How Did I Get Here?

Do you ever ask yourself that question?

Maybe you’re having a midlife crisis as you sit at the dinner table eating leftover turkey tetrazzini while your annoying stepkids are arguing over who gets to pick the Sunday night movie.

Maybe you just got a flat tire in a gang-ridden neighborhood at 1 AM and you can’t call for a tow truck because your phone is dead.

Or maybe you are about to perform for 9 people in a cavernous room in Sioux Falls, South Dakota.

You can’t stop the racing thought from pounding against your temples. HOW DID I GET HERE?

The rewards of performing in small towns are often abundant. Traveling to these places can be difficult so when entertainers decide to visit, the crowds are often filled with gratitude. If I’m performing in Chicago, I am one of a thousand things you could do with your evening. There are baseball games, hip-hop concerts, fifteen other comedy shows, biracial speed-dating events; you name it. But in a smaller market, you are often the best option. So people come, excited to see that guy they once saw on TV.

After three wonderful days in Las Vegas, doing shows and hanging with awesome friends, I took a red-eye flight, with a layover, to Sioux Falls. Having never been to the Dakotas, I was stoked to be in a novel place where I could sling my comedy to hoards of hungry fans. Traveling keeps me present. Every moment is brand new. My antennae are up, signaling and processing all of the new information that is flooding into my brain.

The trip started off a little rough. The promoter had forgotten to book me a hotel until the day before I arrived. Thanks to a massive rodeo and the city’s Comic Con, rooms were scarce. I ended up at a motel that hadn’t been remodeled since Johnson was president. Fine. It’s one night. I’ll barely be in it.

My show wasn’t until 9 PM so I spent the day exploring the city. On the road, I wander the streets, soaking up what the city has to offer. Sioux Falls is quaint, adorable, and has that classic midwestern charm that you miss when you live in a city like Los Angeles. People say hello to you without bothering you for drug money. It’s endearing. A pleasant change considering no one is asking me for change.

I decided to hit up Siouxper Con (Clever name!). Comic books are not my bag but I love immersing myself into a culture that is not my own. For the fans, this is their Burning Man. They are dressed in incredible costumes, celebrating what they love with like-minded individuals. This weekend is proof that they are not alone in their weirdness. They are a part of something so much bigger than themselves. It’s beautiful to see anyone in their element. I strolled through the booths, marveling at their costumes. Some I even DC’d. Get it? I watched a semi-pro wrestling event and cheered as loudly as anyone for a contender that looked surprisingly like me. I’ve smoked DMT and now watched someone pull off a DDT. Both of them transported me to a different world.

Now it’s time for the show. I take a lyft to the venue, a super cool gastropub with a large performance space. Looking at the stage, I know this is a place I can thrive. Even in big rooms with high ceilings, my energy will fill the space and make it feel intimate.

I was told there would be at least fifty people at this show, probably more. That’s why I did it. I was working off a door deal which means that I get the money from the tickets that are sold. Cool. This should be a good payday even if it is on the low end of what they told me. NOPE.

As we got closer to showtime, almost no one was in the venue. I quickly realized this evening was going to be a bust, financially and creatively. “Fuck me” was the resounding feeling. Now in this situation, I will never take it out on the crowd. Those nine people showed up and I have to give them the best show I can possibly muster.

Before I go on stage, I tell myself; “Have fun up there. Whatever it takes. Enjoy yourself.” And I did. While not an ideal situation, I can only control the circumstances that have been placed before me. I poured my heart out to that handful of patrons, leaving it all on the stage. I can happily say that the people there enjoyed themselves, but even still, there was an overwhelming feeling of emptiness and failure trickling throughout my body.

You can easily lose yourself in a situation while it is happening. Once I got back to the roadside shack they called a hotel, that’s when my positive mindset was truly tested. “Why do I do this to myself? When will it get better? How many years will I struggle with obscurity?”

As many as it takes. This is the life I have chosen for myself. A traveling vagabond slinging jokes to whoever will listen. There are nights that are incredible. Sold out shows with hundreds of people. There are also nights like this, when my resilience has to permeate the negative feelings that are doing their damndest to make me hole up and quit.

I know this is simply part of the journey. Shows like this could derail my mentality, but instead I go the other way. I use them to learn what I can do differently. How can I improve my marketing? How can I ensure that when I go to a new city, people will show up regardless of whether they have heard of me or not? I have to do this all over again in Fargo, North Dakota tomorrow. All I can do is believe that the circumstances will be better. Fargo and Forget.

I’ll continue to push forward. One crappy night in Sioux Falls is still better than every night I spent in the hospital dealing with cancer and sepsis. At least this shoddy shithole didn’t have machines that kept beeping every six minutes.

I don’t know if I will ever return to Sioux Falls but if I do, the situation will be different. Nothing will stop me from getting everything I want.

Every experience is here to teach us. It is our job to accept the lesson. My takeaway from this evening: I should have become an amateur wrestler.

Being Patient is Sick!

How much of your life do you think you spend waiting?

I am often punished for being punctual. While I strategically plan to land at my destination at the agreed upon time, many others do not extend this courtesy. The excuses travel down the conveyor belt at a furious pace. I’ve heard it all.

Sorry, there was traffic.

I had to pick up my Lexapro and the line at the pharmacy was insane.

My father was found naked, wandering the streets, yelling out the name of his dead wife, so I had to bail him out of jail. Anyway, should we start with some egg rolls?

In the past year, I’ve spent countless hours of my life in waiting rooms. What a privilege. A whole room designed for me to sit quietly, watching precious seconds of my life flicker away at a snail-like pace. When you’re sick, this becomes reality. Appointment times be damned. The doctor will see you whenever she fucking feels like it. What are you gonna do? Cure your own cancer?

This is why they call you “the patient.” It is a word that transcends its usage because when you break it down, it is so much more than a name for an individual that needs care. They are telling you what you need to do. BE PATIENT. We will get to you as soon as we know that we have screwed up your plans for the rest of the day.

Tom Petty was right. Maybe not when he was shooting up large doses of heroin in an attempt to freefall down into nothing. I’m referring to when he said “The waiting is the hardest part.” We are often told how long we will wait for something. The human brain has evolved to be adept at dealing with torture when we know there is a timestamp on how long it will last. If you tell me fifteen minutes, a switch goes off that allows me to relax, knowing this particular period will last as long as brewing a strong cup of coffee.

