A Lesson from Joe Louis

When Joe Louis was “The Next Big Thing” he ran into the clever Max Schmelling and was knocked out in 12^th Round.  Two years later, after becoming Heavyweight Champion of the World, he avenged his upset loss with one of the most devastating performances of his career by not letting Schmelling finish the 1^st Round.  In 1937, Louis fought Bob Pastor and won unanimous decision.  In his eighth defense, Louis once again fought Pastor and this time around he stopped him in the 12^th Round.  Louis did this trick with four other fighters where he had problems the first time around and then crushing them in rematches. 

Joe Louis is often included in discussions about who the greatest boxers were.  More often than not, his supporters point to his record 25 defenses and his one punch knockout power.  However, from my vantage point, it was his talent for making bad performances an afterthought by erasing previous mistakes with dominating performances in the rematch.

The lesson taught here by Joe Louis is that if you have an opportunity for a re-do, make sure you erase any prove the last performance was an aberration.  If you’re given a second chance, you better run with it and take full advantage of the opportunity. 

On Wednesday night, I was at a club doing a 10min set and I had one of my worst performances there in years.  To make matters worse, I was showcasing for the new manager to get weekend bookings.  Even though I didn’t bomb, I felt that I was the weakest act of the night and that is never a good feeling.  Even before I left the club last night, I was already looking forward to my next spot at a different club tonight.  I knew that the best remedy for a bad set is more stage time.  More stage time means an opportunity for redemption.

The difference between the two nights is striking.  Last night, the crowd was offended by Box Set.  Tonight, the crowd gave me the biggest laugh for the same joke.  Last night, I failed. Tonight, I redeemed myself.  Last night, I didn't win the audience over.  Tonight, I knocked them out.  Tonight, I pulled a Joe Louis

GOD Whoops Dennis .... Again

And by GOD, I mean Group Of Death

When I “started” comedy in 2007, there was an annual competition that Yuk Yuks would hold called the The Great Canadian Laugh Off. Once the franchise agreement expired back in 2010(?), the now independent Comedy Mix decided to keep the tradition going with their own competition. Although the stakes weren’t as high (the Yuk Yuks version sent the winner to Toronto to compete against other comics from across the country), it was just as a competitive because the Vancouver comedy scene has such a high caliber of talent that the competition was a fierce battle till the end.

On a related note in 2007, a personal tradition started for me as well – being selected to be in the annual Group of Death. Every year, it seems that I was placed in the toughest group. This year’s group is no different. In fact, it’s worse! I have two Canadian All Stars who have done every comedy related thing you can do in Canada. There’s also a bonafide headliner from the States, two or three people who are starting to tour, and a couple others I would rather not compete against because their material is strong and unique.

Without further ado, here is 2012’s Group of Death –

Kevin Foxx - The advice this man has given me these past five years has been on point. He had his own radio show in Toronto until he decided he wanted to be in a city that didn’t suck. Forget the fact that he has had his own Comedy Now Special and has done every comedy festival in Canada, the dude has worked with Richard Pryor. Yes, that Richard Pryor.

John Beuhler - This guy is a Comic Genius. No, seriously, he won a competition called Comic Genius. This guy was mentored by the Canadian comedy gem known as Brent Butt. John has also done every imaginable festival in Canada because he has an efficiency in his comedy that is second to none. Every word spoken on stage is integral to each piece he does.

Dino Archie - Like me, Dino is likeable onstage. Unlike me, he KILLS every time he’s onstage. First he charms them, then he slays them. If I didn’t like the guy so much on a personal level, I would tell him to go back where he came from.

Sean Emeny - Last year’s winner of the People’s Champ Comedy Competition, Sean is a good friend of mine and I wish him best …. unless I’m competing with him! Then I wish the hilarious bastard would get Strep Throat.

James Masters - Another guy I want to yell, “Go back where you came from!” Unfortunately, like everybody else in this group, he’s a good guy and he gives me spots from time to time. James is also funny and he’s banged Sam Neill’s daughter. Yes, that Sam Neill.

