The Joe Rogan Experience - Joe Rogan Experience #1490 - Jimmy O Yang

00:00:01.000 Hey! 0.99

00:00:02.000 What's up, brother?

00:00:02.000 How are you?

00:00:03.000 What's up, Joe?

00:00:03.000 Good to see you.

00:00:03.000 It's great seeing you.

00:00:04.000 It's great seeing a fellow comedian that I don't think I've been inside a comedy club or seen any comedian for two months now.

00:00:10.000 It's weird.

00:00:10.000 It's like they're trying to get it out of our system.

00:00:12.000 Like, they're trying to, like, if we're junkies, if we're comedy junkies, we've gone through a rehab.

00:00:18.000 You have to live like a regular person for months.

00:00:20.000 It's tough.

00:00:21.000 I mean, I've gotten past a phase of like...

00:00:23.000 Because back in the day, if I didn't do stand-up for a week, I would get depressed.

00:00:26.000 Yeah.

00:00:27.000 Because there's nothing else going on in my life.

00:00:29.000 But now I got other stuff going.

00:00:31.000 I can do writing, whatever.

00:00:32.000 But I feel bad for like the road guys.

00:00:35.000 Oh, yeah.

00:00:36.000 And the open micers that's just coming up.

00:00:38.000 Oh, yeah.

00:00:39.000 And I'm sure you've gotten this.

00:00:41.000 Are a lot of people inviting you to do virtual?

00:00:43.000 Virtual stand-up comedy shows on Zoom? 1.00

00:00:46.000 Yeah, they can eat shit. 1.00

00:00:47.000 That is the worst idea on the fucking planet. 1.00

00:00:50.000 Bro, even great comics look terrible on those. 1.00

00:00:53.000 And they can record you forever.

00:00:56.000 Exactly.

00:00:56.000 And record you looking terrible.

00:00:58.000 Bombing.

00:00:59.000 It's just not the right place.

00:01:02.000 It's like, let's play basketball underwater.

00:01:05.000 That doesn't work.

00:01:07.000 But that shows you how desperate people are.

00:01:09.000 They would put their whole material on the line to do virtual, no real people audience just to get their rocks off.

00:01:18.000 Dave Chappelle's got a very unique solution. 0.99

00:01:20.000 He's doing some shit in his backyard. 0.99

00:01:22.000 He sent me... 1.00

00:01:23.000 Well, not his backyard.

00:01:24.000 His friend has a wedding pavilion.

00:01:26.000 So he set up this thing at a wedding pavilion.

00:01:29.000 All of it is COVID safe.

00:01:32.000 Look at that.

00:01:33.000 That's Dave on stage in Ohio at a wedding pavilion.

00:01:37.000 Oh, wow, dude.

00:01:40.000 That's awesome.

00:01:41.000 So that would be where people would get married and Dave's up there doing stand-up.

00:01:44.000 Yeah, well, he's so good.

00:01:45.000 He doesn't need, like, a low ceiling, you know, packed seats.

00:01:50.000 He just needs a crowd.

00:01:51.000 And, you know, he also, I think...

00:01:54.000 He just figured out how to improvise.

00:01:57.000 He's like, there's got to be a way to get around this.

00:01:58.000 I'm going crazy.

00:01:59.000 There's got to be a way.

00:02:01.000 And doing it outside, separating everybody, following all the COVID requirements.

00:02:05.000 The governor actually had approved this.

00:02:07.000 Oh, really?

00:02:08.000 Yeah, yeah.

00:02:08.000 He's in Ohio.

00:02:09.000 So the governor of Ohio approved all this.

00:02:11.000 When did this happen?

00:02:12.000 Like recently?

00:02:13.000 He's just doing it.

00:02:13.000 He just started doing it.

00:02:14.000 He texted me a couple days ago saying it was going to take like four days to work the kinks out.

00:02:19.000 We're making history over here, Joe Rogan!

00:02:22.000 And then, you know, next thing you know, he's off and running.

00:02:25.000 I mean, comedy clubs probably got to be the last thing to open up, right?

00:02:29.000 No, not the last thing. 0.92

00:02:30.000 I think like Staples Center shit like that, arenas, big places, that's gonna be the last thing.

00:02:35.000 Restaurants are slowly starting to... 0.97

00:02:36.000 There it is.

00:02:37.000 Boom! 0.99

00:02:39.000 What is this?

00:02:40.000 Brooklyn Vegan?

00:02:41.000 Ew.

00:02:45.000 Very reputable site.

00:02:46.000 Don't shoot the messenger.

00:02:47.000 I understand.

00:02:48.000 It's just like, boy, is that fraught with peril.

00:02:54.000 People that are really into being from Brooklyn and people that are really into telling you they're a vegan, together at last.

00:02:59.000 Speaking 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?

00:03:09.000 And that is like the ultimate hack to people like us that take, like my first special took me 10 years.

00:03:15.000 And now these guys can crank out five in a day because it's improvised.

00:03:20.000 I'm like, what are we doing here?

00:03:22.000 Well, I remember the first time I saw you was at the improv.

00:03:25.000 I saw you kill in that little tiny room of death. 0.60

00:03:28.000 That lab is death. 1.00

00:03:30.000 Everybody eats shit in that lab. 1.00

00:03:32.000 That is the worst. 1.00

00:03:33.000 Ever since they remodeled it, half the room is a bar.

00:03:37.000 Yes.

00:03:37.000 And then there's pillars in the front of the stage.

00:03:40.000 And right next to you is where the door is.

00:03:43.000 So people are coming in the door.

00:03:44.000 There's all this chit-chat and talking and buying tickets.

00:03:46.000 It's right there.

00:03:48.000 But you were killing. 0.99

00:03:49.000 And I was like, damn, this dude's legit funny. 1.00

00:03:51.000 Because you have to be legit funny to kill in that bizarre environment. 1.00

00:03:55.000 I ate shit in that room. 1.00

00:03:56.000 I've seen a lot of people eat shit in that room. 1.00

00:03:58.000 It's a tough room. 1.00

00:03:59.000 And sometimes you want to start in that small room and then do another set in the big room.

00:04:03.000 So you go home happy.

00:04:04.000 I did the wrong way.

00:04:06.000 That's the worst feeling.

00:04:07.000 I murdered in the big room.

00:04:07.000 Then I came to the little room.

00:04:08.000 It was like 10 people in there and ate shit. 1.00

00:04:10.000 Yeah, and then your first set, you're completely forgotten, and then you're just like, well, I'm a piece of shit, and I can't do stand-up. 1.00

00:04:16.000 Not only that, I strolled in cocky because I just killed. 0.99

00:04:19.000 I'm like, I know how to kill. 1.00

00:04:20.000 Come on, I'm a fucking professional here. 1.00

00:04:22.000 Went up in there and bombed. 0.99

00:04:24.000 Yeah, it's just a terrible setup.

00:04:26.000 They know it though. 0.99

00:04:26.000 They've remodeled that improv more than any other fucking club I've ever even heard of. 0.99

00:04:31.000 Why? 0.98

00:04:31.000 The old setup was fine. 0.98

00:04:33.000 They don't listen.

00:04:34.000 They just say, I got an idea.

00:04:36.000 And then everybody goes, okay, great.

00:04:37.000 So they put a new green room that you have to duck to get into.

00:04:41.000 Have you seen that new green room that's upstairs that no one's ever going to use ever?

00:04:44.000 Yeah.

00:04:44.000 And then you go down the stairs from that new green room and it takes you right to where the stage is?

00:04:48.000 Wait, the one with the piano and stuff?

00:04:51.000 No, that's the other green room.

00:04:53.000 Okay.

00:04:53.000 No, I haven't seen the other one.

00:04:54.000 There's two fucking green rooms. 0.99

00:04:55.000 Huh. 1.00

00:04:55.000 It's the dumbest setup of all time. 1.00

00:04:57.000 The main room is a great room, though. 1.00

00:04:59.000 Great room.

00:05:00.000 It's one of the all-time classic rooms.

00:05:02.000 They haven't fucked that up.

00:05:04.000 I still think that improv, in LA, it's my favorite place.

00:05:07.000 It's a great place.

00:05:07.000 Yeah, and they show me love early on.

00:05:11.000 Paige has been great, Rita's been great.

00:05:13.000 Paige and Rita are awesome.

00:05:14.000 They're the salt of the earth, both those people.

00:05:16.000 It's a nice environment. 0.93

00:05:17.000 It 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. 0.91

00:05:27.000 Well, sometimes, as a single guy, that might be the good move, though. 0.95

00:05:32.000 You know what I mean? 0.98

00:05:33.000 Laugh Factory, you do your set, you get the fuck out. 0.88

00:05:35.000 You don't get to meet nobody. 0.94

00:05:37.000 Improv, you do your set, you hang out at the bar, and then, you know, some girls come talk to you.

00:05:42.000 You have to swim through some weirdos.

00:05:45.000 You do have to swim through weirdos.

00:05:47.000 It's fine.

00:05:47.000 And some dudes will just wedge themselves between you and a girl, too, right?

00:05:51.000 If you were trying to chit-chat with a lady... 1.00

00:05:53.000 They go, hey, Jimmy.

00:05:54.000 Hi, Jimmy.

00:05:55.000 You were really funny.

00:05:55.000 I got to talk to you about something.

00:05:57.000 I'm starting a virtual comedy club and I'd love to have you be a part of it.

00:06:00.000 There's been a lot of pitches that I inadvertently said yes to because I was half drunk at the bar.

00:06:05.000 It's like, hey, man, let me tell you about this show in Silver Lake.

00:06:09.000 It's kind of near Echo Park, but really it's in Boyle Heights.

00:06:11.000 But great open mic, man.

00:06:13.000 You know, Jamie Kennedy's done it.

00:06:15.000 You got to come do it.

00:06:16.000 I was like...

00:06:17.000 Sure, why don't you send me an email?

00:06:19.000 And the next email, I get.

00:06:21.000 I completely forgot about the interaction.

00:06:23.000 Next email, I get.

00:06:24.000 He's like, so I got you on the show May 15th, man.

00:06:26.000 So are you good?

00:06:27.000 You're going to do 15?

00:06:28.000 And I'm like, well...

00:06:30.000 I'm out of town!

00:06:32.000 Well, I can't say that because I'm like, did I agree to this?

00:06:37.000 Because I don't remember.

00:06:38.000 I was drunk.

00:06:38.000 So I was like, sure, how come?

00:06:41.000 And I get suckered into these terrible things.

00:06:43.000 Yeah, you got to know how to say no.

00:06:45.000 It's very important.

00:06:46.000 Yeah.

00:06:46.000 It's very important.

00:06:47.000 Well, that's the thing about the open mic community.

00:06:49.000 There's always some dudes got some kind of a bringer show that they're putting something together and...

00:06:55.000 Usually it's okay.

00:06:56.000 It's good.

00:06:57.000 It's seasoning.

00:06:58.000 You get on stage.

00:06:58.000 You do a little set.

00:06:59.000 At any stage of the game, it's always good to get on stage in weird crowds.

00:07:03.000 But the problem with a lot of those shows is you'll go on after two or three people that are deaf.

00:07:10.000 There is no comedy left in life, and you'll be convinced that nothing is funny.

00:07:15.000 It's impossible to be funny.

00:07:16.000 Do you know what I'm saying?

00:07:17.000 You see someone really, really, really bad, and there's nothing to comedy.

00:07:22.000 Comedy doesn't work.

00:07:23.000 Because there's so many, I guess, approach to this, right?

00:07:26.000 Like, I think there's one that's like, you know, you don't want to follow someone that's too strong. 0.94

00:07:30.000 Like, if I go on stage after Chappelle, kind of fucked, you know? 0.93

00:07:34.000 He's both strong and super famous. 0.98

00:07:37.000 Yes.

00:07:37.000 It's a double hammer.

00:07:38.000 Yeah, like people will be leaving the store or whatever.

00:07:41.000 But also, the other side of it is you want to ride a wave.

00:07:46.000 If somebody is doing well, you want to go in there and ride that wave.

00:07:50.000 But then the opposite of it is if somebody is bad, you can go on, you can kill it, and then the crowd believes in you. 0.92

00:07:58.000 But if somebody is too terrible, then it's dead.

00:08:01.000 You have to spend your first five minutes just doing crowd work.

00:08:04.000 One of the signs of a terrible headliner is when they bring really bad openers just so they look really good.

00:08:11.000 They don't want anybody stealing any of their thunder so they bring complete scrubs. 0.89

00:08:15.000 That fucks me up though. 0.51

00:08:17.000 Yeah, me too.

00:08:18.000 For me, my opener is more about energy.

00:08:21.000 I want somebody's energy that matches my level but it's funny.

00:08:26.000 Or somebody that's kind of lower energy but really smart and good.

00:08:29.000 Because if you have somebody that goes super big, that's kind of hard for me to do an hour of that same energy.

00:08:35.000 You know what the worst is?

00:08:36.000 The guy before you does music.

00:08:38.000 Oh no. 0.99

00:08:41.000 You know that shit where they start doing songs? 1.00

00:08:44.000 They have songs for shit? 1.00

00:08:46.000 Oh my god. 1.00

00:08:46.000 I never cared about an opening song. 1.00

00:08:48.000 You know DJ, when you go on the road, it's like, hey, what song you wanna come up to?

00:08:51.000 I'm like, whatever, just play some top 40 hip-hop.

00:08:53.000 Doesn't matter, right?

00:08:54.000 But then, one of my openers has a very specific Trick Daddy song.

00:08:59.000 I gotta shout out to my boy Derek Keener.

00:09:01.000 Hilarious guy, right?

00:09:02.000 He has a very energetic Trick Daddy song, and that bit kills.

00:09:07.000 And it's kinda dirty, and it's cool. 0.99

00:09:08.000 And I'm like, shit, I gotta set my game up. 0.96

00:09:11.000 Because if my opener is going up with a killer song and I walk up the stage with nothing, it just doesn't seem right. 0.98

00:09:19.000 In the early 2000s, the late 90s, early 2000s, a lot of guys would have funny raps and they would close with a rap.

00:09:27.000 Like a rap parody, a hilarious rap.

00:09:31.000 So things rhyme, they're loud, there's a lot of gesturing and they're like, thank you, goodnight, rap!

00:09:38.000 And then you'd have to go up.

00:09:39.000 So I talked to my mom today.

00:09:43.000 I remember I used to do a bunch of urban clubs and J-Spot.

00:09:48.000 You remember J-Spot?

00:09:49.000 Isn't that a funny name?

00:09:50.000 Urban.

00:09:51.000 All clubs.

00:09:53.000 Should I say black club? 0.98

00:09:54.000 Yeah, I guess it's a black club. 0.99

00:09:56.000 Urban may be more offensive. 0.93

00:09:57.000 I don't know.

00:09:58.000 But they call themselves urban clubs.

00:10:00.000 I know, but isn't that weird?

00:10:01.000 That is weird.

00:10:02.000 Why urban?

00:10:03.000 It's a code word for black, right? 0.97

00:10:05.000 It's a weird code because it also means a city.

00:10:07.000 Like all clubs are in cities. 0.98

00:10:08.000 When the fuck was you ever done a club in the woods? 0.99

00:10:12.000 Right? 0.99

00:10:12.000 Clubs aren't rural. 0.99

00:10:14.000 It's like the word urban and inner city for some reason.

00:10:18.000 Huh.

00:10:18.000 Right?

00:10:19.000 Isn't that kind of the same thing?

00:10:20.000 But I mean like there's urban clubs in LA that are just downtown.

00:10:24.000 Oh.

00:10:24.000 Right?

00:10:25.000 Isn't that that one, what is that one club?

00:10:29.000 Garrett Morris' club back in the day?

00:10:31.000 No, there's a club downtown that's a black club.

00:10:36.000 It's supposed to be real good.

00:10:37.000 I don't remember.

00:10:38.000 But it was just like the term, urban, it's just very weird.

00:10:41.000 I remember, so when I did the J-Spot, I don't know if it's still there.

00:10:45.000 The J-Spot, it's opened by J. Anthony Brown.

00:10:48.000 I was pretty, very green, you know, and it was on top of Yoshinoya, but it's a popping club, right?

00:10:54.000 I remember DJ come up to me.

00:10:56.000 My set was like 15 minutes.

00:10:57.000 He was like, you got any music cues?

00:10:59.000 I was like, no, just play whatever.

00:11:01.000 He was like, are you sure?

00:11:02.000 I was like, yeah, no, I don't have any music.

00:11:04.000 He was like, you don't want me to play anything in your set?

00:11:07.000 I was like, no, why would you do that?

00:11:09.000 And then I realized, I watched all the other comics, everybody had like five music skits and the crowd loved it and they were killing it. 0.99

00:11:17.000 And then I went up, was just trying to do my observational humor and just ate shit, you know? 0.87

00:11:22.000 Cause it's just, if everybody's doing it and you're not, like you're at a complete disadvantage. 0.98

00:11:26.000 Yeah.

00:11:27.000 This is a famous story about Mitch Hedberg. 0.94

00:11:30.000 Mitch 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. 0.99

00:12:00.000 It's like no man you fucked up. 0.99

00:12:02.000 It's not like Mitch isn't great. 0.99

00:12:04.000 Mm-hmm Do you run a comedy club?

00:12:06.000 Well, you know who Mitch Hedberg is.

00:12:08.000 You know he's great. 0.99

00:12:09.000 Why are you having a guy who does backflips to fucking bass beats before him? 0.98

00:12:13.000 You can't do that. 0.98

00:12:14.000 You ever do the Comedy Magic Club?

00:12:16.000 Sure.

00:12:16.000 One of my favorite clubs.

00:12:17.000 You know, they have 10 comedians on there, but sometimes you got to follow a magician or a juggler.

00:12:22.000 Yes.

00:12:22.000 You know?

00:12:23.000 I stopped doing that there.

00:12:25.000 I said, listen, we had a bunch of issues there.

00:12:27.000 One issue, they would not let me bring up Joey Diaz.

00:12:30.000 Oh, because he's not clean? 0.97

00:12:31.000 He's too dirty. 0.69

00:12:32.000 But I'm dirty too, but I'm like, whatever. 0.98

00:12:36.000 For whatever reason, I can get away with it for him.

00:12:38.000 So, I love the guy to death.

00:12:40.000 Mike's the best, but he wouldn't let Joey go up.

00:12:44.000 He goes, I love him.

00:12:44.000 He's just not...

00:12:45.000 My crowd is just this and that.

00:12:46.000 I'm like, your crowd is people.

00:12:47.000 They're humans.

00:12:48.000 They come to see me.

00:12:48.000 Trust me.

00:12:49.000 It is a different crowd, and I do kind of like it, because if you just run your set at the improv or the factory or whatever, right?

00:12:58.000 And then you take it on the road.

00:12:59.000 Sometimes it doesn't translate.

00:13:01.000 But the comedy magic crowd is like almost like a Midwest white crowd.

00:13:06.000 They're the opposite of urban.

00:13:08.000 Yes!

00:13:09.000 What is that?

00:13:10.000 There should be a code word for a white crowd. 1.00

00:13:12.000 Suburb.

00:13:13.000 Like suburban crowd?

00:13:15.000 They're like gated beach community crowd.

00:13:19.000 Yeah, the 1%er crowd. 0.99

00:13:21.000 Older, too. 0.84

00:13:22.000 They're like Jay Leno fans.

00:13:24.000 Yeah, yeah.

00:13:25.000 Because Jay Leno used to work out his Tonight Show set every Sunday night there.

00:13:28.000 That was his thing. 0.95

00:13:29.000 He used to go there and he had all his monologue shit and he'd work it out at the Comedy Magic Club on Sunday night. 0.97

00:13:35.000 Yeah. 0.93

00:13:36.000 They're definitely...

00:13:37.000 I mean, it really helped me because Richard and Mike gave me a lot of stage time coming up.

00:13:42.000 They're great folks.

00:13:42.000 They're really nice.

00:13:44.000 And the club is ran so...

00:13:46.000 They actually care about the comics.

00:13:48.000 Usually, you do the improv.

00:13:50.000 There's no knock to the improv, but you got to sign a W-9 and they give you five bucks in cash.

00:13:55.000 That's just the way it is at the improv, right?

00:13:58.000 And then you go to Comedy Magic Club.

00:14:01.000 It's, I think, $50 a set, which is very nice for like a...

00:14:04.000 A quick set.

00:14:05.000 Yeah, for like a quick set.

00:14:06.000 But then if you do it on Valentine's Day, they don't tell you, hey, we're going to pay you whatever.

00:14:10.000 They just come down, do Valentine's Day because we like you.

00:14:12.000 But they sell these Valentine's Day packages.

00:14:15.000 And then at the end of the day, I think...

00:14:16.000 I opened up a check.

00:14:17.000 It was like $1,000.

00:14:18.000 They just gave all of us $1,000 checks.

00:14:20.000 It was like really, really nice for a comic that really needs it.

00:14:23.000 The food there is really good.

00:14:25.000 Real filet mignon in a comedy club.

00:14:27.000 Yeah, like a real restaurant that you would go to.

00:14:29.000 You'd go there as a restaurant.

00:14:31.000 Yeah.

00:14:32.000 That was a great spot.

00:14:35.000 But it is...

00:14:37.000 I don't know.

00:14:37.000 It's white.

00:14:39.000 It's too white.

00:14:40.000 I 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.

00:14:51.000 You know there's some kind of that going on.

00:14:55.000 I am so foreign to them that they found it refreshing.

00:14:58.000 They're like, I can't believe that Oriental boy spoke English that way. 1.00

00:15:02.000 You gotta get that vibe over there, you know?

00:15:06.000 Isn't it funny that Oriental became, like, taboo?

00:15:10.000 Like, the term Oriental.

00:15:12.000 It's a weird one.

00:15:14.000 And people that say Oriental, they never mean harm.

00:15:17.000 No, they're just old.

00:15:18.000 They're old.

00:15:19.000 Like, it's my buddy's father's in high school.

00:15:23.000 They'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?

00:15:37.000 Right.

00:15:37.000 Yeah, I don't love it.

00:15:39.000 Yeah, it's just, I mean, well, Jamaicans are like someone who comes from Jamaica and lives in America. 0.55

00:15:47.000 I mean, I guess technically you'd be in African America because Africans went to Jamaica first. 0.76

00:15:53.000 Right.

00:15:54.000 And then to America.

00:15:58.000 It's odd.

00:15:59.000 It's all weird, man.

00:16:02.000 For Asian folks, also, people get upset if you can't make the distinction.

00:16:11.000 Yes, Asians have a lot of beef amongst each other. 1.00

00:16:15.000 Joe Coy has a great bit about that.

00:16:17.000 There's a hierarchy, for sure.

00:16:19.000 What's the top of the food chain?

00:16:22.000 Putting me in a spot here.

00:16:24.000 But I think...

00:16:24.000 Look, this is...

00:16:25.000 I think generally, it's...

00:16:27.000 You have your main, like, Korean, Chinese, Japanese.

00:16:32.000 And then they sometimes look down at the Southeast Asians.

00:16:36.000 So, whatever.

00:16:37.000 Filipino, Thai, whatever.

00:16:39.000 Vietnamese.

00:16:40.000 Probably.

00:16:41.000 But then if you call... 0.69

00:16:44.000 Chinese person, Japanese to get pissed. 1.00

00:16:46.000 But if you call it Japanese, I don't know the exact thing.

00:16:50.000 But it could get ugly.

00:16:51.000 It could.

00:16:52.000 And I mean, it's not just country to country.

00:16:54.000 It could be like my parents, they're from Shanghai, you know, which is a very metropolitan, like Manhattan of China.

00:17:01.000 So they have an elitist syndrome to them.

00:17:03.000 And they look down at people from the South China or whatever.

00:17:07.000 And then I grew up in Hong Kong, which was a British colony, right?

00:17:11.000 And it's a very different government.

