:: BRING THE FUNNY ::

I'M TAKING BLOGGING AWAY...UNHHH...

2006-11-08T03:29:00.000-08:00

So it was either switch to another blogging format or put my fist through the screen. The former is cheaper.

Presenting:

:: BRING THE FUNNY V.2 ::

Update your links to http://samishah.wordpress.com. Just testing this out but I love the templates available and the usability is alot more customizable.

Here's to V.2.

I'M BRINGING BLOGGING BACK...UNHH...

2006-11-01T03:18:00.000-08:00

Okay, I am really flattered by the number of emails I got complaining about lack of updates. Seriously. I had no clue so many people read this blog and I think it kinda gave me stage-fright a bit.

A bunch of reasons for the lack of updates. I am not just slacking off, nor have I lost interest in blogging.

Basically I did three things that got in the way:

1) Started the new job. Lots of working late and working hard. The news doesn't just make itself dammit!

2) Discovered an inability to say "no" to anything that's offered to me. Right now I am working on, other than the day job, a series of articles for a tech magazine, Black Fish comedy festival promotional material, a freelance graphic design gig, new stand-up comedy material and a theatrical production on Aids for December. More on the last in a bit.

3) Switched to Blogger 2.0. Saw it available, got all excited and decided it was the new cutting-edge thing to be a part of and then after switching over, discovered I can't access the blog at home. So blogging hours are now limited to 9-5.

How I will make it up to you:

a) Audio and video files from the LUMS show I did a while back, coming up soon.

b) New material posted here in the next few days.

c) Details about a blitzkreig (I love that word!) tour featuring me, Saad and Danish. Three comedians, three cities, three days. End of November.

Keep coming back. I will try to start doing this better. Need to make time for it because it's worth it.

(see how well organized the whole post was? That's training from my new job paying off! How's that for value add. Funny and neatly organized!)

CRABS AND FUNNY SHIT...

2006-10-09T02:09:00.000-07:00

Action = Eating mass amounts of crabs yesterday evening.

Reaction = Spending the night on the pot, straining and whimpering.

Been getting alot of feedback from LUMS students about the show who have, I assume, googled me and found the blog. Mailbox full of praise, although oddly some people were offended by the material on Pornography. Oh well.

Before the show started, when I was standing outside the auditorium waiting to be called in, a woman stormed past me yelling at her friend, "If this shit isn't funny I'm leaving in ten minutes."

When the show ended I looked around the auditorium and found her near the stage, sitting with her friends and clapping.

That was my greatest personal victory of the night.

AND IT'S DONE...

2006-10-07T02:18:00.000-07:00

God what a great audience. What a great goddam show.

Got to LUMS straight from the airport. Was already kinda burnt out because of not getting much sleep over the past week or so. I meet the people who are hosting the whole show, members of the LUMS dramatics group, "Dramaline."

I check the auditorium space, marvel at the huge poster for my show with "SOLD OUT" written across the top and then go sit in an empty class room for 3 hours with 2 cans of red bull and stack of cigarettes and start structuring my material.

Basically I have all my stuff written down on individual pages, organized by topic and I lay them all down around me and then start shuffling them till I get an order I like. Ended up deciding to risk it by doing a bunch of new stuff as well. By the time that was done still had 45 minutes to go before the show started and so just sat in a corner and fought back panic-attacks.

The MC called me up at 10:15 on the dot, infront of an auditorium packed with close to 300 people jammed right up against the stage and I just launched into it. Did an hour of the best set I have ever had. They got every bit, they laughed at the right times, their reactions helped me pace myself and they weren't even thrown when near the end I had a two second brain fart and had to riff for a but before I got back on track.

Just a solid one-nighter. The best kind I could have hoped for.

Thank you LUMS. Now if you'll excuse me I need to pass out. Apparently they recorded audio as well as video of the show so will be posting that at samishah.com as soon as they send it across.

LUMS DOES SAMI...

2006-10-05T12:23:00.000-07:00

Just got off the phone with the guys at LUMS who are organizing the show. Apparently 250 tickets were sold in two hours.

250. Two hours. Wow.

I touch down in Lahore at 5:30 Friday evening. Go meet my grandparents and then head over to LUMS by the 7. Show starts at 10:00 so that's ample time to check last minute stuff. Y'know, stuff like what the hell I'm going to be saying up there!

I have all my material printed out and ready. I just haven't memorized chunks of it well enough yet and still have to decide what order it all goes in. Kinda hoping my brain will suddenly become super-powered on the flight to Lahore and it will all be done in the hour and a half long flight.

God, if this goes badly I'll look like an idiot.

Do any other performers of any kind (music, theater, comedy...anything!) visit this blog? How do you relax prior to a show? My technique currently is vomiting violently in a corner for 3 minutes and then weeping manfully into my notes until they call me on stage.

I need something better.

NEW SHOW!

2006-10-03T11:54:00.000-07:00

Finally some Stand-up!

This Friday, October 6th, I'm performing at LUMS. Solo show. One hour of me standing up and doing comedy.

I've been having nightmares again.

Been wanting to perform at LUMS ever since Black Fish did a show there for 1000 people (which I am positive is some kind of Improv comedy record). The show was one of the best we ever did, and that's entirely because the energy the audience brought and the level of intellelle...intelee...entilligance (sp?) at LUMS is exactly what we have been yearning for.

I want to make smart people laugh. My friends mostly do it because they are high at the time.

So this Friday, if you're in Lahore and have a friend at LUMS, spring for the Rs. 50 ticket and help me try too...dum dum dunh!...BRING THE FUNNY!

God I puked in my mouth that time.

DIGNITY FOR SALE. PLEASE CALL...

2006-10-01T12:43:00.000-07:00

I put an ad in the newspaper for my car today.

Correction: I gave the text to a friend who works at the newspaper to put the ad in. The text I gave read, "For Sale - Olive green Cuore. 2003 model. CNG fitted. Call *** *** ****" (like I'm gonna put my phone number on the internet!).

The text my friend submitted read, simply, "Cuore for sale. Call Sami at..."

I got woken up at 9:00 in the morning by an irate caller whose opening sentence was "Why didn't you give details about the car!?"

Yes that is an exclamation mark and then a question mark. That's how irate he was.

From that point on, some 150 people called me today. All with the same complaint. I cannot understand the psychology of these people. Maybe Karachi has exhausted them to the level that they feel the need to voice their frustration to every problem they have.

I gt lucky though, and sold the car at the asking price. Time to get those bastards at Standard Chartered to lease me a new car. That should be a simple process of making a downpayment, signing over the rights to my first-born and sacrificing a goat while standing in the centre of a pentagram made from menstrual blood. While naked.

MULLAH LOVE...

2006-09-22T14:53:00.000-07:00

Was watching TV tonight and a panel of Mullahs were justifying their squashing of the Hudood Ordinance. That's when I realized the real issue here:

Everyone in the MMA is ugly.

I'm not talking hook nose or unsightly mole. I mean really truly f*ugly.

These are a hideous group of men. One of them had an overbite so severe, if he tried kissing you he'd scrape your lips off. Another looked like the unfortunate child of an illicit union between a troll and an ork who just happened to be first cousins.

And that explains everything.

First the beards. Those aren't grown out of piety or tradition, they are an attempt to hide as much of the offending growth (head) as possible. If I looked like a member of our Religious Party I think I'd be rubbing Rogain on my forehead and cheeks as well as my chin.

Secondly, the hatred for women. We all ask, "Why do they hate women so much? Why? Why? Why?" And the answer has been staring us in the face all this time, except we never noticed because we were too busy shielding our eyes. Women keep turning them down!

Don't agree? Skeptical? Okay...visualise this:

You are 14 years old. Puberty just hit you like the Bubonic Plague in Mumbai. Nipples are hardening. Underarms are sprouting. Crotch is itchy. That uncomfortable growth under your Shalwar doesn't seem to be going away no matter how many times you hit it and dammit sometimes hitting it just seems to be making it stronger. It's like the Incredible Hulk rampaging up towards your naara. And then you see her. Your first girl. They aren't easy to come by in the small town of Chak 42, but here one of them is. All long hair and bouncy jiggly parts. And all of a sudden a small flower blossoms in your chest. Running a finger over the three strands of manly mustache that adorn your upper-lip you call forth on every bit of courage that God can provide you with. You look to heroes of the past. Heroes like Timurlain and Saladin, heroes your teachers at the Madrassah taught you about while you sat on their lap focusing very hard on everything but the wrinkly liver-spotted hand that's been climbing up your thigh. There will be time to scream into the pillow later. Besides, say the older boys, it's all a part of growing up...um...what was happen...oh yes! The girl in front of you! She walks with a grace that makes the goat that was your first lover seem ungainly and awkward. You wish she had horns you could seize, a beard on her chinny chin chin that you could grip. Lacking that you promise yourself a search for placeholds on her later. First to talk. Then to...

You walk up to her. A group of friends hoot and whistle at you from the corner. It's getting harder to tell if they are mocking you or hitting on you these days. Better talk to her quick. You stand in front of her, hands clasped behind your back. Then...then you ask her:

"Would you like to become my first cousin?"

Her laughter is cruel. She catches her breath just long enough to tap her long fingernails on your upper row of horizontally protruding teeth, then bursts into another fit of giggles. Two days later you see her making out with that muscular army cadet from the military training camp down the road.

You will get back at her. One day. You will get back at her.

And then, several years later, when the wound has festered and ripened, along comes a man named Zia-ul Haq. A military man. Unlike you. But an ugly man. Just like you. And with his power and your hatred, vengeance is had.

A tad extreme I admit. But possible. Heck, looking at those Mullahs you can see they've never gotten an affirmative response to a request for a dinner and a movie. And so they hate the women that hurt them so.

So how do we fix things? Am I suggesting women start sleeping with the members of MMA. I would never condone such an action. But still,that would be an interesting NGO Charter now wouldn't it...

WRITING WITH A HERD OF HUMP BACKS...

2006-09-21T18:04:00.000-07:00

It's 6 in the AM and I've just spent the last 4 hours writing Stand-up. Haven't written a word in months and then tonight my mind turns diarrhetic.

I'm sure when I get a chance to edit this stuff it'll turn out to be mostly useless, but dammit if I'm not having fun right now. Synapses are going off in my cerebellum like firworks at a Memon wedding.

I can hear traffic on the main road that runs past my neighbourhood starting to increase. Used to be birds chirping or a rooster crowing would signal dawn. Now it's the cacaphonic blast of a Truck horn.

Two more just sounded.

Diesel burning tin whales in heat. Their blow-holes jetting plumes of black smog into the Karachi morning.

I guess I'll just sleep at work.

POINT BY POINT...

2006-09-20T01:50:00.001-07:00

Things to say:

- Finally a new Stand-Up show coming. After months of procrastinating I am finally setting up a show at LUMS. If Saad hasn't left for holiday by then he will perform as well. If he has, then I go solo. End of this month at the earliest. Time to rehearse new material. Let the anxiety begin.

- Watch The Wire. Go get the DVD sets now. I wish all TV was this good, but the fact that this exists makes up for the rest of the shit out there.

- I am still waiting on my damn DSL installation.

- Ramadan is almost here. And then Eid. I am already dreading hairy-lipped aunties and lumpy desserts.

- Watch The Wire.

- Go now.

- I you're in Lahore help me spread the word about my coming show. Will post details as soon as I get them.

WEAK...SO...WEAK...

2006-09-11T04:23:00.000-07:00

Metallic stink of fever-sweat. Neural chaff causing static on the brain. Dull throbbing ache in my shoulder.

Either I played too much X-Box last night or I'm in the early stages of flu.

Probably a combination of both.

PLEASE BE GENTLE...

2006-09-09T02:24:00.000-07:00

So it looks like Maxcom is my new DSL provider. I feel so nervous. After the way Worldcall hurt me, it's quite unlike me to be jumping into bed with a new provider so soon, but I need to do this to heal the pain.

Plus Maxcom apparently picks up after itself and is gone in the morning. Lets see if it leaves a breakfast of waffles and boiled eggs or just steals my watch and silk underwear.

I have no clue what I am talking about at this point.

Need...internet...at...home...

...life...seems...shallow...and...empty...

DSL ME BABY...

2006-09-06T03:46:00.000-07:00

It's time for me to switch DSL subscribers. My current WorldCall connection has become about as fast and reliable as Reagan in his Alzheimers-riddled latter years.

Whats the word on good DSL subscribers in the KDA area? Orbit, who everyone sings praises of, isn't available here, which leaves me with Maxcom and Cyber Xtreme. The former is hideously expensive and the latter is Cybernet owned which makes me doubt its reliabilty.

Any advice would be appreciated. My stunted porn-collection thanks you.

WUNCH OF BANKERS...

2006-09-04T03:16:00.000-07:00

Raise your hands if you work in a bank.

Raise your hands if you are in any way affiliated with the world of Banking.

Wow. That's alot of people. Okay, here's what I want you to do:

Fuck off and die.

No seriously, go to fuckery and die while there. And try to make the death a painful one.

For example, if you are using a noose to hang yourself with, try to substitute the rope with razor wire. You combine hanging and garroting. If, maybe, you decide to insert air bubbles into your blood stream, add some acid into the syringe. That'll do things juuuust right.

I have never, never in all my life, met a more repulsive and loathsome group of professionals than those associated with the Banking world. Banking is a system designed specifically to destroy any joy in your life and rob you blind of any dignity you own.

For starters, who in a bank is actually doing any work? Everyone I talk to forwards me to someone else who is even less involved with any day-to-day work processes. It seems like Banks are just a building that provide free seating to any moron off the streets who can wear a shirt and tie in the correct order.

Their work hours are ridiculous. My bank still functions on the same schedule laid out by Jebediah McBank, the goat-humping child molester from the hills of Scotland who in 1654 decided he was tired of going out and finding people to torment and would instead create a system that required innocent hapless victims to come to him. The schedule requires that doors open at 9:00 A.M., however no employees be found in any working capacity till 11:00 A.M. Those employees will mince churlishly for a full 4 1/2 minutes and then disappear bank into the dark gimp-cellar from which they had been released to feed on children's souls and the blood of virgins and rabbits.

Their fiendish policies include charging you money for not having money (even the Mafia has the decency to break your kneecaps or cut off your fingers - those I can provide when lacking money, how am I supposed to give you money when I don't bloody have any!), forwarding your call to an infinite number of drooling reprobates whose only real-world skill is not defecating in public and answering any question aimed at them with a sneer or a savage animal grunt.

The latest creative method of tormenting you that Pakistani Banking has devised it out-sourcing their call-centers to a group of lonely rapists whose only way of getting off is to hear you scream in rage at 11:30 at night. That's right. 11:30 at night. That's the time that Standard Chartered sales people decided to call me two days ago to sell me a credit card. Upon reminding them that I already have a damn credit card of theirs they then asked me to pay my bill. When I pointed out that the bill had not yet been mailed to me they said that it's my responsibility to pay it before the due date or suffer late fees. When I pointed out the due date is not for another 20 days they told me they will send someone to my office in the morning to collect cash! When I told them they can suck a weasels cock in hell they thanked me for my time and then called me half an hour later to offer me a credit card.

In the words of Bill Hicks: "Hitler had the right idea, he was just an underachiever."

I can't take it anymore. I am a calm guy who has almost never lost his temper. In the last month I have thrown a bankers keyboard across the bank floor until it smashed against a wall. I have cursed like a Punjabi in heat at two bank managers and I, just this morning, promised to beat a banker so hard his as-yet-unborn-children would have bruises.

I am also informed by friends who work in the system that Banks have policies that include kidnapping and black mail. That's the Pakistani Banking system for you. They actually will have your child kidnapped if you don't pay back the loan on their ridiculous timeline that causes your future generations 20 centuries down the line to incur interest costs.

I am hereby keeping all my money in a mattress. I also solemnly swear to treat any banker I meet as the scum of the earth that they are.

9 years ago I made an observation: Every banker I knew, graduated IBA, was grossly overweight, had thinning hair, masturbated to BMW's and was dating a girl almost 10 years younger than him. My understanding is their mating rituals involve hanging around outside the Kindergarten branch of Convent of Jesus and Mary and then emotionally tormenting little girls until they can cop a feel.

I have yet to see any evidence to the contrary.

Fuck of and die. Really.

TAKE THIS JOB AND...

2006-08-21T15:40:00.000-07:00

After 4.5 years in Advertising in Pakistan, wading hip-deep in a sea of mediocrity and frustration, things are changing. In a months time I won't be waking up every morning thinking "what the fuck am I doing with my life", nor will I end my days with "where did I put that damn gun?" Or atleast not for the same reasons.

I won't be an Art Director. I won't be a Copy Writer. I won't be ignoring a life-time of training in design and writing to churn out some crap that the client is positive is the greatest ad ever, just because their mediocre IBA/CBM education has ill-prepared them to do anything other than change the diaper on a diarrhetic chimpanzee.

No more lying about projects to friends so that they don't mock me or beat me. No more putting up with the useless and entirely idiotic opinions of a bunch of self-important idiots who have decided that since they are "Brand Managers" their words carry some weight, even though a dyslexic retard with a drinking problem, tourettes syndrome and an epilepsy attack could make a more useful point.

I am ready for frustrations on a whole other level and about a whole new series of issues, but I'm sure I'll be able to sleep better at night because atleast I can say to myself it's for a worthwhile cause.

And that's worth everything in the world to me.

What am I going to do? I'll tell you in a while. It will be something new and challenging and (for me) scary as fuck. But damn if I'm not looking forward to it.
In the meantime you can go to www.samishah.com and ogle my artwork or you can trawl through my archives and read some old stand-up material.

Now if you'll excuse, I need to start watching the third season of Entourage. Johnny Drama is my new role model.

THE HEAVENS DOTH WEEP...

