Latest / Corie Sheppard Podcast / Episode 250 | Cindy Ann Boisson
Transcript
- 0:00Corie: Hi, my name is Corey Shepard, which I thought would be obvious if you're looking at the Corey Shepard podcast, and today we want to welcome Cindy-Ann Bosso.
- 0:06Corie: How are you going, man?
- 0:08Cindy Ann: I'm good, I'm happy to be here, man.
- 0:10Corie: I am happy that you're here.
- 0:11Corie: Happy that you're here, happy that you're in the country we get to do this.
- 0:13Cindy Ann: Yeah.
- 0:14Corie: People underestimate how long we've been planning these things out.
- 0:16Corie: It's been a while since we talked and it's you find the place easy and thing.
- 0:21Corie: I was telling David.
- 0:22Corie: I said I know how long.
- 0:23Corie: You know what I mean If you're in trend that often and thing if you get lost on the way and that kind of thing.
- 0:26Corie: You know it was good.
- 0:27Cindy Ann: Yeah, I was early too.
- 0:29Corie: Yeah, well before me.
- 0:34Cindy Ann: I gave myself some wiggle room to get here because, I'll be honest, I didn't come for a few years, and when I came in 22 years, we had done over the highway and stuff Right, and I have a friend that lives, I think, somewhere here, and she gave me directions and I ended up carrying a bird sanctuary, yeah, so that didn't happen today, though, so I gave myself enough wiggle room.
- 0:56Corie: If you end up in a bird sanctuary, your wiggle room ought to be ours.
- 0:58Corie: Listen.
- 1:00Cindy Ann: Yeah, I tried to turn by Grand Bazaar.
- 1:02Cindy Ann: There was no turn off and I just kept going and I'm like this is not good.
- 1:07Cindy Ann: But yeah, so I gave myself time, so I'm here.
- 1:11Corie: Beautiful, beautiful.
- 1:12Corie: So for people who might know, I think people do the senior clips.
- 1:16Corie: So when we first spoke, I have senior clips going all over the place.
- 1:19Corie: That's good.
- 1:20Corie: Yeah, we feel good.
- 1:20Corie: When we see Trinny's abroad doing the thing, it feels a little better.
- 1:25Corie: I don't know why is this.
- 1:25Corie: People say we're foreign-minded.
- 1:27Corie: We like when things go abroad and come back.
- 1:29Cindy Ann: Yes, yeah, that's true.
- 1:30Cindy Ann: Yeah, I think so I think so, 100%.
- 1:34Corie: So one of the things like salute to Kivo, Kivo had reached out and he was telling me about working on a, on a comedy show that I find really, really interesting.
- 1:40Corie: I kind of wanted to start there okay uh, in terms of identifying some new talent or kind of america's got talent.
- 1:55Cindy Ann: Yes, yes, yeah, yeah, yeah.
- 1:57Cindy Ann: So it's um, it's a show, but it's of a competition of sorts, like you say.
- 2:02Cindy Ann: So think america's got talent.
- 2:04Cindy Ann: Saying, for those who are familiar with comedy, think Last Comic Standing.
- 2:08Cindy Ann: So it's really where we because I see and we've seen that there is a growing comedy scene Like people are getting into the genre of comedy, of stand-up, and so this idea is to bring out people who are seasoned, considered seasoned comedians, people who want to try it but they're scared, you know, and have it where it's called Punched Up and we want to capture about 10 to 12 people.
- 2:38Cindy Ann: We'll have them submit videos, you know, and then we choose the top 12.
- 2:43Cindy Ann: And then so that's the preliminary, and then the semis would be live, where people come, you know, they perform for like three minutes, and then the finals we get five finalists and they perform for like probably five minutes.
- 2:56Corie: We're still kind of sorting everything out, yeah, but that's the general idea of it, and then one person wins yeah, when kivu tomo was real excited about the concept, like I was telling you before we start I love stand-up comedy I know, I love the art of it, not just the jokes you know, yeah, yeah so I wonder sometimes even and I like the name punched up but the format you're gonna review the preliminary people by video correct?
- 3:19Corie: Is the videos like somebody in your mind now?
- 3:22Corie: Do they have to do stand-up, or can you do other things that show that you're funny?
- 3:25Corie: I have a bunch of things I could do that are funny.
- 3:26Cindy Ann: No, no, thank you, no, thank you, yeah.
- 3:28Cindy Ann: So no, you wait for the next show.
- 3:29Cindy Ann: You wait for the next show you watch Punchdown.
- 3:32Cindy Ann: Yeah, yeah, yeah, punchdown, or you can name it Cough Up, cough.
- 3:41Cindy Ann: Go show up, is that it?
- 3:42Cindy Ann: No, no, no, but it's stand-up.
- 3:44Cindy Ann: We want stand-up, right, you know?
- 3:47Cindy Ann: So don't come juggling a ball or blowing bubbles.
- 3:50Cindy Ann: No, it's stand-up comedy, Got you?
- 3:53Cindy Ann: That's what it is.
- 3:53Cindy Ann: So it's like punched up.
- 3:54Cindy Ann: We got the name from punchlines, got it?
- 3:57Cindy Ann: Because stand-up has a punchline, right, right and so yeah, and you punch up jokes to make it hit.
- 4:03Cindy Ann: You punch up something.
- 4:04Cindy Ann: I'm with you.
- 4:05Corie: Yeah, so somebody could literally do their setup home, do a routine.
- 4:09Corie: I guess you have some time limits and you'll look at all of them.
- 4:16Cindy Ann: Yeah, they can do it at home because we understand the constraints here.
- 4:18Cindy Ann: I don't think they have open mics nightly where people can go.
- 4:20Cindy Ann: Not everybody's getting booked to do comedy shows.
- 4:23Cindy Ann: So if they record something they're comfortable enough.
- 4:26Cindy Ann: I mean it's nice to hear laughter in the background and see that you're doing it, but if you can't, we kind of take it back to the lockdown days, Of course.
- 4:37Corie: Remember lockdown days?
- 4:38Cindy Ann: You had to figure it out at home.
- 4:40Cindy Ann: You had to do a video for a festival.
- 4:42Cindy Ann: You set up your little curtain at home with your little mic and you make it work.
- 4:46Cindy Ann: A little fake background in the laughter, you know oh, yeah, I guess, I guess you know something nice get your laugh track ready get your laugh track ready, or you put your husband and children to sit down and you cue them.
- 4:58Corie: You know, I like it.
- 4:59Cindy Ann: I like it yeah yeah, but we're hoping to attract people who are interested in just wanting to try comedy and we do hope that the people who are involved in it now on the scene are interested in it, because it's an effort to grow the scene to educate people.
- 5:19Cindy Ann: I realized I get questions a lot from people who are like well, why do you do the same jokes?
- 5:25Cindy Ann: You know, I get that Like I did a show here this year, I did two shows here this year and someone was like man, you did a couple of jokes that I heard in 2022.
- 5:34Cindy Ann: And I'm like well, if you come see me in 2032, you're probably going to hear the same goddamn jokes, because he chooses.
- 5:42Cindy Ann: When you go to like Beyonce or Kes Marshall, you go to Marshall Monday or whatever.
- 5:50Cindy Ann: Marshall is on stage singing songs they say a tool to soaker.
- 5:54Cindy Ann: He's opening sometimes with songs that you've heard 40 years old 40 years old and people are like ah yeah, but if I tell a joke twice they're like man.
- 6:02Cindy Ann: I laughed at that last week.
- 6:03Corie: Right.
- 6:04Cindy Ann: You know, Bring something new.
- 6:06Corie: Yeah.
- 6:07Cindy Ann: But it's the same idea.
- 6:08Cindy Ann: That's how a joke evolves, that's how you get better.
- 6:12Cindy Ann: When you see somebody on a Netflix or YouTube or wherever you go, and you see them at this special and you are hearing it for the first time.
- 6:21Corie: But they've been workshopping and those jokes sometimes 10, 15 years sure sure, sure, that's something I want to talk more about because, um, I have been to a few of those shows where it's uh, let me say, a polished act.
- 6:34Corie: I've never been to a comedy club in the states, so that's something I want to do, okay, so next time I go out you're talking about the improv and so on yeah, I'll find my way yeah but, um, I always hear comedians talk about that idea of working out jokes, so so, uh, they might tell you.
- 6:50Corie: Okay, the goal here is not necessarily to be funny, yet we're trying to see what the response is.
- 6:54Corie: Right, and one of the things that's always intriguing for me is they will tell you, or you might know, different regions accept different types of jokes differently, or some jokes work here, some might work in the midwest, and so on.
- 7:06Corie: Right, but I think some of it comes from what you mentioned.
- 7:09Corie: Like I'm not sure that we have a space here that is like an improv or comedy club where people just go to hear people try things out, right, you know I think it's a combination of things.
- 7:19Cindy Ann: I think we do not have a place, but I also think it's going to take some um training.
- 7:26Cindy Ann: You know what I mean, some sort of educating people of what to expect.
- 7:31Cindy Ann: The audience you mean the audience, because people don't know.
- 7:34Cindy Ann: So that I know, I remember when I came here I did my first production here in 2017 I didn't come to do a show, I I was back home for a long time and friends were like, oh, we see, you're doing comedy, you're doing something.
- 7:49Cindy Ann: And I'm like, no, I didn't come for that.
- 7:50Cindy Ann: And they're like, oh, you're mean, you're here.
- 7:53Cindy Ann: And so a friend told me about Kaiso Blues.
- 7:55Cindy Ann: At the time it was on Woodford Street.
- 7:57Cindy Ann: Oh yeah, that's a good thing, and so I went to car card, we spoke about it, I told him the concept and he was like okay, let's do the show.
- 8:05Cindy Ann: And the first person I went to because I've worked with errol before, um, fabian, yeah, yeah.
- 8:10Cindy Ann: And I was like oh man, I would love for errol to be on the show with me, you know.
- 8:14Cindy Ann: And so I went to him.
- 8:15Cindy Ann: I was like this is what I want to do.
- 8:16Cindy Ann: I told him the idea and and he was like sunday and you can't do a show without intermission.
- 8:23Cindy Ann: I see, you cannot have people sitting there without intermission.
- 8:29Cindy Ann: And I'm like well, there's not going to be any intermission.
- 8:32Cindy Ann: They'll not even know.
- 8:34Cindy Ann: The show has no intermission.
- 8:35Cindy Ann: I think if people are engaged and they are having a good time you go to cinema, for example.
- 8:42Cindy Ann: You watch a movie, sometimes two hours.
- 8:44Cindy Ann: If it's real good, good, you're not moving, you're waiting to see what's happening next.
- 8:50Cindy Ann: Um, I'm like no intermission, that's something I feel strongly about.
- 8:54Corie: You know what that intermission thing I think shows here.
- 8:58Corie: I've been complaining for a long time the shows here are too long, so when you leave here, how, the last thing I went to uh was a play in queensville and roddy was in it.
- 9:07Corie: Roddy was, he was very, very funny in the play.
- 9:09Corie: Right, I know it was the best play I ever see.
- 9:11Corie: The plot get a little long-winded at a point, but roddy was really, really funny.
- 9:15Corie: And I tell me this intermission thing.
- 9:18Corie: I was like like for what?
- 9:19Corie: Like just finish your play, let me go, let me go somewhere else, let me go go home.
- 9:23Cindy Ann: Well, with a play.
- 9:25Corie: I could.
- 9:26Cindy Ann: there is kind of reasons sometimes, particularly if you do not have the staff and the backstage oh, you mean for the so?
- 9:33Corie: the intermission is for them, not for us.
- 9:35Cindy Ann: Well, yes and no, because sometimes people have to change costume.
- 9:39Cindy Ann: They have set these sets.
- 9:40Cindy Ann: To change, you have to rearrange the stage.
- 9:43Cindy Ann: Well, if they're not doing that, there's no.
- 9:45Corie: I have a philosophy, I think a part of it.
- 9:47Corie: Juneli said this when he was here.
- 9:48Corie: He was saying that the arenas like Napa or Queen's Hall don't sell food or drinks in the hall right.
- 9:55Cindy Ann: So it's to make money A hundred percent.
- 9:58Corie: I understand that, yeah, but the thing about it is like I had a few experiences with big comedy shows and where's the place in the Hollywood play I went to?
- 10:11Corie: I saw Bilbo there.
- 10:12Cindy Ann: Hard Rock Life, hard Rock Life yeah.
- 10:15Corie: And a huge place, yeah, so when I see in Ticketmaster and I see in Seats, I think, and I see in Bilbo, right, no, no, no.
- 10:22Corie: With my eyesight, me seeing that damn thing.
- 10:24Corie: I thinking I see in bilbao, right, no, no, no, my eyesight means you're not damn thing, I don't watch your tv, just like a final.
- 10:33Corie: But there was no intermission, as you say.
- 10:34Corie: No, he had.
- 10:34Corie: He had an opening act.
- 10:35Corie: The opening act announced him and it was go.
- 10:36Corie: There was not five, six, seven, eight, which is another gripe I have.
- 10:39Corie: So it's a gripe, listen to me.
- 10:40Cindy Ann: Yeah, it's too much.
- 10:41Cindy Ann: I can't.
- 10:42Cindy Ann: I cannot take why that for me is a definite 100.
- 10:46Cindy Ann: No, thank you yeah um, but I do think the intermission is for people to make money, for their bar to make money, and has nothing to do with the artist and the best interest of what works well for us.
- 10:59Cindy Ann: Yeah, um, and even in plays, like if you go to broadway and you go to a theater to watch I love theater, I love, you know, listen, it's let me tell you, these people have this thing down to a science Like I've been in plays and they walk off the stage and you see six, seven people come dressed in black and they shift around this couch, they move this thing and you don't even realize.
- 11:21Cindy Ann: Oh wait, new set design, new play.
- 11:24Cindy Ann: like we're in a new scene already you know, and I think it's just about efficiency and I think just dedication and discipline you know, and that's what it takes.
- 11:39Corie: Yeah, but even when you bring up cinema, keep in mind we come up in a time where cinema used to be one movie that had nothing to do with nothing and the main attraction was after and they had a break in between.
- 11:50Cindy Ann: It's true when you say we do like you're trying to age me.
- 11:52Corie: I have no idea what you speak of.
- 11:53Corie: I have no idea what you speak of.
- 11:55Corie: Tell me more about this concept.
- 11:57Corie: Asta Vista, Ramon, all these ring a bell.
- 12:00Cindy Ann: All those things, none of it, none of it.
- 12:02Cindy Ann: Please educate me.
- 12:03Cindy Ann: What year was that?
- 12:04Cindy Ann: I'm sure, I'm sure.
- 12:07Corie: And then the Switch movie.
- 12:08Corie: So now came the Cineplexes came and it was one movie Right.
- 12:11Corie: The uproar was big.
- 12:12Corie: You know People say how you charge so much money for one movie.
- 12:14Cindy Ann: We get used to it now, yeah.
- 12:16Corie: But Jamaica was funny like that.
- 12:25Cindy Ann: Jamaica, even though they do one intermission, no matter what movie they have, I think they still do too.
- 12:27Cindy Ann: Oh, yeah, yeah, they still do a break.
- 12:28Corie: That's true, it's order.
- 12:28Corie: I just find it.
- 12:29Corie: Entertainment for me has changed.
- 12:30Corie: You know, people like the, the tiktok and the instagram makers like the short form, the quick and go so if I come to see you in kaiso blues.
- 12:38Corie: I want to see cindy ann.
- 12:39Corie: I don't really want to see 10 people.
- 12:41Corie: No yeah, I'm not tired by the time you reach.
