It’s fitting that comedy icon John Cleese will stop in San Jose on Sept. 14, given the city’s place at the heart of Silicon Valley and Monty Python’s absurdly significant contribution to technology culture. Thanks to Cleese and his colleagues, what was once a vanilla acronym—UCE, or Unsolicited Commercial Electronic Mail—is today more colorfully known as “spam.” Adopted by the Oxford English Dictionary in 1998 and the U.S. Congress and the Federal Trade Commission in their CAN-SPAM Act of 2003, the rebranding has its roots in a famously untethered 1970 episode of the British television series Monty Python’s Flying Circus.

In a conversation last week, Cleese reflected on its origins. “I’d always been fascinated by eating at transport cafes, which is where the truck drivers eat,” he recalled. “There was always a menu on a blackboard…and so when I wrote a sketch with Graham, about a menu at a transport cafe, which had increasing amounts of spam in it. And we just got very silly. We laughed and we wrote things like, as you know, egg spam, spam, spam, spam, spam, tomatoes, spam, spam and cheese.”

He explained that the sketch was expanded by Python member Terry Jones, who is credited as the sketch’s co-writer with Michael Palin, and who “realized that it could be extended by having Vikings and that was wonderful.” The scene with the Vikings chanting “spam, spam, spam, spam” became a classic, and Cleese was delighted when he discovered that software engineers, who were early fans of the show, had adopted the term. “I was so thrilled by that,” he said. “I thought it was so great. It was a lovely sort of salute from the computer world.”

The flying circus is also credited with inspiring the naming of the programming language Python, a foundation of the contemporary technology ecosystem, from Instagram to Uber, by computer scientist Guido van Rossum.

The conversation also touched on another of Cleese’s comedic masterpieces, Fawlty Towers, which was inspired by a real-life hotel experience. While filming with the Python team near Torquay, they stayed at the Gleneagles Hotel, run by a “most extraordinary man.” Cleese recounts walking into the lobby with Jones, who was met with a strong and curt “Oh, what!?” from the hotelier after a simple “hello.” The interaction, Cleese says, summed up “the motto of the time for British hoteliers, which is we could run this place properly if it wasn’t for the guests.”

Cleese also discussed the film A Fish Called Wanda, including the memorable scene where he is hung upside down from a second-story window by the sociopathic and dimwitted Otto, played by Kevin Kline, who demands an apology after an insult. Known for performing his own stunts, Cleese assured us it wasn’t dangerous. “I had a steel wire, attached at two different points to a sort of canvas body suit, and at the other end my weight was attached to scaffolding,” he explained. The only real pressure, he joked, was to get the scene right in one take so he didn’t have to hang upside down for long.

When asked what still excites him about comedy, Cleese said he loves seeing an audience “rocking with laughter. Not just smiling and nodding, but really, really laughing.” He expressed concern that this is less common today, as people are “frightened about giving offense” due to the “woke movement.” While acknowledging the admirable aspects of the movement, he argues that humor is inherently critical. “What we laugh at is people’s foibles. When they make things wrong, when they’re stupid, or greedy, or that sort of thing,” he explained. But he stressed that this laughter isn’t unkind, noting that “laughter can be very affectionate.”

Fans can look forward to Cleese’s unique live show, “Not Dead Yet! John Cleese and The Holy Grail at 50,” on Sept. 14 at the San Jose Civic. Cleese describes the event as very simple: “I come out, I introduce the show, I talk a little bit about the history of how it started. … Then after that, we show the film, and then the audience can ask me anything they like for about an hour and a half.”

The audience Q&A is what Cleese seems to love most. “I love the process because I never know what’s going to happen. I don’t know what’s going to be asked. Sometimes it’s very surprising,” he said. The show offers a chance for fans to connect, and as Cleese notes, “It’s a wonderful experience to be in with the audience laughing. There’s not a lot of that these days, and I’ve tried to do what I can to remedy that.”

Dan Pulcrano contributed to this article.

