But I hit a lot more than I missed, and after a few months Mindy told me she considered me to be an honorary Groundling.
It was indeed an honor, and working with the Groundlings was an invaluable experience. I learned so much about comic timing, thinking on my toes, and committing to a character, techniques that I still use in everything I do to this day.
By the way, do taxidermists still exist nowadays?
CHAPTER 42
Clams Casino
In the summer of 2006 I did a pilot hosting a show called Ebaum’s World that didn’t get picked up. But as they say, when one door closes another one opens, and after the show had been passed on, the Ebaum producers called me to see if I wanted to appear on a reality show called Celebrity Duets, created by Simon Cowell.
The show paired up celebrities who could sing with pop stars, to perform (what else) duets. Every week there would be a nationwide vote and a celeb would be eliminated. I wasn’t sure at first if I wanted to do it, as I was hesitant about the style of music I’d have to sing. I’m a rock singer and wasn’t keen on the possibility of singing ska or disco.
But I was assured that each performer would have final say on the song choice, so I agreed. I had to audition first to see if I had the chops, and I went into the studio with Rickey Minor (the leader of the American Idol band) and nailed “Enter Sandman” and “Spinning Wheel.” I figured by doing Metallica and Blood, Sweat and Tears, Simon and the other producers would get a feel for what my style and range were, and if they didn’t like my vibe then no harm done.
Apparently Simon did like my vibe, because I was chosen to be one of eight contestants on the show. Duets was on Fox, and was the highest-profile network program I’d ever done, which meant my visibility was bigger than ever. I did interviews with Entertainment Tonight, Extra, Inside Edition, and Access Hollywood. I did a photo shoot for People magazine (which was my mom’s favorite magazine, she woulda been so proud), where they dubbed me the heartthrob of the show. I should hope so, considering the other male contestants were Alfonso Ribeiro, Cheech Marin, Hal Sparks, and Jai Rodriguez.
It was announced that the judges would be Marie Osmond, David Foster, and Little Richard, the band would be the headcutting machine from American Idol, and the host would be Wayne Brady, whom I’d known for years after being a guest on his Emmy Award–winning daytime talk show.
Duets was no joke either, as the collection of celebrities chosen were all badass singers. Lucy Lawless and Jai Rodriguez had appeared on Broadway, Hal Sparks, Cheech, and I all had our own bands, and Alfonso had been singing and dancing since he worked with Michael Jackson as a kid.
For some reason the producers liked this cast photo where I wasn’t looking at the camera. I was probably too busy worrying about singing country, while Alfonso Ribeiro was probably thinking about coitus.
I was really looking forward to seeing how I matched up with the others vocally—until I found out that my first duet partner was country singer Lee Ann Womack. Country? I’d never sung a country song in my life. It would be like Paul Stanley singing reggae.
“Buffalo-oh-oh-whoa Tholdier …”
I also found out that the promise of having the final say on song selections wasn’t the case, as I was given the Willie Nelson tune “Mendocino County Line.” Not only did I have to sing a country song, but I had to sing a Willie Nelson country song. Willie Nelson could hardly sing a Willie Nelson country song. My chances of winning seemed worse than his tax history.
I felt better when I found out that Peter Frampton was going to be my other partner, but my heart dropped again when I was given “Signed, Sealed, Delivered,” a Stevie Wonder tune that Frampton covered.
Willie Nelson and Stevie Wonder? Were the rights to Steve Perry and Michael Jackson songs not available? I felt even more snubbed when I found out that Hal Sparks’s partners were Sebastian Bach and Dee Snider, and I’m sure I don’t even have to explain why.
Maybe the producers were trying to be cute in pairing the wrestler with the country singer? Or maybe they thought I was the worst singer in the contest and wanted me off quickly.
It didn’t matter, as I was willing to give it a try and rehearsed my ass off trying to make the song work, but when it came to showtime I sucked. My pitch was off, my tone was bad, and every time I got close enough to Lee Ann to sing deep into her eyes, she recoiled like I had just taken a big bite of shit. In a way I had.
