2000 - Ronelle the Magnificent

DATE: Friday, October 27, 2000
PLACE: Home
POISON OF CHOICE: Sleep deprivation
CAST OF CHARACTERS: Jason, Joe Mohan, Steve and D.C.


They've had you on hold for like twenty minutes already. It's half past seven on a late October Friday morning, and you're about to pose as Ronelle the Dead Celebrity Psychic on the "Steve and D.C." morning show.

Your friend Jason has hooked himself up with this syndicated radio show the past few months. He's claimed to have been appearing on the show for a few years, actually, phoning in comedic observations and character voices as "Listener J."

But somehow you've never listened when Jason has been on, and you've never been provided with audiocassette verification of any participation in the "Steve and D.C. Show," so you can’t say for sure how far back the association goes. Or if it goes back.

No matter, Jason's friend Joe Mohan, a guitarist Jason has played band gigs with since their days as Webster University music majors, is a producer with the morning show. This is fact. And Jason's been going down there a couple times a week, early in the morning. Getting on the air a few times. This is fact, too.

So your friend Jason called you yesterday afternoon, out of the blue, and, instead of, Hello, how are ya, you got, "Thank God I got ahold of you. I need you to do me a favor." You were thinking, Shit, did his car break down or something? What? And he told you that you simply had to agree to phone in a performance to the "Steve and D.C. Show" the next morning at seven.

You were to play Ronelle, an effeminate African-American psychic who channels dead celebrities. Tomorrow morning. And your immediate reaction was, Uhh, no. No fucking way. Your immediate five or six reactions, actually. Your friend Jason had to talk you into it.

It wasn't that you were too shy to perform or didn't have confidence in your ability to amuse the general public, it was just… well, you couldn't quite put your finger on it, but you realized you had a tendency to choke up when put on the spot and would rather just commit everything to writing and work from there.

You knew you were impulsively hilarious in social settings, but that was when you were completely comfortable, lubricated with a beer or a few, and surrounded by friends. When you were, to paraphrase a concept from Fight Club, in your cave.

You did not think you could be in your cave at seven the next morning. You've never been a morning person, at least not since puberty reared its acne-slathered head. You can be funny in the morning, if you're around people and under-rested and in kind of a testy mood. But it’s a strange kind of humor, and you really doubt you have the ability to stay in character. To even remotely do convincing voices of famous dead celebrities.

Jason said they want you to do Elvis. Not only do you fucking hate Elvis, it irks you you've never been able to get a decent handle on one of the simplest impressions. Elvis is one of the universal mimic standards. You can do a passably hilarious Tom Brokaw or Ed MacMahon, a killer John Travolta and a screaming-ass Sam Kinison. But Elvis, Elvis ain't your friend.

While you're sitting there on hold, one of the hosts - you think it's D.C. - is reading off some news-of-the-bizarre story about a guy who shot some people through a wall Tuesday and then opened fire on his entire apartment complex while clad only in his underwear. After which time, the suspect took off in his car and ended up ramming into an 18-wheeler on the highway. It all started because he thought the people in the apartment he shot into had their radio up too loud, and he wanted to do something about it.

"Musta been thin walls," a slightly sexy female voice remarks.

"And thin skin, Christy, thin skin as well," D.C. says, a little too reverently for seven in the morning.

Then D.C. launches into the introduction for your segment. You're not sure you have the voice down yet.

--

Joe Mohan called at 6:30, as you awakened from a bullshit, interrupted night's sleep. Joe launched right into a debriefing, re: the Ronelle character. Made you demonstrate the voice you were going to use. And you did a few sentences in the swishy black-guy voice, a stock stereotype kind of thing.

And Joe told you that wasn't the voice he was looking for. It needed to be more Southern-sounding, deeper and rich like thick mo-lasses. Jason had told you black and gay, so you came up with a few pre-planned adlibs that were appropriate for that kind of character - yes, lots of cheap, stupid humor - and you had no contingency plan for what to do if the Steve and D.C people made you change your voice.

