“Don’t forget us when you’re famous!”

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That is something I’ve heard ever since I started comedy. I’ve heard it from relatives, old friends and sometimes people I just met. I understand it’s a thing to say but it never feels right to hear. Especially after a great conversation with someone I haven’t talked to for years. It reminds me that people will drift in and out of your life for years, sometimes decades. It’s hard to keep track of everyone especially since the human brain can only maintain about 150 stable social relationships, Dunbar’s number.

Of course, this number includes past colleagues that a person will always want to run into again. And I have kept up with a lot of old friends… especially chicks I wanted to bang.

Unfortunately, I have a terrible memory. When I think of my childhood, memories appear in my mind as snapshots. This came up with my older sister who confided in me that she is the same way. So I guess bad memory is in our genes.

Thanks to being on the road, I run into people from my past. Old co-workers from my AMC days and high school friends are the most common. I never run into elementary school friends (I went to two different school in two different cities I didn’t actually live in), middle school friends (unless they went to high school with me), co-workers from Taco Cabana (I was a manager and couldn’t hang with employees) or college friends (probably because I only went for six months and made one real friend).

Quick Side Story: One time as I was visiting home from college, I hung out with this girl all night. She was a friend of a friend. We talked about the future while staring at the sky in my driveway. Nothing happened. Not sure if something was supposed to or if I was really just terrible with game. She kept up with me for two more months, then I never heard from her. Two years pass and I received a letter in the mail from someone saying that girl needed my help. She was going through rough times and was trying to piece her past back together. Although the description of me was completely wrong, I wanted to help but there was no contact info or return address. I’ve carried that letter around for 13 years now… just in case.

Anyway, here’s why I’m writing this. I do my best to remember everyone I meet. It’s hard. I meet tons of people almost weekly. My 150 stable social relationships have become mostly occupied by unstable anti-social comedians. I like to perform in my hometown at least once a year so I can visit family and get paid. As my career has become more solid, more people from my past drop in at my shows. It started with high school friends then my mother’s friends then my father’s friends and so on. The craziest thing is the drop ins are now going deep into my childhood. Like people that knew me way before I knew me.

I didn’t forget them when I got famous because I’m not famous. I forgot them when I was wearing GI Joe underwear. So here’s what happened with one.

I was doing a show in Weslaco, TX. The first few table were filled with relatives and my mother’s friends since she love to show me off, of course. When I was done, I stand by the exit and thank everyone for coming to the show. Oh and to sell my Nick Guerra t-shirts. This guy comes up to me and asks, “Hey did you grow up in Mercedes, TX?”

“Yeah.”

“Yeah, man, Nick Guerra. I was your next door neighbor. We used to play all over the neighborhood, remember?”

Now, my family moved out of Mercedes when I finished with 2nd grade. I can’t do the math on how old I would have been quickly enough right now which is a sign that since I can’t even remember my own age at 2nd grade, I definitely don’t remember this guy.

“Yeah, I remember.”

“Yeah, man, you and Ilsa would come over and play.”

“Yeah.”

“Yeah, man. Crazy, huh? Glad to see you’re doing alright. Hey man, don’t forget about Mercedes, man.”

“Oh yeah, my mom is here at the show. You should say hi to her.”

“Oh really… okay. Yeah man, don’t forget about us.”

I gave him a shirt and he walked back to his table. I felt bad for not remembering him but I patted myself on the back for getting through the conversation. He never went to say hi to my mom but I couldn’t hold that against him.

Just as I was packing up my shirts, the comedian I brought with me walks over to me and says, “You want to hear something crazy.”

“Yeah.”

“So this guy comes up to me and asks me if I’m a comedian. Then he asks me if I’m from Mercedes. I tell him no, I’m from Dallas. He says ‘Nah, man, you’re from Mercedes, remember. You and your sister would come to our house all the time.’ I say, ‘Nah I’m from Dallas.’ He keeps going, ‘Don’t fuck with me, man, you’re from Mercedes, your sister is Ilsa and you used to be my neighbor.’ I keep telling him no and he keeps getting pissed and thinks I’m fucking with him. Finally he says, ‘You’re not Nick Guerra?’ I tell him no and I point over to you. ‘That’s Nick Guerra’. So he walks in your direction, passes you and starts talking to the other comic next to you, ‘Hey man, you’re a comedian from Mercedes, right.’”