Not Dead Yet! John Cleese and The Holy Grail at 50 begins at 7:30pm on Sept 14 at the San Jose Civic, 135 W San Carlos St, San Jose. Tickets: $81–$218. sanjosetheaters.org

Standup comedy takes many forms. Some comics tee up a joke and quickly deliver the punch line, rapid-fire. Others work the crowd, creating an interactive experience. Ali Siddiq, a native of Houston, Texas, takes another tack: a storytelling approach, allowing the pace of his comedy to ebb, flow and build.

Launching his comedy career in 1997 after release from prison on drug trafficking charges, Siddiq worked his way into larger venues, opening for bigger names and eventually earning headlining status. Today, with more than a dozen solo albums and streaming TV specials to his credit, Siddiq is one of standup’s brightest stars. Ali Siddiq comes to the San Jose Civic on June 6.

Like the best observational comics, Siddiq draws his standup material from real-life experiences. He says that everything that happens to him in a given day is potential fodder for his monologues. “But I’m just gonna remember the 25 minutes of it that I like,” he explains. “Each day, something’s gonna happen to me that—I’m quite sure—has happened to somebody else. I’m just aware enough to tell a story and not be embarrassed about it.”

Our interview takes place via Zoom, with Siddiq taking a break in the shade of his back yard. “I have a tiller here that is totally broken,” he says. “And I’m feeling faint.” Acknowledging the incongruity of seeing a popular standup comic doing yard work, he places it into a larger context. “I’m only a star Friday and Saturday,” he says. “The rest of the week, I’m just a regular dude.”

Over the years, Siddiq has become a go-to personality when a staged or televised event needs a host. In the ’90s, he hosted “Apollo Night” at Houston’s Just Joking comedy club. Siddiq hosted several episodes of HBO’s Def Comedy Jam. For three years, he co-hosted the Uncle Funky Larry Jones & Ali Siddiq radio show on Houston’s KMJQ-FM. And he learned an important lesson along the way. “Hosting makes me a better headliner,” he says. “When you’re the host, it’s on you to set the pace; you’re coming out cold.”

Coming up in the comedy scene, Siddiq also took part in improvisation. And while he emphasizes that he “doesn’t do crowd work,” Siddiq maintains an element of spontaneity in his shows. He recalls a performance during which an audience member showed up several minutes into Siddiq’s monologue. “I’m gonna catch you up on where we are,” he told the man. “Because you walked in at the middle of the movie.”

Siddiq doesn’t believe there’s such a thing as a bad audience. “A bad show is me not having fun onstage,” he says. To that end, he keeps his material fresh. “Sometimes an audience wants me to do older material; they yell out, ‘Stories!’ But those [stories] are things that you can see on the Internet,” he explains. “I don’t want to be they guy [about whom people say] ‘Oh, every time he comes, he does those stories!’”

Still, Siddiq will occasionally relent and share one of those classic stories. “People will shout out for ‘Mexican got on boots,’ he says, referring to one of his most well-known pieces. “And that’s the story that I will not do,” he emphasizes. “Because I can never get through it; people yell out their favorite parts of it. And then I’ll tell the audience, ‘Man, y’all suck. You’re not even letting me say it!’”

Now nearly 30 years into his career as a comic, Ali Siddiq says that the perspective that informs his comedy has “changed quite tremendously” over time.

“I used to be worried about whether I’d win a competition or not,” he says. “And then I learned just to be grateful for the experience. I’m not [Joe] Rogan. I’m not Mike Epps. So I stopped judging my success by other people’s success.” He recognizes his strengths, and chooses to leverage those rather than branching out into other areas just because that’s the customary path for many comics. “I’m not a movie guy; I’m not a sitcom guy,” he asserts. “I’m a comic. And that’s what I want to be.”

Siddiq winces and shakes his head when a bit of inaccurate biographical information comes up in the conversation. Contrary to what one might read on Wikipedia (and thus repeated in many other outlets), he didn’t get his start as a comic during his stint in prison. “Somebody wrote that, and people keep going with it,” he says. “I keep telling people: There are no comedy clubs in prison!”