2006-08-16T23:34:00.000-07:00

Last night I stood on my balcony in nothing but my underwear, arms raised upwards as the sky turned electric.

Arteries of light pulsed, freeze-flashing raindrops that looked like tear shaped diamonds.

Rain sizzled on the leaves around me.

Now that's a proper bloody storm.

SPACE-TIME CONTINUUM FALLOUT...

2006-08-09T02:47:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I spent 4 1/2 hours in a traffic jam.

Foru and a half hours of my life that I will never get back. This is how it went:

HOUR 1: Started to get angry. Sat in my car composing articulate rants against the condition of the country to be delivered to President Musharraf if we ever meet.

HOUR 2: Resigned myself to the situation. Still promised to kidney-punch the President if I ever meet him but otherwise just allowed a general malaise to set in.

HOUR 3: Started to worry that maybe I (and the thousand or so other cars that were gridlocked with me) was trapped in a sort of Space-Time Continuum trap. Caused by the collision of two anti-matter quarks in the Quantum Foam, a rupture in the fabric of reality had sucked us all into an infinite loop wherein we would just keep inching forward endlessly, forever trapped in a moebius strip of cruelty. Alternate theory was that the Apocalypse occured somewhere between the time when I left my house and the time I got on the Baloch Colony Flyover, and all of the people in this traffic jam were actually in a sort of hell. Our punishment being to stay in the traffic jam together for the rest of eternity, a situation made all the more cruel by us clinging to the hope that the next time we move we will be able to drive out to our freedom.

HOUR 3.5: Societies start to form. I find myself a member of a group of truck drivers and van drivers. We share cigarettes and laugh, all the while trying to decide who we would eat first when it came time.

HOUR 3.9: Insanity sets in. Fantasy realities in which I can transform my car into a Jump Jet and fly over the traffic jam start to take over. I find I have spent almost ten minutes making jet-engine sounds and pressing imaginary buttons on the ceiling of the car.

HOUR 4: The radio plays "STREETS HAVE NO NAME" by U2. I decide, despite my aethiesm, that God does indeed exist and he is a sadist.

HOUR 4.5: One of the van drivers spots an opening in the barrier that runs alongside us and decides to risk driving through it and over mountains of rock and rubble until he can get to the tarmac on the otherside. We let him go first and after he makes it safely across, follow suit. My axle scrapes the ground and my tires squeal in protest but I have the devil on my mind and Evil Kneivel in my passenger seat. Crest a final hill of pebbles and reach civilization. Drive home at a 120 miles an hour, laughing like a maniac with a burning need to urinate.

All of the above is true.

-------------------------------------

Don't forget to bookmark www.samishah.com.

WEBSITEMACHINE GO!

2006-08-06T23:31:00.000-07:00

Behold! The fruits of my labour (as opposed to the fruit-of-my-loins, or even the fruit-of-my-looms):

http:www.samishah.com

Samishah.com was my site for several years, then around 3 years back I lost the domain in a credit card bungle. Since then I have been happy to blog here for free. Finally bit the bullet and dusted off the old site. Had to relearn html and javascripting and whatnot.

The site is currently just a gallery for my illustration stuff. Soon will migrate my blog over there as well, and also set up space where you can download audio and video of my comedy and whatnot. It'll become alot more comprehensive and will offer alot more as well.

Soon. Soon.

I am thinking of committing to mid-October as time to launch my second Stand-up show. One full hour of new material.

OLD MEN AND DRIVING DRUNK...

2006-07-31T12:45:00.000-07:00

Proof that I don't just draw naked women all the time. Sometimes I draw half-naked decripit old men.

Did this while watching clouds recycle water molecules onto the street. Drops caught in the wire-mesh stretched across my window forming tiny transparent pixels against the fractal pattern of the sky behind them.

And just so you don't start thinking I've given up the comedy thing altogether, here's a new bit written yesterday. Less funny, more angry. Based on a chance meeting with someone who got away with killing someone while driving drunk and how said person is accepted back into polite society with nary a upraised eyebrow. Thus the venom.

---------------------------------------------

You just drove your car through a van full of disabled children? And you got off scott-free because your dad encourages his employees to swallow condoms full of cocaine while taking long-distance flights to help finance his industrial empire and your mom is the designated jizz jar for half the political elite in the country? Come on over! It’s a theme night!

---------------------------------------------

GUTTER RAIN AND GIANT DONKEYS...

2006-07-30T14:09:00.000-07:00

After grey skies flirting with us and pissant drizzle teasing us for a week, it finally rained in Karachi. Everyone ran outside to celebrate and dance under the torrential downpour, only to flee inside moments later when the gutters ran over and turned the roads black with ancient fecal matter.

Once the rain let up, a friend and I went out for sandwhiches, ploughing our way through submerged roads. We get to the closest McDonalds (I likes me quarter pounders..."Supersize Me" indeed) and find our way barred by a wall of a wall of thick back insects with wings. They crunched like glass underfoot and I wasn't feeling brave enough to find them in my burger so we left (that's also the same moment when I realized I'd never last on FEAR FACTOR).

So lets see, in the last week we've seen War in the Middle East, Flooding (those upchucking gutters can can really cause some damage and a plague of insects. I feel a Judgement Day coming on! When are the zombies supposed to rise up? Was that before or after the hail of frogs. I think it coincided with the one-eyed giant astride a donkey that rides out of Jeruselam and the army of super-powered midgets that couldn't figure out how to defeat a wall for a millenia but will now take over the world.

(If you don't believe me just look it up. I speak the truth!)

In the meantime, while I wait for the mountains to be torn asunder and the sky to rain blood, I have decided to order some snazzy new stuff from Iron-on Resistance. I'll be the best dressed man in line for God's Judgement.

Bring on the End of the World.

REALIZATION

2006-07-24T03:21:00.000-07:00

Shakira's hips truly do not lie. They are the most honest hips on the planet. Abraham Lincoln wishes he had hips this honest. I would vote for them to become President, so much faith do I have in them.

Truly they are the hips of truthiness.

AND I'M BACK...

2006-07-21T05:13:00.000-07:00

*sigh*

And I'm back.

The last three weeks were spent in Australia, watching water spiral counter-clockwise down the drain, roaming the wintery (in July it should be noted) streets of Melbourne wrapped in layers of black clothing, eating excessive amounts of sushi, savoring the best damned steak I will ever eat in this lifetime and spending every moment I could manage holding my wife close to me.

I returned last night to find that in the last twenty days the street outside my house looks remarkably like the lunar surface (which casts my unfortunate tiny Cuore in the role of a Lunar Buggy), my blog has been hijacked by a co-worker (whose "LOL" exclamations are like graffiti on the pristine surface of my erudite and articulate prose) and an infestation of bugs has attempted to take up residence inside my air conditioner.

That last part I discovered this morning by the way, because when I got home there was no electricity. Open mouth. Insert gun.

A couple of quick observations before I spent the next hour screaming into a pillow:

- Karachi from above looks remarkably like Basra (or these days parts of Beirut) must. Honestly. After the aesthetic symmetry of the Melbourne and Kuala Lumpur skylines, I cringed at the ramshackle, dystopian, grime and dust smeared city that we titled "The City of Lights" with absolutely no sense of irony.

- It is so fucking hot. So so fucking hot.

- I look great in my new red Converse sneakers. Oh and I now own a pink/salmon shirt.

- I miss my wife already. Which means I will be grumpier and snarkier than ever before for the next few weeks. Expect much Collateral Damage when my rage is unleashed on the slightest of perceived slights.

Now I am being summoned to a shitty meeting with a shitty client in a shitty conference room.

I shit on "welcome home" signs.

2006-07-21T04:29:00.000-07:00

dear sami,
yes ive highjacked your blog, but you were sort of expecting this at some point so its all good.
i know.lol.
khair...ur finally back!
and its great!!!
seriously, we'd all missed you, but...

id like you to go back now.i know it'll make both you and me happy.you'll be with ishma again, and ill have MY cubicle back!
i mean, hello, ive gotten used to ur nice 'system' and all!i cant go back to plain old obsolete macs now.
:(
and i have no place to secretly blog anymore!
so lets make both of us happy!
go back!
:D
im happy that ur back!but having the cubicle to myself was NICE!!!

ur favorite co-worker,
khizzy

KOALA BEARS AND KANGAROOS...

2006-06-25T11:59:00.000-07:00

Kind of caught up in a whirlwind right now. Three days ago I directed my first TV advertisments. They are for Radio One FM91 and should be on television from the 1st onwards. My directorial debut involved missing crew-members, a broken boom mike and exploding lights. But with the wonders of excellent editing and sound treatments the ads look great (by my admittedly biased standards)!

And then yesterday I came home to find my passport back from the Australian Embassy in Islamabad, with a glossy new Australian visit-visa glued to one of the inside pages. Quick call to the travel agent and I am booked to fly out to Melbourne on the 29th of June. Which means that by the 30th of June I'll be holding my gorgoeus wife after 5 long, lonely months.

Right now, I am sitting infront of my computer in just my underwear (a visual you will all thank me for, no doubt), trying do download audiobook versions of old William Gibson books so that I can listen to them on the long long flight.

God it's hot. Winter in Melbourne though. And the water swirls down the drains in the opposite direction. That I can't wait to see.

Posting shall become even more sporadic than before for the next 20 or so days.

THE ANCIENT AND FEARSOME TOMB OF THE KARACHI GUTTER KINGS...

2006-06-21T01:01:00.000-07:00

So my road has undergone a new transformation. It has gone from rememnants-of-gigantic-earthworm-passing to Basra-on-a-bad-day. The Tora Bora hills have better roads than this.

The current theory is that maybe the Area Nazim is actually looking for something. Treasure buried centuries ago that he has obtained a tattered map for. That's why they are digging up all the roads. The seek the tomb of an ancient king who once resided in the area. The only proof of his buried treasure were cryptic words in ancient Sumerian tattoed on the shaft of a sailors penis. He traded the member in at a sea-front bar in exchange for a Pakola and a packet of chilli-chips. It found its way into the hands of an intrepid and attractive young woman who works in the Archives section of the Karachi Municipal Corporation. Finding herself in accidental possesion of a whithered penis with cryptic writing she became the target for a secret society of Memon cultists who started to chase her down dimly lit alleyways and echoing car-parks, until she found sanctuary in the hairy yet muscular arms of a traffic policeman who has been tracking the cultists for years. He goes to his SHO with the evidence who dismisses him because of wild and uncontrollable penchant of property-damage and off-the-wall policing tactics. But dammit HE GETS THINGS DONE! Together the two of them unravelled the secret of the hidden tomb by giving the benefit-of-the-doubt to a wrinkle on the length of the fast decaying penis, and finding a 3D compass under the skin that is only visible when held under a black light on the night of the first full moon of the summer solstice. The Memon-cultists in the meantime, enlist the aid of their most powerful member: The hunchback area-nazim whose face is always hidden because of his tendency to stand in shadows. He is recognizable only by his penchant for smoking cigarettes that have particularly fiery glowing tips.

Our bold hero and heroine find themselves in the underground kingdom of the ancient civilization of midget-people who ruled the planet a millennia ago. Dodging fantastically complex traps that require gears and cogs to function and have miraculously avoided decay over the centuries, the two make their way to a cavern deep under the bowels of Karachi. There, the hot archivist who conducts all her adventuring in a pair of fetching tight pants, discovers herself to be the last living descendant of Forces of Light and suddenly manages to translate the fading words on the Penis-of-Truth. They discover the tomb just minutes ahead of the Memon cultists who have used their devious occult powers of in-breeding to create a mutant creature that is half-man and half-cousin. Inside the tomb they find all the treasures of the world, but rather than let the villains have it, our bold traffic policeman unleashes the power of Light lying dormant in the hot archivist by kissing her in a way the puberty-ridden audiences have been clamoring for. The temple is destroyed and the Memon-cultists and their mutant monster and crushed under rubble. But not before a single stray bullet fired by the city Nazim ricochets off a pebble and strikes the hero in the chest. He falls to the ground, laying there as the archivist bends over him weeping, her cleavage completely destroying any emotional poignancy the scene might have had. She moves his hand away from his chest to discover...no blood! Just then blinks, gaps and raises his head. Inside his breast pocket, was the tattooed penis, now smashed beyond recognition by the force of the bullet it stopped. They kiss passionately and then make the journey back up to the surface, a journey that on the way down took hours of dodging near-fatal traps but now will be covered in mere minutes.

Or at least that's what I think is causing the digging on my road. Might just be the ruptured sewage pipe. But really, how plausible is that?

THE MOLE MAN COMETH...

2006-06-13T14:07:00.000-07:00

My theory that the city nazim/mayor is actually the Mole Man from Fantastic Four and he is remodelling Karachi to become the Capital of his New Subterranean Global Underground Empire (N.S.G.U.E) holds true.

Why don't people listen to me? I am never wrong about these things. If Nostrodamus was half as accurate as me we would all be dead at the hands of the Anti-Christ by now and the world would be populated by men with faces of swine.

A few months back the local government decided it suddenly needed to dig up the road in front of my house and lay down sewage pipes really deep. So for a week my road looked like the Tunguska Meteor had smashed through it. Pipes were laid. Phone lines were accidentally ripped apart. But the work was done. Sewage would now flow 25 feet deeper than before and the world would become a better place.

Or so we were told.

Two days ago I opened the gate to find a 4 foot high geyser of shit. This morning we were informed the sewage lines were (surprise surprise) improperly placed and had thus ruptured. Now the street looks like one of the Sandworms from Dune just did a drive-by. Work is happening with superb efficiancy. Phone lines have once again been accidentally ripped up. As has my television cable line. And today I tripped into one of the freshly dug-up ditches and was ankle deep in dirty water.

Am thinking of amuptating my foot and cauterizing the wound with a heated sword. It'll be less painful than living in Karachi.

----------------------------------

Go read this interview with comedian Louis CK. Really great interview and he lit a fire under my ass. Time to think about finishing that short-film script that's been knocking around in my head for the past year.

GEEK CUM...

2006-06-09T05:57:00.000-07:00

The official website for the Live-action Transformers movie.

My keyboard is now wet and sticky. That, my friends, is known as a geek-gasm.

I recently wrote an article for SPYDER Magazine about the difference between Geeks, Dorks and Nerds.

If you're too lazy to buy it here is the unedited article:

------------------------------------

GEEK AND PROUD OF IT

It's never easy conversing with a Geek.

Before elaborating on that statement, a few clarifications are needed. Geeks are not to be confused with Nerds or Dorks. Here is, for convenience sake, a breakdown of each:

Dorks: Someone who says stupid things or acts stupid. Dorks do not have to be skinny with spectacles, bad hair and a collection of hard-disks in their back-pack. A dork can be anyone. Can look like anyone. Their only distinguishing trait is excessive stupidity, often described as "dorkiness".

Nerds: These are your typical social outcasts. The products of a childhood full of beatings at the hands of larger boys (or girls), Nerds are noticeable in their ability to find solace in the study of one subject, usually science or math. Nerds are also, almost always, true to their stereotype; skinny, awkward hairstyle, unfortunate dress-sense and usually gigantic spectacles perched on a bird-like face. During the 1990's, Nerds enjoyed a brief period of celebrity. They have since returned to their caffeine and potato-chip infested dungeons where they create code and hack each others home pages.

Geek: All of the above and none of the above. Geeks are obsessive about a single topic, often science, but it can even be about an obscure aspect of pop-culture. They can, however look like anyone. Their social skills are not as damaged as a Dork's or a Nerd's, but they suffer from a sort of factoid-Tourette's Syndrome, spouting obscure nuggets of information at odd times. Geek's are categorized by their area of speciality, i.e. Comic Geek, Film Geek, Tech Geek, ad infinitum.

The explanation being sorted, it is time to return to the central thesis of this piece, that being that Geeks are difficult to have a conversation with. It should be noted that this isn't too say that Nerds and Dorks are easier to talk to. In fact, this piece is centered around geeks because trying to talk to a Nerd or a Dork is as futile as spitting in a hurricane, or tugging on Superman's cape (a Comic Geek would take this moment to point out that during the late 1990's it was actually impossible to tug on his cape as he was a being of electricity and therefore...see how it will get?).

Talking to a Nerd is useless unless you are fluent in either "L33t Speak" or "n00bish". Don't know what they are? Then when next cornered by a Nerd, shove and run. If, however, you are feeling adventurous, or are in a situation where pushing someone might not be socially acceptable, a crash-course in these languages (both are actually different names for the same language) can be provided on Wikipedia. Be warned however, the initial introduction alone reads like this:

"The mechanism began simply: taking standard text and corrupting it with a dynamic cipher, with only those privy to the cipher understanding what was being conveyed in the ciphertext. "

The alternative survival tack is to just talk about "World of Warcraft". Don't waste time wondering, just say you love MMORPG's and are a Druid Night Elf from Kalimdor. An opening line like this will send any Nerd leaping off the couch slapping his Dorito-stained forearms together with joy.

Talking to Dorks a not that much of a challenge, and is actually a fun spectator sport. Just ask their opinion on a matter, any matter, and then sit back and watch the bumbling and stumbling mess that dribbles from his/her lips completely envelope and befuddle. This can be dangerous though from time to time. Dorks are to be avoided at some social functions where the wrong thing being said can have disastrous consequences, ex. Funerals. They are generally not aware that "Crap happens and then it decomposes" is not an acceptable consolation.

Which brings us to Geeks. Not as easily avoidable because of their casual look, Geek's are however problematic conversationalists and generally should not be engaged unless one is aware of the tell-tale warning signs:

1) Converation Steering: Geeks have no interest in your opinion. And they generally have no patience for any conventional topics. Indeed they tend to abhor all topics of discussion that do not feed directly into their obsession. So if your ideas about how President Musharraf can creatively cross the city of Karachi without inconveniencing the locals does not involve either a reference to the latest Marvel Comics Crisis or an Akira Kurosawa film then it's falling on deaf ears. Geeks will always try to steer the conversation into their area of speciality. This is never subtly done. It is also almost never an topic a normal person has any knowledge about, thus creating a temporary sense of superiority in the Geek's head.