00:17:13.000 We're a little more, I guess, progressive or whatever.

00:17:16.000 Just a different city-state.

00:17:18.000 So Hong Kong people has elitist syndrome towards mainland Chinese people.

00:17:24.000 My dad came from Shanghai to Hong Kong.

00:17:26.000 So he spoke Cantonese, which is the local Hong Kong dialect, with a Mandarin, like a mainland guy accent.

00:17:33.000 And they would always make fun of him as the mainland guy.

00:17:40.000 When you're seeing what's going on with Hong Kong right now, where they're losing their autonomy to China, does that freak you out?

00:17:46.000 Is it crazy?

00:17:47.000 Yeah, it's very disheartening.

00:17:50.000 But I think my dad saw that coming.

00:17:53.000 We moved here when I was 13, the year 2000. That was three years after the British gave Hong Kong back to China after the 100-year treaty.

00:18:05.000 I guess they're like nice colonizers.

00:18:08.000 They're like, we're going to colonize you, but just 100 years and here you can have it back.

00:18:13.000 It seems like it's going downhill.

00:18:14.000 The riots in the streets, excuse me, the protests, because they're extremely polite protests.

00:18:19.000 The way they part the street for an ambulance is amazing.

00:18:22.000 It'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.

00:18:34.000 They saw it coming.

00:18:35.000 They saw it, because my dad grew up...

00:18:38.000 50s, 60s, communist revolution. 1.00

00:18:42.000 Motherfuckers would kick down your door and take everything. 1.00

00:18:44.000 Both of my grandparents went to jail from both sides because they were intellectuals. 1.00

00:18:49.000 I believe my father's father, my grandfather, was like a chemistry teacher and he was considered an intellectual and he went to jail.

00:18:57.000 So they put him to jail just because he was an intellectual?

00:19:00.000 I believe so. 0.99

00:19:01.000 I don't know the exact story, but then I know uncles that were like talking shit that also went to jail. 0.97

00:19:05.000 A lot of people went to jail, dude. 0.98

00:19:06.000 So they went to jail because they were complaining?

00:19:09.000 I think it's a mixture of things. 1.00

00:19:11.000 Yeah, they just fucking throw you in jail and they kick down your door and take your shit. 1.00

00:19:14.000 Fuck. 1.00

00:19:15.000 Now I said that I can never do a movie in China anymore. 1.00

00:19:18.000 I'm sure I'm banned.

00:19:19.000 Because you just said that?

00:19:20.000 Yeah, but who knows?

00:19:21.000 But it's...

00:19:22.000 I get... 0.98

00:19:24.000 Look, 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. 0.99

00:19:36.000 Chairman Mao killed a lot of people, man. 0.98

00:19:38.000 That's like, on the other side of the spectrum, you have like a fucking Hitler poster in your house, but somehow that's cool. 1.00

00:19:43.000 Right, right, right. 0.98

00:19:45.000 You 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.

00:19:53.000 There's something about Mao that's like, it's intriguing for people that just look at it on the surface.

00:19:59.000 Same thing with Che Guevara.

00:20:01.000 He looks cool.

00:20:02.000 Cool looking, revolutionary. 0.99

00:20:05.000 Oh yeah, murderer. 0.99

00:20:06.000 Yeah, murderer. 1.00

00:20:07.000 Genocidal murderer. 0.95

00:20:09.000 Tiananmen Square. 0.93

00:20:10.000 Yeah, right.

00:20:10.000 Exactly.

00:20:12.000 That was Aftermill, I think.

00:20:14.000 But still, communist dictatorship.

00:20:17.000 It's in a weird place now because it's capitalist, but it's capitalist really run by this communist government.

00:20:23.000 The communist government and the businesses are completely intertwined.

00:20:27.000 It'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.

00:20:34.000 But then I guess you hope that it's a decent person in control.

00:20:39.000 That'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.

00:20:54.000 I 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.

00:21:16.000 This 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.

00:21:31.000 Why didn't he show up?

00:21:32.000 He won't comment.

00:21:34.000 He's been reached out to comment on it, he won't comment on it, but it's very disheartening.

00:21:39.000 And a lot of people who are progressives are furious at him, and they feel very betrayed by this.

00:21:45.000 Because no one even knows.

00:21:46.000 You didn't know, right?

00:21:47.000 Most people don't even know.

00:21:48.000 Well, the government can now look at all your dirty little searches.

00:21:52.000 I don't care about that, though.

00:21:54.000 But you should care.

00:21:56.000 It's a slippery slope, right?

00:21:57.000 Is that the fear?

00:21:58.000 Well, here's the fear.

00:21:59.000 The government is just people.

00:22:01.000 I don't think I should be able to just go looking at Jamie's search.

00:22:08.000 For whatever reason, I know Jamie's at home.

00:22:11.000 What if I have some code I can go just look?

00:22:13.000 What is Jamie looking at?

00:22:14.000 What are you searching for?

00:22:16.000 That's creepy, right?

00:22:18.000 It's creepy.

00:22:19.000 Privacy is privacy.

00:22:20.000 It's important.

00:22:20.000 You should be able to reveal what you want to reveal.

00:22:23.000 And if the government, which is just a bunch of people, can peer into your life, but you can't peer into their life, it sets up abuse.

00:22:30.000 It's power.

00:22:32.000 It's the same thing you see with cops, right? 1.00

00:22:34.000 All this shit that you see with cops, for sure racism is involved. 0.99

00:22:37.000 But you know what else is involved? 1.00

00:22:38.000 Power.

00:22:39.000 When you see that old man get thrown to the ground, the one that Trump said is faking it.

00:22:44.000 That bashed his head, yeah. 1.00

00:22:45.000 Bleeding out of his fucking head and Trump's like... 1.00

00:22:47.000 Very good actor, by the way. 1.00

00:22:49.000 I mean...

00:22:49.000 That's what Trump said.

00:22:50.000 He said he seemed to have fallen too easily. 1.00

00:22:53.000 But yeah, he's fucking dead. 1.00

00:22:55.000 He's an old man. 1.00

00:22:56.000 Oh, God.

00:22:57.000 The fact that he said that, that this might be Antifa, like, what? 0.98

00:23:02.000 All 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. 0.92

00:23:11.000 Like, they are great actors. 0.98

00:23:13.000 Like, you know, like, certain times I even send, like, dumb YouTube videos of...

00:23:18.000 There's a funny YouTube video of somebody's girlfriend deleting his 2K NBA account.

00:23:25.000 And he just destroyed.

00:23:27.000 You can tell it took everything for him, like, not to, like, hit her or, like, whatever, right?

00:23:32.000 He was just destroyed.

00:23:33.000 He was crying.

00:23:34.000 And then some of my buddies are like, I don't know, man.

00:23:36.000 That's fake, dude. 1.00

00:23:37.000 I was like, yo, that guy is a fucking... 1.00

00:23:41.000 Emmy Award Oscar-winning actor if that shit is fake, because that is not easy to do. 0.99

00:23:46.000 No, people think everything is fake. 0.99

00:23:48.000 They think so many things are fake.

00:23:50.000 So many people have sent me things like, you think this is fake?

00:23:52.000 I'm like, oh, Jesus Christ.

00:23:54.000 Yeah, yeah.

00:23:55.000 Some things are fake. 0.99

00:23:56.000 That old man falling the way he did and bouncing his head off the fucking concrete in the middle of a huge protest. 0.97

00:24:02.000 Yeah, that was real, dude. 0.99

00:24:04.000 Yeah.

00:24:04.000 That's real.

00:24:04.000 That's what happens when you push an old man.

00:24:06.000 That's...

00:24:08.000 The fact that this is the President of the United States say that.

00:24:11.000 Like, hey bro, you would fall that way too.

00:24:13.000 He's a Meisner-trained actor, and he has a blood pack in the back of his head.

00:24:17.000 Like, how can that...

00:24:18.000 Like a pro wrestler.

00:24:19.000 Like, how?

00:24:19.000 Yeah!

00:24:20.000 He fell onto a mat that was placed there in advance.

00:24:22.000 He cut himself with razors for years, so that wound bleeds easier. 0.99

00:24:26.000 I don't fucking know. 0.99

00:24:27.000 You can hear the guy's head bounce off the ground. 0.99

00:24:29.000 Oh, yikes.

00:24:29.000 Yeah, it's a thunk.

00:24:30.000 There's a hollow, coconut-like thunk when someone's head bounces off concrete.

00:24:35.000 Yeah. 0.99

00:24:35.000 It's fucking terrible. 0.99

00:24:36.000 But the fact that the President of the United States didn't just think that, but he thought it would be a good idea to tweet that. 0.99

00:24:42.000 Like, he's falling apart. 0.99

00:24:44.000 All this protest shit, he's falling apart. 0.99

00:24:46.000 And also the fact that they denied that they used tear gas to clear out that square so that he can go to the church. 0.99

00:24:52.000 Like, hey man, there's video.

00:24:54.000 There's video of tear gas.

00:24:56.000 You know, oh, you want to call, it's pepper gas.

00:24:58.000 Okay, you know what?

00:24:59.000 That pepper gas they're using, you're not allowed to use that in war.

00:25:02.000 Yeah.

00:25:03.000 You know that?

00:25:04.000 Oh, really? 1.00

00:25:04.000 Yeah, you're not allowed to use that shit in war. 1.00

00:25:06.000 You can't use tear gas, and it violates the Geneva Convention. 0.99

00:25:11.000 It's like a bio thing.

00:25:12.000 Yeah, Google that.

00:25:13.000 Make sure I'm right about that, but I'm pretty sure I'm right.

00:25:15.000 I'm pretty sure the argument that they're making is you can't use tear gas in war, but you should be able to use it in protests. 0.99

00:25:22.000 And these cops are shooting rubber bullets and, you know, people are losing their fucking eyes. 0.99

00:25:27.000 Here it is. 0.99

00:25:28.000 The military is banned from using tear gas on the battlefield, but police can use it on crowds at home.

00:25:34.000 Here's why, and this is on CNN. Just think about that.

00:25:38.000 The 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. 0.99

00:25:55.000 And dozens of, I mean, he had more than a dozen complaints of abusive behavior. 0.99

00:26:01.000 And they're going to use tear gas on these people and just shoot rubber bullets randomly at folks.

00:26:07.000 I don't know what it takes.

00:26:08.000 What is the lowest competent denominator?

00:26:10.000 Like, he has to murder someone in front of you?

00:26:13.000 And people would still be like, oh, yeah, yeah, or whatever.

00:26:15.000 I think he's on the way out.

00:26:18.000 I think it's slowly but surely.

00:26:21.000 Stuff like this, he can't help himself.

00:26:23.000 And under pressure, when people are angry at him because of all this. 0.99

00:26:27.000 And 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. 0.98

00:26:36.000 Like, maybe we get disinfectant and put it in the body, a cleansing. 0.97

00:26:40.000 When he started doing that, and then the next day, they were asking him about it.

00:26:44.000 I was being sarcastic to see how you reporters would call on it.

00:26:48.000 Like, no, you weren't.

00:26:49.000 You were rambling.

00:26:51.000 You were rambling.

00:26:51.000 Like, I've done that before.

00:26:53.000 I've caught rambling. 0.99

00:26:54.000 But I would say, the fuck am I talking about? 0.99

00:26:55.000 I don't know how you use Lysol on a person. 0.99

00:26:57.000 Why am I saying this?

00:26:58.000 He's pitching.

00:26:59.000 He's pitching as if, like, you're in the writer's room, and he's like, yeah, have you tried this idea?

00:27:03.000 Yeah.

00:27:03.000 You know, what about you pair this character with that character?

00:27:06.000 But you don't do that as the president in public about health issues.

00:27:10.000 See, look at this.

00:27:11.000 CDC, some Americans are gargling with bleach or putting it on food to fight COVID-19.

00:27:16.000 Isn't that real?

00:27:18.000 Really?

00:27:19.000 They 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.

00:27:29.000 This is Darwinism.

00:27:32.000 If you're over 18, go do it. 1.00

00:27:36.000 Don't say that, Joe.

00:27:37.000 If you're younger and you're young and you don't know any better, you're not uneducated. 0.98

00:27:43.000 But at a certain age, you should know not to fucking gargle with bleach, right? 0.98

00:27:49.000 Tide Pod Challenge all over again. 0.99

00:27:51.000 Yeah, it's Tide Pod Challenge, but it'll kill you.

00:27:53.000 It's interesting.

00:27:54.000 I stay off Twitter, all of that stuff.

00:27:56.000 Thank you.

00:27:58.000 It's tough.

00:27:59.000 I think I'm going to delete my Twitter account.

00:28:00.000 It's so toxic these days. 0.95

00:28:03.000 I'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. 0.99

00:28:14.000 And I'm like, man, this is toxic. 0.98

00:28:16.000 A lot of these people have severe depression and mental health issues, and they're lashing out at people, and they have these witch hunts.

00:28:28.000 And they go after folks for jokes from 14 years ago and attack them and put up screenshots, and they think they're somehow or another...

00:28:36.000 Doing something positive.

00:28:37.000 Did you do a Twitter scrub of old tweets?

00:28:40.000 No.

00:28:41.000 I did that. 0.99

00:28:42.000 I mean, I see everyday actors getting fired and shit. 0.92

00:28:45.000 None of my stuff was terrible, but it was just bad jokes. 1.00

00:28:49.000 Well, the problem is, with us in particular, we say the most ridiculous shit to each other all the time. 0.99

00:28:56.000 Yes. 0.99

00:28:57.000 And 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.

00:29:07.000 And then people take those things out of context and they pretend that it's like your real feelings and thoughts.

00:29:12.000 Like these are jokes. 0.98

00:29:14.000 People say ridiculous shit that they don't really mean because they want to get you to laugh. 0.99

00:29:18.000 That's all it is. 0.99

00:29:20.000 And if you take those out of context, it can look pretty bad.

00:29:26.000 You're like a pretty pure comedian, you know?

00:29:29.000 I have to kind of...

00:29:31.000 You act.

00:29:31.000 I act and stuff, and that is a totally different world.

00:29:35.000 That world sucks. 0.95

00:29:36.000 Because you can't really say anything. 1.00

00:29:37.000 So even when I do stand-up, like, what the fuck? 0.98

00:29:39.000 What am I supposed to say? 0.97

00:29:40.000 Like, I can only...

00:29:41.000 I've learned my lane is only telling my stories.

00:29:45.000 You can't argue with that.

00:29:46.000 If I'm just telling you stories about my father or me growing up in Hong Kong, what are you going to say? 1.00

00:29:51.000 I'm a fucking asshole? 1.00

00:29:52.000 Because I grew up a certain way? 1.00

00:29:54.000 So that's the only thing that I found, Elaine, that I guess people can't argue.

00:30:00.000 For now, they can't.

00:30:01.000 For now. 0.57

00:30:02.000 But as things get more and more ridiculous, eventually one day they'll be able to get mad at you for that.

00:30:07.000 Once 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.

00:30:15.000 There's things that people are getting fired for today that three months ago you could say easily and people would agree with you.

00:30:22.000 It's just weird, man.

00:30:24.000 Just say it to your friends.

00:30:25.000 Don't tweet about it.

00:30:26.000 I guess it's the lesson. 0.98

00:30:28.000 Well, 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. 0.94

00:30:37.000 And you get fired.

00:30:38.000 People are getting fired for old tweets.

00:30:40.000 I'm really glad I don't have a job job where someone hires me or fires me. 1.00

00:30:46.000 I'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. 0.99

00:30:54.000 If you don't see the whole podcast and get the vibe of how we talk, Right. 1.00

00:31:00.000 In the conversation.

00:31:01.000 You just make a snippet out of it. 1.00

00:31:02.000 You can make someone look like a real piece of shit. 1.00

00:31:04.000 But it's disingenuous. 1.00

00:31:06.000 It's disingenuous.

00:31:07.000 It's deceptive.

00:31:08.000 They know what they're doing.

00:31:09.000 They 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.

00:31:20.000 They have rocks.

00:31:21.000 It's just like a looter in a lot of ways.

00:31:23.000 Like they have rocks and there's a window and they want to throw a rock in a window.

00:31:26.000 You know, how the military hires hackers to hack into their own system to see how vulnerable they are.

00:31:34.000 I think there should be a new job out there for comedians, celebrities to hire these Twitter people.

00:31:42.000 To see if they can dig up any dirt.

00:31:44.000 And I'll give them five grand if you can find anything.

00:31:47.000 Right, just to prevent some sort of tweet storm against you.

00:31:51.000 That's a good idea, actually.

00:31:52.000 That's actually a good idea for actors.

00:31:54.000 Like, they should do that before...

00:31:55.000 Well, I know they do do that now when they hire someone for any sort of prominent...

00:31:59.000 Whether it's you're going to be on the Today Show, or you're going to host some show, or you're going to be a sitcom actor. 0.99

00:32:06.000 They'll check your fucking tweets down. 0.99

00:32:08.000 They want to make sure. 1.00

00:32:10.000 Especially if you're a comic.

00:32:12.000 Right.

00:32:12.000 That's tough.

00:32:13.000 They look at us like we're criminals.

00:32:15.000 They look at us like, what have you been up to?

00:32:18.000 What have you been doing when no one's looking? 1.00

00:32:19.000 What have you been writing on your own, you fucking weirdo? 1.00

00:32:22.000 Yeah. 1.00

00:32:23.000 Trying to make people laugh. 1.00

00:32:24.000 You ridiculous shit. 1.00

00:32:25.000 Ugh. 1.00

00:32:26.000 That's why the virtual shows are the worst.

00:32:29.000 Imagine you trying a joke on Zoom.

00:32:31.000 They record it.

00:32:33.000 You get canceled off a Zoom virtual show?

00:32:36.000 Ugh.

00:32:38.000 It could happen.

00:32:39.000 It could happen.

00:32:41.000 Yeah.

00:32:41.000 Well, you know what's interesting, though?

00:32:43.000 I think...

00:32:44.000 I was talking to my buddies about this.

00:32:47.000 I think...

00:32:48.000 I'm a nice guy.

00:32:49.000 If 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?

00:33:01.000 I would 100% speak up for you. 0.85

00:33:03.000 100%.

00:33:04.000 Right, so I think the people that actually got tweets dug up about them, there's two ways.

00:33:09.000 Sometimes you get people speaking up and it's like, no, no, no, he's actually a good guy.

00:33:11.000 But most of the time, it's like... 1.00

00:33:13.000 Yeah, he was an asshole. 1.00

00:33:14.000 Yeah, he actually didn't hire no black people because blah blah. 1.00

00:33:19.000 So I think it's the combination of both.

00:33:21.000 That tweet just exposes a little bit of that person and then everybody jumps on and is like, yeah, no, you know what? 1.00

00:33:26.000 He's actually a dick. 1.00

00:33:27.000 It could be. 0.98

00:33:28.000 Or 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.

00:33:44.000 They're scared of the mob, because it really is a mob, man.

00:33:47.000 When an internet mob comes after you, You know, it's just not a good way to communicate.

00:33:55.000 You know, there's an interesting guy who had a tweet about this.

00:33:59.000 I'm going to pull this up.

00:34:01.000 There's a gentleman named...

00:34:04.000 Where is his tweet here?

00:34:08.000 There it is.

00:34:09.000 Okay.

00:34:13.000 Alex Levinovits.

00:34:14.000 I'm sure I'm saying this right.

00:34:16.000 Levinovits.

00:34:17.000 Alan, I'm sorry.

00:34:18.000 Alan Levinovits.

00:34:19.000 I'm trying to read his last name.

00:34:21.000 I glossed over his first name.

00:34:23.000 But he had a really interesting point that what we're eating when people get sick, you're eating highly processed food, right?

00:34:31.000 You're not eating healthy, natural food.

00:34:34.000 When you're consuming tweets and you're getting a lot of your information from Twitter and social media, you're getting highly processed information.

00:34:43.000 Interesting.

00:34:44.000 And he was saying it's just as bad for you as processed food and then it's unnatural and it doesn't come in a natural form.

00:34:53.000 And I was like, that's a very excellent point.

00:34:56.000 The way he put his Twitter handle is Alan, A-L-A-N-L-E-V-I-N-O-V-I-T-Z. I'm going to have him on the podcast too.

00:35:06.000 He's an author and a professor.

00:35:10.000 He'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, 0.61

00:35:32.000 right? 0.91

00:35:32.000 You're getting 280 characters. 0.91

00:35:33.000 That 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.

00:35:46.000 Good message, bad message.

00:35:48.000 Bad person, good person.

00:35:49.000 Like it's hard.

00:35:51.000 And then anger.

00:35:53.000 There's no real way to...

00:35:56.000 It's a bad way to exchange information with other human beings.

00:36:00.000 What's the anonymity of it? 1.00

00:36:01.000 People wouldn't say that shit to your face. 1.00

00:36:04.000 They're either going to get beat up or just... 1.00

00:36:06.000 There's a common courtesy when you're talking face-to-face.

00:36:08.000 I wouldn't say certain things to you.

00:36:10.000 If you're a kind person, yeah.

00:36:11.000 But when you're anonymous and then you're angry, that's...

00:36:15.000 It's not...

00:36:17.000 It's also convenient you can demonize someone and attack them.

00:36:19.000 You don't care if you get them fired because they had a weird Halloween picture.

00:36:24.000 They dressed up like an Indian in 1988. You know what I mean? 0.98

00:36:27.000 There's a lot of that shit going around. 0.99

00:36:29.000 We should all have to delete our Twitters. 0.99

00:36:30.000 I don't know why people have Twitters anymore.

00:36:32.000 Well, it's good for promoting shows when we used to have shows.

00:36:37.000 Yeah. 1.00

00:36:37.000 My Twitter never caught on because my shit is so vanilla. 1.00

00:36:41.000 You know, because I don't ever say controversial shit. 1.00

00:36:43.000 And that's how you get followers. 0.99

00:36:44.000 Well, you're smart. 1.00

00:36:46.000 Well, controversial shit helps. 0.99

00:36:48.000 I 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. 0.98

00:36:55.000 The 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.

00:37:04.000 I was sitting in my trailer.

00:37:05.000 I was just angry as an Asian person reading this.

00:37:07.000 And then I just said, this guy should not be here.

00:37:12.000 Blah, blah.

00:37:12.000 You know, like almost.

00:37:14.000 I became the mob.

00:37:15.000 But I was just angry and I never thought about it.

00:37:17.000 And then I got so much flack, you know, even saying something that I thought was right from my experience, what I thought.

00:37:24.000 And then ever since then, I was just like, forget it. 0.99

00:37:26.000 You know, I'm only going to retweet other people's shit. 0.98

00:37:29.000 I have no opinions. 1.00

00:37:30.000 You know, the Shane Gillis thing was very weird, because like, they're talking shit, right? 0.99

00:37:37.000 They're trying to be offensive, to be funny, and no one was listening, right? 0.98

00:37:42.000 When 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. 0.93

00:37:55.000 I don't think he's racist. 0.90

00:37:56.000 I don't think he's a bad guy. 1.00

00:37:57.000 I think he's just talking shit. 1.00

00:37:59.000 It's the casualness of it, though. 1.00

00:38:01.000 I think that was what got to me. 1.00

00:38:03.000 It's like, damn. 1.00

00:38:04.000 There's just white people in their rooms talking about us like that. 1.00

00:38:07.000 Like, that sucks. 1.00

00:38:08.000 I think they probably wouldn't talk like that if no one was around. 0.99

00:38:12.000 It's weird.

00:38:13.000 It's like you're talking like that because you know it's taboo to talk like that.

00:38:17.000 It's part of the fun of doing it. 0.90

00:38:19.000 I mean, you know, oh, you're a racist apologist.

00:38:23.000 I'm not apologizing for it, but I am saying that that's what a lot of those kind of guys do. 0.99

00:38:31.000 There'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.

