📄 Transcript [show]
Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to another edition of Registered Ear Offenders.
Friday, December 21st, 2012.
With me as always is my co-host, Sal Rodriguez.
How the hell are you?
Thank you very much, Chris.
It's a very special time here at Skid Row Studios.
There's a lot of stuff going on.
We have some big announcements.
Some of our listeners have been asking, what is this announcement?
People from the Inland Empire have been asking.
We have been beating around the bush for months.
And here's a special announcement.
Skid Row Studios has reached an agreement with Extreme XM and we are now going satellite.
I don't believe it.
Registered Ear Offenders is going satellite, folks.
So right now we're pleased to say you're listening to Extreme XM 165 in collaboration with Skid Row Studios.com.
It has happened.
Yay!
After only four short months of grinding it out, we have been promoted, man, to what, a worldwide stage, would you say?
I have no idea.
I guess anything.
I think it just means we're reaching more people.
So hello, satellite listeners.
How are you guys?
Hey, listen, if you want to call in, you're welcome to 800-893-9562 is our number.
Unless you're listening to us on Extreme XM 165, at which time you are listening to a rebroadcast.
Oh.
So be sure to listen to our show, Registered Ear Offenders.
Every Friday, 1 p.m.
Pacific Standard Time on Skid Row Studios.com.
Also available on iTunes.
Yeah, that's right.
For free download on iTunes or like us on Facebook.
We're running short on likes.
I'll say.
So we might as well introduce or almost reintroduce ourselves to this Extreme XM 165 listener.
My name is Sal Rodriguez.
And I am Chris Z.
And we host a show called Registered Ear Offenders, REO for short.
Sal, tell them in a nutshell what it is that we do.
Okay.
We are two.
We are two regular guys who talk about our thoughts, our lives, our ideas, our triumphs, our disappointments.
We bear our souls to you.
We want you to relate to us.
We want to relate to you.
We want to communicate with you.
We are just two guys making our way in the world today.
Takes everything you've got.
How did that happen?
Yeah.
Sal and I are really open and honest about our trials and tribulations.
We're not two morning show monkeys.
We're not trying to impress anybody.
When we tell stories, they're true.
And some of them are so depressing.
Exactly.
And we are open and honest about the lows that we've hit and the occasional highs.
But unfortunately, it seems like we have more lows to pull from.
And we're both stand up comedians.
So there's a lot of lows there.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And we perform regularly in the Los Angeles, the greater Los Angeles area.
Sal and I have even toured together internationally in a couple of different countries for the USO, as has our guest for today.
And who is our guest for today?
Richard Villa.
This man is the cornerstone of the Latino comedy scene.
He's the most famous comedian in the Latino comedy scene in Southern California.
He makes me feel so Anglo.
I feel so Anglo.
You know, I see guys like Richard Villa and really, these guys, they're so amazing to me.
I mean, they're amazing.
They speak two languages.
Yeah.
I feel like such a loser.
I only speak English.
Richard is true to his roots.
He actually keeps a flask full of tequila at all times.
And then the flask is wrapped in leather.
Wow.
It's like a hoof from a farm animal.
That's...
Does he have a large belt buckle?
Does he have a very large belt buckle?
One time he actually choked himself out by leaning over because the belt buckle cut into his carotid artery.
But that's a while away, guys.
So in the meantime, Sal and I, we usually start the show by just kind of shooting the shit, telling you what happened to us lately, what's on our mind.
Today's no different.
I thought this was funny on the way here, on the way to the studio.
I'm coming off 6th Street off the 110 freeway in Southern, in Los Angeles, proper and perfect.
And there's a girl.
She got the sign at the intersection.
You know how they do.
They just stand at the corner and kind of ask for a change.
But I'm looking at this girl and here's the thing.
Her clothes are properly washed.
She does not look unclean.
She does not look unkempt.
I'm looking at her sneakers.
They're like high...
They're fashionable sneakers.
They're like they're hip, you know?
So I'm sensing something's wrong here.
And she had the act down, this kind of like, oh, I'm so ashamed to be asking for a handout to kind of look to her.
But I don't buy it, Sal.
I'm looking at her.
And here's the thing.
She was young and moderately attractive.
And as crass as this sounds, I have absolutely no sympathy for women who claim to be beggars because there is no more marketable commodity in this world, never mind this country, than being an attractive young woman.
Chris, you are a terrible man.
But you know what?
I speak the truth.
Why do you...
We've talked about this before.
Basically, like, okay, I say I will give to a beggar.
If they're really pathetic.
And there are some people out here that are pathetic.
I mean, they're missing limbs.
Yeah, in downtown Los Angeles.
They're filthy.
I mean, they are a mess.
And they'll qualify for my donation.
But you're saying that this woman did not qualify.
Absolutely not, Sal.
I was not convinced.
Here's the thing.
I remember a friend of mine, one of these kind of modern day feminists once saying to me that she will not give handouts to a homeless person because in this country, there's a wage inequality.
So imagine the idea of a woman giving money to a man who would be paid...
I mean, she would be paid more for doing the same job.
Here's an able bodied man.
And I guess there was some sense to that.
But conversely, if you're a young, attractive woman and you're in any kind of, you know, financial rock and hard place, go to a strip club for one month.
One month and you have enough money for a down payment on an apartment.
Even a bad stripper makes good money.
You have to be just a fuck up.
You know what you are?
You're a woman.
You're a woman who has dated jerk offs her whole life, has done whatever the fuck she wanted her whole life.
And one day just kind of ran out of people.
That's the only logical explanation for a young, attractive woman winding up on a street corner.
The views of Chris Z do not necessarily reflect those of Sal Rodriguez, Registered Air Offenders or Skid Row Studios or Extreme XM 165.
Sal, if I'm going to hell, I'm going down in flames.
I'm going in a handbag.
You know what I mean?
No, I gotta be honest with you.
I saw this family begging.
They were in a parking lot.
They were an entire family, a husband, a wife and three kids.
And they had not only a beautiful daughter, but a beautiful daughter.
I mean, she was exceptionally beautiful.
And you know, maybe he didn't have to be begging.
I see where you're going.
Maybe a wealthy benefactor could come along and help the whole family out.
I mean, this girl was a knockout.
Right.
Well, here's the thing.
I, you know, typically it's kind of considered like, oh my God, things got so bad for me.
I had to go.
I had to ask for handouts.
Is handouts any worse than engaging in an act of prostitution with a well to do individual?
I think what it boils down to for every individual struggling in the world today, and believe me, I know it's hard.
We know it's hard.
Believe me.
I know we're not there, but I think in the back of everybody's mind, in the back of every guy's mind is like, well, I could always rob a motherfucker.
I could always rob somebody.
I could always fucking bash them over the head and rob them.
And a woman can say, well, I can always become a prostitute.
Right.
Or any, or even if you don't even have to go that far, you can engage in kind of, you know, light acts, you know, light rated, are acts of prostitution, or like I said, a strip club, strip clubs have positions that you don't need to be in the strip clubs, use a white cocktail waitresses.
Um, I.
Here's another story you'll like about my family.
I understand my mother was a cocktail waitress at a strip club at one time in her early twenties.
I will tell you this.
There was a point when I was 19 years old where me and my buddies from South Florida, we used to go to the strip club so often that we actually got tired of seeing the strippers.
And at one point we kind of started like, we'd start talking about the waitress going, Hey, she's pretty.
You know, it's a shame that she's.
Look at that fully clothed woman over there.
I would like to meet her.
Our eyes actually drifted away from nudity because everything was there for the taking.
