Paul Rodriguez is in the house! And audiences at the Tropicana in Las Vegas are lining up and getting ready to laugh as the Original Latin King of Comedy kicks off “Paul Rodriguez and the Whole Enchilada” — a series of nightly shows through June 20 that will surely keep crowds rolling in the aisles.
But it’s another gig that recently gained Rodriguez some unexpected national attention: A night of comedy at the Wild Horse Pass Resort in Chandler, Ariz. A gig that Rodriguez boldly canceled in protest after the state of Arizona passed an immigration law that this Mexican-American plainly felt was “too broad.”
Speaking out on Keith Olberman’s April 29th show on MSNBC, Rodriguez proclaimed: “Arizona … like every other state, has perfect rights to curtail the illegal immigration. And I want to make this clear. We are not for illegal immigration. Our protest is that this law is too broad. This law — would Montana pass this same thing, to restrict Canadians coming over? What [does] an illegal alien look like? Is the police going to have the power to stop someone for anything, for any particular reason? I read it, paragraph ‘E,’ it says that a law officer, without a warrant, can stop you, if he suspects you are in this country illegally.”
“Every time there’s an economic pinch, Hispanics, Mexican-Americans to be more precise, we’re the whipping boys,” he continued. “That ain’t going to happen. We’re more numerous than African-Americans. You’ve got to remember, many of us have status in this country and we’re going to speak up when we can.”
If they didn’t know it already, Rodriguez’s fans certainly found out that this comedian was not one to take an issue lying down. In fact, when it came to that May 1 gig in Arizona, Rodriguez ultimately decided the show must go on — but he donated all the proceeds from that night to the League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC), in order to fight SB 1070 and “reverse this unjust law.”
Rodriguez wasn’t courting controversy. Controversy just found him. And what many fans still may not realize is that Rodriguez has been smack dab in the middle of another serious issue for more than two years now — an issue that he never expected to champion; yet an issue, he tells Tonic, that he plans to fight for until the day he dies.
After more than two decades in the business, including appearances in more than 40 films (from Rat Race and Beverly Hills Chihuahua to a starring role in this summer’s Cat’s & Dogs: The Revenge of Kitty Galore), television roles (from The Golden Girls and Resurrection Boulevard to lending his voice to Dora The Explorer), plus countless late-night talk-show appearances and comedy specials, there’s no question that Rodriguez is one of America’s funniest talents.
He’s proven himself quite the philanthropist as well, through his tireless support for the Hispanic Scholarship Fund, the Juvenile Diabetes Foundation, the Elizabeth Glaser Pediatric AIDS Foundation and The Leukemia Society. And, as part owner of L.A.’s Laugh Factory, he has participated in offering free Thanksgiving and Christmas dinners to the underprivileged for 25 years.
But Rodriguez came to Tonic’s attention in a big way just few months ago, when the city of Fresno, Calif., honored the comedian with their Humanitarian of the Year Award — recognizing his tireless work on behalf of water conservation.
“It’s a miracle every day that people turn their faucet on,” Rodriguez tells Tonic. “Clean water is really the most precious resource we have now.”
It’s a fact that, sadly, hasn’t dawned on many Americans quite yet. A fact that Rodriguez himself isn’t exactly thrilled to know about. Until a few years ago, when he purchased a small fruit farm as a gift — and a new home — for his mother, “I was totally oblivious to this!” he marvels.
The wake up call came two years ago, when the water supply to his mother’s new farm, plus a number of other small family farms in the very same valley, was cut off — in a move that environmentalists claimed would save delta smelt [small fish that are one of the best indicators of environmental conditions] in a seriously drained area upstate while only cutting off water to the bad guys (in other words, industrial “Big Ag” farmers) in the process.
“We’re not ‘Big Ag,’” Rodriguez (with his mother, at left) points out. And since he considers himself an environmentalist, too, he was suddenly faced with a dilemma — and a wake-up call about just how desperate the clean water situation is in the state of California, and across the United States.
“I do consider myself an environmentalist,” Rodriguez says. “Certainly we want the delta to survive, but you don’t want to see farmers who’ve been farming for generations go broke, either. There’s a lot of misinformation on both sides.”
