- You know, I am Irish.
And Irish people, they don't tell you a thing.
Irish people keep it so bottled up.
You know, like the plan with Irish people is like,
I'll keep all my emotions right here,
and then one day I'll die.
(audience laughs)
Irish people don't want comfort.
Look at a sweater made in Ireland.
It's like a turtleneck made out of Brillo pads.
(audience laughs)
(upbeat music)
I wanted to tell you one story.
This is the story of the best meal
I've ever had in my life, okay?
Happened when I was 11 years old in Chicago, Illinois
where I grew up.
I went to a place called the Salt and Pepper Diner
with my best friend John.
We walk in to the diner one day
and they had a jukebox there, okay?
And the jukebox was three plays for a dollar.
So we put in $7 and selected 21 plays of Tom Jones'
"What's New Pussycat?"
(audience laughs)
And then we ordered and waited.
(audience laughs)
Here's the thing about when "What's New Pussycat?"
plays over and over and over and over and over again.
The second time it plays,
your immediate thought is not,
hey, someone's playing "What's New Pussycat?" again.
It's, hey, "What's New Pussycat?"
is a lot longer than I first thought.
(audience laughs)
The third time it plays,
you're thinking maybe someone's playing
"What's New Pussycat?" again.
The fourth time it plays you're either thinking,
whoa, someone just played "What's New Pussycat?" four times,
or at least someone played it twice,
and it's a really long song.
(audience laughs)
So the fifth time is the kicker, all right?
Now, John and, I we're watching the entire diner
at this point, all right?
Most people have gotten wind as to what's going on.
(audience laughs)
And we're staring at this one guy.
and he's sitting in like a booth
with his stupid kids jumping around,
and he's like staring at his coffee cup like this.
And he's been onto us since the beginning.
And he is sitting there, and his hand is shaking.
He had this look on his face
like he had just gotten his 30-day chip
from anger management, and he's staring like this.
And the fourth song fades out.
It's dead quiet.
Then, I don't know if you know this,
but the song begins very quietly.
(audience laughs)
♪ Wha-wha, what's new pussycat ♪
And he goes, "God damn it!"
And pounds on the table, and silverware flies everywhere.
And it was fantastic.
(audience laughs)
But a word about my best friend John
and what a genius he was.
Because when we first walked into the diner, okay?
When we first got there,
and I'm punching in the "What's New Pussycats" all right?
I've punched in like seven at this point.
And then John says to me, "Hey, hey, hey
"Before you punch in another, "What's New Pussycat?"
let's drop in one "It's Not Unusual"
(audience laughs)
(audience cheers)
Oh, yes. (audience claps)
That is when the afternoon went from good to great.
(audience laughs)
After seven "What's New Pussycat?" in a row.
It played seven times.
(audience laughs)
Suddenly.
♪ It's not unusual to ♪
And the the sigh of relief that swept through the diner.
(audience laughs)
People were so happy.
It was like the liberation of France.
(audience laughs)
You know, for years, scientists have wondered,
can you make grown men and women weep tears of joy
by playing Tom Jones' "It's Not Unusual"?
And the answer is yes, you can, provided that it is
preceded by seven "What's New Pussycats?"
(audience laughs) (audience claps)
It's true. (audience cheers)
Dead honest.
And on the other hand, when we went back.
(audience laughs)
Holy (beep) (audience laughs)
"It's Not Unusual" fades out, it's dead quiet.
♪ Wha, wha, what's new pussycat ♪
People went insane, people went out of their minds.
No one could handle it.
And they were surrounded by this seemingly indifferent staff
that was just like, yeah, same crap as always.
They unplugged the jukebox after 11 plays.
And that was the best meal I've ever had.
(audience cheers)
'Cause think about it, Lucy.
No one in the OJ Simpson trial won an Emmy.
(audience laughs)
From '94 to '95, you didn't need to watch any TV shows.
There was a thing called the OJ Simpson trial.
And it was the best thing that ever happened on TV ever.
