“I feel like there's a new gear that I'm cranking up in my head. I just feel I want to be saying more on stage and not be selling it as much, and not really care as much about what the audience thinks. But I do care.”
– Shaun Majumder
Guy MacPherson: Shaun!
Shaun Majumder: What's up, buddy?
GM: How are you?
SM: I'm well. Just watching more interesting bullshit about Trump's impeachment.
GM: Oh, did they get him yet?
SM: Yup. Done!
GM: (laughs) He's gone? Excellent.
SM: No. I'm just getting settled in here in beautiful Sherwood Park.
GM: I haven't seen you out doing standup in ages. Have you been performing much?
SM: You know, I've been doing this tour for the last year, but as far as pursuing standup, it's something I've wanted to be doing a lot more of. It's weird. Without doing these tours, getting seven-minute spots here and there in Los Angeles, it's so much work. To get the spots is insane.
GM: What do you have to do? What is the work involved?
SM: You have to hustle every night to be at every club, to be badgering promoters. If you're not somebody who's on TV in the United States, it's really challenging. But at the same time, I'm sure I could find lots more stage time in LA if I were single and only doing that. I've got all these other things that I'm doing now, I have a baby, I have a family. So coming up here and doing these tours has been amazing. But I wish I was doing more. I would love to be doing a lot more because I feel like I'm getting better as an actual standup now and I need the stage time to work shit out. I love it so much but over the years when I've been working whether it's on 22 or working on different shows or acting and then doing these tours specifically, I miss doing the rooms where you had a little bit extra time and no limit to what you can do or say and nobody's paying money to see you. I miss doing that. I've been writing material and then going on stage in these tours and trying shit out for the first time, and luckily it's been working. There's been not a lot of super stinkers.
GM: You're the charm machine so even if your prepared material isn't going as well as you'd like, I'm sure the crowd would love you no matter what.
SM: Well, that's the benefit to doing the show: trying out new material in a room where they're coming to see you; they're already fans. But you know, that's easy. And you know what, too? The crowds that come out to my shows now, a lot of them now think they're coming to see CBC Shaun Majumder and I actually have to set the table immediately before I start, especially this tour, to let everybody know if they came out for Rick Mercer they're up shit's creek because it's not happening. So that's my tee-up before I start the show because I think a lot of people come expecting to see me be in the CBC realm where this is not a CBC show. It's me doing raw standup comedy talking about shit that makes people feel uncomfortable sometimes. I feel that's really important and that's a big part of standup.
GM: For someone like me, I even forget that you're on 22 Minutes because I don't watch a lot of TV unless it's the Raptors. So I know you as a standup, forgetting that you're on TV every single week. Or are you still?
SM: I was.
GM: When did that end? How long were you there? Give me those details.
SM: I think it was a 17-year run. But I wasn't on there all the time. Definitely the last five or six seasons I was there consistently. And then I got Don Cherry'd. (laughs)
GM: You did?
SM: I got Don Cherry'd, bro. I'm gonna start saying that. I think that's a fun term. I just made that up!
GM: But you weren't fired for anything you said, were you?
