This Might Get a Little Heavy

by Ralphie May

  If you put one blue crab in a bucket, for example, it will crawl out. But if you throw two blue crabs in a bucket, neither crab will ever get out. As soon as one of them starts to make progress toward the lip of the bucket, the other one will drag it down. They will do that over and over until they exhaust themselves or someone bigger comes along and eats them for lunch.

  That’s exactly what Houston comedy was. As soon as anyone made a step forward, they’d get dragged down by the comedians behind them. It’s hard to break that cycle. Even today Houston is rich in comedy talent. Some kids coming up should be superstars, but they might never make it if they don’t figure out how to break free from the throng below them and reach for the top.

  In making a name for myself in the Houston comedy scene, I stood on the shoulders of giants like Sam and Bill and Danny. In getting out, I instead stood on the shoulders of giant assholes whose bitterness, malice, and deceit propelled me west. The irony is, they thought they’d won when I finally moved to Los Angeles in 1998, but they didn’t win. I had no peers when I got to Houston (I knew no one), and they made sure I didn’t have any when I left or at any point in between. They did me a favor by eventually making Houston unbearable for me. Just like with forging steel—bend it, fold it, hammer the shit out of it—when they beat me up, all they did was make me stronger. It’s the best thing they could ever have done to prepare me for the next phase of my life and my career in LA.

  PART 3

  LOS ANGELES: 1998–2010

  11.

  LOS TRUE ANGELES

  Like every good modern story about struggle and success in Los Angeles, mine begins with a Mexican who needed a ride to work.

  His name was Joey Medina, and actually he was Puerto Rican, but that’s less funny, so just ignore that part. Joey is a great comic from New York City who has always done a little bit of everything: a little bit of acting, a little bit of producing, a little bit of hosting, a little bit of radio, and obviously a little bit of touring. He’s a hustler, which is probably why we hit it off.

  In June 1998, Joey flew into Houston from Los Angeles, where he was living, to do a week of shows in the run-up to the third annual Latino Laugh Festival in San Antonio. Showtime had turned the previous two years of the festival’s stand-up program into a television series, so the gig had become a real draw. Agents and managers were coming in from LA for it; so were studio and network executives. In the first half of the decade they’d struck gold with sitcoms built around white stand-up comics, and they’d had some success with shows around black comics like Thea Vidale and Steve Harvey. I guess they figured they could do it again, this time by turning down the toaster and going a little less brown.

  Joey and I got to talking about it after his last Laff Stop show. He’d just finished up a three-year stint hosting a radio show in Tucson the year before, and this sounded like a great opportunity for him to take the next big step. I was happy for him and was heartened for myself. If Joey could make it happen—if he could go big time—maybe I could too. Our paths weren’t dissimilar, and here he was hopping flights, crisscrossing the country doing club and festival dates. Joey laughed. Flights? He wasn’t flying unless he absolutely had to. Flying costs money. He was taking the bus to San Antonio.

  The bus? Joey Medina was a popular comedian and a successful Puerto Rican man. The only greyhounds he should have been dealing with were the ones you race, not the ones you ride. Besides, this was central Texas in the summer. I’m pretty sure four or five hours on a bus full of poor people trudging across that stretch of land violates the Geneva Convention.

  “You know what, you shouldn’t be riding no bus. I’ll take you,” I said.

  I was making good money by then, what with all the defensive-driving classes I was teaching on top of my regular spots and my now-thriving smokable-horticulture distribution company. I could take a day or two off to drive him and hang out. It’s not like I wanted to hang out with any of those fucking pricks in Houston, anyway.

  When we got to San Antonio, Joey introduced me around and immediately started telling everyone that I’d given him a ride all the way from Houston. They were blown away. I considered it doing a solid for another comedian and, more simply, basic Southern hospitality. But I guess from their perspective, when a good ol’ boy from Arkansas gives a Hispanic fella a free ride across Texas, it’s usually not out of the kindness of his heart, and the Hispanic guy is definitely not sitting in the front seat.