It was a murder trial, it sounds terrible, right?
It was so god damn entertaining.
These people delivered.
Everyone in that trial delivered.
They went up and they went, what's your name?
I'm Cato Caitlin.
All right, here's the ball on the tee.
And then he would knock it out of the park.
(audience laughs)
And there was a guy named Johnny Cochran.
And this guy does not have an Emmy, he's dead.
He died without an Emmy.
And this was the most entertaining man.
You'd love him, Lucy.
(audience laughs)
This guy would put on a knit cap
and goof around with the murder evidence.
Either one of two things happened, and we truly don't know.
Either OJ Simpson murdered his wife,
and then like took off a glove and was like,
you know, like threw it over his shoulder,
was like, done with that glove.
(audience laughs)
Either that, either he threw away his glove
or a cop planted the glove, both very entertaining.
(audience laughs)
So OJ had to try on the gloves in front of the jury, Lucy.
I know you all know this, I'm telling Lucy.
(audience laughs)
And he gets up and he's like, "Oh, these are my gloves?"
And he tries to put 'em on, and he goes.
(audience laughs)
He actually bit his tongue, go watch it.
It's on YouTube, I watched it, recently.
See, he's going.
And then he goes, like.
I think the bullying that young people
have to go through now in schools is really rough.
I really sympathize 'cause I was bullied when I was a kid.
When I was in grade school,
I was bullied for being Asian American.
(audience laughs)
And the biggest problem with that
is that I am not Asian American.
(audience laughs)
But when I was younger, and this is absolutely true,
people thought that I might be Asian American.
I have pretty thin eyes.
I had very thin eyes when I was a little kid,
and I had straight black hair that I wore in a bowl cut.
And from the ages of three to eight,
people thought that I might be a young Chinese person.
(audience laughs)
On the first day that he met me,
the guy that is now my best friend,
he met me the first day of kindergarten,
he went home that night and said,
"Papa, today I met a boy with no eyes."
(audience laughs)
And that was me.
(audience laughs)
Kids would make fun of me in middle school.
Kids would call me a China man,
which of the racial slurs has gotta be the laziest.
That is just pushing two words together.
No work was done there.
(audience laughs)
It was very confusing to me 'cause I'm not Chinese.
No one in my family is remotely Asian.
I mean, we take our shoes off when we come inside,
but that was more of a carpeting thing than anything else.
(audience laughs)
Here's how bad it got, though.
I remember when I was in junior high,
we had this music appreciation class
that we never appreciated.
And they took us to hear
some classical music once at a symphony orchestra.
So we go to a symphony orchestra.
In one of these classical pieces,
there's a moment where they bang a gong.
And every time they banged the gong,
all the kids sitting in front of me would stand up,
turn to me and bow like that.
(audience laughs)
Which is some racist ass bullshit,
but also incredibly well coordinated
for a group of 13 year olds.
13 year olds are the meanest people in the world.
They terrify me to this day.
If I'm on the street on like a Friday at three p.m.
and I see a group of eighth graders
on one side of the street,
I will cross to the other side of the street,
because eighth graders will make fun of you,
but in an accurate way.
They will get to the thing that you don't like about you.
They don't even need to look at you for long.
They'll just be like, "Ha ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha ha.
"Hey, look at that high-waisted man.
"He got feminine hips."
And I'm like, "No, that's the thing I'm sensitive about!"
(audience laughs)
When I was a boy, I was also confused with a woman sometimes
over the phone, because before I went through puberty,
I had a voice like a little flute.
(audience laughs)
I was once on the telephone with Blockbuster Video,
which is a very old fashioned sentence.
(audience laughs)
And it is, I was on the telephone with Blockbuster Video.
That's like when your grandma would be like,
we'd all go play jacks down at the soda fountain.
You're like, no one knows
what you're talking about, you idiot!
(audience laughs)
You know how you talk to your grandma?
So.
(audience laughs)
I was on the phone with Blockbuster.
