- Our next guest is a very funny man,
who took us on a virtual tour of the Philippines,
when he was here last summer.
He's since become an author
and his book's called Mixed Plate.
And it's out now, please welcome, Jo Koy.
How did you come up with the title of your book?
Mixed Plate?
How did you come up with that?
- Mixed Plate, it's just like, okay.
One, I'm in love with Hawaii. - Yeah.
- You know what I mean?
Hawaii really embraced me right away
when my first special came out
I broke a record in Hawaii.
- [Kelly] Wow. - I got my own day in Hawaii.
I sold like 27,000 tickets
at this theater called the Blaisdell theater.
I broke Mariah Carey's record. - What?
- Yeah, it was like the most tickets ever sold.
And I gave it my own day and I just love the culture there.
I love the people there.
And one of the things I love to eat was the mixed plate.
And when you look at the mixed plate,
it has everything like every ethnicity is on the plate.
- [Kelly] Yeah.
- There's a little rice for Asians.
There's Korean barbecue.
There's tempura, Japanese.
There's spam on it.
There's mac salad.
So when you look at that plate, I think of me.
It's like a little bit
of all these cultures just mixed up into me.
And I just felt like that's a good representation
of what this book is.
And about my life in this world.
- That's a beautiful way to look at the world.
- Yeah, 'cause you put all that stuff on one plate
and it just becomes this beautiful plate of food.
You know what I mean? - [Kelly] Yeah.
- And I feel like that's what it took to make-
- But I just mean, it's society.
It's cool to look at the world like that.
Like we all count.
We all matter.
We all make the plate beautiful.
- Yeah, you put it all- - Even spam.
Even redneck spam. - Even spam.
You put spam next to a flaming yawn.
You know what I'm eating that spam.
- [Kelly] Fine, it's fancier.
Tastes better already. - Right?
- Well, you're candid about your dad in the book.
- Yeah.
- So how did that relationship evolve?
- You know, we, it was at the beginning, you know,
it was tough, you know, product of divorce.
You know what I mean?
And you know, I've never really talked about it publicly,
you know what I mean? - Yeah.
- And how I struggled with identity.
You know my dad's white, my mom's Filipino.
My dad and mom divorced.
And here I am being, you know,
with my mom pretty much my whole teenage years
being raised by my mom. - [Kelly] Yeah.
- And I never really had that relationship with my father,
but when we rekindled it was hard.
I mean, it was good.
It was hard in a good way.
And now we're just like the best of friends.
But it's, you know- - Yeah.
- When people see me go up there
and talk about my mom a lot, it's like, that was my story.
You know what I mean? - Yeah.
- That was my childhood.
Those are my stories.
And then, and now I'm building this story with my father
and it's great.
- I think that's really important 'cause it's so funny,
'cause I know I'm from two divorces with my mom
and it's one of those things that I find in my experience,
not that this is a statistic by any means,
but that women are more apt and open to talk about it
rather than men. - Yeah.
- So I think it's actually really cool that you own that.
Like something felt like it was missing
and you wanted that relationship and that's okay.
- Yeah. - You know?
- And you know what, another thing, you know,
I'm from a different generation when divorce was still new
and you know, and my dad had to like,
he stepped away and whatever it is
that he did, he did, right?
But I think what I learned from it was
I don't ever want my son to feel that feeling.
- [Kelly] Yeah.
- And I know that divorce is hard-
- [Kelly] Yes. - But you can make it work.
We're still best friends.
Me and my ex- - [Kelly] Yeah.
- Were the best of friends. - [Kelly] That's beautiful.
- She has all the codes to my house.
She has the keys to my front door.
She can walk in whenever she wants.
- Wow. - We are the best of friends.
When we go on vacation, she comes.
Whatever she has at her house is in my house.
Like my son never feels this difference
between the two.
We're a loving family
and we can work.
You know what I mean?
Like, just because you're not married,
it doesn't mean you can't be the best of friends.
You still have the responsibility
to raise this beautiful child together.
And it's fun to see my son see his parents happy.
- Absolutely.
- Oh, she gets to the world.
She lives right next to me.
Everywhere I move.
She moves next to me, so.
- Wow. - Yeah, yeah.
- I got to say you and Gwen know how to nail a divorce.
You know how to really do it and be successful afterwards.
- Yeah, it's not hard though, right?
- Yeah. - You got great kids-
- It is hard- - It is.
- coming from experience currently.
It's hard.
- I know, but I think sometimes you just got to step back
and just look at those kids and just go, you know what?
It's for them.
What are all suffering? - [Kelly] Yeah.
- [Jo Koy] Whatever. - No, that's the easy part.
- [Jo Koy] Yeah.
- I think that's the easy part.
- [Jo Koy] Yeah.
Well, everybody, Joe's book is called Mixed Plate.
Be sure to check it out.