Open-mic.

OPEN-MIC

We enter the room with our little notebooks
mumbling to ourselves
fist bumping fellow comics
whispering remarks to our peers
We glance around the room to see
how many are there
how many seated
front seat
Looking at the line up
we see our position
we see who closes that night
One eyebrow raised and a smile
we eagerly wait for our turn
pacing in and out of the room like maniacs
Sometimes sharing new jokes with a trusted comic
Sometimes keeping to ourselves
typing statuses on Facebook to perform to social media
Fear, sweat, excitement,nervousness
Time to perform
We throw all that we have and make them laugh
some hits
some misses
End on high and leave
We scribble on our little notebooks again
Think why something worked
Why it didn't
Feeling optimistic that next time would be even better
with a hope to write an hour
with a hope to get more laughs
with the eagerness to perform yet again
We reach home
Slouched over
Looking at our laptops
and hoping we could perform this new joke
That just popped into our heads
to an audience
eagerly waiting for the next time
and the next
and the next
Open-mic

Long Overdue.

Hey hey folks!

So yeah, my previous rant was rather hard core and i didn't know what to blog after but i've come around and decided that i have so much more to say. Blogs are a thing of the past aren't they?At an age where we could just switch on the camera and say whatever we wanted to and just upload it on youtube, how many people actually want to type out and write a blog that might/ might want not be read. Having said that, writing just helps you release something off your chest and makes your 2nd level thoughts surface faster. That's where ideas for jokes rest. The second level. What does that mean anyway? I guess i mean to say..ideas for jokes rest in the subconscious mind and till you don't scratch the surface and talk about the obvious..you don't quite get to these hidden emotions,thoughts,expressions that are waiting to be felt,heard and expressed. So many things have happened in the past months. For one, I was part of a two handler stand-up/comedy skit show called 'The Rishi and Sharul Show' but apart from that i was just going through some emotional turmoils which i have pretty much sorted out now. Yes, it is extremely difficult for artists to write, perform and express when they have a sea of unresolved issues brewing inside of them  but i guess there is a way to cope and in the past few months i learnt how to do exactly that. Being able to use that chaotic energy to perform. There is something therapeutic about performing to a group of people. For an hour and a half - you just have one goal and that goal is to entertain. It helps you release the stress that you've been harboring inside of you from the turmoil. Theatre healed me these past few months. It's personally been a great learning curve.

I have decided to write so much more now and this blog seems to be an outlet i could use. Sometimes you just got to put it out there. It doesn't have to be funny all the time. It just has to connect. So here i am connecting.  Hope to write so much for myself now because i think it is even more important in a time like this to speak the truth or write it.

So, i ll be here writing much more and if you happen to find me here....perhaps i could somehow connect with you.


Love and regards,
Sharul Channa

Canvas Laugh Club, Mumbai - Please Pay Up!

Attention: Stand Up Comedians all around the world

 Serious matter guys. Here’s the set up.

I am a comedian based in Singapore and I write this post with grave concern and as a warning to all with regards to a negative experience with a specific comedy club in the city of Mumbai.

In the month of April 2014, I was hired, along with two other comedians from Hong Kong and The Netherlands, as part of an all-female comedy troupe, to perform at this club. ‘Hired’ might be the incorrect term, as you will learn later in the post.

They booked our flights. (Visa fees were paid by the performers, with a promise of it being reimbursed.)

Fees for the performances were agreed to be confirmed after the show, based on door sales. Upon completion of the show, an invoice was sent to me with the amount due. 

It’s been 6 months since the performance ended, and despite several emails, attempts at phone calls and requests to sort out the payment, nothing has been done. The employee who was dealing with me has also left the job and now there is no correspondence from the club.

Wait, that’s incorrect of me to say. There was one email from someone saying:

“We will look into it.”

They must be looking in the Bermuda Triangle, for they seem lost.

I thought I was alone, but apparently, several other comedians have performed at this club and have not been paid.

My aim of sharing this letter with the comedy community is to let you all know that this club, claiming to be the ‘only full time comedy club in Mumbai’, has allegedly done this with several comedians and we were just their latest victims.

As the one dealing with the club, my international colleagues asked me, “What’s going on with the payment from 6 months ago?”

I just shrug my shoulders, and have no answer.

It’s upsetting because they had heard stories of unprofessionalism, conning and cheating that happens in India, and this was raised as a concern as to whether we should do the show or not. I assured them that we are dealing with a professional team and India has progressed leaps and bounds in terms of professional working ethics, but, alas, I have been proven wrong.

My advice to any comedian who is being offered a show at this full time comedy club : do the gigs, only if you are treating it as an open mic show. DO NOT EXPECT TO GET PAID, regardless of what you are told or promised. If you are making the trip down to the city and the club, insist on cash payment BEFORE you go on stage. Otherwise, refuse to do the show.

