Episode 712 - Joe Wong / Doug Stanhope

Episode 712 • Released June 2, 2016 • Speakers detected

00:00:00Guest:All right, let's do this.

00:00:10Marc:How are you?

00:00:11Marc:What the fuckers?

00:00:12Marc:What the fuck buddies?

00:00:13Marc:What the fucksters?

00:00:14Marc:What the fucking ears?

00:00:16Marc:How's it going?

00:00:17Marc:This is Mark Maron.

00:00:18Marc:This is my show.

00:00:19Marc:This is the podcast WTF.

00:00:21Marc:If you were wondering if you are trying to listen to some other podcast, you've made a mistake, but maybe you should hang out for a minute.

00:00:29Marc:or a few minutes, or however long it takes me to get through this business.

00:00:34Marc:I hope everything's going well with you.

00:00:35Marc:Today is Thursday.

00:00:37Marc:If you're listening to it the day it comes out, this is Thursday.

00:00:43Marc:Just a reminder, maybe that's helpful to some of you.

00:00:46Marc:Maybe you downloaded this thing and you were lost.

00:00:48Marc:I'm telling you, man.

00:00:49Marc:Right now, I barely know what fucking day it is.

00:00:52Marc:And I guess that's a luxury, perhaps.

00:00:55Marc:Perhaps it's a mental ailment.

00:00:56Marc:I'm not sure what the fuck is going on with my brain right now.

00:00:59Marc:Today on the show, Joe Wong.

00:01:03Marc:Joe Wong is a guy I've heard about for a while.

00:01:06Marc:He's a Chinese-American comedian who does shows in China and can do stand-up in Chinese.

00:01:14Marc:It's just a world that I have no idea about.

00:01:17Marc:And I was excited to talk to him.

00:01:20Marc:Also, today on the show, we're going to talk to Doug Stanhope for a minute about his new book, Digging Up Mother, A Love Story, which is available now.

00:01:29Marc:I want to thank everybody.

00:01:31Marc:For coming out to the trip and he shows they've been going well because I'm dealing with a sort of a new I'm trying to deal with a new way of looking at things.

00:01:42Marc:What is my life like now that a lot of the things I used to be fucked up about are unfucked.

00:01:50Marc:And it's exhausting because there's part of me that's sort of like, what do I sound like when I'm not angry?

00:01:56Marc:You want to know what that sounds like?

00:01:57Marc:Here, I'll give you an example.

00:02:00Marc:Here's what that sounds like.

00:02:01Marc:Gee, I think I'm done.

00:02:02Marc:I think I'm done with everything.

00:02:05Marc:I don't see the point of doing much of anything if I'm not angry.

00:02:10Marc:Seriously, I've quit comedy like three times this week already.

00:02:15Marc:But that's ridiculous.

00:02:16Marc:There's got to be, like, I've got to be able to embrace and open and move through it.

00:02:20Marc:But these shows that the Tripany have been good.

00:02:22Marc:Themes are starting to reveal themselves.

00:02:24Marc:People are enjoying the shows.

00:02:26Marc:Thank you.

00:02:26Marc:I don't know if there's tickets left, but I'm going to be doing it for a few more Tuesdays through June.

00:02:31Marc:You can also go to wtfpod.com slash tour to...

00:02:36Marc:to see where I'm coming.

00:02:37Marc:I'm doing dates in July, a lot of dates in July and throughout the fall.

00:02:44Marc:So yeah, like things are, things are, are okay.

00:02:49Marc:I'm exercising, which I'm not, I don't know.

00:02:51Marc:I don't feel great.

00:02:52Marc:I don't know.

00:02:53Marc:These people that say that they exercise and they feel great.

00:02:56Marc:I exercise this morning and I feel exhausted.

00:02:58Marc:I, the day is going to be difficult now and I'm aggravated.

00:03:03Marc:it's not that's is that the desired result is it and my my stray cats have disappeared now they're not dead we all know scaredy's gone but it's scaredy too comes and goes deaf black cat apparently has moved on and uh shows up sporadically now and now i just got big bag of cat food now i'm not even a good cat guy anymore they got to go somewhere else

00:03:29Marc:Yeah, where's that guy?

00:03:31Marc:Where's the guy that all the cats love?

00:03:33Marc:All right, well, look, here's the deal.

00:03:35Marc:Right now, let's go to me and Doug Stanhope, who's a friend of mine.

00:03:41Marc:You can go to the Howell Premium archives and hear longer interviews with him on episodes 22 and 204.

00:03:47Marc:I just had him come over a couple weeks ago to talk about his new book, Digging Up Mother, A Love Story.

00:03:55Marc:This is me and Doug.

00:04:03Marc:I don't know the story about your mother.

00:04:05Marc:In the terms of the, like for a lot of people who are listening either, like digging up mother, a love story, Doug Stanhope.

00:04:11Marc:Because I remember hearing you talking about your mother, but what was, how's the narrative of the book work?

00:04:16Marc:Is it essays or is it straight up memoir?

00:04:18Guest:Well, the suicide itself was at my house with us roasting her and making a party out of it.

00:04:24Guest:Right, because she was ill?

00:04:25Guest:Yeah, she was on hospice care, emphysema, dying, deadpan, couldn't get out of bed.

00:04:30Guest:Right.

00:04:32Guest:So that's what I worked into my last special.

00:04:35Guest:So me assuming that because I had it on a special, every single person in the world knows it.

00:04:41Guest:That's what we do.

00:04:43Guest:No one has seen it or knows it.

00:04:45Guest:I front loaded.

00:04:46Guest:The first chapter is basically the extended detailed version of that bit.

00:04:50Guest:That's great.

00:04:51Guest:So I started with what I assume everyone already knows and then go back to...

00:04:55Guest:Yeah.

00:04:55Guest:Being young and remembering her jacking off the dog.

00:04:59Guest:Yeah.

00:05:00Guest:She's just a weird caustic.

00:05:02Guest:This is your mom?

00:05:03Guest:Yeah.

00:05:03Guest:Why did she jerk off the dog?

00:05:05Guest:I don't know.

00:05:05Guest:She thought because they like it was her.

00:05:09Marc:Why does anyone jerk off a dog?

00:05:10Marc:But I was 12, so I thought it was fucking hilarious.

00:05:12Marc:Yeah.

00:05:13Marc:I knew one other kid.

00:05:14Marc:I saw a kid do that once, jerk off a dog.

00:05:17Marc:And I'm like, this doesn't seem right.

00:05:18Marc:But they were laughing.

00:05:20Marc:Yeah.

00:05:20Guest:Yeah, my mother was laughing.

00:05:22Guest:I was laughing.

00:05:24Guest:And because I was laughing, she continued to do that through my life up until my adulthood.

00:05:30Guest:Jerking off the dog.

00:05:31Guest:Yeah, Ralphie Mae was at the apartment when I lived in LA once where she started jerking off the cat, trying to get, like, breaking out an old bit.

00:05:39Guest:It's not as funny when you're not 12.

00:05:42Guest:Or when it's a cat.

00:05:43Marc:It's a little trickier to jerk off a cat.

00:05:45Yeah.

00:05:45Marc:Dogs are waiting.

00:05:47Marc:They're ready to be jerked off.

00:05:48Guest:What's your problem?

00:05:49Guest:They like it.

00:05:50Marc:She would always say that.

00:05:51Marc:That sounds like some good mothering.

00:05:53Guest:Was your dad around?

00:05:54Guest:He wasn't.

00:05:54Guest:Yeah, my dad was around.

00:05:55Guest:He was of little or no consequence.

00:05:58Guest:They divorced when I was like seven, but he was just a big happy, dumb.

00:06:03Guest:It was like the dad from Happy Days, but a little dumber.

00:06:06Guest:Oh, really?

00:06:06Guest:Yeah.

00:06:07Guest:Right.

00:06:07Guest:So your mom was a character.

00:06:08Guest:Yeah.

00:06:09Guest:Yes.

00:06:10Marc:And what is the love story element?

00:06:13Guest:We were best friends in a very awkward way.

00:06:17Marc:You and your mom.

00:06:18Guest:Yeah.

00:06:18Guest:All the way through.

00:06:19Guest:She actually talked me into doing comedy.

00:06:23Guest:Oh, yeah?

00:06:24Guest:You should be a stand-up comic.

00:06:25Guest:You're funnier than these cocksuckers on fucking evening at the improv.

00:06:29Guest:How old were you when that happened?

00:06:31Guest:Probably 20, 22.

00:06:34Guest:And my mother was, she got sober in AA when I was about seven.

00:06:38Guest:Oh, really?

00:06:39Guest:Yeah.

00:06:40Guest:So I spent a lot of time growing up in the back of AA meetings.

00:06:43Guest:Oh, hearing the stories.

00:06:45Guest:Yeah.

00:06:45Guest:And I think that's where I got a lot of, I got an adult sense of humor way too young.

00:06:50Guest:That makes sense.

00:06:52Guest:And I would bring all that shit to school and they thought I was a fucking psychotic.

00:06:57Marc:It all adds up to me now because the beautiful thing about AA, and I imagine you learn how to drink in AA.

00:07:04Guest:It was an advertisement for alcohol because those fucks sit around in a circle and it's all glorifying their worst stories and talking it up with a small spin at the end.

00:07:18Guest:And fortunately, through the grace of God, I never have to live like that anymore.

00:07:22Guest:You just-

00:07:23Guest:You were high-fiving each other in the middle of this story.

00:07:27Guest:I've never seen you so happy, aside from the first five minutes of that story.

00:07:31Guest:Yeah.

00:07:33Guest:And storytelling itself.

00:07:36Guest:I mean, there were AA headliners, basically.

00:07:38Marc:Oh, yeah.

00:07:38Guest:My mother would take us in and go, hey, Indian Jim is speaking tonight, and you're going to love him.

00:07:43Guest:He's fucking great.

00:07:44Marc:And that's so funny.

00:07:45Marc:So instead of getting a babysitter, you just go to the meeting with her.

00:07:48Marc:Yeah.

00:07:49Guest:so that whole sensibility that must have informed your brain a lot and they and they would treat me just like i was an adult right they talk to you the same way they don't give a fuck of kids here yeah i'm lucky to be alive what do you think i'm gonna tone it down for some fucking 10 year old yeah and also like 90 of them not necessarily great parents right during the using period yeah they're all your crazy uncle yeah exactly corrupts you yeah exactly there's another one of those little fucks

00:08:14Guest:yeah yeah yeah so i would bring that all to school and i that was that's i wasn't a class clown i was like the a school shooter with jokes they were terrified of me because like even the teachers like how would how would a kid that age even know about that right right talking about shooting heroin or something yeah yeah yeah yeah oh that's hilarious there's a piece of homework from when i was like 11

00:08:38Guest:And it was like, use a word in a sentence, and it's five different sentences.

00:08:42Guest:Yeah.

00:08:44Guest:I can't remember verbatim, but it was about, the National Guardsmen took great aim when they mowed down the protesters in a hail of bullets.

00:08:55Guest:The baby's head crushed easily in a vice.

00:08:59Guest:Yeah.

00:08:59Guest:I'm 11 years old embracing the wrong things well when I look back I just found that when I was going doing research for the book my mother was a hoarder thank God or I wouldn't have been able to write this right I wouldn't have the and I look back and I go well that's shit that was going on in the news and it was dead baby jokes were all the rage so of course that's right something about a baby's head and a vice yeah why not

00:09:24Marc:You had a dark sense of humor angle on it.

00:09:29Guest:But they sent me to a school psychologist.

00:09:31Guest:They were terrified of me.

00:09:32Guest:I had to go to counseling and stuff just because I had that sense of humor, just because of my jokes.

00:09:39Marc:And there's a picture in there of you and your brother and her letting you feel her fake boobs, her new boobs.

00:09:45Guest:Yeah, yeah.

00:09:46Guest:She was all about... Anyone who gets fake tits, they always want to...

00:09:50Marc:Whip them out.

00:09:51Marc:Yeah.

00:09:52Marc:My mom has them, and I didn't know for most of my life until she got new ones.

00:09:56Marc:And it was too old for me to be like, let me check them out.

00:10:00Marc:It didn't feel right.

00:10:01Marc:But you guys looked pretty old, you and your brother.

00:10:03Marc:What are you feeling?

00:10:04Guest:Yeah, we were about 21 or so.

00:10:06Guest:But that was her second pair, too, I believe.

00:10:10Marc:Yeah, yeah.

00:10:11Marc:She must have got the same ones my mom did.

00:10:12Guest:I remember being in Friendly's when she got her first pair and she's squeezing them in a booth going, ah, we thought it was funny.

00:10:18Guest:Like, she was the perfect mother if you were a beavis and butthead kid.

00:10:22Guest:She let you smoke, let you read Hustler magazine.

00:10:25Guest:Yeah.

00:10:26Guest:Vulgar.

00:10:27Guest:Yeah.

00:10:28Guest:She was a truck driver for a while.

00:10:29Guest:Was she?

00:10:30Guest:Bartender for a lot of years.

00:10:32Guest:She could sneak me into bars.

00:10:33Guest:I remember seeing...

00:10:35Guest:what now i know was the remnants of the guess who but but they still used the name and she was working you know the guess who and she's she yeah yeah got him to let me in to watch him and i was thinking it was the who right oh right it was like just randy bachman and maybe not even bachman it was probably the other guys who knows i thought it was the who and i was just i was just happy that i recognized one of the songs after the disappointment of

00:11:01Marc:Oh, wait, this isn't the who.

00:11:02Marc:You recognized American Woman.

00:11:04Marc:And you're like, this isn't the who.

00:11:06Marc:The one song.

00:11:07Marc:It's close enough.

00:11:08Marc:Yeah.

00:11:09Marc:So I can't imagine.

00:11:10Marc:She had been sick for how long by the time?

00:11:12Guest:The first time when I was doing the man show, so 2004, Comedy Central asked me to do a cruise ship with DiPaolo and a couple other people to film wraparounds for their comedy awards, the commies.