00:38:42.000 There 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, 0.99

00:39:02.000 and now people are going to tweet at me, like, you're a fucking asshole comic, trying to get another comic fired, but... 0.98

00:39:08.000 No, I get it. 1.00

00:39:09.000 Look, I get it, man.

00:39:11.000 Especially being a minority in America, I get it.

00:39:13.000 Being an Asian, like, I say this in my stand-up, it's like, people coming up and saying, thanks for representing Asians.

00:39:19.000 I love Asians, I love representing Asians, but it wasn't a choice.

00:39:22.000 When you wake up Asian, when you wake up Asian, you can only represent Asians, and there's some kind of responsibility, so...

00:39:29.000 I was talking to Steve Aoki about Bruce Lee.

00:39:31.000 You 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.

00:39:47.000 Like, that's how unique Bruce Lee is, if you really stop and think about it.

00:39:51.000 Like, there was literally no one, even remotely like him in pop culture before him.

00:39:57.000 And then burst onto the scene.

00:39:58.000 And then there was like a ton of fake ones.

00:40:00.000 There was Bruce Lye.

00:40:01.000 Do you remember?

00:40:01.000 Do you know about Bruce Lye?

00:40:02.000 No.

00:40:02.000 What's Bruce Lye?

00:40:03.000 When Bruce Lee died, they had this guy named Bruce Lye.

00:40:06.000 They had him dress like Bruce Lee and do very similar movies to Bruce Lee.

00:40:11.000 And Bruce Lee fans like myself, we were like, alright, I'll take it.

00:40:14.000 It's like, you know.

00:40:15.000 He was Asian though, right?

00:40:17.000 Yeah. 1.00

00:40:17.000 Okay, shit. 1.00

00:40:18.000 Yeah, yeah, yeah. 1.00

00:40:19.000 I mean, Bruce Lee was huge.

00:40:20.000 I mean, you can tell his impact.

00:40:21.000 40 years later, he is still one of the most famous Asian sex symbols. 0.94

00:40:27.000 And 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.

00:40:40.000 But 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.

00:40:55.000 And guess what? 0.97

00:40:56.000 I had sex with her that night. 1.00

00:40:57.000 You know what I mean? 1.00

00:40:58.000 Like, that shit matters, bro. 1.00

00:41:00.000 Like, I swear, when Crazy Rich Asians came out, and everybody was watching it, people wanted to start fucking Asian dudes. 1.00

00:41:08.000 Yeah, that makes sense. 0.98

00:41:10.000 Sadly, I don't know, statistically, you know, I think they did some research on like plenty of fish or something.

00:41:17.000 Asian dudes and black women are the least likely to get match on dating apps. 1.00

00:41:22.000 I don't know, it's probably a much bigger systematic conversation because we were, you know, emasculated, blah, blah. 0.94

00:41:30.000 But...

00:41:31.000 I 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.

00:41:41.000 Or you.

00:41:42.000 Or me. 1.00

00:41:42.000 You just need to blow the fuck up. 1.00

00:41:45.000 I'm doing fine, you know. 0.99

00:41:47.000 You're doing real fine. 1.00

00:41:47.000 I 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. 1.00

00:41:57.000 That's important, man. 0.99

00:41:58.000 That's my dream in this business, is to help other Asian brothers get laid. 1.00

00:42:05.000 I think you can do it.

00:42:06.000 I hope so.

00:42:07.000 I have faith in you. 0.99

00:42:08.000 I might just do porn, Joe. 0.97

00:42:10.000 You should do that, too. 0.99

00:42:11.000 Whatever.

00:42:11.000 You should be the only guy that has a dual career.

00:42:14.000 Like, successful comedian, successful porn star.

00:42:17.000 There's something about, right, if you decide to become a porn star, it taints you for everything else.

00:42:23.000 Comedy, though?

00:42:24.000 Yeah, I think so.

00:42:25.000 Really?

00:42:26.000 Yeah, I don't think...

00:42:27.000 My acting career would be over. 0.99

00:42:28.000 Do you think if Dave Chappelle just started slinging dick? 0.99

00:42:29.000 That would be hilarious! 0.99

00:42:31.000 It would be kind of funny.

00:42:32.000 But do you think that it would taint his comedy career at all? 0.97

00:42:34.000 How's his dick game, though? 0.99

00:42:36.000 How's his dick game? 1.00

00:42:36.000 I bet it's pretty fucking strong. 1.00

00:42:38.000 If it's a strong dick game, I think it'll help. 0.99

00:42:39.000 You think so? 0.99

00:42:40.000 I think so.

00:42:40.000 Maybe.

00:42:41.000 Maybe.

00:42:42.000 Somebody's got to be brave enough to do it.

00:42:43.000 Do you remember when Snoop Dogg was, like, hosting pornos?

00:42:48.000 He was?

00:42:49.000 Yeah, he was hosting them.

00:42:51.000 What does that even mean? 1.00

00:42:52.000 He would be in the room like, oh shit, people are fucking... 1.00

00:42:55.000 He was doing things with porn. 1.00

00:43:01.000 I'm sure I'm right about this.

00:43:03.000 But who wants that?

00:43:04.000 Doggy style, yeah.

00:43:05.000 Yeah, doggy style. 0.99

00:43:06.000 So he had porn that he was putting... 0.98

00:43:08.000 Look, Snoop Dogg is beyond reproach. 0.51

00:43:11.000 He's so cool, he can get away with everything.

00:43:13.000 He can get away with everything and anything, no matter what it is.

00:43:16.000 But that's a bad idea to start with. 1.00

00:43:18.000 I don't even like the dude talking shit when he's like fucking, you know? 0.99

00:43:22.000 I don't want any noise from the man. 1.00

00:43:29.000 Like this one guy, I think his name is a black porn star, like Wesley Pipes. 1.00

00:43:35.000 Maybe I know too much about porn, but he be talking some shit in his pores. 1.00

00:43:40.000 I'm like, yo, shut up, dog. 1.00

00:43:41.000 Let me just concentrate. 1.00

00:43:43.000 Yeah, dude.

00:43:45.000 Trying to be very careful here, but just showing you guys.

00:43:47.000 Oh, yeah, we can't really see this, right?

00:43:50.000 No, yeah, but it's available to find.

00:43:53.000 And so the girls were doing all their stuff, and he's not doing porn, but he's producing it, right?

00:44:01.000 He's not in the same room, right?

00:44:03.000 I don't think so.

00:44:04.000 That's a good move.

00:44:06.000 Probably a good advisor.

00:44:07.000 It's like, hmm, let's keep you in the other room.

00:44:11.000 Yeah.

00:44:12.000 This was back when we had the Authorize button on cable boxes, which doesn't really exist anymore.

00:44:17.000 Remember that?

00:44:18.000 No!

00:44:18.000 That's like how you bought pay-per-views.

00:44:19.000 You had to press a button?

00:44:20.000 You go to the channel, and then if you wanted it, you hit Authorize.

00:44:24.000 Oh, wow.

00:44:24.000 And then for $3.99, you get to watch whatever was on.

00:44:27.000 I don't really remember that.

00:44:29.000 Yeah, that's like when cable boxes first came out.

00:44:32.000 You press it on the box itself?

00:44:34.000 On the remote control, there's an authorized button.

00:44:37.000 So there's a DJ. It's very easy for kids to buy porn.

00:44:40.000 It's a whole party, and then it becomes porn?

00:44:42.000 Looks like it. 0.92

00:44:44.000 I mean, I'm no detective, but that girl's got her pants off. 1.00

00:44:47.000 Oh, there you go.

00:44:50.000 Geez Louise.

00:44:51.000 I think it's like the after parties after the show.

00:44:52.000 Yeah.

00:44:54.000 Oh, there's Snoop.

00:44:56.000 And they're all dancing and everybody's having a good time.

00:44:59.000 Okay, seen enough.

00:45:00.000 Don't throw up.

00:45:02.000 I don't know if I like that.

00:45:06.000 I don't know if I like that.

00:45:08.000 You know, it's too casual. 0.99

00:45:09.000 The fucking is too casual. 0.99

00:45:11.000 Right, right. 1.00

00:45:11.000 It's out in a party. 1.00

00:45:12.000 Everyone's out in the open in the middle of like, it seemed like they were by a pool.

00:45:16.000 Yeah, yeah.

00:45:17.000 I don't know about that. 1.00

00:45:18.000 Kind of a pool party, fuck party type of vibe. 1.00

00:45:20.000 Yeah. 1.00

00:45:21.000 Hmm.

00:45:21.000 Yeah.

00:45:22.000 Maybe I'll consider point career.

00:45:23.000 We'll see.

00:45:23.000 But it's weird, right?

00:45:24.000 Because everybody wants to fuck, but nobody wants you to fuck on film. 1.00

00:45:30.000 It could taint you. 1.00

00:45:31.000 Like if you found out that Scarlett Johansson was having sex, you'd be like, of course she's having sex. 0.94

00:45:35.000 She's a beautiful girl. 1.00

00:45:36.000 She probably likes men and she has sex. 1.00

00:45:38.000 But if you said Scarlett Johansson wants to have sex on film and you can watch her, everybody would be like, what's wrong with her? 0.99

00:45:46.000 Yeah! 0.97

00:45:49.000 But I mean, look, like Sasha Gray, porn star who became kind of an actress from those Soderbergh movies.

00:45:55.000 How many did she do? 0.91

00:45:57.000 The Girlfriend Experience, I know she did. 0.62

00:45:59.000 Yeah, she did that one. 1.00

00:46:01.000 She's an odd case, right? 0.99

00:46:03.000 She's very smart. 0.92

00:46:04.000 Yeah, she's, I think, a decent actress, but she'll never make it to that next level because she was a porn star. 1.00

00:46:10.000 Now, has anybody done the reverse?

00:46:13.000 Where they're an actor and then became a porn star and then went back to acting.

00:46:17.000 Because you establish yourself as an actor.

00:46:19.000 I don't think they've ever gone back.

00:46:20.000 It's one of those Hail Mary, last dish effort things.

00:46:24.000 I think Dustin Diamond, after his career...

00:46:27.000 From Screech? 0.72

00:46:27.000 Yeah, I think he did porn, right? 0.72

00:46:29.000 Did he? 0.88

00:46:29.000 I'm sure he did. 0.88

00:46:30.000 But that was after he hasn't acted in a while.

00:46:31.000 Didn't he stab somebody?

00:46:32.000 I think so. 0.64

00:46:33.000 I think he stabbed somebody. 1.00

00:46:34.000 Yeah, he did a lot of shit. 1.00

00:46:35.000 He did stand-up, stabbed somebody, fucked people. 1.00

00:46:38.000 He did a lot. 1.00

00:46:39.000 We had a rich life.

00:46:40.000 I like how stand-up is grouped into that rock bottom.

00:46:44.000 It is, though. 0.95

00:46:45.000 We're grouped into porn stars and strippers. 1.00

00:46:48.000 I think he did stand-up after he did porn. 0.99

00:46:50.000 I think it's porn, stand-up, stabbing people. 0.99

00:46:53.000 I think it was stand-up, stabbing people, porn. 0.99

00:46:58.000 But I might be wrong. 0.99

00:47:00.000 We're all just one step away from stabbing and pulling.

00:47:03.000 Do you know Vincent Gallo, the actor?

00:47:05.000 Yeah, yeah, yeah. 0.99

00:47:06.000 Great actor, but ruined his career by getting a real blowjob in a movie that he produced. 1.00

00:47:15.000 Well, that's... 0.99

00:47:15.000 Do you know about that? 0.99

00:47:17.000 Yes, I think I heard about that.

00:47:18.000 Brown Bunny.

00:47:18.000 Yeah.

00:47:19.000 Oh, yeah, yeah, that was recent.

00:47:21.000 Well, no.

00:47:21.000 No?

00:47:22.000 It was like more than a decade ago at least.

00:47:23.000 Oh, okay.

00:47:23.000 No, no, no.

00:47:24.000 Yeah, I want to say early 2000s.

00:47:28.000 I want to say 2004, maybe something like that.

00:47:30.000 Brown Bunny. 0.99

00:47:31.000 I 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. 1.00

00:47:38.000 Yeah, for sure. 0.99

00:47:39.000 Yeah, you could definitely see that.

00:47:41.000 2003. Yeah, Brown Bunny.

00:47:43.000 So it's with...

00:47:44.000 I don't know how to say her name.

00:47:45.000 Chloe...

00:47:45.000 How do you say her name?

00:47:47.000 Oh, Savigne? 0.85

00:47:48.000 Is that right?

00:47:49.000 Is that how you say it?

00:47:49.000 I don't know.

00:47:51.000 She's bounced back, but I don't necessarily believe that he has.

00:47:55.000 And he's a really interesting...

00:47:57.000 What is it?

00:47:58.000 Buffalo 64?

00:48:00.000 Is that what the name of that movie is?

00:48:03.000 Really weird interesting movie. 1.00

00:48:04.000 He did some interesting shit. 0.99

00:48:06.000 What is that his Buffalo movie? 1.00

00:48:08.000 Buffalo 66. Really interesting movie.

00:48:11.000 He's a great actor, but he decided, I think he was like, you know, he's out there, right? 0.88

00:48:17.000 He's a real artist and probably also a pervert. 1.00

00:48:21.000 And he's like, listen, how don't you just suck my dick for real? 1.00

00:48:23.000 And Chloe's like, let's do it. 1.00

00:48:25.000 I'm an artist too. 1.00

00:48:26.000 And so she really sucked his dick. 1.00

00:48:29.000 And it was pretty hot. 1.00

00:48:30.000 But people got very mad.

00:48:32.000 They got very mad.

00:48:34.000 Because his... 1.00

00:48:35.000 Critics were fucking furious. 1.00

00:48:38.000 Because they went to see it, and instead of it being simulated, it was actual sex. 1.00

00:48:44.000 Hmm.

00:48:45.000 It's weird, right?

00:48:46.000 Like, you could simulate violence, right?

00:48:49.000 Like John Wick movies. 0.98

00:48:50.000 I fucking love John Wick movies. 0.97

00:48:52.000 Great. 0.99

00:48:52.000 Great movies. 0.99

00:48:52.000 But it's like... 0.99

00:48:53.000 Yeah.

00:48:54.000 Brains are splattered. 0.53

00:48:55.000 Dudes are getting stabbed in the eyeball.

00:48:56.000 Everybody's fine with it. 0.87

00:48:58.000 Yeah.

00:48:58.000 Because you know it's not real.

00:48:59.000 Yeah. 1.00

00:48:59.000 Could you have simulated sex if you know for sure it's a rubber dick and a plastic pussy? 1.00

00:49:05.000 Fine. 1.00

00:49:05.000 Like, show penetration. 1.00

00:49:07.000 Fine.

00:49:07.000 It's fake penetration, folks.

00:49:09.000 No need to worry.

00:49:10.000 Nobody felt really good while they were doing this.

00:49:12.000 This is just rubber on plastic.

00:49:14.000 It's just...

00:49:15.000 Yeah, yeah, yeah. 0.99

00:49:16.000 There was a robot, the robot was pushing, and it's a fake dick, and it's all CGI. Would everybody be cool with that? 0.79

00:49:24.000 Well, you know what's interesting?

00:49:25.000 Now that you're talking about real sex scenes inside of a movie, those movies, Nymphomaniac, what's that dude's name?

00:49:31.000 Van something, he's a European guy.

00:49:33.000 Oh, I don't know about those. 0.75

00:49:34.000 And that was like, there was like real sex scenes and I think real double penetration in those movies, but it was like...

00:49:43.000 I guess, like a good, considered a really good envelope-pushing type of movie.

00:49:48.000 So maybe if you're European, you can get away with it. 1.00

00:49:51.000 Yeah, they have different standards.

00:49:52.000 I was in Germany, and I was flipping through the channels one time, and just raw porn was on regular TV. I was like, oh, okay.

00:50:01.000 Just raw porn. 0.98

00:50:02.000 Just regular porn. 1.00

00:50:03.000 People were fucking. 1.00

00:50:04.000 It's kind of cool. 0.99

00:50:05.000 I guess. 0.99

00:50:06.000 For them, they're like, do you want to watch people fuck? 1.00

00:50:08.000 Here you go. 0.99

00:50:08.000 I don't get the appeal of it, because there's Pornhub now. 0.99

00:50:13.000 I think what people are trying to do is what I'm saying about violence.

00:50:17.000 Like, why are we so okay with overt, like, spectacular violence, but we're not okay with...

00:50:25.000 Like, if you knew...

00:50:26.000 Like, CGI is so good now.

00:50:29.000 It's so good.

00:50:30.000 You know, you can have monsters that aren't really there.

00:50:32.000 They're all created by a computer.

00:50:34.000 Why can't you have... 0.99

00:50:35.000 Could you have CGI sex? 0.99

00:50:37.000 Would people be okay with that? 0.98

00:50:38.000 Or are we so freaked out by penetration that we don't even want to watch fake penetration?

00:50:45.000 Nobody wants to get a boner next to their family in the theater. 1.00

00:50:48.000 Is that what it is?

00:50:48.000 Maybe it's a shame thing.

00:50:50.000 Like, they feel...

00:50:51.000 We're so distorted. 0.98

00:50:52.000 We don't care if someone gets their brains beaten.

00:50:55.000 One of the scenes on television that made me abandon Walking Dead was when that, what's his name, Negan?

00:51:04.000 Is that his name? 0.99

00:51:05.000 He beat Glenn to death with a baseball bat, beat him over the head, his fucking eyes hanging out, and he smacked. 1.00

00:51:11.000 I'm like, this is murder porn. 1.00

00:51:13.000 Like, what is this? 0.97

00:51:14.000 Why are you making me watch this?

00:51:15.000 This is not fun.

00:51:16.000 I don't want to watch someone get literally splattered.

00:51:18.000 Like he's beating him over the head.

00:51:20.000 His brain is splattered like a watermelon that dropped off the top of a building. 0.98

00:51:23.000 It was terrible. 0.99

00:51:24.000 Yeah.

00:51:25.000 That's okay.

00:51:25.000 But you couldn't...

00:51:26.000 If you had a scene in that movie where... 1.00

00:51:31.000 A man went down on a woman who was eating her pussy, and you could see him eating her pussy. 1.00

00:51:34.000 People were like, this is outrageous! 1.00

00:51:37.000 This is disgusting!

00:51:38.000 Get it off the TV! She's enjoying it, every minute of it. 0.98

00:51:41.000 She's got her feet up in the air, moaning.

00:51:45.000 She's happy.

00:51:46.000 People would be like, this is a terrible movie. 1.00

00:51:49.000 You're a piece of shit. 1.00

00:51:50.000 I can't believe you did this. 1.00

00:51:51.000 I think it's a shame. 1.00

00:51:52.000 Everybody watches porn and jerks off. 1.00

00:51:54.000 Not everybody. 1.00

00:51:56.000 Really?

00:51:56.000 There's like 40 or 50 people that don't even touch it.

00:51:59.000 That's tough.

00:52:00.000 Out there drinking water and running.

00:52:03.000 Yeah, I don't trust those people.

00:52:06.000 My old roommate, we used to watch Game of Thrones together.

00:52:12.000 Great show, you know.

00:52:14.000 But there's certain seasons that are slower than the other seasons.

00:52:16.000 And I didn't like it because I was like, oh, I wish the storyline would go faster or the character would get developed faster.

00:52:23.000 And my buddy Terrell, he was just like, man, I'm gonna stop watching this show. 0.88

00:52:26.000 There hasn't been any fucking in the last four episodes. 0.96

00:52:31.000 I didn't understand why he doesn't just go watch Pornhub or something. 0.99

00:52:35.000 Why does he watch Game of Thrones only for the fucking? 0.99

00:52:39.000 Yeah, some people are unique. 1.00

00:52:41.000 Yeah.

00:52:42.000 They have a different take on things.

00:52:44.000 But this Brown Bunny man, that tanked Vincent Gallo's career. 1.00

00:52:48.000 I mean, you don't hear about him anymore.

00:52:50.000 He was a big star.

00:52:51.000 Like, he was in a lot of, like, really interesting movies that were well-respected, and it was a big deal. 0.98

00:52:57.000 And this one movie, 17 years ago, fucking... 0.96

00:53:01.000 What's he doing now? 1.00

00:53:02.000 He might as well just double down and do porn.

00:53:05.000 No, I think he went back to doing movies, and I think he just does kind of obscure art house movies, probably.

00:53:11.000 Is that the case, Jamie?

00:53:13.000 That people don't really know about that much? 0.96

00:53:15.000 You just don't hear his name, and it's a shame, because he's a really fucking great actor. 0.74

00:53:20.000 He just had this idea, and his logic... 0.90

00:53:25.000 It's, you know, it's trackable.

00:53:27.000 Like, you get it.

00:53:28.000 Like, she's gonna actually blow me for real, instead of, like, a scene where a woman... 1.00

00:53:35.000 Like, if there was a scene, they're making out, and the girl goes down, and you just see her head, and he's like, uh...

00:53:40.000 And we're fine with that.

00:53:41.000 We're fine with that. 1.00

00:53:41.000 We don't want to actually see a dick in a woman's mouth, though. 1.00

00:53:44.000 Even though we know that's what it's supposed to be. 1.00

00:53:46.000 Well, but also, maybe it's because he produced it, or wrote it. 0.89

00:53:49.000 Like, that's like me writing a sex scene for myself. 0.99

00:53:51.000 That's gross. 0.98

00:53:52.000 Like, that's me too, for sure.

00:53:54.000 Well, unless your girlfriend was the actress and you guys talked about it and she's cool with it and she wanted to do it.

00:54:00.000 I 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. 1.00

00:54:15.000 You'd have to get her on video saying, it's my idea to suck your dick, I want to do it. 1.00

00:54:19.000 You'd have to get lawyers involved, you'd have to sign NDAs, people would have to sign consent forms. 0.99

00:54:27.000 Sadly, I don't think I've ever had a sex scene in anything.

00:54:31.000 I don't think that's sad.

00:54:33.000 Am I not a sex symbol?

00:54:37.000 Is that what's bothering you?

00:54:38.000 A little bit.

00:54:39.000 Time to write a movie, bro.

00:54:41.000 Yeah, I've been. 0.97

00:54:43.000 I can't write my own sex scene.

00:54:46.000 Somebody's got to write it for me. 0.90

00:54:47.000 Wasn't that a part of that ridiculously bad movie called The Room? 0.81

00:54:51.000 Where the guy wrote his own sex scene? 0.99

00:54:54.000 Oh, so gross. 1.00

00:54:56.000 So gross. 0.60

00:54:58.000 But the James Franco movie version of it was quite funny. 0.55

00:55:04.000 It's obviously kind of making fun of this guy.

00:55:06.000 He has some redeeming qualities.

00:55:08.000 He's just like a dreamer.

00:55:09.000 Good for him.

00:55:10.000 But it's making fun of the guy.

00:55:11.000 But he doesn't care.

00:55:13.000 He was next to James Franco on stage at the Golden Globes and stuff.

00:55:17.000 He just wants that fame.

00:55:18.000 Yeah, he just wants attention even if he's the nail.

00:55:22.000 He doesn't need to be the hammer.

00:55:23.000 You know what the most insulting thing I've gotten?

00:55:26.000 This is recent.

00:55:27.000 I don't even know how to talk about it.

00:55:28.000 But anyways, I should because it's just funny.

00:55:31.000 You know, I'm finally at this point in my career.

00:55:34.000 People send me scripts if I want to do it, which is very flattering.

00:55:38.000 I'm like, oh, great.

00:55:39.000 So there's an email my agent sent me.

00:55:41.000 He's like, you're going to be really angry at this.

00:55:42.000 I'm really happy about it. 1.00

00:55:43.000 I was like, oh, fuck. 0.99

00:55:44.000 Not a good way to start an email from your agent. 1.00

00:55:47.000 And they're like, they want you to play a lead in this biopic. 0.98

00:55:51.000 I was like, oh shit, what's up? 0.99

00:55:53.000 You know, like, I'm ready. 0.99

00:55:54.000 And then they're like, yeah, but it's the biopic of William Hung.

