Ralph Barbosa and René Vaca Were Set to Hit the Road With Ken Flores. After He Died, the Comedians Turned It Into a Tribute Tour: ‘It’s What He Would Have Wanted’

variety.com:

Ethan Shanfeld In January, comedians Ralph Barbosa, René Vaca and Ken Flores finalized the paperwork on a joint tour across the United States.

It was a long-held dream for the three friends, a few of the hottest young names in stand-up, to hit the road together. The day the deal closed, Flores could not wrap his head around the amount of money he was about to make.

He called his tour manager and said, “Our lives are about to change forever.” The next day, the 28-year-old Flores died of cardiac arrest. “It was really tough to talk about it after he passed,” Barbosa says.

As he and Vaca mourned the loss of their friend, their teams prepared to cancel the tour. Barbosa and Vaca, however, decided that the show must go on. “Knowing Ken, he would have roasted us for not doing the tour,” Barbosa says. “He would have called us some weak-ass little bitches, or something like that.” So, Barbosa and Vaca are setting off on tour, starting April 3 in Portland, and turning it into a tribute to Flores — a celebration of his life.