You probably remember Sean Kent as the cancer surviving, cowboy hat wearing, comedian from seasons one and three on ‘Last Comic Standing’, but Cinema Blend got a chance to sit down with the thirty-three year old and found out he was a lot different than his television depiction. Here is the exclusive and uncensored interview...
How long have you been doing comedy for?
Since I was twenty-two; so, I guess eleven years.
Was there a moment of realization when you knew you wanted to do this?
No, I realized that I wasn’t good at school. I wasn’t into the 9 to 5 thing. I wasn’t good with authority. College programs, even theater programs are very authoritarian.
I moved to LA to be an actor. I just wanted something special or out of the ordinary. I was a decent actor with local theater. It wasn’t about being famous or a star; I just wanted to act for a living. I was in LA for like a year, going to acting classes, but it was really right wing.
That is weird for an acting school.
Well, he had James Franco and Ashley Judd, but I tend to think they would have been successful without him. So, I wasn’t doing anything. I was working at a coffee shop, and there was an open mic. It looked like something I could attempt to kill time, and I don’t know. It was like when I got cut from the seventh grade basketball team and tried to build myself into a basketball player by the time I was a senior. I wasn’t good at it, but I got a couple of laughs, a glimmer of hope. I just stuck with it. It gave me a sense of community and something to do. Eventually, I started going to open mics every night of the week and worked my ass off at it. It took me a long time to get remotely funny. I didn’t come at it from a crowd pleasing aspect. I’ve never admired artists who were massively mainstream popular. It took me awhile to become funny enough to carry a show doing it the way I wanted to do it.
Who would you say some comedic influences are?
I love Bobcat Goldthwait. I love Bill Hicks. I grew up in Austin; so, I saw Bill Hicks when I was in 8th or 9th grade. Back in the late 80s. I had never seen anything like it. People did not talk like that in the late 80s. People now are very different during the Reagan era than they are now. I mean Reagan captured 51% of the youth vote. People were just...let’s make money. If you look at every movie in the 80s, what is the protagonist’s goal? To make money. What does he do in the end of the movie? He drives off in a Ferarri like an asshole. Life’s perfect. Now, I’ll never die. We were like a country of douche bags. (Bill Hicks) was the first person I saw go, “This sucks. We’re the third mall from the sun. We’ve lost our souls.”
This was a time when I was into saving the environment, and I’d get called “faggot” for suggesting maybe we had some sort of responsibility to the Earth or future generations. I remember talking to kids in my high school and saying, “Don’t you want your kids to see elephants?” “Fuck ‘em.” I mean this school was so conservative that you were called “fag” for playing soccer.
So I saw Bill Hicks, and he was doing this routine where Jimi Hendrix was fucking Tiffany and Debbie Gibson to death with his buzzsaw dick, and I don’t know. It just was a moment. So, that’s always the guy...I don’t model my style after him, but that’s what people compare me to as far as overall subject matter or tone. But I am not nearly as gifted as he is.
That was a different era in comedy to. There weren’t six million comedians, and there were tons of comedy clubs. You could get away with walking half the audience, and doing things that didn’t go over that great. It was a Cowboy time, but now it’s more corporate. It’s soulless. Now, my challenge is to walk the line and sneak in the shit I want to sneak in and still get applause every night.
What is your favorite moment in comedy so far?
I don’t know. I’m chronically unsatisfied. Certainly, there was a sense of accomplishment when I made it into the ‘LCS’ house. I think the only time I really get a good sense of accomplishment is when I get a compliment from another comedian.
Looking back, what would you say ‘Last Comic Standing’ has done for your career?
It got people to take my calls. You know, I got sick, really critically desperately sick which has probably colored my perspective or given me perspective about life and the industry. I was told three months after I got off ‘Last Comic Standing’ that I only had a 50/50 chance of being alive in a year. While the show was running, I was laying in a hospital bed running a 104 fever; so, I wasn’t able to take advantage of it. By the time I was healthy enough to go on the road a year later, I basically started my business up again with a dial up internet connection and a notebook.
