Gbenga Akinnagbe - Wrong Way Up

 

 

I love my bike. I love my bike. I take my bike with me everywhere. I live in Brooklyn. It's the best way to get around the city. I love my bike so much, I travel with it. I have a bike case. I put my bike in the bike case. I check it in like luggage. It is luggage. 

 

On this particular day, I'm in Los Angeles for a week of meetings. I have a meeting at Warner Bros studios that I'm very excited about. I check my GPS, and it says 40 minutes to get there. No problem. I jump on my bike and I head out. My GPS then tells me I need to turn off road to get to where I'm going. I get off my bike, I start to walk it onto the dirt path. The moment I step onto the dirt path, my GPS goes out. No problem. I know the direction in which I need to go. I'll eventually get to Warner Bros, so I keep going. 

 

Path starts meandering, disappearing, reappearing. It occurs to me that this path is not actually a path, but a dried-out creek bed, and I've been following it for about five minutes. I'm like, “Well, okay, this is a little bump in the road, but I'll just keep going.” Eventually, the ground in front of me starts to incline to a little hill. I'm walking my bike up this hill. The hill gets more and more steep. I find that I have to start to use my hands to climb this hill. That's cool. That's cool. I'm pretty rugged. I can do this. I can use my hands to climb this hill and take my bike with me. No problem. 

 

As I continue on, I find that I have to now use my entire body to climb this hill. The sun is baking down on me. I'm higher and higher on this hill. For a second, I consider going back, until I turn around and I look down and I'm struck with just how high I am right now on this hill. I realize it's more dangerous to go down than it is to go up. So, I decide that I should probably stop and rest, because I'm getting more and more tired. So, I take my bike and I wedge it between some bushes, and I grab one bush and it comes right out of the ground.

 

I start to laugh at how ridiculous this all is, because I got up this morning thinking, I'm going to a meeting at Warner Bros. [audience laughter] It occurs to me that it's time I should be honest with myself, and that this is not a hill, but a mountain. And for some reason, I’ve accidentally started to climb this mountain. [audience laughter] And then I start to think like, “There's a very good chance, I'm not going to make it out of here.” [audience laughter]

 

I start to think like, “I probably might need to get help,” because I don't know where I am. I don't have water, I'm very tired, and the sun is getting stronger. [chuckles] And so, I take out my cell phone. Of course, my cell phone has like one bar and I'm thinking, “Well, who am I going to text?” Everyone in New York, well, they're in New York and everyone in LA that I know, I can't even get my friends in LA to come pick me up at the airport. Let alone find me on some random mountain in Los Angeles. [audience laughter]

 

I was like, “I'm not even going to try.” Just then, I look up. Across from me, on the other mountain, facing the mountain I am on, is a ridge. And I see a man. He's just been staring at me. [audience laughter] His dogs are just running around playing. It was such a beautiful picture. I felt such tragedy and fear. All I wanted to do was scream out to this guy for help. I knew that, one, he would not hear me. And two, there was very little he could do to help me. And so, I decided I might have to just go on. Because I have a book bag, I can't just put my bike on my back. I have to crawl about 2ft at a time and reach back and pull my bike. I'm dragging my bike up the mountain across bushes and rocks, watching my beautiful machine get beat up, but I will not leave my bike behind. 

 

And so, I continue up and I see something above me. And it looks like antenna. I know that antennas are usually on some sort of platform, some firm ground. Maybe if I get up there, I might be able to save myself. I don't know what's up there, but at least right now, I have hope. So, I keep climbing. I keep climbing and I crawl over the edge of this mountain onto where this antenna is. Right by the antenna is a path. I am shaking. I'm so excited. My face is covered in mountain dust, my eyes, the sweat all over my helmets askew. I'm like, I look very disheveled. 

 

I look up, and there is a woman walking towards me. And I'm thinking, “I don't want to scare this woman, but I really need her help.” [chuckles] And so, I walk towards her. She's approaching me. I'm approaching her. We're about 10ft from each other when at the same time we say to each other, “Do you know how to get off of this mountain?” [audience laughter]

 

I'm like, “No, no, I thought you would tell me. I don't know where I am. I'm so lost. Please help me.” She's like, “Well, what about the way you just came that path?” I said, “I didn't come from that path. I climbed off this mountainside. I don't know what's going on.” I was like, “What about you? What's back where you came from?” She's like, “Well, we can go back where I came from and see if we can find our way.” 

 

So, she turns around. We walked back to where she came. We run into a group of hikers. Now, they were real hikers. The two of us, we were just like lost people in the wilderness, on the edge of life and death. And so, they helped her. They tell, they point her in the direction in which she needs to go, and they tell me in the direction I need to go. So, we start walking, me and the hikers. I'm just thinking in my head, “Oh, my God, how ridiculous my life is this morning?” And then all of a sudden, I hear someone say, “Are you the guy from The Wire?” [audience laughter]

 

“Yes. Yes, I was very fortunate to be part of that show. Yeah, yeah, you can watch it several times and you get something different from it every time. You were right. Yes, yes.” [audience laughter]

 

And then his friend says, “Do you have any acting advice?” I was like, “Oh, well, theater is good. I like theater. I do theater.” In my mind, I'm just thinking, I just need to get to this meeting. I just need to get off this mountain. They get me to a road, and I ride my bike down this road and I hit Barham Boulevard. I know Barham Boulevard. Warner Bros is on Barham Boulevard. [chuckles] It's three blocks ahead of me. I see it, and I get a phone call, and it's the assistant in my manager's office who's telling me that they want to cancel the meeting for the day, and reschedule to have it later that afternoon in Hollywood back on the other side of the mountain. [audience laughter]

 

I lose it. I start laughing uncontrollably. I'm just that guy on the side of the road in LA, sun baked, just laughing at the sun. And to this day, I'm not quite sure how I ended up on that mountain or what mountain it was, but I do know that I pay attention to the little things now. All the little things, like GPS instructions. [audience laughter] Whether they're the walking GPS instructions or the biking GPS instructions. 

 

I pay attention to how much weight is in my book bag before I head out in the day, whether I have water. I pay so much attention. I probably pay too much attention, because you never know when the wrong choice might just end you up making life or death decisions on the side of a mountain. Thank you.