Ron White — Veteran stand-up comedian who broke out with the Blue Collar Comedy Tour in his mid-40s. Known for his cigar, scotch persona, he now owns Number Juan Tequila and is part of the Austin comedy community around Rogan's Comedy Mothership.
The gist
Joe and Ron, longtime friends, talk about Ron arriving sick (a COVID bout that forced him to nearly cancel a Vegas show) and the joy of Kill Tony hitting Netflix. The conversation ranges across the value of stage time and a comedy 'tribe,' bad relationships and the tragedy of Phil Hartman, and Ron's three lost years in Mexico. They dig into Ron getting sober via hypnosis and ayahuasca at Rythmia in Costa Rica, the case for psychedelics and ibogaine, and a long riff on education being obsolete and broken. They cover the mass comedian migration to Austin during COVID, why they were 'right' to keep performing, and cults, MK Ultra and the Manson family. The episode ends early when Ron throws up and feels unwell on camera.
Big reveals
- Ron got a steroid shot before a Vegas show, then tested positive for COVID and was told by a doctor and the CDC he couldn't perform; MGM let him go on anyway.
- Joe recounts the worst he ever bombed, going on stage two weeks after Phil Hartman was murdered after a cop told him the kids ran from their armed mother before she killed herself.
- Ron reveals he moved to Mexico for three years to start a pottery company with a girlfriend who stood over his bed with a knife and later took her own life.
- Ron explains he got sober from alcohol using hypnosis, then went to Rythmia in Costa Rica for ayahuasca, and says the tequila he owns no longer tempts him.
- Ron and Joe debate whether ADD is real; Joe argues it's a 'superpower,' not a disorder.
- Joe argues the entire COVID lockdown response was wrong and that the comedians who kept performing turned out to be 'correct.'
- Ron admits he nearly bought a building for his theater that turned out to be a former cult compound run by a hypnotist gay-porn star.
- The recording is paused and ends early because Ron suddenly turns pale, sweats, and vomits on camera.
Things worth remembering
- Kill Tony ran every Monday for over 10 years, starting with about six people in the crowd, before landing on Netflix.
- Joe argues the path for a young comic has never been clearer: go to Austin for the stage time and get your stuff on the internet.
- Ibogaine reportedly has roughly an 80% success rate for addiction in one treatment and mid-90s with two, per the discussion.
- Rythmia in Costa Rica is described as the only licensed medical ayahuasca facility in the world, having processed about 18,000 people.
- Harvard's total cost of attendance is cited around $82,000 a year, with undergrad tuition at $56,550.
- Joey Diaz once no-showed a New Jersey gig and admitted on the phone he never left Vegas: 'I'm not going to lie to you, dog.'
- Jon Jones told Daniel Cormier 'I beat you when I was on Coke,' and refused late-notice fights, insisting on full camps.
- Marijuana was effectively outlawed in the 1930s partly to protect timber interests after the decorticator made hemp fiber commercially superior, pushed by William Randolph Hearst's papers.
- The word 'canvas' derives from cannabis; the first draft of the Declaration of Independence was written on hemp paper.
- The Comedy Store's back bar was Mitzi Shore's actual bar from her house, and you had to be 'cool' or know someone to get in.