- 12:44Cindy Ann: Well, typically, because, like when I did the show here in February, I had Kwame Weeks and Jerome Richardson open, right and my son's sort of soft open, you know he was here.
- 12:57Cindy Ann: Oh yes, I mean a little nepotism, of course.
- 13:00Cindy Ann: Make your heart feel warm on the inside he's by no way a stretch, a comedian, but I was like, can I introduce the show?
- 13:07Cindy Ann: Oh what?
- 13:07Corie: does he know?
- 13:08Cindy Ann: 30.
- 13:09Cindy Ann: Serious, oh sorry, 13.
- 13:11Cindy Ann: I'm sorry, Otherwise I would remember.
- 13:12Corie: Bill Vesterama.
- 13:13Corie: Is that his case?
- 13:17Corie: That's what I was like.
- 13:18Corie: You're a walking kid, aren't you I?
- 13:19Cindy Ann: age myself.
- 13:20Cindy Ann: Damn it, damn it.
- 13:21Corie: I lose four plus you catch me off guard yeah, yeah, 13, and you open no, he's 30, he's 30 really.
- 13:27Corie: Yeah, oh, he looks like he's talking about his little boy, so he's not different.
- 13:31Cindy Ann: No, yeah, I started when I was, I would say, seven yeah, that's what it was.
- 13:36Cindy Ann: Seven yeah, yeah, yeah, so he can't open, but then I had, and that was it.
- 13:43Corie: Yeah.
- 13:43Cindy Ann: So they did something.
- 13:44Cindy Ann: It's nice because typically like so, I opened for Michelle Buteau right.
- 13:54Corie: Survival of the.
- 13:55Cindy Ann: Sickest on Netflix.
- 13:56Corie: Ah, okay, do you know how to turn on Netflix?
- 13:57Corie: No, I get to it now.
- 13:58Corie: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
- 13:59Cindy Ann: So anyway, so she had two shows at the Broward Center for the Performing Arts and I opened.
- 14:03Cindy Ann: Right, two shows at the Broward Center for the Performing Arts and I opened and I am thinking I'm the opener, so I get there and I have my set ready.
- 14:09Cindy Ann: Now there's a host, an opener.
- 14:11Cindy Ann: Sometimes there's a host a feature, you know right right.
- 14:14Cindy Ann: I'm thinking there's a host and then me and I get there and we in the back and she's like okay, so you, you're first.
- 14:20Cindy Ann: I mean I didn't show, I was like sure, no problem, I go in the green room and.
- 14:25Cindy Ann: I call one of my friends because I mean I didn't show, I was like sure, no problem.
- 14:26Cindy Ann: I go in a green room and I call one of my friends because I mean I have my set prepared as if I am the future, right you know um and a host is a different energy.
- 14:35Cindy Ann: You are the first.
- 14:36Cindy Ann: You have to come out, you have to.
- 14:37Cindy Ann: It's not about you, it's about the audience.
- 14:39Cindy Ann: So now my I'm like what the actual?
- 14:42Cindy Ann: So yo, I am not.
- 14:45Cindy Ann: There is no one before me, I am walking on stage cold.
- 14:48Cindy Ann: And so we sort of brainstorm, and you walk out and you I mean, I have diarrhea all day when I'm performing.
- 14:56Corie: Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, oh yeah no, yeah, I am in the toilet.
- 15:01Cindy Ann: If you give me a chance, I'll walk with a potty on the stage.
- 15:04Cindy Ann: Still up to now.
- 15:06Cindy Ann: Up to now it has gotten worse because now the expectation is there.
- 15:10Cindy Ann: When you're young, you're like I don't care, but once you get more and more, you're like all right, you tell so.
- 15:16Cindy Ann: Then I told my friend to come here for me.
- 15:19Cindy Ann: You're like come.
- 15:20Cindy Ann: You know, nothing ticks me off more than for somebody to text me and say I come in your show in the front.
- 15:27Cindy Ann: I'm like Jesus, why just show up?
- 15:30Cindy Ann: Tell me after, anyway.
- 15:32Cindy Ann: And so I walk on stage and there was a joke that I had planned to do and I said I said I'm not gonna do that because now I'm first, but because I had practiced.
- 15:44Cindy Ann: So I go on stage and I do the joke.
- 15:46Corie: Oh muscle memory kicking.
- 15:47Cindy Ann: Yeah, and I start, and while I'm saying it in real time, I'm going Jesus Christ, what are you doing?
- 15:54Cindy Ann: But people laugh.
- 15:56Cindy Ann: So you know, you're just.
- 15:58Cindy Ann: I'm like man, I'm tired.
- 16:00Cindy Ann: I was tired.
- 16:01Cindy Ann: I said I'm so exhausted.
- 16:03Cindy Ann: It took me four hours to kill a house fly last night and people were like, oh okay, they walk in and um, and I go, and I and, and I said you know what?
- 16:17Cindy Ann: I think I got it in like the first 15 minutes because you know when you get a fly, you know when you hit it, you're ready you know what I mean and you're like, oh good.
- 16:25Cindy Ann: And then you hear you're like, jeez, here we go again, here we go again.
- 16:29Cindy Ann: And three hours to kill a wounded house.
- 16:32Cindy Ann: I mean, cindy, and get your shit together, one wing is still winning with you, come on.
- 16:39Cindy Ann: And so, yeah, and then I just went into my bed.
- 16:43Cindy Ann: Um, so I, there is value to having someone like Bilbo will have that guy to warm up the audience.
- 16:50Corie: Yeah, I forget his name, but you're so funny.
- 16:51Cindy Ann: Yeah, yeah, yeah so you have someone to just get people in a good mood to get, and you are not having to dig out and do the groundwork and stuff, so there's value to it, but more than four people in our lineup it is.
- 17:04Corie: I find it makes the show three, four hours long and then you're tired.
- 17:09Corie: Yeah, I got to our piece of entertainment.
- 17:12Corie: Now you could go to dinner after do something else.
- 17:15Corie: Yeah, but plenty nerd questions anymore.
- 17:17Corie: You talk is more.
- 17:18Corie: I want to know.
- 17:18Corie: Ask me so when you, when you say, for instance, the opener and you have a set plan, I always wonder, when you all go on stage, how much of it is adjusting to what the audience gives you, versus you have a set and you stand and deliver because, like you say, marshall, he ain't changing that set.
- 17:34Corie: He going with 10 songs and whatever happened with them 10 songs.
- 17:37Corie: I would assume that he going through his you know his hits by now yeah so you, you, when you have an opener out there, like with bilbo, for instance, is he really listening to what the opening guy is doing to see?
- 17:48Corie: Are they testing the crowd for him?
- 17:50Cindy Ann: it doesn't it depends on what type of show it is like, if he's taping his special, for example.
- 17:55Cindy Ann: Yeah, I mean, in that last minute, he has already toured with this show and I think, as a seasoned performer, you kind of know what you're getting into.
- 18:05Cindy Ann: Okay, by the time you get there, that only happens if it's a very new space that you're entering and you're like, oh, I've never been to Belize.
- 18:15Corie: Like I saw you saying that about doing a festival in Atlanta.
- 18:18Corie: You were saying you were going there for the first time Right.
- 18:20Corie: It was like that.
- 18:20Corie: So how do you feel them out?
- 18:22Corie: How do you know?
- 18:24Cindy Ann: Well, I have my set ready.
- 18:25Cindy Ann: I did have my set ready, but if people are being a little like I don't get it or whatever, you sort of tap into the crowd or you find a way to switch something out, so, like I, you kind of lock in.
- 18:41Cindy Ann: So I'm saying about dogs I talk a lot about dogs, right, about pets.
- 18:48Cindy Ann: On the whole, I am in awe of how much americans generally kiss their dog on the lips and this kind of thing it it blows my mind, um, and so I am getting into my thing and there's a particular lady and from the corner of my eye I'm seeing that she's like this.
- 19:05Cindy Ann: And it's funny when, for me, I can walk in a room and there are 2 000 people and there's one empty chair.
- 19:15Cindy Ann: Let me tell you the first 10 minutes.
- 19:18Cindy Ann: I'm like why did this person buy a ticket and not come?
- 19:21Corie: oh, yeah, you know the show sold out already.
- 19:24Corie: Yeah, what?
- 19:24Cindy Ann: happened.
- 19:24Cindy Ann: Yeah, give somebody the ticket, do not not show.
- 19:33Cindy Ann: And I used to be worse.
- 19:36Cindy Ann: I would spend so much of my time like man.
- 19:41Cindy Ann: Why?
- 19:41Cindy Ann: What would make you think it's okay not to show up?
- 19:44Cindy Ann: Why are you on?
- 19:44Corie: stage.
- 19:44Cindy Ann: What the hell?
- 19:45Cindy Ann: I listen, I am here.
- 19:47Cindy Ann: I don't feel well.
- 19:49Cindy Ann: I've had diarrhea all day.
- 19:50Cindy Ann: You know what I mean.
- 19:51Corie: You're not working this show You're going to show up, come in a wheelchair.
- 19:54Corie: Come with your accident.
- 19:55Cindy Ann: I don't give a shit, I don't care.
- 19:57Cindy Ann: Get, fill this place up.
- 19:59Cindy Ann: You know what I mean Make your presence known.
- 20:02Cindy Ann: So I'm seeing this lady sitting there and I don't look at her directly and I keep talking and then I say what's the name of your pet?
- 20:14Cindy Ann: And she just she's like well, she told me the dog's name and da, da, da, da da.
- 20:17Cindy Ann: She did not like that I was.
- 20:21Cindy Ann: So you sensed that Immediately, I think once you are in and I'm very sensitive.
- 20:26Cindy Ann: Yeah, I'm like, okay, she's not feeling this bit.
- 20:30Cindy Ann: She is like this Listen, mom, this is my granddaughter.
- 20:36Cindy Ann: You know what I mean.
- 20:37Cindy Ann: So I'm like what's your pet's name?
- 20:40Cindy Ann: I'm like what's their hobby, what was their favorite toy?
- 20:43Cindy Ann: And then she loosened up and at the end of the show she came.
- 20:46Cindy Ann: She was like thank you so much, you know, for the opportunity to talk about my Dixie.
- 20:51Cindy Ann: I don't give a shit about Dixie.
- 20:52Cindy Ann: In that moment I want to say, mom, the show is over.
- 20:54Cindy Ann: You know I'm tired you've already paid, this relationship is done.
- 20:58Cindy Ann: Is that a whole world?
- 21:01Cindy Ann: You come into town but you're like if we're going to do this again, no, she's coming back, she's coming back.
- 21:05Cindy Ann: She's coming back.
- 21:06Cindy Ann: She's going to tell her friends she loves pets.
- 21:08Corie: Of course you know what I mean.
- 21:10Corie: So you see in that audience, but you could pick all the individuals.
- 21:13Cindy Ann: Once you sit in the front.
- 21:15Cindy Ann: That's why I believe that the window of your soul really is through your eyes, and so when people look at you, there is something that they either take away from you or they give to you, and with an audience.
- 21:32Cindy Ann: Imagine standing here and 200 eyes, with 400 pairs of eyes, just looking at just looking at you like this and you just feel like you're looking at people's expression, some people's expression.
- 21:44Cindy Ann: Some people laugh on the inside.
- 21:46Cindy Ann: Please don't do that.
- 21:47Cindy Ann: Where's the camera?
- 21:48Cindy Ann: Do not come to my show and laugh on the inside.
- 21:51Cindy Ann: You can do that at home.
- 21:53Cindy Ann: Some people laugh, they leave.
- 21:55Corie: They sit like this for the entire show.
- 21:57Corie: And then it's a little other great show, Say my.
- 21:59Cindy Ann: God, you're so funny.
- 21:59Cindy Ann: I'm like how Don't Laugh on the outside?
- 22:08Corie: Yeah, yeah, yeah, you want the feedback.
- 22:09Cindy Ann: But you are seeing them sitting there Now.
- 22:11Cindy Ann: You are like feeling so naked and undressed and just you know what I mean.
- 22:17Cindy Ann: They're just looking at everything.
- 22:19Cindy Ann: Yeah, no, I don't want to see anybody's eyes on me.
- 22:22Corie: No.
- 22:22Cindy Ann: No, yeah, oh, I don't want to see anybody's eyes on me.
- 22:25Cindy Ann: No, no, yeah, oh, I could look above.
- 22:26Cindy Ann: They say people say just picture the whole audience naked.
- 22:29Cindy Ann: And da-da-da-da-da, I'm like, no, I want them to picture me naked.
- 22:33Corie: Let's switch the rules here.
- 22:34Corie: It's like one of the scariest forms of art because you're going out there.
- 22:38Corie: I look at some of your clips on Instagram.
- 22:41Corie: You know what stands out I do I do, thank you, the silence.
- 22:44Corie: You seem very, very comfortable with long bouts of silence because you suddenly you're talking to them almost like you're talking to me on my phone and not like you're there with the audience, because your clips you might not see the audience till you hear them laugh, right, and you just they play so dead silent.
- 22:59Corie: That would that would I.
- 23:01Corie: I go and I go at home.
- 23:02Corie: No, yeah, you're comfortable there.
- 23:05Cindy Ann: You have to sit, you have to be so comfortable, because the silence is where the magic lives.
- 23:10Cindy Ann: I think now, here's the difference.
- 23:13Cindy Ann: I have been workshopping these things and I know so if, when it's time for people to laugh, there is silence, I say goodnight, thank you for coming.
- 23:24Cindy Ann: Oh, you're gone, I'm done.
- 23:25Cindy Ann: No, I'm like man, fuck this place, um, but I need people to listen, yeah, yeah.
- 23:36Cindy Ann: So I'm so comfortable with the silence because it's such a powerful place to stand when you're like, okay, it's coming and they don't even know.
- 23:48Corie: Yeah, yeah, yeah, you know it's coming, you know it's next.
- 23:51Cindy Ann: Well, yeah, I know, I know over time, no, yeah, yeah, yeah.
- 23:55Cindy Ann: Listen, when I just started I was not that comfortable because of that anxiety and that build right.
- 24:03Cindy Ann: So I'm doing a show and, of course, my animal bit that's my thing I still do and I do my bit about this dog and and this lady said, oh, just shut up and get off the stage please she said that audibly, like you could hear her.
- 24:18Cindy Ann: I'm telling you just, man, just really, that's not funny, just shut up.
- 24:22Cindy Ann: I said, okay, thank you, that's about my time.
- 24:25Cindy Ann: I walked off the stage.
- 24:27Cindy Ann: I've been doing comedy like a year and a half and you're gone.
- 24:30Cindy Ann: Oh yeah, I was like, oh my God, you know I'm not a fighter, I'm like this woman, wait for me outside and drag me.
- 24:38Corie: I am dead, that's not different.
- 24:45Cindy Ann: I am dead.
- 24:45Cindy Ann: I'm trying to get scratches on my beautiful skin.
- 24:46Cindy Ann: I'm like okay, sorry, ma'am, I didn't say sorry, I didn't apologize, I just I heard it and I just wrapped up.
- 24:50Cindy Ann: I said that's been my time and I walked off the stage.
- 24:53Cindy Ann: Now you have to come and we have to fist fight on the stage.
- 24:58Cindy Ann: I'm not leaving, I don't care, you leave.
- 25:01Corie: Yeah.
- 25:01Corie: You know so you're not worried about it turning into a mob, like if one person say that, and then it starts to become this thing Comedians talk a lot about bombing and how awful it is on stage when you fall flat.
- 25:12Corie: You're not worried about it.
- 25:13Corie: If one person say that, you're taking on that person.
- 25:16Cindy Ann: If it's one person.
- 25:16Corie: Yeah.
