I have been doing a fair bit of work lately with my good friend Gleb Maltsev on helping people give better presentations. Last week we did a 2 day session for Enterprise Estonia and then a session for Ajujaht who help young people start their business. My specialty is “delivery” and helping people speak better on the stage, here is a part:

And why not a new Stand Up Clip too? Here is my opener for the second half in Möku last weekend

I wish I was into Thai women. I really do. Then this place would truly be a paradise. I’m just not into it, I guess I live in the Nordics for a reason. Just not my thing. Plenty of dudes are though. Some don’t even look like pedophiles. Everywhere you look it is foreign dudes with Thai women. And good on them, who am I to judge?

There seems to be something in Thai culture where they are just more open and cool with this sort of stuff. They don’t judge each other. Even in the crazy days of post Soviet Estonia 20 years ago, I can’t image girls falling for foreigners in the same way, especially the super-fat-balding-just-graduated-to-16-year-olds-due-to-recent-strict-law-changes type. However I think its wrong to say its because Estonian women still had a sense of pride and Thai women don’t. Its just one of those cultural things, that’s just what they do here.

Artist’s interpretation of what every elderly western man in Thailand feels like

I met a German guy who told me he got his first massage with happy ending and afterwards he paid the girl to hang out with him for the night. He said he had a great time and right on bro, I think thats cool if you are into it.

It’s not gay bro if its your mates are with you

In my culture we awkwardly meet a girl and then buy her drinks all night in hope of getting to where we want to go, which is apparently WAY more civilized. I guess the definition of civilized is who is getting rich at the end of the night, the girl or the bar tender.

Once, many moons ago when I was a more adventurous traveler, I met a girl in a hostel in Berlin and after some drinks (again, money paid to bar tender), we wanted to express our deep intellectual connection for each other. My room was full but in her room there was just one dude there, a weird Korean guy who was reading. I tried a new angle, I went to him, explained the “situation” (the Jersey Shore reference would seem to apply here) and offered him 20€, which he could use to buy drinks at the nice bar downstairs for atleast the next hour. He clearly had the upper hand in this negioation so I felt it apt to make a high bid and if nothing else, the bond of bro-ship would apply.

When you are a backpacker, 20€ is a fucking fortune

Upon hearing this story years later, friends of mine were aghast! I was essentially paying to get sex! I was participating in a form of prostitution and this Korean guy had unwittingly become the night’s pimp. How could I lower myself to this? You were taking advantage Louis, shame.

As it turned out, the bro-code had not reached Korea yet and despite my efforts, he wouldn’t go down stairs. I pleaded wiith him, I even tried cheesy puns like “come on man, have some seoul bro”.  By this time, my other friend had fallen asleep, so I just used the 20€ to buy some beers for myself downstairs. Apparently if I pay that to the bartender instead then I am in the moral clear. Still, it wasn’t a completly bad way to end the evening.

An artist’s interpretation of what I look like after being in the sun today

Ive been here in Thailand for almost a week now and it is pretty sweet. Hot. humid and the food is good. I needed to get away, the Nordic winter was sending me nuts. Or I was sending me nuts, I’m not sure yet.

Today I feel dozy. I have had trouble sleeping since I arrived from a combination of jetlag and parties fill with buckets of booze, so I went to the “Pharmacy”
Me: Can I get something to help me sleep
Guy: Only with prescription
Me: But do you have something less strong? Just to help me sleep

Artist representation of my arrival at Bangkok airport

He then hands over a sheet of pills which come from a box marked “mild tranquilizer”. Wait, that sounds like some shit they give to horses and elephants. He advised me to “start with 2 pills”.

Well I did wake at 8am this morning for breakfast but after this I still lay around in bed like a dosed up Samaritan Tiger being shown to tourists. 2 pills… my ass McBain… more like half a pill dude. I am starting to doubt that this gentlemen, who works on a remote part of a Thai Island, has had proper Pharmacy training. Shocked I am.