After bombing worse than a Jesse James appearance on Oprah, I tried to regroup for a show-stopping performance with Frampton. I was better vocally, but still off my game, and I delivered another heaping helping of clams casino.
I tried to make up for my mediocre vocals by running around the studio, trampling over the judges’ desk, and performing a David Lee Roth split-legged jump off the drum riser, but alas I just ended up looking like a speed freak in a sparkly purple jacket.
The judges were actually quite kind and didn’t tear me apart, but instead gave me comments like, “Good for you. It’s nice to see you trying new things and having fun up there” (Marie); “You had great energy even if the vocals weren’t perfect” (Foster); and “Ohhh, honey, I just felt my big toe rise up inside my shoe!” (Little Richard).
Good golly!
But at the end of the show I was the first one voted off by the producers and the judges. The fact that the fan voting didn’t start until the second week of the show was another shady deal that made no sense to me.
Either way, I took the elimination like a man, vowing to return to TV on the next season of Celebrity Bad White-Boy Dancing, and shuffled off the stage doing a horrible robot.
Despite my blasé demeanor on the outside, I was humiliated on the inside. I mean, here I was the singer in a very good rock and roll band and I’d been the first one eliminated on a nationally televised singing show. I was going to have to eat some serious crow with a dish of humble pie on the side.
But after hiding in my dressing room for a few minutes, I came to terms with the fact that at least I’d tried. I’ve always said there’s nothing wrong with trying something and failing.
As a matter of fact, I’d based my whole career on that statement.
After licking my wounds I poked my head out of the dressing room and saw a pissed-off Peter Frampton. “There’s no way you should’ve been the first one eliminated. You did a great job. You can come sing with me at one of my shows anytime!”
I gave him a genuine hug in appreciation for his words. If my performance was good enough for Peter Frampton, then it was good enough for me!
Then I saw one of the judges in the hall, who told me, “You weren’t the one we chose to be eliminated. We wanted to get rid of one of the ladies, but the producers didn’t want five guys and two girls so you were the next in line.”
Even if it was just lip service, it was still good for my bruised ego to hear that I wasn’t the worst.
Although I was the first one booted off the show, the Duets experience wasn’t a total bomb. Because when I returned for the finale, I got a chance to rub vocals with some of the best singers of all time.
I sang the blues with Little Richard as he warmed up for his performance. Just the two of us. He sang a verse, then I took one, and he nodded approvingly at my vibe. It was a remarkable experience to sing with the man who invented rock and roll vocals and had influenced everyone from Elvis to the Beatles. Now if I ever meet Paul McCartney I have something else to tell him besides Johnny Hutch’s message that he’s a fooking wanker.
After jamming with Little Richard, I spent an hour talking with Gladys Knight, who was flirting with me and calling me her Big Teddy Bear. If I was twenty years older I would’ve pipped her right there.
Then I went to craft services to get a drink and saw Smokey Robinson leaning against the wall sucking on lemons.
Lemons?
Could that be the secret to his legendary vocal talent? Did the citrus sooth his voice? Did the lemony nectar coat his throat and give him more power?
<
br /> This was my chance to unlock the clandestine reasons for Smokey’s success.
“Excuse me, Mr. Robinson,” I inquired. “I see you’re sucking on lemons. Do they help your voice?”
Smokey looked at me with his ice chip blue eyes.
“No man, I just like lemons.”
After getting Smokey’s advice that nothing helps your voice more than drinking water and getting a good night’s sleep, I was called to rehearsal for the finale’s showstopping number. The eight of us were going to sing a medley of ’50s songs, beginning with “Rock Around the Clock” and ending with Little Richard joining us for “Tutti Frutti.” It was really frooti to get the chance to sing with Richard again, but other than that I was ready to wash my hands of this huge chunk of television fromage.
I was waiting by the side of the stage for my cue when Alfonso Ribeiro sidled up beside me.
“You like sex?” he asked matter-of-factly.
“Um. I guess,” I answered.
“Yeah, me too. Mmmmmm … I musta banged over a thousand chicks,” he said, dreamily.