- 25:17Cindy Ann: Yeah, because typically everybody else is having a good time.
- 25:24Corie: Well, I guess you have a good sense of the room.
- 25:25Cindy Ann: Right.
- 25:25Cindy Ann: So if I'm there and your show is going on and people are laughing and this one person is trying to be a sort of a naho you know what I mean You're like sometimes you don't even say anything, you just allow the audience to tune on them because they're like shut up, we paid for a show, you know we paid for a show, you know, and so you talk about topics.
- 25:51Cindy Ann: And this lady said to me once what I love about what I do is the freedom it gives me to be so honest.
- 25:56Cindy Ann: I think there's such beauty in being honest, because funny lives in pain over time.
- 26:06Cindy Ann: Right, so the formula for comedy is tragedy plus time.
- 26:11Corie: Yeah, yeah that's where the too soon thing comes from, I guess sometimes when people say too soon because tragedy plus time over time.
- 26:21Cindy Ann: Let's just say I almost got raped in Florida 25 years ago.
- 26:28Cindy Ann: I couldn't talk about that 5 years today.
- 26:32Cindy Ann: It's funny as shit oh yeah, it's funny as shit to me because I'm like what the hell happened, you know how did, but it took a while for me to get over that.
- 26:42Cindy Ann: Okay, to be like man would what if that did happen to me?
- 26:50Cindy Ann: What would my life have been if that happened and how I got myself out of the situation?
- 27:02Cindy Ann: It's funny because people say my mom was a nurse so she would work different hours, right, and people would say to you walk with a knife in your bag in case somebody try, we don't have a taser, we don't have a taser.
- 27:16Cindy Ann: And she would be like they would take the same damn thing and shoot me with it.
- 27:22Corie: Because you don't know what you would do.
- 27:24Cindy Ann: You do not know what you will do in a situation like that.
- 27:29Cindy Ann: You know, I was in a car with somebody unknown.
- 27:34Cindy Ann: Now I feel pressured to give you the story.
- 27:35Cindy Ann: Yeah, yeah, right, let me do it.
- 27:38Cindy Ann: So I was getting on a ride to the airport this is 25 years ago, right and the girl was a friend of a friend.
- 27:48Cindy Ann: She was drunk.
- 27:48Cindy Ann: I realized she was drunk.
- 27:49Cindy Ann: I was like, oh, we're not gonna get it to the airport.
- 27:50Cindy Ann: So I made her stop.
- 27:51Cindy Ann: We pulled into a gas station.
- 27:53Cindy Ann: I told the guy I'm like look, I need a cab to take me to the airport.
- 27:57Cindy Ann: I'm on my way back home.
- 27:58Cindy Ann: I just came from new york and I'm traveling.
- 28:00Cindy Ann: I have a buddy pass, so I understand.
- 28:02Cindy Ann: Bye.
- 28:02Cindy Ann: And the guy says, oh, the guy was working at the airport like a security guard.
- 28:08Cindy Ann: He says I'll take you to the airport.
- 28:10Cindy Ann: I'm like sure, what could go wrong?
- 28:14Cindy Ann: Sandean, a total, stranger in a total in a strange country.
- 28:19Corie: You're safe.
- 28:20Cindy Ann: I mean, girl, you've never made such a good decision in your life.
- 28:23Cindy Ann: This is amazing.
- 28:24Cindy Ann: He's like I could take you.
- 28:26Cindy Ann: I'm like, oh amen, I get in the car, I close the door, I clamp my seatbelt.
- 28:31Cindy Ann: Now this is 25 years ago.
- 28:33Cindy Ann: I don't know Florida as well as I do now.
- 28:35Cindy Ann: You know I.
- 28:37Cindy Ann: This guy has a Bible open, as in his dashboard.
- 28:41Corie: Must be trustworthy.
- 28:43Cindy Ann: I mean hello, listen Revelations.
- 28:48Cindy Ann: I mean you can't go wrong.
- 28:49Cindy Ann: Bible open, on the dashboard, red flag.
- 28:53Cindy Ann: I'm like, okay, but I need to go to the airport.
- 28:56Cindy Ann: And we start driving.
- 28:58Cindy Ann: And he's like, so why didn't you take the car?
- 29:00Cindy Ann: And I'm like, well, I can't drive here.
- 29:05Cindy Ann: And of course now he's like, oh, you can't, honey, I can't.
- 29:08Cindy Ann: That's why you were in my car anyway.
- 29:11Cindy Ann: And so we're driving.
- 29:13Cindy Ann: But of course I don't know Florida.
- 29:14Cindy Ann: But I can read and I know the signs, I know the exits, and we're driving and you know, and you just feel a sense of yeah, knowing you know.
- 29:26Cindy Ann: This is not going well.
- 29:27Cindy Ann: And I sit in the car and I have my hand on the seatbelt and his hand now is on my lap Wow and he's massaging my lap and I'm like, okay, so he's asking me questions and I'm not answering.
- 29:44Cindy Ann: And we pass the exit to the airport and I say, um, I told you I'm going to the miami airport and he's like, we'll get there, but I want to take you for a drive first.
- 29:54Cindy Ann: I said, oh, okay, no problem.
- 29:56Cindy Ann: And as we take the exit and you start going up, you have to slow down.
- 30:03Cindy Ann: I unclip my seat belt and I throw my whole frame albica in the road, in the drain and I hit bang and I lie on the floor for I don't know how long in long enough to get myself together, right, I'm carrying my hand luggage, like I had this picture frame.
- 30:22Cindy Ann: I get up, I'm coming home.
- 30:26Cindy Ann: This is before.
- 30:27Cindy Ann: This is actually the year I got married, right?
- 30:29Cindy Ann: So I'm leaving new york, coming back to trinidad to my soon-to-be husband.
- 30:33Cindy Ann: Your girl, let me tell you, I am glitter sprayed to the t, my hair is done up, I am ready now I'm in a drain line I thinking what the hell just happened to me.
- 30:48Cindy Ann: I get up, I have on a skirt, I tuck my skirt up in my underwear and I start walking the highway.
- 30:56Cindy Ann: And my mom, before my mom, passed.
- 30:59Cindy Ann: She gave me a book with prayers.
- 31:02Cindy Ann: She wasn't, I mean religious to say, I mean, I'm Catholic, we grew up Catholic but she always had dozens of pray to St Michael, pray to St Jude, pray to the.
- 31:11Cindy Ann: You know all these right?
- 31:13Cindy Ann: Yes, I do Pray if you lose your handbag, pray if you lose your lipstick, pray if the car in front of you pray for rage.
- 31:20Cindy Ann: I had prayers and I had prayers.
- 31:21Cindy Ann: And so I take out my book and I start praying.
- 31:27Cindy Ann: I'm like God, mom here I am, you know, and I'm walking along the highway.
- 31:35Cindy Ann: You would think I learn a lesson not to get in a car with strangers.
- 31:39Cindy Ann: But how else do I get in the airport if I don't flag?
- 31:42Corie: down another car.
- 31:44Cindy Ann: Airport airport.
- 31:45Cindy Ann: This guy stops, he picks me up and I tell him I said look, I really am not in the mood for your old Florida on Saturday.
- 31:53Cindy Ann: I need to get to the airport.
- 31:54Cindy Ann: If you try anything, I will kill you.
- 31:55Cindy Ann: I'm not in the mood for it, I'm tired.
- 31:57Cindy Ann: Yeah.
- 31:58Cindy Ann: And he's like ma'am, I got.
- 31:59Cindy Ann: I really believe in God and I believe in angels.
- 32:02Cindy Ann: I think that was my mom that came back and drove me straight to the airport.
- 32:09Cindy Ann: This is pre 9-11.
- 32:10Cindy Ann: So the airports were very different.
- 32:12Cindy Ann: I get there and I rushed to the counter and I just threw everything and the guy said the flight has been delayed.
- 32:21Cindy Ann: And in that moment I just start, start crying and he's like he goes the plane leave.
- 32:30Cindy Ann: I don't know.
- 32:30Cindy Ann: I just tell it he fly delayed and I realized he's a trainee american alliance oh wow, look at that.
- 32:37Cindy Ann: I said are you trying that?
- 32:38Cindy Ann: Yeah, and he said yeah.
- 32:40Cindy Ann: He said relax yourself.
- 32:41Cindy Ann: The flight delay crying.
- 32:43Cindy Ann: I can, I talk to you?
- 32:47Cindy Ann: I told him what happened and today we are still friends.
- 32:51Cindy Ann: His name is Larson Phipps and I told him what happened and now he's looking at me like you dive out a moving car, like saddest, a lot going on.
- 33:02Cindy Ann: I mean, come on, you know the story going to get real at any time.
- 33:07Corie: I mean I'm covered in in that black, not gravel.
- 33:12Cindy Ann: I tell you I went in like a mangrove, so my legs are black oh, man, yeah and smelling lovely.
- 33:19Cindy Ann: I'm smelling so nice with my glitters too, right, so I'm covered in this black thing, um, and he looks at me.
- 33:25Cindy Ann: He's like you're being honest.
- 33:27Cindy Ann: I'm like, yeah, um, yeah, I came home and I saw larson.
- 33:34Cindy Ann: So that would have been 2000.
- 33:37Cindy Ann: I went back to florida.
- 33:39Cindy Ann: Um, I kept going back and forth, but I went to this house party in 2000.
- 33:44Cindy Ann: I want to say five and I hear these people chatting and I hear the name Larson, which is not a popular name, and I say so.
- 33:55Cindy Ann: I said to my husband, I said I think that's the guy that helped me.
- 33:58Cindy Ann: So I go over to him.
- 33:58Cindy Ann: I say you remember this face?
- 34:00Cindy Ann: He held my hand and he took me to meet his wife and he's like remember the time I tell you a girl, dive out a car and you tell me stop dreaming and stop drinking and things.
- 34:10Cindy Ann: He's tell her what.
- 34:14Corie: Tell her what but you build that into a whole.
- 34:17Corie: That's in your bed.
- 34:18Cindy Ann: You're doing that yeah, I've never spoken about this on stage no, serious no you will, yeah, spoken about this on stage.
- 34:24Cindy Ann: No, serious, no, you will.
- 34:24Cindy Ann: Yeah, I don't know I don't know, because there's a I don't know.
- 34:26Cindy Ann: I've never spoken about it on stage.
- 34:28Cindy Ann: I've told stories about it, um, but I've never done it as a stand-up comedy bit but then I'd ask you because, I mean, you experience it, you're accustomed to it.
- 34:37Corie: Now, is it that you're going through something tragic?
- 34:39Corie: You're thinking about comedy at the time, because I assume, well, it.
- 34:44Cindy Ann: It depends on how tragic is tragic.
- 34:46Cindy Ann: You know what I mean.
- 34:47Cindy Ann: You could If it doesn't involve me immediately, I'm thinking comedy.
- 34:53Cindy Ann: I walk out from here and I see something happening very horrific.
- 34:58Cindy Ann: I am already writing.
- 35:00Cindy Ann: I see I'm like, okay, big, cuss out.
- 35:04Cindy Ann: Somebody getting licks.
- 35:05Cindy Ann: You know a dog?
- 35:06Cindy Ann: Oh, it's amazing to me.
- 35:08Corie: Yeah, so it's not just your pain, it's pain generally, or?
- 35:11Cindy Ann: pain generally warms my heart.
- 35:13Cindy Ann: I'm like suffer some more honey.
- 35:15Cindy Ann: Let me turn this into something.
- 35:16Corie: Yeah, I guess it's better when it's something we could both enjoy Like immediately.
- 35:28Cindy Ann: my neighbor is telling me her dog died from a heart attack and I am writing my script.
- 35:31Corie: I'm like a heart attack.
- 35:31Corie: Keep your stories away from Zendaya.
- 35:33Corie: Keep the stories away.
- 35:34Corie: I want to go back to your original, but one of the things outside of the pets that I see you talk about a lot which is fascinating to me is your accent.
- 35:41Corie: So you talk about your Trinidadianness a lot on stages in the states.
- 35:47Corie: So one of my things is I always wonder okay, how well do we translate?
- 35:50Corie: So, for instance, I do in a podcast here, me changing my accent.
- 35:53Corie: I talk, so can I do things with people from abroad and different countries where the accent you seem to be real focused on that?
- 36:01Corie: Like you make it a point to talk in the way it's talking.
- 36:04Corie: You're trying to that in this.
- 36:05Cindy Ann: You lead with it a lot yeah, um, I don't know if it's making it a point to just be in myself, because it's not.
- 36:11Cindy Ann: Like I said, though, like I'm not going to speak with america, I can't, I really cannot, even if I let me just say I cannot.
- 36:17Cindy Ann: It takes work to do that, you know, and so it hasn't.
- 36:24Cindy Ann: I haven't always been this comfortable.
- 36:25Cindy Ann: You remember clubhouse?
- 36:27Cindy Ann: yeah, yeah, remember those days, of course yeah, that was horrific right but it's only had only had it right and so we used to do open mics on clubhouse.
- 36:38Cindy Ann: Oh really, we used to do shows on clubhouse.
- 36:40Cindy Ann: We used to do open mics on clubhouse, where you get in a club and you do your jokes and then you get feedback.
- 36:47Cindy Ann: So people would say oh, sandhyaan, instead of saying cup, why don't you?
- 36:52Corie: say mug, so is it what other comedians giving you feedback?
- 36:56Cindy Ann: Yes, Sometimes you have people in the audience, but then you have administrators or whoever who would say oh, this is good, Sandhyaan, but maybe instead of cup, say mug.
- 37:02Cindy Ann: This girl says to me have you ever tried speaking with an American accent?
- 37:13Cindy Ann: Now, this is a comedian that I was following on Instagram, and you notice.
- 37:19Cindy Ann: I said was, and she said have you ever tried doing comedy with an American accent?
- 37:25Corie: Are you snorting again?
- 37:30Cindy Ann: With an American accent.
- 37:31Cindy Ann: And I said no.
- 37:33Cindy Ann: And she said well, I think you should, I think, oh, that was her feedback yeah, yeah, yeah.
- 37:38Cindy Ann: And I said before I could say anything, one of the guys said you know, I think maybe five, ten years ago I would say yes, but we're living in a world now that has become so open and so diverse and people are so much more exposed, I think Sundaian will be fine.
- 37:58Cindy Ann: And she goes on to say Nicki Minaj is from Trinidad.
- 38:04Cindy Ann: Now she's, I think, southern, american or whatever.
- 38:06Cindy Ann: So she has an American, southern kind of accent.
- 38:09Cindy Ann: And she goes Nicki Minaj is from Trinidad, but you don't hear her speaking like that, she doesn't speak with a Trini accent.
- 38:12Cindy Ann: And she goes Nicki Minaj is from Trinidad, but you don't hear her Speaking like that, she doesn't speak With her Trini accent.
- 38:14Cindy Ann: And she goes on and on, and on and I say Look, the accent stays.
- 38:19Cindy Ann: And she says Good luck with that.
- 38:22Cindy Ann: And I say thank you and I log off the call Because by now I'm hurt.
- 38:29Corie: Of course.
- 38:29Corie: Yeah, that seems like A personal.
- 38:30Corie: Yeah, that's not feedback.
- 38:32Cindy Ann: So at this point I'm I'm embarrassed because this is someone I was following on Instagram.
- 38:36Cindy Ann: I'm thinking oh, this person is doing well.
- 38:40Corie: She's a comedian.
- 38:41Cindy Ann: Let me see what I can learn from this person.
- 38:43Cindy Ann: And now you're saying to me my accent is not enough.
- 38:46Cindy Ann: I was embarrassed, I was hurt, I was angry.
- 38:51Cindy Ann: I'm like what do I do now?
