My 11-Apr-09 Syracuse Comedy Show Experience

10-Apr-09, Friday evening, I get back from work a little early. I have to fix my camera, I have missed recording my performances for quite some time now. I "play" with it, a while later, the camera starts recording again. I rush for a haircut, rush into the shower, gobble dinner, put up tapes in the bathroom for my wife's weekend-bathroom-painting-mission, choose my performance clothes (most time consuming activity), pack my bags, gulp a cup of hot Indian masala chai, grab the car keys and we head to the airport. The airport traffic enforcers ensure no time is spent outside, so after a quick goodbye to my wife, I head to the JetBlue terminal, check my bag in, breeze through the security and camp myself by the gate much earlier than expected, compounded by the fact that I mistook the boarding time for the flight time. All along I keep chirping via twitter.

I plug the power cord in, open up my laptop and start working on the movie script for my friend. 3 notebooks to retype into a soft copy and I have decided to utilize this trip to finish it all off. The annoucements are non stop and irrelevant. So I keep typing. Before long, I am done with 1 book. Time to let the world know - tweet. Start book 2, keep an eye on the gate, everyone has boarded, pack my laptop, board the plane. A pleasant surprise as Katie Compa, a fellow SF comedienne makes her way through the aisle, we have a quick chat, and she moves onwards to her seat. One last tweet, the phone is off, the TV screen is on. I had planned to continue working with the books on the plane if I had an empty seat besides me, but the crew confirmed that the plane was full so had to contend myself with TV.

I don't remember what channel I was watching (HGTV?, Travel?), but it was about home remodeling, home staging for sale, home buyers seeing 3 and picking 1. A few notes to self, and an hour later its time to switch the TV off and the sleep on. Landed at JFK and started working on the book again, but the itchy, watery eyes and some ceremonious sneezing forced me to stop. I grab a cheese pizza and watermelon box, and head back to the gate. Waiting..., watching the overhead TVs, and after some serious mind wrenching patheticity on the idiot box, I tweet my frustration! On board the short flight to Syracuse, an hour more of TV - this time a few minutes of Lacrosse, 3 out of 10 mega structures of the world (the program is called 10 mega structures of the world, and all 10 on the list are in the US - according to the program preview - sooo American!) and a lot of channel surfing. Some turbulence, a hard landing and then the announcement "Welcome to Syracuse" with an assurance of 33 degrees Fahrenheit outside. I get my jacket on. walk out of the plane and in to a furnace. The jacket is quickly off, a quick wait for the checked in bag, a quick call to the hotel for the shuttle, a quick chat with wife and 60 minutes later I am in my hotel room.

First things first, plug in the laptop, connect to the free wifi, and reply to all the facebook comments. Check email. Check cricket news - nothing exciting there. Get a call from the organiser that Rajiv has just arrived at the hotel, call Rajiv, meet in the lobby in 10 minutes and head out to lunch. Syracuse, a nice little town, much bigger and more crowded than I anticipated. Our hotel is right across the university, amidst all the shops and restaurants. Rajiv, in his peculiar jacket and muffler, and I walk to Samrat Indian Cuisine. A nice buffet and chai along with nice long talks, am meeting Rajiv in person after months. We notice our faces on the posters in the restaurant and Rajiv mentions it to the owner. She looks a little bedazzled as she tries to match the studio shots to post-flight-trauma-syndrome-faces of ours. We get our bill, Rajiv expecting some discounts, me, wondering, after looking at the amount, if we got a celebrity-status-bill. We walk back to the hotel, and plan to meet again around 5.30pm for another quick munch with Paul.

Back in my room, I change into something more comfortable and smelling awesome. My after-shave bottle cap is broken! Oh tweet! Groom, hot shower, relax, watch some more TV, get ready, run over the set list, tweak a little, down to the lobby. Paul is there, good to see him again, long time! Rajiv arrives too, and we all head over to the auditorium. Paul decides to brave the Syracuse cold with no jacket. As we are walking up the stairs I point out the rarity of the occasion - I am the buffest guy on the lineup!

We enter the auditorium, a lot of people, a lot of noise, looks good! We settle in the back of the auditorium, I setup my camera. The announcements begin, the dancing acts unfold, the crowd is loud and cheerful to see their friends on stage. Its time for the 1st comedian of the evening. I stand in the wings, the bar stool and a water bottle is set, the mic is set, the stage is set, they announce my name and I walk out to a gracious welcome cheer. Feels great! I grab the mic and greet the crowd. The mic works - great! The crowd settles in, I jump right into my first joke "vegetarians", it's risky, in a room with majority of Indians. The crowd, expectedly, goes silent on my first opinionated line. I am calm. I continue. I hear laughter building up as I get to the 1st punchline. Then comes the 2nd punch, it gets a bigger laugh and an applause break. The crowd loves it! I love it! A good start. I move on to my Indian Jewness, towards the end of which I am again pushing a little with my aethistic view. The crowd likes it, I like it! I try my new political bit about taxes and bailouts, and it doesn't fly with the crowd. No worries, switch back to the more fine tuned Mahatma Moses bit.

