Gary has a mind like a trap door. Like swiss cheese. Frankly, his memory is shot.
With the re-emergence of 9 nearly lost Gary Floater songs on the new tribute record Floater Rising (only rediscovered thanks to Flip Dickerson’s crack team of first graders who could read Gary’s misspelled manuscripts), Gary realizes there are other significant gaps – canyons really – in his memory.
Gary does remember the scrapbooking craze well – he even wrote a song about it – “I Drew Myself In (To A Picture of You).”
He also remembers that Conway Twitty rejected the song and refused to record it.
So he has asked you to help him fill his digital scrapbook.
In a rare show of gratitude, Gary has promised to send a digital download copy of the new tribute record to 10 of the folks who post some his favorite recovered memories.
At first glance, it might seem impossible that he was all these places and made love to/ sang with/ pissed off all these people, but before his license was revoked, he drove his car pretty fast.
So if you could post a 2 or 3 sentences to jog his memory about those old times, that would be great.
If you want, you can start with “I heard that Gary once… ” or “Gary, I remember when you…”
Post your Gary memory here or in the comments section below!
Winners of the tribute album will be notified by email or in a message on Facebook on April 1- Floater Rising release day!
I’ll never ferget the first time I met Gary. In the haze of a smoke filled bar, he looked into my eye and said, “Is it hot in here, or is it just you?” It was the most original and poetic thang I had ever heard any one say. Then, as he held onto the barstool to steady himself, he said, “If I could rearrange the alphabet, I’d put “U” and “I” together.” Well that was just about it for me! My heart was ferever tied to that romantic wordsmith! No wonder he’s a songwriter! That first night we spent together on the shag carpet of his trailer, in the candlelight, (Gary always thought paying the electrical bill ruined the evening ambiance) was like a dream! Of course one morning he went out to get cigarettes and never came home. I expect he’ll show up at my door one day (with the 5 dollars I loaned him fer smokes) talkin that ingenious avant garde love poetry again! At least I can hope…
First time I seen Gary, he punched me right square in the mouth. I have loved this man ever since. True to his convictions and with a lyrical heart not seen since Jesus, this modern day messiah spouts southern parables you can live by. Whether its making opposum flavored shine, learning that the correct order is coach, god, country (I didnt know they grew on trees!), or the anguish of dating your brother’s wife, this man truly understands the life and times of a southern gentleman.
Most people don’t know Floater is more of a handle than a name, describing how Gary sort of comes and goes through places and situations, usually leaving them in much worse shape he found them or they found him. And the same is true of the disco-honky tonk (donky-tonk for short) of the early 80s in Fort Worth. Ol’ Floater….he got stranded in Fort Worth for a month in the winter of ’81 when the band left him to go home to Dallas (and neglected to tell him Dallas was just due east a few miles). Well, he latched on to some of the disco queens (despite a not-insignificant number of restraining orders) and decided that he wanted to do what Willie had done in Austin with the hippies and rednecks and bring two very disparate groups of people together….for financial gain. Well, being 1981, the pick of groups to bring together in Fort Worth was limited and Gary found himself with the restraining-order-disco queens and the honky tonkers of his own ilk who he’d met at the bar one morning. Instead of doing a concert or press conference to kick things off with his new constituency, Floater decided to throw a Disco Boogie Saturnalia Stomp (please look up Saturnalia if you’re not familiar with it). As you can probably guess, it was epically disastrous. The police were summoned to the elementary school gym Gary had broken into and used as the venue. Arrests were made. The ASPCA came. But you know what? The six guys and one donkey that showed up, for those 23 minutes, they had a fucking blast. Unfortunately, Gary decided to hold the event at 2pm on a Tuesday and there were/are more than a few 1st- through 4th-graders who are still in counseling as a result of, well, seeing that which cannot be unseen. Floater. What a dick. My counseling continues Monday. My eyes. How they burn…30 years later.
Everything that I know about Gary Floater I’ve learned from other wayward celebrities and country singers. David Allan Coe once told me about one of the fabled song-writing sessions which Gary would sometimes invite other artists to join in on. He told me that Gary was “bat-shit crazy” and that some of the lyrics Floater had written deeply offended and disturbed him. Tom Wolfe said they’d hang out and do acid together and that it’d take over ten hits before Gary would even start to feel anything. Legendary director Sam Peckinpah once witnessed a fight between Gary and a bum and was heard to have said “Goddamn that was bloody” as he walked away visibly shaken. After crashing with them for a month, the White family of West Virginia has filed a formal restraining order against Floater. Back in the 80’s Floater was actually banned from the town of Vidor, Texas for making “malicious and offensive racist remarks”. Johnny Rodriguez still alleges that it was Gary who stole that goat and then framed him for it. I read somewhere that he was at the party where Townes Van Zandt willingly let himself fall out of a four-story window. Never one to be out done, Floater climbed to the top of the building, looked over the edge, and without even so much as a final word or warning did a double back-flip off and landed on his feet. Of course he broke both of his legs and his hip, but (unfortunately for him) the party had ended sometime earlier that night/morning and there was nobody there to recount it later. More recently Charlie Sheen has commented on Floater in an interview with ABC. He was quoted as saying “Gary Floater…what a f****ng crazy guy. He seriously needs help.”
I remember when Gary played at my 7th wedding
when I married Gary’s 5th wife.
Gary still owed her a lot of money at the time and didn’t want her to see him so he played in a full gorilla suit. I never did pay him for the gig.
Sincerely
Cornhill Jackson Johnsongrass