Nothing was left to the imagination.
And eventually we grew tired of that, which I guess spoke to the man's true nature.
It makes sense though, because when I was in the Middle East, I was in Qatar and at this bazaar in Qatar, I locked eyes with this woman in a burqa.
She was a young woman with her family and she was wearing the burqa.
All you saw was her eyes and we locked eyes, man.
We were staring at each other and we were kind of falling into each other until one of her aunts or sisters dragged her away very angrily.
I mean, hell, I could have been caned or shot or whatever they do to.
Instead, she was.
She was.
She was.
She was.
She was.
She was.
She was.
She was.
She was.
She was.
She was beaten.
Yeah, but I, you know, the less you see, then there is something to be said for the whole mystery of a woman's body.
If women were walking around naked, I mean, look at all these images we've seen of National Geographic over the years, where these women are walking around topless and the guys don't even look at them.
Yeah, imagine that.
Meanwhile, you're looking at them, they're so exotic with their, you know, their chocolatey skin or whatever, you know, but yeah, it really is about, really is about that lack of familiarity.
For me, familiarity has to be that.
has to be the greatest enemy of erotic stimulation.
Like if you've been with somebody too long, like you know you've been in a relationship too long, guys, if your girlfriend bends over like to pick up something off the floor, you don't even look.
Yeah, here's another one.
I won't say his name because I don't know if it's true.
I didn't hear it firsthand.
But the story goes about a very famous actor who's actually kind of back in the news now, who's well-known for engaging in prostitution, well-known for being a bit of a hedonist.
And the story is that when he was at the height of his initial fame break in the late 80s, he would actually go to Mexico because he could bang such attractive white women.
He could bang supermodels.
It was so commonplace that he quickly grew bored of it.
And he would go down to Mexico and bang raunchy hookers because for him, that was a new world.
That was eternal.
But why did he have to go to Mexico for raunchy hookers?
There are plenty of raunchy hookers right here in Skid Row or on Sepulveda in Van Nuys.
Yeah, that's a good point.
Maybe he didn't want to be seen as an A-list movie star.
Oh, got it.
No, you're saying he didn't want to say his name?
Yeah.
Well, say his name.
I don't know if it's true.
Is this public information?
Has it been on the internet?
Not that I'm aware of.
I know I heard this from a friend of mine.
But I just, I don't know.
I don't want to give somebody's name away.
I mean, if I knew it to be true, I'd gladly out him.
Chris is withholding information.
I'm kind of upset by this.
All right, well, here we're a couple minutes in, Sal, and we're already starting to run behind.
You know what?
Okay, here's where we're going to start with our first segment of the day.
It's called When We Peek.
This is when Chris and I talk about those times in our lives when things were at an all-time high.
Hope was at an all-time high.
Everything was coming up roses.
Everything was great.
And we recall those various instances in this segment that we call When We Peeked.
Chris, you go ahead.
Sure, thanks, Sal.
The year was 2002.
I lived in Orlando at the time, and I had applied and been accepted into the Orlando International Fringe Festival.
It was quite a coup for me as a young aspiring artist with absolutely no clout to his name.
So I got in there, and I wrote the show.
I spent months, I mean, hours a day working on the writing, and I put together this show.
And here's the thing about people.
They are sheep.
Even at an arts festival, I was very disappointed to see that people would always go to whatever show was being featured in the news.
Whatever show got the highest praise from critics, whatever show got the front page in the weekly, that's the show they would go to see.
Even at an arts festival where the whole point was to discover new art and new artists, it was a big deal.
So all week, I'd been barely scraping by with 10, 15, 20 people at best.
But I was happy to be there.
I was just thrilled to be performing.
So what happens, I get my best spot of the week happens to fall on a Friday night.
It's my last show of the run.
And I knew, I knew what shows were popular.
I knew what shows had been reviewed well, and I knew what shows were gonna sell out.
So I made a sign, like a sandwich board, advertising my own show, advertising my own ticket price, the start time, and everything else.
advertising my own show, advertising my own ticket price, And I literally accosted myself to start time and everything else.
What I did is I waited right by the entrance.
So when they were standing in line, trying to buy tickets to the other shows, and as soon as they called it and they said, I'm sorry, we're out of tickets, I immediately presented myself to these people with my big sign.
I said, guys, you came here to see the show.
You paid to park.
You were about to pay $8 to see this show.
Why not pay $3 to see mine?
Well, my ploy worked well.
So it was outstanding.
In fact, I had my first and only sold out show that Friday night.
And I was like, I'm gonna go to the show.
I'm gonna go to the show.
And I was like, I'm gonna get every single seat.
And by then we'd done the show about five, six times over the course of the week.
So we had it down to a science, you know, and we just got such huge laughs, man.
I mean, I wish I had it on tape.
To date, it was one of the best, single best shows I've ever done.
The crowd was hot.
They were laughing so loud.
Every joke worked.
Here's just a taste of it.
We had a sketch where at the end, this guy who was playing kind of like a drunk redneck, he would throw a beer over his shoulder, you know, like a natural light, instead of drinking, he throws it over his shoulder.
Well, we'd been using the thing and we'd been drinking the same beer all week.
And because of the tension and the pressure that had built up inside of it, that final night when he threw it over his shoulder, it blew up like a hand grenade.
I mean, beer went everywhere, easily 10 feet in the air, showered the audience, showered the performers.
Everybody loved it.
It got the biggest laugh of the night.
It was to date, one of the high points in my life.
It was a peak and I hope I'll never forget it.
That was Chris's, When We Peeked.
That does sound like a great time.
You don't have that on tape though, do you?
No, because- The camera I'd been using all week, mysteriously, inexplicably broke that night.
That could be like a greatest disappointment to end When We Peeked all in one.
My When We Peeked goes back to when I was about 14 years old and I used to hang out at the Panorama City Mall.
And I used to hang out with a group of gang bangers and a group of taggers.
And we would hang out there, we shoplift, and we would eat there and we would try to meet girls there.
So it was our hangout spot.
Well, there was a girl who used to work at the, I believe it was the Easter Bunny, set up, you know how you take your picture with the Easter Bunny?
Her name was Valerie.
And I had a crush on her.
A lot of the guys had a crush on her.
Now, I was sort of a matchmaker.
Once upon a time, I was a very good matchmaker.
I would hook up people.
I would get phone numbers for people.
I was a wonderful wingman.
I think I still am to this day.
So I approached Valerie and I said, "'Valerie,' I said, "'two guys want to get together with you.
"'Do you want to get together with Joker "'or do you want to get together with Reno?'' "'Joker was the gangster and Reno was the tagger.
"'Do you want to get together with Joker or Reno "'because they both want to get together with you.
"'Who should I tell to come to meet you "'at the end of your shift, Joker or Reno?' "'And she says, you.' "'And I said, what?' "'She goes, yeah, I want you.' "'And I was just completely floored.
"'Number one, it was completely unexpected.' "'I look back in time and I think I was actually "'a little better looking when I was younger "'than I gave myself any credit for.
"'As a matter of fact, I had to kind of realize "'that I was able to attract some women, "'but I didn't really realize it at the time.
"'I had to have moments like this to remind me, "'hey, I think I can go ahead and meet some girls.' "'So unfortunately, though, "'this could almost be a greatest disappointment as well, "'I was not able to make it.
"'I was not able to meet her at the end of her shift.
"'For some reason, I had some other obligation.
"'So therefore, Joker went in my place "'and I believe he did have a short-term scam.
"'We called it scamming.
