Comedian Joe Rogan joins Jemele to talk about his new show on HBO's Veep, his love of Dave Chappelle, and what it's like to be a stand-up comedian in New York City. Also, the guys talk about what it s like to work at a comedy club in LA and why they don t want to go to comedy clubs anymore. And they talk about how to get out of your head when it comes to comedy and comedy clubs and how to be funny in the real world. And they get into the latest craze of virtual comedy and how it s going to change the way comedy is done in the 21st century. You won't want to miss it! Logo by Courtney DeKorte. Theme by Mavus White. Music by PSOVOD and tyops. The 500 is a production of Native Creative Podcasts. All rights reserved. Used by permission. If you enjoyed this episode please leave us a review and/or a rating and review on Apple Podcasts or wherever else you re listening to this episode, we ll be sure to make sure to give you the best listening experience possible. Thank you! We appreciate your support and share the podcast with your friends and family. Cheers! -Jon Sorrentino Jon and Sarah Timestamps: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 15. 16. 17. 18. 19. 21. 22. 23. 24. 25. 26. 27. 28. 29. 30. 35. 31. 36. Intro Music: Theme Song: Theme Music: "Let Me Know What You Think About This Is Good Music: [Blame It (feat. ) & Other Music: My Music Is Good, My Music is Good Music, My Theme Song by Jeffree Star & Other Credits: "Mr. Williams ) Music Credit: "Blame You Can't Waitress & I'm Working With You (A Little Girl" by Squeep. & The Other One (Solo Music) by Mr. Babbitt (Alicia Esteban ( ) & Mr. Williams ( )
00:02:48.000It's just like, boy, is that fraught with peril.
00:02:54.000People that are really into being from Brooklyn and people that are really into telling you they're a vegan, together at last.
00:02:59.000Speaking of improvisation, I'm always very jealous because I think my buddy Ben Schwartz and Thomas Middleditch, they did an improvising show on Netflix, right?
00:03:09.000And that is like the ultimate hack to people like us that take, like my first special took me 10 years.
00:03:15.000And now these guys can crank out five in a day because it's improvised.
00:05:17.000It just was weird that you had to kind of wait in the hallway before you go on stage, and so you kind of got molested by weirdos who'd come out and ask you questions and shit while you're trying to get your head together.
00:05:27.000Well, sometimes, as a single guy, that might be the good move, though.
00:11:27.000This is a famous story about Mitch Hedberg.
00:11:30.000Mitch Hedberg was on the road in Ohio and he was doing this club and for whatever reason, the manager of the club decided to book This guy who's like super high-energy and he had music I think he did like after acrobatics on stage and shit like crazy stuff and yeah got everybody riled up and then Mitch would go on there hey And everything was like and he was bombing and they wanted to switch Mitch with him and pay him less money It was like this big fucking deal.
00:14:40.000I tell my stories, like my Asian stories or whatever, but you can tell people come up to me like, hey man, that was funny, but you know when they're talking to themselves, they're like, yeah, that Asian, that Oriental boy is kind of funny.
00:14:51.000You know there's some kind of that going on.
00:14:55.000I am so foreign to them that they found it refreshing.
00:14:58.000They're like, I can't believe that Oriental boy spoke English that way.
00:15:02.000You gotta get that vibe over there, you know?
00:15:06.000Isn't it funny that Oriental became, like, taboo?
00:15:19.000Like, it's my buddy's father's in high school.
00:15:23.000They're like, so you and your Oriental parents, you guys, like they're trying to be so PC. It's like when people call black people African Americans because they're too careful, you know, and that's like kind of weird, you know?
00:18:14.000The riots in the streets, excuse me, the protests, because they're extremely polite protests.
00:18:19.000The way they part the street for an ambulance is amazing.
00:18:22.000It's tough, and I think that's one of the main reasons, aside from education and all that, just more opportunities in America, that was probably one of the main reasons why my family wanted to move out of Hong Kong, you know, to America.