2) One-upping: Geeks love to out-geek someone. If you have a modicum of knowledge about the subject, please oh please don't share it. This is seen as a challenge and an affront to a Geek's area of speciality. Responses become less about an exchange of ideas and more about proving that they know more than the other person. Sometimes the comments demonstrate technical superiority by revealing some improvement and other times it's by dismissing an idea by proposing a new idea that makes the original idea appear inferior. This most often happens in groups of more than two, but it can happen with just two as well. And there's a spectrum. Sometimes conversations are thick with geek talk and others where it's very subtle.
An example of geek talk:

Geek 1: I've been fiddling with X for some time and really like it but it's missing Y
Geek 2: You're using version 1, last week on Slashdot there was a post saying that version 1 was crap
Geek 3: And using X was advised against by XYZ Security
Geek 2: No, you can use version 1 as long as you patch it with patch 1.1
Geek 3: Yea but then X consumes three times as much CPU and doesn't deallocate memory
Geek 2: Hardware is cheap, grab a few XZ200 boxes and throw in 10 sticks of memory
Geek 3: Even so, if you want to do Y there are 10 solutions better than X
Geek 2: I've been using A, it's much faster and has no disk-performance issues
Geek 3: A is good, but only when you compile it with the --little-known-fact option
Geek 1: Our team has been using X for a long time and it works pretty well except for it's missing Y
Geek 3: X is legacy, you should be off it by now
Geek 2: The predecessor to X, W, was written for DOS (ha ha ha), X inherited all that DOS-based junk
Geek 3: If you want Y you shouldn't be using X, it wasn't designed for that
Geek 2: (to Geek 3) You think there was a design behind X? (both laugh)

The alternative to this conversation might have been something like:

Geek 1: I've been fiddling with X for some time and really like it but it's missing Y
Geek 2: Interesting, what kind of things are you doing with X?

If one is aware of these pitfalls, avoiding them is easy. It is simply a matter of knowing where the trap is and how to spring it. Much like Lara Croft in the Tom Raider: Legend when she has to free the Sword of Destiny from behind the Pool of Serpents. Which is made quite spectacular by the new 3D-rendering engine that actually allows sweat to bead on her forehea....

Get the idea?

------------------------------------

CALL OUT THE AUNTIES...

2006-06-08T04:27:00.000-07:00

I won't be going to the Open-Mic at the Basement tonight. Some work cropped up. Kinda bummed though, as I wanted to try out new audiences and new material.

In other news:

One of the most talented regulars at Saad's Open-Mic is this musician Omar Akhtar. His band is having a performance worth checking out. If you go, ask the band what their name stands for and tell them I sent you.

-----------------------------------

A.D.P
is performing
LIVE IN CONCERT

An exclusive show where the band will be previewing tracks from their upcoming debut album.

Also featuring opening act "DHUN".

Location: Caffeine (Seaview)
Date: Wed. June 14th
Time: 7:30 p.m.
Tickets: Rs. 150 if purchased in advance. Rs. 200 at the door.

Contact: Imran Lodhi 0333 3740554
Omar Akhtar 0321 2437335

-----------------------------------

My cut-copy-paste commands aren't working for some reason so I just typed that whole bit by hand. They better be grateful!

MARKETING HEADS ON SPIKES...

2006-06-04T23:41:00.000-07:00

Spent the weekend in Faisalabad.

That's right. Faisalabad. The whole city is like one big broken alleyway. Oh and the most exciting thing in the city is a tiny clock-tower. Whee. Why the suicide rate is not higher in that area is beyond my understanding.

Telenor's Djuice team proves once again that they have no clue about their target market nor the target market for Black Fish.

I still maintain that if all IBA and CBM Marketing Majors are beheaded on sight then the world will be a better place. Never has a single group of people been so dedicated to Mediocrity before.

In other news: There is a new Open-Mic night being held every Thursday at a local cafe. Will be going by this week to check it out. If it really is weekly then that may be the motivation I need to get off my ass and write new material.

SPLASH...

2006-06-02T06:31:00.000-07:00

Sami cannot update his blog right now on account of his having melted into a bespectacled puddle on a sizzling Karachi sidewalk.

He asks that you please not step in said puddle, as he might splash up onto your pants. Contrary to popular belief it is not easy to wash out Sami-stains from your pant legs.

LARRY DAVID AND GODLESSNESS...

2006-05-29T02:55:00.000-07:00

I have forgotten what sleep feels like.

Between the office beating me into a pulp and then Black Fish shows turning that pulp to paste I have been quite exhausted. And any and all free time has gone into watching Season 5 and 6 of CURB YOUR ENTHUSIASM. Such great comedy writing. Between this and everything Ricky Gervais has done for Brit comedy I have found my Safa and Marwa of TV comedy (ten points to anyone who got the Abrahamic reference there).

The Lahore standup shows doen't seem likely anytime soon. Off to India on a work project for a few days then hopefully flying to Melbourne for a few weeks to spend time with my wife. Maybe after I get back.

Got ideas for new material but most of it is so far past the line of what's allowable here that performing it is just not an option. Freedom of Speech is well and good unless it's you being chased down the street by a mob of raging Mullahs.

Speaking of whom: Saturday was a pointless strike. Karachi ordered to shut down by the religious parties in protest of the lack of beheadings or whatever for the people who died at Nishtar Park.

I think I am about to become the world's first Fundamentalist Atheist. Terrorist Atheist. Now that's a group that needs creating. They walk into coffee shops with books by Bertrand Russell and Karl Marx strapped to their chest. Meeting at Apathy Training Camps in Afghanistan.

QUICK NOTES...

2006-05-18T02:13:00.000-07:00

Quickly jotting these down so I don't forget them. At the office and not sure when I'll get home and I already lost a new bit because I didn't note it down and can't remember it anymore. Stuff I can work into longer stand-up bits
(skip this if you would rather hear these bits when they are fully worked out instead of ruining the future experience by reading them in their raw-notes form):

-----------------------------------------------

I am really whiny. Nothing makes me happy. Even if I go to Heaven I'll whine.
"Oh the river of milk isn't non-fat. And that virgin is too fat, that virgin is too thin..."

Why be offered virgins anyway? I don't even like virgins. Too whiny. Too needy of committmen. And they are generally shit in bed. I want to be offered skanks. Crazy messed up uber-sluts who welcome me to heaven in leather with candles and a gimp suit. And then we go off and pollute the river of honey.

-----------------------------------------------

I hate people who spell their names oddly. Why do parents do that? What to do they hope to achieve?

Xainab? What was wrong with Z?

Names that start off fine and then half way through go nuts. That's "Taimur" spelt with the symbol for Magnesium, squiggly line, ankh and squared to the power of Pi.

----------------------------------------------

NOTHING NEW TO SEE HERE...

2006-05-15T02:54:00.000-07:00

Aaargh, have not written anything new in days. Well...almost. I came up with what I think is the perfect Emergency Fall Back Joke in Times of Crisis. This will only be used if all else fails and I need to get an easy laugh to save myself.

Other than that, been so damned busy with the Black Fish tour and work that I have had no time for Stand-up.

Still hoping to perform in lahore at some point but no developments on that end. Bugger.

1000 PEOPLE AND ELLEN...

2006-05-08T05:33:00.000-07:00

Just got back from doing some Black Fish shows in Lahore. One of them was at the Lahore University of Management Sciences to an audience of almost a 1000 PEOPLE!!!

Prior to this our largest audience had been 400 people. This was nuts. People hanging off balconies and whatnot. And it was a solid show. One of our best ever. Insane.

Definetely want to do some Stand-up in Lahore. Am working towards setting it up right now.

Been listening to alot of Ellen Degeneres stuff recently. What an exceptional joke-writer. I mean seriously. I am hard pressed to think of anyone who crafts their material as effectively as her. The structure of the jokes is easy enough:

Establish topic. Start changing elements of story while telling it. Have bizarre twist half-way through. Push story into surrealist area. Tie it up neatly by bringing it back to normal. All done in a matter-of-fact tone.

But the actual content is so fantastic. Even if you know the technique, the things she does with her jokes is just stunning. really fantastic writing.

Been thinking alot about my own style. For the "Nobody Moves, Nobody Gets Hurt" solo-show my material was very simple. Straight-forward Observational style. In terms of delivery I was definetely channelling Seinfeld. The structure had a simple beat and rhythm, no matter how lengthy the bit was.

That has started changing. The newer bits are less tightly structured. They seem more stream-of-consciouness although they are just as tightly scripted as the earlier material. And the directions I take a topic in seem more absurd or atleast challenging than before. Now I can't bear some of the stuff I was proud of writing once. Older bits seem trivial and obvious.

So style develops. I know that. Still, it's interesting to see it happening. Just hope it doesn't go off into territory that stops it being funny.

THE AGONY AND THE AGONY...

2006-05-03T05:24:00.000-07:00

Just got back from a trip to the dentist.

You learn alot about yourself when he hits your gums with that tiny drill machine:

1) I mewl when in pain. That's right, mewl.

2) Mewling is onomatopoeic. I actually say "mewl". Or atleast thats what my muted attempts at shrieking with my mouth full off dentist hands sounds like.

3) I would never hold up under torture. I honestly thought I was tougher than this. Like Mel Gibson in "Payback". Instead, the moment
he touched my gums I was reciting my name, ID card number and 10-year plan in a high-pained falsetto.

Also, is it disturbing that I heard him giggle once behind his mask when I was mewl-ing?

BAN LIFTED/ADVICE NEEDED...

2006-05-03T03:49:00.000-07:00

The Blogspot ban is lifted! Productivity levels drop!

I am thinking of uploading some mp3's of my material to the web. Where can one host them for free? They will probably be a couple of megs in size and I need some free hosting service that is easy to use for both me and any potential listeners.

Is there an audio-only equivalent of Youtube? Does Blogger offer these?

Help me!

OPEN-MIC KINK...

2006-05-01T13:32:00.000-07:00

Just performed at Saad's Open Mic night. Been a while since the last one and the turn out was a little less than it normally is. Same excellent mix of musicians and comedians though. Tonight all 4 of Karachi's stand-up comedians performed (or as David calls us: The All-Pakistan Stand-up Comedians Organization). Saad, David, Danish and Me. Everyone did all new material, and we somehow all ended up doing completely experimentational material. It was a blast for us, even if the audience didn't laugh as much as usual. It was really heartening to see that none of us is relying on tried-and-true material and even trying to mix it up in terms of form and style. Felt proud to be part of such a talented group.

Here's one of the bits I did. It's very different from my usual material, in alot of regards. Had fun seeing people react to it though:

The Last Kink

The weird thing about on-line porn is that there is no fetish left untouched. It doesn’t matter what you might be looking for. Every person has the one kinky fetish that they will never tell anyone. Something so deep and dark and disturbing that just thinking about it makes you feel like a criminal. And what’s bizarre is that it doesn’t matter what it is…anything…there is a website for it. And that’s not good. Because one day we will just run out of kinks. There will be nothing too taboo, nothing too kinky that hasn’t been filmed and put on the web for download and the world will just run out of kinky material.

The last film ever made will involve an obese midget and a gay quadriplegic puppy that’s wearing a latex suit. And is dead.

And then no more kinky porn. Nothing. It’ll be over.

And we will have to look somewhere else for our kinky material. And since everything that was kinky is now boring, everything that was boring will be kinky. Instead there will be websites dedicated to hand-holding, and cuddling and caressing hair. And to access them you have to click the button that asks if you are 18 and above or not. Which is such a great deterrent I feel. And in our private sex-lives we will all be kinky freaks because that stuff will now be the boring everyday sex that we have. And then afterwards, when your holding your lover, and you are sharing that deep personal moment, and they ask you what is the kinkiest thing you ever want to do, and because you feel closer to each other than ever before because of the last half-hour spent in rubber diving masks with spank-paddles and whips. And the obese midget. Because of the moment of vulnerability created by the criss-cross whip-marks across your bum, you decide to reveal your most intimate kinky desire. And you nervously look them in the eye, consciously run your hands through your hair, cheeks turning red with embarrassment. And you say:
“Cuddling.”
To which she responds:
“Pervert.”

And after that the relationship ends.

--------------------------------------------------------------------

GENOCIDE AND AN APPLE...

2006-04-27T22:56:00.000-07:00

I know there has been a distinct lack of funny here past few days. Beend drawing alot more recently, and had a few articles to write so kinda exhausted.

No definite word on the Lahore show yet, but I am performing at the Open-Mic Night. All new, fresh and minty material.

In the meantime, I have discovered what is needed to fulfill my plans of World Domination. The 17" MacBook Pro. It is absolutely essential to my becoming a succesful mass-murdered/dictator. Really. I don't know how Pol Pot and Miloscevic did things without one. I know Potty (that's what we used to call Pol Pot back in Dictator High School) used to futz around with an old Commodore 64. The adapter would heat up ever half hour and the games came on tapes. So you can imagine how pissed off he'd be at the end of the day. "Potty," I'd say, "you gotta get on the Apple scene man. How ya gonna keep things organized if you can't even work a disk drive!". He would argue and argue, little skinny man with big specs, going blue in the face. We are too dependant on tech, he would say. So I gave him a wedgie.

He died alone under house arrest. Probably of boredom the dumb shit.

Slobby was better at least. Not a Mac user, more into PC's he. At least better organized than Potty. But the damned Windows was Service Pack 1 and so it kept crashing and he kept forgetting where he put a mass grave because the notepad file with the list of addresses would get deleted each time. So many mass graves, all because he never installed Norton.

Now me, with my shiny silver 17" MacBook Pro. Intel inside. Mac on the outside. iSight camera built in. I can rule the world with an iron fist, look good while doing it and even video-conference with my minions and rank and file. All from the comfort of my own room. And at night the keyboard lights up so now I can even organize genocide at night from the comfort of my bed, without needed to keep the lights on and waking the wife.

Aah. Thank you Steve Jobs. You have made this would-be dictator happy. And to think my German teachers said I wouldn't amount to anything. "Talks to much," they would say. "Ve haff ways of makink you talk!" I quipped back.

So they beat me.

Bastards.

I'll show them. I'll show them all.

LAHORE SHOW POSTPONED...

2006-04-25T07:51:00.000-07:00

Shit, the Lahore show has been postpone, probably to next Friday (5th of May). Some scheduling stuff out of my control. If you cancelled any plans to come see the show (I know a bunch of LUMS kids were planning on going hiking or something and postponed their planes), I'm sorry. I promise to make the show EXTRA-good when it does happen.

I think the next Open-Mic is on the 1st of May. So will definetely do some comedy there.

Come watch.

I TEASE AND I TEASE...

2006-04-21T23:19:00.000-07:00

Next stop: Lahore. 28th of April. Solo-Show.

More details to come.

CORPORATE WHORE...

2006-04-20T00:03:00.000-07:00

I have made a decision (add your own dramatic drum-based sound effect here):

Black Fish has signed a contract with Telenor that will see us doing performances pretty much exclusively for them for the next three months. Saturdays and Sundays. Much money involved.

This has, ofcourse, gotten my indie anti-corporate sentiments in a knot. I was never comfortable with doing so many corporate shows and it's the reason why I have tried to keep my Stand-Up free of corporate sponsorship (I know I am doing shows with FM89 but I don't consider them a "corporation" per se mainly because of the quality of their work ethic. They aren't making money off me and we are keeping branding to a minimum). So how should I justify the extreme corporate-whoring of Black Fish?

Subsidizing. That's how I am thinking of it. Doing this gives me the money to subsidize my Stand-up. I can focus on writing a little more knowing I have money in the bank now. I can use that money to finance a trip to either the Montreal Comedy Festival or the Aspen Comedy Festival in 2007. I can even afford to finance the next solo-shows out of my own pocket (the last one nearly left me broke).

So I am renaming 2006 as The Year of Corporate-Whoring. I will stop feeling guily about this and instead revel in corporate shows and swimming-pools full of money. And in return I can maybe do some good Stand-Up for the people who love to watch it.

So that's that.

--------------------------------------

In other news: I have over half an hour of new comedy done. By my estimate I will have a complete hour ready in a month or so. However, due to the Black Fish commitment I can't do a new solo-show till July, so my new tentative date for a brand spanking new solo-show with all new material is second week July. Thinking of making it more than one night this time. Maybe a two or three night show.

Whee.

THERE IS WRITING TO BE DONE...

2006-04-15T13:32:00.000-07:00

I am almost euphoric. It's been a good bunch of days comedy-writing-wise.

I think it's because of the two shows in Islamabad followed by Saad telling me about the next Open-Mic happening in two weeks. Plus got one more show in Lahore to do.

I love when this happens. Everything gives me material to write about. My brain starts humming with electricity. This node connects to that synapse which kicks that lobe into hyperdrive. Next thing I know I am possessed by Dionysus and Bacchus and Loki and it's 3:00 a.m. and I have done WRITING.

I am dangerous at these times. My mind is so powerful it works like a magnet, wiping clean hard disks. I can impregnate nuns with but a stare. The keyboard is reinforced with titanium - so hard do I bludgeon the keys with mine fingers.

I am writing. Comedy. Beware.

In other news: My wife got me a Demitri Martin Autograph after attending his show in Melbourne. Excuse me while I squeal like a teenage girl who has just been glanced at flirtatiously by a singer from West Life.

REMEMBER ME WHEN I'M GONE...

2006-04-15T02:33:00.000-07:00

After two days of feeling like there is a fist clenched in front of our collective faces, the city cautiosly gathers itself up again. Lines at the Petrol Stations are still immense, as if Armageddon is coming and we all can outdrive it if we just have one more litre.

