I could hear in his voice that he was as irate as I was, but he was bottling his feelings up inside. After his outburst at Eddy’s funeral, Chris rarely showed emotion when I spoke to him. He always seemed troubled and distant. Little did I know that his problems ran much deeper than I thought.
CHAPTER 37
Dinkus
I flew to Toronto directly after Eddy’s funeral to begin Fozzy’s eastern Canadian tour, and my cousin Chad came in from Calgary to hang and get a taste of life on the road like a real rock and roller.
I’d known Chad my whole life and he was very wise. As a matter of fact, it was he who had originally explained the birds and the bees to me.
I was nine and Chad was seven and we were having a deep conversation about life when the subject of how babies were made came up. I told him shrewdly that my mom had explained to me that a daddy’s seed was passed into a mommy’s tummy while they were kissing. (Thanks a lot for that one, Mom.)
Chad shook his head wisely. “No, that’s not how it works. Babies are made by cock and cunt.”
I can confirm thirty years later that Chad was indeed correct.
The first gig of the tour was in Ottawa and I was scheduled to do an in-store signing a few hours before the show. Doing in-stores was important because they were an easy way to sell records and create awareness for that evening’s gig. I was excited to show off to Chad how big Fozzy was getting, as my previous signings in Winnipeg, Calgary, and Montreal had all drawn over five hundred fans and been huge successes.
We arrived at the Sunrise Mall promptly at 4 p.m. and headed to the record shop. I was a little wary when there was no line outside the store, but I figured that a large mob of fans had queued up inside instead.
I was wrong.
When we walked in there were exactly four people at a card table bearing a handwritten sign that said CHRIS JERICHO OF FOZ Z Y—TODAY AT 4. Whoever wrote the sign had spelled Fozzy with only one Z and had tried to compensate by adding a tiny second z between the letters afterward.
Surveying the wasteland, I said to Chad, “Keep your head down and let’s get the hell out of here.”
We inched our way to the door hoping to escape before I was recognized, but just as we reached the front a security guard spotted me.
“Hey it’s Chris! He’s here, everybody! Come on and sit down, Chris! Let’s get this party started!”
It was a party all right—if parties sucked.
I sat down to a smattering of applause in front of a wall of All That Remains CDs, waiting for Artie Fufkin to show up so I could kick his ass for a man.
Usually at an appearance I would sign my name, shake a hand, and move on to the next person. But due to the lack of humanity in the store, I was writing War and Peace on each autograph to kill time. “To Yngwie, Thanks for all your support and I really hope you have a good day and I think you’re cool and fun to talk to and yada yada yada … your friend, Chris Jericho.”
Despite my stalling, I was done signing in six minutes.
I was taking a picture with the five rent-a-cops who had been hired to protect me from all of my rabid followers, when I saw the owner of the store looking at me like he wanted to perform an evisceration. I posed with a morose smile on my face feeling stupid enough already, when it dawned on me that there were more security guards in the store than fans.
“It’s okay,” Chad said, shrugging his shoulders wisely. “Ottawa isn’t a big college town.”
The attendance for the gig was almost as bad as the in-store and I couldn’t figure out why. We’d played Canada quite a few times on the Happenstance tour and had done well, so it didn’t make sense that we were bombing so badly this time. The attendance never got better: Toronto, Hamilton, Montreal—all of them showing that our appeal was becoming more selective.
But the last night of the tour was in London, Ontario, and as we drove toward the venue, I could see a huge line snaking down the block.
“All right,” I thought to myself. “This is more like it! The Fozz finally packs ’em in on the last gig of the tour … better late than never!”
As we got closer I could see that this was not the most beautiful of crowds: greasy hair, gaunt faces, tattered clothes streaked with dirt. “Well, they might not be pretty,” I thought, “but we’re gonna rock them all the same.” Besides, they sure as hell couldn’t be any worse than the crowd at the Murder Junkies show.
