Ronny Chieng

The Craig Ferguson Fancy Rascal Stand Up Tour continues throughout twenty twenty four. For a full list of dates and tickets, go to the Craig Ferguson show dot com slash tour. See you out there, the Greig Ferguson show dot com slash Tour. My name is Craig Ferguson. The name of this podcast is Joy. I talk to interest in people about what brings them happiness. Today on the podcast, my guest is Ronnie Cheng. He's a Chinese Malaysian American comedian who.

Is a huge He's huge. He's like blowing up all over the place.

He's like the biggest deal on the Internet and TV. He's very, very, very funny and very interesting.

Here he is. That's a bearing night watch. Thank you. I kind of like I got it, Brightling, Brightling, the watch of white guys people.

No, no, no, white guys, no whit guys. I don't think white guys are anything brightly really yeah, yeah, I think like people who I don't care about watches, but in a cool way, not in an ignorant way, you know, like I'll just war you know.

I want to see I have to watches. Yeah, there you go, and they're both brightly. Yeah you don't care. It's not that I don't care. Yeah, I don't care about in the.

Cool way absolutely. All right, all right, let me.

I wanted to ask you something before we start, because I mean I watched I've watched a law of your stuff. Oh, thank you, and it's very funny. I want to talk to you about Australia. Oh please, because you.

Went to you went to school in Australia, right, you went to university and I only went to law school there. But which I you know, it's undergraduate, right, I went to undergrad law school there.

So are you are your lawyer? Then? Yeah? I passed the buy in Australia.

Yeah, so but you can only do in Australia, which is like sheep, yeah, it's all it's all criminals anyway.

So yeah yeah yeah.

But what happened in Australia I think is that if you can trace yourself back to the original criminals, that's actually cool now, right.

Or oh no, it's cool if you're them, right. They may it sound cool, but it's not cool. I don't think it's cool.

Well, they had they had a pretty bad. They get a pretty bad record, I think so. Yeah, I'm not scared.

Yeah, I'm the only one who will say, you know, everyone else's everyone else either it doesn't know about it or bassing it.

I'm like, yeah, you guys, kind of it was pretty bad. It was not a good time.

No, it was pretty I mean they just kind of wiped out everybody who was there, wiped out.

Never never formed a symbiosis Indigenous, not that anyone really did, but you know, at least at least uh the Maori's I think they had a treaty. Yes, you know, and you can when you go to New Zealand, Maori's on the money. Yeah, you know Mari language, you come in to greet you in MARII. You know, the the Mari art is kind of embedded into society New Zealand.

You know.

Australia, they not so much. They didn't do a good job of I wouldn't think.

I would when I was in Australian I've never been in Australia sober so I haven't been there.

I've been in a long time.

But I worked with an Australian comedian called Ernie Dango.

Do you know Erny danger.

I heard of Erny Dingo. Yeah, Erny Dango is cool. He's an Aboriginal comedian.

Please continue.

Well, I'm just saying I worked with him, but you didn't know them. So no, I've heard of him, but you're not. I'm not trying different generation. I'm not trying to dick here. You've got a couple of generations on me. I came on this podcast to talk to you, honestly because I want to hear about these stories.

Well, when when were you? When did you hear anything time? The kaiser was a massive his arms on the border.

When did you mean Ernie did Dingo circumstances we were? I was at the Melbourne Comedy first, Yes, my home festival. Really yes, And I don't think I want to talk to you about right, Okay, So I was at Melbourne Comedy Festival and an area called Fitzroy. Yes, what year is this? Roughly got it would be about nineteen eighty seven, eighty eight. It's freaking that's too crazy, right, it's too long. I know, that's way too nuts. He worked with another Australian Communian called Anthony Morgan.

You know Anthony.

I know him very well. You know I talked to him all the time. I make his website. He's a great he's a great comedian, great guy. He exited the game a little bit. He moved to Tasmania. Lives kind of off the grid, but he okay, she's kind of an off the grid sort of a guy. Even in the eighties he was that was but I know that he was a legendary. He was probably the original modern Australian folk hero.

Well, Anthony Morgan and I we used to play this because we had we had this drinking game we used to do and it was a place called the Last Laugh.

Yes, Roy's still there.

No, the Last Laugh moved to Collins Street, okay, at the Athenaeum, right, you.

Know, and remember the Athnyum. Doug Anthony ol stars used to play there. I know Doug was a right and and and then unfortunate. So it was a comedy club in Collins Street when I started, right and then unfortunately closed down, But it had Australia at that time. I had a certainly in the eighties, which is you were probably being born.

Then I was born. I was just born. You born. You were a tiny little beeB fucked up with yes, yeah, well that's great. Please I don't interrupt you.

But no, no, please interrupt me because I can do this podcast.

So I gotta do this one with you without you. No.

Because So I started doing comedy in Australia in two thousand and nine, right, so I was too late.

It felt pretty late to me.

I started when I was twenty four, right, Yeah, I stot twenty four.

I think I was a good age to start.

You know. I wasn't ahead of the curve, but I wasn't behind it, I think. And I because I'm a fan of comedy. I just love comedy history. And because I started in Australia, I have a fondness for Australian comedy history. That's why when you say these names, it's like, I know, to use not even history to you, that's just your cure.

But I am not a liv history.

I'm like Colonial Williams, but as a person. But the thing is, Anthony Morgan and I used to have this but there was upstairs at the Prince pat and we had this deal. We had to drink and you weren't allowed to have anything in your head when you go to the microphone, and you.

