Let Me Off at the Top!: My Classy Life and Other Musings Read online

  Tom

  I’m here. I’m right here, baby.

  Barbra

  Tuesdays and Sundays! It’s not enough, Tom. I want love. Love like you read about in the dime-store books.

  Tom

  I’ll leave my wife. I’ll go on the road with you. I’ll learn to sing or dance. I could be in the chorus.

  Barbra

  It would never work. You would only resent me.

  Tom

  Oh, Barbra!

  Barbra

  I need you to know something else.

  Tom

  You’re cheating on me?

  Barbra

  No, of course not. You need to know I’m pregnant with our child.

  Tom

  Nuh-uh! No way! Couldn’t be mine—you’re pretty loose, you know—I’m guessing there’s been a lot of guys—could have been Donald Sutherland. There’s just a lot of guys. NO WAY! I’m not responsible for nothing! Not a chance. Don’t put this shit on me, Barbra.

  Barbra

  Don’t worry, Tom. It’s okay. No one will ever know. I want to have the baby. I’ll put her up for adoption and the two of us can watch over her. We can see to it that she gets breaks in this world, breaks she might not even deserve, but we’ll look after her. She will be a living testament to our secret love.

  Tom

  That is beautiful. Barbra, I will always love you. One more time for old times’ sake.

  Then the bed starts squeaking again for about another two hours. We had it. The biggest scoop in decades. We were sure to get the Pulitzer. We drove back to San Diego with the evidence but somewhere along the freeway Fantana and I made a big decision that has affected the news business ever since. We decided that this was a private matter between Brokaw and Streisand and it really wasn’t news. It was a huge shift in the way we, and ultimately America, thought about news. Our decision and subsequent focus on hard news rippled across the country until Americans simply lost their taste for salacious gossip and celebrity news. One more thing about this story. The love child? Her name is Jennifer Aniston and she is America’s sweetheart.

  MY NEIGHBOR: BREAKING NEWS

  I spent the night in jail. As you know, I’ve been at war with my neighbor Richard Wellspar over my leaf blower. He borrowed it and then never returned it. It’s been three weeks. Enough said. Anyway I crashed his little block party yesterday. I brought some very interesting pictures of his girlfriend, Cynthia Spaller. I had some old photos of her I took on a boat nearly thirty years ago. Bob Guccione would have paid me American money for them, if you know what I mean. So I start passing the photos out to everyone there, moms, dads, children, etc., and Wellspar flips his lid!

  “Burgundy, this is the last straw!” he yells. “This woman is my wife!” (That I did not know, but I’ll admit it: Sometimes I can be pretty unobservant.)

  “Well, this woman and I did stuff on a boat that everyone needs to know about!” I yelled back.

  “I’m calling the police!”

  “Not before I make it plain to everyone at this party that your wife, Cynthia Spaller, and I did stuff in every position imaginable with absolutely no regard for safety for hours and hours. We did not make love! We did it like zoo monkeys with no compassion and no end in sight but multiple dumb orgasms. It was debasing and humiliating and we enjoyed it! That is all. My name is Ron Burgundy.”

  I stormed out of there, only slowing down to key his car. I did spend the night in jail but I think he got the point. He won’t be borrowing anything of mine anytime soon!

