Chris Hymes - Gone too Soon

Folliwng the San Francisco 49ers win in their playoff game today against the Atlanta Falcons to move onto the Super Bowl, I was full of excitement and joy. The game was intense and emotionally draining.

Then a different emotion occurred. Sadness. I learned today that a fellow friend and comedian, Chris Hymes, passed away yesterday. Far too young for sure.

In 2007-2008, my buddy Brian Salwasser and I started an open mic comedy night at El Patron Restaurant in East Side San Jose. It was shortly thereafter that Chris decided he wanted to do comedy too. He thanked me for helping him as he tried to break into comedy but I shrugged it off since it was no big deal. After all, it was the comedians and myself that should be thanking him for all the stage time he provided for allowing us to perform at the restaurant. It didn't matter if the stage was only a piece of plywood on a couple cinder blocks (it was a Mexican Restaurant, what'd you expect?) because it was valuable stage time. After the open mic came to its end (business got bought by new owner), Chris had met many people through the show and through networking that he continued to perform elsewhere.

Later on, he was no longer in the comedy scene as much but eventually, Chris would have an amazing girlfriend, who also turned out to be one of my friends from Theatre in college. Every time I saw them together it would make me happy because they were happy. Chris had recently lost a lot of weight too and was updating how many pounds he was losing on facebook. It seemed like things were going well for him.
He had just celebrated his birthday on January 11th...

I'll miss you, Chris. Thanks for everything.

Here is a clip of him from Tommy T's in 2008 - his set begins around the 1:35 mark -