But when that time has elapsed, and we still find ourselves in limbo, it is a maddening experience. The foot taps become rapid. An itch creeps into our skin. The clock is laughing hysterically knowing that while the rest of the world is moving along, you are temporarily sequestered in a state of desire, boredom, and frustration.

And there is nothing you can do about it.

Patience has never come naturally to me. I’m a delightful mix of stubborn and energetic, neither of which serves me in the waiting game because linear time doesn’t care about either. Of all the lessons I’ve learned from cancer, one of the most important was to slow down. When you are forced to wait, enjoy the downtime. Close your eyes. Deep breaths. Smile.

Beating cancer was a relief. While it pushed the limits of my body, it also tested my patience. The endless calendar of appointments was excruciating. I was pissed at these cancerous cells for swelling up my lymph nodes without permission. Consent is mandatory. But the real rage came from how they intercepted my time. Most people don’t tell you this but along with all the other bullshit, cancer is inconvenient.

The years it takes off of your life are not at the end. They are RIGHT FUCKING NOW. Cancer doesn’t care that you are supposed to be finding yourself at Burning Man, coaching your daughter’s soccer team, or studying for your master’s degree. You have to do what it says. Otherwise, it will obliterate your timeline all together.

An unexpected sensation came along with eradicating my cancer. I felt like I should immediately reach all of the high-level objectives that I have been working towards. “Look, everyone! I’m healthy. I’m strong. Now cast me as a series regular on your animated series and sell out all of my shows!” I went through a traumatic, painful, and terrifying experience which means every tree I’ve ever planted should fruit immediately. I’m ready to receive it!

Sounds reasonable, right? Sure, but that’s not how the world works.

It took me a couple of months to shed that attitude. Like my eczema-laden skin, it flaked off a little bit each day. I don’t shame myself for wanting to get on the express train as I steer myself toward my goals, but thinking that cancer was going to expedite the process is preposterous.

It’s going to take years of processing what I went through before I truly understand how it will propel me forward. By continuing my work as a comedian, relating this experience to others, the trees will sprout branches that reach far beyond what I could have imagined. Keep tending the garden. The flowers will blossom when they are ready.

Gandhi said, “To lose patience is to lose the battle.” He may have been hallucinating from a lack of food but the statement still rings true. I never thought that becoming a cancer “patient” is what would finally teach me the true meaning of that word.

My career will continue to build and along with it will come everything that I am meant to have in this lifetime. A family. A house. A life-size sculpture of pugs playing tennis. I will keep chiseling away at the marble every single day until I have sculpted a unique and beautiful piece of art. You can’t force it. All you can do is work hard, believe, and be patient. Eventually it will come harder than a celibate priest having a wet dream about an underage boy.

All that being said, if you make me wait when we are meeting up for dinner, you’re picking up the check.

37 Tried to Kill Me. Your Move, 38.

It was Easter morning, 2023. Sitting around a table eating brunch with my wife and her family, which of course is now my family as well. My sister-in-law Holly looked at me and in a soft voice said, “it’s really good to have you back, Alex.”

 I had been out of the hospital for over three months so her statement seemed misplaced.  I asked her to elaborate. 

“We didn’t know if we would ever see this version of you again.” That simple statement has been tattooed on my brain ever since. This version. Fun. Silly. Energetic. Illuminated.

When I look back at the last 12 months, almost every day should be forgotten. In my mind, I have skipped directly from 36 to 38. You could call it a series of unfortunate events but that doesn’t do it justice. That’s like referring to the Oklahoma City Bombing as a bad day at work at the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building. 

Since the moment I turned 37, my life had flip-flopped. The cancer was already inside of me yet we didn’t know exactly what type. All we knew is that it was CANCER. Four months ago, Lauren and I had gotten married on a picturesque beach in Punta Mita, Mexico. We had been together in some form or another for 18 years by then. When we finally made our love official, boom! C-word. For someone who prides themselves on their timing, I rushed the punchline without giving the audience a beat to process the setup. 

The next three months were excruciating. Constant visits to specialists. The testing included blood work, MRIs, CAT and PET scans, bone marrow aspirations, etc. Something is seriously wrong and nobody can tell me what. I became lethargic and unmotivated. The unknown is far more scary than reality.

Finally, we had our answer. Stage 3 Hodgkin’s Lymphoma. How loud can a person mentally scream “FUUUCCKKKK?” While it was disheartening, it gave me comfort when the doctors told me they knew how to treat it. My prognosis was good. 

I could bore you with more details of chemotherapy but honestly, you can look at previous blogs if you need that story. The onslaught of misery and pain had begun. Everything was going swimmingly, until one day, it wasn’t. Something was horribly wrong with me and I was too confused to realize it. Luckily my wife saw right through my incoherent stare. She took me to the emergency room. 

When I entered that hospital on November 17th, completely delirious, I had no idea that I wouldn’t emerge for 33 days. Cancer was still in me. But now I had a much bigger foe: Sepsis. The surgery to install my chemo port in my chest had caused an internal infection. An invisible murderous bacteria that was hellbent on putting me into my forever dirt nap. 

Turned on yet? How about a heart vegetation, multiple embolisms, a spleen abscess, and edema. My body swelled up 25 pounds because water wouldn’t drain from my tissues. For the first two weeks, I was bedridden. I was in so much pain that I couldn’t even roll myself over.

Doctors told my wife and family to brace themselves for the worst. My body had declared war on itself.  I was a civilian, caught in the crossfire. Eventually I was well enough to do physical and occupational therapy. One step at a time. Literally. My therapists treated me with the fragility of a 90-year-old cripple. I was a long way from the slacklining, tennis playing, ambulatory person I had worked so hard to be. 

To make matters worse,I had to have my knee operated on because it wasn’t draining properly. Another surgery. Was I worried? I’m in here because of the last one so I wasn’t exactly walking on sunshine at the thought. Fuck, I was barely walking on anything. Four more days while I watched colored liquids drain through a series of tubes sticking out of my leg. 

