I was doing an hour a night in front of audiences that didn't know me.

I talked about being Latina, but I also talked about being Catholic, being from a blue-collar family, blah, blah, blah.

So I was accidentally, like, building my act.

Those college gigs led to me doing a set on Conan.

And that Conan set helped me get my development deal for my TV show.

This is the second part of my extended conversation with comedian Cristella Alonso,

whose memoir, Music to My Years, was just released.

She dedicated a song to each chapter of the book.

You'll hear some of those in this episode.

We shared the first part of our conversation last week. Christella told me about her childhood

and putting her dreams on hold to care for her ailing mom. In this episode, we talk about

everything after, her make-or-break moment, defining and earning Hollywood success, and her new tour, My Affordable Care Act.

You talk about starting at Square One, and there's just so many times you're back at Square One.

And part of what is amazing as someone who loves you and roots for you is your ability to go back

to square one, start all over again, and still have ended up where you ended up. And I think there's

this desire to mythologize the story where it's like you go from the diner to the sitcom. You know,

like there's sort of nothing in between.

Sure.

You do such a good job in music to my years of really laying out, like in sometimes painful detail.

Like these were the setbacks.

This was how it happened.

These are the things I stumbled into.

...