Siddiq wonders aloud how the misinformation gained traction; he imagines that someone had an idea: “Between the chow hall and the warden’s office, there’s this little spot…” Siddiq emphasizes that Texas Department of Criminal Justice facilities didn’t have brick-wall-and-bar-stool stage setups where he could try out new material in front of a captive audience.

But he did joke around during his six years behind bars. “I do think that becoming jovial in a place that was…a little non-jovial helped me with audiences,” he allows. “I was making people laugh while I was inside, so [when I encounter] people who don’t have any cares in the world because they’re free, it shouldn’t be hard to make them laugh.” 

“And,” he adds, “Nobody’s trying to stab you.”

Ali Siddiq takes the stage at 8pm on June 6 at the Civic Auditorium, 135 W San Carlos St, San Jose. Tickets: $41.25-$142. sanjosetheaters.org

The cultural divide between kids and their immigrant parents is as common a topic in stand-up comedy as sex and weed jokes. It’s the basis of N.Y.-based comedian Abby Govindan’s one-woman show, How to Embarrass Your Immigrant Parents, which she brings to San Jose Improv on Feb. 20.

At only 27, Govindan is already on a nationwide tour, having opened for Russell Peters and Hasan Minhaj. Born in Lubbock, Texas, to Indian parents, and raised in Houston, she started doing stand-up while studying psychology at Fordham University. Govindan made her debut at the famed (now shuttered) Carolines on Broadway. She counts as comedy influences Mo Amer, Ali Wong, John Mulaney, Hannah Gadsby, Aparna Nancherla, Peters and especially Minhaj.

“Hasan Minhaj was really a trailblazer in a way for a comedian like me to be able to find success,” Govindan says. “He does storytelling. He does stand-up comedy. And he does them so well. He holds these silences and takes the audience on uncomfortable journeys, and he leads them to places emotionally that are just so raw, unique and creative.”

Govindan says she found performing on stage therapeutic after experiencing a bad breakup and surviving a suicide attempt.

“In my darkest moments growing up and being in college, I really turned to comedy as a means of coping,” Govindan says. “It felt like the comedians were my friends helping me through when I didn’t feel like I could turn to anyone.”

In 2022, she wrote an article titled “Tips on How to Disappoint Your Immigrant Parents Without Trying” for the online newsletter of Malala Yousefzai, the Pakistani activist and Nobel Prize winner. In it, she lists as examples “date non-Indian boys,” “date Indian boys,” “study psychology in college” and “dislike the way coconut tastes.”

Govindan turned the essay into a one-hour show, using texts and emails between her and her parents to crack wise about their family dynamics. It’s directed by Greg Walloch, who also directed Minhaj’s Netflix special, Homecoming King, and produced by Daniel Sloss, the Scottish comedian who starred in his own Netflix specials, DARK and Jigsaw.

When Govindan broke the news of her stand-up dreams to her parents, they were initially less than enthusiastic, a typical response from older-generation immigrants who’d rather see their children pursue more profitable professions. But Govindan insists she refrains from disparaging them in her comedy.

“My show is about how I told my parents I wanted to be a stand-up comedian, how our relationship fell apart because of it, and how we built our relationship back up after my brief sit in a mental hospital,” says Govindan. “I make fun of my parents, but I also talk about the ways in which they stumbled and fell, and how at every point they were just trying their best to understand me. And once I granted them that grace, it was a lot more peaceful for me in my life.

“These are not just my silly immigrant parents. They are complex beings that I reduced to one-dimensional characters. They’re two people who were figuring life out for the first time, just like I am. They were brought up in a completely different cultural context than I am, and I think that I do them a great disservice if I just keep making them the villains in my story,” she says.

Govindan is taking her show to London and Sydney, Australia. Ultimately, she’d like to perform in India so she can “give insight into the Indian-American experience.”

