Jo Koy and his funny business
Jo Koy will be performing in Manila and Cebu from Nov. 30 to Dec. 3. His shows are almost sold out, grab your tickets now. Photo by Austin Hargave
MANILA, Philippines — In the opening act for his self-funded show, Jo Koy: Live from Seattle, the effusive and animated Jo Koy (aka Joseph Glenn Herbert) begins his hour-long, gut-splitting-hilarious performance with a pretty familiar racial joke. He doesn’t really drag around the weight of socio-political theses that occupy the underbelly of some of his contemporaries’ acts. Instead, he invites you into his world — with an introspection that is more personal and deeply intimate, a facet that puts less pressure on the jokes, less baggage on the humor, and poses fewer expectations from the viewer. So that sitting through the entire show is, quite literally, a pleasurable experience. And being a Filipino, hearing stories from this Filipino recounting his Filipino-American upbringing makes it quite a wondrous experience. “My style is pretty much family-oriented and self-deprecating,” says Jo Koy in an interview with Supreme. “I can pretty much say whatever I want about those two things. I don’t talk about politics. There’s enough people talking about it that I don’t need to touch on it.”
His stories are so profoundly personal, in fact, that some of the jokes feel hinged on a poignant reflection. The Seattle show, for example, takes a tender bend, when Jo Koy recalls the time his sisters would often get into arguments with his obstinate mother. “‘Don’t talk to me like that mom! That’s bullsh**t! I’m a f**cking woman,’” he says, reenacting his older sister Rowena, in her fights with Mom. “She was ready, got into the last fight with my mom in the living room. She had it... ‘Whatever, Mom, I’m going, I had it. I’m sick of these f**cking rules, I’m old enough to take care of myself.’ And my mom just looked at her and said, ‘Are you f**cking crazy? Get the f**k out of here right now!’”
“The cool thing about my job,” says Jo Koy, “is I’m able to go onstage and talk about my life and be able to find the humor in those difficult times. It’s kind of my therapy to be able to talk about it onstage, and I think everyone can relate to the stories on some level.”
Jo Koy is candid about growing up with humble beginnings. He often revisits his childhood, candidly painting a picture of his upbringing. His mother, Josie, is the center of his work — Josie raised four kids by herself. In another portion of the Seattle show, he jokes, “My mom never took us to the doctor. My mom raised us like we were still in the Philippines. She tried to cure everything at home like a real Filipino woman. You had to die to go to the hospital. My mom cured everything with Vicks VapoRub. I should’ve died nine times when I was a kid! There was one time I thought I had pneumonia, I go, ‘Mom, I think I have pneumonia,’ she goes, ‘I’ll put extra Vicks on your body, Joseph!’”
But before he was selling out comedy clubs and theaters, he was performing at a Las Vegas coffeehouse. “I used to market my own shows in the beginning to get people to come see me. That was even before Facebook (existed). I used to put flyers on cars in parking lots, anything to get people to come to my shows. I was always having to think outside the box, and even to this day, I still try and come up with creative ways to market my shows.”
He got his break when, in 2005, Jo Koy was selected to perform a monologue on the Tonight Show with Jay Leno. He received a standing ovation. After that, he became a regular panelist on Chelsea Handler’s talk show Chelsea Lately. Later on, he released two comedy specials with Comedy Central. He waited to hear offers from networks after their release, and when they didn’t come, he decided to produce one himself. Jo Koy: Life from Seattle is the result of his efforts. He used his own money to put the show together, eventually selling it to Netflix, and then the media giant released it as part of its original content offerings. Which is probably why Jo Koy says, to be a successful comedian, you need “passion, creativity and a business mind.”
Although his career in comedy began in 1989, he always knew that he wanted to make people laugh. “Right around 11 or 12, when I saw Eddie Murphy’s standup special Delirious and I taped it on a VHS tape. I think I watched it every single day. I lived and breathed Eddie Murphy for that whole year,” he says of his inspiration.
Next week, Jo Koy returns to the Philippines to perform for the second time, coming out with a total of five shows. In Manila, he will perform sold-out shows on Nov. 30 and Dec. 3 (tickets still available). Dec. 1 he will be in Cebu (tickets still available).
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Visit ticketworld.com.ph to buy tickets online.
