If Chins Could Kill: Confessions of a B Movie Actor (55 page)

So, at one point in February, I found myself swordfighting on a soundstage in Hollywood on a Friday (with Cliff Curtis: the first New Zealand actor I ever met, while working on
Hercules: The Legendary Journeys
), and slogging through a cow pasture outside of Dallas the next day.

By then, the book was in "blue pages" mode, where you check for last-minute typos only -- no other changes are encouraged. It takes time to review this type of thing with any accuracy, but I'm sure it all would have been a walk in the park had I not opted to drive to Los Angeles for the next six weeks to play a sixty-eight-year-old Elvis Presley in an East Texas rest home.

I'll explain the plot of the film, but it won't help much: It's a redemptive story of the real Elvis Aaron Presley (who is still alive) and his encounter with Jack Kennedy (played by Ossie Davis), who thinks he's been dyed black and that "they" are keeping part of his brain alive on batteries back at the White House. He's also convinced that there is a mummy sneaking into the rest home at night and sucking the souls out of the old people. I guess this would be a good time to tell you the title:
Bubba Ho-Tep.

This truly odd film, based on a short story by Joe Landsdale, was directed by Don Coscarelli (of
Phantasm
fame), so the pairing seemed right, and Don was sincere in his desire not to crank it out like a TV movie.

After six long weeks at an abandoned Veterans Mental Health Facility in Downey, California, Elvis gave his last performance, and I signed off on the final version of
Chins.
Acting chores for the year were complete, and my schedule was now wide open to set sail.

"Give me a map," I shouted to nobody in particular. "We must chart a course for the book tour!"

THE ROUTE

A book tour can be easy or very complicated -- it all depends on how much time you've got on your hands. I had promised the big shots at St. Martin's Press that I would aid in the sales of the book however I could. That meant, in no uncertain terms, I would be on the road for three months -- immediately after being on the road for three months...

Plotting a manageable route across the country was the real challenge. I knew it wasn't going to be as easy as starting from one coast and moving methodically to the other because, in anticipation of the upcoming tour, I had agreed to every personal appearance offered up during that period. At the time, it seemed like a good way to get my butt around the country inexpensively -- particularly since the beginning of the book tour came out of my own pocket.

As a result, between June 8, and November 4, 2001, there was no logical, geographical layout to the book tour whatsoever. I would never, for example follow up Portland with a book signing in Seattle -- that would be far too logical. When on the East Coast, I was more likely to go from Baltimore to Oregon, dash out three days later to Cleveland, return home for two days, then head to some far-flung region of the country for a single day. I'm getting tired just typing this.

Ultimately, I became resigned to this raggedy-assed schedule. If nothing else, it was a great way to get air miles for all the wrong reasons. The only thing I knew for sure was that I wanted to kick the tour off in Michigan. As it turned out, the original Borders bookstore was hatched in Ann Arbor, which also happens to be a great college town with plenty of family history -- Bingo, baby!

The tour then took shape, market by market, and wound up looking something like this: After Detroit, we returned west to "do" Los Angeles, Burbank, West Hollywood, and Santa Barbara. I say
we,
because during much of the book tour, my long-suffering wife Ida was with me -- and thank God for it. Ida kept me from getting grumpy (most of the time), pointed me in the right direction, and insisted that we eat well.

From California, I did a signing in the small town of Medford, Oregon. Three days later, I flew to New York City; Huntington, New York; Ridgewood, New Jersey, then back home.

Within two days, I headed south to sign in Dallas, Austin, and Savannah. Four days later, I was in St. Louis, then home before Seattle and San Francisco. I rearranged my dirty clothes and was in Indianapolis two days later, followed by Evanston, Ill; Chicago; Milwaukee; Madison; and Shaumberg, Ill.

After an all-too-short break, I dashed through Portland, grabbed a one-night stay at home before doing a southwest swing, which included San Diego, Las Vegas, Flagstaff, Tempe, Albuquerque, Denver, Salt Lake City, and Sacramento.

I was home long enough to wring the sweat out of my socks, and then it was back across the country to sign books in Baltimore; Arlington, Virginia; Miami Beach; Ft. Lauderdale; Tampa; Atlantic Beach, and Atlanta, Georgia.