Sitting at work after two days of doing nothing and actually feeling more productive as a human being, even if there is nothing to do but check email play Bubble Snooker (it's like pixellated crack that game).

Trying to convince Saad to let me do some new material at the next open-mic. He isn't averse to me trying new stuff out, just not to keen on it being the bit I have merrily titled: CHRONOLOGY OF WANKING.

Will post portions of it here if it never makes it past the Family-Friendly barrier of Open-Mic Night.

In the meantime, been thinking about what I want my obiturary to read like in the newspaper. Bored with the usual "Loving husband" bollocks. Really. If the obituary is to be the final description of me to the world it should be something more exciting.

Here is my first draft:

-----------------------------------

Sami's hair was a vile toxic orange. As were his large, unblinking
eyes. As, indeed, was his penis, painted in a sticky antiseptic
emulsion to defeat the various Shagging Diseases that remained rife in
the Sexual Underworld.

Sami's business card proclaimed his vocation to be Colossal Pervert.
And all on the Scene knew that Sami pursued his hideous trade with the
zeal of a priest. If a priest's holy chores involved projecting his
lunch into the anuses of badly confused teenage girls from Hungary.

Sami's penis used to cast a shadow over the Adult business. Quite
literally, if when he stood on high ground at noon. Strong men would
weep and cut themselves in bad places when Sami demonstrated arcane
penile skills learned in Japan and Tibet, using his warrior's member
to snap wood, bricks and sports utility vehicles. Several starlets --
three of whom have been since removed to asylums by their families --
claim to have seen it conduct lightning. Some producers had begun to
sheathe the member in large burlap sacks previous to performances, to
prevent other participants prostrating themselves in Religious Awe,
and also to stay the occasional manifestation of Miracles in its
presence.

Sami is a Hero of the Humping Industry, loved by the twinks and the
coprophages, adored by the size queens and the gangbangers, cherished
by the gonzo and the semen shooters. His kindness is the stuff of
legend, and the whores kissed him in the street since that mythic day
when he crushed a pimp's spine using only the frighteningly
overdeveloped muscles in his buttocks.

Sami is a Superhero of modern pornography. He was Omnisexual, and
could obtain erections of historical significance with no more
provocation than the sight of naked fungus. He is a countercultural
God in Iceland, where the band Múm's song "Takk Sami" became a massive
hit following his specialist videos for that country's market, "Sami
Gives It To Various Species Of Tree That Don't Grow Here Anymore" and
"Sami Fills The Volcano."

Sami lived alone in a quiet area of Karachi. He was addicted to
Vicodin and never had a girlfriend. And now never will.

-----------------------------------

Heh. I know I know...I'm a bizarre pervert. In the words of Oscar Wilde, "A dirty mind is a joy forever."

VECTOR GOODIES...

2006-04-13T14:43:00.000-07:00

This post isn't comedy related. In fact, it has nothing to do with Stand-Up at all. So if you come here to read about the trials and tribulations of a neurotic comedian then skip this post and come back another day.

What this IS about is my art stuff. I am also an illustrator (see! so much you don't know about me). I tend to host my stuff on Deviant Art but to view my full gallery you need to set up an account and people just can't be arsed to answer the 15-bajillion (it's a number!) questions Deviant Art asks before activating your account.

Recently a bunch of folks have shown interest in buying my prints, both in Pakistan and abroad. So am posting some of the better works here. To view them larger just click the thumbnails.

WARNING: Some of these are Not Work Safe. So don't blame me if your boss catches you looking at them and brands you a pervert. I just draws 'em.

So first the drawings themselves:

These are entirely drawn on the computer. Mainly using Illustrator with some touching-up in Photoshop. With a mouse. Have yet to invest in a graphic tablet. Since they are vector drawings they are pretty much infinitely scalable so prints can be made available at any size.

Now stop judging me for these. Your regularly scheduled inane comedy-related banter will continue shortly.

NINJA MOBS AND ROAD KILL GODS...

2006-04-12T11:45:00.000-07:00

Been basking in the warm glow of the Sunday Islamabad show. I finally have complete faith in the material. Now I can focus on being insecure about the newer stuff that is still untested.

Got an idea for some stuff yesterday which is good, but it isn't new material. I seem to be finding stuff I wrote for other purporses alot recently. Just edit and repackage and it works as Stand-Up.
One is an article I wrote for Spyder Magazine and the other is a testimonial I wrote for a friend on Orkut (shut up).

Yes, I know this is all scintillating stuff.

Yesterday was the Nishtar Park explosion. Typical Karachi event. People get together to pray, some fuckwit blows himself to bits killing lots of innocents. Then a mob starts rioting. Wondering about the thought process behind the rioting mobs. This seems to be a phenomenon local to us. In London after the 7/7 bombing people were helpign out and being all samaritan-esque. Here, every time something goes wrong, a mob appears and starts burning and pillaging. It's like some specialist mob that is hired for these events. They are all on rapid deployment. And once the destruction is done they melt into the night. Ninja rioters.

Maybe they are trained by the same people who train Bus Drivers. Everytime there is a bus accident the driver disappears. It's like they have special stealth powers. If your bus driver is wearing sneakers and an urban camoflauge outfit, beware.

Tonight on the way back home from Black Fish rehearsals, got stuck in a traffic jam for 45 minutes because the Prime Minister was passing by. Started imagining a scenario where everyone starts forming a primitive society in the traffic jam. Maybe the different vehicles become different clans. Motorcyclists in one clan, cars in another. Truck Drivers in third. We all start competing for food and other resources. A road-kill cat whose been stretched paper thin on the tarmac becomes the Totem Animal God that we worship. Then, just before we are all saved, we kill the fat kid.

If you haven't read Lord of the Flies ignore the above bit.

I need to start getting out again.

CONFESSIONS OF A TRAVELLING COMEDIAN...

2006-04-09T04:19:00.000-07:00

Sunday afternoon, and I just got back from a breakfast up in the mountains under a gun metal sky. Drops of rain as fat as raisins slapping down around me as I sipped a cup of tea. All is right with the world.

Wasn't that way last night though:

My recurring nughtmare came true. Got on stage, did the first bit. No one laughed. Later sat with FM89 and we realized what went wrong. Bad sound, bad lights and an auditorium that was too damned big.

Today will be better. Tonight 6 speakers, a spotlight and two cans of Red Bull will make up for what went wrong last night.

Tonight I am not leaving Islamabad unless I get a standing ovation. That's my promise to myself and my promise to FM89, who have done so much for me and had faith in me when I didn't these last two days.

The sky looks like a bruise. Steel wool clouds scraping the tops of the city.

I can do this.

---------------------------------------------
ADDENDUM

Did it right the second time.

Am back in Karachi, sweat soaked and suffering a plague of mosquitoes.
Good God the second show was in stark contrast to the first. 6 speakers. Spotlight. All the energy I had to give.

Actually had to stop mid-show for a few seconds because a girl was laughing so hard she had trouble breathing. And I signed autographs.

What more can I ask for. Really.

NAKED COMEDIANS...

2006-04-05T21:59:00.000-07:00

Thursday morning and am at work for a meeting that no one else bothered to turn up for. It's too early for this. Excuse me while I go splash some coffee on my face.

...

Okay, much better. A bit more wideawake right now. The Islamabad shows are in two days and I am feeling alot better. More confident. Which when said aloud like this makes me less confident. And so on. At least I've stopped dreaming I am performing in front of Jerry Seinfeld, Mitch Hedberg, George Carlin and Bill Cosby while completely naked. Me being naked. Not them. I have no interest in seeing any of those gentlemen naked.

Envy my wife. She is Melbourne and can attend the Melbourne Comedy Festival there. And she already has tickets to go see Demitri Martin!

Some people have all the luck.

CITYFM89 BRINGS THE FUNNY WITH SAMI SHAH

2006-04-03T00:43:00.000-07:00

Brace yourselves, here comes the official announcement I've been promising:

---------------------------------------------------

CITY FM 89 BRINGS THE FUNNY WITH SAMI SHAH!

Sami Shah loves you. He bought you flowers and candy. Did you get
them? He has many things to tell you. Wonderful truths about the world
around you. And why comedy is not as dead as they say. Just like
Elvis. Will you listen to what he has to say? And more importantly,
will you return Sami Shah's calls?

"BRING THE FUNNY"
An hour-long solo Stand-up comedy show by Sami Shah.

Let him tell you the truth behind Traffic Policemen. How best to deal
with being rear-ended in traffic. And why skinny people have feelings.
All presented in a comedy package that is chocolatey on the outside and
nougat filled on the inside.

"BRING THE FUNNY"
It's about dealing with the world around you.

"BRING THE FUNNY"
It's Sami Shah standing on stage and talking for an hour.

"BRING THE FUNNY"
9 out of 10 dentists recommend it. The 10th dentist is also going to
recommend it as soon as we get around to beating him in the kneecaps.

"BRING THE FUNNY"
This show has been rated All-Ages. There will be no nudity. Despite
what Sami Shah's psycho-therapist may say. Expect mild-violence
though.

WHERE: Planet X
WHEN: 8th & 9th APRIL
TICKETS AVAILABLE AT HOT SPOT AND PLANET X (Rs. 100/-)
SHOW STARTS AT 8:00 P.M.

FOR DETAILS GO TO CITYFM89.COM.

---------------------------------------------------

The folks at FM89 have been incredible through this whole thing, giving into a list of silly demands from me and really helping out in any way possible (including giving my lack-of-self-confidence ass a pep talk whenever needed.

I saw the poster and tickets yesterday and they looking freaking amazing. Nice paper, quality printing. And the promo (currently airing in Islamabad) is excellent. Will upload it and link here sometime today.

Been practicing all weekend, and will continue to rehearse all week long. Seeing everything they have done kinda brought it home. People have invested money in me and my promise of making people laugh. At least from my end there should be NO excuses.

Is Islamabad ready for stand-up? Let's find out.

TO ISLOO WE WILL GO...

2006-03-27T22:04:00.000-08:00

The final posters and tickets for the Islamabad show went to the printers today!

Thinking of writing new material for the Isloo show. It would be a good way of tryiing stuff out without exposing it to Karachi (my primary audience).

You are all so excited to know this.

At what point does blog-ennui set in?

DAMN YOU JERRY SEINFELD...

2006-03-23T12:17:00.000-08:00

The blog-ban is still in place so if any of you are visiting using vtunnel.com or whatever nefarious means of bypassing censorship laws is in vogue right now: Hello.

Quick Summary:

My name is Sami Shah. I am a stand-up comedian in Karachi, Pakistan. I do this because I have an uncontrollable compulsion to get up on stage and risk total and complete embarrasment as often as possible.

I have done one hour-long solo show to date and am a regular performer at the local Open-Mic nights. My hour-long show went quite well (thank you for asking).

That was five months ago. Since then I have been working on material for a new show, although progress has been slow.

I am filling the gap by touring Lahore and Islamabad, courtesy of a radio company that has been very very good to me. The first stop is Islamabad on the 8th and 9th of April. One hour each night.

I am freaking out. Bad.

End Summary.

Last night I saw the documentary Comedian, chronicling Jerry Seinfeld's attempts at coming up with a complete hour of new material. I have seen it before. I recommend it to anyone thinking of becoming a comedian. It has everything you need to know about a stand-ups mindset and thinking process. And it is a damned good watch to boot.

I finished watching it and then watched a handy-cam recording of my own solo show. I then didn't sleep all night.

WHAT THE HELL DID I AGREE TO!?

Comedians in America perform two, three times a night. 7 months a year. In club after club, honing their jokes. Perfecting the material. They live with golden rules like: Never open a show with new material. Use something that is a sure-fire laugh. They edit and perform and edit and perform and rinse and repeat.

I did one solo show that was 70% new material. Material that hasn't been done since for any other audiences because the entire audience in Karachi who would want to watch stand-up saw my show. The material did alright. In retrospect not as well as I thought it had. And now I am going to perform the same material for 4 nights in two different cities. For new audiences with no background in stand-up comedy. With different cultural contexts. Who might not get it.

Or maybe I just got lucky that one time and the material is not actually that good.

There are a billion reasons why I shouldn't do this. Why it would be suicide, in fact, to do this. And it is all building up in my head.

A million reasons not to do this. And they all make sense. And it is too late to back out.

WORST CASE SCENARIO: Standing in front of 300 people in the 8th of April. In Islamabad. And the first joke bombs. And I have an hour to go with material that won't work. Because people won' t get it. Or because it just isn't any damned good at all. And I have to do it again the next night.

What have I agreed to...

BUS FARTS ARE INSPIRING...

2006-03-21T03:58:00.000-08:00

A couple of people have rightly guessed that the teaser below is for a tour. More details when venue etc. is finalised. So far all we know for sure is that I am performing in Islamabad on the 8th & 9th of April and maybe Lahore end of April.

Quite excited.

Was in Lhr and Isb this weekend on a Black Fish tour that could have been an episode of Survivor. Two days of suffering fart-scented Daewoo buses, bodily-fluid-soaked rest houses and organizational disasters that would have made any other Improv Troupe weep.

But we are men. Manly men. With chest hairs. We did not weep. We persevered.

The only good thing to come out of this weekend was getting ideas for new material while trapped in the bus from Lahore to Islamabad. Did the whole ride with my breath held. The fart smell in there could have tenderized meat.

Jotting the new material stuff down here so that I don't forget it all. Will let them percolate in my head until they get more fleshed out:

America invades Karachi. Everyone goes to the beach to watch. Precision missiles going down alleyways.

Karachi protected from natural disasters by saint. What would the modern list given to him be like?

Things to do: Blow up gas station. Walk away all cool like.

TEASE ME A LITTLE...

2006-03-16T12:36:00.000-08:00

April will be a good month for me.

Why you ask?

Here's a hint:

KIDS STUFF...

2006-03-12T22:11:00.000-08:00

So that was an unmitigated disaster.

Saturday evening I get to the TCF event to perform half an hour of stand-up with Saad. We had been told it would be 300 people and an all-ages audience.

It was, actually, three dozen 7 year olds. The entire audience was composed entirely of children. Sweet children, who were polite and obliging. But children nonetheless.

In mad panic Saad and I scrapped all our chosen material and decided on new stuff that would cater to this new audience base. Saad did fine actually. He did his song numbers and every kid was laughing 'cause he got words to rhyme. Oh and he slipped up and said "bastard".

Straight up observational humor didn't go over as well. One kid laughed at my jokes, and I think it's because she thought I was funny looking.

I resorted to making up jokes like, "my nose is this big because I use it to balance. Like a brontosauros' tail."

I then went home and wept. Or atleast drowned my sorrows in a thimble-full of Magic Corn.

SCHEDULES AND PAYMENTS....

2006-03-10T22:12:00.000-08:00

Busy busy busy.

Two days ago was the Black Fish corporate performance for Microsoft which went better than we thought it would.
Yesterday the issue of Spyder magazine came out with the first of a series of funny-side-of-technology articles I am writing for them. So grab that if you see it anywhere. Just Rs.50.
Today is the TCF stand-up performance by Saad and I at Area 51. Half an hour each. And I haven't rehearsed at all so there more than a hint of panic in me right now.
Tomorrow (Sunday) is the public Black Fish show. Details at www.blackfish.com.pk. Should be fun as we are doing both short form and long form games. And debuting some new games we invented.
Next week sometime Telenor announces Black Fish as their Pakistani brand ambassadors.
18th and 19th Black Fish is performing in Lahore and Islamabad for the British Council.
Weekend after that is probably going to kicki of my Lahore Islamabad stand-up comedy tour. Details as soon as I have them.

Oh, and in between there somewhere is my day job. Which still hasn't paid me my monthly salary. Or given me my car. Or the cell phone they promised. Or the petrol I am owed.

Which makes me wonder why I rely on my day job for regular income when I am earning the same amount from comedy. And the money ends up being more regular.

I knwo you guys don't come to hear me bitching and moaning though, so here is some comedy. Peformed this bit at the last Open-Mic. Went over well. Stylistically different for me. I tend to write long rambling bits and these ended up becoming short two line jokes. It was fun working out the best way to deliver these:

------------------------------------

Glasses

I wear glasses...as you may have noticed by now. I'm used to them, have worn them since
3rd grade. Yes I did get beat up alot, thank you for asking.

People always get shocked when they ask me my number. The average spectacle wearers number is around 1.25 to 2.3. I just made up that statistic but it sounds about right. When people ask me I always tell them my number is -10.25. They always freak out:
"How do you see?"
"With glasses," I reply.

People usually ask to put them on. They put them on and ask how they're looking.
"How do I look?"
"I'd tell you but I'm blind now!"

Some people test me. They make me take off my glasses and ask me to count how many fingers they are holding up. Then they keep changing the number. Those people are dicks. Do they play "I spy with my little eye..." with a blind person. Got up to a guy in a wheel chair and challenge him to a game of football.

------------------------------------

TCF SHOW...

2006-03-06T22:53:00.000-08:00

I still can't access Blogs directly (using vtunnel.com).
Howvere, if you can see this and are in Karachi on the 11th:

I will be performing at the TCF ilmathon on the 11th of March with two bands- 'Drift' and 'The Auntie Disco Project' and spectacular comedian Saad Haroon. Tickets will be avaliable through The Citizens Foundation and the show will be at 7pm in the evening. The venue will be the parking lot of Area 51. The show will start at 7pm sharp.

IS THERE ANYONE....

2006-03-05T22:02:00.000-08:00

So apparently, with the exception of a few random lucky souls who can access blogspot sites due to reasons unknown, the Blogger access-block is still in place in Pakistan.

Oh, and Bush came to Islamabad. And Musharraf actually snubbed him! Our man grew a pair.

*sigh* I miss direct access to my blog.

