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

by Ron Burgundy

  Montezuma grew up in the farming community outside of Tijuana. He wasn’t a Mayan but an Aztec. He had wanted to be a town planner and to some degree that’s what he was—maybe the greatest town planner in history. He built Mexico in a few weeks. He was no Thomas Jefferson, mind you, but he was pretty good. Jefferson was our greatest thinker when it came to cultivating the land. He understood the delicate balance between the growth of civilization and croppery. I consider myself a gentleman farmer in the Jeffersonian sense. Before I was asked to leave San Luis Obispo I had a nice half acre of land with about a hundred head of donkey. They were a stubborn lot of animals and a half acre inside the town limits is not enough land for them to really stretch out on. They needed way more land and way more food than I supplied. A day didn’t go by without a donkey in my kitchen. They ate me out of house and home until Baxter talked them into making a break for it. They stampeded through San Luis Obispo and headed up into the Sierra Nevada mountains. Technically, by California law, I still own them, but I’m happy enough to let them roam free.

  Montezuma had bigger fish to fry than donkeys! He marched into the town where the Mayans were and quickly set up shop as the new guy in town. He was a cool customer from what we historians know. He had the ladies dripping wet with his handsome looks and self-confident attitude. In no time at all he was the most popular guy in the region. Archaeologists claim he loved the ladies. He had many wives of all shapes and sizes, although legend has it that he enjoyed huge knockers. If you go to certain areas in Mexico today women with really big jugs are said to have “Montezuma’s Bazumas.” I think there’s a limit to how big a set of breasts should be. Some of the women in Mexico have tits way out to here—floppy big’ns that make them so top-heavy it looks like they are going to fall over. No thank you, Mr. Montezuma, you can keep your size 50 E-cups for yourself; I like mine big, but not THAT big. If I’m going to have a pair of boobs jangling in my face I don’t want them to threaten me with suffocation! I like to get my hands on ’em and enjoy the ride.

  Under Montezuma, Mexico and the new Aztec empire grew to magnificent splendor and opulence. Gold adorned every woman who walked the golden streets. Elaborate parties were given every night, with giant ice sculptures and fountains of hot gold. The excess saw no boundaries, for these were the “go-go” years, when everyone overextended themselves and cheap credit was the name of the game. On the top of this all-too-fragile wealth and lavish lifestyle sat Montezuma without a care in the world.

  Meanwhile, a million miles away in Spain, at the court of Fernando Valenzuela, a young, handsome adventurer by the name of Hernán Cortés was dreaming big and shooting for the stars. Valenzuela had just granted the stout explorer a legion of ships and casks of red wine to set sail for Mexico in search of gold. Cortés was a hard man. His chiseled features and rugged good looks suggested a soldier of fortune, which he was, but he turned out to be much more than that. He was a conqueror of lands and a loyal subject to the queen of Spain. He was also a ruthless bully who tamed a people and forged a destiny for Mexico that would last even to this day. He set sail on Tuesday, July 5, 1776, unaware that a far greater country than his own had just declared its independence. The ships were stocked with casks of red wine and goblets for drinking. For drinking fine red wine was the sailor’s life in olden times. Also each man had his own broadsword made from the finest iron ore mined in deepest, blackest Africa. These swords were so great they often were named. Names like La Legion, Excelsior, Magnifico, El Cartagena, Beatrice, Fontanello and Esmeralda ring out among broadsword collectors far and wide. At the Sword and Shield, a high-end-replica sword shop specializing in rapiers and broadswords, a group of us meet once a month to discuss these ancient weapons. We often make up our own wondrous deeds done by these legendary swords. I have several replicas and I’ve created histories for them that I enjoy telling to people if they’re over at the house. Cortés sailed with many fine broadswords and horses and leather and casks of red wine. The wine poured down the Spaniards’ bearded faces under the hot sun but they had not a care in the world, for soon they would be in Mexico with all the gold they desired.

  Montezuma, the dumb Aztec, never knew what hit him. Cortés was a man who knew what he wanted and he just reached out and grabbed it. He had a lust for life and he showed it. Using his broadsword, Gabriella, he cut a hole through Mexico, hacking and chopping off faces and limbs and enjoying his red wine with a hearty laugh. The smell of sweaty leather and dried wine hung in the air like the smell of sex in a whorehouse. Soon all of Mexico would smell of the Spaniards, and they would like it. Pungent were the days of Cortés! His men were ripe with lusty doings and bold adventure. They had hearty laughs and enjoyed roasted mutton chops dripping with olive oil. They would just toss the uneaten parts of the mutton in the street like they didn’t care. They were a band of brothers known only as “the Conquistadors” and they were the true Mexicans. Their more handsome European looks were an instant draw for all of the Aztecs and the Mayans, who were not a great-looking race, but they had one problem. Although not much scientific record exists concerning penis size, we can judge by ancient Aztec drawings and paintings that the Aztec people had huge penises. Some of them appeared to be two feet long! With that kind of size, how could any man compete for a woman’s affection? The Conquistadors quickly realized they would have to cut off every penis bigger than their own in the land. If we can believe oral history, this period was called the Time of the Great Castrata! Soon the Aztec women forgot their desire for giant penises and settled into comfortable lives with the much smaller Spaniards. But could a memory be extinguished so easily? Hardly. It explains why even to this day Mexican women secretly lust after that which they lost, a truly giant penis.