- 38:55Cindy Ann: And it took me a while to get back on track, although I said the accent stays.
- 39:03Cindy Ann: I mean that was kind of like hurt and anger speaking, but when the lights, go down and you sit on it.
- 39:08Cindy Ann: It's like, is she right?
- 39:08Cindy Ann: You sit on it.
- 39:09Cindy Ann: It's like, is she right?
- 39:10Cindy Ann: Because there is no one on the global stage, on even, I would say, on a national stage now doing stand-up comedy with a Trini accent.
- 39:21Cindy Ann: I would be bold enough to say that maybe I am the only.
- 39:26Corie: Yeah.
- 39:26Corie: Maybe female or in the US doing comedy with a trini accent yeah, you see some people who do it as part of what they do, or they pretend or make up a trini accent or they right, you know I'm not.
- 39:43Cindy Ann: I'm not seeing anybody who's doing a full set, who's native trinidadian with a trini accent, and so for a long time I kept searching for representation are you creating your representation correct?
- 39:56Cindy Ann: and then it, like I said, it took me a while to be like okay, because I wanted to meet someone who'd be like well, how did you break through with this accent?
- 40:03Cindy Ann: You know, how did you stand your ground with not changing your accent and still being successful, yeah, um, and I couldn't find anyone and I was like I'm like, maybe Sundian, you are the representation so that people here could realize, wait, if Sundian is opening for big comedians with that accent, so then there is value to it.
- 40:25Cindy Ann: Now do I slow down to speak, of course, okay, okay, do I get on stage and say good night to all year 100?
- 40:35Cindy Ann: No, no, there's certain things I cannot and will not say, because then I'm shooting myself, of course you have to be aware.
- 40:44Corie: And I guess, cultural context, all those things, yeah, you know what I mean.
- 40:47Cindy Ann: You have to be aware of where you are, your audience and so, but I do this, is it?
- 40:53Cindy Ann: You know, there are some things I do say yeah, and like I use my r's more like I would say weird as opposed to weird, weird you know, I would say weird um it makes sense, though.
- 41:06Corie: I mean, if you travel throughout the caribbean, like in jamaica, if you don't say r is sung, a little weird, you know.
- 41:10Corie: They don't understand what's right.
- 41:11Corie: Yeah, yeah, yeah, but it's something a little weird, you know they don't understand, right, right, yeah, yeah, yeah.
- 41:14Corie: But it's something I appreciate watching you because I feel like it gives all of us who are trying to do things in the creative space to just you say honesty a lot.
- 41:22Corie: And it just feels more honest to me if I talk how I talk, not saying I wouldn't adjust or slow down if I have Correct.
- 41:28Corie: And it's in business, it's in podcasting, it's in comedy, it's wherever it is.
- 41:32Corie: So I appreciate the fact that you push it there.
- 41:34Corie: I was real surprised the first time I saw that you were abroad.
- 41:37Corie: The first set of clips I saw from you some years ago, I was thinking, well, we're in Trinidad, that's how people do in stand-up, it's like which part, where to go.
- 41:44Corie: And then I realized it was abroad and people laughing, people with you A.
- 41:48Cindy Ann: A couple of the clips are filmed in Trini.
- 41:51Corie: Some of them I saw.
- 41:51Corie: There's one in particular I wanted to talk about right Before we go back to back in the days.
- 41:54Corie: They would kill me if I didn't get your origin story, but I usually have classes where we have to talk about doing international business and there's a module on culture going to different countries, understanding the culture and so on.
- 42:07Corie: Right, and I always talk about our culture and you have a joke that sums up what I've been trying to say for years, because you see, trini, on this good morning thing in Jesus' name, I don't understand.
- 42:19Corie: I understand the manners and the grandparents beat it into you and that kind of thing.
- 42:23Corie: But I've never seen it put better.
- 42:27Corie: I don't want to like botch up your thing, but the aggression that people come at you with here if you do say good morning Listen.
- 42:36Cindy Ann: I, I tell you baptism by listen, by fire.
- 42:40Cindy Ann: I was like, oh, sugars, Good morning.
- 42:43Cindy Ann: I'm sorry, but I'm dying.
- 42:45Cindy Ann: You know what I mean.
- 42:45Cindy Ann: Could we address the fact that I'm bleeding?
- 42:55Corie: No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no man is first, I tell you, I tell you, I'm telling you salutations before resuscitation.
- 42:59Corie: You can say it on WhatsApp too.
- 43:00Corie: You know, somebody might say David, let's do it, Corey, so so, so, so.
- 43:03Corie: So you had to talk to the thing we have a call.
- 43:04Cindy Ann: Oh sorry morning.
- 43:14Cindy Ann: You know, before you get the attack night over there people are confused.
- 43:15Cindy Ann: They're like what's happening?
- 43:16Cindy Ann: Like is he sure what?
- 43:16Cindy Ann: Like why is she already going to bed?
- 43:17Cindy Ann: You know what I mean.
- 43:17Cindy Ann: Like what we just got here.
- 43:18Cindy Ann: Like what do you mean good night.
- 43:19Cindy Ann: And so I love getting straight to business.
- 43:23Cindy Ann: I love being able to just say your file is in the drawer, the book is in the dump.
- 43:28Cindy Ann: Now I do appreciate the good morning, I do.
- 43:31Cindy Ann: It makes me feel a little warm inside, but sometimes I'm already heated inside.
- 43:37Cindy Ann: I don't need any more rooms.
- 43:38Cindy Ann: Look, the book is in the drawer.
- 43:42Cindy Ann: I've done warm already my morning and start off.
- 43:45Cindy Ann: Good are hot.
- 43:46Cindy Ann: Meet me at the mall.
- 43:48Cindy Ann: Good morning, good afternoon.
- 43:51Cindy Ann: I'm like Jesus.
- 43:53Corie: Christ, here's a place.
- 43:54Corie: You need a little small talk manually and a little small talk, then we could get everywhere is different.
- 43:59Cindy Ann: I remember, um, I came in here and we still have that form thing right, and I'm like, here we go again, the immigration form.
- 44:09Cindy Ann: Now jamaica has it online yeah, they do it online.
- 44:11Cindy Ann: You get there and they give it.
- 44:12Cindy Ann: So I get to jamaica.
- 44:12Cindy Ann: Yeah, they do it online.
- 44:13Cindy Ann: You get there and they give it.
- 44:14Cindy Ann: So I get to Jamaica.
- 44:14Cindy Ann: I played in Jamaica last year.
- 44:16Cindy Ann: I get there, I fill out the form, I get to the officer and she goes why are you here?
- 44:20Cindy Ann: And I said I'm here to do a comedy show, all right.
- 44:22Cindy Ann: She's like are you a comedian?
- 44:25Cindy Ann: I interesting, but that she didn't say it.
- 44:36Cindy Ann: So really interesting.
- 44:38Cindy Ann: That's not what you put here on your form.
- 44:40Cindy Ann: You have here as your occupation housewife.
- 44:42Corie: I see.
- 44:44Cindy Ann: I'm like, yeah, because that's how I make my money.
- 44:47Cindy Ann: End scene stamp up yes, go long, go long, honey, go long.
- 45:00Corie: It's crazy so let me talk about the early days, though.
- 45:04Corie: I saw somewhere where you said you were really going to the states with your son.
- 45:08Corie: Your son was pursuing school and things.
- 45:10Corie: Don't make it sound so bad, you can get out of my hard time.
- 45:12Corie: You were going to the states following your son at that time.
- 45:14Corie: You son, your son, was pursuing school and things.
- 45:14Corie: Don't make it sound so bad, you can get out of my hard time.
- 45:15Corie: You're going to the States following your son At that time.
- 45:17Corie: You're doing comedy and stuff already.
- 45:18Corie: No, but you had aspirations.
- 45:20Cindy Ann: Oh yeah, yeah, In 2009,.
- 45:23Cindy Ann: I did a play here with Errol Sprangalang, wendell Etienne, okay when you say them things.
- 45:31Corie: How do you get to that?
- 45:32Cindy Ann: To do the play You're not at school, no, no no, no, I knew Errol from before and when him and Nigel used to do the courts ads.
- 45:41Corie: Oh, yeah, courts you can Courts you can.
- 45:45Cindy Ann: It was the twin.
- 45:45Corie: The brothers Nigel and Errol Correct.
- 45:48Cindy Ann: And so the time I think I was going to school I can't remember, but I had a very good friend, joanne we look alike, and so we would see her, like I would see her all out and say like yo, you and Nigel, missing two sisters on this thing, you know, got it.
- 46:00Cindy Ann: Eventually we'd be Errol and I became friendly.
- 46:03Cindy Ann: I actually worked with him and George on 105 from Mixed Nuts.
- 46:06Cindy Ann: I did a few of those episodes, right, yeah, and that's what you think.
- 46:15Cindy Ann: What's the thing I did?
- 46:15Cindy Ann: The first episodes of the very first one they had.
- 46:17Cindy Ann: When do you start people?
- 46:18Corie: calling in right bacchanal wednesday yeah, that's not the thing.
- 46:19Cindy Ann: Yeah, that was the original one right, I did the first bacchanal wednesday, right, so I used to work with errol and um, I came back, I was, I was.
- 46:27Cindy Ann: I went to caracas or something with my son for swimming.
- 46:29Cindy Ann: I came back and I was like, hey, they're, they're doing this play.
- 46:32Cindy Ann: Wendell would like for you to audition to read for this play.
- 46:34Cindy Ann: It was called A man in my Bedroom or In the Bedroom Right, and I auditioned and I got the part and I was the only female.
- 46:42Cindy Ann: I was the lead female in it.
- 46:43Cindy Ann: It was where I was involved with one of them I think I was involved with Wendell, but also with Sprung, and so there was a whole mix up a man in my bedroom, but I was, I guess I was how a lot I was going to say Trinidad.
- 47:00Corie: I don't know why.
- 47:01Cindy Ann: Right, yeah, yeah, yeah, so, and so I did that run.
- 47:05Cindy Ann: We did that at Cipriani Labor College for five nights and I remember the end of the last night I said to Wendell I was like you know what I want to do?
- 47:13Cindy Ann: Stand-up comedy.
- 47:14Cindy Ann: Always loved it.
- 47:16Cindy Ann: My brother had turned me on to stand-up when we were younger because he used to watch, like Sinbad, I'm the last, I have 51 first cousins and I'm the baby, and so they would be watching Raw, eddie Murphy and all those things, and so I always saw it.
- 47:30Cindy Ann: I always loved storytelling.
- 47:32Cindy Ann: I'm like I said to anna, I'm like I want to do stand-up comedy and he's like, let's do it.
- 47:37Cindy Ann: And I'm like, well, I'm migrating so it doesn't make sense starting anything, and as soon as I got rid of my son, as soon as you got rid of yourself yeah, some people get rid of them before.
- 47:50Cindy Ann: Some people get rid of them before.
- 47:51Cindy Ann: Some people get rid of them after.
- 47:52Cindy Ann: I'm afraid to ask Don't, do not.
- 47:54Cindy Ann: But listen.
- 47:56Cindy Ann: My son is the love of my life.
- 47:58Cindy Ann: As soon as he left for college, I was like, okay, let me give this a shot.
- 48:05Cindy Ann: I always love storytelling, right, always.
- 48:08Cindy Ann: I've always been the class clown.
- 48:11Cindy Ann: What school you went to?
- 48:12Cindy Ann: San Francisco, oh, gotcha.
- 48:13Cindy Ann: St Franco.
- 48:14Cindy Ann: Skigan used to swim and I would hold court at the pool.
- 48:19Cindy Ann: Parents would come to the pool, the kids would be swimming and I would be on stage like Cindy does flying fish.
- 48:25Cindy Ann: You know, I'd be story after story, and so I did a course at the improv, a workshop.
- 48:33Cindy Ann: Not because I didn't think I was funny.
- 48:34Cindy Ann: I wanted to see if my accent would translate.
- 48:38Cindy Ann: I wanted to see if I can be brave enough to stand in front of an audience and do it, and I did so.
- 48:44Cindy Ann: I did that in June 2014.
- 48:47Corie: Right.
- 48:48Cindy Ann: And then I lost my dad in.
- 48:53Corie: September 2014.
- 48:57Cindy Ann: Right, and so that was sudden.
- 49:00Cindy Ann: So you see tragedy plus time.
- 49:03Cindy Ann: I haven't been able to make this funny yet.
- 49:05Cindy Ann: It's been, it's been, it's been what?
- 49:09Cindy Ann: Almost 11 years right.
- 49:10Cindy Ann: And so I stopped in September.
- 49:15Cindy Ann: So I did comedy for like two months and then I stopped so from the improv.
- 49:20Corie: You're performing abroad since then.
- 49:22Corie: Your initial performances were over there.
- 49:26Cindy Ann: Yeah, I've never done it.
- 49:27Cindy Ann: The first time I did it here was 2017.
- 49:29Cindy Ann: I see I'm glad, though.
- 49:31Corie: Yeah.
- 49:32Cindy Ann: I would have had some really bad habits.
- 49:34Cindy Ann: Yeah, if I start, particularly back then.
- 49:38Cindy Ann: Yeah, in terms of the art form, um, I would have had bad habits, and so the being able to in 2017, um or 18, one of the shows.
- 49:51Cindy Ann: I was trying to book somebody here to perform at one of my shows and I said, oh, I need you for 10 minutes, and they said 10 minutes, my things will take me 15 minutes.
- 50:03Cindy Ann: I said yeah, but I only need 10.
- 50:05Cindy Ann: And he was like well, what do you want me to do?
- 50:09Cindy Ann: I said I want you to do 10 minutes and he's like, yeah, but I had to start.
- 50:15Cindy Ann: I was like you know what?
- 50:16Cindy Ann: Thank you, that's it.
- 50:19Cindy Ann: That's it.
- 50:20Cindy Ann: I need 10 minutes.
- 50:21Corie: No so now you had to lengthen your show.
- 50:23Corie: You know through the intro you had to make the show six hours.
- 50:25Cindy Ann: No, but I go to open for people.
- 50:28Cindy Ann: Sometimes I do.
- 50:29Cindy Ann: I open for this guy in.
- 50:34Cindy Ann: New York five minutes.
- 50:34Cindy Ann: Yeah, yeah, what you want me to tell him, how about?
- 50:35Corie: joke, that's last seven.
- 50:36Corie: Like when you say for punch up, for instance, you, I want a three minute thing.
- 50:39Corie: You helping to train people to do some things that you would.
- 50:43Cindy Ann: You know that's that's something that we are looking into right because when I did my show here this year in February, um, like I think I mentioned earlier, somebody, somebody was like you did the same joke.
- 50:55Cindy Ann: And then they were like will you consider doing a workshop to educate people on the art form of stand-up?
- 51:06Cindy Ann: I actually do a workshop in Florida, but it's for kids seven to 13.
- 51:12Corie: On stand-up.
- 51:13Cindy Ann: Yeah, it's called Tickled, and we have kids come in for one day and we teach them the essence of what stand-up is, you know, because it's more than just comedy.
- 51:24Cindy Ann: It also teaches public speaking, it teaches networking, community, you know, it gives you, it builds confidence.
- 51:31Cindy Ann: And so the kids come in, we do some warm-up improv exercises and then we teach them and at the end of the workshop they perform for their parents.
- 51:38Cindy Ann: They do like a minute yeah you know 90 seconds um and kids are just genuinely funny and honest and so they're honest, and that's what makes it so true and so hilarious.
- 51:53Cindy Ann: So, the parents come at the end of the day and they sit, and then the kids go on the stage and they are shocked to see what the kids are revealing about them.
- 52:01Corie: Oh.
