About Me

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I'm a Comedian who loves to write blogs about my past experiences, no matter what they are.

Monday, November 21, 2011

KIDNAPPING

                  Hello beautiful people! Its a great week for a holiday. I can't wait for Thursday, I'm not doing dick. The usual, a little exercise in the morning, stop by the reefer store, some turkey with my wife, some football, then I make my rounds. To boot,  I'm staying in a mile radius this year because I don't want to be in a car all day like a cab driver, no drama!
                  Anyway, last Friday I wrote a post about me kidnapping that poor bastard 24 years ago. When I looked at the calender that morning it dawned on me like it does every year. Its a scary day for me, thats why I post it, a day that I will never forget because of the good and bad that came out of it. For years I would look at the date and cringe, for years I never mentioned it. This all went down in 87, I went to prison in 88. After I got out besides the people that were close to me, I told no one. For reasons I didn't understand, I think the main was my embarrassment. I always thought I was a street smart guy and a little intelligent, how could this and how did I let this happen?
                  I could've blamed it on the blow and my childhood but I didn't, I knew what I was doing. I look at a lot of people and I could tell if their bullshitting about a situation or if their bullshitting themselves, the latter is the worst because its not confidence, its a voice. How can I tell? That was me, bullshitting myself . When I look at a guy like Chris Brown for example. I knew he was bullshitting before the incident so when something happened I wasn't surprised because he didn't know who the fuck he was. He's on TV talking about growing up watching his mother get beat up, he hates this and he hates that but I knew he was just talking, Bamm! A year later he's beating up the singer and now he's in the public spotlight again and he still ain't right so he'll fuck up again, give him time.
                I know these things because that was me at 26, talking shit about what I was going to do with my future but deep down inside,  I didn't know who I was. At the time, this kidnapping fell in my lap, I was doing fine with my life. I had a great job, I was making great dough. I had a great place to live and a nice girlfriend and for the first time in years, peace! Why would I try to rob two kilo's of coke with two knuckleheads to boot?  I figured I could make a score and go back to Jersey to do what the fuck I was doing before....Nothing! Why?
              In my mind I guess I had no purpose. I always thought I would end up in jail and when I did I realized, that wasn't the life for me. I remember towards the end of the afternoon with those two idiots that I got involved with. There was a point that I had decided that this was a mistake and I was going to get caught. I went out to the trunk to get a peice I had hidden and I was going to shoot, the both of them, I remember hearing the buzzing in my ears and feeling my blood pressure rising but till this day I can't explain the energy that stopped me. At first I thought I was weak and I pussy but I figured out I was there so I wasn't a pussy, that thought, that minute was what made me change my life, not the prison, or the time inside or the confusion, but the reason why I didn't shoot those two, my heart wasn't into it but I thought it was. I thought because of this death and that death of my family and close friends and the other things I saw my step dad do as a child, like shoot Nico on 148th Street, and the things I saw and was exposed to in my mothers bar were enough to pull but it wasn't because I had never bought into it fully in my heart, that wasn't who I was and thats why I'm here today.
            There is a scene in the movie "Scarface" when Tony tells Sosa that he never fucked nobody over that didn't have it coming to them. I could say that for the victim Vella but I can't.  He was involved at some level but he didn't deserve the things that happened to him that afternoon. Unlike myself, he didn't learn. After our situation he got involved in a different robbery and this time they gave him a beating. I saw him last in 93' in Boulder when I was trying to cop some coke in some bar. I apologized, and he accepted but he was mess, don't get me wrong, I was fucked up, but he was gone. I always thought about him after that. So when I found him on Facebook last year and tried to reconnect, he didn't respond.
             I don't want to break his balls I just want to let him know that I'm sorry. I paid my debt to society, to myself and now I just wanted to let him know, the bigger the man, the bigger the mistake. I hope you guys don't read me wrong, as a comedian, I had to give this light. It was killing me inside and confronting it made me a better man. The events that led up to that and how I was never going to get myself in a situation like that again were the emphasis of the lesson. I never knew I was still going to be learning from it 24 years later. Sometimes something bad is something good, you just have to wait and watch it unravel, thats the only reason why I mention it!
           Thank you for reading and for all your support. I'll be at The Madhouse Comedy Club in San Diego this weekend 2 shows per night @ 8pm and 10pm call 619 702 6666 for reservations. I'll also be taping a CD @ The Brea Improv on Tuesday December 6th @ 8PM 714 482 0700 come on down.
          I hope you guys have a safe and great holiday! Much Love but most importantly......STAY BLACK!
           
