NEW DVD: LIVE AT 65!

i have finished editing my new DVD, LIVE AT 65! and it is the best of the three i have out. it was filmed on my 65th birthday here in vegas at the trop. while the camera work is a little jumpy in the first 5 minutes it settles in after that. (a fellow comic was doing the filming). since it was my birthday night, i was really jazzed and on top of my game and as a result, my friends, i fucking nailed every piece.

the dvd playlist is as follows:

how cold was it? this is a really good version of this piece, much better than bootleg I.

how stupid are they? after this dvd gets out i will never be able to go even through mississippi again.

van seats. far and away the best one on film.

train wreck, surprised! (as my old time fans know, this one was orginially about a plane crashing into a motel in indiana but after 9-11 i changed it to another wreck) this one is exceptional, even rhonda laughs each time she sees this one and since she does all my c.d.'s and comes to most of my in town shows, it is hard to get her to laugh at "old" material but i have added a new little twist on this one at the end. you'll like it!

.22 cal. rifle. another one that is the best version on film.

bio. the only one of these on film.

ESCAPE FROM L.A. COUNTY JAIL this story you have never heard and it is going to be as popular as "world's greatest dope story." if this story doesn't knock you down...you just don't like stories. i think it is my best story from a life full of stories.

and as a bonus: a really good version of oral roberts (much better than bootleg I)

_________________________________________________________________

we will be taking orders here on the website and will start mailing them out on about the tenth of january. (if there is going to be a delay, we will notify you but as right now we think we will be ready by the tenth)

of all the material i have out on c.d. and dvd, this is my favorite one so far. while not broadcast quality, the film is good because it was done in digital and not taken from vhs as the first two bootlegs were. if you like my live performance you will really enjoy LIVE AT 65 and will show it to your friends. (in a way, i feel uncomfortable saying all this but, in reality, i do like this and i have watched it at least ten times and, trust me, i am highly critical of my own work and for the most part cannot stand watching film of me because i am always thinking, "i could have done that better" but when i watch this...i think, " i just can't do these pieces any better"....for what it is worth)

merry christmas

merry christmas to all. (and the wise men were not at the manger)

my thanks go out to all of you who have come to my shows or visited my website. you are why i do what i do.

ron and rhonda

back home

tis the day before christmas and i am back from san francisco and glad to be here. the punch line in san francisco is my favorite comedy club and they did not disappoint me, a couple of the shows were just magical.

i am off to play some poker because at this time i am still in the hole for december, albeit not by much, but in the hole and we can't have that.......

did not get as much feedback from the obama post as i thought i would and some were just being argumentative with posts about secret societies and how obama was going to just be another in the long line of warmongers. few, if any, gave me their choice and their reasons but it is still early in the season (so to speak).

the one game that all the experts agreed on was boise state vs. e. carolina and they ALL SAID BOISE STATE WAS GOING TO CREAM THE PANTHERS! dey were wrong.

who should be president and WHY.

i finally made up my mind as to whom to support in the '08 election. i have examined all the candidates and have read their material, watched their commercials, gone over their platforms and looked closely at their backgrounds. i have watched them in the debates and listened intently to their ideas and how they expressed them.

quite a few things i took into consideration... and how we got to here bears reference as to what we need to do to remedy our ills. i was around for a lot of the "getting here."

i was around for the 60's. i was around for the civil rights movement and the demonstrations against the war in vietnam. i changed from a rock-ribbed republican and an oklahoma/texas brand of conservative to a pacifistic liberal over a period of a decade. growing up in amarillo and oklahoma city and being the son of a WWII veteran, i was taught that our government does not lie to us. i believed that...until i saw the government lie to us. i thought that we lived in the land of the free...until i saw the chicago cops beat unarmed, non-threatening peace protesters who were exercising their constitutional right to assembly. i cried when dr. martin luther king gave his "i have a dream" speech and wept uncontrollably when he died.

i saw the riots burn the cities of our country and the fire of racial discord sweep our nation. i have watched as we have demonized people for the color of their skin or for their sexual preference. i have watched as the "powers that be" tried their mortal best to pit us, one against the other, by dividing us into camps; left/right, liberal/conservative, white/black etc. etc. what this does is make us look at our neighbor as our potential enemy instead of as our fellow citizen.