00:55:58.000 I was like, brother, are you kidding me?

00:56:00.000 Is that the Virginia shooter?

00:56:01.000 Nah, nah, nah, nah, nah.

00:56:03.000 Oh, that's that guy.

00:56:04.000 He's the American Idol.

00:56:05.000 Terrible singer? 1.00

00:56:06.000 She bangs, motherfucker. 1.00

00:56:07.000 Oh, I met that dude. 1.00

00:56:09.000 Look, nothing wrong with the guy.

00:56:11.000 There's definitely something wrong with him.

00:56:13.000 Yes, yes, yes.

00:56:14.000 But he's not malicious.

00:56:15.000 No, no, no.

00:56:16.000 He might be a little Asperger or something.

00:56:17.000 I don't know what it is.

00:56:21.000 I thought it was that one dude who was a shooter at the university.

00:56:25.000 Yeah, that's tough, too.

00:56:27.000 I read all 115 pages of that script.

00:56:29.000 I've never been so angry reading a script. 0.99

00:56:32.000 Like, I wanted to fucking vomit. 0.96

00:56:35.000 Why were you angry? 0.98

00:56:37.000 Well, you gotta understand, I think, William Hung set us back like 10 years.

00:56:46.000 Look, nothing wrong with that, brother.

00:56:47.000 It's not his fault.

00:56:48.000 Maybe 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.

00:57:01.000 That might be an interesting story.

00:57:04.000 Wasn't that the whole thing about American Idol?

00:57:06.000 It's like you had real talent, but then you also had delusional people, and the delusional people was part of the thing.

00:57:11.000 Oh, it was funny.

00:57:12.000 I love watching that, but I think it just cuts so deep as an Asian guy. 1.00

00:57:15.000 It's the opposite of Bruce Lee.

00:57:16.000 William Hung is the exact opposite of Bruce Lee.

00:57:20.000 But there's something wrong with him.

00:57:23.000 I mean, as a human being, there's something to be said.

00:57:28.000 I 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.

00:57:40.000 But people are laughing at him.

00:57:41.000 Exactly.

00:57:42.000 That's what I'm saying. 0.98

00:57:42.000 He's mentally challenged. 0.98

00:57:44.000 There's something wrong with him. 0.69

00:57:45.000 When I say there's nothing wrong with him, I don't mean he's not, you know, autistic, mentally challenged, whatever it may be. 0.98

00:57:50.000 I'm saying there's nothing wrong with his intentions.

00:57:53.000 He's a dreamer.

00:57:54.000 He wanna make it.

00:57:56.000 So there's sure a very nuanced way to write about William Hung that could work, but we just shouldn't make that movie. 0.96

00:58:05.000 Have we ran out of Asian people out there that I can do biopics about and a fucking William Hung script lands on my desk? 0.78

00:58:12.000 Well, isn't that a part of the problem with reality TV in general, right? 0.95

00:58:16.000 It's like, what they're trying to do is...

00:58:18.000 There's some reality TV that's based on actual events that are taking place, but a lot of it is like they're taking...

00:58:24.000 You have to sign these releases on a lot of these shows that allow them to edit your words in a very distorted way.

00:58:31.000 You 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. 1.00

00:58:39.000 It makes you look like a real piece of shit. 1.00

00:58:42.000 And they're 100% allowed to do that. 1.00

00:58:44.000 And they do that for the storyline.

00:58:46.000 They do that for the narrative.

00:58:47.000 They don't care about your reputation.

00:58:48.000 They don't care about what happens when you go back home. 0.99

00:58:50.000 People are like, how can you fucking say that, Jimmy? 0.99

00:58:52.000 I didn't! 0.99

00:58:54.000 You don't have access to the raw tapes.

00:58:56.000 You can't release.

00:58:57.000 You know, no one's going to believe you, but they victimize people on purpose just so that they can make what they call a good show.

00:59:04.000 Yeah.

00:59:05.000 But they're doing that with him.

00:59:06.000 It's different because...

00:59:08.000 He's got a problem.

00:59:10.000 It's not like he's a guy like it's not like if I decided I was gonna be a singer and I went on American America's Got Talent.

00:59:16.000 I was terrible. 0.98

00:59:16.000 Yeah, 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. 0.98

00:59:30.000 Yeah And I do that, and you know there's something wrong with me, and you still put me on television. 0.99

00:59:35.000 That's where we're getting weird.

00:59:37.000 That's where we're getting like, you're profiting off of people.

00:59:39.000 Taking advantage of somebody.

00:59:41.000 Yes.

00:59:42.000 You're profiting off of someone who's clearly mentally handicapped in some way, shape, or form. 0.88

00:59:47.000 If there's a spectrum of mental disability, he's on that spectrum.

00:59:52.000 It's not you.

00:59:52.000 It's not Jamie.

00:59:53.000 It's not me.

00:59:54.000 It's not like, oh, there's a regular guy.

00:59:56.000 We're all different, but regular.

00:59:58.000 You can talk to them.

00:59:59.000 That guy's off.

01:00:01.000 You know he's off.

01:00:02.000 But they're like, perfect.

01:00:03.000 Run it.

01:00:04.000 Perfect.

01:00:05.000 Line him up.

01:00:06.000 Because people laugh.

01:00:07.000 They know people laugh.

01:00:08.000 And why are people laughing?

01:00:10.000 Look, it's tough being, I guess, one of few Asian actors in America, right?

01:00:17.000 I'm very fortunate to be in that position.

01:00:19.000 We all kind of know each other.

01:00:20.000 It's a small circle.

01:00:21.000 I'm very proud of all of us.

01:00:23.000 But...

01:00:24.000 Early on in my career, I got some flack from Silicon Alley.

01:00:29.000 My character, you know, it was an accented character.

01:00:33.000 Which, I mean, for me, it's a little different because I came to this country when I was 13. I couldn't really speak English.

01:00:39.000 So I was like, okay, I'm just going to play an earlier version of myself.

01:00:41.000 I understand.

01:00:42.000 I'm going to try to put some humanity in this character.

01:00:44.000 But then some articles or whatever, it's like, this is an offensive stereotype, blah, blah.

01:00:49.000 And I really looked into that.

01:00:51.000 I was like, okay, I get it.

01:00:52.000 Mm-hmm.

01:01:18.000 Because there's so few of us, each of us that does something means so much more, right?

01:01:23.000 That was the beef with the Apu character, because there wasn't a lot of Indian, and then you characterize, whatever.

01:01:29.000 Now, that's what's great about Crazy Rich Asians. 0.99

01:01:34.000 And 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. 0.97

01:01:42.000 My character is an asshole in that movie, but I can just lean into that and be a character actor and play it. 0.90

01:01:47.000 And it's a powerful, funny movie. 0.99

01:01:50.000 It's a great production.

01:01:51.000 It came out excellent.

01:01:52.000 Everybody enjoyed it.

01:01:53.000 It's all good.

01:01:54.000 And there's a whole spectrum of Asians.

01:01:56.000 It's not just one Asian representing all Asians. 1.00

01:01:59.000 It's your handsome Asians, your asshole Asians, the romantic lead, and also the bitchy ex-girlfriend, whatever. 1.00

01:02:06.000 So we can just actually be actors for the first time and not be actors slash Asian representatives. 0.99

01:02:12.000 So when something like William Hung comes to the table...

01:02:15.000 Yeah.

01:02:15.000 Just can't do it, man.

01:02:17.000 I mean, come on.

01:02:18.000 I get it.

01:02:19.000 You 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.

01:02:30.000 And I'll give you an example.

01:02:31.000 The Sopranos.

01:02:32.000 Mm-hmm. 0.99

01:02:33.000 The Italian-American Anti-Defamation League or whatever the fuck it is. 0.99

01:02:37.000 They were pissed at the Sopranos. 0.98

01:02:40.000 They were pissed that it was reinforcing negative stereotypes about Italians.

01:02:45.000 And I'm Italian.

01:02:46.000 And everyone I know that's Italian was like... 0.99

01:02:49.000 What? 1.00

01:02:50.000 The fuck are you talking about? 1.00

01:02:52.000 Those are real people. 1.00

01:02:53.000 I know guys like that.

01:02:54.000 This is offensive?

01:02:56.000 What's offensive?

01:02:57.000 Reality?

01:02:57.000 Is the mob real?

01:02:59.000 Are those fat guys real? 0.84

01:03:00.000 Do they eat pasta like that?

01:03:02.000 That's real.

01:03:03.000 That's not a...

01:03:05.000 Because Italians aren't really discriminated against.

01:03:09.000 So it's...

01:03:10.000 It doesn't hold any water.

01:03:11.000 But also, you are Italian.

01:03:14.000 There's a ton of Italian actors, comedians out there.

01:03:17.000 So Sopranos is not the only place where you see Italians. 0.60

01:03:21.000 Right.

01:03:21.000 It's not the only representation.

01:03:23.000 So that waters it down and it's fine.

01:03:24.000 Yeah.

01:03:24.000 Because white people, you can play whatever.

01:03:29.000 Mentally handicapped guy, not so smart guy or complete asshole. 1.00

01:03:32.000 Because there's a million other white people. 1.00

01:03:34.000 But as soon as you play a mentally handicapped guy, it's over. 1.00

01:03:37.000 That's a very dangerous...

01:03:38.000 That was Robert Downey Jr. Oh, he was...

01:03:41.000 In Tropic Thunder. 0.82

01:03:42.000 Never go full retard. 0.96

01:03:43.000 Never go full retard. 0.97

01:03:44.000 But didn't he get an Oscar nomination for being in blackface? 0.99

01:03:49.000 I hope he did.

01:03:50.000 I mean, we talked about it on the podcast, and he was a...

01:03:53.000 It was like, thank God we talked about it on the podcast months ago.

01:03:59.000 And we didn't talk about it today.

01:04:01.000 Because today, I wouldn't even bring it up. 0.97

01:04:03.000 The 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. 0.98

01:04:15.000 Like a brown face or something like that? 0.99

01:04:16.000 No brown face at all, just gold chains and a hat that said the Bronx or something. 0.91

01:04:20.000 Yeah.

01:04:21.000 I mean, I think they called it racially insensitive.

01:04:25.000 Well, but that was kind of what I was talking about earlier, though.

01:04:27.000 Adam Rappaport.

01:04:28.000 I'm a big fan of Bon Appetit.

01:04:31.000 Until, like, maybe then.

01:04:32.000 And then I gotta, okay, what's going on here?

01:04:34.000 Because, okay, the news came out with him on that picture.

01:04:36.000 But it's not that picture.

01:04:37.000 And then his staff.

01:04:39.000 There's this girl that was one of the only minorities on camera. 0.98

01:04:43.000 She started saying, yes, I agree.

01:04:45.000 Not just that picture, but I'm the only maybe non-white person on camera that's not getting paid fairly.

01:04:51.000 They just want to push me on camera for diversity, but I get paid fractions of whatever the other people.

01:04:56.000 And then even other white people spoke up and be like, yeah, we have some systematic stuff here we should look into.

01:05:02.000 Oh, at the organization.

01:05:04.000 Yeah, so it's like...

01:05:05.000 So it's a combination of things. 0.99

01:05:06.000 Yeah, so if I have a Puerto Rican picture of me, I don't think people would start jumping on me and be like, yeah, he is kind of a dick. 0.98

01:05:13.000 But here's the example. 1.00

01:05:15.000 If someone had a picture of them pretending to be Italian, nobody would give a fuck. 1.00

01:05:21.000 If he had a tank top on with spaghetti stains on it and his hair greased back, no one would give a fuck. 0.99

01:05:29.000 The problem may be that there's not enough representation in a positive way of Puerto Ricans in the media. 0.97

01:05:38.000 There's a lot of famous Puerto Ricans.

01:05:41.000 Give me examples of...

01:05:44.000 I don't want to...

01:05:45.000 Get the wrong nationality with famous actors, but I'm very aware that there's a lot of famous Puerto Ricans, but maybe not enough.

01:05:52.000 Maybe it's the timing of immigration.

01:05:58.000 My grandparents, when they came here, I talked To my grandfather a lot about it.

01:06:02.000 They were horribly abused.

01:06:04.000 There was a lot of racism against Italians when they were initially immigrated in the early 1900s.

01:06:10.000 But by the time I was a kid, it was gone.

01:06:13.000 I mean, I experienced a little bit of it in Boston with Irish kids. 0.98

01:06:16.000 They would make fun of me for being Italian or shit on me for being Italian. 0.96

01:06:19.000 But by the time I was a grown man, anti-Italian racism is non-existent, basically. 0.99

01:06:25.000 Because you guys are just white, kind of. 0.95

01:06:27.000 It's like COVID in Italy right now.

01:06:29.000 You can't even find it.

01:06:32.000 You see the new CDC? They were talking about COVID. The viral load in Italy right now is so small, it's barely registering.

01:06:41.000 Oh, wow, really?

01:06:42.000 Because they were rough.

01:06:43.000 They had it rough for a while.

01:06:44.000 They're not healthy.

01:06:46.000 Again, these are my people. 1.00

01:06:48.000 They fucking eat pasta, drink wine. 1.00

01:06:50.000 They all smoke cigarettes. 1.00

01:06:51.000 They live on top of each other.

01:06:52.000 No one's washing their hands.

01:06:54.000 There's no exercise.

01:06:55.000 I was just having this conversation with Sebastian yesterday.

01:06:59.000 We were joking around about this. 0.98

01:07:00.000 He's like, try finding a fucking good gym in an Italian hotel. 0.99

01:07:05.000 It's totally true. 0.99

01:07:06.000 Every time I'd go, there'd be some cable machine with some fucked up pulley system that's broken.

01:07:11.000 I just wound up doing push-ups and sit-ups and just run up the rocks or something.

01:07:14.000 There's no gyms.

01:07:16.000 The gym is a joke.

01:07:17.000 No one over there is working out.

01:07:19.000 Well, the thing is, I don't think I want to say that or I could say that.

01:07:23.000 I can't just do a bit about Italians not having gyms and being fat, right? 0.99

01:07:27.000 Right, but Sebastian Maniscalco can do that.

01:07:29.000 I can do that.

01:07:30.000 But I'm saying you can do that.

01:07:32.000 But you could, too. 1.00

01:07:33.000 We wouldn't give a fuck. 1.00

01:07:35.000 Somebody would. 1.00

01:07:36.000 You and Sebastian wouldn't, but somebody might. 1.00

01:07:38.000 Those people are assholes. 1.00

01:07:39.000 Whoever would, it'd be like those Italian-American anti-defamation people that got mad at the Sopranos. 1.00

01:07:44.000 Like, shut up.

01:07:45.000 There's no anti... 0.99

01:07:47.000 The anti-Italian sentiment in this country is so small.

01:07:51.000 You can't even measure it.

01:07:52.000 It's a...

01:07:53.000 It doesn't count.

01:07:54.000 You can't complain. 0.73

01:07:55.000 You 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. 0.89

01:08:03.000 You can't complain if you're Italian. 0.86

01:08:05.000 Yeah.

01:08:05.000 You can.

01:08:06.000 It's ridiculous. 0.97

01:08:07.000 Yeah.

01:08:08.000 Alonzo 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.

01:08:16.000 And then he's like, you know, I like how you're talking about race because you got minor inconveniences. 0.92

01:08:23.000 Black people get shot, you know? 1.00

01:08:25.000 And I was like, oh shit, should I never talk? 1.00

01:08:27.000 But he's a friend. 0.99

01:08:28.000 He was joking, but he has a point.

01:08:29.000 But that's kind of what you're saying.

01:08:31.000 It's a point.

01:08:32.000 It's a real good point.

01:08:33.000 But yeah, it's a point.

01:08:34.000 But it's weird that we have hierarchies of racial discrimination in this country.

01:08:39.000 There's hierarchies.

01:08:41.000 And then there's positive racial stereotypes, right? 1.00

01:08:44.000 Black guys, big dicks. 1.00

01:08:45.000 Asian guys, good at math. 1.00

01:08:46.000 I go, are those okay?

01:08:48.000 Are those stereotypes okay?

01:08:50.000 Apparently not.

01:08:51.000 I don't think it is.

01:08:57.000 I wonder when, as a culture, we'll get...

01:09:00.000 I mean, I really honestly believe this, and I'm one of those...

01:09:05.000 I'm a forever optimist.

01:09:07.000 I really believe that this moment, the reason why these people are in the streets, the reason why there's all...

01:09:13.000 Take away the looting, just the peaceful protests.

01:09:16.000 The 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.

01:09:29.000 And then people are united and they're getting together to try to show that.

01:09:33.000 Like it's a cultural shift that's represented by this mass movement of human beings.

01:09:38.000 I 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.

01:09:53.000 We're getting better at everything.

01:09:54.000 And I feel like this is a cultural moment where people are going to get better at racism.

01:10:00.000 Yeah, I hope so.

01:10:01.000 Not better at doing it better.

01:10:03.000 We're going to be sneakier at it.

01:10:06.000 We're all humans, man.

01:10:08.000 The only difference is that we came from different climates, and to pay attention to that and focus on that above all else, it's annoying. 0.99

01:10:19.000 It's dumb. 0.99

01:10:20.000 It's an artifact of the past. 1.00

01:10:25.000 You know, I want it to get to the point where you can make fun of everybody and no one gives a fuck. 0.99

01:10:30.000 Well, yeah. 0.98

01:10:31.000 It's just fun.

01:10:32.000 And also, you want to, like...

01:10:34.000 Like, when I talk to my black friends, I'm not asking them, yo, man, tell me about Black Lives Matter, educate me, or whatever.

01:10:40.000 Like, we're past that.

01:10:41.000 Like, when I'm talking, I'm talking about girls, you know?

01:10:44.000 Life.

01:10:44.000 Right, life.

01:10:45.000 But I think when you're uncomfortable, that's when you're like...

01:10:48.000 Hey, Joe, so you're Italian, huh?

01:10:50.000 Like, imagine if that's my conversation.

01:10:53.000 That's weird. 1.00

01:10:54.000 Like, if you come up to me, I walk in this door, and the first thing you ask me is Asian shit. 1.00

01:10:57.000 When did you learn to use chopsticks? 1.00

01:10:59.000 Early on?

01:11:00.000 We're not friends.

01:11:01.000 Like, we're just, you know, you're just...

01:11:03.000 I'm your Asian consultant or whatever.

01:11:05.000 So I think, yeah, it's good to get past that point where, sure, we can just talk about...

01:11:10.000 Anything that's beyond that, but yeah, there's so much work to be done.

01:11:14.000 I think what's happening is a great turning point.

01:11:19.000 We look back and be like, yeah, that happened.

01:11:20.000 There's great things happening, and then there's also the feeding frenzy.

01:11:24.000 The online mob feeding frenzy is happening, too.

01:11:27.000 There's this whole broad range of things that are happening all at once.

01:11:32.000 There's great things and bad things, but that's just part of being human. 0.97

01:11:35.000 You have to see the bad things and just go, this is fucking gross. 0.90

01:11:39.000 Let's get away from this and this is better. 0.61

01:11:43.000 When 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.

01:11:58.000 We should all be looking for more things that make us feel good.

01:12:01.000 Whether it's our own actions or things that we can find online.

01:12:04.000 More things that resonate with how we want the world to be.

01:12:09.000 Yeah, absolutely.

01:12:14.000 I don't have anything to add to that. 1.00

01:12:17.000 And pussy. 1.00

01:12:18.000 I mean, that makes you feel good. 1.00

01:12:19.000 All these things are good. 0.99

01:12:21.000 And dick for the ladies and the gay folks. 1.00

01:12:24.000 Pussy for the ladies that are into ladies. 1.00

01:12:26.000 So the conclusion of that entire conversation is, I should do porn. 1.00

01:12:31.000 I've been saying that to you in a subtle way for the past hour and a half, bro.

01:12:36.000 I'll reconsider my career.

01:12:38.000 You can do it. 0.99

01:12:39.000 Well, you don't know my dick game. 1.00

01:12:42.000 You don't know my dick game. 1.00

01:12:43.000 I've heard your jokes about your dick game, so I'm assuming your dick game is pretty good. 1.00

01:12:46.000 I gotta represent, bro. 1.00

01:12:48.000 Gotta do a dick game joke, you know, to represent. 1.00

01:12:53.000 I'm tired of this shit. 1.00

01:12:54.000 Yeah. 1.00

01:12:54.000 Do you feel like comedy has less opportunities for Asian guys? 1.00

01:13:02.000 Hmm, stand-up in itself?

01:13:04.000 Yeah.

01:13:04.000 Stand-up, I think, I look at stand-up as such a utopia.

01:13:07.000 I have such a love for it because...

01:13:10.000 It's a meritocracy.

01:13:11.000 It is a meritocracy.

01:13:13.000 And the weirder you are, the less fitting in you are in society, the better you're probably gonna be.

01:13:18.000 You have an angle.

01:13:19.000 And 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. 0.99

01:13:30.000 So I was able to fit something, you know?

01:13:34.000 So 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.

01:13:49.000 But when you get to a certain level, it becomes less work, I think.

01:13:54.000 Interesting.

01:13:56.000 It gives you an angle to break in, but once you've broken in, then it might not be.

01:14:02.000 I'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.

01:14:13.000 And the ones that are not very good seem to think there's some discrimination.

01:14:18.000 Interesting.

01:14:19.000 Yeah.

01:14:20.000 The one, like, you talked to Ali Wong.

01:14:21.000 Ali Wong and I had a conversation about it, and she goes, do you think it's a meritocracy?

01:14:25.000 I go, I do.

01:14:26.000 She goes, I do too.

01:14:27.000 I think it's... 0.99

01:14:28.000 Because, like, look, she's fucking murdering it, right? 1.00

01:14:30.000 Killing it. 1.00

01:14:31.000 Killing it. 1.00

01:14:31.000 Absolutely. 1.00

01:14:32.000 Smash it.

01:14:32.000 She did, like, some insane number of sold-out shows in San Francisco.

01:14:36.000 She's a beast. 1.00

01:14:37.000 There's no denying that, right? 0.99

01:14:39.000 Mm-hmm.

01:14:39.000 Also a woman.

01:14:40.000 But there's other women that'll tell you, like, it's hard for women to get on the lineups. 1.00

01:14:44.000 It's hard for women to get promoted. 1.00

01:14:46.000 I'm like, hmm, okay.

01:14:49.000 I think it's harder for women to go on stage. 1.00

01:14:52.000 First of all, if a woman goes on stage and does stand-up, almost automatically, her political opinions, nobody wants to hear. 1.00

01:15:00.000 Men don't want to hear your political opinions. 1.00

01:15:02.000 Men don't want to hear you telling them things that they don't already know. 0.67

01:15:06.000 Men 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 0.99

01:15:36.000 slay.

01:15:37.000 But 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. 1.00

01:15:52.000 A guy can right away talk about politics, talk about sex, talk about anything.

01:15:57.000 For men, it just has to be funny.

01:15:59.000 It's basically wide open.

01:16:01.000 But men discriminate. 0.92

01:16:03.000 A lot of men do.

01:16:04.000 I don't want to generalize.

01:16:05.000 A lot of men discriminate when they see a woman go on stage.

01:16:07.000 They go, oh great, a woman comic. 1.00

01:16:09.000 Some woman I don't know. 1.00

01:16:10.000 Is she going to suck? 1.00

01:16:12.000 Is she going to talk about politics? 1.00

01:16:13.000 Shut the fuck up. 1.00

01:16:16.000 Some men don't want to hear a woman talk. 1.00

01:16:20.000 Yeah, that's tough, man.

01:16:21.000 I never thought about that.

01:16:23.000 Women have to be better. 1.00

01:16:24.000 And I guess... 0.89

01:16:27.000 Do 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?

