Transcript
Speaker: Welcome back to Dirty Briefs and a special welcome back to my eczema.
Speaker: For a few months, it took a back seat while I was dealing with much more dismal medical problems.
Speaker: But as soon as cancer went away, eczema said, Hey, Alex, remember me?
Speaker: I've been with you your whole life.
Speaker: Don't forget about how important I am to you.
Speaker: Well, fuck everyone.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I had these visualizations while I was going through the cancer treatments and I kept thinking, maybe the chemo will wipe out everything.
Speaker: Maybe whatever has caused my wretched eczema since I was a child will also just drip out of my body with all the other negative health shit that I was going through.
Speaker: But nope, because unfortunately for me,
Speaker: My eczema is extremely intelligent.
Speaker: Every time I try to change up my routine, to change up what I eat, how I live, how I exercise, it finds a way back.
Speaker: This past weekend,
Speaker: I was in San Francisco.
Speaker: It was my first road weekend in seven months.
Speaker: And I was so happy to be up there.
Speaker: I was doing my own headlining show in Berkeley benefiting a women's cancer research center and it was amazing.
Speaker: And then I had four shows sold out at Cobb's Comedy Club with the roast master Jeffrey Ross.
Speaker: And this weekend had me illuminated.
Speaker: The weather was perfect in SF.
Speaker: I was walking through Golden Gate Park and I was just smiling as big as could possibly be, letting everyone in the world, everyone around me know that I was in a great mood.
Speaker: But you know what was dripping in the background?
Speaker: You know what was hiding in the shadows?
Speaker: But not even so much.
Speaker: It was peeking out everywhere.
Speaker: My goddamn eczema.
Speaker: It was awful this weekend and I had just felt so good.
Speaker: Everything is going great, but then my eczema caused my skin to be more rough than a dog trying to communicate.
Speaker: It was drier than the Arizona desert in the middle of August.
Speaker: It was flakier than a blonde bimbo in a 1980s rom-com.
Speaker: It was causing my eyes to be so puffy
Speaker: And look, I'm Hooper Hair Puff.
Speaker: I don't mind getting a little puffed up, but I don't want it to be because of my eczema.
Speaker: I don't want people to look at me and immediately know that something is wrong with my skin.
Speaker: Even if it might be.
Speaker: My whole life, eczema has been this evil, dangerous,
Speaker: Being this visceral thing that is always circling around me and causing me misery.
Speaker: I've bowed down to it so many times saying, please, eczema, just why do you do this to me?
Speaker: Why even when I am at my best, do you cause me to feel discomfort and pain?
Speaker: Why is my skin always on fire?
Speaker: Why can't I look on the outside like I feel on the inside?
Speaker: Bright, vibrant, inspired, full of positivity.
Speaker: And yet my face is just drooping.
Speaker: It's tight.
Speaker: It hurts so bad.
Speaker: For years, I let eczema define who I am.
Speaker: And when I found comedy and when I started to really discover how to absorb love and reciprocate it even more, the eczema took a back seat.
Speaker: Because I will not be defined by something that causes me pain, by something that I cannot control.
Speaker: And I will do whatever I can to get my eczema quelled, to get it to a point where I don't even think about it.
Speaker: Because on my best days, I don't think about it.
Speaker: And right now, coming out of this cancer hole, things are opening up to me in the most beautiful way.
Speaker: Some of you remember my old podcast, Achilles' Heel.
Speaker: The whole point of Achilles' Heel was that the one thing that causes you the most strife could actually be your greatest strength if you own it and you utilize it.
Speaker: But I've never figured out how to do that with eczema because as much as it tries to bring me down, I let it.
Speaker: I let it.
Speaker: And I don't know how to not do that.
Speaker: When I got back from San Francisco, I immediately walked in the door and my wife took one look at me and knew something was wrong.
Speaker: I was in a lot of pain.
Speaker: My face hurt.
Speaker: Everything hurt.
Speaker: My skin wasn't doing well.
Speaker: I had to go to the emergency room and get a shot of steroids and Benadryl and it just sucks.
Speaker: Like I've gone through so much health shit and I treat myself so well.
Speaker: I don't deserve this, but it's a part of me.
Speaker: Does it have to be, always?
Speaker: I don't know, because I'm gonna do whatever I can to continue to beat it.
Speaker: And now I don't say that I'm in a battle.
Speaker: I'm in a dance because dancing is fun.
Speaker: And even when I'm caused so much misery by my skin, I still don't want it to define me.
Speaker: I don't want people to look at me and think, oh, is that a sunburn?
Speaker: Is he sick?
Speaker: What's going on with him?
Speaker: I want to radiate health and inspiration.
Speaker: Not flaky, dry, patchy skin that reminds me like I'm the surface of Mars.
Speaker: I'm not going to let it define me because my entire life I allowed it to do that.
Speaker: And now...
Speaker: No way.
Speaker: I am so much more than that.
Speaker: And no one can make me feel any way that I don't already feel inside.
Speaker: You can't judge me any more than I can judge myself.
Speaker: And I try to be good to myself.
Speaker: I really do.
Speaker: I don't want eczema to be a defining characteristic of who I am.
Speaker: But like I said, it's intelligent.
Speaker: And when things are going well, it knocks on the back door and then crawls under the fence and says, hello, remember me, your old friend.
Speaker: I tell myself I love myself every day.