  THE REST OF THE STORY: THE NINETIES

  Of course in writing a novel about my life I realize that much of my story has already been told. I’ve starred in two factual documentaries about myself. The first one I titled Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy. It covered a period in the news business of great change. It was the battle of the sexes, and you know what?…We all won! It’s a better world with female anchormen. It also was a delightful retelling of my courtship with the lovely Veronica Corningstone, who then later became my wife and the woman I do it with. The documentary was a great success enjoyed by billions of people across the world and it quickly spawned a sequel, which reveals an even more adventurous time for me. I’ve titled this one Anchorman 2: The Legend Continues. This documentary also covers a game-changing moment in the history of televised news reporting, namely the epoch of twenty-four-hour cable news. As both these documentaries do an excellent job of chronicling my life in those tumultuous eras, I see no reason to waste the reader’s time with descriptions of what they can see in color for a few bucks extra. I highly recommend Anchorman 2: The Legend Continues. It’s very accurate. We stuck to the facts with no bullshit. I tip my hat to the filmmakers and my own acting ability. I’m no film critic writing for one of these vitally important Internet blogs, but I will say it may just be the finest film ever made. It bears a second and third screening to be sure, for there are many nuances that are only enriched by multiple viewings. These two documentaries combined with the facts I’ve presented in this book form an accurate picture of my life up to a certain point. I shall not embellish on the years covered in the documentaries other than to say documentaries are not a complete life! During that whole period I ate cereal, I blew my nose, I shit my pants, I costarred in a movie with Sylvester Stallone called Over the Top and I went to the grocery store. So much of life is not worth spinning into tales that we forget that tales themselves are little more than omissions of choice. For instance, during the period chronicled in Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy, Brian Fantana and I ran a very successful car-detailing shop in San Diego. This was in the original thousand-page script, along with a very funny story about the day I bought a comb that then broke. Well, some of this delightful storytelling just had to be omitted in the interest of time. The comb story was a real doozy and if I ever get a chance to do a documentary about that alone I will take that opportunity, but you know what they say about letting go of things you love in a script: “When in Rome.”

  Sadly even here in this sweeping tale of my many adventures and wonderful deeds I am forced to omit details in the interest of space. What needs to be told and what needs to be left out? People still want to know where I was the night of the O. J. Simpson conspiracy. I have some details that would shed new light on the whole mix-up. Is it worth throwing in here? Did I barter a peace between Bears quarterback Jim McMahon and Commissioner Pete Rozelle? Was I best man at the wedding of Sean Penn and Madonna? Did I squeak some bedsprings in the Ozarks with a governor’s wife by the name of Hillary? I mean, what is a good story and what is just more stuff that happened? In point of fact there’s a good story everywhere you look. During a short separation from my wife and sex friend, Veronica, I took a run at every Spice Girl. I’m not the kind of guy to kiss and tell but Scary Spice was the very best in the sack and aptly named. I was terrified and aroused the whole time. I invented the Wonderbra and the Super Soaker on the same day. I was minutes away from preventing the whole Chernobyl disaster while doing work for the State Department in Russia. Is that a story or is that just a guy doing his job? Anyway, you can see my problem here. What stands out?

  One thing comes to mind I’ve never talked about. In fact I’ve never written a word about it for fear of reprisals. I did some government work in the early nineties for George Herbert Walker Bush. I’ll admit that politically we didn’t always align but I’m nothing if not patriotic, and when the president calls on you to do a job, well then you do it and you don’t ask questions. You just do it. You blindly march into battle because he’s the president. That’s just what being an American is all about, my friends.

