Nurse Turned Comedian Coming to The Astro

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome back News Radio eleven ten kfab Emory Songer here,
and we're always talking about things that are happening in
our community. And we are just, oh gosh, not even
two weeks away from a very fun event happening at
the Astro Theater here in Omaha, both on Tuesday, the
twenty first, Wednesday the twenty second. Nurse Blake going to
come and pay us a visit a very unique show.

(00:22):
And we are joined by none other than Nurse Blake
himself on the line. Nurse thanks so much for being
on the show.

Speaker 2 (00:29):
Of course, thanks so much for having me. I heard
you had a rash that I needed to look at.
That's why you're calling.

Speaker 1 (00:34):
Me a different phone call for a different time, a
Nurse Blake. Sorry to get the lines cross there, Uh no,
but this is I call you Nurse Blake because you're
an actual nurse. Before we talk about the show, what
people can expect with the comedy and how many laughs
they're going to get, we need to talk about the
nurse part of this. So what's your experience and what
made you want to get involved in the medical industry.

Speaker 2 (00:56):
Yeah, so I've been a nurse over eleven years now,
growing up. My dad was a respiratory therapist on the
night shift, so I always remember him coming home from
work early in the morning and me getting ready to
go to school in the morning and him just telling
me the wildest healthcare stories. So right from high school
I was in the health academy, so nursing was just
the natural fit for me. I mostly worked in adult

(01:20):
trauma settings around the country, so level one trauma centers.
I guess I love the adrenaline, the sound of an ambulance,
and you know, nursing's hard. You get burnt out. You
worked twelve hours without any breaks, you can't have lunch,
don't even have meant to use a restroom. So I
needed an outlet to kind of share my story. So
I got in a comedy.

Speaker 1 (01:40):
So did you have an interest in comedy before you
started the show or is this something that you just
kind of figured out? If I tell my stories in
a certain way, I've noticed I get somewhat of a
reaction to the point now where you're able to tour
the entire United States and have people wanted to come
in hear not just your stories, but the way that
you tell them.

Speaker 2 (01:58):
Yeah, no, I never ever imagine myself doing comedy. I
mean going to nursing school. You know, I learned to insert,
you know fully capits and ivs and the people. Not
I didn't learn how to like tell a joke or
construct a joke. But I think, you know, nurses we
see so much life and death that we have this

(02:19):
like sense of humor or really a dark sense of humor,
and so I just think we're naturally funny people. And
just over the years, as I've shared my story, I
guess I've been just better at like crafting a story
or building a joke and being able to put it
out on stage. So it's something I've definitely learned, you know,
over time.

Speaker 1 (02:38):
We're speaking with Nurse Blake shows coming to the Astro
on the twenty first and twenty second here in about
a week and a half. Let's talk about that connection,
right because my wife's mother is a nurse and has
been for a very long time, and I hear her
horror stories of you know, twelve hour eighteen hour shifts,
sometimes the things that she sees, how much she's on

(03:00):
her feet, some of the physical ailments she gets. It
is one of those situations that only another nurse or
somebody who is in that field would be able to
relate to.

Speaker 2 (03:10):
You.

Speaker 1 (03:11):
Make it very clear that you want to try to
bring people of this group together, you know, and have
an outlet that isn't just hey, we're in the hospital
trying to save lives, a chance to maybe take a
little bit of a load off here. How important is
that to you to be that outlet for people who
are in this field.

Speaker 2 (03:28):
You know, it's what keeps me going. I mean nursing.
It is so tiring. Nurses get print out and the
fact that nurses can you know, take the night off
or submit PTO to join hundreds and thousands of nurses
at my shows. It's so fun and they are ready
to let loose. Nurses come out in party buses, they
come out in groups of twenty or thirty, they make

(03:48):
T shirts. They are ready to have fun and let lose.
And it always makes me wonder because I'm like, if
all these nurses are at my show, then who the
heck is working the hospital. So I want to tell
all your listeners, if you have an emergency the night
on my show, just get the ambulance to drop you
off at the theater because there'll be plenty of nurses
there to help you out.

Speaker 1 (04:09):
Yeah, that's going to be the driver. Be like, exactly
where am I taking you again? Can you reiterate that
the astro theater. I don't think that's the right place, sir.
I was reading about another thing that you did, and
I was super curious about this Nurse Con at Sea.
So it's like it's like a cruise ship and there's

(04:30):
a bunch of nurses. It's like a conference for nurses,
and you wanted to put this together as well, Again,
something that only another nurse could relate with nurses about
that this could be useful for them, continue to give
them passion in their industry. What was the inspiration for
Nurse Con at Sea?