"'He had a scammy relationship with Valerie "'in the...' "'In the Easter Bunny area at the Panorama City Mall.
"'But that should have been me.
"'That should have been me.
"'That was my when we peaked.
"'Thank you, Valerie.
"'That's...
"'You know what?
"'That Valerie, that...
"'I'll never forget that.
"'I'll never forget that "'because that was an honor to me.'" We want to remind everybody, you're listening to Extreme XM 165 in collaboration with skidrowstudios.com.
Thank you for tuning in.
If you're listening live, go ahead and give us a call at 1-800-893-9562.
Are we going to go ahead and get into our guests there, Chris?
We sure are, guys.
Guys, if you're new to the program, once again, we're registered ear offenders.
We do this every Friday, skidrowstudios.com, 1 to 2 p.m.
And now we're broadening our appeal.
We're broadening our range with what Sal just mentioned.
Well, let's go ahead and get into our guests.
This week, this is incredible, guys.
We've got a hell of a comedian.
He's known as Latino Comic, but I've worked with this guy on several occasions.
There's no crowd he can't work for.
He's an utterly amazing performer.
He's as good an improviser as he is a comedian.
Let's go ahead and welcome to the show.
He's responsible for Refried Fridays, 10 years strong, every Friday night at the Melrose Improv, the hottest improv in the country.
Please welcome Richard Villa.
Richard Villa.
Go ahead.
Take a seat.
Get it right up on that mic.
How you doing, Richard?
How's it going, guys?
How you guys doing?
Good morning or afternoon.
You know, you're much bigger in person.
Did you just call me fat?
No, no, no.
I mean, you're a big guy.
You look bigger in person than you do on the YouTube.
Yeah, I got fatter.
I'm sorry.
I'm trying to lose weight.
I got to tell you.
I didn't know there was a weight requirement.
To be on the show.
I feel so inadequate as a Latino.
You know, I am.
You're not.
I know.
You're not.
I don't care what you're saying.
Listeners, let me tell you.
This guy is white bread.
No.
Es más.
I'm wearing a fucking polo shirt.
Todos los caballeros que estén escuchando esta radio, por favor, pongan atención.
El Sao no es mexicano, no es latino, no es nada.
I'm just.
Si lo ven, denle un balazo en la cara cuando esté caminando por las calles.
I told them they should welcome you.
Latinos should.
Yeah, sure.
I'm sure you said that.
Let me tell you guys something.
Let me tell you something.
Let me tell you something.
He has a flannel shirt and he has a goatee and he speaks Spanish.
This guy is my God.
He is my God.
No, this guy has to go to Home Depot after this.
How hard is it to buy a flannel, Sao?
I know.
Let me ask you.
What the fuck?
I could be a lumberjack.
Richard, let me ask you this.
I've always wondered this.
You know, as you as somebody who's a great comedian, bilingual also, though, most importantly, have you done comedy for Spanish-speaking crowds?
Yeah, actually, I don't know.
Chris.
Chris is a good friend of mine and thank you for inviting me.
Sao, not that I don't like you.
I just don't know you.
But Chris, I know you.
I just got off the phone with my new management.
They are actually putting together a show with one of the biggest comedians in Mexico that I am going to open up the show this summer.
It's Polo Polo.
And we're going on a tour, nationwide tour.
And this is what the thing I told them is, look, I get it.
I can do Spanish stand-up and English stand-up.
And after 12 years, we've been able to build this thing called refry comedy that's allowed Latinos to come finally to the mainstream of Hollywood, to go to the improv, and perform on that stage.
Now, I'm telling you, okay, now that that's been accomplished, let's put on now shows in Spanish and cater to that market.
And I get a lot of slack.
I get a lot of crap from people telling me, why are you doing it in Mexican?
Why are you doing it in Spanish?
You're taking four steps back.
No.
You understand?
There is a market.
And if there's money to be made and if there's a demand for it, I'm going to fulfill it.
And people, see, this is the thing.
Why would you want to do this?
Why would you want to compete with a thousand people?
When you can be the only one doing it?
I firmly believe from knowing Richard now, personally for about a year, that part of your success is the fact that you are at heart an entrepreneur.
It's second nature to you.
Whereas other people, they fall victim to machismo.
Like that's a very machismo thing.
I could see somebody saying, oh, why would you, I don't need that shit.
That's a step back.
And meanwhile, Richard would go, you know what, there's a need there and I'm going to provide for that need.
Yeah.
And I get to do what I love to do.
Listen, numerous Latinos, top guys, all the top guys, you'd call them, Latino comics, and they will punch you in the face.
I'm telling you, and I embrace it with both hands.
I go, hey, I love it.
But there's a lot of big guys out there.
You call them to make sure you don't call certain comedians.
Would you call Gabriel Iglesias a Latino comic?
You tried calling him that, he'll punch you in the face.
Really?
He does not.
And he's even bigger than you.
He's bigger than me, Sal.
And he does not like it.
He calls himself a Latino.
And I tell him, look, you can call yourself whatever you want, but don't crucify me when I name my show Refry Comedy.
And I do Latino shows, and I do completely Spanish shows.
I don't say anything about you being fluffy, and I'm not starting any beef or anything.
It's just, I embrace it.
He, on the other hand, says, nope, I don't want to embrace that.
I want to be just known as a comic.
And I get it.
Even though when you see his audiences, when the camera pans the Gabriel Iglesias audience, it's predominantly Latino.
Yes.
In all fairness, he does perform monthly at the Comedy Magic Club.
What is that, his white card?
That's his white pass.
The conch.
The convect.
The complete opposite.
No.
He, look, he has managed to appeal to everybody across the board.
And I think that's why he feels he's earned it, not just to be a Latino comic, but to be a comedian, a comic comic.
That's it.
For me, I don't care.
You can call me whatever you want, as long as my check cash, and it's in the bank.
You can call me fluffy.
You can call me whatever you want to call me.
You can call me puto, whatever.
As long as you sign that check, and I put it in my bank account, and it cleared, we're good.
I'll call you puto as long as you keep saying I'm not Latino, homie.
That was pretty good.
Wasn't that pretty good?
That will give me the audition.
That will give me the audition.
That's Sal's alter ego.
What's his name?
Is that from Eagle Rock?
Eagle Rock 13.
Oh, Hector.
It's Hector from Eagle Rock, fool.
Hector from Eagle Rock.
And you have to have the fool at the end.
That's what I was up.
What's up, fool?
It's kind of funny.
Richard, Sal has actually called in to one of the shows here once or twice as Hector, and they think he's like a loyal listener.
What's up?
This is Hector.
Are you guys talking shit on the air all the fucking time, fool?
What the fuck, eh?
If you close your eyes, I could see that.
You're so white, Sal.
I am white comparatively speaking.
If we have a spectrum of Latino.
Yes.
You know what, though?
I got to tell you, though.
If we had a spectrum of Latino, I don't think you'd be on the opposite end.
If I'm on this end, you're not on the opposite end.
No, no.
You're somewhere in the middle.
I'm somewhere in the middle, and that's what I'm saying.
There's different shades.
My shade's Latino, but there's like Home Depot Latino.
Way different.
Yeah.
Way different.
A little darker, and that's just because Jesus loves me more, but that's beside the point.
No, no.
It's one of those things.
I like to cater to both markets, and now that I'm doing Spanish stand-up, and for the...
Oh, oh, oh, oh.
Are we playing the bit?
Okay, here we go.
That was my fault.
That was your fault?
That's your fuck-up?
