100 words a day

Between 2012 to 2015, I was pretty experimental with my comedy, in the sense that I was some days political, some days personal, some days I was ranty, and some days, I was self-deprecating. You can do that as an open micer because you're only doing 5 minutes of material at a time and you basically could be anything you wanted to be on any given day. It was liberating and I miss those days. Towards 2015, when the country was under Najib Razak and there was that big 1MDB scandal, I felt compelled to talk more about that, at first just personally with friends, and then I started doing it on social media, and then it found its way into my comedy. By the middle of 2015, I think all my sets were political in nature. And then one day, this girl named Sharanya saw me at a mic and said she loved it and said she wanted to bring her mom to watch me, and asked when I was performing next. I said tomorrow, at the Crackhouse. Then later, after she had left, my friends told me she was Datuk Ambig

About two months ago, I drew up a new weekly schedule for myself that I was quite proud of. I had time for stand up comedy, I had time for rock climbing, I had time for family, and I had time for some guitar practice, and also some time to work on my Youtube channel. This schedule was going to work! I did not stick to the schedule at all. At first, it was because I was busy taking care of my wife who had Covid, and then I got Covid, and then there was a week where we were visiting my in-laws, and then last week, my wife had a lot of social activities and my son was having a nervous breakdown from a mock exam, so I was spending some time guiding him through it, to be honest, I could have started trying to stick to my schedule if I wanted to, but I thought, oh hell, I'll just start next week. Which is this week. Now I'm looking at this schedule and basically, I don't think it's going to work. Not because I didn't draw up a good schedule. The only thing that will need

I did some shows last week. I forgot how alive I can feel and realise I've really been just emotionally drifting for the past year. I did 2 mics on Tuesday and Wednesday and then 3 shows at the Joke Factory. One thing I realise now is it is so much better to cram all the mics and shows into one week rather than spread them out over a few weeks. The first mic or two, I was a bit shaky, but it all came back really fast and by Friday, I was in the zone again. The Joke Factory show was put together by Mike Saddi early this year but got postponed due to the last lockdown. Glad I had that one lined up, because I really feel like I was pretty much off everyone's radars when things opened up. On Tuesday, I was quite nervous because I felt rusty but also because it was my first time performing since recovering from Covid and my lungs and airways are still irritated sometimes, which can send me into a random coughing fit. I was okay throughout the night but during the interval, I was tal

It really feels like it's been a series of false starts lately. About a month ago, things were beginning to open up again after the latest lockdown. Restaurants, gyms, and then even pubs and comedy venues. I was mostly just interested in comedy clubs and the climbing gyms. My son's climbing squad training had not resumed yet but I thought he and I could just go climb and get some exercise anyway. Then we found he had an ingrown toe-nail. We took him to a doctor to have it cut, and then he took 3 weeks to recover from that fully. And then, we found that Covid vaccinations for teenagers were available in private clinics, so we got him vaccinated and that was pretty much 5 weeks of staying home (3 weeks between the two jabs, and then 2 weeks for the vaccine to build up the immunity in the body after that). And then my wife caught Covid, and then a few days later, she was feeling much better but I got Covid. So for the past 3 weeks, I pretty much stayed in the guest room and watche