Bare Bones (25 page)

It all stems from my fundamental lack of trust in others. It's crazy that I feel that way, since I've been the recipient of so much generosity. I'm ashamed at my good fortune when I think of all the people who have looked out for me: my grandma, my stepdad, my childhood best friend Evan, Courtney, Jay Shannon, Bob Pittman and Rod Phillips from iHeartradio, and on and on. I know, a lot of people have had it a lot worse.

But I also can't beat myself up for feeling the way I feel. When my biological father disappeared from my life at five years old, I became hardwired to expect everyone to abandon me. And for that I can never forgive him.

Nothing will change that, not even seeing him face-to-face, which I did several years ago while back in Hot Springs for Christmas. It seems absurd to say now, but I had no idea he was going to be there when I accepted an invitation for Christmas dinner at my paternal grandmother's house. It wasn't my grandmother who extended the invitation (having seen her only a handful of times in my life, I had no relationship with her). My cousins, aunt, and uncle, whom I am close to, said I should come. So I did.

As soon as I walked in, a man, a little shorter than me and a lot rougher, standing in the entryway, said to me, “Hey, did you come here to kick my ass?”

“What?” I said.

I had no idea who he was and thought maybe he was making some kind of joke. Then it hit me who was talking and I felt sick to my stomach.

I had no idea when I had seen him last. It could have been that convenience store next to Evan's house. That was twenty years ago.

I should have just left. But that's not how I do things. Instead, I laughed uncomfortably and lamely said no.

Then we sat down and proceeded to have about the most awkward hour-long holiday dinner since Christmas was invented. My dad (it pains me just to type the word “dad” in reference to the man) and I didn't say one word to each other. Uncomfortable doesn't even come close to describing this meal.

After my father left, it was easier for me to pretend that he didn't exist than to deal with my rage over his leaving. That's why I don't like when he pops up on Facebook or at Christmas dinners. I recognize that I still have a lot of anger and sadness, but I'm most comfortable expressing my emotions through my work, whether it's talking on my radio show or writing a song for the Raging Idiots.

I actually did write a song about this very issue for my band, which is best known for such profound tunes as “Everybody on Facebook Hates Me” and “Ballad of Big Head Bobby.” Serious songs are not usually in my wheelhouse. In fact, I named our album
The Critics Give It 5 Stars
because I knew no critic would ever give it five stars but I still wanted people to have to say that every time they mentioned the record.

For the album, I didn't plan on writing anything more serious than my romantic ballad to the greatest love of my life, Netflix. (“I take you to the park / Sit with you on a bench / To have you there with me I don't have to be rich / Only nine dollars and ninety-nine cents / Because I have you, Netflix.”) But I worked with a couple of songwriters, older guys who have been at it for twenty-five years. We weren't on the same page comedy-wise, so I told them about one idea for a song, not particularly funny, about how I always wanted to go fishing with my dad—a dad, any dad. We started talking out the story, playing some chords on the guitar, and before we left the room, we had written “Fishin' with My Dad.”

It was sundown on Lake Ouachita and I was ten years old

Watching a daddy teach his boy how to cast a fishing pole

I remember wishing that I had what he had

Just one chance to go fishing with my dad . . .

Mom married a good man in the summer of '93

At first I wasn't too sure about what he thought of me

Till he woke me up one morning

I'd never been so glad that I got to go fishing with my dad

The autobiographical song didn't fit with the goofy tone of the rest of the album. Not a joke to be found in this one. So I considered giving the song away, if I could find a recording artist interested in it. But that didn't feel right because of the nature of the material. It was Gordon Kerr, the president of our record label, Black River Entertainment, who encouraged me to keep the song. “If you could have anyone in the world sing this song with you, who would it be?” he asked me. It took me about two seconds to come up with my answer. “Garth Brooks,” I said. Then I laughed at myself. Garth is THE GREATEST OF ALL TIME. Why would he sing a song I wrote on a record that I was putting out? He wouldn't—that's why.

