sometimes funny, sometimes not so funny... the stereotypical things can get old way fast...

ok, manish,

my new question is: i know exactly why chick pea is up at 4 am but why on earth are you posting at 2 am?

go to bed! sleep is good and extremely necessary!

I was this clip, I notice something, In the whole show he never speaks a single word of hindi/urdu. He does speak some punjabi. Is he from India or Trini/Guyana?

sometimes funny, sometimes not so funny... the stereotypical things can get old way fast...

Yeah, I sent this in too before i watched it. Sometimes he goes too far, to the point where he's being more mean-spirited than funny.

Russell Peters, I believe, is from Toronto. The same metropolis that gave us Snow

Ah yes, old Informer saab. I remember him well.

Anyway, I'm a big fan of Russell Peters. He's the only desi stand-up comedian who has consistently made me laugh my head off. Even my parents love him (although they've only seen the edited, PG-rated clips of his show on TV, of course).

appropriating a name like 'Peters' and then making fun of the 'Singh's .. hmmm. (Because it would be hard to do this act with a last name of Shanmugamaswamy ... I guess) He is funny no doubt about that. I havent met many Punjabis with Russel Peters name (i am talking about Punjabi Christians). May be this is his real name, I dont know.

He does a bit about how it really is his real name.

I have to agree with Chickpea here. One thing that puzzles me is that somehow the non-desi crowd... get his jokes???? Or so they seem to anyways, because the die laughing. Methinks it has more to do with the stereotypical stuff.

Anytime I watch a brown comic, I inevitably scrutinize the audience to see their reactions (bad habit, I know I shouldn't care, but I'm curious). A few weeks ago, I saw this guy, and the crowd lovvvved the stereotypical stuff. It was if they were being validated or something - blech!

Not to take away from these guys talents or anything. There are definitely some hilarious moments!

dammit. i woke up really early and saw this post. instead of crawling back into bed for more sleep i watched the entire clip at 5:45am. it was worth watching tho, peters is a pretty funny guy. seems like his humor is becoming more caustic though.

but why on earth are you posting at 2 am?

go to bed! sleep is good and extremely necessary!

Manish....just when u thought u were far away from Mom and home...this is a gentle reminder :)

So jaaa betey... :):)

why on earth are you posting at 2 am?

Like I said, "Set aside an hour for this one" :)

Russell Peters is of Anglo-Indian heritage - but he isnt Punjabi, he's from Calcutta. He talked about this in an interview on one of the Desi channels once.

Russell Peters is of Anglo-Indian heritage

I didn't think he was mixed-race

He sounds very much like a new yorker for somebody who grew up in Canada. Cant wait for the WB sitcom.

I didn't think he was mixed-race

Yes, I dont think so either. He doesnt look Anglo-Indian by any stretch of imagination.

One thing that puzzles me is that somehow the non-desi crowd... get his jokes

Actually me thinks it is mostly the desi chicks that bring their non-desi partners to his gigs and then they have no choice but to appear mildly amused at his race jokes because I have not the faintest how someone other than a world-desi can relate to some of his stuff...One thing is for sure , he is a master at improvising and that's where his strength lies- am not sure how he would fare on the sitcom because one lame joke and the remote is your friend

One thing that puzzles me is that somehow the non-desi crowd... get his jokes???? Or so they seem to anyways, because the die laughing. Methinks it has more to do with the stereotypical stuff.

Anytime I watch a brown comic, I inevitably scrutinize the audience to see their reactions (bad habit, I know I shouldn't care, but I'm curious). A few weeks ago, I saw this guy, and the crowd lovvvved the stereotypical stuff. It was if they were being validated or something - blech!

I have the same reaction, and I'm not sure why. I think Peters is hilarious, and so do a few of my white friends; however, I can't watch it together with them, because I have an uncontrollable urge to kill them when they laugh. I'm pretty sure I'm in the wrong, but meh.

WTF is with the indian parents bringing their little kid to this new Peters' show???? That's NUTS! (I also don't agree with most bollywood flicks being shown to little kids even if there's no skin or smooching).

