Chris Kanyon Found Dead

[jdw]

For some reason I feel like I should point out that Lagana is bisexual, I guess for gaydar reasons.

I belive I said "Liar" rather than "Idiot" in the case of Lagana.

 

I also was talking about Madden in terms of gaydar, not Lagana.

 

John

[Bix]

I know. I wasn't referring to your post.

[Strummer]

[Strummer]

Thanks to Jim Mitchell and sinisterministerjm.blogspot.com.

Sunday, April 11, 2010

 

For 18 years I had the privilege of experiencing Chris Kanyon’s friendship. Though we initially met through our mutual love of and involvement in professional wrestling, our roots would go on to be grounded far deeper than that. Kanyon was the one person I knew I could always count on, regardless of the miles between us or how difficult and inconvenient the situation at hand may have been.

 

I told Chris early on, as many people did, that he was too nice of a guy to be in the wrestling business. He was honest, generous to fault, loyal, and had an incredible degree of personal integrity. He stood up for deserving underdogs, regardless of what it may have cost him, because he innately felt it was the right thing to do.

 

Kanyon was directly responsible for making my childhood dream of being involved in wrestling on a national stage materialize, in addition to my professional success outside of wrestling. I once told him I felt guilty that I couldn't possibly return the favor in kind on the same grand scale. He told me, "I don't expect you to. You're my best friend. I did what I did because that's what friends are supposed to do."

 

It's impossible to fully articulate my gratitude for the positive impact his friendship and selflessness made on my life.

 

At times we fought and argued like wild animals, often to hilarious extremes. Despite that, our bond remained unbreakable.

 

Many of the.personal difficulties Kanyon revealed to the public in recent years had been shared with me long ago. I was honored that, out of his many friends, he chose to initially confide in me. Chris dealt with a level of internal torment most people will never be able to grasp. To see someone I cared for experiencing that kind of ongoing anguish was painful beyond description at times, yet insignificant compared to what he endured.

 

The last time I saw Kanyon in person he told me that he planned to leave us. It was a matter of "when", not "if”. He wasn't sad. He wasn't angry. If nothing else, he seemed to be at peace with himself. As I had done countless times before over the years, I tried to convince him that he had plenty to live for and listed all of the people who loved him and would be devastated by his passing. He told me that I was being selfish because I was more worried about my own pain than his. He said that he had no control over wrestling politics or his mental health, but the one thing he could control was his own existence. He felt no one had the right to insist that he go on living when he found doing so to be unbearable.

 

I knew I was seeing Chris for the final time when he summed up his feelings by quoting part of Morgan Freeman's closing monologue from one of his favorite movies, 'The Shawshank Redmption'.

 

“ . . . Some birds aren't meant to be caged. Their feathers are just too bright. And when they fly away, the part of you that knows it was a sin to lock them up does rejoice." Now that he’s gone, those words have a profound and surprisingly comforting resonance.

 

All I could do was to give Kanyon a tearful hug and thank him for being such a truly wonderful friend. Kanyon left Freeman’s final two lines off of the quote he shared with me that night. I can think of no better way to describe the void his absence has left in my life than to close with them.

 

"But still, the place you live in is that much more drab and empty that they're gone. I guess I just miss my friend."

[El-P]

That is quite a moving hommage...

[spudz25]

In my 37 years of existence, I have never felt the lows that someone like Kanyon must have been going through on a regular basis.

 

Not exactly sure how I would react, if a friend of mine had the same conversation with me.

 

Very sad story.

[Bix]

Today, the coming out of David Yost (original Blue Ranger on Power Rangers) has been getting covered all over the place, and his stories (repeatedly being called "faggot," producers holding meetings with the other cast members to ask about his sexuality...) made me think of the various Kanyon stuff we discussed when he died, and how that wouldn't happen in "the real world." In recent times, a gay actor being so heavily harassed on set sounds pretty out of the ordinary (especially in light of Isiah Washington's exile), which makes me wonder if Power Rangers' non-union status attracted a more unsavory element that's more like a pro wrestling locker room. The show was pretty notorious bad relations with the actors, like immediately firing 3 of the original castmembers for asking for a raise when they realized how much less than union scale they were making (and not even bothering them to keep them around to write them out, instead using stand-ins lit in silhouette combined with some really bizarre dubbing), and this article that I just found an excerpt of:

 

Tardy Saban Actor Docked $1,000 Power Ranger Penalized on Show Not Yet Under Union Contract

Publication: Back Stage West

Date: Thursday, April 30 1998

 

By David Robb (BPI)

 

Three weeks ago, Roger Velasco, the 18-year-old "Green Ranger" on Saban Entertainment's Power Rangers in Space, showed up 45 minutes late for a looping session--an infraction of Saban's rules that cost the teenager $1,000 in "bonus" compensation, or more than his take-home pay for shooting an entire episode of the non-union kids' TV show.

Saban's contract with the show's performers provides that in addition to their salaries--which are far below union scale--the actors receive $200 per episode in the form of a "bonus" for "good behavior." When an actor is late or commits some other minor infraction, the company deducts the penalty from the actor's "bonus" pay.

This practice will probably come to an end when Saban finalizes an agreement with the Screen Actors Guild covering live-action children's shows--the one area still subject to negotiation after Saban agreed in February to sign SAG's basic contract (Back Stage West, 2/12/98).

SAG declined comment, although a SAG source said that "it's certainly not surprising to hear this sort of practice occurring in a non-union environment. One would assume that this sort of practice will no longer be possible once their live-action children's programming is covered by a SAG deal."

The practice of hitting actors with heavy penalties for being late to work, which is virtually unheard of anywhere else in the industry, was detailed recently in a sternly worded letter to Velasco from a high-level Saban business and legal affairs executive.

"Arriving late for your ADR (looping) session is a violation of your contract," the Saban executive told Velasco in the Mar. 26 letter. "As you have been advised previously, (we) consider this to be a serious breach of your contract and unacceptable conduct which we cannot reward with 'bonus' compensation. Therefore, we will not be paying you bonus compensation in the total amount of $1,000."

Sources say that several other young performers have been similarly penalized by the show's producers for minor infractions over the past year. Christopher Khayman Lee, the show's Red Ranger and lead actor, was penalized $400 recently for being an hour late to the set.

"I'm very angry," said Lee's manager, Sharon Lane. "It's like they are children who are having their allowance taken away. But they need this money to live. Christopher relocated to Los Angeles for this job and he supports...

[Bix]

Why yes, I did decide to do a blog post about this.