 If all of that wasn’t enough, while I was infirmed, my dad died unexpectedly. Not completely, he was 79 so at that age, anything can happen.  I could barely mourn the death because I had to primarily focus on my own survival. I still haven’t fully processed the fact that he is gone. He was my biggest fan. He loved hearing stories of my adventures. No one understood better than him how dedicated I am to not only my craft, but having an amazing life. He doesn’t believe in the afterlife and neither do I so I can’t even say he’s in a better place. He’s simply gone.

There’s more tragedy. But some of it is too painful and personal for me to reveal here. In time, I’ll talk about these instances. If all of this isn’t enough already, you have a level of sadism that should be studied.

I’ve thought a lot about this past year. It lasted forever and somehow it felt like seconds. 37 was not the magical year I had envisioned. So many times I thought I had hit bottom only to learn I was still in the shallow seas being dragged toward the Marianas Trench. Hit after hit. I was strapped to a wall being bludgeoned by a never-ending train of trauma. I’m a good person who leads with love. I strive to make others feel good about themselves. What did I do to deserve this?

Nothing. That’s the answer. No one deserves this. Well, maybe Andrew Tate and Donald Trump and…nevermind. I don’t have enough time to keep listing monsters. The point is this:  it’s not about what happens to you.

It’s how you react.

Looking back, I am a very proud boy. Dammit. Remember when we could say that and it didn’t mean you were a nazi?

I handled my cancer with courage. I was transparent and allowed others in on the journey. I constantly cracked jokes and turned the darkest moments into hilarious material. Making strangers laugh while I had a noticeable PICC line in my arm was the biggest challenge I’ve ever faced as a comedian. These people paid for babysitters, came to laugh, and now they are staring at someone with cancer. I’m sure many thought, “we should have gone to the movies.”

I did it for myself. I needed to take ownership of the situation. I have been told many times that my approach helped others who were going through similar struggles. I alleviated my own fears by sharing them with the world. I could have switched from a beacon of positivity into a dismal sack of hopelessness. Yet, I didn’t. I found myself bitter at times and checked myself. I can’t change what happened. There’s a reason why the front windshield is bigger than the back. Move forward.

Those 33 days in the hospital were the most painful of my entire life. Even when I got out, I could barely move. Everything hurt. I was on intravenous antibiotics for almost a month, attached to a fanny pack that kept reminding me: YOU ARE SICK. YOU ARE WEAK. But every day when I woke up, I did more than the recommended physical therapy. I made it my job to rehabilitate my body and mind. I listened to “Unstoppable” by Sia hundreds of times. Goddamn, that woman can infiltrate my psyche with empowerment. I got my meditation schedule back on track. With every painful step, I kept telling myself, “This is temporary. This is not your life. This will all be a fever dream if I keep doing the work.” 

I always knew I could bounce back. I kept journaling almost every single day. Most of it was goal-setting, positive affirmations, visualizations, manifestations. I kept track of how I felt and if I look back at the first entries of the year, I recognize how far I’ve come. I was hours away from death, unable to move, completely detached; and now I am literally climbing mountains. My wife and I spent two weeks traveling around Japan where I headlined a show and judged a Japanese Roast Battle. To answer your question, it was in English. I taped a set with Comedy Central where I made fun of my cancer. I’m not hiding from it. I’m using it. I will use every ounce of struggle for personal gain. I will not allow any of my misery to control who I am supposed to be. 

I thought 37 was a year to forget. Now I realize, it may have been the most pivotal year of my entire life. I was forced into lessons that I may not have ever taken the time to learn. I was the hare, running as fast as I could hoping to get to a finish line. Now I’m the tortoise. Methodical. Paced. Able to look around and shove my face in the fragrant, vibrant flowers while still knowing, I have plenty of time to win. Allergies to pollen be damned. I will smell those fucking lilies. 

While trying to burn me to a pile of ashes, all of this ignited a fire inside of me that cannot be extinguished. I am inflamed and it’s not just from my eczema.  I did everything I could to not only get back this version of myself,  but to shed my outer shell and have a complete metamorphosis. I was already a butterfly. But this winged-insect has turned into a fucking eagle. I have proven to myself that through the absolute worst pain, both physical and emotional, you cannot take away my spirit. I am meant to spread love, give joy, and make people laugh until they can’t breathe. None of it was easy, but it was necessary. 

With all of that behind me, I am here to say: Come at me, 38. Show me what you got. I’m ready for every single moment.

Time To Excavate

Brand new suit: Check. 

Fresh haircut: Check. 

Sixty of the people I love most: Check. 

Woman of my dreams: Check. 

Extra cells growing uncontrollably in my body: Check. 

Fuck. What was that last one?

It was one of the biggest days of my life. The Punta de Mita ocean breeze wisped through my hair on this insanely perfect evening.  All of our guests are laughing, crying, and everything in between as we pronounce our love for each other. This wasn’t just any wedding. It was almost twenty years in the making and everyone there knew it. But one attendee was there who was not on the guest list. No one saw or heard them. They were hiding in the shadows waiting to upend our lives. 

As I said, “I Do”, the cancer inside my body repeated the sentiment. I wouldn’t know for four months that I had Stage 3 Hodgkin’s Lymphoma, but Hodgy (my cute nickname for it) used that time to throw a giant party. His goal wasn’t to rage: he wanted to destroy the venue. The aftermath would be very expensive. As the cleanup crew of doctors found more issues, the bill continued to grow.

I often look back at the time before I was diagnosed. I was having one hell of a year. In March, Fifteen of my friends and I ravaged our way through Las Vegas on a 36-hour bender filled with dancing, delicious food, lavish hotel rooms, and incredible drugs. It was the bachelor party I always wanted. My nose hated me. 

Sin City to Decompression City. I flew from Vegas straight to Alaska to spend a few days with my brother and his wife. They live in a pristine environment outside Denali National Park. The contrast of being in the center of debauchery and then 20 hours later arriving in a snow-filled wonderland was exactly what I needed. I spent the next four days expelling the drugs from my system as I skied, ate fresh moose, and snorted fresh, freezing air directly into my nostrils. They were ecstatic to have a break after the landslide they were put through in Las Vegas. I ended that week by doing sold-out shows in Wasilla and Anchorage, the perfect cap to a monumental run of pleasure.

