by Mamrie Hart
She continued clunking around to her orgasm jam, cracking that whip. I hadn’t seen a performance so dead-eyed since I’d watched Britney perform in Vegas in 2013.* It was an absolute train wreck, and we were living for it. When she finally finished, the three of us stood up and applauded, giving her the standing O we thought she deserved. I mean, someone needed to get an O on that stage in general, standing or otherwise!
Before we could sit back down in our seats, we saw Xena was asking for volunteers to come onstage. “I’m going!” Tess said, taking down the dregs of her double Johnnie Walker Red. We cheered as she trotted up the stairs, attempting to high-five the Long Island crew, who recoiled in disgust. “That’s my bitch!” I yelled as I watched her hightail it to the stage, foregoing the lift from a stagehand and hoisting herself up.
Tess stood in line with the other victims, waiting to see what they were going to be made to do. Was she going to have to strip for tips while being whipped? Things were about to get bananas!
And oh, they did. Literally.
Creeping up behind Tess came a man wearing, I kid you not, a gorilla suit. A GORILLA SUIT. Let me remind you that Jess and I were two very high girls watching our smiley friend being unknowingly approached by a man in a primate costume onstage at a sex show in Amsterdam. Just needed to remind you of the full scope of this scenario.
So, Gorilla Man makes himself known, and Tess is cracking up, pretending she’s gonna grind on him, much to the delight of the Asian businessmen in the crowd. We watched Xena put the girls in a line and explain to them what was going to happen. She wasn’t mic’ed, so we couldn’t hear what she was saying, but I imagine it was just a series of grunts. Xena walked offstage and came back with a handful of bananas, giving one to Gorilla Man, who was now lounging like a centerfold on the floor.
“Go, Tess!” Jess and I yelled in unison, like we were cheering on our li’l pumpkin in an episode of Toddlers & Tiaras. Tess beamed from the stage, giving two thumbs-up to the balcony. We shot her four thumbs right back until we realized what was about to happen. The first volunteer was on her knees, taking bites of the banana as Gorilla Man positioned it like an erection on his crotch, her head bobbing up and down to get bites. It was a lot more appalling than a-peel-ing!
Tess locked eyes with us up in the balcony and just shook her head no. We shook our heads right back. Then—and this is why I love her—the bitch went rogue. While all the girls took their turns getting their daily dose of potassium while simulating BJs, Tess started dancing around the stage. Twerking, dropping it low, and, if my dance background serves me correctly, she even threw in a few Fosse moves. “Put that ‘Dark Orgasm’ jam back on!” she shouted as Xena tried to get her back in line. But Tess wasn’t having it. She did a spin move away from Xena like she was a Harlem Globetrotter. Xena snapped and pointed for Tess to get in line, but Tess was not ready to make nice.
Meanwhile, Jess and I were losing our minds, cheering for our girl and trying to get the rest of the crowd on her side. We were like sex show warm-up comics pointing to an applause sign before a commercial break. The song ended, and mercifully, the gorilla left the stage. Tess curtsied for her stage moms, soaking it all in. She was too busy hamming it up to notice that the gorilla had reentered the stage, this time with a new accessory.
And that accessory . . . was a GIANT strap-on. And this was no ordinary giant strap-on!* No, no. That primate started working his equipment, and SPLASH! It was also a massive water gun, and the gorilla was shooting the audience and volunteers onstage with fake jizz. Tess burst out laughing and pointed toward the door. Jess and I started up those stairs so fast we fell down at the feet of the Long Islanders, who at this point were the living embodiment of the “hear no evil, speak no evil, see no evil” chimps.
Reunited, the three of us busted out of the theater doors, wheezing with laughter as we ran down the cobblestone street. “Did that really just happen?! Or should I say ‘strappen’?!”* I asked Tess, who was high on power, among other things. She ran into the nearest falafel shop, said, “Give us some free fries,” and they did, no exchange of currency needed. They were either terrified or in awe of Tess, and I’m guessing both. We walked through that district like we owned it. Girls in light-up window displays catcalled us as we continued shoving fries in our face and recounting the night.