“Gonna have a good crowd tonight, boys!” I yelled jubilantly.
The van pulled up and I hopped out, waiting for the squeals of delight from my adoring fans. But there were none, and after a few seconds I noticed that the slovenly fans weren’t in the line for the Fozzy gig. They were in the line for the soup kitchen next door.
Delson got out of the van and commented drolly, “It certainly is a good crowd … for the clam chowder.”
We ventured inside and were assaulted by the stench of stale smoke and sour beer. The carpet was tattered and torn, with the stage being a small platform standing only inches off the ground. We were led up a flight of creaky stairs into a pitch-black hallway with a putrid, filthy dressing room at the end of it. The whole place reminded me of The Amityville Horror, and it creeped me out.
The walls had been graffitied with pictures of peepees and wee-wees, with such pearls of wisdom as “I’ll fuck you for a fiver” and “Rub poop all over my pussy” written underneath.
It was disgusting and I didn’t even want to put my bag on the floor, never mind change. There were a couple trays of congealed cold cuts and overripe fruit that I wouldn’t have touched for all the kids in Octomom’s womb.
Standing in the dressing room was giving me the heebie-jeebies (yeah, I said it), so I went into the blackened hall to make my way back downstairs. I was shuffling through the dark blinded, grabbing the wall for guidance, when suddenly a section of it stepped out in front of me. I squealed like Justin Bieber touching his first titty, as the piece of the wall morphed into a human being who’d just lurched out of a room. It turned out that the upstairs not only housed the outhouse of a dressing room, but was a hostel for the patrons of the soup kitchen as well.
Suddenly another vagabond ambled out of their room, then another, and soon I was in Anthrax’s video for “Madhouse.” I shook free like Marion Ravenwood from the skeletons in the snake chamber and ran downstairs to the safety of the stage.
We’ve always taken great pride in our live performances, but that night the fine fifteen people of London who showed up to eat soup, play pool, and see Fozzy (in that order) were treated to an eight-song, thirty-five-minute set.
Talk about speed metal.
A few months after the carnage of the Canadian tour, we were invited to headline the Delicious Rox Festival in Kansas City, along with Fear Factory and Drowning Pool. After the less than stellar turnouts of the last few months we needed a morale boost, and D-Rox was just the cure (along with more cowbell), as we were told that the previous year’s festival had attracted over 10,000 people.
We flew into KC and started driving to the arena—or so I thought.
After a two-and-a-half-hour haul we pulled into a farmer’s field with a makeshift stage assembled on it. It was only a few hours before showtime, and just like the Ottawa in-store there were more security guards than fans gathered around the front of the stage. As Delson would say, it was bleak.
Despite the lack of crowd the show went on as scheduled, and I was sitting in our trailer when there was a knock on the door. It was our soundman telling me that one of our fans had been hit on the head with a bottle thrown by a member of a band called American Head Charge (we’ll call him Dinkus). I went and greeted the poor girl, waited for the ambulance and took some pictures, then gave her some Fozzy merch. When I asked if any of the American Head Charge guys had come to apologize to her, she told me no and that infuriated me.
I marched straight to their trailer and barged in the door asking, “Are you guys going to apologize to that girl you hit with that bottle?
”
Dinkus was sitting in the corner, a dumpy little guy with tattoos and a bull piercing through his nose. “Oh, we’re getting around to it.”
Getting around to it? That really pissed me off.
“How about you get around to it right now?”
“I told you we’ll get around to it,” Dinkus said with an attitude.
I got right in his face like he was the drunk on the red-eye to Philly and growled, “Listen, if you don’t go apologize to that girl right now we’re gonna have a serious fucking problem. And the first thing I’m doing is ripping out that stupid nose ring.”
Suddenly he had a total eclipse of the heart and went and apologized immediately. I haven’t heard from Dinkus or his band since.