00:11:27Guest:Yeah.

00:11:28Guest:So it was free first class airfare and a free cruise.

00:11:32Guest:So I brought my mother and that's when I found out she had come off the wagon because she had been sober since I was about seven.

00:11:38Marc:Oh, wow.

00:11:38Guest:And then I found out she'd been secretly drinking the sauce.

00:11:42Guest:And I go, well, if anything, I want to get hammered with my mother one time.

00:11:45Guest:So this will be a good time.

00:11:47Guest:And we sat in first class and they brought over trays of champagne back in the good old days of first class.

00:11:54Guest:Yeah.

00:11:54Guest:And we both took one.

00:11:55Guest:I didn't say a word.

00:11:56Guest:We both started drinking and we drank for a week straight.

00:12:03Guest:Ended in, was it not Fort Lauderdale?

00:12:06Guest:Wherever they had an improv.

00:12:07Guest:West Palm Beach.

00:12:08Guest:Yeah, West Palm, yeah.

00:12:09Guest:I had to do a gig when we landed back.

00:12:11Guest:uh and i got her to do blow for the first time i got a waitress chopping up lines in the ladies room toilet and showing her how to do it she like it yeah she liked it she liked it she liked to talk and drink so yeah that worked out i can talk more yeah i can over talk you into your grave yeah and when did she find out she had the emphysema

00:12:32Guest:Well, it was on that trip where I knew she had shitty lungs.

00:12:36Marc:Yeah.

00:12:36Guest:When she first moved here from Florida, she had been a nurse, and she did one of those blow into this thing to gauge the strength of your lungs, and they told her at that point she had the lungs of a 127-year-old person.

00:12:49Guest:I knew it was bad, but on that trip, just going through the airport, she would have to stop for air on flat ground with a roller bag.

00:12:57Guest:She'd have to stop every so often, and I'm like, this is way worse than I knew.

00:13:01Marc:Oh.

00:13:01Marc:So, and when... What was the decision-making process around her exit?

00:13:08Guest:I was doing a five-week tour.

00:13:12Guest:At that point, I had kind of written her off.

00:13:14Guest:She had gotten life-flighted a couple times from Bisbee up to Tucson because...

00:13:18Marc:But she was living with you?

00:13:19Guest:She was living in the same town.

00:13:21Guest:I moved out of town.

00:13:23Guest:She had a bunch of false flag suicide attempts.

00:13:27Guest:So one of them I had to drive out and pick her up and bring her to Bisbee and get her an apartment there.

00:13:32Guest:She had left a post-it note.

00:13:35Guest:That's why I say in the end of the book, I go, the real title of this

00:13:39Guest:book is uh mother the long version of a suicide post-it note yeah yeah all she wrote is a post-it doug pain is too much which i guess what else do you have to say to the point yeah yeah uh but was it physical pain mostly that's what she was her drinking just spiraled out she wasn't good at it she'd be funny for an hour and then straight into maudlin depression why was a bad mother and i'm a burden to you oh yeah

00:14:05Guest:So I drove her out.

00:14:08Guest:She got life flighted.

00:14:10Guest:One time we were in Costa Rica and we get the call.

00:14:13Guest:Hey, your mother just had a helicopter up to Tucson.

00:14:17Guest:She had tubes in her lungs sucking the gunk out.

00:14:21Marc:Oh, yeah.

00:14:21Marc:So she was just dying.

00:14:22Guest:yeah and but she she was making no attempt to help herself so at some point i just had to detach like if you're just gonna keep yeah doing this to yourself you can't yeah i can't be the responsible party you're being a dick right i mean i'll still help you out when you need it but i'm not going out of my way for you right and who decided to what was the conversation around the assisted suicide

00:14:46Guest:She'd been talking about suicide forever.

00:14:48Guest:Right.

00:14:49Guest:And she had attempted it, not even for health problems.

00:14:52Guest:So when her health got that bad and she's on oxygen, she said, I had this five-week tour of Europe, and I asked the nurse lady, her caretaker, and they said she probably has a 50-50 chance of being here when you get back.

00:15:09Marc:Right.

00:15:09Guest:So we had a close enough relationship where I said, I'm not canceling the tour.

00:15:16Guest:I said, I'm going to call you every night from stage, and if you're alive, I know you're going to do the Monty Python, I'm not dead yet!

00:15:28Guest:Yeah, yeah.

00:15:29Guest:Monty Python, we grew up with that, so we were always quoting.

00:15:32Guest:We had the bits, and she would always...

00:15:34Guest:And if an EMT answers the phone, I guess we'll have our answer, but I'm going to do it live on speakerphone on stage every night.

00:15:42Guest:And you did that?

00:15:43Guest:Yeah, we did that.

00:15:44Guest:And I also had her tell us what she bought today.

00:15:48Guest:I go, you have a $10,000 limit on your Visa card.

00:15:51Guest:You can't take that with you.

00:15:52Guest:And you have no estate for them to take it out of.

00:15:54Guest:Jack up your credit card.

00:15:56Guest:So she'd do, I'm not dead yet!

00:15:58Guest:And then she'd tell us some silly shit she bought out of the SkyMall catalog I gave her.

00:16:04Guest:And so she was alive when I got back.

00:16:08Guest:And she called me up and said, it's time to go.

00:16:14Guest:And had a doctor that...

00:16:17Guest:She had hospice care, and hospice will set you up with the amount of drugs if you want to hasten the process.

00:16:25Guest:And so she figured out that she had enough of the medications, the morphine, well more than enough, that she could have left some behind, but she didn't.

00:16:35Guest:She took them all.

00:16:36Guest:Yeah.

00:16:36Guest:And you all were just there, y'all?

00:16:38Guest:She came over to my house because where she lived was just filthy hoarder estate.

00:16:43Marc:Yeah.

00:16:43Guest:Spider webs and bugs and shit.

00:16:45Guest:Yeah.

00:16:46Guest:But she wouldn't let you clean anything up.

00:16:47Guest:Right.

00:16:48Guest:Because you're going to throw away something important.

00:16:50Guest:Yeah.

00:16:51Guest:Yeah.

00:16:51Guest:So she came over to my place and I...

00:16:53Guest:without a date she didn't give us a specific date yeah and i told her uh listen hey if you're gonna do this it was a thursday i said you gotta do it uh i said i said you can't do it on sunday or monday because that's football right and that's

00:17:08Guest:just a dick move if you're doing this on your own you don't ruin someone else's a pre-planned event right and you have to do it before two weeks from now because that's when brian hennigan's coming back and he doesn't have this stomach or sense of humor for this kind of shit yeah and so she just came over she came over a thursday and then we just hung around and waited for her to you know cry uncle and on saturday night after bingo and i had

00:17:33Guest:Yeah, spent the whole day going, I don't know what the fuck to do.

00:17:36Guest:And had some cocktails and took his annex to go to bed.

00:17:39Guest:And I was on MySpace or whatever.

00:17:42Guest:And she's like, it's done.

00:17:44Guest:Get me my drink and my pills.

00:17:46Guest:It's done?

00:17:47Guest:She already took it?

00:17:48Guest:And I thought she meant her beverage.

00:17:50Guest:She always had an 89-ounce bubba.

00:17:53Guest:right of a keg kind of thing with diet soda big gulp yeah she was on 85 medications yeah and i thought she meant that she goes no the other drink and the other pills because she had been sober four years at that point three years yeah a little while uh-huh and i told her when she came over to kill herself i go you're not gonna do it sober right you can't take those chips with you yeah

00:18:17Guest:Yeah.

00:18:19Guest:Absolutely.

00:18:19Guest:So we mixed up.

00:18:21Guest:She was a black Russian drinker back in her prime.

00:18:24Guest:Uh-huh.

00:18:24Guest:So I had black Russians, but she said, make it white Russians because she thought the milk would coat her stomach for eating all those pills.

00:18:31Guest:Right.

00:18:31Guest:Very motherly.

00:18:33Yeah.

00:18:33Guest:yeah chicken soup for the suicide i don't want to be too hard on my stomach yeah and so she didn't want to throw him up and so she just did it yeah she uh she ate almost 90 morphine pills slowly because she had a hard time eating them and we just busted her balls and just you and bingo yeah yeah as she's coming in and out of consciousness ma wait they found a cure oh no

00:18:56Guest:I wish I could remember all the lines.

00:18:59Guest:It's one of those, oh, fuck, we should have taped that.

00:19:01Guest:Yeah, of course she's laughing.

00:19:03Guest:She had a really dark sense of humor and was very logical and rational about death.

00:19:09Guest:Yeah.

00:19:10Guest:So it's just- How long did it take for it to- A long time.

00:19:13Guest:For some reason, I was guessing 30 minutes.

00:19:17Guest:Yeah.

00:19:18Guest:Based on absolutely nothing.

00:19:20Marc:Right.

00:19:20Guest:No research.

00:19:21Guest:Right.

00:19:21Guest:But yeah, she was alert for, I'd say,

00:19:26Guest:an hour after she took them all while she's taking them that probably took an hour right again the timeline is fuzzy but we you know we were busting her balls and then you know she's i was a good mother right now now you're a terrible mother like how else would you raise a son that's gonna mix you cocktails while you're killing yourself

00:19:49Marc:so when she did when it finally happened was um well obviously it was the right thing was her choice and you know you were there for and she was in agony she also had horrific back pain she'd been addicted to vicodin for god knows how many years did you cry decade

00:20:07Guest:Yeah, a little bit.

00:20:09Guest:Yeah, that's good.

00:20:09Guest:We try to keep it as much gallows humor as we could.

00:20:14Guest:Yeah, but eventually.

00:20:16Guest:I'm a dick.

00:20:17Guest:It's all right.

00:20:18Guest:Yeah.

00:20:19Guest:Sorry, my cell phone went off.

00:20:21Guest:I'm not saying I'm a dick for killing my mother.

00:20:23Marc:No.

00:20:24Marc:Don't want to be misunderstood.

00:20:26Marc:But you did have the feelings.

00:20:27Marc:You were able to grieve and have that moment.

00:20:28Guest:Yeah.

00:20:29Guest:Bingo and I, we put on some music, which as soon as mother was, you know, unconscious because she hated music and it was always too loud.

00:20:36Guest:Yeah.

00:20:36Guest:So, but then we'd like mirror under the nose, kind of, I can't tell if she's dead or not.

00:20:41Marc:You felt, try to feel the pulse and stuff.

00:20:43Guest:Yeah, we had a caretaker, a friend of ours that would come in and out, and she came in at one point and said, no, she's still breathing.

00:20:51Guest:And at some point, I remember her last words were, because my mother would just, if she could get a laugh, she'd grind it into the ground.

00:21:03Guest:She'd over tag it and keep telling the joke and repeating it, trying to, like, my, you're ruining the joke.

00:21:08Guest:You were just funny, and now you're- Too much.

00:21:11Marc:You know comics.

00:21:12Guest:like that oh yeah yeah yeah shut up quit ringing the bell and she's just pounding drinks like and i some point i said wow you're really hammering those those white russians and she said there's times to be dainty and there's times to be a pig

00:21:28Guest:And we fell out laughing.

00:21:29Guest:And you could see her mind scrambling how to tag it.

00:21:34Guest:And I go, shut up.

00:21:35Guest:Don't say anything else.

00:21:36Guest:Because those are perfect last words.

00:21:38Guest:And she didn't say anything else.

00:21:40Guest:Had a couple more sips.

00:21:41Guest:Zonked out.

00:21:42Guest:And that was it.

00:21:43Guest:And that was it.

00:21:44Guest:And we tried to wait until we knew she was dead.

00:21:48Guest:And at that point, we'd been drinking and taking a Xanax.

00:21:52Guest:So we had to fall down.

00:21:54Guest:and in the morning we woke up is like 6 30 in the morning or so and uh not emts but guys from the morgue the funeral home and the nurse caretaker lady were all in there and i you know the morning where you have to figure out where am i oh that's right oh yeah mother dead and yeah evidently while we're sleeping we i had up the we were sleeping on two couches in the living room and she had a hospital bed in a small room yeah

00:22:22Guest:Not much bigger than this.

00:22:23Guest:And the EMTs or the morgue guys had come in and gone directly to Bingo to lift her.

00:22:30Guest:And Betty's going, no, it's her.

00:22:32Guest:She's not dead.

00:22:35Guest:Yeah.

00:22:35Marc:And they were mortified and humiliated.

00:22:38Oops.

00:22:38Marc:Well, this sounds like a brutally honest, dark, and sweet somehow fucking book, Doug, and it's a hell of a story.

00:22:48Marc:And I wish you the best of luck with it.

00:22:51Marc:It deserves to be read by me, and I will do that.

00:22:55Marc:And by everyone else as well.

00:22:57Marc:Thanks.

00:22:57Guest:I think it's doing pretty good.

00:22:58Marc:Yeah?

00:22:59Marc:Yeah.

00:22:59Marc:It's great.

00:23:00Marc:That's great.

00:23:01Marc:How do you know?

00:23:02Guest:Because this stupid guy from DeCapo called me up and he said, wow, did you see your Amazon sales ranking?

00:23:10Guest:And I go, I didn't know to look for it.

00:23:12Guest:And now I can't not.

00:23:13Guest:yeah oh no now you're in like just know that that changes hourly yeah yeah and also based on if someone buys three books in in 10 minutes you could go i'm not diminishing well that's why it called me because he was like i've never had a book rank this high well it turns out it was just after we put out our mailing list on my website right

00:23:33Guest:And he was, yes.

00:23:34Guest:So it was at 57 of all books.

00:23:38Guest:He goes, I've never had any, Hitchens hit 90 and that was my best ever.

00:23:43Guest:Oh, that's hilarious.

00:23:44Guest:And then I had to go, wow, it's going to be a huge hit.

00:23:47Guest:And then I watched next hour, it's 78.

00:23:49Guest:Next hour, it's 150.

00:23:51Guest:I'm just losing all my self-esteem.

