I Had the Right to Remain Silent...But I Didn't Have the Ability (17 page)

BOOK: I Had the Right to Remain Silent...But I Didn't Have the Ability

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I'm like, "We got no choice. I gotta be on the set at six fifteen. We'll just sneak out."

We open the door and the alarm goes off: "Ding, ding, ding." We shut the fucking door, jump in the car, and drive. Barbara says, "Wait a minute. I'm missing my earrings and my watch."

It turns out I had fallen on a glass and cut my leg pretty bad. But I didn't realize I was cut, that's how fucked up I was. I just bled all over their house.

I put Barbara on a plane and went back to work. The Engvalls FedExed Barbara her earrings and watch.

And I've never been invited to their house again. Bill would never tell you that he holds that night against me: the bloodstained sheets, the spilled expensive whisky, saying "cocksucker" in front of his eight-year-old, and Barbara and me getting frisky in the hot tub. Not one little bit: "Ron, your behavior was stellar, thank you for coming over. Visit us again soon."

I felt bad about it. I still feel bad about it. But at the time I was also feeling good about my career. The Blue Collar Comedy Tour is going great. The concert film is in the can at Warner Bros., and they're saying they're gonna spend $12 million to promote its release in the theaters. 'Cause it's testing through the roof. It's getting great fucking numbers. People love it.

So I think, "Fuck, I got it made. Warner Bros. loves me. And Fox loves me."

Fox is putting me up in this great hotel. And they've rented this BMW for me to drive. I had never driven one before, and I kinda liked it. Now, I know Fox has other shows in development, but I think, "They can't be treating everybody this great. They must love me in particular."

In fact, Fox had done fourteen pilots and they had spent a pile of money on all of them. But mine was a single-camera shoot. And they had to rent lots from Universal, where we could shoot Mexican street scenes. So it was extra-expensive to produce.

They were gonna pick four shows. They had also bought a pilot from NBC called
The Ortegas
that starred Cheech Marin. So it got down to five shows including
The Ortegas
and
Senor White
.

In the meantime Warner Bros. releases
Blue Collar Comedy
in movie theaters. But instead of spending $12 million on promotion, they spend $600,000, which is less. And they put it in cities where we'd toured a lot and people had seen us live recently, and they needed to be patient, and they weren't.

Warner Bros. pulled the movie out of release and said they were going to put it straight to DVD. At that time Hollywood only brought a DVD out quick when they thought the movie was a dud.

I still thought
Senor White
was gonna make the cut. I went out and bought a $2,000 suit to wear to the party. I thought there's no way they're gonna pick
The Ortegas
, 'cause it sucked. I got a copy and it was terrible. It was really stereotypical.

My show, I never talked down to the Mexicans. I was the fish out of water, they were the geniuses.

My manager saw the pilot for
The Ortegas
and he told this guy at Fox, "This
Ortegas
thing sucks." And the guy said, 'That's the nicest thing anybody's said about it yet.'"

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.

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."

B
ecause 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.

M
y 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.

S
ome 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.