LUCIDMEDIA

Jo Koy and Sugar Sammy of The All-Star Ethnic Comedy Show

Written by Catherine Kustanczy Monday, 21 July 2008 10:57

There’s also a collection of highly talented comedians set to assemble Wednesday night. KT Tatara, Joe Derosa, Sugar Sammy, Jo Koy, and the Doo Wops are among the performers; it’s being billed as a “The All-Star Ethnic Show” and is being taped by CBC television for future broadcast. Hosted by The Hour’s George Stroumboulopoulous, the evening is sure to be a huge hit with audiences and fans of standup comedy, but the question remains: what does being an “ethnic” comedian mean these days? Jo Koy, on the phone from his home in Los Angeles, has his own take on the word. “I’ve been on tour for almost two years now, by myself, and there’s one thing I get commonly asked when I play a place like Pittsburg or Missouri, or Dayton, Ohio,” he says wryly, “I’ll play these places, and I’ll get people over here on West coast going, ‘I didn’t know there were Filipinos over there’. But there doesn’t have to be any… I’m funny, period.” Koy, a Filipino-American comedian who uses his own racial experiences and upbringing as the foundation for much of his onstage material, notes that “When I talk about my mom, it’s cause I want to, not cause I have to, although I still adjust to my crowd. If I see a whole white audience, I’m not going to do all-white jokes, but I’ll do what they relate to.” He says things like witnessing the birth of his son, being a parent, and family itself, are topics everyone can relate to. “I’m a comedian,” he says firmly, “not an ethnic comic. I’ve never understood that label. Funny is funny.” Canadian comic Sugar Sammy agrees. Like Koy, the Montreal-based comic, who has a South Asian background, uses his own past as the basis for much of his material, and uses the racial issues he experienced growing up with whichever audience he happens to be playing to. “I’ve always gone out with girls from different nationalities,” he says, noting that when others would bring up the interracial nature of their relationship, both he and his partner’s reaction was the same. “‘I never thought of you as another race. It never occurs to me.’ It’s disappearing with my generation. People don’t see colour. I have a multicultural group of friends, so it becomes second-hand.” Still, Sammy says he sees the label affixed to the Toronto Just for Laughs event as “simply an angle to sell it. Everyone looks for an angle, soundbites, a way for it to be sold.”

Sammy, who keeps a busy national and international schedule, just recently returned from a string of highly successful appearances in South Africa, which he describes as “awesome, a great time.” It was Sammy’s third trip to the country, and he’s performed in Cape Town, Johannesburg and Durban, home to a large Indian population, His first visit there provided a taste of future success. “I landed and was getting my luggage, and above the carousel was my ad, and people were staring at me! We were driving on the highway, seeing billboards of car companies and my billboard (along) the highway.” He pauses, savouring the memory, though he notes “it was ridiculous, chaotic.” By the time he left, he needed a bodyguard and driver. “That was my first time experiencing that type of thing. I wasn’t ready for it. I’d be locked up in my room a lot, staying in, I didn’t know how to handle it. I’m getting better.” He says he still receives recognition in Canadian cities, including his hometown of Montreal, but “people are cooler about (fame) here. I was out yesterday, and people were stopping me… I almost want to shake everyone’s hand. It’s a privilege to do what I’m doing, especially for a living.”

Similarly, Jo Koy feels blessed to be pursuing his dream. Originally, the comic worked in a bank, and would do standup as a side project. His passion for the art was so immense, he went to great lengths to pursue it. “I would drive six hours, get paid 150 bucks and a free meal. I don’t know how many of those I had.” Koy was raised by his single Filipino mother, and found his breakthrough when he performed, to great acclaim (and a standing ovation, no less), on The Tonight Show. “When I was working the next day, people were coming up, going, weren’t you on The Tonight Show? Here I am doing deposits. It was so weird. A week later, my life just changed.” Koy has a busy international schedule, and like Sammy, has had several television appearances. His perseverance to move past parental expectation fuelled his passion early on. “My mom, her whole thing is, if you’re Asian, you gotta go to college, but I just couldn’t do it. I knew what I wanted to be. I remember telling my mom I wanted to be a comic, and she cried and was mad. She said there was no future in comedy, though when I started making money, it was suddenly her idea. She’d go, ‘I always told him he was funny’…”

