I was born in 1978, raised in El Paso, TX. It's an American city right on the Mexican border. My mother struggled raising my older brother and I with a minimum wage job. My father had a drug and alcohol problem. He used to get home at 3AM and start pounding on us, especailly my mom. A couple of times the Police had to take us (My mom, brother and I), to the Shelter for Battered Women. When my mom asked dad for a divorce, he begged for another chance. He started going to church and became a "Born-Again" Christian. My mom took him back. Not much later after that, did my dad start beating us, again. My mom finally got divorced from him and I never saw him again. Write to me at: �����
When I was fifteen, my mom met another abusive man. She would leave town with him for weeks at a time. By this time my brother had become an alcholic. I was no saint, of course. I drank, did drugs, and started a gang with my friends. I quickly grew up and started working when I was sixteen. I would ride the bus to work, one hour each way. At 6AM and back home at 11PM. I did that for a year. During that year my mom continued to disapear and my brother continued to drink.
I would get home at midnight only to walk into a dark, messy house that smelled like a bar. The electricity would be disconected, there was no food, and a couple of times I tripped over my brother, passed out on the living room floor. In that year my brother tried to kill himself, three times! The paramedics and Police officers knew me by a first name basis. After that the bills kept piling up and up. We lost the house and got evicted. At the same time my brother had been admitted into a Pyschiatric Hospital.
Mom stopped seeing her boyfriend and her and I didn't really speak too much. When we lost the house we had to give up our three dogs to the Humane Society. We kept the smallest, Mazzy. My grandmother let us stay with her for about two years. In that time my brother got himself into a halfway home and got a job. My mom worked alot.
I got a job at a gas station and met a girl. We talked about moving in together and did so only after three months together. Mom moved in with us and started disapearing with her boyfriend, again. Mom decided to move out and asked me to come with her. I refused and she packed all of my furniture and left. She took all my furniture! My couch, my t.v., she even took my dog! We didn't speak for six months. My girlfriend and I moved into a nice two bedroom apartment and stayed there for two years. Everything was great. Until she kept accusing me of cheating on her. I decided to leave before it was too late. I didn't have anywhere to go. I didn't speak to my "family", my "friends" decided to side with my girlfriend and stopped calling, so I moved into my mom's place. That was hard.
I had broken up with my girlfriend of three years, I had lost my apartment, my piece of shit car stopped running, my now "ex"-girlfriend told me she had had a miscarriage, And there I am, at my mother's house, sleeping on my old bed, watching my old tv. All of my old furniture was there. I was depressed, no very depressed. For the first few months I walked an hour and a half to work, and again back home. Everyday. For three months. I was smoking at least a pack of cigarettes a day and I hardly slept. My mom and I started talking more. We hung out, she became my bestfriend.
She took me out to The Comic Strip, a comedy club in El Paso. I saw the comedians and knew that's what I wanted to do. I got on stage after three months. I bombed! I mean I sucked, HARD! But I did it again. The next night I met two good people, Chuy and Dave Graham. They were comedians, professional comedians. After that I started hanging out at Chuy's comic book store, BIG DOG COMICS (3117 McRae Blvd. El Paso,TX. 79925). We talked about comedy, the do's and dont's. The secrets. The inside stuff. I got on stage every other week. With every show I got better and better. I got my own gigs at different bars in El Paso, but not at the Comic Strip. I was in Austin, TX. performing at Capitol City Comedy Club with Dave, when I heard the Comic Strip was having an Open Mic Night. I made it for the second week and blew the roof off the place. After kicking ass for four weeks, Bart Reed, the owner of the club, asked me to become a regular opening act, I accepted. I got the good shows. The sold out shows, the best of the best. I had a fan base. After the shows people would come up and ask for autographs, buy me drinks, and girls would give me their phone numbers. I was on top of the world. I was writting material and song parodies for a local radio station. I was in the newspaper, I was getting free concert tickets, meals, The audiences loved me, most of the time. People that never supported me were happy and proud. They were braging to their friends. And my "friends" that I hadn't talked to in months started calling me: "Hey! I heard you on the radio! Let's hang out this weekend!" "Charlie! I saw you on the news, call me back!" It feels good to know that the people you don't like, are starting to like you, even if it's for the wrong reason. But one thing I had learned doing stand up comedy is: "Know when to get off the stage. Leave them wanting more." So I packed up two bags of clothes and hopped on a Greyhound Bus and left. My dog Mazzy is doing good,she lives with my mom,in El Paso,TX. Mom is doing good; Enjoying the single life. And my brother? He cleaned himself up and got married to a great girl. They met in the military, and they're expecting a baby. Funny how things turn out, ain't it?�Now I'm living at a homeless shelter in New York City. Sometimes you need a vacation.��� Right?
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