Eastern Carolina Style

Recently I had the privilege to talk with one of the hottest comedians going today. Ron White sat down with me to talk about his DPAC show, his history, cigars, drinks and his other business ventures.

MAS: Today we have one of the funniest comedians, one of the most successful comedians, we have going. We have Ron White! Thanks for taking the time to speak with me today, how are you doing?

Ron White: I feel like 100 Pesos

MAS: That’s not too well

Ron White: That’s 9 dollars

MAS: Well hopefully we can get you feeling better in time for the show.

MAS: I do want to start by thanking you.  A lot of fans don’t realize it, but you are a veteran. Isn’t that correct?

Ron White: That is correct

MAS: I do want to start by thanking you for your service. I know it is a day late, but I still wanted to give you credit for the good work that you have done for us. I also want to say thanks to you for all the work you have done for our servicemen since you have entered your new world of comedy and showmanship. I appreciate your work there.

Ron White: That’s my debt

MAS: A good part of our audience is in Fort Bragg so you will be reaching them quite well

Ron White: I’ve been there before and done a show there before. Hey Guys, How are ya?

MAS: That being said, I understand that your “Tater Salad” nickname has a military tie-in. How does that actually work?

Ron White: The first person to call me Tater Salad was a guy Ross Hoskins when we were on the USS Conserver in Hawaii at Pearl Harbor. We were having a family day on the ship and having a picnic on the front of the ship. I liked our cook, he was a horrible cook but he made good potato salad. It was just like my mother’s, it was mustard base. It was the only thing I liked, they boiled steaks. It was just horrible food. This guy (Hoskins) was down there and they were eating all the potato salad because everything else sucked. So I called down to him to come up here and relieve me, I was the navigator, before they ate all that tater salad. And from then on he started calling me Tater Salad.

MAS: Another trademark of yours is your scotch and cigars. Now I know in your last DVD you said you don’t get paid to say the name so I’m not going to ask you who that is. Can you tell me how your taste has actually changed in scotch and cigars as you started off as the barely making ends meet comedian to the overwhelming success you are now? Are you brand-loyal, or have you changed?

Ron White: Early on they tasted like cigarettes, because that’s what they were. From the very beginning I started with a beer and a cigarette because I couldn’t figure out what to do with my hands. So usually I have a beer and cigarette and that’s what I was doing with my hands because that looked natural and felt good. It was a great reason not to be talking, a great pause. The same reason George Gobel and George Burns and all the big Georges all smoked back in the day.  Then I quit smoking cigarettes and with the $70 a month I am saving not smoking cigarettes I’m smoking $700 worth of cigars. I don’t even know what I am going to do with the money, I haven’t decided. It’s piling up somewhere, it’s gotta be. Now I smoke really good cigars, I don’t smoke Cuban cigars. I would never do anything as Un-American as smoke a decent cigar.

MAS: I can really feel your pain there. I heard somewhere that you guys were taking on maybe possibly making your own cigars. Is that true?

Ron White: It’s a possibility, I did have a deal for a little while a cigar company that never really materialized that much, except that I ended up with 100 boxes of my own cigars with my signature on them. Which is great, they are wonderful cigars but they never really fulfilled out so now I’m out of it. I can sign up with somebody else or go pick a blend or whatever. I probably will, there is no sense in not doing it.

MAS: As soon as you do, let us all know because that is something I would love to try. I am a little bit of a cigar person myself.

Ron White: What I really enjoy, of the cigars available in America, are Padrons and I love Davidoffs. There are a million really good cigars, you gotta really float around cigars. It’s not like being locked into a brand of cigarettes; at least to me it’s not.

MAS: Do you have a scotch that you recommend?

Ron White: Yeah, I drink Black Grouse which is not that easy to find and it’s not expensive. I just started drinking it when I was in Scotland; it’s what they drink. Famous Grouse is the biggest scotch in “Scotchland.” So this is a new blend for them, not new, but within just a few years. I represent that in America, so now I do talk about scotch.

That was all done out friendship. We met them when I was over at the Open Championship, when Watson almost won; my son and I were on the 18^th green. So we met and toured a Famous Grouse facility. They also own Macallum, Highland Park and several other big scotches owned by a charity, so if you drink it you feel like you are doing your part. So that’s how it started, we have a great relationship.

In the end, it’s at a great price point. I got tired of taking $90 pisses to tell you the truth.

MAS: I can tell you that it is something that I have yet to experience and I hope I never do to be honest with you.

