Transcript
Speaker: As I swim, as hard as I can toward the jet ski, I can hear my father-in-law in the distance shouting, help, help.
Speaker: I climb aboard the jet ski and look around.
Speaker: Only I can't see him.
Speaker: I'm yelling out, Art, where are you?
Speaker: Don't you love when a story starts in the middle?
Speaker: Hi, everybody.
Speaker: It's Alex Hooper.
Speaker: Welcome back to another episode of Dirty Briefs.
Speaker: And boy, do I have a fun one for you today.
Speaker: Because it's not every week that your father-in-law visits Los Angeles.
Speaker: Now,
Speaker: I have known my father-in-law for many, many years.
Speaker: My wife and I have been together a long time, but we only got married in April of 2022.
Speaker: And that was the last time I actually saw my father-in-law.
Speaker: He doesn't visit Los Angeles all that often.
Speaker: So we wanted to do something special and he had it in his mind that he wanted to ride a jet ski.
Speaker: And I thought, sure, why not?
Speaker: Now, I'll tell you this.
Speaker: I've always had my hesitations about riding a jet ski in Los Angeles, mainly because there's not a bay or a lake with calm water.
Speaker: When you ride a wave runner, you are going out into the ocean where all of the elements are crashing in on you, literally.
Speaker: Doesn't exactly make for a comfortable ride.
Speaker: The last time I was on a wave runner, it was in San Diego in Mission Bay, which is a huge, docile bed of water that is perfect for shooting out at 50 miles per hour and taking some gnarly waves.
Speaker: But the Pacific Ocean?
Speaker: Unpredictable.
Speaker: Needless to say, my father-in-law, Art, very much wanted to go jet skiing with me.
Speaker: Now, he had spent the day before watching the HBO series 100 Foot Wave.
Speaker: He binged the series.
Speaker: So he understood what we were getting into.
Speaker: Because obviously, we're having 70 and 80 footers come out in the Pacific Ocean all of the time near Los Angeles.
Speaker: Either way, he was excited.
Speaker: I was excited.
Speaker: I was excited to go on a jet ski with him.
Speaker: And because he admitted to me that he'd never ridden one, he said, is it okay if you drive and I ride on the back and we just get one ski?
Speaker: And I thought, sure.
Speaker: What better way to bond with my father-in-law than to have him pelvis to pelvis against me, hugging me from behind me?
Speaker: We've never been closer.
Speaker: We've never been tighter.
Speaker: Now, he didn't ever had a son either.
Speaker: He had three daughters.
Speaker: So it's exciting that I want to do these things with him.
Speaker: And I was excited.
Speaker: Now, when we finally got out into the jet ski rental at Marina Del Rey Harbor,
Speaker: It was already 2.30 in the afternoon.
Speaker: And weather was fine, not great.
Speaker: Conditions weren't ideal.
Speaker: And around 3 p.m., that's when the wind really starts picking up toward the beaches.
Speaker: So we get out of the harbor.
Speaker: He's on my back.
Speaker: You know, we went through the little test and all that other stuff.
Speaker: They say, have you ever ridden a jet ski?
Speaker: We say, yes.
Speaker: How far away do you stay from the pier?
Speaker: 500 yards.
Speaker: How far away from other vessels?
Speaker: 50 yards.
Speaker: We nail that test.
Speaker: We get on the jet ski.
Speaker: We are ready to go.
Speaker: We're cruising out in the harbor for five miles per hour.
Speaker: That's the speed limit because like I said, we aced the test.
Speaker: And finally, we get out there into the open ocean.
Speaker: And I'm realizing these waters are choppy.
Speaker: This is not going to be smooth sailing at all.
Speaker: Even getting up to 15, 20 miles an hour was difficult.
Speaker: But at the time we were hitting 20, we were going boof, boof.
Speaker: And when someone is hanging on to you from the back like this and gripping you, you're doing your best to steer, but you have limited range of motion and the waves are trying to knock you in every single direction at the same time.
Speaker: Everything's going fine.
Speaker: We're not going that fast.
Speaker: We're kind of just like taking it in stride.
Speaker: We're going out toward the pier, toward the middle of the ocean.
Speaker: We're seeing the sun setting in the distance.
Speaker: It's absolutely beautiful.
Speaker: Just glistening off of that water.
Speaker: Now we got yelled at by a rescue boat at one point as coast guard came and said, Hey, you're a little too close to shore.
Speaker: I thought I was for far enough away.
Speaker: Like I didn't think there was a problem at all.
Speaker: And they said, no, you got to get way further out.
