This weekend, Toronto is hosting its own Just for Laughs Festival. Our hometown boy, Russell Peters, was the host of tonight's show titled "Russell Peters and friends". This was not a show to be missed, so PR and I headed to Dundas Square. Got there at 7pm and it was PACKED. We ended up just standing on Yonge St, with the stage at the far end of Dundas Square.
Russell started off by commenting how they blocked off Yonge Street for this event. This is the first time Yonge Street has been blocked off for something other than a shooting. He was glad to see all the Asians in the crowd. We managed to walk three blocks from Spadina (Chinatown) over to Yonge.
Russell continued on with his jokes, some of which I've heard before. Then he got to the part about Pacific Mall.
A few years ago, I made some fun of Pacific Mall (around 6:30 of this video). So, two days ago, I went back to visit Pacific Mall again. It looks exactly the same, fake purses, pirated DVDs everywhere. I walked into this store, and this Chinese guy stuffs a DVD into my hands. [In Chinese Accent] "Commmeeedy, you like!" I looked down. "Hey! That's my DVD!!" [In Chinese Accent] "Nooo Nooo. Two bucks!" I explained, "Look that's ME on the cover!" The Chinese guy then let out this long GRRRRRRRRRRR. I examined the DVD more closely. "Why the f**k am I packaged with Chris Rock and David Chappelle?" [In Chinese Accent] "I dunno. Coommmeeedy. People like."
On Americans, Russell had the following to say.
People think that Canadians and Americans are so similar. I work in LA now, and let me tell you, we are so different from them. Americans are so ignorant. I was doing some of my Trinidadian jokes, and these Americans asked me what Trinidadian is. I'm like "a person from Trinidad!" "Oh, where is Trinidad?" Just to pull their leg, I tell them it's in Africa. "Where in Africa?" "Just off the coast, just off the coast." They were happy.
Following Russell's act was Jo Koy. Apparently, Jo will be hosting his own Comedy Central show in a few months. From the back of the crowd, all I see is this bald white guy. He mentioned that he was Asian, I'm like.. is that a joke? Only after zooming in with TochiCam did I realize he does look Philippino. The guy started off a little slow, but once he got going, he was very good.
Some of the gems (as best as I can remember):
Mother's day is really special. It celebrates the day girls become mothers. That's a really big thing. Now, I know all you men out there are wondering about Father's Day. Let me tell you, Father's day started with a couple guys in the pub, complaining how come there's a Mother's day and not a Father's day. It's pathetic. If Father's Day is celebrating anything, it's celebrating the day when we dug in too far. That is NOT cause for celebration.
In bed, when we push too hard, we hear "It hurts! It hurts!" But man, that pain is NOTHING compared to the pain in the delivery room. In there, we tell them, "We can do this, we'll pull through together". But there's jack shit we can do. The nurses would tell her to PUSH PUSH! All of a sudden, this head pulls back the curtains of the vagina.... A few more pushes later, this eight and a quarter pound thing pops out. WTF. I never expected it to be that huge. It thought it would just be a ball that rolls out. Not this eight and a quarter pound alien. How the heck do we compete with that thing?!? It has arms and legs! We can never match its size! God really screwed us when he designed our penises. We just can't match eight and a quarter pounds! Especially as an Asian!
Man, I was laughing so hard, until I heard that last line. A quick WTF, then more lololol. I was shedding tears from too much laughter.
Also performing were the Doo Wops, some Italian duo. They sang a few tunes and were quite horrible. I had a hard time following any of the lyrics, and soon lost interest. At first, I thought it was just because I was at the back of the crowd, but in their final tune, when they wanted people to join into the song and wave their arms doing this triangle hand gesture, I saw only two people actually doing it. It must be embrassing for them to see the lack of reception from the crowd.
At the end of the show, I was super hungry, so I didn't stay for the pryo-technical light show from Germany. I heard it was very cool afterwards, but filling the stomach was more important.