13 On 13

I was joined by Fernando Solis at a Dunkin’ in Fishkill, NY, to talk about reaching our goals, giving people their flowers, and trying to keep up with modern slang

Fernando Solis: How has this been going?

Frankie Becerra: Good, I’m starting to finish up. I’m hoping to have it up by Thursday-

FS: How many people is it gonna span out?

FB: Thirteen. I’m calling it 13 On 13.

FS: 13 Reasons? (Laughs)

FB: Hopefully not, fingers crossed. But yeah I’m hoping to drop it this Thursday because not only is it Brewster’s graduation, but it’s also the exact ten years from our graduation.

FS: That’s crazy to think about.

FB: Yeah dude, you’re tellin me!

FS: That’s cool man, this is a really good idea.

FB: Thank you!

FS: How long ago did you come up with this?

FB: I wanna say around February or March. That’s when the gears started turning, then I started reaching out to people and then I think in April I did the first interview. Then since then most weeks I’ve had at least one or two to do. So it’s been good, it’s been going well, and I’m happy with it so far.

FS: Have you been traveling back and forth or has it been video chats?

FB: I’d say probably like half of them have been via Zoom just because some of the people live way out, like I got Alec Budd to do it and he lives out in Germany.

FS: Oh shit, man! Germany?

FB: Yeah I’m not flying out to Berlin for this, sorry.

FS: Well I appreciate you reaching out and thinking of me for this.

FB: Thank you, yeah I appreciate you being a part of this, I got plenty of noes, so I was very happy to get a yes at that point. So are you alright with getting into some of this stuff I’ve got ready for you?

FS: Let’s do it.

FB: Alright, so what’s one way you’ve changed since high school?

FS: One way I’ve changed… So I’ve gotta say I’ve become mature, way more mature since high school. I guess I have more of a head on my shoulders, right? Back in high school you go ahead and just go with what’s cool or what’s trendy or what everyone else is doing. But nowadays I’m more like what’s best for me, my family, my friends. How can this set me more ahead of where I want to be at and how does this really meet my goals? Another thing is I’m more goal oriented. So if I set a goal for myself I’ll reach that goal more so now than I would’ve back in the day. I would always say I wanted to do this this and that, and I’d have all these things I wanted to do, but I would never focus on any of those. So now it’s like one thing at a time.

FB: Yeah you kind of have that structure to know how to get from point A to point B.

FS: Right, exactly. And a lot of that had to do with me actually going away to school and figuring out like, oh shit I need to get my shit together if I actually want to do well in classes and become who I want to be. That’s how everything felt.

FB: Yeah, that makes sense. So, what’s something you’ve accomplished in the last ten years that you’re proud of?

FS: So just a few years ago I graduated with my doctorate in physical therapy, and that’s something I’ve always wanted to do since I was eighteen. Back in high school I really didn’t think about anything I wanted to do besides sports, and then junior year when everyone started looking at colleges I was just like oh shit I hadn’t even thought about college. So from that point forward I was like alright I need to get a degree, I need to do something I love to do… and physical therapy stuck with me from when I was eighteen to now, having graduated two years ago. And I’m the first person in my family to get a degree.

FB: Nice, that’s awesome.

FS: And I’m proud to say that within a few months I’m gonna be opening my own business.

FB: That’s sick dude, congrats!

FS: That’s also another goal that I’ve had since I was eighteen years old and that’s coming around now.

FB: So you’ve kind of already alluded to this a little bit, but what’s something you hope to accomplish in the next ten years?

FS: With the business starting up that’s always something I’ve been looking forward to, but something I want to accomplish in the next ten years is just freedom. Not even just financial freedom, but just being able to take my friends and family out to dinner and not even have to look at the bill, buy the groceries I want, the healthy groceries I need, and not worry about that. If I want to take some time off, go ahead and take some time off. So I’m looking forward to doing that at some point, but also growing a family as well. I look forward to doing that. But other than that it’s just maintaining healthy relationships with everyone else and being a positive influence on my little sister as well.

