Joe Rogan Experience #1490 - Jimmy O Yang

Jimmy O. Yang is an actor, stand-up comedian, and writer. Check out his new special "Jimmy O. Yang: Good Deal" available to stream now on Amazon Prime.

Joe RoganhostJimmy O. Yangguest

Jun 11, 20202h 29mWatch on YouTube ↗

EVERY SPOKEN WORD

150 min read · 30,010 words

0:00 – 15:00
Um, hey, what's up,…
1. JRJoe Rogan
  Um, hey, what's up, brother? How are you?
2. JYJimmy O. Yang
  What's up, Joe?
3. JRJoe Rogan
  Good to see you.
4. JYJimmy O. Yang
  It's great seeing you. It's great seeing a fellow comedian that I, I don't think I've been inside a comedy club or seen any comedians for two months now.
5. JRJoe Rogan
  It's weird. It's like they're trying to get it out of our system, like they're trying to, like, uh, like, if we were junkies, if we were comedy junkies, we've gone through a rehab. Y- you have to live like a regular person for months.
6. JYJimmy O. Yang
  It's tough. I mean, I've gotten past the phase of, like... 'Cause back in the day, if I didn't do standup for a week, I would get depressed.
7. JRJoe Rogan
  Yeah.
8. JYJimmy O. Yang
  'Cause there's nothing else going on i- in my life. But now, I got other stuff going. I can do writing, whatever. But I feel bad for, like, the road guys. And, and-
9. JRJoe Rogan
  Oh, yeah.
10. JYJimmy O. Yang
  ... and the open mic'ers that just coming up.
11. JRJoe Rogan
  Oh, yeah.
12. JYJimmy O. Yang
  And I'm sure you've gotten this. Are a lot of people inviting you to do virtual, virtual standup comedy shows on Zoom?
13. JRJoe Rogan
  Yeah, they can eat shit.
14. JYJimmy O. Yang
  Th- that is the worst idea on the fucking planet.
15. JRJoe Rogan
  Bro, even great comics look terrible on those.
16. JYJimmy O. Yang
  And, and they can record you forever.
17. JRJoe Rogan
  Exactly, exactly. And record you looking terrible, bombing. Just, it's just not the right place. It's like, uh, let's play basketball underwater.
18. JYJimmy O. Yang
  Yeah. (laughs)
19. JRJoe Rogan
  No, that doesn't work.
20. JYJimmy O. Yang
  But that shows you how desperate people are.
21. JRJoe Rogan
  Yeah.
22. JYJimmy O. Yang
  I- they would put their whole material on the line, uh, to do virtual, no real people audience, just to get their rocks off.
23. JRJoe Rogan
  Dave Chappelle's got a very unique solution. He's doing some shit in his backyard. He sent me... Well, not his backyard. His friend has a wedding pavilion.
24. JYJimmy O. Yang
  Ooh.
25. JRJoe Rogan
  So, he set up this thing at a wedding pavilion. All of it is, uh, COVID-safe. Look at that. That's Dave on stage in Ohio at a wedding pavilion. (laughs)
26. JYJimmy O. Yang
  Oh, wow, dude. That's awesome.
27. JRJoe Rogan
  So, that, that's be where people would get married, and Dave's up there doing standup.
28. JYJimmy O. Yang
  Yeah. Well, he's so good, he doesn't need, like, um, a low ceiling-
29. JRJoe Rogan
  No.
30. JYJimmy O. Yang
  ... you know, packed seats.
15:00 – 30:00
(laughs) …
1. JYJimmy O. Yang
  boy spoke English that well."
2. JRJoe Rogan
  (laughs)
3. JYJimmy O. Yang
  (laughs) It... You kinda get that vibe over there, you know?
4. JRJoe Rogan
  Isn't it funny that Oriental became like taboo, like the term Oriental?
5. JYJimmy O. Yang
  It's (laughs) it's a weird one.
6. JRJoe Rogan
  I mean, and people that say Oriental, they never mean harm.
7. JYJimmy O. Yang
  No, they're just-
8. JRJoe Rogan
  You know?
9. JYJimmy O. Yang
  ... old.
10. JRJoe Rogan
  They always, they're old like, "It's my buddy's, uh, uh, father's in high school."
11. JYJimmy O. Yang
  Yeah.
12. JRJoe Rogan
  They're like-
13. JYJimmy O. Yang
  Right, right, right.
14. JRJoe Rogan
  "So you and your Oriental parents, you guys..."
15. JYJimmy O. Yang
  (laughs)
16. JRJoe Rogan
  (laughs)
17. JYJimmy O. Yang
  It's like they're trying to be so PC.
18. JRJoe Rogan
  (laughs)
19. JYJimmy O. Yang
  It's like when people call black people African Americans 'cause they're too careful, you know?
20. JRJoe Rogan
  Right.
21. JYJimmy O. Yang
  And, and that's like kinda weird, you know?
22. JRJoe Rogan
  Right.
23. JYJimmy O. Yang
  Yeah. I don't, I don't love it.
24. JRJoe Rogan
  Yeah, it's just a, I mean, what do you... Well, Jamaicans are te- like someone who comes from Jamaica and lives in America, I guess technically you'd be an African America 'cause Africans went to Jamaica first.
25. JYJimmy O. Yang
  Right.
26. JRJoe Rogan
  And then to America.