Two examples of extremely FLAWED logic at work!!! ;)
--------
Little Girl: "Mummy, Daddy, can I sleep over at Monica's house on Saturday?"

Mummy Ji: "She Indian?"

L.G.: "Ummm... Yeah... that's right. Sure. If that helps."

M.J.: "Okay then."
------

M.J.: "Should ve take Preetie to the Russel Peters show?"

Daddy Ji: "He is Indian, you know. Should be good family outing. Preetie can learn little bit about her tradition."

M.J.: "Okay then."
--------

Bad move!

Yes, I dont think so either. He doesnt look Anglo-Indian by any stretch of imagination.

He is from the Anglo-Indian community - he talks about it here in this interview.

Click on Russell Peters - bottom left hand column.

Little Girl: "Mummy, Daddy, can I sleep over at Monica's house on Saturday?"

Mummy Ji: "She Indian?"

Yikes, did your parents seriously pull that on you? That's whacked.

I got more like, "sure, but I need the phone number, home and work address of every adult remotely involved. And I'm going to go over and chat up Monica's mom for a half an hour before I leave you alone."

Yikes, did your parents seriously pull that on you? That's whacked.

LOL. No, I didn't get that. My parents were suspicious of everyone and rightfully so. But a girlfriend of mine got that... almost didn't get to come over because I have an anglo name! And it is whacked! Luckily, my parents aren't monsters, but please, have more exhaustive standards than "indian".

He is from the Anglo-Indian community

but what does that mean? If you're Indian and grew up around Anglos in the same community, is it the Anglo-Indian community?

I'm asking, is he mixed-race, like Dan Nainan?

[I know that "Anglo-Indians" are mixed race, I'm just out to make a point with the verbiage]

dan nainan was great.. he had a spot during the netip conference gala.. funny dude... but also, the stereotyping gets old...

that is what is cool about some other comedians... like seinfeld,carson, leno etc.. they go beyond the typical ethnic humor...

now it would be totally refreshing to see an indian comedian who doesn't have his total routine blabbering about being indian.... i mean.. yeah, we see that..yeah we know the dot on forehead jokes.. but give us something else... ya know?

Desi Dancer

Here is the wiki page for the Anglo-Indian community

The "verbiage" is perfectly acceptable. There were many pockets of Anglo-Indian communities in India. Especially in Bombay, Calcutta. Tight-knit and they often married within the community. Interesting, didn't realize Peters was A/I.
Read a interesting essay on them recently in Times Book Review...I think, can't remember.

Head about this one too. Never got to see him when he was performing at the Laugh Factory in LA. All his shows were full. Damn. He's coming again next month and I'm not gonna miss his show this time.

what the hell does "mixed-race" mean anyway? get a clue, indians are a mixed race to begin with.

I'm a pure blood Indian. Take back that comment sam!

www- I think sam was just trying to point out that according to research, indians are a fusion of a multitude of peoples, particularly aryans, dravidians, and even mongoloids. this explains why indians don't have homogeneous features but rather a multitude of skin tones, hair types, nose shapes, etc. And hence, why it's kind of silly to say Peters is "mixed race" when Indians technically are a mixed race people in the first place.

This article http://www.culturopedia.com/Tribes/tribesintro.html
argues that the population of India is actually derived from six different races. It's kind of cool.

This article http://www.culturopedia.com/Tribes/tribesintro.html argues that the population of India is actually derived from six different races.

Shhhhush! If you say "race" 3 times, *poof* *smoke* *dry ice* Razib appears magically out of thin air! Keep yer voices down for gawdsake!!! ;)

What is an anglo-indian supposed to look like? I assume people have a certain image of an anglo-indian.

Ashwin... just FYI: The Aryan "Invasion" theory has been debunked as false - BBC

What is an anglo-indian supposed to look like? I assume people have a certain image of an anglo-indian

argues that the population of India is actually derived from six different races. It's kind of cool.

