Latest / DISGRACELAND / Johnny Paycheck: Pardon Me, I've Got Someone to Kill

Transcript

Johnny Paycheck: Pardon Me, I've Got Someone to Kill · DISGRACELAND

0:00
Speaker 1: Disgraceland as a production of double Elvis. The stories about
0:15
Speaker 1: country music star Johnny Paycheck or Hardcore. He shot a
0:19
Speaker 1: man in the head, he escaped from jail twice, and
0:23
Speaker 1: he lived under a bridge in Los Angeles in between
0:26
Speaker 1: the success of two top ten country hits, and he,
0:30
Speaker 1: arguably more than anybody else, embodied the hardcore honky tonk
0:34
Speaker 1: outlaw country image. While other country musicians were telling tall
0:38
Speaker 1: tales about the devil down in Georgia, Johnny was riding
0:41
Speaker 1: with the Hell's Angels. He walked it, talked it, lived it,
0:45
Speaker 1: loved it, and all along the way he made great music.
0:50
Speaker 1: And that music I played you at the top of
0:52
Speaker 1: the show. That wasn't great music. That was a preset
0:55
Speaker 1: loop from my melotron called Bruce Viola Low. I played
0:59
Speaker 1: you that loop because I can't afford the rights to
1:02
Speaker 1: Broken Wings by mister Mister. And why would I play
1:06
Speaker 1: you that specific slice of pasteld trench coat cheese? Could
1:09
Speaker 1: I afford it? Because that was the number one song
1:13
Speaker 1: in America on December nineteenth, nineteen eighty five, And that
1:17
Speaker 1: was the day that Johnny Paycheck aka Little Donny Little
1:21
Speaker 1: aka the Real Mister Heartache aka the last of the
1:25
Speaker 1: Hardcore Troubadours, shot a man in Ohio pretty much just
1:29
Speaker 1: to watch him die. On this episode below, viola pastel,
1:34
Speaker 1: trench coat, cheese, hardcore, Honky Tonk, and Johnny Paycheck. I'm
1:39
Speaker 1: Jake Brennan and this is disgracelked. Woodlawn is a popular
2:08
Speaker 1: name for American cemeteries. There are literally too many woodlawn
2:11
Speaker 1: cemeteries to count. Woodlawn Cemetery in the Bronx is one
2:15
Speaker 1: of the most famous woodlawns. Duke Ellington, Miles Davis, Herman,
2:19
Speaker 1: Melville and Rosa Parks. They're all buried there. And there's
2:23
Speaker 1: a woodlawn cemetery in Compton, one in Santa Monica, another
2:26
Speaker 1: in Dayton, Ohio, now the eternal resting place of the
2:29
Speaker 1: Wright brothers. And there is even a woodlawn cemetery in
2:32
Speaker 1: my hometown of Clinton, Massachusetts, where my grandmother is buried.
2:37
Speaker 1: But Woodlawn Memorial Park Cemetery in Nashville, Tennessee is where
2:41
Speaker 1: Country Music Royalty buries they're dead. Webb Peers, Porter Wagoner,
2:46
Speaker 1: George Jones, and Johnny Paycheck are all interred at Woodlawn
2:50
Speaker 1: in their graves serve as a measure of how successful
2:53
Speaker 1: their careers were. Webb Pierce's grave borders on ostentatious. There
2:58
Speaker 1: are no inlaid silver dollars, the ones that adorned his Cadillac,
3:02
Speaker 1: but there is a picture of him seventeen lengthy lines
3:05
Speaker 1: about his life in an homage to his first big hit,
3:07
Speaker 1: Wondering Boy. Porter Wagoner's grave features the quote I've left
3:12
Speaker 1: this old world with a satisfied mind, having inspired and
3:16
Speaker 1: produced Dolly Parton's I Will Always Love You. I'm sure
3:20
Speaker 1: that's an accurate statement. George Jones's grave is befitting of
3:24
Speaker 1: a king, and justifiably so for arguably the greatest country
3:28
Speaker 1: singer of all time. His final resting place is a
3:31
Speaker 1: monument to his stature. A great stone arch emblazoned with
3:35
