BILL HICKS AND THE FRENCH CONNECTION
this story takes place at a club in lafayette, louisiana.
we are playing at a motel in a really bizarre room with the audience below us, above us and on both sides. terrible room for comedy.
this part of louisiana is very heavily french cajuns and that is the majority of the crowd.
hicks and i cook up a great gag: bill has brought his pet ferret, neal, with him. neal is beautiful little animal who looks to be very stoned all of the time. neal was one laid back ferret. he just laid there, jim. that is all he did. with class i might add. ferrets are basically a pretty weasel but not mean at all. neal was light colored with a black streak from his nose up over the top of his head.
this is very early in my career and i am the m.c. after the middle has done his set, i go back up supposedly to bring on the headliner. instead i say, "ladies and gentlemen, before i bring up our headliner, bill hicks (bill was unknown at that time), we have a very special treat for you....the most famous comic in all of france is going to be performing next week in new orleans for a large group of french industrialists here for an international convention and he wants to practice part of his routine because it will be done in french and so the only place here in america where they speak french is here in the great city of lafayette." (the crowd goes crazy) i continue to lay it on thick about how famous this man is back in france and all over europe and he is so happy to find french speaking people right here in this great city blah, blah, blah. they are eating it up. i have sold it and they have bought it.
"ladies and gentlemen!!!, direct from paris, france, please welcome MR. NEAL FERRET!! (of course, i pronounce it the french way, 'neal fa-ray') bill walks out on stage, right arm extended in in front and on his arm is neal. mellowed out. his little legs are drooped over bill's arm on both sides so just his body rests on the arm. his face is right on top of bill's hand. bill bows .
bill says, in this horrible caricature of a french accent, "i vood likes to do some im-prsh-ons for you. i vood like to do my im-prsh-on of Mr. T." with this he strokes neal's black streak of hair backwards so that it stands up sort of like a mohawk haircut and says, "I PITY DA FOOL DAT CALLS ME VERMIN!"
the crowd is too stunned to boo and too stupid to laugh.
we were never booked back there.
we are playing at a motel in a really bizarre room with the audience below us, above us and on both sides. terrible room for comedy.
this part of louisiana is very heavily french cajuns and that is the majority of the crowd.
hicks and i cook up a great gag: bill has brought his pet ferret, neal, with him. neal is beautiful little animal who looks to be very stoned all of the time. neal was one laid back ferret. he just laid there, jim. that is all he did. with class i might add. ferrets are basically a pretty weasel but not mean at all. neal was light colored with a black streak from his nose up over the top of his head.
this is very early in my career and i am the m.c. after the middle has done his set, i go back up supposedly to bring on the headliner. instead i say, "ladies and gentlemen, before i bring up our headliner, bill hicks (bill was unknown at that time), we have a very special treat for you....the most famous comic in all of france is going to be performing next week in new orleans for a large group of french industrialists here for an international convention and he wants to practice part of his routine because it will be done in french and so the only place here in america where they speak french is here in the great city of lafayette." (the crowd goes crazy) i continue to lay it on thick about how famous this man is back in france and all over europe and he is so happy to find french speaking people right here in this great city blah, blah, blah. they are eating it up. i have sold it and they have bought it.
"ladies and gentlemen!!!, direct from paris, france, please welcome MR. NEAL FERRET!! (of course, i pronounce it the french way, 'neal fa-ray') bill walks out on stage, right arm extended in in front and on his arm is neal. mellowed out. his little legs are drooped over bill's arm on both sides so just his body rests on the arm. his face is right on top of bill's hand. bill bows .
bill says, in this horrible caricature of a french accent, "i vood likes to do some im-prsh-ons for you. i vood like to do my im-prsh-on of Mr. T." with this he strokes neal's black streak of hair backwards so that it stands up sort of like a mohawk haircut and says, "I PITY DA FOOL DAT CALLS ME VERMIN!"
the crowd is too stunned to boo and too stupid to laugh.
we were never booked back there.
posted by Ron Shock | 11:00 AM
4 Comments:
Before you married Rhonda did you ever date Dot Warner or Hello Nurse from the Animaniacs? Did you and Mr. Hicks ever get like intimate with any famous cartoon characters? Do you know Wacko and Yacko Warner? How about Pinky or even The Brain?
To a man with shoes the whole world is made of leather.
That's a fucking hilarious story. Even moreso if you've been to Lafayette.
the looks on their faces was worth the price of admission. one thing about lafayette though it does have some great food. prejean's on the outskirts of town is fucking great!
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