Speaker 2 (04:50):
You know, just doing the comedy shows and bringing nurses
out and having so much fun. They kind of like
wanted more. And I've attended many nursing conferences in the
past and they're so boring, they're so stiff. And I
think what I've learned creating content doing my shows as
a licensed registered nurse, you know, I think there is
a balance between professionalism and fun. So growing up in Florida,

(05:12):
I grew up on cruise ships, going on cruise ships,
as vacations with my family, and I was like, you
know what, it would be so cool to do a
nursing conference on a cruise ship. So I called Royal
Caribbean a few years ago and I was like, hey,
can I run out a cruise ship? And they're like,
who are you? But they believed in the mission and
now so every year I do a nursing conference, run

(05:32):
out a whole ship. We fill it with like thirty
five hundred nurses. We do continuing education and theme nights
and parties. So it's a way for nurses to let loose,
have fun, to learn, do continuing education. And on our
cruise ship we just had in April, we had nurses
from nineteen countries there, so we had nurses from all

(05:53):
over the world come, which is which is pretty cool.

Speaker 1 (05:55):
That is incredible. Nurse Blake joining us on our phone
line today, and Nurse Blake going to be doing a
comedy show Tuesday and Wednesday, the twenty first and twenty
second this month at the Astros. So before I get
into the comedy aspect and what the show is going
to be like, I think a lot of people are
curious as to what the schooling is, what your training
goes to you talk about catheters and ivs and all

(06:15):
this stuff that you know make probably a lot of
us cringe, like having the thought of having to do
that ourselves. But what was kind of that that education
and training experience for you? And what are some of
the most memorable things in your nursing career that you know,
you think are super unique, that you remember and you
think about like on a day to day basis.

Speaker 2 (06:38):
Yeah, you know, nursing is not an easy degree to
go to school for. It's hard. Actually, the Guinness Book
of World Records actually named nursing as one of the
hardest degrees to get because it's still within four years,
but you have to do so many not only exams,
but clinicals where you're working in a hospital, you're shadowing,
you're doing lab, you're doing some relations So they pack

(07:01):
a lot of education in four short years. So not
an easy profession to enter. So you definitely have to
be committed and want to do it. And I graduated
in twenty fourteen, So, like I said, I've been in
nurse eleven years now. But it's the connection with the patients,
you know, I love people as much as some patients
drive me crazy, and their family members, you know. I

(07:24):
think about the patients that were under my care for months,
you know, in the ICU, and I think about this woman.
She was waiting for a few months for a liver transplant,
and she hadn't been outside in months ever since she
was at the hospital and I had some downtime and
I encouraged the team and I to get her ready

(07:45):
to take her outside to see the sun, and just
like that moment and creating that experience for her and
just thinking about her to this day. I think about
her all the time, especially when it's nice and the
sun's out. I always think about her. But it's these
special moments, you know, that you have with patients, you know,
when they're really sick or at the end of their
life or going through the hardest time in their life,

(08:07):
that keeps me loving nursing. It keeps me wanting to
give nurses these fun experiences so they can continue helping patients.
So if you love people and you're kind of smart,
you know, then definitely get the nursing. I always say,
if I could do it, then anyone could do it.
All you have to do is be passionate and dedicated
about it.

Speaker 1 (08:27):
Nurse Blake, You're called Nurse Blake in the hospitals, but
you're known as Nurse Blake the comedian. When you do
these shows and you're coming to the Astro and you're
going to be making people laugh, what kind of show
can people, you know, expect, Because I know you're like, Okay,
so is he just going to tell us some nursing
stories or you know, what kind of comedy are we
talking about here? Because it's not just for nurses. People

(08:49):
will find a lot of what you talk about funny
and relatable even without a nursing background. Give us a
little preview of what to expect when people do come
to the show at the Astro.

Speaker 2 (09:00):
Yeah, you don't have to be a nurse to come.
I'm pretty sure there's a high chance there's either a
nurse in your life, or you've been a patient, or
maybe you've dated a nurse. And if you've dated one
of us, I'm so sorry. We're red flags, super hard
to be with. But my show is super interactive. It's
ninety minutes of NonStop fun. It's a mix of skits,

(09:21):
it's a mix of stand up, a lot of audience interaction.
I always find the one guy in the crowd who
was dragged to my show by their wife who's a nurse.
And so if there's anything I talk about that they
don't understand, I make sure to break it down so
by the time the show is over, they should be
able to pass the nursing school and be a nurse. So,

(09:44):
like I said, their high energy, the nurses are allowed.
They are ready to go. They are ready to party
and super fun. So if you have a nurse in
your life, if you want to celebrate them a little bit,
definitely bring them out to the show. We actually had
to add a second show because since the first one's
sold out, So I'm so excited to do two nights
and a long yeah.

Speaker 1 (10:01):
How about that. It is a two nighter Tuesday the
twenty first, Wednesday the twenty second at the Astro and
you can find more information nurse Blake dot com nurse Blake.
This was so fun. I'm sure you know for anybody
who's listening to the ten minutes we just talked right now,
the charisma and the storytelling in a world that is
foreign to me, but certainly I am intrigued by based

(10:24):
on any experience I've had in hospitals or around my
mother in law. I can tell that there's going to
be a ton of people having a great time at
your shows in a couple of weeks here at the Astro.
Thanks so much for being on the show today and
can't wait for you to come and enjoy almaha.

Speaker 2 (10:37):
Yeah, thanks so much for having me. This is great.
Have a go on