“I carry so much pride in my South Asian heritage,” Govindan says. “I want to change the conversation around immigrant kids and their parents. A lot of people share with me after my shows about how validating it is to see me talk about my mental health on stage. A lot of them are other South Asian people who tell me about their own struggles with mental health and their own experiences in the hospital. Storytelling is a means of connecting with audiences, and previous comedians have changed my life for the better. They were vulnerable on stage, and I want to be able to carry that torch. At the end of the day, my job is to get on stage and make people laugh. But I also want to make people think, ‘Wow, she really made me feel a lot of emotions today.’ Those are the shows that had the biggest impact on me. So I really want to do something that has that kind of an impact on the audience.”

Abby Govindan performs at 8pm on Feb 20 at San Jose Improv, 62 S. 2nd St., San Jose. Tickets: $31.14–$83.16. improv.com/sanjose

In 2008, militant Pakistani Islamists killed 175 people in a series of terrorist attacks in Mumbai, India. Feeling helpless, comedian Samson Koletkar got together a group of Indian and Pakistani comedians in the Bay Area in an effort to promote peace and unity through laughter. They performed two events in Hayward and Palo Alto.

In 2014, after Koletkar teamed up with fellow comedian and co-organizer Abhay Nadkarni, they officially launched the Desi Comedy Fest, which, in the last ten years, has become a mainstay of Bay Area live comedy.

“We are the biggest South Asian comedy festival in America,” says Koletkar, who lives in Hayward, “because we are the only South Asian comedy festival in America.”

Like many comedians, Koletkar’s humor is drawn from his upbringing. He was born in Mumbai but raised Jewish (his father is Jewish and his Hindu mother converted to Judaism). Koletkar jokes that he isn’t very religious because he performs stand-up on Fridays and Saturdays.

His only early comedic influence was Charlie Chaplin, whom he used to watch with his father. It wasn’t until he moved to Sunnyvale in 2000 and started taking stand-up classes a few years later that he heard of the likes of George Carlin, Lenny Bruce and Richard Pryor.

“I always had this inkling for cracking jokes and making snarky comments,” Koletkar remembers. “I couldn’t figure out where that skill would come into play because in Mumbai, stand-up as an art form did not exist. What we mostly saw was all mimicry and impressions of famous personalities, which I don’t do. When I came to America and saw stand-up live for the first time, I thought it was awesome. And when I tried it, I liked it. I stuck with it.”

As a nod to his heritage, Koletkar took up Mahatma Moses as a stage and social media name.

“They’re the two most famous personalities: Mahatma Gandhi and Moses,” Koletkar says. “The whole world knows Gandhi and almost every second person on the planet has seen The Ten Commandments. So the name clicks for people. It’s a catch phrase.”

In his act, Koletkar pokes fun at everything from Indian restaurants and Indian customer service to marriage and his dual cultures. He even riffs on the challenges he faced when he and his wife adopted a child in America.

“We could raise the first white kid in America to win the spelling bee,” he once joked. “Our little contribution to making America great again.”

When booking for the festival, Koletkar and Nadkarni look for comics from all over the country, preferably ones who put on clean comedy, with no off-color material. They’re predominantly South Asian, but many also represent mixed ethnicities.

“Even though we may have similar backgrounds and similar experiences, there’s something unique about everybody,” says Koletkar. “So we don’t censor anybody. They can come and talk about whatever topic under the sun. But the one thing we tend not to do is bring in too much blue comedy.”

At its peak, the festival played 11 nights in a row, with as many as 50 comics, and appeared at such prestigious live comedy staples as SF Sketchfest and Montreal’s Just for Laughs. They’ve even toured India. Though the festival traditionally runs in August, it occasionally takes place on Diwali, the Hindu festival of lights, in October or November, or on Indian Republic Day, in January.

For the festival’s tenth anniversary, Koletkar and Nadkarni have rounded up 15 comedians to perform shows in Pleasanton, San Francisco, Mill Valley and San Jose. 

“The number one thing we want the audience to do is to have a good time, laugh and connect at a very human level,” Koletkar says. “At the end of it all, the one thing I’ve learned in the 18 years that I’ve been performing with people from all kinds of backgrounds is that what connects us is humanity. You’re hearing it from the perspectives of a certain group of people, but it’s very global. We all share these experiences. When I’m talking about my first-generation immigrant experience in America, I’ve had people from Europe, South America and Africa come up to me and say, ‘You know, I can relate to that.’”

