Q: Tell me about some of the funny comedy clubs you worked during the comedy boom.
A: The Improv in Chicago. Here’s one of my favorite memories…… it was the middle of winter, just freezing cold, wind blowing thirty miles an hour and the club would never pick us up so we had to walk to the club. I’m walking to the club, freezing my rear end off and this guy comes up to me and says "Hey do you want to buy a gold chain?" I’m thinking sell earmuffs or something, don’t sell me something that’s going to freeze to my skin! In Chicago, that’s where I got hooked on cigars. One night after the club, we went over to the Kingston Mines. It was a Sunday night and we didn’t get out of the show until about midnight, and at three in the morning I was sitting on the curb with an old black man and he handed me a cigar. We sat there smoked cigars and I listened to him talk about life. It was funny. I always had a fond memory of cigars because my granddad, I used to go with him as a kid and he would go pick up Cuesta Rey; that was the only one he would smoke. I always remember that smell as so wonderful. After that , I was on the Jeff Foxworthy show, during lunch one of our favorite things was to go grab a sandwich and run down to the little cigar store that was right down by the studio. We’d pick up six, seven cigars, and then we’d sit down and smoke our cigars.
Q: Does Jeff smoke cigars?
A: Yeah, we enjoy cigars. We just got back from doing the TNN Music City Awards Show and I got to tell you it was one of the greatest nights. Jeff and I presented awards, he was host of the show. I presented an award to Roy Clark. We went to Arnie Mortons in Nashville. It was like being part of the Mafia. The restaurant closed at eleven, we got there at five to eleven. They knew we were coming. We had great steaks, wonderful meal, the wives were with us. We were the only people in the restaurant, so we had this big table and we were just laughing and having a great time. So after dinner, the guys all sort of migrated to one end of the table, the ladies at the other. We all had cigars and coffee and Frangelica and I turned to my manager and said, "This is like we’re in the Mafia!" It was one of the most enjoyable evenings I’ve ever had.
Q: Are you based out of Nashville?
A: No I’m in LA.
Q: You go to Nashville a lot though right?
A: Maybe once or twice a year.
Q: There’s a couple of really good cigar restaurants in Nashville. One of them is Jimmy Kelly’s.
A: Oh really?
Q: Yeah, it’s been around for eighty years or so, it’s an original cigar restaurant. Mike Kelly, Jimmy’s son still runs the family restaurant, and then there’s another one called The Stockyards.
A: The Stockyards I’ve been to. That’s a great one. On my last album cover, we shot at a place called the Havana Lounge.
Q: I’ve been there.
A: We shot it right there, in fact we had some of our pictures on the inside cover of me with a cigar.
Q: I know those boys pretty good up there.
A: I had a great time, that is such a hip place. I love going there. It’s almost like the cigar is like the passage into manhood. I don’t have one single favorite cigar, my humidor, there must be ten different kinds of cigars.
Q: I noticed on your album you are smoking a cigar, so I said, "Hey this guy might be one of us!"
A: One of my favorite things to do at this house we have here in Beverly Hills is the outdoor fire pit. My favorite time is when after the kids go to bed I can sit out there with the fire going and have a Courvessier and a nice cigar. It’s so relaxing.
Q: Let’s get back to stupid things that people do.
A: I’ve gotta tell you something, I will always have material because people do idiotic things. I was flying to Nashville on a direct flight from LA to Nashville. There’s no stops. The guy sitting next to me says, "You going to Nashville?" I said, "No, Dallas, I’ll be parachuting out in about an hour." That’s what we ought to do, we ought to carry around signs that say I’m Stupid. That way you wouldn’t rely on them. You wouldn’t see them coming. The thing that’s great about it is it is not indigenous to one area. It’s all over the country.
Q: Unlike Jeff Foxworthy where you’ve got to be a red neck to be stupid, this is everybody is stupid.
A: Here in Beverly Hills we’ve been having a porch put on the back of our house. Three days there has been a concrete truck parked in our front yard. My neighbor comes over and he says, "Pouring concrete?"
"No, I’m making big ol’ margaritas, you decide." Unfortunately, nobody is immune, not even me. I came out of the mall the other day with my son. There is a guy standing right next to me with a coat hanger in his window. I could not stop myself. I said, "Lock your keys in your car?" He looked at me and said, "No, just washed it, gunna hang it up to dry!"