It didn’t end there. Less than a month later, my (soon to be) wife and I would live it up for 10 days in beautiful Puerto Vallarta. Five days with family and friends and another five by ourselves at the most posh resort I had ever experienced. To say it was amazing would be an understatement. Shout out to the poolside violinist who made every bite of ahi tuna that much sweeter.  It was only April and I was crushing life harder than a Midwest slaughterhouse. Sorry for the visual if you’re vegetarian or vegan. 

May reigned in two of our favorite festivals: Desert Hearts and Lightning in a Bottle. Lakeside illuminated temporary paradises meant to stimulate every part of your brain. These weekends were adorned with wonderful music, rainbow clothing, and the silliest humans on the planet.

I wasn’t only partying. I was producing. I released my second full-length comedy album and on top of that, a techno song that I created with my friend Sacha. I was in the crowd multiple times when a DJ played the song and to be part of the crowd as they got hyped was something I’ll never forget. On top of that, I was headlining shows all over the country at clubs I had never played before.  I was killing it on all fronts.  My life was like a bowl of Lucky Charms: Magically Delicious.

How did I get here?

Let’s rewind. When I was 17, I hated life with a passion. Terrible skin, horrible depression, and an inner rage that reared its ugly face as often as possible. The world was against me so I would make it my mission to make everyone around me as miserable as I was. I told my parents that I would be homeless and didn’t care about the consequences. Working towards a goal was unfathomable and inhabiting that level of unhappiness in your formative years? A happy life was so far away it might as well be on another planet. 

But under that Mars-like skin, something else was brewing that I couldn’t yet see. Potential. No one knew it was there because it was buried beneath the violent emotional outbursts that influenced my relationship to the world around me. When the entire universe feels like it is squashing you into oblivion, it’s impossible to consider a life filled with love and laughter. 

I don’t have time to go into how I changed or why and honestly, it doesn’t matter. My story won’t be yours and the methods I found to do a 180 are too plentiful to explain. What matters is that I did it. I had no idea that I could use the profound energy flowing through me to help instead of hurt. The potential was always there. I simply had to find a way to harness it.

Fast forward to now. The cancer is exactly the same. I had no clue it was there as I was living a fantastic version of life. I was going 100 mph on a highway with no roadblocks, preparing to break ground in my career and begin a family with my wife. If you put a beat behind those two sentences you could easily transform it into a hip-hop track. I never saw Hodgy until he jumped in front of my car, splaying himself across the windshield.

Thanks to this loser of a guest, my life has reverted to how I felt as a child. Constant doctor visits, new medications, a pause on many of the ways I express myself. It was a time when happiness was only felt in fleeting moments that would skitter away like bugs on a pond. I can’t do live comedy.  I can’t travel. I can’t play tennis or walk on a slackline. I had the worst hospital experience of my life and trust me, that’s saying a lot. I had worked so hard to build a life that even I was inspired to live, and now these radically dividing, uninvited cancerous cells are threatening to strip me of everything I’ve achieved.

But I am not my teenage self. The rebellion is still there and I’m thankful it is because that is what makes me an excellent creative. I learned how to use my stubbornness to my advantage. Angry Alex isn’t dormant. He’s dead. 

I flipped my emotional state once, which means I can do it again. When I was a struggling teenager, I had no idea that one day I would be on stage with the same comedians I was currently watching on TV. I didn’t know that people would recognize me in public and actually be excited to meet me. I didn’t know that joy would stick to me like a fly in a glue trap. What’s with all these insect references?

This isn’t any different. Right now I’m sick. Sick like pulling a quadruple backflip on a motorbike. Fucking sick, bro! But one thing that hasn’t changed at all is my POTENTIAL. There is no medicine on Earth that can cure that. I’ll beat the fuck out of this cancer like a drunk redneck beating up his underage girlfriend. OK, maybe I should go back to analogies about bugs.

My point is, even when you’re at your lowest, when it seems like nothing will ever go right again, when all hope has been abandoned, underneath the surface, you still have potential. It may have snuck into minuscule cracks but it’s still holding space inside of you. You just have to excavate. You may get lucky and it shoots out of you one day like a rocket, but most likely it will take two things: Time and Patience. Uggghhh. I know. 

Don’t be afraid to dig. Like those miners in Jurassic Park that discover the mosquito embossed in amber,  You never know what you’ll find that will change your life. Thank god we ended on a bug reference and not some vicious mention of domestic abuse. Whoops. Sorry. Sometimes I just can’t help myself.

33 Days in Hell

Phew! That was a close one. If you’ve been following my journey, you know that I’ve been swinging my dick at a super posh palazzo in Sicily. I almost didn’t come home considering I was surrounded by incredible artwork, delicious pasta, and an endless array of Aperol Spritzes. It was paradise.

Wait. No. Scratch that and reverse it. I was not in Italy. I spent 33 days at Hollywood Presbyterian Medical Center, which, unless you are an unhoused human, is the furthest thing from a resort vacation. Yup. One month in an East Hollywood hospital. Completely unexpected. In speaking to a few friends, I learned that most people have never been in a hospital overnight, let alone for the entire length of a menstruation cycle. So I figured I’d relay my experience and let you know what it’s like to be out of the moving world for that amount of time. Period. 

By early November, I was blasting through my treatments for Stage 3 Hodgkin’s Lymphoma. My oncologist was already telling me that he could probably scrape off a cycle or two if my body kept responding in such a positive way. I was doing a ton of standup, kicking ass on the tennis court, and experiencing minimal side effects. I appeared to be so healthy, audience members at my shows were questioning if I even had cancer. 

“Is this all for a bit?” I was asked that countless times because when people hear the “C” word, a picture goes through their minds. It isn’t a person on stage making them laugh. I’m not strapped to a chair, frail and weak, dozens of tubes running into every vein of my body. I’m not closing my shows by puking into a bucket, even though that could be hilarious in the right circumstances. I’d be like Gallagher. Front row is the splash zone so grab your raincoats, everyone. 

Other than not going on the road, almost nothing in my life had changed at all. Until it did. Without going into full detail, a few days after treatment #4, I developed an internal infection. At first, I thought it was fatigue from the chemo. But one night, things took a turn for the worse. My wife knew something was very wrong and with a couple of close friends, they got me out of the apartment and to the Emergency Room. I was confused, didn’t know my own name, and was immediately triaged to the front of the line. Take that, Woman with a Broken Arm! I’ve got celebrity status.