Artist interpretation of me this morning. Much like the tiger I hope I don’t get hunted for my penis. It would make a very short soup.

I am here simply to relax, no crazy adventures as when Dieter, Adam and I came here for he first time in 2006. I am back on the island of Koh Chang, a but lame to come where you have been but see above about the goal to be relaxing in the sun and I think this island is a nice mix of touristic and authentic.

“Authentic” is the word on every backpackers mind. They want the authentic experience. I am rather treasonous amongst backpackers as I dont really like all the cultural stuff. I went to a temple in Bangkok and ended up taking photos of a fat security guard with a tight uniform. Now that was funny. In 2006 when we went to Ankor Wat in Cambodia, I was bored in an hour. Now these are virtually blasphemous words in backpacker circles. Heaven forbid we don’t follow the ways laid down by the scared Lonely Planet. The hip place to go us now Myanmar, as one backpacker put it “they have coca-cola, I want to see it before they have McDonalds” I dunno dude, I can experience that in Võru in South Estonia too.

Having said that, if I was on a trip to Myanmar, I would have a Lonely Planet, I would just get it as an app on my iPhone cause a) I can then still pretend im hip and doing it without the guide and b) who the fuck carries a book the size of world and peace around these days?

Oh and here is old mate at the temple. Fashionista.

On Nov 10th I will be giving a TEDx Tartu talk, which I am pretty excited about. Not excited enough to have finished a first draft of the scipt with 6 days to go, but still very excited. My talk is about comedy and its power and how has it effected Estonia. I hope it has effected Estonia atleast.

It is an honor to be asked to talk at TEDx and I am a little bit shitting myself trying to make it insightful and funny. My usual style is to just go up on the stage and blast away but this time I have to really write it all out and stick to my plan.

A load has been going on recently. We started our first shows in Riga, we have more big stars coming, I hired someone and they gave us a radio show on the government channel. Im a bit exhausted but in January Im going to Thailand for 2 weeks. Sunshine. Coconuts. Fried rice. Sunshine.

Ok back to speech writing, here is my promo video for TEDx

Here is an ad I did a few months ago for ABB in Finland

I was greeted at the airport by Igor and we drove across town in his friends Hummer. It was only a H3 but still a fitting introduction to Russia. We drove about an hour across St Petersburg to get to the venue and I realised how big this city is. You can fit 6 of Estonia into just this city. Then I realised how Estonian I am for comparing everything to the size of Estonia.

Igor informed me that tonight was a test night, they havn’t done shows at this restaurant before but they have guys who have come from all over the Soviet Union (I love it when they use that term) for their TV filming on Thursday and we can have a trial tonight. The other comics are cool but don’t speak much English. In fact no one speaks much English but its ok, everyone is warm and nice to me.

Igor and I start to talk about my jokes and it soon becomes apparent I will have to rework my stuff. He is laughing at a few of them but sometimes we need to change how I say the words. Igor is a switched on comedian and can come out with jokes fairly easily. Give him a topic and he has found an angle in it. We decide that I should be writing about Russia, my time here (even though it has been 3 hours at this point) and we find a way to refocus my estonian jokes to say “ah yes in Estonia we are very much like Russia” in an attempt to bond with the audience. I tell him about some of my experiences in Estonia and he tells me what Russian people might find funny. An example of two jokes

1) In Estonian pelmeeni (dumplings) are very common, I cook them all the time, so you can tell I dont have a wife

Schtick? Oh yes. A little sexist? sure. but it seemed funny at the table.

2) For the first year of living in Tallinn I lived in a Kruchovki apartment. The walls were so thin I became friends with my neighbors.. and my neighbors neighbours… and my neighbors neighbors neighbors…. I could also talk to the guy in the apartment above me…. he would just lean down through the hole in the floor.

They didn’t go for the first one but they did like the second one. The second one had more meat to it (no dumping pun intended here) and a small act out. This also correlates to what I saw of the Russian comedians, mostly big men being loud. Made me happy we have Keiu and Janika in Estonia. However gender roles seem different here. I am yet to find out how many female comedians they have.