Speaker 1: the title of his greatest hit, He Stopped Loving Her Today,
3:38
Speaker 1: gives shade to an etched portrait of Jones, along with
3:41
Speaker 1: an etched acoustic guitar in enlarged letters, his inscribed nickname,
3:45
Speaker 1: the Possum. By contrast, the grave of George Jones' good
3:50
Speaker 1: friend Johnny Paycheck is almost forgettable. It's a small stone
3:54
Speaker 1: with just Johnny's name, his birth and death dates, and
3:57
Speaker 1: etchings of an acoustic guitar and a fiddle, and Georges
4:00
Speaker 1: paid for it, and George also paid for Johnny's funeral,
4:04
Speaker 1: and somewhat surprisingly, Nashville showed up underneath the high ceilings
4:09
Speaker 1: and stained glass windows of Woodlawn's Cathedral, a who's who
4:12
Speaker 1: of country music at the time, who somehow managed to
4:15
Speaker 1: not be alienated by Johnny Paycheck during his career, or
4:18
Speaker 1: who somehow found it in their hearts to forgive Johnny
4:20
Speaker 1: Paycheck for as many Transgressions assembled to see the legendary
4:24
Speaker 1: hardcore troubadore off Trace Adkins and Little Jimmy Dickens, along
4:29
Speaker 1: with Jones with a bold faced name, musicians and attendance,
4:32
Speaker 1: local DJ's, record executives, Sunglass Nightclub Impresario's Sidemen, Music Rose
4:37
Speaker 1: song pluggers, and a whole pew'sworth of Hell's Angels sat
4:41
Speaker 1: to listen to the eulogy. Eddie Stubbs, the WSMAM DJ,
4:46
Speaker 1: delivered it with reverence and poise, saying of Johnny Paycheck,
4:50
Speaker 1: he was a complicated man. That's one way of putting it.
4:54
Speaker 1: Another way would be to say he was a raging
4:56
Speaker 1: alcoholic coke fiend who, despite his success, and unlike Porter Wack,
5:00
Speaker 1: could never be satisfied. Paycheck was a hardcore musician that
5:05
Speaker 1: rare combination of talent and authenticity that needn't be tended to.
5:09
Speaker 1: He just was a truly unique voice, a good enough
5:13
Speaker 1: player back in the day to back Ray Price and
5:15
Speaker 1: George Jones, And despite having his biggest hit, Take This
5:19
Speaker 1: Job and Shove It penned by someone else, Johnny Paycheck
5:23
Speaker 1: was an excellent songwriter whose songs, particularly Pardon Me have
5:27
Speaker 1: Got Someone to Kill in that Old Violin, are uniquely
5:31
Speaker 1: identifiable as his own, incapable of being written by anyone else,
5:35
Speaker 1: immensely resonant in the very definition of real hardcore. Other
5:41
Speaker 1: than the star studded attendees, the funeral was pretty much unremarkable,
5:46
Speaker 1: which is saying something. Given who was being laid out,
5:49
Speaker 1: Johnny Paycheck was anything but unremarkable. From an early age
5:53
Speaker 1: he gave zero fox and last anyone checked. On the
5:55
Speaker 1: day he was buried, there was still little proof that
5:58
Speaker 1: he wasn't born. Standing up and talking about the first
6:23
Speaker 1: punch didn't sound like much, but Donnie could feel the
6:26
Speaker 1: impact he'd made by the blood rippling out from under
6:29
Speaker 1: his knuckles. The second punch. Now, that punch sounded like something.
6:34
Speaker 1: Even with the sounds of waves crashing into the side
6:37
Speaker 1: of the Navy aircraft carrier they were on, the punch
6:39
Speaker 1: could still be heard, but it didn't land with the
6:42
Speaker 1: desired effect. The dude was still on his feet, wavering,
6:46
Speaker 1: perhaps aided by the steady ebb and flow of the
6:48
Speaker 1: ship on the ocean's surface, and the dude swung wildly,
6:52
Speaker 1: too wild to get a real swing in on Donnie.