The next few days are a blur. It was mid-November and as everyone prepared for the approaching holidays, I was met with a team of new doctors who visited me like I was The Candyman. The fun one who distributes sweets, not the terrifying one who shows up and kills you when you say his name in the mirror. I learned that I was about 24-48 hours away from death which looking back, is absolutely terrifying. I haven’t even picked out a crematorium! Score one for my wife and friends for responding as quickly as they did or that would have been a wrap on Ol’ Crusty over here. (Don’t ever call me that).

No one told me how long I would be in the hospital and as days turned into a week, I began to get restless. I learned that my infection had spread and I had suffered a litany of internal ailments because of it. Thanks to lifelong terrible eczema (it’s not a sunburn), my body and I have always been in a dance. This time it flat out told me: I’m sitting this one out. 

Week one passed with no sign of when I would emerge from my cave. As someone who loves being outdoors, not being in the sun had a serious effect on my mental state. For the first couple of weeks, I was too weak to leave my bed. I had lots of visitors who were eager to see me and family/friends alleviated me from going batshit crazy. Even still, laying down 24/7 made it impossible for me to enjoy my life. 

There are other factors as well. I was drugged up to reduce pain and swelling, but also needed constant antibiotics, which had to be changed every couple of hours. I was woken up at 6 AM each morning to do blood work. I estimate over the course of my stay I was pricked no less than 200 times. I called them The Excavators because they would often miss my vein due to the swelling and have to dig around until they found one. All this before the sun came up. 

Uninterrupted sleep became impossible. Machines are constantly beeping and if it isn’t yours, it’s someone in the room next to you. This isn’t the Four Seasons. Doors are always open which means you hear conversations from your ailing neighbors, many of whom are not doing well upstairs. I switched rooms three times due to different needs, but somewhere on my admission application I must have checked a box that said “Room Preference: Next to Screaming Guy.”

Nurses told me this was typical for winter. People use the hospital to escape the cold for as long as they can. I know I can be annoying but at least I’ve never thrown a plate at a nurse while calling them an uncaring bitch. No matter what, I was always kind and grateful. I would constantly let the medical and cleaning staff know that I was grateful for them. Some of them would even slip me extra pain meds as a thank you. Hello hallucinations!

Being in the penitentiary, I mean hospital, for 33 days, means you are eating that food the whole time as well. For the first two weeks, I was on a “no solids, minced food” diet. Everything was pureed sludge and it tasted like nothing. No seasoning, not even on Thanksgiving. It was brutal. I never thought I would despise mashed potatoes but try eating them for a month straight and you’d just as soon shove them up your ass than put them in your mouth. Eventually, as my situation improved, I was upgraded to almost real food. It was better, but marginally so. It was still cheap powder sculpted into what looked like a piece of chicken. 

The combination of food and constant meds wasn’t helping my bowels. At one point, I had gone 7 days without pooping. I wasn’t eating much, but it was enough that I should have been pushing something out the back door. Presenting: My First Enema! For those of you who get queasy, feel free to skip the following paragraph.

The nurse told me I would have anywhere from 2-15 minutes after the enema before everything inside of me would escape. At the time, I could hardly shift from side to side. Getting out of bed and to a commode with a time limit scared me, but I knew it was the only option. She took the bottle, shoved it up my butt (told you I was basically in prison), and squirted about 15 ounces into me. Did I enjoy it? Yes, you sick fuck. I did. But then reality hit. I need to get to that bedside commode; fast. As painful as it was, I made it there in about 90 seconds and I had zero time to spare. As soon as my butt hit the plastic, the process began. The potion didn’t have much time to break it up, so while this poop was relieving, it was also extremely painful. Try to squeeze a basketball into a golf hole. That’s how it felt. 45 minutes later, I was back in bed, and ready for all the intravenous pain medicine they were willing to pump into me. It felt like I let the whole cell block take me to pound town. 

IF YOU SKIPPED THE LAST SECTION, WELCOME BACK! 

Most days I had to endure some type of procedure. 3 MRI’s, 5 ultrasounds, 4 CT scans. Due to the edema (swelling) of my entire body, these were very painful experiences. I had to be completely still while my legs and arms were twisted into unnatural positions. In more than one of them, I cried for over an hour as the machines took pictures of my insides. I did anything I could to think of happier times, but nothing worked. My tolerance for pain was being tested on a daily basis. 

Two and half weeks in, I began physical and occupational therapy. Finally, I leave my bed. At first, it was only a few steps, but by the end of the first week, I was using a walker and going down the entire hallway. A long way from smashing balls on the tennis courts but progress nonetheless. I was advised by nurses to not do “too much” because insurance would see it as me ready to leave the hospital, when in fact, I was not. Mentally I could have danced the cha-cha straight out the goddamn doors but physically, I was still dealing with the infection and overall weakness. So alas, escape was still on the horizon.

PT and OT were nice breaks from my days of watching TV. Because of the drugs, I couldn’t maintain the attention it would take to read a book or write. My mind was there but my eyes were filled with those worm-like streamers that float by without a care in the world. I was constantly hallucinating but not in a way that caused existential thought. So when I would spend an hour climbing into a fake car or picking up bean bags on the ground, it took some of the boredom away. Plus, it felt great to move. It hurt like fuck, but I’m athletic by nature so even going up and down four steps was a way to let me know, this is all temporary.

On December 11, my dad unexpectedly died. Fuck. Me. I sat in my hospital bed and sobbed for hours, my wife by my side to soak up the tears with her love and sweater. Emotionally it was her loving embrace that consoled me but that crimson wool top absorbed most of the moisture. At that moment, it felt like my entire world was collapsing in on itself. Everything I loved about life, aside from the people, had fallen to shit. No comedy, no sunshine, no real food, no dad, and the new fucking crazy psycho next to me is the loudest one yet. It was 3.5 weeks in and I was ready to be OUT. 

I’ll be honest. Multiple moments I wished for death. I was ready to pay my tab and check out. But alas, that isn’t my style. This too shall pass. If a horrible sequence of events is stacking up at the same time, then surely an abundance of riches will shortly follow. Think positively and everything will be cool. I combatted every negative thought with a happy one. It was all I could do to not slam my head into the fucking beeping blood pressure machine. 

The day my dad died, I did get some good news. I was told that I would be discharged tomorrow. Thank the patron saint of whatever because my tears were turning my place of slumber into a waterbed. I went to sleep, thinking about joining the outside world. Only, it wasn’t my time.

