“GET YOUR HANDS OFF the girl!”

Someone said in my ear.

As I turned around, to say "Piss OFF!"

The gentleman's size was impressive, as was his grip on my arm as it twisted easily behind my back.

I REMEMBERED this guy...he was dude off Wayne Mill's RV...the very one I hitched a ride to Alabama on...(The madcap drummer, and dear friend Curt Brewer felt I would be a welcome addition to the crew...that feeling would be overwhelmingly proven wrong as the weekend gigs unfolded)

BUT INSTEAD OF tossing me outside, his arm grip relaxed as he steered me towards the bar. "Vern", he said..."let's you & me have some Kamikazes" So we did, and he explained the two "ladies" (loosely used, as they were obviously unable to contain their public display of self-inflicted orgasms grinding on the PA columns) were actually strippers they hired from the local titty bars for effect, a trick he borrowed from Kid Rock.

DAVID FULLER & I drank those Kamikazes...and then we drank some more...we traded stories, jokes, laughs and tears...I was so fallen from grace, and removed from anything "music industry" related...I jumped on that bus to belong to something, ANYTHING for just a weekend...just a couple of gigs...to forget for awhile the gruesome truth...that was my life anymore... that I was just a washed up songwriter nobody new, or cared about anymore...

FOR JUST a few hours in that tiny Alabama club full of future Trump supporters...ole David let me ramble on about this or that...and be the "Man" for a spell...he felt sorry for me...as I did myself...it was the stuff real "Country Music" used to be made of...he just ordered drinks and listened...and we became great friends that night...

    WAYNE MILLS stopped touring when some fool shot him dead on George Jones birthday for smoking in his bar...David, the crew, and the entire great state of Alabama never quite recovered from that...

 I HOOKED BACK up with Fuller at a benefit for Wayne's family...we stayed in touch...later he would become Helen's & my unofficial patron, life coach & art dealer...helping us out of many a scrape...never too far from the "Moneygram" machine, when my genius financial planning somehow fell short again, again & again...

LIKE SO MANY "real" friends in this book...he damn sure gets a shout out & a thank you from Helen & I...and who knows...if enough of y’all buy this thing...maybe we can return some love to David...and a few more "real friends" out there.............we never knew we had..............till things went horribly wrong...like they do sometimes...in life...and country music...

I KNOW WAYNE MILLS is laughing his ass off as I type this...he always like this kind of comeback story...that's what his songs were all about...it's what country music was about back in the day......it's what a few of us still embrace and stand for...in this selfie, 4G, instagram world of 7 second soundbites and social "nutworks" that poison & permeate almost every mind and every agenda of a dying world gone completely & utterly stupid...

DAVID IS out there somewhere tonight...babysitting another bunch of nuts on a bus...keeping them out of trouble and on their "career track"...providing free counseling & psycho Kamikaze therapy to someone life left behind…

…Somewhere out there...where the road never ends, and the sun sets on the west side......of I35

AVAILABLE ON amazon.com FAKE NEWS BY VERNON RUST