by Gerry House
I’ve heard many, many people repeat the same old stories about how so-and-so was most certainly a queen and everyone knew it. I also know I’ve actually been sitting beside the “rumored to be gay” star and witnessed firsthand their attraction to a passing female fan. I can only say if they are gay, they have mastered the art of covering it by flirting, buying drinks, and inviting babes on the bus for a quick overnighter to Peoria. The same target of the rumor mill is also one of the biggest and most consistent Casanovas in history. Somehow, night after night, they manage to contain their gayness by chasing cuties on the road. Having their roadies pick out Bambis for special backstage passes and even being given “Hottie Alert” locations in the audience so he can wink at them during the concert. Protesting too much is one thing, but nobody can keep up appearances that much. Oh, I’m certain there are closet cases, but if these guys are in the closet, they are also in the witness protection program. It’s impressive.
It’s the clothing styles of country music that amaze me. Not so much anymore, but the early stars who really dressed like they should be in the Village People. I know Manuel, designer to the stars. He is one fabulous human being. His clothes are works of art, but you gotta be pretty secure to walk onstage in a lavender jacket with red roses on the lapels and white leather boots. Truly, a lot of Porter Wagoner’s classic outfits could easily be reused for a local production of La Cage aux Folles. Visit the Country Music Hall of Fame sometime and see if you don’t think those costumes weren’t made for Marty Robbins but Martina Robbins.
And the hair. Let’s not forget the hair of the ages. Puffed and buffed and shaped and whipped and teased and bullied into positions that don’t normally occur in nature. I’m sorry, but I think there is such a thing as Gay Hair. Ridiculous, to be sure, but it’s another of my theories. It’s not the length—sometimes it’s a buzz-cut to the scalp—but it’s a giveaway.
Look, I’m as gossipy and nosy as everyone else. I’m a total hypocrite in light of all my “none of my business” pronouncements. It is none of my business, but I still sit around with songwriting buddies and wonder out loud, “Who’s he trying to fool?” I’m sorry to fans and hope you won’t take it the wrong way, but I have long suspected there are several major Hillbilly Twang Slingers who ride Side Saddle.
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 s
pit.
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.”
She scurried off and in five minutes some embarrassed security guy who recognized Mr. Blackstock came flying out. “Oh, my God, Narvel, I’m sorry.” Mr. Blackstock just waved it off and said, “No problem. That’s what’s she’s supposed to do, and thanks so much for helpin’ us out. I really appreciate it.” What class!
Can I mention the Dixie Chicks here? It’s because when I think of Reba, I think of the George W./ACM/Dixie Chicks/“We’re ashamed that the president is from Texas” stuff. I don’t know exactly what Red thinks of the Chicks. She was hosting the Academy of Country Music Awards, and all that Dixie Chicks stuff was exploding.
I know I was probably a little hard on them. They could say what they wanted even though I didn’t agree with it. I’ve only met Natalie Maines a few times. I always got the feeling she wanted to shoot at me or something. Nothing overt, it was just that she always seemed a little “tense,” if you know what I mean. I thought the other two Chicks, sisters Martie and Emily, were part of the background and that Natalie was the star. Plus, Natalie chewed gum when she was doing interviews, and I think that’s reason enough right there for imprisonment. Wearing headphones while somebody smacks away into a microphone is maddening.
I think the Chicks could have survived the whole “W” comment if they’d left well enough alone. Instead, they got angry. I get that. I do the same thing. They probably felt P.O.’d that people thought they were against the troops, and I’m positive they didn’t think that at all. In fact, I’ve yet to meet anyone who is against the troops. Natalie and the girls started firing back at country music, Nashville, and everyone in their line of sight. It cost them dearly in the music biz.
Now, I will admit that I wrote the joke that Reba told about how “People in Vegas will gamble on anything. They’re now taking bets on the chances the Dixie Chicks will perform at the next Bush family barbecue.”
Reba said it, and I thought it was really kinda harmless. As the storm clouds gathered over the Chicks during the following year, it was time for another Reba-hosted ACM show. The Ch
icks, especially Natalie, had really carpet-bombed Reba, Toby Keith, and others. It got pretty nasty out there. Do you remember seeing George Bush, the President of the United States, getting off a plane and being asked about the Chicks’ comment? You should know Reba likes George W. Bush and especially his father, George H.W. Bush. Red and Narvel took a cruise with George the Dad, and she was as excited as I’ve ever seen her.
So, you take a whack at Red’s friend, then you take a shot across her bow, and guess what? You get fired back at. A lot of times I sent stuff to Reba thinking, There’s no way she’ll do this. Those are usually the jokes she does. I wrote something down that was funny to me. It was funny to Ruby Two Shoes. Toward the end of the nationally televised broadcast, Reba McEntire said, “Boy, I don’t know why I was so nervous about hosting this show this year. I mean if the Dixie Chicks can sing with their feet in their mouth, surely I can host this sucker.”
Narvel told me later, “That went off like a bomb in the audience.” People were jumping out of their chairs screaming and applauding. I remember that John Rich shot out of his seat like a cannon. I doubt any of the Chicks will ever speak to me again. They didn’t talk to me much anyhow. I like Natalie’s haircut.
I got an e-mail from Reba not too long ago that read, “Ger, do you realize it’s been twenty-five years since I recorded ‘Little Rock’?”
Yikes! That song, which I cowrote with the great Bob DiPiero and Pat McManus, helped pay for my kid’s braces. Twenty-five years? Has it been that long?