i saw ronald reagan get us involved in little wars up and down central america, partially creating the flood of central american immigrants across our borders. i saw him break the faa union and cut spending for mental health treatment creating most of the homeless problem of today.

i saw clinton campaign against nafta and then, as soon as he was in office, signed nafta into law. i watched him look us in the eye and say, "i did not have sex with that woman."

we have all seen what george w. bush has done to our country, to our rights, to our constitution, our international reputation and to our real security. only the oil companies and the military contractors have benefited from his terms in office while the rest of us live with higher bills in shaky job security and are paying twice as much for gasoline and home heating oil than when that walking disaster came in office, smirking and grinning and lying through his fucking teeth. we have seen new york city attacked, new orleans destroyed, our military stretched to the breaking point and we have seen ourselves involved in not one, but two wars that we will never win if winning means leaving behind a peaceful organized country. we have created more terrorists than osama bin laden could have ever recruited. we are less safe than we have ever been and our country is broke. the american dollar, once the mighty benchmark of the international community, is now worth less than the euro, the ruble and the canadian dollar. we owe our financial souls to the chinese.

i said all of that to give credence to this: we, the people, must elect someone who will step out of the mold to which we have become so accustomed. the mold of same-old, same-old. the mold of more business as usual. the mold of more government of the corporations and less government of the people.

to do this we have to elect someone who wants to be the representative of the people first and foremost.

barrack obama is that someone. here is what swayed me:

when he graduates from columbia u., he goes to chicago to work as a community organizer in chicago. realizing that he could do much more for the community if he was a lawyer, he applies to and is accepted by harvard. not only does he graduate with honors, he was the editor of the harvard law review and the only black ever to be so. that would guarantee a $500,000 dollar salary on wall street to start. what does obama do? he goes back to chicago to do PUBLIC service. he has walked the walk. he has shown, by his actions, that he cares about the people. he turned down a fortune to work for the people.

he has taken no money from special interests nor from lobbyists. none.

i believe we must have a president in '08 that the country can unite around. someone who can bring us all together as americans and not as some sub-groups of americans. i believe we must have a president that other countries can look at and see someone who can be reasoned with and whose goals are international peace and co-operation and not war and confrontation. he said he would talk to our enemies, drawing much ire from the other canidates. look, if you don't talk to your enemies, they will always remain your enemy. duh...

we need a president who is beholding to us, the people, and even more importantly, wants to be beholden to us. i believe that barrack obama wants to help the people of this country. you and me. i think most of the rest of them just want to be president. with them, the presidentcy is the goal, with obama, the doing of good is the goal. that is a real big difference. i think that when given the "bully pulpit" of the oval office, his sincere desire to help all americans live in peace and prosperity will come through and we can all set about to forging a "more perfect union." i think he is the only one of either party that can possibly bridge that gap between us and bring us together.

my friends, this coming election may be the most important election this country has had since lincoln. we are at a real crossroads in our history and the path we take will determine our future. we need visionaries much more so than we need politicians and barrack obama is the only visionary amongst them.

i think this guy could be really good for the country. i am going to do what i can to help get him elected.

but:


"...just like yesterday
i'll get on my knees and pray...
we don't get fooled again."

thoughts on the fight

i have now watched mayweather's last two fights, oscar and hatten and i tell you true, neither of his opponents ever laid a glove on him. ricky hatten looked to be a "club fighter" and was completely outclassed last night. the left hook that put him down the first time in the tenth was a beautiful shot by floyd and caught hatten on the side of the jaw and dropped him like a felled tree. hatten had a lot of heart and kept on coming throughout the fight but had no defense for mayweathers pop shot rights and his stinging left jab. the only question now is will mayweather take on cotto who is a bigger man than he and is also undefeated and probably a much better fighter than hatten. i must say that mayweather's status went up in my eyes last night; he was really good and handled his opponent in every way possible. for what it is worth.

boxing, bill, and republican bullshit

i have bought the pay per view fight tonight between mayweather and hatten, should be interesting. mayweather wants to be considered one of the all-time bests and he has some credentials to that claim but i hesitate to put him up with ali, sugar ray robinson, sugar ray lenoard, willie pep, jack dempsey or several others that i consider to be the ALL TIME greats. i think, based on what i have read, that hatten is going to give him a good fight tonight. floyd is a brilliant defensive fighter and i really admire that but i question his power. he does have the "art of self defense" down to a T however and that gives him the edge tonight. we shall see.