OK but joke #2 had a second part, a joke Ive been doing for ages where I say “I think Kruschovki apartments should have been named after another Soviet leader… Gorbachev…because they both have dirt on the roof”. They didn’t get this AT ALL. Deathly silence. The original joke says “because they booth have a stain in the ceiling”, I was advised “stain” and “ceiling” were difficult words. Was it the change in wording? Or do history jokes just not work here?

Igor on stage

I also said “I know 4 words in Russian, Dah, Net, Specbia and Sooka (yes, no, thank you and bitch/whore). So the last word gets a cheap laugh. I then continued “I think I could live for a month in St Petersburg just knowing those words (I think the idea of that joke is solid but I didnt deliver it right)… OH and if I learn one more word “comrade” I could become president”.

That last tag was probably not funny and far too subtle for any audience or FSB member present to get.

I had a few chances to improv and they worked well. The crowd were nice and didn’t mind to yell things. My opening joke was about being told this (far out) suburb was the center of St Petersburg and a guy yells “this isnt the center” and then I went on at him for explaining the joke and it was fun, so they did understand me. Then I tell a joke about girls wanting a visa and a guy yelled “but russian women want to stay in Russia”, however he was middle aged, fat, balding and had a blonde drunk bimbo in a short pink dress sitting on his lap “sir, go back to putting your face in her breasts” got a good laugh from the crowd.

I would say the crowd liked easy jokes about Russia and dick jokes. My ended was all dick jokes and that got them back a bit. Also this crowd is very new to stand up, this isn’t their main venue and we are quite far from the center, so it maybe cant be my only barometer. Today I will go and experience St Petersburg and tonight write some new jokes about this town to perform tomorrow.

Igor and Anton are the stars of the show and they improv great. Ive watched a lot of comedy in other languages and you can learn so much even when you don’t understand the jokes. They do a double act and clearly have their shit down, Anton gets on the stage and talks and talks and Igor then drops in with a perfectly timed comment which kills the crowd. I really want to have these guys out to Tallinn and Riga. Ive decided I need to be a comedy promoter who does shows in 3 languages.

Igor and Anton doing their thing on stage

I had some warm reactions after the show, people coming up and thanking me using the few words of English they know, which is sweet. We drove back downtown to the apartment I’m staying in and we stopped at a supermarket to get some breakfast. I went and got some bread and cheese and noticed that all the packets were individually tagged so you cant walk out of the shop with them. For a 1 euro packet of cheese. Ok rough neighborhood. I got excited when I saw one of the packets though.

“Hey Igor, look they have Eesti Juust here!”

Igor gave me a confused look of “what the fuck are you talking about?” and I realized, of course he doesn’t understand it says “Estonian cheese” and Russia has no such language law that everything has to be in Russian too. I guess when your language is as big and dominant as Russian you can afford to have people confused about their diary products.

Do you believe it? Well maybe it is down to the word “professional“. See Dylan went there but he is a “professional”. Am I a “professional”? I guess that is a question only my accountant can answer. Either way, I’m going to St Petersburg tomorrow to perform comedy in English and I’m shitting my pants.

I have my visa and plane tickets sorted. The promoters there have been kind enough to fly me and put me up for 3 nights. Tomorrow night I will perform at one of their Russian speaking Stand Up nights for 15 minutes. On Thursday they have some filming they want me to help out with too. Not quite sure what it is but I’m all in, who cares, it will be a blast.

So 15 minutes. Doesn’t sound like much right? But what will I speak to them about? Everyone wants to know if I will do Russian jokes. Well yes but not critical ones. Would you like it if some foreign dickhead came to your country and slagged you off? No. I can make Estonian jokes here because everyone knows me and knows I say it with love but you cant roll in and abuse people. I do have some jokes about Russians which are not anti-Russian though, so I will do them. A story about a young Russian guy being misunderstood in Finnish class. Or that Boris Yelstin quote. Surely they will love that. Do Russians even remember Boris fondly? I sure do.

