The Funny Indian Newsletter, Vol. 207
December 2023: Recap
Welcome
Welcome to The Funny Indian Newsletter!
Happy Holidays… Hope you had yourselves a very Merry Christmas.
All of you received my first-ever Gruntled newsletter. That one will remain independent of this one. I simply wanted to mention it here as we just launched.
Read on for my Musings and Updates, including my year-end recap.
Musings
Year-End Recap
Shot a Dry Bar standup comedy special, to be released in 2024.
Recorded a full-length standup comedy special in front of sold-out crowds of ~250 people in LA and Cincinnati.
Gave my first-ever 45-min Gruntled speech to all 1,000 P&G NA IT employees to rave reviews of 98% and got booked for a follow-up gig.
Signed the wall at the Comedy & Magic Club in Hermosa Beach, CA.
Interviewed Marisa Tomei, Malala Yousafzai, and Paul Reiser.
Had a current and edgy standup video go semi-viral and earned a quarter million views on my Gandhi Tells Jokes videos.
Performed on the first-ever all-Desi lineup at the Sundance Film Festival.
Relaunched The TanGent Show, which got a mention in Tangle.
Recorded a standup comedy set on Russell Peters’ TV pilot.
Held 11 Entertainment Meet-Ups here in LA.
Got invited to an exclusive Diwali event at VP Kamala Harris’ home.
Shared a stage and hung out with one of my idols, Arsenio Hall.
Blowout
The word “blowout” has truly evolved as I’ve aged:
When I was young and single, every six months, I’d throw a blowout: a massive party.
Growing up in Cincinnati, I’d watch my teams regularly lose* in a blowout: a lopsided loss.
The last time I did any kind of manual labor was in 2003 when a friend of mine had a blowout: a flat tire.
When I moved to LA and had very little money, I bought most of my clothes at a blowout: a sale with unusually deep discounts.
Before I’d pick up my girlfriends for a date, they’d tell me they just got a blowout: washing, conditioning, and drying their hair.
And now that my wife and I have a kid, the one thing you don’t want is a blowout: a poop explosion.
Is any other word as versatile?
*Not anymore, baby… Who Dey!
Same Same
Had another Marshall McLuhan moment. My friend Sachin and I were grabbing drinks at a local bar when we somehow got on the topic of celebrities that look alike.
He said Zooey Deschanel and Katy Perry. I've never met Zooey but I talked to Katy when she and Russell Brand walked into the Hollywood Improv years ago. Still, I was like, "No way. They look nothing alike."
A few moments later, a man walked over and said, "I couldn't help but overhear your conversation. I'd have to agree with your friend. Because I took this picture."
Only in LA, I swear.
Historically, mine were Glenn Close and Meryl Streep. Not so much that they resembled each other physically but that they had the same general affect. (I could always tell them apart.) Also, Anna Kendrick and Kendrick Lamar.
More recently, I said that Natalie Portman and Keira Knightley reminded me of each other. My wife had a similar reaction: "No way!" Then I showed her an article in which their own mothers couldn't tell them apart on the set of Black Swan.
It's ironic because my wife has some weird hang-up where she can't tell White people apart: she actually thinks Gwyneth Paltrow and Nicole Kidman look the same. Yeah, no.
What about you? Which famous people do you get mixed up? Don't worry about being racist. It's fine in this context.
Santos, baby, come hurry out the chamber tonight.
Updates
See
Future:
02/01: Thrive State Summit (Virtual) (pic): I’m doing a session for this online mental health event.
Past:
12/13: Ice House (Pasadena, CA)
12/20: Russell Peters TV Taping (Hawthorne, CA)
Like
I performed at the Ice House Comedy Club in Pasadena last Wednesday. Apparently, a director was in the crowd and liked me. On Monday, the host, Samson Crouppen, sent me an IG DM, telling me his friend, Buddy Lewis, was gonna hit me up. When Buddy did indeed do so, he asked what I was doing Wednesday. I told him I was busy as I was FINALLY about to have Arvind Mishra and his wife over... something we'd been planning to do in the FOUR YEARS since we met onboard our ship in Antarctica.
