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us. We stayed with some friends in a house next to the Tri Delt sorority house at the University of Washington and the night before we were scheduled to start we had a huge party. In our act we used to do a slow motion fight, so at the party Brian decided it would be great to have a slow motion riot--a giant slow motion fight with everyone involved. It was great, and people were falling slow motion over tables and chairs and getting hit with slow motion lamps and beer bottles. It was a huge success. The next night it was time to go play our opening night and we couldn't find Ron. We searched, but came up empty, so Brian and I went to play the gig and immediately got fired. Apparently when they hired a trio they wanted three people to show up. How picky is that?
It turned out that during the slow motion fight, Ron had fallen, slow motion, down the stairs to the basement. He thought the fall was a work of art, but then he passed out, and stayed passed out all the next day and well into the evening. No one had thought to look down there.
Ron's story was very sad. He was a fine bass player, a good singer, and an artist. Great guy. But he got hooked on amphetamines and the last time I saw him he couldn't construct a complete sentence. He died very young.
Remember Turk's Straw Hat? Across the street there was another night club and they had strippers there. Or go-go dancers, I can't remember. But a comedian named Pete Barbutti was playing there and that's when we first met Pete. He later became a mainstay at Harold's Casino in Reno and he also appeared on the Tonight Show about 30 times. Johnny Carson loved him, and so did the band. Pete was a jazz musician who did really hip comedy and in a lounge, with a couple musicians backing him, he was astoundingly funny. Just fucking brilliant.
We became friends and our paths kept crossing over the years. One day he called me and asked if I wanted to do a roast. I said sure, who are we roasting? He said, "Chuck Yeager". Yeager was the test pilot who flew the experimental plane outside the atmosphere and was really famous at the time. I told Pete I didn't know a thing about the guy so Pete sent me his biography. I read the book and Pete called about a week before the show. "What'd you think?" he asked.
I told him I really didn't like the guy. He laughed and agreed with me. We did the roast in Las Vegas and it went well.
One time I caught a show Pete was doing in Sacramento and he had an interpreter for the deaf working with him. Pete could stretch a joke forever, and he did one about a covered wagon in the desert. I have no idea what the joke was, but the interplay between him and the deaf interpreter was one of the funniest things I've ever seen. A masterpiece.
Oh right. I was talking about cars. I can't remember how it happened but after the red Austin-Healey 100-6 I graduated to a white Austin-Healey 3000. I loved those cars but they were absolutely the worst road cars ever. If something