BOOKING THE BUTTHOLES

So I’m sitting on a toilet in Cancun, Mexico. It’s 2008. Slurring at me over the phone is Gibson Haynes, singer for the Butthole Surfers.

“I think we can make this show happen. Paul [Leary, BH guitarist] is coming around to the idea.”

“Coming around”? Hmm, that sounds a lot like a Realtor phrase: “I'll circle back around to you.” People who say they’ll circle back around often never do. It’s their arrogant way of saying, “I’m the man and I could care less about your venue or you.”

“Tell that studio genius I’m selling tickets tomorrow. Clear his fucking calendar—what, is he recording another album for the sun-dried Meat Puppets again? Tell you what, let them warm up for you and record their junkie asses on stage through the PA, okay?”

“Let me see, I’ll call you back.”

“Hey, Gibby, these calls cost me $5 a minute, make it fast.”

He calls me back: “Okay, Paul’s on board. How much should we sell tickets for, like, $23?” asks Gibson.

“$23, are you kidding me? You must have at least 1,500 fans in Austin who will pay $40, don’t you? You haven’t played in four years, surely your geriatric fans have real jobs now and aren’t still dropping acid like in the ’80s, right?”

Gibby said he wanted to do Friday and Sunday at the Scoot Inn—which was my bar—and needed a day of downtime between acts. What’s wrong with Saturday night? Hello! He said he was going to need an artist’s respite to recover from the first night’s gig. A “buffer.” Jesus. I said, “Dude, do Friday and Saturday, your fans can’t afford a babysitter Sunday night.”

When your venue is chipping on stone tablets and has no real website, just sundry old Myspace pages, AOL accounts, and idiot bookers who couldn’t snag a large act if their life depended on it, you have to go analog. I tracked down some lesbian friends I had in Westlake—these gals had a pretty good ticket portal, so they helped with the online store with no marketing. So I had hard tickets printed; I ran huge ads in the Chronicle, this free weekly hippy rag. Spent thousands more. The first night’s show sold out fast.

“40 grand, man,” I told Gibby.

“Wow, we haven’t done that well since the video where I was on the beach at night.”

“Whatever. Sunday night’s show won't go as fast because your loser fans will not be able to find babysitters for their punk-ass tots.”

Sure enough, we only sold about 650 tickets vs. the 1,000 for Friday night’s show.

The Buttholes’ CPA, this chain-smoking lady with a gruff voice, reached out. “ 1099 us, we don’t care,” she said.

“You’re damn right I’m 1099’ing these shows, it’s over 90 grand in earned income and I’m not paying their fucking IRS withholdings!”

Since a band of some substance like the Buttholes is actually extremely respected and has talent, I had to call in the big guys from Oklahoma City to bring in all the giant rock-show PA crap. You know, the huge soundboard with a million knobs they never turn, tons and tons of speakers, a videographer from Mars, miles of cords and wires, etc. All to the tune of thousands and thousands of dollars. Then they told me they had no night watch to look over the shit so it’s not stolen. Stolen, are you kidding me? It would take 12 guys to haul this shit off. I decided to watch the gear after finding out these mall cops charge $100 an hour to doze off watching someone else’s shit. So 1 got my Land Rover, drove to Lakeway Resort, and rented a huge travel trailer with a shower, kitchen, the works. Gibby sees it and goes, “What the fuck is this?”

“Calm down, Ozzy Prince of Darkness, it’s not for you and you did not pay for it.”

“Hell yes, I did. It’s coming out of the tickets.”

“Okay, you sleep out here all night and watch the $6,000 worth of rentals I arranged for your little video synth act.”

“Okay, okay, I get it now.”

“Gibby, go drink some fucking longneck Heinekens and please leave me the fuck alone, I’m trying to do my job, please.”

Gibby and his wife Mawsaw stayed at my house with me and my now ex-wife the whole week of the show. We would sit on the back deck getting fucked up and talking about everything under the sun, 40 years’ worth of shit. Gibby said in the ’90s he would trade Texas car inspection stickers for smack at the Scoot Inn. He had a whole stack of new ones you could put on the windshield. There was a shadow box in my kitchen of some old shit I had dug up in the yard. There was this super tarnished spoon and in front of Mawsaw he goes, “That looks like one of my old spoons!” She was horrified, and so was my wife. I was laughing my ass off. She goes, “Stop giving him those yeller fellers. I know it was you. He's had issues with opioids.” I couldn’t stop laughing. I assured her it was candy and she bought it.

Anyway, on the day of the show Gibson spies the Winnebago I rented for a grand to guard the PA system he bitched about. Little did he know I had filled the thing with tons of Nazi garb like gauntlet gloves, retractable whipping sticks, batons, helmets, SS hats, and trousers. I had it all laid out on the Winnebago table. He came in before the show, spotted a bottle of Jack Daniels, and then spotted the Nazi gear. He just got all warm and fuzzy and said, “You shouldn’t have.” Classic. He was smitten the whole time but still tried to act like a real dick. He could not keep his hands off it, he started putting on these long black leather gauntlet gloves, tried out the stick, etc., then his fucking wife rolls into the trailer while he’s guzzling the bottle: “I told you not to drink tonight! You drank that whole bottle? You just had six fucking Heinekens, I saw you.”

“Missy, please let him be a rock star again just for the weekend, the guy is stressed. Really, go hang with your buddy my wife and drink some wine coolers, please. Yes, please, thank you.”

She blamed me for him falling off the wagon.

Everything went remarkably smooth. The fans were not nearly as cooked as I had expected. Freaks showed, of course, with acid-inspired turtle suits. There were pirates and Snow White with her horny elves. As it was Halloween weekend, the line between “costume” and “life choice” was blurred. So much acid at that show, I found several strawberry blotter sheets afterward on the ground. That’s the old shit you can’t find anymore from the ’80s, preserved. They had their hippie stage guy with my bed linens for the backdrop and the psychedelic oil projection—they flew that idiot down just for that. We worked in parallel: Their crew did their thing, my crew did a fantastic job; as did I, it’s worth noting, by hiring those Westlake lesbian ticket gals, who set the whole thing up nicely. Dovetailed and we all made it look easy. Old fans were extremely happy.

I gave, like, 30 grand to their longtime accountant, then Gibby went ballistic. Paul was very happy I did that. We were shy 100 tickets Sunday night because of the babysitter factor I told him about.

Gibby goes, “No one does this, we need all the cash at the end of the show.”

“Why?” I asked. “So you can circumvent tax laws and leave me holding the fucking IRS bag? Oh no, fuck that, call your chain-smoking CPA who’s only lit one match in the past 10 years, she was totally in agreement.”

Of course Gibson never lets anything go without an hour-long tirade after I made the fuckers, like, 65 fucking grand.

“When have you ever made that much in a day? When, tell me when, you fuckin’ ungrateful fuck? Here, chew this handful of opiodal Nardos and calm the fuck down. Jesus.”

I don’t know anything about their fucking music, I told him. All 1 said is that you fuckers will make more money with me than that stupid beach video you made for MTV. But I really can’t name one of their songs; it was a business deal, I’m not a fan.

“Go work the rest out with my bar manager Kumbala, you two can make out and chew the fat about your dysfunction-junction punk days making a few quid an hour drinking fucking shitty Heinekens. I’m going home to a real life of adulthood with a real house, real Swedish mattress, and real fucking children. Goodbye, kind sir.”

I drove home happy but pissed at these debutants who call themselves punks. Give me a break!

GIBBY SAID IN THE '90s HE WOULD TRADE TEXAS CAR INSPECTION STICKERS FOR SIY1ACK AT THE SCOOT INN.