00:19:24.000Look, I don't ever try to get political in my stand-up or whatever, but I get mad when I see hipsters in their house having Chairman Mao posters or like wearing Chairman Mao t-shirts and shit.
00:19:36.000Chairman Mao killed a lot of people, man.
00:19:38.000That's like, on the other side of the spectrum, you have like a fucking Hitler poster in your house, but somehow that's cool.
00:19:45.000You know, like, it wasn't, because all I know, I don't know history that well, but I know the stories that my parents told me during the Communist Revolution, how they got fucked over.
00:19:53.000There's something about Mao that's like, it's intriguing for people that just look at it on the surface.
00:20:17.000It's in a weird place now because it's capitalist, but it's capitalist really run by this communist government.
00:20:23.000The communist government and the businesses are completely intertwined.
00:20:27.000It's interesting because they can make policies, they're less red tape because they can make policies faster because the government, whatever they say, just goes.
00:20:34.000But then I guess you hope that it's a decent person in control.
00:20:39.000That's the fear that people have here in the United States of competing with China, is that China has these advantages because their businesses are so, their corporations are so intertwined with the government that we might do the same thing here.
00:20:54.000I mean, it's just it's a weird sort of slippery slope as sort of as laws and All your different rights get eroded you get closer and closer to the government being in control of things like these new laws that they've passed recently where the government can just Look into your internet searching with no warrant whatsoever.
00:21:16.000This was something that I don't know if you know about this part of the Patriot Act that This was one of the things that people were furious at Senator Sanders, because Bernie Sanders wasn't there, he didn't show up for the vote, and if he had shown up and voted the other way, it wouldn't have passed.
00:22:57.000The fact that he said that, that this might be Antifa, like, what?
00:23:02.000All these conspiracy theories out there, as an actor, I must say, if any of these people are conspiracy guys, they're fucking Daniel Day-Lewis.
00:25:28.000The military is banned from using tear gas on the battlefield, but police can use it on crowds at home.
00:25:34.000Here's why, and this is on CNN. Just think about that.
00:25:38.000The military is fucking banned from using this, but you're using it on civilians that just want to protest the tortured death Of a guy who was being detained by a cop who had a 14-year history of being a piece of shit.
00:25:55.000And dozens of, I mean, he had more than a dozen complaints of abusive behavior.
00:26:01.000And they're going to use tear gas on these people and just shoot rubber bullets randomly at folks.
00:26:21.000Stuff like this, he can't help himself.
00:26:23.000And under pressure, when people are angry at him because of all this.
00:26:27.000And I think one of the, it's kind of crazy, but one of the big things that started it off, where he really lost his composure, was all that shit that he said about Lysol.
00:26:36.000Like, maybe we get disinfectant and put it in the body, a cleansing.
00:26:40.000When he started doing that, and then the next day, they were asking him about it.
00:26:44.000I was being sarcastic to see how you reporters would call on it.
00:27:19.000They did a survey of a couple thousand people and somewhere in the range of 4% of people admitted to gargling and or washing stuff with bleach.
00:28:03.000I'm in a tweet thread, or a text thread, rather, with a couple comedians, and they'll send me the most egregious, ridiculous things that are going on on Twitter where people are arguing about all kinds of crazy shit.
00:28:57.000And then Twitter was like a lot of it was like trying jokes out, and a lot of it was like you had a hot take on something that was ridiculous, and you knew it was offensive, but you're only saying it for fun.
00:29:07.000And then people take those things out of context and they pretend that it's like your real feelings and thoughts.
00:30:02.000But as things get more and more ridiculous, eventually one day they'll be able to get mad at you for that.
00:30:07.000Once everything's been cleared out and people have been purified, they just move the goalposts and they find some new thing that's offensive to say or do.
00:30:15.000There's things that people are getting fired for today that three months ago you could say easily and people would agree with you.
00:30:28.000Well, the thing is, a lot of people tweeted in, you know, fucking 2008. They tweeted it, and then someone will go back and find it 12 years later, and you get in trouble.
00:30:38.000People are getting fired for old tweets.
