“Do you know how hard your father and I have to drink to keep a roof over our heads?” my mom demanded one evening.
“No,” I cracked, “but hum a few bars and I’ll fake it.”
And Trey growled, and Mom backed away.
Little else is known of my early childhood, but by the age of seven I was performing at snake festivals and army installations all up and down the Eastern Seaboard—me favoring the folks with everything from “Celeste Aida” to “The Caissons Go Rolling Along,” and good old Trey a-whistlin' and doing his signature two-step.
I lost Trey one night on the road. We had caught a ride on a bus full of sanctified youth—the High Lonesome Sunbeams, is how they were billed—and while I was grabbing some welcome shut-eye, one of the Sunbeams provoked Trey into biting one of the other ones. I think the first Sunbeam must have convinced Trey that the second one was going to do me some harm. Nothing else would have made old Trey lose his cool.
Anyway, I woke up somewhere north of Fort Mudge, and I knew something was wrong. For the first time in my life, as I rubbed the sleep out of my tired little eyes, I did not hear Trey's special whistle that said, “Hurrah! My boy is up!” My old pal Trey—after being framed, entrapped, egged on into biting that Sunbeam—had been tossed cruelly off the bus. Well, I coldcocked both Sunbeams in question, and never forgave them either, even though, looking back on it, to be fair, it was probably castration that had made them mean.
And I jumped off that bus and hightailed it back down the highway on foot, in the pitch-dark, crying my little heart out and promising the Lord that if He could just let me find my little buddy Trey…
ENOUGH!
I made every bit of that story up, except for the twins. I can't sing a damn lick and never could, nor dance, either, by any kind of public-performance standard. (Actually it wasn't the loss of Trey that broke my heart; it was Lesley’s reaction as I undertook to cut a rug with her onstage.)
Maybe I’ve never applied myself enough. One of the things I worry about, in case there is an afterlife, is that I’ll show up and St. Peter will find my name on the roll and say, “Oh, yes, Mr. Chief Justice,” and I’ll say, “Hunh?” and he’ll say, “Wait a minute. It says here…You weren’t even on the Supreme Court? You were supposed to be.”
“Well,” I’ll say, “I didn’t go to law school.”
“Why not? Your daddy kept saying you ought to, didn’t he?”
“Yes, but that was because I argued with him so much. About what I ought to. So, of course, I—”
“What a shame. Oh well, at least you had the satisfaction of your recording career.”
“Hunh? By no means. I never could sing at all.”
“What? It says here . . . Look, sing something for me.”
“No, sir. I’d really rather not. Not up here, of all places. I mean—ask Mitch.”
“Mitch isn’t here yet. Elvis wants to meet him, by the way. But never mind that—come on, sing!”
“Okay, I warned you. I’m the Sheik of Aaa-ra-bee…”
“Oooh! Stop! Cut! Quit it! No wonder you think you can’t sing—you’re holding your mouth wrong!”
But that’s an unlikely scenario. Here’s what actually did happen to me onstage with the Remainders: As long as I kept my singing way back down in my vocal apparatus where it was just between me and the song, I could feel stirred into the general mix. And I liked the people I was jumping up and down among so much, and the crowd we were doing it in front of seemed not to mind that we were doing it, that I expect it was the closest I’m probably going to get, with that many people at once, to honey from the honeycomb. The only thing wrong about performing in a band is that after you come home, unless you catch yourself, you’ll be hugging too many people—the FedEx man, the lady in the drugstore, the veterinarian’s assistant.
So thanks for letting me be a Remainder, everybody, especially Kathi. Last night I listened to a cassette tape of Kathi singing, with her friend Kathy Enright (who joined us on the LA gig): “My eyes are turned toward heaven and my butt is in this bar,” and I thought: “Aw, man. I’ll bet some nights now she sings it the other way around.”
“634-5789”, Illustration by Joan Griswold during the taping of the Craig Ferguson show.
