My demeanor changed and I went from crazy man to crybaby in one beat, like Stuntman Mike in Death Proof.
“One? No way . . . one isn’t my bid! I wasn’t ready, Bob!” I protested as he shooed me off the stage, repeating that one dollar was my bid, end of story. I yelled that he was a liar and threw my name tag to the ground in defiance.
“Pick up your name tag right now and be a good boy, Chris,” Bob scolded me, then followed up with the crack-up coup de grâce: “Or I’m gonna have to take you over my knee.” And for a split second I lost it. I’ve never cracked up on camera . . . ever. Nor have I ever cracked up on a movie set or onstage live with The Groundlings, but when Barker hit me with that line, I literally had to squeeze my lips together to keep from breaking up completely. Thankfully, the camera wasn’t on me or I would’ve looked like Jerry Seinfeld trying to keep from smiling in that Seinfeld episode where . . . well, in just about every Seinfeld episode really.
I went back to the podium realizing that I’d just been schooled by one of the best in show business history. I gained a whole new respect for Bob that night and learned a lot about how to win over a crowd no matter what the demographic.
By the way, I won “The Price Is Raw” and the Smackdown DVD with the closest bid of one dollar, but come to think of it, I don’t recall ever getting the thing.
Bob and I randomly continued our feud for a few years afterward, and fans still ask me if they’ll ever see Bob Barker vs. Chris Jericho at a future WrestleMania. I never say never, but I will say this: Barker, I will take you on anytime, anyplace, anywhere . . . and I want my damn DVD!
Barker and me, getting in each other’s faces on Raw. Between my name tag and Bob’s kick-ass skinny mic, I can barely keep a straight face.
The Flatland Mafia
When I got a call from the WWE magazine editors asking if I’d like to interview Iron Maiden for a story, I said yes before the chance went running free. I’d been a major fan and friend of the band for years, but to actually sit in a room and ask them anything I wanted was a fanboy’s dream come true.
They were set to play The Forum in Los Angeles on their Somewhere Back in Time World Tour and I was planning on going anyway with my best friends, Speewee and Rybo, and my cousin Chad, who was very, very wise. The concert was in L.A. on a Tuesday after Raw on Monday in Anaheim and a PPV on Sunday in Las Vegas, so we decided to make a rock ’n’ roll weekend out of it. The plan was to meet in Vegas and then fly to Anaheim on Monday morning.
So the Flatland Mafia (the name we called ourselves ’cause we’re all from the prairies, eh) assembled in Sin City and after the PPV was over, we hit the strip. We were hanging in da club throwing down cocktails, when I saw Wise Chad standing next to a sweet-lookin’ mama with a face like a gent and a pair of boobs bigger than his head. He was chatting her up with some of his best lines.
“What type of camera lenses do you like to use?” he asked.
Funbags Flanagan stared at him blankly and changed the subject quickly.
“So where are you from?” she asked, her chin resting on her mammaries.
“Yorkton, Saskatchewan,” he replied wisely.
“I used to dance there.”
“Oh, really! What kind of dancing? Ukranian?”
Tits McGhee looked perplexed and disappeared into the crowd. Chad, never one to give up easily, decided to jump up on the table to show off HIS dancing skills, which were most definitely of the Ukranian variety. (This was one of the few unwise decisions he ever made in his life.)
He drew quite a crowd with his hybrid moves that combined traditional Ukranian Koloneku with modern-day Krunking. He had just done a leaping Cossack kick straight into a dirty twerk, when a drunken (and apparently jealous) Speewee gave him a two-handed shove to the chest and pushed him off the table. Wise Chad fell hard onto the wooden floor, shattering a tray of shot glasses and yelping out in pain as the broken glass sliced into his back. I was furious at Speewee for messing with my family and knocked him out cold with a pefect jumping crane kick before helping Chad off the ground.
“I think I cut my back,” he surmised wisely. He turned around and Rybo and I were repulsed by a giant gash in the middle of his back that looked like a vagina.
“Oh my gosh,” Rybo gasped, “he has a BACK PUSSY!”
