aint we got fun?

back on the subject of when i was a kid....i left out in the jobs i had catagory, pushing a hot dog cart in new orleans when i was 16 and working as a "barker" in front of a strip joint on bourbon street. what i said was: "come on in! 48 DOUBLE D BIGGEST PAIR YOU'LL EVER SEE!" now that was a good job! as a bonus on that job, i lost my virginity to a stripper in that club in a booth. too cool. when the girls found out i was a virgin they decided that something should be done about that. god bless those girls.

in the paper today i saw where we, the united states of america, hire UGANDAN soldiers to, are you ready?, guard american ARMY BASES IN IRAQ. what the fuck? i just can't get my head around that. we HIRED some african soldiers to guard american soldiers in an arab land. you know.... when i was in the army, we actually did guard work ourselves. imagine that. we also did kp (kitchen patrol) ourselves. we hire that out as well. we also drove our own trucks. we hire that out as well. we did the fighting ourselves and had no mercenaries along for the ride. (see blackwater) what the fuck? what kind of army hires people to do army work? army strong indeed.

swine flu
bird flu
killing me and you
mad cow disease
disappearing bees
somebody please
tell me what to do

homeless
helpless
living in the streets

gotta get a gun
gotta get a gun
kill the next one
kill the NEXT one
then run, run, run
aint we got fun?
right here in america.
right here in america.

(those are the words to my next big hit)

shit.

i've lost my fucking mind.

rant for the day

there was a list of things that are disappearing posted on aol (i think..rhonda showed it to me) and these caught my attention:

the bees. this is a real problem; we depend on the bees and they are dying out and no one seems to know why. i do. it is mother nature and she is pissed. we are, as bill hicks once said, a virus with shoes and we are contaminating the planet.

kids to do chores in the neighborhood. i had a fair amount of work to be done in my front yard, leaves to be racked, weeds to be pulled, trees and bushes to be trimmed. i live on a corner lot and there is both a high school and a middle school within three blocks of me and every school day dozens of kids walk by my house. NOT ONE EVER STOPPED AND ASKED IF THEY COULD DO THESE CHORES. NOT ONE. i eventually went and got two day laborers, both probably illegal, and paid them one hundred dollars to do the work. i would have paid a couple of kids the same but... i don't want to sound like the typical old man (why, when i was a boy etc etc etc) BUT when i was a boy, i mowed lawns, washed cars and windows, had a paper route, worked at the grocery store as a sacker and all of those jobs i went out and hustled up. the kids walking by my house seem to all have cell phones and ipods and hundred dollar sneakers. where are they getting the money from? i can only imagine if i had asked my folks for the money to buy a pair of tennis shoes that cost 5 times more than the just regular cheap ones what would have happened. but, one thing, i know is that they would have never given me the money though they did have it...we were not poor nor rich but true middle class and they were very big on earning your own money. so i ask: what the fuck is going on? from what i read about the schools here in vegas a good many kids are going out into the world with a piss poor education and to top it off, no work habits. good luck to them.

a catholic education. both rhonda and i went to catholic schools. both rhonda and i can read and write, know history, know math, know science (not my strong suit), etc. while catholic schools had and have many things about them i don't like they did one thing really well...THEY FUCKING MADE YOU GET THE GRADES BECAUSE IF YOU DIDN'T YOU DID THE YEAR OVER. PERIOD. NO FUCKING AROUND. YOU DID IT OVER. and no kid likes that. also, because they did cost a pretty penny, the parents were involved and today, the teachers i speak to who are from public schools tell me that it is like pulling teeth to get parents involved. when kimberly and mica were going to school be it public or private (they did both depending on how much money we were earning) their mom and i knew their teachers, talked to their teachers, supervised their homework etc etc. guess what? they were good students who went on to college and now have good careers and their kids get good grades. not that i was a great parent, i wasn't because i left, but when i was there, books were in the house, we read to the kids from almost day one of their lives and guess what again? they grew up with a love of books, learning and reading. those are great assets to take into the world. (here i must give almost all credit to their mothers but i did my part when i was there...hell, stefanie's first word was "daddy" because i was a stay at home dad for the first two years of her life.) ((hudson i can take no credit for at all other than being a sperm donar as sharon liked to call me...lol...but he turned out great as well))

those that is my rant for today. off to play poker.

