Diary of a Toronto Stand-Up Comedian

Crowd Work To The Rescue

Michael Jagdeo — Tue, 22 May 2012 03:52:22 +0000

I’m working on a new bit involving dating at 29. The routine’s first main laugh involves complaining that women want to go on too many expensive activities, one after another, in the span of 3-5 hours.

This joke worked twice before, but it didn’t hit tonight. Luckily, I was able to notice the crowd’s reaction and play off of it. Let me know what you think:

As I’ve said before, I like interacting with the crowd. Since this topic (dating at 29) is so contentious among women, I’ve made a conscious effort to be extra-sensitive to their reaction and jump at every chance I get to get them involved. In this way, it’s possible for me to make my point (say what I want to say) and have laughter, even if it doesn’t explicitly come from the written material.

New Goal: Having a Good Set 8/10 Times

Again, my goal has shifted drastically. Instead of trying to get my material to hit 8/10 times, I now want to have a good set (make the crowd laugh consistently) 8/10 times. That shift in thinking is driving me to focus on laughter, rather than just material, and I’m finding it’s paying off more and more.

Szeen?

Michael Jagdeo

How To Write Compelling Plenty of Fish Messages

Michael Jagdeo — Thu, 17 May 2012 17:31:21 +0000

Recently, I joined an online dating site called Plenty Of Fish, and quickly realized that I should have worked out and ate right for a year before joining the site.

Challenge: Get girls to respond to my messages.

Solution: Take the time to craft personalized, sincere messages that say, ‘I’m interested in more than just getting a whiff.’ However, even with a concerted effort, the responses haven’t been as bountiful as I would’ve hoped.

I thought I’d share a few of the messages that I’ve sent in case you guys are able to give me some pointers. Note: These are actual messages that I’ve sent to women…I’m so super serial…

Background: She indicated she was an engineer.

Hi there,

My name’s Mike. That’s cool that you’re an engineer!

Sometimes I’m amazed at bridges…I mean, they are supporting multiple vehicles all day long…we should really have a National Bridge Day, or maybe National Engineer day would be better. National Bridge Day would mean Starbucks would be full of 65-year old women wearing white, thin, doily blouses, eating coffee crisp, swapping the daily gossip.

Talk soon

Background: She posted a video featuring one of those dancing flash mobs.

Hi there,

My name’s Mike. I’ve never understood flash mobs.

I mean, when there’s a flash fire, it happens very quickly, with very little planning. Flash mobs, on the other hand, appear to my naked eye, immaculately planned and organized. But perhaps they are channelling the mafia version of the mob rather than the riot version. In that spirit, I believe, ‘flash organized mafia dancers following choreography’ might be a more apt title.

But flash mob rolls off the tongue a lot better, I guess…

Talk soon

Follow @Jagdeocomedy

Background: She indicated she was a TV Commercial Coordinator

Hey there,

My name’s Mike. Is that for real that you’re a TV Commercial Coordinator? That’s cool…depending on what you’re coordinating. Like, if you’re the casting director for a commercial, I can imagine it’d be maddening, especially if you have to pick people that are amazed at shamwow’s…

‘Please, a little more excitement….no, excitement with your face, not your arms…next…’

Talk soon

Background: She indicated she was a singer (songstress?)

Hi there,

My name’s Mike. You sing?! That’s awesome. I’ve played instruments all my life, but after puberty found it tough to sing to r&b, you know? Not you know as in you’ve experienced it, because I think it’s only guys voices that crack, but you have an idea of what I mean when I say Boys II Men were no longer accessible sing-a-long songs…

Talk soon

Background: She didn’t write much on the profile, but I noticed something in the background in one of her pictures.

Hi there,

Thought I’d say hi. Nothing much to go on, so I’ll compliment you on your smile, hair, and mandatory hutch in the living room

Talk soon

Background: She indicated that she liked eating cookies in bed.

Hi there,

My name’s Mike. That’s odd…there’s nowhere on your profile that indicates hot yoga, travelling, reading, ambition, and the other things that I thought every girl does nowadays.

You know…soft & chewy chips ahoy used to be better…I don’t know what they did with the formula, but there’s a weird aftertaste to it now…I got a red underline spelling mistake indicator for aftertaste, but decompounding the word into, ‘after taste’ sounds like an instruction rather than a description…

Ok so I think that kind sums me up.

Talk soon?

Background: She said that her profession was Karate Hockey.

LMAO karate hockey – I think there was a guy in the teenage mutant ninja turtles who founded that style…Casey Jones was his name, and he called the style Hockey-do (way of the white man). Great was he.