01:16:38.000 Well, I think we all start with training wheels, right?

01:16:40.000 Yes. 0.99

01:16:40.000 We all talk about jerking off in our first five minutes. 0.99

01:16:43.000 You have to. 0.99

01:16:44.000 How old were you when you started stand-up?

01:16:46.000 21. Me too.

01:16:47.000 I didn't know anything. 1.00

01:16:48.000 I was a moron. 1.00

01:16:50.000 Sex was the only thing that I was even interested in. 1.00

01:16:52.000 So that's all I talked about on stage.

01:16:56.000 You're just surviving.

01:16:57.000 Whatever you can get a laugh, you do it.

01:17:01.000 I think it's harder for women. 1.00

01:17:02.000 The beginning parts are harder.

01:17:04.000 It's harder.

01:17:04.000 It's harder to do that.

01:17:06.000 It's harder to just, you can't just talk about sex.

01:17:08.000 I think they have to be a little more undeniable.

01:17:11.000 They're a little more scrutinized.

01:17:12.000 And 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. 0.99

01:17:21.000 See, there's a thing about stand-up too.

01:17:23.000 You're a smooth guy when you're on stage.

01:17:25.000 I love your delivery, your presentation.

01:17:28.000 You're very easy to watch.

01:17:29.000 You're very casual.

01:17:30.000 But because of that, because you're so comfortable, it gives you the illusion that anyone can do it.

01:17:36.000 Right, right.

01:17:37.000 Because you're just talking.

01:17:38.000 Right.

01:17:39.000 I can talk too.

01:17:40.000 I can go up there and do what he's doing.

01:17:41.000 I know how to talk.

01:17:42.000 He's talking.

01:17:43.000 I can talk.

01:17:44.000 I'm going to do stand-up.

01:17:46.000 Yeah.

01:17:46.000 And so it gives the...

01:17:48.000 So dopey men already think they can do what you do. 0.98

01:17:54.000 And when a woman does it, dopey men that are sexist automatically think they can do better than that woman. 0.99

01:18:01.000 And they don't want to hear her. 0.98

01:18:03.000 Huh.

01:18:04.000 Yeah, yeah.

01:18:05.000 It's like acting.

01:18:07.000 It's like acting seems easy, just being himself.

01:18:09.000 Right, just talking.

01:18:10.000 They don't know the writing that puts into it, like for us comics, and then the training for actors.

01:18:14.000 It's not like we're driving an airplane, you know, or flying an airplane. 0.96

01:18:18.000 Well, when you get to that, like, Daniel Day-Lewis style of acting, like, bitch, you can't do that. 1.00

01:18:22.000 Stop pretending you could do that. 0.99

01:18:24.000 You get to, like, my left foot, or some of the crazy shit that he did, you know. 0.98

01:18:28.000 I would say something about acting, there are naturals. 0.98

01:18:32.000 Like Jennifer Lawrence, never taken an acting class.

01:18:34.000 She's great. 1.00

01:18:35.000 Probably crazy as fuck. 1.00

01:18:36.000 Who knows? 1.00

01:18:37.000 That's what I would say.

01:18:38.000 Just really good at something, whatever the skill set is.

01:18:43.000 At pretending and lying something, right?

01:18:44.000 And you're just really good at knowing the human condition somehow. 1.00

01:18:48.000 But comedians, even if you're a fucking natural, you suck in the first five years. 1.00

01:18:53.000 Yeah, you suck. 1.00

01:18:54.000 You suck. 1.00

01:18:55.000 I mean, you might get a couple of good sets here and there. 1.00

01:18:56.000 Have you seen anyone that's just, like, immediately good?

01:18:59.000 Some guys that have gone through Alcoholics Anonymous are really good right off the bat.

01:19:04.000 Because that's, like, their stage training?

01:19:06.000 Yeah, yeah.

01:19:07.000 Really?

01:19:08.000 Yeah, yeah.

01:19:09.000 There's a dude that I knew back in Boston who was hilarious.

01:19:11.000 Well, quite a few guys, actually, in Boston.

01:19:13.000 Started out in AA. But this guy, Dave Fitzgerald, and I remember...

01:19:17.000 He was a grown man when I was a boy.

01:19:18.000 I 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. 0.74

01:19:46.000 And people would be dying laughing. 0.51

01:19:48.000 And he had this sort of way of doing it.

01:19:50.000 And then, I believe it was...

01:19:53.000 I forget who the comic was.

01:19:54.000 It was in the audience.

01:19:55.000 It was also in AA. They grabbed him and said, Hey man, you ever thought about doing stand-up?

01:19:59.000 You're fucking funny. 0.98

01:20:00.000 You could do stand-up. 1.00

01:20:01.000 Because he was killing at AA meetings.

01:20:04.000 So then when he would go to...

01:20:06.000 Because you've got to think.

01:20:07.000 It's stage time.

01:20:08.000 Yeah!

01:20:09.000 Hey, my name's Dave.

01:20:10.000 And he had this crazy, raspy voice.

01:20:12.000 He had a hard life. 0.77

01:20:13.000 Boston accent, hard life. 1.00

01:20:16.000 He's a funny fucking dude. 0.99

01:20:17.000 And he would go on stage at a comedy club the way he would go on stage at an AA meeting. 1.00

01:20:22.000 And murder.

01:20:23.000 So he was killing way before me.

01:20:27.000 Killing real early on.

01:20:28.000 Because he had months of stand-up.

01:20:32.000 Maybe even years.

01:20:33.000 I'm not sure how long he had done the AA meetings before he actually got on stage at a club.

01:20:37.000 But he had an advantage.

01:20:40.000 But that's still stage time.

01:20:41.000 It's like he's been doing open mics for five months.

01:20:44.000 Also, super supportive open mic nights.

01:20:47.000 Like, hi, my name's Dave.

01:20:48.000 I'm an alcoholic.

01:20:49.000 Hi, Dave.

01:20:50.000 Yeah.

01:20:50.000 You know, everybody's there.

01:20:51.000 You get a little more comfortable.

01:20:52.000 Get loose. 1.00

01:20:53.000 And you're around a bunch of other fellow junkies who fucked up their lives. 0.99

01:20:57.000 Yeah, yeah. 0.99

01:20:58.000 You know what's interesting?

01:20:59.000 Speaking of being supportive, comics, we make fun of each other.

01:21:03.000 That's what we do.

01:21:04.000 It's like you walk off a stage.

01:21:06.000 Like, if you bomb and you walk off a stage, it's like, what are we doing? 1.00

01:21:10.000 A fucking one-man show? 1.00

01:21:11.000 Yeah. 1.00

01:21:12.000 You know what?

01:21:13.000 In a way, now, it's a compliment.

01:21:15.000 If you can do a one-man show, you're killing it. 0.99

01:21:16.000 But we just break each other's balls, right? 0.84

01:21:19.000 But I remember the first time I took improv classes, I was so uncomfortable because everybody's so supportive. 0.96

01:21:24.000 You know, it's like, zip, zap, zoom!

01:21:27.000 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8! 1.00

01:21:28.000 Let's do these exercises and shit! 0.99

01:21:30.000 And then I was like, oh my god, if my buddy Terrell saw me doing this... 0.99

01:21:34.000 I would not hear the end of it.

01:21:38.000 But there's something really nice about that.

01:21:41.000 When you get to a certain level in acting or when you get over yourself as a stand-up, you should be around supportive people.

01:21:47.000 Yeah, once you get to a certain level. 0.95

01:21:49.000 But 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. 0.99

01:21:57.000 They're like, dude, I just ate shit. 1.00

01:21:58.000 You ate plates of shit, son. 1.00

01:22:00.000 Let's have a drink. 1.00

01:22:01.000 And there's laughter.

01:22:03.000 It's like there's fun to it.

01:22:05.000 It's like they're picking up your spirits by making fun of you, and then you get to laugh at that.

01:22:12.000 We all know it's a process.

01:22:13.000 You trust the process.

01:22:15.000 You have a stand-up special that's out right now?

01:22:18.000 Yeah, on Amazon.

01:22:19.000 Is it right now?

01:22:19.000 Mm-hmm.

01:22:20.000 Right now!

01:22:21.000 When did it come out?

01:22:22.000 It came out two weeks ago, I think.

01:22:23.000 Okay, beautiful.

01:22:24.000 So when did you film this?

01:22:26.000 November.

01:22:27.000 Oh, so you got in pretty early.

01:22:29.000 Yeah, yeah.

01:22:30.000 It's funny.

01:22:31.000 I start my set by saying, Asians, we had a couple of good years!

01:22:35.000 I guess not so true anymore, you know, after the whole COVID thing.

01:22:38.000 You got in right before COVID became gigantic news.

01:22:42.000 Yeah, yeah, yeah.

01:22:43.000 It was pretty tough.

01:22:44.000 I mean, before, so the special came out, what, in May?

01:22:48.000 Yeah, early May, right?

01:22:50.000 And I was like, I was kind of kicking myself. 0.94

01:22:52.000 I was like, shit, if it would have been later, my whole material would have changed, like blah, blah. 0.76

01:22:56.000 But it's like good to kind of have that out there. 0.97

01:22:58.000 Yes.

01:22:58.000 And have people kind of see a glimpse of how good life was maybe six months ago.

01:23:02.000 You know, like how positive it was.

01:23:04.000 Because now it would have been, A little more somber tone, I think.

01:23:08.000 Yeah, it's hard now.

01:23:10.000 I mean, it's hard to figure out, like, what to say.

01:23:13.000 It's gonna take a while for everything to, like, settle in a place where people can accept even what's happened.

01:23:18.000 I mean, how many people you're dealing with in the audience that have lost their job?

01:23:21.000 How 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.

01:23:32.000 We're gonna have to navigate those weird waters.

01:23:34.000 Yeah, I don't know.

01:23:35.000 When we go back, do we open with talking about COVID and quarantine because that's what's on everybody's mind?

01:23:41.000 Or do we talk about something totally different?

01:23:43.000 I think I'm going to not talk about COVID. I might talk about the riots.

01:23:49.000 The riots fascinate me.

01:23:50.000 Because it's what I've always said.

01:23:52.000 People have said to me, why do you have guns?

01:23:54.000 Why are you into self-defense?

01:23:56.000 Why are you in all this stuff?

01:23:57.000 I'm like, civilization is a thin veneer.

01:24:00.000 We have only been civilized for the last 10,000 years or so. 0.98

01:24:04.000 Before that, we were fucking barbarians for hundreds of thousands of years. 0.99

01:24:08.000 We have that same DNA. Of those barbarians. 1.00

01:24:11.000 It's in our blood.

01:24:12.000 And we keep it together with religion and societal norms and community and love and friendship.

01:24:21.000 But when things go sideways, you get to see what people are really capable of.

01:24:26.000 And that's what we saw during the looting and the riots.

01:24:28.000 When people have an excuse and a reason, particularly when people are backed into a corner because They couldn't work for three months.

01:24:34.000 And then there's a justification. 0.99

01:24:35.000 The system is fucked up. 1.00

01:24:37.000 This guy that killed that... 1.00

01:24:39.000 The cop that killed that guy is a piece of shit. 1.00

01:24:41.000 There's riots. 1.00

01:24:42.000 And then you see cops that are fucking shooting tear gas at people. 1.00

01:24:45.000 And you're like, fuck you! 1.00

01:24:47.000 And they just want to smash and loot. 1.00

01:24:49.000 You see that thin layer of what a human being really is.

01:24:54.000 The civilization veneer gets removed.

01:24:56.000 And you go, oh, look at the real thing under there.

01:25:00.000 This is an animal.

01:25:02.000 Humans are animals.

01:25:03.000 We're a weird talking animal and we want to survive and we have ideas of fairness and rules and we have a mob mentality. 0.88

01:25:12.000 There'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. 0.94

01:25:26.000 And if you've ever been around a mob that's going crazy and nutty, you can feel it, man. 0.86

01:25:31.000 You feel it in your skin, you feel it in the air.

01:25:34.000 I'm fascinated by that, and I'm probably gonna talk about that.

01:25:37.000 And you're the most prepared guy. 0.99

01:25:39.000 If some shit comes to shit, you can fight, you got weapons, right? 1.00

01:25:43.000 Yeah, but I'm gonna be the first to get the fuck out of here, too. 1.00

01:25:46.000 I'm the last to stay and fight. 0.99

01:25:48.000 I'm like, get the fuck out of here. 1.00

01:25:49.000 You can't win this. 0.99

01:25:51.000 This is not a winnable situation.

01:25:52.000 This is not a home invasion.

01:25:54.000 This is the world going sideways. 0.98

01:25:57.000 Like, you gotta get the fuck out. 0.97

01:25:58.000 How does it feel to be a martial arts expert, somebody that can fight? 0.96

01:26:03.000 Do you feel more confident going outside? 0.99

01:26:06.000 Because I'm always looking around like, okay, make sure that guy doesn't fuck me up. 0.99

01:26:10.000 He can totally kill me, whatever. 1.00

01:26:12.000 People can always shoot you. 1.00

01:26:13.000 They can always shoot you. 1.00

01:26:14.000 They can always stab you. 1.00

01:26:15.000 They can always hit you over the head when you're not looking. 0.64

01:26:17.000 There's always danger in being a person, especially when you're around bad people, right? 0.99

01:26:22.000 But if I'm in a situation where there's some guy who's a dick... 0.98

01:26:27.000 I've seen people get beat up, man, that couldn't defend themselves, and it's horrible to watch. 0.99

01:26:31.000 It's sad.

01:26:32.000 I mean, we've seen many videos online of people just getting beat up by somebody because they don't know how to fight.

01:26:40.000 And 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.

01:26:45.000 That's not gonna happen to me.

01:26:47.000 I like that. 1.00

01:26:48.000 I like that if some asshole tries to do that to me, I can hurt them. 1.00

01:26:55.000 I can detain them. 1.00

01:26:56.000 I can submit them.

01:26:58.000 Yeah.

01:26:59.000 But it doesn't ever get to that point.

01:27:00.000 Have you gotten in fights lately?

01:27:02.000 I'm not a fighter.

01:27:03.000 I mean, I know how to do it, but I'm a nice person.

01:27:05.000 So just knowing that, having a self-confidence, that feels good.

01:27:08.000 It helps.

01:27:09.000 That feels zen.

01:27:09.000 It helps.

01:27:10.000 Yeah.

01:27:10.000 But there's a lot of sketchy people out there, man.

01:27:12.000 We've all seen videos.

01:27:13.000 I watched a video yesterday of some guy punching some girl in the face for like no reason and knocking her unconscious. 1.00

01:27:19.000 I'm like, what the fuck? 1.00

01:27:20.000 People are assholes. 1.00

01:27:22.000 There's a bunch of people that are abused and they come from horrible backgrounds. 1.00

01:27:26.000 They're abused by their parents or their family and they're a mess.

01:27:30.000 And they walk amongst us free until they commit crimes and they get locked in jail.

01:27:36.000 So if somebody wants to fight me, what I do, I just run? 1.00

01:27:38.000 Yeah, get the fuck out of there, bro. 1.00

01:27:40.000 You gotta see it coming. 1.00

01:27:41.000 Seeing it coming is real.

01:27:43.000 That's a real important part of it.

01:27:45.000 Like, seeing it coming right away.

01:27:47.000 Seeing sketchy people and knowing you gotta have that spidey sense. 0.99

01:27:50.000 You gotta get the fuck out of there. 0.89

01:27:51.000 But it's exciting to be around danger. 0.99

01:27:54.000 That's the other problem.

01:27:55.000 For you, not me!

01:27:56.000 It's exciting to be in weird areas and be around weird people.

01:28:00.000 It's like, when things are a little bit, a little sketchy, a little seedy, people enjoy that.

01:28:05.000 It's like, what would you rather have? 0.97

01:28:08.000 Would you rather have everything be fucking boring and vanilla and just everything is Hermosa Beach? 0.98

01:28:15.000 Or, you know, every now and then you want something to be just a little bit fucking dirty? 0.98

01:28:20.000 It makes you feel a little alive when you do the shitty mics or random spots here and there. 0.98

01:28:25.000 There's a grittiness to it.

01:28:26.000 I think especially stand-ups, we really gravitate to that.

01:28:30.000 It feels live.

01:28:31.000 We lack a little danger.

01:28:33.000 Also, 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.

01:28:42.000 Like, yes!

01:28:43.000 Yes!

01:28:45.000 There's thoughts that are there, but you've got to unearth them.

01:28:50.000 You gotta dust them off and show them to people.

01:28:52.000 And they're like, yes!

01:28:54.000 There's a danger to that, right?

01:28:56.000 There's a riskiness to what we do.

01:28:58.000 Yeah, for sure.

01:29:00.000 It's a weird job, man.

01:29:02.000 And everybody does it different, right?

01:29:03.000 You get the Hedgeberg.

01:29:04.000 He does it.

01:29:05.000 Mitch did it one way.

01:29:07.000 You do it a different way.

01:29:08.000 Joey Diaz does it a different way.

01:29:10.000 Everybody's got a different way of doing it.

01:29:12.000 But it's ultimately you're trying to find those points, find those perspectives, use those comedy weapons to pop.

01:29:22.000 Hop through on these people and break into their mind and get those sparks flying.

01:29:27.000 What do you think separates a good comic to like the next level great comic?

01:29:32.000 There's a lot of things I think.

01:29:34.000 It's really dependent upon the person, but I think a lot of it is focusing on comedy. 0.99

01:29:38.000 Like really working on your shit and making sure you're a real objective about what you're doing. 0.99

01:29:43.000 Also, a lot of reps, man. 1.00

01:29:45.000 Yeah.

01:29:45.000 Putting in a lot of reps.

01:29:47.000 Reps are giant, man.

01:29:49.000 Yeah.

01:29:49.000 I think there's no denying that.

01:29:52.000 And then also different things that you do.

01:29:57.000 One of the things that I do is I do stand-up, I listen to that stand-up, and then I write.

01:30:04.000 I write on stage, I listen to my sets, I write off stage.

01:30:10.000 I mean, I write on stage and I'll come up with ideas, I'll free ball, I take chances on stage.

01:30:15.000 But then I sit down and I write right.

01:30:17.000 I sit down in front of a computer for hours.

01:30:19.000 Wow.

01:30:20.000 And every now and then, I'll sit down maybe for four hours and I'll come up with one line.

01:30:25.000 But it's worth it.

01:30:25.000 But that one line I would have never gotten.

01:30:27.000 Yeah, 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.

01:30:44.000 Yeah 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.

01:30:59.000 That's their drug. 0.99

01:31:00.000 That's the 15 minutes they get to go away from their wife and have fun. 0.97

01:31:03.000 So they don't want to risk that and have a shitty night. 0.88

01:31:06.000 Right. 1.00

01:31:06.000 They want to kill. 1.00

01:31:07.000 They love that feeling of killing. 0.98

01:31:09.000 That's what I was getting at earlier.

01:31:10.000 One 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.

01:31:18.000 You do a special, and then you start from scratch.

01:31:21.000 You're a beginner again.

01:31:22.000 So, like, I know you're a great comic.

01:31:25.000 I know you're really funny. 1.00

01:31:26.000 But if I see you, and you're eating shit, I'm going to laugh at you. 0.99

01:31:29.000 Because I know you're good. 1.00

01:31:30.000 I'm like, dude, this new shit's rough, sorry. 0.99

01:31:33.000 And we would be laughing. 0.99

01:31:34.000 We'd be like, ha ha ha.

01:31:35.000 It'd be fun.

01:31:36.000 We could laugh together at pain.

01:31:38.000 I'm still insecure. 0.99

01:31:39.000 I'm still insecure in a way that, okay, sure, I got to go write some new shit now. 0.98

01:31:44.000 And it hit in a weird point. 0.99

01:31:46.000 Now I can't come up with new shit because we can't go to comedy clubs. 0.99

01:31:49.000 I know. 0.99

01:31:49.000 Isn't that crazy? 0.99

01:31:49.000 So I'm kind of stuck. 0.99

01:31:50.000 We're all going to be beginners.

01:31:51.000 All of us.

01:31:52.000 But I'm still afraid.

01:31:54.000 I'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.

01:32:05.000 Like, I don't want a tank in case somebody I like is watching me for the first time.

01:32:09.000 Mmm, yeah.

01:32:10.000 You know what I mean?

01:32:10.000 But that's where alcohol comes in.

01:32:14.000 Yeah, shot a jack, hit of a joint, and just fucking let the good times roll. 0.99

01:32:19.000 Woo! 1.00

01:32:20.000 I 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. 1.00

01:32:28.000 I'd be like, everybody eats a dick in that lab. 1.00

01:32:31.000 That's true. 1.00

01:32:32.000 I'd be like, he's eating a dick just like I have. 0.99

01:32:35.000 Yeah, so I don't know if that ever goes away. 1.00

01:32:38.000 I 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.

01:32:49.000 You don't want to do it at the improv. 0.98

01:32:51.000 You don't want to do it at the store.

01:32:52.000 I disagree.

01:32:54.000 You have to be taking chances.

01:32:57.000 You have to swing.

01:32:59.000 I've flopped at the store a bunch of times where I pull out a joke that I have roughly in my head.

01:33:06.000 But it's also preparation is important too.

01:33:09.000 I think even when I have a new bit, sometimes I'll go up with just a seed.

01:33:16.000 And sometimes I'm like, no, I need like a plant that I could like just dig a hole and shove that in there.

01:33:21.000 I need a full plant.

01:33:23.000 You know what I mean?

01:33:23.000 Yeah.

01:33:24.000 But it's really dependent upon the subject matter. 0.98

01:33:26.000 Like I remember when the Harvey Weinstein shit broke, I had a bit that night. 0.99

01:33:31.000 I'm like right away. 0.99

01:33:32.000 I'm like, oh, I know my angle.

01:33:33.000 My angle is that if Harvey Weinstein did that to my daughter, I found out that I was sexist. 1.00

01:33:40.000 Because if Harvey Weinstein did that to my daughter, I would fucking kill him. 0.99

01:33:44.000 But if Harvina Weinstein came to my son with a solid contract, I'd be like, dude, you're gonna be Batman. 0.99

01:33:51.000 Right, right, right, right, right.

01:33:52.000 And I had this whole bit that blossomed that night.

01:33:57.000 Like that line, dude, you're...

01:33:59.000 We're gonna be Batman.

01:34:00.000 That came the first night on stage, because it was like right when he was getting arrested, I was like, wow.

01:34:05.000 And I was like, how would I feel if that was a woman? 0.99

01:34:08.000 It was like this disgusting woman. 1.00

01:34:10.000 It was like Harvey Weinstein in a dress that was trying to fuck my son. 1.00

01:34:14.000 I'd be like, come on, just do it, bro. 1.00

01:34:16.000 I'd be like, come on.

01:34:18.000 Do you think working in a coal mine's fun?

01:34:20.000 You gotta do what you gotta do to get by in this world. 1.00

01:34:22.000 Come on, pussy. 1.00

01:34:25.000 And that bit became a bit like it blossomed on stage. 1.00

01:34:31.000 I just had a seed.

01:34:32.000 I just had an idea.

01:34:32.000 That's the best feeling.

01:34:33.000 That's like you're freestyling.

01:34:35.000 It's amazing because it was like hours after he was arrested.

01:34:38.000 It was like hours after it went down.

01:34:40.000 Yeah.

01:34:41.000 And it just popped.

01:34:43.000 And then it became a bit...

01:34:46.000 That I wrote and I worked on it.

01:34:48.000 I, you know, I honed it on stage.

01:34:50.000 But that bit was just, that was just a seed.

01:34:54.000 But 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.

01:35:05.000 I 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.

01:35:13.000 I don't want anybody to misconstrue what I'm saying here.

01:35:16.000 Right, right, right, right, right.

01:35:18.000 Yeah.

01:35:19.000 That's also the tough part, the message that you're sending, because that's beyond just being funny.