The next day an orthopedic surgeon came in and told me my knee wasn’t draining properly. I would need minor surgery that would keep me in for another 5 days. I was crushed. Every negative emotion spilled out of me like a turned over 18-wheeler on the side of the highway. Whatever joy I had left had evaporated. My kind demeanor had been tested and I snapped at my wife in a point of desperation. She was there every day and I apologized profusely when she called me later. It wasn’t like me. None of this was. This is not my life.

Surgery went well and on day 33, it was time to leave. Nurse Aleesha pushed me in a wheelchair toward the parking lot and I carefully and painfully, climbed into my wife’s car. BYE ALEESHA. I cried the hardest I’ve ever cried. The weight of this ordeal was hitting me. It was beautiful outside and I was elated, enthusiastic, depressed, deprived, confused, etc etc. Have you ever felt every emotion at the same time and your body was shaking because it didn’t know how to react? I can now say, yes, I have. I don’t recommend it. I had survived and I was going home.

As I write this, I’ve been out for 12 days. I’m attached to an IV bag 24/7 that is feeding me a constant stream of antibiotics. I need it for almost a month. It’s in a fanny pack and thanks to many years of festivals, I can rock a fanny. I’ve stopped using a walker and am hobbling around at the same speed as my 12-year-old pug. Progress. Every day brings new challenges and fortunately I am motivated to heal. Getting back to my daily routines is bringing me back to what it means to live a healthy life. I’m cooking my own breakfast, doing the dishes, pretty soon I might even have sex with my wife. She isn’t holding her breath.

Everything is a lesson and I’d be insane to not allow this to teach me. It has brought perspective on simple things. I never thought it would be difficult to poop. I never considered Taco Bell gourmet cuisine. I never realized that three continuous hours of sleep is a blessing. 

I pray that you never have to go through anything like this. But if you do, know that if I made it, so can you. I just hope that the crazy man is on a different floor.

The Scary Part of Cancer (It’s Not What I Thought it Would Be)

For most people, hearing a doctor say the words, “You have cancer” feels like the ultimate gut-check. It can send you spiraling into the catacombs of the darkest part of your brain. What did I do to deserve this? How did this happen? Who’s going to watch my kids when I have chemo? Should I stop eating banana splits for lunch? Questions are abundant and nonstop as you attempt to figure out how you will navigate your life going forward. Change is imminent and whether you like it or not, you are forced to confront one of life’s ultimate challenges.

For me, hearing those words, wasn’t a bomb going off in my face. Instead, I felt relief. 

In the five months leading up to the official diagnosis, I wasn’t myself. Lethargic, uninspired, and craving solitude became my norm. If you know anything about me, these are not in the top 100 words people would use to describe me. Try as I might, I couldn’t figure out what to do with myself and it was snaking its way into anxiety and depression that I hadn’t felt in years. I did all of my normal self-care practices but nothing was pulling me out of the depths of my own insecurity… 

That’s why I wasn’t shocked when I found out it was cancer. Knowing that it was physical meant that I could do something about it. With Hodgkin’s Lymphoma, even at stage 3, my prognosis is a 95% cure rate. This was wonderful news because instead of being in this bizarre state of limbo, I finally knew the foe I was up against. Let’s. Fucking. Go.

Today I had my 3rd round of chemotherapy. I’m scheduled for twelve treatments over six months to exorcize these invasive, replicating, unwanted cells. At this time, I’m forced to take a break from my usual life of traveling, partying, and cruising through the world like a whirling Dervish.

Most of my days are spent writing, meditating, reading, playing tennis, slacklining, and doing comedy shows at night. Sprinkle in a bunch of concerts and outings with friends and honestly I can’t help feeling like I retired at 37. To many people, this forced vacation sounds like a dream. Even with the cancer looming in the foreground, I’m living an enviable life. 

Here’s where it gets scary. At some point, my body will be cured of cancer. Yay! But wait. With that, this fantasy existence also comes to an end. Right now if I wake up and don’t feel like doing anything, that’s perfectly acceptable. I’m not being lazy; I’m healing! But once I’m back to 100%, there are no more excuses. I have to make decisions that move my life forward. 

I’d be lying if I told you dying hadn’t crossed my mind. Of course it has. It’s cancer, baby! The mere thought of me paying the check for this lifetime was appetizing because it meant I wouldn’t have to try anymore. Dead people can’t fail. I relished in the imagery of my friends, peers, and fans saying, “He was so funny. What could he have created if only that stupid illness never showed up?” The “what if” was so appealing to me. And here’s why:

The younger me pounced on ideas. If an inkling of a notion of a concept entered my psyche, I would put forth all of my efforts to actualize it. I wasn’t afraid of failure and because of that I thrived. I truly didn’t care what people thought of me. I always knew I would find my tribe. But with that, came a plethora of naivete. I was running as fast as I could with no clear goal other than to move fast and try not to slam into a wall. It worked in my favor because the stakes were low. I had a regular job that would pay my bills when comedy couldn’t. That’s no longer the case.

Becoming a professional automatically means that comedy is my business. It’s my life-raft that I’m slowly building out to be a luxury yacht. I can’t rely on other forms of income because right now, I don’t have a steady stream that isn’t directly related to me being an artist. Getting cancer was a sign that I need to slow down. But now that I’m getting better, my nuts are being slowly pushed closer to the fire. I can already smell the twisted, burning hairs. 

I could write another book. I could bring back my podcast or come up with another premise entirely. I could try and sell one of my pilots. I could sit back and hope that I land one of these voiceover auditions and my life in cartoons will finally begin. I could produce a live show. I could try to floss with gummy worms. COULD. COULD. COULD. The indecision that comes with all of these possibilities can feel both exciting and crippling. Whatever I do, I want it to work. I want this cancer to accelerate my career as opposed to hindering it. 

And that’s why it’s so terrifying. People believe in me and that has led me to believe in myself. Or maybe it’s the other way around. Whatever. Soon I won’t have an excuse for why I’m not doing anything with my time. Many survivors say that getting to remission gave them a renewed lease on their life. Finally, they are living for themselves and checking off that bucket list one by one. Skydiving, visiting Morocco, eating a scorpion. Fuck it. I’m alive!