And while Joe was explaining - well, making up - Ronelle's background ("Ronelle is 42 and he’s from… oh, let's say Paducah, Kentucky"), you were putting together some vocal amalgam of Dr. Hibbert from "The Simpsons" and the one-shot Southern gentleman character, also on "The Simpsons," who was forever challenging other men to gun duels, addressing them as "suh" all the while. (He drove a car with a bumper sticker that cracked you up, that read, "Honk if you demand satisfaction.")

Joe just kept telling you to talk lower, deeper, richer. He wanted a true imposing baritone, and you couldn't quite deliver it. You just wanted your gay black guy back.

--

"We have a psychic on the phone, Ronelle," a voice - you think it's Steve - announces.

"The Amazing Ronelle," echoes the other voice, D.C., you suppose. You're not really a big enough fan to distinguish between the two. You just know D.C.'s the religious one and Steve's the big fat one.

They work their banter while you're still on hold, heart pounding a little quicker. Making you feel kind of like you're eight years old in a doctor’s office waiting room.

"Now, he will not give us his last name," Steve (or D.C.) says. "He doesn't use it professionally."

"He claims he can channel dead celebrities, and not only does he channel them, he speaks in the voice of the celebrity," adds D.C. (or Steve).

"Now, that is a little weird."
"Yes."
"That’s weirder than most."

Some canned stock-footage spooky music starts playing. The hosts keep talking, and with a subtle click, the tinny feed of the show that's been blaring through your phone's earpiece while you've been on hold switches over to full studio sound. You're on the fucking air.

"We now go live to the Amazing Ronelle from his psychic hub in Paducah, Kentucky," says D.C.

"Hello, Ronelle," says Steve.

"Gentlemen, gentlemen, how are you today?" Your first line makes you sound like a mob boss. You can't find the baritone.

"Well, we're doing just fine today," one of them says. He barely stifled a laugh between the "well" and the "we're."

"We welcome you to the 'Steve and D.C. Show'," says the other.

"Well, thank you. The Magnificent Ronelle would not have it any other way."

"I thought it was Amazing Ronelle," Steve jumps in, "but you’re saying it's Magnificent?"

"Magnificent, absolutely. Perfect In Every Way will also do if you like."

"When you do the channeling, do you go into a different state?" Steve asks, and starts laughing before he's even finished. "Kentucky, perhaps?" Like someone wrote the joke on the dry erase board, and he cracked up before he got it out. Someone else says "Indiana," and another says, "Illinois." With the -noise pronunciation at the end. Always charming.

"It's sort of a meditative state," you say. "I cease to be for about three or four minutes or as long as the celebrity wishes to channel himself through my body. In that state, I am in rest, I am dormant and whoever wishes to speak through me, be it Frank Sinatra, be it President McKinley if you'd like. That person takes hold."

"So your body is wide open, waiting for a celebrity to-"

"Enter. Yes. I'm a channel, suh. I take whoever comes through my door, as long as they're a dead celebrity."

"So it's not like we can request a particular dead celeb, it's whoever comes through the door."

"Well, um, suh, if you do have any specific requests sometimes, it's, uh-" Stumbled a little there, but you haven't made too bad a jackass of yourself yet.

"So you do take requests?"

"I can round up a celebrity if you like," you volunteer.

"Let's channel-surf." Followed by more in-studio laughter for what you're guessing was a one-liner scripted in advance. "Okay, before you go into your trance here, Ronelle, I just want you to know I happen to be a huge, huge fan of the incredible, the terrific, the great, the one, the only Jimmy Stewart."

"Well, I believe I feel the spirit of Jimmy Stewart knockin' at mah back door right now." At least you got in the back door reference, too.

"Oh, how perfect."

"Okay, okay, let me prep myself here folks, let me go into my meditative trance here."

"What do we need to do, be quiet?"

"Be quiet and be reverent, suh, reverent. You must leave, and Jimmy will come to you if he is indeed knockin' at mah back door right now."

"D.C., you handle the quiet, I'll handle the reverent, okay?" Steve quips.

