How To Enjoy A Stand-up Comedy

1. Have great company
2. Get front-row seat  

3. Understand the issue/situation being played at 

4. Understand the language
5. Hear the enunciation well  

6. Get the inside joke of said issue/situation
7. Agree that it is a justifiable laugh  

8. Can relate to the issue/situation played at

TODO Stand-up Comedy Weekend, second show 5th May 2012

FOUR OUT OF EIGHT

If it stuck at Number 4, well this is why Rafeeq commented,

"Hana, masa Egyptian comedian tu asal monyok semacam je." 

Haha. I am severely lacking in Arabic language, I felt trashed in the auditorium. I grasped what the Egyptian comedians were making fun of, but because I didn't really understand their language obviously it was hard for me to get the joke.

Plus Bassem Yousef made fun of all the Egyptian presidential candidates and I don't think you should play on people's personalities.. 

I am too nice? Urgh.

We're on countdown till the start of the show!

SEVEN OUT OF EIGHT

If it gets stuck at Number 7, I will just grin and laugh probably.

Angelo Tsarouchas commented on the drama of being raised Greek

"You know the Egyptians were beating the sheet out of their kids? I was at Jeffrey's and his mother sent him to his room to have a time out. 

Jeffrey asked me if we have time-outs and I said, 'Jeffrey, I am Greek. We couldn't have time-outs when we were having black-outs'."

and his mother who was your classic drama mama. I bet his mother is a Melancholic always guilt-tripping people, and Kak Elle again blogged sufficiently about him so you should just head over to her post for it. Thankfully my mother is not doing that or I would have been ambivalent about her, but I do have some acquaintances who rather enjoy guilt-tripping and putting me in a hard situation.

I suppose some part of me was still naive, decent and childishly adamant with my principle in that I couldn't justify making fun of people as a source of genuine amusement. That's why I couldn't bring myself to really laugh when Dean Edwards was imitating the recently-departed Whitney Houston, Rihanna, Lady Gaga, Beyonce and the like.

Except for his statement that Rihanna "made songs from a string of vowels". Now that's a real tickle :))

Michael Winslow appeared and he was the most amazing sound effect machine ever! He amazed the person on my left so much my companion cursed in excitement!

I on the other hand, could not help but to want to meet him afterwards and ask him to come down to the ENT outpatient clinic so that we can have a direct laryngoscopic view of his vocal folds when he was making that amazing Star Wars scene reenactment.

Winslow parodied the scene with Han Solo, Princess Leia, Luke and that beast and they were just under attack. Everyone ran towards the weapon control room but Winslow changed the script for Princess Leia and she was like "I need to pee!" during the whole commotion!

EIGHT OUT OF EIGHT

When all how-to's are covered by the comedian, that is when you will hear me really laugh and give him an applause.

Thus why Kak Elle commented I only really laughed at the end during Maz Jobrani's appearance, in which he made sharp jabs at Egypt post-revolution, his Arabic vocabulary which was restricted to "Assalamo alaikum, waalaikum salam and shawarma", Egyptian kids upbringing and their lack of sleep train, and more!

"An Egyptian came at me and said 'Assalamo alaikum' and I was like 'Waalaikum salam' and he thought I can speak Arabic so he went on *made jibberish sounds* and I was,

 'Shawarma'?"

For me Jobrani was the best act that night since the ability to make the audience (me) relate to the joke without actually offending any issue was a real winner. He made us laugh simply by sharing his opinion and what-he-would-do in the raised issues, which was really admirable.

His take on Anderson Cooper covering the 25 January got me laughing real hard, shawarma definitely was the word of the day!

"man i was watching the news on television when they showed that anderson cooper got attacked during the Jan 25 revolution and I was like 'Say something in arabic! Say something in arabic! Say SHAWERMA! Say SHAWERMA!' " 

as blogged by Kak Ellina

Then he went on and told us how many kisses on the cheek Arabs were giving to each other according to their land of origin. In Egypt it is two. Jordan we have three.

Iran we have two and three, depending on the person's stand of the Iranian Revolution. Two before the fated 1979 and three after the revolution.

"So we would go like one, two, three kisses and the one being kissed will abruptly pull away and stomp 'WHAT! I can't believe you supported that regime!' "

ROFL ROFL You really need to hear them yourself!