by Ron White
But they thought they could market Cheech Marin. ’Cause what they wound up doing was brainlessly picking the four shows under development that had the four biggest names. One of ’em ended up being decent. But they made six episodes of The Ortegas, and they didn’t show any of ’em.
And by the way, since Fox is not picking up my show, I’ve got to vacate that nice hotel room and turn in the BMW they’ve been paying for. It’s time to stop dreaming about being a television star and get back to doing stand-up.
8
ONSTAGE: SET 4
I was in Arizona, I was out late. It was a wild night.
I got back to my hotel at 7:30 in the morning. And I went up to the desk to leave a wake-up call for seven o’clock.
And the lady at the desk goes, “Mr. White, it’s past seven.”
I’m like, “No, the next one. You got another one coming around, don’t you? Why don’t you just put me on that one? I hear they’re running two a day through Arizona now.”
Because of the unrest in the Middle East, we’re all just a little bit more familiar with the globe than we used to be. I found out yesterday there really is a place called Bumfuck, Egypt.
And the only way to get there is to go up Shit Creek.
You know the ayatollah in Iran died recently. And they were searching desperately for the next ayatollah.
And I suggested they pick that guy they kicked out of the Oak Ridge Boys. Ayatollah Oom Papa Mau Mau.
My brother’s a doctor, and my sister’s an attorney. And I hate Thanksgiving.
Last year the family’s sitting around the dining-room table. And my brother tells a story about all the lives he’s saved. My sister tells a story about winning a lawsuit for an orphanage and helping the children.
My mom goes, “Well, Ron, is there anything new with your career?”
And I go, “Yeah, I got a new bit about sticking my pecker in a toaster.”
Maybe I should’ve told my story first.
I was just in New York. I love New York. And I read an article in the paper there, and it said that there were one hundred million rats in the sewers of Manhattan.
And I was thinking to myself, “Why didn’t they just kill them while they were counting them?”
One, thunk. Two, thunk. With a rat hammer.
I don’t even know if there is such a thing as a rat hammer. Be handy, though.
Some people took me tubing down the Salt River. I had never gone tubing before.
Twenty-one of us met to go tube the river. We had six ice chests full of beer with the tubes wrapped around them.
We floated down that river drinking beer for six and a half hours.
And I was baffled by this: Not one person had to pee.
Is that normal? I’d like to think my friends wouldn’t pee on themselves.
I know I would. That was the best thing about tubing the river. You could just paddle up to somebody you don’t even know, talk to him while you’re peeing on yourself. That’s relaxed right there. If you’re floating down a river drinking a beer, peeing on yourself, there’s no tension there, is there?
I guess we’d been floating down that river for like an hour, before I realized, well, everybody’s just peeing on themselves. Hell, I’ll just pee on myself.
Everybody got mad at me.
Of course, I was in a canoe. Standing up.
Not everybody got mad. A couple of people viewed it as a photo opportunity, and I know that because I got their Christmas card last year.
I don’t remember it being that cold that afternoon.
I lived in Mexico for a couple of years. And I was in a horrific car crash down there, and I had a metal plate put in my head by a Mexican doctor.
No kidding. And the weird thing was, right before he performed the surgery he said, “Be very careful, this plate is hot.”
I did a show in Bowling Green, Kentucky, and you never know, until you’re onstage, how much of the crowd you can see. Usually you might be able to see the first couple of rows.
Or maybe not. But this time I could, and there was a lady in the front row that was wearing a denim Western skirt with buttons up the front.
Except it wasn’t buttoned up the front. And her legs were just kind of splayed, right?
I’m trying to ignore it, but I’ve got this shitty attention span that I treat with scotch. Unsuccessfully.
Anyhow, I was so distracted I actually stopped the show, and I said, “Ma’am, would you please close your legs? I can see your slip there.”
And she got all pissed off. She goes, “It’s not a slip. It’s a petticoat.”
I’m like, “Well, I can see the junction. And Uncle Joe needs a shave.”
Last year I did a show for the troops at Fort Polk, Louisiana. And it was a lot of fun.
But you didn’t have to be in the military to be at this show. There were civilians there too.
And I was just talking about the base, and I mentioned, because I toured it that day and I had just learned this, that there were forty thousand men stationed there.
And this really well-dressed drunk woman hollers out, “Every one of them is a bad fuck.”
I was like, boy, you know, it seems like after about thirty-nine thousand times you’d start to think, “Maybe it’s me. Maybe I need to read a book.”
I drink too much. Other people learn things when I drink. Last night a limo driver learned if I say I gotta yak, it doesn’t mean I have a longhaired buffalo living in my backyard.
He’s like, “Really, what do you feed it?”
“Corn.”
The space shuttle depresses me. How big a piece of shit is that piece of equipment?
Good Lord, give them a goddamn tool kit, for fuck’s sake. They’re out there with a bottle of putty and a spackle blade, trying to put this piece of shit back together.
Well, what are they gonna give them next year, a carrot peeler and some hemostats?
I may be the stupidest son of a bitch that ever lived. I may be. But I thought when the space shuttle blew to smithereens and killed a bunch of people, I thought they were building new ones.