ME: You just made a sex show your own personal dance recital!
TESS: I told that dominatrix that her dancing had no heart. She needs to put some passion into it! The Red Light District could be so much better with a few changes!
Leave it to Tess, PR extraordinaire, to focus on how the sex show needed to rebrand itself. When we hit our humble, floating abode, we knocked out.
The next day was spent recovering. Truth be told, we kind of blew our load on the first night, pun so goddamn intended. So we slept in to conserve our energy for the next night’s show and spent the day sitting on the deck of SS Tater Tot, drinking red wine, blaring Dixie Chicks to get us pumped up, and smoking the delicious strawberry-flavored joints we’d bought at the café. Once those munchies kicked in, we rolled up so high to a Thai restaurant that when I asked the waiter if the food was coming out so quickly because they wanted to get rid of us, he said, “Absolutely.” We went back to the boat and smoked another joint, reminiscing about the night before. “Oh my god,” Jess said. “Can you imagine if the Dixie Chicks asked us what we like most about Amsterdam and we were like, ‘Probably the ejaculating gorilla we saw at the sex show last night’?!”
“We are disgusting people,” I said, shaking my head and opening our millionth bottle of wine. I belly laughed so hard in the belly of that boat that night, it actually scared me, and I had to climb outside to get some fresh air before passing out from exhaustion.
I woke up the next morning not knowing if I was nauseated from all the red wine, or laughing, or because I was just straight-up seasick. But no upset stomach was going to stop me that day. It was 4/20! Dixie Chickmas!
We headed to the show, literally skipping into the stadium. While we had bought our own tickets, my agents had hooked us up with a meet-and-greet after the show. So, not only were we going to hear these beautiful angels play, we were also going to get a hurried, awkward photo with them! If I could go back in time to show my teen self a pic with the Chicks, she would say, “Wow, I’m going to grow up to be awesome! Also, I am going to start moisturizing daily, ’cause those are wrinkles, girl.”
We were going in with lofty expectations for the show, and the Chicks far exceeded them. Not only did they sound tighter than a Pentecostal on her wedding night, they were as ballsy as ever, even showing pics of Chris Brown and Trump during “Goodbye Earl.” We sang, we cried, we yee-haw’ed too hard every time they mentioned that it was 4/20.* After, they wrapped up their second encore, the time had come. It was time to meet the Chicks.
We headed backstage, ready to stand in line for our quick step-and-repeat pic. Turns out, however, this wasn’t a cattle-call situation. There were only ten of us backstage, and they were going to take us back in small groups to meet and chat with the Chicks in a more intimate setting.
“Y’all are up.” The sweet assistant motioned us over as she pushed open the heavy metal door. And there they were: Natalie, Martie, and Emily, a heavenly glow surrounding them. Natalie was finishing her conversation with a previous meet-and-greeter, Emily was making herself a drink, and Martie was trying to shove some much-deserved salad into her mouth. We stood in awe but were snapped out of it by just how damn nice they were! They kept asking us questions about ourselves and couldn’t believe that we had traveled all the way to Amsterdam for their show. “Are you kidding?!” I said, realizing how strong our drinks had been during the show. “As soon as we found out y’all were touring, we knew we had to bring this sin wagon across the Atlantic!”
“Well, that deserves a cheers, and I for one need another drink!” Natalie said, then turned to me. �
�You’re the drinks girl, right? Make me a drink!”
Holy fuck. I was about to make a drink for Natalie Maines, a woman whose voice pumped through my shitty Accord speakers for years, whose melodies echoed through the halls of my freshman dorm until some nerd would inevitably tell me to turn it down. I scanned the ingredients at the bar like I was on an episode of Chopped and Ted Allen was about to start the clock.