CAN YOU SEE THIS...

2006-03-02T02:02:00.000-08:00

So apparently the fuckwits in charge of internet policy in Pakistan have blocked all blogspot sites.

Which means if you are reading this you are outside Pakistan are using some reroute.

And 4 bombs exploded near the U.S. embassy in Karachi. Killing 4 (so far) and injuring dozens.

Fuck patriotism. I hate this place.

GAS STATION SAVES COMEDIAN...

2006-02-28T02:11:00.000-08:00

Phew!

I wrote most of the material yesterday during lunch and then wrote the final bit on the drive over to the Open-Mic. Got the idea for it while at a traffic light and pulled into a Shell Pump and scrawled it onto my cheat-sheet.

The Open-Mic went well over all. Saad did some good material as always. Some fun musical acts and a new kid doing Stand-up. He has just moved back from America and so his material is very much influenced by that. Still a bit raw and the ideas could be fleshed out better but he did alright.

Saad had me go up last to close the night and I was a tad nervous since I hadn't even memorized it fully. Did okay I think. The audience was a bit subdued so the laughs were smaller, but I expected that because the material wasn't exactly side-splitting. More witty than laugh-out-loud.

Here is the bit I wrote in the Shell Pump. Thanks to a Shell attendant for loaning me his pen.

---------------------------------------------

Shallow Compliments
I hate shallow compliments. You've all heard them. Stuff like:
"He has a warm personality."
Argh. I hate that. I don't want to have a warm personality. It's so...middling. I want a Fiery personality. A volcanic personality! I want a personality that erupts and buries small Italian towns under magma.

Or conversely, I can settle for a cold personality. Really cold. Frigid. I want people to say "his personality is so cold that if you touch it your finger turns black and you have to have it amputated."

Screw "warm" personality.
"What's his personality like?"
"Tepid."

Another one I hate is "He loves to laugh." Usually said when someone dies.
"Oh, he loved to laugh."
As opposed to whom exactly? Who is this person who hates to laugh?
"Keep your damn limericks and humorous anecdotes! I'll be in the corner kicking the damn cat."

Some compliments just don't work if you apply them to certain types of people. Like"She's so giving." Doesn't work really well when "she" has an STD.
"Dude, she gave me syphilis."
"I know, she loves to give."

PHEW....

2006-02-26T23:40:00.000-08:00

Spent all of yesterday trying to flesh out some material. I had topics, I even knew what some of the punchlines would be. Just couldn't work the language in the build-up portions.

Took a bunch of different directions and ended up deleting them all. Then I had a panic attack about having writers block. Had a block like this before when I used to write short stories in college and so tried stuff that worked then, but had no success:

1) Can of Red Bull. Effect: Nothing.
2) Long walk. Effect: Carbon Monoxide Poisoning.
3) Shower. Effect: Shampoo in eyes. Searing pain.
4) Distractions. Effect: Watched entire Season 4 of Justice League Cartoon.

Finally resigned myself to calling Saad in the morning and withdrawing from Open Mic.

Then on the way to work this morning it all fell into place. Ran to my desk and typed everything out. Not my best material but should work. Now to memorize, which requires avoiding work for most of the day.

See you at the Open Mic. Details on saadharoon.com

2006-02-25T02:16:00.000-08:00

Okay, two days left before the Monday Open-Mic and I still have no material. I have bits and pieces of one but honestly it is nothing fantastic. I know it can get laughs but it really isn't that funny. Maybe a filler between two more solid bits.

I had a weird dream last night. I am performing
at the Open Mic and I am doing some kind of new Alternative Comedy stuff. Like I read out topics from my material, not the jokes, just the topics. I do a whole presentation on the Cartoon Crisis which is absolutely hilarious in my head but not funny to anyone else.

Dammit! How do Aziz Ansari, Eugene Mirman and the other NY Alternative Comics come up with their material. What is that place in your head you go to when you want to move away from plain observational comedy and move into new directions.

I have always had trouble thinking outside the box. Inside the box I am king. King of the box. All four brown cardboard walls of the box are my domain. Outside it though I am a foreigner in a strange land. The people talk different and have strange customs...

I have no clue where I'm going with this.

Tonight: I write comedy.

Tomorrow Morning: I delete crap written tonight and start over.

Honestly, I should have just become a banker like all my other friends.

OPEN MIC PERFORMANCE...

2006-02-24T01:45:00.000-08:00

I'll be performing Stand-up at the next Open-Mic night:

----------------

THE NEXT OPEN MIC NIGHT IS ON MONDAY THE 27TH OF FEB, 8PM SHARP AT CAFFEINE COFFEE SHOP!!! TICKETS ARE VERY LIMITED AND WILL BE AVALIABLE AT THE DOOR. FIRST COME FIRST SERVE.

----------------

My computer promptly crashed the day after my wife left for Melbourne and so I have not been able to write any new comedy for the Open-Mic. Danish and Saad both write their stuff by hand in honest-to-good notebooks. Which is great when it hard-disk crashes are concerned but I always worry about losing notebooks too much to rely on them.

Currently my notes are saved on my office computer and backed up on my iPod and my email. All of which means I have access to them whenever I need them. Unfortunately I can't write stand-up at the office and there are no other options right now.

Will get something ready in time hopefully...

TO BE CONTINUED...

2006-02-22T20:20:00.000-08:00

sorry for the lack of activity. My wife just left for Australia to do her Masters and she will be gone for a year.

So you can understand the lack of funny in my life right now...

FIRE FIRE BURNING BRIGHT....

2006-02-16T23:33:00.000-08:00

Karachi is now in the second day of what might become a three-day strike to protest cartoons.

The strike has been peaceful so far, with stores, schools and offices closed and demonstrating crowds walking around simply chanting slogans and carrying banners adorned with sarcastic phrases.

The rest of Pakistan is...disappointed.

"C'mon Karachi! You were supposed to be the crazy city!" mocked one Lahori Protestor, still trying to wipe ash and soot of his face.

A spokesperson for Lahore's rioting mobs issued a letter of complaint to his Karachi counterpart:

"Dear Sir/Madam,

I am writing on behalf of the PJM (Punjabi Rioting Mobs) to officially declare our disappointment with the city of Karachi.

Until now Karachi was legendary in its ability to create havok over non-issues. We fondly remember huddling around the T.V. as children and watching news footage of buses lit up like giant bonfires, just begging for a huge marshmellow. Sights of city streets littered with flaming tires (the burning kind, not the gay kind) would excite us more than an episode of Transformers.

Where has all the carnage gone?

Lahore worked hard to set a standard. We put in time and effort. We burnt Citibanks. We even carried on our nations proud tradition (one that was established in Karachi, it should be noted) of wrecking KFC outlets. Dammit, we did some hard rioting. And then we turned our eyes south to watch Karachi take the torch from our tired grimy hands and use it to set shit abalaze.

Nothing. Karachi you have let us down. No more shall you be known as the riot-king of Pakistan.

You have gotten all civilized. How boring. We laugh at your "peaceful demonstrations". We mock your "silent protest." Grow some balls Karachi. Heck, borrow ours if you need to.

You fucking pansy.

Yours affectionately,

The PJM"

RIOTING ALL THE RAGE IN PAKISTAN...

2006-02-15T23:34:00.000-08:00

Pakistan has never been too far behind in terms of fashion trends. Most of our fashionistas can be seen sauntering dunkenly from party to party in the latest in 80's fashion. We hope to enter the new millemium sometime around 2036.

In keeping with our approach to stylistic trends, we have decided to take part in the new anti-cartoon rioting that is all the rage in the world right now.

Never mind that the cartoons were published over two weeks ago.
Never mind that most of the Muslim world has gotten its Riot on well before now and already started moving on to more cutting edge topics like Abu Ghuraib abuses.

In an attempt at making up for lost time, Pakistani's passionately took to the streets, looting and rioting in a manner that is guaranteed to discredit any attempts at rational dialogue. Because dammit, that's what the cool kids are doing now.

KFC employees across Pakistan have promptly committed mass suicide in an attempt to preempt the swath of destruction headed their way.

Lahore rioters took to the streets yesterday, dressed in their fashionable best. They wowed audiences with their scraggly beards and oh-so-2nd Century approach to dialogue.

"We are sorry for the delayed response," said one rioter, "our internet connections are slow in Lahore and we just got around to seeing what all the fuss was about." The press release from the rioters, scrawled in feces across the walls of a Citibank, apologised for the lag time and promised to make up demand for rioting by finally getting to the Salman Rushdie issue at the start of next week and hoping to maintain a regular weekly schedule on riots for the first quarter of 2006.
"We have been waiting for the only person in Lahore who could understand and process metaphors to complete 'Satanic Verses' and he has just yesterday submitted his report on the topic. We know its a little late, but really, who cares as long as shit gets burnt."

The effigy burning was particularly impressive this year. The new line of effigy's launched earlier this year by Effigy Suppliers, or ES as it's is called by frequent shoppers, were noted for their combustability. Purchasers in a hurry can now buy effigy's on-line at their website, burnwesternbastardburn.com and pay in goats and cows, depending on the Punjabi village they hail from. It should be noted that competition between effigy suppliers is growing this year and the average consumer has a for better selection to choose from than in previous years. New companies McEffigy and Effigy Hut have captured the hearts minds and lighters of the more affluent rioter. A radio advertising campaign has helped discriminating rioters make their decision:

---------------------------------------

V/O (FEMALE): Does the fire inside you burn?

SFX: Match being struck.

V/O (FEMALE): Do you want to express yourself in flame?

SFX: A fire crackling.

V/O (MALE): It's time to burn things down! Now you can buy two effigy's for the price of one at Effigy Hut! That's right two for the price of one! Double the combustible maza! Or avail our special group-discount and buy enough effigy's to let your hatred of Western nations be seen from space!

SFX: Crowds roaring in anger.

V/O (FEMALE): Burn things outside they way you burn on the inside. Effigy Hut.

---------------------------------------

LINKY GOODNESS...

2006-02-15T01:00:00.000-08:00

Still hung over from a marathon SCRUBS season 5 viewing that stretched late into last night. I *heart* SCRUBS. Excellent off-the-wall comedy writing.

Other things that have brought me joy recently:

EXTRAS by Ricky Gervais. The guy who previously did The Office. I love his approach to television comedy. His Stand-up shows are a bit weak but the man can work a fine script.

Also managed to download an interview of the notoriously reticient Larry David conducted by Gervais. You can read about it here. You can learn more about comedy just by watching this then anything else out there these days. They articulate alot of my frustrations with teleivision comedy and what makes people laugh.

Been in touch with a bunch of comedians in NY recently. If nothing else, I think I can manage to set up a few shows in NY and Boston. That is if I can go. Tentatively planning summer of 2007. Also talking to Azhar Usman about either me coming there or trying to get Allah Made Me Funny to come here. If anyone can help on the logisitical side of that please contact me.

Oh, and even though I can't watch it because my computer is acting wonky, watch Tinkus World, a new on-line series of short films by Usman. Should be good.

Saad just emailed about the next open-mic on the 27th of Feb. Will be performing there if I can get some new material to actually be...y'know...funny.

Oh, and Saad got interviewed by the Associated Press of New York. Go read it. Great interview. I'm proud of him. Not jealous. Nope. Just proud.

Bastard. Heh.

I just starred in three TV ads for a client. Silly commercials that could have been great if the client had a decent budget or even let me do the ads the way they were in my head. Either way, if you want to see me as a Mad Scientist, Frustrated Actor or Strict school teacher then watch TVOne for the next few weeks. It was fun, but I am cemented in my decision to never do anything on TV again. Pakistani television just is no where near where I want it to be, in terms of production values, content or maturity.

God, I want to do some short films. Need money. Lots of money. And time. Oodles of time.

I think that's it for now. Enough linky goodness in this post to keep you busy for a while.

NOTES TOWARDS A JOKE...

2006-02-10T02:29:00.000-08:00

Spent the Ashura holidays tinkering with the computer at home. Nothing more geek-satisfying than watching your laptop and your computer interface while backing things up on your iPod. Ahhhh.

Wanted to expand on some of the topics I thought of for Stand-Up but realized I had left the notes on my computer at work. So backing them up here in case I need them remotely. Which was kind of why I had started this blog actually.

Finalizing the Pakistan Tour deal today. Details in the evening hopefully.

These are raw notes as they came to me. Some will be expanded upon succesfully and some will end up being chucked. Either way, this is how a routine starts for me. Now I need to let these swill around in my head for a few days until the just kind of flesh themselves out and the structures fall into place.

-------------------------------
NOTES:

I MISS SCHOOL:
Sami wuz ‘ere
“Miss, can I go to the bathroom”
“Do you forget to wear your clothes in the morning?”

WEAK EYESIGHT
People holding up fingers and asking me to count them.
Do you run around someone in a wheelchair and gloat as well?
Nobody tough ever wears glasses. You can’t start a fight by pushing your glasses higher up on your nose.
People love trying on other peoples glasses. “Hey can I try those on? How do I look?” I can’t tell you because I’m blind now.

LAZY
I hate work, but not because of the whole job-fulfillment thing. I’m just lazy. Getting up in the morning! Work till evening! Forget putting food on the plate, I’ll eat it off the floor.

I hate working out because I’m so lazy. The whole counting your reps thing exhausts me. Just counting is boring. So I add visuals. I started counting sleep. Fell asleep on the bench-press.

People who read the book first are always so condescending when it comes to the movie.

I negotiate with myself in bed about getting up.

Whenever I hear the alarm in the morning I try to convince myself I can get used to it. BEEP BEEP BEEP. That’s okay, I am in a techno-club.

You ever dream about a fight with someone and then wake up angry at them?
-------------------------------

GLOBAL EXHIBITIONISM...

2006-02-07T00:14:00.000-08:00

Um...wow.

Alot of new readers here. Most of who have been directed here via The Apiary.

I emailed the site a few days ago, asking help for getting me in touch with comedians or producers etc. in the U.S. A bunch of helpful people have responded since.

So far nothing major but I at least know who to contact if I ever visit the U.S. to get some performance time (tentatively hoping for summer 2007 so I have some money saved up to afford the trip). Also opening a myspace website where I can start putting up sound files and video clips.

Self-promotion needs to properly start now.

I also tried getting in touch with the Allah Made Me Funny people. If nothing else I know my emai has been forwarded to the performers. So fingers crossed there.

In other news: The Lahore-Islamabad tour is being finalized right now. Will post details and tour dates soonish. I really hope it works out, I'd love to try out audiences in the rest of the country.

Haven't written much comedy recently, or at least trying not to because of Muharram (yes, I'm Shia. No, I won't spit in your food). You'd think it is hard to write comedy while spending your evenings sitting in a car with your family as the Imam narrates a tale of tragedy and woe of epic proportions. Yet, I still came up with a dozen topics that shall be expanded upon later. Go figure.

MAMA'S REVENGE...

2006-02-02T04:23:00.000-08:00

Okay posting from work. I finished writing copy for a new fruit juice drink that is just like very other fruit juice drink on the market and yet I have to make it seem fresher and purer.

I swear, working in Advertising feels like my parent's revenge on me for not doing Computer Science or an MBA like they had wanted me to.

There's a job description waiting to be made.

ADVERTISING: MAMA'S REVENGE.

----------------------------

So I started thinking about Comedians I love. Here is a rough list off the top of my head:

BILL COSBY: I will bitch slap anyone who criticises the man. He does 2.5 hour long shows twice a day. He is as funny now as he was before you were born. And he does it all using material that actually makes you feel good after he is done. No cursing. No crude stuff. Just pure storytelling. All from the comfort of a chair. My dream is to meet and hug him.

STEVE MARTIN: His old Stand-up stuff was weirder than anything I could ever dream of coming up with. It worked on both slap stick and intellectual levels. Plus, doesn't he just remind you of Saad (saadharoon.com). I swear the mannerisms and expressions are the same. Also a brilliant writer. I want to write stand-up and a movie and a novella and a stage-play and do them all with so much class and culture.

SEINFELD: Probably been compared to him more than anyone else (physically I think someone once said I look a bit like Woody Allen. I hate people). Pure old-school observational material. I learned alot about delivery by listening to him. Also pacing and joke-structure. His clean, simple, monotone delivery makes the material all the more ridiculous.

MITCH HEDBERG: Apotheosized since his death but really great writing. My wife hates his delivery and prefers to read his stuff (you can find huge transcripts on Wikipedia). I know I can never write like him. But it's a heck of a thing to aspire towards.

BILL HICKS: I was introduced to his stuff by, believe it or not, a comic book (ten points to anyone who can tell me which DC-Vertigo title it was). Angry. Political. A dark poet who made you laugh so damn hard. Chomsky with a strap-on.

ROBIN WILLIAMS: His material doesn't age too well, but the manic style of delivery is truly something worth watching. I love his older stuff though. Had more of an improvised feel to it.

EUGENE MIRMAN: Recently discovered him. I think his material is described more as "alternative". It's funny as hell whatever it is.

DANE COOK: Not as popular with the hardcore comedy nerds. Still, I kind of like his delivery more than anything else.

CHRIS ROCK: I love his constant pacing on stage. And that wide-eyed look he gets when hitting a punch-line. Delivery that is perfectly paced, right down to the curse words.

-------------------------

I'm sure there are more. Just can't think of names right now. Eddie Murphy should be on there because he really is the first comedian I ever saw. And one or two members of the Blue Collar Comedy Tour. I know I'll love Aziz Ansari, if I can ever get around to hearing him.

You don't get Comedy CD's here so I download most of my stuff using Limewire. If you have anything new you want to swap just drop me a line and I'll burn you a CD.

I love Comedy. I hate Advertising. Why do I spend most of my waking hours in the latter and not the former?

CELLULAR SOCIETY...

