-Now everyone please give a warm welcome to stand-up comedian,
whose name I can pronounce correctly --
and that's why representation matters --
Subhah Agarwal!
[ Cheers and applause ]
Whoo!
-Hi.
[ Cheers and applause ]
I am so excited to be here.
I never thought I'd be here doing stand-up comedy,
especially considering my immigrant father's dream for me
was to be President of America.
[ Laughter ]
Yeah, do you understand that?
I would get phone calls like, "How's my future president?"
[ Laughter ]
I was like, "Dad, I'm at CVS
trying to self-checkout a pregnancy test.
I don't want to be in charge of one life.
Also, this is my third pregnancy scare this year.
I'm obviously not good at border security."
[ Laughter ]
I wouldn't want to be in politics right now anyway.
I don't know if you caught this news story.
There was this lady.
She was sitting next to this dark-skinned Italian fellow.
Not even the type of brown she thought he was, right?
And he was sitting there solving a math problem.
And she saw this and got him kicked off the plane
because she thought he was a terrorist.
[ Audience groans ] I know! And here's the thing.
I'm not even offended she was racially profiling.
I'm offended that she was so bad at math...
[ Laughter ]
...that she looked at an equation
and thought it was terrorism.
She's like, "Look. He's found a way to blow up the plane!"
It's like, "D's finding X."
Think about how dumb that is!
Anyone who knows anything about engineering
knows you can't do the math on the plane!
What type of horrible terrorist is just sitting there like,
"I really should've figured this out before I got here."
[ Laughter ]
Just walking up and down the aisles like,
"I'm so sorry to bother.
Do you have matches? I'm very unprepared."
[ Laughter ]
And I joke about this, but it does get frustrating
whenever me or someone in my family gets called a terrorist.
'Cause I don't have an insult to throw back at white people
to make y'all just as mad just as fast.
I thought I figured it out.
I thought it was bringing up white privilege.
But I forget -- I live in L.A.
Everyone's so liberal, they just agree with me.
I got into a car accident. I jumped out.
I was like, "How dare you hit my car,
you entitled, white-privileged son of a gun!"
He's like, "You're right. I'm so sorry.
I benefit from the cisgender patriarchy, my queen."
[ Laughter ]
"I was trying to fight you. What happened?"
Whenever people find out you work in entertainment,
they always say the same thing.
They go, "Oh, Subhah, if you get successful, don't ever change."
Right? But these are the same people
who will look at me and go, "Really, Subhah? Really?
You're making money doing what you love now,
and you're still miserable?"
I'm like, "You said, 'Don't change!'"
[ Laughter ]
Of course, money doesn't make you happy.
Wasn't that the entire point of "The Great Gatsby"?
Fill your house with a bunch pointless nonsense
and you still end up getting eaten by a bear?
I didn't finish it.
But don't get me wrong. I am very grateful
to be making a living doing stand-up because...
[ Scattered cheers ] ...I used to -- Oh, thank you.
'Cause I used to work at a call center,
and nobody with an Indian name
wants to be working in a call center.
At least once a month, I'd get some moron going,
"Your name's Subhah? What's Subhah?"
I'm like, "It's Indian."
"Gah! Another Indian taking American jobs!"
I was like, "Buddy, my favorite desert is Godiva cheesecake.
For half my life, I thought
Norway and Sweden were the same country.
You know why? Because I'm as American
as Guy Fieri's back sweat. That's why."
[ Cheers and applause ]
But people are just losing their minds in general.
Like, one of my girlfriends -- this is true --
does not want to vaccinate her baby.
And this is her logic. She just went, "You know,
I think we're just going to do something a little more natural.
I mean, who even has polio anymore anyway?"
I was like, "Buddy, the reason you don't have polio
is 'cause the vaccine protects you from the polio."
It's like -- You know how some guys
only get hit on when they're in a relationship?
And then when they're single, nobody wants to touch you?
Right? You know why that happens?
'Cause your girlfriend's like a vaccine. Okay?
'Cause she's in there taking care of you, making sure
you eat right, making sure you're healthy,
and you can go out there on your own,
but you're going to come back with a disease,
so how about you appreciate your goddamn girlfriends?!
[ Cheers and applause ]
This is about vaccines. I promise, I'm fine.
But thank you, guys, so much. [ Cheers and applause ]