For me, this prognosis is a ticking clock. As I inch closer toward my goal of eradicating cancer, the true fear sets in. How do I set myself up for longevity in a career filled with cautionary tales? How do I not get lost in the shuffle when everyone is screaming on top of their own soapbox? How do I not feel like I’m losing time when everyone else is advancing?

I’m writing this rhetorically, but also hoping that it opens a magic chamber, revealing the answer within. I can’t continue to make the same mistakes. I can’t blindly accomplish tasks with the anticipation that everything will work out simply because I’ve worked hard and have been kind. I need a project that will not only sustain me, but elevate everything I’ve built in the past 14 years. I need to use this cancer to push me further into success. If I don’t learn from it, what good did it do?

Cancer isn’t scary. Figuring out my life after it’s gone? Yikes. Only time will tell how I navigate those rivers. I know I have it in me. I deserve the life that I dream about. With every swollen lymph node returning to normal, it passes along the same message: Keep working on your boat.

A Love Letter To My Cancer

Hey Hodgkins Lymphoma,

I hope you’re having a fantastic summer inside my body. You’ve been traveling, growing, and truly discovering what you can become. Divide and conquer. The Roman Empire would be proud.

When I first learned that you were inside of me, I was angry. I spent a lot of time wondering why you chose me. I barely know you and yet you have decided to move into my body without paying rent (rude!) and siphoning some of the greatest parts of me. My positivity, my creativity, my energy; you came for all of it. Like a bandit moving through a small western town, you showed up and just started taking whatever you wanted.

I was livid. Confused. Depressed. I began pondering what I did to beckon you. I exercise, eat well, meditate, do breathwork, and donate to charity. I spread love on a daily basis by making people laugh. I’m the one who lifts people up and for some reason you made it your mission to drag me down. Again, rude.

Here’s the thing though, Hodgy. I’m not upset that you’re in me. I feel like I'm supposed to hate you but hate is not an emotion that aligns with my personality. I love everybody and everything which means…I love you, too. 

You have entered my body for a reason. Maybe it’s to make me realize that life is precious. That’s something I thought I knew but this has made me understand it even more. I believe that you are here to teach me numerous lessons that I could never have learned without you. 

I’m not even in treatment yet and already you are shoving your curriculum down my fat neck.

I thought I was good at letting go. Thanks to you I realize there are sneaky beavers building dams on my river without my permission. With your help, the force of my flow will be uninterrupted as I move forward. Sorry to all my furry splinter-chopping friends, but you’re going to have to find a home elsewhere. 

I found myself saying the word “should” many times over the past few weeks. I should be at Burning Man. I should have worked harder on my podcast. I should have ordered the salad instead of the fries. But “should” doesn’t get you anywhere. “Should” is for people who have regrets. I am not one of those people.

I’m learning that you can plan for the life that you desire but that those plans can be shifted in a moment’s notice. Being able to pivot is crucial to discovering how you react in any given situation. There are many things I want to do that will have to sit on the back burner for now. By releasing this energy, I know there will be new inspirations that will grow inside of me, hopefully even faster than you are growing inside my lymph nodes. 

I’ve known for many years that I am deeply loved by many but I gotta tell you, Hodgy, I had no idea the amount of amazing humans that would step up since I announced you had taken up residence in my body. You think you are at an All-You-Can-Eat Cell Buffet but the Health Inspector knows you are here and is about to shut down the restaurant for multiple violations. You don’t understand the amount of love that is shooting into me. I am being carried by the uplifting energy of thousands of people and every one of them wants to see you get taken down.

Some of that love, however, I am sending directly to you. Because even though I am grateful for all of the wonders that will emerge over the next year and I want to make sure you know how I feel, I also need you to know you have fucked with the wrong magical sprite. I have rainbow blood coursing through my veins and your time is unfortunately for you, limited. Enjoy it while it lasts, Hodgy. I don’t have cancer. My body does. My soul is as radiant as ever. 

You have strengthened my story. You have given my family, friends, peers, community, and fans an even greater reason to root for my success. My comedy will become more authentic, original, bold, and exciting. This will not only be cathartic for me but many others who have already been touched by you in some way. We are going to laugh. A lot. At you. By sharing my personal experience with others, you will find yourself struggling to take down the next person you enter. 

My light is forever brighter and that wouldn’t have happened in the same way without you. You’re truly a mensch.

In closing, please enjoy your stay at the Hotel Alex Hooper. It’s a majestic setting to unwind, relax, and spread your cancerous wings. Sorry not sorry for all the poison that will eradicate and exile you from my body forever. Please make sure you don’t use the pool after 10 PM, especially if you have had diarrhea in the past 14 days.

Much love to one of the most notorious assholes on the planet. Let’s enjoy our time together. 

Sincerely,

Alex

Bombs Away: A Comedian’s Bad Day at the Office

“We paid $100 for this shit?”

The man raised his voice as he spoke to ensure everyone in the room heard his words. Seconds later he stood up with his girlfriend and walked out. I was only 25 minutes into my headlining set. Needless to say, it was not going as swimmingly as I had hoped. 

I’ve been a standup comedian for 13 years. In that time I’ve performed thousands of times and most of them have been positive experiences. As a genuinely happy person, I want the audience to feel the same. Laugh your face off, sustain that feeling, and float out of the room when the show is over. This is supposed to be an escape from real-world problems. But in any profession, sometimes you’re going to have a bad day at work.

This past weekend I happened to have the worst set of my entire career.

In comedy, we call it “bombing.” Other terms in the vernacular include: eating a bag of dicks, taking a huge shit, and dying. No matter how you spin it, it is horribly uncomfortable for everyone involved. Imagine sitting on a sharp rod for an hour while increasing amounts of weight are added to your limbs, continually pulling you toward the ground while the pole digs in harder. Unless you’re a total sadist, it’s one of the worst feelings a person can experience. 

It’s Friday night in Dallas, Texas. I’ve been on the road for a week headlining venues in Arizona, California, Kansas, and Oklahoma. Every show had been excellent and they were all at clubs that I hadn’t played before. First impressions are important and between my sets and my ticket sales, I was having one hell of a little tour.

The early show was great. It took some shucking and jiving on my part to figure out exactly how to get the whole crowd on my side but eventually, I succeeded. Everyone walked out and wanted to take photos, buy merch, and thank me for a terrific evening. A natural high. My second favorite kind. Wink wink.