Alternatively, avoid the club completely. There are many comedians in Mumbai who have the integrity, class and talent to put on a solid show, so if you like, I am happy to share those contacts with you.

The venue, staff and set up will make it tempting for you to do a show for nothing, because it’s a fab room with a great crew. So if you’re going in with that mindset, fair enough.  

However, if you are someone who wants comedy to flourish, and be a viable career option in your country, I propose you choose to work with someone who has a similar goal.

The audience in Mumbai is top notch and a joy to perform to, so don’t let your first show in the beautiful city with beautiful people be mired by an ugly experience.

To all comedians out there: you are a ‘stand up’ comedian, not a “get walked all over and exploited’ comedian.

Warmest Regards,

Sharul Channa

Singaporean Stand-up Comedian

Stop Nagging Your Spouse

Are you constantly nagging your spouse? Do you hear yourself telling your partner off all the time? For one, please know that your partner is not a child or a dog. He/she doesn't need to be stopped from what he/she wants to do - all the time!  - unless of course they pooping on the carpet or smelling another bitch's ass. Then you got to intervene and get a trainer. 

Do you have the 'Ignore Syndrome' where you are closely watching your partner at a party -  from a distance and acting like its all cool until you reach home and that's when you are going to unleash the claws and give your partner a lesson on what he/she should be avoiding. 

Do know that nobody wants to be told that they are wrong. Everyone has an ego that might get hurt and everyone just wants to have a good time. Here is the disclaimer : Your partner has  his/her own baggage and it could have been possible that they dated an abusive/ alcoholic/pedophile/psycho before you but you are not responsible to cure that shit. If you can't take it - move on. Still, stop nagging - this is the number 2 reason for why many relationships  have ended. Number 1 being -  murder. 

So what are the things that we nag our partners about? The following are the compilation of top 3 things we nag our partners about.

1.    ALCOHOL

Stop drinking! This is your last drink! 

Unless your partner is an alcoholic, please stop nagging your partner about having drinks. Unless of course, he/she makes an ass of himself/herself after a few drinks and it happens more than twice. Till then, please…let them be. You don't know how stress affects people and sometimes they just wanna kick their legs up and have a couple of drinks. Weird imagery but you get the point.

2.  YOU DON'T HAVE TIME FOR ME

 If you can't enjoy a meal with your partner cos they are always traveling or busy - you both got to find time to be with each other. Nagging about it - not going to help. (Neither finding another bf/gf is )

 You got to ask yourself a question - are you not occupied enough with interesting activities or work ? You got to learn how to be comfortable with yourself being alone if you truly want to have a good time with your partner. Sometimes we push all of our loneliness to our partners and expect them to entertain us. If you need more of your partner's time - just ask. If he/she is being difficult and is completely avoiding you…strangely - it could be 3 reasons :

You Stink.

He/She is very stressed with work

He/She is planning a surprise for you

Most probably, the 2nd one!

Spend quality time with yourself too.

3.   YOU DON'T LOVE ME ANYMORE.

A relationship requires work. Hard work. Don't be complacent in the relationship and don't expect your partner to know everything that you may want. If you want something - ask your partner. Don't just say - you don't love me anymore. Fight it out if you have to but don't nag about it all the time. Your partner will start believing that maybe the love is gone. 

If you want something ask - OYE! CAN WE GO FOR DINNER PLEASE? I MISS YOU!

Sometimes saying : " I miss you." can be so difficult to say. People are usually scared of rejection and don't want to sound needy.

Just say it. OYE ASSHOLE, I MISS YOU! Say it.  

Look at this list and the actual meaning behind the statements your partner might be making. 

Why didn't you call? :  Meaning : I miss you

Why don't you bring me out for dinner anymore? : Meaning : I miss you

How do i look today? : Meaning : I miss you

Why don't you spend time with me anymore?: Meaning : I miss you

Why did you shake hands with that guy/girl just now? : Meaning : I am psycho so break up with me

Nagging and being nagged at can drain you of your energy . You rather spend that time wisely saying things like : I love you. 

;)

Warmest Regards,

Sharul Channa

Nagging Partner of Rishi Budhrani

The Perfect Halloween Night.