Desi Comedy Fest hits the South Bay on Aug. 8 with an 8pm show at San Jose Improv, 62 S. 2nd Ave. $30.63, via Ticketweb.com.

Comedian Christopher Titus is not only the hardest working comedian in the biz, but also one of the best comics to dive deep into talking about mental health, depression and rage. Twenty years ago, when his first hit special, Norman Rockwell is Bleeding, was being performed, comics didn’t normally bare their soul onstage in such a personal way.

“So, I’m performing the Rockwell show in LA,” says Titus from the dock of an editing bay. “The space is a 99-seater. There’s 16 people in the audience. I don’t care. I’ll give 100% no matter how many people show up. Turns out, two of the people in the audience were from Fox.” The executives couldn’t believe what they were seeing. During a time when every comic was trying to be Seinfeld, Titus was like what would have happened if the Blue Collar Comedy Tour went to a bad therapist.

From that one show, Titus landed a television series, the eponymously named Titus, which won an Emmy nomination, and garnered Titus a WGA Award for satirical, biting writing. “It’s different now because executives don’t look at content or quality anymore. They look at followers. And this is why comedy has kind of gotten to a weird place. There’s a whole generation of people that are doing stand up right now that don’t understand how it works. They weren’t educated in it. They might be great on Tik Tok, but the stage is different,” Titus says.

Titus’ latest foray into the depths of his soul, Carrying Monsters, was written before Covid, and he had performed it for about three or four months. But when Covid did hit, stage time dried up and he couldn’t work. So, back in 2020, when the world shut down, Titus geared up. “I built a soundstage and we filmed a concert with Everlast. I shot specials with Ron Funches and Fortune Feimster. We also did a thing called Viral Shield, where we sanitized the studio and invited like 18 people over (we were all masked), and we fought! It’s all on my YouTube channel now,” Titus says.

Titus has eight 90-minute specials under his belt. His eighth special, Amerigeddon, is available on Amazon. He recently shot his ninth special, Zero Side Effects (being edited as we speak), and is currently touring his next special, Carrying Monsters, a bookend companion piece to Norman Rockwell is Bleeding. “I tend to go back and forth between personal, social, and Carrying Monsters is the most personal one I’ve ever done. I’m just starting to break in new material now, so if you go to San Jose, you’re going to be seeing me doing some new material, as well,” Titus says.

Never one to hold his tongue, Titus is very clear that comedy, despite the influx of influencers and the anti-woke brigade, is healthy and where it’s always been. “I see comics that are talking about cancel culture and they are on every show there is. They’re actually working constantly. What are you talking about? Who got canceled? No, Louie CK did not got canceled. Louie lost everything because we can’t watch him now without seeing him jerking off in front of an assistant. You know, no one got canceled for their comedy. Kristi Noem is getting canceled because she shot her dog in the face. Yes, there’s certain things that you can do that show that you’re basically against humanity. But nobody with comedy got canceled. Dave Chappelle keeps getting more deals with Netflix. So, enough about how you can’t say what you want in comedy,” Titus argues.

If you are ever lucky enough to engage with Titus, you’ll find a passionate, supremely funny and prolific artist. “Prolific? I don’t know, man. I think it’s the fear and desperation. I love doing what I do. But you always wanna, gotta, make money at it,” Titus says.

And while you might want to talk to Titus about his past, Titus has his eyes pinned on the future. “Last thing I’ll say is, we know we have an economic issue when private citizens have their own space programs. I think we’ve gone too far. What’s the line? That’s the line right there. If you’re privately going to another planet. Maybe we need to figure out how to get you just to pay your share of taxes. How about that?”

Christopher Titus performs at San Jose Improv on May 22 at 8pm. Tickets are $30+. improv.com

Hannah Berner is having a 48-hour reprieve at her home in the lower East Side of Manhattan, New York. She’s catching a quick breath before heading back on the road, where she is headlining around the country, living in hotels and trying to get a decent meal. All the years of work and determination are in anticipation of recording her first Netflix comedy special in Philadelphia at the end of March. 