Background: She indicated that she was skeptical (she spelled it, ‘sceptical’) about online dating.

Hi there,

My name’s Mike. I guess you have a good reason to be skeptical about online dating…there are a lot of weirdos out there, which is exactly something a weirdo would say to gain your trust, but I figured I’d state the elephant in the text box just so it’s out in the open.

Sorry,

I met a guy that told me that, according to Tony Robbins, I’m a state changer. Thanks, Daanish!

Michael Jagdeo

You Don’t Need Five Minutes Of Material

Michael Jagdeo — Thu, 17 May 2012 06:31:28 +0000

UPDATE: Jump to Audio

I was talking with my buddy Quinn C. Martin about putting together material, and he said something that turned my stand-up comedy paradigm on its head.

You don’t need five/ten/fifteen/sixty minutes of material. You need to learn how to be on stage for that amount of time.

Damn, son. I should also note that he followed that up by saying, ‘You want something to blog about? Blog about that shit.’

Laughter Is More Important Than Material

I’ve been spending a lot of time trying to manicure five minutes of perfect material that will hit everywhere I go. However, I’ve realized that the audience doesn’t care about whether you’re doing material or not. At the end of the day, all they want to do is laugh.

If you make them laugh, they’re not going to leave saying, ‘Wow, what great written material.’ All they’re going to say is, ‘That brown guy [they rarely remember your name] was hilarious.’

How I Applied This Lesson Tonight

I did a good job applying this lesson to tonight’s set.

I was talking about the trials and tribulations of dating at 29, and there was a couple that were clearly enamoured with one another close to the front row (there were about 6 audience members and two comedians in the room). You can hear me interacting with the couple on the clip. It takes the first 30 seconds to set things up, and I go in thereafter…:)

Full set if you’re interested (I’m whispering in the beginning to describe the lovebirds)

How I Prepared Myself To Achieve That Laughter

Changing The Way I Rehearse
I practised my new set 5-7 times today, making sure that I had my key points down. One of the things I’ve stopped doing is memorizing my material word for word. I’ve decided to give myself some breathing room script-wise which I think will help me achieve my goal of being myself and becoming more genuine on stage.

Changing My Focus To Laughter Rather Than Material
I’ve changed my focus when going on stage. Yes, I’m still preparing material for my two new booked gigs at the Hard Rock, upcoming sets at Yuk Yuk’s, etc. However, my focus is now to get laughter, moreso than doing my prepared material. If I get on stage, and there’s something in the room to make fun of, the material can wait.

Surveying The Room
Quinn also told me about taking in the room before going on stage. Who are the people laughing in the room? Who isn’t laughing? Are there people doing something interesting? How are they reacting to risque/racist/sexual material? In this way, he said that you need WAY MORE than five minutes of material to be able to kill everytime you’re on stage. You need to be able to channel the right jokes for the audience that is in front of you. Profound tings right there, homies. In this case, I noticed the couple interacting romantically well before I got on stage, and decided that I would interact with them.

Recognition Of My Ability To Interact With Crowds
I like talking to crowds. And more often than not, it results in laughter. So, I’m trying to remind myself to leave myself vulnerable to their reactions and spontaneous outbursts.

Making Sense of It All

Comedians make people laugh. If they use material, so be it. If they don’t, but still make people laugh, then the people will have gotten what they wanted.

I’m not saying that there’s not beauty in doing prepared material, but there’s much more to comedy than plowing through rehearsed set pieces. There’s a whole world of material right in front of you when you get on stage, you just have to have your eyes open.

Tat tvam asi,

Michael Jagdeo

Taking Your Criticism To Heart

Michael Jagdeo — Fri, 11 May 2012 20:21:47 +0000

Recently, I’ve been getting a lot of criticism about my act from commenters…and I love it. Honestly, The insights that I get from you guys help me SO MUCH! This post outlines how I’m taking your advice to heart.

The other day, after an open mic, my boy Quinn C. Martin and I were sitting down having Whoppers. I got two of them, because right before we walked in he said, ‘Yo dawg, I got this…’

[Racists are probably saying, 'I'm surprised it wasn't KFC.' No, you idiots. Whoppers are on sale on Wednesday. Tuesday is KFC day. Manchu Wok when we're in the food court.]

I told him why I got two Whoppers, and we just started going back and forth, exchanging stories about eating when you’re poor. Of course, we ended up dying from laughter and he said, ‘One day, you’re going to tell jokes on stage the way you’re telling them right now.’

But What If They Don’t Get It?