This Halloween i choose not to dress up as the zombie, the maid or the casual 'cut two holes in a white sheet kinda lazy ghost' and decided to keep it comfortable. Yup. The last thing i needed on the freaky friday was to dress up with full make up and sweat the night away dancing in an overcrowded club where i would possibly get butt screwed while nobody was looking - yes, i am talking about attica.
I have had so much fun hanging out and having weird conversations with people on halloween nights at Clarke Quay in the past years.  Once I met someone who dressed as an ATM machine  (an expat obviously). It was nice to see him attracting so many women who would put their hands into the slot and he would give them a chocolate in exchange. I always wondered if he hooked up with anyone that night and spent any money on her cos then rightly he would have played the part of an ATM. All you women who are getting pissed off, that wasn't a woman degrading comment..it was a JOKE. I also went to Zouk once for halloween night and saw an indian man in swimming trunks and a float around his waist doing the breast stroke the whole night as part of something he might have thought was called 'dancing'. If he spent that much effort doing the breast stroke in the sea - he could have swam to Batam and back.  Halloween is one of those events where young Singaporeans and expats drop their guard, dress up and take pictures with one another . It feels like national day in its true sense. Probably more bonding than national day itself. The clarke quay bridge is one such place where many music buskers, university groups and drunk couples hang out and indulge in conversations with random strangers. This bridge is probably the friendliest place that exists in Singapore. So, what did i choose to do this halloween? Celebrate it my way by appreciating life.

Drinks and some gambling at Singapore Swimming Club, an hour of foot reflexology and back rub session ,sumptuous food at spice (bedok) with bollywood superstars Hrithik Roshan and Katrina Kaif dancing on the screens of the local eatery mocking our midnight diet. As i dug into my plate of Nasi Kampong chicken, hrithik roshan flaunted his abs and gave me a full meat-eating experience. Numerous conversations with my good friend Aditya made this one even more enjoyable. 

This, ladies and gentlemen, was my perfect halloween night. 

Warmest Regards,

Sharul Channa

Waking up early and other bullshit.

If you're just on the way to the office - this post will serve you well. I hate waking up early in the mornings - never liked it. Even when i had to wake up early for university in the morning, it felt like i slept for only 5 minutes. I would drag myself out of bed and make 10 trips back to the room cos i had forgotten to bring something to the shower…either my undies or my deodorant or some other redundant  product i had bought from  watsons as a motivation to feel good in the morning. Yes, did all of that.  The reality was i had forgotten the one thing i should have brought along with me when i woke up - my brains. My brains were still tucked into bed and snoring real loud. I am clearly not a morning person and hence i have never had a proper 9am to 7pm job. I really admire people who can do it. I really want to punch those people in the faces who wake up at 6 am to get ready to go to the gym. What's all that about? You pretentious pricks. Can you smell the jealousy? If i have ever woken up at 6am - its cos i was just extremely hungry. I stuff my face and go back to sleep. The best feeling in the world is to have a meal and sleep right away. The worst feeling in the world is when you get up feeling like a hippo stuck in mud. I have tried all the tricks in the book - bathing in cold freezing water, which is a terrible idea btw! Have you ever tried to take a cold shower bath in the morning? Its like you have to find a strategy to fully jump into the shower so you don't shrivel up like a testicle. You wet your tummy first - then the bottom - then the hands - then the face - then the legs and then you take a deep breathe and jump in. You come out of the shower really alert cos you've had a brain freeze. And then cos of our wonderful humid weather, you start sweating. I don't know how people dress up real good in the morning and don't melt on the floor by the time they reach office. I have seen some well dressed people in the mrt - gelled hair, tight skirts, smart suits and walking to work with a purpose. Yes, that's right! With a purpose! The only time i have had that purposeful walk is when i am walking towards an outlet where a sale is about to start or when i want to overtake to let the hot guy walking ahead of me know that i exist too..completely ignoring him of course. I think all office-goers should go to work in their most comfortable clothing..i mean if you're not comfortable, how do you work? I also think all office- goers should be allowed to leave office once they think they have reached their peak performance for the day. That way we won't have peak hour traffic cos everyone reaches their peak at different times. Geddit? Geddit? Shut up.

Don't get me wrong - i have done some real odd jobs while i was growing up. I started at the age of 14. Every holiday, i would take up a part-time job to earn some shopping money and attaining some skills. I have worked as a tele marketeer, a jewelry maker at a kiosk in an upmarket shopping center, product promoter at the petrol station, an extra for a channel 5 program and then finally a speech and drama for the longest time.

Learning from experience, there was one thing i knew from a very young age. I wasn't going to work hard for someone else's dream - i was going to work for myself. I did go for a couple of interviews at multi-national companies when i was confused about my career but the interview questions confirmed why i wasn't going to go for those jobs.

1. What is your expected salary?

My answer : How much do you expect me to work. It really depends.

2.  Why should we choose you?

My answer : Cos god came in my dreams and said that if your interviewer doesn't choose you, his balls will fall off past midnight.

3. What are your strengths and weaknesses?

My answer : From where i stand, my strength is in making you believe that i am good enough so you will hire me and my weakness is the free stuff in your office pantry.