Berner has been working on her first Netflix special for six years. “It’s the same hour. I’ve just edited it a thousand times. The San Jose Improv shows are critical because they’re the last five club shows before I shoot the special. It’s the last chance for me to get my reps in,” says Berner. 

The young, vivacious and engaging Berner didn’t start off wanting to be a comedian. Luckily—for us—there are a thousand paths to end up onstage telling jokes to strangers. For Berner, it started with job dissatisfaction. “I was 25 and I hated my job,” says Berner. 

Originally wanting to become a sports broadcaster, Berner realized it would be unfulfilling and boring. So, like all good creatives, the multi-faceted millennial started diving deeper into her passions. “I was good at editing and I started making funny sketches online and Tweeting a lot,” says Berner.

Berner knew some NYC comics in the bustling East Coast scene who were very encouraging of her online endeavors. “The hilarious Emma Willmann reached out to me and told me that one of my tweets is a stand-up bit. Francis Ellis, who works at Barstool, was really supportive early on. We are both former athletes. I was a tennis player and he did lacrosse. He told me that a lot of athletes can be good at comedy because they have discipline. And athletes know how to deal with pressure. Stand-up pressure is more fun for me than sports pressure. In sports, if you mess up you’re a fucking loser, but in comedy you can fake it and tell people you were being creative and trying out new things,” Berner laughs. 

Based on the jokes she was writing for her online sketches, Berner was peer-pressured into trying stand-up. “I had never really thought about it too much. I was busy doing a podcast and reality TV. Then, a friend dared me to do 10 minutes of stand-up. Well, it’s not the way you’re supposed to do it, but the first time I did stand-up was 10 minutes in front of 300 people. It went well. People liked it,” says Berner. 

In the 21^st Century, more people can see your sketches and comedy on social media platforms than on TV.  But there’s only one way to get better at stand-up comedy, and that is to do it as much as possible. “My comedy friends told me to go out every night and work on my material,” says Berner. 

What really stood out to Berner was the way she felt onstage. “Onstage, I felt calm. When I’m offstage my thoughts are always running. Onstage I have to be in the moment, listening to the audience and making sure they understand what I’m saying. I think, for me, comedy is therapeutic. It gets me off my phone. I enjoy making people laugh and, bonus, I make money doing it,” says Berner. 

Berner tried appearing on some reality TV shows, but nothing was really clicking. “I decided in 2022 that I was going to commit to posting three videos a day on TikTok. I saw people I knew blowing up and going viral. So I told myself, I’ll do three videos a day for six months. I started connecting with new people and it felt like I had my own TV show. On my own channel. Instagram was dead for me at that time. I felt like nobody was seeing my stuff. I’ve failed at a lot of stuff, but with TikTok the secret is you have to be consistent,” says Berner. 

If you watch any of Berner’s stand-up clips, or comic-on-the-street—TikTok or Instagrams—it’s obvious Berner has a genuine curiosity about people and she wants to raise people up rather than the hack comic method of tearing people down. 

“I do crowd work because I’m nosey. People tighten up if they sense you’re just using them for some joke. You have to speak to the crowd like they’re your friends. They’re people. too.

“I started doing crowd work because I was sick of my jokes,” continues Berner. “I like getting loose and challenging myself to see where the moment can go. The only tip I got from crowd work was that you just have to do it. It’s like throwing yourself into the deep end and seeing if you can get out.” 

This Netflix special could be the crossroads where Berner becomes a household name. “The best part of my career is I have done everything on my own terms,” she says. “And that’s what I plan on continuing.”

Hannah Berner

San Jose Improv, San Jose

March 14—16

$25—$85

When they’re not flipping tables or throwing glasses of wine in each other’s faces, some Bravo celebrities try to make the leap from the small screen to the stage. Some have even attempted to become pop singers, though no one has ever accused any of them of sounding like Adele. 

