Let Me Tell You Why I Hate Comics by Dustin Ybarra Edited by Al Bahmani

Let me tell you why I hate comics.

They can talk shit about you.

They can be assholes to you.

They can despise you for having a good set.

Some are bitter or insecure, and some won’t even look you in the eye when you meet them.

Here’s why I love comics.

Last week was hard. I had 4 college gigs in 5 days in 4 different states. That’s not why though. The first two gigs were great while the third in Philly was not. After Philly I had Cleveland. That morning I check into a hotel in this town that I’ve never been to before and I gotta say, I felt lonely.

I was already depressed about some other stuff but I was thinking about my set from last night and was bummed and was just in my head. I put a tweet out asking if anyone I knew was in Cleveland.

This comic Jim Tews, who I had met like twice before in New York was there. Nice funny guy, but we weren’t like best friends or anything. I give Jim my number to see if he wants to hang. Literally right after this, I get a call from my brother saying that my mom was in the ICU at the hospital for seizures. I could hear the severity of the situation through my brothers voice. Whenever I’m on the road one of my biggest fears is that something will happen to my family while I’m gone. I don’t know my dad so my mom means everything to me. I cried and was pretty hysterical.

Tim happened to call right then and I happen to answer the phone crying like a bitch. He said to get out of the hotel and go down to hilarities comedy club and hang out. He was in a wedding and couldn’t go out but he put me in contact with this comic Ramon Rivas who he said was cool and would also probably smoke me out too. I took the train to downtown to hilarities and was trying not to sob the whole way.

Whenever it’s your first time at a comedy club it’s very weird because you don’t really fit in and I’ve seen so many club owners go off on comics or make them pay to go in so I just tried to stay out of the way. I’m hanging outside the show room and this older dude comes up to me. He tells me the shows about to start. I introduce myself, tell him I am a comic and my gig wasn’t till tomorrow so I was gonna hang out here. I was ready for him to give me a bunch of rules, or make me pay, or tell me not to come by on a Friday. He didn’t though.

This guy, the owner, was nice to me, he told me to hang out and watch the show. He introduces me to Mike Winfield who I knew through a friend but was an awesome dude. He even got me a drink on the house. After the show I was hanging with the comics outside and we talked for hours. I didn’t want to go back to the hotel room and I didn’t have to because we talked pretty much all night. Ramon came by and we ended up hanging out all day and he did ten minutes on the college show the next day. This last week would have sucked so bad if it weren’t for this brotherhood of comedy that exist. My mom is okay now and that’s awesome.

I never blog or do stuff like this but this was a moment where I couldn’t be happier to be a comic and know comics.

Thanks

Dustin Ybarra is a Dallas native who is currently based in Los Angeles. He is both an accomplished stand up comedian and actor, you might remember him from his appearances in “We Bought a Zoo”, “The Goldbergs”, “21 and Over”, “Californication” & “Chelsea Lately”.

Reprinted with permission of Dustin Ybarra