After nearly 18 years in this game, you'd think I'd ask what the gig was.
And you'd think Samson and Buddy would've told me this was for a paid TV taping and not just a comedy club spot. (Haha... OK, I'm done givin' 'em enough sh!t for that now.)
When I found out Russell Peters was attached, I did a mad scramble: texting my agent to tell him what a moron his client is... replying again to Samson & Buddy... and finally just going straight to the source: Russell himself.
Fortunately, at the last minute, we got the contract signed and I drove through the LA rain to Hawthorne to shoot a standup set on a show featuring comics who'd traveled the world.
So dope meeting and hanging with Jerry Garcia repping Mexico, Gali Kroup repping Israel, and of course, Russell himself.
Everyone killed in front of a supportive audience. About one minute before I was to take the stage, I redid my entire set list in my head and just felt my way through it. I don't advise most comics to do that, but I took a look at the crowd, read the defense, and called an audible.
What's next? Who knows? This is Hollywood and so many people film multiple projects all the time. But as comedian Bonnie Mcfarlane told me years ago: Don't wait till the show is on the air to celebrate. It may never go. Celebrate each step of the way.
A day after I listed out my year-end achievements — which I'll post here next week — this came through. So, let's celebrate that.
See below for additional pics: Much love to Samson, Buddy, Russell (who brought me to the stage as "someone I've known for 20 years"), all the producers, the amazing crew, my agent, and everyone involved with the project, and of course, all of you who've supported me all year.
And Arvind, we'll reschedule soon. Ironically, that Antarctica trip is what helped me book this.
Happy Holidays, y'all!
Like
I hadn't seen Pablo Francisco since I opened for him at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio, in December 2004. And then suddenly, we were on the same lineup this past Wednesday. His impressions, especially of Movie Preview Guy, still rock.
Nearly 20 years ago, I'd just jumped back into standup. You might recall my first-ever comedy club gig was at Go Bananas Comedy Club in August 1998. I did comedy for about a year and then took three years off, wondering what future there was in it. So, I was dabbling for a couple of years when I got the opportunity to open for Francisco at Millett Hall, where I'd delivered the Commencement Address for Fairfield High School Class of 1994 a decade earlier.
Backstage, right before I made my way up in front of that crowd, Francisco said, "We're talking. And if you do really well, we'll talk some more."
Didn't happen. I bombed.
But coming to think of it now, it gave me the experience to stand in front of so many people in a large space — experience that would come in handy two months later, when I opened for Russell Peters for the first of 35+ times, starting at The Ohio State University.
I didn't tell Francisco this story. Maybe next time. Because I definitely didn't bomb on this one.
Like
The focus shouldn't be on the battles that Tiffany Haddish is facing or whether it was unscrupulous to withhold this info from the audience.
That's burying the lede. This is Hollywood and it's all about me: I got a mention in Page Six! That's the main thing here.
Ask
Craziest news story you’ve ever heard?
[Click here for some good answers on Facebook.]
Ask
National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation is the best Holiday movie ever and it's not really even close.
[Click here for some good answers on Facebook… even though I didn’t really ask.]
Love
Wow. This comment from our friend Richa cracked us up — and touched our hearts.
Laugh
Since this is a FUNNY Indian Newsletter, I present here the 5 funny things that I saw, heard, wrote, or remembered for the last month... otherwise known as FIVE - Funny Indian's V Events.
5. Widely regarded as the worst SNL cold open in history, this is so bad, it’s… still bad.
4. Points for two Senators I didn’t know were so funny: Amy Klobuchar and John Fetterman, who hired George Santos on Cameo (I have one, too) to roast Bob Menendez. Boy, did they put up.
3. Wow. This took that Caitlin Flanagan tweet to a whole new level.
2. So good. And so true. What a douche.
1. So un-PC. Yet (So?) so funny.
Close
THANK YOU to all of you for your support. You are my true core of fans — I couldn't do this without you. Season’s Greetings!
Love,
- Rajiv