Yeah, that was my fuck-up.
I'm going to play a clip from your comedy, but I'm sorry.
If you had a thought, please continue it.
No, no.
For the very first time in the history, of the improv chain, we're having the very first all-Spanish comedy show on the 27th of December at the Ontario Improv.
So this is groundbreaking.
I mean, I've gotten so much shit for it, and Latino comics are just bashing on me, telling me, why are you doing this?
I wish I could do it.
Dude, I'm telling you right now, if I spoke Spanish, I would love to be there.
I'd be honored to be there.
Let me ask this question, though.
Is your act Spanish?
Is it your act in English translated, or is it a whole new act?
Whole new act.
Whole new act.
Because the rhythms, the punchlines, everything's completely different when it comes to Spanish.
Is it more slapsticky?
Yeah, more slapsticky.
There has to be a rhythm to it.
But it's still stand-up, and I still talk about true life experiences in a stand-up way.
And that's basically, the worldwide now is basically embracing that.
If you check out on the web, there's Russian stand-up comedians now, Afghani, you know, different countries.
All of Latin America now is embracing that.
They're embracing that art form of stand-up comedy.
In their native tongues.
In their native tongue, in their own way.
But they're starting to do it.
I've been doing it for 12 years.
So when I come in, you could see the difference in the rhythm and the delivery because they're used to joke telling.
For me, I'm used to having 10 minutes, and I have to hurry up and get the laughs.
Yeah.
So a lot of these guys are just catching up to me, even though they've been doing it for five, six years, and they're embracing stand-up now.
I've been doing it for 12, and I totally get the art form of it.
So I'm very successful with it because I'm embracing the Spanish language and putting the English style stand-up.
Richard, take us back to the beginning.
How the hell does a guy, you know, a young man, and who's, you're obviously way more successful now, but 10 years ago, you approached the improv, the hottest comedy club in the country, asking for your own show.
I mean, how do you sell that?
Well, not to mention, you went to college as a mechanical engineer, right?
Yes.
So talk about a 180, right?
Yeah.
I got my degree first, and then, because my dad didn't believe I would ever fucking make money off of this shit.
Now, because you're Latino, is this an online degree?
No, no.
Oh!
See, Sal, that's why you'll never come to my class.
No, he didn't get it in the prison library either, Sal.
Meanwhile, I've done two commercials for online universities.
I got it in prison.
Let me tell you.
No, no.
Cal Poly Pomona, mechanical engineering degree from Cal Poly.
That's where I got it.
But I used it maybe one year.
Yeah, that's interesting to me because a lot of guys that get out of college, that was the case with me.
I knew by the time I graduated, I already knew where I wanted to be, and I never integrated the white-collar world, whereas Richard actually worked as an engineer.
I worked as an engineer for a year at a company in Irvine, and that's where I saw the improv.
When I was 16, that's what I wanted to do, and I told my parents, bye-bye, I want to be a stand-up comedian.
He says, are you a fucking idiot?
Yeah, good luck paying the rent with your jokes.
So that was the encouragement I got from my parents, and I don't blame him.
And he tells me, well, he tells me now that it was out of ignorance.
He didn't know there was actually a business out there that you can actually make money off of it.
But I took that mentality, like Chris was saying earlier, I think, is there's so many lazy people out there, and they get mad at me.
Like, you're asking, how did you get there?
How did you get to the improv?
Hard work, man.
It really is determination.
I was doing this little small show in Linwood, okay?
The house was packed.
Gangster cholos were at the window just standing there staring inside the bar because they couldn't get in because there was so many people in there.
And that's when Jeff Garcia came in and said, hey, what are you doing here in Linwood?
Why don't you go to Hollywood?
I said, I don't know anybody in Hollywood.
So Jeff Garcia basically took me in 10 years ago, talked to the management and said, hey, you're not making any money on Friday nights.
Why don't you bring this kid in?
He'll fill out your house.
So what happened was for the first time, there was a home for Latinos in Hollywood on Friday night.
So all these people started to come in and started coming out like roaches, man, from behind the refrigerator.
Or cucarachas.
Cucarachas from Linwood, Southgate, Downey, South Central LA, Huntington Park.
All the places we avoid.
Exactly.
Every place that people have been shot at.
But they all started now coming to Hollywood because there was a purpose.
There was something to do.
And that stage was there for Latinos to perform.
Richard, it's our pleasure to have you here today.
I want to play a clip of your stand-up comedy.
So let's get into that right here.
Okay.
Latina moms with kids, are you here?
Clap your hands because I can't see you.
No, just period moms.
A room full of Latinos and there's no Latina moms.
That's good.
I'm glad you're just not moms but liars also.
But they won't hit you in public anymore.
No, no, no, no.
Because they've seen the cameras.
They've seen the beatings.
This is the international sign for Latino kids to watch.
You're going to get it.
This one.
And other Latinos go, So we know.
So we're like, oh.
And you would get in that car, dude, and you think you're scot-free.
No, no.
Your mom's right there going, hijo de tu pinche.
Llegando a la casa.
And that's when they get you.
You're a Latino kid in the backseat.
You know there's no escaping.
You're going 55 on the freeway.
You're like...
How am I going to...
How am I going to...
How am I going to...
And when you get home, dude, she puts a beating on you.
She'll beat you, dude.
And she'll ask you, Mico, do you know why I hit you?
And in a very slow, slow voice under your wrist, because you're a bitch.
I had to choose the most visual clip.
Of course.
Because I watched another clip of yours and it was less visual.
This clip required more visual and stupid me brings up that clip.
Was that a comedy time clip?
That was comedy time, yeah.
But this is the thing though, that's like literally eight years old.
So you're saying you're better now.
No, of course, a lot better.
But it's not your fault.
It's me adding in the audio.
Let that be a warning to our other guests.
When we ask you for footage a week in advance, there's a reason we ask you.
Exactly, exactly.
But no, it's fine.
If they go, if they want, if they wanted to see more of it, I have full versions on richardvia.com or Google best Latino comic.
Just Google it.
I dare you.
And you'll see I'm number one.
Now, just last week, you were opening for Rob Schneider, right?
No.
Yes, last week.
Last week, I opened up for Rob Schneider.
Let me tell you something.
And I honestly mean this.
Everyone makes a fuss over Adam Sandler.
Adam Sandler, Adam Sandler.
To me, Rob Schneider is way funnier.
His movies are way funnier than Adam Sandler, I think.
Have you seen a standup?
No, I actually haven't.
Rob Schneider, is amazing.
Is he?
He's a standup comedian.
And a lot of people don't see him.
Did he come from standup?
No, he came from improv-ing and he just embraced the art of standup.
But he is really good.
His jokes just, they're great.
And it transcends any, and you'll see so many Latinos there, blacks, whites, but Rob Schneider is an amazing standup comedian.
And how did you get in bed with him?
I don't mean literally.
Okay.
Well, I'll tell you literally how we got into bed.
And no, his wife produced a TV show.
And this is what I'm saying is, when you're working both ends of the spectrum, when you're working Spanish standup and English standup, well, guess what?
My Spanish standup, I did a show called El Pelado de la Noche and Rob Schneider's wife was actually producer of the show.
And she sees me do standup in Spanish and goes, do you know how to do it in English?
I said, yeah, that's my main bread and butter.
And she's like, perfect.
You want to come and open up for my husband?
I said, sure.
And then from there, came, hey, I want to do a tour for Spanish comedians that follows the show.
Like right now we're done with El Pelado de la Noche, let's do a comedy tour.
