Needless to say, I changed management as soon as possible.
My sister and her then boyfriend, now husband, came to the show, and I took them on a tour of the bus after. Vince had a “room” in the back, but the rest of us were in bunks that were the size of a coffin. Each bunk had a TV that flipped down, so you could watch in bed, but if you rolled on your side, your shoulder would hit the bunk above you. The close quarters never bothered me. I would have been happy in a van, sleeping on the floor. When I stepped on that tour bus, I thought, Fuck, this is it. I made it. Being on the road sure beat delivering a hundred Cosmos at the hotel. For me, the bus might as well have been the presidential suite at the Four Seasons.
The “living room” area had a place to eat, a TV, and gaming consoles. Video games were a big thing on the tour. Vince was extremely good at Madden, the football game. He was smoking at the time, and would light up on the bus. I have a bad reaction to cigarette smoke. Once, I was sitting next to Vince playing a game at 4 a.m. and his cigarette smoke was really bothering me.
I couldn’t take it, so I went up in the front with the bus driver for a while. There was a little curtain that separated the driver’s area from the rest of the bus, and Vince popped his head through and asked, “Where’d you go? What’s wrong?”
“The smoke is killing me,” I said.
“I would have moved the cigarette into my other hand, if you’d asked.”
Five guys living on top of each other, of course a few of us got sick with the flu. Someone told me to take a Z-pak, which I’d never done before. I grew up in a family where you do not take drugs unless they are prescribed to you. I have this fear of doing it, dying, and people weeping at my funeral, beating their chests, saying, “How could he have taken a Z-pak without a prescription? Why?”
The guys thought that was hilarious, and shamed me into taking the pills. I felt much better, thanks for asking.
Vince was the ringleader with a quick wit. He was another big talker. He didn’t go off on endless monologues like Dice, though. Vince held court; he MCed on the bus and on the stage. I think he had a secret yearning to do standup, but he stuck with opening the show with sketches featuring special guests like Favreau, Justin Long, and Wedding Crashers costar Keir O’Donnell. Vince is six-foot-five, handsome, and a presence. You couldn’t not look at him. Everywhere he went, he drew people’s attention, and then, when recognition sank in, they went into hysterics. “Holy shit, is that Vince Vaughn?” they’d ask each other. In Nowhere, Oklahoma, at a rest stop in the middle of the night, people mobbed him. It was like hanging out with Tom Cruise. He had to enter venues through the kitchen or there’d be mayhem.
It was so exciting to be in public with him, I remember feeling disappointed when he decided to stay on the bus after a show instead of going to bars and clubs with us. But he was with Jennifer Aniston then, and he wasn’t interested in meeting girls. When me and the other guys went out without him, girls would come up to us, angling for an introduction to Vince. “You were so funny tonight,” they’d say.
“Thanks.”
“Yeah, you were really great.”
“Thanks, again,” we’d say, hopes rising.
“So is Vince with you guys tonight?”
Hopes dashed.
That wasn’t always the case. There were times when fans came up to me, Bret, John, and Ahmed, just to meet and hang out with us. But a lot of times, they were just working us to get to Vince. And I can’t say that we blew off these women after we figured out their true intentions. There were many late nights out on the tour, partying and meeting new people. We ate ribs in Oklahoma, tacos in Texas, pulled pork in Kentucky, and cheesy chili in Wisconsin, sampling the specialty hot dishes wherever we went.
But no matter how late you were out, you had to be back on the bus by curfew, or you’d have to pay your own way to the next gig. So, if the bus left Alabama at 2 a.m., and you missed it talking to a girl at a bar, you would have to rent a car or hitchhike to the next city. I never missed curfew, because I didn’t want to be the troublemaker. I did cut it close a few times, though.