Katie Ellen Humphries - Forget “she’s funny … for a chick” BS. Katie Ellen is just plain funny. Always nice and personable offstage and hilarious on it, Katie spreads her talents between standup and sketch. In moments like these, I wish she focused more on sketch.

Manraj Sidhu - I hope this guy focuses on teaching because if he put all his focus on comedy. If he did, I’m sure he would leave me in the dust. Manraj has that quirky, intelligent, hipster shit that’s uber popular right now. On a bad night, Manraj is good. On a good night, he could squish me like a bug.

Art Factora - Although our styles are very similar, Art is better on his feet than I am. That said, on any given night, I can easily outshine Art on the simple fact that people often mistake me for him.

*********

With such a strong group, I will probably get knocked out like Spink against Tyson.

With such a strong group, my best hope is that I can pull off a Tyson vs Bruno I, in that before I get knocked out, I'm able to rock them and know that I at least have the ability to dent them.

The Importance of Being Earnest ... In Doing 5 Minutes

I was at a Pro-Am not too long ago at a comedy club and saw something I didn’t expect to see – every single amateur went over their allotted 5 minutes of stage time. The parade of overtime on stage didn’t just end at that club. A week later, I saw another comic go over their allotted time and after the set the booker actually said that he was over but it was okay because he was doing well. This blog entry isn’t written from Dana Carvey’s Grumpy Old Man perspective, but in my day, there were repercussions for going over your time.

If being funny is the first rule of stand up, then keeping your time surely must be the second. Not keeping time is the most selfish thing you can do as a performer. If you take 2min more than your given time in a tightly produced show, inevitably, that 2min will be taken away from another performer somewhere down the line up. Guess what that makes you? On the flipside, if you do 2min less time than you’ve been given, at times, that 2min will have to be made up by another performer down the line up. Again, guess what that makes you?

The very first time I went over by a substantial amount of time I was taken aside by the booker and told the truths I just mentioned in the previous paragraph. Then after the show, another comic told me the story of a comic he heard about that did a show in Vegas. Apparently, this comic was crushing the room, so he decided to do more time than he signed up for. Once he finished his set, the casino manager took him aside and told him that an average casino makes x-million amount of dollars per minute, so for every minute that an audience stays in the comedy room laughing is another minute where the audience isn’t losing x-million dollars to the casino. Then the manager said, “that if you go over time again, you will be paying the amount of money the casino just lost.” After hearing that story from that comic, I have heard the same story told by Rosie O’Donnell and Jay Leno. To be honest, I don’t even know how true that story is. Now, I think it’s just an urban myth told as a cautionary tale for newbies who like to go over time.

Aside from being a douche move, going over time consistently when you are new is counter-productive. Like I mentioned earlier, keeping time is the second rule of comedy with the first rule being “be funny.” A new comic shouldn’t look at the 5min and think that it’s a 5min limit. Instead, they should look at it like a 5min challenge. There is a reason why comedy has a term called “Laughs Per Minute.” The challenge is to cram as much laughs as possible in 60 seconds. The challenge is to be as concise as possible in your setup and just as efficient in your punchlines.

So, if you’re an amateur comic, the question isn’t why you’re not being given weekend spots performing 30min sets. The question is how many laughs can you fit in 300 seconds?

Greenlight 2013

Originally written on Feb.26.2012

In reviewing my comedy “career” in 2011, I was little dismayed by the lack of progress I made. In keeping with the promise I made in 2007 which is to quit if I stopped improving, my accomplishments from a year ago barely gave me the pass to continue my “career” in comedy for 2012. So far, 2012 has been a far cry from a year ago. I am off to a roaring start!

In a matter of a couple weeks, I have been offered to showcase for the CBC and to write a column for a magazine!!! These offers couldn’t have been any better. The CBC showcase, proves to me, that my work is being appreciated and certain decision makers are acknowledging my growth as a comic. Granted, the showcase is not a sure thing as I will be going head to head with a handful of Vancouver’s best up and coming talents for the final spot for the show CBC is recording the next day. Like an actor losing out on an Oscar, I’m just happy I was considered.

