ON THE ROAD AGAIN

tomorrow i leave for arlington, texas and then fort worth the following week. in between i go down to houston to catch another performance of RADIO MUSIC THEATER, which is, i might add, the BEST cabaret show in america. if you live in houston or are traveling there, do yourself a favor and go check them out. pure genius! both the arlington and fort worth gigs really rock... but the f.w. room, which is right downtown and is very cool, is possibly my favorite room. come on out. later this month i will be in atlantic city, scranton, pa., and, i think, new brunswick (stress factory) for a one day show on a sunday. in a.c. i will be at the trop and in scranton, wiseacres in the clarion hotel. i am driving from vegas to the texas gigs which is something i absolutely love to do...drive. i used to put at least 60k per year on my cars/trucks/vans/suv's (had many and drove them hard, then went and bought a new one). i have written many a routine while behind the wheel with the freedom of the road in my soul.

Texas Hold'em

this one on a lighter note

last night, rhonda and i won a little over a thousand dollars playing poker at a local poker room: boulder station.

one hand stands out: i am on the big blind with a pair of fours and the game is 6-12, with 1 and 3 dollar blinds. first position calls, another calls, player in mid position raises to 9 dollars (3 + 6) two more call, i call, first position then raises to 15 (9+6) everyone calls and i call. 6 players times 15 dollars equals 90 dollars in pot. i obviously am a huge underdog since the player to my left has either aces or kings but the amount of money in the pot in relationship to the cost of my call is too good to pass up. flop comes 4 s, T d, 7 d. i have flopped bottom set. there is, of course a diamond draw and a possible straight draw and a possible straight flush draw. (if you don't see these, you don't play poker and this post will make no sense..) i bet, first position just calls, next calls, mid pos. raises, next calls, next folds, i call and first and second pos. call. pot now contains 150 dollars. the turn brings the 3 c which is obviously no help to anyone. i check, first position bets, next folds, mid raises, next folds, i re-raise, first position re-raises, mid calls, i cap it and they both call. at this point, i may be up against another set of either tens or 7s. plus the straight or flush draw. pot contains 294 dollars. last card is THE FOUR OF DIAMONDS. heh-heh-heh. i bet, first calls, mid raises, i re-raise, first folds his aces (as it turns out...he showed them) and mid calls with the nut flush. HOW SWEET IT IS. it was a hellava pot!

this is one of the reasons i play low limit hold-em, the number of callers per hand is much, much higher than either the big limits or no limits. a dollar lost is a dollar lost but if you are getting 3-6 times your money on a dollar WON you have a very profitable situation. at say, 15-30 hold-em or no limit hold-em, you are lucky to get two callers at the most.

if you risk 30 to win 60 is that better than risking 12 to win 60? i don't think so.

anyway, ms. R has breakfast ready. may all your flops be good ones.

ron

Dragging on...

overwhelming sadness
continuing madness
and the war keeps dragging on

dead women and men
here we go again
and the war keeps dragging on

go to walter reed
see what they need
and the war keeps dragging on

election drawing near
make it clear!
this war has got to fucking end!

Birthday Number Sixty Four

not to let it slip,
but was smoking a joint
on the las vegas strip

beautiful night
my name up in lights
really quite jarring
to see the word, "starring"

it was invigorating and even more
on birthday number sixty four

this has been the only birthday that has, in any way, gotten into my mind in many a year, probably since i turned 30.

i am certain it is due to the beatles' song, "...will you still need me, will you still feed me, when i'm 64?" i first heard the beatles when i was in prison in california, way back in the early '60's.

back then,
i was doing time
for crimes
that i surely had committed.

as i walked out of that prison in early '65, the guard at the gate said to me, "you'll be back." i said, "no, i won't." to which he replied, "your kind never changes."

well, i came back to california all right,
but it was to do the tonight show. lol.

when in prison, i was considered to be a security risk to the prison! i spent almost two years in solitary confinement, disciplinary segregation. i became a beatles fan while in the hole. now, i am ringo starr's favorite comic. a turnaround of such proportions that even now i cannot fully comprehend.

and now,
i am still doing time.
but on a stage,
not in a cage
and art gets the commitment


all these thoughts
and more
brought on
by birthday number sixty four.