  But who was their leader? Who was Hernán Cortés? And how did Maximilian get into this picture? Read on, dear reader, for more glory and excellence follows in chapter 2 of The Fabulous Fables and Rich Tales of Olden Mexico and Its Regal Peoples.

  END OF CHAPTER ONE

  My Favorite Doodles

  Doodles are a unique form of expression for me. A way to release stress and clear my mind … and if I don’t say so myself, some of these are pretty darn good.

  I DISH THE DIRT!

  I’ve enjoyed a great life with many friends and wonderful acquaintances. My time in local news and cable TV gave me great access to personalities from every walk of life. Far be it from me to turn this noble chronicle of my life into a smut-filled smear campaign against those who confided in me over the years, but I will not stand by and allow these same people to drag my name through the mud without putting up a fight. Even if they haven’t tried to bring me down, I know that’s what they’re thinking and I’m a firm believer in the preemptive strike. If it’s good for American foreign policy, which clearly it has proven to be, then it’s good for Ron Burgundy.

  For starters, just to put to rest a rumor floating around, I did make love to Katie Couric. It was wonderfully slow and filled with passion. This was about two months ago. Veronica and I had rented a secluded cabin up in the Finger Lakes district in upstate New York. Nights were alive with the sounds of crickets and cicadas and the trees bending in the breeze. You could hear the gentle lapping of the water on the hulls of the boats across the lake. It was like we’d stepped into a more genteel time. It was the kind of peace we both desperately needed. I spent my days relaxing by the lake and my nights on the porch with my pipe and brandy and my best girl. On the third day we were awakened by a thunderous sound exploding across the lake. I took out my binoculars, and by the teat of Arachne, what did I see? It was Katie Couric in a cigarette boat called the Blazin’ Bitch bouncing over the water. I knew that she was a bit of a tramp, but this was a ridiculous breach of decorum! I got in my golf cart (everyone up at the lake has a golf cart, okay?) and I drove around the lake to the dock. Sure enough, Katie roars in, paying no attention to the “no wake” signs, and as she’s coming into her mooring she sees me and starts waving. “Ron! Ronny! Ronny! It�
�s meeeeee, Katie.”

  Knock me down with a feather! I come all the way over ready to chew her a new one and gosh darn it if she isn’t the cutest little bug there is. She just radiates health and beauty. I can’t help it. Every time I see Katie Couric my insides just go to mush. I don’t know what to say.… I manage a “Hi, Katie, it’s me, Ron Burgundy.” She laughs and then yells back, “Get over here, you dog. I have some Natty Lights in the cooler down below.” So next thing you know I’m making my way across the deck of the Blazin’ Bitch and heading for the cabin. Katie’s about ten steps ahead of me. When I get down into the cabin she’s got a marijuana cigarette and a bottle of Captain Morgan spiced rum in her hand. The whole cabin is upholstered in Ed Hardy–tooled leather. John Mayer is piped in over a built-in Bose sound system. “Money. Makes it all happen, right, Ronny?” she says to me.

  “So I’ve been coming up to the lake for a while now and I haven’t seen you before,” I venture.

  “Shit, Burgs, I just go where the Blazin’ Bitch takes me.”

  “Where’s your new fiancé?” I ask.

  “We all gotta break away, right, Ron?” And then she puts her foot on my crotch. And that’s as far as I’m going to take this tale. There’s still a little friction over this incident in the Burgundy household. Besides, I’ve never been one to kiss and tell—but since there was no time for kissing, suffice it to say Katie Couric is a real wildcat with an insatiable desire to be loved, and I loved her. Enough said.

  What else…

  George Stephanopoulos wears women’s underwear when he delivers the news. There is absolutely nothing intriguing or interesting about him at all except for this strange anomaly. Is it sexual? Is it wrapped up in some kind of identity crisis? Is he a thrill seeker? Nope to all three. He just confided in me that wearing women’s panties while delivering the news lets him stay in touch with his feminine side. He also said women’s underwear is made from softer materials and it feels better on his ball sack.

  Or here’s one…

  If you remember the Captain from Captain and Tennille, he’s always claimed he wasn’t a real captain, but hold the boat! He was a captain. I was on board the Angelica Nora when he quite drunkenly guided it into some rocks off the coast of South America. The rusty old ship was overladen with stolen Chinese art and an assortment of international spies. I had agreed to work in the engine room in return for passage home to San Diego. How I got to China is a whole other book. Anyway, we spent the nights on deck drinking rum until we passed out. The Captain—his real name is Daryl Dragon but he went by Scardworth in those days—left the navigation of the ship to his pet seal. I know it sounds ridiculous, like I’m making the whole thing up, but seals make great navigators. This seal, Stinky was his name, just happened to be unfamiliar with the Southern Hemisphere and he got confused. When the Captain woke up he thought we were coming into San Francisco when in fact we were off the coast of Peru. Those are some of the toughest waters to navigate for seal or man and, well, Scardworth wasn’t up to it. We hit rock and tore up the hull good. Only the Captain and I survived the sinking. In the lifeboat he tried to eat me but I grew to like him anyway. I told him his secret was safe with me but I warned him never to become a captain again. I guess the pull was just too great.