                 

Monday, November 7, 2011

THE MESSAGE

                     What's happening beautiful people? Another fun filled week is upon us. I'm happy I'm not that busy this morning so I could write and fullfill one of my weekly obligations. Can you believe Thanksgiving is in two weeks? Between you and me, I'm excited! Fuck it Turkey and reefer, who's better than you.
                   I was telling you last week that November has always been my month of knowledge. The biggest lessons that I've learned have come from this month in the weirdest ways, kind of in a karmatic sense. Lessons that have always made me stop and think about what is really out there. Have you ever watched a movie or TV show and right before a person dies he'll tell you his or her dying wish or in a sense, a meaning of life as they see it in their final moments on the planet. In the real world, its that DMT going to work and I appreciate that, but I had those experiences happen to me, in a different way.
                   Marylin Martinez was a dear friend and a great comedian. She wasn't known and didn't have her own TV show but she was very funny when she got on a roll. I met her in 95' at The Laugh Factory, but we tightened our relationship at The Comedy Store. I was great friends with her husband also. We spent holidays together and we'd be on the phone busting each others balls in the day time.
                  Marylin was diagnosed with Cancer in March of 2007'. They put her in the hospital and she went in and out of there until she died on November 3rd of that year. I went to the hospital a few times but when she went home I visited more because I felt more comftable there. I'm not crazy about hospitals is the reason. One day we're chatting about this and that. I could see the death in her eyes in hindsight. It was a few months before she passed, she's telling me that if she were to beat the cancer and get on stage again that she would never work dirty, with that she turned her attention to me, looked me in the eyes and told me to please stop doing cocaine. That I had a lot of things going for me and that I should stop so I wouldn't end like her. I could feel the goosebumps when the words came out. I was stunned, she knew all my intimate secrets. She would hold the powder for me when I first started dating my wife Terrie. Marylin knew how bad my habit really was and in all those years she never mentioned it. Here she was not really on her deathbed but she had one foot in a grave and the other on a banana peel, if you catch my drift and she's telling me to stop.
                 I stayed a while, kissed her and left. I saw her a few times after that and she never mentioned it but believe me, because of my past and how I was raised, I knew right there at that moment that I had to stop but I didn't. It was about 4 months later that I quit, the week she died. If thats not a message, I don't know what is. Today I miss her dearly and she is someone I pray for and to on a daily basis. Happy 4th Anniversary in HEAVEN Cocksucker!!! Thank you for what you did. I have to wipe my face now and get it together.
               Thank you for reading. If you ever get a message, follow it to a T! Its coming from a different level! Much Love but most importantly.....Stay Black!