I guess I didn’t look like whatever he thought Nick Guerra the comedian should look like.

My buddy and I laughed as I finished packing my Nick Guerra t-shirts. I instantly didn’t feel bad for not remembering him but I felt bad for giving him a t-shirt. I won’t forget him now though.

5 Ways Women Are Like Steve Urkel

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1. They waltz in your place with some crazy idea they just have to tell you.

2. When they mess up, they actually wonder, “Did I do that?”

3. Sometimes, they just straight up ask you for money. “Got any cheese?”

4. If you are around when they fall, they announce it “I’ve fallen and I can’t get up”. Then they wait for you to help them up.

5. They won’t leave your place unless they feel like it was their idea. “I don’t have to take this… I’m going home!”

Behind every man… is someone waiting to cockblock.

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Cockblockers come in all types and we all know of the more obvious ones. But there is one type that uses a move only obvious hours after the strike. Lets just call this type the Happy Helper.

The Happy Helper is at every party. They like to walk around with a ringmaster swagger. They enjoy initiating toasts, dance breaks and drinking games yet they don’t stick around to finish their own schemes. Now, this person is perfect for random fun but if you are talking to someone, stay out of the sight of the Happy Helper. The minute Helper runs out of ideas, they will walk up to your little conversation and say any of the following things:

“You two should make out.” “Stop lying to each other.” “He wants to fuck you.”

The abrupt push usually makes the conversation instantly awkward. Then just as they drop their little bomb, the Helper takes off to open up the last bag of chips, offer some to the person standing nearby and leave the bag sitting open on the table.

The Happy Helper is the President of Stale. They can’t have anyone being wittier or cooler than them so they turn on the karaoke machine, set up Mario Kart tournaments, mention the mini pizzas just sitting in the freezer, anything to be the first to come up with an idea. So when they point out two people who are having a connection, its under the guise of being the cool friend but it really is only to claim a little bit of ownership of the potential hook up idea.

We all have Happy Helpers in our lives. Let’s put a stop to them. Keep them away from your Wiis and your wee wees. If you have any tips on how to deflect them, let me know.

Why Can’t I Just Be Funny!?!

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I recently tweeted “How to piss off a Mexican Comedian: Book him on only Latino shows even though he doesn’t do Latino jokes.” Someone asked me to explain, so here it is.

Or even if you didn’t expect an answer.

One of the most upsetting moments in my comedy career so far happened in 2009 or 2010. My roommate was requested to feature for a popular headliner at one of my favorite clubs. He couldn’t do it and recommended me. I called the manager from the club who had known me since the beginning of my comedy career. This manager was always supportive and we would talk at great lengths about comedy. I asked about working the upcoming weekend in place of my roommate and was told I couldn’t. “The headliner doesn’t want to work with Mexican comics. It’s in his contract.” To add more salt to the wound, not only was my roommate Hispanic, so was the headliner. “But I’m not a Mexican comic” is all I could think. Some of you probably raised an eyebrow when you read that. It should make sense soon enough.

It’s not about how funny you are, it’s about how many seats you fill!

When a comedian becomes a headliner, they usually have little to no audience. Comedy clubs need to find a marketing angle in order to fill up the seats. “What audience can we market this comedian to?” If that comedian happens to be ethnic, the simple solution is market them to their race. Makes sense on paper. If you add a few more comedians from the same ethnic background, now you’ve got a themed weekend. Find a holiday that their culture celebrates, book these comedians and BAM… you’ve got something to work with. So a headliner of Mexican descent is booked with other comedians of Mexican descent on Cinco De Mayo weekend. “Why would this bother them?!? Don’t they like performing with their own people for their own people?!?”

Quick side story because there is a reverse of this. I remember working with Tom Rhodes at a comedy club in Corpus Christi and hearing him be told by the owner, “You know, you would have had a bigger audience tonight if you had a Mexican last name.”

Now, I can’t explain to you how every comedian feels about this. I can only offer my views and how I understand where that headliner was coming from.