00:23:55Marc:I'm actually excited to read it because I have a lot of respect for you.

00:23:58Marc:I think you're funny and it's always good to talk to you.

00:24:01Guest:Thanks for having me on.

00:24:02Guest:Is this the seat the president sat in?

00:24:05Guest:That's it.

00:24:05Guest:Does everyone ask that?

00:24:07Guest:Yeah, eventually.

00:24:09Guest:Is every guest you've had since suck?

00:24:12Guest:I thought I had the president.

00:24:13Guest:No, man.

00:24:14Guest:Neil Young's great, but the president.

00:24:17Marc:No, but the funny thing was, in my mind, I knew, having talked to politicians before, I was honored and it was an amazing event.

00:24:25Marc:But I knew that the conversation, he wasn't going to start crying or anything.

00:24:31Marc:So people were like, well, what are you going to do now?

00:24:33Marc:And I'm like, I don't know.

00:24:34Marc:We got Rich Voss coming.

00:24:40Marc:I want to hear that one.

00:24:41Marc:That's a good episode.

00:24:42Marc:Listen to that.

00:24:42Marc:I will.

00:24:43Marc:All right.

00:24:43Marc:Thanks, man.

00:24:52All right.

00:24:53Marc:Stan Hope's Digging Up Mother is available wherever you get those books, all right?

00:24:58Marc:And it's a seriously, probably the most disturbing and dark memoir ever written by a comic in a very specific way.

00:25:09Marc:And speaking of books, the very funny writer Amber Tozer, also a stand-up, has a book out now.

00:25:14Marc:It's called Sober Stick Figure, a memoir.

00:25:17Marc:Amber will be on a WTF in the near future, so I wanted to let you know that you can get her book now.

00:25:23Marc:Because I like her.

00:25:25Marc:I like Amber Tozer.

00:25:26Marc:Now, coming up here, we've got Joe Wong.

00:25:30Marc:Now, Joe Wong I'd heard about in Boston, but Joe's story seemed very interesting to me to actually do stand-up in China and to tell me about China.

00:25:39Marc:Like, they're just... Like, I don't know a lot about the world, so I'm always excited when I have a guest who is able to tell me about the world.

00:25:50Marc:So, Joe Wong...

00:25:53Marc:Joe Wong is going to educate me and basically tell me about the comedy scene on mainland China.

00:26:08Marc:I got to get out, man.

00:26:09Marc:I got to travel.

00:26:10Marc:I got to travel.

00:26:11Marc:I've got to stop being afraid.

00:26:14Marc:I got to figure it out.

00:26:15Marc:I got to do it.

00:26:17Marc:But I think I'd like to go to Poland.

00:26:19Marc:I'd like to go to Russia.

00:26:20Marc:I think I'd like to see Germany.

00:26:22Marc:I'd like to see those parts.

00:26:24Marc:The more kind of abrasive, sausage-y areas.

00:26:30Marc:Yeah.

00:26:30Marc:you know I I'll try to travel all right I'm gonna do it and I don't I don't know why I'm saying that like you've defied me to do it but let's go now to my conversation with Joe Wong so

00:26:54Marc:I actually did comedy in Beijing and Hong Kong.

00:26:59Marc:Yeah.

00:27:00Marc:Expats.

00:27:01Guest:Oh, I see.

00:27:02Marc:I didn't have a translator or anything, but it was like... Expats are nice, though.

00:27:06Marc:They really appreciate comedy.

00:27:09Marc:Yeah, they're like, oh, thank God.

00:27:12Marc:I'd never been there to China.

00:27:15Marc:And it was like going... I mean, it was an entirely different world.

00:27:20Marc:Oh, yeah.

00:27:20Marc:Beijing, it's insane.

00:27:22Marc:Uh-huh.

00:27:23Marc:Isn't it?

00:27:23Marc:24 million people.

00:27:26Marc:Oh, my God.

00:27:28Marc:And not to be weird, but there seems to be a lot of different type of hand-driven vehicles.

00:27:33Guest:Oh, yeah.

00:27:34Guest:That's why I still don't have a car in Beijing.

00:27:37Guest:I drive everywhere in the United States.

00:27:39Guest:Once I'm in Beijing, I was like, I can't say the fuck word here.

00:27:45Guest:Yeah, you can.

00:27:46Guest:Oh, okay, yeah.

00:27:46Guest:I was like, I'm not going to get out of the car.

00:27:48Guest:I'm going to run over somebody for sure.

00:27:50Guest:So many people.

00:27:52Marc:So many people and so many different types of bicycles and weird kind of like, I was like, this is insane.

00:27:57Marc:And it was hard to breathe a little bit.

00:28:00Guest:Well, it's a lot worse now.

00:28:02Guest:Really?

00:28:02Guest:You know, I didn't see the sun for like two weeks before I came to LA.

00:28:06Guest:Really?

00:28:07Guest:Yeah.

00:28:07Guest:Once I got in LA, I was like, wow, it's so clear.

00:28:10Guest:And then we were jet lagged.

00:28:12Guest:We got up like two o'clock in the morning.

00:28:14Guest:The whole family packed into a car.

00:28:15Guest:We drove all the way to Vegas.

00:28:18Guest:For what?

00:28:18Guest:We just wanted to see the open space in the desert and the sunrise.

00:28:24Guest:And then I met a writer friend of mine, Chuck Sklar.

00:28:29Guest:I know Chuck.

00:28:30Guest:I started with Chuck.

00:28:31Guest:Oh, really?

00:28:31Guest:Yeah, yeah.

00:28:32Guest:You can ask him.

00:28:33Guest:We were hanging out, and I started to take pictures of the sky.

00:28:38Guest:He was like, Joe, what are you taking a picture of?

00:28:40Guest:I'm like, just the sky.

00:28:42Guest:I was like, what?

00:28:43Marc:I want to have it as evidence that there is a sky.

00:28:49Marc:But yeah, I found it pretty fascinating, you know, my experience, because I always feel like as an American, I feel like I'm relatively open minded, but like, I don't know if I would travel to China if I didn't get the opportunity to go there.

00:29:04Marc:Yeah, it's a long flight, but you go, I saw the Forbidden City, I saw Tiananmen Square, and I went to the wall, and it's fucking fascinating.

00:29:15Marc:And then you start to think, this is really the biggest and oldest culture in the world, existing in the world, and I don't fucking know anything about it.

00:29:25Marc:Do you?

00:29:27Guest:Not really.

00:29:30Guest:I lived in Beijing for five years.

00:29:32Guest:I stayed there for three years before I came to the U.S.

00:29:35Guest:back in 1994.

00:29:37Guest:And then now I'm in Beijing for two more years.

00:29:40Guest:I've never gone there by myself.

00:29:43Guest:It's always, oh, a friend is coming over.

00:29:45Guest:They want to see the Forbidden City.

00:29:47Guest:Oh, right.

00:29:48Guest:For those things.

00:29:48Guest:Yeah.

00:29:49Guest:And for a while, there's a Starbucks in the middle of Forbidden City.

00:29:52Guest:Oh, really?

00:29:53Guest:Yeah.

00:29:53Guest:Just like the emperor wanted.

00:29:56Guest:I mean, the Chinese are okay with it, but all the Westerners got upset.

00:30:01Guest:They were like, we came all the way here.

00:30:04Guest:We saw Starbucks.

00:30:05Marc:That's hilarious.

00:30:08Marc:The last time I tried to talk to you, I knew you were in Boston.

00:30:13Marc:Now, like, let's go through the life because, you know, quite honestly, and to my own fault, for me, it becomes sort of how even in comedy, you know, communities get insulated.

00:30:27Marc:You know, there's like, there must be a lot of Chinese comics that I don't know.

00:30:31Marc:know there you know there's a there's a lot of every kind of comics that you have your own and there's a you have your own career that is not you know mainstream American comedy yeah yeah so it's it's hard for me to know it's like I don't know how did I know that guy he's got a TV show in China yeah exactly yeah but you were but you were an American comic and you are an American comic yeah I was on the Letterman show for a time yeah yeah I remember I saw one show yeah I also hosted the radio and TV correspondence dinner

00:30:59Guest:You did the big one?

00:31:01Guest:Yeah, 2010.

00:31:02Guest:Oh, yeah?

00:31:03Guest:How was that?

00:31:03Guest:It was great.

00:31:04Guest:Obama didn't show up, but then Joe Biden was there.

00:31:09Guest:What do you mean Obama didn't show up?

00:31:12Guest:What was he doing?

00:31:13Guest:He was doing some healthcare thing during the time.

00:31:16Guest:Yeah.

00:31:17Guest:So two weeks before the show, my manager called me, hey, Obama's not coming.

00:31:22Marc:Did you say like, well, that's bullshit.

00:31:25Guest:He would have come if Will Ferrell was doing it again.

00:31:27Guest:Yeah, I know.

00:31:28Yeah.

00:31:28Guest:Did you have that feeling?

00:31:29Guest:Oh, well, a little bit.

00:31:32Guest:I was like, is it because I'm Asian?

00:31:36Guest:But where did it start?

00:31:36Guest:Were you born in China?

00:31:37Guest:Yeah, I was born in China and then came to the U.S.

00:31:40Guest:when I was 24.

00:31:41Guest:Like where in China?

00:31:43Guest:Northeast part of China, close to North Korea.

00:31:47Guest:Do you have family there?

00:31:48Guest:Oh, yeah, I still have family there.

00:31:49Guest:What's the part called?

00:31:51Marc:It's called Jilin Province.

00:31:53Marc:Uh-huh.

00:31:53Marc:Yeah.

00:31:54Marc:Yeah.

00:31:54Marc:And is that like a big province?

00:31:56Marc:It's a tiny province, small town.

00:31:58Guest:Oh, it's a small town?

00:31:59Guest:Yeah.

00:32:00Guest:And what's the industry there?

00:32:01Guest:What goes on there?

00:32:02Guest:Oh, it's basically corn, lumber, coal, that kind of thing.

00:32:09Marc:And growing up, how much time did you spend?

00:32:12Marc:You grew up in China until you were 24?

00:32:15Marc:Yeah.

00:32:16Marc:And is it?

00:32:18Marc:See, the thing that I noticed when I was there briefly in my dumb American observations were I don't see anything familiar here.

00:32:25Marc:And there's really not much effort made to make me feel comfortable at all.

00:32:30Guest:Oh, really?

00:32:30Guest:I'm surprised.

00:32:31Guest:Yeah.

00:32:31Guest:I go there, I see McDonald's.

00:32:35Guest:But that's it.

00:32:37Marc:Exactly.

00:32:38Marc:I'm looking at the landscape of Beijing, the city's landscape, and I'm like, oh, that's a KFC bucket.

00:32:43Marc:Yeah, exactly.

00:32:43Guest:I recognize that.

00:32:45Marc:But anything else, there's no translation.

00:32:48Marc:Transportation is not like in English, too.

00:32:50Guest:Oh, yeah.

00:32:50Marc:And I imagine it's because there's not a big tourist industry.

00:32:53Guest:Yeah, that's back in 2002.

00:32:55Guest:Right.

00:32:56Guest:Starting from 2008 after the Olympics, the English signs everywhere.

00:33:01Guest:Oh, really?

00:33:01Guest:Yeah, but then they messed it up in a big way.

00:33:04Guest:You know, like the Department of Proctology, they call it the Department of Intestines and Anuses.

00:33:12Guest:Is that true?

00:33:13Guest:That's true.

00:33:14Guest:They had a big sign there for a while.

00:33:16Guest:They realized, oh, this is not right.

00:33:17Guest:It was a big sign?

00:33:19Guest:Yeah.

00:33:19Yeah.

00:33:20Guest:There's a lot of those, you know, it's like, you know, slippery when wet, you know, they will translate that into, you know, please slip carefully or something.

00:33:30Marc:That's interesting because I guess the, like, I don't have any sense of how the Chinese language works, but that just must be someone's most, you know, kind of straightforward translation.

00:33:41Marc:Exactly.

00:33:42Marc:Or they did it out of some kind of program.

00:33:44Guest:Right, right.

00:33:45Guest:Oh, we've got to put English signs for foreigners.

00:33:49Yeah.

00:33:49Guest:And they didn't really put much thought into it, like, get a guy working on this.

00:33:52Guest:Oh, no, no.

00:33:54Guest:Yeah, there's so little checking.

00:33:56Guest:Yeah.

00:33:56Guest:Just, like, they saw some English and then they just put it up there.

00:33:59Marc:Well, growing up in that type of government, I mean, you know, what was, did you feel, I mean, I don't know, what was your parents' business?

00:34:07Marc:How did you grow up?

00:34:08Marc:Did you grow up, like, you know, poor or, like...

00:34:11Guest:kind of poor yeah but our family was in a countryside right but my family is still better off than my neighbor i still remember going to my neighbor's house as probably five six year old when i was and i go there there's no electricity it's in the winter it was really cold yeah no electricity and uh the whole room was cold the kid was eating raw potato for lunch the kid was

00:34:37Guest:Yeah, and I was like, wow, this family is great.

00:34:40Guest:His parents will allow him to do this.

00:34:44Guest:To eat a raw potato.

00:34:45Guest:Yeah, when I was a kid, I didn't understand because everybody was poor, but that family was even poorer than us.

00:34:51Guest:But at the time, I said, wow, this kid has a lot of freedom.

00:34:54Right.

00:34:55Marc:Well, that's always, I guess, the question that maybe I'll speak for some Americans is like, what is the quality of life in terms of that sense of freedom?

00:35:06Marc:Because I remember when I was there, there was some activity in Tiananmen Square.

00:35:12Marc:They corralled a bunch of Falun Gong protesters, and it just sort of happened, and it happened very quickly.

00:35:19Marc:Just some trucks pulled up, put these people in them, and drove away.

00:35:22Guest:Uh-huh.

00:35:23Marc:But were you aware that you were living in that type of oppression?

00:35:27Guest:Growing up, you know, I was educated to grow up to be a communist.

00:35:33Guest:You know, every kid is.

00:35:34Guest:You know, we're the inheritors of the communists.

00:35:39Guest:endeavor whatever endeavor that's a good word for it so when you're like a little kid yeah there's pictures of chairman mal oh yeah in the house in the yeah in the house every house has a feel uh-huh and i remember one woman made a comment he was she was like you know it's weird i just feel mouse eyes are following me even when i'm using the bathroom yeah and then she got arrested yeah she said that publicly yeah she's maybe she's

00:36:06Marc:you know blabbed it out uh-huh but then but not on tv or anything no no but maybe to a neighbor and the neighbor did that happen oh yeah it happens in the past a lot you know then where you get ratted out oh yeah yeah but now things are slightly better you know so right but they must have been changing a bit throughout your childhood i mean but because like how old are you i'm 45

00:36:28Marc:Oh, so when you were a kid, Mao was still alive, maybe, for a couple years, right?

00:36:34Marc:Yeah, he died when I was six.

00:36:37Guest:Wow, so do you have memories of... That's the first time I saw TV, television, you know, because I didn't grow up with television.

00:36:44Guest:And then when Mao died, the whole school organized us to go to this huge hall to watch his funeral.

00:36:51Guest:Really?

00:36:52Guest:That's the first time I saw television.

00:36:54Marc:No kidding.

00:36:55Marc:Yeah, no kidding.

00:36:56Marc:How old were you, six?

00:36:57Guest:Six, yeah.

00:36:57Guest:So no TVs in the houses?

00:36:58Guest:No.

00:37:00Guest:What was the entertainment?

00:37:01Guest:Oh, nothing.

00:37:02Guest:A lot of times I was standing under a telephone post and there's a speaker mounted on the post.

00:37:13Guest:And there's some songs or there's some Chinese crosstalk, which is kind of like vaudeville comedy.

00:37:20Guest:Oh, really?

00:37:21Guest:Yeah.

00:37:21Guest:I would stand under a telephone post and listen to some entertainment.

00:37:25Guest:In town or on the corner?

00:37:28Guest:Where was the television post?

00:37:29Guest:Oh, just on the road.

00:37:31Guest:And they just blare out at weird times?

00:37:33Guest:Yeah, yeah.

00:37:34Guest:Everybody can hear it.

00:37:35Guest:The whole village or whatever can hear it.

00:37:37Guest:And that's the entertainment.

00:37:38Guest:That's the entertainment.

00:37:39Guest:Oh, my God.

00:37:40Guest:Yeah.

00:37:41Guest:And then every day we will hear this weather report.

00:37:44Guest:Yeah.

00:37:45Guest:And not just the temperature.

00:37:46Guest:Like would it wake you up?

00:37:48Guest:No, it's during the day.

00:37:49Guest:Okay.

00:37:50Guest:Yeah.

00:37:50Marc:So there wasn't sort of like out of nowhere you just hear, wake up.

00:37:54Guest:no no no just basically maybe sometime in the afternoon they will broadcast some stuff it was scheduled like every schedule yeah yeah so you'd get weather reports weather reports crosstalk crosstalk some songs and news songs like um what kind of songs oh it's you know it's the love for the country anthems yeah yeah no kidding

00:38:18Guest:And that was when you were younger than 10?

00:38:21Guest:Yeah, a lot younger than 10.

00:38:23Guest:So after 1978, 79, China starts to open up.

00:38:28Guest:And we can gradually listen to foreign radio stations.

00:38:33Guest:Because before that, if you listen to a foreign radio station, you can get reported and arrested.

00:38:38Guest:No kidding.

00:38:39Guest:Yeah, and then after that, I started to... I remember the first American song I heard is Girls Just Want to Have Fun.

00:38:46Guest:Really?

00:38:47Guest:Cindy Lauper.

00:38:49Marc:I still have a very fond memory of it.

00:38:53Marc:Tell me about this crosstalk, though, because I imagine having performed in America and having the root of... I talk to a lot of comedians.

00:39:05Marc:Yeah.

00:39:05Marc:And we all have an experience of of what comedy is and what is funny.

00:39:10Marc:And I have absolutely no sense at all of, you know, what like if you went to to an entertainment, not necessarily a comedy show because they didn't have stand up comedy then.

00:39:20Marc:Or you were sort of like you wanted all cultures have some sort of, you know, clowning or comedy or something.

00:39:25Marc:Yeah.

00:39:26Marc:But what was crosstalk?

00:39:28Marc:What's the structure of it?

00:39:29Guest:It's basically two guys on stage.

00:39:33Guest:One being a funny guy.

00:39:35Guest:The other one is basically he is the audience.

00:39:40Guest:So like a straight man of his sort.

00:39:42Guest:Yeah, straight man of his sort.

00:39:44Guest:And it's a safer form of art.

00:39:46Guest:It's like stand-up comedian on stage.

00:39:48Guest:You tell the joke.

00:39:49Guest:It bombs, it's all on you.

00:39:52Guest:Sure.

00:39:52Guest:If two guys on stage, if a joke bombs, the other guy can say, oh, well.

00:39:59Guest:Right, right.

00:40:00Guest:They didn't take that away.

00:40:01Guest:Yeah, exactly.

00:40:01Marc:So he represents the audience in a way.

00:40:03Marc:He's like sort of a middle man.

00:40:04Marc:That is sort of a straight man in kind of a pure sense.

00:40:07Marc:Yeah.

00:40:08Marc:Where he'd set up the joke, and then if the audience doesn't laugh, he can say, well, I guess we didn't like that one.

00:40:13Marc:Yeah, exactly.

00:40:14Marc:And what were the topics?

00:40:16Guest:Oh, they usually tell a long story in 20 minutes.

00:40:21Guest:One story.

00:40:22Guest:One story.

00:40:23Guest:It's a completely made-up story.

00:40:25Guest:Everybody knows it's fake, but they kind of go along with it.

00:40:29Guest:And...

00:40:31Guest:And the audience are different, too.

00:40:33Guest:Like, in America, stand-up comedy is based, in a sense, it's a way to sell liquor in a bar.

00:40:40Guest:On a club level, yeah.

00:40:41Guest:But in China, they usually do this in a tea house.

00:40:44Guest:People drink tea, you know, and eat sunflower seeds.

00:40:48Guest:The whole family could be sitting at a table.

00:40:50Guest:Family entertainment.

00:40:51Guest:Yeah.

00:40:52Guest:Some food, maybe, or just sunflower seeds?

00:40:54Guest:Sunflower seeds, you know, some peanuts.

00:40:56Guest:That's a snack.

00:40:57Guest:No wings.

00:40:58Guest:No wings.

00:40:59Guest:Yeah.

00:41:00Guest:No hot wings.

00:41:04Marc:Yeah.

00:41:04Marc:And what was the other, like, where, like, I'm trying to get a sense culturally, like, what you would do as a family, you know, to sort of build your brain out around entertainment.

00:41:14Marc:I mean, were there, there was obviously movies.

00:41:16Marc:Yeah.

00:41:16Marc:Or movies huge in China.

00:41:18Marc:It's just like.

00:41:19Marc:But when you were a kid, they were Chinese movies, all Chinese movies.

00:41:22Guest:All Chinese movies.

00:41:23Guest:It's a lot of propaganda movies.

00:41:26Guest:With a theme.

00:41:27Guest:Yeah, with a theme.

00:41:28Guest:But then later on, they opened it up.

00:41:29Guest:A lot of Japanese, Indian movies came out.

00:41:33Guest:Before American movies.

00:41:34Guest:Before American movies.

00:41:35Guest:Now, in recent years, American movies became huge.

00:41:39Guest:All the blockbuster movies.

00:41:40Marc:Yeah, the American film industry is very happy about that.

00:41:42Guest:Oh, yeah, I know.

00:41:44Guest:A lot of writers and producers were in China.

00:41:49Guest:Oh, yeah?

00:41:50Guest:Trying to get a handle on it?

00:41:51Guest:Exactly.

00:41:51Guest:There's a lot of people here, a lot of ticket sales.

00:41:53Guest:Yeah, I know.

00:41:55Guest:The growth is like 30%, 40%, 50% a year.

00:41:58Guest:Just every year it grows so fast.

00:42:01Marc:I know we say billion, but there's got to be more than a billion.

00:42:04Marc:It's probably 1.4 billion people.

00:42:06Marc:It blows my mind.

00:42:08Marc:I know.

00:42:08Marc:So when you're a kid, the propaganda, what essentially were you taught in terms of the rest of the world?

00:42:16Guest:Oh, yeah.

00:42:19Guest:Americans are living in a hellish place.

00:42:22Guest:The capitalists are using the webs to get them to work harder.

00:42:28Guest:Oh, really?

00:42:28Guest:Yeah.

00:42:29Guest:And then I came to America and found out that was true, actually.

00:42:32I'm just kidding.

00:42:33Marc:We're all being whipped here by ourselves.

00:42:36Marc:That's the sad part about it.

00:42:38Marc:That's the part they didn't tell you.

00:42:40Marc:The people that were doing the whipping were us.

00:42:42Marc:We have to get more.

00:42:43Guest:We have to get more.

00:42:45Guest:If you don't get more, we're going to move the business to China.

00:42:49Marc:So you were taught to distrust and maybe, you know, dislike or judge America.

00:42:55Guest:Yeah, yeah.

00:42:57Guest:But that's the, you know, Russia does it, China does it, North Korea does it, you know.

00:43:02Guest:But then after... And you were on the border of North Korea?

00:43:07Guest:Yeah, yeah.

00:43:08Guest:I've been to North Korea once.

00:43:10Guest:Yeah.

00:43:10Marc:Did you do a show?

00:43:11Guest:No.

00:43:14Guest:Tough crowd.

00:43:16Marc:Yeah, I know.

00:43:16Marc:The opener got shot.

00:43:18Yeah, yeah.

00:43:18Guest:But actually, there's a social media site in China.

00:43:23Guest:It's dedicated to Kim Jong-un, the North Korean leader.

00:43:29Guest:Every day they have pictures of him.

00:43:31Guest:They make fun of him.

00:43:32Guest:Because he looks so weird and funny.

00:43:35Guest:Yeah, sure.

00:43:36Marc:And that's in China?

00:43:38Marc:That's in China, yeah.

00:43:39Marc:Your family's Chinese, though.

00:43:40Guest:Yeah, yeah.

00:43:41Marc:And do you have family in Korea as well?

00:43:44Guest:Oh, we lost touch a long time ago.

00:43:48Guest:Probably three generations ago.

00:43:50Guest:My ancestors may have lived there.

00:43:54Guest:I grew up in China.

00:43:56Marc:So how did you find...

00:44:00Marc:a way out, was it just a matter of the culture changing and there being opportunities and sort of there was, how did it come to pass that you were able to leave both mentally and physically?

00:44:15Guest:Oh, physically I have to take a lot of tests.

00:44:18Guest:You know, I took the TOEFL exam, the GRE.

00:44:21Guest:I went to graduate school in America.

00:44:23Guest:Yeah.

00:44:24Marc:So like, how does that happen though?

00:44:26Marc:Like, like, like, so you, you go to school.

00:44:28Marc:What were you studying when you were a kid?

00:44:30Marc:I mean, how does education work in China?

00:44:32Guest:Yeah, you basically go through elementary school, high school and stuff.

00:44:37Guest:And then you have to decide a major before you graduate.

00:44:42Guest:Before you graduate high school.

00:44:44Guest:Yeah.

00:44:44Guest:To study in college, you mean.

00:44:45Guest:Exactly.

00:44:45Guest:Yeah.

00:44:46Guest:So there's a college entrance exam.

00:44:47Guest:What'd you study?

00:44:48Guest:What'd you decide?

00:44:49Guest:Biochemistry.

00:44:50Guest:Oh, so you're a smart guy.

00:44:52Guest:Well, my dad wanted me to study biochemistry.

00:44:55Guest:He said, that's the science of future.

00:44:56Guest:You do that.

00:44:57Guest:Really?

00:44:57Guest:Yeah.

00:44:58Guest:What'd your dad do?

00:44:59Guest:He's an engineer.

00:45:00Marc:Okay.

00:45:01Marc:And he worked for, obviously, the government.

00:45:04Guest:Yeah, he works for a steel factory.

00:45:07Marc:That is owned by the government.

00:45:08Guest:Yeah, of course, everything's owned by the government at the time.

00:45:11Guest:He worked in the same factory for like 30 years or something.

00:45:14Marc:Making steel.

00:45:16Guest:Yeah.

00:45:17Guest:And they even have a sleigh to look for iron ore in the mountains because the technology was so backwards back in the 70s or 60s.

00:45:28Guest:They have a what?

00:45:28Guest:A sleigh?

00:45:29Guest:Yeah.

00:45:30Guest:People drag a sleigh and walk all over the mountains.

00:45:33Guest:Just looking for ore?

00:45:35Guest:Yeah.

00:45:36Guest:Wow.

00:45:36Guest:I know.

00:45:37Guest:It was so cold in the winter.

00:45:38Guest:Sometimes they had to sleep in the woods.

00:45:41Marc:Did you ever get the sense that...

00:45:43Marc:the idea of communism and the mission of the national agenda didn't really care about people.

00:45:56Marc:Because it seems like when you tell a story like that and you sort of, when I hear about that, when you hear about factory conditions and stuff, that it must feel like human life is a little bit disposable.

00:46:07Guest:Yeah, but that's in the era, you know.

00:46:10Guest:Yeah.

00:46:10Guest:Yeah, it's just a lot of people, you know, just suffer and die, and that's okay.

00:46:14Guest:But now, you know, it's unacceptable.

00:46:19Guest:But at the time, it's normal.

00:46:20Guest:You know, everybody lives like that.

00:46:22Guest:Right, it's just the way it is.

00:46:24Guest:Yeah, yeah.

00:46:25Guest:But a lot of people kind of has a lot of, they became nostalgic about the era.

00:46:32Guest:When things started to open up?

00:46:34Guest:Before things start to open up, because everybody's the same.

00:46:38Guest:Everybody wears the same clothes.

00:46:40Guest:Right.

00:46:40Marc:People knew there was not a lot of decision making.

00:46:43Marc:Exactly.

00:46:43Marc:It's like there was probably less competition.

00:46:47Guest:Yeah, exactly.

00:46:47Guest:But right now, you live in a shabby little hut, and your neighbor has a Mercedes.

00:46:55Guest:Right now, it's like this.

00:46:57Marc:Right.

00:46:57Marc:So, yeah.

00:46:58Marc:See what capitalism does?

00:46:59Marc:Yeah, I know.

00:47:00Marc:Exactly.

00:47:02Yeah.

00:47:02Guest:That's exactly what it is.

00:47:03Marc:Exactly.

00:47:05Marc:It ruined everything.

00:47:06Marc:Yeah, it's hard to keep up with the juniors anymore.

00:47:10Marc:Now I got to buy clothes.

00:47:12Marc:I know.

00:47:12Marc:It was so much easier when the government told us what to wear.

00:47:16Marc:Exactly, yeah.

00:47:17Marc:Well, that's kind of fascinating.

00:47:19Marc:So...

00:47:20Marc:By the time you finish high school, you decide on bioengineering.

00:47:25Marc:Now, how many sisters and brothers do you have?

00:47:27Marc:I have one younger brother.

00:47:28Marc:And was all that stuff really true about population control in China?

00:47:34Guest:You could only have how many kids?

00:47:36Guest:You could only have one child, but the policy just changed last year.

00:47:40Guest:Now you can have two, and they encourage you to have two kids now.

00:47:44Guest:So you have a very young brother?

00:47:48Guest:Yeah.

00:47:48Guest:Yeah, because we're ethnic Koreans, so we're allowed to have two kids.

00:47:53Marc:Oh, you're ethnic Koreans.

00:47:55Guest:Yeah.

00:47:55Guest:What is that?

00:47:56Guest:My ancestors came from Korea.

00:47:58Marc:So you got in a loophole.

00:48:00Marc:Yeah, exactly.

00:48:01Marc:You could have a brother in a loophole.

00:48:02Marc:Exactly.

00:48:02Marc:But most families only have one child.

00:48:05Marc:Yeah.

00:48:06Marc:Bizarre, right?

00:48:06Marc:I know.

00:48:07Marc:A lot of only children, I guess.

00:48:09Yeah.

00:48:09Marc:I wonder if they have ever done a study on, you know, I guess if you really want to know, you know, the psychological realities of an only child, you can go to China.

00:48:18Marc:Yeah, exactly.

00:48:19Marc:Yeah.

00:48:19Marc:So that's weird.

00:48:20Marc:So like all of your friends were probably like, you know, they just didn't have.

00:48:24Marc:any brother or sister to influence em or yeah yeah i know but you have cousins and stuff again oh that's right bigger families yeah bigger families is it in the family units pretty important in terms of oh it's a very important oh yeah yeah so that's how it's structured so like you know you have a large family

00:48:43Guest:I have a fairly large family, but then they kind of got scattered around the country, or even the world now.

00:48:48Guest:Yeah, yeah.

00:48:49Marc:All right, so how do you get from high school to American graduate school?

00:48:55Guest:Oh, then I went to college in China.

00:48:57Guest:For bio... For biochemistry.

00:49:00Guest:Then I have to take all these exams, English exams, and memorize the Oxford Dictionary like eight times.

00:49:07Guest:Really?

00:49:07Guest:Yeah, I have to just...

00:49:08Guest:Because the GRE has so much archaic words.

00:49:14Guest:For the American exam?

00:49:15Guest:Yeah, for the American exam.

00:49:16Marc:Okay, so you do undergraduate in China.

00:49:19Marc:But how are you afforded the opportunity to go to school in America?

00:49:22Marc:How does that happen?

00:49:23Guest:I just prepare a lot.

00:49:27Guest:So you can leave?

00:49:28Guest:Yeah, I can leave.

00:49:30Guest:Yeah, so after the 80s, you can leave.

00:49:32Guest:So there's a big wave of Chinese students coming to America to study.

00:49:36Guest:Right.

00:49:37Guest:Back in the 80s and 90s.

00:49:39Guest:So you memorized the Oxford Dictionary just for the GREs.

00:49:42Guest:Just for the GREs.

00:49:43Guest:And that kind of screwed me up a little bit.

00:49:46Guest:Why?

00:49:46Guest:Because for some reason, I thought every American knows every word in that dictionary.

00:49:52Guest:And I came here.

00:49:54Guest:I would talk to people like, wow.

00:49:55Guest:You're so wrong.

00:49:56Guest:I was like, man, today I feel lugubrious.

00:50:00Guest:People say, what the hell are you talking about, Joe?

00:50:04Marc:This is what happened when you went to graduate school?

00:50:06Guest:Oh, yeah.

00:50:07Guest:And some people just wouldn't hang out with me.

00:50:09Guest:I was like, why?

00:50:10Guest:He said, you're pretentious or something.

00:50:12Guest:You're just trying to integrate.

00:50:16Guest:Yeah, exactly.

00:50:17Guest:But I thought everybody knows these words.

00:50:20Guest:It's all words in the dictionary to me.

00:50:23Marc:The Oxford Dictionary nonetheless.

00:50:25Marc:Not even Webster's.

00:50:26Marc:I know.

00:50:27Marc:The big one.

00:50:28Marc:The two-volume one.

00:50:30Guest:So where did you end up?

00:50:33Guest:So I went to Arise University in Texas.

00:50:35Marc:That's a good school.

00:50:36Marc:Yeah, yeah.

00:50:37Marc:To do graduate work in biochemistry.

00:50:39Marc:Yeah.

00:50:39Marc:And did you finish?

00:50:40Marc:Oh yeah, I finished.

00:50:41Marc:I got a degree there.

00:50:43Marc:And what was it like, that transition of living in Texas outside of alienating people with the word lugubrious?

00:50:51Marc:What were your immediate feelings about being in America culturally?

00:50:55Guest:Oh, it was painful.

00:50:58Guest:I still remember to this day, I looked into the mirror and said to myself, oh, I swear to God, I will never go to another culture and try to adapt.

00:51:07Guest:It was so painful.

00:51:09Guest:How so?

00:51:10Guest:Because I can't communicate with people.

00:51:11Guest:I know a lot of words, but then when I say something, people don't quite understand because of the heavy accent.

00:51:20Guest:And I don't understand what other people are talking, because Americans, they joke around.

00:51:25Guest:And we're telling a joke.

00:51:27Guest:I can't understand every word in it.

00:51:29Guest:But you can't understand the tone.

00:51:31Guest:I don't understand the tone, and more importantly, I don't understand why it's funny.

00:51:36Guest:So everybody else is laughing.

00:51:37Guest:I was like, what the hell is going on here?

00:51:39Guest:Was it like sarcasm?

00:51:41Guest:Yeah, sarcasm is a big thing because I always take it literally.

00:51:45Guest:Yeah, right.

00:51:47Guest:So you were the guy not laughing.

00:51:48Guest:Yeah.

00:51:50Guest:For example, I work in the lab.

00:51:51Guest:If I borrow some equipment, I can't even use this.

00:51:55Guest:They're like, oh, it's 20 bucks.

00:51:56Guest:I said, okay, I'll give you $20.

00:51:58Guest:But they're like, no, no, we're just kidding.

00:52:03Marc:So you

00:52:04Marc:You felt you were very vulnerable because it was like you couldn't, this sort of cultural norm of how people communicate with comedy was lost on you.

00:52:19Guest:Yeah, yeah.

00:52:20Marc:So you were made not on purpose, but to feel like an idiot all the time.

00:52:23Guest:Yeah, feel like an idiot.

00:52:24Guest:And then when I try to learn from that, but then people see me as a serious person.

00:52:29Guest:Right.

00:52:29Guest:So then when I try to tell a joke, they took it seriously.

00:52:33Guest:Once another person tried to borrow some stuff from me, I said, oh, it's 20 bucks.

00:52:38Guest:Yeah.

00:52:38Guest:And then my lab mate got really mad.

00:52:40Guest:She was like, Joe, you can't charge money for that.

00:52:43Guest:I was trying to be sarcastic.

00:52:46Guest:Yeah, I know.

00:52:47Guest:But then people thought I'm always serious.

00:52:50Marc:Well, that's a weird thing in that because I can only speak for myself, but it is a completely different cultural language.

00:53:01Marc:Even though we're all people and I understand that.

00:53:03Marc:But I wasn't encultured.

00:53:05Marc:I didn't have an experience with Asian people.

00:53:07Marc:you know in in my life growing up there was no it always seemed like you know weird oh you know not bad but like i don't know what's happening and when i went to china i was like not only again not only do you know it's happening but clearly whatever's happening here has been happening a lot longer than anything else that i understand so who am i to judge but i but i felt you know i felt stupid you know what i mean yeah and then you get to that point where it's sort of like

00:53:32Marc:Well, what do they like?

00:53:35Marc:What do they think is funny?

00:53:36Marc:And I have to assume that the learning process, when were you able to, and I used they, I was being sarcastic in a way, but that's the, it's not necessarily racist, but it is just kind of naive.

00:53:52Marc:Yeah.

00:53:52Marc:You know, like, how the fuck am I supposed to know?

00:53:55Marc:You know, see, like, because it seems to me that your experience, not only until you started to relax culturally into American ways, were you sort of seen as a whole person.

00:54:06Guest:Exactly.

00:54:06Guest:Yeah, that's absolutely true.

00:54:08Guest:And what bothers me is my experience in America, you know, it's only the first three months of experience could be understood by people in China.

00:54:20Guest:What do you mean?

00:54:21Guest:Because after that, you know, when you- Oh, you're like an American.

00:54:24Guest:Yeah, yeah.

00:54:25Guest:You dig into the American culture, they don't understand it more, you know.

00:54:28Guest:So now you're a stranger in both lands.

00:54:30Guest:Oh, yeah, I know.

00:54:32Guest:But that's, yeah, in a way, I kind of bother.

00:54:35Guest:I feel like there are probably only five or six people in the world who understand what I'm going through, you know.

00:54:42Guest:Absolutely.

00:54:42Guest:For those three months.

00:54:44Guest:Yeah, I know.

00:54:44Guest:It's like I did comedy here in the United States.

00:54:48Marc:Well, let's get to that.

00:54:48Marc:So you get the degree.

00:54:51Marc:Yeah.

00:54:51Marc:And, you know, over time, I imagine what happened?

00:54:54Marc:You did have a few American friends.

00:54:57Marc:Yeah.

00:54:57Marc:And through that, you know, because, well, I think that is really the thing is that, you know, we make an assumption that people who...

00:55:07Marc:Come from an Asian background who are not Americanized in any way that that's their personality.

00:55:14Marc:But it's really we don't have access to it.

00:55:18Marc:Oh, yeah.

00:55:18Marc:Do you know what I mean?

00:55:19Guest:We're making assumptions based on the fact that we can't communicate emotionally.

00:55:22Guest:Yeah, yeah.

00:55:24Guest:I totally get this.

00:55:25Guest:You know, you see an Asian person, you feel, oh, he's from another country.

00:55:28Marc:Or just that, like, how do you make him laugh?

00:55:31Marc:How do you know if he's sad?

00:55:32Guest:Yeah, I know.

00:55:33Guest:Is he understanding this properly?

00:55:37Guest:Yeah, there's not a lot of facial expressions in Chinese culture.

00:55:41Guest:Is that true?

00:55:41Guest:Yeah, yeah.

00:55:42Guest:So a lot of time I have to explain, look, this is my sad face.

00:55:46Guest:This is my happy face.

00:55:47Guest:It's the same.

00:55:48Guest:Yeah.

00:55:48Guest:Is that really true, though?

00:55:50Guest:Kind of.

00:55:51Guest:But in China, it's subtler.

00:55:53Guest:Right.

00:55:55Guest:Like when we're talking, you have hand gestures, you know, you're making faces.

00:55:59Guest:But in China, it's very rare.

00:56:01Marc:Right.

00:56:01Marc:So it's about, you know, emotional visibility in a way.

00:56:06Marc:Yeah, exactly.

00:56:07Marc:That like, you know, Americans, you know, whether they're, you know, repressed or cagey or angry, the cultural dialogue is sort of like, I need this, I need that, and I'm this guy, and here I am.

00:56:19Guest:Make a lot of noises.

00:56:20Guest:Kind of.

00:56:21Guest:Yeah, but the Chinese culture is opposite.

00:56:23Guest:You know, if a Chinese person got into trouble, the first thing they think is, oh, I'm going to go to the woods.

00:56:29Guest:Go into the woods and see some nature, you know, and feel good about it.

00:56:33Marc:What kind of trouble would drive someone to the woods?

00:56:36Marc:You mean, oh, if somebody got an emotional difficulty.

00:56:38Guest:Yeah, yeah.

00:56:39Marc:I got to get out and be alone.

00:56:40Guest:Exactly.

00:56:40Guest:You know, oh, you know, either relationship troubles or, you know, money troubles or, you know, career-wise, they would go into a place where there's good scenery.

00:56:51Guest:You know, that's how they... Oh, really?

00:56:54Guest:That's how they have their...

00:56:56Marc:That's how they deal with their problems.

00:57:00Guest:Right, right, right.

00:57:00Marc:That's how they process.

00:57:02Marc:Exactly.

00:57:03Marc:But where does that come from, do you think?

00:57:06Marc:Growing up in communist China, how did they deal with interpersonal problems?

00:57:11Marc:Was it just forbidden to have relationship problems?

00:57:14Marc:I imagine there were laws, but was there some way to... Did they somehow address sort of like, if you're sad...

00:57:22Marc:You know, go do this.

00:57:25Marc:Not really.

00:57:27Guest:If you're sad, you know, people very rarely talk about emotion.

00:57:32Guest:Right.

00:57:33Guest:During that time, it's capitalistic.