Ron White: Yeah, you feel silly if you don’t come from money. I guess if you come from money you are used to it. I was literally pissing away money.

MAS: Everybody thinks about you as being the ultra-successful, super famous guy that came along with the Blue Collar tour. I know you were doing comedy for well over 20 years before that ever happened. Tell me about some of your memories or some of your good stories from before the Blue Collar days.

Ron White: The first time I ever went on stage I met Jeff Foxworthy that night, he was the headliner in the club that night. He had come out to open mic night; it was literally my day ever doing stand-up. He comes up to me after my set and he goes, “man you are funny, but you need to put the punch line at the end of the joke.” I was like oh ok, he says” look, I’ll show you how to do it.” That’s how generous this guy is. He just literally sat a brand new comedian, green as he could be, sits him down and shows him. He teaches me something about structure writing and how to reform those sentences. He re-did all four my jokes, yeah I only had four. He reworded them to where the next week, I screwed them up and they went horrible. The week after that I got it right and went great. It was Jeff’s goal for a lot of years to make me a famous comedian and he truly sucks at it because it took for forever.

MAS: You’ve had a great level of success, you’ve done sold out shows, several Comedy Central Specials, you’ve got a best-selling book, you’ve even got a record label. Is there something that you haven’t done that you want to do?

Ron White: Well, my favorite thing that I am doing now, other than promote my wife any way I can. My wife is Margo Rey, a fantastic singer songwriter. She has a holiday song that just started playing again, it got up to number 4 last year, that she wrote called This Holiday Night. She passed every pop star on the planet except for Michael Buble who had the top 3. She had the only original song in the top 50, everything else was just a cover of whatever. Sirius just picked up her version of Silent Night, which is really jazzy and fun.

So that’s the funnest thing, we release these records through the record company. We chart them all because she’s so good and we know how to do it. I have got a partner who owned record companies, he used to run Virgin. So it’s a fun thing to do, to release one and watch and see what happens and bask in her success.

Her writing partner part of the time is John Oates and they wrote a hit two years ago, and then she had a big hit this year with the cover of Tempted, the Squeeze song. It was a top 20 Billboard hit right there with Organica Records. That’s not that easy to do, but if you have a voice like it hers, it makes it a lot easier.

MAS: How is that dynamic working between you and her? Before, in your previous lives, you were the famous one, you had all that attention. Now, your wife can rival you in some ways. How does that dynamic work?

Ron White: It works great; nobody is cheering for her harder than I am.  I want her to have all the recognition that she deserves, and she’s getting it. It’s fun to watch, so there’s no competition at all. In fact, I told her the other day “I can’t wait until your career really takes off and you really start making a lot of money.” She says, “Why, do you wanna quit?” I said, “I just wanna quit trying.” So yeah, that’s fun.

Her brother and I own a tequila company called Number Juan. It’s just the best tequila in the world; we’re having a ball with it because we are winning gold medals with it. We won the Santa Barbara Tequila Harvest. We had been in the states for 35 days, we didn’t even know how to enter the contest. Kinda last minute got it in and we win the gold medal for our Extra Anejo. We just celebrated like crazy because that is what we had been working on. Then we go down to the Mexican Spirits Competition in San Diego which is huge. We win the gold for our Extra Anejo, our Repesado wins silver, our Silver wins silver and we win Best-In-Show for packaging for our bottle and box and all that stuff. So we don’t even know what to think about it. Now we knew it was the best tequila we had ever tasted. We knew it would do well, but there is a lot of good stuff out there too. There was like 175 different tequilas at that Mexican Spirits Competition.

MAS: Congratulations there, you have taught me something new

Ron White:  Yeah it’s something that’s really fun to do. It’s a family business. Alex worked his ass off for it, Alex Reymundo is her brother. He’s a great comedian who’s been partner and brother-in-law, he’s a special fella.

MAS: You are going to be at the Durham Performing Arts Center on the 22^nd of November doing two shows, 7:00 and 9:30. Can we expect anything a little out of the ordinary from you? What have you got planned for us?

Ron White: I don’t have a plan yet, what day is it today? I don’t even plan things until later, so no I got no plans. So I’m going come in there and kick you in teeth. I’m really looking forward to it. You guys support me so unbelievably well. I’m looking forward to it, it’ll be a blast. I’m coming after ya!

MAS: Ron, thanks again for taking time speak with me today, I do greatly appreciate it.

Ron White: I appreciate your time too my friend. Thanks again to all the fans for supporting me like you do, and have for years. It’s always a great stop. Put on your drinking shoes!