I'd called them a couple of times
in one day to ask about a movie.
And I called for a third time.
I said, "Hey, yeah, I was just calling to see
"if you had 'Adams' Family Values' yet."
And the guy at Blockbuster went,
"Hey lady, I'll tell you
"when we get 'Adams' Family Values'."
But look, I wasn't offended
as a boy being confused with a lady.
I was offended as a lady who's getting pushed around
by this chauvinist asshole that works at Blockbuster Video
talking to me like I'm some floozy.
I am a proud Asian American woman.
(audience laughs)
And you'll treat me with respect.
(audience claps)
I am a tiger mom.
(audience laughs)
I've lived in this city now.
I love it, I've lived here for a few years now.
And so I have this new phenomenon in my life
where like late at night on the street,
women will see me as a threat.
(audience laughs)
That is funny, yeah, that is silly.
That is silly.
It's kind of flattering in its own way,
but at the same time it's weird,
because like I'm still afraid of being kidnapped, honestly.
But I'll give you the best example of this.
A few months ago I was at a subway station
at two o'clock in the morning, all right?
And at this station, I'm changing trains.
And you have to walk down this long hallway
in order to change trains.
So it's two o'clock in the morning.
It's just me and this woman.
And we're walking along,
and she's walking a few yards ahead of me.
But she keeps giving me like the over the shoulder,
like that, you know?
And then she starts to pick up the pace.
She starts to walk a lot faster.
So I think, oh, she must hear the train coming.
(audience laughs) (audience cheers)
Or you know, maybe she feels it in her feet,
like a Native American.
(audience laughs)
So I start to sprint down the hallway at her.
And she looks back and she's like, "Ah!"
(audience laughs)
And then she gives chase, right?
So now we're booking it down the corridor
at two o'clock in the morning.
And I'm gaining on her, I'm gaining on her,
and we're getting to the end of the hallway,
and she starts to go into that like dead end shuffle,
you know, that women do when you chase 'em.
And I'm almost at her.
I'm almost at her.
And then it dawns on me, oh, she's running from me.
(audience laughs)
Because in her eyes, I'm an adult.
(audience laughs)
And adults rape each other.
(audience cheers)
Kind of a lot.
So I wanted to go up to her and be like,
Hey, whoa, no, no.
I'm not like a.
(audience laughs)
I'm not a man.
(audience laughs)
I'm some stupid punk, you know?
But I think that that would be equally creepy,
is if you were in a subway station
at two o'clock in the morning,
and I chased you down grabbed you and said,
"I'm not gonna rape you, I'm a little boy."
(audience laughs)
I actually just quit drinking a couple months ago, because-
(audience boos)
Oh, I'm not exactly slap happy about it myself.
(audience laughs)
Boo me. (audience laughs)
But I had a problem because I was blacking out all the time.
(audience laughs)
And I went and I talked to my doctor and he said,
"It's not that you drink too much,
"it's just that after a couple major blackouts,
"you blackout easier and easier after that."
So I would just have like a couple drinks
and my brain would be like,
okay, I see where this is headed.
(audience laughs)
We're just gonna power down now,
and get restarted sometime tomorrow morning.
(audience laughs)
The morning after a blackout, though, is so strange
'cause I always feel like this detective,
trying to solve the mystery
of how I got home the night before.
It's the case of the empty wallet
and the for some reason bleeding knee.
(audience laughs)
And luckily I can get right on the case
'cause I'm still fully clothed from the night before.
(audience laughs) (audience claps)
(audience cheers)
It's not good, it's not good, bad, bad.
It was always weird when I'd go out with like some money
and blackout and wake up with no money.
But it was a lot weirder when I'd go out with some money,
blackout and wake up with more money.
(audience laughs)
That meant that I had earned money.
(audience laughs)
That meant that I had traded goods and/or services.
And blacked out, it's not anything wholesome.
It's not like I was temping at a real estate office.
(audience laughs)
I saw this woman on the news.
