Sounds like the all-too-ordinary life of a drifter?

No, but the makings of one of Singapore’s top comedians, Moe Alkaff.

You would probably know him as the wacky host with the deep voice and goofy laugh in the Gotcha! series between 1993 and ’94.

I should know him too – because as a TV producer then, I had directed Moe in the taping of the programme before a ‘live’ studio audience.

It was, to say the least, a memorable experience.

Not only would he make a habit of ad-libbing around the script, verbally sparring with it as it were, he would also improvise gags on the spot.

There was once, for instance, when he was in the middle of delivering a joke, he suddenly turned to the camera and asked: “Do you know what I mean?”

This was unrehearsed but I immediately cued my cameraman to tilt the camera up and down to simulate a nod.

Without missing a beat, Moe picked up the pace: “Good. Thought I’d lost you.”

That, in a nutshell, sums up the man: spontaneous to a fault, so effortless it’s almost like a god-given gift.

Over coffee recently, 43-year-old Moe and I sat down to catch up.

His trademark curly locks had been trimmed but, unlike the Biblical Samson, he had lost none of his innate talent - for clowning.

Explaining his penchant for improvisation, the one-time deejay with hip 1980s nightspots Studio M and Black Velvet quipped: “Maybe it’s because I’m an Arab!”

“It’s part of my culture that we talk a lot,” Moe added. “We always have an answer for anything and everything.”

Indeed, throughout the hour-long chat, Moe wasn’t short of wisecracks.

When asked if he’s related to the famous Saudi family that once owned Alkaff Mansion at Mount Faber, he replied, without batting an eyelid: “Yes, I’m the brick of the house!”

But this gift of the gab wasn’t so obvious in his younger days.

“I was pretty quiet,” Moe revealed. “I’d hang out with the kampong kids but I wouldn’t talk much.”

What helped was that although he was born into Islam, he wasn’t a conventional Muslim family.

“Our religion set our way of life but it didn’t control us. This led me to make my own decisions.”

One of those decisions involved moonlighting as a construction worker during his school holidays.

Not one to hit the books, Moe preferred roughing it out by digging trenches in roads.

This proved to be fertile ground for him to pick up street language and cred – qualities that would stand him in good stead years later as an MC plying the dinner-and-dance circuit.

“With a theatre-seating audience, you’ve got their attention,” he explained.

“But with a dinner audience, you’re performing with waiters walking around and you must still be able to command their attention.”

Moe had set up his own events company, Moezik, in 1989, ten years after he’d learned the tricks of the trade from well-known deejays such as Brian Richmond and Larry Lai.

Before long, he became such a hot MC that he was breaking his back performing an average of 30 shows a month.

Not bad for someone who only completed secondary two and holds a vocational institute certificate.

And the reason for his success? An uncanny ability to work any audience.

Here, Moe cited a stage routine in which he played a taxi-driver while Under One Roof actor Nicholas Lee, at that time relatively unknown, acted as Sir Stamford Raffles.

“We had a basic script but we never followed it,” Moe recalled, chuckling.

“We just read the audience’s mood and Nicholas went along with whatever I did.”

This was precisely the kind of madcap humour which Gotcha! needed.

It might infuriate the show’s writers, who complained that scripting for him was a waste of time, but it also endeared him to TV audiences.

In fact, Gotcha! was such a hit that people began recognising Moe on the streets.

“Some people would point a finger at my face and shout: Ah, Gotcha!” he recalled wryly.

“Or they would come up to me and ask: You don’t remember me ah?”

“I didn’t know how to handle most of them. They’d think I’m proud but I’m not.”

“That’s one of the reasons why I quit TV...It stole my private life from my, at that time, soon-to-be-wife Christine.”

These days, the father of two children – six-year-old Shamzi and four-year-old Zara - appears more at ease with his celebrity status.

He’s relocated his family to the US, operating his company out of Colorado as an organiser of MICE (meetings, incentives, conferences and events) which, he claimed, is a more lucrative business than dinner-and-dance affairs.

His clients now hail from countries like France, Spain and Indonesia.

When he’s back in town, he’s pleasantly surprised that people still remember him, even though he hasn’t appeared on TV for the last 11 years apart from a starring role in the Raintree production, One Leg Kicking (2001).

“Taxi-drivers would take me as a friend rather than a celebrity,” he disclosed.

“I’d make a joke about their comments and there’s less of this segregation [of] star and normal person.”

He still has it, this common touch that makes him relatable to the man in the street.