SM: No, not so much what I said but what I wanted to say. Basically what it came down to is I had a creative difference with the executive producer, and that creative difference was I felt like with him as the only decision maker in the entire building when it came to what was funny and what wasn't funny and what made the show, I felt like we were leaving way too many laughs on the table before the show aired during the last three or four seasons that I was on the show. I expressed in a very respectful way and tried all these different ways of trying to get him to be more inclusive of the cast in terms of the decisions that were made and the sketches that got on, certain edits, material that got on the show; just making it more of an inclusive culture, too. The people who were writing the show, whether it was some cast members or the writers in the writers room, they're all professional comedians who have been working on stages across the country for years. And this guy never performed once; he's not a funny person, he's not a comedian. It was unfortunate: the way that he handled the room just led to a less funny show, I felt. I wrote a letter at the end. At the end of one season, he said to me, 'Well, look, man. I respect what you're saying. Why don't you write a letter, give it an outline and make some suggestions.' And I did that. I went away and I wrote this letter that was very productive. It was what I felt to be constructive with suggestions on how we could make a good show back to its greatness. Anyway, two summers ago I ended up on the phone expecting to go over the letter before we went back to the season and the conversation very quickly turned from not wanting to talk about the letter to actually 'We're not having you back next year.' I was like, 'Wait... What the fuck? Wait. What?! No. You're breaking up with me?! What?!' I was in a car with some architects who we were visiting in Saint John, New Brunswick, on the launch of my Hate Tour, actually. We were architects going over plans for our dream house in Newfoundland (laughs) and then I get this call in the car as we're having a lunch break. I had to keep my mouth shut in the car because my wife was in the backseat. She was like, 'What the fuck's going on? Something weird's happening.' Anyway, it was very weird. It came out of nowhere. And for no reason, in my opinion. Their reasons for me were, 'You obviously want to be doing bigger and better things; you're not happy on the show, so we believe it's in your best interest...' It was like, no, don't give me that shit. I'm trying to make the show better. By me doing that, I'm deeply invested in the show. I have great belief in the show. What employer wouldn't want their employee... I just felt like he felt threatened. It was one of those weird things, you know?
GM: Was it like a gut punch to you?
SM: I wouldn't say it was like an emotional gut punch; it was 'Are you kidding? Is this real?' No, it wasn't a gut punch; it was more a disbelief. I was more in disbelief: That's really your response to one of your cast members who's been on the show for longer than he's been there? I didn't even talk to him. He didn't even call me; he had one of the other producers call me. I never even heard from him. And in fact, I heard through the grapevine that he was actually saying that he didn't really have anything to do with the decision, which is bullshit. But anyway, all it was in the end it was a decision that was made that I fully respect and I wasn't bitter or angry about it; I was disappointed because I felt like it was a missed opportunity. I think the cast and crew would have supported the things I was saying in that letter. Because it wasn't just me that felt that way; there were lots of other people on the show that did feel that way – other writers, who got fired as well.
GM: And he asked you to write the letter, too.
SM: Yeah. I was like, Great! Now we're participating in a collaborative experience, which I think is healthy for any show. But in the end, I'm very very thankful for my time on 22 Minutes and I'm not angry or bitter. It was great and now I'm free and I'm hustling and back to doing the things that I love doing as well: I'm writing a ton and doing this tour has been so great. I'm just loving being that kind of raw artist who has to get back to basics. I feel like working on 22 Minutes has been great but also you don't have to work as hard when you're on a TV show. You do, but there is a part of your brain that is doesn't have a fire under your ass as much. Now it's been really good to have to hustle and to have to get back to the drawing board. I'm having a lot of fun doing it.
GM: Are you having as much fun on stage as you used to have 20 years ago?
SM: Yeah. Oh my God, I'm having more fun now because I feel like I know what I'm doing now. I look back at my standup. Every comic is critical of themselves, but I really look at what I've done in the past and I'm happy with it, it's definitely been fun, but now I feel like there's a new gear that I'm cranking up in my head. I just feel I want to be saying more on stage and not be selling it as much, and not really care as much about what the audience thinks. But I do care. I'll never be the comic who's like, 'Fuck you, people. I don't give a shit what you think. I know I'm funny.' I think the training that you get by being on a national television show on a public broadcaster teaches your brain to bridge the gap between wanting to say something because strictly only you believe that it's funny and understanding that you still have to sell it, you still have to shape it in a way and frame it in a way that is palatable and digestible by people. Now, you're not going to win everybody over. I had a couple of walkouts the other night in Vernon, BC, because I think they were expecting Shaun Majumder from CBC and I start talking about Donald Trump and grabbing people by the pussy and they didn't like it (laughs). So anyway, my comedy brain, my standup brain, my creative brain is definitely evolved and I feel a lot more grounded and secure with the stuff that I'm talking about on stage. And I also have a better appreciation for its purpose, standup's specifically.