They’re not. They’re just using the only one they’ve got left. Folks, this is a 1985 Columbia. What do you think the Blue Book is on an ’85 Columbia?
And I’m not a scientist, but I’ve got a little tip for the people up at NASA. Quit building the heat shield out of fuckin’ foam. It ain’t a durable product. A buddy of mine came over the other day, sat on my ice chest, and it busted to pieces. I’m like, that’s what’s going wrong with the space shuttle right there.
You need something more durable than foam. Like wood.
My uncle came over my house the other day. He used to be president of the Southern Baptist Convention. His name is Dr. Charles Pollard.
And I was making myself a drink. ’Cause I drink in front of anybody. It doesn’t matter to me. I don’t pretend to be somebody I’m not.
My uncle said, “You’re never going to find the answer to your problems in that bottle.”
I said, “I know. That’s why I’m gonna buy another one. I knew this one was a dud as soon as I opened it.”
But it’s a sin to waste.
I’ve been spending a ton of time in Los Angeles. I learn things when I go to L.A.
I learned this: They have bikinis now made out of seashells. I didn’t know that.
And I also didn’t know this: If you’re ever walking down the beach, and you see a girl dressed in a bikini made out of seashells, and you pick her up and hold her to your ear, you can hear her scream.
Who’da thunk it? I thought I’d hear the ocean, but not over that woman.
“Hush, ma’am.”
She was a wiggler.
L.A. changes people, that’s why I don’t like it, you know what I mean? I got a buddy of mine from Houston, a comedian, moves to L.A. Six months in L.A., I don’t know him.
Six months in L.A., now he’s a vegetarian, a humanitarian, environmentalist. You know, gr
eat. If you’re a vegetarian, you’re not gonna recruit me. I did not climb to the top of the food chain to eat carrots.
It’s not even that good for you. Ever see a healthy-looking vegetarian? They look like shit. They’re all plump and gray, because their bodies have become intolerant of things they need.
I’ll give you an example. My buddy and I were on the way to the Melrose Improv in Hollywood to do a set. And he says this, and I quote, “I feel nauseous and I have a headache. I think that vegetable soup I had for lunch must’ve had beef broth in it.”
I didn’t know what to say. “Your system’s kicking back—broth? You’re a manly man, aren’t ya? Why are you a vegetarian?” I asked him.
And it wasn’t even because meat was bad for you. He said that raising cattle was bad for the planet, with “cow flatulence in the ozone and the clearing of land for the raising of cattle. What are you doing to help the environment?”
“I’m eating the cows. But I’m only one man.”
Every time I read an article in the newspaper in Los Angeles, I get pissed. ’Cause things don’t have to make sense in L.A. I read an article in the paper in L.A. that said they were going to try to outlaw the big-screen real-live-handgun-shooting video games. Because they say that that’s what’s wrong with the youth of America today. They’re learning to accurately shoot guns with video games.
It’s not a parenting problem, oh no. It’s a video problem. They figured it out; congratulations.
Doesn’t that piss you off when they have a genuine problem and they try to tack a solution to it that has nothing to do with the problem? It’s a parenting problem.
I came up with a great idea. Don’t outlaw those machines, give them to the state troopers of California. ’Cause they’re some of the worst shots I’ve ever seen in my life. I saw a shootout once live on TV that went on for so long, eventually the criminal got frustrated and just shot himself.
And the cops are on TV whining about it going, “He’s got on body armor, he’s got on body armor.” I’m watching it live on CNN going, “I can see his head. Shoot him in the head. Give my kid a shot.”
“How’s that, Daddy?”
“Good shot, Poot. Everybody relax, Poot took him out. Thank God Poot was there.”
Horrible shots, some cops are. You ever see that tape of the Kehoe brothers from Ohio, those guys that get out of that white Suburban? They showed it on COPS a couple of times.
These guys have a shootout with the police at point-blank range. Nobody gets hurt.
I would love to have been at the office the next day when that guy’s being interviewed by the chief.
“And then what happened?”
“Well, at that point I unloaded my semiautomatic nine-millimeter weapon at point-blank range.”
“And then what happened?”
“They left.”
“Nice shooting, Elmer Fudd.”
There was a kid in Detroit three years ago shot eight bullets, hit nine people. These two cops shot twenty-two bullets, didn’t even hit the fucking Suburban.
Give those guys a roll of quarters, drop ’em off at the mall. That’s all I’m saying.
California is just not like Texas, you know? I’ll tell you the biggest difference between Texas and California. In Texas we have the death penalty, and we use it.
That’s right. If you come to Texas and kill somebody, we will kill you back. That’s our policy. We’re trying to send a message to the rest of America. And the message is, go somewhere else and kill people. Go to California, they don’t give a shit.
I was watching a case on Court TV when I was out there. I got so mad, steam was shooting out of my ears. This guy’s convicted of a triple homicide. This guy kills a grandmother, a mother, and a grand-daughter without provocation.