2006-02-02T00:02:00.000-08:00

Finally wrote that article for SPYDER magazine. they want me to do a regular humor column on tech stuff. Which should be fun. The first article was written during a rough work-week so not as good as I'd have liked. Still, that now means I'm doing Musical journalism for HERALD and NEWSLINE and Tech stuff for SPYDER.

I'll never get any sleep.

Excerpt below. Buy the mag when it comes out for the complete article:

----------------------------

Don’t turn off your phone during a theater performance.

Focus on your dialing while driving.

Put the ringer on high during important meetings.

You’ve made your point.

The consistent, even dedicated, refusal to abide by basic rules of cell phone courtesy by the average user has by now proven a point. Let polite society go back to bothering cigarette smokers and loud children. Cell phone (mis)behavior has fought for its rights and we can probably let it win by now. It is time for us to adapt. Let’s just stop pointing the same things out over and over again, ad infinitum. Let’s start considering a ringing sound during your moving theatrical performance as criticism of your thespian skills. Let’s consider that if the guy in the cheap suit with the bad comb-over is talking on the phone during your moving lecture on sales-distribution and ISO certification (with power-point slides to highlight your key-words in comic-sans) then he probably is busy and you should get to the point. In fact, let’s consider that if you can’t drive and use a phone at the same time by now then you are a poor driver. Anyway, sms-ing and driving should be part of the driving test by now. If we ever have driving tests.

The point is: The old complaints against cell-phone users are silly and ineffective. Which doesn’t mean that we don’t have new complaints. Adapt or die is the basic evolutionary principle and it is just as applicable to complaining and whining. So lets list the new reasons to hate everyone around us.

1) If you are old, stop taking five minutes to answer you phone. Old people have this ridiculous habit of refusing to accept the call until they have read the name on the Caller-Id. This is still a habit that the young can get away with. But for the over-50 user that means retrieving half-moon shaped specs from their casing. Unwrapping the beady string that is tied to the ends of your glasses so that you can fashionably hang them around your neck. Perching them on your nose. Holding the phone at arms length and squinting like a near-sighted Clint Eastwood at the small screen. Wracking your Alzheimer’s-riddled brain to identify the caller. And then spending the next 3 minutes hollering “hello” into a phone, while failing to understand that the caller gave up 7 minutes earlier. If you are old, answer the phone as soon as it rings. Don’t worry, it wont be Death calling to tell you he is dropping by to deliver a quick heart-attack and offering a drive up to long-gone relatives.

T'WAS A NIGHT TO REMEMBER...

2006-01-30T01:11:00.000-08:00

Yes yes, rub my nose in it why don't you. The concert was great. I was wrong. But wouldn't have it been fun if I was right?

The crowd was fantastic. Bryan Adams was great and a Nokia Brand Manager got boo'ed off the stage which truly made my night.

Lots of love for Karachiites going on right now. We did our city proud. By not rioting, raping and pillaging. If we were vikings we would be ashamed of ourselves right now.

Still, I swear I almost teared up at "Please Forgive Me", You moved me Mr. Adams, your really did.

Oh and Shehzad Roy stuck a microphone into his belt which looked fantastically phallic.

What more can one ask for. Really.

LETS MAKE A NIGHT...TO DISMEMBER...

2006-01-27T22:17:00.000-08:00

Brian Adams tomorrow.

I can't believe I'm going. What's worse is that I am actually excited.

I think it is the morbid part of my personality that enjoys trauma (the same aspect that convinced me to watch HASH videos on IM) that is making me do this.

Prediction: Shehzad Roy will sing 2 songs. Realize he can't shut up with just 2 and go on to sing 6 more. Adams will come on and half-way through "Summer of 69" will either be hit over a head by a bottle or catch the eye of some Feudal's son who will kidnap him and whisk him away to Balochi or Sindhi lands for a week of buggery.

Shehzad Roy will take this opportunity to return and sing 6 more songs, this time all of them Brian Adam's.

The religious fundamentalist segment will sneak a terrorist into the concert who will blow himself up, albeit close to the gate where the only damage will be to the finely-manicured grass and perhaps causing terminal deafness in security guards.

The Canadian Govt. will demand an apology. Instead, President Musharraf will combine his two favorite topics and just go ahead and start raping journalists while using Canadian Passports as a condom.

War shall ensue.

India will take this opportunity to nuke Pakistan.

Two years from now, when the nuclear radiation that has infused the land has diminished to tolerable levels, U2 will come and perform a concert for the refugees huddled in tents made of EVERYBODY WANTA QUANTA? billboard skins.

At least we get Bono.

Or not. Either way, should be fun.

HAVES AND HAVE NOTS...

2006-01-25T04:33:00.000-08:00

Worked on advertising campagn till 3 in the morning last night.

Have yet to edit an article for NEWSLINE that was due yesterday.

Have yet to write an article for SPYDER that was due last week.

Have lost feeling in my brain.

Have become obsessed with Google Earth.
Why do I need to find the houses of everyone I have ever known in grainy satellite imagery that is 4 years old?

Have heard some fascinating stories about Shehzad Roy asking to be made "fairer" in the concert advertising.

Have just figured out why Brian Adam's hair is orange in the advertising.

Have to make an appointment with a dentist.

Have to spend time with loved ones.

Have to start writing new Stand-Up material.

Have to get some sleep.

DOGS & COFFEE...

2006-01-17T22:58:00.000-08:00

Conversation had while sitting at a coffee shop:

Friend: I think the lady on the table next to us is listening in on our conversation.

Me: So? It's not like we are discussing terrorist plots.

Friend: Still. It's rude.

Me: Lets freak her out. Lets talk about something really disturbing and she will stop listening.

Friend: Yeah...you go first.

Me: SO I WAS SODOMIZING MY DOG THE OTHER DAY AND...

Friend: ...Now I'm disturbed.

WIDGET ME THIS...

2006-01-17T04:24:00.000-08:00

Just testing the new Blogger widget for my Mac.
If this works I can now update my blog at work no problemo.

I *heart* Apple.

In related news, I have decided the price of complete happines for me is $3000:
$2499 for the new MacBook, the sexiest sleekest laptop known to man; and
$399 for the iPod Video (60GB) in Black.

That isn't too much to ask in life is it?

Anyone want to donate cash to a struggling comedian?

GOD & GOATS...

2006-01-15T00:31:00.000-08:00

Bakra eid just passed us by. The wife and I went out and met some 700 relatives on the first day of eid, manouvering my compact Cuore between macabre obstacles like goats heads and cows intestines. Somewhere during this all I came to the realization that we are actually celebrating one mans willingness to behead his son because the "voice" told him to.

How is that sacred again? I only point this out because my Uncle Rahim was locked up because the "voice" told him to touch his thingy. While standing on Main Shahra-E-Faisal. Naked. And yet, he still wasn't killing anyone.

Wrote the bit below on Bakra eid for my "NOBODY MOVES..." show and it'll only ever be relevant once a year so might as well dust it off and put it up here.

I like how it turned out. Wasn't sure it would work, a friend told me it is too morbid but the audience liked it just the same.

-----------------------------

BAKRA EID

I'm not a big fan of Bakra Eid.
The whole road covered with goats entrails thing just isn't my idea of fun. And kids generally don't look forward to bakra Eid. It's just not the same...getting money and getting fresh meat. You buy a goat, and fatten it up for the kill. The goat thinks its in an
all-you-can-eat buffet for a while at least.

"You mean all this food is for me? Just me? Wow!"

My dog is sitting over there going "Suckah!"

You just keep feeding it. You turn into the witch from Hansel & Gretel, "Some some more candy. Some more. You look delicious....I MEAN GORGEOUS! Not delicious at all..."

When I was young I always thought the Goat was our pet.

"You mean we have a goat!? Really? How cool is that! He and I can ride around town."

I'd name him Billy. And then the next morning...Mutton Biryani! The dogs and cats
go on a starvation diet right away, "Uh uh! Not us!"Then next year a new goat.
Same thing again. Billy the 2nd. Billy the 3rd. When I started running into the
double digits and I decided something was up. So I asked my mom what was going
on. And she sat me down and explained the whole story of Abraham and his son and
he has to sacrifice his son to God and at the last second God replaced the boy
with a sheep. And so we commemorate it by killing livestock of all fashion.
Goats and cows and camels. Not chickens though. Just not as satisfying. The
Kasai would be roaming around with a swiss army knife. But what scared the crap
out of me was...what if God had let the kid get sacrificed? So then would we be
sacrificing the eldest son? Babies coming out of the womb going "I'm not the
first am I? Am I the first? Don't let me be the first!? Oh, I'm
second...SUCKAH!"

-----------------------------

JUST HARRIED...

2006-01-14T01:04:00.000-08:00

Marriage season has wrecked me.

I am a shattered and defeated shell, a husk that has congrtulated so many people and shaken so many hands that it is all i can do now. All social interaction for the last month has been under a large tent, seated at round tables like some Arthurian knight. Except had Arthur experienced some of the weddings I did he would have thrown himself onto Excalibur. Camelot be damned.

Yesterday was the last wedding. No more. I am done. If you are getting married and want to invite me then know that I shall walk up onto the stage, vomit on the brides over-priced gaudy outfit, beat the groom with a plate of sheermaal and possible make lewd gestures using my hands and groin in a creative-expressionistic manner until all have fled. Just so you know.

Haven't been posting much because of lack of time and things to say. The deal that will see me touring Lahore and Islamabad in March is being finalised. So that is good. Did some stand-up at the Black Fish 3rd anniversary show. Will paste it below.

Written some articles recently. Did a piece on alternate-music distribution possibilities of THE HERALD. Two reviews (one music and one documentary) for NEWSLINE. Both are out on the stands right now. Plus SPYDER, the local tech mag has asked me to write a series of humour based articles on computing. Should be fun. Haven’t written articles for a few months now and it is good to flex that part of my brain again.

Anywhoo…you folks don’t come here for my meandering thoughts, this much I know. You want stand-up comedy transcripts and you want them now (atleast that’s what people have communicated via email). Very well, your clown shall now entertain you. This was the bit I did to open to the last Black Fish show:

------------------------------

WEDDING SEASON

So wedding season is upon us. Shaadi season. Everyone getting married. I don’t know, maybe it’s the weather. Maybe this is the only way people in Karachi can come up with feeling warm. So many weddings too. Everyone one you meet, “I have three mehndi’s, two valimas and a shaadi to go to today.” I wish we could swap them. Trade shaadi invites like those sticker books we would get as kids. You would swap stickers with your friends to complete the book. I wish we could do that now:
“I have two shaadi’s and one valima. What do you have?”
“I got a mehndi, a nikah and a dholki.”
Oh, I’ve been low on dholkis this season. I’ll swap you a valima for it.”
That way, if you can complete a full set of Nikkah, Mendi, Shaadi and Valima then you get to go on the honeymoon.

Why is it still called a dholki? I have yet to go to one all year which had an actual dhol. Dj’s are there, dance floors. I keep waiting for the DJ to bust out with a dhol. Never happens.

Food at weddings isn’t the same anymore. Its all swanky now. Chicken Teriyaki and fried shrimp. What happened to the good old shaadi ka khana. Y’know. The real heart stopping, arteries-clogging stuff. I miss that. The ghee-ka-salan. The sheer maal so thick you could use it as a speed breaker. And in the end they would have ice-cream for desert. In winter. I miss that stuff.

Mehndi’s are the best. Everyone loves them. If it was just mehndis all wedding season long there would be no complaints. ‘Cause people love dancing. Whether or not they get to dance is unimportant. As long as someone, somewhere is dancing, people are happy. I love watching the dances. They always seem so exciting at the start of wedding season. Y’know what I mean? Early December, weddings are just kicking off. Everyone loves the dances. The new track selections, the new popular songs. Great dance steps. Everything seems well done. It stops being so exciting by early Jan though doesn’t it. By then you’ve become a seasoned critic. Poor girls synchronizing their hearts out. You’re standing there like an Olympic swimming judge:
“I thought the execution was a bit lacking.”
They’re up there bhangra-ing to dhol bajay and you’re sitting in the front row whispering “I’ve seen better.”

I love how no dance is ever perfect. It will always be that one girls fault. One girl who just sabotages all dances. She’s is like a mehndi-gremlin or something. The girls in front are dancing their hearts out. Everything is perfectly synchronized. This is their moment to shine. They spent the last two weeks hating each other trying to get this right. Every practice was brutal. Girls take this stuff so seriously.
“I hate you.”
“I hope you die.”
“…and thomka thomka and then the hands.”

They are looking as slim as they ever will. Girls who have spent the last two months starving themselves to fit some unrealistic ideal of beauty that only exists in African nations struck with famine. Flies buzzing around them. They start dancing and vultures get confused. All that to finally get up there and dance. Every move synchronized to perfection. Everything except for that one girl. Usually situated at the back or on the far end of the line. She’s the one who does this the entire dance like this [mimes looking self-consciously at the other dancers and poorly imitating them]. At that point all the girls want her dead.
“I hate her.”
“I hope she dies.”
“…and thomka thomka and then the hands.”

------------------------------

HERALD(ed)

2005-12-15T02:34:00.000-08:00

So the local english news-magazine, THE HERALD, just published its December issue. Contained within, near the back, is a two-page article titled "THE KINGS OF COMEDY."

It's basically a review of my solo show and Saad and Davids COMEDIANS ROCK show.

It is the single most Jekyll/Hyde review I have ever read.

Starts off nice enough. Details the growth of Stand-up in Karachi. Then it goes on to review my show for a bit. After that it revews Saad & David. It says some nice things. Some kind things.

And then it smashes us to pieces.

Odd criticisms like me "dumbing down" my humour, being "incoherent" and "rushing one-liners". Saad and David don't get away either. The reviewer quotes a punchline to one of Saads longer bits, thus ruining his chances of ever using that joke again.

Worst of all, it carries the most painful theme of "good for Pakistan" which we so desperately wanted to avoid. I finally did something on a level that I feel could be called professional/international in terms of quality. And no props given.

*sigh* What more do I have to do?

Anyway. Between being called "Blasphemous" by crack-addicted Faizan and "incoherent" by HERALD, my ego is severely bruised. Thank God for delusions of grandeur.

Performed at the latest Open-Mic yesterday. Everyone turned in a solid performance as usual. Saad did some freaking brillint cutting-edge-of-comedy stuff, blending music and one-liners to fantastic effect. Even his songs have gotten better. Not quite sure how he does it.

I tried my hand at a comedy song the other day. No clue how to start, even. Does the song-choice come first? The topic? AAAGH!

Anyway, did some stuff I jotted down the night before and during lunch at work. It's alot mroe adult than my usual material. Just trying out something new. You might not be able to tell but it also has a different tempo and structure to my usual jokes. Experimentation is fun.

-------------------------------------

Men & Porn

Why do men collect porn?

What is this hunter-gatherer ethic when it comes to pornography?

Every man does it. It's usually hidden somewhere in the bowels of his hard disk. Given some innocuous name, like System-Temp-Config-Root. This is the modern-day hi-tech equivalent of the space under your mattress. Then it made sense to store porn though. When I was 14 it was hard to find porn. Usually whatever your friends handed gave you or what you managed to steal from the local video shop. Watching the same movie for months on end. By the end of the year you know every grunt and squeal by heart.

But in this day and age, with the internet being the informational wonder that it is, why are we still storing porn? It’s not like it will run out. What is the reasoning for this? I know guys who have gigabytes of porn. Just storing it up. Maybe in case the worlds entire porn collection gets wiped out, everything deleted. Governments on the verge of chaos, countries tipping over the brink of disaster. Teenage boys just losing their minds. And then the mist clears and a single figure steps onto a rooftop. Silhouetted against the night sky. Lightening streaks by. He is a source of calm in the center of chaos. Raises his hands, a laptop glowing in his grip. And in the center of the screen, for all to see and cry in relief over, it says System-Temp-Config-Root.

Just saving up their porn. All the time. Maybe they are preparing for that day in the future when porn will be the new currency. All money has lost its value and everything is bought and sold by porn. Finally I can become a millionaire. Go to buy a car, “That’ll be two Bang Bus’, a Captain Stabbin’ and 15 seconds of Paris Hilton.” I pay him, and he hands me back some loose change, “Here’s your Pashto films.” And because I’m generous I don’t pocket them. Instead I put them into the small Citizens Foundation donation box on the counter. Just the kind of guy I am.

----------------------------------

Richord Pryor Dead...

2005-12-10T14:11:00.000-08:00

Fuck...

BLASPHEME NOT MINE FAITHFUL...

2005-12-06T13:30:00.000-08:00

So apparently I am blasphemous.

A friend recently called and told me about this. You all know Faizan Ul-Haq? The balding bass-heavy VJ on Indus Music? He has a talk show now. Apparently last week he decided to critique my show on-air. An unsolicited review but what they heck, it's his forum and perogative. He went on to bash it apparently, which is also his right to do so. And then he called it "Blasphemous." Repeatedly.

That I take issue with.

To start with, the bit in my performance he was so upset about was not insulting to God or his messengers in any way. It was a bit sensitive, yes, but not blasphemous. So he basically didn't get the joke. Which is cool. If you've done as much cocaine as he has there is alot that will dissolve into the cesspit that was once your grey-matter.

But dont fucking call me blasphemous on TV. This is Pakistan. Not the safest place to level such a criticism. Especially on air. There has been no response and I attribute it to the fact that his current audience-base of 2 aren't religiously inclined. I take issue with him making a dangerous claim like that, thus endangering me and those around me. I also take issue with his right to call me so, given that I've seen him staggeringly drunk and high on several occasions.

Fuckhead.

Some friends have been after me to take it up with IM. Apparently he called Noor Jehan a prostitute on-air in the past and got into trouble over it. But industry insiders tell me that Ghazanfar, his boss, will probably just think of it as a means of attracting attention and controversy to an otherwise crap show. So not much chance of getting Faizan reprimanded.