6:55
Speaker 1: Donnie was wiry quick. He dodged to his right, and
6:58
Speaker 1: the dude's fist barely graced the left side of his head. However,
7:01
Speaker 1: it was enough to send Donnie into a blind rage.
7:04
Speaker 1: He fired off a string of punches, fast, furious, each
7:08
Speaker 1: one landing more solidly than the one before, until finally
7:11
Speaker 1: the dude fell to the deck, and Donnie barely had
7:14
Speaker 1: time to feel good about himself. Within seconds, he was
7:16
Speaker 1: being wrestled to the floor by a group of sailors
7:19
Speaker 1: who'd come up behind him. He struggled, but it was
7:22
Speaker 1: no use. He was cuffed, shipped off to the mainland, jailed, escaped,
7:26
Speaker 1: was caught, escaped again, was caught again, tried, and sentenced
7:30
Speaker 1: to eighteen years for assaulting his superior naval officer. Somehow
7:36
Speaker 1: his sentence was reduced to two years, and in nineteen
7:39
Speaker 1: fifty nine, Little Donny Little, fresh out of the brig
7:42
Speaker 1: headed to Nashville, Tennessee, to make his name in the
7:44
Speaker 1: world of country music, and the name he made for
7:47
Speaker 1: himself was Johnny Paycheck, after a heavyweight boxer who once
7:51
Speaker 1: went toe to toe with Joe Lewis, in whose pugnacious
7:54
Speaker 1: attitude Donnie admired, and after stints backing George Jones, Farren Young,
7:59
Speaker 1: and other Johnny caught the ear of producer Aubrey Mayhew,
8:03
Speaker 1: and Mayhoo was smart enough to design a sound that
8:06
Speaker 1: was as big as Johnny's own personality. With Lloyd Green's
8:10
Speaker 1: shredding and loud steel guitar and two fiddles up front
8:13
Speaker 1: in the mix, the sound of Johnny Paycheck the Musician
8:17
Speaker 1: was as tough as Johnny Paycheck the man, but the
8:20
Speaker 1: main attraction was Johnny's voice. It refused to conform to
8:25
Speaker 1: the standards of country music diction and melody. It sounded
8:28
Speaker 1: more cock Need than Chattanooga. Words like night came out
8:32
Speaker 1: his mouth sounding like noight, and time like toyme. They
8:37
Speaker 1: sound silly coming out of my mouth right now. But
8:39
Speaker 1: trust me, go listen to the original version of Johnny
8:41
Speaker 1: Paycheck's a eleven. It's wild, it's totally something else, and
8:45
Speaker 1: both now to this day and then, which is why
8:48
Speaker 1: it was a hit in nineteen sixty five. Success led
8:51
Speaker 1: to excess more drinking, drugging, pissing in the punch bowl,
8:55
Speaker 1: literally and figuratively, forged checks, petty theft, rumors about sex
9:00
Speaker 1: with underage girls, and eventually Johnny quickly burnt his way
9:03
Speaker 1: out of Nashville and for unknown reasons, to San Diego
9:06
Speaker 1: and then a brief stint on LA's skid row where
9:09
Speaker 1: he was forced to play music for beer money, and
9:12
Speaker 1: he eventually ended up in Denver, where he likely would
9:14
Speaker 1: have drank himself into an early Rocky Mountain grave had
9:17
Speaker 1: it not been for the intervention of famed country producer
9:20
Speaker 1: Billy Charrell, who'd sometime earlier made it his mission to
9:24
Speaker 1: locate the drifting Paycheck and wrangle him back into the studio.
9:30
Speaker 1: Charelle knew a unique talent when he heard one. It
9:32
Speaker 1: was convinced that Johnny's bizarro voice and hard edged attitude
9:36
Speaker 1: would contrast perfectly over the country Politan's style he was
9:39
Speaker 1: perfecting back in Nashville, and Billy Charrelle was right. Their
9:44
Speaker 1: first collaboration, Don't Take Her, She's All I Got is
9:48
Speaker 1: as close to being a perfect recording as you can get.