  Because I was such good friends with Manuel Noriega, the leader of Panama, Bush 1 asked if I could broker a deal between Noriega and the U.S. This was before Operation Just Cause, which sent twenty-four thousand troops down into Panama to broker a different kind of deal. Before that deal, which wasn’t really a deal at all but just a military invasion to take over a country, there
was a much more complicated deal involving ██████████, Noriega, Saddam Hussein and Margaret Thatcher. I flew to Panama, where I had a summer house near the palace and where I enjoyed the bounty that came with being great buddies with the misunderstood Noriega. While in his company I was to offer him ████████████████, among other things, including a Land Rover with custom Kenneth Cole leather seats. To help navigate the complexities of the deal I was accompanied by Secretary of Defense Richard Bruce “Dick” Cheney. I did not like him. From the very beginning we fought. There was something so cold and calculating about the man that I immediately sized him up as a world-class idiot who was surely going to blow the whole thing. His judgment in all matters of foreign policy was counterintuitive to natural reason. For instance, in a meeting with Saddam Hussein, Cheney suggested ██████████ ████████████████ loved boiled eggs ████████████████. Thatcher was insufferable; she insisted that ████████████ ██████████████████ at an advance showing of The Bodyguard with singer/songwriter Dolly Parton and King Fahd. Also present were General Norman Schwarzkopf, VP Dan Quayle, rock guitarist and presidential adviser Ted Nugent, ████████ and myself. The meeting was a lively one, with ████████████████ as a suggestion. Pat Robertson, who was also in attendance, indicated that he would ████████████████ ████████████ several other S & M followers ██████████ ████████████████ Glenn Miller ████████████████ having ████████ wistful ████████████████ ████████████████ forty kilos of Panamanian ████████████████ ████████ ██████████ because Thatcher loved the smell of it. I was taken to a room in Kuwait with a hood over my head. I knew that Soviet general secretary Mikhail Gorbachev was going to play ball but I also knew that I had to act fast. I handed over ████████████████████████! I couldn’t believe it! Dan Quayle, probably one of the handsomest politicians I’ve ever met and a great doubles tennis partner, was behind the clandestine handoff from the beginning. He was carrying the briefcase with ██████. How Ted Nugent gained such access was not my concern, but Thatcher said, “████████ went ████████ fifteen ████████████ hammerhead sharks ████████████████ dead with one word. A chill went through the room. Only Dick Cheney was laughing. Noriega looked sweaty and I felt sorry for him. I gave over my package to ████████. We got on a plane, James Baker and I, and flew to Saudi Arabia, where Afghan freedom fighter and American ally Osama bin Laden were waiting with ██████████. We went out to dinner. James Baker ordered the ████████. I must say I’ve never been one for Mexican food in foreign countries. If you’re going to have Mexican food it’s best in America. The conversation centered on ████████ in ██████████. Bush had agreed to ████████ without reservation. ██████████ any ████████████████ before ██████ ██████ Runnin’ Rebels Greg Anthony and Stacey Augmon. Fahd, of course, was a huge booster for UNLV basketball and a personal friend of Jerry Tarkanian. This was all going nowhere fast and I had had enough. I called Dick Cheney from ██████████. He was not happy and he let me know it. “If you can’t ██████████ patriot ████████ water-board ████████████████ American way of life ████████████████ my legacy ████████████████ to buy Liz a toaster oven. Son of a bitch, Burgundy, I thought we had a deal.” And then he hung up. It was the loneliest I’ve ever felt. To be stranded in Kuwait holding all that ████████. I went to Noriega and warned him. Thatcher would ████████████ Harrier Jump Jets ██████ nuts ██████ Armen Gilliam as well. I knew if the press got ahold of this they would have a field day. It put me in quite a bind as a committed journalist. I had the entire three-hundred-page brief in my hotel room. I was asked to ██████ not because but ████████ Parton’s song ████████████████ nudity included. The ████████ glass ████████. “Holy balls!” I shouted. “Is this where ████████?” ████████ but Schwarzkopf tried to take a swing at him and I stepped in. The outcome was ████████ mission ████████ not in the Bush library. ████████████████ paper-shredding machine on the eighth floor running nonstop for days. CIA operative ████████ stepped in to ████████ gloves ████████ disposed of the ████████ like lumpy soup ████████ field of unmarked graves. That’s where it turned. Suddenly I was in real danger. It’s a feeling I cultivate. Like sexual pleasure, danger sets off certain life-affirming emotions in me. I quickly sprang into action. The drugs were in my suitcase. The money was in the hands of ████████. ████████████ ████████████████ wet ████████ New York Times ████████████████ firing at me and Jerry Tarkanian. The plane was one hundred yards away. Dolly Parton and ████████ heels and red leather ██████████. I hadn’t even flown before but there I was in the plane with ██████, Cheney, Thatcher and ████████. Back in the States I locked the documents in a private vault I had hidden under an auto junkyard outside of Gary, Indiana. I believe in transparency. I believe we the people should know what our leaders are up to when it comes to vitally important foreign policy. Now the story can be told, and let the consequences fall where they may. If ████████ ████████ grapes in the ole basket!

  Throughout the rest of the nineties I turned more and more toward investigative news. I hosted an hour of television on PBS called The Burgundy Journal. The whole news team stayed together as we tackled big subjects well beyond our ken. We were out of our league over there on PBS. There were guys in the mailroom who knew more about the state of the world than any of us. So we told the news the only way we knew how: directly, forcefully and without substance. It was, as always, a hit. The highest-rated show in the history of PBS. Unfortunately the pay was ridiculous. Champ had more restaurant ambitions. Brick wanted to run around on grass and I was beginning to feel like an old man in a young man’s game. After about a half a year of The Burgundy Journal I retired from the news business and walked away on top—a champion and a winner, the number one guy of all time.