Gordon told me that it wouldn't hurt to try. So I sent “Fishin' with My Dad” off to Garth Brooks, thinking I had about as much chance of getting him to sing it as I had of learning to fly. Eventually Gordon called me into his office. He told me that Garth Brooks had heard the song and it wasn't really what he expected. He appreciated me sending it to him and that . . . he would love to sing on the song! It took me a second to catch up. Garth Brooks was going to sing this deeply personal song of mine for real.

Channeling my emotions through my work is what has made me successful. That's the essence of the connection to my listeners. I need them as much as they need me (probably more). Radio isn't about the music, because you can get music in a hundred places. It's being able to feel like you're with your friend. Wherever I go—Madison, Wisconsin, Sacramento, or Tampa—people come up to me like we know each other. They spend two, three, four hours with me every morning, so in a way they do. It's a huge investment in me, and I'm grateful for it.

But that tendency of mine to shove all my energy into professional endeavors doesn't enhance my life. I recently spent a whole month where between station events, Raging Idiots shows, and charity dates, I was not home for a single night. And I was relieved, because I don't really know what to do with free time. If I do get a day off, I just hang out with my dog, go for a run, and watch Netflix. Other than that, I've got nothing.

My excuse for not building a social network is that I work too much. The guys on the show are all my friends, but unlike me they've actually developed lives outside the show. Even Lunchbox got married. Dang! Sometimes I get jealous that Amy, Eddie, and now Lunchbox (dang, again) have humans that they really care about. I mean, I know they care about me, but not as much as they care about those other people. It's like there's a whole other level of caring that I'm not in on, a hidden level to Mario Bros. that I haven't quite got to yet, and I can't seem to find the cheat codes to get there.

I like to be alone and need space, but I've begun to feel a slight tug toward wanting to belong someplace or to someone. Christmas is the worst for me. Last year I decided on a whim to leave the country for the first time in my life. I was in New York right before the holidays and completely untethered by family or friends. So, two days before Christmas, I decided to hop a flight to London. I have a buddy whose dad is a cabdriver over there, so he drove me around a little bit. I got carsick sitting in the wrong side of the car, looked at some old buildings, ate a bunch of scones, and hopped a flight back. It was fine.

More than somewhere to go, I want someone to go places with. I'm in my thirties now and ready to find someone who makes me get out of my comfort zone, do things that I don't think I want to do but then once I start doing them, I realize, This isn't so bad. This is actually kind of fun.

Oh hell, I'd love to find someone to spend my life with, okay! Although I have let four or five wonderful women who I was stupid not to hang on to slip right through my fingers, I'd love to get married, or not married. I want to find that person I can have kids with and leave the door open when I go number two. I don't know if it'll ever be in the cards for me, but I sure hope so.

I know it has to start with saying “I love you.” The only living creature that I've ever said “I love you” to is my dog. I know. It's sick. In my defense, Dusty has been sleeping with me since he was a puppy (he's thirteen now). He's most comfortable whenever I have a body limb laying on him, so that's how I sleep—on top of him. He accepts me as I am; even though I roll around and yell and kick and do everything while I sleep, he's used to it. I am able to love my dog because I know he's not going to leave me. He's not going to declare, “You know what? I think I've had enough of you. I've moved on.” Dusty doesn't have a choice. He's got to eat, and I'm the one who feeds him.

I don't like the fact that I've never said “I love you” to a sentient being with free will, but now it's become a thing where I don't want to waste it. I want to save it, like one of those Duggar girls saving her virginity for marriage. That's how big a deal the words have become to me.

My whole adult life, everyone's said, “Eventually you'll find the right person.” It's eventually now. I know by now that I'm not going to just meet “the right person” and butterflies will appear in my eyeballs and my untrusting soul will turn into light. I've been around (well, sort of, at least by a hermit's standards). If it were going to happen, it would have. I'm smart enough to know it's not an “it” thing but a “me” thing.