Ted’s Management Lesson #5:
Cultural Sensitivity
When the Remainders appeared on Good Morning America, I added a contract rider stipulating that Roy Blount Jr., a Southerner, required grits for breakfast. No one in the band has ever had a food requirement (except Amy, who has this thing against portobello mushrooms as a meat substitute. Can’t say I blame her.) Roy has never demanded grits. But the look on his face when the crew brought a big pan of grits for breakfast? Priceless.
Q&A with Roy
Q: What’s one song that RBR never played that you wish they had?
A: The song I sort of regret we never did is “Ain’t I’m a Dog.” I say sort of, because on the one hand, it was going to be my solo (Kathi’s idea), but on the other hand, I sucked singing it. Al Kooper (I’m talking back in the day, way back in the day) agreed even more so than I did. And I myself agreed fairly strongly that I sucked singing it. But I do wish I had sung it and it hadn’t sucked. Although I think everybody hated the song even independent of my rendition of it. But no doubt I did rendition it badly. (Once, in case I didn’t already say this, Kathi had me sing a Roger Miller song, “Tall Tall Trees.” This was in North Carolina, independent of the Remainders. I love Roger Miller. I guess “Tall Tall Trees” is a pretty simple song. I sucked.) Then I was going to be Charlie Brown at one point. “Why’s evuhbody always picking on me?” I did do that once in a show, actually, didn’t I, and I thought I nailed it, but (saddest of words, of tongue or pen) maybe not.
Two Truths and a Lie
Two of the following statements about Ridley and Dave are true. Which one is a lie?
Select a choice:
On a book tour once, Ridley got into trouble with the TSA for trying to smuggle his toothpaste through security in his pants pocket.
Ridley did this at Dave’s suggestion.
When it looked as though Ridley might miss his flight, Dave felt bad.
Results: Two Truths and a Lie
See what percentage of the Remainders and all other readers picked each answer
On a book tour once, Ridley got into trouble with the TSA for trying to smuggle his toothpaste through security in his pants pocket. Readers: 29%
Remainders: 0%
Ridley did this at Dave’s suggestion. Readers: 6%
Remainders: 14%
When it looked as though Ridley might miss his flight, Dave felt bad. Readers: 65%
Remainders: 86%
Q&A with the Barry Brothers
Dave is often touted as the funniest person in the world. But within the Barry family Sam gets a few votes. So what would be better than Sam and Dave combined?
What are some of the weirdest places you’ve been recognized?
Sam: The band was walking a gauntlet of autograph seekers outside the NYC studio at Good Morning America and a woman handed me a RBR poster and asked me for my autograph. While I was signing, she looked at me skeptically and asked, “Who are you?” I thought the easiest answer was to point at Dave and say, “I’m his brother.” “No you’re not,” the woman said derisively.
Dave: That would be public restrooms. It’s especially awkward when I get recognized in women’s public restrooms.
How did Kathi persuade non–musically inclined authors to get onstage?
Sam: Kathi started from the premise that everyone had a song in them. The fact that she was patently wrong never deterred her.
Dave: She gave them a lot of encouragement. (I am using “encouragement” in the sense of “drugs.”)
What’s one song that RBR never played that you wish they had?
Dave: “Hanky Panky.” Also, the “1812 Overture.”
Sam: “Wang Dang Doodle”
If you could rewrite the
ending to another band member’s book, which one would it be and what would happen?
Sam: Carrie, by Stephen King. Carrie, a shy girl with special powers who has been bullied mercilessly by her classmates and is in the process of destroying and killing everyone at her prom, picks up a harmonica and discovers that she can play “Oh! Susanna.” Everyone claps along and Carrie becomes the most popular kid at school.
Dave: I would rewrite the Stephen King’s The Stand so that the contagion, instead of killing 99.4 percent of humanity, affects only people on reality TV.
BLACK TEES AND MOM JEANS: BARRY BROTHERS STYLE
Who in the band is most likely to plagiarize?
Dave: Not to name names, but Stephen King stole pretty much ALL of his book ideas from me.
Sam: Not to name names, but Stephen King stole pretty much ALL of his book ideas from me.
In Mid-Life Confidential, Amy said that being in the band made her huggy. Have there been any other on-the-road transformations?