After the girl was whisked away in the back of an ambulance, the promoter informed me that his festival insurance stated if anybody got hurt and went to the hospital, the rest of the show had to be canceled. “You guys are on next but the cops are on the way. Play as long as you can, but when they get here you’re going to have to announce that the show is over.”
I thought it was lame that the promoter wanted me to be his harvester of sorrow, but we took the stage and steamrolled through “To Kill a Stranger,” “Enemy,” and “Eat the Rich.” We were soaking in the adulation of 147 fans when out of the horizon came a battalion of cops in full riot gear. They spread out the length of the field until they surrounded the entire (lack of) crowd. The promoter gave me the sign from the side of the stage to make the big announcement, and it was time to become the surrogate heel of the festival. No big deal, I’d been booed a time or two before.
D-Rox, 2006. We called our touring drummer, Eric Sanders (second from right), “Rainman,” due to his ridiculous knowledge of metal trivia. It actually got quite annoying, especially when I found out he knew more than me.
“Sorry, guys, I hate to tell you this, but the show is over. If it was up to me, we’d play for you all night, but it’s not. It’s up to them.” I pointed at the perimeter of police who had assembled themselves around the outskirts. “The festival is finished. Sorry, guys.”
“Sorry, guys” was the same thing the promoter said a few minutes later when we asked him to pay us in cash as per our contract. “The crowd wasn’t what I hoped, and having to cancel the rest of the festival really hurt me as well. But I’ll wire the money to your account first thing Monday morning.” Of course when Rich went to the bank first thing Monday morning, the wire hadn’t arrived. We’re still waiting, and I’m confident we’ll get it sometime in the next googol. (Educated Author’s Note: Google googol to find out what it means.)
Fozzy’s next appearance was much more positive than D-Rox, as we were asked to appear and sign autographs for the troops at Fort Benning in Columbus, Georgia, for their annual “Troops Appreciation Day.” The soldiers turned out in full force to meet us and it was a humbling experience. Most of the troops were younger guys who were into both wrestling and heavy metal, and being around them and hearing their stories made me understand how much of an honor it was to do something like this for them and their families. These men and women, some of them mere teenagers, were about to go to war in Iraq, leaving their wives and kids at home for the next eighteen months. (I met babies who still hadn’t met their fathers.) I never realized that their call of duty was that long, and being with them helped me appreciate the sacrifice they were making. It was the least I could do to spend a few hours entertaining them. After signing for one particularly charismatic private, I asked, “Hey man, can I wear your helmet?”
“Well, I’m really not supposed to, but okay.”
I pressed my luck and asked, “Can I wear your jacket too?”
“I’m really not supposed to do that either, but okay.”
I put it on and wandered around pretending to be an army man.
“Look at me!” I said, cupping my junk in my hand. “I’m Private Jericho and I’ve got my hand on my privates!” Brutal I know, but I never claimed to be Bob Hope.
Everyone was having a chuckle at my expense when suddenly the laughter died and everyone started saluting. I turned around and came face-to-face with a four-star general.
He glared at me with his steely blue eyes, with not a hair out of place in his graying crew cut. He had the vibe of a no-nonsense ass kicker and I would’ve bet junior’s farm that he had a few kills under his belt. I’d never been so intimidated in my life. It was worse than when I went to Vince’s house for my secret meeting back in 1998.
“You’re a funny guy,” he said with a glare, both of us knowing he could rip out my jugular at will. He then barked at his troops, “Are you soldiers having a good time?”
“Yes sir,” they replied in unison.
“Are these boys being good to you?”
“Yes sir,” they replied in unison.
“Good!” Then General Kickass turned to me and said, “I just wanted to see what all the commotion was about over here. You guys are the most popular act today and I really appreciate you coming to take care of these kids. Some of them might not make it back home alive, but today you’re brightening all of their days and I thank you for that. Fozzy is welcome at Fort Benning anytime.” Then he stood at attention, lifted his hand to his forehead, and saluted us.