How angry were you when you saw season 1 and they chopped up your sets?
I’m a naturally angry person, most comedians are. I was more disappointed I suppose. I was going to start chemo the next day; so, I had other shit on my mind at that point. I’m probably not going to be around in six months, but it was definitely disappointing.
A lot of people think ‘Last Comic Standing’ casts for diversity. Do you think that’s true?
I probably got on the show because I was a cancer survivor.
Do you think the level of comedians have gone up?
No. They have a lot of feature acts on there. They don’t really go after road headliners. Pablo Francisco sells out fucking theaters, and he can’t get in the house?
How irritating was it to have a censor on you during ‘Last Comic Standing?’
It was insanely irritating. It was the Bush era on TV. Honestly, half of the people who have been on ‘Last Comic Standing’ won’t even be doing standup in five years.
You’ve been real outspoken about the war in Iraq and the importance of revamping our health care system. Which issue do you think is more pressing?
They’re intertwined. Where are we going to get money to pay for Universal Health Care? We spend more money than all the other nations in the world combined on killing people? Who the fuck wants to kill us that badly? I never even understood why Russia wanted to kill us. It would have been mutually assured self-destruction. The idea that some countries are evil and we’re good is bullshit. We’ve done so much illegal shit just in South and Central America that it’s ridiculous.
To me, health care and the defense budget. You just can’t separate them because that’s where the money would come from. The world health organization ranked us 38th in Health Care and 7th in quality of life. How do we have the balls to say we’re the greatest country in the world anymore? Morally, we certainly aren’t.
My generation has been incredibly selfish. We all became stock brokers, personal injury lawyers, and masters of the universe as Tom Wolfe would say. I think Risky Business is like the perfect 80s movie. There all sitting around eating and Tom Cruise goes, “Don’t you guys want to change the world?” and everyone laughs. “Fuck that. Let’s get rich.”
Even the hooker is trying to get rich in that movie.
Yes, and at the end he gets into Princeton, he drives a Porsch, and all his problems are solved. Sorry, I can make any conversation depressing.
It’s ok...I’ve found that most interesting people have a skeptical view of things rather than swallowing all the bullshit fed to them.
Well, that’s not even really being alive. Most people think you have to do that. You don’t. Certainly, I’d probably be happier and sleep better if I did, but I’m not interested in living a lie. I don’t want to be on my death bed and say, “Hey, I bought in.”
I read this article about the normal rate of extinction the other day, and how the Industrial Revolution has sped up that rate over one hundred times. Talking about destroying the eco system. It’s going to be hilarious when we turn this into a dead planet, and future anthropologists will figure out that the first five great extinctions were caused by unavoidable calamities, and the last one was just due to humans being huge assholes.
I love looking at those pollution graphs where it’s incredibly low and steady up until about 1880 when it just soars thousands of percent higher.
Ohhh yeah. I love those, but no. Pollution is not caused by man, and I would be a propagandist if I told you otherwise. Especially, I’m in Indiana tonight; so, it’ll be interesting to see how far I can go without losing the crowd. If I get the right crowd, I’ll joke about the rapture and how Christians are always talking about how God is going to suck them into heaven. Good. Fuckin’ go already. Maybe we can start having some fun for once.
I love how that didn’t even come from the original Bible. It was just some crazy lady’s vision. Then everyone decided to go back and drum up verses that could somewhat apply. There’s a lot of stuff that the Bible claims that other historical sources are strangely quiet on. Herod killing off the kids. Noah’s Ark.
My sister believes they found Noah’s Ark. That’s how religious some of my family is. I was like, “Don’t you think that would be on the cover of The New York Times? A big page one headline that would say, “Holy Shit! We found the Ark. It had little cubby holes and a stall for each one of the animals.”