00:30:40.000I'm really glad I don't have a job job where someone hires me or fires me.
00:30:46.000I've said a million things in the podcast, drunk or high or talking shit with comedians, where you're just trying to make each other laugh and say stupid shit.
00:30:54.000If you don't see the whole podcast and get the vibe of how we talk, Right.
00:31:09.000They know that they're trying to paint a very distorted perception of who these people are when they're taking their tweets and taking them out of context and putting them up there and trying to get them canceled.
00:32:49.000If somehow there was an old tweet somebody found, and it's some bullshit, and they're trying to cancel me, Do you think you or, like, friends of mine would speak up and be like, hey man, he's actually a good guy?
00:33:28.000Or it could be the person who's getting attacked does not have a high-profile friend, and they're kind of just starting out, and maybe they got a job somewhere, and none of their friends have any clout, so they can't really speak up for them, and if they did, they'd get canceled, so they're scared.
00:33:44.000They're scared of the mob, because it really is a mob, man.
00:33:47.000When an internet mob comes after you, You know, it's just not a good way to communicate.
00:33:55.000You know, there's an interesting guy who had a tweet about this.
00:34:23.000But he had a really interesting point that what we're eating when people get sick, you're eating highly processed food, right?
00:34:31.000You're not eating healthy, natural food.
00:34:34.000When you're consuming tweets and you're getting a lot of your information from Twitter and social media, you're getting highly processed information.
00:35:10.000He's just a that the point was excellent like I've said I had a similar point that I said too many people like you consuming gossip and bullshit and you're watching stupid television shows reality shows and your your mental diet is very poor But I think the way he formed it is actually even better that it's really highly processed because the form You're getting tweets,
00:35:33.000That form of like data and information, there's no social cues, there's no context, there's no nuance, and you're getting this very weird message, and you can decide good or bad.
00:36:48.000I used to retweet a lot of cool shit that people sent me, but then I had to stop listening, reading things that people were sending me.
00:36:55.000The one thing I ever really recently tweeted about was, I don't even want to mention this, but the whole Shane Gillis thing with the SNL. Mm-hmm.
00:37:30.000You know, the Shane Gillis thing was very weird, because like, they're talking shit, right?
00:37:37.000They're trying to be offensive, to be funny, and no one was listening, right?
00:37:42.000When they were doing it, and there's like, you know, a thousand people downloading their podcasts, they just thought they were just being offensive and saying ridiculous shit because you can, and because you make each other laugh.
00:38:19.000I mean, you know, oh, you're a racist apologist.
00:38:23.000I'm not apologizing for it, but I am saying that that's what a lot of those kind of guys do.
00:38:31.000There's like a shock aspect to certain Comedy where they try to make each other laugh by saying shit you're not supposed to say and He he had some fucking great sketches.
00:38:42.000There was a great sketch that he put up that Norm Macdonald retweeted because Norm was upset that he got fired for it all and it was about people taking things the wrong way and Misunderstanding and running with the worst possible scenario and it just like compounded it was a really great sketch and I shouldn't even have brought that up,
00:39:02.000and now people are going to tweet at me, like, you're a fucking asshole comic, trying to get another comic fired, but...
00:39:11.000Especially being a minority in America, I get it.
00:39:13.000Being an Asian, like, I say this in my stand-up, it's like, people coming up and saying, thanks for representing Asians.
00:39:19.000I love Asians, I love representing Asians, but it wasn't a choice.
00:39:22.000When you wake up Asian, when you wake up Asian, you can only represent Asians, and there's some kind of responsibility, so...
00:39:29.000I was talking to Steve Aoki about Bruce Lee.
00:39:31.000You know, I'm a giant Bruce Lee fan, and we were talking Bruce Lee stories, and he was saying that, like, when he was a kid, it was like, Bruce Lee was like, finally, like, Asians had this representative, this badass representative, you know, which just didn't exist before in popular culture.
00:39:47.000Like, that's how unique Bruce Lee is, if you really stop and think about it.
