by Gerry House
Always the pro, Valerie then turned to the camera and said, “We’ll be right back with more from the State Fair. We’ll get to meet a teenager who is famous for being naked.”
We never did another live show from the State Fair.
Country Music Causes Brain Damage
COUNTRY MUSIC CAUSES brain damage. Yes, I know what you’re thinking: if this doofus can write a book, I’m certain it will prove his theory. You’re right, of course. I am, however, writing as a observer and battle-scarred veteran of the hillbilly wars. For more than thirty-five years, I’ve been subjected to country music. I’ve been immersed in it. I am the lab rat on the other end of the mountain music ray gun. When I say brain damage, I mean the usual things that I’ve seen people do or say that leave no doubt that a steel guitar and three chords will change the cerebral makeup of a person.
I’m talkin’ about lyin’ and cheatin’ and drinkin’ and smokin’ folks. And those are just the religious ones I know who listen to country music. In fact, they are usually the worst. I’m talkin’ about stealin’ ideas, fistfights, drugs, divorces, car chases, cussin’ and spittin’, not sleeping for a week, ordering mail-order chickens, dying your hair prematurely jet-black, wearin’ headgear you don’t qualify for, murder, mail fraud, wacky ’baccy, liar’s poker, bottles of Jack Daniel’s, and pyramids of beer cans.
I specifically know that this blessed genre of hick art will eventually result in shoplifting, sex in convertibles, jumping out of windows, snake handling, potshots, bacon grease, illegal bus stops, immoral business practices, and peeing in the sink. If you’d seen as many backroom-dealing, wife-hugging, fake hair, three-timing, coke-sniffing, radio-bribing, carjacking, golf-cheating, mansion-buying, horse-trading, whacked-out cowboys as I have, you’d know I ain’t lyin’.
I’ve always said that there are two things that cause the most grief in the world: somebody’s gettin’ somethin’ I ain’t gettin’, and my God is better than your God. On a global level, that’s probably true, but country music and brain disaster are a very close third, ahead of global warming, the economy, and today’s modern radio.
I’m only here to serve as an early warning system. As the tornado siren of Nashville, I’m going off at full blast just so you can’t say, “Why didn’t you warn me?” So here I am. This is your final warning. It’s singers and songwriters, publishers and managers, and record people and radio people, all interconnected like some giant dysfunctional family and all joined at the hip by their involvement one way or the other to what’s been called “America’s Music.”
It’s no wonder this country is in trouble. Country is more popular than it’s ever been. Oh, sure, it’s inspiring and touching. It honors God and family and kids and horses and riding around in a truck. That’s all well and good. I’m just saying, from what I’ve observed with my own lyin’ eyes, there’s something going on between C & W and an MRI.
I also want to say I wouldn’t have had it any other way. I love 98 percent of these people. Like Lot’s wife, they are the salt of the earth. The other 2 percent I hope are abducted by aliens and have their buttocks probed.
So here we go. My story. My evidence. Country music causes brain damage.
Johnny Paycheck
BEFORE JOHNNY PAYCHECK left this planet in 2003, I had not seen him in a few years. He is a great example of “my country vs. your brain” theory. Johnny was a genius at singing and questionable at life. He truly was an outlaw. He actually went to prison. Johnny was old-school. I’m also fairly certain Johnny was no-school. His greatest recording achievement was “Take This Job and Shove It,” a true two minutes and thirty-five seconds of blue-collar, frustration-busting music that nearly everyone felt in their soul and a one-finger salute to every bad boss we’ve all ever had. Johnny also could get slightly out of control.
In a bar in Ohio, he fired a .22 at a guy’s head and served the same amount of months in prison for trying to give the dude cranial air-conditioning. Talk about brain damage. The guy didn’t meet his maker, but it certainly put a crimp in Johnny’s concert schedule. Early in my career in Nashville, while I hosted a morning radio show, I also occasionally filled in for the host on a local TV program and that was the first time I met Johnny Paycheck.
