On Burritos
I am headlining at a brewery in north San Diego county, which means I am going to I eat a California burrito. I can’t trek down to a show in San Diego without tracking down a California burrito.
This became tradition around the time I turned 23. I returned to North Carolina to do my home scene’s festival, where I met two guys who ran this venue Lestat's in San Diego.
BTW, RIP. Lestat's was one of the great comedy rooms. Small, dark, low ceilings, young crowd, vibrant laughs, a wall covered in comics’ signatures. A place I will hold dear forever.
But this is not a story about Lestat's. This is a story about California burritos.
I am tired on the drive down, and I fall asleep in the backseat. I wake up when we're in San Diego already. "Have you ever had a California burrito?" they ask me. I have not. They both tell me I'm in for a treat. The moment I see it for the first time, I know I am, indeed, in for a treat.
A California burrito is a gringo's delight. A burrito bigger than a horse suppository, girthier than a porn star’s penis, so filling that by the time you finish your stomach’s grown three sizes like the Grinch’s heart at that fateful Christmas. Taco Bell could never. Dream on, Chipotle. It is, like many of the world’s simplest, most effective dishes greater than the sum of of its parts: chopped carne asada, melted cheese, sour cream, guacamole, and – here's the kicker – french fries. Crispy, salty, fresh-cooked french fries. The not-so-secret ingredient.
It is delicious. I scarf down the burrito, make some college kids laugh, and ride back up to San Diego with my new comrades, my eyes opened to the joy of the California burrito.
There's something very soothing about the California burrito. It's comforting. It's approachable. It's familiar without ever really knowing what you're going to get. In a world of fast food, and a world where I am defined by the fast food that I eat, the California burrito serves as a way for me to get the same thing without ever exactly getting the same thing. It's different at different places.
For years, every time I’d go down I’d get the burrito at Don Carlos. It's right next to the La Jolla Comedy Store, which is out of the way from the rest of San Diego, but it’s imprinted on me from hype and reviews and the crinkle-cut fries that set them apart texturally from other offerings in the city.
Now, I find myself branching out. Whatever’s open at the three drive-thrus by my buddy’s place near SDSU are consistent and appealing. When I’m down there over New Year’s Eve weekend, a San Diego comic who calmly explains that he doesn’t go anywhere with less than a few hundred reviews on Google Maps and at least a 4.5 star rating recommends some places to check out. I try one of his recs that night, at 11 PM. It hits the spot.
Historically speaking, the California burrito is an incredible creation of hubris and confidence. Even the Wikipedia entry is sketchy on the origins. All they know is that it was invented at a taco shop in San Diego, somewhere with “-berto” in the name, then copied and copied and copied. With every copy came a tweak. And with every tweak, a new place to potentially become your favorite local burrito-slinger.
I love a California burrito. More than that, I love the feeling of WANTING a California burrito. That wanting is the most powerful goddamn feeling on the planet.
That’s why I’m sitting here in this little Mexican restaurant attached to a liquor store eating a California burrito. There is no sour cream, which is just the way I like it.
I eat this burrito and think mostly about the burrito, but I think a little bit about the conversation I had with my Al-Anon sponsor earlier in the week. After finding out about another little career rejection, I am in a miasma of feelings about my place in comedy. On one hand, I am experiencing yet another instance of the small-scale grief that comes every time I hear about a list I’m not on, or an audition I didn’t get. On the other hand, I am mid-epiphany; a month into Idiot Workshop classes and a day removed from watching myself on tape from the most recent WRONG! In the tape, I see a revitalized, energized man in a suit and get the sensation that I’m watching me from a different universe. I describe it to him as “like watching a free man.”
This is a conversation where he reminds me – as he so often has over the course of the year that we've known each other – that the industry is a crapshoot. That the thing that’s bothering me – I feel bad for wanting to get passed at comedy clubs, for not getting a chance to showcase, for being the one who fucked it all up – isn’t really up to me. Me, and what I can control: that's really all I have to worry about in the end. Anything else is ancillary.
I want to be myself, that's the hardest thing. The fucking burritos know more about what's inside me than I do.
(Let’s not forget, this is not a story about how I feel. This is a story about California burritos.)
The burrito is different every time, but in the end, it's doing the same thing.
What the burrito does for me:
fills my belly
satisfies me
addresses my need for salt
makes me a little bit sick
distracts me
What the burrito does not do for me:
make me feel like I have made a bad decision
make me forget
make me feel whole
solve my problems
The burrito does not have the answers, nor does it need to have the answers. It’s job is to solve one hunger, not to fix the deeper hunger. The hunger that’s in my gut, not my stomach. The gnawing feeling that no amount of food, drink, drugs, or distractions can cover up.
I have been asked to lead a meeting in one of my 12-step programs, and I find myself talking about fear. And I hear these words come out of my mouth near the end: "I don't have to live with fear, but I can alongside it."
When I worked the 12 steps for the first time, and learned more about the patterns of behavior I default to, I discovered that I flip back and forth between the fear of failure, and the fear of success.
It's easy for me to imagine what happens if I fail, because I constantly fail. To live is to fail. To pursue a career in the arts is to fail. I experience the negative feelings that come with failure less acutely than before. To my surprise, it turns out there is joy, awe, and satisfaction in failure, especially when it involves the other people I have chosen to spend this crazy career working alongside.
But, success – that becomes scarier over time. Success means I have more to lose. Success means that I have to make more choices – choices on how and where I spend my time, or who I spend it with – and that I can't second-guess a lot of those choices. Success means having to know myself better, to be able to have confidence in the choices I make and the values I have come to hold. To succeed is to trust. And trust, even with the toolbox of recovery at hand, is hard.
What living in fear does for me:
What living alongside fear does for me:
allows me to grow
allows me to not hold onto my resentments for years
keeps me from second-guessing every decision I make
lets me earnestly say congratulations to my friends and colleagues when they succeed
helps me accept that I can do better
But this is not a story about fear. This is a story about California burritos.
I finish the burrito and drive to the brewery. I do 45 minutes to a raucous crowd, including a family who has brought two toddlers with them, a cop who heckles me then shows me his concealed carry permits after buying merch, and a young woman who asks if I’d consider doing a show for her nonprofit later this year, maybe in the summertime.
I rarely eat before shows; I like to feel hungry on stage. Tonight, there’s enough hunger, even with the burrito in my belly.