And Richard, you're headlining.
Now briefly, before you get ahead of yourself, Richard, what is El Pelado de la Noche?
Azteca America has a late night show called El Pelado de la Noche.
And that's the show Rob Schneider's wife, Patti was producing, Patti Schneider.
When you're doing comedy, does Rob sit in the audience and say, you can do it?
I wish he would.
I'd probably be, I'd probably be, that would be worth getting interrupted.
Right?
That's why you're like, hey, thanks a lot, buddy.
But okay, so again, let's take it back to the beginning.
How did you get mixed up with that show in the first place?
El Pelado de la Noche?
Yeah.
Once again, when I first started standup, it all leads back to doing Spanish.
I met a guy called Delucio, and the only people that ever let me on stage, when you first start, let me tell you, you suck and I sucked a lot.
And- Some of us still do, Richard.
Yeah?
Congratulations.
But they gave me an opportunity.
These guys, Guarachin and Guarachon came from Mexico.
And I know you guys are going, well, who the hell are these people?
But they came from Mexico.
They put on a play and they needed a standup comedian to give them time in between the acts when they changed.
So they called me, they said, what you do?
I said, I don't know how to do Spanish standup.
I can speak the language.
So they taught me, they put me on there, and I was doing the standup.
And from that, it snowballed to me meeting everybody that does Spanish standup in LA.
Like they would come there, they would come see the show, they would get to see me.
And they taught me the art of Spanish standup.
But from there, that's where I got the phone call to do the TV show.
And that's where I met Rob Schneider's wife.
Rob Schneider's wife is a Latino?
Yes, she's from Guadalajara, Jalisco.
And she produced a show in Mexico, very, very successful, called, what's it called?
Very successful, I don't even know the name.
It was called, I forgot what it was called.
It was this, in Televisa, this big show she was doing out there.
But it was all about standup comedians.
And now she came to US to be producing this new show.
Well, see, I just asked Chris, just the other day I asked Chris, because I know Chris is bilingual.
I said to Chris, how come you haven't done standup comedy in Spanish?
Mm-hmm.
And I forgot how you responded.
I've been asked that question before, and Richard touched upon that recently, where literally, it's a different language now.
I mean, the sentence structure is so different that the time it would take someone to revise their jokes and make them intelligible in another language, I would probably think, well, I'm not sure if I can do that.
I think you could just write a brand new act.
Like, it's that different.
When I was a kid on the playground, elementary school, and friends would tell a joke in Spanish, and I would say, tell me in English.
They would say, if we tell you in English, it wouldn't make sense.
That's what they would say.
Because it has a double meaning.
In Spanish language, they use the double entendres.
They always come up with double meanings.
Como chile.
Chile is chile, and chile is chile.
Like, you don't understand, chile is my dick, or chile is a pepper.
Okay.
So, when they tell you, please, siéntate en mi chile, are they saying to sit in their pepper, or are they saying sit on my dick?
Yeah.
Way different.
So, you gotta know when they're fucking with you, bro.
So, when you're up on stage, the audiences in Mexico do not respect the fact that you shut the fuck up and listen to what we're saying.
They wanna be part of the show.
So, they'll scream out double entendres to you, and you better be on it, because they'll make fun of you.
And the whole night, you'll be the joke.
Basically, they're laughing at you, not with you.
So, you're saying, okay, so this is a whole nother category, then.
Not only is the standup itself different, the audiences are different in the way that they respond.
Yes, they don't stay quiet.
They wanna be a part of the show, and you better roll with the punches, and you better know how to conduct that orchestra.
Hear that, Chris?
Well, again, good on you, Richard, for embracing seeing a need and filling that void, because some people that maybe don't live in Southern California, like I didn't only eight years ago, may not realize the scope of the Latino audiences and how many Latinos there are, not just here in Southern California, but all the way from to Mexico, all the way up to Colorado.
I just remember hearing Jenny Rivera, who recently passed in that terrible accident, I think they said that, they were talking about her selling out the Staples Center.
The Staples Center is in downtown Los Angeles proper, and I used to work there.
I worked there for about two years, and the only group I ever saw sell that out was Bon Jovi.
So, that's a hell of a coup.
So, if you're listening right now, and you live somewhere, where maybe there's not a lot of Latinos, and you think like, oh, it's a minority or something, it's really not.
There's a lot of fucking Latinos out there.
Much to the dismay of many people as well.
There's some guy in Oklahoma going, what?
They're crazy.
Talk to us about your military tours, about going out there and entertaining the troops with the combat comedy tour.
Yeah, I went out there.
I did it for the money.
They paid me.
No, I enjoy traveling, and that's something me and Chris have discussed before.
It's just getting to know these guys, and being able to give a little bit back was awesome.
It feels great.
Even though, and I'll be honest with you, it's a pain in the ass, and I hope they really appreciate when we go out there, because sometimes the accommodations are not the best.
Sometimes you're staying in a B-Hut, and sometimes we don't even get blankets or pillows, but it's fun.
It was very rewarding.
I went to Afghanistan, Kuwait, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, Japan, Latin America, went to Honduras, went to Puerto Rico, went to the Bahamas.
I went to the Bahamas.
I went to the Bahamas.
I went to the Bahamas, which those are the nice tours, but it's been about my fourth tour in Afghanistan, going out there.
And let me tell you, there's a lot of Latinos out there.
When they see me, they flock to me.
Like they see me as something coming from home.
So it's great.
My last tour, what I did is I went out there, and I brought tapatio.
I don't know if you know this, it's a hot sauce, tapatio packets.
I do know tapatio.
Okay.
Well, those tapatio hot sauces packets, I would sign them for the troops, because they wanted it.
They didn't get it out there.
They're in Afghanistan.
So I brought them a little bit of home.
I brought them some tapatio.
In fact, one of the things I don't like or piss me off about tapatio is that they gave Aunt Jemima a makeover.
Tapatio?
No, no, they gave Aunt Jemima a makeover, yet they didn't give the tapatio a makeover.
Why would you mess with perfection?
I thought Aunt Jemima was perfect.
I think what Sal's referring to is the actual physical representation, because Aunt Jemima herself, I guess, was too slavey.
Hey!
Too slavey.
They took off the kerchief off her head.
They gave her a pearl necklace.
But the tapatio guy still has the...
The big churro hat.
Which I always thought was the most non-aerodynamic hat for riding a horse.
Yeah, that's a good point.
I didn't know it was for riding a horse, though.
Well, I don't know if it's for riding a horse.
Okay, no, it's never for riding a horse.
You're definitely not Mexican.
It's for working in the fields, you understand?
They're campesinos, so the hat is huge because you don't want the sun to beat on you.
Oh, so it's not particularly for riding on a horse.
No, every hat ever invented is to protect you from nature, from rain or the sun.
It's not for fashionable or aerodynamic or...
So that hat is the Mexican version of the Japanese pointy...
Yes, of course.
Richard not only knows comedy, he knows Mexican history.
Well, it's interesting.
I mean, Richard was actually born in Mexicali, Mexico.
Mexicali, Mexico.
I snuck in fair and square when I was 10 years old.
And...
Where's your birth certificate?
Birth certificate.
Tell that story, Rich, as quick as you can, because we always run short on time, unfortunately, but how you actually physically crossed the border.
This is what people don't understand.
When I crossed over, my uncle Hugo had this brilliant idea to dress us up like Halloween characters.
So he dressed us up, me and my brother Victor, like Dracula.
So we got to the border, and it wasn't uncommon for the border town people to cross over to Calexico on the other side to go take their kids trick or treating.
