Country Music Broke My Brain (8 page)

I am also on record as endorsing gay marriage because I believe gay people should have to endure marriage like the rest of us.

On another separate note, I also want to announce here in public that I once kissed Keith Urban. Just a peck on the lips. At the stroke of midnight on New Year's Eve. From what I recall, there was a substantial amount of wine reported missing the next morning. My wife was off in another room when the big midnight celebration moment arrived. I puckered up for the nearest person in order to honor Auld Lang Syne. It just turned out to be the guy who married Nicole Kidman. Also, I should tell you that he never writes. He never calls. He treats me like yesterday's newspaper. I have spent many nights standing in front of the fridge, eating ice cream out of the container with a scoop because of it.

Gorilla Glue

ONE
eye opened. It was cold. Damn, bone-chilling, “shrinking” cold.

I have got to get up,
he thought.
I don't know where I am.

That's when he discovered that he couldn't get up. The queasy realization that he was immobile washed over him.

I've had a stroke. Oh, my GOD! I've had a stroke. I'm paralyzed. Oh my God, I'll never bowl again. Oh, my GOOOOOOODDD,
he shrieked silently in his head.

He tried again, and slowly through the fog realized it wasn't so much his body he couldn't move, but that his body he couldn't move from the cold floor. It was some kind of tile.

Wait, I know this tile. It's in her bathroom.

He focused his eyes and saw the bottom of the hideous green commode, the shower curtain with mermaids, and the plunger with dog bones painted on it. He grunted and stayed there like a walrus on a cold rock.

What the . . . ?

He tried to move again. He had to get out of there, and right now. What if she came home and found him. She was already pretty P.O.'d about things. Some women just don't understand life with musicians. It's tough out there. It's hard.

There are so many requirements and rules, meet ‘n' greets, recordings and lyrics, and drinks and concerts and women. And wives. Or, in this case, wife. As in,
the
wife. Some women just can't get it through their heads that some men don't wear wedding rings and can still be married. Hell, country music is all about drinkin' and cheatin'. What did she think they'd been doin' for three years? Drinkin' and cheatin'—in equal parts and usually in that order.

In fact, now that he thought about it, that's what they had been doin' last night. He remembered the drinking part. Whose idea was it to try Tequila Sangria anyway? You had to be Mexican to drink that stuff. Couple of beers, couple of Jacks, she's dancing on the chair, a pitcher of that tequila wine grape juice, and whammo! He made a note to slow down one of these days with the tequila.

She's the one who said, “Baby, let's go back to my place,”
he thought.

He tried to move again. Nothing. He could rock back and forth a little, and yet he couldn't seem to scoot toward the shower. He noticed somebody had been selling purple Buicks on the big white phone, too. It was all stained. Then he vaguely remembered he wasn't feeling so good earlier. He also remembered her screaming something at him through the bathroom door about what a lyin', cheatin', washed-up bastard he was. Something about calling her the wrong name. Washed
up?
Who's washed up?

He took a deep breath and tried to clear his head.

Let's go over this again. I'm naked. I'm in a bathroom. I'm stuck. I'm STUCK!

That's it . . . he was stuck!

Wait a minute. I'm not stuck, I'm . . . I'm glued! I am glued to the goddamn floor. I'm naked, and I'm glued to the goddamn floor.

Be calm.

He was calm.

Breathe deeply.

Then he saw it. There, in the corner by the dead plant. Nausea and panic fought for control of his stomach. Panic was winning on points. The panic had started from somewhere deep inside him. It was true. It wasn't just glue, it was Gorilla Glue.

Jesus!

That batty woman had Gorilla-Glued him to her bathroom floor. He felt like “The Fly.”

I have a gig in Jacksonville tomorrow night. Go panic! I can't sing Gorilla-Glued to the floor. I've sung drunk. I've sung high, I've sung on mushrooms, I've sung half-asleep, but who the hell can sing SUPERGLUED TO THE BATHROOM FLOOR OF SOME LOONEY I'M CHEATIN' WITH?!

They rescheduled the Jacksonville concert, although the promoter said he was taking it out of his hide. Actually, a good portion of his hide was already missing. His manager had received a call from a woman telling him where the fallen star could be found. Her story was that a couple of thugs had broken into her apartment and overpowered her. The thugs then thought it would be funny to attach our star to the floor with Gorilla Glue. She had somehow “managed” to escape, but was afraid to call the police on account of the bad publicity and all. She was only trying to protect his reputation as the moral and righteous country singer he was. Why, if it hadn't been for her, he might have been found months from now, layin' there like a country ham.

His manager had to call an ER buddy and a carpenter to get him loose. His wife didn't really buy the “attacked by glue-wielding thugs” story. Or his later tale that he'd actually slipped while doing a charity visit to an old-folks home and had fallen into a pile of denture cream—the kind that's super-powerful and grips tight to help you eat corn on the cob.

The wife was spotted two days later driving a new pink Porsche 911.

His girlfriend—correction, ex-girlfriend—sent a message that she had pictures and her lawyer was holding them in case anything happened to her. She told his manager that in one of the shots her ex looked like 200 pounds of Spam on a barbecue spit.

His manager quit.