Whether it was true or not, the thought of Carlton laying pipe made me uncomfortable—and nauseated.
Alfonso ended up winning Celebrity Duets and received the grand prize of nothing. The show was canceled soon after, and even though I’m glad I did it, I’m still bothered that I was the first one kicked off. I know I could’ve done better with the right songs, but that’s the way it is sometimes.
The only saving grace was that the week after I was eliminated, the ratings for Celebrity Duets fell 50 percent and got worse from there.
Suck on those lemons, Simon.
CHAPTER 43
Hill Street Blues
A few months after my mistimed haunting of Eli Roth, he forgave me and invited me to a party celebrating both his thirty-fourth birthday and the DVD release of Hostel. It was a great Hollywood bash, except for when I told Jack Black I was a huge Tenacious D fan and he glared at me as if I’d just eaten Kyle Gass and walked away. I didn’t mind; CJ had been big-leagued by far bigger stars than JB.
I spent the night hanging out with the Roth family and drinking a few Crowns, nothing too crazy. The party was wrapping up and as I was getting ready to split, a fan asked me to have a shot with him.
“Come on, Chris! I watch you every Monday night! [I hadn’t been on Raw in eight months.] I paid seventy-five dollars for this tequila shot and I want you to drink it with me!”
Never one to turn down a free drinkski, I tipped it back, thanked the guy (in retrospect I should’ve slapped him), and hopped in my car to drive back to my apartment in Burbank.
I’d just moved to California and still wasn’t exactly sure where I was going. I was driving down the 101 and made a right onto Universal Drive, but then swerved back onto the freeway when I realized I’d turned off too early. Right then I got a text from Eli’s brother Gabe asking me if I’d made it home okay, and I began texting him back.
When I swerved again on the empty freeway due to my driving and texting (Oprah is right … that’s a no-no, kids), a pair of flashing red cherries appeared in my rearview mirror. My heart skipped like Sheffield and I pulled over on Lankershim (about five minutes from my place), as the officer slowly approached my car.
At Eli’s birthday party in Hollywood. After discussing how awesome his Cannibal Holocaust T-shirt was, I drank a shot of top-shelf tequila and left. Thirty minutes later I was arrested and spent the night in an L.A. jail.
After looking at my license and registration, he asked me if I’d been drinking. I told him I’d had a few drinks. That’s all he needed to hear and asked me to step out of the car.
“You were swerving all over the place and driving really slow. Plus your eyes are bloodshot. Are you sure you haven’t had more than a few drinks?”
Of course I hadn’t!
Or had I?
I sure had all the excuses in the world for my shoddy driving. I was going slow because I was lost. I was swerving because I made a wrong turn. I’ve always had a problem with my eyes being red and have to carry a small bottle of Bausch and Lomb Opcon-A (cheap plug) at all times so my eyes don’t look like Snoop Dogg’s in a smokehouse.
But the bottom line was I had been drinking all night, even though I didn’t feel drunk.
Famous last (call) words.
The cop asked me to take a bunch of field sobriety tests. I stood on one foot and counted to ten while touching my nose. I had to recite the alphabet, forwards and backwards—who the hell can say their ABCs backwards even when they’re sober?? Then I wavered a little while walking a straight line with my eyes closed, and that was the final straw.
“Sir, can you please step into the car.”
Now I was getting scared.
I slid into the backseat, and the cop asked me to take a breathalyzer. When I blew a 0.088 (which was over the legal limit of.08), it was bye-bye, baby, bye-bye, that was all she wrote.
“Mr. Irvine, you’re over the legal limit and I’m going to have to take you to jail.”
Wow. I was going to jail. I’d never heard that one before.
He took my fingerprints, then handcuffed me. The clock on the dash said 3:15 a.m.
As the cop arrested me he told me not to worry; I wouldn’t be at the station for too long as I’d be able to bail myself out once I got processed.
I was trying to stay calm, so I struck up a conversation with the popo to attempt to gain a few brownie points. When I mentioned that I didn’t feel drunk, the cop said that most people drive over the legal limit an average of eighty times before they ever get caught.