Here’s the part where the Unicorn fell off.
Faith is a mental illness. I don’t have a problem with spirituality. I sought out answers to the after life when I thought I was going to die. And I”m still going to die. I just don’t know when. I thought it was going to be before I was thirty. I went to see a medium, and there were things he knew about my family that were very specific. Unless, he has a crack research team. He shouldn’t know them. If it’s a scam, it’s a good one.
Did you perform last night?
Yes, it was college night. Man, I feel old. I didn’t feel old at thirty-two, but thirty-three. You know I used to be “extreme” products, now I buy age-defying shit. I can tell I’m not a kid anymore because I get nervous around packs of teenagers. They just make me uncomfortable.
I don’t know how people can work fifty weeks a year. I just need free time. I’m to curious about spirituality, nature, whatever. I’m just constantly enthralled by the search. I think that’s part of the problem with this country, only two weeks off a year. People are just to busy thinking money and surrounding themselves with possessions like they’ll make them happy. Then they end up thirty years old and desperately unhappy.
It’s very weird what we created for ourselves. There is no future. There is no past. There’s only this moment, and if you spend most of your moment’s working than that sucks. I guess if it was 70 hours a week as a massage recipient, I could do it. Or maybe porno actor. I can I’m getting old though because my sex drive is starting to fade some. Sometimes I’d rather do a crossword puzzle.
Man, I love crossword puzzles.
I just love thinking. After shows I watch Hardball.
Are you a Chris Matthews fan?
No. Well, sometimes. Sometimes he’s not completely informed, but I do agree with him at times.
Darrell Hammond does such a good Chris Matthew’s impression.
Yeah, he does. He’s a really sweet, Southern guy. I’ve met him a few times at the Improv.
He always seemed like a nice guy. I feel like I can always tell. People will say someone looks like a nice guy, and I’ll be like, “Nope. He is full of shit.” That’s probably not good that I just randomly and superficially judge people that I don’t know, though.
It’s Hollywood. The Entertainment Industry is the only profession where you constantly get asked about other people.
Did you see the whole Joe Rogan/ Carlos Mencia video?
Yeah, I don’t know, Joe. Aren’t there greater causes to devote your life to? So, he stole a joke. That joke isn’t even that original of a premise anyways.
There’s a big difference between stealing a premise and stealing like a Stephen Wright one-liner joke.
Yes, thank you. Exactly.
So, the performance is at 8 tonight?
Yeah, watch it be all dick jokes and you’ll be like what the fuck was this guy talking about at dinner?
Do you have any other close friends that are comedians too?
Yes, Anthony Clark. A lot of guys that you’ve never heard of. Scott Kennedy, Adam Ferrara, I have Screech’s phone number. Skippy from ‘Family Ties.’
He tried out for ‘LCS’ one season.
Yeah, he went over his routine with me. He mostly produces now.
Do you ever miss writing for ‘Best Damn Sports Show?’
I miss being in the same city and the steady paycheck, but I don’t miss Hollywood. It’s like high school all over again, but it’s fun to be on TV, to have your work seen by people. I need to get on Comedy Central. Mitch Hedburg, I mean his whole career was launched by that special. He was a really nice man. Patton Oswald is a great guy too. I got stoned with Chris Rock before. That was fun.
How often do you smoke?
Well, I quit for like four months earlier this year, but I have a prescription when I’m in Los Angeles. So, that’s nice. Everyone has their drug whether it’s a Martini or otherwise. Pot is so much more socially acceptable in California, though. No one would ever look down on anyone for doing it, but here in Indiana is totally different. I don’t get it. No one has ever smoked a joint and date raped someone. Well, I shouldn’t say never. I’m sure someone has smoked a joint and then strangled an infant, but that doesn’t mean pot is to blame. It’s really not a terribly harmful drug.
Thank you very much, man.
By the way, everything is off the record. Everything that I just said. Publish nothing.
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