Comic thrilled to be back on the road
Filipino favorite at the Empress Theatre
There are some jobs that are like riding a bicycle. Once you learn, it’s hard to forget.
But after 17 months of “comedy exile,” popular Filipino comic Rex Navarrete realizes it’s more than putting on a nice shirt and jumping on stage.
He learned it firsthand in the return-from-pandemic-oblivion June 12 in Las Vegas.
“I definitely had to switch tires and readjust my shocks,” chuckled Navarrete. “It was rough. There were moments I did forget elements of my act.”
A handful of performances later, the 52-yearold Portland resident is ready to shift into high gear Friday, Aug. 6, in a one-night-only appearance at the Empress Theatre in Vallejo.
Navarrete “had not been on stage literally for 17 months” when he touched down in Vegas.
“Nobody at the hotel was wearing a mask. Vegas was totally open like it (the pandemic) never happened,” Navarrete said. “I was praying to the gods of Pfizer that this double-dose better work.”
After experiencing his wife getting hit with COVID-19 last November — she’s fine now — Navarrete’s been wary.
“This is wartime and a lot of us still don’t know how to behave. A lot of us are still messing around and not taking it seriously,” said Navarrete, ecstatic to be back in the car for a fivecity mini-tour.
“It’s a real honor and a privilege to get back out on the road do this,” he said of his stand-up.
He was so “amped for the shows,” Navarrete couldn’t sleep the night before his initial performances.
“It was like, ‘I had a show!’ That was totally new to see people’s face, mask or no mask,” Navarrete said. “You could see how happy they were to come to my show, come back to comedy. It’s that feeling we haven’t had in a long time.”
From blistering Oregon, Navarrete hit Sacramento down to Los Angeles and a return to his former Bay Area haunts at the San Jose Improv and Cobb’s Comedy Club in San Francisco.
“Soak it in and re-train myself,” he said. “This is how it was before the pandemic. I’m happy to get on the road and focus on the work and material again and be able to hang in the lobby and meet people.”
Easing into his 50s, the father of 11- and 16-yearold kids understands there are no more marathon allnight drives to gigs.
“I’m always looking forward to the next rest stop when I need to pull over and take a nap in the car with the engine running and air conditioner going,” Navarrete said. “I still enjoy the drives. I just can’t drive 300 miles straight anymore. Those days are done.”
It’s not as if Navarrete anchored into a home bunker doing nothing. He started a podcast, “The Flip Chronicles,” interviewing guests on comedy, sure, but more serious topics.
“I reached out to a lot of unknown and also wellknown Filipino-Americans in the arts and performances. Some were my former comedy mentors,” Navarrete said. “It was good for me being out there and that it didn’t have to be about comedy.”
Born in Manilla, Navarrete came to San Francisco with his family when he was 3 years old.
“I was sitting home, learning English quickly by watching television like ‘Sesame Street,'” said Navarrete. “I worked on English by mimicking Saturday morning cartoon characters.” The humor stuck, though before eventually plunging full-time into the world of stand-up, Navarrete was a drug educator and counselor at the Haight-Ashbury Free Clinic. At night, he would step on stage as a comedian.
“Comedy kind of pulled me a little harder,” he remembered. “So I decided to do it full time.”
Navarette’s parents didn’t exactly endorse a yuks-for-bucks career.
“Like every other concerned parents, they hoped it was just going to be a hobby,” said Navarrete, laughing “it’s still a hobby.”
Navarrete is encouraged by a younger generation of stand-up comics.
“There’s a lot of hope for the craft,” he said. “I hope they have fun with it like I did. It’s nice to see the younger ones be innovative in their own way, using Facebook, Instagram, all the new technology to help them out.”
While the up-and-coming comics may have to scratch and claw for postCOVID bookings, Navarrete’s credentials put him in the express lane.
“I don’t have to fight for stage time anymore,” he said. “I’m glad about that. I set up my own gigs as I want to and not have to beg for five minutes on stage at a club at 1 in the morning.”
Catering much of his show to Asians and Pacific Islanders, Navarrete rarely gets political, though he acknowledges the changing landscape.
“The planet’s on fire. There’s not a whole lot of time left,” he told the Times-Herald in an interview before his last Vallejo appearance, a 2019 presentation at the Filipino-American Community Center.
Surviving 100-degree temperatures in normally mild Portland backs him up, though it wasn’t as bad as his recent travels to Sacramento.
“It hit 110, 112. That’s a bit too much,” Navarrete said.
Rex Navarrete is at the Empress Theatre, 330 Virginia St., Vallejo, Friday, Aug. 6, 8 p.m. Tickets $15$25. For info, empresstheatre.org.
“This is wartime and a lot of us still don’t know how to behave. A lot of us are still messing around and not taking it seriously.”
— Rex Navarrete