just some thoughts to lighten up your day

the reason i have not written anything here for quite some time is that my mind has been spinning and my thoughts have been scattered. i find myself worrying more and more about my country and the direction it is heading. all empires collapse and our time may have come. our karma is bad and maybe the piper of history wants to be paid and paid NOW. the saddest part is that we started so well with such fine ideas and even finer ideals. life and liberty and freedom and justice for all (except the slaves of course, but why quibble?) then, at the cost of hundreds of thousands of lives, we freed the slaves and kept the union. but to do what? kill the indians? steal land from mexico? import chinese and make them slaves to build the railroads? get involved in foreign wars? make us a land for the rich and everyone else be damned?

you read our REAL history, not the namby pamby claptrap that is fed our children, and you read a history of greed and corruption, of conquest and exploitation, of rewarding dishonesty and crushing honest dissent. we are feared and hated around the world and for good reason. we use the poor of africa to experiment on with our new drugs, we prop up dictatorships in central america so we can rape the land, we use the so-called "war on drugs" to justify a police state here at home. could you or i find a totally honest politician among our current crop? probably not. i can't name one. (obama was my last great hope but he has reneged on so many of his promises that he is beginning to seem like same old, same old, just with a different colored face. maybe his goals were pure but he is kowtowing to the same old forces, the banks, the military, the pharmaceutical companies, the rich and the powerful. we are not out of iraq nor do we plan on being so, we are shifting wars but not ending them, bailing out banks but forgetting the people. where are the jobs? were are the public works? where is the relief to the people?) our founding fathers were giants and now we have gnats.

now we are having arguments over whether or not torture should be used in the pursuit of national security. man oh man. if we torture ONE PERSON we are different from nazi germany only in degrees. we still are the ONLY country to use an atomic bomb. and not only did we use it, we used it on CIVILIANS. the first, on Hiroshima could be explained but the second on Nagasaki was mass murder. oh, that is not what WE call it, it is only what EVERYONE ELSE calls it and what history will call it. so what the hell, if we are mass murderers then we might as well torture huh?

we have raped our planet and one day mother nature will have her due. be it global warming or pandemics or whatever that piper is going to be paid as well. all we, that's you and me, can hope for is that it doesn't happen in our lifetimes. but, that would mean our children are fucked.

so, aren't you glad i am writing again? always nice to have a comic to lighten up the day.

small talk

have landed in Hilton Head where they have a computer i can use. last week in mrytle beach was very cool and one of those "once in a lifetime" experiences: two of my grand kids came to see me perform for the very first time. they saw all four of the weekend shows and they got the whole gauntlet, a magical show, a great show, an okay show and LATE SHOW FRIDAY complete with drunks yelling and screaming. and what impressed paris and hunter the most was how i handled the bad show with that audience who had just slaughtered the first two comics. i actually got those people but it was hand to hand combat for a while...but i got the mothers. teach 'em to fuck with me.

paris and hunter got to hang out with comics and the owners of the club and were accepted immediately. they thought that was very cool. comics and comedy club people are just good people and, for the most part, great fun to be with. the kids are going to come out to vegas to hang out with me for a while this summer. it will be very cool. rhonda is just going to love these kids, she already likes them just from their pictures but is going to have a wonderful time with them.

nothing really to say, just checking back in and letting you know i am still around.

off to south carolina

i leave tomorrow for south carolina and will get back in a couple of weeks. not taking computer with me but i am sure i will be able to use one in mrytle beach and KNOW there is one for me in hilton head.

last night rhonda and i had another one of our magical restaurant experiences: we went to Lucio's way out west on sahara for some italian food. we heard about it through the BEST IN VEGAS that newspaper puts out each year and it was the reader's choice. cool place. service was a little slow but we think it was for a reason; the waiter kept telling us that they had a pretty good band that was going to play later on. so we had a leisurely meal of multiple hors d'ouerves,(sp) a filet for her and pasta with meat balls and a red wine sauce for me. very, very good. the pasta plate was the best i have ever had in a restaurant (rhonda's is the best) ah, but then the band came on. started with a piano player, bassist and drummer, soon electric guitar showed up, then two trombone players, one of which blew a great sax later. then they brought up a woman singer, whose name we did not get, who did a rendition of "stormy weather" that you feel in your toes, followed by "foggy day in london town" and she left to a standing ovation. but wait, that's not all, another female, a spunky little mixed race woman who looked to be maybe Jamaican was next and did some ella fitzgerald skat followed by "get your kicks on route 66" that brought the house down. a man who was there with his wife for her birthday got up and sang "funny valentine." each one of these people were real pros and were, at one time, members of big bands that had played here in vegas. there are hundreds of really gifted musicians living in vegas who show up a various night clubs and cafes and share their gifts. i left a hundred dollar tip for a night that we will never forget...it was truly magical.

