033 | Absolute Delight with Absolutely Danny Fernandes
How one of my favourite comics is a philosopher in disguise
Short version:
Catch Daniel Fernandes live on the last two shows of UK / EU tour. He’s a fucking legend!
If you are not open to reading a lengthy review of a stand-up show, do check him out when he performs in Reading (UK) on Saturday 29th November (ticket link) and in Amsterdam on Sunday, 30th November (ticket link) or tell your friends.
Long version:
Imagine this.
You sit for almost 100 minutes, riveted to your chair, occasionally awwing, mostly guffawing as a person shares raw and real stories of their life.
You laugh at the most unexpected moments.
Moments when he makes you see things as neither good nor bad, but just as they are. And then gives these moments a sharp comedic spin. Like the perfect amount of salt to make a dish taste just right.
You laugh loudly when he singles you out and gently mocks you for saying “Yeah” with unbridled enthusiasm, because like he once did, you also contemplated ending things in one fell swoop while standing on a balcony.
(Actually, it was on a terrace at a friend’s home in Indiranagar in September this year, but why let facts get in the way of a good story?)
It helps that you lack the courage to deal with the pain of an unsuccessful jump. It helps that you have the courage to say “fuck it, let’s roll the dice a little more and see what happens.”
It helps that when that terrace balcony moment passes, you feel grateful for being simultaneously cowardly and courageous.
Let everything happen,
Beauty and terror.
Just keep going,
No feeling is final.
- Rainer Maria Rilke (a gangsta Austrian poet born in 1875)
You get life lessons from an incredibly fit, young and good-looking 40+ year old. This guy:
You get life lessons about feeling grateful to be alive, about giving folks in the previous generations a pass for all the ways in which they fucked us up without intending to, and about how the time that we have left, means much more than we might give it credit for.
Most of Danny’s comedy that I had seen on Youtube was based on edgy, smart AF takes on politics, religion and sex. However, this time, though he did have a few jokes about politicians, the stories he told us were far more personal and philosophical.
Fathers and Sons and Daughters
I have had a difficult relationship with my father.
He had to grow up, while helping me grow up. He made mistakes. I learnt from a few of those. I repeated a few of those (but have mostly been making new ones). The relationship between us suffered. Some of our relationships likely suffered too.
Life quakes that made me aware of my own mortality helped me find more love within, and made me stop looking for love from the outside.
I eventually managed to let go of the need for parental approval for who I had become.
Now it is all about giving my father more love and a lot more leeway for who he is.
I learnt that if you say “I love you” to an Indian father from the previous generation 76 times, they will say one back. The ratio then improves from 1:76.
It has become 1:3 now. There seems to be less reluctance to say the L-word.
My biggest apprehension at becoming a parent, once upon a time, was that I was afraid I’d treat my child like my father treated me at his worst moments. That fear passed. So did the need to hold onto past grudges that I once had for how he showed up towards me during his lowest moments.
Now, my biggest apprehension is that while the love in my heart keeps increasing day by day, time keeps running out, both as a son to my parents and as a father to my daughter.
Life, after all, is the leading cause of death.
Danny reminded us of the fact that real life is happening as we speak, in the space between orgasm and death.
Just between you and me, immortality is overrated.
Better missed and celebrated than persist and be hated.
Comics and Rappers
Danny mentioned how he’s trying, like many other comics, to eviscerate his trauma for money. He said he’s doing this rather than going to a therapist’s office paying them.
When I step back to look at Danny’s set, he deals with a bunch of difficult life shit. The kind of things most people fail to process by burying things deep within, or share through low-effort reposting of reels, or pay others to listen to.
Danny turned every one of these into comedic gold.
Rappers are the only ones who have it worse than comics, he said.
My eyes lit up. (For those who came in late, my trauma response is to write and perform hip-hop.)
Danny seemed into rap and hip-hop. So I hoped his take was nuanced. After all, he began his set with a track from Biggie (Hypnotize) as he walked on stage and ended with a track from Black Thought (Strangers featuring A$AP Rocky and Run the Jewels).
I was curious what our man was going to say.
(I edited this bit out because I don’t want to spoil things for you and I’d rather you watch it.)
He did say that most rappers must’ve been through really hard times.
On the one hand, I was giggling and on the other hand, I was wondering if there were actually any rappers that chose to do their thing after enduring normal childhoods or halcyon adult lives.
I must clarify how I’m grateful to have had mugging lessons and marks cards and slides and spreadsheets as part of my life’s evolution, rather than to have developed a penchant for guns and gangs and gold.
It is true that I process all my physical, mental, emotional, spiritual and existential challenges through verse. I started to write and chase writing-adjacent pursuits because of a health shock, that made me painfully aware (literally) of impending mortality.
It was a moment that changed all moments that came after.
It was a time when mortality stopped being something that happens to someone else, and was something was coming for me too.
That feeling of the clock counting down with each beat of my heart occasionally makes me afraid of staying still for too long.
Eventually, the total perspective that I’m one of eight billion people on this pale blue dot trapped in a sunbeam, and that I am utterly insignificant on the cosmic scale helps my low-level panic attacks dissipate into nothingness. Temporarily at least.
I couldn’t help resist thanking him while shaking his hand after the show and telling him I’m a rapper.
Familiar, Intimate, and Novel
I confess that I half expected Danny to dwell on politics, current affairs and the state of things in India. His wit and observations were what drew me to his stand-up.
At the same time, I am grateful that he’s written material that touched me deeply, and helped me re-examine my core values.
My experience of great art is based on it being familiar, intimate and novel.
Danny spoke of his parents. We all have (or had) parents. We’re familiar with them.
He dwelt on a time when his family had gone to dinner. Family dinners and the things that take place while we’re breaking bread with our loved ones are an intimate experience.
The twists and turns that Danny took us through were a novel take on things familiar and intimate to us.
He wrapped it all up in stories that ended up being so deeply personal, that we could all relate to a similar experience in our own lives.
There were two favourite moments of mine during his show.
The first was when he said that there are two types of people in the audience.
Those that get his jokes because they’re deeply relatable. Some of us in our late 30s / early 40s having navigated similar challenges.
And those for whom all these life events are yet to happen, as a result of which this show of his was ahead of their time. And that they should watch it again in the future when it is relevant.
The other thing he said that I loved was - “I write and perform the jokes. I am on the stage. I am on this side of the line. You are on that side of the line.”
I thought he was going to launch into characteristic self-aware flexing that he often does in his sets.
Instead he said - “You are on the other side. And you dear audience, you complete me.”
So let me take this moment to tell you all, dear readers, that if you’ve read all the way till here, I am grateful to you.
You complete me. I love you all.