"Let me settle myself in, folks," you say, and more canned spooky music filters up through the phone receiver. As you name off black girls you went to high school with like their names are part of some kind of witchcraft chant. "Yashica Yashica Yashica… Lawanda Lawanda Lawanda… Oprah Oprah Oprah…"

Then you make an exaggerated shuddering noise like someone is either sucking your dick or dropping ice water on you. "I feel him comin', I feel him comin' folks."

And, both for the sake of time and ludicrous, abrupt comedic transition, you switch to the Jimmy Stewart voice, warming up with a couple of doddering "Uh uh uh" noises. "How are ya? This is Jimmy Stewart, who am I speaking with here?"

"Uh, it's Steve and D.C."

"I'm terribly disoriented. Tterribly disoriented. Where am I, Mr. Potter? Mr. Potter, you're a bad man! Where am I?"

"Mr. Stewart, it's 'The Steve and D.C. Show'."

"Uh oh oh, okay. I'm not familiar with your work from up here on my cloud. Is it one of those disgusting, vulgar shows with a lot of jokes about breasts?"

"No, it’s a family show, sir." You know that's D.C. talking. Working the fucking moral angle.

"Okay okay. It's a sad state of affairs these days, I tell ya, with the young women taking off their shirts for Mardi Gras beads. It's sickening."

"Can you see that from where you are?"
"Oh, I can see everything I wanna see if I peek over my cloud."
"I don’t wanna be a part of this." That’s D.C. again.

Your Jimmy voice turns a bit weary, cynical sounding, as you say, "I've been up here for years and I'm sicka people talkin' about what happens if an angel gets its wings. I don’t care if an angel gets its wings."

Dead air for a second, then you say, "I've got a poem, I write poetry up here, can you handle a poem, guys?"

"Sure, Jimmy." You think that's Steve.

"Okay, this is called 'Little Dove,' by Jimmy Stewart. 'Little Dove,' by Jimmy Stewart, okay?"

Derisive laughter. All of a sudden you don’t give a fuck.

"By Jimmy Stewart…" you continue. And you read this bullshit you came up with while you were stoned on your back porch last night:

Little dove
Flying so high in the sky
Little dove
Never give up, always try
Little dove
Little dove
When you look down, what do you see?
Little dove
Do you see pain and hurt in me?
Little dove
Little dove, teach me how to soar
Little dove, love me… love me forevermore
Little dove

Steve and D.C. get restless with it about halfway through, but they don't cut you off. And after you say, "Tugs at my heart, that poem does," they each say something stupid and you say that thing about, You're a bad man, Mr. Potter again, and make these transitory fadeout noises.

Then, in the tradition of all bad Hollywood dead-people channeling scenes, you jarringly return to your original Ronelle voice and ask, "Did, did I miss Jimmy?"

"Ronelle, you don't remember a thing, do you?"

"I have the urge to eat a Dove bar, that's about all." A few people in the studio laugh at that remark, and you add, "Many times I've become arrested or imprisoned after channeling a particular celebrity."

"Oh, we have a call for you, Ronelle. Caller on Line Six for Ronelle from Paducah, Kentucky. Who is this, please?"

"This is the real Jimmy Stewart, and I'm pissed, I'll just say that right now." Someone who does a slightly better Jimmy Stewart voice than you just did is on Line Six. "You are so full of crap, I tell you. I gotta go, but all I'm gonna say is, you couldn't find your ass if you used both hands and a mirror."

Jimmy hangs up, and suddenly you get the feeling like everything's going to go to hell in about fifteen seconds. And, like the Southern gentleman from "The Simpsons," you announce, "This is an outrage, suh."

"Yes it is," Steve or D.C. says. Probably D.C. "It is an outrage. There's no question there."

"If someone else knocks, just feel free to interrupt and let them in," D.C. or Steve says. Probably Steve.

"Okay, alright, you should know I charge 850 dollars for this show at civic centers and retirement homes."

"You do?!" One of them laughs.

"Hold on, hold on. I feel a knock again, gentlemen, I feel a knock. I'm gonna go into my vegetative state again here." More spooky music, as you say, "Dashica, Sharnell," and some other shit, then you make a noise like you're shaking a small child off your back. And say, in a Mob boss voice, "This is Chairman Frank. Who am I speaking with here? This is Frank Sinatra. Sinatra, baby."