Speaker: I give myself a hug.
Speaker: And I know that I'm so much more than a person with bad skin.
Speaker: Sometimes I don't feel that way.
Speaker: This weekend, when I woke up in my cousin's house where I was staying and my eyes, I had to peel them open because they were crusted over like a SpongeBob character.
Speaker: It didn't feel good.
Speaker: I was performing for 400 people at every show.
Speaker: And that was the one time when I wasn't thinking about how much pain I was in.
Speaker: And I shouldn't have been thinking about that.
Speaker: This was a lovely weekend.
Speaker: I was with my good friend, Jeff.
Speaker: My good friend, Janesh, was hosting.
Speaker: My friend, Kaylee from the Comedy Store was playing piano.
Speaker: The staff was amazing.
Speaker: The crowds were amazing.
Speaker: Everything was going swimmingly and yet still,
Speaker: This one little factor is trying to bring me down.
Speaker: Well, fuck you, eczema.
Speaker: Fuck you.
Speaker: Because I will not let you win this battle.
Speaker: I'm not going to beat stage three Hodgkin's lymphoma and then have you immediately come back and try to bring me down.
Speaker: Because I am so much stronger than you are.
Speaker: You're intelligent.
Speaker: You always figure out ways to slip through the cracks of my skin, cause infections, cause pain, cause me to ooze pus out of my freaking face.
Speaker: But that's my cross to bear.
Speaker: Nobody else ever sees it as much as I feel it.
Speaker: And even when people do, if you're seeing it and you think, wow, that looks bad, you have no idea the truth.
Speaker: of how painful it is.
Speaker: And I don't want to show you all that because I don't want to be a trauma vampire.
Speaker: I want to exude love and happiness and joy.
Speaker: I want to be a star in Mario, just running through invincible, powerful, radiating energy.
Speaker: I won't let my eczema take that away from me because inside I know my purpose is meant to spread love, give joy, make people laugh.
Speaker: And I have been doing that.
Speaker: And I will continue to do that.
Speaker: There's something in your life that's trying to bring you down.
Speaker: There always is.
Speaker: But it's up to you how you face that demon.
Speaker: Are you going to let it define you or are you going to rise above and know that you are so much more than whatever negative trait is trying to infiltrate your life and cause you from being the person you know you are meant to be?
Speaker: It's hard.
Speaker: It's really hard.
Speaker: It takes a lot of work.
Speaker: And no matter how much work I do,
Speaker: My eczema tends to come back and just try to, I don't know, try to eradicate my happiness?
Speaker: Fuck that, that's not gonna happen.
Speaker: No way.
Speaker: I will not be defined by my health problems, never.
Speaker: I am a strong-willed individual
Speaker: And I know I am better than this.
Speaker: And I will continue to search for solutions of how to make my skin not so red, so dry, so uncomfortable.
Speaker: I know what I look like.
Speaker: I've owned it.
Speaker: I'm using it to my advantage.
Speaker: But on days when my eczema is winning the battle, the dance, when it is taking the lead and just allowing me to follow it around the black and white dance floor, I just got to follow it.
Speaker: I have to succumb to it.
Speaker: That doesn't mean I'm not the person that I want to be.
Speaker: But for that day...
Speaker: It's harder to dig up that enthusiasm, that encouragement.
Speaker: On our worst days, we have to find a way to push through.
Speaker: We have to.
Speaker: I didn't spend 33 days in the hospital, come back, and immediately have my eczema start kicking my ass.
Speaker: No way.
Speaker: Fuck that noise.
Speaker: I have so much good shit about to happen to me.
Speaker: Some of it I can't even tell you yet.
Speaker: Some of it I don't even know about yet.
Speaker: But whatever it is, it's not going to be the eczema.
Speaker: That's not the reason why I will be remembered.
Speaker: That's not the reason why people will be attracted to who I am and what the message that I give out.
Speaker: Love everyone around you.
Speaker: Be happy.
Speaker: Spread joy.
Speaker: Be positive.
Speaker: It's not always easy.
Speaker: In fact, it's hard as fuck.
Speaker: but I know you can do it because I know I can do it.
Speaker: Even though my eczema might be back and right now it's doing okay because I'm on a really big dose of a steroid called prednisone.
Speaker: Yes, get in the prednisone, everyone.
Speaker: And then when this dose is over, I'm going to have to face it again.
Speaker: But hopefully it'll be weaker.
Speaker: It won't know what to do.
Speaker: My illumination from inside, my bright light that shines over everyone I see and everything I feel will take care of the eczema.
Speaker: I love you all so much, and I thank you for listening or watching these.
Speaker: Subscribe if you're not already there.
Speaker: Follow me for my tour dates, hoopercomedy.com.
Speaker: Lots of things have just been added.
Speaker: And if you're listening to this right now, well,
Speaker: I am about to be in Japan, everybody.
Speaker: So, woo-hoo.
Speaker: Social media break, but you can still follow me there at HooperHairPuff.
Speaker: And I hope you have an amazing day.
Speaker: Thanks for another Dirty Brief.
Speaker: And eczema, you might be winning right now, but your days are numbered because you're a weak-ass bitch.
Speaker: And I am a powerful being capable of extraordinary things.
Speaker: So come at me.
Speaker: But I will always be here shining my light as hard as I can.
Speaker: See you next week.
