S01E03 Tribute: Russell Peters

The JK Around Podcast: Taking the Magic Out of Comedy

This week we tributize Russell Peters! But we don’t get into his story right away…

We question why Ricky Gervais had a wildly popular podcast, but we don’t! how did he have millions of downloads? We thank our listeners while trying to educate our listeners about subscribing on iTunes. We’re also on Player FM for android.

We also discuss that Gervais tweeted that Mike Birbiglia is the new Woody Allen. It appears that tweet has been deleted. We try to understand what that means because it doesn’t really make logical sense. We compare Sleepwalk With Me, Sleeper, Annie Hall, The Producers (Mel Brooks) and Matthew Broderick in Ferris Bueller’s Day Off. It’s the High school Musical of the 1980s.

Kevin mentions how Birbiglia’s coffee joke can really lighten one’s burdens of the day: “I’ve been listening to this rapper, Busta Rhymes. Sometimes he’ll say a really good rhyme, and he’ll say his name afterwards. He’ll be like, ‘Cat in the hat, and that was that — Busta Rhymes.’ I really like that. I’d like to do that with jokes. Like, ‘I like drinking coffee, but if I ever reach a point in my life where the best part of waking up is Folgers in my cup, I’m not sure I wanna wake up — Mike Birbiglia.'”

“@birbigs: Love all u folks who came out to @sleepwalkmovie. To own the movie for $5 go to sleepwalkmovie.com I absolutely loved it.

— Ricky Gervais (@rickygervais) April 29, 2013

@rickygervais this tweet made my year.

— Mike Birbiglia (@birbigs) December 17, 2012

Of course, we discuss Cheerios and the British comedic sensibility. We remark on British weather, the bonnie Cliffs of Dover. This delves into an in-depth conversation about Dr. Who… or at least a mention.

We review our Louis C.K. episode and the “heads up” we gave him. As students of comedy, our opinion is rich as we putter around the comedy restaurant in various roles as a funny bartender (not Al Murray), a cleaner or a hilarious busboy (Steve Buscemi in the 70s).

We finally pull our magical brown rabbit out of our hat: Russell Peters. He’s actually famous in the whole world, not just New York City. Joel pulls out his New York accent and discusses his four day exchange program trip to NYC where he saw Central Park, MoMA and The Guggenheim. Of course, we couldn’t talk about his NY trip without talking about Jimmy the Sledge! There’s an M. Night Shyamalan twist with flair of postmodernism. And Joel wishes he could exchange with a New York Comedian.

Then Russell Brand is accidentally brought up. We talk about his politics and his platform. We try to start talking about Peters again, but the conversation slips back to Brand by mistake.

It’s revealed that Peters started stand-up in 1989 and does observational comedy about races and ethnicity. We talk about his ethnicity being Indian. Then Kevin gets very close to being racist and is chastised by Joel who wants to keep the podcast above board and politically correct.

Facebook Question of the Week: Is India currently residing in Asian and, if so, does that make it racist to talk about things that are in Asia as places?

Bit of a Facebook contest: How long has Russell Peters been doing comedy (show your verified work)?

Then Joel drops the bomb that comedy comes from a place of pain. Kevin cites Hamlet as an example a tragic jester (by Shakespeare). We realize it’s a healing thing that brings everyone together, even the Arab nations. That’s why Peters is compared to the great healer, Michael Jackson. Then Kevin talks about Russell’s shaving habits for some reason.

Give to the Philippines!

Peters grew up in Brampton, Ontario, Canada a little after the big bang might have happened, but before 1989, and it was hard for him because all the Canadians bullied him as he was probably the only Indian boy. And out of that pain acorn grew a comedy tree. We touch on video games (Pong and Mario) which will upset the human child’s mind, according to Joel’s thesis on the affect video games have on our internal physiology. We discuss India’s lack of cars, diet of rice and curries and use of tiles and sandstone. And we mention the lack of clean running water. All of this affects the buds of the comedy tree.

Somehow we get on alien technology like Apple iPhones and other way too advanced products. We touch on Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, Wi-Fi, Alexander Graham Bell and the telephone.

Russell Peters becomes a boxer, like in the song by Simon and Garfunkel, then he became a DJ in Toronto. We imagine Russell Peters in Winnifred, Alberta, just railing on the Canucks (official Canadian term for Canadians). We wish he’d try out some more Canadian jokes so we can learn about Canada and the Canadian accent. Instead he’s the entire Sugar Hill Gang in white-bread slacks, coming out to duelling DJs in his most recent hour “Notorious“! Branding genius!

Then Kevin gives our listeners a great hint about how to listen to and watch comedy stand-up specials. He suggests a still of Peters looking sad and then reading the transcript of the comedy special.

Brand comes up again and is described as being welcome on Pirates of the Caribbean. We also touch on a couple of his television appearances.

Then we talk about the difference between the Eastern and Western cultures in regards to superficiality versus the depth of sound. This stems from an appears Peters made on the George Stroumboulopoulos show where he spoke about his father.

This catapults us into a remarkable conversation about music pools in various cultures and music theory.

Facebook contest, the 3rd: There are 7 notes, plus sharps and flats, 3 per chord: How many combinations could you do?

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Have a great week!