STATE OF THE UNION ADDRESS
By Diamond Dallas Page

Yo Cutters…

What’s up? I’ve got about two weeks to catch up on, so let’s start with the top country radio station on the West Coast KZLA’s Country Music Bash. Rich Minzer and I headed down to hook up with my boys from Trick Pony. When we went to get our tickets at Will Call, we were met by a guy named Sean Cox who runs the Verizon Wireless Center. He greeted me and told me he had been a UDC member since 1996. He said, “I’ll give you the code ‘Spooki sent me’ but that’s a little outdated.” Life’s all about relationships and here I had one I didn’t even know I had. Sean was a great guy who not only took us in backstage but saved DDP a prime parking spot. He had it coned off and everything.

I met a host of characters at this country music extravaganza. I started hanging out backstage with Minzer where we met two guys named Brian and Ryan. We hit it off with these cats immediately. What I would later find out is that Ryan Craig is the writer and director of a movie called Small Town Saturday Night, which Brian Van Holt is going to star in. You might remember Brian from Black Hawk Down, Windtalkers or, more recently, Basic with John Travolta. Brian plays the guy that Travolta interrogates. This guy’s a movie star, but you would never know this by meeting him or Ryan. They were there to check out some of the country artists for the movie. While we were at the show, I got to meet Joe Nichols whose has that song I love, “BrokenHeartsville” which, if you want to talk about small worlds, my buddy Todd Armstrong just happens to own the publishing rights to. Joe is a very cool guy.

Trick Pony got on the stage and blew people away. I also got to hang out with Kid Rock who got up and played some country music old school style. Then LeAnn Rhimes came up and they did a duet of the song he’d done with Sheryl Crow called “Put Your Picture Away”. Later, Kid popped and played with the Ponies and Kenny Wayne Sheppard As soon as the boys got done playing, the beer started flying. Before you know it, I’ve got a bottle of Jack open which I’m splitting with Kid and Ira. As you may recall, I came on board with the Ponies to help Ira with his moderation. This would be one of those times when you throw moderation into the lake because we both had a designated driver. This would be the wild side that you have to let go once in awhile.

One of the really cool things about Kid Rock is that he just signed a new artist named Bart Adam Young. Bart followed Kid’s bus through two states and over 400 miles just to get him to listen to his demo. When Kid heard it, he not only liked it, he signed him up and then brought him out on stage to do a solo acoustic session that was total country. If you like that old school country, he’s the bomb. I also met Kid’s sister Jill, who is a fellow actor who was just in a pilot with a buddy of mine named Matt. One of the highlights, not only for me but for my buddy Brian, was hanging out with John Schneider and the General Lee. Yep, John Schneider from Dukes of Hazzard, country music, and superman’s dad. Talk about a guy who constantly reinvents himself. This guy was as cool as hell.

After the concert was over, we all went to the hotel because Lynyrd Skynyrd was hanging out there. While we were there, Ira convinced me to give him one of the Ric Flair chops. After much prodding, I finally gave him an overhand chop, sort of like Pillman used to do, which he sold beautifully. Everyone in the room stopped and turned. It sounded like a shotgun blast. This continued for quite awhile. Not to be outdone, John pulled his jacket off and took one too. I told Ira, those were the nice ones and he insisted on a real Ric Flair chop. After much prodding again, I laid one into him pretty intensely. John was right behind him. They both sold it big time. At that point, Ira grabbed Keith and told him he had to take one, too, even as his chest was glowing bright red under his wife-beater t-shirt. Keith insisted, “NO WAY!” (He knows better, he’s been watching since he was six.) Needless to say, Ira prodded him into it and I took him right out of his boots with one. Ryan and Brian were selling from a distance. As the night cooled down, we made our way out and headed home.

On a mellower note, Barry Levine took me and Eli Roth (Eli is the writer/director/producer of Cabin Fever – which is still doing well! If you haven’t seen it yet… GO SEE IT!) to the Gene Simmons mansion. There is only one Gene Simmons…the man who made the Demon come to life in KISS. Barry was coming out to do some business with Gene and wanted Eli to meet him for some future business. We got to see the whole palace. The coolest place was Gene’s office. This guy is the greatest marketer I have ever met, next to Vince McMahon. He’s got KISS dolls, statues, blinds, keychains, perfume, underwear, coffins…yes I said coffins, and more stuff than I could ever list. The most fun part of hanging out with Gene Simmons, though, is you get to talk about all the women he’s been with. He says it’s like 4,600, but it has to be more like 10,000. Did I mention he also markets KISS condoms. I guess that was more out of necessity than anything.

Anyway, Gene was a fabulous host and invited us to the Tongue magazine party for Halloween. Eli will have to give me the word on that because DDP will not be making that party. I will be working diligently on a book Marlon and I are writing called “Live Life At 90%”. I’ve got a lot of plates spinning in the acting world and it is all positive. It’s what I call positive bull$hit, but it’s still positive.

And on that note, as usual…It’s been your pleasure…

Be Unstoppable, and live life at 90%

Diamond Dallas Page