My first joke was about the word melancholy (which some comedians still remind me about). The joke included 4 examples of the word melancholy ending on a joke about my melancholy sex life. I was told, “You don’t look old enough to talk about sex.” So I wrote a joke describing how I looked at the time, like a Mexican Eddie Munster. It was around this time I was asked to do my first show. A Mexican booker was looking for Mexican comics to book at a Mexican restaurant for the very Mexican pay of a free meal and free beer. So I started to write Latino material. Very basic jokes about drinking out of the water hose, how the Mexican “8 Mile” was Selena and so on. I told the jokes, people laughed and I started getting booked on other Latino gigs. This led to my first important show: The Addison Improv’s Latino Jam. By then I had a handful of Latino jokes and I sprinkled them with a bit of Spanish. As an ethnic comic, you learn pretty quickly that ethnic audiences laugh more when you say a phrase or two in your ethnic language. I can only explain it was a “recognition laugh”. People laugh really hard when they recognize languages, references, movie lines and the like.

All of a sudden, I was being asked to do more gigs… now at Latino nightclubs. I even came up with a catchphrase, “Pinche Raza!” I made 100 bumper stickers and still have 80 of them somewhere. Some comics started to joke with me, “Man I wish I was Latino because then I could go on the road.” Then I started to hear a little criticism about typical Mexican jokes. I didn’t want to be typical though, so I wrote Latino jokes that I believed were really about pride. I wrote jokes about how Scarface isn’t a real Latino gangsta, Desi Arnez is. I started to say I was Mexican because I could do this, I could do that and then I could do something stereotypical. (Sorry, I don’t remember the jokes) But then I would take racial stereotypes and flip them. I started to do, “If we say this about one race, we should say them about them all” type jokes. I remember talking to the comic I was going on the road with about how it’s okay that we were Latino comics even when being told that it was too easy. “I’m from one of the most Mexican parts of the US, the Rio Grande Valley. Plus it’s funny. Isn’t that the point?” I was happy performing my Latino material. I wrote for a Latino magazine. I was looking forward to my Latino Jam gigs. I even did a taping in Houston where I couldn’t wait to tell my little Latino jokes. I wanted to be accepted as a Latino comic.

Then I got invited to work a real road gig.

Shreveport, Louisiana. I was brought on the road as an opener for a nationally touring comic. On the first night, two celebrity comedians stopped in to film a TV segment for their own tour. So I had a chance to work with 3 headliners that night with a tiny possibility of being on TV. The club provided its own host so I just had a guest set. My guest set will go down in history as not needed. They didn’t get my Mexican jokes. They enjoyed my other jokes but the Mexican jokes fell flat. After the show, the headliner and one of the celebrity comics were drinking at a bar in the hotel. The headliner, who was also just a prick, started to ridicule my Mexican jokes. He was getting the other comedian in on it. They pointed at me and said, “This guy is doing Mexican jokes?!?” Then they started doing all the hacky Mexican jokes they could come up with. It stung even more because they were Latino too. The headliner started telling me I need to change my material, change my name (Nick Valentine) and drop every Latino joke (even though he kept his Latino name and material). I was about to argue but he made a great point, whether it was his or not and that was, “Can you perform that material everywhere? Can you perform it in Chicago? Can you perform it in Virginia? People don’t believe you are Mexican anyway.” He was right. All of them were right. Crowds didn’t believe I’ve had sex and they didn’t believe I was Mexican.

Although, I was mistaken for Alex Reymundo by a redneck at one show.

I should have known it because it’s been like that my whole life. I mean I grew up in the most Mexican part of the US and everyone thought I was white. I’ve never been any other shade than pale. Also, my parents don’t have heavy accents and they spoke mainly English in the house so I don’t have an accent. I spoke minimal Spanish when asked to prove it and I always had to prove it. In fact, when people spoke to me in Spanish, I answered in English, much like Johnny Depp in “Once Upon A Time In Mexico”. I’m 2nd generation American. I’m a sequel! And you know what they say about sequels. I am one of the kids that older Latino comics joked about minus the weird surfer accent. I work so hard to prove my ethnicity that sometimes it’s easier to not even bring it up.