Tigard, Oregon (a suburb of Portland), was next, followed by a northeast swing, including Windsor, Ontario; Toronto; Amherst, NY (basically Buffalo); Albany; South Hadley, MA; Cambridge; Providence, R.I.; Philadelphia; and Bridgeville, PA.

The stop at home was just a formality, because it was almost immediately followed by a "southeast" leg -- one that started in Cleveland and led to Dayton, Lexington, Louisville, Nashville, Knoxville, and, lastly, Miami.

Hey, piece of cake...

THE DOG AND PONY SHOW

To quote my father, former advertising executive Chuck Campbell: "If you don't get the word out, I don't give a rat's ass how good your product is, you're going to go down in flames." How right Chuck is. With those very words echoing from northern Michigan, we set out to let the world know that a new book was about to hit the shelves.

Media, in all of its hydra forms, is a creature unto itself, and it panders to an infinitely wide variety of tastes. I got a first-hand lesson in New York City, on a single day, of just how different markets and sensibilities be.

Around midday, I had a TV interview with Father Mike, a priest who had his own cable show in Manhattan. Father Mike and I talked, uninterrupted, for a half hour and we got into some real life issues: life, death, morality -- you name it. The experience was fairly intense, but very fulfilling.

As a host, Father Mike had clearly read the book and took great pains to point out very obscure facts. His questions were both insightful and unique, and by the end of my visit we parted, feeling like old pals.

"Wow. Okay, so that was pretty amazing. Where to next, Joe?" I asked the St. Martin's publicity boss.

"We're going to
The Opie and Anthony Show.
They have an afternoon drive-time show with a huge audience."

And off we went to the studios of WNEW for what was to become the parallel universe media experience. In the lobby, waiting for my turn, I noticed a number of, shall we say, "over-done" women arriving.

Man, check out the girlfriends of these shock jocks,
I thought to myself. Eventually, after engaging in small talk, it became clear that they were to be guests on the show.
Must be after my bit,
I nodded to myself.

"Hi, I'm Bruce, what's your name?" I asked a tan, amply endowed woman.

"I'm Montana Gunn," she smiled. Montana was almost always smiling.

"Are you a gunslinger?" I asked.

This got a giggle out of the women, but I persisted. "What do you do... Montana?"

This prompted another giggle and they exchanged glances. "We're exotic dancers."

"You know, I've always wondered about something. Howard Stern has a never-ending string of stripp -- uh, I mean exotic dancers on his radio show. Don't you think that's odd when you can't see them?"

Montana shook her head, no. "Not if they videotape it like we're going to do. It'll be on their Web site later tonight."

"Your 'exotic' dance?"

Montana giggled again. "Yeah, or whatever we do..."

I started to get scared. These women were up to something nasty, I could just tell.
Thank God they're on after me
, I assured myself.

Just then, we were summoned to the studios of Opie and Anthony --
all
of us -- "dancers" included. As I looked back at the three women, they giggled.

The studio was big and clean, and had what seemed like a dozen microphones, most of which were being passed around like bottles of beer to a small army of guys who could, and would, toss in their two cents at any given moment.

Even in this loose format, each guy seemed to have a specialty. One fellow could hurl insults like no tomorrow. Just a few minutes after we settled in the studio, he was already patched in to a rival comedian on his cell phone and these guys let the fur fly. I had never heard a verbal barrage that intense before. As a commuter, I'm not so sure I could drive home from work with that every afternoon, but the guy had a gift.

Opie and Anthony, the amiable hosts, were jammed in the middle of this madness, each at a desk choked with papers of all shapes and sizes. From here, they quarterbacked the show, taking relish in how far they could push the allowable limits of on-air verbiage. Over the years, these guys developed a simple procedure whereby you would only say the first letter of "offensive" words. Here is a watered-down example:

"Did she let him put his B in her T?"

"She not only did that, but she let him A her in the G..."

(Please don't try and translate that.)

After numerous breaks for promos, traffic, and commercials, we talked a little about the book, but you could tell they were itching for Montana Gunn to perform her "special" skill. Aside from her day job as a porn star, Montana could eject ice cubes from her butt or, as you would say over the air, "from her 'A'."

Before you could say "duck that ice cube", a video geek was taping Montana and her two pals stripping, fondling and, eventually, assuming the position -- the ice cube position. A lucky volunteer freed ice from his plastic tray, and the moment of truth was upon us. Opie and Anthony broadcast the play-by-play in code: