GRANDMA

More standup material I'm working on...  Hit me up with tags....

It was very difficult growing up with an entire family straight from the Soviet Union.  A lot of people don't understand what that was like.  I could never complain about lines!  Whatever shit I had going on in my life, they had worse.  When I told my grandmother I had my own apartment but it was really small, she would say, "own basthroom?  Mister Bigshot! In Russia we share basthroom vith everyone!"

when i was little my grandma would tell me about how cute I was, I dont mean to brag… she'd be like, "You ugly, ugly baby."  This, coming from a woman who's gotten more work done than the entire NYC subway system.  Her face lifted so many times her forehead starts at her kneckline!

She is the same woman who came to my 20th birthday and told one of my friends, "I hope you live to see day you look good as me!"  Cause apparently everyone looks good with shrimp hanging from their mouth!  She's the type of woman, to paint the picture, who would often die her hair to match her dress.

She also taught me that no one is ever too cool to wear a vest.  She has a different color vest for every day of the week.  I would ask her to tell me stories about the old country so she did.  I would ask her to tell me scary stories with monsters.  She would say, "You vant monsters, in Russia we have no monsters, only people who take away people vee love in middle of night, for 20 years you sthink alive in jail.  Die Zthat day, never see papa again."

Yuri Kagan - JDate, Family, intervention and being Russian

bartender

I have worked as a bartender for over 8 years.  Whenever I tell people this who haven't worked in the service industry, they inevitably say, "Wow, I've always wanted to do that!"  It's like really?  You want to be a bartender?  It's always someone with a high-paying corporate job.  What I end up hearing is, "doushebag, doushebag, doushebag."  It's one thing to enjoy a great cocktail, maybe make your friends a nice manhatton.  Whatever works for you. This is an actual job, a profession of sorts.  What' worse are the jerks who say, "Oh, bartender?  I did that in college, for a summer, between semesters of college that my parents paid for."  It's like fuck you.

Sorry for sounding so jaded.  Looking for a joke premise i this.  See any?

Revisit VACATION

I'm revisiting an older joke and working on adding more, maybe fleshing it out more.... What do we think so far?  Any tags????

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I’ve been in a relationship so long that we call quality time separate vacations.  We have been together so long that we call nice dinner conversation silence.  We have been together so long that it changes the meaning of the word VACATION.

When you first start dating.  Those first few trips.  You know that the second the key hits the door of your hotel room some shit is going down. 

Wait a few years.  Go somewhere like Puerte Vallarta.

 Then it’s like, “You again?..”

“ They have a buffet…”

“Bloated?”

“Yeah, me too… Good night!”

Or Oh my god, it’s embarrassing no! There is nothing worse than the maid judging your sex life..  “Oh, they left their bed nice and tidy. He must have money.”  Or in our case, you wake up with bibles under the pillows.

Yelp meets dating...

Getting fixed up on a blind date, is always one of those times where you reach true clarity.  when you get there, it’s like, that’s what you thought I’ld settle for? Someone that looks like Jabba the Hut with T-Rex arms? Who doesn’t drink?  It’s not that I want to date an alcoholic, but I don’t like quitters! Know what I’m sayin?  And they are a virgin? Cause seriously it’s too much prepwork.  I want someone who’s been around the block and knows what not to expect at this point.

Dating is horrible enough.  Dating sites make it worse cause they tell you nothing really.  What?! They like long walks on the beach?!?  So do I!  They like dogs?  So do I! It’s ridiculous. 

Don’t you wish you could treat dating like YELP?  If you’ve been living under a rock for the past 5 years, Yelp is a review -site where people go to complain about things cause they are too passive-aggressive to speak up for themselves in the first place.   “I went to a restaurant and the server was so mean, they wouldn’t cut the crust off of my bread like my mommy would.”

There should be a Yelp dating site where you can see other people’s reviews of dates with a given person.  You wouldn’t buy a car without reading reviews!  Ads would be like “Yelp Dating for people who’d rather complain about it… The name could be Illsettlefor5outof10.com”

Could you imagine the reviews? “He doesn’t believe in pre-marital sex?”  Fuck that…  “oh allergic to latex… compulsive lier”

Dad piece continued

Performance piece I am working on:

I am not a political comic.   I try not get into it on stage.  It intices others to spout out their opinion and I don’t really give a shit about your opinion.  Just being honest.  My dad calls me right after this last inauguration and is like, “Guess “Wvhat?”

What?”

“Wve made it!”

“Made what?”

Wve got elected!”

“Dad, what are you talking about? You don’t even vote.”

“They finally let someone like us in vwhite house!”

“Someone like us?  Obama’s nether neither Russian nor Jewish.  What the hell are you talking about?”

