Kyle Berger – Jewish Independent

The comics rise again on Feb. 20

Kyle Berger, left, and Scotty Aceman, co-producers of Rise of the Comics. (photo from Rise of the Comics)

The outer limits of the laugh-o-meter will be tested on Feb. 20 at the Jewish Community Centre of Greater Vancouver’s Rothstein Theatre, when a group of Canada’s top funny people step on stage for A Night of Shticks & Giggles, presented by local comedy producer Rise of the Comics. This will be the third Shticks and Giggles show to raise money for the JCC Maccabi Games.

Headlining the event is Julie Kim, a two-time Canadian Comedy Award nominee for stand-up, who has performed at comedy festivals around the continent and appeared on CBC’s The Debaters and Laugh Out Loud. Her YouTube videos have amassed millions of views and, in 2018, she released her debut comedy album, Outside Voice.

Among other topics, Kim’s routine delves into modern parenting and various cultural issues, sometimes involving life seen from an Asian perspective. Yuk Yuk’s comedy club co-founder Mark Breslin called her “smart, funny, with enough self-awareness to deconstruct her life in a very sophisticated way.”

Other acts in the show, which Rise of the Comics describes as its “best line-up to date,” include Robert Peng, who bills himself as “an unemployed engineer who turned to stand-up comedy out of desperation”; New Zealander Sophia Johnson, “the one who keyed your car but probably shouldn’t have told you that”; Sean McDonnell, who Canadian comedy star Norm MacDonald has praised as “a fantastic talent”; and Brett Nikolic, a maven on Mountain Dew-flavoured weed.

Rise of the Comics is the brainchild of Vancouver stand-up comedian Scotty Aceman, who will also be on stage at Shticks & Giggles. Starting off as a weekly 30-minute program on Shaw Cable with the same name in 2015, the show has highlighted the work of many stand-up comedians who got their start on the local scene, such as Dino Archie and Ivan Decker, who has appeared on Late Night with Conan O’Brien.

Aceman, a University of British Columbia and B.C. Institute of Technology graduate, switched to comedy five years ago, after a 20-year stint in a sales job with Rogers in the corporate wireless phone department.

“Leaving the cellphone business after 20 years was a tough call,” he said. “But you have to chase your dreams. People would ask me, ‘What about my dignity and respect?’ I’d say dignity and respect went out the window the minute I had a Thursday morning bar mitzvah!”

In 2019, Aceman brought in Kyle Berger as co-producer of Rise of the Comics. Berger, sports coordinator at the JCCGV, will be the master of ceremonies for the Feb. 20 Shticks & Giggles.

Before joining the crew, Berger, in his role as JCC Maccabi Games delegation head, had hired Rise of the Comics for a fundraiser. He credits Aceman for allowing him to get his stand-up feet wet, with a debut performance at the Charqui Grill in Kitsilano in 2018.

“Stand-up was one of those things on my bucket list to do by the time I turned 40,” Berger told the Independent. “Scotty (and my then-girlfriend, now fiancée) were both big helpers in getting me up there on stage for a five-minute routine. My fiancée had had enough of me saying I was going to do it.”

Berger said, “Scotty’s reputation within the local comic community is a great asset. Nowadays, Rise of the Comics does all sorts of things, including parties in people’s living rooms. And, last year, we were hired by the Chutzpah! Festival to put on a show.”

Rise of the Comics currently works with a roster of more than 50 stand-up performers of all styles and experiences, and tailors its shows to any situation. They have created performances at such diverse venues as Hy’s Steak House, the Jericho Arts Centre and Ronald McDonald House, among others. Their gigs can cover everything from clean to dirty, social commentary to observational, but always, they say, with an emphasis on the funny.

Berger promises that he and fellow Shticks & Giggles comedians are likely to make mention, in one way or another, that their show is backed by the foundation created by Dr. Neil Pollock, a leading Vancouver male sexual health and circumcision expert, and his wife Michelle.

The show starts at 7:30 p.m. Tickets are $20 and can be purchased at m.bpt.me/event/4499277. For more information about Rise of the Comics, visit riseofthecomics.com.

Sam Margolis has written for the Globe and Mail, the National Post, UPI and MSNBC.