27. JYJimmy O. Yang
  (sighs)
28. JRJoe Rogan
  It's odd.
29. JYJimmy O. Yang
  Yeah.
30. JRJoe Rogan
  It's all weird, man. It's all... The... But just the, like, for Asian folks, like also people get upset if you can't make the distinction.
30:00 – 45:00
For now, they can't.…
1. JYJimmy O. Yang
  argue.
2. JRJoe Rogan
  For now, they can't. For now. But as things get more and more ridiculous, eventually one day they'll be able to get mad at you for that. Like, they just... Once everything's been cleared out and people have been purified, they just move the goalposts.
3. JYJimmy O. Yang
  Yeah.
4. JRJoe Rogan
  And they find some new thing-
5. NANarrator
  Yeah.
6. JRJoe Rogan
  ... that's offensive to say or do. There's things that people are getting fired for today that three months ago you could say easily and people would agree with you.
7. JYJimmy O. Yang
  (laughs)
8. JRJoe Rogan
  It's just weird, man.
9. JYJimmy O. Yang
  Just, just say it to your friends. Don't tweet about it.
10. JRJoe Rogan
  (laughs)
11. JYJimmy O. Yang
  I, I guess is the lesson.
12. JRJoe Rogan
  Well, the thing is, a lot of people tweeted in, you know, fucking 2008, they tweeted it. And then someone will go back and find it-... 12 years later and you get in trouble. And you get fired. People are getting fired for old tweets.
13. JYJimmy O. Yang
  (laughs)
14. JRJoe Rogan
  Like, I'm really glad I don't have a job job, like where someone hires me or fi- fires me. 'Cause just a, a, m- I've said a million things in the podcast-
15. JYJimmy O. Yang
  (laughs)
16. JRJoe Rogan
  ... drunk or high or talking shit with comedians where you're just trying to make each other-
17. JYJimmy O. Yang
  (sighs)
18. JRJoe Rogan
  ... laugh and say stupid shit.
19. JYJimmy O. Yang
  Yeah.
20. JRJoe Rogan
  And, you know, and then if you take that out of c- ... If you don't see the whole podcast and get the vibe of how we talk-
21. JYJimmy O. Yang
  Right.
22. JRJoe Rogan
  ... and the conversation, you just make a snippet out of it, you can make someone look like a real piece of shit. But it's, it's disingenuous. It's disingenuous. It's deceptive. They know what they're doing. They know that they're trying to paint a very distorted perception of who these people are when they're taking their tweets and taking them out of context and putting them up there and, and trying to get them canceled. They have rocks. It's just like a looter in a lot of ways. Like, they have rocks, and there's a window, and they want to throw a rock in the window.
23. JYJimmy O. Yang
  You know, um, how the military, uh, hires hackers to hack into their own system-
24. JRJoe Rogan
  Yeah.
25. JYJimmy O. Yang
  ... to see, uh, how vulnerable they are? I think there should be a new job out there for, uh, comedians, uh, celebrities to hire these, uh, uh, uh, Twitter people-
26. JRJoe Rogan
  (laughs)
27. JYJimmy O. Yang
  ... to see if they can dig up any dirt.
28. JRJoe Rogan
  Yeah.
29. JYJimmy O. Yang
  And I'll, I'll give them five grand if you can find anything.
30. JRJoe Rogan
  (laughs) Right. Just to prevent some sort of tweet storm-
45:00 – 1:00:00
I don't know. I…
1. JRJoe Rogan
  Snoop, don't throw up.
2. JYJimmy O. Yang
  I don't know. I don't ... (laughs) I don't know if I like that. Like it's-
3. NANarrator
  (laughs)
4. JRJoe Rogan
  (laughs)
5. JYJimmy O. Yang
  (laughs)
6. JRJoe Rogan
  I don't know if I like that.
7. JYJimmy O. Yang
  You know, it's too casual. The fucking is too casual.
8. JRJoe Rogan
  Right. Right. It's out in a party. Everyone's out in the open in the middle of like ... It's seems like they're by a pool. Right?
9. JYJimmy O. Yang
  Yeah, yeah.
10. JRJoe Rogan
  A kind of a pool party-
11. JYJimmy O. Yang
  And I don't know about that.
12. JRJoe Rogan
  ... fuck party type of vibe.
13. JYJimmy O. Yang
  Yeah.
14. JRJoe Rogan
  Mm.
15. JYJimmy O. Yang
  Yeah. Maybe I'll consider a porn career. We'll see.
16. JRJoe Rogan
  But it's weird, right? Because everybody wants to fuck, but nobody wants you to fuck on film.
17. JYJimmy O. Yang
  Mm. Mm.
18. JRJoe Rogan
  It could taint you.
19. JYJimmy O. Yang
  Mm.
20. JRJoe Rogan
  Like if you found out that Scarlett Johansson was having sex, you'd be like, "Of course she's having sex. She's a beautiful girl. She probably likes men and she has sex." But if you, if you sa- said Carla- Scarlett Johansson wants to have sex on film-
21. JYJimmy O. Yang
  Mm-hmm.