We were set up to do the show live from a bar in the downtown nightclub district of Printer’s Alley. The place still reeked of the night before. Eau de Honky-Tonk was in the air. I squeezed onto the front of the tiny stage crowded with ancient equipment and a couple of microphones to start the show promptly at 9 A.M. The TV klieg lights had that little club percolatin’ along at about 125 degrees. I’m gonna guess here that Johnny had not been home resting up the evening prior to this historic TV appearance.
I interviewed Mr. Paycheck several times in later years on the radio, and I’ve said in public that interviewing Johnny Paycheck was like interviewing a chimp—a lovely chimp. He was pleasant, but quite active, and prone to unexpected leaps, squawks, noises, grimaces, and bursts of maniacal laughter. That morning in a smoky honky-tonk, Johnny was in rare form. He was so wired I thought he was gonna burst into flames at any second.
It was forty-five minutes until we would go live on Channel 2. Johnny was bouncing around the back of the stage like a fly in a bass drum. Then one of his “handlers” sidled up to me and whispered, “We have a problem.”
“What?” I worried.
“Johnny don’t got his teeth.”
I was sure I didn’t hear that correctly. “Johnny don’t got his what?”
He said again, firmly this time, “Johnny don’t got his teeth. He thinks he left ’em on the nightstand at his motel.”
(Maybe John did rest up a little before this show.) I took a stab. “Do you have someone who can make a teeth run for him?”
Not wanting to volunteer himself, the “associate” replied, “Johnny said he’d go, but I’m afraid he won’t come back. I’ll see if the drummer is up for it.”
It was then that I waved at Johnny, who was back in the dark, bouncing around like a kid on a trampoline. He waved back and gave me the biggest, gummiest grin I’d ever seen. This was not going well. . . . There was only a half hour to go before showtime.
Finally, I saw the drummer sullenly walk out the swinging doors to retrieve Johnny’s smile. I’m pretty sure he had lost a bet. Apparently, Johnny really needed his teeth. “He sings like Gabby Hayes if he don’t got ’em!” the bass player said.
Once in Texas, on a particularly forceful version of “Take This Job,” Johnny hit the word “shove,” and his dentures took a flying shot into some poor lady’s beehive in the front row. Spit his dentures right there, next to her bow.
I was a nervous wreck. My producer was a nervous wreck. Johnny was a hopped-up gummy disaster and didn’t seem to have a care in the world. The drummer arrived at 8:57 A.M. with a red handkerchief full of uppers, and at 9:02, Johnny was in full-blown wail and smiling for all of Nashville to see. If you were considering taking that job and shoving it, this was your song.
Johnny was a sweet man and hung in there for a little extra run at country music. He came back from some scary tour of low-rent bars in Europe. He’d brought me a bottle of “foreign wine from one of them Swede-y countries,” as he put it. I still can’t hear that song without thinking of the magic of country music, the glorious wonder of showbiz, and that Texas lady’s hair.
Glossary of Terms
BEFORE WE GET TOO far along into the business of country music and radio, I think I need to give you some definitions of words that are thrown around a lot. I hope this glossary provides you with a backdrop of understanding to help you slog through the rest of this. Therefore, and calypso facto, here are the words you need to know:
Advance: Money given to a writer or an artist before they’ve done anything to deserve it. Usually takes several careers to pay back.
Airplay: What kids do with invisible guitars.
Agent: Person who books you one night in Calgary and the next night in Peru.
Clearance: Music you record that you found at a yard sale.
Cloud: Where you store digital property, or what’s over Willie’s bus.
Deal: What two parties agree to that they totally disagree on later when there is a triple-platinum record.
Distribution: Formerly massive record stores, now on some kid’s computer in India.
EPK: Ethiopian Pizza Kitchen.
Get Signed: Securing a record deal, or what Bill Engvall does to people.
Independent: Record people who don’t have to listen to a mega-corporate vice president. However, they usually do have to report to some guy who owns a chain of Mazda dealerships.