THE COMING BILL HICKS CHRONICLES

what i am going to do is to post on utube some little stories about BILL HICKS that are not in the books nor have i ever heard mentioned in any interview with bill. to be truthful, i am doing for two reasons: a. (and philosophically, the most important) to tell the stories and to do them justice in the telling. b. (most important selfishly) to introduce myself to the hundreds of thousands, if not a million or more, hicks fans. i have never met a hicks fan who didn't like what i do. never. i am no bill nor do i try to be. i'm ron shock and i do me quite well and bill thought i was one funny motherfucker. his fans will too.

bill and i go back to my very first road trip where bill hicks and i do lsd at the second night of the GIG FROM HELL. bill tells that one in an interview that is posted on my website. (and he tells it wrong! he has the town wrong and how it came to be and he doesn't make himself out to be the real hero that he was. he downplays his role. for real. the real story is much better than the way bill tells it.) bill and i were two of the seven comics who became known as the TEXAS OUTLAW COMICS. we did dozens of shows together. we wrote bits together. we had a very strong friendship. i was not, by any stretch of the imagination, his "best" friend, far from it, i was 18 years older than bill and had a life outside of comedy. on the other hand, bill and i did have some fabulous times together, deep conversations together, hallucinogenic experiences together and we liked and respected each other. i spoke to bill the night before he died and on the night he did die, kenny moore and i had a mind boggling experience that we attribute to bill. it's a hell of a story.

bill liked talking to me because i had experienced things that he hadn't; i had been in prison and i was a hot shot in the corporate world. i could talk about places and thoughts and events and feelings and because i can tell a story well, bill was able to grasp the "essence" of what i was saying. for instance: (i think i have written about this one before, but it bears repeating) one night in houston, bill and i were walking my great dane, che dog, (dog of the people!!), and i got to espousing about the money system; silver standard vs. gold standard, federal reserve, banking systems, etc. blah, blah, blah. THE NEXT NIGHT, BILL HICKS WENT ON STAGE AND DID TEN KILLER FUCKING MINUTES ON MONEY! i thought, "you know, i have known that information for 15 years (at that time) and i haven't thought of a single funny fucking thing to say about it yet. (and still haven't)

i'm getting old and if i am going to ever penetrate the american mind, then i am going to have to do it viz the internet. i'm funny and i'm different and, for the most part, nobody knows who i am. i am going to use the net to introduce myself to an already established target market: bill hicks fans. they'll like me.

i have already filmed some of the stories and may keep one or two of the ones i have but really want to tell them over and over and over again until i just nail it. know what i mean?

i've got some great bill stories. stay tuned

poker and republican bashing

sooo, i went on facebook where i have upteen million friends and asked them to read the previous blog and give me their thoughts. none did. so much for that. apparently i have shrunk to about 5 readers but what the hell, i do this more for me and rhonda than anything else. it is sort of a daily diary and probably will just concentrate on poker with a little bit of rebulican bashing just for fun.

speaking of which: did you read the republican "alternate budget" proposal? brilliant. these people have no clue of what middle america (dat's you and me) want or need. to wit: they propose to cut the taxes of the WEALTHY so that the ceo's of wall street and the banks would pay a much lower rate on their already obscene pay packages. boy, that will resound with american workers! then they propose freezing all discreationary spending which has historically shown to be very important in lifting the country out of recession. no sense in expanding say, unemployment for instance, let us eat cake. and to top it off they want much higher premiums for the elderly on medicare. not only are the republicans heartless they are clueless and soon will be only a force in the intellectual wilderness of alabama, georgia, south carolina, arkansas and louisiana. with some folk in kansas, nebraska and montana coming along. the rest of america will go about their business and just ignore them.

in poker today, i had a woman who has a very slow learning curve (probably republican) i won three huge pots from her when she called my very large bets. first one, i had a set of tens on the turn and she had the nut flush...but didn't raise my little 15 dollar bet. board pairs on river. she pays off 75 dollars. next, there is a raise to 8 dollars and i and 6 others call. i have a pair of 6's. the flop comes 6-3-J. player number one who was in blind bets 50 dollars into a 56 dollar pot. everyone folds except this lady. i raise to 100 dollars and orginal player folds but she calls. turn is a blank and i go all in and she calls and shows a pair of queens. after she rebuys again and ten minutes goes by and i am now in small blind. there are 5 callers plus bb already in...i look down and there are aces. I raise to 20 dollars and everyone except her folds. flop comes Q-7-3. I bet 75 dollars and she goes all in, showing me a queen-ten suited. i show her the aces and take the pot. she leaves then and the dealer, who has been there for two of these hands, says "that woman just won't learn will she?" i said, "i hope not."

so that's it for today.

peace for us all.