Vince got up every single morning at five or six to do radio interviews to promote the next gig. I remember the publicist coming on the bus at dawn, saying, “Vince, we’ve got a call.” He’d take the phone into the parking lot and do seven radio station spots back to back. There was no ad or promotional budget for the tour. The only way to publicize the gigs was for Vince to get on the phone and be funny on the radio. Drive time listeners learned that he’d be in their town tomorrow night, and they’d buy tickets. Our shows would sell out on the power of those radio spots alone. I listened to him many mornings, putting the same energy and enthusiasm into each interview and never begging off, no matter how tired or hungover he might be. I thought, Okay, so this is how it works. You have to sell tickets. You have to convince people to come out, spend money, and give you a night of their lives. The work you do before the show is as important as the work you do at the show.
A lot of comedians don’t want to put in the time or get out of bed to sell tickets to their own shows, as if people will know who they are by magic. My take-away from watching Vince in action was that the big stars are big for a reason. They have the work ethic. They care enough about what they’re doing to make it a success. Ever since that tour, I have followed his example and done whatever I can to promote. And after the show, for years to come, I would hang out in the lobby of the venue and shake hands with anyone in the audience who wanted to meet me. As I got more well known, it would take hours, and I was happy to do it. If you’d been playing gigs for ten years without anyone remembering your name after the show, when you finally connected with fans, you’d want to shake hands and thank every one of them, too.
AT THE TIME, Bret and John had development deals with major networks. Ahmed toured nationally and internationally and he ran comedy rooms. During an interview for the documentary film about the tour, Bret made a comment that I was where the other guys were five years ago, making it sound like I was the comedy novice to their grisly veterans. But the truth is, we had all started out around the same time. No one had years on me, but they had gotten farther than me. I think that only made me more grateful to be with them, their equal on tour.
There was no jealousy or one-upmanship on the bus. Not a lot of shoptalk either. We didn’t discuss the art of comedy or compare notes about our careers so far. The vibe was more like a fraternity. When you’re in college, you don’t talk about getting a job when you graduate. You just have fun and live in the moment. That was how it felt on the Wild West Show. I avoided talking about what would happen when it was over. Most likely, I was going back to the penguin suit. I hoped the cachet of this tour would lead to better-paying gigs for me, but I’d thought that before and been disappointed. I put my future fears aside for thirty days and concentrated on having a great time with those guys, doing comedy at those venues, sleeping and living on the bus. I knew it was a once-in-a-lifetime experience that I would probably never repeat. Looking back, my memories of the Wild West Comedy Show are only golden. It was a constant stream of fun. I knew a return to the Four Seasons loomed when it was over, but I pushed that to the back of my mind and really soaked up every day like it was my last.
And then the last day came.
The final performance was in my hometown (and Vince’s). I had my family and friends there. Returning to Chicago with Vince Vaughn and making my parents proud of me was a water-shed moment. We’d had some shaky exchanges when they expressed doubt about my career choice. Now, for the first time in seven years, my parents had a sense that I was on the right track. The documentary director Ari Sandel, an Oscar winner for the short film West Bank Story, interviewed my parents. My father said, “He’s going to make it. I don’t know when, but he’s going to make it.” It all came together for me that night—the vote of confidence from my family, the excitement of my friends, the bonds I’d made on the road with the other comedians and the crew. I f
elt deeply connected to everyone in my life that night.
And then, it was over.
We did a final interview for Ari, talking about what the tour meant for us and how we felt about it coming to an end. Of course, I got emotional, and unsuccessfully fought back tears, saying, “I’m kind of choked up because it’s . . . uh . . . a lot of emotion going on. I don’t want to be a pussy or nothing. I loved every minute of this, man, and I just don’t want it to end.” They all reached out with a shoulder squeeze. I really did love those guys. I was overwhelmed by the experience, the friendships, the adventure. The joy poured out through my tear ducts. It had nowhere else to go.
That fit of sentimentality would come back to haunt me three years later, when Wild West Comedy Show: 30 Days & 30 Nights—Hollywood to the Heartland was finally released in theaters. My parents and friends flew to L.A. for the premiere. When my buddies saw the crying scene, they sank in their seats. Out of all of them, I’m the most emotional, but they’d never seen me cry before.