- 52:03Cindy Ann: Right.
- 52:05Corie: I was going to send my son, but I didn't.
- 52:08Cindy Ann: Because they're like they can't believe the kids feel that way about them because it's very like we had one show, one workshop we did and a parent wanted to stay.
- 52:17Cindy Ann: And so my colleagues and I I'm like the child is not going to be comfortable to open up, you know.
- 52:24Cindy Ann: And so after a while I took the child, I'm like do you want to talk at all?
- 52:29Cindy Ann: And he was like I don't want to talk in front of my dad.
- 52:31Cindy Ann: And I was like okay't want to talk in front of my dad.
- 52:32Cindy Ann: And I was like okay.
- 52:33Cindy Ann: So I just went very nicely I said you know, he's safe, we're not planning to leave here sure could you come back this afternoon?
- 52:42Cindy Ann: and he was like, okay, he wanted to see the evolution, blah blah.
- 52:45Cindy Ann: I'm like you're gonna see it this evening, you know, and it's just from nine to three okay and if kids can do it, adults can too.
- 52:51Cindy Ann: However, when adults think they already know, yeah, you understand what I mean it's coming here with yourself because you live in foreign, you feel you know everything we know.
- 53:02Cindy Ann: I don't think I have the capacity right, I don't think so to deal with and I'll tell you and I may get a lot of flack for this Sure, we are very spoiled and entitled.
- 53:16Cindy Ann: Yeah, so spoiled and entitled, and I could speak about myself migrating as an adult when I started comedy and going to an open mic in a dive bar, people drunk talking over you.
- 53:32Cindy Ann: I remember doing one jumping in my can.
- 53:34Cindy Ann: I'm like listen, george and Lucille, boss or daughter, are going through this.
- 53:42Cindy Ann: You understand what I'm saying hello, hello I am from Paramed.
- 53:48Cindy Ann: excuse me, sir, you don't drink while I'm speaking, and so I left there like what the hell.
- 53:56Cindy Ann: Excuse me, sir, you don't drink while I'm speaking, and so I left there.
- 53:58Cindy Ann: Like what the hell is, I have to do this.
- 53:59Cindy Ann: No, I want to walk on stage and perform and da-da-da-da-da Honey.
- 54:05Corie: no, yeah, yeah.
- 54:06Cindy Ann: You see people here now with Netflix specials on Hulu, on da-da-da-da-da.
- 54:11Cindy Ann: We are performing in the same dive bar.
- 54:14Cindy Ann: They have not made it the Dave Chappelle's, the Bilbo's, the Kevin Hart's and those people.
- 54:19Cindy Ann: They have made it.
- 54:20Cindy Ann: But before you make it, let me tell you you are sweating in a dive bar.
- 54:27Cindy Ann: You are struggling the grind.
- 54:29Cindy Ann: They call it the grind for a reason.
- 54:32Cindy Ann: Got it Because you're grinding, you're teething sleep, you're grinding your heart.
- 54:36Cindy Ann: Listen to my honest here, and I think from my perspective, we get very spoiled with the taste of money too, because years ago somebody booked me, reached out to me to do an event and when I told them my price, they were like, is that us?
- 54:55Cindy Ann: And I said no, tt.
- 54:57Cindy Ann: And she was like are you crazy sundian people making 10 times that?
- 55:02Cindy Ann: And I was like, really okay, because that's not what happens in the real world here, compared to where you are of course people here want they.
- 55:13Cindy Ann: They just got started and they want to tell you so when.
- 55:18Cindy Ann: Remember we joke last night about up and coming yeah, I was.
- 55:20Corie: I was asking you basically, okay, so it's punch up for people who made it, who?
- 55:25Cindy Ann: has made it.
- 55:25Cindy Ann: Here's a stand-up comedy.
- 55:27Cindy Ann: No, because, no, no, no, no.
- 55:28Cindy Ann: Who?
- 55:30Corie: I haven't made it.
- 55:30Corie: Yeah, I was surprised to hear say that.
- 55:32Corie: To be honest, as far as I can, see you made it.
- 55:33Cindy Ann: Yeah, I was surprised to hear you say that.
- 55:33Cindy Ann: To be honest, how as far?
- 55:33Corie: as I can see, you made it.
- 55:34Corie: Oh, you see.
- 55:35Corie: Well, you see, I guess, I'm judging it by everybody know your name, you know.
- 55:39Cindy Ann: Everybody, everybody.
- 55:41Corie: All the way.
- 55:42Cindy Ann: No, now don't misunderstand when I say I am proud of my accomplishments.
- 55:51Cindy Ann: I am proud of my accomplishments I have, but I have not listen.
- 55:55Cindy Ann: I've not made anything except an attempt to come here today.
- 55:59Cindy Ann: I make an effort to go on stage every time I get there Made it.
- 56:05Cindy Ann: I don't know of a comedian here that has made it, and I how.
- 56:16Cindy Ann: What is made it?
- 56:16Cindy Ann: It was a metric.
- 56:17Cindy Ann: What is made it?
- 56:17Cindy Ann: Yeah, and I how?
- 56:17Cindy Ann: What is made it?
- 56:18Cindy Ann: It was a metric.
- 56:18Cindy Ann: What is made it?
- 56:19Cindy Ann: You know and again, I'm not taking anything away from anybody else, because everybody's metric or measurement of success is very different, right?
- 56:22Cindy Ann: So maybe somebody here is like I made it because I was able to stand and perform for an hour, I've made it.
- 56:30Cindy Ann: Okay, I have not made it because there's so much more I want.
- 56:34Corie: What would that look like for you?
- 56:35Corie: Like if you had to compare yourself, in other words, selling out big arenas.
- 56:38Corie: What has made it for you?
- 56:39Cindy Ann: Not even selling out big arenas because even there's so much logistics in doing comedy in a large arena.
- 56:45Cindy Ann: People like Bill Burr can do that.
- 56:48Cindy Ann: But you have a lot of comics here.
- 56:49Cindy Ann: But you have a lot of comics here.
- 56:49Cindy Ann: If you tell them 1,500, 2,000 people, they tell you no.
- 56:52Corie: Oh, I see.
- 56:53Cindy Ann: Because they need intimacy because of what they do.
- 56:57Cindy Ann: So they much prefer a smaller, intimate vibe in room to do well, and if they're not having fun, you're not having fun.
- 57:07Corie: You were saying you prefer that too, like an intimate.
- 57:10Cindy Ann: Yeah, I cannot see myself doing a show like in a Jean Pierre complex.
- 57:13Corie: No, no, no, prefer that too like an intimate.
- 57:14Corie: Yeah, I cannot see myself doing a show like in a gene beer complex.
- 57:15Cindy Ann: No, no, no, you have that thing, my thing.
- 57:17Cindy Ann: And then people walking around.
- 57:18Cindy Ann: I tell you how sensitive when I look up and I see two people walking around you know that was one of the so funny.
- 57:26Corie: You say that that was one of my most shocking things when I went to that.
- 57:29Corie: Um, who's name of the place again?
- 57:30Corie: Hollywood, hard Rock.
- 57:31Corie: I can never remember Hard Rock, hard Rock do you remember my name, corey?
- 57:37Corie: I haven't written that one, so yeah, one of my more surprising things in that arena was just how much people would be walking around.
- 57:43Corie: I didn't know.
- 57:45Corie: You see, when you watch a special, you see it.
- 57:47Corie: You only see the stage more or less Correct.
- 57:49Corie: So I went back After Bilbo.
- 57:52Corie: We saw Chappelle advertising so he was like we're going back for that and when Chappelle was drunk like a fisher.
- 57:56Cindy Ann: Yeah, and smoking.
- 57:57Cindy Ann: He was drunk and smoking.
- 57:59Corie: But he couldn't do the act.
- 58:00Corie: It was what he has now on Netflix called the dreamer was the act that we saw.
- 58:05Corie: So when you said repeating jokes, it's like what we saw on stage is where he have in his special.
- 58:10Corie: He was doing it across the states, correct?
- 58:12Corie: But you see that now as one of the habits of a comedy world for developing poly compared to where you are, because that well, you said it that is not going to fly here.
- 58:21Cindy Ann: It's not like if I don't think it's not going to fly.
- 58:24Cindy Ann: I think it takes.
- 58:26Cindy Ann: It will take time.
- 58:27Corie: Right.
- 58:28Cindy Ann: And it will take someone to have the balls to do it Right.
- 58:32Cindy Ann: That's you.
- 58:32Cindy Ann: I don't live here.
- 58:35Corie: But you're changing it, you're doing shows.
- 58:36Cindy Ann: You're telling people you're coming back.
- 58:38Cindy Ann: I have impacted the way stand-up comedy is done here 100%.
- 58:45Cindy Ann: You know, when I did my show here in 2017, kivo was on the show.
- 58:47Cindy Ann: It was two hours.
- 58:50Cindy Ann: People had never seen or experienced anything like that before, yeah, and so they really enjoyed it.
- 58:55Cindy Ann: And then, when I did the one I did at Bricks and this year at Art Society was a.
- 59:01Cindy Ann: BYOB Got it.
- 59:02Cindy Ann: You bring your cooler.
- 59:04Cindy Ann: So I think thing fit, but without the fit Right.
- 59:07Cindy Ann: So I have.
- 59:09Cindy Ann: I know that I have changed the face of it and have impacted the lives of, I hope, some of the local talent here.
- 59:20Cindy Ann: But I think it can happen.
- 59:24Cindy Ann: But you have to really just stand firm in your belief.
- 59:28Cindy Ann: You know what I mean.
- 59:29Cindy Ann: I'll tell you something in your belief.
- 59:30Cindy Ann: You know what I mean.
- 59:31Cindy Ann: I'll tell you something.
- 59:33Cindy Ann: Last year, I think it was, yeah, I came home and I went to Teddison John.
- 59:40Cindy Ann: Right Did something during the carnival that I had dreamed of for a long time.
- 59:48Cindy Ann: Yeah, he was brave enough to do it At a time where everybody is jumping, waving whining.
- 59:53Cindy Ann: He was brave enough to do it at a time where everybody is jumping, waving whining.
- 59:56Cindy Ann: he was like come to Napa and sit for two hours, three hours, and hear me sing a stripped down version of, and people bought into it it was well, it was talked about, it was well received and so when I said I was doing my show here in february, people were like carnival time and we booked the show a month out because I wasn't sure and everything just happened so quickly.
- 1:00:23Cindy Ann: People came.
- 1:00:24Cindy Ann: Not everybody wants to jump and wave and whine yeah, you know and so, um, I think, if people start creating it and building on it, people will buy into it, because, like you, there are people who go abroad to look at comedy.
- 1:00:42Corie: Yes.
- 1:00:42Cindy Ann: There are people who go to comedy clubs in New York.
- 1:00:45Cindy Ann: There are people, of course, and so it is an education.
- 1:00:49Cindy Ann: It is a matter of making people aware of why it's done, because if I say to you, okay, but why?
- 1:00:58Cindy Ann: I keep telling the same jokes and I explain but do you go to see Kes every Tuesday, on every Convo?
- 1:01:04Corie: Tuesday, tuesday night, yeah.
- 1:01:05Cindy Ann: He comes out and he sings hello is a must.
- 1:01:08Cindy Ann: And so you have your jokes that you know will get people in.
- 1:01:13Cindy Ann: Let me tell you, if I come here and tell you the minute I start saying, a Trinidadian, a Bajan and a Jamaican was in jail and waiting for mango season.
- 1:01:19Cindy Ann: The man said waiting for mango season.
- 1:01:21Cindy Ann: That joke has been around since 19-nothing, not even years behind the year 19,.
- 1:01:28Cindy Ann: Not 100, 0019.
- 1:01:33Cindy Ann: That joke has been running a man you know a man stand up a man walking in the market like this and a fella say what happened, he say, oh shit, I didn't realize my watermelon fall out.
- 1:01:44Cindy Ann: Them kind of hacky, but you would still laugh people will go by Brooklyn bar, by the rum shop, and the minute a man say you know, man, a Trini fella and a Bajon fella, people start, they tune in.
- 1:01:54Cindy Ann: Of course, yeah, people will go by Brooklyn Bar, by the rum shop and the minute a man say you know, man, a Trini fella, a Bajon fella, people start, they tune in.
- 1:02:00Corie: They've heard the joke a million times.
- 1:02:01Corie: Yeah, I guess it's why, chappelle and them, lock up your phones too.
- 1:02:02Corie: They're trying to ensure that people don't record it and put it out.
- 1:02:05Cindy Ann: And so it's the same idea.
- 1:02:07Cindy Ann: It's the same concept and I am doing jokes I started doing in 2014.
- 1:02:13Cindy Ann: But you change, you grow, you become something different, the world change.
- 1:02:19Cindy Ann: So let's just say I had a joke where I say and man, I just slammed the phone down on my, I can't do this again no I understand so the world is changing.
- 1:02:35Cindy Ann: There's now things like matcha.
- 1:02:36Cindy Ann: You could include matcha.
- 1:02:37Cindy Ann: Instead of saying you understand, you know the evolution has changed long time you'll do a joke and say well, you went by the obama.
- 1:02:50Cindy Ann: Now you say go by the psychic.
- 1:02:51Corie: No, of course I see, I see.
- 1:02:54Cindy Ann: So you keep a joke and you work it until and the thing is you can start a joke that's one minute long.
- 1:03:02Corie: Right.
- 1:03:03Cindy Ann: And over years it becomes a 10 minute long.
- 1:03:07Cindy Ann: But you've heard the first part before.
- 1:03:08Cindy Ann: But now you're like man she doing the same joke Because you're already pissed you know, with your sour self.
- 1:03:14Cindy Ann: Come liming on the inside and laughing on the inside.
- 1:03:19Cindy Ann: You hear the first part.
- 1:03:21Cindy Ann: You're like you miss the whole nine minutes.
- 1:03:24Cindy Ann: That's so new and fresh, yeah you understand.
- 1:03:27Cindy Ann: And so, cory, if I tell you I don't suffer fools anymore.
- 1:03:32Cindy Ann: I don't care.
- 1:03:33Cindy Ann: People call me all the time.
- 1:03:35Cindy Ann: They always have advice.
- 1:03:36Cindy Ann: You should do a joke about a man who have a jersey with a button missing.
- 1:03:39Cindy Ann: Get the shit out my face.
- 1:03:40Cindy Ann: You do it.
- 1:03:42Corie: I had to get some of that.
- 1:03:45Corie: I had to work on some of that, so you ensure that people have a different experience by building on it.
- 1:03:52Corie: You add new and you yeah.
- 1:03:54Corie: Or sometimes I'll tell you I did a show and I got there.
- 1:04:00Cindy Ann: The lady came over to me and she said she saw me walking in.
- 1:04:03Cindy Ann: That's why I don't like to see anybody before I get on stage.
- 1:04:05Cindy Ann: I don't like to see.
- 1:04:06Cindy Ann: She saw me walking in.
- 1:04:07Cindy Ann: She's like I hope you do your joke about the flags.
- 1:04:10Cindy Ann: I told my friend about now immediately.
- 1:04:12Cindy Ann: I didn't have it in my set.
- 1:04:13Cindy Ann: I see I'm backstage thinking how do I fit this in?
- 1:04:15Cindy Ann: I didn't plan on doing this joke, you know, oh my God, like because now you want to appease this one person who was probably living a life, a miserable life, you know, depending on your one flag, joke for them to live for a week like mom, you know, do therapy using therapy?
- 1:04:33Corie: yes, you use therapy.
- 1:04:35Corie: People come in to see and it's true yeah, it's true I am in therapy.