Speaker: So we start going further out into the ocean pretty far at this point, probably a quarter of a mile.
Speaker: And at this point,
Speaker: I turn around and I'm like, Art, I'm going to gun this thing.
Speaker: Let's try to open it up to at least get to 25, 30 miles per hour.
Speaker: Hold on tight.
Speaker: He holds on and we start hitting it.
Speaker: And we are cruising.
Speaker: But out of nowhere, a wave that was about –
Speaker: a foot bigger than most of the other ones that are coming in just came straight for us.
Speaker: And we go off of it.
Speaker: Art starts falling backwards.
Speaker: I'm doing my best to hold on to the wave runner handles, but because he's holding onto me and his momentum is taking him this way.
Speaker: I also start going that way.
Speaker: And we both tumble backwards off to the left, off the jet skate.
Speaker: Now, we end up in the water.
Speaker: We're wearing life jackets and wetsuits.
Speaker: But he's still gripping me, like giving me this giant hug from behind.
Speaker: I was like, Art, you got to let go.
Speaker: I got to go after the ski.
Speaker: I got to get it.
Speaker: So I start swimming.
Speaker: As hard as I can.
Speaker: The current is going the other direction.
Speaker: And I'm just doing everything I can to just get to this jet ski, which is now about 25 yards away from me, but floating ever further.
Speaker: So I need to put all of my power behind this thing.
Speaker: I reached the jet ski.
Speaker: I hear Art just going, come on, help.
Speaker: And I'm like, Art, you got to swim over here.
Speaker: I realized he can't do that.
Speaker: So I go, okay, I'll turn the jet ski on.
Speaker: I'll go get him.
Speaker: There's a lanyard that you wear that attaches to the ski.
Speaker: And I thought it went into a hole on the jet ski, like a normal key.
Speaker: Does not.
Speaker: So I am desperately searching for how to turn this thing on thinking, did I lose a piece?
Speaker: Did it break?
Speaker: What is happening?
Speaker: Meanwhile, I can hear my father-in-law going, help, come on, come on.
Speaker: I'm freaking out internally.
Speaker: He's freaking out.
Speaker: And I noticed that he keeps getting further and further away from me.
Speaker: And I keep screaming his name.
Speaker: I keep yelling, Art, Art, listen to my voice.
Speaker: Listen.
Speaker: I am trying my best to stay calm, but all I'm thinking about is, oh my God,
Speaker: anything could happen right now.
Speaker: I look around, there are no other boats and I know, okay, I got to turn this thing on.
Speaker: Now at one point I look out and I do not see him anymore.
Speaker: I don't hear him.
Speaker: I don't see him.
Speaker: And I'm screaming, Art, where are you?
Speaker: Listen to me.
Speaker: Speak from the diaphragm, Alex.
Speaker: Use your theater training.
Speaker: Art, listen to me.
Speaker: I'm waving my arms.
Speaker: No one is around.
Speaker: I'm realizing, do I jump off the ski and go in and try to find him out in the ocean?
Speaker: No, I know that's not the move because then we don't have a ski and we're both floating out in the ocean.
Speaker: That is not the move.
Speaker: I got to figure this thing out.
Speaker: I keep trying every single angle.
Speaker: There is no radio in this thing.
Speaker: There's nothing at all to communicate.
Speaker: We did not bring our phones with us.
Speaker: So,
Speaker: I need to problem solve right now.
Speaker: You need to stay calm in this situation and you need to figure it out before a shark takes out your dad's legs.
Speaker: Finally, I realized there's this little knob on top of one of the handles and you have to put the clip like a clothes pin around the knob.
Speaker: And that is the power source.
Speaker: Now,
Speaker: A lot of you are thinking, why didn't you know that?
Speaker: I should have.
Speaker: I probably should have asked more questions when they gave us a jet ski.
Speaker: They probably should have told us conditions are pretty shitty out there right now.
Speaker: You might want to reconsider this.
Speaker: But they didn't tell us that, and I didn't ask enough questions.
Speaker: There's no fault here.
Speaker: Well, maybe a little bit on me, maybe a little bit on them.
Speaker: But either way, seems kind of equal to me.
Speaker: I turn it on and my rescue mission truly starts.
Speaker: I start going out toward the ocean.
Speaker: I'm like, Art, where are you?
Speaker: Make a sound.
Speaker: I cannot see him anywhere.
Speaker: I'm thinking, oh my God.
Speaker: Oh my God.
Speaker: I know he had his life jacket on.
Speaker: I know he was going to be okay.
Speaker: Now I just need to find him.