So that was the only day that the border patrol kind of gave you a break.
So my uncle had a visa to cross over to go to school.
So when he got to the border, he says, where are you going?
Little boys, I take them trick or treating, I bring them right back.
We never went back.
What?
He just took them.
They stayed in this country.
What border patrol guy believes that?
Dude, 1988.
Yeah, this is pre-9-11, so.
Pre-9-11.
Yeah, pre-9-11, so.
Hey, I'm just going to go visit SeaWorld in San Diego, then I'm going to come right back.
Okay.
That's it, that's it.
And that's really what you could do back then.
Back then, we'd cross over.
For three months, that's all I knew how to say was trick or treat.
That's it.
So are you a citizen of Mexico still?
No, no, no.
I'm a US citizen now.
You're a US citizen.
I married a border patrol agent at the age of 20.
What?
Yeah.
You married the enemy?
I married the enemy.
It gets better, Sal.
The enemy was herself Mexican.
Yes.
What?
She's a turncoat.
Like, beaner, beaner.
Like, she was Mexican, Mexican, dude.
It was dope.
They always tell me, where'd you guys meet?
I said, the river.
She caught me.
What the hell?
What do you think?
What do you think you made a border patrol?
The river?
Lake Havasu?
No, like the river when you cross it, man.
There's a Mexican guy dying right now going, oh shit, that's funny.
No, we met, I was doing a show in Calexico, and now I have my, you know, I have my visa, and I can go anywhere and had a passport.
So I meet my wife at a show in Calexico, and I saw her, I saw the table full of lesbians, and I said, which one's not a lesbian?
She raised her hand, and that's the one I married.
I think I'm gonna try that.
Yeah.
Let's go ahead and move on, but Richard, please tell our listeners where they can see you and where they can hear you.
Every Friday night, you can come down to the Hollywood Improv 10 o'clock show.
It's called the Re-Fry Fridays, or if you live in Ontario, you can go to the Ontario Improv, every first Wednesday of the month, we have the Re-Fry show there.
We have every other Thursday in San Diego at the Madhouse Comedy Club.
Also, the Brea Improv will be every Tuesday, and pretty soon, coming soon, every other month will be in Irvine.
So all of these Improvs, you can come check us out, and you know, we're bringing the Re-Fry shows, and when I say Re-Fry, it's not in Spanish, guys.
Get this right, this is all in English.
I am now just involved working on a big Spanish tour, though.
All right, and I wanna remind everybody that you're listening to XM, XM165 in collaboration with skidrowstudios.com.
That's what you're listening to right now.
You may be listening to us live, or you may be listening to us on a delay on XM165.
Chris, you were gonna say?
I was just gonna say, Richard, I don't know if you heard the announcement, but we've blown up, and we've gone bigger now, so we're performing now for a national, possibly an international audience.
Do you have anything you'd like to plug, maybe, that isn't in Southern California?
How about anything in Calexico?
Anything in Calexico?
No, if you check me out, if you go to my website, richardvilla.com, we're gonna be moving the refright shows across the country.
We have Chicago, Plants for Chicago.
It's gonna be a franchise.
A franchise, complete franchise, just like the Improvs, but now, or you've seen, you heard this comedy, it was the Yuck Yucks.
The Yuck Yucks basically build comedy clubs around the country with different venues.
That's what we're gonna do.
We're gonna embrace that ideology, and we're gonna take the refright show across the country.
So pretty soon, we'll be in Chicago, Miami, New York, a bunch of cities in Texas, starting with, El Paso, San Jose's already been established.
We're gonna start doing it next year.
So next year, when you see refright, you know what you're getting.
You're gonna get the best of the best Latino comics that we're taking them there.
Now, how Latino do you have to be to qualify to be on the show?
Is there like a questionnaire?
Do you ask us a pop quiz?
No, you just have to be extremely funny.
And Chris will say, I mean, our show is not strictly Latino.
When you go there, you see Taryn Carter, you see a lot of these guys that stop by.
Chappelle has done our show, Chris Rock, Larry the Cable Guy.
Stopped by and did our show.
Who else was, Ron White.
Who's the Aussie you had a couple of weeks ago?
Jim Jefferies, right?
Jim Jeffery, Jim Jeffery.
And you can see on my Facebook, he loves coming down and doing the show.
It's not about Latino.
When I say refright, everybody fries something.
I took it as, a lot of people go, it's refright bean?
No, there's no bean in the name.
I've never put a bean anywhere.
Why do you racist people just put a bean in the name?
It's refright, because it's a comfort food.
It's what makes you feel good.
We all fry something.
Mexicans fry beans, black people fry chicken, and white people fry everything.
Oreos, Snickers.
We've been to the fair.
Exactly.
But you know what?
A friend of mine just called me, a friend of mine who drinks at Starbucks says, because I drink a coffee bean, she called me a beaner.
She did.
She called me a beaner.
So we got to move on.
We still got Chris's Corner, we still got Sal's Weekend.
But do stick around, Richards.
If we have time, we have a segment called Tragic Comedy at the end of the show, where we want to share some of our worst experiences.
Oh, I have a great story for you guys.
All right, we're getting into Chris's Corner, Nick.
Please hit it.
All right.
Five years ago, I dropped by Burbank's Whiskey Bend Bar to perform on their open mics and a show.
The bend was reminiscent of dozens of dive bars and dozens of BFEs my comedic travels have taken me to.
Daleville, Alabama, Fernley, Nevada, Dundee, Florida, et al.
Bar began a few feet from the entrance and ran the length of the westernmost wall.
The handful of broken middle-aged men lining it conversed in country songs.
The wide-open central area hosted a jukebox, cocktail rounds, and two decrepit pool tables.
A stage sprang from the wall opposite the bar.
Several comics sat along its perimeter, patiently awaiting their spot.
Standing out like cellulite on a supermodel were two Latinos in their mid-twenties.
One amused himself by half-heartedly poking at pool balls, the other by engaging in random acts of douchebaggery, including but not limited to spontaneously shouting swear words.
Not an hour passed before a heated verbal exchange, but a flash of a flash of a I turned to see the loud Latino standing toe to toe with a tattooed Irish tough, who probably outweighed him by 30 pounds.
The Mick's animosity spoke to something more than a stolen parking space.
The specter of a life-threatening beating compelled the Latin to embrace the virtues of peace, but the angry Mick wasn't buying what he was selling.
while, camouflaged by the commotion, the Latino sidekick snuck up behind the mighty Mick and pistol-whipped him with a cue ball, instantly knocking him unconscious.
The bar staff seized the sudden respite to exile Aladdin Deuce.
A minute later, the Irishman came to.
The moment he regained an erect posture, the bar's owner ordered him out, as well as his acolyte.
The Irish tractably complied, but only after removing his key and using it to stymie the ruby river pouring from his headwater.
The staff had seen enough drama for one night.
They announced that the bar was officially closed.
The comics plotted towards the exit without protest.
I decided to void my bladder before beginning my half-hour homework jaunt.
In the time it took me to pee, wash my hands, and walk to the door, Irish and his wingmen caught up to their Latin counterparts in the parking lot.
One member of the white duo drew a knife.
One of the Hispanics trumped him by pulling a gun and firing a warning shot.
I was approaching the bar, and I saw a man in a white suit.
I saw him in a white suit, but I didn't see him.
I was watching the main entrance slash exit, when a clown car's worth of comics nearly broke it down re-entering, several of them shouting that a shot had been fired.