He had to wear women's panties for three weeks because he was so raw. He also had to ride the bus sitting on one of those kid's inflatable swimming pool tubes. He swore on his great aunt's eyes that he'd never drink or cheat again.

That lasted 'til Saturday night in Lubbock.

His great aunt's vision is fine.

When the waitress reached back and grabbed his ass, the pain was so intense he shouted his wife's name.

Grand Canyon Reba

HERE'S
HOW LAME I AM. I got bored with the Grand Canyon. I have a grandeur limit. I can only take so much fabulousness, and then I start to glaze over. We drove from Phoenix to the Grand Canyon, as excited as could be. Just an early glimpse through the trees of the very edge was like seeing Marilyn Monroe get her skirt blown up. After about five or six pictures and some oohs and aahs, I was over it.

I started looking at other people taking pictures and wondered exactly how many gawkers a year fall backwards smiling for Grandma. Isn't that awful? One of the wonders of the world, truly, the Grand Canyon is, as canyons go, really, really grand. But when it's all said and done, it's really just another sinkhole. Or massive dent in the earth, made by a river. They have trails where you can walk to the bottom of the Grand Canyon and see its grandness from the bottom up. I opted out of that little jaunt.

The most exciting part of my visit to the Grand Canyon? In the restaurant, where you can have wine in case you're not dizzy enough, I saw Davis Love III come in, look around, and dash out. I was more impressed at spotting a pro golfer than I was looking at the magnificence of Momma Nature. Some things I just get bored with.

However, Reba McEntire is not the Grand Canyon. Oh, she's grand all right. She's a wonder of nature, and she's from out west. I never get bored staring at Reba McEntire. I believe she's also the same age. I may be off by a few years.

Let's just call her Reba for now and forever. I think she left her last name somewhere on a bus outside Tulsa. Reba is one of the grandest things in the world, right up there with the Pyramids and, pardon the redundancy, Dolly Parton.

I met “Red” (or, as we often use between each other, “Ruby Two Shoes”) about thirty years ago at some event. She was with her Mercury record execs, and I actually met her three separate times, introduced by various guys. The third time she laughed and said, “I got it. His name is Jurry and he's on the rayjoe.” That's how it sounds to me when she talks. Jurry on the rayjoe.

She has not changed one iota from the first time I saw her—same sense of humor, same voice, same kind way of listening, same direct replies. She's tough as nails but gets misty-eyed at things people say or do. She writes personal, handwritten notes to people to thank them. We're friends. We've traveled together, had dinners together, and worked on TV shows together. I have written a lot of jokes for her over the years when she hosted the
Academy of Country Music Awards
or some other showbiz deal. Make a note: there is nobody tougher on a “line” than Reba, but when she loves it, you can rest assured it's going to be knocked out of the park. She commits to everything. If you've never seen her onstage, she just takes over. It's wonderful to watch. Such poise is rare. We all know how amazing her voice is. And that hasn't changed a bit, either. To me, she still sounds exactly like she did on her first record. Before this gets too icky, let me just say Red is one of my favorite people and leave it at that.

When you write jokes, at least in my case, you stare out the window a lot. Or you keep a little recorder by the bed and sort of drift off and think of things. I've done that my whole life. I'm terrible onstage myself 'cause I get nervous. I can, however, write funny things for other people to say. I write better for Reba than anyone else. I wrote some stuff for Roseanne Barr early in her career when I lived in L.A. Roseanne's husband, Bill (at the time), would call and say, “Rose is going on
Letterman.
Write some jokes about her trying to quit smoking.” So I did. Then I'd turn on
Letterman
and Roseanne would spout the lines I wrote, like she had just thought of them. She was good. This is all I want to say about Roseanne because she's
not
one of my favorite people, and it's taking up Reba talk.

Getting jokes past managers, wives, producers, and publicists is tough. Everybody has an agenda.
Everybody
is paranoid the public will hear something about their act or singing or whatever. It's always easier to just say, “No,” than it is to say, “That's funny.” All I know is Reba's husband, Narvel, sent me a script with a note that read, “Wanna take a whack at this?” I did and have done it many, many times since.

If there's anybody who should take up some Reba time, it's Narvel. Supposedly, he's her manager, but he's a lot more than that; he's also her best friend. He's one stellar human being. How do I know? 'Cause we went with them to one of her concerts in St. Louis or Cleveland or someplace. The place was sold out, as it usually is. Reba was off getting ready, and Narvel, Allyson, manager Trey Turner, and I were just roaming around this massive stadium.

We came around a corner, and there was a blockade set up. Security. NOBODY GETS PAST THE GATE. The ferocious security person eyed us as we walked up. She was probably nineteen, and in a shaky voice said, “Do you have all-access passes? Because no one without one is allowed past this point.”

Now, we didn't have all-access passes because I was with the guy who was in charge of the whole concert and the building and the security and the roadies and everything else.
Nobody
had passes. Over the years, I've seen small people act big. I've watched as people were berated or belittled by some jackasses who thought they were being disrespected in some way. Do you know what Narvel Blackstock said to this nobody security guard who had stopped us?

He said, “You know, you're doin' a great job. Is there any way you could perhaps call the head of security or check backstage to see if somebody can get us in. We'll wait right here 'til you give the go-ahead.”