00:57:35Guest:You know, it's bourgeois.

00:57:37Guest:Oh, okay.

00:57:38Guest:It's just bad.

00:57:39Guest:Right, right.

00:57:40Guest:You suck it up.

00:57:41Guest:You just suck it up.

00:57:42Guest:Right.

00:57:42Guest:You know, like a lot of marriages were arranged by the government or by the party.

00:57:47Guest:Uh-huh.

00:57:48Guest:Yeah.

00:57:48Guest:Oh, you two are single.

00:57:49Guest:You know, you get married.

00:57:51Guest:Right.

00:57:51Marc:And that's that.

00:57:51Marc:That's it.

00:57:52Marc:Yeah.

00:57:52Marc:So when did you start to feel, you said three months, uh, that you, you, you became sort of corrupted in a way, maybe pleasantly.

00:58:01Marc:So, so you spend the first trip back to China after going to graduate school.

00:58:08Marc:I mean, obviously you speak Chinese and you know, you, but, but what were, what were the noticeable differences?

00:58:13Marc:What did your family and friends in China say?

00:58:15Marc:Like, you're different.

00:58:16Marc:You do this now.

00:58:16Marc:What was it?

00:58:17Marc:You laughed.

00:58:18Marc:What was it?

00:58:20Guest:Yeah, well, it's more like...

00:58:24Guest:It's hard to say.

00:58:26Guest:When you go to a restaurant in China, it's very normal to split the bills in America.

00:58:33Guest:But in China, especially the part where I was from, it was really frowned upon.

00:58:39Guest:The proper way of doing it is we have a meal together and afterwards we fight for the bill.

00:58:45Guest:You fight for it.

00:58:45Guest:Yeah, exactly.

00:58:47Guest:It's still this way.

00:58:49Guest:How does that fight unfold?

00:58:51Guest:It doesn't get violent.

00:58:53Guest:Sometimes it gets violent.

00:58:54Guest:This is a real true news, true story.

00:58:59Guest:Last year, two guys fought over a bill, and one guy broke the other guy's arm, and this other guy got arrested.

00:59:07Marc:The guy who broke the arm?

00:59:08Guest:Yeah, yeah.

00:59:09Guest:Just because they're fighting for the bill.

00:59:11Guest:I'll pay for it.

00:59:12Guest:No, no, no, I got to pay for this.

00:59:14Marc:What is it, a pride thing?

00:59:15Guest:Yeah, it's a pride, and also I feel better if I'm paying for the whole thing because we're friends.

00:59:21Guest:Uh-huh.

00:59:22Marc:they're probably not friends anymore yeah no it was a jail the other arms broken and fed yeah exactly free meal and and a broken arm yeah but he's not in jail so when does um when does comedy in the form of stand-ups you know sort of uh get on your radar when how does that happen

00:59:45Guest:Well, this probably after I graduated from college and then I started working, a friend of mine took me to a comedy club in Houston.

00:59:55Guest:I think it's the Laugh Stop.

00:59:57Guest:Yeah, I remember that place.

00:59:58Guest:Yeah, yeah.

00:59:58Guest:And the first guy I saw was Emo Phillips.

01:00:02Guest:Oh, yeah?

01:00:03Guest:Yeah, and he didn't even do this weird hair thing.

01:00:06Marc:Oh, he's back to that now.

01:00:09Marc:Oh, really?

01:00:09Marc:Yeah.

01:00:10Marc:But there was a period where he was wearing glasses and he had the regular haircut.

01:00:13Guest:Yeah, yeah.

01:00:14Marc:That period.

01:00:15Guest:He basically sat on a stool and told jokes, and it was great.

01:00:19Guest:But then, of course, I only could have understood half the jokes.

01:00:23Marc:Well, he's hard to understand anyways, in a way.

01:00:25Marc:But like, I would imagine that as far as tone goes, you know, he's sort of a surrealist.

01:00:31Marc:So I would imagine actually he'd probably be easier to understand than some other comics because it's like poetry.

01:00:39Guest:It's very much.

01:00:40Marc:There's a logic to it.

01:00:41Guest:yeah there's logic and you know every word means something you just grab onto it but still and you were laughing yeah i understood probably half the jokes yeah but then i still was really impressed you know i was like wow you know i should you know watch this more so i started to watch more stand-up comedy who else connected with you

01:01:00Marc:Oh, then later on, it's just more TV stuff, you know?

01:01:03Marc:And then... So when you came here and you were watching American television for the first time, it must have been sort of like, oh, my God.

01:01:09Marc:Like, did you always... Like, when you first came to graduate school, did you spend a weekend just watching TV?

01:01:14Marc:Oh, we watched a lot of TV.

01:01:16Guest:In the beginning, from PBS.

01:01:18Guest:Because PBS, you know, they speak relatively slower...

01:01:23Guest:And then they, I don't know, they pronounce every word and they use really formal English language.

01:01:30Guest:So that's something I can understand.

01:01:32Guest:Right.

01:01:33Guest:Then I watch Leno or Letterman.

01:01:36Guest:Too fast?

01:01:37Guest:Yeah, it's too fast.

01:01:38Guest:I don't know what those celebrities are.

01:01:41Guest:I don't get the references.

01:01:42Guest:Why are they laughing?

01:01:43Guest:Yeah, why are they laughing?

01:01:45Marc:But did you find, was there a sense, like could you...

01:01:49Marc:Because in the conversation culturally about China and about the United States, there's this idea of freedom versus non-freedom.

01:01:57Marc:Did you have a sense of that when you got here?

01:02:00Marc:Were you kind of like, is this what freedom feels like?

01:02:05Guest:Yeah, you do feel that.

01:02:06Guest:When I first got here, I feel that, oh, there's nobody watching over me.

01:02:11Guest:No pictures of Mao.

01:02:13Guest:No pictures of Mao, that's for sure.

01:02:14Guest:Yeah, a lot of pictures of Washington.

01:02:16Guest:Sure, on the money.

01:02:17Guest:On the money, yes, exactly.

01:02:18Marc:Seems like the only pictures their leaders are on is the money.

01:02:21Marc:This makes perfect sense.

01:02:25Marc:Yeah.

01:02:26Marc:Like, what were some of the things that you did sort of like, I can do this now?

01:02:30Marc:And I couldn't do this.

01:02:32Marc:Was it just a matter of people not, you know, watching you in the same way?

01:02:38Marc:Or were there things you wanted to eat?

01:02:40Guest:Yeah.

01:02:42Guest:Watching is one thing.

01:02:44Guest:And I don't have to worry too much about, you know, what I say in public.

01:02:47Guest:Right.

01:02:47Guest:That's another thing.

01:02:48Guest:And also, you know, there's like strip clubs.

01:02:53Guest:You know, like, I'm not even kidding.

01:02:55Guest:I came to this country and I was already married to my wife.

01:02:59Guest:But then still we have friends who got married and I'm a married guy.

01:03:04Guest:Maybe I shouldn't go to a strip club.

01:03:07Guest:My wife's like, that's okay.

01:03:08Guest:I'm going with the girls anyway.

01:03:10Guest:Oh, really?

01:03:11Guest:She's going to go to the male strip club?

01:03:13Guest:Yeah, exactly.

01:03:14Marc:So you were married when you got here?

01:03:15Marc:Yeah.

01:03:16Marc:And did you talk about the experience when you got home, the two of you?

01:03:19Guest:Oh, yeah.

01:03:21Guest:We checked some notes.

01:03:25Marc:I guess that's okay.

01:03:27Marc:It just depends on how often you went.

01:03:29Marc:Oh, yeah, yeah, exactly.

01:03:30Marc:If some guy's married, it's probably okay.

01:03:34Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

01:03:35Marc:So that was a pretty, I guess that's an amazing experience.

01:03:38Marc:Do they have strip clubs in China now?

01:03:39Marc:No, they don't.

01:03:41Marc:Well, there's underground stuff.

01:03:42Guest:Oh, yeah.

01:03:43Guest:There's some things that are crazy.

01:03:45Guest:They even have strippers in funerals now.

01:03:48Guest:In China?

01:03:49Guest:Yeah, just really a remote part of China.

01:03:52Guest:Nobody quite knows where it is.

01:03:54Guest:It happens, I guess.

01:03:56Guest:And then somebody made a video of it and then put it on social network.

01:04:00Guest:That's how people knew.

01:04:02Guest:Wow, then they do this.

01:04:03Guest:At a funeral.

01:04:05Guest:Yeah, I know.

01:04:05Marc:That's an interesting approach.

01:04:06Marc:I guess that's one way to handle the grieving process.

01:04:11Yeah.

01:04:11Marc:All right, so you see Emo Phillips, you're watching stuff on TV.

01:04:15Marc:What other comics did you like at that time?

01:04:17Guest:Oh, I loved Woody Allen.

01:04:20Guest:Yeah.

01:04:20Guest:Yeah, because I always wanted to learn English, and I joined an English class, and the teacher just said to me, hey, you seem to like writing humor stuff.

01:04:33Guest:So she gave me a book of short novels and essays.

01:04:36Guest:Wow.

01:04:36Marc:Without Feathers or which one?

01:04:38Guest:No, it's a kind of a compilation of a lot of different authors.

01:04:43Guest:Oh, okay, okay.

01:04:44Marc:Yeah, Woody Allen was one of them.

01:04:45Marc:Oh, I see.

01:04:46Marc:Not a Woody Allen book.

01:04:47Guest:No.

01:04:47Guest:Oh, yeah.

01:04:48Guest:Yeah, and then later on I bought it Without Feathers.

01:04:50Guest:Side effects.

01:04:51Guest:Side effects, yeah.

01:04:53Marc:And so that taught you sort of the sensibility of writing comedy.

01:04:57Guest:Yeah, yeah.

01:04:58Guest:And then I watched George Carlin.

01:05:01Guest:Later stuff?

01:05:04Guest:Yeah.

01:05:05Guest:When I watched him, I was like, why should I do comedy?

01:05:08Guest:This guy did everything.

01:05:10Guest:That's a lot of ideas.

01:05:12Marc:it's kind of discouraging in a way but i figure you know well you know i have to do this really you were possessed by it you were you were like i have to do this yeah yeah well it's interesting to me that you know to come from a culture where you know speaking publicly was you know possibly punishable that you were like i'm gonna not only speak publicly but i'm gonna do it in front of a lot of people and

01:05:34Guest:yeah because one motivation is i have of course everybody has different motivations yeah one thing is uh sometimes i would think of think of something funny yeah and say it among my friends i got no laughs but i always have a feeling that if i say this on stage it could be funny well that's that's the big leap from you know that that's the confidence that you can't really explain that it takes to to be a comic

01:05:57Guest:Yeah, I don't know why I got that feeling, but I just feel that I need to say something in public, even if it's at a street corner.

01:06:05Guest:I want to do it.

01:06:07Marc:But the idea, that's an interesting thing, because I knew guys, like a lot of people assume...

01:06:12Marc:that comedians are just naturally funny people in life.

01:06:17Marc:But I've known a lot of people that were, you know, socially awkward.

01:06:20Marc:Oh, I have anxiety.

01:06:21Guest:Right.

01:06:22Marc:Yeah.

01:06:22Marc:In real life, but they get on stage and they have this confidence of like, you know, I know this is funny.

01:06:27Marc:Yeah.

01:06:28Marc:And sometimes it takes a while for them to figure it out up there.

01:06:31Marc:But I've known a lot of people that were sort of categorically in some ways you wouldn't think were funny, but they figured out how to be funny on stage.

01:06:40Marc:Yeah, yeah.

01:06:41Marc:And I'm not saying you weren't funny, but the confidence required to say like, well, I know this is funny.

01:06:47Marc:Fuck you guys.

01:06:49Marc:What do you know?

01:06:51Marc:And do it.

01:06:51Marc:So where'd you first go on?

01:06:54Guest:That was back in 2002 in Boston, Somerville.

01:06:59Marc:I used to live in Somerville.

01:07:01Guest:Yeah, it's Hannah's.

01:07:04Guest:But how'd you get to Boston from graduate school?

01:07:07Guest:Oh, Texas.

01:07:07Guest:Yeah, after I graduated from school, I got a job in Texas.

01:07:11Guest:And then that company went under.

01:07:13Guest:So it's a small startup company.

01:07:17Guest:And so this is something I didn't notice myself until then.

01:07:21Guest:I have this attachment to people.

01:07:24Guest:I don't even realize this.

01:07:26Guest:And then even people I don't like.

01:07:29Marc:What do you mean?

01:07:30Marc:What kind of attachment?

01:07:31Marc:I don't know.

01:07:32Guest:We work together.

01:07:35Marc:So we're friends.

01:07:37Guest:I don't even like you.

01:07:39Guest:You don't like me.

01:07:39Guest:But when you're leaving, I feel really bad.

01:07:42Guest:Right.

01:07:43Guest:When the company is going under, every week I'm seeing somebody off.

01:07:47Guest:It just blows me nuts.

01:07:48Guest:Oh, getting fired.

01:07:49Guest:Yeah.

01:07:50Guest:Sad.

01:07:50Guest:Yeah.

01:07:50Guest:So I decided to work for a bigger company that's more stable.

01:07:54Marc:So you wouldn't have to deal with the emotional pain of people leaving?

01:07:57Guest:Yeah.

01:07:57Guest:And I try not to make friends at work.

01:07:59Guest:This is true.

01:08:01Guest:You're a sensitive guy.

01:08:02Guest:Yeah, I just try not to make friends at work and just do my job and go home.

01:08:07Guest:That's my plan.

01:08:08Guest:So I moved to Boston and then I figured- To work for a bigger company.

01:08:14Guest:Yeah, to work for a bigger company.

01:08:15Marc:What were you in, like research?

01:08:17Guest:Research, yeah.

01:08:18Guest:I worked for Sanofi Aventus, which is the second largest pharmaceutical company in the world.

01:08:23Guest:And then I went to a comedy writing class in Brooklyn.

01:08:28Guest:Brookline.