Let’s go, show number two.

Any comic will tell you that the late show on Friday is notoriously the worst of the weekend. The crowds are tired from work, usually drunk, and often they have received free tickets. Comedians despise this show. Personally, I enjoy the challenge. Maybe there’s a bit of sadist in me after all. Insert rod now. 

The crowd was small. Just shy of 30 people. Not an issue. I’ve had hundreds of shows with that size or smaller and I can always find a way to smash their chuckle buttons. Doesn’t matter that it’s already 11:15 PM. With 45 minutes of stage time, I will find a way to relate and unite this crowd. About ten minutes into my set, I realized something wasn’t connecting. 

“Don’t panic,” scrolls across a neon sign in my head.

Pivot the material. Try something else. So I did. And then again. And again. Jokes, crowd work, making fun of myself; absolutely nothing was hitting.

At a certain point, it felt right to admit it. I relayed to the small group of bored patrons that this was not how I wanted this to go. I am a people-pleaser and I want us all to walk out feeling lighter than when we came in. “I’ll get you,” I told them. 

Only I didn’t.

There were random laughs here and there but overall it was a deafening silence. If you can hear the air conditioner, it’s not going well.

As a group, they decided my comedy was not for them. However, I am a professional and I never give up. This would take relentless amounts of work to figure out how to salvage this show and I was ready to do anything. Then it happened.

A couple in the second row said, “Where’s Ralph?”

Ralph was the opening comic of the evening and he had just done 20 minutes before I got on stage. He did well and had laughs throughout his set.

That comment was meant to rattle me but I know better.

So I went into a joke that has been one of my killers for years. It essentially never fails. This time, it did.

The couple got up and walked out after making sure their disappointment was felt by everyone. The man said some other things that were odd flexes and as much as I hate to have anyone not enjoy the show, I was glad they left. “We paid $100 for this shit?” Yes, sir, you did. 

When I knew they were gone, I called them “rude c*nts.” Immediately, I felt awful. That’s not a word I use often but it’s what came to me at the moment. Using such a powerful slur did not help my cause.

The next half hour was as brutal as can be. It seemed that no one was having a good time, which is my personal nightmare. Everything slows down as an invisible wall is erected between performer and patron. 

53 minutes.

That’s how long I bathed in their stares. I pulled every trick out of my bag and none of them worked. I even invited people on stage to do some interviews/speed roasting and it was still met with apathy. 

In my opinion, an epic failure of performance. I never blame the audience when a show doesn’t go well. These same jokes have been crushing for weeks so I wanted to figure out why they suddenly weren’t getting laughs. 

I understand that not every crowd is going to enjoy my style of comedy. I like to make you think. I often go from A to C because I want you to fill in the gaps and connect the dots. But some people need A to B. Especially if they are tired and drunk. That’s not who I am and I will never play down the intelligence of a group of people. Come with me or don’t, but I won’t pander. 

Finally, the excruciation was over. 

I took a play out of Norm Macdonald’s book and instead of hiding in the green room, I stood at the exit with a smile on my face and personally thanked everyone for coming. It wasn’t easy, but it felt necessary to show that I was still grateful to them for being there.

A few people told me that they really enjoyed it but at that point, it was hard to appreciate the sentiment. When the last person was gone, I was incredibly relieved that it was all over. That rotten feeling, however, remained as strong as ever within my body. So I went out with the servers and poured different colored liquids down my gullet to forget about it. Shots on me, everyone!

The next day, I woke up in a garbage mood.

While I know that no comedian is ever immune from bombing, it had been over a year since I had anything close to this level of soul-crushing annihilation. I wanted to black out the windows in my hotel room and crawl under the blanket.

But I know better. Stewing in misery won’t help me break away from the stench of that show. Instead, I did the exact opposite. 

Self-care Saturday. I ate a healthy breakfast at a local cafe. I ran five miles while listening to my favorite songs. I did a breathwork session to flush out the negativity. 30 minutes of meditation. Wrote multiple pages in my journal. Called family and friends so I wouldn’t feel alone. Hit up comic friends to talk about it. I had to Taylor Swift this thing. It wasn’t a TV taping. It was a handful of strangers at a club in Dallas. SHAKE IT OFF (Taylor’s Version).

I decided to post about it on social media.

Transparency is important to me. Everyone has had a shit day at work and this happened to be one of mine. Sharing the experience was the right decision. I was flooded with hundreds of messages from friends, fans, and fellow comics. The positive encouragement was exactly what I needed. “Humility equals humanity,” commented one follower. So many beautiful people thanked me for being honest. This is a side of comedy most fans will rarely see. 

I can’t take a bomb like that personally. It’s difficult not to, but again, you can’t always please everyone.

Sometimes there are factors beyond your control. The best comics had lots of shows like this. Hedberg, Hicks, Norm, Kinison. Kinison often wouldn’t leave until he walked everyone. I only had two people leave. I guess I need to try harder.

With separation and perspective, I’m glad it happened.

Getting kicked in the face teaches you lessons. You can’t look good and get better at the same time.

Maybe 30 strangers didn’t enjoy me but since I exposed myself emotionally, thousands of people will now have a deeper appreciation for who I am as a person and performer. The tether between myself and my supporters has been woven even stronger than it was before. I call that a win. 

Saturday night, I had two shows in Fort Worth.

150 people at each one. I began my set by shitting all over Dallas and each time the room erupted with applause. I had two of the greatest shows I’ve had in a long time. Took lots of photos, gave out lollipops, and hugged as many fans as I could. Exactly what I needed to end my tour on a high note. Time to go home, cuddle my wife, and fuck my pugs. Wait. Strike that. Reverse it. Yikes. 

No one is immune from a bad day. It happens to everyone and you never know when it’s coming. How you handle it is completely up to you. If you know someone is having a rough day, share this with them. Sometimes we all munch on a bag of smelly, unwashed dicks. 

 Don’t give in to your demons. And if you’re doing a Friday late show in Dallas, please stay on your toes. 

If you want more a of peek behind the scenes of the life of a touring comedian — follow me, Alex Hooper, on Instagram, Twitter, and TikTok. On socials, I get vulnerable, silly, and frequently there are pugs. (