While going through the set list before the start of the show I was debating between my SF-centric Blue Angels bit and 2 tech jokes. I do the Blue Angels bit. Works in bits and pieces but at the end of my performance makes me wish I had done the 2 tech jokes instead. I have a new tag for my Airport Security bit, I try it for the first time, and it kills! Half way through my set I mention that I notice the crowds peculiar pattern - laugh/clap and get back to the listen only mode very quickly. I carry on with my set, keeping an eye for the 5 minute signal. I don't see it. I quickly glance at my watch. Enough time to finish up with 2 more bits. I do my new bit about the Indian accent, this one, so far, is reserved only for Indian events. I finish my set with my Salt & Pepper bit and walk off the stage to another loud cheer and feeling good about a pretty decent performance.

Back at the back of the auditorium, Paul and Rajiv acknowledge it. I sit down, gulp some water and start analyzing my performance in my head immediately. The one bit that sticks out is the Blue Angels bit and I mention to Rajiv that I should have perhaps gone with the tech jokes instead. The next dance performance starts & I settle back down. Rajiv is getting ready for his stage time. Paul is scribbling away in his notebook.

2 dances later Rajiv is up on stage. I set my camera recording. Rajiv moves around a lot during his set, and I notice at times he is off the camera, so I zoom it out a little. Then Rajiv decides to sit on the stool, now I can zoom back in. Rajiv starts of a little slow but gets into top gear soon. The crowd is with him. Rajiv finishes very strong. Its intermission. Three of us are still in the back of the auditorium. Some of the crowd members shake our hands and talk to us. Some of them give specific feedback. "Dude, I was laughing in the wings on your bailouts joke, not sure why the crowd wasn't!", says one. Another mentions, "I am a Vegetarian, but I totally get your joke, my friends do the same to me sometimes." A couple of Jewish kids walk up to me and agree with my answers to the general questions about my Jewishness. Some just shake my hand and say, "Good job" or "You are funny" or "That was great" and even "Thanks for doing this". It's a little awkward watching everyone talk to Rajiv and me, all along Paul is standing quietly on the side. He goes up in the 2nd half.

Rajiv and I settle into the seats on the right side of the auditorium, closer to the stage. Paul, is on stage, being...Paul! I am delighted that he decides to do the Indian food ingredients joke - my favorite. I have learnt a lot from Paul over the years, and it was good to see him on stage again. The crowd loves him, and is sure to let him know at the end of the show.

We head back to the hotel, Rajiv, me & a jacketless Paul! I put my bag in the room, we gather back down for the after party. I am a little hesitant, but then Rajiv and Paul manage to coerce me in. I remember when I partied through 3 clubs in 1 night, that was a long time ago. The college kids are having a good time. Rajiv limits himself to 4 shots. Not sure what's Pauls count. 2am the party is over and we are back in the hotel lobby. Chatting about everything under the sun in the comedy world, we end up staying awake till 4am. Paul decides to rush back to his room, pack up and leave for his 6am flight. Rajiv has no idea what time his flight leaves, so he goes up to his room to check his schedule. I am in a limbo. I have 2 hours left for the airport shuttle. Enough time for a quick nap, but risky!! I try to watch TV but that doesn't help. So I pack everything, check out at the front desk and fall asleep on one of the chairs in the lobby.

I hear some voice. After hearing it for a while I open my eyes to find the shuttle driver asking me if I was going to the airport. I gloat how smart I am for napping in the lobby instead of my room, thank him for waking me up, and get into the shuttle. In no time we are at the airport, I check in my bag, walk through security and am at the gate in no time. Back to napping. I hear some annoucements, open my eyes slightly to see everyone queued up. Got time for some more nap. Then I hear some announcement again. This time I open my eyes and there is only the crew at the gate. I get up, get on the flight and go right back to sleep. I feel someone nudging my shoulder. It is the air hostess asking me if I was continuing to Dallas. I pick my backpack and head out of the flight and in to the Philadelphia airport. The Philly airport is a little weird I must admit, Their entry gates have a walkway that takes you a level down. One side is the walkway to the plane and other side has stairs - strange! As I am walking through the airport to my gate I notice "The Obama Shop" selling various merchandise with Obama's face on them. I reach my gate and am looking for a seat to nap. I find a lot of torn seats, reminiscent of some airport in India. I settle into a corner seat and am napping instantly. Wake up to another announcement, walk down the aisle, get into the plane and right back to my napping. This time though I am awaken a few times by my hurting knee. US Airways not anywhere close to JetBlue in comfort. I also hear their not-so-friendly announcements every now and then. The only thing good that US Airways did that day was an early arrival in SFO so I could get the hell out of that cattle carrier.