Jewel Case: What Tim McGraw wears in his pants.
Jingle: What you give to someone when you want to talk to them on the phone.
“Key Man” Clause: Unspoken agreement giving you the right to hire somebody to break into an office to see how badly you’re being ripped off.
Points: When an artist’s manager gestures to other people when his act is upset. For example, “That dude right there in the T-shirt drank all your Jack.”
Public Domain: Music that can only be played in parks and public bathrooms.
Recoup: Getting all your money back, or what you do when your chickens get loose.
Sampling: Those little pieces of food on a toothpick at Winn-Dixie.
Session: A three-hour time period set up for expensive musicians to noodle around for the first two hours and forty-five minutes.
Streaming: You know your career is in trouble if you see the audience doing this out the back door during your third song.
Americana: Folk music for geeks. Usually performed by artists who don’t have a record deal anymore or never had one.
Mother Church of Country Music: The name of Garth Brooks’ estate in Oklahoma.
Outlaw: Older artists who have actually been to prison, as opposed to new artists who didn’t return a library book.
Set List: What roadies present to the star showing where the best hooters are in the audience.
Press Release: Lies sent to newspapers, radio, and TV. Also, how you open the bathroom door on a tour bus.
Backstage Pass: What you make at a babe backstage.
Pitch: What artists do out the window to songs handed to them by people as they leave the venue.
Publisher: Person who cashes the royalty check first to be sure the songwriter won’t spend it foolishly.
Strat: Guitar, or someone who is both strong and fat.
Spiritual Adviser: Person who buys all the hooch for the tour.
Fitness Trainer: How a woman wearing nothing but panties and boots is introduced when she wanders off the bus in the parking lot at Denny’s.
Music Row: The heartbeat of country music that needs to be shocked back to life every ten years.
DJ: Person who plays songs on the radio and is massively underpaid.
Air Personality: Person who talks too much on the radio and is massively overpaid.
Sidekick: Person who reminds hung-over Air Personality what he was talking about during awkward silences.
Pickin’ ‘n’ Grinnin’: With guitar, it’s country music. Without guitar, it’s often disturbing to watch.
Roadie: Person who hauls all the stuff offstage while the star has left for his jet.
Country & Western: What people from New York and L.A. call country music.
Dipshits: What country people call people who say, “Country & Western.”
Hillbilly: Loving reference to rural types who have an underfunded dental plan.
Rednecks: Proud group who are convinced the world is a better place because of large trucks, country music, and women with tattoos.
45: Early vinyl music product or required breast size for redneck women.
33-1/3: Original speed of vinyl albums. Also, IQ of most disc jockeys.
Banjo Player: Person who has never said the phrase: “Wanna go for a ride in my Porsche?”
Steel Guitar: Country instrument mostly used to get prisoners of war to confess.
Manager: Individual who tells country music artist he’s brilliant every day and then cancels all decisions made by artist.
PR Rep: Gets artist an appearance on a TV show he doesn’t want to do after the artist has complained he never gets on any TV shows.
Meet ‘n’ Greet: How artists meet their second wives.
Groupie: Fairly attractive young woman who believes riding on a bus all night to Dothan, Alabama, is the dream of a lifetime.
Producers: Usually hit by a train because they can’t hear anything.
Recording Engineer: Secretly produces the album when the producer passes out in the parking lot.
The Mix: One of several hundred variations of a recording. Each version is never liked by more than one person at any one time.
A&R Coordinator: Finds hit songs for artists who turn them down for a song they wrote last night with a groupie.
Promo Guy: Honest person who buys sixty-inch flat-screen television for radio program director, strictly as a token of love and respect.
Payola: Rumored under-the-table payoffs for airplay; have always been total fiction.
Arbitron Ratings: Radio audience figures, compiled with no basis in science or reason, used to fire Air Personalities.
Tracking Session: Professional musicians play instrumental parts of a record based upon a different song that sounds like the one they’re recording now.
Radio Listeners: People who call and request the song the DJ is currently playing.