Q: How old are your kids?
A: I have a thirteen year old girl and an eight year old boy.
Q: Which is easier?
A: The thirteen year old was for awhile, until she hit thirteen. They’re both great kids, but the thirteen year old is just hitting that teenager thing where you get that thing where she doesn’t have parents anymore, we’re just her driver. I did figure out a way you can discipline a teenager without spanking them or yelling at them. In front of their school. They just freak. When you are in front of their school it’s like you’re a leper or something. My son is just a boy. It was funny because we got the call, the first time we got called into the principals office. He had hit another kid. I went in their and he’s siting there looking like he’s getting the death sentence. I said, "Did you hit this kid?" He said, "Yeah." I said, "Did he hit you first?" He said, "No." I said, "Why did you hit him?" He said, " I thought he was lying to me." I said, "What are you the Deniro of the playground?"
Q: I find that it’s easier for dads to relate to their sons because of that whole chick logic thing.
A: You’re exactly right. When my daughter was young, like in single digits. WE had that relationship. But as she started to get older. She became a woman. She can give you a look like you’re the dumbest person on the planet. I know this because women can do that.
Q: What kind of things do you do with your kids activity wise?
A: Play baseball with my son. We swim a lot. I like fishing and just taking hikes. My daughter, we go shopping. It’s weird when you are walking with your daughter and she says she needs to stop and buy a bra. I'm like no, no, no!
Q: How is it having them go to school in Beverly Hills? Is it like Clueless?
A: Being from Texas, I have a different view. They have a good school here for them. I hear parents say stuff I can’t believe. It was this beautiful day, it was 80 degrees and I’m walking with my son and daughter upl to the school, and I hear this woman behind me say, "Oh the sun today is going to make me sick, I just know it." I’m like, what is wrong with you? California has been good to me business wise, but I’ll tell you, they say different stuff here. I was sitting at this bar, you know how guys do bar talk, I didn’t know who he was, and there was a ball game on ESPN. The guy says, "Do you like baseball?" I said, "Yeah I like baseball." He said, ‘Do you know that if Jesus had played ball he’d have been the greatest ballplayer ever?" I looked at him like, what is your point? I said, "Yeah and if Babe Ruth had been The Messiah, the Catholics would serve beer and hot dogs at communion! I don’t get it!"
Q: We interviewed Trevor Hoffman, biggest contract ever signed to a relief pitcher.
A: These guys get great salaries. You hear people say. "These guys are making too much money!" You know what? If somebody came to you as a reporter and said, "We’re going to give you twelve million dollars to write this article." Are you going to say no? These guys get the money because they can get it! Don’t blame the players, blame the owners for offering it!
Q: So what’s up for you?
A: I’ve got a new Christmas album coming out. It’s going to be Bill Engvall’s Christmas album. What’s funny is that it’s just little stupid Christmas songs I’ve written over the years. Three of my favorites that are on the album. One of them is called Rudolph Got A DUI, another is called I’m Being Sued By Santa
Claus, and Fruitcake Makes Me Pewk. In September, I’m hosting a pay per view event for the country music Association. A three hour live show with me and Wynonna and Terry Clark. Other than that, Jeff and I are going out together next year. The working title of the tour is: The Blue Collar Dollar Tour. It’s going to be me, Jeff and two other people. That will be a huge tour I think.
Q: Give me a few more stupid things
A: I took my son to the LA Zoo and there is this part of the zoo where you can hold the baby animals. So I’m holding this baby animal, and this guy leans over to me and says, "Is that a baby monkey?" I said,
"No, we just haven’t shaved our son yet."
Q: I like the one you said, when a guy is sitting on a newspaper and another guy comes over and says, "You reading that?"
A: This is one of my favorite ones because I actually heard this one. My wife and I were watching TV with some friends of ours one night and having a cigar, as a matter of fact. Something about the Pope came on TV, he was driving around in his Popemobile. My friends wife out of the clear blue says, "You know, I’ve seen the Pope travel all over the world but I’ve never seen his wife!" That’s one of those where you just kind of sat there for a second……… I said, "That’s because she stays home and watches her kids."
Q: I need words to live by from Bill Engvall.
A: Enjoy a good cigar and don’t take yourself to seriously.