Koy credits his mother for providing the inspiration for him to take the initiative in getting his career on-track. “She used to put us in talent shows as a kid. She was always the one organizing it, taking on the producer’s hat. I think I took on those traits, cause I watched my mom do it.” He relates the story of first performing in Las Vegas years ago, when as he says, “there were no comedy clubs for amateur nights. They didn’t have that then, so I had to do it myself - go rent theatres, rent out little coffee shops, produce my own standup shows.” He says having his mother’s moxy was hugely important in getting his reputation as a comic established. “I’d be seeing her do that for the Filipino Association growing up, so I guess I picked up that little trait of hers.” Once she saw her son was serious about his art, she became his most ardent supporter. “My mom would help me –she would advertise. It‘s a funny thing, cause my earlier jokes were always dirty, there was no real substance, and I’d be saying (them) in front of her. She would laugh and get a kick out of it. There I am, doing sex jokes and she’s laughing out loud! I think she was more proud than anything, because she saw me doing something positive with my life.”

Sammy, who has done standup in English, French, and Punjabi, grew up in a slightly different atmosphere, in that his parents actively supported his career. Still, they’re proud parents, and Sammy say they’re his biggest fans. “They’re more my managers than my own manager. They ask me how gigs went, they brag about it, and whoever visits can’t think of leaving without watching a video. They have all the press clippings, and always pull out the scrap book.” With a laugh, he says “it’s almost like harassment. People are avoiding my house now!” He notes, however, that “it goes both ways” in terms of parental support, particularly within a community where traditions and accomplishment in traditional careers are still a very big deal. “There aren’t too many parents who are like mine. I grew up in a household where laughter was encouraged - playing pranks, and play were actively encouraged, which really helps with interacting socially. But there’s the other side of it, especially in Indian community, where it’s very rigid early on. You know, ‘you have to be a doctor’ – that stuff. And that’s a big tragedy, because you never have kids who achieve their potential.”

In addition to his mother, Koy credits Whoopi Goldberg with being a huge inspiration. Her comedy specials were life-changing, as was Eddie Murphy’s popular 1983 standup comedy, Delirious. “I thought, ‘this guy is street-funny, this is something you could tell your friends on the street, he’s talking about real topics, his mom, his dad, everything.’ I thought that was so genius.” Koy also credits Robin Williams’ standup work with being a huge influence on his decision to become a comic. “(They’re) my three top 3 influential standup performances ever… I always remember them most. That’s when I was in the seventh grade, or maybe sixth, I knew I wanted to be those guys. They were the top three dogs back then.” He says when he got out of high school, another young, up-and-coming comedian had a huge impact on him too. “When I saw Chris Rock do Bring The Pain, I thought, ‘Wow, this guy’s amazing.’ Just when you didn’t think he could take it another level, that’s just what this routine did –he left room for more. When you thought it was all done, you realize he has a lot more shit to talk about that can still be funny.” Koy says figures like Rock, Goldberg, Williams and Murphy “are the reasons why I do standup. I get so excited about talking, opening up myself, letting people know who I am, not being afraid to say it.” Sugar Sammy knows the feeling. Last fall, he was the opening act for one of his comic heroes, Dave Chappelle. “It was the most nervous I’ve ever been before a show. That’s where I’m placed, that’s who’s influenced me… I just like that style of being raw, not really having a sort of filter, (of) saying what you want to say.” Sammy says African-American comedians like Chappelle, along with Eddie Murphy, Chris Rock, and Richard Pryor had a huge influence on him, and their style remains a constant source of inspiration. “What was good about them as a kid was that it was one of those things where kids weren’t encouraged to listen to them. When you’re forbidden to watch it, it makes it cooler, and that’s what I like, when parents go, ‘you can’t watch this’ but the kids go anyway. I always loved those guys. It didn’t matter to them, the boundaries. In African-American communities, people don’t set boundaries on them, because historically-speaking, (standup) is still very new, so they can say what they want.”