Before you guys start getting upset, you have to realize this: Standup comedy is about being as honest as possible. And honestly, I’ll never be a “Mexican comic”. I had a very American upbringing. So after 2 years of writing Latino jokes, I scrapped them all. I put the “Pinche Raza” bumper stickers in a box and I told myself until I learn how to speak Spanish fluently, I will not use a word of it for a cheap laugh. I did one thing though; I stopped being announced as Nick Valentine. Nick Guerra is my name… honestly. (I stopped working with the headliner that forced the name change on me. I always hated it and I despise him.)

Now I was getting genuine laughs. I was relating to all kinds of audiences. I even exempted any jokes about race from my performances. I wanted my material to be more about my human experiences and bringing race into the mix splits the audience. As much as comedians hate to admit it, when race is brought up onstage, some crowds tune out. I worked hard on my new material. I remember going back to Dallas after this change and one comic saying, “You actually got funny. No More Melancholy!”

I still get booked for Latino shows every now and then but I don’t go back to my old material. In fact, my hometown, McAllen, started having regular comedy shows. I kept hearing comics say when they performed in McAllen, they would dumb down their material and make it more Latino, because that’s the only thing the audience would laugh at. When I heard this I thought, “I’m from McAllen and I don’t need jokes dumbed down for me.” So to prove them all wrong, I made sure not to do any ethnic jokes. To my delight, I made those crowds laugh at exactly the same jokes I’ve been performing all over the US. “You see,” I thought to myself, “We don’t need no stinkin’ cheap laughs.” I learned that if you treat the audience like they are smart, even the few dumb people will rise to the intelligence you’ve set. After all, no one wants to be the dumbest one in the room.

I’m not the only one.

There are a slew of other Latino comics that pride themselves on not being stereotypical. Many of us are tired of the Latino label. We just want to be labeled funny. We are tired of being told, “Too many Mexicans on the show, I can’t put you up.” We are exhausted with fighting for the supposed limited spotlights for “Latino comics”. We are running out of silly Latino themes for shows. What’s a Latino Jam anyway? The majority of us never had any instruments.

This is an actual Latino Jam.

It’s not personal, it’s show business.

I get it. They have to put us somewhere. Ethnic comics will always face the ethnic niche. For every comic saying he is tired of the ethnic fight, there are three ready to take his gig for less money. (Some of them aren’t even that race.) Stereotypes are like roaches and any stage time is better than no stage time. We’ll take the theme shows. We aren’t hypocrites; we just don’t want to go broke. The only hope we have is to keep writing funny material until we have an audience so diverse and large that the only label we get is “popular”.

I am happy to say that my fan base has grown and they are from all different walks of life. A year ago in Dallas, I put on my own headlining show to see if I had any kind of draw. I invited family to make sure at least 8 people would show up. To my surprise, the audience was quite a bit larger than expected. The best part of the show was when my older sister came up to me and said, “You had a really diverse audience! I couldn’t believe all these people wanted to see my little brother!” I took that as a tiny milestone in my little career. Now I know I’m years away from really striking the American mainstream but I will be proud to get there with an audience that laughs for all the right reasons. And because I occasionally dance onstage. (That was for you Thai!)

What are the qualities good guys (men) actually look for in a woman?

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I got asked this on my fanpage about a month ago. Here’s my answer.

First off, you’re assuming I’m a good guy. As much as I can be a gentleman, part of me wishes I had the “asshole” switch. For the sake of this blog, I’ll just assume I’m a good guy too.

Every good man is looking for the same thing as every good woman: A good person. To be a good person, a human being has to have a strong belief in self. That’s step one: Know your worth. What do you have to offer a good man? What do you expect from a good man? What do you define as a good relationship? Oh and please…

BE HONEST! All of us lie to ourselves. We justify flaws and mistakes instead of accepting and realizing them. Realize the type of person you are. If you think everyone is wrong and doesn’t understand you, you are wrong. You don’t understand you. The least attractive quality in a person is a kind of naivety in self perception. If you think the world is against you and you aren’t Kim Jung Un, then you need to realize that you aren’t THAT important to the world. And it’s okay. Be honest with yourself about all your fears, anxieties and complexities and you will see them shrink. A problem only grows when you don’t acknowledge it.

Now that you’ve defined your problems, define your boundaries. Know what you expect from other people. Lay it out. The more vocal you are about your guidelines, you take away the excuse factor. Know what you will put up with and what will make you walk away.

