“You look like the guy who killed my parents. . . Just kidding. I killed my parents.”
The first time I saw him (on television) will be forever etched in my mind - the razor blade trick. I would post the clip, but I still can’t stand to watch it. The first time was horrifying enough. 
He just got better and funnier as his career progressed.
Here’s hoping he survives long enough for me to put him on next year’s Death Pool. 
Yeah, this guy was quite a performer.
That WTF appearance is definitely worth listening to; he’s an interesting guy. He did one of the coolest “rich guy” things I’ve ever heard about: his muscle car collection started getting too large, so he had a working indoor drive-in movie theatre built in an airplane hanger to house them. Built as a replica of a theatre he worked at as a teenager. And threw parties for his friends watching movies there. If you’ve got too much money to know what to do with, I gotta admit that’s a pretty slick way to spend it.
Three people have him for 2015!
Here’s a short talk he gave about his career. He breaks down a bit near the end. ENT Speaks Amazing Johnathan - YouTube
A bit of an update: Las Vegas News | Breaking News & Headlines | Las Vegas Review-Journal
He had to have parts of some toes amputated, but on the bright side, his heart function has increased from 12 percent to about 36 percent. That’s unrelated to the amputation, I assume.
I don’t get it. Could you explain?
Thanks
Maybe by taking the toes, he no longer has one foot in the grave.
Never mind. I should have read the entire thread first!
This is truly heartbreaking. I loved the Amazing Jonathan.
Not being a cardiologist, can someone explain how ejection fraction (I assume that is what the %'s refer to) goes from 12% to 36%? I thought heart failure was irreversible.
As far as Jonathan, I liked it in the 90s when I would see him on Comic Strip live. He had a bit where he would chew on razor blades and pull them out on a string that was always good. Even if he dies in his 50s, he seems like he lived a life he wanted to live so good for him.
I liked the windex drinking too.
I prefer to pull a bird out of my hat.
I actually got to see him and – not Psychic Tanya but the other assistant – once and I laughed so hard I almost injured myself. Here’s wishing him the best.
“sometimes magic sounds like tape…”
Bump:
Amazing Jonathan is back on (a very limited) tour. I saw a promo in one of our local newspapers). I swear, I thought he had died a while back. I spent a long time tonight trying to figure out who it was that had actually died that I might have been confusing him with.
A)It wasn’t Robert Schimmel, I know and love him and was quite aware of when he died
B)I can’t believe all my searches never mentioned Gary Schandling. I knew he died, I’m just surprised I got things like Sam Kinison, but not Gary.
C)I had no idea that Bill Hicks was not only dead, but dead for nearly 25 years.
D)It wasn’t until I somehow found this thread that I found out he wasn’t dead, just really really sick.
Some very quick googling (and I didn’t verify it) makes it sound like he got a stem cell transplant so he’s able to do some short run tours. This one appears to be a few in LA and one in MKE.
I actually went to his Detroit show this February!
It was completely sold out, jam-packed. It was also AWESOME! He talked frankly a bit about his health/heart problems at the beginning and there were a few related (and morbid, duh) jokes worked into his routine.
If you can make it, definitely go!
You want to see morbid…go find the (recent) Tig Notaro, special. She has/had breast cancer, but it’s like she got the diagnosis as she was walking on stage. She didn’t, of course, this was after she had a double mastectomy. Now, I didn’t catch the entire special, so I don’t know if she went back to a regular show afterwards, but at least the beginning of it was 5 minutes of her walking around on stage with no shirt on saying “I have cancer, I have cancer, I have cancer, I have cancer”. But not in an awareness way, just in a life sucks way (though, the small boobs joke was funny).
NSFW as this clip is “5 of the darkest jokes Ever” and they are pretty bad (it ranges from Gilbert telling the Aristocrats to David Cross being, well, David Cross)., Her’s starts around 3:30 /watch?v=mRzJ0PnHh-k <- toss that in after youtube . com if you want to watch it. There’s longer clips of the set if you want to go looking for them.
He has a DVD on Amazon.
and quite a few videos on Amazon (on his and Tanya’s own channels).
NETA: Youtube (that’s what happens as I’m trying to type as I’m getting called away).