GM: I remember in the early days, you were funny and full of charm but the material wasn't there. Then when you performed here just before the winter Olympics, you had strong material. Was that a delineation you think of or has it evolved since then, too?
SM: I think it's evolved since then as well. I think I've been writing more. I was having fun with writing interesting stories, which I still love to do. This show is very specifically pointed. I'm writing with a strong POV. Everything throughout the show talks about, for the most part, this idea of hate and division and what causes hate. And I use that frame and that kind of touchpoint for material in the show thematically. So that's been really fun. I think that you can only sing and dance for so long. I ain't hatin' on it because definitely there's value there, but I feel I've evolved to the point now where the singing and dancing... I'm older and more tired (laughs) so I just want to tell you what I think. And it's been really fucking cool. It's been really good. My fear has gone way down, too, and caring about what people think. So I'm saying some shit on stage now that some bits are complete, some bits are incomplete – I'm still working shit out, but that's the beauty of doing standup. I mean, maybe there will be a day where everything will come together and everything will be perfect and finished and polished, but the beauty of standup is... like, the day after Don Cherry got fired, I was like, I gotta talk about this shit. And I started writing. I sat down at my computer and started writing: what am I gonna do, how am I gonna approach this, am I going to take a side? Knowing where I was going, here I was going to the western part of Canada and knowing that there was an entire movement around Wexit and there's all this backlash towards the left-wing liberal media, 'How did you fire Grapes?!' and 'What happened to free speech?' So in my opening bit I kind of address that. I don't know if you know much about what I'm doing for this. I've actually added a bunch of multimedia and it's not your straight standup show.
GM: I didn't know that.
SM: Oh my God. The first thing I do is I interview myself on Skype to ask me what really happened with 22 Minutes. People have been asking questions. So I Skype with myself. And then I come out of that and I talk about how I wasn't the only one who was unscrupulously fired from CBC recently and I talk about Don Cherry for a bit. And then I talk about Trudeau and Trump and I get into stuff. I show tweets from Donald Trump on the screen and we break it down. I talk about how thank God none of that racist shit happens in Canada and then show some video that may contradict that. And then I show some more video that contradicts our belief that we are the most open and welcoming society on the planet. I shine a light on all kinds of stuff. Basically the root of this whole entire tour, the inspiration from it, it came from a sketch I did on 22 Minutes called "Beige Power" which blew up and became a big thing. It was in response to Donald Trump was coming to power in 2016. Everybody was claiming he was a white supremacist and Bannon was a nazi and all this stuff. So I did a bit of research into white supremacy and I couldn't believe that there are people out there who genuinely are fearful that on a purely biological basis immigrants are going to ruin the purity of the white race. Like, it's just fucking crazy shit. So me, having a laugh as a Newfoundlander, I was like, 'Oh, come on, guys. I'm beige. I'm from Newfoundland. My dad's brown, and whatever.' And so I wrote a sketch called "Beige Power" in response to White Power, as a joke. And the fucking nazis went crazy. It triggered all these white supremacists who believe that this wasn't just a sketch but a propaganda video, a call to arms for all brown people to come out and start fucking white people (laughs). I got all these hate tweets. It blew up and there were death threats. I had David Duke tweeting at me directly. This is amazing so I gotta write a show around it! So I started introducing some of the tweets that I got into my show and showing people the stuff that I was getting, the hate tweets. Then I wrote a whole show kind of around this idea. I show the video, I sing a song in the end.
GM: So those people that walked out in Vernon, maybe they are on the right of centre?
SM: Yeah. But I welcome right of centre. I love conservatives. I mean, I don't like wing-nut conservatives.
GM: I was being gentle when I said that. I meant wing-nut.
