I Love You, You Monster
How to deal when your role model isn’t a role model.
On the Pulaski stop of the orange line, headed toward Chicago’s Midway Airport, a man stepped into my train car wearing no pants. From the waist up, he was quite dapper, wearing a beige sport coat, a matching button down, and a dark tie, neatly knotted. His hair was a bit wild, a mess of black wiry strands pointing in all directions. He had a thick dark mustache. From the waist down, however, he wore only white underwear, dark dress socks, and finely shined leather shoes. It was business on the top, no pants party on the bottom.
He stepped onto the train and began to sing, which I only knew by the movement of his mouth. I couldn’t hear him with my headphones in my ears. All I could hear was the Dallas traffic and weather from an MP3 recording of The Russ Martin Show on Dallas’s 105.3FM.
I gripped my pink iPod Mini and turned the dial up, drowning out the pantsless man even more. At the time, I think the guys on the show were blowing something up or shoving fireworks down their manager, Gavin’s, pants. Probably pulling the cork from a bottle of whiskey, letting the small squeak and glug noises play into the microphone.
Nobody on the train ever noticed the times I doubled over laughing or cried from homesickness while listening to the recordings of this show. How could they? There were more pressing things, like today, a man with no pants singing an Italian aria.
Earlier that year, at 20 years old, I had headed off to Chicago for college, ready to leave the city of Dallas in my dust. Goodbye, you trash heap, I thought as I pulled away from my hometown in a red Dodge Ram dragging a U-Haul trailer behind me. I will never, ever come back.
It only took six months, maybe a year before the nostalgia and intense homesickness set in.
I should preface this by saying I love Chicago. It’s an amazing place with wonderful people. It’s one of my all-time favorite cities. Talking about Chicago, for me, is like talking about an ex who you parted with on really good terms, but who you know, ultimately, is not right for you. But damn, you had fun while you were together. And no hard feelings, but you’re just really happy with who you’re with now. That’s the love triangle between myself, Chicago, and Dallas.
The first few months up there were a whirlwind. I loved every single thing, from the snow to the busses, to the people on the busses, to the comedy theaters, to all my new cool friends with their Midwestern accents. I loved the food and the museums and the parks and the random street performers and the cyclists who took extremely dangerous risks with their lives. I even loved the nude cyclists who rode, balls out, down Michigan Ave.
Then I noticed the winters were too cold. There was never any parking. Traffic was horrendous. I couldn’t get cream gravy ANY FUCKING WHERE. No place served Dr Pepper. Tex Mex did not exist there except at one single Uncle Julio’s off the North/Clyborn red line stop, which was only just ok. Everybody loved the Bears. Nobody gave a shit about the Cowboys. Pretty soon, it started to feel a little lonely.
In my desperation for a little piece of home, I figured out that I could listen to Dallas radio. For a recurring donation to the Russ Martin Show Listeners Foundation each month, I got access to an archive of MP3s of previous episodes of The Russ Martin Show.
I loaded up my iPod, and when I pressed play, I was not on a crowded bus or trudging through slush, a thousand miles away from home. I was in the treehouse with Russ and Dan and Clo. I was laughing at their less-than-appropriate jokes and clinging to every single word of the traffic report. 635, 35, 75, 30. My highways. My traffic.
I listened all the time, not just on my commutes. When my boyfriend and I broke up, I began living alone, but not really. By myself in an empty apartment, I would turn the guys’ voices up on my stereo. Neighbors probably thought a fraternity had moved in, with constant sounds of men laughing, the squeak of whiskey bottle corks, explosions, and that opening guitar riff of “You Shook Me All Night Long” by AC/DC, which always finished off the show.
Russ was a polarizing figure in Dallas radio. Sometimes, he was flat out silly. When beloved Dallas icon Big Tex was set ablaze, Russ gave him a dramatic church eulogy backed by “Amazing Grace” on bagpipes. Sometimes he used a voice changer to become “Little Russ,” a child version of himself that asked inappropriate questions under the guise of innocence. He tortured his old boss, Gavin, by sticking fireworks down Gavin’s pants, putting sheetrock up over the man’s office door, or straight up stealing his pants in well-choreographed but real-sounding bits.
On Fridays, he left airtime open for local no-kill shelter Paws in the City to adopt out homeless pets. When police officers or fire fighters were killed in the line of duty, like the 2016 mass shooting in downtown Dallas that left five officers dead, Russ wrote checks to the families via his foundation to cover funeral expenses, mortgage payments, and other immediate needs.