Wow.
We’d been shit on, pissed on, stepped on, fucked with, and pointed at by lesser men, but now we were being saluted by a four-star general.
Fozz bless America.
CHAPTER 38
Sweet Loretta Modern
One afternoon I received a call from Fozzy’s booking agent, the Agency Group, informing me that one of their agents in the literary division, Marc Gerald, was interested in talking to me about publishing my life story. I’d been writing since elementary school and had been thinking of penning my autobiography for years, but the WWE had never approached me to write one. After a quick meeting with Marc, he arranged a conference call with Grand Central Publishing to pitch the idea of a book about the life and times of little ol’ me.
I was sitting in a hotel room in L.A. waiting to make the call to the Grand Central offices when I received a call of a different kind. It was Jessica telling me that a doctor in Winnipeg called to say that my mom’s condition had deteriorated and she didn’t have much longer to live.
The news hit me like a ten-ton hammer, and even though I’d been expecting it for years I had to get home ASAP. When my conference call with Grand Central started, I explained that I had a family emergency and didn’t have a lot of time to talk. I pitched my idea as quickly as I could and got off the phone, certain there was no way I was going to be offered a deal. But I hardly cared, my mother was dying.
She had turned sixty in September 2003 and had essentially become a recluse ever since. Her body was physically breaking down, her bones were becoming brittle, she had zero mobility and needed assistance for every meal. It hurt her to chew so her food had to be liquefied, she needed twenty-four-hour home care and did nothing but lie in bed all day watching TV. I rarely spoke to her on the phone because she couldn’t raise her voice or open her mouth wide enough to talk.
She was also mentally breaking down, becoming anxious, nervous, and paranoid. When I visited her she’d say things like, “Don’t talk too loud, they’re listening to me here. I’m sure my room is bugged,” or “Don’t walk around the bed so quickly. The vibrations really hurt me.” It was a nightmare and our relationship was a shadow of what it had once been.
She once told me, “If I start losing my mind, I don’t want to be around anymore. If I can’t be myself mentally I want you to pull the plug.” There wasn’t a literal plug to pull, as she wasn’t hooked up to a life support machine, but I completely understood what she meant.
The way things were going, I had to do something.
So I asked my dad to start looking for places where she could be taken care of on a twenty-four-hour basis, a place where there would be other people in her situation whom she could talk to and befriend.
She hated the idea and didn’t want to leave her house, but the problem was she just wasn’t able to function there anymore. So I made the decision to move her into a care facility.
A few months later, her health was in a horrible state and her body was simply shutting down after fifteen years of fighting. She was taking a myriad of drugs but after a while they were only prolonging her agony and not helping her feel any better at all.
She got to the point where she told her neighbor Connie (who was like her sister, much closer to her than anyone else, including me) that she was done with the drugs. When Connie said that without the drugs she would die, my mom told her she was ready for whatever happened.
My mom didn’t have much control over anything in her life anymore, but she did have power over whether or not she wanted to stick around. She had such drive and stubborness (a trait that I inherited directly from her that I call Iron Will); when she made up her mind about something, there was no deterring her.
Now she had made up her mind that she was ready to move on, and that was the end of it.
I arrived in Winnipeg from L.A. on a Thursday night. The doctor told me that she could be alive for two more days or two more months, it was just a matter of how long it took for her body to shut down. I went into her room and she looked frail and almost deformed. I hadn’t seen her for a few months and her body had contorted inward as her bones shrunk. She gazed at me and I could see a flash of recognition in her face, but she didn’t say anything. She could still talk but was beyond having a conversation, and as the night went on she started blurting out things that didn’t make any sense. She asked me to turn her in her bed, and when I told the orderly on duty he said, “She was just turned ten minutes ago, she’s not supposed to be turned again for another two hours.”
Undisputed: How to Become World Champion in 1,372 Easy Steps Page 31