CALLING SOMEONE OUT!

                                         What's happening beautiful people? Its March 7th, the year is flying. I'm sorry I haven't written in a while but with the surgery and The Xmas movie, I've been a little tied up but I'm back. The knee is doing great! Thank you for all the kind thoughts, all I have to say is modern medicine is a motherfucker!
                                          Sometimes in life we get stuck or fall behind and someone says something and we take it the wrong way and get mad, I think they call it, calling someone out, some people could deal with it, and others can't, even when someone is telling us the truth. The reason I'm bringing this up is the other day I was thinking about my life and the things that woke me up. It wasn't prison or the birth of my child, it was a talk a had with an aquaitance that changed everything, it wasn't pretty at the time but it hit home.
                                         It was January of 95', I was trying to cut my teeth in Comedy. At the time the only real open mike we had in Denver was at The Comedy Works on Tuesday night. They would put up amatuer comics like myself and towards the end of the lineup, they would throw up a pro. For months one of the comics that showed up was a guy named, Matt Woods. He wasn't a household name at the time but he had been around and his claim to fame was that he helped Roseanne Barr in her early days as a writer. He was now working with the club to help the young guys write and what not so the club could have their own homegrown headliners, it was a great idea.
                                          I was going through a nasty divorce plus I was working as an sports handicapper plus I was trying to do comedy, not really I was learning about comedy. Lets face it,  I was funny from the very beginning just being me but I had no structure and even then I would smoke all the guys he was working with. On Tuesdays before the open mike, he would have writing sessions at his house that I couldn't attend because I wouldn't get out of work till 6pm and then I'd still have to take a bus to Denver, in reality I didn't really want to be there anyway, I was too busy lining up my coke for the night, and I thought he really couldn't help me anyway, who was he anyway? He wasn't on TV, fuck him.
                                       At the time I was putting a 50% effort into it like everything else in my life except snorting, that I gave my all. I was a hard worker but my heart was never into anything because deep down I thought I was a waste, why would I put an effort into anything if I'm going to end up in jail anyway, that was my thinking. I would always get a spot on Tuesday, but sometimes I wouldn't show and I would call with a half ass excuse and even when I'd show, I wouldn't be prepared but some way or another I would end up shining, it was weird.
                                     One particular Tuesday night, I went down there with the same attitude and I had a 50-50 set. I'm sitting at the bar talking shit when Matt Woods approaches me, he smiles and ask if he could have a word in private, I say sure and we go to a table and sit. The first thing he ask is, Why are you doing this? I answer him, I want to be a comedian, he tells me, no you don't, your just killing time, I just looked at him. Matt was a big guy and he was getting serious, at the time I was going through a lot and I really wasn't stable, he continued to tell me how I was the funniest guy down there without even trying but that I was wasting my time. He told me to look at myself, I said what? I had a t-shirt on that was wrinkled, and dirty jeans and my nose leaking, I was a fucking mess. He told me that if I decided to put effort into this that I would be a star but that I didn't want to do that, that I wanted to be a bum, by that point my fist were clenching, and there was more. He asked me about cancelling spots and how someone else who wants to do comedy is missing out on a set because I'm signing up then cancelling, he told me to not come back till I thought about what he told me, just as I was getting up to slap the motherfucker, he told me that I probably wanted to punch him but to think about what he told me because if I put my mind to it, I'd be one of the greats. It took everything I had from smacking the guy. He shook my hand and asked me if I wanted another drink, then he said that maybe I should try my hand at bartending because it didn't take any commitment. I turned the drink down and under my breath I told him to stink the drink up his mother's ass and I walked to the bus station.
                                        On the walk, I kept thinking about how I was going to kill this motherfucker and I also thought about the way he had spoken to me. At the time I had 2 felonies in Colordo, a 3rd one would put me in the slammer for a while but I still thought about how I didn't stick up for myself, then on the bus ride it came to me, why I was so mad, he had told me the truth. He didn't lie about anything, it was like he had a crystal ball, for days I sat there steaming, but that did me no good. These things he said, I had known so I took his advice.
                                       
                                       I bought a notebook, I did as many spots as I could do and I stopped cancelling and I also found a new sort of peace, the answers to life I was looking for were answered by him setting me straight. I thought about putting my anger aside for Matt and thanking him for the advice but I never saw him at The Club after that. Then one day I got a call that I was banned from the club for sexual harrasment. I decided to move to Seattle and work on my game, after 18 months I decided on Los Angeles, I was ready. I'm in L.A. doing spots around town. One night I'm at the Brave Bull, a room run by my friend Rudy Moreno at the time. I'm up 3rd after this big time old school comic, his name slips my mind. The guy goes up there and destroys! There I am having to follow this guy and the fear rolls in, I'm looking for the exit but by then Rudy comes up to me and tells me I'm next and that he's bringing me right up, my stomach is in knots, I can't follow this guy!

                                      I go on stage and Bang! I decide to go off! I'm up there in my zone, I destroy for 15 minutes, I get off and a bunch of people are there shaking my hand and what not and there in the shadows was Matt Woods with a smile from ear to ear, we hugged and he said, my talk really helped you. We looked at each other and we both had tears in our eyes because we both understood what had happened, he provoked my ego something that is very painfull, but it worked. I told him that he didn't know how close he came to dying after that and he answered, he knew. Today I'm glad he called me out.
                                     Its like that story about you trying to open a jar and you can't then your Grandma comes along and opens it just like that. It took a stranger of sorts to change my life for the better, here I was around people I knew for years and it took this guy to read me the riot act and change my attitude towards the way I looked at things. People always write me emails about how the podcast helps them with different situations in there life, after I thought about this story, I understood.

                                    Thank you for reading and for understanding where the fuck I'm coming from. Thank you to all that showed up @ The IceHouse Stage 2 on Wednesday night for The One Man Show, "Stories" about North Bergen to finish the Documentary which should be out March 17th, we got our footage, thank you again for all the donations and all the support. I also want to thank the Director, Lee Syatt from Isreal and my man Manny for helping me put this thing together. I'm doing another "Stories" segment( not the same stories, this time, Criminal ones) @ The IceHouse Stage 2, Thursday March 22nd @ 8:30pm get your tickets because these shows will sell out...626 577 1894
                                    The new CD, "It's Either You Or The Priest" is still #1 on Payloadz.com thanks to you guys, its still 5$, when it goes on iTunes it will be more so don't come crying to me later.
Besides that, thank you again for all the hope you ball lickers bring into my life, see you soon.........................STAY BLACK!!!!