a friend of mine sent me a email listing all the old charges against bill clinton. all the "suspicious" deaths of people around him with the underlying assumption that bill and by osmosis, hillary, must have had something to do with them. the only problem is that all of these accusations are false. as i pointed out in my reply to my friend, none of these has ever been proven and when bill was president we had a republican majority in both houses and they spent untold millions investigating him and could come up with nothing but a blow job. not one of these old charges and innuendos have ever been brought to a grand jury, no charges have ever been filed. don'tyou think that if there was the slightest iota of truth to any of them that after spending all that money they would have been able to find something to take to a prosecutor other than a little cum swallowing and cigar positioning? give me 20 million dollars and i can find some dirt on mother theresa. the people behind these attacks are the same ones who told us that max cleland was unpatriotic (he lost both legs in vietnam), murtha was a traitor (he won medals for valor in vietnam) and that there were weapons of mass destruction in iraq. how many lies does it take before we recognize a liar?

the republican attack machine is gearing up against hillary because they fear her so. the r.a.m. takes their cues from joey goebbels who said that if you tell a lie, regardless of how obviously false it may be, over and over and over and over again, the people will eventually take it as truth. you can count on many stories about bill when and if hillary becomes the nominee.

there is a report today in the paper that the total cost of the war in iraq and afghanastan is 3.5 TRILLION DOLLARS. this includes the long term costs of treating the wounded and disabled, interest and costs associated with borrowing to finance the war, the money needed to repair and replace military equipment, the increased costs of military recruitment and retention and the costs of lost productivity.

we don't have a national health care system because it costs too much?

our public schools are a disgrace because we can't afford to pay teachers more?

our roads and bridges are in disrepair because we can't afford to fix them?

our public transportation is a joke. we don't have a national rail service (how much gas would that save?). our kids can't read and apparently don't want to. we spend more on health care than any other nation and yet we have millions who have no insurance. we talk about security and yet we don't even examine the cargo coming into our ports and our borders have more holes than swiss cheese. you can't walk down the street in any city without incountering hordes of homeless people (this in the richest country on the face of the earth). our social services are underfunded and undermaned. a sheet metal worker makes more than a teacher. our cops are outgunned by the bad guys. we have over two million people in prison and about half of them are in on drug charges while other countries look at drug use as a disease and treatment is given we lock them up.

how stupid are we?

where are our national priorities? where is our common sense? have we lost our collective mind? what makes a nation great? is it our military strength or the quality of life for our citizens? granted we have a great military and the men and women in our armed forces are motivated by patriotism but we are behind almost every other industrialized country in all other forms of "quality of life" standards.

we have been at war in iraq longer than we were at war against germany, italy and japan in WWII and still there is no end in sight. we used to be loved and admired and now we are feared and hated.

and the republicans will tell you it is all bill's fault.

rant on, ronnie, rant on

so they froze the "teaser" rates at current levels for up to 5 years to help, and here is the question, the stupid homebuyers who had bad credit to start with but bought hoping that they could sell before the rates went up or the greedy banks and mortgage companies that mislead people into these horrible contracts and are now afraid of having to foreclose on homes that are worth less than the purchase price? hmmmm, bet it is to save the banks. why do i believe this? because the government doesn't give a shit about the people but does owe its soul to the banks.

the dei comes out with report that says that iran has not had a nuclear bomb program for the last 4 years. bush continues to beat the drums of war. alice has fallen down the rabbit hole.

huckabee is gaining on rommney and rudy is falling as well. why? is it that republicans want a baptist preacher who doesn't believe in evolution and does not know that man is a primate or is it because rudy the 9-11 guy, mitt the corporate raider or grumpy fred are just so fucking bad that even huckabee looks good in comparison. actually, the more i learn about huckabee and the more i see him (me, being one of the few from either party who actually listens to what BOTH parties are saying) the more i am less afraid of him than i am of the other bozos running as elephants in 08. johnny mac ain't gonna make, hell he may die of old age before the election. if elected he would be older than ronnie r. was when he came into office and ronnie went senile in his first term.

