Undisputed_ How to Become the World Champion in 1,372 Easy Steps - Chris Jericho [150]
As he was slapping me around all I could think of was that he was getting his revenge on me for denting his car when I was sixteen.
To make things worse, not only did I get a beating from dear old Dad, but the son of a bitch (Confused Author’s Note: Does that make me the son of a son of a bitch?) won the game MVP as well. He skated away with the trophy and the glory, leaving me in his ice chips.
It was a little embarrassing, for sure, but it was also one of the best times I’ve ever had with my dad.
The Baby-Faced Assassin 1, Y2J 0.
One of the frootest moments of my life was playing hockey with my dad in Madison Square Garden. Seeing him in action up close and personal made me realize just how damn good a hockey player he was. His speed (even at fifty-eight years old) was amazing.
CHAPTER 41
Yes, and …
Paul McCartney had just finished playing “Got to Get You into My Life” and the crowd was going wild. He was performing his first concert in Tampa in three years and I’d flown in Speewee, Rybo, and Chad so we could all see it together. They are as obsessed with the Beatles as I am, and we were all getting schooled on how to put on a show by the biggest rock star in the world.
Sir Paul had the crowd in the palm of his hand and was holding his famous violin bass aloft as a grand piano rose up behind him from an opening in the stage. He kept walking backward as he basked in the roar of the crowd, seemingly oblivious to the opening in the floor. But I had a bird’s-eye view of the stage and I could see that he was going to fall right into the pit.
“Look out, Paul!” I yelled in slow motion, as Chad nodded his head wisely.
But my efforts were futile and Paul tumbled over the lip of the stage and landed back first on the piano. Twenty thousand cheers stopped on a dime and the crowd went silent.
A roadie jumped into the gap to help, and I could see Paul was shaken up. But after a minute or so Macca thrust his arm in the air and gave us the thumbs-up sign. Blackbirds began singing and all was well in the world!
He climbed back onto the stage and said drolly, “Well, we’ve got a slight change in the set. I’m now going to play a song called ‘Fixin’ a Hole.’ ”
Even though Paul felt fine, he could’ve been seriously hurt, and I was certain someone in his crew was going to get fired. Surely a roadie had failed to give Paul his cue or the trapdoor had opened too early by mistake?
It wasn’t until months later when I saw him play again in L.A., that I found out what really happened. Paul had once again just finished “Got to Get You into My Life,” and as the piano was rising from under the stage, he mentioned the mishap in Tampa.
“I was there!” I yelled, as Kurt Russell and Goldie Hawn turned their heads in annoyance from the row in front of me.
“I forgot that the hole had opened onstage and I fell in because I wasn’t paying attention. I was too busy flirting with two birds in the first row.”
And in the end the love you make is equal to the falls you take.
The next morning I flew from Tampa to L.A., as I’d been hired by the TV Guide Channel to cohost their red carpet Emmy Awards preshow with Joan and Melissa Rivers. The Rivers ladies had been hosting the show for years, and the producers thought it would be a good idea to add a male presence to the carpet and tapped me to do the job.
When I arrived in L.A. I was whisked away to be outfitted in a Gucci tuxedo, Prada sunglasses, and Ferragamo shoes, while a hairstylist worked on my hair and a makeup artist powdered me down. Then a limo drove me through a plethora of security checks and searches and dropped me off at the red-carpet area.
There the producers explained my assignment for the evening. The two-hour show would start and Joan would do her introduction, then about ten minutes in she would throw to me and I would interview random celebs on what