What are you doing 6 PM Thursday, Februrary 22nd? Consider going to comedian/guitarist JR De Guzman’s show!

“[A] comedian,” Executive President of the Campus Activities Board Katie Peeters said he “will be performing at 6:00 PM at the Entertainment Café” in the Student Union. “Combining music and comedy, JR serenades the audience into laughter with songs, jokes, and stories of traveling the world, life after college, and family” (jrdeguzman.com). His website reveals Guzman was the “winner of 2016 Stand-up NBC” and “named a prestigious ‘New Face’ at Just for Laughs in 2017.”

“When we first moved to US, uh this is a true story, we moved to Eagle Rock California…and we actually lived in a storage unit for like two weeks,” JR De Guzman said at the Westside Comedy Theater Standup Showdown in 2016. “My family’s come a long way since then,” said Guzman. “Filipinos love entertainment, but never want their kids to do it. They wanted me to be a dentist, yet they would always put us in music, theatre, and arts like that.”

“[M]y first foray into performance was theatre and then music in grade school,” said De Guzman. “I started guitar at 17. Comedy came while I was in college [at] age 21,” said Guzman, “I first combined [guitar and comedy] during a comedy class at UC Davis where one of the assignments was to write a comedy song.” Since then, Guzman has “entertained all over the world” including at “the Badamoon Comedy Series in Amsterdam,” “ROR Comedy in Japan” and “the Jokers Ball in Indonesia” (jrdeguzman.com).

“I face different [fears] every day,” he confessed, “and handle each of them usually by asking a thousand people for advice, meditating, then committing to a decision.” Guzman had specific advice for individuals overcoming personal challenges. “For people trying to overcome challenges of their own,” said Guzman, “I recommend making an A->B list. If point A is where you’re at, and point B is where you need to be, write out bullet points that get you from point A to point B, then prioritize those bullet points, and execute.”

Guzman does not allow work to get in the way of his values. “At this point in life, I value love, connection, and time the most,” he said. “These are the main things that are ten times more valuable than money because money can give you a temporary feeling of relief but great love, connection, and freedom of time are everlasting sources of happiness.” See JR De Guzman on “Coming to the Stage” Season 2 on Hulu, “Comedy Central’s Kevin Hart Presents: Hart of the City,” and MTV’s “Acting Out” (jrdeguman.com).