9:51
Speaker 1: When the aliens come and want to know what country
9:53
Speaker 1: music sounds like, you'd do good to play them this
9:56
Speaker 1: number two country smash from nineteen seventy one. But again,
10:00
Speaker 1: despite his success, or perhaps because of it, Johnny Paycheck
10:04
Speaker 1: couldn't help but find more trouble. It was in his blood,
10:07
Speaker 1: it was who he was. He was hardcore and success
10:11
Speaker 1: didn't matter. Neither did failure. Johnny Paycheck lived hard no
10:16
Speaker 1: matter life circumstance. That's all success or failure were to Johnny,
10:20
Speaker 1: just circumstance. He believed that he himself had no influence
10:25
Speaker 1: over how his career turned out, and there was no
10:27
Speaker 1: ambition or lack of ambition. He simply just was. Things
10:31
Speaker 1: either happened to him or they didn't. Music was a trade,
10:34
Speaker 1: no different than fixing cars was to a mechanic or
10:37
Speaker 1: fixing toilets was to a plumber. Successful plumbers don't seek
10:41
Speaker 1: out and find success, and Johnny's estimation, they got what
10:44
Speaker 1: they got through luck of the draw lots of busted
10:47
Speaker 1: toilets in their hometowns or whatever, and after work, like
10:50
Speaker 1: everyone else, they blew off steam. So when Johnny clocked out,
10:55
Speaker 1: he too made it his business to get down to
10:57
Speaker 1: business drinking, fucking, fighting, not necessarily in that order, instead
11:04
Speaker 1: in any damn order he pleased. It was his life
11:07
Speaker 1: and he'd do what he dan well wanted whenever he wanted.
11:09
Speaker 1: And if you couldn't get with that, then he could
11:11
Speaker 1: just get the hell out of his way, or else
11:15
Speaker 1: We'll be right back after this word. We're We're the
11:21
Speaker 1: Hell's Angels. Weren't dicking around, friend or no friend. They
11:25
Speaker 1: weren't gonna let the man who showed no show jones
11:27
Speaker 1: how to not show fuck up their party. And they
11:30
Speaker 1: like Johnny paycheck, sure, but if he pulled any shit
11:32
Speaker 1: like he did back at the Chili Factory in Santa
11:34
Speaker 1: Barbara where he fell off the stage too drunk and
11:37
Speaker 1: too stone to play the gig, they'd be hell to pay.
11:41
Speaker 1: George Christi, the Hell's Angels Ventura club leader, was throwing
11:44
Speaker 1: a party and it hired Johnny to play. George knew
11:48
Speaker 1: there was zero chance Johnny would arrive and show for him,
11:51
Speaker 1: and he knew that while on the plane, Johnny would
11:53
Speaker 1: just be Johnny, take his pills, drain the planes minibar,
11:56
Speaker 1: flirt with the stewardess or two, get himself wasted, and
11:59
Speaker 1: ultimately arrive legless and unable to perform. So George had
12:04
Speaker 1: a plan. He let Johnny believe that he was playing
12:06
Speaker 1: the show that Thursday night upon arrival, but the party
12:10
Speaker 1: was actually planned for two nights later. On that Saturday.
12:14
Speaker 1: When Johnny landed at the airport Hammered, there were two big,
12:18
Speaker 1: bad looking Hell's Angels waiting for him, one named Garbage
12:21
Speaker 1: aka Garbage and the other named Tiny, who of course
12:25
Speaker 1: weighed four hundred pounds, and they took Johnny back to
12:28
Speaker 1: his hotel room, where he believed he'd be popping in
12:30
Speaker 1: for a cold shower, some black coffee, and a bump
12:33
Speaker 1: or two from the bindle of coke he successfully squirreled
12:36
Speaker 1: on and off of the plane. Little did he know
12:39
Speaker 1: he wouldn't be going anywhere, and there would be no coke.