00:39:51.000Like, there was literally no one, even remotely like him in pop culture before him.
00:40:21.00040 years later, he is still one of the most famous Asian sex symbols.
00:40:27.000And representation, it's extremely important in that sense because I have had girls tell me, this is just anecdotally, you can't hate me for this story, but I mean, it's just a fun story.
00:40:40.000But this girl told me, she was like, A white girl, she was like, you know, when I watched The Crow, which is Brandon Lee's movie, his son, he was like, when I watched The Crow, I felt like that was my sexual awakening when I was 15 years old.
00:41:31.000I think with Representative, if we had like 10 more Bruce Lees, you know, or 10 more Crazy Rich Asians, that really helps, just the media representation.
00:41:47.000I need some other brothers to, or some white girl to be watching my stand-up and be like, you know, I'm gonna go fuck an Asian guy tonight.
00:47:31.000I don't know what the story is, but that sounds kind of shady and me too, if you're the producer and the star and you're getting a blowjob.
00:53:54.000Well, unless your girlfriend was the actress and you guys talked about it and she's cool with it and she wanted to do it.
00:54:00.000I don't know what kind of relationship he had with Chloe but that's the real, especially today in the Me Too era, you can fucking never get away with that unless it was the girl's idea.
00:54:15.000You'd have to get her on video saying, it's my idea to suck your dick, I want to do it.
00:54:19.000You'd have to get lawyers involved, you'd have to sign NDAs, people would have to sign consent forms.
00:54:27.000Sadly, I don't think I've ever had a sex scene in anything.
00:56:48.000Maybe there's a very nuanced way to write this movie of why American Idol producers picked him out of the crowd and featured him just to make fun of him, and why the rest of America laughed at this guy.
00:57:23.000I mean, as a human being, there's something to be said.
00:57:28.000I get that the guy signed a release, and I get that that's part of the fun with the show, but there is kind of a difference between people that are mentally challenged and someone who's just not very talented.
00:57:56.000So there's sure a very nuanced way to write about William Hung that could work, but we just shouldn't make that movie.
00:58:05.000Have we ran out of Asian people out there that I can do biopics about and a fucking William Hung script lands on my desk?
00:58:12.000Well, isn't that a part of the problem with reality TV in general, right?
00:58:16.000It's like, what they're trying to do is...
00:58:18.000There's some reality TV that's based on actual events that are taking place, but a lot of it is like they're taking...
00:58:24.000You have to sign these releases on a lot of these shows that allow them to edit your words in a very distorted way.
00:58:31.000You and I can have a conversation, you can have an answer to one question, and they'll put that answer on another question that's totally unrelated.
00:58:39.000It makes you look like a real piece of shit.
00:59:16.000Yeah, and I was I'm singing and everybody just they hit the buzzer to get the fuck out of here Yeah, I'm I can I'm a normal person like if you think I suck like I probably suck Yeah, but if I have a problem like a mental problem like there's something wrong with me.
00:59:30.000Yeah And I do that, and you know there's something wrong with me, and you still put me on television.
01:01:18.000Because there's so few of us, each of us that does something means so much more, right?
01:01:23.000That was the beef with the Apu character, because there wasn't a lot of Indian, and then you characterize, whatever.
01:01:29.000Now, that's what's great about Crazy Rich Asians.
01:01:34.000And I had a lot of fun on that movie, because for one of the first times, I wasn't the only Asian dude on set, and I can just play a character.
01:01:42.000My character is an asshole in that movie, but I can just lean into that and be a character actor and play it.
01:02:19.000You know, it's interesting that when someone gets offended at racial stereotypes, society puts it through this filter of whether or not it's valid.
01:04:01.000Because today, I wouldn't even bring it up.
01:04:03.000The guy who was the fucking editor of Bon Appetit, he got fired for a photograph that he took dressing up like, I guess he's Puerto Rican, like that was a costume that he did.
01:04:15.000Like a brown face or something like that?
01:04:16.000No brown face at all, just gold chains and a hat that said the Bronx or something.