Eighty times, huh? Well, the odds had finally caught up to me, as there’d been plenty of other times I should’ve been busted for drunk driving. But this time I’d blown over the limit and was legally drunk, no excuses, no sympathy, no escape; and now I had to face the consequences.
I just thanked God I hadn’t hurt anybody.
I arrived at county at 3:30 a.m. and had to blow again. My blood alcohol count now read 0.089, and because it had risen (stupid $75 tequila), I was escorted straight into processing, and bingo—I was officially a ward of the state.
To make things worse, I was being held prisoner at the Hill Street station in downtown L.A., one of the roughest precincts in town. To say I had the damn Hill Street Blues was an understatement and there was no Daniel J. Travanti there to rescue me.
They let me out of the handcuffs and I had to fill out a bunch of forms (in triplicate) before they took my mug shot and fingerprinted me again. Then I was given a small plastic bag holding a bologna sandwich and a juice box that proudly proclaimed on the side: CONTAINS 0% REAL JUICE.
I was escorted to an expansive holding area populated with my fellow undesirables in one corner and a bank of pay phones in the other. There was a portly officer with a mustache (why does every cop have to have a mustache?) sitting behind a barred window, and I asked him what I had to do to bail myself out.
“Bail yourself out? Ha! You can’t bail yourself out. Who told you that?”
“The officer who arrested me. He seemed like a nice guy and he told me I could bail myself out.”
“Well, you can’t bail yourself out under any circumstances. Not to mention that you’re so mildly over the limit, I wouldn’t have brought you into the station to begin with. I just would’ve made you park your car and walk home. Guess your cop buddy wasn’t such a nice guy after all.”
With my hopes of bailing myself out dashed, I asked the officer how I could get out.
“Call a bail bondsman.”
“Do you have the number of one?”
“Nope. Can’t give you that information. If you don’t know of any, call your lawyer to get the number.”
Who in the hell memorizes his lawyer’s phone number, let alone a bail bondsman’s? The only numbers I knew by heart were my house phone and Jessica’s cell, and there was no way I was going to call either of those.
“Well, if you have nobody to call,
you need to go sit in the holding cell until we call your name. Shouldn’t be more than four or five hours.”
Four or five hours?? The clock on the wall said 4:30 a.m.
So I skulked into the cell. The other occupants didn’t seem too happy to see me, and it was obvious why. I was surrounded by a crew of East L.A. Chicano gangbangers, all of them sporting wifebeaters, baggy jeans, tan work boots, mesh do-rags, and tears tattooed under their eyes. I’m talking serious mothertruckers here, folks.
I was in the cell for thirty seconds when one of the vatos with biceps bigger than Snookie’s hair, sized me up and asked, “Hey homes, are you Chris Jericho?” After a few seconds the rest of them joined in and suddenly I was a very popular jailbird.
“Yo, Jericho, let’s have a wrestling match,” another one said. “Can you really fight, vato, or are you just a fake?”
This tête-à-tête with my newfound friends was not going well. If something went down I thought I could probably take one of them, maybe even two, but there was no way I’d be able to fight them all. I wasn’t Jean-Claude Van Jericho.
I decided to take a powder and leave the cell before things got too en serio, and I could hear them laughing as I powerwalked through the cage door, still clutching the plastic Baggie in my hand.
I was trying not to show it but I was scared shitless and they could smell it. I’d never been arrested in my entire life, let alone spent a night in jail. All I could think was, “I’m not supposed to be in here.”
I flinched when a voice boomed over the speaker system, “Get back in the cell!”
I glanced back and saw Señor Musculo giving me the stinkeye, so I decided to take my chances with the cops again.
“Get back in that cell now!!” the voice said as I hurried back to the gated window. I peered through the bars and a young cop peered back. Thankfully this one didn’t have a mustache and kind of looked like Bob Saget.
“Sir, I can’t go back into the cell. Those guys recognize me and I think things might get rough.”
Undisputed: How to Become World Champion in 1,372 Easy Steps Page 35