Had to do it ten minutes. Yeah, you guys are crazy that it was.

I don't know that it was good, but it was well Morgan, Anthony Morgan comes from this very prolific type of comic.

That category.

There's there's some geniuses in the world who are just they just go on stage and you know, for me, comedy takes so much work and it's scary and I have to work at it for months and months and months and hopefully I'll have five minutes that's good or decent. But for some people it's just like they're so prolific that it just comes and goes. And part of that tradition, I think is like an Edinburgh thing. Yeah, that's you know, because I've been to Edinburgh for festival.

I've done it a few times, right, and so you know, and Anthony went there and that it is so because I was touched with him after Australia. I don't know, I like, because I'm still drinking then and I got so I'm so glad. I can you give me a reason to message him again? I'll just be like, he's maybe, I would say, maybe the best stand up I've ever seen see.

I hear legends of this, I hear legends of this, and unfortunately it was a time before you know, writing was invented, so there's no record of any of this.

There's some high hieroglyphics, there's some hieroglyphic, but there's no record of this.

But this is all I hear because he was to ground this in a bit of facts. He I think the is fair to say the biggest comedy management company in Australia is Token Token Management, and the guy who founded is Kevin White. And Kevin White, so he imagined this guy who founded the most successful comedy management company in the country. He when he was eighteen, he managed Anthony Morgan.

Wow.

So meaning this wasn't this is not just a case of comic saying someone's good. This guy was commercially he was considered the best. You know he was he was.

But he was he was.

I remember we had a couple of nights and and you know he he was pretty pretty wild.

Oh he was when I met him. He was in my sitcom. He was in my sitcom. Yeah, so I knew of him before, but I wrote this sitcom about being a student intersral student. Yeah, and I wrote him a part. I mean it kind of came organically. Wasn't like I was out looking to write him a part, but of the kind of weary, bitter law lecturer and my co writer Declan Faye, also Australian, he suggests Anthony Morgan for this. I was like, yeah, that's that's great. So we had him in and I was a bit

I don't care about this. You know who I was at all. He came very collaborative, he got it. He was down.

He played with us, very very down to earth, you know.

But he but he in.

Essentially he lives off the green Tasmania. I'm pretty sure built. Yeah, I'm not not pretty sure. I know for a fact he built his own house with his own hands. And then he'll go and do the local pub gig every few months, and I'll kind of harass him to like record it, or I'll harass him to digitalize cassette that he's recorded from years.

A funny because he's kind of like, you know, like in the movies where they have to go and get the detective, you know, and he's retired, but he works on his boat and they say, you're the only guy that Morgan's kind of like that as a comedian is like I didn't give up on comedy.

Comedy gave up on me. It's a bit of that.

Yeah, and he I think he tried to come to America and he I think he toured a bit in America. And I think there's a there's sun comics who know him very well, you know, And so I'm so surprised that you mentioned him.

Yeah, you know, like I say, I think he may be the I mean, look in my memory, he's the He's the best I've ever seen.

It's the fate of all legends to be forgot.

Yes, but he's Yeah, he's still in Australia and I'll put you guys to touch it.

But how did you become a fan of comedy? Like you grew up in Singapore?

Right, yes? So is there a big scene of comedy there? Uh no, there was like a TV thing.

I grew up in Singapore, but they had they have their own type of comedy, you know, where it's not stand up, it's kind of TV sketch, a little slapsticky, there was one stand up comic in Australia, but.

Uh, it wasn't. It's not a known thing.

Sou Comedy is not a known tradition in Singapore right the way it is in the UK or Scotland, Australia. You know, where it's very established. You know what you're supposed to do. You go to the pub, you watch a comic, right, you know how you're supposed to behave. But we don't have that.

We don't have those norms. But when I started there, there wasn't. There was Billy.

Conley and oh okay, well then maybe we're not so different. Yeah, maybe not so different.

When I started in Scotland there was Billy Connley who was huge, like Billy's twenty years old toy. Absolutely, and then there was there were no comedy clubs. There was no places to go, so you would go to like a it would be like a music club or a discord or something. For yo, is this that would be like mid eighties mid eighties still okay?

Yeah.

In America they were the you know, they had the all the comedity clubs, the guys with the piano key ties and all that.

But we didn't have any of that, you know, you know what's interesting.

I was, I'm very lucky to meet Jerry Seinfeld and I got to ask him. I asked him about this, and he said the same thing as you did. He said when he started, there was nothing that's right. I think he I think he's he said he said, and he wasn't he you know, I don't think he was saying he definitely wasn't saying this to just be arrogant. He was just saying like we were the ones who started it. He's not in the rooms. Him and Lano at the time as well. I mean, these guys, Uh, do you ever meet Lano?

No?

No, man, Lano's an interesting guy. Not many people know how good a stand up.

Yes he is. I believe that. I believe he's a great stand up. He really is.

Robinson at the Seller will always tell me how good.

I did some dates with Jay this summer. We did this like old dudes of late night thing that's funny, funny.

It was great funny Me and Jay in our senior hall.

Jackie Mason was great. I met.

He's lovely, lovely and another great stand up. I mean, it's like but it's not I think stand up is a little bit like like playing electric guitar. There's a lot of people who are good at it, but you've got to have something that's maybe just a little different.

I mean, make you stand out. Yeah, that's all. That's all I think.

I know what.

You're right, So what was it with you?

You think that they made you because you have to do this thing. I think all stand ups have to do this. You go on stage and you dine it doesn't work. And that's the when you do that, like a real stand up laughs when you say that, because that's what Because I remember the first time that happened to me, and when I was terrible, and when I came over when people were going on, I'm sorry that happened, I was like, oh.