“Girl, I just want some tequila with a bunch of lime juice in it,” she said, clearly noticing the conflict happening in my head. Oh thank God! I didn’t have to be creative. I squeezed those limes like my life depended on it, shook it with some silver tequila, and handed her a glass. “I call it a Maines Squeeze!” I said, beaming from my ability to make a pun despite my starstruck-ness. We cheers’ed, and as I lifted the glass to my mouth, I wondered if Natalie would prefer to get matching BFF necklaces or just go whole hog and spring for matching tattoos.
Right as the Don Julio was about to touch my lips, I heard Jess snicker from across the room. She was clearly dishing out some good story based on her exaggerated arm movements, but I couldn’t make out what she was saying through her laughs. Then, clear as day, I heard Emily’s voice say, “Wait a minute. It wasn’t real jizz, was it?!”
I froze as I watched the Hot Mess Express shake their heads like a couple of bobbleheads in the back window of a car. How the hell were we going to become besties with the Dixie Chicks if they knew how crazy we were? For the first time ever I was jealous of Earl and his poisoned black-eyed peas. I scanned the room for open windows. I was ready to run. But before I could take that bottle of tequila and smash it over my head, Natalie grabbed my arm and pulled me over to the girls.
“Hold on a second here, start at the beginning. Y’all went to a sex club?!” Cut to one hour later and the Hot Mess Express and the Chicks were piling into an SUV headed straight to the Red Light District.
. . . I wish! Instead we chatted with them for a while longer, kept our cool, and then screamed our heads off on the dock of our boat as soon as we got out of our Uber. To celebrate, we went to the bar closest to our boat to play the jukebox. After all, some days you just gotta dance.
The next morning, we said bye to the boat and headed off to our separate flights. As I sat there on that tarmac listening to the Chicks on my headphones, I couldn’t help but smile to myself. I pictured my teenage self in that bar back in North Carolina and how all the words I sang had come true. I had found wide-open spaces, and room to make big mistakes. I had seen new faces, and I knew the high stakes. . . . I just didn’t realize how high they were gonna be.
Pure Cunt’ry
IF YOU ARE someone who gets offended by the word “cunt,” then I am sorry . . . that you are so uptight, that is. Personally, I love the word, and I don’t know why people hate it so much. In fact, when I was little, I used to say “C U next Tuesday” as just a regular way to tell people good-bye, having no idea what it meant. I just thought it was a saying! But apparently ten-year-old me was inadvertently calling people “cunts,” complete with finger guns to really up the charm.
I’ve heard the argument made that being called a “pussy” isn’t an insult because pussies are unbelievably strong and resilient and can be thanked for all life on Earth. Well, the same thing applies to “cunt.” Take back the word, ladies! You gotta own it! I owned it on national TV less than a week before I wrote this chapter.
I was filming an episode of my favorite, and recently cancelled (RIP), show, @midnight, playing against Howie Mandel, when through a series of joke callbacks, he called me a cunt. I wish I could go back in time and tell younger me that not only would Maurice from Little Monsters one day call her a cunt, she’d be so confident that she would take a breath, smile into the audience, and say, “Ya damn right I am.”
Anyway, this is a roundabout way of saying some of my favorite cunts* are in country music. A lot of people attribute the girl power movement to the Spice Girls hitting the scene back in the nineties, but country has been doing it for ages. And, while I loved singing in a British accent and figuring out which Spice Girl I wanted to be among my friends when we choreographed dances, I related more to songs about Southern girls growing up and figuring out their life.
But I’m sure some of you weren’t lucky enough to grow up in the land of truck nuts and meth labs. Some of you grew up in classy places, with classy parents who probably cranked NPR and Bach while you sat in the back seat. Well, pop in your other monocle and have your butler pull up your iTunes, ’cause this here is a perfect starter pack for female empowerment with a drawl. May I recommend downloading all of them, then blaring them in your car as you drive through some back roads with your windows down? Or, ya know, just pour a whiskey and dance around your house. Here’s your “C U Next Tuesday” playlist.*
“Wild One”—Faith Hill
This is such a great “fuck you, parents!” anthem. The song is about being told by your parents to stay in line and follow the rules, with your classic “don’t listen to rock and roll” and “don’t date the bad boy” type directives. Every time, she brushes them off, like “hell no, I do what I want.”* But it really won my heart when they tell her to brush her hair and she says, “Some kids don’t.” Bish is so rebellious that she won’t brush her hair as a statement. As someone who has to lose rock, paper, scissors to herself to take a shower, I feel you, Faith.