01:07:55.000You can't complain where you see what Asian people have to go through, black people have to go through, Mexican people have to go through, Muslim people have to go through.
01:08:08.000Alonzo Bolton said this jokingly to me after, you know, my set, because my set has a lot of Asian stuff, my stories, you know, and some complaints.
01:08:16.000And then he's like, you know, I like how you're talking about race because you got minor inconveniences.
01:09:07.000I really believe that this moment, the reason why these people are in the streets, the reason why there's all...
01:09:13.000Take away the looting, just the peaceful protests.
01:09:16.000The reason why all this is happening is because There's a lot of parts of our culture that haven't caught up to the zeitgeist, to the way people feel about things, the way people are disgusted by racism, the way people are disgusted by discrimination.
01:09:29.000And then people are united and they're getting together to try to show that.
01:09:33.000Like it's a cultural shift that's represented by this mass movement of human beings.
01:09:38.000I think it's, I think everything, if you follow like Steven Pinker's work where he talks about violence and if you go back and look at crime a hundred years ago versus now, you see this very steady decrease in crime and violence and people getting better.
01:11:01.000Like, we're just, you know, you're just...
01:11:03.000I'm your Asian consultant or whatever.
01:11:05.000So I think, yeah, it's good to get past that point where, sure, we can just talk about...
01:11:10.000Anything that's beyond that, but yeah, there's so much work to be done.
01:11:14.000I think what's happening is a great turning point.
01:11:19.000We look back and be like, yeah, that happened.
01:11:20.000There's great things happening, and then there's also the feeding frenzy.
01:11:24.000The online mob feeding frenzy is happening, too.
01:11:27.000There's this whole broad range of things that are happening all at once.
01:11:32.000There's great things and bad things, but that's just part of being human.
01:11:35.000You have to see the bad things and just go, this is fucking gross.
01:11:39.000Let's get away from this and this is better.
01:11:43.000When people see things that give them hope and you see all those heart signs where people love things and like things and say this is amazing and then they share it and repost it and retweet it, it spreads through people.
01:11:58.000We should all be looking for more things that make us feel good.
01:12:01.000Whether it's our own actions or things that we can find online.
01:12:04.000More things that resonate with how we want the world to be.
01:13:19.000And when I first started, I was able to do some, say, Brea improv or whatever, shows that I would never have gotten to do one year in because they were Asian shows.
01:13:30.000So I was able to fit something, you know?
01:13:34.000So that, it could be, I always say this, I think it's, It could be easier if you have an angle, whereas it's a race thing or something, some specialty of yours, to get into acting, to get into comedy.
01:13:49.000But when you get to a certain level, it becomes less work, I think.
01:13:56.000It gives you an angle to break in, but once you've broken in, then it might not be.
01:14:02.000I've had conversations with my female friends about stand-up, female friends that are comics about stand-up, and the ones that are really good all seem to think it's a meritocracy.
01:14:13.000And the ones that are not very good seem to think there's some discrimination.
01:14:49.000I think it's harder for women to go on stage.
01:14:52.000First of all, if a woman goes on stage and does stand-up, almost automatically, her political opinions, nobody wants to hear.
01:15:00.000Men don't want to hear your political opinions.
01:15:02.000Men don't want to hear you telling them things that they don't already know.
01:15:06.000Men don't want you to, like, if you talk about sex, Like man like you got to be like a broken slutty kind of a girl to talk about sex and then they'll go with it But if you're just like a regular girl with no problems and you want to talk about sex It's like you're you get scrutinized I think so you have to be better you have to think like for a woman to like ride like a Whitney Cummings or Eliza or someone to like rise through the ranks like you you have to be undeniable You have to be able to go into any crowd and
01:15:37.000But some women, along that process of figuring out that there's sort of a narrow window that you can fit your jokes through, in the beginning at least, they stumble into that, and they bounce off those walls.
01:15:52.000A guy can right away talk about politics, talk about sex, talk about anything.