- 1:04:41Corie: I am a psychiatrist, yeah, unless a psychiatrist you understand, I level up, I level up.
- 1:04:50Cindy Ann: I'm with a psychiatrist and she's the best thing that has ever happened to me.
- 1:04:54Cindy Ann: You know, and I knew it the first time we met.
- 1:04:58Cindy Ann: She got on a Zoom call late, completely disheveled.
- 1:05:05Cindy Ann: I mean I'm like, okay, this bitch more messed up.
- 1:05:06Cindy Ann: We offed a very good start.
- 1:05:10Cindy Ann: I was like, hi, kathy, just the only favor.
- 1:05:17Cindy Ann: One thing I ask of you schedule my session after yours so.
- 1:05:22Cindy Ann: I get you in a good place.
- 1:05:23Cindy Ann: Don't come to me before you see us, before you see your therapist.
- 1:05:27Cindy Ann: Do not see me come to me in a good place so that you can also hand down the knowledge you just got.
- 1:05:34Corie: Oh, I'm with you, you understand, you had a.
- 1:05:36Corie: All right, you maximized it.
- 1:05:38Corie: I like it.
- 1:05:40Corie: So, going back to that, move to the States.
- 1:05:41Corie: Right, you said you went to do the improv workshop, but also saw you went to a performing arts school.
- 1:05:46Cindy Ann: Stella Adler, yeah, stella Adler, in New York.
- 1:05:49Corie: You went there with comedy in mind, or?
- 1:05:51Cindy Ann: just performing arts in general, acting Okay, so something you want to do.
- 1:05:55Cindy Ann: Yeah, I've done drama for a long time.
- 1:05:57Cindy Ann: I've done improv, All those things held comedy.
- 1:06:01Cindy Ann: But acting I love.
- 1:06:03Cindy Ann: I prefer theatre, the live thing you prefer.
- 1:06:07Corie: That.
- 1:06:07Cindy Ann: Yeah, you could be bolder Acting.
- 1:06:10Cindy Ann: You have to be a little more.
- 1:06:12Corie: I suppose you.
- 1:06:12Corie: You could be bolder Acting.
- 1:06:13Corie: You have to be a little more.
- 1:06:14Corie: I suppose you know quiet?
- 1:06:15Cindy Ann: Yeah.
- 1:06:16Cindy Ann: Acting TV or screen versus theatre?
- 1:06:16Cindy Ann: Yes, it's very different to live theatre.
- 1:06:18Cindy Ann: Got it yeah?
- 1:06:19Corie: Why is you like this live thing so much?
- 1:06:20Corie: I try to run from live.
- 1:06:22Corie: You hadn't had first internet.
- 1:06:24Cindy Ann: I tell you I've seen a psychiatrist, I have mental issues.
- 1:06:26Cindy Ann: What you didn't get, you know Clearly.
- 1:06:29Corie: Clearly that is where it had to be.
- 1:06:30Corie: When you're on television?
- 1:06:31Cindy Ann: at no point, do you not television?
- 1:06:33Cindy Ann: Let's just say I'm in a movie and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah and somebody pissed me off.
- 1:06:36Cindy Ann: I can't smash this cup, but if I'm doing stand-up and somebody says something, oh, I could just take the stool and throw it off.
- 1:06:45Cindy Ann: You know what I mean.
- 1:06:47Corie: I could have a moment of passion.
- 1:06:50Corie: A moment of passion is wild.
- 1:06:51Cindy Ann: I can have a moment of passion.
- 1:06:53Cindy Ann: You know, I call it passion.
- 1:06:54Cindy Ann: What do you call it?
- 1:06:55Cindy Ann: What do you call it?
- 1:06:55Cindy Ann: I don't call it nothing.
- 1:06:59Corie: I can have a moment of passion.
- 1:07:00Corie: I with you, I with you.
- 1:07:01Corie: So what's your biggest difference when you do shows here versus the shows you would do over there, in terms of our audience, outside of just the idea of the feeling of repeating jokes?
- 1:07:10Corie: How are you adjusted?
- 1:07:14Cindy Ann: First of all, if I'm doing a show home, I come home a week or two before the show.
- 1:07:17Cindy Ann: I have to remember how we live, because I forget so like the good morning, like if I came the day before and jump on stage, I wouldn't remember good morning.
- 1:07:27Cindy Ann: That was a cold hard.
- 1:07:29Corie: Yeah, yeah boy um, this is the real thing you're talking about.
- 1:07:34Corie: You experience it and bring it in.
- 1:07:36Cindy Ann: My comedy is about.
- 1:07:37Cindy Ann: I tell you I don't make up anything on stage.
- 1:07:39Cindy Ann: It's life, it's the truth.
- 1:07:40Cindy Ann: I punch up.
- 1:07:42Cindy Ann: That's where it comes in.
- 1:07:43Cindy Ann: So I will punch up a joke, and so that's where the writing and the creative thing comes in.
- 1:07:50Cindy Ann: So you saw Dave Chappelle, you see Bill Bull, some things.
- 1:07:53Cindy Ann: You're I wonder if you really did that.
- 1:07:56Cindy Ann: Sometimes you don't, but it's believable because this story has happened Right, and so you punch it up.
- 1:08:04Cindy Ann: And so sometimes, when they say you punch down is when you start hurting people.
- 1:08:08Cindy Ann: You've heard the term right there, of course.
- 1:08:11Cindy Ann: Anyway, and so for me, I think usually I spend the first 10, 15 minutes talking about home, relaxing, you know, just getting people ready.
- 1:08:23Cindy Ann: So I come, I make sure.
- 1:08:26Cindy Ann: This time I brought my son for the first time he experienced carnival.
- 1:08:29Corie: Right, I see.
- 1:08:30Cindy Ann: Panorama.
- 1:08:31Cindy Ann: I took him to Pan and after Pan I said to him I was like how was it?
- 1:08:35Cindy Ann: And he's like it was weird, mommy, like it was so overstimulating.
- 1:08:41Cindy Ann: He was like there was a group playing like a beaten iron thing here, and then the music, and then the pan, and then people talking and then they're walking.
- 1:08:48Cindy Ann: And he was like it was just so much, he said, but I felt safe, you know, because there was room, it wasn't overcrowded.
- 1:08:57Cindy Ann: I felt safe.
- 1:08:58Corie: And.
- 1:08:58Cindy Ann: I said everything you've described to me.
- 1:09:01Cindy Ann: The safety is the one thing I hated about Panorama.
- 1:09:05Cindy Ann: Yeah, oh yeah.
- 1:09:06Cindy Ann: This year I went to Pan and felt safe.
- 1:09:08Cindy Ann: I'm never going back.
- 1:09:09Corie: So what do you want to feel?
- 1:09:10Cindy Ann: I want to go.
- 1:09:11Cindy Ann: I want a man to try to lick my neck.
- 1:09:13Cindy Ann: You know that is essence.
- 1:09:15Cindy Ann: Listen, panorama is pandemonium.
- 1:09:19Cindy Ann: I want to be able to go to the restroom.
- 1:09:21Cindy Ann: And all the toilets full, so now I have to pee under the not stand.
- 1:09:25Cindy Ann: It's an experience you understand.
- 1:09:28Cindy Ann: I came home there was police fire.
- 1:09:30Cindy Ann: You couldn't stand on the staircase.
- 1:09:33Cindy Ann: I'm like this is shit, I couldn't do that.
- 1:09:37Cindy Ann: Daily I come to Panorama for me to be walking through the crowd, somebody tried to pinch my bottom, my elbow there, my thing is a hole back and on.
- 1:09:46Cindy Ann: Be, careful what you say.
- 1:09:47Cindy Ann: Well, I'm not going back, so nobody try it.
- 1:09:50Cindy Ann: But also, I didn't end with what happens to them.
- 1:09:54Cindy Ann: Remember there also is an exchange.
- 1:09:57Cindy Ann: So they pinch my bottom, I punch them in the face.
- 1:09:58Cindy Ann: Police come, I go home, I get up I say Pan was real good, you know, I know Pan was real good.
- 1:10:04Cindy Ann: Yeah, he end up in jail.
- 1:10:05Cindy Ann: I go.
- 1:10:06Cindy Ann: You know what I mean?
- 1:10:07Cindy Ann: I'm like I had a real good time.
- 1:10:08Cindy Ann: This is not good at all.
- 1:10:10Cindy Ann: But Panorama, I mean I'd get there early and we knew.
- 1:10:18Cindy Ann: We knew when we saw a certain, a select group of people arrive, the gate coming down in about 10 minutes.
- 1:10:25Corie: I was about storming Of course I was in the east.
- 1:10:28Cindy Ann: I paid $500 to go into Panama this year.
- 1:10:30Corie: Imagine that we'd have never thought Listen to hell was with that.
- 1:10:32Cindy Ann: We'd have never thought you know why For safety and shit.
- 1:10:35Corie: Yeah, that's what you sound.
- 1:10:36Corie: You sound right.
- 1:10:36Corie: I like him a lot.
- 1:10:37Corie: I like him a lot I felt so safe.
- 1:10:41Cindy Ann: I'm like yuck, yuck.
- 1:10:43Cindy Ann: That's why children today, everything they gain fever, they're sick, they can't stand up, they're tired.
- 1:10:48Cindy Ann: They can't walk, they're in fever and they're safe, oh my.
- 1:10:50Corie: God Any day of the week?
- 1:10:51Corie: No, no, no.
- 1:10:54Corie: But I see what.
- 1:10:54Corie: Even in this panorama thing, I can see where you come, you observe, and then your first part you give us some of us.
- 1:11:01Cindy Ann: I take it in.
- 1:11:02Cindy Ann: It's always beautiful for me and it happens every single time I get in the car on my way here and it takes me about.
- 1:11:14Cindy Ann: This time it took me a little less time about 20 seconds Because as soon as I sit in the car I'm like shit.
- 1:11:20Cindy Ann: I mean they say crime, bad, but they thief the steering wheel Before I realized.
- 1:11:27Cindy Ann: I'm sitting on the wrong side of the car.
- 1:11:28Cindy Ann: I'm staring at the dashboard like like they took the steering wheel and fix it back.
- 1:11:40Corie: So they were good.
- 1:11:41Cindy Ann: they're so good, I mean I mean, I didn't realize the criminal's so good.
- 1:11:45Cindy Ann: And I look over and I'm like, nah, they're so good, they're good, but they're so good.
- 1:11:50Cindy Ann: So now you're still, you're good, you're good, just just switch sides.
- 1:11:56Cindy Ann: Um, yeah, yeah, yeah.
- 1:11:59Cindy Ann: So by the time you reach stage those observations.
- 1:12:02Corie: You're writing and making it into something, or you're observing and you're going on stage.
- 1:12:05Corie: No, no, no, no, no.
- 1:12:06Cindy Ann: I'm writing, I'm writing, I'm writing, I get by.
- 1:12:09Cindy Ann: So by the time I get there I open up with home, with coming home and that experience Taking my son to my childhood home and him running to tell me Mom, a rooster.
- 1:12:23Cindy Ann: I'm like Jesus, where did I fail this child?
- 1:12:26Cindy Ann: I'm like it's a yard foul, it's a rooster.
- 1:12:30Corie: I like Keegan a lot.
- 1:12:31Corie: I also like him more.
- 1:12:32Corie: What do you think is a rooster?
- 1:12:33Cindy Ann: I said Mom a rooster.
- 1:12:35Cindy Ann: I'm like a what?
- 1:12:44Corie: I said, listen, baby, it rooster.
- 1:12:44Corie: I'm like a, what I'm sick.
- 1:12:45Cindy Ann: I said listen, baby, it's a yard, you know, we don't have roosters.
- 1:12:46Cindy Ann: We don't have roosters here.
- 1:12:47Cindy Ann: And he says it really are too.
- 1:12:48Cindy Ann: It's a rooster, um, but he's still very triniac because he left here at 15.
- 1:12:51Corie: Okay, so he went to fatima college yeah, he's a good boy and so yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah I wonder sometimes, like when I watch comedians here, as I say I love it, so any chance I get like I did the Yanga Tang thing and the Caribbean Comedy Festival in those days, right, yeah, and I mean I guess somebody who writes and scripts it, because when you talk it does not feel written or scripted.
- 1:13:14Corie: But so when I go to yanga tang a lot of it feels like improv more than stand-up comedy.
- 1:13:21Corie: It doesn't feel like somebody who's writing jokes, telling a whole story or putting together a whole set.
- 1:13:24Corie: Okay, but I don't know if that's your experience with the local comedy scene here.
- 1:13:28Corie: It feels like somebody just talking rather than writing and building on jokes.
- 1:13:31Cindy Ann: No, um, I haven't experienced it for a while, but I I think you think it's somebody just talking, it feels that way more.
- 1:13:40Corie: As opposed to writing yeah, I'll give you an example, right Like the Calypso Tent was a place where a lot of comedians you would see sprang along Tommy Racial Price Day, but they would be more like a host like you said, a host Right.
- 1:13:53Corie: So it's less stand-up comedy and more hosts.
- 1:13:55Corie: So when they come out, what they talk about is what just happened with the last person, or they called them back on or something that happened with the crowd and maybe they have a few joke jokes, but it feels like they're just talking about what's going on.
- 1:14:06Cindy Ann: Right, which is hosting.
- 1:14:07Cindy Ann: But hosting also has stand-up bits built in Right.
- 1:14:10Cindy Ann: But hosting is more about the audience and you, yeah, um, yeah, I think so.
- 1:14:24Cindy Ann: I think um, maybe, because a lot of it here is very political and bacchanalish, right, right, I, I grew up where comedy was very, very politically aligned, you know what I mean, or very something.
- 1:14:36Cindy Ann: Some confusion happened.
- 1:14:38Corie: Yeah, like current affairs.
- 1:14:39Corie: Current affairs, whatever mini politics, whatever bacchanal going on.
- 1:14:41Corie: That's what the topic seemed to me.
- 1:14:43Cindy Ann: As opposed to people's personal lives, which is my.
- 1:14:47Cindy Ann: My comedy is about my life and my views.
- 1:14:51Cindy Ann: Of course it will.
- 1:14:53Cindy Ann: There will be some overlap with what's happening in your world, cause I live in your world, you know but it's about me and who Cindy Ann is, so that when an audience leaves they have a general, like you can tell.
- 1:15:08Cindy Ann: Oh, Cindy Ann has a son, she is married.
- 1:15:12Cindy Ann: She doesn't really understand how people kiss dogs in the mouth.
- 1:15:18Corie: You understand what I'm saying.
- 1:15:19Corie: She's seen a psychiatrist.
- 1:15:20Cindy Ann: She's kind of fucked up in the head.
- 1:15:21Cindy Ann: Yeah, um, you know who I am.
- 1:15:24Cindy Ann: If I were to take a broad look at the comedians that I grew up watching I don't know who they are in terms of yes and and going to shows.
- 1:15:37Cindy Ann: I don't know.
- 1:15:39Cindy Ann: Know, maybe I was too young, maybe I missed some stuff.
- 1:15:42Corie: No, I don't think it's that I think you're saying it much better than I'm saying it, because that is what tends to happen.
- 1:15:46Corie: The comedian here, so the great, the ones who I have as the greats here, they sprang along Tommy Rish, all of them would have been that hero.
- 1:15:53Corie: Right, they were talking about stuff, but not so much Like it wasn't as reflective as your comedy, or as I mean Bilbo.
- 1:16:03Corie: You might say he's talking politics and stuff, but it's really just his viewpoint, it's just the way and his life.
- 1:16:07Cindy Ann: You know he has anger issues.
- 1:16:09Corie: This is what I mean.
- 1:16:09Cindy Ann: You know he's married.