Be realistic though. Everyone hated to play with the kid who wanted to make all the rules for each game then change them every time they fucked up. Each guideline has to come with a value and you have to live by them too.

You have to provide just as much as you demand. You would never pay top dollar for a shitty cup of coffee. Don’t expect someone to give you full respect for a half ass attitude.

Be a stable person. Love is an acrobatic act. For a relationship to work, each person has to be just as important as the other. Both people have to be able carry each other.

When you get a good person, next problem is keeping a good person. What are you going to do for the person you love? Why should they give you any affection? If you have nothing to offer, if you are unstable or if you are just selfish, then even you can’t make yourself happy. How do you expect someone else to?

Know your “overdraft fee”. Even the most patient and understanding person has a breaking point. What they put up with today is not necessarily what they will put up with tomorrow. You might get one overdraft cleared up. The next time, it doesn’t matter if its $100 or 10 cents, you got to pay up.

Actually give a shit about each other. Be interesting. Have common interests. Share new interests. Keep having things to talk about.

Know when to go away. Everyone needs breathing room. Everyone needs space. Being too needy is repulsive. If you can’t be alone with yourself, why they hell would anyone want to be alone with you.

Remember that the person you love will always be a separate human being. We are all experiencing life in a unique way. Don’t expect anything to stay the same. Change happens. The person you love might be Dr. Pepper fanatic today and stop drinking soda next week. Don’t make a big deal about these changes. We are all continuing to grow and hopefully for the better. If it’s for the worse, remember your personal overdraft fee.

To be a good woman, you just have to be a good person. Have common sense, have common decency, know what you expect, know what you have to offer and know who you are. You will be more confident, which might scare away most men. But you aren’t looking for most men. You are looking for one good guy.

Warning: I could be completely wrong, that’s why I consider this a theory. I’m not trying to attract good guys so I don’t care what they are looking for. I’m trying to figure out what loose women are looking for.

Love Advice To End Your Love Life

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So I was talking to a fellow comedian about a premise on bisexual girlfriends. He had a funny bit that sparked a recollection of a joke I once wanted to tell. Don’t worry, comedy police, the jokes are very different. The point of this post is because I always wanted to tell my piece but never found a place for it in my set. So instead, I offer it as a piece of advice… love advice.

Don’t ever beg your girlfriend for a threesome.

I’ve met a lot of girls that drop bisexuality as a quality with equal ease as “and I like hip hop.” Both of these “facts” are just lines. She’s trying to show off. Trust me, she doesn’t know about the Liquid Swords album and she really isn’t into girls like that.

70% of these girls have only made out with their friends when they’re drunk. 15% may have done a little more with a hot chick once. That’s not a big plus because lets be honest, who doesn’t want to do a little more with a hot chick. Even dogs hump a hot chick’s leg a little longer than others. The last 15% may really be into girls and guys but they aren’t into girls and guys at the same time. Like mustard and mayonnaise, it’s usually better to just go with one sauce at a time or have plenty of napkins ready. Why does she say this, fellas? The same reason you tell her you know a little Spanish. It’s a sexy quality that you can unleash from time to time and impress each other with, comprende?

Here’s the mistake you make as a guy. You get excited and you encourage it. Co-workers, best friends, random strangers that bump into you at CVS. They are all fair game now. Then you bring it up and bring it up and bring it up and bring it up while whispering and… Now she’s annoyed. She regrets ever mentioning it.

Here’s what to do:

Girlfriend: I’m a little bisexual.

You: Cool. What is the name of that new Denzel movie?

There you go. Do that. She’ll try to bring it up again.

Girlfriend: The way that girl is dancing is sexy. Ooo!

You: Flight! That’s what it is.

When you hear the words, “I’m bisexual”, don’t ever get excited. Don’t ever bring up any close encounters you may have had. Don’t ever say, “Me too.” (I accidentally did that. One of my best friends was next to me and the look I got from him… Still don’t know why I said that.) Just let it be.

If you persist in pushing the issue, your girlfriend will have a threesome. You just won’t be there… or in her phone… or on her facebook… or in her life.

