R.I.P. Soupy Sales

Hearing the news yesterday morning that Soupy Sales had died at age 83 was like someone waking you up in bed and then throwing a cream pie in your face: Unexpected, unwelcome, kind of funny yet not funny at all.


Soupy was a huge comedian and TV star in his day - so big, he even threw a pie in Frank Sinatra's face and lived to tell about it. My favorite stunt of his was on his radio show, when he asked all the kids to go into mommy's purse and take out those green pieces of paper with the presidents on them and mail them to him. I think a young Hershel Krustovsky (aka Krusty the Clown) must have been listening.

Two people definitely mounring the passing o' Soupy are his sons Hunt and Tony Sales. Fans of decadent, androgynous glam rock know them as the killer rhythm section behind Iggy Pop on his classic song and album Lust for Life.


The song, co-written and produced by David Bowie, has grown in stature over the years. It was used to great effect in the British heroin film Trainspotting in 1996:


More recently, "Lust for Life" was the theme song for Royal Caribbean Cruise Line, who were apparently trying to rope in a younger clientele. I have a feeling that when Iggy & Bowie wrote the tune they were thinking about a different kind of cruising.

Later on, the Sales Bros. teamed up with Bowie for the band Tin Machine, a project that was much hated by critics for reasons I never really understood, but I'm guessing it had something to do with him not dressing like a junkie in drag.


R.I.P. Soupy (seen here in 2002 with fellow departed genius Nipsey Russell). We hope there's plenty of cream pie in the sky. Let's go out with the Sales Bros and Iggy doing another great one, "The Passenger" from the same 1977 Manchester show as "Lust for Life."