01:35:23.000 Oh, yeah.

01:35:23.000 So you've got to be responsible at that point, and that's really hard.

01:35:27.000 Yeah, you want to, like, say if you're doing a joke, and in the joke you reference gay people.

01:35:35.000 If there's a gay couple in the audience, you want those folks to know you love them.

01:35:40.000 I don't have zero animosity to anybody.

01:35:46.000 I love gay people, I love straight people, I love everybody, but I'm gonna make fun of you. 1.00

01:35:51.000 I'm gonna make fun of something that gay people do. 1.00

01:35:55.000 But I want you to know, there's gotta be a way that I want you to know before I do this, this is not homophobic. 0.93

01:36:01.000 Yeah, yeah.

01:36:02.000 Like, if I'm saying this, I'm saying this just because it's funny, we're all funny.

01:36:07.000 So I have to figure out a way to navigate those waters.

01:36:10.000 Do you...

01:36:11.000 I guess what I try to do now, especially with the landscape of...

01:36:15.000 The stand-up comedy specials I see, the one that are really popping, I like it.

01:36:19.000 Where a lot of it, like Hasan Minhaj's or Hannah Gatsby's, not...

01:36:25.000 Funny in that sense, Hannah Gatsby's per se, right?

01:36:29.000 Like a lot of comics, it's not funny.

01:36:30.000 It's like a TED talk.

01:36:31.000 Yeah, but I think there's a point to that.

01:36:33.000 I think that's cool.

01:36:34.000 That actually gets a message across.

01:36:36.000 So I always try to...

01:36:37.000 Her thing is probably like maybe 50% TED talk and then 50% comedy, if that. 1.00

01:36:42.000 I try to do like 80% comedy and then maybe 20% I'm just telling a story that's a bit... 0.99

01:36:48.000 You know, like I have a story where I almost got deported a couple times, you know, when I was being an idiot. 0.95

01:36:54.000 It's not that funny, but there was some kind of a point to it. 0.99

01:37:00.000 Right.

01:37:01.000 But you're like a pure comic.

01:37:03.000 You're like 100% stand-up.

01:37:05.000 Do you like that one-man show stuff?

01:37:07.000 Because I have trouble to see, like, am I kind of being a sellout here by doing that, you know?

01:37:12.000 No, I don't think it's being a sellout.

01:37:13.000 Look, people obviously like Hannah Gadsby. 1.00

01:37:16.000 Like, I had this conversation with comics about it.

01:37:18.000 Like, I thought it was weird when they were trying to say that she's redefining comedy or uncomedying comedy.

01:37:24.000 Like, no, you're not.

01:37:25.000 No, you're not.

01:37:26.000 No, you're not.

01:37:26.000 This is what you're doing.

01:37:27.000 You're doing your thing.

01:37:28.000 Your thing's...

01:37:29.000 Like, people are enjoying...

01:37:31.000 It's resonating.

01:37:32.000 It's huge.

01:37:32.000 Yeah.

01:37:32.000 So her thing, people are enjoying.

01:37:35.000 It doesn't...

01:37:36.000 To invalidate or invalidate Donnell Williams.

01:37:41.000 Or Donnell Rollins, rather.

01:37:43.000 Or Harlan Williams, I was going to say. 0.98

01:37:46.000 Or, you know, who's like totally silly. 0.99

01:37:48.000 You know, Harlan Williams is just completely silly. 0.99

01:37:51.000 Or Donnell's just wild and loud. 0.98

01:37:54.000 And like, that's great, too.

01:37:55.000 Or, you know, Joey Diaz.

01:37:58.000 It's like it's not invalidating Joey Diaz.

01:38:00.000 It's not invalidating people that also do a different thing that people love as well.

01:38:05.000 It's just you're doing something where you're talking about your, like, Hannah Gatsby's talking about her own pain, right?

01:38:12.000 She's talking about her own issues.

01:38:15.000 She's talking about her own life.

01:38:17.000 And it resonates because it's honest and it's real.

01:38:20.000 It doesn't have to be funny.

01:38:21.000 The people that enjoy it, maybe they don't want to just see stand-up.

01:38:24.000 They want to see something.

01:38:26.000 They want to see something interesting.

01:38:28.000 But if you go see Don L. Ron, he's just going wild.

01:38:31.000 He's having fun.

01:38:32.000 That's comedy.

01:38:33.000 It's wild comedy.

01:38:34.000 That's okay, too.

01:38:35.000 All things are okay.

01:38:37.000 Al Madrigal's okay.

01:38:38.000 Everything's okay.

01:38:39.000 It's like different genres of movie.

01:38:41.000 Right, but people get weird.

01:38:43.000 They do.

01:38:44.000 They get hateful about it.

01:38:45.000 Yeah, they get angry.

01:38:46.000 Like, you know, I only like blues music. 1.00

01:38:48.000 This rock and roll is bullshit. 0.99

01:38:50.000 That's really what it's like, right? 1.00

01:38:51.000 That is what it is.

01:38:52.000 I've heard people say that about Harlan Williams.

01:38:54.000 It's one of the reasons why I brought up Harlan. 0.99

01:38:56.000 He's so silly. 0.99

01:38:58.000 And if you saw Harlan on paper, you'd be like, what is that? 1.00

01:39:01.000 Hey there, butternut flapjack peachy pie. 0.80

01:39:04.000 Yeah, if me and you would have done a set, it would not work. 0.99

01:39:07.000 I would eat shit every time, and I'd quit comedy. 0.91

01:39:10.000 But Harlan, there's something about his delivery, and that's what he really thinks is funny. 0.99

01:39:16.000 And it's like, you can't tell me it's not funny.

01:39:18.000 I watch him kill.

01:39:19.000 Oh, he's amazing, yeah.

01:39:20.000 Amazing, right?

01:39:21.000 So, like, that's his way.

01:39:23.000 And then, you know, you've got John Mulaney.

01:39:26.000 He's got a different way.

01:39:28.000 It's also very good.

01:39:30.000 And then you've got Anthony Jeselnik, who's just mean with great writing.

01:39:34.000 Right.

01:39:35.000 But it's also very good.

01:39:36.000 It's his way.

01:39:37.000 There's a bunch of different ways to do this thing.

01:39:39.000 And for one person to decide, like, oh, Hannah Gadsby's real comedy.

01:39:44.000 Comedy's dead.

01:39:44.000 She just killed comedy.

01:39:46.000 Like, you don't know comedy, and you should just shut the fuck up. 1.00

01:39:49.000 Right, absolutely. 1.00

01:39:49.000 Because what you're saying is nonsense. 1.00

01:39:51.000 That's like saying rap music killed Beethoven. 1.00

01:39:53.000 It's dumb. 1.00

01:39:54.000 What you're saying is dumb. 1.00

01:39:56.000 Yeah, yeah. 1.00

01:39:57.000 That's great.

01:39:58.000 That's... 0.99

01:39:58.000 That's all fucking comedy or whatever it is. 0.99

01:40:01.000 It means it's comedy until it's not comedy. 0.98

01:40:04.000 It's comedy until you decide to tell a story that's not funny, but it's also interesting.

01:40:09.000 Yeah.

01:40:09.000 Even within stand-up itself, there's so many different genres.

01:40:13.000 There's no wrong way.

01:40:14.000 I love that.

01:40:14.000 Yeah, 100%.

01:40:15.000 Yeah.

01:40:16.000 I mean, one of the things I always loved about Hedberg is that it's so absurd. 0.83

01:40:20.000 And that's not my style of comedy, but it's so silly and absurd. 0.51

01:40:25.000 Or Stephen Wright, same thing. 0.54

01:40:26.000 Just non-sequitur after non-sequitur, bizarre, weird.

01:40:31.000 I used to work at a fire hydrant factory.

01:40:34.000 Couldn't park anywhere near the place.

01:40:36.000 That kind of comedy.

01:40:38.000 I would never write a joke like that, but with him, with his bizarre look and his bizarre style, it murders.

01:40:44.000 You know, I didn't know about stand-up comedy when I was growing up.

01:40:48.000 Never heard of it.

01:40:49.000 Really?

01:40:50.000 Because I grew up in Hong Kong.

01:40:51.000 What was the first stand-up you saw?

01:40:53.000 BET Comic View.

01:40:54.000 What?

01:40:55.000 When I was 13. Which one?

01:40:56.000 Who was hosting?

01:40:57.000 I think it was J. Anthony Brown that year or Bruce Bruce around then.

01:41:00.000 It was so interesting to me because this wasn't even an art form that existed in my childhood in Hong Kong.

01:41:07.000 I'm sure there were some stand-ups.

01:41:09.000 But you never heard of it?

01:41:10.000 Never heard of it.

01:41:11.000 And 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.

01:41:20.000 It'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.

01:41:25.000 So it was so interesting because I remember I really gravitated towards a comic view.

01:41:31.000 That was so interesting because it wasn't just jokes or me trying to learn English.

01:41:37.000 It was me also learning about culture, how each race saw each other, blah, blah.

01:41:43.000 Even though there were stereotypes that they were joking about, but it was cool.

01:41:47.000 Whereas I watched that Comedy Central premium blend, didn't really laugh.

01:41:53.000 I don't know why.

01:41:54.000 So I always gravitated to its urban comedy.

01:41:59.000 Well, they're having more fun.

01:42:01.000 Yeah, exactly.

01:42:02.000 Because I was watching the performance of it.

01:42:03.000 It's like there's hip-hop fans that like a song because of the beat.

01:42:08.000 And then there's hip-hop fans that don't care about the beat and only listen to the lyrics.

01:42:12.000 I was more like the beat guy.

01:42:15.000 And I just loved that side of performance.

01:42:17.000 And then only later on when I got into comedy, I was like, oh, wow.

01:42:20.000 Everyone 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.

01:42:29.000 Mmm.

01:42:31.000 Yeah.

01:42:33.000 I found out about comedy from my parents took me to see Richard Pryor live at the Sunset Strip when I was 15. In the movie theater.

01:42:41.000 Watching Richard Pryor on stage going, this is crazy.

01:42:44.000 I couldn't believe how funny he was.

01:42:46.000 Like I'd seen all these funny movies, but to watch this guy just talking on stage, I was fascinated.

01:42:52.000 He's one of those guys when you watch, you're like, I can do that.

01:42:54.000 Because he's just talking.

01:42:55.000 Did he write this?

01:42:57.000 But there's so much insane talent.

01:43:00.000 Like Michael Jordan makes basketball look easy.

01:43:02.000 But I mean, I guess...

01:43:04.000 Sort of.

01:43:04.000 You know you can't jump that high.

01:43:05.000 You know you can't dunk.

01:43:07.000 Yeah, yeah, yeah.

01:43:08.000 Yeah, there's so many different ways you can get introduced to comedy.

01:43:13.000 I love hearing when the seed get planted in people's heads.

01:43:18.000 When did you know that you were going to try to do this?

01:43:22.000 People ask me that question, and I hear great stories, like the Richard Pryor story.

01:43:26.000 It's like, me and my brother used to sneak into a movie theater to watch Eddie Murphy live.

01:43:30.000 After you had a heart attack, I promise I'll be a comedian.

01:43:33.000 Like, really?

01:43:34.000 You know, amazing.

01:43:35.000 I don't have that.

01:43:36.000 I think it was a desperation that made me want to do comedy.

01:43:40.000 Desperation?

01:43:41.000 I never thought that was...

01:43:43.000 Even a thing, right?

01:43:45.000 Because you don't go in the arts when you're Asian. 1.00

01:43:47.000 That's not a real job.

01:43:50.000 Is it because your family would discourage it?

01:43:53.000 Yeah, yeah, yeah.

01:43:54.000 And also, nobody in my family did it in the arts.

01:43:57.000 Anybody that made money was in finance, whatever.

01:44:00.000 Real jobs, quote-unquote.

01:44:03.000 So, I was about to graduate college with an economics degree. 0.99

01:44:09.000 And I hated the internship I had in finance and shit. 0.98

01:44:13.000 And I just saw my life flash in front of me. 0.99

01:44:15.000 I'm like, oh my God, for the next 40 years, I'm behind this desk. 0.99

01:44:18.000 Fucking mutual funds, who cares, you know? 0.98

01:44:20.000 So I just tried, I had like a quarter-life crisis right when I was about to graduate. 0.99

01:44:24.000 I was like, I gotta do something to meet new friends, to meet girls, to whatever.

01:44:28.000 So then I took jujitsu classes for like two months.

01:44:31.000 Horrible.

01:44:32.000 I was the smallest guy and the weakest guy in the class.

01:44:35.000 They would team me up with the girls and they would twist me up like a pretzel. 1.00

01:44:38.000 It was...

01:44:39.000 Very discouraging.

01:44:40.000 I quit after like two months, if that.

01:44:44.000 And then I tried like different things, like boxing classes, gyms, whatever, you know.

01:44:50.000 And 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.

01:45:05.000 It is that desperation that you need, that I needed.

01:45:09.000 So then I just Googled local open mics, went to the ha-ha, paid $5.

01:45:13.000 You have to pay $5 for five minutes to stage time at the ha-ha. 0.68

01:45:16.000 So five other comics can not laugh at you.

01:45:20.000 It was, you know, horrific.

01:45:23.000 But that still felt better than me sitting at home making no friends because I saw a camaraderie.

01:45:29.000 I was like, if I'm good, I can make some friends like here in the open mic.

01:45:33.000 And there's a new world out.

01:45:34.000 There's an out for me.

01:45:36.000 So soon after, I think I quit that finance, you know, internship, very promising internship.

01:45:41.000 And I just...

01:45:42.000 Try to do stand-up.

01:45:43.000 I did everything.

01:45:44.000 I worked the door at the Comedy Palace in San Diego, this Greek restaurant that would turn into a comedy club at night.

01:45:52.000 I worked the door, folded envelopes, did everything.

01:45:55.000 If they let me sleep there, I would have slept there.

01:45:57.000 Answered the phones and everything.

01:45:58.000 I just dove into it.

01:46:00.000 Not just for the love of comedy and the arts, but for the love of this new life, this new fraternity that I found.

01:46:07.000 That's awesome.

01:46:09.000 So a lot of it, it was an improvement on my life that interested me in stand-up.

01:46:16.000 And through stand-up, I got laid for the first time.

01:46:20.000 So it worked out for me.

01:46:23.000 And I kind of had a crisis where, okay, I'm doing fine.

01:46:28.000 I have a lot of friends now.

01:46:32.000 I go on dates.

01:46:33.000 It's fine.

01:46:34.000 My life is fine.

01:46:35.000 And I started making money on Silicon Valley.

01:46:38.000 So I stopped doing stand-up.

01:46:40.000 I was like, I don't really need this.

01:46:43.000 But then after a while, I wasn't getting depressed either.

01:46:46.000 So it was a really good feeling because it wasn't a crutch.

01:46:50.000 It wasn't an addiction I needed to feed.

01:46:53.000 And then eventually I did stand up, finally, I think, for the love of it.

01:46:57.000 I was like, you know what?

01:46:58.000 I do miss this.

01:46:59.000 I'm going to go do it on my own terms, not just because I'm trying to make friends and trying to pull girls.

01:47:04.000 I'm doing it because I enjoy the process of it. 0.99

01:47:07.000 So let's fucking do it. 0.98

01:47:08.000 And that's the recent, I guess, resurgence of energy. 0.99

01:47:11.000 How much time did you take off?

01:47:14.000 Oh, from stand-up, on and off like a year or two.

01:47:19.000 Wow.

01:47:20.000 A couple seasons during Silicon Valley, I would do stand-up maybe at max.

01:47:25.000 I would just go down to Comedy Magic Club once every two months just so I can talk to some friends or something.

01:47:34.000 Just to do it and dust it off?

01:47:36.000 Yeah.

01:47:36.000 Yeah, but it was stuck in that same old material, wasn't feeling it.

01:47:41.000 And the reason for this special really was I kind of got pissed.

01:47:46.000 Because everybody that was coming up to me in the streets like, yo, Jing Yang, Silicon Valley, whatever.

01:47:50.000 And there's some YouTube clips people watching me doing. 0.99

01:47:53.000 I was like, oh, I didn't know this motherfucker can do stand-up, you know? 0.99

01:47:57.000 And I'm like... 0.99

01:47:58.000 Man, I am a stand-up.

01:47:59.000 I started as a stand-up.

01:48:00.000 I think I'm a better stand-up than I am an actor.

01:48:03.000 So let me prove to the world I'm not just like a Vine guy or actor trying to do stand-up. 0.98

01:48:10.000 I am an actor who used to be a stand-up and that is my fucking forte. 0.97

01:48:15.000 That's awesome. 0.96

01:48:16.000 I had a similar thing when I was on news radio.

01:48:18.000 I kind of stopped writing for a while, like a couple years.

01:48:22.000 I was just doing the same old material.

01:48:26.000 Just phoning it in.

01:48:27.000 Yeah.

01:48:28.000 Yeah.

01:48:29.000 Because when you're making money, it's hard.

01:48:31.000 You've got to find a new motivation.

01:48:33.000 And then I had some people come to see me and I bombed one night at the comedy store.

01:48:36.000 Then I woke up.

01:48:37.000 I was like, I gotta get back to work. 0.99

01:48:39.000 I'm just doing the same old shit. 0.99

01:48:41.000 I knew the material was stale. 1.00

01:48:43.000 It was flat.

01:48:44.000 I didn't have any connection to it.

01:48:45.000 I was just saying it because I was using it like a tool, like a screwdriver.

01:48:50.000 People understand.

01:48:52.000 They feel what's going on in your head when you're talking about things.

01:48:56.000 And if you're not totally tuned in to what you're saying, they don't want to hear it.

01:49:00.000 Yes.

01:49:02.000 I 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.

01:49:14.000 And 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.

01:49:23.000 Yeah.

01:49:24.000 I always describe it as mass hypnosis.

01:49:27.000 It's like there's a vibe that you're putting out.

01:49:30.000 You're hitting a frequency.

01:49:32.000 And the audience, if the words are well worked, if you have a good economy of words, the things you're saying resonate.

01:49:40.000 It all makes sense.

01:49:41.000 You have confidence.

01:49:42.000 You have focus.

01:49:42.000 All these things are correct.

01:49:43.000 Your delivery is comfortable.

01:49:45.000 It makes people feel good.

01:49:46.000 They just let you think.

01:49:48.000 Like, go, Jimmy.

01:49:49.000 Think for me.

01:49:50.000 I want to hear what you have to say.

01:49:51.000 And they're not judging, they're just letting you take them for a ride.

01:49:55.000 Yeah.

01:49:55.000 And 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!

01:50:02.000 You're just going along with it.

01:50:04.000 You're going along with whatever they're saying.

01:50:06.000 You know?

01:50:08.000 Owen Smith.

01:50:08.000 Owen Smith's killing.

01:50:10.000 I think the way he's thinking.

01:50:12.000 I'm allowing him to lead my mind.

01:50:15.000 You can't wait till you hear his next stop.

01:50:18.000 Yeah, yeah, yeah.

01:50:19.000 You're not like going, I would have said this or he's, well, I'm bored with what he's saying.

01:50:23.000 No, 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.

01:50:39.000 You're like, I got to get out of this bit.

01:50:41.000 You don't know how.

01:50:42.000 And one bad new joke in an hour set.

01:50:46.000 Like, if you just have one bad new joke 20 minutes in, you need the next 10 minutes to prove your worth again.

01:50:52.000 Yes.

01:50:52.000 Because they're like, ah, this guy, I don't know.

01:50:54.000 Yes.

01:50:55.000 Yeah.

01:50:55.000 And you got to be real careful if you want to open up with a new joke.

01:50:59.000 Woo! 0.99

01:51:00.000 They say never do that.

01:51:01.000 I don't agree with that.

01:51:03.000 I don't think there's any never do that.

01:51:06.000 Right, right, right.

01:51:07.000 I 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.

01:51:18.000 I know I got a real bit I can do if this doesn't work.

01:51:22.000 Like, have a nice segue into a real bit.

01:51:24.000 Right, right, right.

01:51:25.000 In case this tanks, I'm just going to cut it in half and then go into my old bit. 0.97

01:51:29.000 But 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. 0.90

01:51:38.000 You have a hot take on something that just happened a few hours ago. 0.99

01:51:44.000 There's energy to that.

01:51:45.000 Yes, yes, yes.

01:51:46.000 And some things that you know it's an old joke that you've done, say, for two years.

01:51:51.000 And you're like, man, this killed...

01:51:53.000 What happened?

01:51:54.000 Yeah, you lost the energy.

01:51:55.000 Like, why is it not...

01:51:56.000 And then you try to force some energy into it.

01:51:58.000 Still, it's not there.

01:52:00.000 No.

01:52:01.000 Because to you, it's fresh.

01:52:02.000 And maybe there's an amazing actor.

01:52:04.000 Or you can put some acting skill into that to pretend.

01:52:07.000 But it's still not there.

01:52:09.000 You have to really be interested in what you're saying.

01:52:11.000 Yeah, yeah.

01:52:12.000 Yeah.

01:52:12.000 Can't fake that.

01:52:13.000 No, it's...

01:52:14.000 Comedy, it's the weird thing going on that's not defined between us and the audience.

01:52:19.000 It's very weird.

01:52:21.000 Yeah.

01:52:22.000 And sometimes even you think you're saying it with energy and with that same rigor.

01:52:26.000 You watch yourself on tape, you're like, no, I'm just going through the motions and reading lines in my head.

01:52:31.000 Yep.

01:52:32.000 Yeah.

01:52:33.000 Same thing with acting.

01:52:34.000 You don't want to do too many takes.

01:52:35.000 Oh, yeah.

01:52:36.000 You know when you really tell?

01:52:37.000 When you're high.

01:52:38.000 If you go to the movies when you're high, you go, this guy's phoning it in.

01:52:41.000 Yeah.

01:52:42.000 You can see it.

01:52:43.000 There's like sometimes you go to the movies and you're high and it's just like seamless.

01:52:47.000 You just go on this little journey.

01:52:49.000 You believe every word.

01:52:50.000 Yeah. 1.00

01:52:51.000 And every now and then someone will pop out like, look at this motherfucker acting. 1.00

01:52:55.000 Yes. 1.00

01:52:56.000 Yes.

01:52:57.000 I'll never forget.

01:52:58.000 I went to see the Hulk with Eric Bana.

01:53:00.000 Remember that guy?

01:53:01.000 He was one of the many Hulks. 1.00

01:53:02.000 There's this one clunky scene.

01:53:04.000 Maybe they did it too many times or whatever.

01:53:06.000 I'm like, ew, acting!

01:53:08.000 Because I was barbecued.

01:53:10.000 I'm in the audience watching this and I was like, this is so acting.

01:53:13.000 I'll never forget in that moment.

01:53:15.000 I'm like, this guy's fake.

01:53:17.000 So there's the Space Force show that I just did.

01:53:21.000 How is that?

01:53:22.000 Great.

01:53:23.000 It's on Netflix, right?

01:53:24.000 It's Netflix.

01:53:24.000 It's Steve Carell, John Malkovich, Greg Daniels.

01:53:27.000 That's a great fucking cast right there. 1.00

01:53:29.000 Fucking dream come true. 1.00

01:53:30.000 Yeah, wow. 1.00

01:53:32.000 And it's interesting because sometimes...

01:53:36.000 If you're kind of unprepared, you go do a scene and you don't have your lines memorized, somehow you pull it off because it's fresh.

01:53:45.000 It's as if you're saying the line.

01:53:46.000 But sometimes when you rehearse...

01:53:48.000 I remember just one scene in this one episode.

01:53:50.000 I don't think...

01:53:52.000 I don't think other people would know.

01:53:53.000 People aren't actors.

01:53:54.000 But I watch it myself because I remember the day when I was doing that scene.

01:53:58.000 I was like, oh, I'm killing it.

01:54:00.000 I'm riffing.