12:42
Speaker 1: Worse than that, no mini bar, no drugs or alcohol
12:46
Speaker 1: of any kind, just coffee, cigarettes, and shitty fast food
12:50
Speaker 1: brought in by Tiny's old lady, who was staying nearby,
12:54
Speaker 1: and Johnny was livid. At first, he tried to head
12:57
Speaker 1: into the bathroom to do his blow, but Tiny made
12:59
Speaker 1: him empty his pocket beforehand, and when Johnny refused, Tiny
13:02
Speaker 1: stuffed his fat figures into Johnny's greasy jean pockets. Had
13:05
Speaker 1: found what he was looking for, Johnny's coke, and Johnny
13:09
Speaker 1: then made a run for the motel room door, but
13:11
Speaker 1: was quickly snapped up by Garbage, who tossed Johnny back
13:14
Speaker 1: onto the bed, where he flopped down into an open
13:17
Speaker 1: pizza box and a half eaten pie. And Johnny tried
13:20
Speaker 1: again for the door, this time Tiny clothes lined him,
13:24
Speaker 1: and Johnny's wiry little coke head frame peeled backward and
13:27
Speaker 1: fell hard onto the motel room floor, where he curled
13:30
Speaker 1: up into a ball, closed his eyes, clinched his fists,
13:33
Speaker 1: and accepted his fate. He steeled himself for a long
13:36
Speaker 1: night of Noah's substances, and Friday morning finally came. Johnny
13:43
Speaker 1: woke up and tried his best to convince Tiny to
13:45
Speaker 1: go find him a joint, but Tiny wouldn't budge, so
13:49
Speaker 1: instead Johnny chain smoked cigarettes, gorged on candy bars and
13:53
Speaker 1: coca Cola. He sat on the motel bed and watched
13:57
Speaker 1: Creature double feature reruns Godzilla Versus Mech go on Wild.
14:02
Speaker 1: By dinner time, he started plucking at his guitar and
14:04
Speaker 1: modeling the lyrics to his biggest hit to date, Take
14:07
Speaker 1: this Job and Shove It and Ode to the working Man,
14:10
Speaker 1: an outlaw anthem. The song was a smash, in part
14:14
Speaker 1: because it was catchy as hell, but also because America
14:16
Speaker 1: had caught up to Johnny Paycheck. America in the nineteen
14:21
Speaker 1: seventies was searching for itself between the post hippie Hayes
14:24
Speaker 1: of the sixties and the Greed is Good Gordon Gecko eighties.
14:29
Speaker 1: In the process, while stumbling through its own cultural wilderness,
14:32
Speaker 1: America gave rise to outlaw culture. Suddenly renegades were in fashion.
14:37
Speaker 1: Burt Reynolds Smoking in the Bandit and John Travolta's Urban
14:40
Speaker 1: Cowboy brought black hats and bad attitudes to the mainstream,
14:44
Speaker 1: and thus an inevitable backlash happened, where real country stars
14:48
Speaker 1: started looking less like cowboys or Hollywood pretty boys playing
14:52
Speaker 1: cowboys and more like pirates or perhaps more accurate, like
14:56
Speaker 1: bike gangs like Hell's Angels. Willie Nelson Yalen Jennings and
15:00
Speaker 1: Johnny Cash most famously adopted this outlaw image, and Charlie
15:04
Speaker 1: Daniels seemed hell bent on driving the image straight into
15:07
Speaker 1: the cheese factory. But Johnny Paycheck not only looked the part,
15:11
Speaker 1: he lived it. He'd been living the outlaw of life
15:14
Speaker 1: day and night since he was nine years old, since
15:17
Speaker 1: he first picked up a guitar, since he first jumped
15:20
Speaker 1: the train like his hero of the singing Breakman, Jimmy Rogers.
15:24
Speaker 1: So thirty years later in nineteen seventy seven, when he
15:27
Speaker 1: released Take This Job and Shove It, it was no
15:30
Speaker 1: surprise that it went to number one. It was real, authentic, hardcore,
15:37
Speaker 1: hardcore Honky Tonk and America could handle it, and Johnny
15:43
Speaker 1: was handling his boat with sobriety as best he could.
15:46
Speaker 1: He passed out in bed with his telecaster at his side,
15:49
Speaker 1: and awoke Saturday morning to spend the rest of the
15:51
Speaker 1: day getting ready for the gig, singing, playing, doing pushups.
