From the time Roger
recorded that first commercial, to the night his angel took him away,
more thirty years went rompin’ by. Those were the thirty years that were
full of flower children, free love, the omnipresent peace signs and
symbols and idealistic dreams of a better, more beautiful world. Most of
these things were born in clouds of marijuana smoke, and most of them
disappeared in that same amorphous way... just drifting away. But for a
good long while, all of those things, which I embraced completely, were
what life was all about. And for me, there was a huge bonus which made
it even more amazing, and that was the time I spent with Roger Miller.
Roger was an unbelievably funny guy, and it was non stop. More than once
my cheeks ached from being held in laugh position for far too long a
time. And it never stopped. Silly, clever, sometimes simple genius and
at other times, just whacked out nonsense. I remember once, I had
returned from Tijuana, Mexico, with pair of sandals which were a couple
of broad leather straps tacked onto a wooden sole. Roger looked at them
and said, “What do you call those things?”
I said, “War-awe-cheese.”
“How do you spell it?” Roger asked.
“I have no idea”
Roger walked to the phone, “Let’s get information.” A second later I
heard him say, “This information?”
“Yessir”
“Good. How do you spell, Warawcheese?”
“Sir, this is information.”
“Yeah, I know. And the information I want is, how do you spell
Warawcheese?”
“Is that a person’s name?”
“God, I hope not. But if it was, how do you think they’d spell it?”
“Sir, I can only give you telephone numbers.”
“Oh, okay. Well, give me the telephone number of someone who can tell me
how to spell warawcheese.”
Roger ended up talking to that operators supervisor, then the
supervisors super, who volunteered to look it up for him. Roger said
fine, and the super supervisor said, “How do you spell it?”
Roger said, “I called information in good faith. The young lady couldn’t
give me the information, so she gave me to her supervisor who also
couldn’t give me the information I was looking for. He in turn gave me
to you and now you’re asking me
MY question. I swear this whole thing has been enough to make a young
boy want to slap his gramma.”
Roger and I looked a lot alike. It seems we heard, “You could be
brothers” every time we got together in a public place. A good example
of that was when the MGM Grand Hotel opened in Las Vegas. It was decided
that their first three Super Star headliners would be performers whose
last names began with M, G, and M. Dean Martin, Shecky Greene, and Roger
Miller. Roger invited my wife, Judy and I up for the opening. After the
show there was a reception. Roger and I were standing at the bar having
a drink when a young lady came up to me and began to tell me how much
she liked my show. I said, “I’m sorry ma’am, I’m not Roger Miller. But,
Hey! Try the next guy.” She did and we both turned around to face her.
She said, “Boy, you guys really look alike. I mean it’s really
confusing, isn’t it?
Roger said, “Yep. it’s enough to make a freight train take a dirt road.”
At another time. a mutual friend of ours was opening a new night spot in
the San Fernando Valley and he asked us to come out one night as his
guests. During a break in the entertainment, the MC spotted Roger in the
audience and invited him to come up on stage and say “Howdy.” Roger
didn’t really like to do that kind of stuff but when the MC insisted,
Roger stepped up to the mike and made a couple congratulatory comments
about the new place, and mentioned that they seemed to have attracted a
very nice crowd. As he was about to return to his table, a very loud,
very drunk voice was heard all over the room, “What the hell do you know
how if it’s a nice crowd or whoever told you what we care you think we
think about the crowd. You dumb bastard. They could all be a bunch of
peckerhead drunks and you wouldn’t know which was the pecker and which
was the head.”
Roger said very calmly, “I’m getting a pretty good idea which one’s the
pecker.”
The guy was getting louder with every word and by this time, he was
standing immediately in front of the small stage about three feet in
front of Roger. He had his hands on his hips, looking directly up at
Roger with his chin stuck out about a mile. This is exactly, word for
word, what he said, “Kiss my ass, that’s all you are! And I’m the son of
a bitch who can DO it!” He stood there for a second, then turned and
headed toward the door. He didn’t make it. He passed out cold and fell
on his face. Roger grabbed the mike for a second and sang, “Chug-a-lug,
chug-a-lug.” The crowd laughed and applauded like he’d done a three hour
concert.
The greatest times were when I got together with Glen and Roger both, at
one of our houses. Boy, you talk about letting the good times roll. The
guitars would come out and the show would begin and on it would go into
the night and the early morning. One New Years Eve I had a little get
together at my house. Roger and Glen were both there. As I said, these
two guys could rarely ever get together without bringing out their
guitars and entertaining each other, and any other fortunate souls that
were nearby. At about ten o’ clock, they started playing and singing,
or, as Roger used to say, “Hummin' and strummin.'” They played and sang,
never stopping for longer than the time it takes to take a toke. We were
all so caught up in that glorious two man show, nobody was watching the
clock. At two o'clock someone said, "Hey, it's New Years." Everybody
said, “Happy New Year” to everyone else, and they started again. This
time, Glen would sing a song and then Roger would sing. The only
difference was, Roger was writing the songs as he sang them ... really
amazing. One of his songs even had a religious feel to it, he called it,
When I’m Down, I Know He’s Up There. Super song, super simple.
One more thing about my very
special friend. As I mentioned earlier, Roger came back to L.A. to find a doctor
who could dispute what his own doctors in New Mexico were telling him. But no
such thing happened. One day, toward the end, we were driving back to the place
he and Mary were staying on the beach ... Roger was very weak, sitting in the
passenger seat, his eyes half closed. As we came over the crest on Sunset Blvd.,
where you first see the Pacific Ocean, he said, "Well, I'm glad they remembered
to fill the pool."
Never too sick to be funny.
