Stiff Drinks & Dirty Jokes The simple pleasures with comedian Ron White

By Evan Dashevsky

Ron White is one of those stand-up comedians who can be represented symbolically. Like Gallagher’s giant fruit-slaying wooden mallet or Dice’s overcompensating black leather jacket, Ron White will always be associated with two signature items: a bottle of Scotch and a cigar. And to dissuade the phony-hunting cynics, these are no trick props intended to feign legitimacy or sophistication – Scotch and cigars are pastimes Ron White actually uses to pass the time. They are also, of course, hobbies that the behavior police have engraved into their ever expanding no-no list.

So how does a traveling comedian with a penchant for consumable vices work around the sometimes baffling patchwork of public health codes? As it turns out, the key is a delicate balance of white lies and civil disobedience. “Well, sometimes we have to sell the cigar as a ‘stage prop,’ which it is in a way, but still it’s kind of weird,” comments White in his unmistakable sunbelt drawl when Smoke sat down with him at a recent stop in Las Vegas. “Sometimes they say I’ve gotta hire someone from the fire department to stand there and watch me smoke – like there’s a chance this thing could get away from me and burn down a building. Like it matters if one person stands up there and smokes a cigar. Rules that don’t make sense and I do not get along very well. And if a rule just doesn’t make any sense, I have a tendency to just ignore it.”

As for the Scotch – the several-tumblers-a-night worth of Scotch – that’s real too (for the record, it’s usually the top-shelf, 18-year-old Macallan). However, Ron is very adamant that the drinking never affects his performance. Too much.

“Well, the two-show nights – there’s the trick. I always take the first drink of the day on stage with me – I never go on the stage drunk. But at the end of that second show, if I’m pounding it, I can get a little ‘light on the loafers'” (the word-conscious comedian looks off to the side as a mischievous smile creeps across his face). “But that means I’m gay. I’m not gay. But I can get a little drunk. Thankfully, my fans have a tendency to forgive me in advance for almost anything I do, but I’ve seen the late shows get a little sloppy – but never anything where I can’t perform.”

White was first introduced to most people by his work on Jeff Foxworthy’s Blue Collar Comedy Tour. The tour went on to become a monster hit, going on to spawn a number of TV specials, albums, and DVDs. He carved out his niche on the tour as the oft-inebriated, sometimes debaucherous, but always on-point story-telling machine. White’s hilarious tales of depravity found him a place with Blue Collar’s everyman fan base; but his flawless, pointed delivery launched his reputation well beyond those with blue collars, drawing comparisons to such “comedians’ comedians” as Bill Hicks and George Carlin.

Many fans will be surprised to hear that the impeccable Ron White delivery is never planned out on paper beforehand – in fact, his vignettes are never heard by anybody until White hits the stage. “I’ve never owned a notebook. I’ve never written a joke down for work, never tried to work something out anywhere but on a stage,” he explains his craft of non-crafting. “When I’m in L.A., I’ll do sometimes two or three sets a night, just bouncing around comedy clubs and dicking around with new stuff, so then I’m not afraid to try something new at a big show. But I have a pretty good gauge of what’s gonna work and sometimes I’ll be surprised, but not very often.”
While onstage, White’s a smiling devil-may-care dirty joke teller, but behind all that is a seasoned professional who takes his work quite seriously (even when that serious work includes regaling an audience with a story about things coming in or coming out of the human body). “Usually jokes start off too long and then I’ll shrink ’em down. I’m a word harvester – I pull all the words out,” he explains on the art of telling the perfect joke. “Somebody could tell me a joke and it’ll be three minutes long, but if I were to tell it, it’ll be 40 seconds long because I know what’s not important in a joke – extra words.”

And this dedication to creating that perfect set has paid off. After Ron’s run with the Blue Collar crew, he has gone on to success on his own, filling arenas around the world; selling over 10 million CDs and DVDs; and launching a film career including a part in this past summer’s Horrible Bosses and even a small role in Sex in The City 2 (that latter film’s participation he expresses some embarrassment in). However, White is more excited about his recent work in the upcoming “dark, dark comedy” Jayne Mansfield’s Car which will premiere at next year’s Cannes film festival. It was written and directed by Billy Bob Thornton and will feature White alongside Robert Duval, Kevin Bacon, and John Hurt.

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