01:08:28Guest:Brookline, yeah, sure.

01:08:29Guest:Who taught that?

01:08:31Guest:It's Tim McIntyre.

01:08:33Guest:He's a comedian.

01:08:34Guest:Yeah, he's a comedian, yes.

01:08:36Guest:So you take a class in stand-up writing?

01:08:38Guest:Yes, just stand-up.

01:08:42Guest:Where I learned you need to have a set-up and a punchline.

01:08:44Guest:I didn't even know that before.

01:08:46Marc:Right, even after watching, you never really sort of deconstructed the joke.

01:08:51Guest:Oh, no.

01:08:52Guest:And then how to hold the mic, where to find comedy clubs.

01:08:56Guest:Oh, practical stuff.

01:08:58Guest:Exactly, it's really practical.

01:08:59Guest:And I made some friends, comedian friends, and we'd go out to that.

01:09:04Marc:And you started doing mics.

01:09:05Guest:Yeah, open mics, and also we went to a Greg House barbershop in Malden.

01:09:12Guest:To practice on Sundays.

01:09:14Guest:What is that?

01:09:15Guest:They had a show there?

01:09:16Guest:No, there's not a show.

01:09:17Guest:It's just he runs this barber shop.

01:09:20Guest:A comedian.

01:09:22Guest:Yeah, customers leave.

01:09:23Guest:We just go in.

01:09:24Guest:He sweeps the hair off the floor.

01:09:26Guest:We set up a mic, which is quiet.

01:09:29Guest:And we just practice?

01:09:30Guest:For each other.

01:09:31Guest:Yeah, for each other.

01:09:32Guest:And then we critique each other.

01:09:33Guest:But sometimes, you know, we're all new.

01:09:35Guest:It's really hard for us to critique each other.

01:09:38Marc:So there's just three of you?

01:09:40Guest:Well, probably five or six, but the three of us are the hardcore guys.

01:09:44Marc:And you do this like weekly?

01:09:46Guest:Yeah, every week, every Sunday.

01:09:47Marc:So like it wasn't a show.

01:09:49Guest:It wasn't a show, yeah, but we just, you know.

01:09:52Guest:Was that helpful?

01:09:54Guest:helpful for a while, but we did this for about three or four months.

01:09:58Marc:And you discuss jokes and say like, yeah, that would work better if you did this.

01:10:02Marc:And yeah, exactly.

01:10:03Marc:So that sort of engaged you in a collaborative process in, in sort of understanding other people's point of view and comedy.

01:10:09Marc:Exactly.

01:10:09Marc:Well, that's something I never heard that before.

01:10:11Marc:And I've talked to a lot of people.

01:10:13Marc:Never heard that where, where a group of comics got together and, you know, regularly, you know, just did their acts for each other.

01:10:20Guest:Yeah, yeah.

01:10:21Guest:We did that for a while.

01:10:23Guest:And every week we had, oh, these are new jokes that were the old jokes that didn't work.

01:10:28Guest:Why?

01:10:29Marc:So you would go on stage and open mics and you'd have jokes that were sort of like, I like this joke, but I can't get it to work.

01:10:35Marc:Yeah, yeah.

01:10:36Huh.

01:10:36Marc:So it's like a little writer's room.

01:10:38Guest:Yeah, yeah.

01:10:40Guest:But then that kind of tapered off and then we just kind of go out and do our own thing.

01:10:46Guest:So you were just doing open mics mostly?

01:10:48Guest:Yeah, yeah.

01:10:48Marc:And when did you, did you do the comedy union or the comedy studio?

01:10:53Marc:Comedy studio, of course, yeah.

01:10:55Marc:Yeah, yeah.

01:10:55Marc:And you know.

01:10:56Guest:Rick Jenkins.

01:10:57Guest:Sure.

01:10:58Marc:And was most of your comedy at the beginning making light of the fact that you were Chinese?

01:11:04Guest:Yeah, a little bit.

01:11:07Guest:Then I try to stay away from purely ethnic jokes.

01:11:11Guest:I just feel that it's a little bit too easy for me to do that kind of jokes.

01:11:16Guest:A lot of the ethnic jokes are kind of hacky to me.

01:11:19Guest:So I try to add more jokes to it.

01:11:22Guest:Yeah, you got to start with that to get comfortable and then kind of build it out.

01:11:27Guest:Yeah, but I have to do it in the beginning because there are so few Asian comics in Boston that I have to say something about the fact that I'm Asian and being on stage.

01:11:38Guest:So I later on figured out a great way of doing this.

01:11:42Guest:Yeah.

01:11:42Guest:Because there are a lot of Irish guys in Boston.

01:11:44Guest:Yes.

01:11:45Guest:Yeah.

01:11:45Guest:Everybody before me goes on stage, hey, I'm Irish.

01:11:49Guest:The audience cheers.

01:11:50Guest:Right.

01:11:51Guest:Then I went on stage.

01:11:52Guest:I was like, fuck it.

01:11:53Guest:I'm just saying, hey, I'm Irish.

01:11:55Guest:They got a big laugh.

01:11:57Guest:That's funny.

01:12:01Guest:And a lot of the comedy clubs in Boston are in a Chinese restaurant.

01:12:06Marc:Uh-huh.

01:12:06Guest:Not just... Kowloon.

01:12:07Guest:Kowloon.

01:12:08Marc:That's a big place of Kowloon.

01:12:10Marc:I remember when that opened, buddy.

01:12:11Marc:Yeah.

01:12:12Marc:That's like 400 people, man.

01:12:13Guest:Yeah, yeah.

01:12:14Guest:And before I go on stage, the host always introduced me like, oh, I met this next guy from the kitchen.

01:12:20Guest:Yeah, right.

01:12:21Guest:Of course.

01:12:22Guest:Yeah, and then the second...

01:12:24Guest:A couple of comedians who did this.

01:12:26Guest:And then one comedian finally just said to me, oh, Joe, I feel so bad.

01:12:29Guest:I said, why?

01:12:29Guest:He said, I saw other comedians introduce you that way.

01:12:33Guest:I just remember I used to introduce you that way too.

01:12:36Marc:So they knew it was being, yeah.

01:12:37Guest:Yeah, but I didn't mind.

01:12:38Guest:It's all for laughs.

01:12:40Guest:But there must have been a moment where the audience was like, really?

01:12:43Guest:Really?

01:12:44Guest:Yeah, yeah.

01:12:46Guest:Once I was on my way to the stage, one audience even raised his glass.

01:12:50Guest:It was like, some iced tea, please.

01:12:52Guest:They really thought I work in the restaurant.

01:12:55Marc:And that must have been sort of a fairly gratifying feeling.

01:13:00Marc:Because even as a guy who has my sensibility, working for those crowds, for Boston sort of towny crowds, primarily white, primarily a lot of Irish, but there's definitely a cultural thing there.

01:13:13Marc:It's unique to New England and Boston.

01:13:17Guest:Oh, yeah.

01:13:18Marc:And they're not easy.

01:13:19Guest:Yeah, not easy and very in-your-face.

01:13:22Marc:Yeah.

01:13:22Marc:So it must have been pretty gratifying to figure out how to perform for those people.

01:13:27Guest:Yeah, yeah.

01:13:28Guest:And actually, I didn't appreciate that until I started to do road gigs when I went to San Francisco or Denver.

01:13:35Guest:Right.

01:13:35Marc:Where you're like, this is easy.

01:13:38Guest:Yeah, but sometimes you turn people off.

01:13:40Guest:Oh, that's a little bit too mean.

01:13:41Guest:I was like, oh.

01:13:43Guest:People are actually nice here.

01:13:46Marc:I don't have to defend myself here.

01:13:50Marc:So you start working the road.

01:13:51Marc:What was your break to sort of like, what did you start as a middle or a feature or did you headline right away?

01:13:58Marc:Yeah.

01:13:58Guest:No, no, I started from opener, host, and I still remember once I was the opener, and then the middler was late.

01:14:10Guest:Oh, that's it.

01:14:11Guest:That's where you learn how to do time.

01:14:12Guest:I know.

01:14:13Guest:The guy was like, okay, you do half an hour.

01:14:15Guest:I'm like, I'm used to like 10 minutes.

01:14:18Guest:I still remember I was on stage.

01:14:21Guest:I'm watching, looking at my watch.

01:14:23Guest:It's like, okay, 27 minutes.

01:14:25Guest:My last joke.

01:14:26Guest:Where was that?

01:14:27Guest:This was another Chinese restaurant.

01:14:30Guest:Yeah.

01:14:31Guest:In...

01:14:33Guest:Needham or somewhere.

01:14:34Guest:Oh, really?

01:14:35Guest:Yeah, yeah.

01:14:36Marc:You know why they do the Chinese restaurants is a lot of those bigger Chinese restaurants have those huge rooms.

01:14:40Marc:Oh, yeah, exactly.

01:14:41Marc:It's like, you know, they build these like almost function halls.

01:14:44Marc:It's crazy.

01:14:45Marc:Yeah, that restaurant has two floors.

01:14:47Marc:Right.

01:14:48Marc:You know, they can all watch comedy, you know.

01:14:50Marc:And do you like, like, maybe this is insensitive, but I mean, when you do a Chinese restaurant, do you get feedback from the Chinese people there usually?

01:14:58Marc:Oh, yeah.

01:14:59Guest:Yeah.

01:15:00Guest:Sometimes they will ask me, hey, did you go to a comedy school here?

01:15:03Guest:They really think there is a comedy school.

01:15:06Guest:I'm a student from a comedy school.

01:15:09Marc:What is it like to sort of engage with American Chinese who have been here for generations that probably don't even speak Chinese like I would imagine?

01:15:16Guest:Oh, yeah.

01:15:17Guest:Well, I had an experience once.

01:15:20Guest:The town of Quincy has a huge Chinese population.

01:15:23Marc:Oh, it does.

01:15:23Guest:Yeah.

01:15:24Guest:And then the mayoral candidate that year wanted to have a fundraiser.

01:15:27Guest:So he invited me to this dim sum place.

01:15:29Guest:Yeah.

01:15:30Guest:And 300 people packed with, you know, basically Chinese people.

01:15:34Guest:Yeah.

01:15:34Guest:And he wanted me to do a set there.

01:15:37Guest:Uh-huh.

01:15:37Guest:So I went up on stage, did about 45 minutes, got no laughs, except from this white mayoral candidate's family.

01:15:45Guest:Right.

01:15:46Guest:And after my show, the one guy came up to me and said, can you speak Cantonese?

01:15:51Guest:I was like, nobody told me they were Cantonese at all.

01:15:55Guest:I did a whole set in English.

01:15:59Guest:Oh my God.

01:16:00Guest:But could you?

01:16:02Guest:No, I don't speak Cantonese either.

01:16:03Guest:What dialect do you speak?

01:16:04Guest:I speak Mandarin.

01:16:05Guest:Okay.

01:16:06Guest:So, you know, even if I know that they're Cantonese, I still couldn't do it.

01:16:11Marc:But they didn't speak English at all.

01:16:14Guest:He had a big idea, right?

01:16:15Guest:Yeah, I know.

01:16:16Guest:What a great idea.

01:16:17Guest:Get the Chinese guy.

01:16:19Guest:Exactly.

01:16:20Guest:It's a different dialect.

01:16:22Guest:So to this day, I'm still really jealous of Russell Peters.

01:16:27Guest:Oh, yeah.

01:16:27Guest:You know, he does stand-up comedy in English here, and then he goes to India, and people speak English there, too.

01:16:34Marc:All right, so he doesn't have to cross it.

01:16:36Guest:He doesn't have to switch languages.

01:16:37Marc:Well, it's interesting you bring him up.

01:16:38Marc:You know, he's able to cross over.

01:16:40Marc:You know, not so much in the States, but, I mean, like, globally.

01:16:44Marc:Oh, yeah.

01:16:46Marc:With an audience of anybody of any ethnicity because he speaks to the ethnic experience, to the experience of not being American.

01:16:54Marc:Yeah.

01:16:54Marc:And he's Canadian, but culturally, it's just sort of a fascinating thing because I know a lot of Chinese people like him, Indian people like him, just people of other ethnicity than just this American experience.

01:17:09Marc:He's a huge star everywhere but here.

01:17:12Guest:Yeah, I know.

01:17:17Guest:You know, jokes are jokes, especially in the United States.

01:17:20Guest:It's the same.

01:17:21Guest:But, you know, like when I perform in San Francisco, 80% of the audience are Chinese Americans or Asian Americans.

01:17:29Guest:But when I'm performing in Denver, 100% are white.

01:17:32Marc:Right.

01:17:33Marc:Sure.

01:17:34Marc:But I imagine there's some sort of a sense of pride and connection.

01:17:39Marc:Oh, yeah.

01:17:39Marc:And comfort that you would feel with an 80% Chinese audience.

01:17:43Guest:Well, to be honest, the first time I saw that many Asian faces in the crowd, I was nervous.

01:17:50Guest:Because all the jokes were tested only in front of white and black Americans.

01:17:55Guest:And I just had no idea how the Asian Americans would take it.

01:17:59Marc:And how'd they take you?

01:18:00Marc:They were really great.

01:18:01Guest:They were really supportive.

01:18:02Guest:They were like, oh, hey, we have somebody of our own.

01:18:06Guest:One of our own.

01:18:08Guest:Yeah, so I didn't have that feeling for the first seven or eight years doing comedy.

01:18:14Marc:And now you headline, obviously.

01:18:17Marc:Have you done specials?

01:18:18Marc:Oh, no, I didn't do any specials in this country.

01:18:21Marc:Yeah, I hope to do one.

01:18:24Marc:But how did the, like you've done a few lettermans and Ellen was a supporter and you built up a bit of a following, which is great.

01:18:33Marc:Now, you've made a decision to go back to China and work.

01:18:38Marc:How did that kind of happen?

01:18:40Guest:Oh, it's interesting.

01:18:41Guest:I was trying to get a sitcom in America for like three or four years.