FB: Good, that’s awesome. So what, if anything, do you miss most about high school? And it’s ok if the answer is nothing.

FS: Aw man, no no, actually I miss the friends I used to hang out with. Growing up I never had a lot of friends from like ages four to twelve years old, I was always that weird kid. And so Brewster gave me, the people in Brewster, and even the teachers, gave me the opportunity to feel a part of something. So bring it back to Mrs. Thut and Mr. LoAlbo, they were the first ones to actually say “ok you have potential to actually be something more than what you’re doing now”. Because back in school I didn’t give a shit. I got a B- just by listening. But they said “hey listen you have more to accomplish, and you have to work for it”. Another thing I want to talk about is also the people. Like I said, I never had a lot of friends growing up, but kids like Mike Hanley, Eddie Schoenig, Brian McNeil, Billy Kirschbaum, Matt Fasano, Tommy Gonska, all those kids when I was younger opened up not only their hearts and their families to me, but they gave me a place to be, they gave me rides to school, they gave me rides to tournaments, and they gave me exposure to places that I otherwise wouldn’t have been able to get to. I’m a first generation Latino, so we don’t understand those things. But you hang out with a bunch of white people, you see how the other side lives, and you’re like “ok this is the way it could be”. So that gave me the opportunity to really be like ok. there’s much more to life than what Latinos say is just to work. There is time to go hang out, there is time to go be competitive in sports, and drive out and do these things and have these get togethers with people. So I definitely miss the friends that I used to have back then. I still keep in touch with some of them, but obviously time goes on.

FB: Yeah it gets tougher when we’re older. We all got our own shit going on. This whole life thing.

FS: It’s wild, man. You gotta pay bills now and shit.

FB: I didn’t sign up for this.

FS: Exactly (laughs).

FB: So if you could change one thing about your time in high school knowing what you know now, what would you change?

FS: I would’ve applied myself a lot more. Like I said before, junior year was a real shock to me when I was like “Oh shit, I need to put things together”. I never did my homework, never did a DBQ, never studied for an exam. I skated by just by listening and using common sense. Had I maybe paid more attention and studied or gave a crap, maybe things would’ve turned out different. Maybe I would’ve been where I want to be now a year or two sooner. Maybe I would’ve gone to a better school. Things worked out the way they did and I am here where I am now with not much difference, but that’s one thing. I wish I applied more. And not only just the school aspect, but maybe even sports too. I was always naturally gifted with athleticism, but had I worked harder, maybe went to the gym more, maybe paid attention more during practice, maybe things could’ve been different, but that’s it. So I guess just applying myself more.

FB: I definitely feel that, I look back as well thinking about how like you get to that point where you realize you can kind of, like you said, skate by on just kind of doing the minimum and it’s enough. But you kind of lose that opportunity to see what else it could have been had you just done a little bit more as you were saying. For me just academics though, I don’t think anything could’ve made me more athletic at that point back then.

FS: (Laughs) Right! It’s a funny thing we’re talking about this topic too because I have a younger sister she’s- You had her (as a student)!

FB: Love Jancy. Jancy is awesome.

FS: She loved you by the way.

FB: Thank you.

FS: And she is the complete opposite of what I was in high school. Straight A’s across the board, has a whatever 4.1 GPA, and she’s everything that I always wanted to embody as a kid looking back at it, but she has come such a long way and to see her apply herself makes me so glad to see that. And she’ll be going to nursing school next year, so she’s following the whole medical professional route, so I’m really happy to see that. It kinda came full circle that way.

FB: That’s awesome, I’m so glad to hear that. Now that we’ve brought up the seniors a little bit, as a member of the Class of 2013, do you have any advice for the current seniors, the Class of 2023, as they enter this next phase of their lives? Obviously you have a little more of a perspective on this than others I’m talking to for this project because you have a member of that class in your family.