- 1:16:10Cindy Ann: You know he has two children.
- 1:16:12Corie: So you see anybody here doing a lot of that I can't say.
- 1:16:14Corie: I will say yeah, you know Sina.
- 1:16:15Corie: I will say no.
- 1:16:17Cindy Ann: Kwame and Jerome opened Right and I felt I was pleasantly surprised at how well structured I think their stuff was.
- 1:16:29Cindy Ann: I cannot tell, because I was performing too.
- 1:16:35Corie: So to tell you their jokes.
- 1:16:36Cindy Ann: I don't remember their jokes, you know I was more, you know.
- 1:16:37Cindy Ann: But the reaction of the crowd, the way they presented themselves, I think I was very happy, like I was like, oh, this is really nice refreshing to see that they're doing their stuff and they're not just out there doing hacky jokes.
- 1:16:51Cindy Ann: So hacky jokes would be like I tell you, like you know, I turn around and I'm at a pageant and I'm saying Are we getting a joke?
- 1:16:56Corie: Yeah, are we getting a joke?
- 1:16:58Cindy Ann: yeah yeah, they were doing stuff that I felt, okay, all right, these guys are putting in the work now.
- 1:17:06Cindy Ann: As to to your question about, uh, they're at a disadvantage because they don't have the luxury of doing the same thing repeatedly, probably, but then they are the ones to decide what they want to be what they want out of this.
- 1:17:20Cindy Ann: You know what I mean and where you want to take it.
- 1:17:22Cindy Ann: And I had to decide that too, because, coming here every year, because I did a show here 17, 2018, I took the show to a little Carib theater, again telling me it cannot be done.
- 1:17:33Cindy Ann: They were like you cannot do this.
- 1:17:35Cindy Ann: We sold out the show.
- 1:17:37Cindy Ann: It was amazing.
- 1:17:38Cindy Ann: I brought somebody from the us.
- 1:17:40Cindy Ann: I've brought three comics here since I've been here.
- 1:17:43Cindy Ann: So the first day I brought a girl, a trini, uh, an american girl, and people asked me you bring in another comedian here.
- 1:17:51Cindy Ann: What if they book her and not you?
- 1:17:54Cindy Ann: well, like who'd they anybody, because you know people would be like, wait, now there's a comedy show, I could do a comedy show too.
- 1:17:59Cindy Ann: Let me get this girl.
- 1:18:00Cindy Ann: You know like aren't you afraid that she takes your place?
- 1:18:04Cindy Ann: And I'm like absolutely 100% no, because if we live in that space we do not grow.
- 1:18:12Cindy Ann: You understand what I mean.
- 1:18:13Cindy Ann: So for me, I am pretty sure of who I am and what I can bring.
- 1:18:18Cindy Ann: And am pretty sure of who I am and what I can bring.
- 1:18:23Cindy Ann: And I know if somebody wants what I have, you cannot give it.
- 1:18:25Cindy Ann: Regardless of if we walk in your room together, we wear the same dress.
- 1:18:27Cindy Ann: We do you.
- 1:18:27Cindy Ann: You could never be a cindy ann, and so I can never be a cory.
- 1:18:32Cindy Ann: So the idea of being that sort of crab in the hole kind of mentality yeah, like man, if I, if I, but yeah, if, if I put Sinead in front, then she's not going to get the no.
- 1:18:44Cindy Ann: So I brought her home.
- 1:18:45Cindy Ann: I brought another guy here, and I brought another guy here and I saw the difference in people's appreciation for them as opposed to me, because they spoke with an American accent.
- 1:18:54Corie: But they translate well, people will receive.
- 1:18:57Cindy Ann: I think everybody said they preferred me, they enjoyed it, but they said it was different and funny enough.
- 1:19:05Cindy Ann: I spoke to a friend yesterday who came to my show at the Bricks and she said I can see the difference in your style, sandhyaan.
- 1:19:12Corie: Over the years.
- 1:19:13Cindy Ann: Yeah, and I said thank you Because I don't have to change my accent, but I feel it has to be marketed or boxed or in a way that it's acceptable, it's palpable to a different audience.
- 1:19:31Cindy Ann: So I'm not going to say, hey, you guys, do you want to come and have a cup of tea with me today?
- 1:19:37Cindy Ann: I'm not going to do that because that's not who I am.
- 1:19:40Cindy Ann: But being able to get on a stage not knowing who's in the audience and having them fall deeply in love with me is huge.
- 1:19:50Cindy Ann: You know it's huge.
- 1:19:53Cindy Ann: So I don't think I still haven't made it, could you?
- 1:19:56Corie: imagine yeah, I like this hasn't made it thing, I like it a lot how long your set usually is when you do a show here.
- 1:20:04Cindy Ann: Entry Like 45 minutes.
- 1:20:05Corie: Oh, it's long 50 minutes yeah.
- 1:20:06Corie: And people sit with it, people not.
- 1:20:09Corie: Yeah, well, I think even that's in the end, that's changing.
- 1:20:14Cindy Ann: You know what I'm getting from this?
- 1:20:14Cindy Ann: My shows, and I've done four.
- 1:20:15Cindy Ann: No, yeah, so then you say that I've made it.
- 1:20:18Cindy Ann: But how much have I made it if you have not even been to see it.
- 1:20:21Corie: When you see, I see people make it on Instagram and saying make it to me.
- 1:20:24Corie: That's so funny.
- 1:20:25Corie: Instagram famous, oh please.
- 1:20:28Cindy Ann: Yeah, no, no, no, no, no.
- 1:20:29Cindy Ann: 45 minutes done hours, how long I do when I come do shows in florida too, where I have a nice caribbean audience that comes out, um, and that's when I could say these things like armhole yeah where's our armhole?
- 1:20:43Cindy Ann: You know our armhole, jersey.
- 1:20:46Cindy Ann: See many people macy's asking.
- 1:20:49Corie: Excuse me that is hilarious, I'm looking for a really nice armhole top.
- 1:20:53Cindy Ann: The girl is like a what?
- 1:20:55Cindy Ann: And I cannot think of the other word because now I'm like but what do you mean?
- 1:21:00Cindy Ann: Armhole, like I asked.
- 1:21:03Cindy Ann: You know you never hear armhole, yeah, no, could you show me what you're speaking of?
- 1:21:08Cindy Ann: Can you, can you point to it?
- 1:21:09Cindy Ann: And I'm like she's like oh, you mean sleeveless?
- 1:21:12Corie: yeah.
- 1:21:12Cindy Ann: I'm like same damn thing.
- 1:21:13Cindy Ann: But what is an armhole really?
- 1:21:15Cindy Ann: What's an?
- 1:21:16Corie: armhole.
- 1:21:17Corie: We should pay attention.
- 1:21:17Corie: These things, you know because things, because you also talk about one way of sending everybody to home before it's wild.
- 1:21:23Cindy Ann: It's crazy, listen.
- 1:21:25Cindy Ann: I texted my neighbor.
- 1:21:27Cindy Ann: We used to run and one day she said to me she's like it's raining, sandhya, and we cannot run today.
- 1:21:35Cindy Ann: So she sent a message.
- 1:21:36Cindy Ann: I am driving, I pick up my phone at the traffic light.
- 1:21:46Cindy Ann: Very quickly, she said this rain is ruining our run.
- 1:21:47Cindy Ann: Blah, blah, blah.
- 1:21:47Cindy Ann: I take out my phone and I text end and I'm back on the road.
- 1:21:49Cindy Ann: Right, think nothing of it.
- 1:21:50Cindy Ann: The next day I get home, she comes over.
- 1:21:52Cindy Ann: She's like how do you feel?
- 1:21:53Cindy Ann: Oh, she's the ent ear, nose and throat.
- 1:21:59Cindy Ann: So I'm like how do I feel?
- 1:22:02Cindy Ann: I feel good, she's like.
- 1:22:04Cindy Ann: So what did the doctor say?
- 1:22:05Cindy Ann: Oh, my god, I'm like.
- 1:22:07Cindy Ann: Which doctor she's like?
- 1:22:10Cindy Ann: You texted me.
- 1:22:10Cindy Ann: I said that you were going to the doctor's and then, I'm like, I did not.
- 1:22:13Cindy Ann: She's like I know you have allergies, which I do.
- 1:22:16Cindy Ann: She's like well, I know you have allergies.
- 1:22:17Cindy Ann: I'm like do she's like?
- 1:22:18Cindy Ann: Well, I know you have allergies.
- 1:22:19Cindy Ann: I'm like, but I never said that I'm like.
- 1:22:21Cindy Ann: I don't, she's like, she's like.
- 1:22:22Cindy Ann: You texted me E-N-T.
- 1:22:24Cindy Ann: I'm like, I love it Okay, wait, I said Gil.
- 1:22:27Cindy Ann: All that means is right.
- 1:22:28Cindy Ann: Like you telling me it's a complete sentence.
- 1:22:33Cindy Ann: End.
- 1:22:33Cindy Ann: Yeah, for many yeah yeah, she saw and read ear, nose and throat.
- 1:22:40Cindy Ann: Of course, of course, of course so the comedy is built in to my life because I'm like what doctor are we talking about here?
- 1:22:49Corie: and that is just a doctor.
- 1:22:50Corie: We don't specialize here.
- 1:22:51Cindy Ann: Yeah, yeah yeah, you know, and you put some um broad leave time in the ears for eric.
- 1:22:56Cindy Ann: We don't go to the doctor, it.
- 1:22:57Corie: You're good to go.
- 1:22:58Corie: It reminds me of like when they say end just now.
- 1:23:02Cindy Ann: I remember people just now.
- 1:23:04Corie: They're like okay, I don't understand what you mean, Because when they say just now, like it could be right now, like soon or just now could be days, what is?
- 1:23:10Cindy Ann: just, I get that too.
- 1:23:14Cindy Ann: I don't even know.
- 1:23:14Corie: Beers, honey, just buckle down, I'll be there, it'll happen when it happens just now of course, of course so that for me is is where my comedy lives right, um, so this is why I had to ask you I'm sorry to go back to punch up all the time.
- 1:23:29Corie: I'm excited about the idea of the event where it creates this space, but when you're judging people, you are you wanting to judge us?
- 1:23:37Corie: No, oh, I see, I see, I see.
- 1:23:39Corie: Okay, no, because I was wondering, if you're looking for that style of comedy, if we could come with the trinity jamaican and the grenadian and them kind of thing.
- 1:23:45Corie: You 100.
- 1:23:46Cindy Ann: No, no, you bring your style, we're looking for the funny no, I see we're looking for the authenticity, we're looking for the creativity, we're looking for the funny right, um yeah no, no, no.
- 1:23:55Cindy Ann: It can't be mean.
- 1:23:56Cindy Ann: How can you expect people to to have what you know?
- 1:24:01Corie: no, no no, no, unrealistic.
- 1:24:03Cindy Ann: Unrealistic.
- 1:24:03Cindy Ann: And I think it's so important to like for me, like with my Red Woman tour, for example.
- 1:24:08Cindy Ann: Now that I'm doing the tour, I did Atlanta, I just went.
- 1:24:12Cindy Ann: I did the Bahamas, I did Philly.
- 1:24:15Cindy Ann: We're going to Toronto on October 1st.
- 1:24:18Cindy Ann: It's so important for people to see us in those spaces because we tend to do shows in a community hall, or you know what I mean, and I don't know if that's a space for me.
- 1:24:39Cindy Ann: You know, I mean sometimes you could do stuff in a restaurant, but this lighting has to be right, this setting has to be right.
- 1:24:46Cindy Ann: You know what I mean.
- 1:24:46Cindy Ann: And so comedy clubs globally.
- 1:24:49Cindy Ann: How wonderful it would be to see somebody do like you said.
- 1:24:54Cindy Ann: This guy just did Canada right.
- 1:24:57Cindy Ann: But to see more of it, of our accent, whether it's me, whether it's whoever else in those spaces, particularly women, because we don't get the luxury of being angry, we don't have it Of feeling without being judged or labeled.
- 1:25:18Cindy Ann: So I did a show with this guy and the show was shit.
- 1:25:22Cindy Ann: You know it was shit, but as a professional I mean, I just sat there, he went on stage and like 30 seconds into his set he said on the mic he's like man, fuck this show, dropped the mic and walked off.
- 1:25:34Cindy Ann: No one bat an eye, everybody just went like, oh my.
- 1:25:40Corie: God.
- 1:25:40Cindy Ann: Had I done that yeah oh my god, it would have been this now.
- 1:25:46Cindy Ann: First of all, angry black woman.
- 1:25:47Cindy Ann: She's an angry black woman going through menopause.
- 1:25:49Cindy Ann: She must be on her period.
- 1:25:50Cindy Ann: The list of what was wrong with me would have been mild.
- 1:25:57Corie: No no.
- 1:26:01Cindy Ann: Women do not get a pass to be expressive or to take a stand.
- 1:26:09Cindy Ann: Oh, who's that?
- 1:26:10Cindy Ann: If I say.
- 1:26:11Cindy Ann: If you say, hey, would you like a mic, I say no, Is it cordless or corded?
- 1:26:20Cindy Ann: I want a cordless.
- 1:26:21Cindy Ann: You go in the back and you know what you'll say.
- 1:26:23Cindy Ann: God, she miserable.
- 1:26:25Corie: Yeah, difficult.
- 1:26:26Cindy Ann: Yeah, she's so difficult.
- 1:26:28Cindy Ann: Ask David or any one of your partners you want a cordless or you want a mic with a and they say no, no, no, no, no, no, no, get me a mic with.
- 1:26:37Cindy Ann: I don't want either of those.
- 1:26:39Cindy Ann: I want a mic that like a little.
- 1:26:41Cindy Ann: What do you call it?
- 1:26:41Corie: A little apple.
- 1:26:43Cindy Ann: A little apple mic.
- 1:26:43Cindy Ann: You know what you're going to tell your partner.
- 1:26:45Cindy Ann: He's a leader boy.
- 1:26:46Cindy Ann: That man know what he wants.
- 1:26:47Cindy Ann: You see the difference.
- 1:26:49Cindy Ann: I'm miserable.
- 1:26:50Cindy Ann: Oh God Is this?
- 1:26:53Corie: a mic.
- 1:27:00Cindy Ann: The guy comes in here and says, no, I don't want any of these mics here.
- 1:27:03Cindy Ann: In fact, go by me.
- 1:27:04Corie: You know what you say that fella is a boss, he's a leader.
- 1:27:05Corie: He's a leader Taking control.
- 1:27:06Cindy Ann: I see in my period you know what I'm saying I go into menopause.
- 1:27:10Cindy Ann: I have real issues when I see that she can't get no man because she don't think, she don't know what she wants in a mic.
- 1:27:17Cindy Ann: That's the conversation that happens.
- 1:27:20Cindy Ann: So women do not get a pass.
- 1:27:23Cindy Ann: I see it and we live it and people think it's changing.
- 1:27:27Cindy Ann: All these Me Too movement and all these feminists it's changing.
- 1:27:32Cindy Ann: Maybe bucket a draw?
- 1:27:33Cindy Ann: Yeah, we could vote now and we could do this.
- 1:27:35Cindy Ann: We do have some things that we can do, but there is still so much work to be done for us to to.
- 1:27:46Cindy Ann: I don't.
- 1:27:46Cindy Ann: Let me be very clear.
- 1:27:47Cindy Ann: I don't want to be a man.
- 1:27:48Cindy Ann: I don't want to change a flat tire.
- 1:27:50Cindy Ann: I don't want to kill a cockroach.
- 1:27:51Cindy Ann: I don't want to care.
- 1:27:53Cindy Ann: I don't.