10-19-42 to 10-19-2006
sixty four years
and you ain't seen nothin' yet.

a quote for the ages

"Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter." Martin Luther King, Jr.

will republicans buy my stuff?

my wife, rhonda, worried that because i don't like george bush and say so in my blog that i would lose sales of c.d.'s and dvd's because of it. first, i really don't do political humor in my act and second, if someone was that petty and thin-skinned they probably wouldn't like the material i do anyway. thirdly, it is not like i am a big fan of the democrats either. clinton sold us down the river when he campaigned in 1992 against NAFTA and then as soon as he was elected he signed NAFTA into law. (i think NAFTA, CAFTA AND ALL THE OTHER -TA'S are anti-american worker and have lead to us losing our manufacturing base.) john kerry is a fucking idiot. i watched him on bill maher's show the other night and they guy can't answer a simple question..... what i AM against is the war in iraq. have been against it from the get-go. iraq did nothing to us. we should have declared a MANHUNT FOR A COMMON CRIMINAL (because that is what osama bin laden is, a common criminal) and not a WAR on a word: "terror". we made a horrible mistake going in there. we must leave and the sooner the better. there is nothing we can do now to save iraq from itself. every day we stay, more american boys and girls die, more people in the middle east hate us, more iraqis die, more grief comes to that land. the neo-cons (whom, i think, do not really represent the real republicans in our land) tell us that if we leave, there will be civil war. guess what, kiddypoos, there already is a civil war there and we caused it by taking out the power structure of the country that held it all together. will the democrats get us out of iraq? fuck if i know, most of them went along with bush's song and dance back in 2003; they didn't ask the hard questions, they didn't ask for proof, they just went along. cowards! it is not unpatriotic to question our government. it is the duty of patriots to question the government. (read the declaration of independence). it is the duty of the citizens to hold the governments feet to the fire whenever the government puts american boys and girls in harm's way in some foriegn land. before we shed one drop of american blood on some far away soil we must be sure that blood is spilled in the cause of freedom and of right. to do anything less than that is unpatriotic in my view. if that view causes some of you not to buy my comedy albums or not to come to my shows then so be it. by the way, my grandfathers fought in world war I, my dad fought in world war II and i joined the army in the vietnam era but did not end up in vietnam. (i ended up in prison but that is another story). the point being, i come from a line of men that have served our country. i have marched in civil rights demostrations, been active in politics, spoken up when i thought it was necessary... I read multiple newspapers every day in order to keep myself informed, and all in all, I try to be a good citizen of this great country. i love america and would not wish to live anywhere else. do i think we are perfect? hell no. could we do better? hell yes. do we make mistakes? hell yes. the question is: are we big enough to admit them? and i believe the answer is yes.

true christians

this past week we saw christian philosophy in action: the amish families whose children were killed by a deranged gunman held a fund raiser for the family of the man who commited this horrible crime and who had then killed himself leaving a wife and children. they didn't engage in rage or retribution, but in forgiveness and charity. contrast their actions with pat robertson calling for the assassination of president chavez of venezuala or jerry falwell's statement that the united states deserved 9-11 because we allowed homosexuals in this country. ask yourself who is following the words of christ. just a thought.