22. JRJoe Rogan
  ... and you can watch her, everybody would be like, "What's wrong with her?"
23. JYJimmy O. Yang
  Yeah.
24. JRJoe Rogan
  Yeah.
25. JYJimmy O. Yang
  But I mean, lo- look, uh, like Sasha Grey, porn star who became kind of an actress from those Soderbergh movies.
26. JRJoe Rogan
  How many did she do?
27. JYJimmy O. Yang
  I, I ... The Girlfriend Experience I know she did.
28. JRJoe Rogan
  Yeah. She did that one.
29. JYJimmy O. Yang
  Did a couple things.
30. JRJoe Rogan
  She's an odd case, right? Because she's very smart.
1:00:00 – 1:07:28
Yeah. …
1. JRJoe Rogan
  guy's off. Something's a- ... You know he's off.
2. JYJimmy O. Yang
  Yeah.
3. JRJoe Rogan
  But they like, "Perfect. Run it. Perfect. Line him up. We got a spotlight on him."
4. JYJimmy O. Yang
  Because people will laugh. They know people will laugh. And why are people laughing? You know, I ... Look, it's, it's tough being, uh, I guess one of few Asian actors in America, right? Uh, I'm very fortunate to be in that position. We all kind of know each other. It's a small circle. I'm very proud of all of us. But early on in my career, I got some flak, uh, from Silicon Valley. My, my character, you know, uh, it was a accented character. Um, which, I mean, for me it's a little different because I came to this country when I was 13. I couldn't really speak English. So I was like, "Okay, I'm just gonna play an earlier version of myself. I understand ... I'm gonna try to put some humanity in this character." But then some articles or whatever, it's like, "This is an offensive stereotype," blah, blah. And that really ... Looked into that. I was like, "Okay, I get it." Eventually the character became a more three-dimensional character 'cause the joke's no longer on him just being foreign, it's on him being, like, a diabolical coder person or that ...But it's tough being an Asian actor, 'cause now not only do I have to, uh, uh, uh, uh, decide on playing a part or not by looking at, "Oh, is this a good script?" I gotta look at the cultural ramifications, "Is this good representation?"
5. JRJoe Rogan
  Mm.
6. JYJimmy O. Yang
  Because there's so few of us, each of us that does something means so much more, right? Uh, that was the beef with the Apu character-
7. JRJoe Rogan
  Right.
8. JYJimmy O. Yang
  ... because there wasn't a lot of Indian... Yeah, and then you characterize-
9. JRJoe Rogan
  Right.
10. JYJimmy O. Yang
  ... whatever. Now, that's what's great about, uh, uh, Crazy Rich Asians. And I had a lot of fun on that movie, because for one of the first times, I wasn't the only Asian dude on set and I could just play a character. My character is an asshole in that movie, but I can just lean into that and be a character actor and play it.
11. JRJoe Rogan
  And it's a powerful, funny movie.
12. JYJimmy O. Yang
  Yeah.
13. JRJoe Rogan
  It's a great production. It came out excellent. Everybody enjoyed it.
14. JYJimmy O. Yang
  And there's a-
15. JRJoe Rogan
  It was all good.
16. JYJimmy O. Yang
  ... and there's a whole spectrum of Asians. It's not just one Asian representing all Asians.
17. JRJoe Rogan
  Yeah.
18. JYJimmy O. Yang
  There's your handsome Asians, your asshole Asians, the, uh, uh, romantic lead, and also the bitchy ex-girlfriend, whatever. So, we can just actually be actors for the first time-
19. JRJoe Rogan
  Mm.
20. JYJimmy O. Yang
  ... and not be actor/Asian representative. So when something like William Hung comes to the table-
21. JRJoe Rogan
  Yeah.
22. JYJimmy O. Yang
  ... just can't do it, man.
23. JRJoe Rogan
  I get it.
24. JYJimmy O. Yang
  I mean, come on.
25. JRJoe Rogan
  I get it. You know, it's interesting that w- that, uh, it's like when someone gets offended at racial stereotypes, society puts it through this filter of whether or not it's valid. And I'll give you an example, The Sopranos.
26. JYJimmy O. Yang
  Mm-hmm.
27. JRJoe Rogan
  The, uh, Italian American Anti-Defamation League or whatever the fuck it is-
28. JYJimmy O. Yang
  Mm-hmm.
29. JRJoe Rogan
  ... I don't know, they were, they were pissed at The Sopranos. They were pissed that it was, uh, it was reinforcing negative stereotypes about Italians. And I'm Italian-
30. JYJimmy O. Yang
  Mm-hmm.

Episode duration: 2:29:45

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Um, hey, what's up,…

(laughs) …

For now, they can't.…

I don't know. I…

Yeah. …

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