"You sound so much like Ronelle."

They're right. When you switched the gay black guy voice to the Southern Hibbert "Simpsons" amalgam, somehow you started in with an Italian accent. Which is your best bet for an authoritative, masculine voice. Your whole comedic tone throughout this early-morning shit has sort of sounded like Sinatra. But you think the Jimmy Stewart voice was at least pretty good.

"I'm speaking through limited vocal cords here, gimme a break," the not-so-convincing Chairman Frank announces. "Cut me a break, I could have you all killed."

"You’re speaking through limited talent."

"You're freaks! Alla you are freaks!" Chairman Frank is treading water, but it's still only with a dark-comic spirit of mockery that you now bark, in my limited Sinatra voice, "I spit on you above, from on high! Sammy Davis drops his eye on you as well! That's it."

"Okay, thank you."

And you can tell they're not too happy with the subversive imagery from someone impersonating one of our great Italian-American treasures. You guess the hosts are allowed to go off on the guests, but not vice versa. Fuck, you guys just aren't on the same page with this.

Ronelle is back. "I feel mighty disturbed, mighty disturbed."

"And we do as well." It's D.C., and he’s using his same tone of voice on you as when he said, And thin skin, Christy. Thin skin as well, earlier, after the story about the underwear-clad apartment complex shooter. You feel slightly embarrassed, but the premise and preparation for this little bit was so sloppy and minuscule on their end or yours that you don't care what happens from this point.

"Okay, well, I don’t know if we have any more time-" D.C. says, just as Steve jumps in.

"I tell you what, I would be disappointed if we don’t hear from the King of Rock and Roll, because you know I love Elvis."

Shit. You'll never be asked back on the damn Steve and D.C show now. You've got a good voice or two in there, but any possibility of a radio career? Gone. Because you know that, unlike Steve, you hate Elvis, and you can't do his voice worth a crap.

"You gotta be sure that your celebrity is dead before you try to channel him," you say, stalling for time. "Are you gentlemen sure that Elvis Presley is dead?"

"It shames me to admit it, but yes, Ronelle, we're certain Elvis is dead," Steve tells you and however many listeners in 31 states.

"Okay, because someone once told me Katharine Hepburn was dead and I ended up walking around for a week going, Rauooowooo rauooowooo rauooowooo." It's hard to type out, but you're basically ripping off Dana Carvey's stand-up impression of Hepburn starting her car on a cold day. And, for that three or four seconds, you sound better than you have during the whole segment. The people in the studio, even the hosts burst out laughing. Too bad Hepburn's still alive. "It messes with your pro-cess, suh."

"I don't wanna mess with your pro-cess." Steve is in a better mood now.

"Lemme see if I can induce Elvis, here," you say, and you start chanting "Love me tender love me tender love me tender" and a couple other song titles.

And you unleash this horrible, horrible Elvis voice. It kind of sounds half Southern and half Mack Daddy stereotype from early-'90s hip-hop culture. But it also still sounds like that same damn Ronelle voice you've been doing the whole time, which sounded a lot like the Frank voice. Fuck. "It’s the King, baby. How are you, gentlemen?"

They all fall over laughing. The voice smacks of a lack of preparation and, yeah, talent. This shit is now funny on an entirely different level. Though its only value has, from the beginning, been on the ironic, macabre side of kitschy.

"The King?" Steve asks, and the word incredulous gets invented all over again. "King Elvis?"

"Yes suh."

"You sound just like Ronelle the Amazing Psychic. You don't sound any different."

"Well, I'm speaking through limited vocal cords, suh."

"You even say suh just like he does!" D.C. protests, and you stifle a laugh. That was a funny line from D.C.

"He sorta sounds British too."

"We're both Southern gentlemen, ya see." You can't come up with anything funny. You’re wondering, Should I just hang up, or scream "Baba Booey!" like a pathetic Howard Stern fan? What?

"Alright." I give up. "Elvis has left my body." Ronelle's back, though he really never left in the first place.