Comedy for youth sport

Comedian Jacob Samuel headlines A Night of Shticks & Giggles Feb. 21 at the Rothstein Theatre. (photo from JCCGV)

In just one week, I will be standing on stage at one of the most exciting events I have ever been a part of. On Feb. 21, some of the funniest stand-up comedians in Vancouver will join me in the Jewish Community Centre of Greater Vancouver’s Rothstein Theatre, using laughter to raise money for JCC youth sports scholarships.

A Night of Shticks & Giggles is co-produced by the JCC and Rise of the Comics. Headlined by 2017 Yuk Off champion Jacob Samuel – It’s good to finally see a successful Jewish comedian, right!? – it will also feature a performance from Larke Miller, who I remember watching on The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson, as well as several other local comedic stars.

While the show will be one of those guaranteed good times for the audience, for me, it also represents a unique opportunity to combine two of my great passions.

Passion #1: As the delegation head for the JCC Maccabi Games – an athletics and arts program that provides Jewish teens the opportunity to travel and experience an Olympic-style international event – I have the responsibility and honour of raising scholarship funds to enable as many teens as possible the chance to participate in this life-changing event.

Passion #2: As a stand-up comic still in his rookie season, I get to meet, learn from and share the stage with some of the city’s top comics. Not to mention the opportunity to stand and perform my craft in front of an audience of 200+ in the Rothstein. (Gulp!)

As a producer of the show, the fact that I will be performing my own original set kind of makes me like that kid who got to start on the soccer team because my dad happened to be the head coach. Except, in this case, I also run the soccer team, picked my dad to be the coach and, oh boy, he’s putting me in!

While I might not end up being the funniest comic of the night, I can promise A Night of Shticks & Giggles will deliver the funny in spades.

Among his many local appearances, Samuel has performed on the Rothstein stage before, when the Jewish Independent team held their JI Chai Celebration in December 2017. He followed that up with his Yuk Off championship win, and his career has taken off since.

Harris Anderson, Joey Commisso and Randee Neumeyer have all inspired me with their irreverent, clever and sharp takes on life, as well.

Another one of the comics, Ed Konyha, used to run the award-winning open mic Stand-up and Deliver, the show in which I finally found the courage to perform my very first set as a stand-up comic.

Finally, Scotty Aceman, emcee for the night and producer of Rise of the Comics, has worked with me on a few shows now (this being the largest by far!) and is a huge inspiration for anyone thinking of quitting their day jobs and following their passion – no matter how little money it makes them. Aceman had a career in the cellphone business before giving it all up to bring comedy to Vancouver’s masses. Today, Rise of the Comics showcases Vancouver’s incredible comedy scene, producing and selling out regular live shows while featuring these local talents on their YouTube channel. His latest venture, Rise After Dark, offers people the chance to bring stand-up comedy right into their living room or private event.

Shticks & Giggles is a well-supported community event with a powerhouse of partnerships including the Chutzpah! Festival; Axis, the Jewish Federation of Greater Vancouver’s young adult initiative; and, of course, the Jewish Independent.

Tickets for A Night of Shticks & Giggles are $20 and can be bought online at ticketpeak.com/jccgv. Doors open at 7:30 p.m. on Feb. 21, with the show set to begin at 8 p.m.

Kyle Berger is coordinator, sports department, Jewish Community Centre of Greater Vancouver, and co-producer of A Night of Shticks & Giggles.

Publisher’s welcome

Cynthia Ramsay (in 2017). (photo by Lianne Cohen)

When we decided to have a celebration marking 18 years since the beginning of the latest chapter of the Jewish Independent’s nearly-nine-decade history, it made perfect sense to focus on the future as much as the past.

The centrepoint of the JI Chai Celebration is the JI’s 18 Under 36 Awards. The day’s headlines might be cause for dejection, but anyone who works with, or spends any time with, members of this community’s younger generations knows that the future is bright.

This truly is reason to celebrate.