Back home, time for another quick nap, which duly turns into a nice long sleep. Woke up late in the evening and started working on the video. Have to cut Rajiv's copy, its now or never! I review my own video with Saylee, she notices a few changes, a few new ones and a few missing words from certain bits. The video suggests a much better show performance than my initial self-evaluation. Don't remember much of what I did in the zombie state for the rest of the evening, but after a little restlessness, it was a good-night-after-two-nights sleep!

Google Latitude: What's in it for me?

I was 25, my cousin 15. We decide to let him drive my car around the neighborhood on a weekend. Saturday morning my cousin is ready to take the wheel. I hand him the keys and get in on the passenger seat. He gets in the drivers seat. As soon as he is in, he adjusts the steering wheel tilt, all the mirrors, the seat height and back position, turns the ignition on and without missing a beat, realizing that the radio station that just turned on is not so desirable to his ears, extends his hands to tune his favorite radio station, when suddenly he sees my hand approaching his and preventing him from touching the radio. He has a look on his face that changes from surprised to questioning to perplexed to confused to uncertain, just as fast as all the settings in my car changed. Then I sound him my words of wisdom, "Just drive the car! Why are you changing everything? In a few minutes I will have to change it all back!" The look on his face did a quick second lap of all the emotions only to be interrupted by a verbal comment, "So?!".

I flash back to the time when I was about 15. We had just gotten cable TV at home, unstable, outages ever so often, and then when it started working, all the channels were mixed up. Zee TV, used to be on channel 5, is now on channel 26. ESPN, used to be on channel 6, is now on channel 9. Star Movies changed from channel 7 to channel 20, and Zee News, from 4 to 7. One cycle through the 30 channels on our TV & I know which channel plays what. A few days later, another outage, another service resumption, and another channel jumble, another cycle through 30 channels & I know exactly which channel plays what. But with every service disruption and resumption, my dad got more and more frustrated, because he had to "try" to re-memorize all the channels all over again. Every time I heard my dad complain "the *#$%&! cable guy jumbled the *#$%&! channels again", I had this look on my face that changed from surprised to questioning to perplexed to confused to uncertain, "So?!" After the first few months of inspiringly-creative-expletive-flinging, my dad found a solution - I was to manually set all the channels as per his taste. If the service disruption jumbled the channels, I will manually re-set all the channels back - every time! It seemed to work well for him. He now knew exactly what was playing where. He liked it that way.

Flash forward to my cousin's "So?!" comment, I realise I have become my dad - resistant to change!

The reason I remember these incidents from my life is because every time I am faced with something new that I need to adapt to, something that I have been comfortably doing for a while that needs to be done in a new way, I resist. Even if its something trivial like readjusting the settings of my car. I have this habit of getting in my car and starting to drive. Everything is set, everything is in place. Its a habit. I don't want anyone to force me to change my habit.

Sometimes, its a bigger challenge. Trying to figure out whether to adapt to technological advances that don't make immediate sense. I recently wrote about facebook and twitter. Today's topic is Google Latitude. Some time ago, my friend suggested me to start using it and, as per my habitual-sense, I found it absurd. Why would I want to let anyone know where I am all the time. Moreover, why would I want to know where everyone else is all the time! Here is a totally selfish, hence reasonable and logical and acceptable, explanation of why I adapted.

Ever so often, I bump into friends, at restuarants, shops, movie theaters, on the street, least expected places. It feels great to see a friend completely randomly. We generally bid farewell promising to meet soon again. And then sometimes we actually do, accidentally bump into each other again, soon! I also like to stop by at my friends places if I am in the neighborhood. Share a cup of tea, a few words, and on my way. Then there are days when I am some place all alone, couldn't plan anything with anyone, no random luck, looking eagerly for someone to show up from somewhere, wanting to call and check on everyone but not sure who to start with. A good opportunity for me to open Google Laitude on my phone to find out that a friend of mine is in the neighbourhood restaurant, just a few blocks away. I then pick up the phone and call him, but obviously he doesn't answer it, so I quickly post on his wall, "Hey I see you are in the neighborhood. Lets meet." Voila! We are sitting at the restaurant, discussing how technology makes such a thing, unthinkable till not too long ago, possible!
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To learn more about Google Laitude: www.google.com/latitude
To add me on Google Latitude: samsonkoletkar@google.com