01:54:02.000 Me and the girl that I'm doing the scene with, we're just going back and forth.

01:54:06.000 This feels good.

01:54:06.000 It's like a little boxing match.

01:54:08.000 But then when I watched it, I was like, damn. 0.98

01:54:10.000 Seems a little rehearsed, because I think I rehearsed it in my mind. 0.98

01:54:12.000 I know she's going to say this.

01:54:14.000 I'm going to say this.

01:54:15.000 Even though it felt good, it felt like it flowed, it lost a little bit of that natural singing for the first time.

01:54:22.000 And that was tough for me to watch that myself.

01:54:25.000 And I don't even want to say which scene it is, because I don't think people could tell.

01:54:29.000 But I could, and it kind of kills me.

01:54:31.000 That makes sense.

01:54:33.000 Also, you know what you're going to say.

01:54:36.000 There's no surprise.

01:54:37.000 When someone is watching the scene, there's all this surprise to it.

01:54:41.000 It's like watching a magic trick.

01:54:43.000 Like, where's his hands?

01:54:44.000 I don't even know what he did.

01:54:46.000 You're talking, and they don't have any idea where you're going, and they just follow along.

01:54:50.000 You know everything you're going to say before you say it, so you watch the weirdness to it.

01:54:55.000 And I know what she's going to say.

01:54:57.000 When 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.

01:55:09.000 And sometimes you forget that, you're just like, yeah, it feels good, but it's not.

01:55:13.000 It's practice.

01:55:14.000 It looks like practice.

01:55:15.000 Did your family give you a hard time about wanting to do stand-up?

01:55:18.000 Yeah, dude.

01:55:19.000 There's quite the story there.

01:55:22.000 It's a feel-good story.

01:55:23.000 Let me preface with that.

01:55:25.000 So, yeah, my dad was in finance.

01:55:28.000 He hooked me up with that finance job.

01:55:29.000 And when I was like, I don't know, I just don't want to do this.

01:55:33.000 He was like, what, do you have another job?

01:55:34.000 I was like, no, I'm going to give this stand-up thing a try.

01:55:36.000 And this was like a year or two in.

01:55:38.000 Obviously, I wasn't making any money.

01:55:40.000 So he was very disappointed.

01:55:42.000 He was hoping it was just a phase.

01:55:44.000 He doesn't even know what stand-up was, old Chinese guy. 1.00

01:55:47.000 He's just like, a talk show?

01:55:48.000 He just keeps calling it a talk show.

01:55:50.000 Still, till today, a talk show.

01:55:53.000 Just never got it.

01:55:54.000 So I was finishing my last year of school in San Diego.

01:55:57.000 I got just random jobs.

01:55:59.000 I worked at a used car lot during the day.

01:56:02.000 I worked at that Comedy Palace collecting tickets and trade for like stage time in the evening.

01:56:08.000 After that, I'll go put another shift as a DJ at a strip club.

01:56:11.000 Just so I was like trying different things, you know, and I didn't want to lock myself into something.

01:56:17.000 And then eventually the acting started to do a little better, you know.

01:56:22.000 My first job was two broke girls. 1.00

01:56:24.000 I had two lines.

01:56:25.000 And I was so proud.

01:56:27.000 I was so proud of myself.

01:56:28.000 I was finally making some money.

01:56:29.000 I called my dad.

01:56:29.000 I was like, Dad, why don't you watch CBS tonight?

01:56:35.000 I'm going to be on there and stuff.

01:56:36.000 He 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. 0.99

01:56:48.000 And 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.

01:56:57.000 He got it.

01:56:58.000 So he was finally happy.

01:56:59.000 I was financially secure.

01:57:02.000 So instead of ever giving it up and say like, hey, Jimmy, good job.

01:57:07.000 I'm proud of you.

01:57:08.000 Maybe I was wrong.

01:57:09.000 Good for you.

01:57:10.000 You know what he said?

01:57:11.000 He was like, oh, if it's so easy, you can do it.

01:57:13.000 I can probably do it.

01:57:14.000 And he started becoming an actor.

01:57:17.000 I was like, okay, Dad, you know what?

01:57:20.000 If you think it's so easy.

01:57:22.000 Dude, I was like, Dad, if you think it's so easy.

01:57:24.000 I was with a very small agency at the time.

01:57:26.000 I'm like, you know what?

01:57:27.000 I'm going to sign you up with her.

01:57:30.000 See if she needs an older Asian guy. 0.97

01:57:31.000 Because there's not a lot of older Asian guys out there competing.

01:57:34.000 So she signed him.

01:57:35.000 And then I was like, good, good, good. 0.98

01:57:37.000 Now you're going to go to auditions and understand how fucking hard my life is. 0.65

01:57:41.000 All the rejections I face. 0.91

01:57:43.000 All the nerves I got to deal with.

01:57:44.000 But then the plane completely backfired because he went to those auditions and killed it.

01:57:50.000 He booked like his first six out of ten jobs, which is like an unheard of ratio.

01:57:55.000 You know what I mean?

01:57:56.000 Yeah.

01:57:56.000 Like you'd be lucky to book like five percentage jobs, but he was killing it.

01:58:00.000 A lot of like non-union gigs.

01:58:02.000 He even got on this show.

01:58:04.000 I talk about this a little bit in my stand-up.

01:58:06.000 He even got on the show that shot in San Francisco as a Chinese show.

01:58:11.000 We thought it was no big deal.

01:58:12.000 Low-budget Chinese show.

01:58:13.000 Became the biggest show in China. 1.00

01:58:15.000 Became like the fucking modern family of China. 1.00

01:58:18.000 And then my aunt from Shanghai would call the house. 0.99

01:58:20.000 I'm like, Richard, you're such a good actor.

01:58:22.000 Your son must have taken after you. 1.00

01:58:23.000 I was like, what the fuck? 1.00

01:58:24.000 Ah! 1.00

01:58:27.000 But now I've accepted it.

01:58:30.000 That's who he is.

01:58:30.000 I'm happy that me and my dad's in the same business in a way.

01:58:33.000 That's crazy.

01:58:35.000 And it's a fun story to tell people, right?

01:58:37.000 So I was jokingly saying that story to John Malkovich, Ben Schwartz on Space Force.

01:58:42.000 Everybody gets a kick out of this little story.

01:58:44.000 Episode 9 of Space Force Comes Around.

01:58:46.000 We're doing a table read.

01:58:47.000 And it's a China versus America thing in this episode.

01:58:52.000 And they needed a couple older Chinese scientists that are authentic Mandarin speaking Chinese people.

01:58:58.000 After 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.

01:59:05.000 And John Malkovich was the one that said, Hey, what about Jimmy's dad?

01:59:09.000 Have you thought about Jimmy's dad?

01:59:11.000 And I didn't have thick enough skin to volunteer my dad.

01:59:15.000 And then that night I went home.

01:59:17.000 I cut together an acting reel for my dad.

01:59:20.000 And I sent it to Greg.

01:59:21.000 All I said was like, Greg, maybe give the old man a chance.

01:59:25.000 He's got a good look.

01:59:26.000 I think he fits this older scientist in China.

01:59:29.000 Just let him come in and audition.

01:59:30.000 But I guess Greg was so impressed with the tape, he just hired him.

01:59:34.000 Wow.

01:59:35.000 Episode 9 of Space Force.

01:59:37.000 My dad is in it.

01:59:39.000 He's great.

01:59:40.000 He comes in, no fear, and the scene is toe-to-toe with John Malkovich.

01:59:45.000 Wow.

01:59:46.000 And how long has he been acting?

01:59:48.000 I mean, two years, if that.

01:59:52.000 Two years.

01:59:52.000 Never taken no classes.

01:59:54.000 That's so crazy.

01:59:55.000 Yeah.

01:59:57.000 I practiced with him on Skype, you know, for that scene, you know, because I was like that.

02:00:03.000 Don't make me look bad. 0.96

02:00:04.000 Don't fuck this up. 0.95

02:00:04.000 Make sure you remember your lines, right? 0.95

02:00:06.000 And then he was practicing.

02:00:10.000 He's like, can you screen grab me, record me so I can see my own performance, you know?

02:00:13.000 And actors were all very self-conscious.

02:00:15.000 I hate to watch myself.

02:00:17.000 So I recorded him.

02:00:18.000 I sent him that tape and then he looked at it.

02:00:21.000 He was just like, wow, I'm really good.

02:00:26.000 Look at me!

02:00:26.000 I'm like listening to everything.

02:00:28.000 I'm good at this.

02:00:29.000 I was like, sure, go.

02:00:30.000 Go for it.

02:00:31.000 But it's that blind sense of confidence and also the fact that he never thought to be an actor.

02:00:36.000 So there's no fear.

02:00:38.000 Yeah.

02:00:38.000 I was nervous as hell my first day with John Malkovich and Steve Carell.

02:00:42.000 My dad came in and was just chilling.

02:00:44.000 That's so funny.

02:00:45.000 Yeah.

02:00:46.000 It's so funny that it totally backfired.

02:00:48.000 Yeah.

02:00:50.000 But now it's fine.

02:00:51.000 It's a fun father and son story.

02:00:53.000 That's a great story.

02:00:55.000 It's so funny that he saw you doing it.

02:00:56.000 He's like, I can do that.

02:00:58.000 And he could do it.

02:00:59.000 He's a talented guy.

02:01:01.000 He wants to do stand-up now.

02:01:04.000 Really?

02:01:05.000 How old is he?

02:01:06.000 He's 70-something.

02:01:08.000 72, 3. Wow.

02:01:10.000 And he was like, well, Jimmy, you think I can do some stand-up?

02:01:12.000 I was like, sure.

02:01:13.000 Just go sign up for an open mic at the Laugh Factory.

02:01:15.000 I'll put your name in the hat.

02:01:16.000 How about that?

02:01:17.000 He was like, oh, no, no, no, no, no.

02:01:19.000 I'm not doing open mics.

02:01:20.000 Can I do some theater or something?

02:01:22.000 I was like, no.

02:01:22.000 A theater?

02:01:23.000 Yeah, he was like, no, I'm not doing in front of five people.

02:01:25.000 I need to do it.

02:01:26.000 If I do it, I need like 500 people.

02:01:28.000 Oh my God.

02:01:29.000 I was like, that's not how it works.

02:01:30.000 But who knows? 1.00

02:01:31.000 Maybe when he does it in front of 500 people, he fucking kills. 1.00

02:01:33.000 What if your dad gets a fucking Netflix special next year? 1.00

02:01:36.000 What if your dad just starts murdering and puts together some whole routine? 1.00

02:01:41.000 Can you imagine how crazy that would be? 0.99

02:01:43.000 If your dad's just a murderer, just up on stage crushing. 0.99

02:01:46.000 Punchline. 0.99

02:01:47.000 Bang, bang, bang. 0.89

02:01:48.000 I want to say I would be happy for him, but there's probably a part of me that's like, oh, God.

02:01:55.000 How could it not be?

02:01:56.000 He's always been the funny one in the family, though.

02:01:59.000 He's always a ball buster and everything.

02:02:01.000 Really?

02:02:02.000 It kind of came naturally to him.

02:02:04.000 Wow, there he is.

02:02:05.000 Yeah, I don't know if you can find that Space Force scene in Episode 9. Completely fearless, very natural.

02:02:16.000 Has he written stand-up?

02:02:18.000 Does he have any ideas of stuff he would talk about?

02:02:20.000 You know what, I should have him write a set to see what the materials would be.

02:02:25.000 Yeah.

02:02:26.000 Hmm.

02:02:27.000 Hmm.

02:02:28.000 I don't know.

02:02:29.000 That, I got offended.

02:02:30.000 The acting stuff, because I always felt like I snuck into acting.

02:02:34.000 I wasn't trained at Juilliard or whatever, right?

02:02:36.000 So it's kind of like a similar path.

02:02:39.000 He snuck into acting, I snuck into acting.

02:02:41.000 Whatever.

02:02:42.000 But the stand-up thing kind of offended me. 0.98

02:02:44.000 I'm like, I fucking put in 10 years, dude. 1.00

02:02:46.000 You can't just go do a goddamn theater. 1.00

02:02:48.000 What if he does? 0.99

02:02:51.000 I mean, maybe he can open for me one day or my next special.

02:02:55.000 That would be fun.

02:02:56.000 If you have him open, it would be interesting.

02:02:57.000 Yeah.

02:02:58.000 Because that's a rough spot anyway.

02:02:59.000 Even for a regular comic, you've got to warm everybody up for a few minutes before they start rolling.

02:03:04.000 Yeah, but if I introduce him as, like, my dad...

02:03:08.000 That would help.

02:03:09.000 And people heard the story on the show, right?

02:03:11.000 Or in my stand-up, then people would love it.

02:03:14.000 Yeah.

02:03:15.000 You've seen like a Viner or like a YouTuber trying to do stand-up.

02:03:19.000 The five minutes, the crowd is crazy because they love this person and they're laughing.

02:03:25.000 But then it's hard to keep that momentum going if you actually don't have the goods.

02:03:28.000 That's what they say about famous people doing stand-up in particular.

02:03:32.000 Like you get a couple of minutes where they're happy to see you. 0.99

02:03:34.000 And then after a while, like, oh, this guy's fucking terrible. 0.97

02:03:38.000 That happened to me when I first transitioned from just unknown stand-up to the guy from Silicon Valley doing stand-up. 0.98

02:03:46.000 I remember the first couple of minutes were so hot, I couldn't follow my own hype, kind of.

02:03:53.000 And it's interesting, because my character on Silicon Alley, he has an accent, he's an immigrant, like we were talking about earlier.

02:04:01.000 So 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?

02:04:08.000 I was like, yeah, yeah, sure, thanks for watching. 0.94

02:04:11.000 And then they're just like, oh shit, I didn't even know you speak English in real life! 0.98

02:04:15.000 So imagine the stand-up crowd seeing that. 0.99

02:04:17.000 They have to get over that first. 1.00

02:04:20.000 They're like, oh shit, this motherfucker speaking English? 1.00

02:04:22.000 So that takes two minutes of all. 1.00

02:04:25.000 And then they start to accept me as a stand-up.

02:04:29.000 Do you address that right away?

02:04:30.000 I say this, yes, in my special sometimes.

02:04:35.000 And people laugh because it's true.

02:04:37.000 That's what they think when they see me or when they saw me years ago.

02:04:41.000 Yeah.

02:04:42.000 Yeah.

02:04:42.000 No, it would be really hilarious if your dad became a killer comic.

02:04:47.000 I should train him. 1.00

02:04:49.000 Fuck yeah! 1.00

02:04:50.000 Help him write bits. 0.99

02:04:52.000 We thought about doing, like, not a reality show, but like a little adventure show with me and my dad.

02:04:57.000 And 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.

02:05:08.000 Maybe I should go ahead with that.

02:05:09.000 I don't know.

02:05:10.000 Tony Hinchcliffe's mom.

02:05:11.000 Went on stage at Kill Tony one night. 1.00

02:05:14.000 He wrote bits for her, and he taught her how to do it, and she fucking murdered. 0.99

02:05:18.000 Really? 1.00

02:05:19.000 Murdered.

02:05:20.000 His mom's hilarious. 0.99

02:05:22.000 Just natural, no stage fear. 0.99

02:05:24.000 She'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. 0.98

02:05:34.000 What do you think she did, Jamie, about four minutes, five minutes? 0.99

02:05:37.000 Yeah, sure.

02:05:38.000 That's a lot for the first time. 1.00

02:05:40.000 Dude, she fucking killed. 1.00

02:05:41.000 Really? 1.00

02:05:42.000 I mean, she fucking killed. 1.00

02:05:43.000 I mean, killed. 1.00

02:05:44.000 I was laughing.

02:05:45.000 I think Dom Herrera was with me on the stage.

02:05:49.000 I think it was Dom.

02:05:51.000 He was laughing.

02:05:52.000 We were all laughing hard.

02:05:54.000 Tony wrote the bits, which helped a lot.

02:05:56.000 Obviously, he's a great writer, but she was delivering them like a killer.

02:06:00.000 It was funny.

02:06:01.000 I would not write for my dad. 1.00

02:06:03.000 I want him to eat shit a couple times. 0.99

02:06:06.000 You have to get somebody to respect your craft, man. 1.00

02:06:10.000 Right, because he doesn't respect acting.

02:06:12.000 Yeah.

02:06:13.000 Not that he doesn't respect, he just thinks he's a genius.

02:06:19.000 I don't know if it's a lack of respect for the arts or is it overconfident in his own ability.

02:06:24.000 But is it overconfident if he pulled it off?

02:06:28.000 And so much about acting, it is confidence.

02:06:31.000 Not being shaken, being yourself.

02:06:33.000 It's the correct amount of confidence.

02:06:35.000 It is a correct... 0.67

02:06:37.000 Dude, he's so relaxed.

02:06:42.000 I have a video I gotta find on my phone and show you.

02:06:45.000 So, it's in the hallway between setups.

02:06:47.000 Me and Malkovich is running lines.

02:06:49.000 And I'm nervous.

02:06:50.000 And Malkovich works hard.

02:06:52.000 At his level, he still works hard.

02:06:54.000 He's amazing.

02:06:55.000 We're running lines in between takes.

02:06:57.000 The camera pans, pans, a bunch of empty chairs.

02:06:59.000 And it pans to my dad in an actor chair.

02:07:02.000 Fell asleep.

02:07:03.000 Just dead asleep.

02:07:05.000 So relaxed.

02:07:07.000 Chilling.

02:07:07.000 And he's about to work with John Malkovich.

02:07:09.000 That's hilarious.

02:07:10.000 No nerves.

02:07:11.000 Wow.

02:07:12.000 Yeah.

02:07:12.000 Does he know who John Malkovich is?

02:07:14.000 He does.

02:07:15.000 Absolutely.

02:07:15.000 Wow.

02:07:16.000 And he still didn't give a fuck. 0.99

02:07:18.000 No, I think maybe it comes with age. 0.99

02:07:20.000 You know, when you're 70-something, you kind of...

02:07:23.000 You've seen so much.

02:07:24.000 He is such a fanboy.

02:07:25.000 Like, he loves taking selfies with people.

02:07:27.000 Really?

02:07:28.000 At first it started off with just...

02:07:31.000 Like 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.

02:07:44.000 He gives it up.

02:07:44.000 He was like very emotional, you know, after Crazy Rich Asians and all that.

02:07:48.000 But his goal is not to celebrate with a son there.

02:07:52.000 His goal is to get selfies.

02:07:55.000 In the after party, you know those Chinese Groman theaters premieres, you know, at the Chinese theater.

02:08:00.000 There he is.

02:08:01.000 Right there!

02:08:03.000 Mark Wahlberg!

02:08:04.000 And he just keep doing selfies.

02:08:07.000 And I was sitting at a table and then Mark has his table and his boys and his security.

02:08:12.000 And then my dad just leaned over to me and was like, Hey, you think we can go get a picture with Mark?

02:08:17.000 I was like, I don't want to ask him.

02:08:20.000 Because I have fought so hard to not ask for pictures with people I work with.

02:08:24.000 I want a picture with Mark.

02:08:26.000 I want a picture with Malkovich.

02:08:27.000 But at the same time, I want to just be a colleague.

02:08:30.000 I don't want to be a fan.

02:08:31.000 Of course.

02:08:31.000 But then my dad forces me to do that.

02:08:33.000 He's like, come on, just go ask him.

02:08:35.000 I bet Wahlberg's used to that, though.

02:08:37.000 He probably just...

02:08:38.000 Exactly.

02:08:39.000 If I ask, I think it's still kind of lame.

02:08:41.000 But if it's like, hey, Mark, my parents are big fans.

02:08:43.000 Can they get a picture?

02:08:44.000 And they're just cute, old Chinese people.

02:08:49.000 Everybody kind of gets a kick out of him.

02:08:51.000 He played my dad in Patriots today.

02:08:53.000 Really?

02:08:53.000 He has a very small scene.

02:08:56.000 That's an interesting story.

02:08:57.000 That's how he got his SAG card.

02:09:00.000 That's hilarious.

02:09:01.000 Talk about nepotism in Hollywood, huh? 0.93

02:09:03.000 Yeah, that is nepotism.

02:09:04.000 That's how it works.

02:09:05.000 Well, but you know what?

02:09:06.000 I was actively trying to improve that movie because the movie was very serious.

02:09:09.000 It's about the Boston Marathon bombing.

02:09:12.000 And I was playing a based-on-real-life Chinese person.

02:09:16.000 You know, very detailed stuff.

02:09:20.000 Like, he speaks with a Chinese accent, but it's a Sichuan Chinese accent where he mixes his L's and...

02:09:28.000 I forget what it was, but I studied it for a long time.

02:09:31.000 It's not just a generic Chinese accent, right?

02:09:33.000 And then his parents, of course, speaks the Sichuan dialect, or at least just a very proper Mandarin.

02:09:40.000 And the actor they first hired to play my dad, it's just a Skype scene, very simple.

02:09:44.000 The actor they first hired to play my dad spoke Mandarin with a Cantonese accent.

02:09:49.000 So I went up to Pete Burke, the director.

02:09:51.000 I was like, Pete, man, I... I gotta say something, man.

02:09:54.000 The whole point of this movie is honoring these heroes and be authentic.

02:09:59.000 And this guy, you guys might not be able to tell.

02:10:02.000 I know and the Chinese audience will know.

02:10:04.000 This guy's from Hong Kong or from Guangdong or something.

02:10:07.000 He's not from Sichuan or mainland China.

02:10:09.000 So he's like, yeah, sure.

02:10:11.000 We'll find another guy.

02:10:13.000 And I was like, yeah, I was sitting with you on some auditions and stuff if you want.

02:10:16.000 He was like, yeah, sure.

02:10:17.000 We're already shooting in Boston.

02:10:18.000 It might take a long time.

02:10:19.000 I was like, Pete, why don't you just hire my dad?

02:10:21.000 And that was it.

02:10:22.000 They hired my dad.

02:10:23.000 That's hilarious.

02:10:24.000 Yeah.

02:10:26.000 That's hilarious.

02:10:27.000 But it's for the art.

02:10:29.000 It's for the authenticity. 0.98

02:10:30.000 Dude, I'm not so secretly hoping your dad kills. 0.95

02:10:33.000 I was just thinking it'd be the best story. 0.98

02:10:36.000 I want to have you back on after your dad has just murdered a few times on stage. 1.00

02:10:40.000 And you're like, what the fuck? 1.00

02:10:42.000 Oh my god. 0.99

02:10:43.000 If he comes on this podcast and everything, he'll be a huge star.

02:10:47.000 I don't know if I can handle that.

02:10:49.000 Because right now it's very much like I'm hooking him up.

02:10:52.000 I'm still the star.

02:10:53.000 You know, he's just my dad.

02:10:55.000 But what if I'm starting to know as Richard's son and acting?

02:10:59.000 That would be kind of rough.

02:11:01.000 That's gonna be hard.

02:11:03.000 He's gonna have to really do something special to pull that off.

02:11:07.000 We'll see.

02:11:08.000 We'll see.

02:11:09.000 Maybe he have his own Hannah Gadsby-esque special. 0.99

02:11:12.000 And just only talk shit about me in the special? 0.97

02:11:18.000 That would be funny if you and Tony or whoever, a bunch of great writers and great comedians, start plotting against me for his success. 0.99

02:11:26.000 Write for him and help him do strategies for how to kill.

02:11:32.000 Oh my god.

02:11:33.000 He loves it, man.

02:11:33.000 That's great, though.

02:11:35.000 That's so cool.

02:11:35.000 It's a good father and son bonding.

02:11:37.000 What did your dad used to do for a living?

02:11:39.000 He was always a really successful salesman.

02:11:43.000 He had his own medical device company that he sold.

02:11:47.000 Salesman?

02:11:47.000 Yes.

02:11:48.000 That's a thing where you have to have personality and you have to know how to read a room.