  A couple of years later I received the highest honor any News Anchor can be awarded—the Golden Anchor. It was usually reserved for network anchormen, but it was only fitting that after a career unmatched by anyone’s I should receive this prestigious award. They all came: Cronkite, Jennings, Curtis, Brokaw, Rather, Sawyer, Mantooth, Couric, Lehrer. The room was filled with news greats. A lot of scores that had gone unsettled got settled that night. I wasn’t able to even get to my thank-you speech before a fight broke out between Rather and Koppel that then grew to a regular old-fashioned donnybrook. Tables flew, chairs broke, bottles were smashed, machetes were drawn, shots were fired—it was the most fun I’d had in years. It seemed fitting that the night should progress into a good old-fashioned news fight. It seemed more fitting that in the end only four men were standing over the broken bodies piled up in the room. I looked around to survey the wreckage and a smile came to my bloodied face. There beside me was my old news team, triumphant again, standing tall and victorious over the battlefield.

  HOW TO RELATE TO CH
ILDREN

  As a father I’ve experienced many ups and downs raising a child. Parenting can give us so much joy. To see the wonder in a child’s eyes is as close to heaven as I’ve ever come. (I’m speaking metaphorically of course. Physically I’ve come very close to heaven, as I was on the summit of Mount Kilimanjaro with game show host Gene Rayburn and Beatle Ringo Starr.) There can also be great dissatisfaction when it comes to children. I’ve had interactions with them that have left me feeling sad and alienated and hollow inside, to the point of wanting to kill myself. If you’re not careful a child can spin you into a suicidal drain from which only pills and sex and circus rides can save you. Their brains are mysterious puzzles that confound all human reasoning. I’ve been very frustrated talking to children and I’ll admit it, I’m always a little terrified of them. If you get in a room alone with one you can’t help but start thinking about how irrational they are. It’s only a matter of time before you begin to wonder if they are going to attack you or start flying around the room or speak backward. I was locked in a room with a small girl one time who started to speak backward. I nearly fainted but summoned the courage to try and kill her. I was moving toward her with that intent when the child’s mother entered the room and stopped me. She explained that they were from Poland and the child was trying to talk to me in Polish. I guess they speak backward in Poland. My point here is that children say and do stuff that makes no sense. It can be very unsettling. I keep a candy bar in every room in my house just in case I’m left alone with a child. So how do you relate to a creature that lives by no rules?

  Every summer for one week I run something called Camp Ronny. I get a bunch of poor kids from broken homes and bad neighborhoods and take them out into the woods for some hot dogs and sing-alongs. It’s my way of giving back. There’s only one rule at Camp Ronny, and that rule is, have fun! Many of the kids come from environments where they hardly ever just have fun. The first day I teach them some basic Boy Scout/American Indian stuff like making smoke signals and tying knots. Boys and girls just love this kind of outdoor fun. On the third day they are on their own. They have to make their own shelters, forage for food, make tools and fire. The little ones, in the eight-to-nine-year range, always have problems with this, but eventually they get it. When they see I’m not going to help them they get it. Over the years we’ve had some close calls with some of the children and animals. Some nosey child welfare do-gooders have shared their opinions with me about Camp Ronny, but I’ll tell you what, many of these kids go on to become prominent wrestlers, stockbrokers, Realtors and bouncers. Do these children become part of our great social fabric that ties us all together? No, but that wasn’t going to happen anyway. What I’ve done is instilled in them a ruthless instinct for survival at all costs. Kids who come out of Camp Ronny are some of the scariest and worst citizens in the country. Famous alumni include Kenneth Lay, Sean Hannity, Junkyard Dog, King Kong Bundy, Paul Wolfowitz and Laura Ingraham. They may be hated and feared by regular Americans but they are survivors, and that’s what’s important.