Bad teeth run in my family – I’ll just come right out and say it. I have to, anyway, as it is the basis for this column. After years of abuse by biting hard candy, stripping wire, opening paint tubes, and constantly passing chocolate and soda over them, I have been left with only six real teeth in my head. They’re all in the front on the bottom, making me look rather like a piranha fish when my plate and partial aren’t in. I can also make that scrunched-up “bitter beer face” when my teeth are out as my bottom jaw can close quite a bit farther than it could when teeth occupied that space. This is quite effective when I am playing the 
banjo, which takes me back to when my dentist first inquired about my plans for them.
The first time I visited Shannon, I warned her that a very frightening sight awaited her before she examined my teeth. I could see she was trying to maintain her composure as she asked, “Have you made any plans as far as what you want to do about this in the future”?
I paused a moment, and putting on the most serious expression I could, I replied, “Yes – I have put a great deal of thought into this dilemma, and I have actually taken steps to deal with the state of my teeth.”
“Really?” – “What steps have you taken at this point?” she asked.
“I bought a banjo!”
At this point she lost her composure and burst into laughter. At that point I knew I had found the right dentist.
Now – Having dentures made is no cheap process. I had to have what teeth remained removed, and this required a series of extractions that would shock most people, but I had gone through so many of these over the years it was like taking the garbage out or doing the dishes.
The plan was to leave the six healthiest teeth I had in the front and they would serve as an anchor to hold my bottom partial in place.
There was a different dentist who would be making the denture and partial, and he happened to also be a gear-head as well. I had dental insurance, but like medical insurance these days, it was as worthless as the sh*t-filled, rotting corpse of John Wayne. So I asked him if we could work out a deal wherein I would sign over my 1976 Chevrolet Camero in exchange for the work. He bit!
The Camero was burning a hole in my wallet, anyway. It was too fine a car to drive around because it was in such great condition. I prefer to drive hunks of crap around, so much so that if they were to get keyed or scraped, I would never even know. Plus, I was storing the thing in a garage that was costing me an additional $40.00 a month, and a car like that required full coverage when it comes to insurance.
I was in an “oldies” band for three years up until this moment, and I had always relied on the “charm” of my toothless grin as part of the stage show. I put this band together in 2001 and called it the Jiffy Pop Band. We played pretty much every song from that Super Hits of the 70’s mail-order television commercial. I slaved over a hot stereo learning all the chord changes and lyrics to songs like “Billy, Don’t Be A Hero”, “Tie A Yellow Ribbon ‘Round The Old Oak Tree”, “Smile A Little Smile For Me Rosemarie”, and “Those Were The Days My Friend,” just to name a few. I did this in every dive bar in Cedar Rapids and the surrounding areas all while wearing a wig, an officer’s jacket and cap, combat boots, and a Rickenbacker 12-string electric guitar. The crowd loved this crap. I would play “It’s A Heartache” and the whole bar would be singing along and dancing with each other.
So I knew that once I had my dentures made, I would then be sporting a flawlessly white, straight, and shiny smile. This disturbed and saddened me in a way, as it would detract from that “lovable mutt” look I had spent nearly thirty years mastering and using to my advantage to help hold the attention of the crowd. So I asked my dentist if he could make a second set of uppers for me. He said it would be no problem, so I was quite excited. He managed to create a very realistic set of yellower, fangier, crooked teeth for me. These would be known as my “stage teeth” and I wear them to this day whenever I perform. He even managed to overlap the two front teeth in a natural trailer park fashion. They needed a little extra character, so I took them down to the model shop at work, got the Dremel tool out, and chipped away at one of the teeth directly adjacent to the left canine tooth. They were now perfect!
Later in the band’s life, after retiring the quasi-military look, I developed a new stage outfit which consisted of a red silk shirt with white Chinese characters and a dragon on it, a pair of tie-bleached bell-bottomed jeans with five inches of white monkey fur sewn onto the cuffs, and a pair of size 12 women’s stripper boots that I transformed, with the aid of some Bondo auto body putty and a tree saw, into a set of cloven-hooves. I was all set for “Satyr-day night” – Get it?
Unfortunately, the oldies band broke up, as they always do. It’s always the same – It starts out with great enthusiasm, and as the bar owners start calling me at home to make sure they can secure the band for another Saturday night “next month”, the band members start getting restless and slowly but surely start bringing up the subject that they would prefer to play songs that “rock” – Unfortunately, the songs that rock tend to not keep the retired-age people with all the money in the bar until closing time. However – I am always ready to start another one up at any time, and I have the teeth for it.