02:11:53.000 Yeah.

02:11:54.000 Like we were talking about Alcoholics Anonymous is like a good gateway into comedy.

02:11:57.000 I think maybe Salesman might be too.

02:12:00.000 And then when he came to America, he became a financial advisor.

02:12:03.000 So that's people to people.

02:12:04.000 You got to give presentations.

02:12:06.000 So he was always a great public speaker and I think I took after him.

02:12:09.000 I never really had much stage fright.

02:12:11.000 So he's a natural. 0.97

02:12:14.000 And you say he busts balls, so he's always joking around. 0.98

02:12:16.000 He's the funny one on the family table. 0.99

02:12:18.000 Oh my god.

02:12:19.000 Yeah. 1.00

02:12:20.000 I think he's gonna kill. 0.98

02:12:21.000 Richard. 1.00

02:12:23.000 I hope he does.

02:12:27.000 I really do.

02:12:28.000 Yeah, well...

02:12:29.000 You gotta hope he does.

02:12:32.000 Maybe he would do a two-man show for Netflix.

02:12:34.000 Bro, the odds of him being better than you are very slim.

02:12:37.000 Let's just be honest.

02:12:38.000 But don't you just want him to do well?

02:12:40.000 Wouldn't it be great?

02:12:40.000 I do.

02:12:40.000 I really do.

02:12:41.000 I think...

02:12:42.000 I joke about the jealousy.

02:12:44.000 I really don't care.

02:12:45.000 He's an old man. 0.95

02:12:46.000 Let him live his bucket list and act with John Malkovich.

02:12:50.000 You know what I mean?

02:12:50.000 Like, I'm just being good son trying to hook my dad up now.

02:12:53.000 Oh, man.

02:12:54.000 I can't wait to see how this plays out.

02:12:57.000 When is he gonna do stand-up?

02:12:58.000 Do you have a timeline?

02:12:59.000 Was he gonna try it when the clubs get back open again?

02:13:02.000 Well, I think once I told him he can't just do theaters, he kind of became disinterested.

02:13:09.000 He doesn't want to do open mics.

02:13:11.000 But you got to!

02:13:12.000 Or maybe he doesn't got to.

02:13:14.000 I mean it depends on how much of a perspective he has.

02:13:18.000 If he has like real takes on things that he could just go on stage with.

02:13:24.000 You never know, man.

02:13:26.000 Here's the thing.

02:13:27.000 If he goes on stage without the context of this is Jimmy's dad and he's just an old man doing a set, I don't know.

02:13:35.000 That's a long road.

02:13:37.000 But if I bring him up and he's my dad, I think people would just kind of eat it up, give him a little more slack.

02:13:43.000 Maybe, but that might help you accept the fact that he kills.

02:13:47.000 What if he goes on stage without any recognition of you whatsoever? 1.00

02:13:52.000 Someone introduces him, he goes on stage and just fucking murders. 0.99

02:13:58.000 That would be hard to take. 1.00

02:13:59.000 That would be hard.

02:14:00.000 Yeah, because if you bring him up and you give him a little training wheels and you push him, you give him a little boost.

02:14:04.000 Ready?

02:14:05.000 Go! 0.95

02:14:06.000 It's like exactly what I was saying, how you can't immediately be good in stand-up.

02:14:11.000 You need to put in that five, ten years.

02:14:13.000 But if he's just good...

02:14:18.000 Yeah, I would question myself. 0.99

02:14:19.000 Like, I would be like, well, fuck, I must be doing so long. 0.98

02:14:22.000 Please tell me when he's going to do it. 0.99

02:14:24.000 Please.

02:14:25.000 Okay, we're going to- Tell me when he's going to do it.

02:14:27.000 And I want to go.

02:14:28.000 I want to go watch.

02:14:29.000 Don't encourage him!

02:14:31.000 I don't want just people showing up.

02:14:33.000 I want to, if please do it in town, please do it in L.A. But if I was an older guy, though, I'd be really worried about COVID. Yeah.

02:14:41.000 So, like, it's going to be a while before he's probably willing to go to a comedy club or something, right?

02:14:46.000 Yeah, and speaking of that, I try to see him every week, so I'm very careful.

02:14:53.000 I don't want to kill him.

02:14:58.000 We'll see.

02:14:58.000 Maybe he'll do one of those virtual Zoom rooms.

02:15:01.000 Don't have him do that.

02:15:03.000 That's setting him up the wrong way.

02:15:04.000 You know what?

02:15:05.000 I should completely let go of my ego and write for him.

02:15:08.000 Or should I not do that?

02:15:10.000 Should I see how good he is with that?

02:15:12.000 You gotta see how good he is first.

02:15:14.000 Let him do it first.

02:15:15.000 Don't warn him.

02:15:16.000 Just let him do it.

02:15:17.000 Has he been to a live performance by you?

02:15:21.000 Yes.

02:15:21.000 How many shows have you seen live?

02:15:23.000 I think only one or two because he's disinterested in stand-up.

02:15:28.000 It's not his thing.

02:15:29.000 He gets movies, he gets TV. He doesn't get stand-up.

02:15:32.000 And one time I was doing a Brad Garrett's club in Vegas.

02:15:36.000 MGM. I was like, old Chinese people understand Vegas. 1.00

02:15:40.000 I'm going to hook them up with a nice room.

02:15:42.000 I was, I think, opening or middling.

02:15:44.000 It was years ago.

02:15:45.000 I was like, finally, they're going to see me in MGM because they know that's a nice place going to comedy club.

02:15:51.000 I crushed it that night.

02:15:52.000 I could set, and you know, afterwards, you and the headliner and everyone's out there shaking hands, meeting people.

02:15:58.000 My parents walked out, right?

02:15:59.000 My mom's all smiles.

02:16:00.000 She's very just positive, you know, general.

02:16:04.000 And then my dad walked out, and then my buddy Jack was next to me.

02:16:09.000 He was the middle.

02:16:10.000 I was the opener.

02:16:10.000 Yeah, my buddy Jack Cohen, older comic.

02:16:14.000 He went up to my dad.

02:16:15.000 He was like, oh my god, hey, Richard, aren't you so proud of your son?

02:16:19.000 He's so good, right?

02:16:20.000 And then my dad just looked at me in front of the entire audience of everyone else shaking hands.

02:16:25.000 He's like, no, Jimmy's not funny.

02:16:30.000 Yeah.

02:16:31.000 Wow.

02:16:33.000 Yeah, and I don't know if he was...

02:16:36.000 Years later, he said...

02:16:39.000 That was a joke because he said this.

02:16:44.000 He said, it's not funny if I tell you you're funny.

02:16:49.000 But it's funny if I tell you it's not funny.

02:16:50.000 There's a story there.

02:16:51.000 I was like, yeah, but yeah, you're my dad, though.

02:16:53.000 I mean, come on.

02:16:54.000 You're not my buddy at an open mic.

02:16:57.000 And then he also said, he was like, well, I honestly didn't think it was funny because...

02:17:03.000 I don't get the references.

02:17:05.000 I don't get culturally like what you're saying about whatever.

02:17:08.000 I didn't get it.

02:17:09.000 So he's kind of just being honest also?

02:17:11.000 So he's trying to be funny in his own way while being honest about his own take on it.

02:17:19.000 Yeah, he's honest, but he's also still being the ball breaker.

02:17:23.000 Right.

02:17:23.000 He's a funny guy, but sometimes it's hard to be his son if he's using me in the expense of comedy.

02:17:34.000 Is it like the style of comedy, like insult comedy?

02:17:39.000 When you say ball breaking?

02:17:41.000 Kind of, yeah.

02:17:42.000 That's what he does?

02:17:43.000 Yes.

02:17:44.000 Like older Chinese Don Rickles? 0.99

02:17:50.000 Yes!

02:17:51.000 Yes!

02:17:51.000 That's it.

02:17:52.000 Well, 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? 0.98

02:18:01.000 Does that really happen? 0.99

02:18:02.000 Like, I do this bit about how Chinese people would tell you exactly what the fuck is wrong with your face. 1.00

02:18:07.000 Like, at Thanksgiving, you know, my mom would tell my girl cousin, like, oh, Christina, you got so fat. 1.00

02:18:16.000 Wow.

02:18:16.000 Just straight, I was like, ma, you can't say that!

02:18:19.000 And then my mom or my dad would be like, oh, if we're not telling her, who would?

02:18:23.000 And like also being like a comedian.

02:18:28.000 I mean, not being a comedian. 0.99

02:18:29.000 Being, fuck, what was I going to say? 1.00

02:18:32.000 Oh, being Chinese. 1.00

02:18:34.000 Being fat or gaining weight is prosperous. 0.61

02:18:36.000 It's good.

02:18:37.000 It's auspicious or whatever.

02:18:38.000 Dude, she's a girl! 1.00

02:18:40.000 You can't just fucking say that, you know? 0.99

02:18:43.000 And Christina is not fat. 0.99

02:18:45.000 She's this beautiful young woman, you know?

02:18:49.000 And yeah, it's hard to grow up with a high self-esteem in an Asian household.

02:18:56.000 But there is a weird honesty to it.

02:18:58.000 I don't know.

02:18:59.000 I don't buy it.

02:19:00.000 They say it's honest.

02:19:01.000 I think it's passed down trauma.

02:19:04.000 Their parents did that to them, and now they're doing it.

02:19:07.000 Yeah.

02:19:07.000 I don't know.

02:19:08.000 Well, there's something about work ethic in Asian households.

02:19:13.000 When I was young, one of my good friends was this kid.

02:19:17.000 His name was Jung Sik.

02:19:18.000 Jung Sik Chang, and he went on to be National Taekwondo Champion while he was in his medical residency.

02:19:26.000 Like, yeah, I always used to compare myself to him.

02:19:29.000 If I ever thought I had discipline or I worked hard, I'd compare myself to that guy. 1.00

02:19:32.000 I was like, I'm a lazy fuck. 0.99

02:19:35.000 Because this guy was, he worked so hard. 1.00

02:19:37.000 But he was telling me that this is just how it was with his family.

02:19:40.000 Like, nothing you ever did is good enough.

02:19:42.000 Like, he's Korean.

02:19:43.000 And he was like, my parents are so ruthless.

02:19:46.000 It's like everything had to be better.

02:19:49.000 Nothing was ever good.

02:19:50.000 It didn't matter if you had straight A's.

02:19:51.000 You could do better.

02:19:52.000 You could always do better.

02:19:53.000 You're never good enough.

02:19:55.000 It's interesting.

02:19:56.000 I think that is more like the very stereotypical Asian parents, the helicopter tiger parents or whatever.

02:20:03.000 Tiger parents.

02:20:04.000 Tiger mom, I think is the real term.

02:20:07.000 Mine is, I guess, a little nuanced.

02:20:10.000 They would give it up for academic and they always call me smart and stuff.

02:20:14.000 But 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.

02:20:25.000 So that stuff, they'll give it up, you know.

02:20:27.000 But 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. 0.97

02:20:35.000 She just came and talked to me. 0.94

02:20:36.000 She was like, oh, God, you're so good.

02:20:37.000 Hey, hey, I'll talk to you later.

02:20:38.000 Gave me a hug and everything.

02:20:39.000 And I was such a nerd.

02:20:40.000 I didn't get any action.

02:20:41.000 And then I just looked at my dad.

02:20:44.000 I was hoping he'll be proud, you know, and then he looked at me and he's like, you and her?

02:20:49.000 Yeah.

02:20:50.000 Wow.

02:20:51.000 Yeah.

02:20:51.000 So certain things, like, he goes a little too far making fun of you.

02:20:54.000 That's a confidence crusher from Pops.

02:20:56.000 Yeah, but I mean, once again, it could be because he grew up, he never got no girls like that.

02:21:01.000 So he's like, if I couldn't, like, why would my son, you know?

02:21:03.000 Do you think he's competing with you a little bit there in that way?

02:21:06.000 I hate to think about that, but I think there's got to be a part of that.

02:21:10.000 That's got to be a part of why you wanted to get into acting.

02:21:13.000 Yeah.

02:21:14.000 Yeah.

02:21:15.000 Yeah.

02:21:16.000 Mm-hmm.

02:21:18.000 And maybe that's one of the reasons why he's so confident. 1.00

02:21:20.000 It's because he shits on you, and if you can do it, he's like, this fucking guy can do it? 1.00

02:21:24.000 Yeah. 1.00

02:21:25.000 Yeah.

02:21:26.000 It's a weird...

02:21:27.000 He picks and chooses what he gives it up and not.

02:21:30.000 Ooh, so it's manipulative.

02:21:32.000 A little bit.

02:21:33.000 So you never know.

02:21:35.000 It's like...

02:21:37.000 Yeah.

02:21:39.000 Stockholm Syndrome.

02:21:40.000 Well, you know, I called him out once.

02:21:43.000 And I was like, Dad, why don't you...

02:21:45.000 Why didn't you, first of all, tell me any dating advice?

02:21:48.000 And also, why did you never think I could, like, date cute girls or whatever, right?

02:21:53.000 Like, that took me years to overcome.

02:21:54.000 And he was like, sure, but, like, I always said you were smart, right?

02:21:59.000 Like, he just gave me, like, a non-answer of, like...

02:22:01.000 He was like, but I always said you were smart.

02:22:02.000 That's what's important to me.

02:22:05.000 Yeah.

02:22:06.000 So it's sort of like he's excusing the fact that he...

02:22:10.000 Dismissed your ability to...

02:22:12.000 I think whatever he wasn't good at, he projected it on me.

02:22:17.000 Like, I was a, as small as I was, I was a pretty good athlete.

02:22:21.000 I could run pretty fast.

02:22:22.000 I could jump pretty high.

02:22:23.000 I used to play basketball.

02:22:24.000 Even though I was small, I was like the underdog, but I was athletic, you know?

02:22:28.000 But my dad, like when I was trying out for the high school basketball team, my dad was like, no, you can't do that.

02:22:34.000 You're flat-footed just like me.

02:22:35.000 You can't, come on.

02:22:36.000 Oh, that's weird.

02:22:38.000 So it's the opposite of what some weird theater parents do or coach parents do.

02:22:45.000 It'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.

02:22:53.000 Yes, yes.

02:22:54.000 I'm not sure which way is healthier or less healthy. 0.94

02:22:57.000 Both of them are gross. 0.92

02:22:58.000 Yeah. 0.99

02:22:59.000 They're both gross. 0.99

02:23:00.000 Yeah. 0.99

02:23:01.000 Yeah.

02:23:03.000 Yeah, there's something really weird about, like, it's a burden, too, for the kids. 0.98

02:23:08.000 Like, 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. 0.96

02:23:16.000 That's my boy. 0.99

02:23:16.000 Look how fast he runs. 0.99

02:23:17.000 It's a very selfish reason.

02:23:19.000 It's very selfish.

02:23:19.000 You don't really care about the kid being happy or not.

02:23:21.000 And it also fucks with the kid's head, and a lot of times it ruins their love of whatever the sport is.

02:23:27.000 Mm-hmm. 0.98

02:23:28.000 Yeah.

02:23:29.000 Yeah.

02:23:31.000 I don't know.

02:23:31.000 I guess...

02:23:34.000 You know, it's fine.

02:23:36.000 It's fine.

02:23:36.000 I'm fine.

02:23:37.000 Joe, I'm fine.

02:23:38.000 Joe, I'm fine, dude.

02:23:41.000 I've seen enough therapy.

02:23:43.000 I'm fine, dude.

02:23:44.000 It's fine.

02:23:45.000 It's fine.

02:23:46.000 He's flawed.

02:23:47.000 We're all flawed.

02:23:48.000 Yeah, yeah.

02:23:49.000 No worries.

02:23:50.000 It's like the scene in Good Will Hunting.

02:23:53.000 Like, I'm afraid you're going to be like Robin Williams and be like, it's not your fault.

02:23:56.000 Yeah.

02:23:57.000 It's not your fault.

02:23:57.000 And I just start bawling.

02:23:59.000 Yeah. 1.00

02:24:01.000 The thing is, parents that do weird shit to you, there's some benefit to it. 0.98

02:24:09.000 My parents were not supportive about anything I've ever done, ever. 0.98

02:24:13.000 And my parents split up when I was really young, so my whole life was like...

02:24:18.000 I'll show you.

02:24:20.000 I'll show you.

02:24:21.000 Like, oh, I don't get any attention?

02:24:22.000 Watch what I can do.

02:24:24.000 So that was...

02:24:24.000 It led me to get really good at things.

02:24:28.000 That was why I got really good at everything, because I never got any attention.

02:24:32.000 So my thought was like, I know how to get attention.

02:24:35.000 Be better than everybody else at everything. 0.77

02:24:37.000 Whatever I do, I just have to be just fucking fully immersed in it.

02:24:41.000 So I became obsessed with getting really good at things.

02:24:45.000 But if I had really supportive parents that were really there for me all the time, Who knows?

02:24:50.000 But that's you.

02:24:51.000 That's your personality to take that kind of negative thing and turn into something awesome.

02:24:55.000 A lot of kids maybe in that same situation would have been like, nobody cares. 1.00

02:25:00.000 I'm gonna go fuck myself. 0.99

02:25:02.000 Well, I got really lucky that I found martial arts like really young. 1.00

02:25:05.000 And when I found it, I realized like, oh, I am good at this.

02:25:09.000 Like I found a thing that makes me feel like I'm not a loser.

02:25:12.000 Because I just felt like we moved around a lot.

02:25:15.000 Like we moved from, like I lived in...

02:25:17.000 New Jersey till I was 7, and then San Francisco from 7 to 11, and then Florida from 11 to 13, and then Boston from...

02:25:26.000 Wow. 1.00

02:25:26.000 And it was like, fuck, man. 1.00

02:25:28.000 I never had, like, long, steady friends. 1.00

02:25:30.000 I was always the new kid.

02:25:31.000 I was always small. 0.99

02:25:33.000 People were always fucking with me. 0.99

02:25:35.000 And then when I got into martial arts, it was the first time I didn't feel like a loser. 0.99

02:25:39.000 It was like a year or two in, when I started getting really good, I was like, this is something I'm good at.

02:25:45.000 I'm really good at this.

02:25:47.000 I got praise from my instructor.

02:25:48.000 I got praise from other students.

02:25:50.000 I was winning tournaments, and I was like, I am something.

02:25:53.000 And so I just threw myself into it.

02:25:56.000 That was my whole life.

02:25:58.000 And I always think, maybe I wouldn't have been that good if I was just loved.

02:26:05.000 It's not that my mom didn't love me or my stepdad didn't love me. 0.98

02:26:08.000 It's just they're fucking busy, man. 1.00

02:26:10.000 They also grew up in a fucked up life too. 1.00

02:26:13.000 Their parents weren't supportive either. 0.99

02:26:16.000 So it's sort of like that cycle just sort of repeats itself with kids.

02:26:20.000 You know, I thought that back in the day about certain things like acting.

02:26:25.000 I'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.

02:26:31.000 Like I made it here for a reason, right?

02:26:34.000 And my therapist said this one thing.

02:26:35.000 Not to get too foo-foo or whatever here.

02:26:38.000 He said this one thing that really resonated with me.

02:26:39.000 He was like, have you ever thought about you made it not because of it, but despite of it?

02:26:46.000 So that was kind of nice to hear.

02:26:48.000 Yeah.

02:26:48.000 Yeah, there's both those things, right?

02:26:50.000 It's like...

02:26:51.000 Whatever it is that shapes your personality.

02:26:53.000 Those negatives, like, there's an ebb and flow to all things.

02:26:57.000 And sometimes those negatives gives you this gust of energy to go in the opposite direction.

02:27:03.000 And the motivation that you have is sometimes more important than anything else.

02:27:07.000 Sometimes the willingness to go through a lot of shitty things to make it.

02:27:13.000 Like, sometimes that doesn't exist.

02:27:15.000 I have a good friend.

02:27:16.000 He's a really nice guy, but his mom was too nice to him when he was young.

02:27:18.000 She gave him too much love and she always said he was amazing at everything and he even admits it talking about it.

02:27:25.000 He's like, I think my mom was just too fucking nice to me. 0.93

02:27:28.000 He's got no drive! 0.95

02:27:31.000 He's always loved and he's always cared for and he never felt scared.

02:27:36.000 He never felt alone.

02:27:38.000 He never felt like, there's nobody out here helping me.

02:27:40.000 I gotta go do this on my own.

02:27:41.000 And I remember that was like my overwhelming feeling my whole life.

02:27:45.000 It was like, no one's looking out for me.

02:27:47.000 I gotta look out for myself.

02:27:49.000 The world's dangerous, you know?

02:27:52.000 Mm, mm.

02:27:53.000 Yeah. 1.00

02:27:54.000 But that, it's like, it's all in like, I mean, that's a stupid old expression. 0.99

02:27:59.000 Life gives you lemons, right? 1.00

02:28:00.000 You make lemonade.

02:28:01.000 It's like, whatever it is that was negative about it, it can become a positive.

02:28:07.000 It can become like a reinforcing thing.

02:28:10.000 Yeah.

02:28:11.000 Every bad set is actually the most helpful thing.

02:28:13.000 Yes!

02:28:14.000 Dude, 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. 0.98

02:28:20.000 I'm fucking up. 0.97

02:28:22.000 I needed that to happen. 0.99

02:28:24.000 Yeah.

02:28:24.000 I needed it to happen.

02:28:26.000 Even with...

02:28:28.000 Acting or stand-up, it's like, sometimes I'm like, okay, I'm trying really hard for this film because I'm proving myself.

02:28:34.000 And then sometimes you coast.

02:28:35.000 You're like, oh, wait, I coasted on that movie and people still was like, oh, he was good.

02:28:40.000 So you keep coasting, coasting, and at some point you get caught. 0.99

02:28:43.000 And you're like, oh, fuck, I gotta step it up again. 0.99

02:28:46.000 Yeah, I mean, we need lessons. 0.99

02:28:48.000 No one's perfect, right?

02:28:49.000 We need lessons.

02:28:50.000 Lessons come in strange forms.

02:28:52.000 Sometimes you don't ask for them.

02:28:53.000 Sometimes you get dealt a hand that you didn't want to get dealt, but it turns out to be the best thing that could ever happen to you.

02:29:00.000 Absolutely. 1.00

02:29:02.000 Jimmy, you're a bad motherfucker. 1.00

02:29:03.000 Thank you, man. 1.00

02:29:04.000 Great to have you here.

02:29:05.000 It's fun.

02:29:05.000 Sit down, talk to you.

02:29:06.000 Tell everybody what your special's called so they can go get it right now.

02:29:09.000 Yeah, my special, it's called Good Deal on Amazon Prime Video.

02:29:13.000 And, of course, then there's Space Force on Netflix, so you can watch both.

02:29:17.000 Beautiful.

02:29:18.000 And your Twitter handle and Instagram and all that jazz?

02:29:22.000 Well, I might delete my Twitter now.

02:29:23.000 Delete it. 0.98

02:29:24.000 Burn it. 1.00

02:29:25.000 Let it on fire. 1.00

02:29:25.000 Instagram and TikTok. 1.00

02:29:27.000 I'm a TikTok guy now.

02:29:28.000 Oh, you're doing TikTok.

02:29:28.000 Well, I don't know.

02:29:29.000 But it's at FunnyAsianDude.

02:29:31.000 Okay.

02:29:32.000 Yeah.

02:29:32.000 Beautiful.

02:29:32.000 Check it out.

02:29:33.000 Thanks, brother.

02:29:33.000 Appreciate you, man.

02:29:34.000 Thank you, Joe.

02:29:34.000 Thanks for being here.

02:29:35.000 Bye, everybody.

02:29:37.000 That was great.

02:29:38.000 That was super fun, man.

The Joe Rogan Experience - June 11, 2020

Joe Rogan Experience #1490 - Jimmy O Yang

Episode Stats

Summary

Transcript