Gonna let it go. Making a big deal out of it will just give him attention unnecessarily. Don't want to fluff up his sense of self-importance.

Still sticks in my craw though. Alot. Might take it up with him if I see him around somewhere.

Fucking irresponsible moron. I wish he'd at least look the word up in a dictionary before throwing it around like that.

Has anyone seen the show? Any other witnesses to his fantastic ignorance?

*sorry about this...just needed to vent*

PATTON KNOWS ALL...

2005-12-04T13:24:00.000-08:00

A fantastic interview with comedian Patton Oswalt. A must-read for anyone interested in learning about the craft of comedy.

WINTER NIGHTS...

2005-12-04T13:03:00.000-08:00

It's 2 in the morning and I'm sipping a can of brain-juice (Red Bull for the uninitiated). Dire Straits piping through the laptop speakers and everyone in the house is asleep.

As good a time as any to revive the old blogging habit.

Havn't updated this thing in a while. No excuse, other than life got in the way.

Things have been fun since the show. Got tons of great feedback. TONS. People really loved it.

I got the DVD finally. Got it done at LaRaib. But it needs some editing as the intro is missing and one joke in the middle is a bit lost. Plus some color-correction stuff. Will run it through some video-editing stuff later. Then...not sure really. Been thinking of havin it uploaded to the Worldcall server for free downloads but some stuff has happened recently which makes me unsure. More on that in a bit.

Havn't written much Stand-up in a while. Brain just said fuck-off and took a vacation. But it is the nice kind of exhaustion. For the first time in, well...forever, I feel like I have done something worth being proud of. No harm in relaxing a bit. In the meantime, I quit my day-job and took some time off before starting the new job I've signed up for. Same mind-numbing soul-crushing industry, just a shit-load more money and privileges. It's easier to sell out when the sale-price is high.

Some good news: In talks with a sponsor (the only one I respect in the media landscape) that is offering to take my solo show to Lahore and Islamabad to perform in colleges there. Looking at a March/April timeline. Tentatively considering LUMS and LSE in Lahore. More as it develops. Excited becaused it gives me a slightly wider audience base and I get to go through the material again.

Comedians in New York and L.A. and even England have it good. They can write 20 minutes of material and perform it to a new audience almost every night for a year if they want. In Karachi it is the same 250 people that will come to every comedy/theatre performance. One show and you are done. No re-runs. So the Lahore-Islamabad gigs could be good to get some more mileage out of the material. More details as they come.

Finally wrote something new. Quite like it. Came out of my head tonight after ages. Nothing fantastic but it is good to write some new comedy. Saving it for Saad's next Open-Mic.

It's cold for a Karachi night. Chill air making the room alot smaller. The Red Bull is kicking in and I feel sleep cursing me as it is shoved away.

Time to start writing again.

DAWN OF THE BANKING DEAD

2005-11-16T05:13:00.000-08:00

God I feel so much more relaxed. Don't need to lock myself into my room and rehearse anymore. My wife is grateful.

Am currently sitting at the office, waiting for a meeting. Office is located in the top floor of the ABN AMRO building (the glass structure next to Marriot). Below us 500 ABN employees are dressed in identical black t-shirts, crowded together until all that is visible from above are the bald people. They are listening in rapt attention to their CEO screaming motivational generalities into a micrphone in piss-poor english. And every time he tells them they are what makes this company great they cheer as if it is the single most awe-inspiring thing they have ever heard.

"YOU ALONE HAVE MADE THIS BANK MEDIOCRE!"
"YEAAHHH!" *applause*

Please God, give me the strength not to go and piss over the railing. I hate office culture.

-----------------------------------------

So general feedback from the show seems to be that majority loved the performance. Some critics here and there, mostly people who expected more Chris Rock-style stand up and were irritated that they got Seinfeld-esque stuff instead. Not that I am comparing myself to Seinfeld but...you know what I mean.

Next up is BLACK FISH this Sunday. And then I attend Saad and David's joint show this Monday. Am really really looking forward to that. Both are fantastic comics with wildly different styles and content.

DVD should be ready by the time the weekend ends. Can't wait to watch it.

The idiotic CEO/Motivational Speaker just finished his monologue with "You are not ABN AMRO. ABN AMRO is you!" Que thunderous applause from the mindless drones below.

My fave joke from back in the day:

Q. What's the collective noun for Bankers?
Ans. A wunch of bankers.

Chew on it for a while.

Damn. Should have pissed when I had the chance.

AND DONE!

2005-11-13T20:14:00.000-08:00

It's done. Over. Kaput. Finis. Khallas.

There are a thousand things that I want to say about the show, but some of them are difficult to say without appearing egotistical. So no self-praise, other than: It went better than I could have hoped. Which is something to be proud of.

Tickets sold insanely on the last day. Audience was packed in so tight I couldn't see any empty spaces for even one more person. They laughed at all the right times and even at some wrong ones (I can't believe I never saw the sexual aspect of "rear-ended).

I messed up a few times. Nothing major, but it was there. And once the mike killed a joke.

Got it all on video though. If the sound turns out alright I might make copies for anyone who wants them.

Will write more later. They said some nice things over at Karachi Metblogs and I know Herald, Images and the Friday Times had reviewers there so reviews soon.

In the meantime I'm going to enjoy the fact that I don't have to carry these jokes in my head any longer. No more obsessing over the material. No more studying Stand-up.

Until I can come up with another hours worth of material at least...

THE FINAL STRETCH...

2005-11-11T13:29:00.000-08:00

Updates have been non-existant recently. Bunch of reasons really: The computer connection has been screwy of late, busy with office stuff alot these days, spending all my free time rehearsing...oh, and my dog ate my homework maam.

Last week has been hectic. Checked ticket sales at Costa on Monday and found out they had sold two tickets. TWO!? Which just proves Black Fish's theory that no one buys tickets till the last day before the show.

Saad had another Open-Mic this last Tuesday, and I performed there. Was nervous as hell because it was all material I had never even tested before, some of which I had written the night before, and if it went badly then that would kill my chances of people looking forward to the Sunday show. Nothing worse than wbad word-of-mouth. I know what I'm talking about dammit, I'm an advertising man!

The Gods smiled upon me though.

Open-Mic went fantastic. Saad rocked his set, David did his usual fantastic job, there was some kid from Islamabad (22 years old!) who had a mixed set but got some good laughs in between and given some experience he could become quite exceptional. Got to watch him. Stand-up is a cut-throat business. Nip these young turks in the bud I says.

My set was the best I have ever done. Seriously. Went far beyond anything I expected in terms of quality. My timing was just how I wanted it. No screw-ups. Big big laughs. Thank God. Since then my ticket sales have gone through the roof!

Yesterday I dropped off 4 complimentary tickets to City FM89 for free on-air giveaways. They were really supportive and keen. I guess they want to recover from the disaster that was last months CRACKDOWN show. Listen for the chance to win tickets on Saturday all day.

So that brings me to the here and now. 3 in the A.M. on Saturday morning. No chance of backing out now. Word has spread. Tickets have sold. Am rehearsing thrice a day atleast. Some people are concerned that some of the material is a repeat of what I've done at previous performances but I figure 10% of the audience total would have heard all of the previously-performed stuff and that in a whole just comprises 30% of the show.

No excuses for screw-ups now.

I feel alot more confident than before.

And if it's possible, alot more nervous.

IT BEGINS...

2005-10-29T02:06:00.000-07:00

First, before anything else:

------------------------------

NOBODY MOVES NOBODY GETS HURT
An hour of solos Stand-Up Comedy* by Sami Shah
All original material.

WHERE: P.A.C.C
WHEN: NOVEMBER 13TH (Sunday)
TIME: 8 TO 9 P.M. (Show starts at 8:00 prompt)

Tickets available at AGHA'S, COSTA COFFEE AND ROASTERS and before the show

*Safe for people for all ages

----------------------------------------

That's the email that will be going out to everyone on tomorrow.
Anyone who wants to help can just cut/copy/paste it and send it
further to anyone they know.

Que: Sigh of relief.

The posters and tickets are done! Finally! God I actually feel so much
better! When I saw them at the printers today they looked great. The
colours were fantastic and the paper stock is just what I wanted. For
the first time, more so than when I paid the P.A.C.C. people, I
realized I am actually doing this. And I am finally excited about it
once again. I actually feel more relaxed. Even thought of some new
material which I need to write down. Dropped off 50 tickets to Costa
Coffee and will do Agha's and Roasters in the morning. Posters go up
wherever I can think of.

Aaargh! and Yay!

2005-10-27T11:44:00.000-07:00

So today was a bit bizarre. Interesting blend of disasterous and uplifting.

The good part was being called up by CNBC who wanted to interview both Saad Haroon and I about comedy in Pakistan and why we want to do Stand-Up in particular. Had a fun hour-long interview that turned into quite a philosophical discussion on the place of humour in society. Should be good when it finally airs.

The bad part was a hit on the wallet. Remember how I had planned on printing all the tickets and posters at my office? For free? I snuck into the office at 8:30 p.m. only to find that for the first time in 2 years, the magnificent office printer had crashed. This is a beast of a machine that produces high-quality full colour prints at rapid speed at the rate of around 150 to 200 prints a day. It is the backbone of the Creative Department at our Ad Agency. And the bastard crashed today of all days. And me with timetable that required the printing of 220 tickets and 20 A3 sized posters by Saturday. It will take a week to fix. I have been planning on having the tickets in place and the posters up all over by Saturday morning. That would give me the two weeks I need for hard core marketing and promotion. 220 seats need alot of bums to fill them.

The only alternative I had left was the printing shop near K.D.A. They could handle the volume and four colour printing on the kind of paper I wanted. Colours slightly duller but not that anyone would notice. Only catch: total cost Rs. 4000!

I can sacrifice on colour and and print the tickets for cheap. The posters can be the black & white photocopies that Black Fish posters are. But dammit I don't want to! This is my solo show. This is what I've been working towards for four months and am risking a shit load of respect and reputation and credibility on. I want to do this my way or no way at all. So I forked over the money. Get the tickets and posters tomorrow. They go live on Saturday and the emailing and web presence and sms-ing all begins thereafter. My profit margin keeps getting smaller and smaller. Was going to give the money away anyway, but still, I had hoped to make enough to donate and also finance a future show. Looks like it will just be the former and any future shows (if this one doesn't bomb) will be paid for the same way this one was, out of my pocket and alot to lose.

Just one more day and I will post details on tickets and everything. Promise.

Just no more screw-ups. Not a good thing to do to a superstitious performer.

Oh and my anxiety and fear are just getting worse.

I can do this...I can do this...I can do this...

Busy busy busy...

2005-10-26T23:05:00.000-07:00

I am so damned tense my neck muscles (yes I have muscles ha ha) feel like concrete. Not much time left before the show.

Last night I dreamed I was backstage getting ready to perform and someone from my day-job suddenly turns up and tells me there is a packaging design change needed on Knorr and so I leave the auditorium and start rushing to work. I refuse to read into this.

Poster is done. Not completely happy with it but it'll have to do. Tickets are designed, printing them out between today and tomorrow and then will drop them off. Currently thinking of printing 220 tickets, keeping 50 at Agha's, 50 at Costa Coffee, 50 at Roasters and the rest with me for selling at the gate and such.

Will start emailing the banner ads to people who have contacted me (thanks everyone by the way!) as soon as the tickets have been dropped. After that mass email to as many mailing lists as I can plus SMS-ing everyone on my phone list as well as asking friends and family to do same. Paid the Rs. 13,000 deposit to P.A.C.C. today. God I hope I can sell enough tickets to cover costs.

Sat down and read through all the material and timed it at around 45 minutes. That is without any pauses for laughter. Will add another ten to fifteen minutes just in case. No more socializing or going out for dinner and all that. Two weeks of sitting at home and writing and memorizing. Crunch time.

Saad is having another Open-Mic night on the 8th of November. The last one was a huge success and I think he can start making this a monthly feature. I'll be doing 5 to 7 minutes of material there, mix of old and new. Should be a good way to help get the word out and such. Will post details as they come.

Okay. Timelines and goals sorted. Now I just need to remember to breath.

God I hope I don't fuck this up....

The "Aye's" have it...

2005-10-24T12:15:00.000-07:00

Thanks to you guys who responded, some by comment-system and some by email. It helped alot in making my final decision. So I am going ahead with the show!

13th of November is getting close and I can't afford to waste much more time. Need to start memorizing the material, design the posters and tickets and start arranging for miscellaneous stuff. Doing this all myself so it's a bit of work when you are already juggling a day-job and a hectic family life.

Been deciding on a name for the show. I liked BRING THE FUNNY but it's too similar to Chris Rock's "Bring the Pain" and I want to avoid any chances of being called a plagiarist, especially since there is almost no quality original material being presented in Pakistan right now. Also, "Bring the Funny" sounds too much like the name for a comedy competition or challenge. Which this isn't.

Another name option was 'CAUSE IT'S TRUE. From the cliche "It's funny because it's true". But that doesn't have enough...zing to it. If you will.

Last night I thought of NOBODY MOVES, NOBODY GETS HURT. I know it's a bit longish but I quite like it. Especially it kinda connects to some of the themes in my material. And one of the typographic tricks I can play with the poster-design is that I can superimpose an "L" onto the "M" in "Moves". Get it? Cheesy but quirky-funny. I like that.

Had a bunch of ideas for poster design and couldn't decide between them. Typographic? Cartoony illustration? Photographic? Or Realistic Vector Art. Finally decided to do all four. Four posters, all radically different from each other. Each placed at locations that match the design and theme. Which then gives me the option of printing up four types of tickets. Which should be fun. Buy a whole set and get free joke. Trading cards of the future. Or maybe just kinda sorta fun to see.

All of this is ofcourse made possible by the fact that I am able to print the posters and tickets for free at work (as long as I am staying late and my boss isn't reading this blog).

So it looks like it is settled. I won't be posting actual material here now until after the show as I don't want to give away stuff thus boring people at the show. Updates about time and venue details and ticket availability will come soon.

Will need help with guerrilla marketing! Any help at all would be appreciated. That means spreading the word, if you know of any venues where you can put up posters. If you have mailing lists or oft-frequented websites you can mention this on. Will be assembling a web and print press/marketing kit in the next few days. Drop me a line here or at samishah@gmail.com if you want to be involved.

Thanks guys. I mean it.

No easy choice...

2005-10-20T11:55:00.000-07:00

I've written and then deleted this post close to a dozen times now. Each time I decide against putting it on-line at the last moment and spend another day confused. I suppose the best way forward would be to preface it; I don't mean this to be insenstive and if it comes across as such I apologise in advance. I am just honestly really confused over what to do. So try not to be offended by this and if you will comment then just make relevant to the topic.

Some background:

I have spent the last three months preparing to do a live solo Stand-up comedy performance. This is born out of my love for Stand-up and a lack of venues and opportunities to present my material. Plus I figured if I pulled off a 40 minutes/1 hour show it would be the first of its kind. All original material presented by me, on stage, alone. A month ago I decided November 13th would be the day to do so and booked the P.A.C.C. auditorium. Since then I've been writing constantly and maintaining this blog to keep people up-to-date about progress and such.

Around two weeks ago the earthquake happened. Since then I've been as obsessed with the disaster and its fallout as much as any Pakistani. I stopped writing comedy because I couldn't focus on anything but the quake.I imagine it's the same for everyone.

Three days ago the P.A.C.C. called and asked for the payment for the auditorium. Which made me question the whole thing. Since then I've been really confused. Should I or shouldn't I do my show?

People have given me varying advice in discussion. One of my friends says go ahead and do it. People need to laugh and something like this would be fun and relaxing. Saad thinks it would be difficult but not inappropriate. Conversely, my wife feels it is too huge a risk, because it would be the first comedy performance after the quake and people would get offended and because if I get up there and do badly then it will take forever for my reputation as a comedian to recover.

I just don't know what to think myself. I have faith in my material. I think it's solid and funny and none of it is inappropriate at all. In fact, in keeping with Black Fish tradition it is entirely family friendly. I stand by my material. I am still shy of an hours worth but I think I can fill 40 minutes solid. I understand good material can be killed by bad delivery, especially after the Open-mic a month back when I rushed through everything. But I am more conscious of that now so not a major concern.

But what if people find it too wrong to do a comedy show after the quake? Maybe people aren't ready for that kind of escapism. What if I do badly? I go up there and just bomb. It can happen. It's happened to the greats. Why not me? I would be doing a bad show, on stage, alone, for an hour. After the disastrous "Crack Down" show a few weeks ago by some unfortunate kids I am all to clear on how painful that can be for audiences. It would be worse to do a bad show in the current mood and atmosphere. And what if no one turns up? It can happen. I still haven't marketed the show at all. There are three weeks to go but still. I could end up not covering costs
and P.A.C.C. is no longer cheap (Rs. 13,000 per night).

I always knew it was a risk, but until now I didn't realize just how much so. But then a part of me thinks I haven't done anything challenging in so damned long. It's been years since I really tested myself. And this is a sure-fire way. But when do I know if I've gone from challenging to masochistic?

And even now, I feel guilty thinking about this when there are so many people suffering and so many people giving up everything to help them. These are more serious times than any I have experienced. More so than 9/11 for us Pakistanis. Maybe I should just not do this. If I call of the show then I won't be able to get a venue till Mid-Jan at the earliest, and then God knows if I will still be able (there are alot of personal changes happening in my life around end of December that might have me out-of-country for a long time). Basically, now or never.

So what will it be?

...

2005-10-09T21:06:00.000-07:00

I know this is a bog focused on comedy but I feel it's oka to switch gears right now.

First of all: All the information you could want on donating and volunteering can be found at METROBLOGGING KARACHI. Go there and find out how best for you to give.