"Well he wasn't there very long," D.C. bitches. Now you remember Joe telling you they wanted you to stay on for like fifteen minutes and take calls from listeners as Elvis. You just kind of said, Uh huh, well my Elvis voice isn’t so good. But you know how Steve loves Elvis. It wasn't an option. You went on that show, you had to do Elvis, and you just proved him deader than ever.

"You know, this was something that, in the meeting room, sounded like a good idea," Steve says, and some producer hits a button and cues up a soundbite of Cartman from "South Park" saying, "I thought it was a pretty stupid idea."

"And, yeah, it just doesn’t translate to the air," D.C. says.

"Well, gentlemen, I'm sorry to disappoint," says Ronelle, sounding like he wants to get the fuck back to bed for a couple hours before he has to wait tables for the lunch crowd.

"Ronelle?"
"Uh huh?"

"How can our listeners contact you if they would like to have a dead celebrity speak to them?"

"Well, you gotta check out www-dot-ronelle-slash-magnificent-dot.com, which is not an actual address, but it's under construction right now."

"I think we've had all that we can handle, and thank you, Ronelle, for your time this morning. And we’re going to have to pull him right off the air, just pull him right off."

You're back on hold. The volume of the show is Muzacky again, and you hear D.C. remark, "That was weird. That was really, really weird."

"That wasn't weird, that was bad."
"I wish we could get him to the Halloween show on Tuesday night."
"I think he's booked. I think he's booked."

"Mohan, you set that up," Steve tells your friend Jason's guitar playing friend Joe. "Do you think he would be available for our show on Halloween at midnight Tuesday night?"

Joe gets on the mic. "Uh, no, he is booked."
"He is?"
"I asked him already," he lies.

"He should be booked for that last segment," D.C. says, and a couple people I can't see crack up for a second

"Booked, cuffed and stuffed."

You stay on the line for another ninety seconds or so, sitting on the dining room floor with your back to the wall. You've been holding that old white phone to your ear so long that both are burning, ear and receiver.

While Steve and D.C. go off on you for another minute or two, you wait for Manno to come back on the line so you can tell him, well, shit, what do you tell him? I didn't want to do this in the first place and, yeah, it sucked, but I got off a couple good one-liners on a syndicated morning radio show. That's worth a little something, isn't it? Give me a call at midnight on Halloween, asshole.

But they start talking about how everyone has to turn his/her clocks back on Saturday night, and how stupid do you have to be not to remember to do it or not to do it properly? Stuff like that. It's your standard mindless, time-filling radio talk, and you're getting bored with it.

The futon is calling and, if you hit it now, you might even get a good hour and a half of sleep before strapping on the denim shirt and heading back to your mid-priced Italian chain. You've also got to drive to Columbia this afternoon to meet your friend Charles for what promises to be a bomb-ass hip-hop concert - Wyclef, De La Soul and the Black Eyed Peas.

So you say fuck it, you hang up, and seconds later the phone is ringing. You don't want to answer it all of a sudden because you don't want to talk to Manno about how the hosts now hate him because some idea of his turned disastrous when they brought in a wise-ass rookie to execute it.

Turns out it's Jason, and he claims your performance was exactly what Steve and D.C. were looking for. A chance to rip on some stupid-sounding guest on the air.

And you think Jason is patronizing you, but you also recognize the fundamental shit that went wrong just now. I mean, more than likely, what Steve and D.C. were looking for was a person who could just get in character and be straight man as they went off on him.

What you did was act like a guy trapped in a one-joke SNL sketch, someone who was in on it and had to toss out all the ridiculous Jimmy Stewart and Chairman Frank clichés during the requisite celebrity-channeling sequences.

With a little more notice, you probably could have made it funny. Not even in that hideous, black comedy way. You could have worked up decent voices for less iconic dead celebrities. Get Ronelle channeling Andre the Giant, George Burns, Andy Gibb, even a Kennedy or two

But it wasn't in the cards, and it didn't take a psychic to see disaster around the corner. It also doesn't take a horoscope to tell you to go back to your writing and partying and stay the hell off of morning radio. And that's just what you do.