Anisha Ramakrishna’s crossover into live comedy, however, is no fluke or novelty. The star of Bravo’s Family Karma made her stand-up debut last year at New York’s famed Carolines on Broadway. Now she’s in the middle of a national tour, which includes a stop at San Jose Improv on Oct. 5.

Born in India and raised in Indonesia, Ramakrishna was a 30-something entrepreneur with a clothing line when she and some other cast members were discovered on Instagram by a talent executive. 

Family Karma, which conveniently began airing right at the start of the Covid lockdown in 2020, was the first reality show to focus on young Indian-American professionals from multi-generational families living in Miami and dealing with the pressures of dual cultures, careers and relationships.

During the series, fans watched Ramakrishna fend off her parents’ demands to tie the knot and have children, try online dating and freeze her eggs. They also watched her crack jokes and act funny (some of which went viral), like the time she told a producer that her “dating age range” was somewhere between “31 to a coffin.” 

After three seasons, Ramakrishna got her happy ending when last October she married a nice Indian man from Scottsdale, Arizona, where she currently splits her time.

A few weeks after her nuptials, Ramakrishna was invited to perform in an all-female South Asian comedy night called the Kutti Gang at Carolines. 

“I’d been told I was funny, but I’ve never had any stand-up experience,” says Ramakrishna. “I just went and did it kind of like a one-and-done deal and had fun with it. But I actually did pretty well.”

On her podcast, Currently Cringing, Ramakrishna talked about getting into comedy at 38 and why she prefers to think of herself as a storyteller.

“I love it because it’s just me,” says Ramakrishna, who names Eddie Murphy, Kathy Griffin, Chelsea Handler and Russell Peters as influences. “There’s no one to blame. There’s no one to point the finger at. You either have it or you don’t. When the jokes don’t land and the room is silent, you know not to say those jokes again. It’s pretty black and white. On a reality show, you can say that the viewers aren’t there, you can factor that in. But when you’re doing stand-up comedy, it’s just you on stage with an audience.”

Success from Carolines led to a spot at the Miami Improv, where, according to Ramakrishna, she “bombed.”

“I had put so much pressure on myself to impress my parents, their friends, my community,” remembers Ramakrishna. “Those are the people you want to impress the most, especially when you’re South Asian.”

But flopping in front of her hometown crowd didn’t deter Ramakrishna from pursuing stand-up. Although on stage she pokes the usual fun at her family, Indian culture and newlywed life, her humor can be universal to anyone. (When a woman in her audience once said her mother-in- law lived in Africa, Ramakrishna told her she had “won the lottery of life.”) 

The comedy “late bloomer” has done more than a dozen stand-up dates so far but more importantly, she’s helping to break the social barriers for other comedians of South Asian descent, particularly women.

“I talk about it in a comedic way, but part of my message in my shows is to fake it till you make it, and it’s very important,” says Ramakrishna. “Just believe in yourself, even if others don’t. I was in my late 30s and didn’t know what I was doing when we started Family Karma. I didn’t have a job, wasn’t in a relationship, and those are the things that give you credibility in the world, but especially in South Asian culture. Everyone thought I was ruining the community, tarnishing my family name and my reputation as a woman in the culture. And now people are calling me a trailblazer. Fans of Family Karma know my humor, so they’re gonna think I’m funny regardless. But the ones who don’t go and buy tickets to my shows and think I’m funny are the ones that make me think, ‘OK, I’m gonna keep doing this.’”

Anisha Ramakrishna

Thurs, 8 p.m., $25

The Improv, San Jose

Art often imitates life. And for Chris Estrada—LA-raised writer, actor and comedian—spending his youth in Inglewood and South Central LA provided plenty of life experience for artistic material.

As co-creator and star of Hulu’s critically-acclaimed This Fool, Estrada will be back on TV when the second season of the charming, wildly funny comedy series returns this July. But this weekend, he brings five sets of standup to the Improv in San Jose.

Highlighting facets of Mexican-American culture and tradition, This Fool is an incredibly engaging comedy centered on “punk ass bitch” Julio Lopez (played by Estrada), his life and family, and his attempts to navigate working class life in South Central, Los Angeles.