Dave: When we started that bus tour, Matt Groening was, biologically, a woman.
Sam: In fact, his essay is all about being a man trapped in a woman’s body.
I Was the Man in the Marge Simpson Mask
by Matt Groening
My exciting essay begins onstage at the Orange County Convention Center in Anaheim, June 2012, where the Rock Bottom Remainders are sweating our little hearts out in front of an overflow crowd of gyrating librarians, pages, library assistants, and assorted facilities managers. I’m safely ensconced in a rubber Marge Simpson mask, peering out the tiny eyeholes through my fogged-over glasses, furiously doing the Frug with all the gusto of a feisty Walter Brennan hopped up on goofballs. I can’t see much of anything, so I mainly try not to prance off the edge of the stage. At one point I believe I’m bumping hips with Amy and Mary Karr, but it turns out to be Sam and Roy. Amazingly enough, the clapping and whooping seem to be sincere and not just pity huzzahs.
And then the Remainders’ farewell show is over. We bow and wave goodbye and stumble over guitar chords and head backstage to fend off all the groupies, except there aren’t any.
But lurking in the shadows are two long-haired dudes in shorts, T-shirts, and high-top sneakers. My fan demographic.
“Can you sign our Simpsons posters?” one guy asks.
“They’re for charity,” his pal explains.
“Really?” I say. “What charity?”
“Um...the Buena Park Library.”
“Are you guys librarians?”
“Well, we’re…volunteers.”
“Yeah.” The other guy nods. “Volunteers.”
“Okay. I’ll sign your posters,” I say. “But tell me: What’s your favorite book?”
They look at each other for a while.
One guy says, “Stephen King.”
The other guy says, “Yeah, Stephen King.”
“That’s a great book,” I say.
I met Kathi in 1985, when I flew to San Francisco as my first stop on my first book tour, to promote my debut cartoon book, Love Is Hell. Kathi was, among other occupations, an authors’ escort, and from the moment she picked me up at the airport, I was dazzled by her enthusiasm and smile and good humor. After a quick radio interview and book signing, it was time to be dropped off at the hotel, but Kathi had a brilliant idea: Why don’t we stop at her house first for some milk and cookies?
Almost as impressive as those cookies was the massive record collection of her then-husband, pedal-steel guitarist and former professional gambler, Joe, who introduced me to some mighty obscure albums by Speedy West and Jimmy Bryant. To this day, when I hear “Stratosphere Boogie,” “Skiddle-Dee-Boo,” or “Serenade to a Frog,” I find myself reaching for an Oreo.
At the time I was the world’s least rocking rock critic, filling up a weekly column in the Los Angeles Reader with feeble jokes and vaguely music-related nonsense. Occasionally, I would review a rock album, but those were of bands I made up. I liked rock music okay, but my real enthusiasm was for George Antheil; Brave Combo; Harry Breuer; the Willem Breuker Kollektief; Milton Brown and His Musical Brownies; Eugene Chadbourne; Hoyt Curtin; Martin Denny; the DeZurik Sisters; Juan Esquivel; Wild Man Fischer; Red Ingle; Burl Ives (not really); Spike Jones; Lambert, Hendricks & Ross; Olivier Messiaen; Vic Mizzy; Moondog; Ennio Morricone; Conlon Nancarrow; Lee “Scratch” Perry; Nino Rota; Raymond Scott; Ravi Shankar; Carl Stalling; Karlheinz Stockhausen; Igor Stravinsky; Yma Sumac; Sun Ra; Bob Wills and the Texas Playboys; and any record featuring solo xylophone or lengthy yodeling. My musical predilections had been honed when I was a disgruntled record-store clerk in 1977 and I tried to see what record would make customers flee the fastest. (By the way, it’s a Bing Crosby 45 played off-center at 33-1/3.)
A couple of years later The Simpsons showed up, and the bookstore crowds started getting bigger and surlier. By this time, Kathi was my regular Bay Area bodyguard, helping me escape a Stanford dorm spaghetti-feed after a five-hour signing and calming down some disgruntled kids who wanted their skateboards autographed at Moe’s Books in Berkeley, who were pissed off because they had to stand in line “with a buncha bookworms!”