SM: Well, you know, it's funny because like I say you're going to get people who are sensitive to certain things. I think anybody coming to my show out of the gates, you're not getting a lot of conservatives who are hardcore conservatives just by the fact that I was on the CBC, I think they're going to boycott the show. But there are conservative individuals. I do a bit about something that happened in my hometown where there was this one guy on Facebook and he went after this youth group who were coming through town to teach about inclusivity when it came to LGBTQ and trans. You know, this is a small town. So this guy went on Facebook and he's a hardcore Christian and he did a bit of a call to action saying anybody in the town who are truly religious and they love their bible, they're not going to let their kids go to this gay indoctrination class the next day. And so I go off on it completely and I talk about how isn't this guy living for Jesus every day and my standup comedy brain, my prankster brain, started kicking in and I said, 'Now I'm praying to Jesus every day, asking him when he does return, not only does he come back but he comes out and he goes straight to this guy's house.' And how great it would be. And the mere suggestion that Jesus might be gay, I had a couple of walkouts. But it was beautiful because as these guys were leaving, one of the ushers told me, he said on the way out, 'Fuckin' faggot!' (laughs) He called me a faggot! I'm like, there it is! Beautiful. This is exactly why I'm doing the show.
GM: The whole multi-media presentation makes me think of a very funny TED Talk.
SM: Oh yeah! It could be. Oh man. There's a lot of comedy in it, there's a lot of standup in it, but it could be. I'd have to focus it and bring it down to 18 minutes. I gotta boil 90 minutes down into 18. Give me the light at 75 for my TED Talk!
GM: I was wondering why you called it The Hate Tour because you don't ooze hate, but you're talking about those that are hating.
SM: That's right, and if you look at my poster, I love that one of the childhood images that I've posted is me as a child in the most beautiful, open, loving space that I could ever be in with the word 'Hate' plastered over it. It's kind of a little meta fun.
GM: It's nice having the ability to do standup when you get Don Cherry'd like you were. You don't have to sit and wait for something to come in, and go out on auditions. You can go on tour.
SM: Yeah, that's the beauty of being a standup. It's great and I love it so much. I kinda wish there was a bit of a younger crowd, a little more younger and progressive crowd sometimes. Because a lot of people do know me from CBC and I love these people so much, so I'm not disparaging my fans or people that are coming out. But when I look back, I think to myself, what if I didn't do 22 Minutes and I just pounded the standup circuit and I went that angle and had a bit of a younger audience. The things that I'm saying now I think would resonate with that particular audience a little more sometimes. But I find it really doesn't matter. The crowds have been so good and they get it. Just because they're older doesn't mean... If there's any salty topics, that might put them off. But at the core the message still resonates with everybody. Because I leave my show on a very positive note. It's like, here we are, we're having a laugh at the craziness of the world. And that's what we want to do. We want to spend the evening shining a light in a quote-unquote "safe space," if you will, so we can go at these things and look at the ridiculousness of it all. It's more that than it is preachy. So it resonates with people no matter what the age. Like the other night, it's fucking crazy: I had a 9-year-old boy sitting next to an 11-year-old boy in the crowd. The week before there was an 11-year-old girl in the audience. And I'm stating it clearly: it's an adult show. I look at the parents and I'm like, 'Are you sure your kids should be here right now?' And they're like, 'They're cool. Let's do this.'
GM: I bet given some time away from 22 Minutes and through word of mouth you can draw that younger crowd.
SM: Yeah. Apparently it's dangerous to go to universities and do standup now.
GM: There are probably a lot of things you can't contractually say.
SM: That's crazy to me. That's crazy. I'm glad I'm missing that window in terms of the super sensitivity about things. I was listening to a podcast the other day called The Wokist. I want to start talking about this on stage, how I don't think I'm woke even though my heart wants to be woke. But if there was a chart with all the criteria for what it means to be woke, I think I need to work on being woke.
GM: I think I'm like you. My sensitivities lie in that direction, but I'm not there. I think it's good that there are those people who are, but I think it can be a little overboard, too.