15:56
Speaker 1: He even read a newspaper man he thought that Jimmy
15:59
Speaker 1: Carter Show seemed like a pussy. By the time the
16:02
Speaker 1: sun went down, Johnny was ready to play. George Christy
16:07
Speaker 1: took the mic front and center. Johnny's band stood quietly,
16:11
Speaker 1: their instruments plugged in and ready on stage behind him,
16:15
Speaker 1: with the exception of the coueless pedal steel player who
16:17
Speaker 1: was loudly trying to tune and bumming out the audience.
16:20
Speaker 1: George shot him a look that said, shut that thing up,
16:23
Speaker 1: or I'll hog tie you with those steel strings. And
16:26
Speaker 1: the audience was giddy, drunk on white lightning, schlitz and excitement,
16:30
Speaker 1: hooting hollering, and George cued the band to start their intro.
16:35
Speaker 1: The drummer started banging away his kid at one hundred
16:38
Speaker 1: and eighty beats per minute. The bass player pebbled from
16:40
Speaker 1: the one to the five manically, somehow managing to look
16:43
Speaker 1: cool in the process, and the pedal steel player, who
16:46
Speaker 1: was two beats behind, frantically looking up from his stool
16:49
Speaker 1: to the bassist and sliding his left hand up and
16:51
Speaker 1: down the upper neck, trying to keep pace with his bandmates.
16:55
Speaker 1: The fiddle player coolly slid his bow across his strings
16:58
Speaker 1: and peered out over the body of his instrumitted a
17:00
Speaker 1: big busted blonde and a two tight T shirt in
17:03
Speaker 1: the front row. She smiled back and somewhere not too
17:07
Speaker 1: far away. The Devil smiled too. George leaned into the mic,
17:11
Speaker 1: with the band now blazing behind him. Ladies and gentlemen,
17:16
Speaker 1: the Hell's Angels probably presented Johnny Paycheck. The audience broke
17:23
Speaker 1: into applause while a short dude in a big black
17:25
Speaker 1: hat moved through the crowd from the back of the
17:27
Speaker 1: beer hall towards the stage. Johnny Paycheck hopped up under
17:31
Speaker 1: the riser, and a chobvy rody in a blue satin
17:33
Speaker 1: white sleeve jacket appeared out of nowhere with Johnny's TV
17:36
Speaker 1: yellow telecaster. The rody was careful not to knock the
17:39
Speaker 1: cigarette out of Johnny's mouth while he placed the strap
17:41
Speaker 1: over his hat and head and onto his shoulders, and
17:44
Speaker 1: with the band still raging behind him, his guitar hanging
17:48
Speaker 1: off of him just below the center of his chest
17:50
Speaker 1: like a proud Pimps gold medallion, Johnny grabbed the mic
17:53
Speaker 1: with two hands and gave the crowd a loud quick
17:56
Speaker 1: well all right, And with that he raised his right
17:59
Speaker 1: hand and stomped his left foot, queuing the band to
18:02
Speaker 1: abruptly halt. The crowd was brimming with excitement. Johnny's beady
18:08
Speaker 1: little eyes surveyed the crowd. He cocked his head back
18:12
Speaker 1: and then lowered his chin toward the microphone, slowly and
18:15
Speaker 1: in his deepest, baddest baritone, saying, take this job and
18:20
Speaker 1: shove it. The crowd nearly pissed themselves with excitement. They screamed,
18:27
Speaker 1: held their cowboy hats to the sky, and busted into
18:29
Speaker 1: dance while singing along with one of their own, the
18:32
Speaker 1: hardcore troubadour Johnny Paycheck, his beer belly barreling out of
18:37
Speaker 1: his red, white and blue suspenders, his long greasy hair
18:40
Speaker 1: sliding down the sides of his face alongside his chiseled cheekbones,
18:43
Speaker 1: and out of his black hat, a stetson with a
18:45
Speaker 1: small but dazzled Confederate flag front and center. The stetson,
18:50
Speaker 1: whose time on stage would be short lived, as it
18:53
Speaker 1: always was, was strictly for show, for introductory purposes. It
18:57
Speaker 1: was part of the uniform. It got Johnny in the
19:00
Speaker 1: or established him a country. But after the first song
19:04
Speaker 1: it was gone, replaced by the outlaw's headband, one of
19:08
Speaker 1: those classic blue and white Paisley handkerchiefs rolled tight, making
19:12
Speaker 1: him look more like a heroin trafficking Vietnam VET than
19:15
Speaker 1: a cowboy country singer that cowboy shit was for the movies.
