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*This article originally appeared in the 11/22/20 Pachanga Newsletter. If you want to subscribe to the weekly Pachanga Newsletter, click here.

How E-Baby Power Selling 101 Saved Me

Hey everyone, it’s been a while since we’ve sent a newsletter, so thank you for bearing with us! 

It’s crazy, man. On Thursday Governor Gavin Newsom put Southern California in a lockdown again, which we all saw coming, but still, it’s a brutal reminder of how much work has to be done to fight this virus. 

At the very least, I think I’ve done some work on how to cope with the virus my way. I’m reading books like a mofo (almost a book week on average!), catching up on what seems like years of sleep, watching movies I said I was always going to watch (I’m coming for you DCEU), spending time with my cat (she’s currently napping in my room), and doing what seems like the same vaudeville routine with my mom everyday (“Necesito a la Kiki!,” me, her “Estás loco por esa gata!”). But it wasn’t easy at first. 

After the pandemic hit, my life receded into a sudden and vast unplanned life, an unopened, empty calendar unlike anything I’ve experienced since childhood. Without live theater, I fell into a hole. I slowly filled the void with projects and activities to make my life feel like what it was before. It didn’t work although my calendar filled up. 

But damn it, I was in a funk! How the hell was I going to get out of this state? I mean there was a pandemic going on. If there was a time where it was okay to be depressed and hopeless, this was it. Some friends reached out to me, but I receded into a wall of dead emotion. My only glimmer of happiness was discovering that Los Sanchez, my favorite Mexican restaurant in the whole world but actually in Garden Grove, was on DoorDash. 

And then like a lifeline, Ricardo Feliciano, an amazing LA improviser, reached out to me and invited me to do his Twitch show, E-Bay Power Selling 101, Wednesdays at 9:00 pm PT on The Pack Theater Twitch Channel. 

E-Bay Power Selling 101 is show about a course at the San Antonio Learning Annex that helps E-Bay sellers properly evaluate the price of their random items they want to sell on E-Bay. 

I said “yes” not knowing what I was getting myself into. I knew of Ricardo, but I don’t know Ricardo. We were supposed to be on a house improv team together, but the scheduling didn’t work out. All I knew was that my friend Tiffany Aleman spoke highly of Ricardo and she said him and I would get along. Mind you, this was way before the Pandemic, or before we could even conceive of the reality we’re living in. 

So I did the show with Ricardo playing Michael Dewitt, the master seller of E-Baby Power Selling 101, along with his sidekick, Tom Parrot, played by the very funny Jay Light. It’s a character show, so I needed a character! I had just recently bought an overpriced used copy of Sammy Hagar’s biography, Red: My Uncensored Life in Rock. I needed to squeeze some more value out of that, so that was an inspiration. I then needed a name. Jon Lopez popped up. Boom: I knew what I was going to do. I was going to be an affiliate marketer. After years of watching targeted Tai Lopez ads on YouTube, I decided I was going to be his cousin. Thus, Jon Lopez and his life changing course, The 69 Steps, was born. 

I channeled this character who seemed to be inside of me all along. I’m a copywriter by day. And I got my start doing really aggressive affiliate marketing copy. I know Tai Lopez more than I’d like to admit. But guess what? I can take all that knowledge and channel it in Jon Lopez, and it’s freaking awesome! 

I had so much fun that day. I don’t know how to describe it beyond going to see a chiropractor for my soul. I had some kinks in my spirit and Ricardo and Jay worked them out. I had a totally different outlook on performing on Twitch shows after that. I was suddenly converted and wanted to do more of it. I had done some other shows before, but it did not click. This clicked. This made sense to me. This was me picking up a guitar and it playing in tune the first time I strummed it. It made sense to me. 

Look, we got to make the most of what we have. You got a lean into the new reality. You have to find new ways to express your voice. Live theater will be back. But in the meantime, Twitch and other online shows aren’t so bad. You just have to embrace it as its own thing, and stop trying to make it live theater. I want to thank Ricardo for reaching out to me that random day. Without it and without you, I don’t know where my 2021 would’ve gone. Thank you, brother, and much love. 

Fernando