number of american deaths in iraq and afghanastan since 2001, apprx. 4,000
number of american deaths from hand guns in the united states since 2001, apprx. 80,000.

we are disarming the iraqis and arming the americans. good plan there. actually, we are arming the iraqis as well. we have armed sunni militias to fight against al kayda (i have always spelled al's last name as kayda while the rest of world changes their spellings every 6 months or so) but dollars to doughnuts those arms will be used against the shiites later on. wanna bet?

back to looming home forclosure crisis. two years ago i wrote a blog called "last fool in line." it went like this: you go to buy a home and they tell you it costs 200k; you say, but the house is only worth 150k and the real estate guy tells you, "yes, of course, but if you buy this home for 200k you can keep it several months or a year at the most and sell it to a bigger fool than you for 250k who will then sell it to a bigger fool than he for 350k and everyone will get rich." now we have a nation filled with "THE LAST FOOL IN LINE." but hey, what does a drug-addled comic know?

lou dobbs and the republicans have found their new "GREATEST THREAT TO AMERICA" and it turns out to be brown people from south of the border who are here without papers. THEY ARE TAKING JOBS AWAY FROM AMERICAN WORKERS!!!! yeah, yeah. i see the line of lily white people applying for jobs as maids in casinos and hotels. and dishwashers. and people who mow the lawns and pick up the horse shit at mitt romney's mansion. (how did mitt explain that?) turns out that dobbs, the great crusader, had illegals working on his house as well.

i know some people who are here illegally and they are hard-working, honest, sincere people who are only trying to make a living for themselves and their families. once again, if you were a person living in squalor in a central american country with no hope of ever getting a job that would bring you out of that crushing poverty, wouldn't you also try to get to the united states? of course you would. it is either that or become a bandit in your home country to put food on the table.

if we opened the door for citizenship for the millions of undocumented workers here we would add billions and billions of dollars to our tax base because these workers would then be paying taxes and social security. they are here and they are not going home. this is home to them. if we deport them, they will come back. they have no other choice. why can't we, as a nation, see that. and remember, unless you are a "native american", you are from somewhere else. the blacks, for the most part, were brought here against their will but there is no great movement by american blacks to move back to africa. why would they want to do that? africa is a dangerous place full of war and disease and corruption. poverty is the norm and dictators rule most of the countries. the rest of us came from europe or asia. my family was russian. we were serfs. if you look up the word, serf, in the dictionary it says "slave." we were slaves in russia and freemen in america. i am willing to give that same opportunity to anyone who wishes to come here, work, pay taxes, learn the language and all in all become a good citizen. we have plenty of room and plenty of opportunity.

outsourcing our jobs to india and china is a greater threat to our prosperity than the so-called illegals working on our roofs.

besides if we legalize these people they will be able to bring their families here which would stop the flow of BILLIONS of dollars that are sent back to the home countries. see, not only do they not pay taxes, they send a good portion of their pay back home so it is a double whammy.

i am for securing our borders and trying our utmost to stop illegals from getting in but those who are here should not be sent back. we must pressure mexico and the other countries south of our border to fix their own fucking house. however, mexico is in a quiet civil war pitting drug cartels against each other and against the government and certain mexican states wanting independence. it is a fucking mess. the worse it becomes down there the more people who will want to come up here. we cannot demonize people for wanting to better themselves. that is insane and against the morals and ideals of our country. so, fuck lou dobbs and his racist screed.

political forum

thinking about politics this cold sunny day in las vegas and would like to get feedback from you guys out there.....

on the republican side, the only two that i feel that i could live with as president if i had to would be johnny mac and huckabee even though both of them are seriously flawed in my mind. rudy, mitt or fred would be another bush-like disaster for our country in my opinion.

on the democratic side, i could live with any of them but right now, this undecided democratic voter, my preferences would be, in order, clinton, obama, dodd, biden, edwards. i have left out richardson, whom i don't really want or dennis k., who would be my favorite if i thought he had any chance at all of being elected.

i am not buying into the idea that senator clinton cannot win, i think she would win in a landslide, not because of her but because of the nation's disgust with the republicans.

none of the democrats, with the exception of dennis, have come out with a plan for universal, single payer, health care. money still controls both parties and i am afraid we will still be the only industrialized country without nhc for the rest of my life and this is because of the enormous influence the insurance companies and the big health care companies have over both parties.