At the after party, they tore me to shreds about it. From that day on, the phrase “I don’t want to be a pussy or nothing . . .” has come up in conversation with them. Then my buddies start laughing at me so hard, the tears run down their faces.
And I say, “Who’s crying now, motherfuckers?”
I MADE SOME money on the tour, about five grand. It was more than I would have made at the Four Seasons in a month by far. I decided that, with this cushion, I didn’t have to rush back there. I gave myself permission not to. The next month, I landed a corporate gig at a sales conference in L.A. I got $3,500 for that, so now my cushion was growing.
On top of that, I had newfound credibility with comedy club owners because of the Vince Vaughn seal of approval. Being tapped to be on his tour was good enough for them. Seeing an opportunity, I suggested to my agent, “Why don’t we see if we can shore up a gig at a comedy club in Dallas?” I’d just been there on the tour, and my name was fresh in their minds. I figured the owners would think, Let’s see what this guy’s got on his own.
I’d had a taste of the “all comedy, all the time” life, and I wanted more. “Whatever work comes in, I’ll take it,” I said to my agent. “I don’t care if it’s a week in the sticks, six shows, three on Saturday, whatever it is, I’ll do it.” Miraculously, the calls did come in, with me as a headliner. Before long, I was back on the road, doing gigs all over the country, begging off shifts at the Four Seasons every week.
After a year of this, the manager at the lounge called me and said, “Listen, we need to know if you’re ever coming back to work. Because if you’re not, we need the locker space.”
This was it, what I consider a turning point in my life and career. If I held on to that locker, I’d have a safety net. If the gigs dried up, I’d have somewhere to go and a way to earn a living. Or, I could quit the day job, go hard on the comedy circuit, and continue to build a fan base and improve my act. It would be a risk. In my eight years on the edges of the comedy world, I’d seen guys with huge potential and big crowds flame out or burn out. I’d also seen people who would dip their toe in halfway, and never put everything they had into it.
It was an easy decision to make. Took about five seconds.
I told the Four Seasons manager, “I’m not coming back. Whatever is in my locker, just give it away.”
My locker was small, a half locker on the bottom row. I had no idea what was in there, probably some spare change, a couple pens, and a pair of worn-out work shoes. I never invested in good shoes, probably a mistake for someone on his feet for eight hours a day. The heel of my shoe would often be loose. It would flop around like a flip-flop but it still worked. I think those cheap shoes fucked up my feet permanently. But better shoes would have been a kind of defeat, like resigning myself to being a waitress for the rest of my life. Any money I made was spent on doing comedy and paying back my father.
Beat-up shoes and flat feet didn’t stop me from making the biggest leap of faith so far in my life. On September 12, 2006, I left the job that had supported my dream for eight years. I took a gamble, and this time, it paid off.
6
* * *
HUNGRY HEART
By late 2008, I’d been doing comedy in L.A. for over a decade. Thanks to my associations with Dice and Vince, I had enough clout to book comedy clubs all over the country. I even did a tour in the Middle East (Saudi Arabia, Lebanon, Qatar, and Egypt) with Ahmed Ahmed and some other guys. I was working full-time as a comedian, having some degree of success, and making a decent living. I was in a nice place professionally.
Personally? Romantically? I was nowhere.
In all my time in L.A., I had dated here and there, but nothing serious. Before the ball started rolling with my comedy, I didn’t have enough money to take someone out. And once I was coming up, I traveled fifty-two weekends out of the year. I was focused on my career. It sounds like an L.A. douche bag thing to say: “I’m too busy for a relationship!” But I was always on the road. I would leave town on Wednesday and come back on Monday, every single week. What woman would be okay with that? I had to take the work to make money and build my reputation.