Then Kathi invented the Remainders, and what started as a onetime goof turned into a couple-decades-long goof. I snuck into the band as part of the Critics Chorus, along with Greil, Roy, and Joel.
We played in New York, Los Angeles, Boston, Chicago, Miami, and a bunch of places where I didn’t show up. I remember once dreaming I was onstage at UCLA and had no idea why I was there. The next day, I actually was onstage at UCLA singing “Wild Thing” with Scott, who was wearing a pink wig, and I still have no idea why I was there.
Like everyone else in the Remainders, I had a crush on Kathi. She was beautiful and funny and made fun of herself even though she could actually sing. And here’s my secret confession: I wrote “Colonel Homer,” a 1992 Simpsons episode, inspired by Kathi. Her character, many steps removed from reality, was country singer Lurleen Lumpkin.
My favorite bit of dialogue was when Lurleen says, “Homer, you’re just a big sack of sugar!”
And Homer says, “Hey!...you did say sugar, right?”
THE SIMPSONS™ & © 2013, Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation. All rights reserved.
The last time I saw Kathi was at the Shanghai Literary Festival last October (2011). A truncated version of the Remainders performed at the M on the Bund Bar, with Kathi and Amy singing and Sam holding things together on piano. I did my part by drawing cartoons on an easel by the side of the stage, and everyone, including the bar crowd, had a blast. Kathi and Sam were obviously very much in love, and later we all marveled over tea and soup dumplings that the Rock Bottom Remainders had just played in China without causing an international incident.
I’m grateful to have hung out with Kathi these last couple of decades. She was the kind of pal who called me up every year and sang “Happy Birthday” over the phone. She started a rock band whose members actually dug one another. She loved Sam and her son, Tony, with all her heart. She knew that we’re only here for a little while, and then we’re gone. And Kathi grabbed her little while and took me, and a whole lot of other people, to places we never thought we’d go. And she made us dance, too.
Q&A: Where You’ve Been Recognized
Q&A with the Remainders
Q: What are some strange and awkward places fans have recognized you?
A:
“In a public restroom just before I went into the stall.”
“At the hospital, where a doctor was performing a sigmoidoscopy on me and said he couldn’t wait to tell his wife he saw me.”
“At an airport after losing my temper for having had my seat given away.”
“Once, a technician was doing my mammogram, and while squeezing my breast into a pancake, she said, ‘Oooh, my friends will not believe who I just met.’”
“A woman attempted to pick me up once in the men’s room.”
“At another doctor’s office, where a re
ceptionist said, ‘Hey, everybody, this is Amy Tan!’ That was followed by, ‘Did you do your enema yet?’”
INBOX > Subject: Happy Hour
From: Amy Tan
Sent: Friday, November 9, 2007
Dear Boys and Girl,
I am just back from LA, where we got a chance to see Matt a couple of nights. We saw the Simpsons movie with a bunch of animators screening the movie for the Academy Awards. They served pink donuts and all kinds of other Homer junk food. I wanted to steal donuts. The second night we saw a documentary I was in and afterward Matt asked where we wanted to go for dinner—fancy or Thai in a bad neighborhood. So we went to a Thai restaurant where Thai Elvis performs every night. You have not lived until you have eaten Thai with a tiny Thai Elvis gyrating before your main course.
Matt says that now that his kids are grown up and he’s not, he wants to gig with us. He thinks he got taken off the mailing list for not showing up that often.
Your former token minority,
Amy
Hitting Rock Bottom
by Roger McGuinn
“It was a dark and stormy night” when Max Weinberg and his wife, Becky, joined Camilla and me for dinner in 1992. We took turns telling stories about our rock-and-roll adventures. Max, the longtime drummer for Bruce Springsteen’s E Street Band, mentioned that he had jammed with Max Q, a band of astronauts who played for fun. I have always loved spacemen and lit up when he suggested that I might be able to jam with them. He put me in touch with the band leader, astronaut Brewster Shaw.
Hard Listening: The Greatest Rock Band Ever (of Authors) Tells All Page 9