As for the offer to write, it is for Canadian Immigrant magazine. I was contacted by the one of the writers that interviewed me after the first Flip n Comedy Show. It’s funny because I was just talking to someone at work recently about the ripple effect of things you’ve done and forgotten in the past and how those actions comes back to make a difference in the present. My contact immediately thought of me after they had a discussion and concluded they want someone to write about their immigrant experience from a comedic perspective. Like the showcase, this opportunity with Canadian Immigrant is not guaranteed. I will be submitting a test column in a couple weeks. If they enjoy the piece, I will be given the opportunity to submit other recollections of my younger days getting acclimated to the Canadian experience.

It’s only February and I have already given myself the greenlight to continue into 2013.

Kamikaze – Decoded

Kamikaze Joke Video

In the 2010, Jay-Z released a book entitled Decoded. The book was to serve as a listener’s guide to the lyrics of some of his songs. Jay-Z broke down what he meant in the songs, surgically dissecting what each line meant at times. Decoded is somewhat similar to the Coles Notes or Cliff Notes you used in high school to help you understand what Shakespeare's plays meant – but better. Essentially, Decoded is Jay-Z explaining exactly what he meant with each song in the book and the inspiration behind it.

From time to time, I will write a “Decoded” for certain jokes to show people that for me, the process of writing a joke is more than just coming across something and replicating it on stage. For me, the process of writing jokes has always been a long one where an idea will marinate for months before seeing the light of stage. The jokes can take many different forms and shapes, before settling into the finished product.

My first Decoded is focused on my Kamikaze which quickly became my opener back in 2007. There are countless “bad Asian driver” jokes to the point it has become a hack premise and at a glance, Kamikaze is simply one of those jokes. However, it is much more.

Kamikaze opens expressing my preference for documentary films. Although half a truth, "my preference for docs" becomes the segue that leads into the premise. With the segue, the piece is conversational. Without it, the joke can’t stand on its own and comes off sounding like a street joke –

Q. Why are Kamikaze pilots not as honorable as initially thought?

A. Because they were crashing their planes because of bad driving.

After the punchline, I follow with the tag “So, you guys are into racism.” Originally, I riffed this line after an exceptionally loud reception to the joke took me by surprise. Since then, I’ve consistently added it because the line does get a secondary laugh, but the line also acknowledges the seemingly unspoken agreement between performer and audience that racism is an accepted part of the comedy interaction. Even though I blatantly call the audience racist for laughing, I must also take responsibility for presenting the idea in the first place.

Now, here’s the mindbender – this is a political joke. As a Filipino man who had family killed in the Bataan Death March, this is my “Fuck you!” to the Japanese atrocities of World War 2. By taking the idea that Kamikaze pilots were these brave men that sacrificed their lives for their country and making a mockery out them, I made a political statement. Essentially, I’m planting a seed with the audience in the hope that one day they will see footage of Kamikaze pilots in action and telling whoever they’re with that these pilots weren’t brave, they were just bad pilots.

I have always regarded Mel Brooks as a patron saint of using comedy to undermine the powers of an oppressor. In an interview he did with www.Spiegel.de, Brooks described the power that laughter can have, "By using the medium of comedy, we can try to rob Hitler of his posthumous power and myth.” Replace Hitler with Kamikaze, and that was my aim for the joke.

Kamikaze is my attempt to rob these pilots of their bravery, patriotism, and glory.

Clean Enough for Church

My very first visit to a Gurdwara was a decade and a half ago. I thought that my first trip would be for a wedding of some sort, unfortunately, it was for a funeral. Not only do I remember wanting to be there for my friend, but I also have a strong recollection of pestering my brown friends about the etiquette of being in a Sikh temple. I wanted to be respectful to the traditions and practices of the Sikh temple. I was mindful of not taking off the head cover, sitting with my legs cross to make sure my toes never point to the sky, and touching my forehead to the ground just before I gave my donation. I have a sincere respect for other religions, so you can imagine how respectful I would be inside the walls of a church.