19:20
Speaker 1: Johnny Paycheck was hardcore. After the success of Take This
19:39
Speaker 1: Job and Shove It, Johnny Paycheck morphed into a parody
19:42
Speaker 1: of himself, the outlaw country singer, driving his life away
19:46
Speaker 1: through whiskey, women in song, mountains of cocaine, and pretty
19:49
Speaker 1: much any other narcotic he could get his hands on.
19:52
Speaker 1: The hardcore outlaw lifestyle. It never stopped. Even after the
19:56
Speaker 1: success of Take This Job and Shove It had Johnny
20:01
Speaker 1: Paycheck was at the bottom again, and he was headed
20:04
Speaker 1: up north on Interstate sixty five from Nashville home to Greenfield, Ohio,
20:08
Speaker 1: to see his mother for the holidays. It was Deceummer nineteenth,
20:12
Speaker 1: nineteen eighty five, and Johnny thought to himself that he
20:15
Speaker 1: was thankful to live in a country that still celebrated Christmas.
20:19
Speaker 1: But he didn't think it would be that way much longer.
20:22
Speaker 1: He knew that all the outlaws had it coming, and
20:24
Speaker 1: that even that long haired freak with the crown of
20:26
Speaker 1: Thorns bandana Jesus Christ would one day get what was
20:30
Speaker 1: coming to him too. America was changing. It might have
20:35
Speaker 1: been the eighties, but hippie thinking was like a bad
20:37
Speaker 1: hangover that the country just couldn't shake. The asclown baby
20:41
Speaker 1: boomers had their touchy feeling nineteen sixties hands all over everything,
20:45
Speaker 1: telling you what they thought you wanted to hear, while
20:47
Speaker 1: stabbing you in the back at the same time preaching
20:50
Speaker 1: community and respect and cheating on their wives with their
20:53
Speaker 1: secretaries and latch keying their kids and alienated adolescents. The Boomers,
20:58
Speaker 1: with their trendy cycle analytical bunk, made it so you
21:01
Speaker 1: couldn't just look a man in the eye anymore and
21:03
Speaker 1: tell him how you felt. You had to listen to him.
21:06
Speaker 1: You had to respect his feelings. You could no longer
21:09
Speaker 1: just tell your boss to take this job and shove it.
21:12
Speaker 1: You had to go to employee counseling with your manager
21:14
Speaker 1: and work out your differences. Or if you fell in love,
21:17
Speaker 1: you couldn't just tell the person no. That would be
21:20
Speaker 1: too direct, too smothering. If you love someone, you had
21:24
Speaker 1: to set them free, and what the hell did that
21:26
Speaker 1: even mean? Anyways? If you love someone, set them free?
21:30
Speaker 1: Fucked this outlaws said what needed saying and did what
21:33
Speaker 1: needed doing. Thinking about all this made his head hurt.
21:38
Speaker 1: He needed a drink, especially to get himself primed to
21:41
Speaker 1: deal with his mother, Johnny pulled off Highway seventy one
21:44
Speaker 1: in Hillsborough and into the North High Lounge parking lot.
21:47
Speaker 1: He grabbed a seat at the bar, ordered a bud bottle,
21:51
Speaker 1: tilted the brim of his black stats and down low
21:53
Speaker 1: over his forehead, and listened to his old friend George
21:56
Speaker 1: Jones filled the smoky lounge air from the Seabird jukebox
21:59
Speaker 1: in the back corner. Then, after George, Johnny heard his
22:04
Speaker 1: own voice coming from the jukebox. It was his nineteen
22:07
Speaker 1: sixty six classic Pardon Me, I've Got Someone to Kill.
22:11
Speaker 1: Lloyd Green's pedal steel intro still sounded dark and evil
22:14
Speaker 1: as ever, and Johnny's voice rang out. It never had
22:18
Speaker 1: a finer moment, and his lyrics never had more menace.