Razib, that was your cue.

like seinfeld,carson, leno etc

Seinfeld can draw from a centuries old comedy tradition that dates back to the Yiddish theater. Carson and Leno can tap into an age old comedy tradition. It will take time before indian american comedians can mine the indian american experience for humour with universal appeal.

what to say? to keep it short

1) races as idealized types is a false concept. for example, the standard issue narrative for india was that there were several races, 'caucasoid,' 'mongoloid' and 'australoid,' who admix into various subraces within south asia. this is almost certainly false, there were never disparate isolated races, but geographically determined clines of genes frequencies, which cluster together in various populations.

2) as for india, there are many opinions on this topic, but to be short about it

a) this is a developing field
b) different genetic loci will give different relationships. for example, particular sections of the Y chromosome (passed through the patriline) might indicate a relationship between individual X from uttar pradesh and a syrian man, while another individual, Y, from uttar pradesh might be of the same lineage as a man from kerala. this does not mean that the two men from uttar pradesh are different races. it means their y chromosomal lineages differ. on the other hand, their mtDNA lineages might be the same. their non-sex autosomal nuclear genome, the vast majority of the genetic heritage, will be all over the place. the issue is that people often conflate genetic results from one genetic test, which usually samples one locus/gene, with the total ancestry of the individual, this is not really appropriate. but, the companies which make money selling ancestry tests don't want to emphasize that because then you wouldn't shell out $200. (here is a cautionary tale, chances are that these genetic tests aren't going to tell you anything you don't know, and their noise:signal ratio in terms of what you want to know is really high)
c) if you follow the literature it seems plausible that for the majority of loci south asian populations form a monophyletic clade. in english, that means if you checked the ancestry of one gene, if you had 50 brown people and 50 swedes, chances are that the coalescence of the common ancestor of the 50 brown people genes will not include any swede genes, and vice versa. this is not true across all genes, there might be some swedes in a mostly brown clade, and some browns in a mostly swede clade, but the take home message is that the last common ancestor of most genes within brown people is probably prototypically south asian. in other words, even if punjabis speak an indo-iranian language, and malayalees speak a dravidian language, for most genes i would be willing to bet that on a phylogenetic tree the punjabi-malayalee would form a monophyletic clade in comparison to the typical iranian (though the error rate for my a priori hypothesis would be higher for a punjabi-malayalee clade than for a gujarati-malayalee clade, which would be higher than for a tamil-malayalee clade.
d) there is a lot of inbreeding in south asian populations, that is, their Fst seems a little high in that between population variation is higher in proportion to within population variation than one would expect. "the famous 85% of variation is within races" number is a measure of Fst. one doesn't need to guess why the between population variance for south asians might be a bit high.
e) there is often a decoupling of physical-functional traits from neutral traits. for example, 70% of north indians can digest lactose well as adults, while only 30% of south indians can. 95% of swedes can digest lactose. in eurasia, the gene that allows adult lactose digestion seems to have come from northern europe. that doesn't imply that north indians have northern european ancestry, rather, the gene that allowed for adult lactose digestion was selected for through much of eurasia, and the selection pressure was higher in northern india than in southern india. sometimes one must distinguish between genetic lineage markers, and physically salient traits. the two don't always match (the ainu of japan look "caucasian," or at least did when there were non-admixed ones around, but genetically they cluster with other east asians).
f) the aryan invasion arguments are dumb. a non-trivial number of populations from central asia and iran have always been moving into northwest india. i am of of the opinion that the genetic data points to a preponderance of brown ancestry dating to the subcontinent prior to 10,000 years BP, but, that doesn't mean that all culturally relevant features are indigenous. the philology seems to point clearly to exogenous origins for indo-european languages, and the andranovo culture of central asia seems a likely precursor for the indo-aryans specifically (and features of syrian indo-aryan dialect that are preserved tends to not exhibit any indigenous indian signatures, suggesting that they issue out of a non-indian common ur-heimat)

btw, re: anglo-indians in the mixed race sense, since they are a inbreeding population whose ancestral parents are from northwest europe and south asia, you wills a range in the descendent populations of appearence, with some looking european, some looking south asian, and the largest number looking somewhere in the middle. the variance in appearence is going to be greater than in the parental populations because there is more underlying genetic diversity.