No, I got to do that. I can't. I got to do it again.

And I think there's something about stand up comedians that male female doesn't matter. It's like you're drawn to that weird kind of love of Yes, failure is a failure.

What is it? I don't know if that's ours. I don't know if that's a level failure.

I do think that I do think if I'm looking for a common thread there, I would say that it's probably that all the great comics I know don't think that they're good at comedy, right, and so you naturally think that you're bad shit.

Yeah.

And so when you bomb, if you feel like, oh yeah, I'm supposed to bomb, I'm not good at it, Yeah, you validate right, right, And then that's kind of how you quote unquote be a good comic.

That's a sign of being a good comic.

Because when you not that you enjoy bombing, but you're able to process in a way where of like, oh, yeah, I'm not good.

The Craig Ferguson Fancy Rascals Stand Up Tour continues throughout the United States in twenty twenty four. For a full list of dates and tickets, go to the Craig Ferguson show dot com slash tour. So you are there, My wife has this theory that all stand up comedians have the same type of mother. Oh interesting, it's cold with bad boundaries.

That's what she says, bad boundaries. That's pretty close. That's pretty close.

Did it to Lewis Black and he was like, oh my god, that's like that, that's great, that's funny. He said that he only Lewis said that he he only made eye contact with his mom on or deathbed, but she was one hundred.

And four men.

Oh man, But do you know it's kind of it resonates a little bit.

I mean, she met obviously my mom's past, but she met my mom. She's like Jesus.

And for the record, my mom is very warm, but there is some no boundaries in there and can be very harsh.

My mom can be very harsh. So yeah, so you know, a different world for cold. Yeah, but it's that kind of thing. It's like whenever whenever I see a good stand up.

Like their mom must be very tough. Yeah, very tough. Mom. My mom is tough. That's fair.

Was she upset that you went in a stand up because obviously, if you're going to law, that's one say of expectations.

You just say not to practice.

Well, I had a few things to answer a question. She was not as upset as I thought she'd be. Wasn't It wasn't thrilled, but not upset. But one of the few reasons for that was that we actually I went to university in a different country, so she wasn't even did.

Yeah, I didn't tell her. I didn't make a big deal about it.

I just went to go do it because I kind of instinctively knew like, hey, if this is going to work for me, I kind of have to do it on my own. I can't be you know, asking friends to come. I can't be like, you know, making like.

You never have friends. It's hilarious now now even now, I don't want friends now. I don't like, I don't even like my wife coming to that. Yeah, it's like, please don't because you know then for you, yeah, it'll be in my hand. Yeah, yeah, it be in my head that you're out there gone.

And also comedy is like it's different to music in that you have to be you have to want to be there. You can't just be background. So if you don't want to be there, just don't you know what I mean.

Have you done any corporate of course, yeah, because that's when that's the taste.

They don't want They don't really want you, but they have anyway.

Because it's corporates are so weird that they want you, but they don't. They sought you to come and p they will pay you and they'll pay you money, but they don't want you to be there. I know, it's the weirdest gig. It's horrible, nobody wants she'll be there. I talked to a musician, very famous.

I'm going to tell you what that you know, Josh Homie from Queensland Stone Age, Right, Okay, they don't corporate gigs anymore. He said the last time he did it, he was like playing down the front and there was a natural cheese fountain and there was a woman taking that and he was like, yeah, we can't do this. It's not a rock and roll it's not it's.

Not rock and roll.

And you know, comedy and rock and roll are very kind of countercultural. That's why it's it's at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. It's at the Fringe Festival, not the Edinburgh Festival. It's a fringe thing. Where did you Where did you play in Edinburgh?

Underbelly?

Unfortunately I don't know where that is. Oh that's I don't even know where that is. The Caves, the Caves. We started in Edinburgh in the eighty four, right, right, and I did it for I guess until about early nineties.

I guess Edinburgh boy.

Yeah, but I'm from Glasgow, but I started stand doing I had a show that started at two o'clock in the morning above a bar called the Kaffee Royal in Edinburgh.

And it was and what was that?

That's not when you say you had the show, doesn't mean that's a weekly show.

No, it was every night, every night you be two am at this Yeah, every night two am at this bar during the.

Endber Festival during the festival. Yeah yeah, no no, like yeah, yeah, yeah, that's cool.

But I didn't have anywhere to left because I'm glad, so I used to sleep in the photo booth at Waverley Station.

Yeah. Yeah, that's fucking gnarly. And did you was it one hour? Yeah, well I guess I know.

I would just do stand up for one hour at two am, about half an hour, I don't know, it's hard to say.

And was it like paid by donation? Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah it was.

So who were the comedians that you were drawn to when you when you were starting out, you thought I want to be like there or that.

So the person makes me laugh. Yeah.

The truth is when when I was four and a half years old, I was watching Seinfeld the TV show, and he would do his stand up in the interstitials. I remember, yeah, yeah, and then I told my mom like, hey, I want to do that one day.

And she didn't.

She was like, okay, whatever, you know, And that was the first time I saw someone doing that, Like, oh, I didn't know that was a way to express yourself.

But I didn't do anything about that.

At four years older, you don't want to be doing clubs.

I was in New Hampshire at that time, Manchester, New Hampshire. Oh really, yeah, yeah, I was, so my parents went there for college and they went to college very late after that, two kids. I was in Manchester, New Hampshire for a bit and that's why I saw Seinfeld.