The crime’s so heinous, I can’t even fit it in my head. He’s sentenced to death by a jury of his peers, and right before it comes time to carry out the sentence a group of people on his behalf—ON HIS BEHALF—stand up and they go, “We can’t kill him, he’s too crazy to know we’re killing him.”
Then what the hell are we arguing about? If he don’t know the difference and it makes me feel better . . .
How do you know he’s crazy? That’s what I want to know. ’Course he’s crazy, he killed three people, you know.
This is what they said: “He rolls his turds into little balls and eats crayons.” I’m like, shit, they got to quit putting all crazy people in one group, goddamn it. They got to separate them up a little bit, you know what I mean?
“What does that crazy person do?”
“Oh, he rolls his turds into little balls and eats crayons.”
“Fine, I’ll feed him for the rest of his life. What does that crazy person do?”
“Oh, he kills productive members of our society.”
“Well, he should’ve rolled his shit into little balls and ate crayons. ’Cause the penalty is much less severe.”
They’re trying to pass a bill right now through the Texas legislature that’ll speed up the process of execution in heinous crimes where there’s more than three credible eyewitnesses. If more than three people saw you do what you did, you don’t sit on death row for fifteen years, Jack, you go straight to the front of the line. Other states are trying to abolish the death penalty, my state’s putting in an express lane.
I did that bit out in California. And this guy comes up to me after the show, and you could tell he was nervous to talk to me.
And he goes, “You know what, that may be true about Texas and the death penalty. But you know what, you know what?”
“What?” He waited for me to say what. That’s kind of cute.
He goes, “There’s an old law in Texas that states that in Texas you cannot shoot somebody in the back, no matter what they did to you or your family or your place of business. It’s illegal for you to in turn shoot them in the back.”
I went, “Yeah, but you can start shootin’ them in the leg till they turn around. ’Cause eventually they’re going to get curious.”
“Who’s shooting me in the leg?” I wonder quietly to myself.
Oh, that guy.
Never turn around.
I got thrown out of a bar in New York City. Now, when I say I got thrown out of a bar, I don’t mean somebody asked me to leave and we walked to the door together and I said, “Bye, everybody, I gotta go.”
Six bouncers hurled me out of a nightclub like I was a Frisbee. Those big old bouncers that go home every night, watch Road House, and beat off, you know what I’m talking about?
“Patrick Swayze’s hitting another guy, hee-hee-hee.”
For wearing a hat. I walk into a bar with a hat on, this guy’s real pissy. He goes, “Take off the hat!”
I’m like, “What’s the deal?”
He goes, “I’ll tell you what the deal is. Faggots in this area wear hats. We’re trying to keep ’em out of our club.”
“Oh, really? The only way we can tell down South is if they have their hair cut like—yours.” And he got all pissed, but he walked away and I took the hat off. And like an hour later, I’d been drinking and I forgot.
You ever forget? It happened to me. I put the hat back on, the guy comes over to me. Now, I’m between 6’1” and 6’6”, depending on which convenience store I’m leaving. I weigh 235 pounds. This guy comes over to me, poking me in the shoulder with two fingers, and says, “You’re out of here.”
I was like, “I don’t think so, Scooter.” And I was wrong.
They hurled my ass. And then they squared off with me in the parking lot. And I backed down from the fight, ’cause I don’t know how many of them it would have taken to whip my ass. But I knew how many they were gonna use.
That’s a handy little piece of information to have right there—overkill. Well, they called the police, ’cause we broke a chair on the way out the door, and I refused to pay for it.
I refused to pay for it, because “we” broke it over “my” thigh.
Cop says, “Mr. White, you are being charged with ‘Drunk . . . in . . . Public.’ ”
I was like, “Hey, hey, hey, hey, I was drunk in a bar. They threw me into public. I don’t want to be drunk in public. I want to be drunk in a bar, which is perfectly legal. Arrest them.”
Well, he didn’t arrest them. Instead he made me do a field sobriety test where you stand on one foot, raise the other foot six inches off the ground, and count to thirty. I made it to “Whoo. Is that gonna be close enough?”
Well, it wasn’t close enough, so they call in for my arrest record. There’s some good news. Satellites are linking up in outer space, computer banks at NASA are kicking on. There’s a telegraph in Fritch, Texas, going, “Beep-beep, beep-beep-beep-beep, dot, deet-deet-deet, dash, dippity, deet-deet-deet, duppety, deet-deet-deet, dot, dash”—this part takes a while—“deet-deet-deet, dippety, dot-dot, dash . . . beep.”
Now I told you that story to tell you this story: When I was seventeen years old I was arrested for being drunk in public. Seems to be a pattern.
If you knew Morse code, you’d already know that.
And one DWI, which was a bogus charge, because it turns out they were stopping every vehicle traveling down that particular sidewalk. And, hell, that’s profiling, isn’t it? Profiling is wrong.
On the drunk in public charge in Fritch, the arresting officer, who I had literally known all my life, you know what I mean? This guy lived four doors down from me in a town of less than four hundred people. We’ve met.
I mean, Fritch was so small, one year our high school marching band made a period. Two years later, they made a comma. They were kicking ass.