Not all of Koy or Sammy’s humour would be considered politically-correct, however. The key, they say, is to provide a balance of truth, while offering personal experiences within the context of humour and observation. Throw a television audience in the mix and things get toned down - but the message is by no means lost. “You’ve got to tailor (your material) to play that game and get seen,” explains Sammy, “You won’t get on TV if you don’t. I’ve done so much TV stuff, so I’ve figured out how to take my stuff and make it PC but at the same time give it that edge. People can see what your flavour is.” He says growing up with Haitian friends helped him broaden his racial understandings, while providing fodder for some of his routine too. “I have a big Haitian following in Montreal, so it has to be authentic. I can’t fake it, I have to be authentic about it, otherwise, they can call you on it. They’ll say, ‘ah, he knows how to pronounce stuff’, and there’s an obvious awareness.” Koy, who affects an Oriental accent for some parts of his routine, says his ethnicity has made him more aware of the ignorance of others, thus making it easier to mock. “When I do a derogatory voice, I’m indirectly making fun of the person making stupid a comment. That’s what joke is about. ‘Do you expect me to talk this way too?’ Look at how Eddie (Murphy) used to talk about his mom. I’m not making fun of my mom’s accent, I’m just making fun of my mom.” He admits he doesn’t think “every Filipino mom” is as easy-going as his, but “that’s how my mom is. She enjoys it, she feels like she’s part of the whole routine.”

He says his famous “orange chicken” joke has a basis in reality. “I used to work in a hotel, checking people in. We’d always get these busloads of Japanese or Chinese tourists, one hundred at one time. Every time they’d check in, my superiors would walk up to me and say, ‘can you talk to these people?’ I was like, ‘Hello? I’m Filipino, they’re Japanese!’ The ignorance… that’s where the orange chicken joke came from, hearing that. People say the dumbest things."

Sammy has his own routine material culled from the absurdities of real life. “I’ve had a guy come up to me, and no joke, he said, ‘you’re the coolest Paki I know.’ I mean, wow, what just came out of your mouth? I’m looking at buddy going, ‘what did he say?’ Every joke comes from the truth.” He says his “Super-Paki” routine onstage comes from a ticket giveaway for a gig, when “all these names started coming out, so I thought, ‘I gotta make a joke.’ Everything I write, writes itself. When someone calls you a Paki, it’s like calling someone a nigger, and you’re like, ‘wow, did I just get that?’ That’s why comedy’s good - people need that education.”

“Comedians are the philosophers of our generation,” he muses, “Comedy is a creative way to get points across, and it’s a good reflection of our society. The second we notice something, we write it, and put it out there, instead of going through a process, writing books and articles, that all takes more time. We do it in a style that people want to listen to. It’s not preachy, it’s just, ‘go have a laugh.’”

“I’m a comedian,” says Koy, “and I happen to be Filipino. The whole ethnic thing…” He pauses, searching for words to describe the frustration of being boxed in by racial labels. “Yo, it’s 2008, have you ever seen Canada? Every race in the world lives in Canada… in Toronto alone!”

“Look,” he says passionately, “Sugar Sammy is funny. The Doo-Wops are funny. It has nothing to do with being ethnic, or this sense of, ‘hey, look at us, we’re funny too!’ It’s not like that. It doesn’t’ matter what setting you put us in… we’re all funny. Period.”

The All-Star Ethnic Comedy Show takes place at the Winter Garden Theatre in Toronto on July 23. Start time is 7pm. For more information, go to www.hahaha.com/toronto.