gary's once came up to the show. She always thought that whatever went on during the show was just shtick, but they were sitting in Gary's office at eleven in the morning right after the show broke and Sam walked up to them. He was wearing that long preacher's coat of his and he had that famous black beret on. In one hand he had a glass and in the other a bottle of Dom Perignon.
"Gary, could you call down and order us some hamburgers and some Milky Ways and stuff?" Sam slurred. Gary's friend couldn't believe that stuff went on. But Sam was always roaming the halls up at the station with a bottle of champagne in his hand. Plus, he used to come into my office and plop down at my desk and lay out huge lines of coke.
"Sam, what the fuck are you doing?" I'd yell at him. "This is a radio station. We're regulated by the United States government. You could cost me my job." I felt like my father screaming at Symphony Sid to get straight.
But he gave magic radio.
One time he asked me who my favorite comedians were and I told him he was in the top three.
"Hey, man," he complained, "I do everything for you and I'm only in your top three?"
I couldn't take his whining anymore.
"SAM KINISON WILL BE THE GREATEST COMIC THAT EVER LIVED!" I exulted. Sam got so excited, he pulled his penis out of his pants. He just whipped it right out.
He ran over to the glass booth where Robin was and started waving his penis around the studio. It was thick, but no
t that long. Jessica Hahn said he was the best lover she ever had. She must be wide, but not deep.
There are so many Sam memories. We were out at the Grammys once and Sam was up for an award in the comedy album category. Sam was up against Andrew "Dice" Clay, Sandra Bernhard, Erma Bombeck, and P.D.Q. Bach. He was so sure he was going to win that he had an elaborate speech all written out. "I don't care if I lose to Clay," he confided, "but there's no way I'm going to lose to Erma Bombeck or P.D.Q. Bach. That's a fuckin' music record."
They got to the big moment.
"And the winner is ... P.D.Q. Bach."
"Man, do you believe that?" Sam moaned. He was drunk and depressed. "P.D.Q. Bach? Aw, man, it was a setup," Sam said. "It's a setup, dude."
Everything to him was a conspiracy. Sam was scheduled to make a presentation that night at the televised portion of the Grammys and he was plotting how he was going to ruin the presentation.
"Oh, man! Tonight I'm going to tell those motherfuckers off!!" Sam growled. His sycophantic entourage, which usually consisted of about twenty people, all egged him on. Owing to his out-of-con-trol coke problem Sam had just blown a movie deal with Columbia and cost the studio five million dollars. No one in Hollywood wanted to do business with him. He had a shot at a series with Fox, but they had to make sure he was in control. They were on the fence about the deal and if they saw a crazed, coked-up, rambling drunk Kinison at the Grammys, he would have destroyed his career permanently.
He really wanted to get off the road and the Fox deal was his way out, but these misfit hangers-on all around him were reinforcing his destructive behavior.
I really cared about him, so I pulled Sam and his manager Trudy over to the side. She had been pleading with him not to do it, but he wouldn't listen to her.
"Let me tell you something, Sam," I said. "You want my advice? Just go up tonight and read those stupid fucking cards the way they want you to. If you want to still be the show-biz outlaw and not do business with Fox, then tell them to fuck off. But you say you want to get back in the movies. You want that? Read the cards straight."
His manager turned to me and said, "Thank you, because everyone here is telling him to go up there and trash the place." Can you believe that I, the King of All Idiots, was exhibiting good judgment? Why couldn't someone have pulled me aside as I singlehandedly ruined my own career by trashing every single employer I ever had -- including Fox-TV, when I had a deal with them; MCA-TV, when I had a deal with them; New Line Cinema, when I had a deal with them; every fucking radio executive I ever had a deal with, and every human being I ever had a deal with?
"I'm a big fan of his. He's the best. Howard's the King of Shock Radio." - Sam Kinison
Sam went up, read the cue cards, and got his deal with Fox a few weeks later.
He thanked me, and he finally fucking sobered up.
The next time Sam came in, he was totally sober. About an hour into the show I kiddingly said, "You know, you're much funnier drunk!"
Even though Sam boasted that he had just finished fifty days at AA, he was looking for any excuse to start drinking again.
He ordered a few bottles of Dom Perignon and started swigging away.
And you know what? Sam was a lot funnier drunk.
David Brenner came on and started talking about his custody battle with his ex-wife. David couldn't believe how drunk Sam was. "David," Sam said, slurring his every word, "he's expecting me to make a comment... on your custody battle but... I won't. I wouldn't offend you. Howard keeps looking at me like 'Go. Snap. Snap like a rabid dog in the fifteenth century' No, I won't do it. I love David Brenner. He's one of my heroes."
"How are you gonna get sober in time for Joan Rivers?" I asked Sam. He was due at her show in a few hours, which, of course, he missed when he later passed out drunk in his hotel room.
"How do you know I'm drunk? How do you know this isn't just an act? People expect a certain behavior pattern out of me, and I'm only trying to supply them with what they think the image of me is!" he said.
"We just got a fax from a guy who said he's drunk from listening to you," I said.
Sam prowling backstage at my
Nassau Coliseum "U.S. Open Sores'
show.
