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Authors: Ron White

I Had the Right to Remain Silent...But I Didn't Have the Ability (18 page)

BOOK: I Had the Right to Remain Silent...But I Didn't Have the Ability
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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."
L
ast 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."
T
he 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.
M
y 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, great. 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."
E
very 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."
H
orrible 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.
C
alifornia 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 . . .
BOOK: I Had the Right to Remain Silent...But I Didn't Have the Ability
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