those are my thoughts. care to share yours? fire away. i don't think you could ever convince me to vote republican but you can try anyway. not that i think many republicans read my blog or are big fans of me in general but i know that i do, indeed, have some republican fans and at least 3 republican friends. 4 if you count my brother in law but he has been a military man for all of his adult life and that shades your view. he is now out of the service and may eventually come around....he is a good man and we have had some great email arguments. we agree not to discuss politics in person, mainly to keep him from just beating the shit out of me. nah, that's a joke, he wouldn't do that, i am good to his sister and for that i have his loyalty and he has mine.

bad day at black rock

lest anyone think that i only talk about wins or in some way or another 'shade' my poker reports let me clear that up with this post: today i lost 400 dollars and it only took an hour. the first stack went this way: i am under the gun with queens and i cold call looking to reraise. sure enough, the young man to my left makes it ten dollars to go and is called in two places back to the blinds; the little blind makes it 40 to go. here is the first mistake in this hand; i have seen this guy raise to 15 dollars with 7-2 and 8-9 so i know he is capable of raising with literally anything but this time i figure (wrongly it turns out) that he has either a medium pair or ace king. i call the forty as does the original raiser and then it is back to the big money stack on the table and he calls while one guy folds. the pot now contains 170 somewhat dollars. the flop comes: Jh, 9h, 9s. the little blind CHECKS, hmmmmm, i think well, he has AK so i bet 50 dollars into the pot. big money stack raises it to 150 dollars and lb calls. HMMMMMMM! what to do, i only have 120 dollars left and one of my queens is the queen of hearts. fuck. i go all in, big money stacks of course calls and so does lb. we show our hands, aces for the lb (fuck) and 9-6 by big money stack. the turn is the 8h which gives me a straight flush draw, flush draw (the aces do no contain a heart) and, of course, the possible queen. none of which came and there goes the first stack. had it been anyone other than the wild and wooly guy to raise to 40 i would have laid down my queens and only lost two dollars but his image as super aggressive sucked me in.

i am not even going to tell you how i lost the next 200 but let me say it was bad! so i am in the hole for the month. i shall pull out a winning month and will keep you posted. (so to speak)

britney impresses

on the plane back from atlantic city the woman in the seat next to me was reading one of those "people" style magazines, the ones with fluff articles about celebs and on the page was a picture of britney spears and opposite her a picture of some good looking man with the caption:

IS BRITNEY GETTING SURGERY TO IMPRESS HER NEW MAN?

my comment was: "if that is true, the question arises; which of these two people is the most shallow?" my next comment was: "if britney wants to get an operation to impress me, may i suggest a lobotomy."

i may put this in my act tomorrow night at the trop just as a throwaway line. (one of these days, i should watch the several dozen tapes of me from the 80's and early 90's for some of the stuff that i have forgotten over the years and put some of them back in because they were real good, i just don't remember how they went.....)

anyway, off to play some poker while rhonda works on the house. do i have a good marriage or what?

you know who you are

there is a poker player here in vegas who is fully convinced in their mind that i am not a good player and they must just hate reading this blog; it is now 34 out of 41 with the win today. i was the one who recommended that they get into poker because they are so bright and have a quick mind for numbers. now, however, no matter what i say, they argue, they belittle, they disagree, they are sure that i will lose. if i were to win 99 out of 100 sessions they say it was luck. i always tell them that they are a good poker player but they have never acknowledged my success. for 16 years now i have won at texas hold-em poker and in that time have had maybe three losing months. out of 192 months i have posted wins in 189 of them and still they don't believe i know how to play the game. why? because i don't play like they do. know people like that? if you don't do something exactly as they do, you must be wrong. this same person once told me that i don't know how to tell a joke. lordy, lordy. (you know who you are...lol)

if i hear another person on tv say "at this point in time" i am going to scream. well, i already do scream at them when they say it. why? because saying "this point in time" shows their ignorance of the english language. it is redundant. you can say, "at this time...." or you could say, "at this point.." and either would be correct but when you combine the two you are saying the same thing twice. no wonder our children speak a form of gobbly gook, they hear it all day long from people who ARE PAID TO SPEAK. jesusfuckingchrist!