22:23
Speaker 1: Johnny's eyes were closed as he listened and sipped ice
22:26
Speaker 1: cold bud from a bar bottle, and for a moment
22:29
Speaker 1: there was zen. He just was. Then it was giggling.
22:35
Speaker 1: Johnny snapped out of it and turned to the sound
22:37
Speaker 1: of laughter behind him at the back wall. Huddled around
22:40
Speaker 1: the jukebox were two men laughing and staring at Johnny,
22:43
Speaker 1: pointing snickering under the breath taking turns, clowning about, and
22:48
Speaker 1: aping Johnny's unique voice, making wide eyed hehaw facial expressions.
22:53
Speaker 1: The fuck Johnny tried ignoring them, turned his head, closed
22:58
Speaker 1: his eyes, and smoothed out his thick mustache with his
23:00
Speaker 1: thumb and index finger while continuing to listen to his
23:03
Speaker 1: voice filled the air, But the snickering continued, and Johnny
23:07
Speaker 1: felt his blood begin to boil. One of the giggling
23:11
Speaker 1: so called men was now standing next to Johnny at
23:14
Speaker 1: the bar. Well, I'll be damned, look a here, it's
23:17
Speaker 1: Charlie Daniels. The fuck. Johnny turned his head slowly to
23:21
Speaker 1: size up the smart mouth standing to his right. Excuse me,
23:26
Speaker 1: I'm just playing. We know who you are. Take this
23:28
Speaker 1: job and shove it. You're Johnny Paycheck, Greenfield's own celebrity.
23:32
Speaker 1: How you like Greenfield? Anyway? Got enough turtles for you?
23:37
Speaker 1: What did you just say? Turtles? You know for soup?
23:41
Speaker 1: That's what all you read? Next up in Hillsboro? Eat,
23:43
Speaker 1: ain't it turtle soup? Oh? Of course? Maybe if you know,
23:46
Speaker 1: Count Daddy could afford bullets and you'd be eating dear meat,
23:49
Speaker 1: that is, if you're lucky. Am I right? What did
23:51
Speaker 1: you just say to me you see me as some
23:54
Speaker 1: kind of country hick. Johnny reached down to his side
23:58
Speaker 1: and pulled his piece, a twenty two aliber pistol, and
24:00
Speaker 1: shoved it in the face of the smart mouth, who,
24:02
Speaker 1: without a second's thought, broke into a sprint toward the
24:04
Speaker 1: barroom exit. Johnny got up out of his stool and
24:07
Speaker 1: took aim. He fired the shot, blew off the smart
24:10
Speaker 1: mouth's hat, and grazed his scalp. He fell to the floor,
24:13
Speaker 1: bleeding badly from above his eye. The local cops, all
24:17
Speaker 1: two of them, not including the dispatcher, were on the
24:19
Speaker 1: scene in no time, and Johnny Paycheck was arrested and
24:26
Speaker 1: held on fifty thousand dollars bail. His old friend George
24:30
Speaker 1: Jones posted it for him. While awaiting trial, another one
24:34
Speaker 1: of Johnny's friends, Jerry Lee Lewis, played a benefit concert
24:37
Speaker 1: to help raise money for Johnny's legal fees, but no
24:40
Speaker 1: amount of bread would make a difference. Johnny's plea of
24:44
Speaker 1: self defense fell on deaf ears, and the judge wasn't
24:47
Speaker 1: interested in hearing this tired outlaws sad song, so he
24:51
Speaker 1: slapped Johnny Paycheck with a seven year prison sentence and
24:54
Speaker 1: In the end, the outlaw felt what was coming to
24:57
Speaker 1: him hardcore. I'm Jake Brennan. This this Disgraceland. Disgraceland was
25:15
Speaker 1: created by Yours Truly and is produced in partnership with
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Speaker 1: Double Elvis. Credits for this episode can be found on
25:21
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26:01
Speaker 1: slash at disgrace Lampod, Rock and Roller. He's a bad,
26:08
Speaker 1: bad man.