Russell Peters - Call Me Russell

COPYRIGHT 2010 Russell Peters

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LIBRARY AND ARCHIVES CANADA CATALOGUING IN PUBLICATION

Peters, Russell
Call me Russell / Russell Peters.
eISBN: 978-0-385-66964-1
1. Peters, Russell. 2. ComediansCanadaBiography.
I. Title.
PN2308.P48A3 2010 791.43028092 C2010-902530-X

Published in Canada by Doubleday Canada,
a division of Random House of Canada Limited

Visit Random House of Canada Limiteds website: www.randomhouse.ca

v3.1

TO MOM AND DADWITHOUT THEM THERE IS NO BOOK OR ME.
TO MY BIG BROTHERCUZ WITHOUT HIM THIS BOOK MIGHT HAVE JUST
BEEN A FLYER! THANKS FOR YOUR DEDICATION, HARD WORK
AND MOST OF ALL, YOUR LOVE.

Help your brothers boat across, and your own will reach the shore.

HINDU PROVERB

I m Russell Peters big brother. Thats who I am now. Russell used to be Clayton Peters little brother, but that all changed years ago when he decided to become a stand-up comic. When we were kids, if you had asked me if Id be writing this today, I would have said that you were crazy. Neither Russell nor I ever expected to be where we are now. I wont deny that we both dreamed of it, but lets face itthese arent the kind of dreams you share with people.

If I had told people that one day my baby brother would play a total of four sold-out shows at the Air Canada Centre or sell out Madison Square Garden, they would have just looked at me blankly, as if Id said that I was going to be the first man on Mars. Despite our parents modest aspirations for my brothergetting a union job at the Chrysler plant, or maybe becoming a civil servanthe had the nerve to reach beyond that.

We were latchkey kids, and my job was to make sure that my brother made it home from school safely and had something to eat. Wed walk in the front door and hed be back outside in a flash to play with all his friends on the street. Even then, everyone was his new best friend. He was a happy and outgoing child and liked being the centre of attention. I was the oppositereserved, cautious and quiet.

Almost forty years later, nothing has changed. His outgoing, charismatic personality has allowed him to get to where he is today. And my reserved, cautious and quiet nature has allowed me to be there, right behind him, making sure hes safe and secure as his fame and success continue to grow.

This book is not just about my brother, but about our family. My brothers act is primarily about race and culture, and so this book delves into the history of our own race and unique culture. My brothers journey to becoming one of the biggest stand-up comedians in the world began generations ago in Burhanpur, India, with our restless grandfather James Peters. It continued with our father, Eric, after he met our mother, Maureen, in Calcutta. Ultimately, the journey went on to include my brother and me growing up in a townhouse in Brampton, Ontario.

Within this book, my brother has been completely candid about everything from having ADD, to being bullied as a kid, to selling drugs, to his own tragic history with murders. He offers an up-close-and-personal, behind-the-scenes look at his life in comedy and his adventures in Hollywood and beyond.

When we started working on this book, we had discussed with the publishers the idea of creating a collection of my brothers humorous stories and new bitsessentially, a funny book. After we started getting into it, we realized that we were delivering an honest, frank account of the son of immigrants who, for all of his success, is forever connected to his humble beginnings.

The stories and themes of this book are universal and can serve as a guidebook to all those kids whose parents discourage them from pursuing a life in show business. It proves that success can be achieved if you stick with something and if youre passionate about it. My brother has remained true to himself and followed his own path. In the late 90s, many peopleincluding mewere telling him that he needed to go to Los Angeles in order to move his career forward. He said it wasnt time yet, that L.A. would call for him when it was ready. He was right. He waited patiently for the right moment, and that moment came after he exploded on YouTube in 2005.

The rest is historyor actually, his story

Clayton Peters

WHITE PEOPLE-PLEASE BEAT YOUR KIDS. ILL TELL YOU WHY

When I was growing up, I hung out with mostly black kids, but every now and then, some white kid would come and hang out with us, and wed be like, Wow! A white kid! Ive heard so much about you! But the problem was that when a white kid would show up, wed all want to be like the white kid, and eventually, wed start taking the white kids advice on how to deal with our parents.

I remember hanging out with this little white boy, Ryan, when I was ten years old. I went to his house after school one day. His parents never beat him and they never even yelled at him. He could do anything he wanted and nothing was going to happen to him. We walked into his house after school one day and his mom says, Ryan, go clean your room.