- 1:27:53Cindy Ann: I don't want none of those responsibilities, right, um?
- 1:27:56Cindy Ann: But I do want to be able to take a stand and not be labeled as a personality or miserable, just be labeled as somebody who's a boss bitch too but you find that the comedy space now I mean male dominated, like heavily a hundred percent so you get a lot of that, of course, yeah.
- 1:28:18Cindy Ann: Yeah, you do.
- 1:28:18Cindy Ann: You do get a lot of male, white male.
- 1:28:21Cindy Ann: It's not easy and, like I said, the minute you take a stand you become problematic.
- 1:28:29Corie: You know you're talking about it now, like I keep flashing back to Monique Because you see a lot of the some of the same words you're using now are the words that people use to describe Monique, who's one of the greats in stand-up comedy to me.
- 1:28:42Corie: I don't know the backstory and what the issues that she deals with, but I do hear some of those same things.
- 1:28:46Cindy Ann: Yeah yeah, yeah, and there is some truth to us being more emotional, true, but we have children too.
- 1:28:52Cindy Ann: We give birth.
- 1:28:53Cindy Ann: Men don't have nothing, nothing other than what you do to get up and think.
- 1:28:58Cindy Ann: Men don't have nothing, nothing other than what you do to get up and cream up your face?
- 1:29:01Cindy Ann: Dust off your bald head.
- 1:29:02Cindy Ann: You've had a little bit once in a while You've had.
- 1:29:04Cindy Ann: You've had what boy?
- 1:29:07Cindy Ann: or girl, no but I think this Red Woman tour is an opportunity for me to be seen in spaces and be in stages where Caribbean women are not seen and heard.
- 1:29:22Cindy Ann: Punched Up is an opportunity to grow and develop, to give back, to foster, for whoever wants the information, to share as much as I can with them.
- 1:29:38Cindy Ann: Because I always said if ever I do make it with them, because I always said, if ever I do make it right, um, it's not going to happen without me giving to home in a way that people can benefit in a way, you know, in, in a way that also benefits them and not me, because sometimes people give more for themselves of course right, yeah, so I mean god bless the day that I can really open doors and pathways for for people.
- 1:30:09Corie: I feel in a sense you're doing it, maybe not where you want to be yet, but yeah I'll give you an example.
- 1:30:14Corie: Like I appreciate you bringing up the, the, the discussion about Right, because when I think of even punched up and I think of people who can enter my list in my head now does not have a woman.
- 1:30:26Corie: You see, yes, and there are women here.
- 1:30:29Cindy Ann: There's this girl.
- 1:30:29Cindy Ann: When I did the show the Bricks, she was heading to a festival in New York Lyrics Right and she came as a guest to Jerome and I was like, hey, you want to test out the material tonight.
- 1:30:41Cindy Ann: You know you could do five minutes or however long.
- 1:30:43Cindy Ann: And I gave her a spot because I know how much those things mean.
- 1:30:46Cindy Ann: In the grand scheme of things, she's going to New York, you have come test it, do some work here.
- 1:30:52Cindy Ann: And I gave her a chance.
- 1:30:53Cindy Ann: You know, and I think those things help us and she's a woman.
- 1:30:58Cindy Ann: You know what I mean.
- 1:30:59Cindy Ann: Maybe if it was you I wouldn't have given her a chance.
- 1:31:01Corie: But I'm like let me give my sister a break.
- 1:31:03Cindy Ann: Let me give my sister a break.
- 1:31:04Cindy Ann: No, no, no, but women do not have the luxury, and when we do, when it does happen, it's so beautiful you can get people to really just understand.
- 1:31:16Cindy Ann: Okay, yeah, maybe I might be a little emotional and sensitive and whatever, but I am also a boss.
- 1:31:29Cindy Ann: Yeah, bitch, you know what I mean.
- 1:31:31Cindy Ann: I'm also a leader.
- 1:31:31Cindy Ann: I'm also about you know, and so let's try to get away from those.
- 1:31:33Cindy Ann: Let us, let us do our thing with all emotion.
- 1:31:35Corie: Yeah, yeah, yeah, appreciate you saying that.
- 1:31:36Corie: So before david and them start to wrap up, right?
- 1:31:38Corie: Yeah, just a couple of questions on that.
- 1:31:40Corie: I was looking at the environment in the States now.
- 1:31:44Corie: It's tricky.
- 1:31:45Corie: You know what I mean, especially when it comes to people who live in Trinidad or immigrants, whatever the word you want to use.
- 1:31:50Corie: You don't build a lot of that stuff into your comedy.
- 1:31:53Corie: You stay away from topics like those.
- 1:31:55Cindy Ann: Like politics and stuff.
- 1:31:56Corie: Yeah, so for instance, sending people home and them kind of thing, and ice you not?
- 1:32:00Cindy Ann: you're right because I don't even understand politics.
- 1:32:02Cindy Ann: I don't think generally if you're not in it.
- 1:32:05Cindy Ann: I don't think any of us truly understand what's taking place, because none of it makes sense to me, none of it none of it, home or abroad home or abroad, like I'm not for anybody, because I feel let's just say, for example, let's just say, you have a party right and.
- 1:32:20Cindy Ann: I'm like I support Corey.
- 1:32:21Cindy Ann: Corey is da-da-da-da-da Down the road and I don't support David or I don't support Anthony or whoever right, because I don't like their policies and I'm campaigning for you.
- 1:32:32Cindy Ann: Heads down every morning.
- 1:32:34Cindy Ann: Take my Corey vote Corey jersey.
- 1:32:36Cindy Ann: I like it.
- 1:32:37Cindy Ann: You like it already.
- 1:32:38Cindy Ann: Right?
- 1:32:38Cindy Ann: Vote Corey Shepard.
- 1:32:40Cindy Ann: He is the best.
- 1:32:42Cindy Ann: And four years down the road, you and Anthony go and form a coalition.
- 1:32:47Cindy Ann: Where are you sitting now, after I done?
- 1:32:50Cindy Ann: Say Anthony, he's a big stink thief.
- 1:32:51Cindy Ann: He does rip off people money.
- 1:32:53Cindy Ann: Anthony, you're on nothing, nothing, nothing.
- 1:32:55Cindy Ann: I'll never vote you coming out to tell me Anthony's actually a really good fellow.
- 1:33:00Cindy Ann: You and I sit down days, I do anything and put anything in our bag so we could.
- 1:33:04Cindy Ann: You know what I mean.
- 1:33:05Cindy Ann: I don't understand politics.
- 1:33:09Cindy Ann: I don't understand politicians.
- 1:33:11Cindy Ann: I don't care to get into any discussion about it.
- 1:33:15Corie: No, stay away from it.
- 1:33:16Cindy Ann: Yes, if something happens and it kind of jolt and it affects me personally, then I'll talk about it.
- 1:33:19Cindy Ann: No, you stay away from it.
- 1:33:19Cindy Ann: Yes, yeah, if something happens and and it kind of jolt and it affects me personally, then I'll talk about it, but I'm not getting on a stage to talk about, um anything right if you are.
- 1:33:30Cindy Ann: Let's just say and I want to touch on this too, because this is very important um for me when I left trinidad, I didn't know anybody openly in the LGBTQ community.
- 1:33:42Cindy Ann: I didn't know anyone.
- 1:33:43Cindy Ann: I moved to the US and now I'm in the arts, I'm meeting people, I'm friends with people, very good friends.
- 1:33:49Cindy Ann: But I felt so uncomfortable because I'm like man.
- 1:33:54Cindy Ann: Imagine 15 years ago I am in a picture with a guy.
- 1:33:58Cindy Ann: People are likeindy and gone.
- 1:34:05Cindy Ann: I always had an inkling.
- 1:34:06Cindy Ann: You know, this girl was on some phone what kind of foolishness is this going on here?
- 1:34:19Cindy Ann: Right, because as a society we so closed up.
- 1:34:24Cindy Ann: I think I I gather from social media people are opening up more.
- 1:34:28Cindy Ann: This is just one thing.
- 1:34:30Cindy Ann: Um, and so, although I had friends who were in that I used to go in the closet to tell them hello, I am waiting for them to come out.
- 1:34:38Cindy Ann: When they come out, I gone.
- 1:34:40Cindy Ann: I'm like sorry, my father can't even see me talking or my mother cannot.
- 1:34:45Cindy Ann: They'll be like what are you doing?
- 1:34:46Cindy Ann: Because there is this label and this, this dark cloud over right and being able to not give a shit and be so open and welcoming to people just yeah, because the truth is we all, in one way or the other, have our own little community going on.
- 1:35:10Cindy Ann: Yes, you know what I'm saying and so it's such for me, it's been such a blessing.
- 1:35:16Cindy Ann: I resisted migrating for many years my husband, when we got married I could have migrated and I was like I'm not going there.
- 1:35:23Cindy Ann: Trinidad will always be my home and I still feel very strong.
- 1:35:27Cindy Ann: I get an emotional thinking about it because I love this place like no other but there's been so much growth and development and benefit to me living in a space where there are not that many people like me and in order for me to do anything, to grow, to live in a space that I'm happy and I can thrive, I've had to put down and tear down so many walls.
- 1:35:58Corie: Yeah, yeah, yeah, some of those walls coming down here, but it's not, it's like you say, with women you could vote now.
- 1:36:03Corie: You know some of them, things changing a little bit yeah, but don't vote for cory.
- 1:36:07Cindy Ann: Vote for anthony, yeah, but that's that to answer your question.
- 1:36:16Corie: I don't understand it and I'm not getting into it I appreciate the fact and I figured it was the case.
- 1:36:22Corie: So, even talking to you now, I get a better sense and appreciation for your approach, because I'm not surprised to hear say like, if it affects me, which, again, as I tell you, as a fan of comedy, that's the thing that I like the most.
- 1:36:32Corie: I do like people who just bring their own lives.
- 1:36:35Cindy Ann: It feels more like storytelling, listening to you done, done, haha, jokes and I want to clarify what me means there, because it doesn't mean in a selfish way me alone.
- 1:36:44Cindy Ann: I mean if something affects my loved ones then, it affects me so when I say affect me it's not just cindy ann, but me as a whole.
- 1:36:55Corie: I'm with you.
- 1:36:55Corie: I'm with you.
- 1:36:55Corie: I think and you'll tell me if I do a good job my biggest takeaway is your viewpoint.
- 1:37:01Corie: It's your viewpoint, and I do like the fact that we get a chance to see the way you see the world.
- 1:37:07Corie: Yeah, and if you observe and you can see some of the tragedies you talk about today, I could turn that into any form of comedy.
- 1:37:14Corie: I think greats have always done that, you know, yeah, greats have always done that thank you.
- 1:37:22Corie: So, before we go, how to ask you about the greats?
- 1:37:23Cindy Ann: now my great yeah, have you ever monk rush?
- 1:37:24Corie: nothing, you know okay, no, not my great.
- 1:37:26Corie: Like fly out your greats in comedy or in life yeah, one day in comedy or in life, I kind of like that.
- 1:37:32Corie: Let me start with comedy.
- 1:37:33Corie: You know, abroad first foreigners, foreigners I Foreigners.
- 1:37:36Cindy Ann: Foreigners, I would say Patrice O'Neill, bill Burr.
- 1:37:40Cindy Ann: There is Wanda Sykes that I really love as well.
- 1:37:48Cindy Ann: Yeah, she's bad.
- 1:37:48Cindy Ann: Maria Bamford I don't know Maria Bamford.
- 1:37:53Cindy Ann: Get to know Maria.
- 1:37:55Corie: Bamford yeah, okay, so that's your four, yeah, local.
- 1:38:00Cindy Ann: Comedian, yeah, who do stand-up, or just funny people.
- 1:38:06Corie: Funny people.
- 1:38:07Corie: I say funny people just in case.
- 1:38:09Cindy Ann: Stokes and Hill.
- 1:38:09Cindy Ann: Ah oh, Stokes and Hill.
- 1:38:12Corie: Yeah.
- 1:38:13Cindy Ann: John Agitation.
- 1:38:14Cindy Ann: I'm trying to give some young people some blights too, but I'm really not too familiar with the work.
- 1:38:25Cindy Ann: I'm not too familiar with the work and I'm selling out my age but, this girl cosmetic surgery working.
- 1:38:33Cindy Ann: She looking good for 92.
- 1:38:38Corie: I love it, you know, because you're sending people to do the Googles.
- 1:38:41Cindy Ann: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, errol, we didn't have that many women.
- 1:38:46Cindy Ann: Beulah, I would say I'm trying to remember myself growing up and really tapping in.
- 1:38:52Cindy Ann: I always loved Stokes and Hill.
- 1:38:54Cindy Ann: There was a drunk mystery about him that appealed to my soul.
- 1:38:59Corie: Yeah, and there's still plenty with a little bit of words in it.
- 1:39:01Corie: Yeah, I love that.
- 1:39:02Cindy Ann: I love that and I grew up an old soul too, you know, yeah, we didn't have that many women.
- 1:39:10Corie: Yeah, now that I'm thinking about it, but you're changing that.
- 1:39:12Corie: You're changing that now.
- 1:39:12Cindy Ann: Yeah, we're changing that now.
- 1:39:14Corie: But you say in life, in life, yeah.
- 1:39:18Cindy Ann: My dad, my dad, my mom, my dad, my dad.
- 1:39:25Cindy Ann: I could have him.
- 1:39:26Cindy Ann: Yeah, you could have him four times.
- 1:39:28Cindy Ann: My father was the love of my life.
- 1:39:30Cindy Ann: I would say my son, because he's my son.
- 1:39:35Cindy Ann: But I don't know if he's ready for Mount Rushmore, so take him off.
- 1:39:37Cindy Ann: Can, but I don't know if you're ready for Mount Rushmore, so take him off.
- 1:39:40Corie: Can we start over?
- 1:39:41Corie: He's paying attention to the things you say, and I ask you that too.
- 1:39:43Cindy Ann: He's paying attention because of course, but you know what, you know why.
- 1:39:46Cindy Ann: It doesn't bother him at least because, he knows that he has me wrapped around all these things are really what I wish I could do, but I can't, so I'm like it.
- 1:39:54Cindy Ann: So at least I feel empowered by it but he would go and say mom, and I'll be like what happened?
- 1:40:00Cindy Ann: What do you need?
- 1:40:00Cindy Ann: I'm coming whereas I could say here fuck them kids and then I fall on the ground for him, but I would put my parents as my mom.
- 1:40:09Cindy Ann: Rush mom got.
- 1:40:10Cindy Ann: It got a big influence for you and paramin born yeah well then, we could put three of them on a bundle of size all right, good, that works.
- 1:40:17Corie: That works, david, you do a good job.
- 1:40:19Corie: Excellent, ma'am, thank you very much.
- 1:40:22Corie: I appreciate you coming, I'm going to tell everybody Cindy Ann Boston flying to come and record it with she comes with a specific purpose.
- 1:40:28Corie: We important like hell because she's dropped everything and she took a private jet the day before and she came back.
- 1:40:34Cindy Ann: Because she's made it A hundred percent.
- 1:40:36Cindy Ann: Oh my God, you know what I?
- 1:40:37Corie: mean, and you're welcome back anytime.
- 1:40:39Corie: We want you back as often as you come.
- 1:40:40Corie: I hope that I was telling you both, Kivo.
- 1:40:46Cindy Ann: I told them as well that when you come, closer to the event and you have everything and I'll come back.
- 1:40:49Cindy Ann: I would love to talk about it.
- 1:40:50Cindy Ann: We could do a nice panel discussion For sure.
- 1:40:50Cindy Ann: Oh, that would be so good.
- 1:40:51Cindy Ann: Maybe we