"sure, but I need the phone number, home and work address of every adult remotely involved

On a lighter note, hands up everyone who still gets that from their parents even when you're in your late 20s/early 30s !

Shhhhush! If you say "race" 3 times, *poof* *smoke* *dry ice* Razib appears magically out of thin air! Keep yer voices down for gawdsake!!! ;)

Did I call it, or did I call it? heh heh.

Now who has the claim to bing the most mixed? COme on, I know there are some intresting mixes out there!!!!!

I hate you Razib... you and your big words...

Peters used to be funny with a touch of assholery; now its just a lot of asshole with remnants of classic funny. Though it got good towards the end.

He sounds very much like a new yorker for somebody who grew up in Canada. Cant wait for the WB sitcom.

I had heard rumors of this...guess its true.

Sorry if this is old news:

Peters, who will play the lead in the show as well as being a creative consultant, can't say much about the series except that it's a workplace comedy produced by the team of Tom Werner (That '70s Show, The Cosby Show), Jimmy Miller (Elf) and Eric Gold (the upcoming Get Smart film).

He can also confirm that the untitled project will be based around his brand of comedy, which draws largely on his South East Asian heritage.

Peters used to be funny with a touch of assholery; now its just a lot of asshole with remnants of classic funny.

so true. he's just a silly (selectively bigoted) frat boy in disguise.

Shhhhush! If you say "race" 3 times, *poof* *smoke* *dry ice* Razib appears magically out of thin air! Keep yer voices down for gawdsake!!! ;)

Did I call it, or did I call it? heh heh.

LOL!

blah, his material was ok, a few high lights here and there, but kind of riding the stereotypical stuff. I’ve never seen him live, i know an org tried to bring him down to SD, but he was charging 30 g's to perform, so they couldn't afford to bring him down.

Peters's "south east Asian heritage"??? wtf?

I really could have done without his deaf girl fantasy bit, but some good material nevertheless. (emphasis on "some")

RUSSEL PETER'S ABSOLUTELY ROCKS EVEN THO SOMETIMES HES KINDA CORNY..BUT THIS GUY IS HILARIOUS...WANNA WATCH MORE CLIPS

In response to:

"One thing that puzzles me is that somehow the non-desi crowd... get his jokes???? Or so they seem to anyways, because the die laughing. Methinks it has more to do with the stereotypical stuff."

Please don't assume that all non-desis don't understand Russell's humour or where he is coming from. Sometimes non-desis have desi friends and have grown up with them so they understand the background behind the humour and do not always take thing at face value.

Granted, there will always be ppl in the audience members who only "get" the stereotypical ish, but you have to chalk that up to ignorance.

Russel peters showS are heavy. You should do it more offen, you would be gettin bear dosh 4 it.

i just downloaded the new video and its extremely funny expecially the part about movies. http://blogger.sahaskatta.com/2005/03/russell-peters-video.html the site also has the old one and the new one.