01:18:46Guest:I worked with Letterman's production company.

01:18:49Guest:Worldwide Pants?

01:18:50Guest:Worldwide Pants.

01:18:51Guest:And we worked a bunch of different writers.

01:18:53Guest:Things just didn't work out.

01:18:55Guest:And in the meantime, I just noticed that a lot of American writers don't quite know the Asian experience.

01:19:01Guest:Uh-huh.

01:19:01Guest:So I wrote up my experience.

01:19:05Guest:And as soon as I finished writing, some Chinese publishers contacted me.

01:19:11Guest:They were like, hey, we want to publish a biography.

01:19:15Marc:Oh, yeah, in China.

01:19:16Guest:In China.

01:19:16Guest:I was fine.

01:19:17Guest:I just translated whatever I wrote in English to Chinese and got published there.

01:19:22Guest:And it was on a bestseller list.

01:19:26Guest:In China?

01:19:26Guest:Really?

01:19:27Guest:Yeah.

01:19:27Marc:Now, did you have a good publishing deal?

01:19:28Marc:Did you make money?

01:19:29Guest:Yeah, I made some money.

01:19:30Guest:Oh, good.

01:19:31Guest:Yeah.

01:19:32Guest:And then I went there and made some TV appearances.

01:19:35Guest:For the book?

01:19:36Guest:For the book.

01:19:37Guest:It was really nerve-wracking.

01:19:39Guest:I was on national TV.

01:19:41Guest:The host was like, hey, you're a comedian, right?

01:19:44Guest:Tell us some jokes.

01:19:44Guest:In Chinese, though?

01:19:45Guest:In Chinese.

01:19:46Guest:But I've never performed in Chinese before.

01:19:49Guest:Uh-huh.

01:19:49Guest:So I just stood there and translated my English jokes into Chinese, hopefully, at the head.

01:19:56Guest:On the spot?

01:19:56Guest:On the spot.

01:19:57Guest:It was the most... Did it work?

01:20:00Guest:Some of them worked.

01:20:01Guest:Some of them didn't.

01:20:03Guest:Just because they didn't understand?

01:20:05Guest:Yeah.

01:20:06Guest:It's because the culture is so different.

01:20:08Guest:They don't get a reference at all sometimes.

01:20:10Guest:But other jokes are fine.

01:20:12Marc:Yeah.

01:20:12Marc:Interesting.

01:20:13Marc:Interesting.

01:20:13Guest:Yeah, for example, I had a joke about, you know, just, you know, car accidents.

01:20:18Guest:If I were to die in a car accident, I wanted to be with a collision truck.

01:20:23Guest:No, a cement truck.

01:20:24Guest:Yeah.

01:20:24Guest:That way, immediately after I die, there's a statue of me.

01:20:27Guest:You know, it's a silly, silly joke.

01:20:30Guest:But then that works in China, too.

01:20:32Guest:People there understand, oh, the cement truck, you know, the statue.

01:20:36Marc:If you talk about other things, it's hard, you know, so...

01:20:39Marc:So on the spot, you're translating your jokes.

01:20:43Marc:Was the Chinese TV industry excited about you?

01:20:46Guest:Yeah, they were excited for a while to the extent that they offered me a show there.

01:20:52Guest:So that's what I'm doing right now.

01:20:54Guest:I'm hosting a weekly show.

01:20:56Guest:It's kind of a comedy slash investigative reporting.

01:21:02Guest:So I do some monologue in the beginning.

01:21:06Guest:And then I will lead into a topic.

01:21:07Guest:There's some undercover investigation.

01:21:09Guest:And then I will come on stage again.

01:21:12Guest:But not with criminal things, just with what?

01:21:15Guest:Yeah, just like food safety.

01:21:17Guest:Oh, really?

01:21:17Guest:Yeah, that kind of thing.

01:21:19Guest:Different China than you grew up in.

01:21:21Guest:Oh, yeah, yeah.

01:21:22Guest:And for a while they were like, oh, your topics are a little bit too conservative.

01:21:28Guest:You need to be more brave.

01:21:30Guest:You need to open up.

01:21:31Guest:Oh, this is great.

01:21:32Guest:You're the guy.

01:21:32Marc:Don't blame us if it doesn't go well.

01:21:36Marc:We'll bail you out of jail maybe if we can.

01:21:41Guest:Is the show popular?

01:21:43Guest:Yeah, it was the number one show on the network.

01:21:47Guest:It's not a big network.

01:21:48Guest:It was not the biggest network, but still, it's pretty decent.

01:21:50Guest:How many networks?

01:21:52Guest:Oh, there were, I don't know, 20, 30 different networks, yeah.

01:21:57Guest:So it's really wide open now.

01:21:59Guest:Yeah, exactly.

01:22:00Marc:Interesting.

01:22:00Guest:Yeah.

01:22:02Marc:the chinese work really hard you know it's like yeah 24 7 holidays especially the people working in the media they're always trying to get some shows going now what do you feel uh is the the how does the government stay in control now i mean what what is left of uh you know what you grew up in in terms of of rules and restrictions and and the fear that it put in people

01:22:26Guest:Yeah, as long as you don't talk about politics, the party, the leaders, you're probably okay.

01:22:34Guest:Oh, really?

01:22:34Guest:Yeah, so it's opened up by a lot.

01:22:38Guest:I think every country goes through this stuff.

01:22:40Guest:Even in America, it's a democracy's freedom, but they say that back in the 50s, in the sitcoms, the husband and wife can't walk into the same room after a scene, just in case people will imagine something.

01:22:55Guest:Right.

01:22:55Marc:No, every country, even the ones that are supposedly free, certainly here, there's definitely a lot of things we don't know.

01:23:03Marc:But in terms of social rules, those are kind of wide open.

01:23:08Marc:But there still is a mystery to how power is maintained and what's really happening.

01:23:16Marc:Yeah, yeah.

01:23:16Marc:You know what I mean?

01:23:17Marc:And that's still a dangerous place for some people to go.

01:23:20Marc:But, you know, it does seem the weird thing about the Internet, though, is in terms of transparency or what we assume is true or isn't true or investigative is like, you know, it's hard with the amount of information that's available to ever know what's true.

01:23:34Guest:Oh, yeah, exactly.

01:23:36Guest:That's a very interesting point.

01:23:38Guest:You think everything's out there, the truth should come out, but it doesn't all the time.

01:23:42Marc:And even if it's out there, people are like, nah.

01:23:45Guest:Somebody made it up.

01:23:46Marc:It's a weird time.

01:23:48Marc:Yeah.

01:23:49Guest:Another interesting aspect is China blocked Google, YouTube, Facebook, Twitter.

01:23:55Guest:Right, I remember that.

01:23:56Guest:So for these two...

01:23:58Guest:half years the only thing that reminds me of America is spam emails every once in a while I got an email hey do you want to enlarge your penis in two weeks oh god yeah I need to do something so nice to be in touch with America so now what brings you to LA now

01:24:20Guest:Oh, vacation.

01:24:22Guest:And also, I'm meeting some friends here, some writers and producers.

01:24:27Guest:And hopefully, I'm still hoping to get a show here going.

01:24:30Guest:Yeah, right.

01:24:31Marc:Is there a stand-up scene in China?

01:24:34Guest:Yeah.

01:24:35Guest:I can take some credit for the stand-up scene in China.

01:24:39Guest:When I got there back in 2013, there was one comedy club in Beijing.

01:24:44Guest:And they have a show about a week or every month.

01:24:49Guest:Once a month?

01:24:51Guest:Yeah.

01:24:52Guest:Now there's about four or five different comedy clubs.

01:24:57Guest:Oh, really?

01:24:57Guest:Yeah, there's a comedy show almost every day of the week.

01:25:01Guest:Oh, really?

01:25:01Guest:Yeah.

01:25:02Guest:We're actually building it up.

01:25:04Guest:And is it all Chinese?

01:25:05Guest:Yeah, mostly Chinese.

01:25:07Guest:There's English open mic, too.

01:25:08Marc:Uh-huh.

01:25:09Marc:Yeah.

01:25:10Marc:And the Chinese, do you find outside of references that structurally the American-style jokes work?

01:25:19Guest:Yes, especially with a young crowd.

01:25:23Guest:Who watches TV now.

01:25:24Guest:Yeah, who watches TV, who watches American sitcoms and talk shows on the internet.

01:25:30Guest:Those are the people who actually like stand-up comedy.

01:25:34Marc:Okay, so they know the style, but it's still in their language.

01:25:38Guest:Yeah, exactly.

01:25:38Guest:And it works.

01:25:39Guest:Yeah, it works.

01:25:40Guest:It works great.

01:25:41Guest:I did about 30, 40 shows in 1,000 people theaters.

01:25:49Guest:It's amazing, the feeling.

01:25:51Guest:So you're a big star there.

01:25:54Guest:I'm okay.

01:25:54Guest:Not huge, but I did okay.

01:25:57Guest:But there's no bigger Chinese stand-up comic than you.

01:25:59Guest:In China.

01:26:01Guest:Is there?

01:26:03Guest:There are a few guys.

01:26:05Guest:One guy was huge for a couple of years.

01:26:07Guest:And then, yeah, I'm on top.

01:26:11Guest:But yeah, I'm the biggest.

01:26:14Marc:Is there still anything left of like the crosstalk audience?

01:26:18Guest:Yeah, the crosstalk is still big.

01:26:20Guest:Yeah.

01:26:20Guest:So they coexist right now.

01:26:23Guest:That's interesting.

01:26:23Marc:It's like coexisting with vaudeville.

01:26:25Marc:Yeah, exactly.

01:26:26Marc:Yeah.

01:26:27Marc:So the tea house circuit is still there.

01:26:29Guest:The tea house circuit is still there, but then the coffee circuit is still there too.

01:26:33Guest:Because the Chinese stand-up comedy is mostly done in coffee houses.

01:26:38Guest:But these coffee houses in China sell liquor as well.

01:26:41Guest:So it's pretty interesting.

01:26:43Guest:It's fascinating.

01:26:45Yeah.

01:26:45Guest:I would say like Americans, if you go to China, you got to check out these bars.

01:26:49Guest:There's no age limit.

01:26:51Guest:I took my six-year-old son to a bar.

01:26:53Guest:We played darts.

01:26:56Guest:If I need lemon, he would crawl under the little door and get lemon from me behind the bar.

01:27:02Guest:No child labor if it's family business, I guess.

01:27:07Marc:Well, that's fascinating, man.

01:27:08Marc:So do you use your Chinese name or do you use the American name in China?

01:27:12Guest:The Chinese name.

01:27:13Marc:Which is?

01:27:14Guest:Xi, it's spelled as X-I.

01:27:17Guest:Yeah.

01:27:18Guest:And last name is Huang, H-U-A-N-G.

01:27:20Guest:Xi Huang.

01:27:21Guest:Yeah.

01:27:22Guest:And the woman, she couldn't pronounce it.

01:27:23Guest:She was like, Xi, Xi, 11, what is this?

01:27:29Guest:And you went, Joe.

01:27:30Guest:Joe, yeah.

01:27:32Guest:Yeah, I got the name Joe from an English class, actually, when I was in college in China.

01:27:40Guest:Yeah.

01:27:40Guest:The American teacher came, and he just doesn't want to remember the Chinese names.

01:27:45Guest:Oh, really?

01:27:46Guest:So he handed us a list of American names for us to pick.

01:27:49Guest:Really?

01:27:49Guest:Yeah.

01:27:50Guest:I was like, oh, hey, Joe, this is simple enough.

01:27:53Guest:I just picked Joe.

01:27:54Guest:Is that true?

01:27:55Guest:Yeah.

01:27:56Guest:So what was that class?

01:27:57Guest:That's an English class in college.

01:28:00Marc:Oh, English is second language?

01:28:01Marc:No, just English.

01:28:02Guest:But English, period.

01:28:03Marc:It was an American guy teaching it?

01:28:04Marc:Yeah, yeah.

01:28:05Marc:And that was his first lesson?

01:28:06Marc:Change your name.

01:28:07Guest:Change your name, yeah.

01:28:08Guest:Because I don't have the patience.

01:28:10Guest:Exactly.

01:28:10Guest:So everybody in the class got an American name.

01:28:13Marc:That's a very good introduction into the American way of doing things.

01:28:18Marc:It's a little Ellis Island that's brought right to you.

01:28:20Marc:Exactly.

01:28:23Marc:First thing we got to do if you're going to learn American is give you an American name.

01:28:30Guest:But now the Americans are doing the same thing when they're in China.

01:28:33Guest:They always pick a Chinese name.

01:28:35Guest:They do?

01:28:36Guest:Yeah, they do.

01:28:36Guest:They somehow sounded like their American name, but means something different in Chinese.

01:28:42Marc:So they can do business.

01:28:43Marc:Yeah, exactly.

01:28:44Marc:That's amazing.

01:28:45Marc:Well, it's great talking to you, buddy.

01:28:47Guest:Yeah, same here.

01:28:47Guest:Thanks so much for having me here.

01:28:49Guest:I'm glad we did it.

01:28:49Guest:It's a great pleasure.

01:28:50Guest:Yeah, it was.

01:28:51Guest:I've been a huge fan, you know, like a lot of your, you know, podcast, TV show.

01:28:55Guest:Well, I know we've been trying to do this for a couple of years.

01:28:58Guest:I'm glad we did it.

01:28:59Guest:Yeah, yeah.

01:29:00Guest:Same here.

01:29:00Guest:Thanks so much.

01:29:01Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.

01:29:05Guest:Thanks.

01:29:06Guest:Thanks.

01:29:07Guest:Thanks.

01:29:12Guest:Thanks.

01:29:18Marc:That was me and Joe Wong.

01:29:21Marc:That was interesting.

01:29:22Marc:I'm glad he came over.

01:29:23Marc:Also go to WTFPod.com for all your WTFPod needs.

01:29:28Guest:And maybe I'll play some guitar if it's not too loud.

01:29:44Guest:Boomer lives!