The ridiculous concept of the back pussy gave us a case of the giggles in spite of poor Chad’s predicament. The bouncers took him to a back room to examine the gaping wound and insisted he needed stitches.
“Stitches?” I said with annoyance. “He don’t need no stinkin’ stitches! Besides, we don’t have time to go to the hospital. [There was a party going on after all.] Can’t you just butterfly the cut? That’ll be good enough.”
We were loaded, so this solution seemed perfectly rational. Combine that with the fact that the alcohol acted as an effective anesthesia (pulling teeth), so Chad wasn’t feeling any pain, and it wasn’t long before he was laughing along with us wisely. The gaping BACK PUSSY was bleeding through his shirt and it was obvious he needed stitches. But the joint was jumpin’ and we were having far too much fun to take him to the hospital to get sewed up. Talk about a buzzkill. Besides, it was his fault for jumping up on the table so unwisely in the first place!
Chad had about twelve hours to get stitched up before the cut healed badly on its own, so we decided to take him into the arena when we got to Raw in Anaheim the next day and let Doc Amann take care of him. With that problem solved, we were kings as we raised our double Crowns to the sky and drained them in one gulp as the party raged on. . . .
. . . I woke up in our suite in the Planet Hollywood hotel sprawled across the floor with my clothes on, eyes red and head pounding. I gazed at the authentic Terminator outfit worn by Arnold Schwarzenegger on display in the middle of our room, and vaguely remembered using a chair to try to break through the bulletproof glass it was encased in so I could wear the leather ensemble myself. Thankfully, I’d failed.
I could tell by the way the sunlight was streaming through the window that we had overslept. We were supposed to take a nine thirty A.M. flight to John Wayne Airport in Santa Ana, but the clock on the dresser said 9:22 A.M. Since we were on the West Coast, Raw was going to start at six P.M. sharp, which meant my call time was eleven A.M. I’d inquired about changing my flight the day before and found out all of the later ones were sold out. So in order to make the show that night, I had no choice but to drive the five hours to Anaheim . . . but to get there on time, we were going to have to leave ASAFP!
“Wake up! Wake Up!” I screamed, running from room to room throughout the suite, trying to arouse the corpses strewn about the floor. They looked like extras from Drunk of the Dead as they slowly shambled from their alcoholic graves, hair askew and clothes disheveled. Twenty minutes later, the five of us (including BACK PUSSY, which had swollen to an ugly size) were in the car on the way to Anaheim. We had rushed out of the room so fast that I almost forgot something . . . my hangover. But once we got in the car, it caught up to me with a vengeance and slammed me harder than Big John Studd.
The sun was shining brightly that day, my friends, and it beamed directly into my eyes for the whole trip, driving its warm spikes of brightness straight into my brain. To make it to the arena on time we had to drive straight through with no stops for eating. So we were a tired, hungry, sweaty, motley crew when we arrived at the Honda Center in Anaheim a little after three P.M.
I hustled Chad inside to get stitched up, and after giving a valiant fight, BACK PUSSY was closed up for a thousand years like Satan in the abyss. Then a few minutes later I found out that for the first time in a decade of being employed by the WWE, I wasn’t booked on Raw. Usually, I would’ve pitched a fit and demanded to know why, but considering that I felt like prison ass, I considered this to be a gift from the heavens. I wasn’t totally free to go into the dressing room and puke on my pants, though, as my boy La
rry King was there to film a behind-the-scenes look at the WWE and insisted I be involved. Larry decided he wanted to end the show with a shot of me escorting him out of the arena to his car. Not sure exactly why he chose me specifically, but I was happy to do it despite the fact I was as green as Gumby.
King greeted me with a hug and we filmed a quick segment explaining some of the backstage preparation that was required to make Raw happen. Then I walked with him to the parking lot (“I’m surprised you actually have legs, Larry. I thought you were just a talking torso.”) and off he went. The whole thing took ten minutes, but I still felt like a shit sandwich and needed some fresh air. I propped myself against the wall of the arena and closed my eyes to clear some of the cobwebs out of my head. When I opened them up, Lindsay Lohan was standing beside me, smoking a cigarette.