Radio Remote: Public appearances by radio personnel at car dealerships for purpose of giving away station bumper stickers and ruining the afternoon for nearly everyone involved.
Radio Engineer: Guy who smokes cigarettes and fixes broken equipment just by walking into a room and saying, “Let me try it.”
Business Manager: Person who fails to convince artist that investing all his money in glow-in-the-dark condoms is a bad idea.
CD: Piece of plastic that never goes back into the other piece of plastic that has the title of the piece of plastic on the front.
Jukebox: Ancient record player found in bars that takes quarters and should never be rocked.
Honky-Tonk: Dive with music. Pickled eggs at the end of the bar usually a requirement.
Radio Sales Rep: Person who promises to client that Air Personality will do a remote broadcast every Saturday at car dealership for free.
MP3: Music file that is returned to sender because mailbox is full.
Songwriters: Unhappiest people in the world because the deck is stacked against them.
Songplugger: First person to arrange stacked deck against songwriters. Also second-unhappiest person in the world because writers turn in such crappy songs.
Fragrance: Endorsed odor of star. Actually smelling like star not a requirement.
Bus Driver: 50+ male with the patience of Job and the kidneys of a camel.
Hair Stylist: Young male who works five hours on artists’ hair so they can cover it with a hat.
Clothing Stylist: Young female who explains to female artist that all stage clothes shrink on a bus and have to be made larger over time.
Radio Contesting: Way to give away concert tickets to listener who says, “I hope they’re better than the seats I won last week.”
Segue: Music with no space in between for Air Personality to do a “bit.”
Bit: Joke that Air Personality heard last night on Letterman.
12-in-a-Row: Presentation of songs that radio programmers think is major genius.
Swag: Promotional items given away that wind up in yard sales.
Classic Country: Collection of ten to twenty songs played endlessly for people who don’t like anything that sounds remotely new.
Hank: Artist referenced constantly by new artists who hardly know who he is. See also: Jones, Haggard, Waylon, and Hank Jr.
One-Hit Wonder: What failed artists would give their right arm to be.
&nb
sp; Cowriter: Person who actually writes the song while the artist is on a cell phone to landscaper.
The Lid Incident and Smoking with a Monkey
WHEN I WAS FIVE, a very traumatic thing happened to me. I was pretty small, and I took advantage of it. Whenever I had to take a leak, I would stand at the big porcelain target in our only bathroom and lay my pecker on the edge of the bowl. This freed up both hands, and I could just relax and go about my business.
One day I reached for a towel and, I guess, brushed against the back of the toilet seat. The next few moments happened in slow motion. All I remember is standing there with my male glory laid like a guilty Frenchman at the guillotine. I just froze as I watched the 400-pound solid oak lid come crashing down toward my favorite appendage. I heard someone screaming like he’d had a massive piece of wood smash directly on top of his willie. My mom (who’d been next door and still heard me) came rushing into the narrow bathroom and scooped me up. “Oh, my darling, you squished your weenie, didn’t you?”
It was a pretty obvious observation, but I whimpered something that resembled “yes.” At that point, my father heard the commotion and was roused from his giant brown easy chair by the police radio and wandered in to check on the situation.
My mother was grief-stricken. My father thought it was hilarious. I leaned more toward my mother’s reaction. My father asked if he could view the damaged dingus for himself. Mom wondered aloud if we should go to the doctor. It was then I learned my dad was funny. He said, “Well, if you do, see if he can take away the pain but leave the swelling.” At the time the humor flew right over my head, but for years afterward, it became known as the “lid incident.” We laughed about it ’til he passed away.
The lesson that I take from that experience is that sometimes, in the midst of what is the worst possible situation, there might be something funny going on. I don’t mean grace under pressure; I panic probably more than most people. But making fun of something awful, embarrassing, or painful can sometimes help the situation. Or get you punched out. You have to judge the situation case by case. Realizing you’re at your lowest and learning to laugh at it is, however, a good quality.