And my wife is from oh really, Oh yeah, yeah, she's from Hanover, Hanover, Oka. But it's but there's a place where they are cold.

My memories of it was always very I liked that, but I was like four, you know, I go back there now. I went back there after I moved back to America after about twenty years. Twenty five years. Actually took me twenty five years to move back to America, and I went back there as an adult and I was like, oh, I guess this is a very random town to be in.

Now. Now you live in New York, I live in New York. Yeah, do you do you socialize?

You part of the scene with with like you socialize with E colonomics.

Do you go to the comedy club? I hit it hard.

I don't hang as much because I guess I'm older or whatever. But like, dude, you're not even forty. I'm I'm on in this scene. And but I do hit the clubs hot in Manhattan, in Brooklyn.

Yeah, do you try try trying new stuff?

Yeah, trying new stuff.

I try to get a new line every time I get on, at least one new line.

I mean, you know, old joke, even just get a new line. Do you do you do that?

Like when you're putting together like an hour, which I'm doing right now, right, do you do you learn it or do you write it piece by piece? Are you methodical about it?

My method has my mythology has changed over the years, I think so right now. I come from Australia, so we used we we're used to the Edinburgh.

Right, that vibe, that vibe. So you do like an hour?

Right?

Yeah, you do an hour?

Sometimes people do an hour before they even have fifteen minutes.

Yeah, as weird as that is, ye, Yeah, because they're doing crwd work and they're doing.

Personal stories, and they're a bit more indulgent, and the crowd gives them a bit more rope because it's so I come from that school, but I think I was always considered a more I don't want pay myself on the back, but I think I was more of a US style comic doing like an hour, So I'll never have a great pathos. So then I never had a grete One Men's show like some you know, someone died or something.

You know.

My my shows were always like kind of fifteen minutes of material, fifteen minutes of material, fifteen minutes maturre and then.

Some Do you think that'll change as you get older kids? Yeah?

No, enough kids, No, you know, I come from that, so it's hard for me to differentiate that One Men show and you know, quote unquote pure stand up, So I you know.

What is pure stand up? Though I don't really understand. I mean, yeah, good, I mean is it one liners? Yeah?

I mean maybe it's okay. So here's where I am

Right, Okay, yeah, you can butter them up and then you can do it right, right, right.

So now that's kind of my goal was to do that fifteen minutes. So in that sense, it's more of a stadt quote unquote stand but I've always been kind of a longer joke teller, you know. I think that again that comes from coming from Australia.

I think.

So I think also to me that that feels more like if you go to the real kind of storytelling roots of what this thing is. Yeah, when I'm putting together an hour, I put together like, maybe I don't know, twenty minutes of stuff that I know I'm going to say yes, But I know when I I always start pretty much the same time place I will start in Denver.

The comedy works in Denver, all the best clubs in the country for some reason. Yeah, it's crazy good.

So I go there with what I it's twenty minutes in my head and invariably it's an hour by the time I get it out in the club.

Or you come from that tradition, right, you come from that, you know Connorley tradition.

You can come up twenty minutes of ideas and make it come of an hour. Well, but I think you it feels to me like you have that too. I don't think. So. Do you think I'm that good at it?

Well, I don't know, because we like when I want you to do stand up. It feels to me like you're someone who like that. Maybe I'm wrong, Maybe you're really good at when I would speak easy when you were doing that thing about everybody, you know, say the race that you but there was like the thing with the glass and all that kind of looked really kind of off the cuff to me?

Was that really?

I mean, I've been touring that for a while before filming it, and so so builds Yeah, building over to get it. But I definitely to go back to what you're saying about turning twenty into an hour. If you have twenty, I think you can get to forty five, which is basically an hour, right, But if you have five, I don't know if you can get to I don't I can't get to it.

I forget every upstairs, and you just you're up on stage and you just fucking forget everything. Yeah, yeah, you know what Lano said. I said that to Lanta, was talking to Lanto about it goes. Just keep talking, just keep talking. They don't know this, right, just keep tucking.

But that's also a product of being able to play to your own crowd in a very friendly environmentally, you know what I mean. And I think sometimes you know, New York comedy clubs can kick you in the ass a little bit. So that's and that's why I moved here because not like Australia, they probably give you some rope you know, where you're like, oh, yeah, okay, you forgot.

Whatever I do, I don't test here. You just go for it again.

We come from well, I mean also the thing is as well, is that if it doesn't work, that's also funny.

Yes, well that's my point.

Yeah, that you're, you know, friend of the environment where if something doesn't work, it's also funny and you honestly you have the chops to pull it off anyway.

All right, So I don't I don't have nothing. I disagree with that, but I think what I think what it is is that what happens when you get what you want from stand up? What do you want from it? Apart from the like you want to succeed every show. Yes, but a lot of stand ups, I know, they want to be actors, or they want to be writers, or they want to be philosophers, or they want to be.

If I can do a gig where my old stuff killed, I had a good crowd interaction and my new stuff killed, then.

That's when I'm fire the three things.

If one of those three things doesn't happen, I means I'm just a fraud.

I'm like and the stand the stand up occupy all of your frontal lobes or is it is like do you want to like, do you play a musical instrument?

Do you have no do anything else?

I I enjoy acting, you know, acting like when you were in Crazy Right Asians.

I think for for like Asian actors. That was like Braveheart was for Scottish actors. Yeah, you know when I wasn't and Brave Heart I always feel like such a.

That's so funn Did you audition?

Did you audition audition for the The Guy Who Kills Edition?

Do you remember the movie? A little bit?