With her reddish-blond hair and devil-may-care attitude, she was looking kind of right. She was there for a Make-A-Wish appearance and I hadn’t seen her since I was hanging out with Axl Rose in NYC at four A.M. years earlier. (Don’t cry if you haven’t heard the story; it’s all in my travel guide, Undisputed, available at service stations everywhere.) We exchanged nods, then she crushed out the smoke with her heel and got into her waiting SUV. As the driver pulled away, she looked out the window and blew me a kiss.
I blew her kiss back, then threw up all over the side of the Honda Center.
—
Twenty-four hours later I was in a room with Adrian Smith and Dave Murray, asking them every question I’d ever wanted to ask them since I was a teenager.
“Who were your influences as a guitar player?”
“How was it being involved with the Hear ’n Aid project?”
“What are your favorite Maiden songs to play? Your favorite solos you’ve ever written?”
It was like hanging with Ozzy all over again as they answered everything I wanted to know about the band, their early years, and their memories about wrestling (Mick McManus was their favorite as kids). It was a great experience as a fan and as a writer and I got a killer story out of it to boot.
The interview had been set up by Maiden’s manager, Rod Smallwood, who invited us to the band’s after-show party later on. After a sweaty and amazing show (I elbowed my way through the crowd to get to the very front of the stage), me, Speewee, Rybo, Wise Chad, Eli Roth (who was wearing an awesome T-shirt with Fellini spelled in Maiden lettering across the front), and his brother Gabe went backstage to “Rod’s Room” for the party. Being that the show was in L.A, there was a star-studded who’s who of heavy metal royalty milling about. Kerry King was talking to Scott Ian, Tom Morello was debating with Phil Campbell, and Paul Gargano was having a Jack Daniel’s with Lemmy. I had a short conversation (of course it was) with Ronnie James Dio, who remembered me spilling red wine on him years earlier and checked my hands to make sure I wasn’t holding a glass. I didn’t have any wine, but there was plenty of vodka poured for me by Maiden guitarist Janick Gers himself.
Then Lars Ulrich walked in, wearing a Saxon T-shirt and holding his leather jacket over his shoulder. We talked for a bit (“How’s Winnipeg?” he asked me, apparently thinking I still lived there) before Rybo told him the story of how Lars had rear-ended his girlfriend . . . literally. Before a Metallica show in Winnipeg, Lars had rented a car to check out some local sights and ran through a red light. He rammed right into Rybo’s woman from behind (still doesn’t sound right) and got her passes to that evening’s show as a peace offering (Canadians never sue). With the ice once again broken and the fact I’d had a few more of Jannick’s vodkas at that point, I decided to do my patented Lars imitation for him. (You wanna hear it? Ask me next time we meet.) He didn’t seem to think it was as funny as I did but gave me a sympathy smirk and said he’d see me in a bit.
A few minutes later I saw him in the corner talking to Steve Harris, Maiden’s bassist and one of my all-time heroes. I couldn’t believe that the architects of two of my top three favorite bands (alas, no John Lennon) were having a conversation together. What could they possibly be talking about?! It was a great moment in metal history and I had to get a picture with them . . . I HAD TO!! But how? I couldn’t very well interrupt them, as this was a private party with no fans allowed and, if I outed myself as one, I could get booted.
But there was another way.
When I was in high school in Winnipeg and hung out at the Polo Park Inn, hoping to meet wrestlers, my friend Wallass and I devised a system to get pictures with the guys we were too afraid to talk to. He would stand next to the wall, and when a wrestler walked into camera frame, I would call his name. The guy would turn and look at the lens, Wallass would smile, and bingo . . . it looked like the two of them had taken a picture together. Since Steve and Lars weren’t on the move, I gave up on the idea of having them look at the camera, but I could still stand behind them for a snap, right? They were having a face-to-face conversation, so if I went to the right place, it would look like I was standing between them.
So I grabbed Rybo and gave my phone to Eli, assuming he’d get the right shot since he was a famous film director and all. I was totally nervous walking behind them for I could feel the majestical electrical force field of rock they were creating just by being in the same room together. Their combined metal powers could’ve messed up the entire time-space continuum had they so desired, but luckily for all of us mere mortals, they had decided to use their powers for good.
