A tasteless, tell-all bio of the outrageous, screaming stand- up comic Kinison, by his manager/brother. But how else to write the life story of a comedian whose tag line was ``Oh! Oh! Aaaaaaugh!'' and whose on-stage rantings included riffs on serial killers, sissy POWs, Satan, crucifixion, Charles Manson, world hunger, cunnilingus, and homosexual necrophilia? The son of a blackballed Pentecostal minister, Kinison was a ``traveling evangelist'' until 1978 when he decided to try stand-up comedy. Starting out in Houston, he felt by 1980 that his loud, vulgar, abrasive routine was ready for the famed Comedy Store in Los Angeles. It took a few years, but by 1983 Kinison had become a ``paid regular.'' He parlayed his growing local notoriety into spots on an HBO special and in Rodney Dangerfield's film Back to School. By 1985, he was nationally known, his screaming diatribes against women and marriage earning him close to $1 million annually. But his drinking, excessive drug use, and abuse of his wives and numerous lovers (who included director Penny Marshall, actress Beverly D'Angelo, and porn star Seka) would take their toll. Despite such powerful admirers as Robin Williams, Howard Stern, and David Letterman, Kinison would alienate the power brokers who might have solidified his career. The ``rock and roll'' comic, Kinison will perhaps best be remembered for his video rendition of ``Wild Thing,'' in which he spits and screams abuse at a writhing, delirious Jessica Hahn (yet another former lover) while snarling Billy Idol and a motley crew of heavy-metal heroes join the fun. Kinison died at the age of 38 in a car accident. At least, writes his brother, ``he did not die of excess'' like John Belushi. Unrestrained, ugly, and grotesquely, perversely captivating. Like the man himself.
Pub Date: May 20, 1994
ISBN: 0-688-12634-0
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Morrow/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 1994
An autobiography as toxic and addictive as any drug its author has ever ingested.
The legendary booze-addled metal rocker turned reality-TV star comes clean in his tell-all autobiography.
Although brought up in the bleak British factory town of Aston, John “Ozzy” Osbourne’s tragicomic rags-to-riches tale is somehow quintessentially American. It’s an epic dream/nightmare that takes him from Winson Green prison in 1966 to a presidential dinner with George W. Bush in 2004. Tracing his adult life from petty thief and slaughterhouse worker to rock star, Osbourne’s first-person slang-and-expletive-driven style comes off like he’s casually relating his story while knocking back pints at the pub. “What you read here,” he writes, “is what dribbled out of the jelly I call my brain when I asked it for my life story.” During the late 1960s his transformation from inept shoplifter to notorious Black Sabbath frontman was unlikely enough. In fact, the band got its first paying gigs by waiting outside concert venues hoping the regularly scheduled act wouldn’t show. After a few years, Osbourne and his bandmates were touring America and becoming millionaires from their riff-heavy doom music. As expected, with success came personal excess and inevitable alienation from the other members of the group. But as a solo performer, Osbourne’s predilection for guns, drink, drugs, near-death experiences, cruelty to animals and relieving himself in public soon became the stuff of legend. His most infamous exploits—biting the head off a bat and accidentally urinating on the Alamo—are addressed, but they seem tame compared to other dark moments of his checkered past: nearly killing his wife Sharon during an alcohol-induced blackout, waking up after a bender in the middle of a busy highway, burning down his backyard, etc. Osbourne is confessional to a fault, jeopardizing his demonic-rocker reputation with glib remarks about his love for Paul McCartney and Robin Williams. The most distinguishing feature of the book is the staggering chapter-by-chapter accumulation of drunken mishaps, bodily dysfunctions and drug-induced mayhem over a 40-plus-year career—a résumé of anti-social atrocities comparable to any of rock ’n’ roll’s most reckless outlaws.
An autobiography as toxic and addictive as any drug its author has ever ingested.Pub Date: Jan. 25, 2010
ISBN: 978-0-446-56989-7
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2009
IN THE NEWS
This is not the Nutcracker sweet, as passed on by Tchaikovsky and Marius Petipa. No, this is the original Hoffmann tale of 1816, in which the froth of Christmas revelry occasionally parts to let the dark underside of childhood fantasies and fears peek through. The boundaries between dream and reality fade, just as Godfather Drosselmeier, the Nutcracker's creator, is seen as alternately sinister and jolly. And Italian artist Roberto Innocenti gives an errily realistic air to Marie's dreams, in richly detailed illustrations touched by a mysterious light. A beautiful version of this classic tale, which will captivate adults and children alike. (Nutcracker; $35.00; Oct. 28, 1996; 136 pp.; 0-15-100227-4)
Pub Date: Oct. 28, 1996
ISBN: 0-15-100227-4
Page Count: 136
Publisher: Harcourt
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 1996
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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