Two Saturdays ago, I performed at the Broadway Church. It was a benefit show for the victims of the Sendong Typhoon that recently wrecked a region of the Philippines. Performing when there are kids in the audience was always weird for me because of the mature subject of my material. So, I needed to reach a whole other level of clean to be an effective comic to perform in a church that night.

This benefit was predominantly a music concert highlighting many of the talented Filipino performers we have in the Lower Mainland, as well as some acts who staked their claim in the homeland. I haven’t done many shows that weren’t focused on comedy, so this music-centric gig was unfamiliar territory. So, there I was backstage thinking how I was going to do performing on the ALTAR in front of an audience of 150-200 people sitting in PEWS.

To my great satisfaction, my set lasted 6.25min and it was absent of any cursing and suggestive or blatant references to sex. I thought I rose to the challenge with more than a handful of people congratulating me on a good set afterwards. To be honest, I’m a little surprised to have felt so at ease and confident going in. It was far from perfect, as a couple jokes in the middle of the set kind of slowed down the momentum I built. However, I finished strong with a semi-big laugh at the end.

After the set, I was pretty darn proud of myself. I just finished a strong set that was completely clean. I just helped in a fundraiser that generated thousands of dollars to help people in need. And I did all that without compromising my commitment to be completely respectful within the walls of a church. Simply, this was one of my most satisfying nights of performing.

Angel's Work

Being nice is second nature for me. I say “second nature” because at my core, I can be described as “nasty, brutish, and short.” Some are born nice, while others are nice because they’re repentant. I’m one of the repentant.

Although I have other reasons why I aspire to be a comic, doing Angel’s Work is at the top of the list. For me, comedy is a great way to tell God “sorry” for all the dumb stuff I did in the past. Every set is an opportunity to replace pain with laughter. This intent of “doing good” is reflected by my comedy that flirts with the inappropriate from time to time but never crosses the line to shock comedy category. I know the difference between teasing and bullying and I make certain that my comedy does not come off as mean spirited.

In my opinion, the only thing better than making strangers laugh is making them laugh for charitable causes! I hope by now people know that I’m willing to help out in fundraisers. And this is of course leads me to this plug – on Saturday, January 21^st, I will be performing at a variety show benefitting Philippines and the victims of the recent typhoon that devastated the country.

This Benefit for Typhoon Sendong Victims show is extra special for a couple reasons. Firstly, the show is only my second show in front of a predominantly Filipino crowd and I will take this opportunity to dress up my material with some of my tourist-Tagalog. I understand my mother tongue easily, especially if it’s something that my parents would yell at me for doing something I shouldn’t. However, speaking Tagalog is a completely different beast, so the challenge should be fun.

The second reason why I’m looking forward to this show is that it’s going to be inside a church. As I stated earlier, my material likes to flirt with disaster without getting in shock comedy. That said, I’m far from being a squeaky clean comic. Removing the cursing is not an issue because when you listen closely to my material, you will realize that I rarely swear. Part of my effectiveness as a comic is my ability to talk about dirty things without making the audience feel dirty. If my style is blue, it’s more of baby blue.

So, this Saturday night at Broadway Church, I will have an opportunity to perform in front of an audience, some of them with families directly affected by the typhoon. It is my duty to take away the pain (even if it’s momentary) and replace with laughter. I’m planning on using my tourist Tagalog and keeping my set as clean as possible.

Wings, don’t fail me now!

Should I Stay or Should I Go? Part 2

Looking Forward to Comedy 2012

In 2007, I met a lot of great guys starting out in the Vancouver Comedy scene. We saw each other’s ambitions and supported each other’s raw talents in rooms like Zawa, Wired Bean, Myles of Bean, etc. In the four and half years since, our numbers dwindled. Some left comedy because they realized their talent couldn’t cash in the cheques their ambitions were writing. Others left out of sheer frustration of the process. And a few of us left because other priorities began to trump their comedic dreams. At the end of 2012, will I be the next to go?