FS: Yes, absolutely. I’d have to say take every second in, enjoy the moment you’re in now, enjoy the responsibilities that you don’t have, but also understand that you will have responsibilities. And pay attention to your goals. If there are things in your life that you can’t stop thinking about and it’s a passion of yours, follow that passion. Don’t let anyone else tell you that you can’t do something. If you have a goal, and you have the drive, and you have the passion, work on it every single day. One other thing I want to talk about also is give people their flowers while they’re still here. Give em their flowers. If you think about something say it. “I love you, mom”. “I love you, best friend”. Whatever, let them know now, because ten years from now you might have the same conversation and just remember how that made you feel and how it made the other person feel. So just apply yourself and just give back and take care of everyone else.

FB: I definitely agree with that last part and that’s something I’ve always tried to make it a point to do because you also never know who needs to hear something like that at what time. I’ve kind of made it a point where if I have a thought like that pop into my head about someone I’m close with, or even someone I’m not that close with, but just a good thought about someone that I like in my life to whatever extent, I’ll reach out to them and be like “Hey just wanted to let you know I was thinking of you” or whatever, and it’s crazy to me how many times I’ll hear back “I really needed to hear that right now. Thank you”. We’re all just trying our best man, it’s tough out here.

FS: We’re all humans living life together. I absolutely agree.

FB: Another question kind of about the current seniors, do you think you would rather be a high schooler right now, or in the early 2010s when we were there?

FS: Oh man, nah I definitely think I enjoy our time more so I don’t- with my sister growing up in the (school) system right now and the things they’re doing and the lingo they have, there’s no way I would’ve caught up. It’s a different world I feel like. Not that much removed from us, I mean she and I still share the same kind of music and whatnot, but like if I say something like… Like back in high school “psych!” right? We’d say “psych” and she’d be like “what the fuck is that?”. She’d be like “No that’s cap”. Like what is “cap”? What does that mean? So I feel like I’d rather our time period than this time period right now.

FB: That was something that I definitely experienced while working in the schools too because it’s like I am obviously one of the younger employees there, but I’m still not on the same wave with all the kids with that kind of stuff. When I was talking to the kids I would try real hard not even to be cool, but just to be careful. I don’t need to say the right thing every time, I just wanted to make sure I wasn’t saying the wrong thing too often. But like you said it definitely has its similarities to when we were there but it’s just this year’s version if that makes sense.

FS: And I’m hearing things about like, back when we were in high school I always saw those movies on tv where it’s like kids smoking in the bathroom, right? First year, freshman year, I walked in there and I see this kid just cigarette smoke everywhere. And nowadays I hear that that’s locked or you need a pass to get in there or whatever the case may be. Just completely different. I still hear Chalmers is going strong (laughs).

FB: Yeah she’s still out there making it happen. But yeah when I was working there they were monitoring the bathrooms heavy because it’s all the vapes and stuff now.

FS: And it’s so easy. That throws me back to when I had chemistry class and a friend of ours had the first one of those Logic vapes, and he was smoking it in class, it was Mrs. Boehm’s class, and he blew the smoke out, and Mrs. Boehm caught wind of it and she goes “what is that?” and he goes “you know when you have a water bottle and you twist the bottle-“

FB: Oh my god.

FS: “And you flip the cap and the smoke comes out? Yeah it was that” (laughs).

FB: That’s so funny.

FS: So I mean you can’t get away with that nowadays, but back then it was crazy.

FB: That is insane. So one thing our high school never did was senior quotes. Do you have one you think you would’ve used back then or one that you like now?

FS: Let’s see… That’s a good question… I’d say “Go out on a limb because that’s where the fruits are”. Just go for it.

FB: I like that. Do you know who said it, or is it just one you’ve heard over time?

FS: No dude that’s Russ, that’s Russ man. I love the rapper Russ man, I was just listening to him beforehand.

FB: Nice I like that. Now before we finish up do you have any questions for me? And it’s ok if you don’t.