Afraid that the gun might make its way inside, they dispersed like rats, taking shelter behind the first solid objects they found.
Fortunately, the warning shot was the final shot.
Long after the bad guys had left, the cops showed up.
By then, the comics had been convened in the parking lot to recap the main event.
The cops asked each person to recap the main event, but they didn't.
The cops asked each person to recap the main event, count their role.
What followed was high irony.
Several stand-ups who bared their souls to silence only one hour before earned belly laughs by playing it straight.
One officer asked a tall, dark-haired comic, did they say where they were going?
They said they were headed to TJ, dark-haired comic replied, to fuck brown bitches for 50 bucks.
A different officer queried another comic, where were you when the shots were fired?
The young man turned, pointed, and answered in earnest, behind those bushes.
That's Chris's Corners.
Thanks for stopping by.
Chris, there's a place where I can bone brown bitches for 50 bucks?
Yeah, it's called Elitas.
I've been there many, many times.
Wow.
It brought me back to, oh my God.
That's 50 bucks American.
Yes.
Do I have to use a condom?
No, not if you don't have.
Trust me.
Your chile will fall off.
I'll put, I'll portapotillo.
I believe that's a disinfectant.
I believe it works.
Yeah, that kills everything.
We're going to get into, uh, Sal's weekly rant, Nick.
Please hit it.
And this is dedicated to Richard Villa.
I save this for you.
Thank you, sir.
White Anglo males in the U.S.
are four times more likely to commit suicide than males of Mexican ancestry.
Why is this?
White males have so much to live for, or so I believe, viewing things as someone named Rodriguez.
Maybe white men have more pressure, higher expectations.
Perhaps Mexican men don't have any standard with which to measure up.
In my neighborhood, if you had no police record, you were ahead of the game.
If you were able to stay drug-free, if you had a decent blue-collar job, such as UPS or Home Depot, you were golden.
If you graduated from high school, middle management material.
Speaking from experience, it seems no one has expected anything from me.
And apparently, I've not let anyone down.
Maybe there's a freedom in this, a liberty.
Why am I 75% less likely to kill myself than someone from the group that founded and ruled over this country?
Someone from the group that statistically makes 90% more money than the other group.
Maybe there's just too much competition amongst the pool of white men.
I don't know.
I don't know.
I don't know.
I don't know.
I don't know.
I don't know.
I don't know.
I don't know.
I don't know.
I don't know.
I don't know.
I don't know.
I don't know.
More takers for a piece of the pie.
If a white man doesn't have a handle on the American dream, it wasn't a Mexican who took it, but more likely another white man.
Better just get out while the getting's good.
Maybe it's not about society's expectations at all.
For argument's sake, let's assume people don't kill themselves because they're not keeping up with the Joneses or the Gonzalez's.
I'm sure we'd all agree, emotionally balanced people don't commit suicide.
Therefore, if depression and mental illness are precursors to suicide, maybe whites are crazier than Mexicans.
Does the mere status of being white have its own intrinsic neurosis?
I'm part white if you consider Spain, as a member of the European Union, to be a white country.
Then does the suicide gene run through me?
It's only roadblock being my scarcely traceable indigenous roots?
Maybe guns are to blame.
In the U.S., firearms account for 55% of suicides.
Of that 55%, 80% are a white man with a gun.
Do whites have more guns?
I thought everyone was worried about Mexicans getting guns.
Yes.
Apparently, we're much more likely to turn the gun on you and each other than ourselves.
Of course, I could be completely misdirected.
It's probably not self-perceived inadequacies or genetic psychological anomalies which make white American men kill themselves.
They've probably just grown sick and tired of all the Mexicans.
South Weekly Rant, thank you very much.
If they found brown bitches to fuck for 50 bucks, nobody would want to kill themselves.
These guys need to be bony brown bitches.
Let me just spread the word.
That's the problem.
The word hasn't gotten out yet.
By the way, I like the word brown.
People don't use that much.
These people are whites.
These people are blacks.
Yet, people don't say brown.
Why not?
I'm down with brown.
I'm down with brown.
If it's $50 bitches, I'm in.
Chris, let's get into our last segment.
This is where we love to have Richard chime in.
This is Tragic Comedy.
We discuss horrible events that we've witnessed or seen or experienced as a comedian.
Chris, you take it first.
You bet, buddy.
There's a good mic on.
At least eight, nine years ago, shortly before I moved out here, I was doing a road gig for the Comedy Zone.
It was Alexandria, Virginia.
It was about 14 hours from home.
I didn't drive there directly.
I picked a couple gigs on the way, but did this show.
The first show went well.
The bar owner was super nice.
He fed me, and the first show went really well.
Well, here's where things get weird.
They have a second show that same night immediately afterward, and for some reason, nobody left.
Just the same handful of people that attended the first show attended the second show, and it just went from bad to worse.
Aside from that, they were quiet.
They didn't protest the audience, but there was this one guy by himself, as is always the case with angry losers, angry drunks, and he was just not heckling.
Heckling is one thing, but you know when there's the guy who clearly hates the world, hates himself, has fallen short on every dream he ever had, and he's going to take it out on you?
Because nothing hurts a guy like that more than seeing a guy who's actually living his dream.
Why are you looking at me while you say that?
Well, I'm not looking.
I'm pointing.
I'm pointing.
No, but he, I mean, he was just being a dick, and I was kind of, you know, being equally as much of a dick.
And it was one of these things where any respectable club should have kicked him out three minutes in, and this is going on 10 minutes, 15 minutes, and it gets even weirder.
Apparently, he's a regular there.
Obviously, I've never been there before, so I don't know that, but I can't understand why they're not kicking him out.
And not only that, but at one point, the bartender spoke up in his defense.
So I had to lay into the bartender going, are you out of your fucking mind?
I'm here putting on a, I'm making money for this club, and you come to the defense of a guy?
And I, four people got up, and they walked out.
They demanded their money back, but not because of me, but because of what was going on.
So, you know, the guy gets mad at me, and at the end of the night, like I'm trying, you know, like I'm trying my best not to fucking unload on everybody, and the bar owner tells me he's not going to pay me, because I walked these four people.
I go, no, your boy, the guy who's still fucking sitting there, walked these people.
Things get crazy.
The bar owner said something to me.
I don't even remember what it was.
I said, I dare you to say that to me outside.
And to my surprise, to my dismay, he goes, okay, let's go.
And to make matters worse, my buddy Jay, my best friend, when I was 13 years old, who lived in D.C., had driven down to check out the show.
So all this is taking place while he's around.
You know, I just bombed.
Even the headliner barely did well, but, you know, he had a couple, he even brought out some notes, some ideas he had floating around his head, and he managed to work through about 40 minutes.
Luckily, he spoke in my defense.
But so now I've got this guy, literally this bar owner, who's about 50 years old, wearing a tie, you know, but in good shape and whatnot, you know, wanting to fight me.
And I knew that I could not.
I couldn't win in this situation.
If I fought this guy, even if I did win the fight, the cops are going to show up.
There's no way they're going to believe that the bar owner started a fight with me.
Come on, you know.
But you know that Chris has been trained in taekwondo?
Yeah, that was a lot.
Sal always says that.
That was 10, well, 12 years ago.
Yeah, now me, and things, a lot has changed.
A lot.
A lot has changed.
A lot.
I didn't walk with, I didn't have orthopedic insoles in my shoes when I was doing taekwondo.
I do now.
But yeah, man, it was a disaster.
And luckily for me, my friend who I mentioned was a photographer and always carried his camera with him.