01:16:27.000Do you think it's harmful or is it helpful to start in that narrow lane, whereas it's a girl talking about dirty sex stuff or an Asian comic talking about being Asian, and then you can expand to other jokes?
01:16:38.000Well, I think we all start with training wheels, right?
01:17:12.000And again, a lot of it is like men don't necessarily, a lot of men, again, I'm generalizing, don't necessarily want to hear a woman on stage.
01:17:21.000See, there's a thing about stand-up too.
01:17:23.000You're a smooth guy when you're on stage.
01:17:25.000I love your delivery, your presentation.
01:19:18.000I was like 21 and he was you know late 30s and That's when he was starting stand-up, but he was way advanced Because he just had this ability because he would do the he was an alcoholic for years So he would he had these great fucking stories of all the times he did coke and drank so much that he didn't remember what he was doing and You know got arrested and he would tell these crazy drug-fueled stories on stage At an AA meeting.
01:21:38.000But there's something really nice about that.
01:21:41.000When you get to a certain level in acting or when you get over yourself as a stand-up, you should be around supportive people.
01:21:47.000Yeah, once you get to a certain level.
01:21:49.000But then when people bust balls, like if someone gets off stage and has a terrible set and their friend busts their balls, usually they'll laugh.
01:23:10.000I mean, it's hard to figure out, like, what to say.
01:23:13.000It's gonna take a while for everything to, like, settle in a place where people can accept even what's happened.
01:23:18.000I mean, how many people you're dealing with in the audience that have lost their job?
01:23:21.000How many people you're dealing with that, you know, there's no job for, it doesn't exist anymore, their business is gone, and they just want to laugh, and, like, maybe there's some wounds that you don't want to scratch up.
01:23:32.000We're gonna have to navigate those weird waters.
01:25:03.000We're a weird talking animal and we want to survive and we have ideas of fairness and rules and we have a mob mentality.
01:25:12.000There's a weird thing that will happen that it's probably built into us from Thousands of years of surviving hand-to-hand combat and war, when shit goes crazy and you're around, you lock into chaos mode.
01:25:26.000And if you've ever been around a mob that's going crazy and nutty, you can feel it, man.
01:25:31.000You feel it in your skin, you feel it in the air.
01:25:34.000I'm fascinated by that, and I'm probably gonna talk about that.
01:26:32.000I mean, we've seen many videos online of people just getting beat up by somebody because they don't know how to fight.
01:26:40.000And you see some person who really doesn't even know how to fight, and they're beating the fuck out of someone and hurting them really bad.
01:28:33.000Also, what you're doing when you're doing stand-up is you're kind of exposing these truths that everybody kind of knows about but doesn't talk about and it frees them in a way.
01:30:25.000But that one line I would have never gotten.
01:30:27.000Yeah, some of those lines like the best lines of my act came from me just sitting in front of a computer Yeah, just writing just it's it's a constantly I guess that the danger and the fear fearlessness of comics is also The willingness to try new shit.
01:30:44.000Yeah four pages of new shit that maybe only one line works Because I know many people that I came up with that are much funnier than me naturally I think but they they're stuck in that 15 and They keep doing that 15 because they feel good.
01:31:10.000One of the things about, like you just did a special, one of the exciting things about comedy is we all become beginners after we do a special.
01:31:18.000You do a special, and then you start from scratch.
01:31:54.000I'm afraid that, even though I don't need another acting job from somebody watching me in stand-up, I don't need to impress a manager in the audience or another comic, there's still an insecurity.
01:32:05.000Like, I don't want a tank in case somebody I like is watching me for the first time.
01:32:20.000I guess you can't think about it, because imagine that time you just walked by and saw me in the lap for the first time, and I just ate a dick.
01:32:28.000I'd be like, everybody eats a dick in that lab.
01:32:32.000I'd be like, he's eating a dick just like I have.
01:32:35.000Yeah, so I don't know if that ever goes away.
01:32:38.000I know what you mean, but there's the thought process of, well, you should work out your shit at the Ha Ha, or at the Ice House, or at Flappers, a little bit off the beaten path.