Audition for the part that was played by an Irish guy, And I like, but here's the thing as well. When the movie came out, I was in Hollywood and after and I was kind of, oh man, it was awful and I didn't have any work, And I went to audition for the part of reading the audiobook adaptation That's funny of Braveheart. I didn't get it. The cast and director said to me, we don't fail. Your accent is

No, I'm not doing it just because I'm Asian or because.

I get that with Scottish, because I like, yeah, I mean when when it was when it's kind of very stereotypically written, then I want to do this. I'm gonna I auditioned for everything on principle because I feel like I, as someone who didn't go to acting school, I need the reps. I need the repetitions soever comes in an audition for it. But that stuff I'll tell my agents like, hey, I'm sending you in an audition because i.

Need the practice. But I'm not gonna. I'm not gonna do this one.

There was one unfortunate one that was so it was Clifford The Big Red Dog, and I.

Was like, oh, this is cool. You were going to be the dog.

No, no, no, I was like, this is a cool movie. I know this prop is I g I'm like, oh, well, you know, fun, sounds fun. And they had me play the big the Big Bad Guy, which I'm like, yeah, I'm down.

Love being bad guy.

And in the movie, unfortunately the Big Bad Guy he is a genetic biologist, scientist and he's trying to end world hunger, and he's trying to grow food bigger and bigger, and everything he grows, all his his whole company keeps failing, all his underlying scientists keeps failing at growing big foods. And then he sees Clifford the Big Red Dog on TV and he's like, get me the fucking dog, because we need to figure out how this.

Thing I wasn't I'm totally absorbed a great story. But then now it looks like fucking Asian people try eat dogs. So I never even thought that.

I know, I know, I'm sure they didn't think about that. No, one's because everyone's not a fucking idiot. So they want racist bad so they want thinking that. But me, I'm like, I told my agents, like, hey, even if I get this, I can't do this.

It's not a good look. No, it's not a good look.

And so.

But have you ever done stuff? And you went, oh, no, I shouldn't have done that.

Okay, yes, there's one, there's one. Okay, no, this is still another audition. They all love this one. So this was a bad Henchman. I get the audition in Henchmen for I won't say which movie. Uh, and it's it's called the Henchman's name is the Scotsman, and I'm like, okay, maybe that's just his name. Maybe the joke is that I have my accent, but my name is the Scotsman, right and and but the very first direction is this henchman has a very thick Scottish accent. Please try to

Wish I could hear. I know, I wish.

I and my friend recorded it and he was reading it with me, and we would and I had my my friend actually had to do the Scottish accent, and then I would like impersonate him and it's.

Your friend's got oh fuck man, come on. So no, But the whole joke was that nobody could understand.

And then I'm like, well, do I want to be the Asian who people can understand because of an accent, even if it's Scottish.

It's very you know, it's a fucking minefield.

I auditioned one. I went for a edition. Once I got this. I really needed a job in Hollywood, and I got this. Addition to there was a sitcom called Suddenly Susan with Brookshields, Right.

Yeah, remember that, Yeah, it was right.

In that show, there was a character a Hispanic photographer. He was I think he was a photographer for Mexico or something like that. And for some reason, I was on the audition call in the thing and I was like, oh oh, and it's written like.

Yeah, exactly, It's written for exactly, Oh my god, jezu exactly.

And this is the nineties, and I need a job. So I go in and I go in and there's a whole line of guys in the audition. They all look like Antonio Banderis. Nobody looks like me at all. And I go in and and I go in and I do the audition. I do the accent in the audition like Speedy Gonzalez or something that was bad.

It is so funny because all these auditions somewhere.

Will probably just, I mean it terrifying, but what but what? What?

Yo is that I'm would have been nineteen ninety five, because I tell you what happened is when I got done or ninety six, when I got done with the audition, they said to me, that's the worst accent we've ever heard.

And went thanks.

He said, but we are doing a show where we're looking for a guy to play the English boss on the Drew Carey shows. Can you can you do an English accent? And I said, see, Senor Jasey, And I got the I got apart from it was the part of audition for but because I think you should always go if you're a young performer, I always go.

That's why I.

Always audition audition because because so there's been three projects now where they've given me something else all right, or they're still writing the script and they write characters out the audition.

Like you, and they changed the part to make you the y. I think that's right. You can't. But it's it's so I don't know how I would be now starting now.

Because you guys have a look, you've got to have followers on your tickety talk.

I think yes and no, I think yes and no. I think like I've met some people who was shoved into a project that I was on because of their followers. And I've also and I've met ones who come on because of their followers but they're great anyway, right, right, sure, And then I've met people who don't have any social media and they go cast from now, do you.

You have a ton of social media? I don't have. You don't. I don't have Instagram. That's about it.

Facebook, That's that's about it. I'm off Twitter now and it.

Doesn't really exist anymore, doesn't think so kind of falling apart. Yeah, I mean it used to be like super powerful.

But I'm I guess I'm a little old school in the sense that when I when I started in nine, YouTube just was getting its legs and there was no one had figured out how to do stand up on YouTube yet. In fact, stand up clips on the internet is a last five six years thing. Right before that, it was YouTube comedy, right, it was YouTube style sketches.

Yeah, people would do them. Yes, Yes, they would do their little things. Yeah, they do things.

And then the idea at that time was that if you were a stand up or live performer, you would do your YouTube comedy, cell tickets and people coming to you life, and you do essentially a different show live, right,

The subtitles, the period subtitles and educating the crowd.