Speaker: He is at this point about a hundred yards further away from me.
Speaker: And I finally catch him.
Speaker: I see him.
Speaker: I slow this jet ski down.
Speaker: He looks so relieved to see me.
Speaker: He starts climbing on the back, but in his effort to climb on, it tilts the ski over, which then knocks me back into the water.
Speaker: I swim around and I go, let me get on this thing first and then I will help you up, which I do.
Speaker: I get on there.
Speaker: It's a struggle.
Speaker: It's not easy.
Speaker: I grab his hand, get his foot up there, and I pull him on there, at which point he is just out of breath.
Speaker: And I'm just, I started laughing uncontrollably.
Speaker: I just, that was what came out of my mouth.
Speaker: He was laughing a little bit too.
Speaker: He get back on.
Speaker: He's like, we got to go back.
Speaker: And I was like, yeah, we got to go back.
Speaker: And then we gave each other a big hug out there.
Speaker: Thankful that we made it through.
Speaker: And he goes, we don't tell anybody about this, right?
Speaker: I was like, Art, we tell everybody about this.
Speaker: We have dinner with my wife, her sisters, and their mom, your ex, in an hour.
Speaker: We're definitely telling them this story.
Speaker: This is going to be the most exciting thing that's happened.
Speaker: And I realized basically what we did is we paid $200 for one of the hardest escape rooms in Los Angeles.
Speaker: You're floating out in the open ocean.
Speaker: Your father-in-law is drifting out to sea and you can't figure out how to turn on the wave runner that you rented.
Speaker: $200 well spent.
Speaker: Because I'll tell you this, both of our adrenaline was flying.
Speaker: We were just all lit up, totally energized, but also exhausted from this experience.
Speaker: We both had different kinds of terrors.
Speaker: His terror was, oh my gosh, I might not make it through this.
Speaker: He even told us, he said, I started contemplating my funeral and how it would be.
Speaker: Would my girls be partying and celebrating my life or would it be a somber affair?
Speaker: I was thinking, holy shit, I lost my dad last year and now I'm going to have to go back to the shore and explain to my wife and her sisters that their father-in-law, that their father drowned.
Speaker: In the Pacific Ocean.
Speaker: Because we were careless with a jet ski.
Speaker: No thanks.
Speaker: Horrible thought.
Speaker: For both of us.
Speaker: We're coming back into shore.
Speaker: He gives me a big hug.
Speaker: And he says what's that Shakespeare thing.
Speaker: All's well that ends well.
Speaker: And I was like man.
Speaker: I'm really glad you're as chill about this.
Speaker: As you are.
Speaker: Because you could have punched me in the face.
Speaker: You could have been furious.
Speaker: I even said, I was like, Art, I've never thought I was good enough for your daughter.
Speaker: I appreciate that you have accepted me in your life and I'm going to do everything I can to give her the greatest life possible that she could ever conceive.
Speaker: I started just really breaking down.
Speaker: I was that emotional.
Speaker: I'd never been this close before.
Speaker: We've known each other for over 15 years, but we've spent very little time together.
Speaker: And suddenly to have an experience like this, where we've never been closer, where death was literally looming in the distance, bobbing amongst the waves.
Speaker: That was our moment where we truly bonded as a father-in-law, son-in-law.
Speaker: Really funny.
Speaker: He got back to Los Angeles the next day and he texted me when he arrived in Cleveland or when he left Los Angeles, he arrived back in Cleveland.
Speaker: He said every day at 3.45 PM, I'm going to text you.
Speaker: Where are you?
Speaker: Where are you?
Speaker: And I think that's how, you know, this was a worthwhile experience.
Speaker: So next time, if you go jet skiing, what did we learn?
Speaker: Ask more questions and definitely get the wetsuit.
Speaker: Guys, I want to thank you all for being here.
Speaker: I went a little viral last week with one of my Instagram clips and it gave me a ton of new followers.
Speaker: And thank you so much for being a part of that.
Speaker: If you want to follow me there, it's at Hooper Hair Puff.
Speaker: And of course, Hooper Comedy.com has all my upcoming tour dates.
Speaker: And coming up is the Brea Improv, everybody.
Speaker: My first time headlining it November 19th.
Speaker: That is the next big one.
Speaker: Oh, and of course, Perfect Dose at the Comedy Store on tomorrow, actually.
Speaker: Well, this is, it's going to be Tuesday, November 7th.
Speaker: So, I didn't kill my father-in-law, but man, did I come close.
Speaker: Woo!
Speaker: What an adventure.
Speaker: I'll see you next week.
