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:: DAN NAINAN ::
Daniel Nainan is the son of a South Asian nuclear physicist and an East Asian child psychologist who met in Bloomington, Indiana, where Daniel was born. He began playing piano at the age of two. Despite a wonderful home life, Daniel was brutally tormented by his schoolmates because of his unusual racial mix, his lack of athletic prowess and his fondness for computers. Daniel paid his way through college by co-oping at IBM. In college, he became extremely active in sports and realized his dream of dunking a basketball despite standing only 5'11". After IBM, he worked at the National Academy of Sciences in Washington, decided to move West to get into the music business and landed a job at Capitol Records in Hollywood. While living in California, he also toured briefly with a rock band. Finally, Daniel worked at Intel Corporation as a technical presenter, touring the world with CEO Andy Grove and other senior executives. Daniel was nervous about speaking on stage and decided to take a comedy class to help get over his stage fright. His coworkers saw his tape and asked him to perform at a sales conference. His routine included his dead-on impression of Dr. Grove, and the 2,500 in attendance loved it. In late 2003, Daniel opened for noted HBO comedian Robert Schimmel, who asked Daniel to tour with him in 2004. This lucky break enabled Daniel to hone his act in front of packed houses at America's top comedy clubs. Currently, Daniel performs at comedy clubs, colleges, civic events, weddings, beauty pageants, corporate functions and charity events nationwide. He has performed with Jerry Seinfeld and was recently seen on NBC's "Last Comic Standing". He also does voiceover work, including multiple celebrity impressions and accents, on scores of radio stations across the country. Unlike other comedians, Daniel does not smoke, drink alcohol or coffee or do drugs. His only addiction is adrenalin, a craving he satisfies by engaging in extreme sports such as skydiving, bungee jumping, scuba diving on shipwrecks, skiing off cliffs and rollerblading down stairs. He prefers clean jokes and does not stay up late, and he is possibly the only comedian to appear on national television who does not own a TV. He prefers to spend his time in other pursuits; for example, playing chess, quarterbacking in a weekly Central Park football game or composing music (he plays keyboards, guitar, bass, drums and cello). He has traveled the world and especially enjoys learning new languages. |