Before he knew it, this King of Comedy took another throne: He became Chairman of the California Latino Water Coalition, and the driving force behind a Water Bond Measure that will have a great impact on the citizens of California. None other than Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger himself thanked Rodriguez and the Coalition for being instrumental in the Water Bond Measure finally coming to fruition — a bill that many organizations had been trying to put together for over 40 years.
But that was only the beginning.
“We’re in the fourth year of a tremendous drought [in California,]” Rodriguez says. He realizes there’s plenty of humor in talking about that, when people see rainstorms and mudslides along the California coastline. He’s been out on speaking engagements, “talking to them about a drought in the middle of a rainstorm — like Al Gore talking about global warming in Buffalo, N.Y. when it was a record freeze. But it’s true.”
“Our opponents say the drought is fictitious and manmade. What they don’t take into account is that the state of California is the most populous state in the union, 38 million people, living on a system [with a capacity] for 12 million,” he says. “This has totally given me an education that I wish I didn’t have. I was totally blissful. Now, it has consumed my life. I have never worked so hard at something that is not economically a good move for me. In years to come I can’t think of a more important issue.”
Whether or not his valley has a supply of fresh water — as opposed to the well he was forced to dig, which produces saline water that keeps trees alive, but won’t allow for the growth of fruit — is but one small part of his concern.
“Every one of us needs 8 gallons of drinking water to live. Not to garden. To live!” he points out. “It might be nice to have a green lawn and all of that. But we live in a desert. There’s beauty in having a yard with cactus. The days of lush gardens … are pretty much over. We have to change that mentality. Their answer is to conserve, but you can only conserve so much.”
Forced conservation through rate hikes isn’t the answer — because that effects the poor, he says.
The solution? “We have to rely on what America’s best at: technology. Finding a viable way to desalinate water, to store water, and to conserve, certainly. Unless we do a great job at all three, there are going to be vast shortages.”
Rodriguez and his supporters don’t see this as a problem we need to prepare for sometime in the future. It’s a problem we have right now. “If we have another dry year, this won’t be about casual use. This is life itself. Can you imagine? There would be riots without water. This is what we’re talking about. It’s one of them 2012 kinda Mayan predictions. It’s a fact!”
There are those who never want to listen to stories of worst-case scenarios. Had he not done the research, like he said, he would be perfectly blissful and going about his business and not directly involved in this issue at all. But now? Rodriguez wants Americans to wake up. “Our entire food supply is at stake,” he says.
And to critics who think he should stop going around acting like the sky is falling? “The sky isn’t falling,” he says. “That’s the problem! And the rain that does fall, we’re not capturing it. You can’t get a new dam built without lawsuits and counterlawsuits. We need dams to capture the rain, and if we don’t capture that rain, there’s not going to be 8 gallons for you to drink.”
The piping of water from northern to southern California has been an issue since the state’s earliest days. But as resources are stretched, that issue could also spell economic disaster. “When there’s no water from the faucet, a case of Evian will cost what your car costs,” Rodriguez says with a laugh.
He’s so passionate about the issue, and truly worried, he says: “It’s almost struck the comedy out of me!”
Okay, well, not quite. “I still love what I do,” he says — and this month-long gig in Vegas will be a nice respite from speaking at town meetings, and getting into hot debates about Arizona. But it won’t be long til he’s back to what has become his life’s mission.
“If I can just secure clean drinking water for the farmers around my family and the citizens of California, that would mean that my life wasn’t wasted at all,” says Rodriguez. “I want to inspire my friends, I want to inspire my children,” he says — including Paul Rodriguez, Jr., his professional-skateboarding son who’s become even more famous than his dad to the younger generations. “It’s not to aggrandize myself. What I want them to know is there are things that are far more important than fame, that are far more important than seeing your name on a billboard. There are things in this life that are worth sacrificing for, and committing to.”
“I’m blessed that I’ve found in this issue a grail, a reason to fight, a reason to get up in the morning,” he adds, “something that will benefit generations long after this generation is done. That should be our legacy.”
And for anyone who wants a taste of what his fight is all about, he has a suggestion.
“The best way to convince somebody of the necessity of this,” he says, “just to get an understanding of the importance and deliciousness of clean water: Go one day without drinking anything. Anything. At the end of that day, have a cold glass of water and you’ll understand what it’s all about.”
Home page photo by Colleen Hayes; all photos courtesy Paul Rodriguez.