FS: Yeah, no Frankie like what have you been up to man? What is your whole- I mean comedy and whatnot I wanna hear more about that. What have you been doing creatively? Because this is a creative prowess here and I know you’re a creative man, so what have you been up to?

FB: So I would say this project is the thing that’s been taking up the most of my time for the past couple months. Other than that I have kind of been putting comedy in the back seat a little bit. I just actually started grad school to become a school counselor.

FS: Oh, congratulations man.

FB: Thank you. So that’s kind of the next chapter I’ve been embarking on. But yeah I literally started doing standup right after we left high school. I was a freshman in college when I was getting up there for the first time because it was the thing that I always knew wanted to do but I obviously had to wait a while before I could do it. When you’re a kid and you want to play sports you can just go sign up for sports. You can’t really at eleven years old show up at a bar for an open mic, you know?

FS: (Laughs) Right, right.

FB: But I went to Manhattan College first, and there was a pub a couple blocks away where I would go to and do standup there every Tuesday night at their open mic. Then eventually I left Manhattan College, well dropped out. I use the term drop out as much as possible just because I’m trying to like de-stigmatize it. But then I went to WestConn and I was doing standup there because they had an open mic as well. Then I would say one of the biggest things creatively was I played I would say a relatively significant role in developing a Westchester comedy scene between like 2017 and right when covid hit. There were a couple of clubs that were doing pretty regular shows and I was getting booked at them pretty regularly. And it was getting to a point where I producing my own shows, I was hosting my own shows, like I said getting booked. I had months where I was making more money doing standup than I was substitute teaching, which is insane at like 24, 25 years old.

FS: Yeah, of course!

FB: And this is gonna sound more tragic than it actually is, but I was at such a good place like mentally and career wise in January of 2020. And then all of it just stopped. When covid hit, none of those venues in Westchester that were doing comedy survived.

FS: Holy shit.

FB: So like anything that happens in Westchester now is like independent and usually one-off at like a restaurant or a bar. And it’s still something, but it’s not nearly at the level that it was back then. But since then I started my own open mic in Brewster in 2021 and I hosted that for about a year and a half until I moved to Brooklyn. And that was why I moved down to Brooklyn to pursue comedy further, but once I got down there it kind of hit me that it hadn’t been making me as happy as it previously was. So I kind of took a step back and reevaluated and was just like “Fuck it I’m going to grad school”.

FS: Hell yeah.

FB: Like just flipped a switch in my head, which is kind of funny because the idea of going to grad school was something I had just been resisting for years since undergrad pretty much. But now a graduate degree is what a college degree used to be, kind of like the college degree is what the high school diploma used to be and you really just keep needing more and more to get a career, but that’s just how it goes.

FS: Do you think you’ll revisit that at some point?

FB: The way I’ve been describing it is I’m not officially calling it quits or whatever, I still have shows booked, I have a show in Brewster on July 29th. I’m still doing shit like that but I’m not making it my main focus because to really see success in comedy you need to making it like your entire life. You really need to be going out there every night, hitting open mics, doing shows, writing every day. And there was a point where I was doing that. Most of 2021 and all of 2022 I was posting on TikTok every single day. I was writing new shit to post on TikTok every single day. And I think that was a big thing that contributed to my burnout but at the same time when I was doing it it felt good because I started garnering an audience and building more and more of a reach. I had a couple of videos that hit and did pretty well and that gave me more followers and then I started getting hate comments on my videos. People being like “You fucking suck”, “You’re not funny”, “You should fucking quit” and I remember feeling like “Oh, this is how I know I made it”.

FS: (Laughs) Yeah right, now that you got haters.

FB: Now that people are shitting on me. But then a month or two goes by, and I start getting people defending me from the hate comments. Writing back at them like “He is funny, you’re an asshole” and I was like “Oh shit, THIS is real”.

FS: “Now I know I made it” (laughs).