“They finally let someone like us, of color, into the vwhite house!”

“Dad we are pale, Russian-Jews.  If anything, we are the opposite of being people of color; we are the people of no color.  Some people tan, we ignite.”

What I should explain.  What a lot of people don’t know about me is my father is black.  At least he thinks he is.  He is like Steve Martin in the movie The Jerk.  Where Steve Martin is raised by a black family and constantly gets defensive over his blackness.  He is the only person who watched the movie Airplane and thought it was a documentary. 

He dresses like a white, bald-Sinbad circa 1991 at all times.  He is best known for his neon squiggle MCHammer-pants, random mid-90s hardcore gangster rap quotes and the fact that he has worked out at the Broadway boxing gym in South Central for nearly 30 years.  LLCool J never sounded better than when sang by my dad with a Russian accent, “DZOing it and Dzooing and Dzooing it vell.”  I know, it makes me want to vomit too.

My father is the only white, 5’7 and ¼ inch tall Jew that was in the middle of the LA riots for no actual reason.  My father is at some random liquor store in the middle of South Central purchasing his cigarette of choice, (the following must be said with a Russian accent, focus on the R) Benson Ultra-Lights.  There is a some black dude working the counter who thoughtfully tells him, “Honkey, you need to get the fuck out of here, it’s not safe for you.”

            Good old dad doesn’t miss a beat and says “Honkey? Where?”

            My dad would make me go with him to the boxing gym in South Central often as a kid.  On the way there here would chain smoke during the car ride with the windows closed cause that’s what people did then.  When I would cough or complain he would say, “Wvee don’t like pussies.”

            We apparently don’t like our lungs either.

           

            At the gym I would not be allowed to workout with my father.  Mainly cause he didn’t want to have to pay for me.  No Jew jokes needed here.  I would spend the next 3 hours watching him as a non-black person use the N-word and hiphop terminology incorrectly to other men over compensating for their short comings.  Essentially I thought we would get shot there which never happened.  I think he thought he was the Notorious BIG, more like the Notorious BALD.

My father grew up in the former Soviet Union.  Like most immigrant parents he would try to use American expressions but would mess them up.  As a kid I got picked on a lot.  I was fat then.  I was so fat that I was eating Gilbert Grape.  I was one of those kids.  I would told my dad about the girl in line at recess who would constantly tease me, yelling ,“Yuri ever thought of Buns of Steel?”

My dad would pat me on the back, look me straight in the eyes and say, “Yura Move your head I’m vatching Tyson… “

From 1989-97 to my father Mike Tyson was his idol.

“Hand me my Benson Ultra-Lights! (Cough) Zthey aRRn’t laughing vith you, zhtey are laughing at you.” He would then light his cigarette and make me watch boxing with him.

My father would make me watch boxing all the time.  He still does.  As a kid I hated it.  This was his way of ensuring I wouldn’t come out gay.  He figured I would learn everything necessary to be a man from watching muscled, sweaty guys duke it out, round after round.   That’s like making a fat person watch the food network and then asking them how their diet is going.  Point is, at around 14 I realized that boxing was something both of us could enjoy but for very different reasons, if you get what I’m saying…  I spent a lot of time at that age pretending to have diarrhea as a result.

After I had been doing standup for a few months, my father decided to come to one of my comedy shows.  My father’s only references for comedy were black comics from the 70s and 80s.  When I told him I this was the career for me he was like, “You sthink you funnier then J.J. Walker, you know Dynomite?”

I’m in a long line up of comics and because I am amazing, I am number 20 of 30.  The host of the show is this nice black comic.  Every time he gets off the stage my father can’t help himself and mumbles, “he no Pryor.”

He does this 20 some odd times. 

“Brother, no Pryor.”

Keep in mind that since he thinks he’s black, he likes to hold true to the stereotype so EVERYONE, including the host can hear him.  As I walk on stage to do my 7-minutes, I am constantly looking his direction.  It’s like watching a child hoping he won’t act up.  Everything is good.  He is quiet.  I get my first laugh.  I forget my father is there.  I tell my big closer joke which gets an okay reception.  All is well.  As I put the mic back into it’s stand, I hear what sounds like a dog.  I quickly realize it’s my dad.  He has one arm flailing in the air.  He seems to think he’s on the Arsenic hall show.  Mind you, that show has been off the air for at least 16 years by this point.  He stands up takes his disposable camera winds it, snaps a photo and starts clapping.  He is the only person standing so it’s awkward.

I walk off the stage, straight to my dad who already has his cigarette and lighter ready to get out of the building.  He gives me a hug, leans in and whispers, “You good, but no JJ Walker.”