She started drinking when she was eight years old.
When she was eight.
I don't even know what I'd be like drunk at eight years old.
My dad just come home from work and be like,
so John, what did you do today?
(audience laughs)
Colored.
(audience laughs)
You did what now?
Colored. (audience laughs)
You know, like with a crayon?
(audience laughs)
Well, what did you color?
Brontosaurus Rex. (audience laughs)
You mean Tyrannosaurus Rex?
I said what I said. (audience laughs)
Come here.
Come down to my level.
You don't know me.
(audience laughs)
I got secrets.
(audience laughs)
You know how you and Mom said
I'm not allowed to watch "Night Court"?
I watch it. (audience laughs)
When you're out of the room, I watch it.
And I get it. (audience laughs)
The one lawyer has a lot of sex, I get it.
(audience laughs)
Were you at O'Halligan's tonight?
It was nickel shot night.
(audience laughs)
For a quarter, I got this many.
I always wanted to live in New York when I was a kid.
I'm so excited that I get to live in New York.
I saw New York City in a movie when I was a kid.
It was called "Home Alone 2: Lost in New York"
(audience laughs)
It is a sequel. (audience claps)
Yeah, how about that movie?
It was a sequel to the movie "Home Alone"
(audience laughs)
I remember in that movie, oh, the kid in "Home Alone 2"
he gets into a stretch limousine on Fifth Avenue
with a large cheese pizza.
And I thought this is the height of luxury!
(audience laughs)
Now I live in New York, and I'm psyched.
But that is a stupid movie title, Lost in New York?
The streets are numbered.
(audience laughs)
How'd you get lost in New York?
I know it's kind of stupid to complain
about a movie that came out 17 years ago.
But I wasn't a comedian back then so I have to do it now.
(audience laughs)
I wish I'd been.
I wish I'd been a Death Jam comic when that movie came out.
I would've torn it to pieces.
Be like, you seen this shit?
(audience laughs)
You seen this "Home Alone 2: Lost in New York" shit?
It's a grid system, mother fucker!
Where you at, 24th and fifth.
Where you wanna go 35th and sixth,
11 up and one over, you simple bitch.
(audience laughs)
I was born in Chicago, but New York is great,
'cause this is where they make "Law & Order"
which is my favorite show, you know?
And I realized it was my favorite show
when I was in my third consecutive hour of "Law & Order"
figured, this better be my favorite,
otherwise I have a problem.
(audience laughs)
But it's crazy, if you watch enough episodes
of "Law & Order" you see these patterns in every episode.
You know, like in the beginning when they're interviewing
witnesses about the crime, the people they talk to
are always so casual about being questioned
by homicide detectives.
There's been like a double rape and murder,
and they're questioning some guy, and he's just like,
"Tony Ramirez, yeah, I remember him.
(audience laughs)
"Used to work here on Tuesdays."
(audience laughs)
It's like people have died.
You can't stop unloading crates for a second?
(audience laughs)
How often do you talk to homicide detectives?
I gotta get back to work.
No you don't, the police are here.
(audience laughs)
All bets are off.
And they always let some detail about the case go
that they don't even realize is important.
They'll be like, "Well, did he say where he was going?"
"Said something about the knife store."
Like, yeah, knife store.
(audience laughs)
Knife store pertains to the stabbing investigation.
(audience laughs)
My favorite on that show, though, was Jerry Orbach.
I loved him, because, yeah. (audience cheers)
He was the best 'cause he always had like
a funny little one-liner when they found the dead body.
They'd find a teacher lying dead in an alley
and Orbach would be like, "Huh, looks like school's out."
(audience laughs)
I always wanted to see an episode
where he couldn't think of a clever one.
(audience laughs)
Where they find a guy dead with a Mars Bar in his hand,
and Orbach's like,
looks like he won't be going to Mars anytime soon.
Get it, Mars bar?
Screw you guys. (audience laughs)
Nine times outta 10, they're funny.
(energetic music)