But I noticed that with my my own late night show, it's all over that shit. Yes, I don't get any of that. There's nothing to do with me. I don't touch it, I don't edit it, I don't put the words on it. And then people are clearly putting it out Yeah, and they. I guess the hunger that the Beast has is just for content. I mean, I mean like two thousand hours or two and fifty hours of content.

Yeah, there's nostalgia. There's also Jesus Christ, I'm nostalgic.

I suppose I Yeah, I mean when you did the Britney Spears thing, you know, and that stuff like that. It's kind of socially relevant if I had to analyze it.

Yeah, it's a bit of that.

Also just good comedy, right, that's not well, Yeah, they put it on a unfortunately for better for wordsn't a more digestible.

Yeah, they cut everything up and splicely. Well, let me ask you this. Have you ever have you ever fallen foul of the of the pitfalls of our game? The drugs and alcohol the just not a thing that.

I just it was not a thing because I grew up in Singapore. It's just a very very strict in my head, is very strict. It's super strict. You can't have gum or something. No gum, no drugs, no, no freaking yeah you no hats.

No, no, no, yeah, you can't.

Yeah.

So they're very they're very strict. So I just grew up in an environment where it's like, oh, there's no drugs, and I don't know. I just and I I'm physically allergic to drinking, so I'll have like one drink and then I can stop, which in Australia was like crazy. All the comics were always like, oh, they're like, oh, you don't drink, right. I was known as a guy who doesn't drink, and I was like, I do drink, I just don't.

I stopped at like one, I need to go. They wouldn't understand that.

Yeah, it was always very I was kind of known as the comic who doesn't drink, you know, like, Alronnie, you don't drink.

Right, Ronie doesn't drink. You don't drink basically. But I mean I also never felt the urge to.

So I just you know, I just you ever see any of them fucking giant spiders they've got there in Australia.

No, the ones that's scary isn't the fucking giant ones. It's the fuck red the red backs, red back Yeah, the most vendomous I saw one of those ones.

Was it on the toilet?

No, it was it was in a shoe on the balcony, and someone killed it immediately because they because that's that's the thing that's a problem, to kill you that.

Well.

Yeah, but ten years in Australia, I've only seen one of those, right.

But you know that's that's all you need. That's only just one. See my wife, I'm like, we should go to Australia. She's like, I'm not kind, Like it's these fucking spiders. And I was talking to her today and I said, I'm going to talk to Ronnie Chang and he's like, spent a lot of time in Australia. And she said, and ask him about those those birds that

What the hell? I never saw it in Australia. I saw koala bears and ship.

But yeah, friendly, my my wife is Australian as well.

What will you ask her about the giant cake and bird? Yeah? I was there.

I gotta find this giant kicking bird. But this isn't my joke. This is the great Will Anderson.

Yeah, you know Will Anderson, I don't.

Very funny comed. He's also a legend.

And uh he's almost I would say almost like an Australian Dave Chappelle in how prolific he is.

But this is his joke, not mine. I'm going to butcher it.

But he was always like man, Americans always scared about Australian animal.

You guys have guns, Yeah, that's true, like everyone.

Always spiders anything, like you guys have freaking machine guns.

Well you need a gun though, if you go spiders and chickens, they can.

Kick the ship.

I've never I gotta find this bird that can kick the beat. No, thangaroos can beat the ship off, fucking me. Yeah, kangaroos can beat the ship off. The giant red kangaroos. Yeah, they can jump like thirteen meters high. They got claws, can rip your dick off. They rip your deck off, Yeah they can because they.

And what they will do if you wrap your deck off is they put your deck into their collected and then they make a little necklace of them. That's right, necklace. Did you ever play out in the like the boonies in Australia? Do you ever got like yes, like you know West of Adelaide and stuff like I went.

To Alice Springs, which is Darwin, you know, which is our back.

Yeah.

I didn't get to like super outback, but I got like moderate outback.

So you know, because for most Americans obviously have recently priced family, but they have back.

In Australia, it's like people don't know, there's just nothing there.

Yeah, yeah, this is the whole desert, desert that miles and miles of desert. The middle of Australia is all desert. So people only live on the edge.

And there are the comedy clubs like in the middle next everybody.

Yeah, Captain Bryant's Off the Hook comedy club. No, there is comedy clubs in Okay. So Australia comes from that Edinburgh comedy festival culture.

So we have clubs.

Every city has like maybe one club, but really the way comedy is consumed there is comedy festivals. So every city and state will have its own comedy festival kind of thing. So it's like a Darwin festival and then you'll go there and do comedy there.

So and with all the local comedians right oh no, no, no.

They'll fly people in so be the same people. You know, you see the same people all the time, all the time. Yeah, and then and then you go and you'll be performing in like small theaters in the country. So one thing Australia I didn't realize this is until I got here, but Americans will consider Australia extremely socialists.

So they have a lot of arts funding. The government funds a lot of arts for the country. Rural Australia has a lot of arts. America has that too.

They have that these theaters out there and like where you play an arts theater and it's like, how can they afford to pay me this to be here? And then you see who else is playing it and stuff. All right, you're gonna make it, ok.

Yeah, but yeah, that's what they do.

So I've done the Melbourn Comy Festival road show twice and that, you know, all around Australia. So I would go to country Australian towns and just perform there. So I've seen like country theaters. You know, do you consider yourself an Australian.

No, No, a Malaysian. You're you're a Malaysian.

Talk to me about Malaysian Chinese because I know nothing about it, because I know it's a little a little tricky right politically, So can you explain for me, just like imagine, I know nothing which is enough, is exactly the truth, because there's some tension right between Malaysia and China.