But what of my other stuff? Will they understand an awkward story about buying condoms? What of one liners? And what of Estonia? Do they even know much about it? What if I make fun of Estonia, what differentiates Estonia to Latvia or Lithuanian or any former Soviet Republic in their minds? Do they want to hear about growing up in Australia? Or does Sergei just want to hear a few dick jokes?

This *could* be the start of a big thing. Bridging east/west comedy relations, opening a door to English comedians to go to Russia and also bringing Russian speaking comedians out here. Jesus I hope I don’t fuck it up.

Al Pitcher said “it’s not about what you say, it’s about how you make them feel”. If I am to succeed tomorrow night, this statement will have never been more true.

This week we did a first, we went out on the road with our Estonian language show. It has been a sweet week, we started in Kuressaare, then Pärnu, Rakvere and tonight the crew is off to Viljandi. 4 new cities and we have had great crowds in each place. I am so impressed with our team that we have managed to do this. Loving my job right now.

Tonight I wont be at the show, I am off to Helsinki to perform at Club Act One which is a really big club there run by WT Comedy. Invites to perform at this place don’t come around every day and I an honoured to be invited.

It was lovely to go out to Kuressaare in these lovely warm spring days. The ferry only takes 30 mins.

A motley crew if every there was one

TV3 interviewing Andy after the show in Kuressaare

Our entourage required two cars after Pärnu. Semi trailer coming soon.

The best pizza in Estonia!

Andy on stage in Rakvere!

And finally we got Andy on the ETV morning show Terevisioon. A spirited converation which went overtime and delayed the news. Take that!

Ive been in Copenhagen for 2 nights at the Anglo Comedy Festival and it has been an awesome time. The shows were really good, professionally run and well attended.  The scene is cool in Copenhagen, good comics and a fairly savvy comedy audience.

I had a nice time not having to worry about organising the show and could just hang out and enjoy my weekend away. We went to cool bars and everyone was super cool. I like the Danish attitude. Scandinavian but having different cultural influences, they are down to earth, not convinced they are the centre of the planet like…anyway. Also Swedish jokes KILL in Denmark.  I love the bike culture too, a night out on the town is like bike porn for me, checking out all the different types and individual styles. Bikes to me are like shoes to women. I need more and I need one for every situation.

As I left Copenhagen today I had a feeling like I didn’t want to go home. I was enjoying my holiday and this is a cool city. I almost always want to come home so this struck me kinda hard. Also I may have been very hung over. Or was it the late night KFC feast Anders and I shared? Side details. I had to connect through Stockholm and as I sat waiting for my flight I saw the Estonian Air jet which would take me back and my heart began to twinge for Estonia again. Then it all came on strong as we flew in over Tallinn, however weird or funny this place might be, it is my home. There is always going to be something cooler or more appealing around the corner, but it is whats right in front of you which holds the most excitement for me now.

Here are my highlights of Copenhagen

Which country shall we invade next? At 3am, there is only one choice!

I went to the Mikkeller Bar, they have 20 of their own IPAs on tap and they are marvellous. Such a cool bar to sit around and get wasted on great beer. This day was their 2 year birthday and for 2 hours they had free beer. Unfortunately I arrived in the last minute and only got 1 for free.

Immigrants bring great stuff, like dodgy ass markets, loved it. I spent 2 hours going through every bike store in town tracking down parts for my bikes.

Dürüm Bar…. what the hell is that…. OH DÖNER KEBABS!!! I get it now! Thank you overly obvious sign!

Seriously Denmark, it’s over. What extra stuff could you possibly have on it. Move on. Build a bridge. Just not to Oslo.

Taxis in Copenhagen all have a rack which you can put your bike on late at night.

Finally the man we all love THE Joe Eagan!

Last night I went to a “Speech Karaoke” night in Tallinn where they prepare famous speeches and anyone can get up and deliver them. I had  a lot of fun and I got to try some different stuff out. They had some costumes laying around so I delivered Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address with a furry dog head on.