01:32:49.000You don't want to do it at the improv.
01:34:50.000But that bit was just, that was just a seed.
01:34:54.000But then there's other bits that like, they took a lot of real thinking and like, oh, this is like, these are mine-filled Terrain that I'm going through here.
01:35:05.000I gotta make sure that I really dot all my I's and cross all my T's when I'm talking about this, because this is a controversial subject.
01:35:13.000I don't want anybody to misconstrue what I'm saying here.
01:41:11.000And then I came to America and I was trying to learn English just by watching TV. And then it seems like just completely different genres in this new art form.
01:41:20.000It's like I heard music for the first time and I was like, holy shit, there's rock and roll music and there's, you know, hip hop.
01:41:25.000So it was so interesting because I remember I really gravitated towards a comic view.
01:41:31.000That was so interesting because it wasn't just jokes or me trying to learn English.
01:41:37.000It was me also learning about culture, how each race saw each other, blah, blah.
01:41:43.000Even though there were stereotypes that they were joking about, but it was cool.
01:41:47.000Whereas I watched that Comedy Central premium blend, didn't really laugh.
01:42:15.000And I just loved that side of performance.
01:42:17.000And then only later on when I got into comedy, I was like, oh, wow.
01:42:20.000Everyone that's doing that premium blend stuff, maybe not my cup of tea, but it made me laugh as an adult because I understood how hard that was.
01:44:40.000I quit after like two months, if that.
01:44:44.000And then I tried like different things, like boxing classes, gyms, whatever, you know.
01:44:50.000And then I say this story, I wrote this book and I say in the book like, typing in local open mics in your Google search, it's one step away from typing in what's the best way to kill myself.
01:45:05.000It is that desperation that you need, that I needed.
01:45:09.000So then I just Googled local open mics, went to the ha-ha, paid $5.
01:45:13.000You have to pay $5 for five minutes to stage time at the ha-ha.
01:45:16.000So five other comics can not laugh at you.
01:49:02.000I think stand-ups can all be great actors and we all have a base for that because one of the magic tricks in stand-up is you told that joke a thousand times, but you got to make it sound like it's the first time.
01:49:14.000And if you're just mailing it in and you're just telling it as if you're reading a script in your head, it's like watching bad acting on TV. If the guy ain't feeling it, you're not going to be feeling it.
01:49:55.000And it's kind of like when someone's really killing, when you're watching someone on stage killing, your eyes are open, your jaws are open, you're like, ah!
01:50:19.000You're not like going, I would have said this or he's, well, I'm bored with what he's saying.
01:50:23.000No, no, you're letting, if someone's got a well-crafted act, but that's the thing is like creating that act, like, boy, you're going to have some weird hiccups when you put it together, when you got new shit and it's clunky and it's awkward and maybe go down a road that you don't want to go down.
01:50:39.000You're like, I got to get out of this bit.
01:51:07.000I don't think there's any never do that, other than, you know, I mean, there's definitely a few never do that, but if you got an idea and you know it's fire, you know it's going to crack, you're like, just let me just run this on stage.
01:51:18.000I know I got a real bit I can do if this doesn't work.
01:51:22.000Like, have a nice segue into a real bit.
01:51:25.000In case this tanks, I'm just going to cut it in half and then go into my old bit.
01:51:29.000But when some shit just happened like three hours ago and you go on stage, there's a certain energy to that too where the audience is like, this fucking guy has no idea if this is any good.
01:51:38.000You have a hot take on something that just happened a few hours ago.
01:54:57.000When you know everything, I mean, a really great actor, you're supposed to know everything, everything, and then you use your skills to pretend you've heard it for the first time, which is stand-up also.
01:55:09.000And sometimes you forget that, you're just like, yeah, it feels good, but it's not.
01:56:36.000He was like, I don't have CBS. I was like, who doesn't fucking have CBS? You stick a piece of tinfoil in the back of your TV, you get CBS. So he was just really not down.