  To show their appreciation, the organizers gave me an opening spot for one of their big showcases that night on the River Walk. This was one of the shows that all the executives and managers were coming into town for. The festival had quickly turned into an opportunity for both Joey and me. I was nowhere near prepared, but a comedian is never not a comedian, so of course I said yes.

  I did eleven minutes … and crushed. It was an amazing feeling, but it couldn’t hold a candle to what happened after the show. Executives were stuffing their cards into my hand, telling me that they’d never seen anybody like me before. Managers were buying me drinks, asking me all sorts of questions like “What the fuck are you still doing in Texas?” I met Carlos Mencia, who was a giant in the Latin comedy scene then, and he told me to go to the Comedy Store on Sunset Boulevard. I also met a fat little kid named Gabriel Iglesias, who was hilarious. Before the night was over, with that one set, I walked out of the club with management and representation and marching orders: get your affairs together and get to Los Angeles.

  A week later, I was in California.

  * * *

  Getting my affairs in order on the Houston side of this little transition was the easy part. All my worldly possessions fit into the back of my Toyota 4Runner. All the question marks were on the LA side of the equation. I didn’t know anybody. I was only vaguely familiar with the town from a few isolated trips out there over the previous few years. I had no idea how I was going to make money, and I knew I was going to need a lot more of it given how high rents were compared to Houston. I didn’t have a weed connect in LA either, so I couldn’t even bridge the economic or the social gap with that right away. The one thing I did have was a place to stay.

  Originally, I was going to stay with Joey Medina on the floor of the apartment he shared with a Mexican comic named Alex Reymundo (Alex is an actual Mexican, not just Mexican for the sake of this story). I’d stayed with them before on one of my visits, and they were willing to let me crash with them while I figured out my next move. But when I was talking to Doug Stanhope about it, he told me to put a pin in the plan because he might know of a better place for me. His buddy Matt Becker, another good comic, had a small apartment in a building that a bunch of other comics lived in. He was leaving to work in Alaska for a while and wasn’t going to need it, but was going to continue paying the rent because he needed a place to store the stuff he didn’t bring with him. I could stay there if I wanted; all I had to do was make sure that the place didn’t burn to the ground and that none of those dirty fucking comics stole his shit.

  Deal.

  The apartment was in a building at 1440 North Gardner Street, three doors south of Sunset Boulevard. It could not have been in a better location for what I was trying to do. It was three-quarters of a mile straight down Sunset from the Laugh Factory. Another three-quarters of a mile farther was the Comedy Store. The Improv was on Melrose Avenue, almost two miles away, but I could literally just roll my ass down the hill and slam into Melrose without breaking a sweat.

  Doug Stanhope and I started in comedy at almost the exact same time, but Doug is a few years older than me, and by virtue of being better and crazier than me, he’d already gone fairly big-time nationally by the time I got to Los Angeles.1 It put him in a position to take me under his wing a little bit during my last couple years in Houston; a position I appreciated very much. The one thing he said to me after he hooked me up with the place at 1440 North Gardner, where I ended up living for free for a year, was straightforward:

  “Yo
u have to be in comedy clubs every night. When you first get to LA, you gotta go to every one of those fucking clubs every fucking night.”

  It was good advice, because my very first Saturday in town I met the Cuban comedy colossus Joey Diaz, who took me to the Comedy Store and introduced me to Mitzi Shore. Mitzi founded the Comedy Store in 1972 and has been the owner-operator ever since. Her roots go so deep into comedy that her name has become synonymous with stand-up comedy. She even married one of us—a stand-up named Sammy Shore, who she eventually divorced. By the time I met Mitzi, she’d been in the business for three decades. She was the be-all and end-all of stand-up comedy in Los Angeles—probably even the country. She knew what worked in her room, and if you were one of the people who worked, it meant you could work anywhere. In that sense she was the most powerful noncomedian force in stand-up comedy. Without her there’d be no Richard Pryor, no Robin Williams, no Jim Carrey, no Paul Rodriguez, no Louie Anderson. She saw their “it” before anybody else. Her direction and advice was so good that George Carlin would headline at the Comedy Store for three weeks before doing one of his specials just so he could have Mitzi help with jokes. In her prime, she had so much influence that if you showcased for her and she passed you or, even better, made you a paid regular, that pretty much meant you were on the fast track to The Tonight Show.2 That’s what happened to Roseanne Barr. Mitzi passed her into the Main Room and made her a paid regular. The next week she did The Tonight Show and had a deal with ABC to do Roseanne practically the next day. That’s how quickly Mitzi made careers.

