It was my darkest hour. In one weekend, Fucking Amy had ended our relationship, a close friend had just tried to commit suicide, and another dear friend was diagnosed with terminal cancer. When I eventually got back to Seattle, I had no job, no friends here, no money, no home, no Amy, and I was burning through what little credit I had left in a manner likely to encourage a suicide attempt of my own: I was living at the Issaquah Motel 6. I was, in a word, depressed.
I don't mean sad. I don't mean lethargic. I mean I could feel the life ebbing from my body before I passed out from nervous exhaustion on the motel bed, and I figured it was probably for the best. It's not possible to overstate the bad way I was in. I was incapable of happiness, anger, empathy...anything but grief and despair, really.
I rummaged through my car and dug out my VCR, which I hooked up to the motel TV. I rented a tape of old Carson shows. I numbly sat there in my abyss, staring at good old Johnny. Even he couldn't cheer me up. Shit.
And then Johnny introduced Sam Kinison, saying "I think he's going to surprise you tonight." And that Sam did.
Imagine how it felt to hear him, of all people, croon a song of lost love. Okay, message received, God. You hate me. But then...that magical then. I may have laughed harder in my life, but I've never needed a laugh so hard, so much. Kinison punctured through my previously impenetrable layers of self-pity and let all the pressure out. It's hard to describe what seminal a moment in my life this goofy clip was. It struck the perfect note at the perfect time.