I told him that one of my concerns has been that people won’t understand what I’m talking about. I grew up in a less than affluent place, and most of the crowds are not where I’m from. But he reminded me about something THAT I WROTE for blogTO when reviewing Jerry Seinfeld’s upcoming performance:

When I was in grade seven, I picked up a copy of Jerry Seinfeld’s Sein Language and found it hilarious. He talked about driving (I couldn’t drive), relationships (I’d never had a girlfriend), and planes (I’d never even been on a plane). That’s the power of The Seinfeld: he brought me, a West Indian kid from Malvern, into his world. Top three greatest comedians ever? Yup.

Over Whoppers (goddamn that ketchup and mayonnaise and onions and lettuce and real beef is a heavenly combination, isn’t it?) Quinn said, ‘You felt exactly what Seinfeld was saying, even though you’d never grown up in New York. He brought you into HIS world. That’s what you gotta do.’

Not Rambling, But Investigating

The other interesting thing is that he was laughing at things that were not jokes but simply minutiae that a neurotic like me never forgets. I was just letting my instinct take the wheel, going where it wanted to, not where I wanted to go. I often censor my rambling because I get scared that it’s not leading anywhere.

And, to a certain extent, when you have tried and tested material, it’s better to stick to the script. However, my material is getting laughs…it’s not KILLING. In fact, I find people laugh the most when I get away from what I’ve written.

In the moment, I filed his comment away. But yesterday, I remembered how much he was laughing when I was truly being myself. So, instead of trying to craft a bit using the premise-punchline-tag-surprise tag structure that I’ve learned, I just let my mind rant…after all, people think I’m funny when I’m with them…so maybe I should just try to be that person on stage. Here’s the rant that came out.

Manchu Wok

Introduction

You know, there are a lot of black stereotypes out there. You’ve heard them all, they’re womanizers, they say Hastalavista when the baby’s born, it’s all been done.

And having grown up in Scarborough in Malvern, I acted just as black as they did. I know how they think because I think THE SAME WAY.

But sometimes black people who don’t know me get confused and sometimes even angry because I know what they’re thinking before they think it.

Manchu Wok Story

The other day, there was this black guy from New York visiting Toronto. He was gonna do some shows out here or whatever, and this white guy was going to give a tour of the city.

Now, I follow this white guy on twitter, and he tweets, ‘I’m at the mall with [name of the black guy].’

And I’m thinking, huh? A guy comes from New York and you want to take him to the mall at 11am? What’s wrong with you

So I send the guy from New York a message on Facebook saying, as a joke, ‘Hey man, make sure that guy shows you a good time instead of taking you to the food court to get some manchu wok.’

He responds not a second later saying…’Are you following me?!’

See? That’s how much I know black people. I knew EXACTLY what he was doing in the mall at 11am cuz I do the saaaamme thing.

How to order Manchu Wok

I get the lo mein with the chicken wings and the sweet and sour pork. I argue with them when they try and fuck around and put three chicken wings instead of four

nah doh worry it doesn’t have to close

just just give it to me

Let me see how black you guys are…When you’re at manchu wok, do you get the food for here or to go?

Nah, it’s always to go. Those containers with the three compartments hold way more food than that plate. So you get the food to go, and you confuse the hell out of the chinese server lady because you sit down at the grey food court table right in front of the manchu wok and start taking out the fork and the knife and the manchu wok hot sauce packets, (start tearing them open, side to side, then squeeze out the rest)

The old chinese lady is just standing there confused behind the counter, ‘I thought he wanted to go (chinese accent)’

Bitch you don’t understand how this works!

By the way, I’ve been taking the bus recently because of gas prices…do chinese people know about shampoo? Because their heads smell like sweat and manchurian chicken.

Leftovers

Anticipation

You save some lo mein and a chicken wing for when you get home.

Man…you guys ever come home from a long day at the call centre, it’s like 12:37 in the morning, and the entire bus ride home you’re dreaming about that manchu wok at home. You can taste it. The chicken wing won’t be crispy anymore but fuck it, you don’t even taste food at dem times…you just want to swallow greasy chicken…know what I mean. And you get mad because you have to piss when you get home and you just want to eat, but you’re like nah, let me savour this food. So you take your piss and you look in the fridge…

…

Horror

and it’s not there.

Goddamnit!

It might be your mom, your dad, your sister, a thief…you don’t know!

You’ll wake your mom up at 12:49am… ‘Mom what the heck!?’ What, son? ‘My dinner what the hell!’ What dinner?

And she’s the one that ate it…I know it…because I could see the smile on her face, greasy sheets.

