Russell Peters on comedy as boxing, more from his SiriusXM chat with Jim Norton

Russell Peters is a global superstar in comedy, and his third arena tour of North America visits the new Barclays Arena in Brooklyn on Saturday.

Before that, though, Peters sat down for an hourlong chat with comedian Jim Norton (photographed above by Maro Hagopian) in the SiriusXM headquarters in New York City. It airs today at 2 p.m. and 8 p.m. Eastern on the Raw Dog Comedy Channel, with multiple repeats later this month, available available on SiriusXM On Demand for subscribers listening via the SiriusXM Internet Radio App for smartphones an or online at www.siriusxm.com/ondemand.

Some things you’ll learn about Peters from his chat with Norton:

  • Peters wasn’t happy about his most recent DVD special, The Green Card Tour, because he’d just gotten into a verbal fight with his wife (now ex-wife) on the phone moments before taking the stage. “There’s a blankness in my eyes that you can see!” Peters added: “I was pissed the whole way there and I was pissed the whole time onstage.”
  • He’s not on good terms with Aziz Ansari, but that has nothing to with professional competition or being of Indian heritage — merely a weird offstage interaction.
  • He’s a big KISS fan, and will watch video of a live set of the band from Houston in 1977 — despite also acknowledging that the band isn’t that great technically as musicians.
  • Before making it big in stand-up, he sold socks door-to-door in industrial areas. “I was already doing comedy. I just wasn’t getting paid.”
  • Selling socks also fed his foot fetish. “I have a foot fetish,” Peters told Norton. “To me it’s like a credit report. If her feet are good, it’s likely the rest of her is good, too…I don’t want to fuck your feet, I just want to look at them!”
  • Peters once was an avid breakdancer in his Canadian youth. “I used to be a b-boy.”

Afterward, The Comic’s Comic asked Peters a little bit more about his boxing regimen and how that training and experience compares to the in-the-ring experience of stand-up comedy. Roll the clip!

And here’s some NEWS about Russell Peters. Talk about burying the lede. At the end of his current tour, he’ll be taping and releasing a new DVD, and leading up to that, Peters will star in a behind-the-scenes documentary series to air on Netflix — six episodes beginning in January 2013. His visit with Norton, Opie & Anthony and the SiriusXM studios yesterday will make up episode two of that Netflix series.

 

Sean L. McCarthy

Editor and publisher since 2007, when he was named New York's Funniest Reporter. Former newspaper reporter at the New York Daily News, Boston Herald and smaller dailies and community papers across America. Loves comedy so much he founded this site.

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