I was at the PAF Relief Drive late into last night. Did alot of heavy lifting and sorting of medicines (the latter of which my incredible wife was a central figure in). If anyone is planning on going down there today, please try taking medical supplies with you. Lots of First-Aid and Antibiotics needed. Please no expired stuff (check the date before giving) and no opened bottles!

Therre are mountains of material. So much has been given, but not enough people to help sort it and box it and so on. They need help in organizing things and they need muscle to lift things. It is important.

Go now.

Quick Notes...

2005-10-03T04:02:00.000-07:00

Been unable to Blog the last few days because my blogger access isn't working from home. No clue why. Just refuses to submit new stuff to my blog.

Went an abysmal party a few days ago, some launch thing for a TV program which I couldn't get out of. Absolutely horrid. But on the bright side I got a good 5 minutes worth of material about bad parties while there. Got home at 3 a.m. and jotted it all down while bleary-eyed with sleep.

Since then, had ideas for a few more topics but haven't had the chance to flesh them out. Listed here so I don't forget them:

-------

- Being rear-ended and made to feel guilty about it. Traffic accidents in general and the way people throng around them.

- Public bathrooms without Muslim Showers

- Boardgames (Risk, Scrabble, etc.)

- Smoking

-------

That's it for now. The show is still set for the 13th of November. I'm quite nervous. Figured out a way to cut costs by just printing the posters at the office and getting the tickets done for cheap at the colour photo-copiers near my house.

The Open-Mic thing has apparently gotten some good buzz going for my solo show. Which is great since I need all the advertising I can get.

Stuck at the office as usual, but everything is made so much more bearable by the new Dane Cook stuff I've downloaded to my iPod. I love his style, so completely unique to him. Even his material is great, no one else could pull it off. Check out his website if you get a chance. Lots of free audio stuff there.

Hydralin-Flavoured Burps...

2005-09-27T03:28:00.000-07:00

Pointy metal spikes have lined the insides of my throat, my lungs feel like they are filled with the tar of a thousand smokers and I can taste cough-syrup everytime I burp. None of which is helped by the fact that I am at work trying to make Knorr Pulao Cubes look appetizing.

Used the last of my strength/voice at the Open-mic last night. Spent the entire time before the show started gargling with salt-water and chugging coffee. I refused to make conversation with anyone and every ten or fifteen minutes would hide in a corner and mumble "hello hello testing one two three" to myself to make sure I still have a voice.

The show was fantastic by the way. Saad really is a genius when it comes to organizing things. No one has that boys sense of committment. Caffeine, a rarely-visited coffee shop that at the best of times looks garish, turned out to be the perfect venue. No parking problems. Enough room for the audience of 80 or so people to sit comfortable and everyone had a view of the performance space.

The show started at around 8:20. Saad opened with some hilarious bits. They were his less experimental, more guaranteed-laugh bits, but worked great. Around 6 minutes of thematic material, all of which killed. The audience loved him. Bastard. I really hope he just does his solo-show soon. Really looking forward to it. Plus it is a pleasure talking to him, the only other person who is involved with the technical appreciation/understanding of Stand-up. We always end up swapping pointers and discussing technique. Stand-up is mostly a lonely craft. Not like Improv. You write your material alone and until you perform it the only knowledge you have that it is funny is what your instincts tell you. Which is fucking frightening if you think about it.

Anyway, after Saad there were some poets and musicians. Mikail (Saad's friend) read a lovely poem for his fiancee and the musicians were really damned talented. Great performances. David of ARTSAYPUNK did a ten minute bit about being a foreigner in Pakistan which I thought was fantastic. I found him through his blog a few days back and got him in touch with Saad. Glad saad convinced him to give it a try.

I was one of the last acts up, which had me extremely nervous about the condition of my voice. Got up to the mike after a touching into by Saad and as far as I could tell my voice sounded like two strips of sandpaper being rubbed together. Apparently the audience could understand me fine but I really wasn't sure throughout. That coupled with a sudden urge to cough violently the moment I stood up had me a tad panicky. I ended up doing three bits. Opened with the "G.T." stuff, which didn't do as well as I thought it would and then did two new bits about cell-phones on airplanes and cops. They killed. People laughed at all the right times, got all the jokes and even the stuff I wasn't sure about did great. It felt fantastic.

One problem though: I raced through the material. I mean really spat it out too fast. Even I realized half-way through I should be slowing down a bit but I just couldn't. My mind stops and my mouth takes over. Three, four words a second. Material that was supposed to last 7 minutes was done with in 3. That is extremely problematic. I thought I had enough material for 40 minutes ready. And if I speak normally it would work like that. But the fact of the matter is I talk fast. Very fast. And chances are it won't change on the November 13th show. I like talking fast, it is my style of delivery and it works for alot of the material. But that mean that what I thought was 40 minutes of stuff is barely 20 minutes. I need twice as much material in the next one month. Time to stop procrastinating and writing out and editing and timing all the new material I have been meaning to get around to.

The Open-mic was a success though. Hats off to Saad. The audience loved it and I think it would be a great monthly feature. I doubt he will have trouble finding more performers.

If you want to get involved; do some stand-up, read something or even act a mime...anything, contact Saad at sadharpoon@hotmail.com

My throat gave out the moment I finished my bit. It just collapsed and I've been whispering since. Time to rest.

Time to write.

OPEN-MIC...hak cough...

2005-09-26T03:48:00.000-07:00

Tonight is Saad's first OPEN-MIC show!

WHERE: CAFFEINE (Boat Basin)
WHEN: 26th September, 8:00 p.m.

Last I heard he was sold-out so if you don't have tickets then...well too bad I guess.

I'm pretty psyched because I am doing 5 to 7 minutes of Stand-up in a non-Black Fish environment.
One tiny problem though - I have laryngitis.

No voice whatsoever.

Yesterday night I hosted Black Fish and it was pretty bad before the show. After one hour of hosting and yelling and all that it is goooone. I am talking in a barely audible whisper. It's a deep husky whisper which is kind of sexy but not much use for Stand-up. Hoping to be able to drink lots of tea and honey-milk concoctions before the show.

Not sure what to perform yet. Definetely doing the "G.T." bit because it's always been a hit (by "always" I am referring to the one time I have done it). It's strong and would do great with the audience that is coming. Not sure what else though. "G.T." is a small bit, barely two to three minutes. So that leave around 5 minutes of other stuff, and I need to try the new longer bits I've written. So trying to decide. Either the one about Pakistani Cops, Chivalry or some older stuff.

Lets see...

IT'S OFFICIAL!

2005-09-21T22:59:00.000-07:00

The date is set: 13th November (Sunday) is the official date for my Stand-up performance. That gies me enough time to get the posters and tickets printed up and start spreading the word.

So...should I call the show "BRING THE FUNNY" or not?

Meanwhile, Black Fish is having its last show before Ramadan this Sunday (the 25th) and Saad's Open-Mic is on Monday (the 26th) at Caffeine.

Tickets for Black Fish at Agha's and the gate, tickets for Saad's Open Mic...not sure. Contact Saad at sadharpoon@hotmail.com

Chivalry of the crotch...

2005-09-20T00:32:00.000-07:00

At work right now, trying to figure out how to make a can of Rafhan Corn Oil look pretty and thankfully my mind wonders towards new Stand-up material. This is raw as can be, no editing, just noting this stuff down as it comes to me, so it might not actually be funny:

------------------------------------

Chivalry is dead. I don't know how Pakistani women put up with the men, we have no sense of chivalry. No more opening doors and holding your chair and all that. The closest a Pakistani man comes to chivalry these days is not adjusting himself when a woman is present. That is it. You might be right at it, hand buried deep in your pocket, trying to get the angle just so...a woman passes by and you stop. try to pull it like you always stand like that, one hand buried elbow deep in your pockets. That is the extent of chivalry. And if you are wearing a Shalwaar Kameez then you don't even bother with that. Shalwaar Kameez makes the whole discretion-while-adjusting thing too damned difficult. It just isn't a user friendly article of clothing. The pocket is way up on one side. Your hand stops at the hip. Trying desperately to make an adjustment, and the only way of doing it is the long way around. Your underwear is pinching and all of a sudden you look like the sabzi-wala taking out his wallet. They hide their money all the way down there, nestled between the rainbow-coloured naara and their nether regions. It's a great way of making extra money. Hand him a 500 buck note and all of a sudden he is producing change from his crotch like some perverts David Blaine.
*back away quickly* "Keep the change, keep the change!"
Your bill had only come to Rs. 23.

That's the problem with our culture. So much damned hypocrisy. We get angry if a women shows her arms and yet the male Shalwaar kameez is a revealing piece of clothing. Sure it covers you from neck to ankle. But when the wind blows against you, all of a sudden the whole world can see the craftsmanship on your circumsition (sp?). It goes from national-dress to a kinky piece of male lingerie. Waqar's Secret...for the sexy fundamentalist.

-----------------------------------------

*Phew* That's actually not bad. I had just thought of the chivalry gag when I started writing this and it's turned out a lot meatier than I had realized. And I worked in a but about the Shalwaar kameez that I've been trying to find a place for.

Now to edit it for tempo and timing and such.

Now back to the Corn Oil....

CRACKDOWN(er)

2005-09-18T12:22:00.000-07:00

I just got back from the Stand-up show that I mentioned earlier.

So...much...to...say....

Stand-up is not about just getting up on stage and cursing a whole lot! It is not about just telling one-line jokes, humorous anecdotes and staring at cue-cards in the wings! Stand-up is supposed to be *&%%^$&%$& FUNNY!

A better summary goes like this:

The opening act was this guy Faraz Lodhi. He actually had some funny material. Some genuinely good bits and he managed his transitions well too. He did, however, keep mumbling between jokes and instead of memorizing his bits, or even writing his material down on paper and keeping it on stage with him, he relied on cue-cards being held up in the wings. Good jokes and timing ruined by long pauses that were punctuated by non-stop cursing. It lacked the kind of casual smoothness that makes good stand-up work. But there were some decent jokes and they were well told.

It went downhill from there.

The next guy mumbled some bad one-liners incoherently. Haven't seen an audience energy die so quickly. The guy after that just kept cursing and telling badly structured stories. After him was a friend who actually had one good joke about CNN and censorship and wrecked it with poor delivery. The rest of his material was abysmal and the last guy up seemed confused about which country he was in. Word of advice: Don't take material about American Highschools and apply it to I.B.A. It wasn't even material he had ripped off from an American comedian, it was just bad stuff. We all walked out around then. Couldn't take it anymore.

My advice remains, being funny doesn't mean you are a good comedian. Stand-up is a craft and skill that requires practice and relies on certain tools to succeed. Some can break those rules, but that only works once you have learnt them. To just be this ignorant about rules and structures is embarrasing.

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Am worried about the repercussions this will have on my November show. What if word-of-mouth ruins the expectations and interest people have in Stand-up shows. Maybe its good I have a month between this show and my own. Feeling alot more confident about it, 'll be honest. The audiences here are interested and want to laugh. You just have to give them a good reason to.

Another problem is that P.A.C.C. is increasing its booking costs from November. Not Rs. 8000 anymore, but Rs. 12,000! I don't have that kind of money. Really need to save up now.

Saad and I have one chance to redeem Stand-up; on the 26th is Saad's open-mic where I am doing 5 minutes of material. Have to choose what to do carefully. Alot rides on this show.

Damn Crackdown.

I know I know...

2005-09-16T01:08:00.000-07:00

It's been a while since I posted anything. The current day-job workload is overwhelmingly painful. Couple that with Black Fish stuff and you only scratch the surface of my daily routine.

Some News:
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- Saad's Open-Mic night happening for sure. I'll do around 5 minutes of Stand-Up and I just need to figure out which bits to use. Maybe one new and one old. It is on the 26th of September, which is pretty much all I know for sure.

- That came-out-of-nowhere Stand-up show that I mentioned below is on the 18th for sure. Got my tickets. Saad and I are both going to attend, strictly research and fact-finding mission. I hope they do a good job, nothing would improve the entertainment scene here like a series of good Stand-up shows.

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Haven't written anything new in a few days, but yesterday my driver rammed my small car into a taxi, thus rendering it smaller still. The taxi was parked at the time, and he hit it from behind, so it was kind of amusing to see him trying to explain to me how it was the other guys fault. Been rear-ended often enough myself so am sure there might be some material in there.

Also been considering doing the obligatory "Women are confusing" stuff that almost every comedian has. Problem is, there is so much material already done on the topic that there is little space for originality left. Plus, really, how funny are those segments anyway?

To keep you entertained, and make up for the lack of posts, here is an older bit that I wrote and performed to great success on the 14th August Black Fish show only to later realize that the piece can only be used once a year and so is useless to me now. I still love how it came out though:

I used to love 14th August as a kid. Used to get up bright and early every morning to watch the army parade on PTV. This was back when the only entertainment we had was 4 and a half minutes of Heckle and Jeckle every evening just before the Sindhi news, so an hour of people in Khaki and camouflage marching was a biiiig deal. They used to have everything. Honking big missiles and tanks of all kinds and everything. I still believe there were Intelligence agents across the border in India who had their t.v. antennas trained in our direction and were just cataloguing as fast as they could.
“Air-to air missiles, two. F-16’s 4.”
Every time the ads would come on it would mess them up..
“Three commando units. 12 paratrooper units. One bottle of Rooh Afza.”
14th August is all commercial now. It’s like this great big marketing opportunity. They have ruined it. Everyone has manipulated it for their own benefit. It’s upsetting. But what is worse is they all use the same sort of lines.
“Enjoy the taste of freedom with Knorr.”
“Enjoy the speed of freedom with Toyota”
It’s going to just get excessive at this rate.
“Enjoy the cholesterol of freedom with McDonalds.”
“Enjoy the odor of freedom with Sure deodorant.”
They’ll have a pic of Jinnah waving with that stupid tick over his underarm.

So why do this?

2005-09-10T14:41:00.000-07:00

It's a valid question. After all, one of my big problems with Stand-up is that everyone I meet claims they either know someone funny or are funny themselves and so can do it. And that is pretty much how I got thinking about doing Stand-up; people tell me I'm funny, I think I can provide a funny perspective on things and there is, within me, that arrogance and over-confidence that convinces me that I can pull it off. What if, despite my claims of studying the art and form I am simply deluding myself and the solo show will be a disaster?

Why do it?

Because I love Stand-up. Always have. It's that simple. I watched and studied it in college, I have been obsessed with it since I got back to Karachi, even Black Fish, for all the fun it allows me, doesn't match the sheer thrill of getting a good laugh from the audience when delivering a monologue. Maybe I've been lucky so far and I will fall on my ass and make a fool out of myself. Maybe not. I'd rather try and fail than not try at all. There aren't many risks in life that I can consider with that attitude, and the fact that Stand-up inspires such bold and irrational passion in me makes it worth trying.

Still scared shitless though.

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Meanwhile, a light storm in Karachi leaves the city drenched and drowning. Katrina victims are probably sneering at us. Tomorrow the paper will read: RAIN LASHES CITY. 14 DEAD.
Everytime the weather changes here people die. Rain: 14 dead. Heat wave: 32 dead. Drizzle: 4 dead. It's gotten so that one day the paper will read: PERFECT WEATHER: HALF THE CITY GONE!

Okay, so that one might just never make it into the routine.

Tiiiime is on my side...yes it is!

2005-09-09T12:06:00.000-07:00

The biggest problem I'm encountering with writing right now is finding the time. Between the day-job, Black Fish, married life and other day-to-day stuff I am really struggling for time. I come up with material and then can't get around to transcribing/editing it until two to three days later. Throw an brand new Xbox into the mix and you can start to see how problematic this can be.

*sigh* If only I could do this full-time. I envy New York based comedians with their hundreds of performance spaces and chances to get represented and make a career out of stand-up.

Heard something interesting today, apparently some guys are doing a Stand-up show at the P.A.C.C. on the 18th. Will definetely go to check this out. Kinda got mixed feelings about it though. On one hand I'm glad more people are attempting it and getting it known and creating an audience base for it. On the other hand I was really keen on being the first. Everyone in Pakistan is eager to label anyone a copycat and the last thing I want it to seem like is that I got the idea from them. Especially since I was considering P.A.C.C. as well.

Hmmm...lets see how it pans out.

Looking at the second week of November, as soon as Eid ends. Need to figure out how to market it and whatnot. I hate dealing with logistics.

Prolific to the max...

2005-09-05T22:10:00.000-07:00

Yesterday was a good day, writing-wise. I have one every few days and yesterdays was the best in a while. Had been thinking of how to flesh out some topics and started considering the whole "Pakistani's Who Travel" bit on my drive home from work. Given that I get stuck in Shahra-E-Faisal traffic for close to 40 minutes on my drive back daily, that gave me alot of time. By the time I pulled into my garage, fifteen minutes of new material had composed itself in my head. And alot of it is very very strong stuff. Rushed inside, kissed the wife and then much to her chagrin sat down and started transcribing right away. I just couldn't risk forgetting anything. Half-an-hour later I had the language and cadence and everything worked out.

Saad Haroon, the guy who founded Black Fish and is working on Stand-up of his own, is starting an Open-Mic night in Karachi. Will post details when they become available. Will probably try out some of the new stuff there.

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In other news: A friend who works in T.V. has offered to record my show when it happens (looking at mid-November) and put it on air. Not sure though.

Yesterday I was hit by my first, and definetely not last, bout of panic. Was reading some articles by NY-based comedians and realized that all comics bomb every now and then. Even the best in the business, Seinfeld, Chris Rock, etc. had some bad shows. Shows when the audience isn't receptive or you screw up your timing or worse...forget the material. I've been lucky in that the two or three small bits I've done to open Black Fish shows with have done really well. But not sure how much of that is due to the energy and support audiences give Black Fish. It would be quite awful if my first solo show is the one on which my luck changes.