After growing up in Prince George, playing rep hockey, going to college to get educated to get that top-paying job at a Prince George pulp mill, buying a new house, a fully loaded pick up, a sled, jet skiis and a dirt bike and having a dog who loved him, Alex Mackenzie said he thought he'd won the red neck Olympics.
"I was 23 and I thought 'I have everythiiiiing!'" Mackenzie said. "It's amaaaaaazing!"
But as he advanced in his career and settled into the job he realized that wasn't the life for him.
Always interested in comedy, he found a place to do stand up locally and his first time went as well as it could have, he said.
A small group of local comedians invited him to come to Nancy O's with them when they were bringing in comedians from Vancouver pre-pandemic and the local talent was able to open for them with a five-minute bit.
"Wait a minute, this is a job? You do this for a living? This is all you do?" Mackenzie asked of the out-of-town comedians. "So then I hummed and hawed about it for a while."
He got more experience at Sonar, the old Prince George comedy club.
"That's when I actually learned how to do this and got a little funnier," he added.
He quit the for-life job a short time later, sold the house and all the toys - kept the dog - and hit the road in an RV to do stand-up comedy around the country.
And that's no joke.
Mackenzie has travelled the country and the world doing comedy, he's a Tik Tok sensation with more than 30 million views and he's going to keep chasing his stand up dreams.
To that end, Mackenzie brings with him to the Prince George Playhouse the Hungry For Laughs Comedy Tour for two shows on March 12.
It's really a variety show as there's three stand up comedians, Mackenzie, Ivan Decker and Simon King, a freestyle rapper and comedian, Chris Turner, and a foot archer.
What's a foot archer?
So glad you asked.
A lovely lady named Orissa Kelly stands on her hands and with a flaming arrow (!) uses a bow she holds in her toes to shoot said arrow.
Of course, you've got to see it to believe it.
Kelly debuted her act on Britain's Got Talent and was referred to as the 'hot bendy cupid'. She's the only person in the world who does her thing with a burning arrow.
Simon King is the comedian who gave Mackenzie his big break and taught him everything he knows about the business of comedy. King is a veteran comedian who appears at all the festivals and on television's Comedy Network, CBC, CTV, TBS, and Comedy Central.
Ivan Decker is a stand up comedian known for his multi-layered observational comedy. He's been filmed at the Just For Laughs Montreal Festival, the Winnipeg and Halifax Comedy Festivals and appeared on CBC and on Sirius XM radio on the Debaters. His comedy album I Wanted to be a Dinosaur was the recipient of the 2018 JUNO award for comedy album of the year.
Chris Turner is a freestyle rapper who is a regular at New York's Comedy Cellar and appeared on Stephen Colbert's Late Show last fall and walked away to a standing ovation.
For every ticket sold, Mackenzie will donate five non-perishable food items to the Prince George Salvation Army food bank.
For tickets visit Hungry For Laughs at eventbrite.