There are a lot of things other people do easily that are murder for me—like saying “I love you” or paying my bills. Don't get me wrong; I'm not a debtor. I
overpay
my bills all the time. So if my cell phone bill is $87, I'll pay $110 in order to build up a credit. That way if I'm ever poor again—scratch that—
when
I'm poor again, I'll have a couple of months to bounce back. Recently I had to hire a business manager, because now in addition to doing the radio show and the band I also have a TV production company and clothing line. The first thing she noticed were all these credits on my various accounts, from electric to water to my cell phone. After I explained my rationale, she turned to me and said, “No. Just no.” Although it made me nervous, she cashed out all of those credits. It still makes me nervous. I'll always be a poor person, even if I have money.

But I stopped overpaying my bills, and that's progress. It might be slow, but I do think I'm moving toward my other goals, such as being more vulnerable and positive. I'm still way too skeptical of everyone and have trouble trusting, but I'm better than I used to be.

As to my goal of being more optimistic, I'm also much better at it than I've ever been before. A big part of that has to do with the fact that in everything I do I surround myself with positive people. But just as with finding love, I know that the real transformation won't happen by some external event or other person changing me. It has to start from within.

I used to discuss my general predicament with happiness a lot with my therapist. As I said, it wasn't that I was depressed; I just never got out of being sad. Even when something good happens to me—like winning an award or becoming the country's number one country morning radio show—I kill it by thinking about the next bad thing that is surely right around the corner.

My therapist suggested that when I get good news or something cool happens to me, I should take thirty seconds and let myself be happy. To set aside half a minute and make it a moment. At first it was weird and strained, like flexing a muscle you've never used before. But after a while it got easier and I found more and more little moments to enjoy.

When the Raging Idiots signed a record deal with Black River Entertainment in the spring of 2015, it was a dream come true for me. I never, ever thought I would be in a band that was on an actual legitimate label. My natural inclination was to immediately suffocate my happiness by imagining all the different ways I was surely going to screw this up. Instead, I took myself out for a chicken-fried steak at Cracker Barrel. I didn't think about whether I was going to succeed or fail. I just enjoyed that steak. And that was it. I had my moment, and I moved on (then I was sure the Raging Idiots were going to fail).

As much as possible I'm trying to enjoy right now, because as my high school football coach Vic Gandolph says, “Every day is a good day.”

Now, I know you are thinking, Wait, everyday
really
isn't a good day. No, it's not true in a literal sense. But while I was in Mountain Pine, Coach beat it into our heads that every single day was an opportunity for a good day. While doing up-downs for seemingly hours at a time, Coach would yell “EVERY DAY IS A GOOD DAY!” Trust me, at the time it didn't feel very good.

When I returned to my high school to speak at graduation, Coach Gandolph showed up even though he doesn't work there anymore. He gave me the ball that we had given him my senior year, and we talked for a bit. I told him that it was only recently I understood what he meant by his mantra.

It's all about the choice and the chance that comes every morning when each of us rises to face a new day. Like yesterday, when I received the call that the television talk show, the one for which I survived about forty-five auditions and ten thousand different panels, didn't get picked up for a pilot. It's a bummer that I won't be on TV, but out of the experience I made a new and important friend: Deion Sanders.

Or today, when I woke up at 3
A
.
M
., did the radio show, worked on this book, had a TV production meeting, walked Dusty, went to rehearsal for a sold-out charity show with my band the Raging Idiots, worked out, sound-checked at 4
P
.
M
., walked Dusty again, performed with Carrie Underwood at 7
P
.
M
., did press until 2
A
.
M
., and raised a ton of money for St Jude.

Right before I go to sleep I'll look up at the Mountain Pine sign—Pop. 772—above my head and know that all I'm allowed to do in my life makes for some pretty long days. Still, I wake up every morning ready to start pushing buttons again.