So he actually took pictures of the bar owner kind of, you know, aggressively posturing.
And then the other guy kept, you know, wanting to charge, like the heckler guy kept, you know, threatening me and the bar owner, you know, so it was like, I literally had to be careful because I had two entirely different opponents that were, you know, threatening me and wanting to fight me.
But again, luckily my friend shot the photos of, you know, kind of me trying to walk to my car and these people harassing me.
And, you know, I had to call him the next day.
I had to call the club owner, explain to him.
And I told him, I said, look, I'll send you these photographs so you can clearly see that I wasn't the aggressor.
And not only that, but it turned out this bar owner was a real big time douchebag.
And a lot of people had complained about different things.
Like one of the things he was known for was when you asked for a reimbursal of like your hotel, you know, it's a $73, he'd write you a check for 70.
You know, just really douchey kind of fucking things like that.
So he had a bit of a reputation.
And, you know, I came out of it in the long run unharmed, but to have to sit in my car and drive 14 hours home and just stew and feel like I'd been fucking punked was definitely one of the worst things.
Didn't you just give me that gig?
Yeah, that's right.
I referred Richard.
My comedy experience was about eight, probably about eight years ago when Last Comic Standing had auditions at the Improv on Melrose.
And I used to do a Sunday night show there for White Boy Comedy and Mark Franco.
So I had just done a show there on a Sunday night and it went great.
Really great show, really hot crowd.
So unfortunately in my head, that's what the improv was going to be like.
So I wait all, you get there four in the morning, I'm waiting, I'm waiting.
Finally, I'm tired.
I get, I finally, I'm there.
I'm going to get on the stage.
The whole place is different.
It's just redesigned.
They got cameras on cranes.
They got the two guys there judging you.
It completely threw me off.
The first time I do anything, like the first time I ever did standup comedy outside, it throws me off.
Until then I've experienced it.
But I was completely thrown off on my audition for Last Comic Standing.
A camera was flying in my face.
I did not know what to do.
These guys are judging me.
I cussed once.
That automatically X'd me.
It was a complete, utter mess.
One of the worst experiences of my life.
And then I understand later in hindsight that all those auditions are bullshit anyway.
Even if I would have killed, it means nothing unless you're with the right agency or have the right management or the right ties.
So just the whole situation was bullshit and I hated it.
And every year afterwards, people say, are you going to go audition for Last Comic Standing?
No.
No, I'm not going to audition for Last Comic Standing.
Yeah, the whole thing is a fraud.
All they do is they want to see the weirdos.
They want to watch people blow up because then they put that in the outtakes and it makes for a more interesting watch.
But that was my tragic comedy experience.
I just want to tell anybody out there, particularly any performer, expect the unexpected.
Just because the room was this way one night doesn't mean it's going to be that way the other night.
You know, learn to deal with those unexpected things like cameras and weird lighting and all that and weird people in the audience.
You got to expect that shit.
Richard, what's your tragic comedy story?
Okay, I hope this doesn't land me in jail.
Ah.
Listen, guys, when you're drunk and you're doing a gig in Fresno and you hook up with the chubbiest girl in the room, because that's what I like.
I like the chubby ones.
And I'm in Fresno doing this gig.
I'm shit-faced.
My manager, Manny, is driving us around and this girl I meet at the bar, big girl, you know, says, hey, you want to come home with me?
I'm like, all right, cool, but I'm shit-faced.
My manager's like, are you sure?
Have you seen this chick?
Didn't give a shit.
Went to her house.
Her friend gets there.
I guess her friend doesn't want to fuck my manager.
Doesn't think he's attractive.
So she starts cooking at two in the morning.
Me and this big girl go upstairs, right?
And I start getting crazy.
Like, I start getting creative.
Never get creative when you're fucked up with a fat chick.
This is what happened.
I try to pick her up.
Lost my balance.
This bitch goes back.
Bam, hits the dresser.
I don't know what the fuck happened.
I get the fuck up.
I run downstairs.
I tell Manny, let's go.
Her friend says, aren't you going to sign a DVD for my friend?
Sure.
DVD.
I signed it.
That's perfect.
I got a payment.
Dropped it off.
Don't even know if this bitch is still alive.
I think I saw pictures of her in Alarma.
Alarma, yes, probably.
But don't ever get creative or crazy or try to pick up a fat chick when you're drunk.
Did she go limp?
Something to indicate she'd lost consciousness?
Actually, no.
I finished.
I mean, she was in a wig.
I know that sounds fucked up, but why waste a good pussy?
You know what I mean?
I'm already there.
I thought you were going to say you threw your back out.
I know.
I promised myself, if she starts getting cold, I'm going to stop.
I'm going to stop.
But till then, till then she was still warm.
So if that's not a fucked up story, there's probably a dead woman out there going like, or disabled or crippled or something going, where's Richard Rhea?
And nobody's going to believe her.
The who?
Richard Rhea?
Richard Rhea?
She bit her tongue on the way down.
They keep asking, who did this to you?
That's terrible.
Hey, Richard, give our audiences your website, your Twitter handle and all that stuff.
Great.
Now I confess to a murder you want me to give.
Yes, tell the authorities, where to locate you.
Yeah, you can go to richardvia.com.
You can find me on Twitter, Richard Comedy, or on Instagram, Richard Comedy also.
Or just Google, Best Latino Comic, and I'll be number one.
Which I take offense at.
Yeah, or Bing.
Bing, Bing me.
I'm number one.
Trust me, it cost me 200 bucks.
George Lopez is pissed right now.
Richard Rhea is numero uno.
Chris Zapatier, where are you going to be at?
I will be, I'll be doing a comedy at Bar Pico tonight in Santa Monica.
Show starts about 9 p.m.
If you're in the area, it's a great show.
It's a free show.
It's a cool little bar.
And after that, I'm home for the holidays.
But, you know, hit me up on Twitter, ChrisZ34.
Like us on Facebook.
Like us on Facebook.
All you people out there, you're listening to Extreme XM 165 in collaboration with skidrowstudios.com.
We would like to thank you for listening.
Both our existing listenership, our new listeners, want to thank you for joining us.
Please give us a shot.
Stick around for the ride.
Maybe you'll like some things that you hear.
We hope you enjoy yourself.
We enjoy ourselves.
We want you to enjoy yourself.
If you're listening to us live right now, we are on skidrowstudios.com.
If you're listening to this on another time, on Extreme XM 165, you will not be able to call in, of course.
But be sure to tune in every Friday at 1 p.m.
Pacific time on skidrowstudios.com for Registered Ear Offenders.
My name is Sal Rodriguez.
Find me on Twitter, at Sal Los Angeles.
Please like Registered Ear Offenders on Facebook.
We'd like to thank Jeremy Hansen, skidrowstudios.com, Nicholas Chacon, and we'd like to thank our special guest, Richard Villa, for joining us today.
We'd like to thank Wes Hambright, Orange Dog Music as well.
Chris, do you have any parting words?
B, B, the strange you want to see in this world.
B, the strange you wish to see in this world.
That was from, that was an homage to our previous sketch from a previous show.
I don't know if they're going to get that.
That's one of my favorites.
I hope, guys, if you get a chance, please download us on iTunes for free and listen to what is, hands down, my favorite sketch so far, my favorite sketchy characters.
It's, what's the name of that one?
Sketchy, what?
Oh, that is Live From My Fuck Seller?
Live From My Fuck Seller, yeah.
There we go.
All right, we're going out, we're going out with a bang.
Thank you for listening.
Thanks for hanging out, guys.