I am amazed to think I’ve owned the newspaper for longer than some of our awardees have been alive. I don’t feel that old. On the other hand, it does seem like another lifetime when Kyle Berger, Pat Johnson and I bought the Independent’s predecessor, the Jewish Western Bulletin, from publishers Sam and Mona Kaplan. Kyle was 24, Pat was 34 and I was 29 – we all would have qualified for the JI’s 18 Under 36 Awards, and I’d like to think we might have offered some tough competition.

I would say to younger audiences, as both a promise and a warning: beware of how way leads on to way. Sometimes wonderful things happen and the mission of your life presents itself without you even realizing what’s happening.

My roots are not here. My immediate family has lived in Ontario for a long time now. And, when I came here about 25 years ago from Ottawa, I intended to spend a year in British Columbia, get my master’s in economics at Simon Fraser University, then return east and do a PhD in economics at University of Toronto.

But, I got a job in Vancouver as I was finishing my MA, and worked as an economist until, one day, I took a phone call from the then-publisher of the Jewish Western Bulletin. I’d never heard of him … or it. My involvement with the Vancouver Jewish community was through music – with the Vancouver Jewish Folk Choir, with whom I still sing today, and Beth Israel Choir. The paper was looking for someone to fill in writing editorials and I was looking for a change, so I agreed to take the job – for the summer.

As I mentioned, one thing leads to another, and the Kaplans, who had published and edited the JWB since 1960, wanted to retire. Pat and Kyle, my then-newfound friends and colleagues, suggested we put in a bid to buy the paper. I didn’t think the Kaplans would sell it to such a green team, as there were some other serious bidders with far more experience in business.

photo - Kyle Berger, left, Pat Johnson and Cynthia Ramsay, in 1999 — Kyle Berger, left, Pat Johnson and Cynthia Ramsay, in 1999. *(photo by Baila Lazarus)*

But the Kaplans saw something in the three of us that I certainly did not. They were Orthodox Jews, Zionists who brokered no criticism of Israel, and believed in advocacy journalism. We were secular, Zionists of a rather more open-minded variety, firm advocates of free speech and believed that journalism should be as objective as possible. Despite our obvious differences, I think the Kaplans recognized in us something of the inevitable future.

While Kyle and Pat have moved on to other endeavours, they thankfully remain involved in the paper and are there to help and offer advice, with Pat still doing much writing, as well as serving on the editorial board.

Looking back at the past 18 years, I can say that, while we’ve had challenges, we’ve overcome them and we’ve had many more successes. And this is one of the major reasons for the JI Chai Celebration. We want to celebrate the fact that, with the community’s help and the hard work and dedication of so many over the decades, the Jewish Independent, this community’s newspaper, is a vibrant and evolving enterprise.

Still … it is no secret that the newspaper industry is a tough one these days, to put it mildly. We must find a way to keep the Independent a sustainable and quality publication – not just for the coming months, but for the coming generations. The funds raised through the JI Chai Celebration will go, in part, toward a study of North American Jewish community newspapers and other examples of community journalism, which might direct us to best practices and models for the future of the JI.

The incredibly generous financial support of Joseph and Rosalie Segal and family, and the support of Mary-Louise Albert of the Rothstein Theatre and Chutzpah! Festival, laid the foundation for this celebration. The contributions of Gary Averbach, Shirley Barnett, David Bogoch, LKP Holdings (Tzipi Mann and family), JB Newall Memorials, Olive+Wild, Red Truck Beer, Vancouver Learning Centre, Web exPress, Yosef Wosk and so many others made it all possible. Led by talented event manager Bonnie Nish, all of this came together in three months.

Everyone performing here today is donating their time, as is the bartender and the volunteers you’ve seen on tickets, at the auction tables, ushering, all about. And about that auction table – thank you so much to all the donors to the auction and those who contributed the prizes for tonight, including the gift packages for the 18 awardees.

In addition to funding a study that can set the course of the paper’s future, revenue from this event will help stabilize the Independent and let us continue the important role we play as a mirror to and a voice of this community.

To ensure that independent Jewish journalism survives and thrives in this city and province, though, it ultimately depends on you. I ask you to support this newspaper by reading, sharing, subscribing, advertising or donating.

If you still wonder why and for whom we need to continue building this community and strengthening the media that shares its stories, look only to the 18 individuals being honoured tonight and to the future that they represent.