On the other hand, he sometimes said racist, sexist, and homophobic things. Some coworkers hated him and claimed he was a tyrant with a horrible attitude. He was arrested and pleaded no contest for domestic violence. He struggled with substance use and health problems.
And this past weekend, he died.
I’ll be totally honest. I had not listened to the show in earnest in many years. On one of the episodes after Russ’s death, Dan, a co-host who has taken over as the de facto leader, mentioned Russ’s waning health in the past few years. Russ had stopped performing every day, and the show’s time slot had been cut down from four hours to just two.
Tuning back into the treehouse this week, you can hear how the guys were shaped by Russ. At the same time, it is apparent how they have evolved beyond him. For one, Russ absolutely hated crying and showing emotions. But this week, when one caller choked up, Dan told him, “Let it flow, buddy.” The guys talked about telling their guy friends how much they loved one another. They listened as widows of fallen police officers spoke about how much the foundation’s support meant and cried along with them.
It’s hard to reconcile my love for someone who meant so much to me, who was a constant companion when I felt so desperately alone, with the flip side of his personality and his actions off the mic. When I heard he died, I was devastated, remembered all the times the show made me laugh, and began replaying my favorite bits in my head. For the people he hurt, his death probably felt like a sigh of relief, which is fair. We all have our own experiences with the people who shape us.
This week, Alfie, another member of the crew, played one of my favorite bits. It’s from a time Russ went on a rant backed by an instrumental version of “God Bless Texas” by Little Texas. I remember hearing this bit while I lived in Chicago and playing it so often I once had it memorized.
It had faded from my brain over the years, but when I heard it this week, I started screaming in my office. When my boyfriend, Paris, walked in and asked what was happening, I burst into tears.
“They’re playing it,” I said.
The rant begins, “I am Dallas!” and reads like a love poem to our city. A truncated version appears below.
“I’m the flying red horse.
I’m the majestic Dallas skyline.
I’m the Dallas Morning News. (I was the Herald.)
I’m Central Expressway. I’m Schepps Dairy.
I’m the Old Red Courthouse.
I’m Union Station.
I’m the reflecting pond in front of City of Dallas.
I’m the star that glistens on the chest of Dallas police officers.
I’m White Rock Lake.
I’m the Dallas Mavericks. I’m the Dallas Stars. I’m the Dallas Cowboys (muffled).
I’m the pissy city council. I’m the lack of city management.
I’m buffalo-sized potholes.
I’m the Dallas North Tollway. I’m Big Tex. I’m Southwest Airlines.
I’m the zoo where the gorillas run free!
I’m the West End. I’m the great Tom Landry Freeway.
I’m the freaks in Deep Ellum.
I’m SMU. I’m Love Field.
I didn’t have nothing to do with Kennedy.
I’m the dead bodies at the bottom of the Trinity.
I’m Reunion Tower. I’m the Adolphus. I’m that lipstick building on Stemmons.
I’m John Carpenter, LBJ, Marvin D. Love. I’m RL Thornton.
I’m the strength that took us from John Steely Dan’s cabin to the shining star of the Southwest.
I’m the sights. I’m the sounds. I’m the smells. I am its essence.
I am Dallas.”
He spoke with a self-deprecating reverence for our town, and it softened my heart. When I first heard it a thousand miles from home, I thought, That’s our town! That’s my town.
From Russ I learned the magic of getting on a mic and putting on the show you want to make. I am a better comedian and podcaster because of the hours I spent in my empty apartment in Chicago listening to him. I was also a lot less lonely because of it, too.
One of the best compliments I can get is from people in faraway places, even other countries, saying they want to come visit Dallas because of the things we talk about on the show. When I get on a mic now and talk about my town, I try to do so with that same unassuming pride I learned from Russ. It’s like, look, we know parts of it suck, but, dammit, its ours and we love it anyway and we’re doing our best to be better. It’s how we feel about Dallas and how I feel about Russ.
You can never replace your hometown. And a hometown may not even be the city where you were born. I’m talking about the city that made you, the one that shaped you. It’s who you are. You can play pretend, sure. Try to adopt a new one. But no matter what, your hometown will always be in you, even if you try to move away or turn it off.
The years taught me that no matter where I lived or how hard I’ve tried, I am Dallas. Russ was, too. Rest easy, boss man.
