Try not to sweat my du-rag too hard…
Yesterday was my birthday! I turned 33. Which no matter how you look at it is better than the alternative. I’ve been on the road for about a week and half now so I spent the first part of my birthday in NYC and the second part in Hazelton, PA. I had a show in NYC on Wednesday nite and I was staying with my BFF Loren who lives in the city. It was sleeting and gross outside and I had to trek all the way across town and back in it. I hadn’t eaten anything all day so on the way back to her place after the show I stopped at the pizzeria on her corner to get a sandwich. The guy in line in front of me was buying desserts and I said I deserved a piece of chocolate cake too because it was my birthday. So the cashier gave it to me for free. SCORE! Who says New Yorkers aren’t nice?
I got back to Loren’s at about 11, jumped into my PJs and crashed on the couch. But at midnite she cued up Stevie Wonder’s “Happy Birthday” and we danced around the apartment til the song went off. Then she put a tealight on top of my cake and told me to make a wish! Pretty cool start to a birthday…
Yesterday afternoon I got up and drove to PA for a college show. After spending all afternoon on the road and then going straight to my show, I decided to find the nearest Applebees — there’s always an Applebee’s — and have a few birthday drinks. I ended up sitting at the bar where there was a great bartender named Nicole. We chatted for a bit and then a few minutes later this really nice guy named Brandon comes in and sits down next to me. The three of us ended up talking for hours about family, pets, our favorite books, and eventually our jobs…
Turns out Brandon is an amateur MMA cage fighter. Brandon “The Mixed Breed” Cruz. In the video below, he’s the one in the white shorts.
It was so cool talking to him about what it takes to make it in his industry. There were some similarities between his hustle to advance as a fighter and mine as a comic, but at least I don’t get pounded in the face on my bad days. For years I did (and often still do) comedy for no money. But I can’t imagine going thru something like this and there not being a check on the other end. Man that takes some serious dedication. And also some serious guts. If the test of how much we all wanted to achieve our goals was measured by our willingness to be pummeled inside a locked cage, I think we’d all — yes you too — look like quitters.
All in all I had a pretty good birthday.When I had a day job, I never worked on my birthday. In fact my co-workers used to laugh at me because I’d say it in the third person: “Erin doesn’t work on her birthday.” But now that I don’t get paid for my days off, working is the best kind of birthday gift I can give myself — the gift of mortgage. Hahaha.
Til next time…