The only long-term relationship I had while living in L.A. was with a woman in Dallas. I met her while on the Wild West tour, but she hadn’t come to my show. Me and the other guys went to a bar afterward and I met her there. We had a great time talking and laughing that night, and we started to write emails and texts to each other. Then we started having actual phone conversations. A year went by and we evolved into travel-ing to see each other; either she came to L.A. for a few days or I went to Dallas. She was a nice girl, funny and cool. The slow pace and distance between us allowed us to get to know one another in an old-fashioned way, by writing and talking. We had a good time together, but I kind of always knew that it wasn’t going to go further, for a few reasons, only one of which was our living in two different states. After four years, I decided that there was no point in continuing, so we ended it.
My life didn’t change dramatically after that breakup, but it felt different to be single. Part of the reason the long-distance relationship had worked for me for so long was that it took the pressure off. I didn’t have to look too closely at how I’d organized my life to prevent a serious connection from developing. It wasn’t like I woke up and said, “Seb, you’re thirty-five. You’ve never had a committed relationship in your entire adult life. It’s time.” But I did feel a shift in how I was thinking about what my next relationship would be like. For starters, she would have to live in L.A.
I put out some feelers for fix-ups to one of my best friends (also my personal trainer), John Petrelli. John and I met on the set of Days of Our Lives doing extra work in 1998. We were on a lunch break and we began talking. I’d never met anybody more annoyed at the world than myself. He’s from upstate New York, from an Italian family, a great guy who’d take the shirt off his back for you, and we hit it off immediately. He comes across like the Ultimate Man. Hunts his own food. Does jujitsu. He’s a martial artist, a builder, a fisherman, and a survivalist. You could drop him in the woods naked with a piece of string and a toothpick, and he’d emerge a week later, well fed and wearing a bear skin. In other words, John is the total opposite of me.
I asked him, “Do you train any good-looking women?”
He said, “Actually, I have one, but she comes early, around 7 a.m.”
I usually had my session at the gym at ten, but I said, “All right, schedule me right after her so I can see what she looks like.”
Yes, I plotted with John to scope out a complete stranger. He made her sound pretty and funny, and I just wanted to meet her. I thought I couldn’t be too obvious about it, or she’d be turned off immediately. It had to seem organic, almost accidental—and I had to look my best. Even though I was showing up at the gym first thing in the morning, when most people were just rolling out of bed into their workout clothes, I got up at 6 a.m. to do a full body prep—hair, skin, nails, shave.
I may have gotten a little over-involved with the grooming, like I was doing a bodybuilding competition, and not a casual workout on a Tuesday.
I showed up around 7:55, right at the end of her session, as John and I had planned. He said, “Hey, Sebastian. Five minutes early. I love it. Lana and I are just finishing up. Lana, this is my old friend Sebastian. Sebastian, this is my client Lana.”
Lana and I shook hands and said “Nice to meet you,” and then she left.
Once she was out of earshot, John asked, “So?”
“She’s cute.”
Really cute. Blond, petite, with a smile that lit up the room; sweet, friendly, with a surprising Southern accent. I learned later she grew up in Memphis, Tennessee.
I was about to ask him how to proceed to get to know her better, when John put a damper on it. “She has a boyfriend,” he said.
Oh, well. That changed things. We talked about it while training. John started stretching me out, pushing my leg to one side, and his fingers slid right off my skin. “Why the hell are you so greasy, man?” he asked.
“It’s baby oil.”
“You put baby oil on your legs at seven in the morning to make a good impression on a girl?”
In hindsight, it does seem ridiculous. I asked Lana years later if she noticed how sexy and shiny my legs were when we first met. She nodded and said, “I just thought you were so out of shape that you were sweaty before you even began working out.”
I wasn’t going to move in on her if she had a boyfriend, but over the next few weeks, John hinted to me that he didn’t think that Lana and Mr. X were going to last. Apparently, they had met at the University of Tennessee and come to L.A. together, but there was trouble in paradise. I told John to let me know if they broke up, which they did a few months later, but then she took up with some other guy. John delivered the intel: “Good news! Lana broke up with the college boyfriend. Bad news! She’s seeing someone else.”
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