Kip Addotta
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Kip Addotta is an American comedian. He is a Stand-up comedian, recording artist and song writer known for his songs, "Wet Dream" (The fish song), Big Cock Roach”, “Life In The Slaw Lane”, “I Saw Daddy Kissing Santa Claus”, “Captain of the Sofa Team”, "Hung Over All Over Again" "I'm So Miserable Without You, It's Just Like Having You Around and many others. He has recorded for Laff Records, Rhino Records and is now with Warner Music.
Kip Addotta Stand-up review Today almost every young stand-up comic wants to be thought of as both funny and hip-if only because he or she knows that he is speaking to people who have come to believe that if something is both funny and hip, the act of laughing at it will make them hip, too.
But Kip Addotta doesn't play that game. Instead, like Lenny Bruce, Rodney Dangerfield, Steve Martin and several generations of musicians and siding salesmen, Addotta seems to be a genuine hipster-a man whose vision of life was always askew, not a guy who has cooked up a set of attitudes that he or she thinks might be cute.
Actually Addotta is a couple of generations younger than any other hipster comics that come to mind. But he has all the traits-the most crucial, for my taste, being the sense that everything he says arises from some reservoir of experiences which he is willing to share with the audience but which he also is determined to husband and protect.
That is, while Addotta knows that he is up there to sell jokes-just as those salesmen knows that their job is to sell siding, and the dance band tenor saxophonist knows that before the night is out he's going to have to play 'Misty'-he sells his jokes in such a way that he, and we know that he's selling them.
Now there's a hip way to do that, which is popularized by Steven Wright and is practiced each weeknight by David Letterman-an ironically coy and cool distancing of ones self from the very idea of joke-telling, not to mention the whole climate of show business.
But the hipster style, that Addotta embodies, is quite different. Hot rather than cool, it wholeheartedly embraces the greasy contradictions of the entertainers role-insisting that there is no way to forget that show business is still a business, no matter how much one might want to dance away from that uncomfortable fact.
So in the area of honesty Addotta has a running head start, and his graceful, rather deliberately paced and slightly sing song delivery adds to the air of conviction that helps him sell his stuff.
Kip Addotta biography
Kip Addotta was born in Rockford, IL of Sicilian parents. His father, Frank, worked as a machinist his mother, Josephine, remains a mystery having left the home when Kip was two years old. Kip was put in an orphanage at the age of three and remained there until his Grandmother took full-time custody when he was five. "I have always felt lucky to have been raised by a saintly woman. She spent a lot of time with me, teaching me the difference between right and wrong."
His Grandmother, Donna Cicca Francisca Addotta raised Kip in a strict religious environment, going to Mass every morning and saying the Rosary and making The Stations Of The Cross every night. He was being groomed to be a priest.
At the same time Kip was also being isolated from the influence of the outside world. His Grandmother, closely, screened his friends and he was only allowed to leave the house for a half hour a day. "Some might think that this was cruel but I knew that was done from love and that I was being treated as someone special. Someone, who was going to spend his life serving God. I didn't feel this about myself but I did go along with it out of respect for my Grandmother." His grandmother died when Kip was fifteen and all thoughts of the priesthood went the way of the wind. Kip, was placed in the charge of his father until he moved out on his own at sixteen.
It was at this time that Kip met Mary Bennett, a beautiful brunette who was totally dedicated to him. They were married at the age of eighteen and produced two children, Victor and Kathy. Six years later Mary was taken by kidney failure. "This was a brutal lesson on how short life can be and that one should follow ones dreams while there is time."
Two years later, Kip, married, the lovely, Lynn Johnson and they had a son, Frank. "My wife Lynn took up the responsibility our new baby and the two children from my former marriage. I don't know how she did it but we are all lucky to have Lynn Addotta as the maternal head of our family." But Kip never forgot that lesson in mortality and he confided something, to his new wife that he had never admitted to anyone. He had always dreamed of doing Stand-Up Comedy. To his amazement she encourage him and a short time later they packed up the kids and moved to Los Angeles.
Kip started doing short sets at the Comedy Store and eighteen months later he was asked to appear on "The Tonight Show". Appearances on "Midnight Special", "The Mike Douglas Show", "The Merve Griffin Show", "Rock Concert", "Make Me Laugh" and thirty more "Tonight Shows" followed. He also hosted an adult game show on The Playboy Channel called "Everything Goes." Since then Kip has traveled the world gaining a vast following of fans and was named Comedian of the year by "The Entertainment Writers Association of America".
Kip has also written hit songs like "Wet Dream" (The Fish Song} and many others. The CDs of live performances and his songs remain among the top selling comedy CD's in the world.