http://blog.skattertech.com/2005/11/russell-peters-in-new-york-video.html

hello...yea i did see the interview he said he is an anglo-indian which i find funny...coz when he imitates his dad he puts on this punjabi accent maybe its just part of the show maybe his dad doenst......anways if its not then it is werid coz anglo-indians dont speak like that at all.coz the native language of anglo indians is english..and they spoke very british english..with the slangs as well...and all....trust me I am and anglo-indian I live in calcutta too...my grandparents were part irish part scottish my name is Chistopher James Atkinson I grew up on elliot road calcutta a very anglo-indian part of the city although u only find a hand full today...anglo-indians look mixed its simple light brown tans they look asian coloured but have certain european features in the case of my sister it was odd she was was born a green eyed blonde girl...so that means they can look veyr indian..or very european...or mixed..simple..their were alot of famous anglo-indians way b4 russels came along...ppl like holly wood actress merle oberon...cliff richards...englebert humperdink if u dont beleive u can look it up on www.wikipedia.com (seach anglo-indians) or www.imdb.com and search those names in the latter they show u the birth place of the people. and another odd thing i find is that hes a hindu...anglo-indians are christian...well most..maybe his parents converted i dont know... those of u who are wondering what an anglo-indian is its someone who has a mixed european and indian heritage it came along when the british came had intimate relations...with the locals.....although today anglo-indians are considered neone who is christian......like u have serian christians in the south of india...anyways anglo-indian or not hes indian...lol cheers!

Am forever surprised RP is so popular. To me he is a one trick pony, and like chikpea (#25), .ca (#44) and darshan (#45) say, I no longer find him all that entertaining. Come on, you can laugh at a joke once. This fellow just hashes together every bigoted statement he has heard and parades them as his own jokes. Ok, I do concede find an occasional bit here and there funny.

Pico, #37, yeah I like Seinfeld and Leno a lot. But I doubt you need to draw in on lot of experience for that. I have a lot of friends who are extremely funny. They just notice stuff more, and put a new spin on it---very often from the point of view of their upbringing. Desi fob, Ashkenazi jew or Southern baptist, you will always find ways at laughing at everyday things. These usually have universal appeal simply because it is about an everyday event, and they are funny because of the novelty of the point of view.

And no, Peters does not do any deep observations. Accents, stinginess, i-am-indian, chinese-have-american-names, they are not his observations. Who hasn't heard them all? Most comments of his barely straddle the line between racist and funny. But a few comments, especially when he does other ethnicities are just racist in my opinion. I wont be caught dead in one of his shows.

"...although today anglo-indians are considered neone who is christian......like u have serian christians in the south of india...anyways anglo-indian or not hes indian...lol cheers!"

No, anglo-indians are not anyone who is Christian in india! i can't speak for the rest of south indian but, in kerala it is well believed that Christianity originated when Saint Thomas brought the religion to the region. this origin has been disputed however, i can assure you that the Christians of the kerala are not "anglo-indian".

R

ooooaaaa russel somebodys going to get a hurt real bad i am not going to say who and how?

i went and kicked kurpal's dog. but the problems is now he needs an operation. what in the blood hell should i do????

There are a lot of converts in India, christians, muslims etc. Anglo-Indians are a miniscule population mostly concentrated in Calcutta, bombay and maybe Pondicherry in the south.

Hoopla

Guys... The deaf girl joke was the BEST. I've seen maybe five full-length performances by Russell Peters, very little overlap between them, and nothing has topped the deaf girl yet. It's the best :D:D:D:

Peace, Phil of quakephil.com

P.S. It kills me that people get offended at this stuff. You should all take a lesson from Stephen Hawking and his responce to M.C. Hawking. Thats about as much fun as you can make about the disabled -- pretend you are a gun slinging gangster while being paralysed in a wheelchair. And yet one of the smartest people on this Earth understands it for what it is:

Fucking hilarious!!!

i gotta q about russell peters. i get that he anglo-indian and that his family is from calcutta, but is the indian part of heritage punjabi? or bengali? i've heard both.

U RULE

The link to the video is dead. Anyone know where else I can find it?

I saw RP live last year, and he seemed like a huge a*hole in person. He was really bitter. Maybe it's because he's so popular in the Indian community but everyone watches him on-line for free, so he doesn't see as much profit as he should?

Lol Russell Peters is the man!

VERY VERY VERY funny.
LOVE HIM!!

anyone who does not find him HILARIOUS, is toally mental

hi russell peters
i've seen one of your shows on the internet and i think u were fantastic!
it was an hour long and it made me laugh through that whole hour.
i think i might come to your next show in february, i ain;t sure yet.
cu soon.
xx

Russel peters is a funny man and all you people can't say anything against my homy chill cool