“This One’s for the Girls”—Martina McBride
Just like the Dixie Chicks’s “Goodbye Earl,” where they kill an abusive husband with poisoned black-eyed peas, Martina also has a killer song about murdering your husband out of self-defense called “Independence Day.” But “This One’s for the Girls” is a sweet one, giving little pep talks to ladies through various phases of their lives. It’s the type of song that’s so universal, it makes you feel like it’s written specifically for you. You think, Wait a sec! I also have been twenty-five, with a shitty apartment, and living off SpaghettiOs! Yeah, naw duh. Everyone’s been there. But it still makes you feel like you are in this special lady club.
“Heads Carolina, Tails California”—Jo Dee Messina
Okay, fine. Maybe this one personally speaks to me because it literally is about the place I grew up and the place I now live. But it’s a bop! There are so many songs that romanticize the South, but in this one she’s like, “Let’s get the hell out of here.” I love where I came from. It made me who I am. But do you see me hanging out at Dodge City every night, drinking Miller Lite and hoping I don’t hit a deer on my way home? Nope! This country girl needed city life. And so did Jo Dee. In addition to crooning some great tunes, she’s a fiery redhead, and again, her name is JO DEE. If that doesn’t sound like a woman you want to roll into a dive bar and pool shark some dudes with, I don’t know who is.
“She’s in Love with the Boy”—Trisha Yearwood
This is the only one on the list that’s about love, but I had to include it. It’s your stereotypical song about a father not approving of his daughter’s choice of boyfriend, so it’s not reinventing the wheel. However, I love this one because the dad basically says that his daughter’s beau is an idiot, and then the mom busts in to say, “My dad hated you when we met, too. Get over it.” In real life, Trisha is married to dream man Garth Brooks, has a cooking show on the Food Network, and actually looks like a real woman. She doesn’t try to be a rail, then go on TV and pretend to eat all the comfort food she cooks up. Not that anyone would do that. *cough Giada cough*
“Born to Fly”—Sara Evans
This is one of the more saccharine of the bunch, your classic anthem with the theme of “how do you keep your feet on the ground, when you know you were born to fly?” Typical, right? But it gets extra points because the first few lyrics are comprised of her literally talking to a scarecrow. Sara, we’ve all been lonely, and I understand that mental health help is expensive, but confiding in a man who is just your dad’s old flannel shirt filled with straw is no s
ubstitute for therapy.
“Guys Do It All the Time”—Mindy McCready
This is one of those songs that make you want to stand up and scream, “Preach it, girl!” like you’re a damn Wendy Williams audience member. It’s basically a song about how hypocritical dudes are when women party. She comes home, her dude is mad, and she’s like, “Oh, hell no.” As a woman who can outdrink men four times my size, I appreciate her standing up for the boozehounds.
“Any Man of Mine”—Shania Twain
I think we can all admit that our favorite Canadian country crooner took it a little too far in “That Don’t Impress Me Much.” Honey, if you truly aren’t impressed by a rocket scientist or guy who looks like Brad Pitt, well then your expectations might just be too damn high. But she gets off her high horse and makes her requests a little more relatable in this cowboy stomper. All she’s asking for is for her man to lie when her dress is too tight, disagree when she’s having a bad hair day, and say her burnt-ass cookin’ is delicious. Some people think in a relationship that “honesty is the best policy,” but I honestly think the best policy is “a little lie can keep it fly” . . . never said that in my life, but consider it trademarked!
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AND NOW A couple of old-school cunt’ry classics to pop into your dive bar’s jukebox for immediate street cred. . . .
