Tim Tayag isn’t so tiny

"Tayag, bayag. Tayag, bayag."

That’s just one of the jokes Filipino-American stand-up comedian Tim Tayag laid on the audience at the Comfort Room (formerly Monk’s Dream) at Jupiter Place on Jupiter Street in Makati, where Tayag had gigs every Saturday night in May with the rest of the Comfort Room comedy revue.

The punchline was that the ridicule supposedly came from Tayag’s father, so he told him to quit it "because it’s your name too". Such self-depreciating humor is evident in the 45-minute to one-hour set of Tayag, which taps the Pinoy funny bone by exposing our many quirks and foibles.

Tayag is aware he is merely hitting the tip of the iceberg. He spent the last 11 years of his life in the bay area, San Francisco, from late college to early professional years as a computer analyst.

But childhood was spent in Angeles City in Pampanga, and when he was 12 they moved to Manila where he studied at the Ateneo de Manila, thereafter getting in trouble with the Jesuit priests who in a tangential way helped him realize his potential as a comic.

He remembers this one bald teacher whom he was doing a sketch of during lecture time, with the moon rising behind the teacher’s head. It so happened that the subject of Tayag’s portrait was suddenly behind him, also rising, and saw the unflattering caricature.

It was but one of the young Tayag’s many run-ins with the Jesuit authorities and, he reveals, "I even got suspended for one month" for his antics. But Tayag returned to the Philippines last October and is now beginning to reconnect with the old home, after losing his day job and his girlfriend, a scenario so very Springsteen were it not for Tayag’s poker-faced, happy-go-lucky attitude.

"It’s sad but true, though I’ve gotten over that," he now says, echoing a phrase from his own routine, "it’s sad," with the trademark hang-dog eyes.

What he does is try to catch up with the latest developments in Pinoy humor, which he notes is not so anchored on slapstick as before, and watches noontime shows featuring the Sex Bomb dancers and that other one resembling a carnival complete with fire eaters and people walking on nails and, to top it off, Aubrey Miles.

"There’s a similar (carnival) show on cable in the States, but it’s in Mexican," he says.

At Comfort Room, in a pre-set interview, we go through a rundown of American humor and Filipino humor and where the twain can possibly meet.

"I like Ray Romano, Brian Regan, Seinfeld," Tayag confides, citing his prime influences, and adds that he’s done gigs together with fellow Fil-Am Rex Navarrette.

Soon enough the song "Man on the Moon" by REM plays on the sound system, and straight away there’s a flash of serendipity around the table.

"Andy Kaufman," Tayag says. "Do you know I never watched that movie?"

What was the funniest movie he’s most recently seen? "Zoolander," he says. He didn’t think much of the latest Austin Powers movie, nor the Mr. Bean spinoff, "Johnny English."

Richard Pryor, he says, changed the entire comedy scene, before the black comedian fell ill with, what was it, Alzheimer’s?

A challenge is trying to meld what works with an American audience, and what will go over big with a Filipino audience, because there are some jokes that are better received by a particular ethnic group.

"Filipinos are more like a black audience," he helps clarify, meaning presence is paramount, the mere fact that you’re standing there before them is already enough to be funny. Caucasians, he says, are more the cerebral type.

And he tries to steer clear of politics, "because I don’t want to wind up dead yet." Yet he considers President Arroyo as the funniest politician of late hereabouts, and the sets of the other stand-up comics featured in the Comfort Room comedy revue, including the improv group Big Bang that also had a hilarious take on the SARS scare, would attest to the wealth of material in the Chiefest Executive.

Where does he get and develop his jokes? Perhaps a spiel of his would shed light on this, paraphrasing dialogue of the little boy from the movie "Sixth Sense": "I see jokes that don’t even know they are jokes."

So it is with Tayag, who can see the humor in the most mundane everyday situation, from sound effects of body builders in a gym, to a beggar girl’s use of a cellphone to ask for alms, to the stares of passengers in the jeepney that has stopped in front of you.

"Don’t you hate it when they stare at you?" He also has a beef with pedestrians who cross the street and raise their hand to stop your car on its tracks, and waiters too who announce that "Sir, I received P500" when you pay the bill. "What would they feel if I said, ‘I received P300 change and now I am putting it in my pocket?’"

Just like most comics, hardly anything is sacred to Tayag. Everything is fair game, from penitents in his home province of Pampanga, to ambulant vendors who sell you anything from fishing rods to toy helicopters while you’re stuck in traffic. Which is where Tayag says he does his shopping–while stuck in traffic.

He finds amusing how his countrymen can take a bath with a single tabo of water, which he can never over-emphasize enough when he says one of the things he misses most in the States is water pressure.

His set ends with a rambling, gambling exposé on what makes one jologs, a term so Pinoy that it is the natural successor of jeproks. While onstage he intermittently takes a sip of water–or is it Viva vodka–to keep him going, and at times adlibs especially if there’s an opportunity to connect and get closer to the audience.

"People get surprised when I speak kapampangan," he says, stating that he remembers better the dialect of his childhood than the Tagalog of his adolescence.

At present, Tayag, who is not quite 30 and is the nephew of chef, writer and furniture maker Claude Tayag, is taking voice lessons because "sometimes I feel that my voice is too squeaky," and also trying to get rid of a few stage mannerisms and rote expressions, like "you know," or something that could unwittingly irritate his audience.

He doesn’t foresee releasing a CD of his jokes anytime soon, "because that would mean that I’ve gotten tired of delivering them." Instead he plans to write more, keep the joke chest well stocked. After his set he stayed awhile to watch a magician do his tricks, before heading over to Sanctum in Intramuros to wish co-owner Asli a happy birthday, and maybe deliver a few one-liners as present.

Tayag, bayag. Tayag, bayag. It’s a Western art form, no doubt, and even the pronunciation is Western. But Tim’s humor has tough balls, as Pinoy as those overcooked squid-flavored balls of flour sold by sidewalk vendors.