Meandering Thoughts on a Tennessee Morning

greetings from the road, shock fans. the show in madison went great (especially after i threw the drunk woman out) and the shows in chattanooga have been just as good. one thing about southern crowds, they come to have fun.

i am working with a fairly new comic who was stunned when a rather well-endowed woman bought my c.d.'s after the show and wanted me to not only sign them but sign her breasts as well. (being a humanitarian-i did) he said, "boy, i bet that was a first." his view of the road was enhanced when i told him that it happens a couple of times per year. he now has motivation to come up with a better act....

be funny>> sign a titty.

for those of you who read POPPIES i would suggest you go to alternet.com and read a story called, KILL THE MESSENGER. hey, hey, - nobody runs drugs like the cia.

for those of you coming to las vegas next week, i will be at the tropicana starting on the 16th and going through the 22nd. while i am not as free-flowing there as i am on the road in night clubs, it is still a great venue for comedy. we always have 3 really good comics on the bill.

now that the republicans have outlawed poker on the internet, may i suggest to all my poker playing fans that you come to vegas and play in the casinos. they have games from very small, 2-4 hold-em, up to as big as you you want. you will be able to find me at either mandalay bay or boulder station. usually, i play 4/8-6/12 hold-em but can sometimes be found at the no-limit game at m.b. if you have never been to vegas there is no reason to be intimidated by the poker rooms, they are very friendly and will help the new player get adjusted.

i turn 64 this coming week. who would have thunk it? the over-under on me was probably 25 when i was young. i was a wild child. a three stint in a california prison straighened me up though. i am an example that you can change your life if you really make up your mind to do so. america, more than any other country or culture, allows you to make a mistake (or two or three for that fact) and then start over. we will forgive if you show real regret and try to do better. for those who didn't know, i started in comedy when i was 40, so it is never too late to do what you really want to do. just go do it. it is better to fail doing what you love than to succeed at something you hate.

oh well, nothing more to say this morning other than i appreciate your continuing support. i know it sounds corny but i love my audiences and my fans; you make me a better person and a better comic.

the friday sneak

once upon a time i was speaking to a fan/friend of mine and asked her why she didn't get more upset about what was going on in the country and in the world. her answer opened my mind to a situation that i had never actually thought about: she said, "ron, i am raising two children, trying to shuffle day care for my youngest and school for my oldest. i am worried about my keeping my job and paying the house note plus putting food on the table and all the other things that come into play with being a single mother. i, like so many other people, just don't have time to think about the state of the country and the state of the world." you see, i assumed that all sharp, intelligent people read the newspapers and kept up with what is going on, but since that conversation several years ago i realize that some of you just don't have the time to read and sift through the news trying to get accurate information. the internet can be overwhelming in it's sheer volumne of information and opinions (many of which are protrayed as fact when they are just opinions) from so many sources that you could read the new york times, the chicago tribune, the london economist and three magazines in the time you would spend on the net each day gathering this piece and that piece of info. bearing this in mind (this is new paragraph but somehow my laptop will not let me start a new paragraph) let me clue you in on a little piece of knowledge that you may not have: FRIDAY IS THE DAY THE WHITE HOUSE ALWAYS RELEASES INFORMATION THAT MAY BE HARMFUL. the reason they do it on friday is that day is the day that most people DON'T READ the paper and the saturday and sunday editions many times do not go back to review friday's news. bearing this in mind, let me tell you what was released by the white house this past friday: THE HOUSE GOVERNMENT REFORM COMMITTEE released a report that said, JACK ABRAMOFF, the lobbyist already convicted of bribery of public officials and now co-operating with federal authorities to get a reduced sentence, had 485 (FOUR HUNDRED EIGHTY FIVE) contacts with the white house. this is newsworthy because the white house and KARL ROVE in particular had denied basically even knowing the guy. rove had described him as a "casual acquaintance." 82 of the contacts were with mr. rove's office and 10 were directly between rove and abramoff. (paragraph) abramoff provided white house staff at least $25,000 worth of free tickets and box seats to sporting events and concerts. mr. rove was mr. abramoff's personal box seat guest for a 2002 ncaa basketball playoff game. after the game, abramoff emailed a colleague describing mr. rove as "a great guy." he said of mr. rove, "HE (ROVE) TOLD ME ANYTIME WE NEED SOMETHING, JUST LET HIM KNOW THROUGH SUSAN." now, susan is susan ralston, who left her job as MR. ABRAMOFF'S SECRETARY in february 2001 to become MR. ROVE'S EXECUTIVE ASSISTANT AT THE WHITE HOUSE. mr. rove was a regualar at mr. abramoff's signature restaurant where he claimed his 'USUAL TABLE" according to mr. abramoff. (paragraph) mr. rove, the house report found, got ms. ralston to get tickets for himself and his staff from mr. abramoff for other sporting events on other occasions. MS. RALSTON RESIGNED HER POSITION ON THE THURSDAY BEFORE THE REPORT WAS MADE PUBLIC. WHAT A COINCIDENCE. (paragraph) did all of this work for mr. abramoff? after one particular intense lobbying campaign involving 73 contacts with the white house between '01 and '02, mr. abramoff took credit for a decision by the administration to allow a $16.3 MILLION grant to a mississippi indian tribe, one of his clients, for construction of a prison. that grant was awarded despite the objection of the justice department. (paragraph) i ask you, does this not smell of corruption? this white house has consistantly tried to operate in secret with no bid contracts going out to cronies from iraq to katrina to construction of prisons. granted the 16.3 million is just a drop in the overall bucket but the real point is that the white house and rove denied over and over again any real contact between them and abramoff. over and over. this administration believes that if they tell us any lie and just keep repeating that lie over and over and over again eventually we will come to believe them. (see weapons of mass destruction in iraq for another example of telling the same lie over and over and over again.) JUST THOUGHT YOU WOULD LIKE TO KNOW