Basically, I'm third generation Chinese Malaysian, so my grandparents came from China and they settled in My grandparents' parents came from China and they settled in Malaysia. So Malaysia has a large Chinese diaspora, right, So yeah, I mean that's the best way I can explain is that there's like Chinese people in Malaysia. I think that's some The racial tension, if there is any, is never on the ground.

Everyone in Malaysia is more friendly face to face.

It's always like the government is always trying to protect its majority Malay population from like minority like China. So we'll give certain tax breaks and this is official government policy, give tax breaks to the majority of Malay, raise to give school places to the majority of Malay race. And they always play up those tensions, you know. So that's that's the count problem.

So that the idea of people in the administration playing up racial tension and whether their own agenda.

Is Exfortunately the United States unfortunately universal Yeah, and very clear along racial lines, and yeah, so and it becomes a whole you know language.

Do you speak Mandarin Chinese? Yeah? So Mandarin Chinese are Cantonese.

Gusepoth Wow, that's that's because my son speaks Mandarin. Wow, my oldest son speaks Mandarin, which I'm that's it's amazing because the language is so phonetically different, it's hard for me to I'm usually I got pretty good ear for things, but Chinese is hard for me.

Yeah, it should be. It's a completely different language. Family. Do you make it hard for me and for you? Yeah?

We all make sure discars. People can't say yeah, but I learned Chinese late.

I learned.

I learned Chinese from scratch when I was when I was eight years old.

So I know what it's like to learn Chinese. Not so I know how hard it is. Can you stand up?

I've done it before, but I'm not good at it. I can do like five ten minutes in it, And said, you know Des Bishop, Yeah, yeah, Des Bishop can't be Chinese.

Yeah.

Irish queensborn Irish comedian Des Bishop. So he went to Ireland when he was a teenager and he started doing stand up comedy in Ireland and one of the things he did as an Edinburgh show was he learned Gaelic.

Is it Gaelic? Yeah, Irish nobody speaks Gaelic though, yeah.

He so he learned it from scratch and he did comedy in it and so that was his show, right, And then maybe five or eight years later he said, you know, I'm going to learn Chinese from scratch and do comedy in Chinese. So he moved to Baiting for two years he learned Chinese from scratch.

The guy speaks. I speak to chine them all the time.

Yeah, against read and write, which is not easy because reading and right there's no there's no phonetical.

Reaction, there's no connection.

Yeah, and he does comedy in Chinese. He has a special on YouTube in Chinese. And I'm like, man, crazy, it's crazy. I mean it's very impressive.

Yes, it is. He doesn't get enough credit for. Unfortunately, that is a friend of mine, Eddie is. Yes, Eddie. I was on his gala. Oh you were, that's how Yes, this is certainly.

I've known Eddie for a very long time. She learned her act in a language that she didn't speak. Yes, And then when I did it without knowing really.

Not just that Eddie did it in like five languages.

Yeah, that's right, Spanish, Italian, French, Yep, German.

Yeah, yeah, it was It's a crazy thing that he did. I mean, and then he read like marathons and then he went twenty five marathons in three weeks and stuff. Run a marathon, then do a comedy shot. Her language was crazy, It was crazy. It was absolutely you know what though, here's what I think his mother's probably.

You know, his mom died when he was three. Actually I didn't know. Yeah, his mom died when he was very young. And you know, all these guys from back in the day, oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah yeah.

I mean everybody was Edinburgh, Yes, everybody was Edinburgh, Edinburgh, right, but you were Edinburgh. I was already doing Late Night by the time you were in Edinburgh. But but Edinburgh in the eighties. It was an interesting thing because I wonder it was such a backing alien. It was such a it was such a heavy drinking, heavy lateness thing. But it sounds like Australia when you were coming up pretty much the same deal.

Edinburgh is different.

Australia was a steady drunk Edinburgh was intense for three weeks. Yeah, atomic bomb drunk, which, like again I didn't drink, so I was just observing it. But man, it was physically a mentally, I don't know what it was like back in the day.

But when I it was, I mean I ended rehappen. So but what about how commercial it was?

That's this is what I really want to ask you about, because when I went it was.

It's just so you have something to contrast with.

When I went was twenty twelve, twenty thirteen, twenty fourteen, and at that time it was already Edinburgh Festival, Edinburgh Fringe. And then in response to the commercial quote unquote commercialization of the of the Edinboral Fringe, that had the Free Fringe that was already going on. So there was essentially three festivals happening in this one city, and so it was all a competition to get into the big six venues whatever that was.

So it was an assembly room, assembly on.

The belly, something else, something else. And and then in response to that they started the Free Fringe to start this idea.

So was it like that when you started? Yeah, it's similar. I mean there were venues that were established the Gildiballin. I don't think that was there when I started, but the assembly rooms was the big one and everyone tried to get in that, and there was there was this idea I remember because I was Scottish and there was all these English comedians used to come up, and I fucking hated them.

Because they weren't really comedians.

They were like rich kids that went to Oxford and Cambridge and they would come up. Some of them were talented, but most of them were just fucking, you know, playing at it. And they would come up and I would get if I got a big audience to say yes, but it's a local audience, isn't it.

I'm like, well, isn't every fucking audience a local audience.

That's so funny that even you had your gripes with the festal Oh my god, as you should, because I have my gripes. But I don't know whether I'm just being a bitter you know, no.

No, no, you got to be better. You can't.