  Joey Diaz introduced me to Mitzi on Saturday, and I told her my whole story. The next day, Sunday, I showcased for her. She passed me into the Main Room and made me a paid regular on the spot. I was the first person since Roseanne to get that from Mitzi, which is crazy to me because I’ve never felt like I was even close to Roseanne’s level. We had a similar working-class vibe to our comedy, but that big bitch could burn the house down! I think one of the big reasons Mitzi passed me the way she did was because Andrew Dice Clay and Eddie Griffin were in the back laughing their asses off during my set. People talk a lot of shit about both of those guys now, but I’d never met them before, and they both stuck their necks out and vouched for me to Mitzi. Eddie, who went onstage right after me on that Sunday show, was the most vocal:

  “That white boy from Houston is a bad motherfucker, y’all! Remember his name! Hey, Jeff [the piano player], what was that kid’s name?”

  What is it with these comics and remembering names? It’s not like my name is Carlos Alazraqui or some crazy nonsense.

  “Ralphie May?” Jeff said.

  “Remember the name Ralphie May!” Eddie repeated. Then he went on to destroy for the next thirty-five minutes.

  Two days later, on Tuesday, I showcased at the Laugh Factory and the Improv. Jamie Masada, the owner of the Laugh Factory, passed me and gave me eight spots per week. The Improv passed me too. Within a week of getting to town I was officially plugged into the LA comedy-club circuit. I’d done, like, seventeen spots at the Comedy Store alone, I had another two dozen spots lined up at the other clubs, and thanks to guys like Joey Diaz, Joey Medina, Alex Reymundo, Jeff Garcia, and Rudy Moreno, I’d been introduced to all the good Latino rooms as well.

  Sam Kinison was my first comedy mentor. Danny Martinez was like my comedy Aristotle, and the father I never had. Dougie Stanhope was my comedy brother from another mother. But these Latino guys were like my guardian angels when I got to LA. Los true angeles de Los Angeles. I’ve felt a special kinship with the Latin comics ever since. Their hospitality reminded me a lot of the Southern hospitality I grew up on. They would share opportunities with me. They would have me over to their abuelita’s house for tamales. Later they would have me on their TV shows. I also think we shared a similar uphill climb on the comedy terrain. As a fat guy, it always felt like I wasn’t going to get my crack until the Hollywood system worked its way through all the “normal”-size guys. There was a glimmer of hope when CBS gave Louie Anderson his own show in 1996, but it got canceled after six shows, and that was that. Latino comics went through a similar situation in Hollywood in relation to opportunities for black comics. Showtime at the Apollo started in 1987, Def Comedy Jam in 1992. Thea Vidale, Steve Harvey, D. L. Hughley, Jamie Foxx, Sinbad, Martin Lawrence, and the Wayans brothers all got shows in the nineties before a guy like George Lopez even sniffed a series in 2002. I mean, Lord Jesus, the Latino comedian community had to start their own festival of laughs just to remind Hollywood that they were some funny motherfuckers who’d been there the whole time.

  The extra spots I got in the Latino rooms in LA thanks to Joey and Rudy and those guys were a lifesaver for a long time. I wasn’t getting rich off them by any means, but they helped with rent and kept me out of the poorhouse, which is half the battle when you come to Los Angeles to “make it”—whatever that means.

  12.