george and poker

in a news conference today, george w. bush showed his ignorance in the grand old american game of poker (which i just happen to know a lot about) when he used a poker reference saying (and this is an almost exact quote) "your hand is stronger if your opponents hold the same cards." no, you fucking idiot, your hand is stronger if your cards are still in the deck. for instance, if you hold a pair of aces you don't want someone else holding another pair of aces--there are none left. if you have two big hearts in your hand you do not want the other players holding hearts in their hands because there are fewer left in the deck. but this is from a man who thinks people like being invaded and will throw roses in front of the invading tanks. no wonder he signed a bill to outlaw poker on the internet, he must be losing a bundle. i think i have played with him, someone uses the name "idiotgeorge" and that must be him.

bombs, bombs, who has the bombs?

now that north korea has exploded a nuclear bomb we should ask just how this isolated, backwards, famine-stricken, poor country could come up with the ability to produce such a weapon. here's a guess... pakistan (our so-called ally) sold it to them. north korea makes its money by selling missles. guess who buys a lot of korean missles? pakistan. but, hey, not to worry, george has it under control. he sees into the heart of the military dictator of pakistan and sees a kindred spirit. so how is it that for a little comedy from the road? but i am sure that i am just paranoid and really all is well in the world. they love us in iraq, saudi arabia loves us, why they love us all over the middle east and europe and africa and asia and south america. george has "unified" the world. they all love us.

Keepin' It Real Every Night

well, greetings from the road, atlanta this week and chattanooga next. actually, i am in roswell, georgia which is a suburb of atlanta performing at a cool club called the FUNNY FARM where i have had some great shows. i have a monday night gig in madison, alabama (is my career skyrocketing or what?) before i do chattanooga. i haven't been in chattanooga for a couple of years and am looking forward to it. for those of you in the neighborhood, come on out because i have a ton of material you haven't seen yet. if you don't know about the club there, it is the COMEDY CATCH and it rocks.

for the people who have responded to my blog, i ALWAYS appreciate your feedback.

also i want to thank all of you who have e-mailed sirius radio trying to get them to put me on the air--IT WORKED! they wrote me last week and said they have received numerous requests for my stuff and would i please mail them my recordings which, of course, i did. if you all keep telling people about me maybe one day i will get the general public's attention.