01:56:48.000And then eventually, when I got on Silicon Valley, The old man understands what a contract is, a serious regular job on HBO. He's acting.
01:58:47.000And it's a China versus America thing in this episode.
01:58:52.000And they needed a couple older Chinese scientists that are authentic Mandarin speaking Chinese people.
01:58:58.000After the table read, Greg Daniels, the showrunner, he's like, you know, just, I don't know, it's always the same guys, you know, just whatever.
01:59:05.000And John Malkovich was the one that said, Hey, what about Jimmy's dad?
02:03:15.000You've seen like a Viner or like a YouTuber trying to do stand-up.
02:03:19.000The five minutes, the crowd is crazy because they love this person and they're laughing.
02:03:25.000But then it's hard to keep that momentum going if you actually don't have the goods.
02:03:28.000That's what they say about famous people doing stand-up in particular.
02:03:32.000Like you get a couple of minutes where they're happy to see you.
02:03:34.000And then after a while, like, oh, this guy's fucking terrible.
02:03:38.000That happened to me when I first transitioned from just unknown stand-up to the guy from Silicon Valley doing stand-up.
02:03:46.000I remember the first couple of minutes were so hot, I couldn't follow my own hype, kind of.
02:03:53.000And it's interesting, because my character on Silicon Alley, he has an accent, he's an immigrant, like we were talking about earlier.
02:04:01.000So a lot of people, for a while, coming up to me in the streets, when they didn't know I was a stand-up, they didn't know I acted beyond that show, they were like, oh shit, are you Jing Yang from that show?
02:04:08.000I was like, yeah, yeah, sure, thanks for watching.
02:04:11.000And then they're just like, oh shit, I didn't even know you speak English in real life!
02:04:15.000So imagine the stand-up crowd seeing that.
02:04:52.000We thought about doing, like, not a reality show, but like a little adventure show with me and my dad.
02:04:57.000And I take him to try to find an agent, go to auditions, and bring him to the comedy store to get advice from you guys so he can be a comic.
02:05:24.000She's, you know, she's a woman who's had a long life, and she's experienced a lot of shit, and Tony wrote stuff for her, and everybody was happy to see her, and she went up there and fucking killed.
02:05:34.000What do you think she did, Jamie, about four minutes, five minutes?
02:07:31.000Like Crazy Rich Asians or like Patriot's Day, this movie I did with Wahlberg, you know, in the premiere, I'll take him to the premiere of my parents and just to kind of finally get their approval, you know, and he gets it.
02:17:52.000Well, Chinese people, I think in general, I say this, my stand-up, and it's funny, if I do it in front of a white audience, or a non-Chinese audience, you're like, what the fuck?
02:20:10.000They would give it up for academic and they always call me smart and stuff.
02:20:14.000But they will make fun of me, like, I remember after orchestra practice in high school once, my dad came, very proud of me playing the violinist, like, oh, you're great, you know.
02:20:25.000So that stuff, they'll give it up, you know.
02:20:27.000But then a girl, this really cute white girl came and talked to me after, Tracy was her name, that I kind of had a crush on.
02:22:38.000So it's the opposite of what some weird theater parents do or coach parents do.
02:22:45.000It's a thing that happens when kids get into athletics where their parents failed at sports and then they get really invested in their kid being awesome.
02:23:03.000Yeah, there's something really weird about, like, it's a burden, too, for the kids.
02:23:08.000Like, I've seen it with kids where the overbearing parents just want the kid to succeed so well because, like, that's my boy out there kicking ass.
02:26:16.000So it's sort of like that cycle just sort of repeats itself with kids.
02:26:20.000You know, I thought that back in the day about certain things like acting.
02:26:25.000I'm like, if I didn't have low self-esteem growing up about this or if my dad never thought I could be in the arts, maybe I'll never made it here.
02:26:31.000Like I made it here for a reason, right?
02:28:14.000Dude, every time I've bombed, like I talked about that one time when friends came to see me at the comedy store and I realized, like, I'm phoning it in.