FB: But it’s funny, literally in the interview I did yesterday I was talking about how if this is all that I get from comedy, this past almost ten years of doing it, then I think I am at a place where I’m ok with that. Because like I said I have done so much more with it than I ever thought possible. And it’s like who knows what could’ve happened if the pandemic didn’t happen, but also if that’s the worst thing that happened to me during the covid era then I think I’ll be ok with that.

FS: One more question.

FB: Yeah, go ahead.

FS: From comedy to now counseling, what is the middle ground? What is the vocation? What is your calling? Is it the interaction? Is it the ability to give another individual some kind of relief?

FB: I think that definitely has something to do with it. I think I have always, as cliche as it might sound, I’ve just always liked making people feel good. And for a really long time, especially in high school, that was making them laugh, that was cheering them up, that was making jokes in class even if I would get in trouble for them sometimes, which happened plenty, but that was something that really felt good to me. So to me the way to keep doing that was to pursue a career in comedy. And like I said, I’m happy with what I was able to accomplish in that world, but at the same time it’s like I also need to be making money. I need health insurance. Unfortunately we live in capitalism, and I need to make money to survive. And I mentioned earlier there was a point in time where I was making more money than I ever thought possible doing standup, but it still wasn’t a living. It was like sometimes a couple hundred bucks in a month, which was still awesome, again I was in my early twenties and never thought that would be what I reached at that point in time, if at all really. Because with as much as I’ve said about it, a lot of people who start doing what I did never make it to the levels I have. And that is something that comes with, like I said, I’ve been doing it for almost ten years. It is one of those things where if you stick with it you’ll hopefully see those results. But at the same time it’s like, and this is another thing I’ve been mentioning a lot, I have a lot of friends that are teachers. I have some friends who just got their doctorate like you did. And I’m not saying that it is easier or harder to reach one level of success or the other or get one job or the other, but like for something like a teacher or a doctor there is a set path for you to follow. You do A, B, C, and D, and as long as you don’t like touch a kid or kill someone, you can become a teacher or a doctor by following those steps. But with comedy one of the more common descriptors of the process that I hear is that you do it for ten years and you hope you get lucky, and if not just keep doing it until you don’t love it anymore. There’s no doing A, B, C, and D and then you’re on Comedy Central or SNL.

FS: Right, of course.

FB: There’s not a clear laid out path for you to follow for that. So that was something that made the journey a little bit harder, but to answer the original question it does kind of come back to I have always wanted to make people feel good and make people feel better. And through working in the high school- I started substitute teaching because I was thinking about becoming a teacher so I figured I should find out if I could handle a classroom. And I do think that I could handle a classroom, but I don’t think that is what I wanted to do. I liked being able to connect with the kids. I liked being able to talk to them about stuff. I liked being able to help them with things, but it gets to a point where it’s like, I’m a substitute teacher. You can only come to me with so many problems before I have to then pass it off to someone higher up. And at the same time I loved being a substitute teacher, but it’s not a “real” job.

FS: Right.

FB: At the end of last year I told one of my classes that as much as I’d love to come back next year, I can’t. I needed a real job. Just look around at who else is doing this job. No disrespect but it’s either people who are trying to become teachers, or older people who just kind of need something to do during the day.

FS: (Laughs) Yeah you’re not wrong.

FB: Just think about the subs we had. Some of them were still there when I was working.

FS: Holy shit that’s crazy.

FB: But I do think that that is kind of what I’m looking for. Helping people, and the age that I want to work with is high schoolers which as we know is such a hard time with so much going on. Plus I really don’t think we’ve seen the lasting effects of the pandemic on these kids.

FS: Right, yeah.

FB: Like just from working in the school I’ve already seen some of it, but I really don’t even know how it’s gonna pan out for the kids that were even younger during all that. It might make my job more difficult, but that’s what I think I’m here for.

FS: That’s your purpose man.

(This interview has been edited for length and clarity)