back in the early 90's i was going to be "the next big thing" with lots of national press, usa today, entertainment tonight, joan rivers show, tonight show with johnny carson, etc, etc. but when i had to take 4 years off because of ellen's accident and subsequent death i faded from the public view. we are such a celebrity-driven society that if you do not have a tv show as a comic you are basically unknown. my good friend, bill hicks, who i believe was the best stand-up comic that ever lived, died in relative obscurity and only after his death has he started to get the attention that he so richly deserved. i don't want to become famous after i am dead, would much rather do it now while i can enjoy it. (i might add, the reason i would like to be famous is to have bigger audiences to perform for--i believe i have a gift and gifts are for giving and the more people i can give to the better) in the meantime, i will give every audience the best i have every night, every show, every town, be it san francisco or madison alabama.

p.s. if you are a fan of mine and have not heard bill hicks do yourself a favor and go to the internet and find him and get some of his recordings and blow your mind. there are also several books out about him, american scream and bill hicks-agent of evolution, to name two.

i want to also thank andrew shaman who set up my web site and my new, lovely wife, rhonda who those of you who have bought my stuff over the net know is not only my wife but is also my sometimes shipping clerk. after ellen died, i was in pretty bad shape and no telling what would have become of me had i not met rhonda; she has given light back to my life and freed me to share my gift once more. all of you who enjoy my work owe some thanks to her as well.

rock 'n roll,

ron

The War Party

the war party:

the party that wears two masks
one of an elephant
one of an ass

~~~

the line of a sordid history

ronnie reagan gives weapons to IRAN for american hostages.
he then cuddles up with IRAQ
who then invades IRAN
ronnie then bombs LYBIA

all the while, RUSSIA invades AFGHANISTAN


meanwhile, back at ronnie's ranch, while interfering all across CENTRAL AMERICA
propping up right wing governments
overthrowing left wing governments

ronnie did find time to supply the anti-russian rebels in AFGHANISTAN,
where he trained OSAMA BIN LADEN
and helped set up the TALIBAN !!!

and passed the mantle on to george the first,
who immediately invaded IRAQ
right after their war with IRAN
and then bombed IRAQ for the balance of his term
meanwhile, he sets up shop in SOMOLIA

slick willie comes on the scene
and bombs IRAQ
then he bombs SUDAN
then he bombs AFGHANISTAN
as a sidebar, he gets even more involved with SOMOLIA

while the RUSSIANS always took the other side in the past and supported IRAQ
the RUSSIANS now support IRAN
but say nothing about AFGHANISTAN

because they are invading all the STANS

george the second comes along
and invades AFGHANISTAN AND IRAQ BOTH!
overthrowing the TALIBAN

as a result:

OSAMA BIN LADEN's men are now actively recruiting in
AFGHANISTAN
IRAQ
IRAN
SOMOLIA

george the second is now threatening to bomb IRAN.

the war party

same war
same players
same bank accounts
same imperialistic designs
same old fucking same old.

Poppies

cities burning, world's on fire
rats running down the telephone wire
too late now, can't go back
all mired down in the sands of iraq

here at home, marijuana is banned
bumper poppy crop in afghanistan
but hey-hey-hey, know what they say
nobody runs drugs like the cia

'cause
cities are burning, world's on fire
rats running down the telephone wire
and...
air america flies again

Shock Thoughts

REPUBLICANS ON TOP OF IT two wars both going badly, largest national debt in history, health care going through the roof (we are ONLY county in the western world that does not have a national health care system), alienation of almost the entire world, widening gap between the rich and rest of us, jobs going overseas, ongoing scandals ranging from simple bribery to child molestation, a president who talks in slogans and seems to have no real grasp of reality, the gulf coast and new orleans still not rebuilt, etc. etc. etc. and so what do the republicans do? build a fence on the southern border (show me a 30 foot tall fence and i will show you a 31 foot tall ladder) and BAN INTERNET POKER. are we in good hands or what?