'I talk shit for a living'
2007-09-28 14:29
Cape Town - Bunny Chow actor and comedian, Joey Rasdien seems none too pleased at having to endure an interview. "It's cold here," the Johannesburg native says, shivering in the sharp Cape Town wind. He often jokes on stage about people assuming he's from Cape Town because he's coloured.
It doesn't stop him from assuming I'm from Durban by virtue of being Indian. "Would you like to be my date tonight?" He asks mid-interview, then gets distracted and starts rambling on again about himself.
"I talk shit for a living," he says matter-of-factly. "Of course I love it - who wouldn't?" Rasdien quit his job as a financial advisor in 2002 at his wife's urging and started a career in television. "My wife gave me the courage to do it," he says in a rare moment of sincerity, the topic of his recently deceased wife still a painful one.
The big-haired ex-fund manager came to Cape Town with the rest of his "crew" from the Pure Monate Show for the International
Comedy Festival, along with a number of international acts. The lobby of the Fountains Hotel is crawling with comedians, on
their way to interviews or waiting for rehearsals for the Comedy Awards Evening.
Just like the movie
They wander in and out of each others' interviews. "I don't like these questions," Rasdien declares at one point. He turns
to David Kibuuka who joined us. "David, come now, ask
me some questions." It's a scene straight out of the Bunny Chow movie. I look over my shoulder, half expecting Kagiso
Lediga to pop out of the bushes and join us: the eternal philanderer, as he was portrayed in the film.
Bunny Chow was South Africa's surprise film hit last year, partnering with MTV Europe and premiering at the Toronto International Film Festival in 2006. The offbeat road trip movie follows the desultory adventures of a group of comedians to the Oppikoppi music festival. The film was lauded for its progressive portrayal of inter-racial relationships and friendships.
"It was based on stock characters in the industry," Rasdien says. Kagiso was the requisite cool guy, David the talentless newbie
trying to break into the industry and Joey the best friend. "And there's always a girl," he says of Kim Engelbrecht's
character.
Engelbrecht also happens to be one of his best friends along with the rest of the loosely formed crew. "They're my family," he says. "I can leave my son with any one of them if needs be." And that in itself is a huge compliment. Five-year-old Hakeem is the most important part of Joey's life.
He tags along to the interview and Joey and him mock-argue the whole way through, until his father sends him to the hotel room. "He has the most wicked sense of humour," says Joey, his face lighting up as he talks about his son.
A departure from the past
Joey is one of a new breed of South African comedians. The kind who get up on stage and say exactly what they would to
their friends around a beer at two in the morning. It's a departure from the democracy-heavy themes and gaudy make-up of the Evita Bezuidenhout and Leon Schuster era of comedy.
Instead, Joey and his friends make comedy that a post-transition generation can identify with: playing with the stereotypes but going beyond them. Defying rhyme and reason, Joey's material is funny by mere fact of him
delivering it.
"The past is important and stereotypes are funny," says Joey. "Those themes should always be there but it should be a third layer.
"Those things are hilarious and everyone loves it, but for me it's a challenge to move away from stereotypes and still be funny."
I had watched Joey perform at the Afrikaans section of the Comedy Festival: Bek-lash. While the rest of the acts
staged extravagant musical displays with props ranging from feather boas to blow-up dolls, Joey innocuously ambled on to
stage with nothing but a microphone stand accompanying him. Stand-up comedy in its purest form.
New kind of comedy
The headline act, he spent a good half hour entertaining the audience with anything that seemed to pop into his head, from evolution to the abundance of White people in the audience.
"Why do you need props for comedy?" asks Joey. "That's theatre. You go up on stage and tell people your observations on
life and hopefully they'll laugh."
Michael Naicker, a.k.a. Kevin Perkins, the white comedian known for his hilarious Indian characters, seats himself at our table. Joey starts telling him about a heckler in the audience on Saturday night, and how he dealt with him. I had been there. The man quietened down very quickly once Joey climbed into him. "Who heckles a comedian?" laughs Perkins. "That's like bringing a knife to a gunfight."
The more I talk to Joey and his friends, the more I realise that their "work" is really just a product of what happens
between them as friends.
"Nothing that we do is actually planned. Its a process, its evolutionary," he says.
"It's not like we sit down and say we're going to do a TV show... it just sort of happens."
The Pure Monate Show was an expression of this loose creative energy. The show was aired on SABC1,
earning it a wide fan base, but was pulled after two seasons.
While there is a large Facebook group dedicated to reviving the show, Joey and his crew have "lots of other things in the
pipeline".
But he is loathe to give me actual details. Joey is scathing of any commercial mentality when it comes to entertainment and as the interview progresses he gets passionate about this, his favourite subject matter.
Do what you want
Joey is adamant that
giving the market what you think it wants is death to the artist. "We're always trying to please someone else instead of ourselves in South Africa and that's our huge problem."
Joey's philosophy in life is to do what you do best, and if people happen to support you that's a bonus. "Instead of saying this is what the market wants, you say: this is what I have."
He points out that the Crazy Monkey movie wasn't a huge success because its makers tried to pander to the market. "You shouldn't try and please a market, you should create your own market.
"Napoleon Dynamite cost $400 000 to make and people thought the market wouldn't like it. It was a huge hit.
"More often than not the successful people are the ones who please themselves first." True to that philosophy, Joey and crew primarily made Bunny Chow as something for them to enjoy as friends. "We were aiming for a 12 o'clock slot on MNet for our brasse to see," he says. "We were taking chances."
The movie was shot on a next-to-nothing budget and much of the script was improvised.
The organic way of doing things seems to be working for Joey. And it's a whole other way of thinking from his former life in finance.
"I'm not where I want to be, but I'm damn glad I'm not where I used to be."