  Maybe I shouldn’t but what the heck.…

  Vice President Walter Mondale and I ran a cockfighting ring for six years. I was just starting out in the news and he was the attorney general for the state of Minnesota. He used state funds to buy an old twin-engine mail plane, which he flew down to El Paso, where we had our ring. We ran twenty fights every Friday and Saturday night. He bred his own gamecocks, cut off the comb and wattle himself to prepare them for the fights and raked in a small fortune. He named his best cock “Sir Humphrey,” after his good friend Hubert Humphrey. Sir Humphrey still holds the record for consecutive kills at 947. He was almost more eagle than rooster. He remains a legend in cockfighting lore to this day. There’s an old Mexican-style corrido that goes,

  Sir Humphrey, Sir Humphrey

  Has entered the ring

  No one can beat him

  For he is the king

  His beak is a razor

  His feet are like knives

  He’s come from the devil

  To take God from our lives.

  It was used for many years to scare Mexican children into eating their vegetables. Anyway Walter Mondale loved Sir Humphrey. We both cried the day we ate him.

  Now you got me going, so why not spill the beans about this.…

  There was a time when Warren Beatty, the movie actor, was quite promiscuous. It’s the truth. I know what you’re thinking—not Warren Beatty! No way! From what I have heard from very reliable sources he would use his good looks and Hollywood power to attract women into the bedroom. Yes, that Warren Beatty. Get over it. He would meet them at parties or while shooting his movies and take it from there. Believe me, I was as shocked as anybody when I first heard this, but apparently it’s true. I guess you can’t judge a book by its cover! I’ve known some promiscuous men in my time—Brian Fantana, World B. Free and of course myself come to mind—but Warren Beatty? Who would have guessed it?

  The stupid old urban legend about Elton John collapsing after a concert and having a gallon of semen pumped from his stomach never seems to die, but I can say with complete certainty that this never happened. I have made an in-depth study of this ridiculous semen-swallowing legend and those falsely accused of it, and I can tell you there are only eleven people who have swallowed more than twelve ounces of semen and had their stomachs pumped because of it. They are: Rod Stewart, David Bowie, Duane Allman, Jeff Beck, Jon Bon Jovi, Andy Warhol, Britney Spears, Tonya Harding, Dick Cheney, Andy Roddick and Anita Bryant. Let the rumors about others stop! This is the complete list as it stands today. We need to set the record straight on this story. It’s important news and we have to get it right.

  Here’s some investigative reporting.… After Barbra Streisand ended her relationship with Elliott Gould she carried on a yearlong, torrid affair with a young news reporter then anchoring KNBC-TV in Los Angeles by the name of Tom Brokaw. You heard it here! Fantana and I got the scoop from Ted Koppel, who was jealous of Brokaw’s success at the time. News Anchors can be pretty catty and we knew it. To corroborate, because after all I am an investigative journalist, I broke into Streisand’s room at the Beverly Hilton and snuck under the bed with a tape recorder and a typewriter. I waited patiently for six or seven hours but then got hungry and left. Meanwhile Fantana spotted the two lovers in the Sportsmen’s Lodge over in the San Fernando Valley. We then decided to disguise ourselves as an out-of-town married couple on our second honeymoon. We checked into the Sportsmen’s Lodge, with Fantana as my wife, and set about looking like a normal older married couple. We sat by the pool, went to the breakfast nook and spent our evenings at the bar. Bob Hope was there every night with a different lady, of course, but that was hardly news. No, we were onto something big. The Vietnam War was still happening and the military was in the middle of the Tet Offensive, but what we had on our hands was the kind of news you dream about as a young reporter but know will never happen. Ed Harken was furious with Fantana and me. He was yelling at us to get back to San Diego and report on the war—but of course he didn’t know the dynamite we were sitting on. So one night after about two weeks of surveillance, we see them. We’re posing as this innocent couple from Decatur, Illinois, and Fantana, dressed as my wife, runs up to Barbra and asks her for her autograph. While he’s making small talk about recipes I slip into their room and place a tape recorder under the bed. The whole thing went off without a hitch. The first half of the tape is just a lot of mumbling and squeaking bedsprings, but then there was this:

  Barbra

  Tom, I can’t do this anymore.

  Tom

  Why? Why not?

  Barbra

  I won’t be a home wrecker. You love your wife. This is nuts!

  Tom

  I’v
e explained it over and over again. I’ve got too much passion in me for one woman. Don’t you see I need you and Joey? [He was having an affair with Joey Heatherton at the same time.]

  Barbra

  I need more. I need a man who will be there for me.