But that was my fault… You can’t just put that big-ass styrofoam container in the fridge…

Lesson Learned (Quinn said this tag)

So what do you do? Anyone?

Next time, you put wrap that lo mein and that lonely chicken wing in tin foil…you might be thinking, ‘lo mein in tin foil? why not tupperware?’ naaah TIN FOIL BREDREN! And put it UNDER the lettuce and onions and tomatoes in the crisper at the bottom of the fridge.

Then next time, you’re eating your midnight snack and your family is like, ‘Where’d you get that from? Don’t worry, mom…just watch your show…’

Selfish

You know what, the other day I noticed that I eat way too fast…and I think I know why…it’s because there was never enough food at home…if you didn’t eat fast, that shit was gone. Like when there was a big bag of chips…I’ve never ENJOYED a big bag of chips…I black out when I eat chips….one moment I’m at the grocery store the next moment I’m creeping in the house hoping that nobody sees…You guys ever do that?

The other day, at around 2am, there’s this place in malvern called markham station, open 24/7 with the best chicken wings in Toronto for the price. So I got hungry, and walked to the restaurant instead of driving because I didn’t want the car motor to wake up my sister.

So I get home, and Even though I trying to walk in quietly the paper bag with food makes this cshshshsh sound. And my sister, like a cat, I can her here get out of bed and it’s almost 3am, and she’s like, what are you doing? And I go…oh, just got bagels from the gas station for breakfast…

And I creeped upstairs, wedged a chair against the door, and ate my heart out…napkins fuckin everywhere.
There were leftovers too, you know. You know what I did with them? I said fuck it, can’t leave them in the fridge. So I just kept them in the bedroom with me and had them for breakfast. I heard people trying to get in the bedroom door but the chair that I wedged kept them out.

Revelations

I remember a quote that said, ‘Struggles don’t hurt you…they reveal you.’ My goal is to be natural on stage, and I’ve realized looking at comedy through the lens of too much structure may have been impeding that journey.

More than a few critics of mine on this blog have pointed out that I seem fake when I’m angry on stage, and sometimes they’re right, other times not. But I do recognize that if I write a punchline that requires anger, unless I’m talking about something that’s absolutely true (i.e. a personal story), it’s probably going to come off forced. I can’t have it both ways. I can’t be myself and then play a character of myself, if that makes any sense.

A New Way Of Looking At Stage Time

Nicholas Reynoldson, a hilarious comedian who’s got his character NAILED, came up to me after a show and said, ‘Hey man, I loved that bit you did about [xyz]. You’re writing’s solid, all you need is more stage time.’

I used to think that the only reason to go to an open mic was to try out new material. Now I know that material is only part (not even half) the battle. I want an act that will KILL everytime I go on stage, no matter who’s in the crowd.

I’m a writer, the material will come. It comes all the time. I’m not worried about the ideas:
…and there’s another 100 voice notes in my iPhone I haven’t fully transcribed.

It’s like I have a very good guitar, but I’m stuck in Toronto and John Mayer’s in California. The guitar is great, but I need to get it in the hands of a KILLER.

I also need to write for me, rather than just writing to get a laugh. One of the ways I’m going to do this is talking about more personal stories/experiences.

Thanks for sticking with a Jigga,

Oh, and here’s the funniest thing I’ve seen in a minute! Documentary fans will love this one…

I Sucked In Art Class

Michael Jagdeo — Wed, 09 May 2012 20:16:38 +0000

My Sketchbook

I was horrible at art in school.

The worst part was having to keep a sketchbook, because when you can’t draw well, an 8×11 white sheet of paper is VERY intimidating. I was the type of kid that drew with a ruler. So, I got fed up one day and paid my friend’s little brother $2 (my fries and gravy money) to do my sketchbook for me.

I got 55%. Why? Well, he was asian, and my teacher didn’t believe a west indian could be that interested in anime to perfect the art of drawing spikey hair on an asian midget.

Jagdeo

PS – Don’t front; that’s a catchy tune, damn it.

I was on the way to a comedy club, passed a music store, and heard that song playing. Now, we men are supposed to act like alpha males 24/7. We’re supposed to be dominant, win arguments, pay the check, and most of all, not listen to girly club music. We’re supposed to listen to Tupac and Biggie and DMX.

But I couldn’t help it. I passed the song in mid-chorus, synth hits sending iridescent bubbles of love into my soul, and stopped. I looked around to see if I recognized anyone, pretended to seek shelter in the doorway, opened up a notepad on my iPhone, and started typing out the lyrics (I could only catch bits and pieces):

Such a good song! I have a slightly disgusted/angry look when I love a song…do you guys have that face too?