Wednesday, November 2, 2011

DIAS DE LOS MUERTOS

                                What's happening beautiful people? I'm back! Midweek like a motherfucker but what can you do? Like I said I'm trying to write a couple of blogs per week because I'm having a hard time writing comedy so if your stuck remember, if you want the water to flow, you have to open up the faucet, so here I am.
                                 November has always been a fucked up month for me because its the month that changed my life in so many ways. My mother passed in November, so did a good friend named, Marilyn Martinez. I commited my biggest blunder of my life in 88' when I kidnapped Vella in November and I also stopped doing coke after 30 years of action in November, you catch my drift? Good and bad has happened. All of it came with a lesson so I wonder what lesson I'll learn this year.
                               Anyway out of respect for "Dias De los Muertos", I want to tell you guys a story about a friend of mine who passed about 11 years ago that I think about everyday of my life, his name was Darren Rago.
                               I met Darren when we were both in the 8th grade playing CYO basketball. I played for St.Michaels of Union City and he played for Our Lady of Libra in West New York. He was always sweet, loud and crazy, a hell of a combination. He was five foot two, what do you want to do! He would fight anybody. We both went to North Bergen high where we just became tighter as we got older. We both lived with pain at an early age. Darren's parents had split up and it really bothered him, I on the other hand had just lost a mother, I was confused and scared so it made for a perfect frienship, we watched each others back.
                          We hung with each other everyday but ran with different crews, it didn't matter because by the end of the night we would always end up together, in the city, or at someones apartment snorting up a storm talking about our dreams and the things we wanted from life. In reality, we were two kids on the wrong path but it didn't matter, we had each other if shit ever got crazy.
                         The other day while I was on the JRE podcast I spoke about my fear of blood and in the car on the way home I remembered a night when we were seniors in High school. It was the night of the senior awards, you know, best looking, best dancer, that shit. While most kids were preparing for the big night we were putting together dough to get a quarter ounce of coke, sell an eightball and snort the rest. There were four of us involved, Glen Conty, Fernie Basulto, Roger Holloway and myself.
                    We went into Harlem to get the quarter, from ther we went back to Jersey to meet a friend of ours Sabatino. His father owned a huge liquor store and Sabo would steal the extra set of keys and when the store closed, we'd be there ten minutes later getting are ammunition for the night. On that particular evening we decided on a few cases on Lowenbrau and a huge bottle of tequila, we were going for broke.
                I forget but we ended going to someones house to get the party started, then we were going to go by the High school, catch the award show and head to some after party at a bar somewhere. We got so fucked up that we missed the show. We ended up going to a bar in Union City on twenty second street. I can't remember the name of the place, what I do remember was that the bar was across the street from Rehman's Funeral home. At the time it also doubled as the County morgue and thats where I had to go to pick up my mom's body so walking into this joint gave me the creeps as it was. Not to mention years earlier I would come to this same bar to pick up THC Crystal, the designer drug of the time. What I'm trying to say is that this bar was the real deal.
               I get in there, order a drink, and I see Darren. He's fucked up and ask if I'm holding? I say yes, we go to the bathroom and do  a few bumps. On the way out he told me he could get me a few qualudes, I agreed, gave him some dough and now it was really on! We walk back into the crowd and I loose Darren. I go back to hanging with my friends and before you know it the lude hits and I'm gone. Its last call and a fight breaks out. It was two guys no worries, I forgot where I was within minutes, everybody was fighting, glasses are breaking, chairs are flying, its on!
               I remember throwing punches, I remember getting hit, I remember being on the floor, then I remember getting cornered by a guy holding me at bay with a broken Heineken bottle, thats when I woke up out of my haze. The guy is swinging this bottle at me and its coming close. I'm up against the wall with my back, his next swipe would definately cut me, then out of nowhere I see Darren come flying and he tackles the guy. We both get him down take the bottle from him and smack him around a little.
              We see the cop lights so we decide to get out the back way. As were walking out, we both look over at the bar and its packed with cash that the people left on the bar when they ran out. We took what we could then went outside. The cops had people in handcuffs and they were trying to get the story of what had happened? I had no idea.They told me to get the fuck home as I started to walk away my shoe was making a funny noise like it was wet, everytime I stepped it made a squishy sound. I hobble to the car as I'm taking off the shoe I could see that my sock was red! The whole bottom of the sock was covered in blood. I looked at Darren and told him I was going to faint, he laughed and told me to do a bump that the coke would kill the faint. As I was going to take the coke out of my pocket I felt my legs going and that was that, I went down!
              Minutes later I woke up to Darren telling me it was going to be all right. As I was coming to, I noticed that Darren was doing a bump of my coke. I looked at him and asked him what he was doing? He said a bump, I ain't fainting like you. We both laughed, walked to the car and he drove me home in his car with no heat that we called the icebox and that was that.
               That is just one of our any stories which I will cherish for ever especially today. I look at Darren's picture every morning and think about the great times we had. He's been gone for 12 years now but he'll never be dead to me because in a way he lives in my heart. Thats how I feel about everyone who has passed and was there for me in one way or another. My day is always better because I know there with me looking over me, I know it sounds stupid but its my inspiration everyday.
               Sit and think about someone who was special to you and is gone now. Today is there day. Light a candle, say a prayer and smile, there right next to you! Thank you reading and have a great week.