The craziest place I ever did an impromptu comedy bit happened long before I ever stepped on a stage.

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It was 1999, and I was training to be a Signal Officer in the United States Army at Fort Gordon, Georgia, home of the U.S. Signal Corps. The training lasted several months and covered every form of military communication you could imagine. Computer networks, tactical radios, and everything in between. If it plugged in or ran on batteries, we were responsible for it.

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There were about eighty young officers in the class, along with a handful of foreign exchange officers training alongside us. Most of them were great. A couple from Jordan, one from Bahrain. Everyone got along, for the most part. One of the Jordanians, however, did not have much of a sense of humor.

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Day one of networking class was pure theory. PowerPoint slides. Long explanations. Questioning my life choices.

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Day two is when we started building an actual network in the classroom. I had a decent understanding of computers and an even better understanding of boredom, which is when I decided to improve morale.

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I had a small program saved on a disk. When executed, it launched a cartoon sheep that bounced around the screen. Cute. Fluffy. And if your speakers were on, it made sheep noises.

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Before we were taught how to secure the network, I quietly installed that program on every single computer in the classroom. Not once. Fifty times per computer. I placed it in the startup folder so that every time a machine turned on, the sheep would appear.

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Decades later, I am still laughing just thinking about it.

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When class resumed and people powered up their computers, the room filled with bouncing sheep and bleating noises. My buddies were losing it. One hardcore computer guy was furious. He felt it violated some sacred rule of networking. We told him to relax.

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One of the Jordanians did not relax.

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He took it personally. Very personally. Stormed out of the room yelling in his native language, convinced this was somehow directed at him.

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There was dead silence.

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The instructor walked in, looked around, and asked what in the world had happened. The still-angry network geek raised his hand and said, “Sir, Cabrera just started World War Three with sheep.”

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The room erupted.

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I still can’t tell that story without laughing like it happened yesterday. And while it might sound ridiculous, that moment shaped something fundamental for me. It taught me that it is okay to laugh. Even when things are tense. Even when people don’t get it. Even when sheep are bouncing across a computer screen.

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That instinct never left me.

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Ever since I was a child, I have always been the guy who hated it when people were sad or upset, even my enemies. I am the middle child of Cuban refugees, born and raised in the streets of Kansas City. As a middle child, I learned early how to create my own attention and find my voice.

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I was shaped by my time in Catholic schools from kindergarten through twelfth grade. I became a high school wrestling state champion and regularly frustrated my teachers by having academic ability without much interest in proving it. I hold both a bachelor’s and a master’s degree and reached all but dissertation status in a PhD program in Communication Studies.

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I spent twenty one years and one day in the military, serving in both active duty and the reserve component, including nearly seventeen months deployed to a combat zone. I have been married and divorced twice and am the proud father of a wonderful son who is currently a college student.

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Over the years, I have worked as a business consultant, a salesman in the car industry, and in the construction business. Through every phase of my life, one thing never changed. I lived to make people laugh.

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I have traveled the world, only to settle a few blocks away from the home I grew up in, building a life centered on spreading happiness and joy through my work as a comedian and performer. In 2025, I became an ARTS Alum, attending The ARTS under the directorship of CA Talent Management.

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I’m the uncle you never knew you wanted…  I AM the uncle you cannot live without… I’m Tio Pepe!

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