You have to have a certain amount of betterness. It's an essential part of the rest. Michael Michael jordan'ship on your should Yeah, I think you have to have a little bit of it. It's it's part of the savory. You know, you can't have all edge. Gives you a bit of edge, yes, I think so, I agree, And what makes you better?

Then? I don't know if it makes me better? I got, I just got.

So. The joke is which I did in Speak Easy, was that the joke for me, which is true, is that I would go to Edinburgh and try to get them to like me, and then they will always give me shitty reviews and I always they would give you the worst reviews. And I think part of it is, you know, main reason is me I wasn't very good and I was still getting better starting out in comedy. And two I think there's something too in Edinburgh. You know that in the UK there's not a lot of

Do you know what my theory is? But then refestival of bad reviews, here's what it is. Because I've gone through that and I feel exactly the saying. But here's what happens. So Edinburgh is a small sleepy town.

It has one fucking local newspaper, right, one fucking newspaper, and there's one guy on that newspaper that is even interested in comedy, right, that's it.

But during the Edinburgh Festival there's like twenty.

Thousand fucking stand up stores, so they have to draft in every fucking journalist. They have, anybody they know that you can write, and they all go out and write reviews of comedy. So if you get the guy who normally writes about ousts, right and he's reviewing you, and he goes Craig Ferguson's show was very disappointing. There were no owl yes, and they bring their fucking agenda to the review, just like people on the internet, you know.

People.

I remember getting a bout reviewing and I've met the journalist in the bar and I was like, the fuck would.

You ma with it?

Because he was like he was like I was like, with the fucking review There was fucking terrible.

He was like he didn't like my hair. He died, what the is my hair got to do with that? And all that shit?

And and he said to me, I'll never forget this. He said, if you put your head above the parapet, you should be ready to get shot at.

I said, it's not fucking war. It's not a fucking parapet. It's just a fucking guy telling joke, trying to trying to like, why do you make everything conflict?

And I still think that about like the internet now, Like whenever I like the Internet, I think it's just like show business. It's only dangerous if you take it seriously.

But but if you do it seriously, you can kill you. Yes, I agree, And so that's a great way to put it. So what happens when what would happen to you?

Like, say it's twenty years from now, where do you want to be? Do you have a I want to be? Do you want to have kids? Do you want to do you want to get out of time? Do you want to have a farm with maybe kangaroos.

I'm kind of really living the dream right now. So I sa so every day every night when I can do stand up. I'm just like, Damn, I'm still I feel like I'm living in a dream world, like when I met the Seller, when I'm at Gothlam, when I'm when I'm taking the subway to West Westside Comic clubs now New York.

The real man you're you're living at That's right, that's right, that's right. And I remember when I visited New York, I was.

Like, damn, how great would be to be able to take a subway and do multiple spots a night, you know, and and let's have have stage time and all that. And now, like you know, in a rare position where you can get that, you know, it's it's actually not that. You know.

Listen, there's already twenty eight year old kids that you can win at the club and they're like, fuck that guy, that was spot.

I'm fucking. I never know. I never bumped that.

I never buy you don't know, but the club, No, No, I never bump. I always book in what you're doing, book Yeah, I don't. I don't bump. I hate it when you bump me, so I would never bump people.

Did you ever did you ever get bumped? Yeah?

One time at the Seller, I got bumped by and this lineup was incredible. First of all, when I say I hate getting bumped, I didn't mind, because whoever bumps me, I'm a fan of this.

This one night, I.

Was a seller and man, first it was I'm gonna get the order wrong, but I'll get all the names right. It was a zizz came in and bumped and I was on the lineup right, so they bumped, so, meaning okay, everyone's go get later. And then John Stewart came in and bumped, and and then Louis c. K came in, and then Amy Schumer came in, Richard came back from No No, and.

Then Madonna came in up Madonna came in.

Then they did a double at Madonna Amy Schumer and the lineup made the news. It was like a multi million dollar lineup, but you know, money whatever. But it was just cool to see that the whole show, the whole show crazy. I think Chris met Chris Rock may have jumped in, but definitely those names I said, and so and that was fun. That's part being New York. You can't see that. You can't see anyone else. Literally,

So you know, it's man, it's a it's a dream. It's a dream.

But man, when you're going to that's what I really love about your show. By the way, with Edinburgh was when I watched your show, I remember thinking, this has Edinburgh all over it.

I just stole everything from there, the horse, the robut and you're going up close to the camera.

But to me Edinburgh fringe, which I didn't appreciate at the time, but now I do more now. It's such a response to whatever people think the mainstream should be, you know what I mean, And so whatever mainstream is just something different.

It was punk and that's what it was.

It was right, and that's I could see a sensibility in the show, you know, and I think that's something that like I think Americans didn't they understood they're watching something a little alternative, but like I.

Knew the roots of this.

Yeah, it do all the time I need a talk showing number where someone pierced the mouth with a needle and made up with someone in the like you know, and I don't come from that. So for me, it was because Singapore is as straight laced as you can get.

Do you do you enjoy gum? Now? Do you do you? Do you take a lot? Do you have a lot of gum? Yeah? Every moment get itches. I wish you well. I'm so glad you can talk to me. I am a fan of yours.

I think you're a great stand up and you're just going to get better and better and better by the way you're saying. Although I'm just watching you, I'm like, you look to me like someone at the peak of the powers, and it's amazing.

Oh, thank you, thank you. Hopefully get better. I'm trying to get better, to try and get.

Better, because really it's it's a little per no, it's it's terrific. And I wish you well and speak.

To you so yeah, thanks so much, very nice to me.

Not not all before