Like his character, Estrada was a late bloomer, diving headfirst into the comedy scene through stand up and open mics at 29 years old.

“There were a few rooms in South Central, Inglewood…I went to those open mics when I could, but there weren’t that many or that often. I also went to rooms in East LA that had more of a Latino base.”

After frequenting venues throughout these two LA boroughs for a year or so, he expanded to the Greater LA area, performing at open mic nights in Hollywood and Downtown LA venues.

“When I started branching out and going to different places, I was one of the few Latino comics,” he says. “I didn’t start comedy until ten years ago, but there’s always been a lot of variety—Black, Palestinian, you name it—in the stand up scene in LA.”

The funnyman cites Colin Quinn, Maria Bamford, Greg Giraldo, Dave Atell and Last Comic Standing winner Felipe Esparza as some of his comedic influences.

Estrada’s own delivery and timing are impressive. A cinephile and tv series binger, Estrada fills his own films and television productions with hints of influence from others that have inspired him over the years, films by Scorsese or the Coen Brothers (especially Fargo and Raising Arizona). Television series like Reservation Dogs, The Sopranos, The Wire and Atlanta also inspire the cinematic look, feel and dark humor of the world he’s trying to cultivate for his current Hulu comedy show.

“With Julio, I wanted to play someone similar to me—Mexican American, into punk music and alternative culture. These are the things that defined me, and my taste, growing up,” Estrada says. “With Julio’s character, having him be into punk music and other alternative cultural things was very much, ‘let’s show it, and not talk about it.’”

The series’ set designs and everything from the character’s wardrobes to the music they listen to, feels well-researched and accurately portrayed, adding layers of complexity and dimension to the characters and story on screen.

“Even though I don’t consider myself specifically a ‘Latino’ comedian, if I did a show and there were no Latinos there, I would think something was wrong,” he says. “The hard thing about being a comic sometimes is people put the burden of representation on you. I want to represent without being representational.”

Estrada says he just wants to be himself, “without being profound or corny” in the way he goes about it.

“I think sometimes when you do comedy, and other things in entertainment, people label you as Latino first, then what you are, after. But I don’t think that’s right, or fair. With my comedy, I want to make everyone laugh. Everything I’m doing now, stand up, writing and acting—which I’m newer to—is fun and I love doing it all. But what I really love is creating.”

His first love, however, will always be film. 

“The idea is to direct, film, or act in a full feature someday.”

This Fool’s second season is set to air on July 28 on Hulu. 

“We approached the show wanting it to look like a movie, cinematic, because that’s my favorite kind of TV,” he says. “I grew up not that far from where they filmed Friday. I love the way the people in the neighborhood were their own heroes and their own villains. This Fool is [like] Friday but directed by the Coen Brothers.”

Chris Estrada

Fri-Sun, Various Times, $20+

The Improv, San Jose

Few comedians have run the gamut of network television appearances quite like Adam Ferrara. From NBC with Law & Order and Caroline in the City, to CBS with The King of Queens and Nurse Jackie, to ABC with Ugly Betty, the actor and comedian has perfected his work on both screen and stage and now headlines a weekend full of shows at the Improv. With two nominations for best male stand-up at the American Comedy Awards, the former Top Gear US host has garnered three specials on Comedy Central. Most recently, Ferrara released his new podcast, “30 Minutes You’ll Never Get Back.”

https://improv.com/sanjose/comic/adam+ferrara/

Adam Ferrara

Fri-Sun, Various Times, $22+

The Improv, San Jose

Sharp, LA-based comedian Michael Palascak is bringing his insightful wit to Rooster T for four evenings this weekend. Palascak has performed on a host of late-night shows including The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, A Little Late with Lilly Singh, Letterman, The Tonight Show with Jay Leno, The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson and Conan. His latest Dry Bar stand-up special, 1984, is out now. Joining Palascak is DJ Sandhu, Sacramento’s finest bearded funny man, and writer-animator Travis Thielen, a San Francisco-based comedian.

Michael Palaschak

Thu-Sun, Various Times, $25

Rooster T Feathers, Sunnyvale