Now, if you are the lucky 3% of guys that slip on the threesome banana peel, high five yourself and never be the first one to bring it up. It happened and no one cares and I hate you.

As for you ladies, no guy you date will ever want to hear about how you once had a threesome. You should only say it after you just had one… as a footnote. And yes, I’m talking to you… you know who you are.

A girl once that kept asking me what I thought about it and I said, “Yeah, that’s cool and all but so is a slam dunk.” Then I threw a basketball at her face.

Just joking. I said, “Yeah, that’s cool and all but the proof is in the pudding.” Yes, I actually said that. (One of my best friends was next to me and he threw a basketball in my face.)

If I ever have a threesome though, I might finally have an end to that joke. What lucky lady wants a writer’s credit?

WU TANG FOREVER!

Things I Don’t Want to See Anymore

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In the spirit of Abigail Evans’s extremely cute video, I also have a few things I’m tired of. This list grows and grows for me everyday. Here’s 7 things.

1. Special Effect Baby Videos – Are we really still impressed with what a computer generated baby can do? I get it! It’s something adorable doing something outrageous which makes it outrageously adorable. There has been only two times I was impressed with anything computer generated: Jurassic Park and instant porn. Everything after that is really just a, “Oh yeah, they can do that with computers now.” But a new video of some baby doing crazy shit pops up almost every month. When babies stop being polite and start being real is the only time I laugh my ass off. Please every video editor, delete babies off your computer. It’s not cute and its borderline creepy.

2. Lines at Stores – Oh my god, people! You make America look bad. We look like a bunch of pricks waiting for some new gadget that is only going to be overstocked in two weeks. You’re the reason everyone thinks unemployment has gone up! I know when I see people outside a store in a sleeping bag, I don’t think “These are some tech savvy geniuses”. I think, “Everytime an Apple store pops up in a neighborhood, shit gets bad.” I get it! You want to prove you are the geekiest of them all. “Nerd chic is in.” Yeah but “Smelly Chic” will never be.

3. Park Place – Fucking McDonald’s! Every year, I get 6 Park Places and no sign of Boardwalk. How about you just print one and let that person actually feel special. The first Park Place is the most exciting but the second makes me lose faith in every contest ever. One Park Place! One Boardwalk! Now that’s a rush! I get it! You want everyone to feel like they have a chance. It doesn’t work out like that. You make everyone feel terrible because it’s like 10,000 spoons when all you need is a knife! Then you realize you have 10,000 spoons and you feel like an ass because no one has that much soup! You get the picture!

4. Terrible Concert Footage – Stop with recording live performances! Your shitty phone can barely record you singing shitty in your shitty car! Here’s an idea: Just enjoy the song! Maybe even dance! Doesn’t anyone dance at concerts anymore! Unless you are in the front row, all you are getting footage of is everyone recording in front of you! And then you post it on Youtube, which is now full of your shitty concert footage and shitty computer baby videos! I get it! “Oh man, this is happening! And I’m here!” Yeah but you aren’t even in the video, unless you’re the jackass that turns to himself only to give the dorkiest wide ass smile for half a second. You aren’t even centered in your own video. All you end up recording is everyone behind you recording what the hell is in front of you!

5. Pop Stars Covering “Lose Yourself” – Ok, Kelly Clarkson was the most legit because she did it in Detroit and had a gray hoodie. That’s where it needs to end. And she did it right, she did the entire song, sans curse words. She didn’t just sing the first verse and then smile like a big dork who just filmed himself at the concert. I get it! You want to show your fans you have street cred. Then go all the way and do a DMX song. Don’t worry, he’ll never find out. He doesn’t know how to google himself.

6. Lists about Show Cancellations – Yeah, they got cancelled because no one watched them. Why would anyone want to see them as a still picture on a list. I don’t get it!

7. Nicki Minaj – She hasn’t worked hard enough to be as much of a diva as she acts like. She’s had no fingerprint in the music industry. She revolutionized nothing. She once rhymed nothing with nothing. How are you going to run out of things to spit with only two actual albums out? I get it! You’re a girl. That ain’t enough to be a diva. She dresses all crazy because that’s the only way she’ll get recognized. Real divas get recognized wearing hoodies, glasses and baseball caps. And that’s nothing to spit at.