  HOUSTON, WE’RE GONNA HAVE A BIG FUCKING PROBLEM

  One of the benefits of not having to pay rent for a while was that the money I saved allowed me to fly back to Houston fairly regularly to pick up some good-paying gigs. I know that sounds counterintuitive. Hollywood is where you’re supposed to go to get rich and famous—emphasis on rich. How is it, then, that you make less money in Hollywood doing the exact same thing you were doing in Houston? The complicated explanation involves the economics of the market for comedy in each city. The simple explanation is that club owners are motherfuckers who are under less pressure to pay you what you’re worth than you put on yourself to perform as often as you can in order to get the big break that brought you to LA in the first place. When other comics want it so bad that they’ll work for free or even pay you to get up on your stage, frankly what incentive do you have to pay anyone?

  My first time back to Houston after moving was late in the summer of 1998 to headline some shows at the Laff Stop. That Monday, by force of habit as much as anything else, I did a set at the open-mic night too. The guy who followed me did an awful, unfunny, off-key parody of “Blue Moon,” then dropped his pants at the end and had his ass painted blue. It was total garbage and painful to watch. I remember thinking, Did I really come back here for this?

  Then I saw this pretty, dark-haired girl with big blue eyes come in and sign up to go on. In Houston, only a few female comics ever came out to the open mics—Caroline Picard, Shayla Rivera, Valerie Thompson, Jody Ferdig—so this girl’s female energy was welcome. What was not so welcome was the big-ass guitar she hauled in with her spindly Kermit the Frog arms, so I walked up to her.

  “Hi, I’m Ralphie.”

  “Lahna.”

  “Can you play that fucking thing?” I nodded to her guitar.

  “Yes.”

  “Can you sing?”

  “Yes.”

  “Are you at least fucking funny?”

  “Yes.”

  Take notes, fellas. Charm school is in session. In my defense, I was unreasonably mad for having just wasted several minutes of my life watching that terrible musical open-mic-er hot carl my eardrums. And I already hated musical comedy to begin with. I’ve seen only a few guitar acts that I liked: Steve Caliph, JR Brow out of Austin, and Rodney Carrington. The rest thought they were so innovative, but they were just prop comics, leaning on their guitar as a crutch, as a cheat for being funny. I could tell from my questions and her tone that Lahna was a little scared.

  “Is this your first time?” I asked.

  “Yes.”

  “You’re not doing fucking parody songs like that last asshole, are you?”

  “No,” Lahna said, almost offended, the first spark coming out of those blue eyes. I was relieved too, because being a guitar act without relying on parody songs meant she was legitimately creative. She might not be amazing, but she wasn’t a hack. That’s all you can ask for at an open mic.

  I left her alone after that to get ready, but just before she took the stage, another comic saw her and announced, “This is going to suck!
”—loud enough for everyone in the place to hear. Real funny, asshole. Already too few women were doing comedy; now you want to chase one of them off? Why? Because she might be funnier than you? News flash: she is. She hadn’t even gone onstage yet and I knew that. This fucking guy would bomb so often and so completely, he would have been better off in the CIA drone program. Eventually he read the writing on the wall, and the silence in every room, and quit stand-up. Then had the unmitigated gall to go work at Comedy Central, which should tell you everything you need to know about stand-up comedy’s relationship to television.

  * * *

  So many things about Lahna were exceptionally hilarious that night at the Laff Stop. I’d never seen a woman go onstage with a guitar in one of these clubs, so I thought it was funny just how out of place she was. She had balls too. She only had time for two songs, but she went up with both barrels cocked and murdered. Her first song was about her and a female friend carrying on a pseudolesbian relationship that revolved around food. Her second song was a little ditty about incest called “Daddy’s Hands.” I mean, holy shit. It was fucking hilarious, and just so incongruous, to see this petite thing singing about incest.

  Later, I approached her in the greenroom as she was putting her guitar away.

  “That was really funny,” I said.

  “Thanks.”

  “And I don’t joke about funny.”

  She was pretty dismissive, partially because I’d been a dick to her earlier, but mostly because she thought I was just being nice, like all stupid men are around a pretty girl.

  “I don’t just hand out compliments about comedy. I mean what I say.” I couldn’t have been more insecure if I was Hillary Clinton’s personal email server. “You’re really fucking funny. If you have any questions about comedy or if there’s anything else I can help you with, just give me a call.”