We got to the exact spot we needed to be in and looked up at the camera. Eli was cocked and ready to shoot, knowing we might only get one chance, as one glance in either direction by Steve or Lars would kill the moment. If they saw the two of us standing behind them smiling or noticed a guy pointing a phone at their faces, they would be onto us and the jig would be up. Thankfully, they were so ensconced in their metal summit, they didn’t notice us. Rybo and I looked at the camera with a goofy grin, and Eli, the master auteur, snapped the perfect picture of the two of them engaged in conversation with the two of us standing perfectly in the middle, grinning like maniacs.
Not only was the groundbreaking metal meeting caught in time forever, Eli’s picture also documented the sole gathering of the heaviest supergroup ever: Iron MetalliFozzBo.
Maybe I need to work on that name a bit.
—
It was great connecting with Eli at the Maiden gig, as we’d been friends for years but hadn’t seen each other in a long time. We rekindled our friendship that night and he invited me to the Hollywood premiere of Inglourious Basterds, the epic Quentin Tarantino film that Eli had a major part in, a few weeks later. It was fun watching him in the role of the Bear Jew in the Arclight Theater on Sunset, the exact theater where he’d shown me the rough cut of his movie Hostel a few years earlier.
After the film ended, he had a big party at his house in the Hollywood Hills to celebrate. I was hobnobbing wih the beautiful people outside by his pool, when I saw a decidedly unbeautiful person hanging in the corner. He had a hook nose, a strange ruffled haircut, and a little bit of a potbelly. He was quiet, he was a little awkward, he was Quentin Tarantino.
The director stood in a crowd of people, looking like he would rather be somewhere else. But he wasn’t being rude; he was actually engaging and cordial. So I was working up my courage to go and say hi (he’s one of my favorite filmmakers of all time) but I couldn’t think of the right opening line, and saying “My name is Chris too” wasn’t gonna cut it this time. But before I could get up the nerve, I saw him and Eli making their way through the crowd, as if they were leaving.
Not knowing too many people at the party, I figured if Eli was gonna split, then I would too. I chased him down and asked him what was up.
“Quentin and I are going to go upstairs to my theater room and watch A Fistful of Dollars. Wanna join us?”
I wasn’t much of a spaghetti Western fan, but getting the chance to watch a movie in an intimate setting with a cinematic genius l
ike Tarantino was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. I was looking forward to hearing the insight and thoughts he would have while just checking out the film like a regular Quentin.
Eli’s theater room was very froot, exactly the type of place you’d expect to find in an award-winning director’s house. He introduced me to QT, who was much more animated inside the house than he was outside. You could tell he was much more comfortable around smaller groups of people.
“I’m going through a huge Sergio Leone phase. He was definitely the front-runner and king of all spaghetti Western directors, don’t you agree?” he said with his trademark rapid-fire speech pattern. I agreed with him, even though I couldn’t name another spaghetti Western director to save my life.
“Really? You like the spaghettis too, huh? What’s your favorite?”
Uh-oh, this was getting uncomfortable. I didn’t want to give the obvious answer, A Fistful of Dollars, since the DVD case was on the table in front of me. So I searched through my mental Rolodex and found the title of another “spaghetti,” The Good, The Bad and The Ugly.
“Ahhhh.” He nodded his head vociferously. “Another classic. What’s your favorite scene?”
Wow, that was a tough question. So many classic scenes to choose from! And since I’d never seen the movie, I didn’t know any of them.
I hemmed and hawed, stuttering back and forth about how there were so many amazing Eastwood moments in the film (was Eastwood even in it?), hoping that some cinematic higher power would send me some sort of escape, fast.
The Gods of Movie Trivia didn’t appear, but the Goddesses of the Female Bladder (works for me) did, as two starlets slammed open the theater room door at that exact moment, looking for the bathroom. Quentin may not have been much of a conversationalist in a crowd, but he was a smooth-tongued devil with the ladies and persuaded the two of them to stay and watch the spaghetti with us. I breathed a sigh of relief to be let off the fork as he’d shifted his attention to the girls and forgot what we were talking about.
The Best in the World Page 17