What kind of stupid questions are these?  I have the qualification - you have the job…don't make us lie to you. Come on! Why do you want us to sugar coat it for you? Those circle 1 to 5 questions are the worst cos they remind me of "multiple-question answer options in schools".

Example : How would you rate your leadership skills? 1 - being the worst and 5 - being the best

This is how they judge you depending on what you circled.

1- You are Under confident
2. - You're unsure about what you want in life
3. - You went to a local university and want to be safe…good job. You will follow our system.
4. You're a bit too confident.
5. Hitler

Bullshit.

For all you office-goers, i hope you woke up on time and please have a great time. I am going back to bed. I really respect what you guys do though - i could never do it.

Anyway, i cut my hair yesterday. Just so you know!

One more day to friday - you can do it!

Love and Laughter,

Sharul Channa

Is He Into You? by Sharul Channa

I am 100 percent Singaporean Indian and I can tell you that I have had no man come up to me and say that he would like to go out on a date with me. I just had to read into the signs and listen to my friends who would occasionally nudge me when the token Indian guy in secondary school would walk past. They would nudge me because he was the ONLY Indian guy in the entire class. Now tell me something, if there was only one mango in the fruit basket but it was rotting from the bottom half, would you gladly eat that mango. I know some would argue that they would slice off the rotting half and still have that mango but I was not going to go through all that trouble. Not for Subramanium Marimoorthi. Very earlier on in life had I realized that living in Singapore, I was not going to get laid very often and if I did get laid it would be for a waxing appointment at a beauty parlor in Serangoon Rd. I was outspoken, brash and laughed without covering my mouth and as you would know, that’s not the typical Singaporean schoolgirl behavior. I didn’t have my school shirt tucked into my skirt till my breasts popped out and my priorities didn’t lie in having longer eyelashes. What I did start doing then was helping other friends in their relationship problems and helping them decode the famous question, “ What do you think he is thinking?”

Yup – that nagging question in everyone’s mind would be, “If you had never been in a relationship, how can you advice anyone? I would just like to mention that the man who invented the famous Atkins Diet had passed away due to weight issues himself. Correct. You don’t have to follow the same rules you create but can become an expert by merely observing. I had lusted over men so much that I had started thinking like them. So without further delay let me begin answering the question that all you desperate women who have to resort to this article to find out that answer have been waiting for. “How do you find out if a man likes you?”  Now firstly, I just want you to ask yourself a quick question – has he messaged in the past 24 hours of you reading this article? Now unless you and your “friend” have had a fallout – he should have messaged. If a man likes you, he will let you know that he does. It’s that simple. The radar in his pants will direct him towards you and he will make every move in his book to get you to connect with his wifi. But how can you be sure that he is really into you and not just wanting to get into you? That’s the difficult question. Look out for these signs.

A man who is really into you he will never rush to get into a relationship with you but will still let it be known that he is interested.  He will ask you out for drinks but will not try to get into your pants immediately. He will keep an open communication but will keep in touch so you don’t forget him. He will try to find out what you like and what you don’t and he will tease you very often to get a reaction out of you. He will listen to every thing you have to say very attentively and prove to you that he remembers each thing you say by bringing it up in a conversation – “Let’s not go to town today, I know you don’t like crowded places.”  Now if all of you women are done reading the above information and thinking about the man that has been keeping you in all that suspense – slap yourself out of it and get those wet undies out of the way to read  about the men you need to avoid. There are enough douchebags in this world who have a strategy to poke you and add you to the list of  “hot women we rejected after screwing them” that they look at every morning before they leave the house. It’s their version of a manicure, pedicure topped with a full body massage. These men are like the ‘red rubber band’ from the chicken rice packets. You only use them once and they are not for personal use. If you tie your hair with one of these rubber bands – you are bound to hurt when you untie your hair losing at least 5 strands. So who are these men you avoid? You need to avoid a man who purposely messages you and then says he did it by accident. He is playing you and he doesn’t have the guts to admit that he is into you. Cross out.

Avoid a man who name drops and lets it be known that he has had a relationship or has slept with hot girls in the past month just to show off to you and make you feel like you need to be good enough.  Cross out. If this man makes plans with you and you had to cancel, he will most definitely mention his alternative plan that sounds much better than going out with you. Cross out. Also, a man whom your best friend doesn’t like is most likely a man you want to avoid. Why? Cos if he can make the time and effort to impress your best friend he wants to stay on.

Always remember, the bad boys who try to lead women on start balding at 30 and their package is so used that it almost looks like an over boiled vegetable in a bowl of noodle soup. No nutritional value. Now if you will excuse me, its time for me to go spend some quality time with the only man I have dated for the past 9 years and am married to now. Yeah bitches – be jealous. Don’t bother, he is #Sindhi. Till the next time - Over and out.