SM: It feels a little overboard. It feels ridiculous. I also don't know it so I can't speak to it. I know my niece Lily is probably super woke. Yeah, it's a strange time. I even struggle with a bit I'm doing right now. I can feel it in my soul when I say it that I'm not quite sure it's on point. I talk about how basically social media is a garbage dump and you can't be nice on social media. If you actually are kind and nice on social media, you lose followers. It's where hate breeds. It's way cooler to take someone down and chirp at somebody and talk shit about somebody on social media than it is to say positive things. I give the example of how Ellen DeGeneres went to bat for Kevin Hart on social media. Kevin Hart had these homophobic tweets and it wasn't that cool. And Ellen DeGeneres, because she's a compassionate Aquarian, decided 'I'm going to go to bat for him online and going to say to the LGBTQ community, hey, we need to give this guy a second chance' and the LGBTQ community fucking destroyed her. Wait a minute! Wait, what's the good in being good? Then I just suggest that what if Jesus Christ came back and opened up an Instagram account, how would that look? He wouldn't last a day because of who he is. But even still, talking about that, I'm still not sure if that's in the rightzone, you know?
GM: Or even her sitting with George Bush, and she was like, hey, I can be friends with people who don't all line up in the same progressive thought patterns.
SM: Yeah. It's all compartmentalized madness now.
GM: Do you still live in LA?
SM: Yeah.
GM: That's no place to raise a child!
SM: (laughs) Well, you're in Vancouver so Vancouver's a lot nicer, but I was in Fort Nelson the other night and it was minus-20, and I was like, this is fucking crazy. But it's such a great place to raise a child. I'm so excited about my human baby. Being in California's incredible. I could not be happier.
GM: You say LA is a great place to raise a child?
SM: Oh, it's incredible! It's beyond incredible. I'm so beyond thankful to be living in California with child. She's 12 weeks. She's not in school yet, we're not having to worry about all that stuff yet, but it could not be a better place to raise a child. I live near forest.
GM: Oh, that's not so good in California.
SM: Well, you're right about that. But so far, blinded by the light, we have not had any fires. But I live near outdoors and Griffith Park, which could go up in flames. There's a lot of risk being there but we're in a very progressive area. It's diverse, it's got every kind of food you can imagine, it's got the outdoors, it's got nature, it's close to everything. It could fall into the ocean any minute now but in the dead of winter it's beautiful. I love it.
GM: Guys like you, Jeremy Hotz, Harland Williams, can always come up to Canada and do great on these tours, whereas you say it's work just to get on stage where you live. That's kind of an odd concept.
SM: Yeah, it is, but I'm pushing my agents to get me on stage and get me spots. And they've been doing that and it's been good. The more time I'm doing time in LA, the better I feel in regards to understanding what these cats are gonna dig. I was doing my Hate Tour in the summer. I went back to LA and they were having a Canada Day show at the Comedy Store and I was invited to go do it. I was still on this Hate Tour. And I had just written a bit that I am now doing on a regular basis on my Hate Tour. I was comparing Trump to Trudeau's scandals. I didn't realize you don't talk about Trump on stage in the States. Like, you just fucking don't. So anyway, I went after Trump on stage. The fucking room was silent (laughs). They hated me immediately! There was an uncomfortable feeling. I couldn't believe it. I was in shock. I was like, are you fucking serious right now?! Got a couple little laughs here and there, but I pretty much bombed. George Strombo was there, my buddy Tim McAuliffe was there, there were all these people in the room, and I was just like, 'This is fucking garbage!' I had these two Fox News-watching women come up to me after the show. They admonished me. They were like, 'We came here tonight to laugh. We don't want your political point of view here. Just to let you know, 50 percent of America voted for Trump,' which is not true. Anyway, I was like, 'Are you trying to quell my free speech, fucker? What exactly are you saying?' I couldn't believe it. But I made an adjustment to that bit and now I still do it but it was a good learning moment. So anyway, the more time I do onstage in the States, the better feel I get for how to shape bits to make sure they can digest it.
