Words matter. These are the best Hari Kondabolu Quotes, and they’re great for sharing with your friends.
I would love the opportunity to create my own program. I feel like a TV show with a format of monologue with lots of sketches thrown in could be really fun. But you know, that may never happen. Minimally, I just want to keep making stand-up.
I’m not like most comedians. I don’t deal with just heckles – I’m also dealing with threats and anger. Here I am, a brown person on stage being quite blunt. I talk about white privilege; I talk about U.S. imperialistic practices; I talk about colonialism. I’m not saying things that are easy for people to laugh at.
Introductions are always weird for me because my name is Hari and it’s constantly mispronounced . ‘Hurry’, ‘Hairy’ – there are different ways to screw it up, and it leads to these awkward conversations.
I like playing with that space between laughter and discomfort where your discomfort can also make you laugh, and you’re confused about the mixed feelings. That’s challenging, and I think that’s what makes for some of the best art.
Seattle is a place I’ve lived only a couple of years, but I feel like I’ve been adopted by this city. It’s like a hug. I’ve been recognized on planes, in the airport and by cabdrivers. I don’t get that anywhere else in the country.
I am frozen musically somewhere around 2004.
When I started doing standup when I was 17, I was talking about being Indian and specifically ethnic jokes. Straightforward stuff that was fairly ignorant that I knew would get the laugh. It wasn’t flipping stereotypes; it was using them.
After 9/11, I changed a lot of the ways I viewed the world. I realized my comedy and my politics and my view of the world did not match. I had to start writing from my heart.
I am actually a bit chubby, and I eat everything. I eat in a way – if my parents fed me the way I choose to eat as an adult, they would’ve lost custody.
I’ve been approached after shows from people who said, ‘I don’t agree with anything you said, but I laughed the whole way through.’ That’s still a little strange to me. Like, nothing, really? But at the same time, that’s what happens in a conversation.
When you ask your white friends what their cultural heritage is, they don’t just say white. They give you a math equation. ‘Well, I’m a third German and a fourth Irish and one-sixteenth Welsh and one-fortieth Native American for college applications.’
Heckles always vary. I mean, some people are just drunk, and it’s nonsense, or, you know, some people just want to just repeat something I’ve said or add their own two cents about an opinion, but because of the nature of what I do and who I am, like, I also get the racist stuff, which is hard.
The words we use have weight. Whether it’s in a conversation with a friend or something said publicly on stage or broadcast. And as performers, we know that because that’s why we choose the words we use – that’s the whole point of comedy.
January 14, 2000, was my first time on stage, and I’ve been hooked ever since. I got discovered nationally in Seattle by the now-defunct HBO Comedy Festival, and that led to an appearance on ‘Jimmy Kimmel Live’ and a path to a professional comedy career.
I try to be as thoughtful as I can about everything that comes out of my mouth and not reinforce sexism.
Politics and sports are the same thing in some ways. I like sports; I don’t like the sports aspect of politics. The conventions are basically the playoffs, and the election’s the Super Bowl. To me, it doesn’t feel important.
Post 9/11, brown people had this force pushing us together. It’s like we’re all being looked at with fear and suspicion; we’re all being targeted, so how do you support yourself and your communities?
I’m not a Republican, but I was one once – when I was 7 years old. Not my fault. The symbol of the Republican Party is an elephant, I’m a Hindu – I was confused.