I have never started a year with so much doubt regarding my future in comedy. When I started comedy in 2007, I had a good job and a great girlfriend. This year, I’m starting comedy with a great job and a great wife. I’m at a stage of my life where I have to decide between my boyhood dreams and more adult responsibilities.

This year, I have to do more to justify continuing the dream. There’s more to improving than more stage time and increased paid gigs. I have to challenge myself to be better in all aspects. I have to write better, perform better, interact with the audience better, and network with other comics better. I need to step up to every challenge that crosses my path whatever that may be.

If I don’t feel that I made myself into a significantly better comic at the end of 2012, I am done.

Should I Stay or Should I Go?

Comedy Review 2011

In the past 4 years that I have done a personal comedy review, I recall the promise I made to myself – as long as I continue to develop, I will continue pursuing the dream of becoming a citizen of the Nation of Professional Comics. As it relates to 2011, it is debatable whether or not I developed as a comic.

If I were to base my opinions on stats alone, I regressed in 2011. I logged about 3.5 hours less this past year than I did in 2010. Consequently, my lack of stage time also led to a drop in earnings of approximately 33%. (Not at all a big issue since the number is sooooo small!) Another surprising development was a difficulty in getting spots. I had no issue getting spots at Lafflines or Comedy Mix, but the pubs and coffee shops that had comedy eluded me in 2011.

On the other hand, there are some stats that I can share that shows development. In 2011, I thought I gained much needed experience working the weekend crowd. On May 12^th – 14^th, I did my first weekend gig at Comedy Mix. From Thursday to the late show on Saturday, I registered times of 14.25, 18.28, 19.46, 21.40, and 22.05. With the exception of the Thursday set which was cut short because of a drop in comic, I can see the progression that I made in regards to relaxing and taking my time. Sure there were minor adjustments made regarding the set lists, but all in all I found it to be a successful venture.

In regards to Lafflines, they have continued to support my growth by feeding me a couple weekends to work on longer sets. The best set I’ve ever done for them happened on December 16^th when I did my first set at the theatre room. For just over 23min, I had one of my best sets of the year to a crowd of 300 people. It was a show full of corporate dinner parties and I rocked it, mixing in a little bit of crowd work with my regular set.

Another encouraging sign of growth relates to my hosting abilities. I only hosted twice this year but I think on both occasions, I was able to demonstrate the growing comfort level with being the setup man to the comics. On the second hosting job I did this year, I think I took a moment to listen to the sets and come back on the mic with something witty to say regarding the last comic. I think there is much to be said in communicating to the audience that you are also invested in the show.

As far as the creative process is concerned, I believe that I did grow in 2011. It’s difficult to articulate but I think my experience has given me the ability to see more clearly where “the funny” is. I’m also getting better at stripping away the excess of the joke. Before it would take me a few sets to realize that a particular joke had excess wordage. This year, I have been more efficient in assessing the jokes. I have learned the valuable lesson – sometimes less is more.

At the end of 2010, I was working on a collection of jokes which I can probably name Surrey Set – Costco Preggers, PJ Hooker, and White Wedding. I ended up giving up on these jokes because they were sexually themed which I want to get away from and there wasn’t much of a redemptive quality to them. The PJ Hooker joke, in particular, was seen as mean spirited and insensitive by a pro that I have a great respect for. I might bring it back, if I’m able to clean it up somehow. In all honesty, however, revising it is very low on my list of priorities.

Throughout 2011, I thought I did a good job in developing new jokes. Jokes that I was able to develop and add to my catalogue were Call Centre, Shawshank, Slashing, and Incapable which added a meager 5min. However, I take pride in that these were the type of jokes that I was looking to add – non-sexual in nature. Other jokes that I introduced in 2011 that I will continue to work on are LMS which needs expansion and Copy Sales which needs cleaning.

So, to answer the all important question that determines whether or not I continue on for another year – did I improve as a comic?

Yes, I did … by the slimmest of margins.