"Who sent that in? Dice Clay or his assistant Hot Tub Johnny West, the sewer boy I smacked around with rings I won't even wear anymore because they touched his skull?!" Sam roared.
"Let me ask David Brenner something." I tried to get a word in edgewise.
"Yeah, you ask him why Dice's concert movie didn't make as much as gay porno. Do It to Me You Nasty Sailor made ten grand more than Dice's concert movie," Sam said.
Another bottle of champagne was delivered to Sam. He got so loud that Robin had to scream to do her news report. Robin did a story about Teddy Kennedy and I was about to start in with my analysis when Sam butted in.
"He was never a real Kennedy! Teddy was the Shemp of the Kennedys! He wasn't Moe, he wasn't Curly -- he was the Shemp of Kennedys."
At this point, Sam was almost delirious. He was so drunk he missed his appearance on "The Joan Rivers Show" and when the Letterman people found out, they canceled his appearance that night, too. He was on a roll... down. But he didn't give a shit. He was a real outlaw.
Sam never shook his fondness for drugs. He was always drinking and doing coke. One time he invited me to his house in L.A., which he was really proud of. "Everyone thinks I'm a real scumbag and I don't live nice, but look at this place." First we went out to dinner. We went to The Palm or some shit. Sam told me he was swearing off coke and was going to get healthy. At dinner he announced, "I'm gonna eat healthy." So he ordered a lot of fried shit and steaks and I said, "Sam, that's not healthy." "What do you eat that's healthy?" he asked. "I know what I'm gonna order. Spinach. That's healthy, right?" So he ordered spinach. It was cream of spinach with globs of butter. He turned to me and said, "See, I can eat healthy stuff. It tastes good." He was serious. That spinach had about ten million calories. He had no concept of how to diet. But he was getting healthy.
Then we got into his car. He had a little black Trans Am. He used to drive Corvettes, but he kept smashing them up. He would drive them into trees. Then he would call one of his assistants and get him to sit there so when the police showed up there would be someone to blame for the accident. He had such a bad driving record because he was always high.
He was so proud of this Trans Am because he had put in one of those ten-CD players. He couldn't believe how great this thing was. So we got into the car to drive to his house after dinner and his girlfriend, Malika, decided to put me in the front seat.
Robin and Malika got in the back. The reason they got in the back was because of the way Sam drove. No one wanted to be in the death seat with Sam. I was screaming, "I don't want to be in the death seat!" He was saying, "No. No. Don't worry. It'll be fine."
Sam started driving and he couldn't keep his mind on the road. He was so excited about his CD player with all its buttons that he kept reaching over and fucking with it. Now, he was using both hands to operate the music, he wasn't even looking at the road -- and he was driving with his belly. He was actually holding the wheel with his belly driving this car. I was totally nipping out at this point, screaming that he was probably high and he was going to get us killed, and he was completely nonchalant.
"Shut off the fucking music," I said.
"No," he said. "You've got to check out this Mötley Crüe CD, and besides, I'm not doing drugs because of my heart. I went to a doctor because I was having heart palpitations."
"Great," I thought. He was on heart medicine. Medicine to calm him down.
I started to relax, then Malika yelled out, "The pills put him to sleep."
He drove up to his house with his belly. Then he gave us a tour of his castle. The pool was heated to something like a hundred and fifty degrees because he didn't know how to operate the thermostat. Steam was coming off it like a cauldron. He hadn't figured out how to
lower the temperature since he'd moved in a year ago. It was a fifty-degree night and the pool was evaporating rapidly, so he kept the hose constantly going.
Then he took me out on his porch in the Hollywood Hills, which had an incredible postcard view. He was so proud.
"Look! Look! Look at how beautiful my view is! I live like a king!"
We turned to go back in. Sam's castle was more like a dungeon. The dilapidated door was badly in need of repair and it had locked behind us. We couldn't get back in. Some castle. Sam was pounding on the door, screaming to get in. I was laughing hysterically, but Sam was upset. He had failed to impress me.
Now he was popping heart pills like crazy.
No way he was off drugs. He was on heart medicine. And it was a sedative!
Then he insisted on driving us back to the hotel, which was stupid, because it then became a race to get back to the hotel before his heart medicine kicked in. Good thing he ate a full meal.
As he was driving he said, "I'm going to be real drowsy in a few minutes."
Oh, great! And I was in the death seat again. Suddenly we passed the billboard for his new record album on Sunset Boulevard. He saw it and had a fit because someone had put graffiti all over it. Boom, he slammed on his brakes and started backing up in traffic.
He was driving backward, he was falling asleep, and I was screaming like crazy. "Sam! Hurry up! Your heart medicine's going to kick in!"
"Fuck it, some prick drew all over my face." Sam was on fire.
Miraculously, we made it to the hotel in one piece. I could have ended up like road pizza the way he did a few months later.
Still, Sam had a very tender human side for all his wild antics. There was a moment that sticks in my mind to this day.
It was so out of character for him.
Sam always dressed rock 'n' roll and it was odd to me that he didn't have any earrings or tattoos. He had heavy metal T-shirts cut the right way, bandannas and rock 'n' roll pants.
One day I said, "Sam, let's go get our ears pierced." I was on my third hole already.