GM: It's funny. When Bush was in, half the comics were doing anti-Bush material and probably the same percentage, or maybe even more, voted for him than voted for Trump. So what's the difference now?
SM: It's so much more tribal and angry now. It's so much more divisive. If you're a Trump supporter, you're out for blood. People are talking about there could be a civil war if Trump doesn't become president. I don't think it would be a real one. I think there's going to be an uprising. I think there's pockets of the United States. Look at the way he's shaping the conversation with this impeachment inquiry, like everybody is lying. So if you believe everybody's lying and facts don't matter, then you live in a world where you're so attached to that belief and everything becomes paranoid and everything becomes 'These people can't be trusted so therefore we must stop them.' So when you do jokes about Trump, if you're going after Trump – like I was straight-up calling him an idiot, and that was an immediate non-starter. For example, my bit now that I do that's a bit different, before I would say 'Trump is so racist that he couldn't even write his own tweet for African-American History Month.' And then I showed the tweet and break it down. That was how I framed it. But now I ask the audience, 'Do you guys think he's got hate in his heart?' They all say yes, or there's always a smattering of yeses. Then I say, 'No, I don't think it's hate. I think it's acid reflux.' For me it's wings and whiskey, that combination really brings it up, it gives me the worst acid reflux. And for him, it's just brown people with funny last names. He doesn't even know. It's involuntary. He has this knee-jerk reaction to brown people. It just makes him uncomfortable. So he didn't know how to write a tweet. He wants to put it out there because he knows it's important to do but he didn't know how to speak to these people so he had someone else write this tweet. So instead of framing it 'he's a racist,' I say, 'Do you think he has hate?' and then I actually counter and say, 'I don't think it is. I just think it's actually acid reflux.' And it makes it more digestible for people. And they're like, 'Ah, that's kind of interesting.'
GM: It's funny that acid reflux is more digestible... You must know as a standup comedian you're supposed to be talking about having a child now that you have one.
SM: Yes, and I slip it in now. I didn't know where I was going to put it. I've been working on material around me having a kid and being a 47-year-old dad, but it fits right in because of the topic that I'm talking about. I put it in a very specific place now in relation to something that I show on video. I'm showing a beautiful, innocent bag of muscle and flesh and bones smiling and so happy and pure right after we watch a video of this fucking hate-filled asshole.
GM: You can't do The Hate Tour in the US, obviously.
SM: I think I could. I think I could if I did it through the frame of being a Canadian. 'As a Canadian, guys, I want to let you know how we're looking at what's going on down here,' you know? I don't know. I don't know where it would resonate. I would have to reframe a lot of the material. I haven't really thought of that. But I did submit it – although I don't think it'll happen – as a potential half-hour to Netflix.
GM: Half-hour? You can't cut it down!
SM: Yeah, well, they're only looking for half-hours. I know a way I could do that.
GM: And you could also rejig it a bit and take it to the UK.
SM: Well that's something I really want to do. That's something I really want to do. You know I've never done any of those big festivals over there. I'm dying to in a big way. I would love to bring this show to the UK. As a one-man show. I could easily sell it there, I think. The story is interesting.
GM: Speaking of Canadians in England, I was speaking with Glenn Wool last week. Now he has a kid. You'd never expect Glenn to be doing material about having a kid but he is. So any comic who has a kid must talk about having the kid.
SM: You've got to. I was always not sure if I could be a good dad comic. Because my dad didn't teach me how to be a good dad comic growing up and I don't want to judge him but he was an engineer for PetroCan and it shouldn't be on him for teaching me how to do comedy as a dad. I've had to figure it out on my own and I hold no ill-will towards my father for not teaching me how to be a good... Like, I don't know what material I can talk about if my kid's ugly. I can't talk about my kid being ugly. I don't know what's acceptable. So I'm working on it.