Jo Koy returns with more laughs about being Pinoy
“Kumusta na? Andito na ako. This is my home, man.”
Jo Koy opened his first show — 5 p.m. matinee last Thursday at Solaire’s The Theatre — to a full house, which was nothing short of amazing considering it was the final and “last-minute” addition to his total of five shows (four in Manila and one in Cebu) after everything else sold out. The last two performances are happening tonight.
“You know, you’ve made it in your career when you’re doing a five o’clock (in the afternoon) show,” the 46-year-old FilipinoAmerican funnyman told the audience.
“This is your afternoon show. I wasn’t even supposed to do this afternoon show! F**k you, guys, you were late,” he joked in mock anger, about those who missed the earlier ticket selling and badgered him on social media to do one more show.
Back-dropped by his stage name (his real one is Joseph Glenn Herbert) emblazoned in light, Jo Koy poked fun at the “usual sus- pects,” his Pinay mom Josie, his son Jo Jr. and other members of his Filipino family.
His experiences with them became what he described as his “ammunition” in his live shows and TV specials in his over 20-year career as a stand-up comedian. (In a previous phone interview with STAR, he explained why his Filipino background is favorite source of most of his material. “You know my mom and dad divorced when I was really, really young so I never got to know my dad’s side. It’s not that extended for me, I don’t really know that many people on that side.)
According to Jo, he lived in the Philippines when he was five to 11 years old. He talked about Pinoy food, Pinoy-style massage and his very Pinoy upbringing — with some “toilet humor.”
“My mom made me fill her tabo when I was always in the living room with my friends. ‘Josep!’” he recalled, imitating his mother’s accent and pronunciation. “’Josep!’… She’s sitting with this tabo which was like a plastic cup with a teddy bear on it (and says), ‘Fill that for me.’ ‘Why didn’t you fill it up before you sat down? Why do you always do this?’ ‘C’mon anak, dali, hurry, my god, hurry!’ You know what pressure that is on a nine-year-old child because you have to make it lukewarm. I’m failing in math and now I have to be a chemist!”
Jo also noted how different his son’s life is from how he was raised. He said that when his son opens the fridge, he can have whatever he wants and gets whatever the container’s name says. In his case, buckets in the fridge were like a “guessing game,” you’d never know what you’d get, like sinigang in a container that read butter.
He mused that he’d like to discipline his young son like the way his mom did with him “but he’s protected by the law!”
“I was born in 1971. 911 didn’t come until 1984. My mother got away for 13 years. I didn’t say my mom hit me, but some of the sh*t she did to this day, I still ask my lawyer, are you sure, we can’t press charges?”
Apart from the mom jokes, which he swore in the phone chat, his mother “absolutely loves,” Jo also fed his routines with what he observed from the audience. He quickly picked up on how they behaved or reacted, from the “white lady who took a sh*t” — she went on a bathroom break right after his tabo spiel — to “the guy who took a nap,” referring to an audience member seated right in the center, front row who was “crawling down to his seat” to have a better view of Jo in action.
When Jo heard a woman’s laugh seemingly registering a decibel higher than the others, he asked for her name. “Roxanne? Of course. That is the only name to have in the Philippines. Rox Anne, Mary Anne, Jo Anne, sometimes Ann-Ann. Jo Jo, Jun Jun, Boboy, just two of everything... take two names, put it together and make it one name.”
“What I like about Filipinos is that they stay the same,” Jo also said during the show. He noticed that wherever Filipinos are, be it in Manila or L.A., they will come to his show “with their purse in their lap,” then pointing out in rapid-fire succession examples in the audience, “Purse, purse, purse, purse, isa pa, purse!”
He then launched into a hilarious monologue about why they won’t put the purse on the floor (“It’s dirty. This is Louis Vuitton!”) and went on to lift the LV purse of a lady on the front row with the comment, “So many snacks in there.”
While relating how his mom made him do talent shows “all the time” as a kid, he was talking about this one time his mom requested to do it “one last time” before her friends on a weekend. Then, the stage lights turned off and on, prompting him to drop his storytelling to ask a staff what just happened.
A woman from the audience suddenly shouted a question.
“When did this become a Q&A?” Jo replied, drawing laughs.
“What happened, Josep? Did you dance on that weekend?” the lady persisted.
“Oh, we will never know because there was a glitch,” he retorted.
“Dance, Josep, dance!” she threw back.
“My mom is here,” Jo declared, to more laughter. “That’s my mother there.”
The woman named Sandra later scored a selfie with Jo Koy.
Nevertheless, his mom’s insistence to make him join talent shows was not for naught. Towards the end of the show, Jo showed worthiness to be called a “triple threat” when he flaunted some serious dance moves and vocal chops in what could be a surefire way to win over his fellow Pinoys — a karaoke fest.
If you’ve watched his hit Netflix special Jo Koy Live From Seattle, you’d know that his wisecracks could turn raunchy. Concert promoter MMI Live said that due to “language and content,” his shows here are recommended for ages 18 and above. He acknowledged it himself with a brief skit on “anticipated” after-show reviews, mimicking a woman’s voice, “Jo Koy was fine, but he was dirty.”
But as he told one audience member — most likely doing something that again caught his attention — to “just enjoy the show,” the Theatre crowd on the first of his homecoming shows obviously took his advice, giving him a standing ovation in the end.
Jo wasn’t done yet, though. He went down the stage, accommodated requests for selfies and nearly thanked everyone in the audience for being there. Never mind if he went overtime. For those in the delayed gala show last Thursday, it was going to be worth the wait.