Mike Birbiglia's Working It Out - 13. Ronny Chieng: Asian Comedian Destroys America…and Mike Birbiglia!

Episode Date: August 24, 2020

Ronny Chieng is most well known for his roles in Crazy Rich Asians and on The Daily Show, but he is also one of the finest stand-up comedians today. Ronny joins Mike to collaborate on entirely new jokes about Mike’s secret superhero identity “Mildew Man,” why presidents need to leave conspiracy theories to the pros, and some eye opening observations from Ronny about the current international perception of America. Please consider donating to: Welcome to Chinatown https://www.welcometochinatown.com/

Hey, it's Mike. Once again, our presenting sponsor is Sam Adams. They have summer ale. Have you heard about this? Summer ale tastes like the season of summer. Also, Sam Adams is doing this great thing right now. They've teamed up with the nonprofit Greg Hill Foundation to support restaurant workers. It's this thing called the Restaurant Strong Fund. They're doing great work, but they need your help. You can called the Restaurant Strong Fund. They're doing great work, but they need your help. You can support the Restaurant Strong Fund at SamuelAdams.com. And now the show. Welcome back to another episode of Working It Out. Our guest this week is a comic who I love. another episode of Working It Out.

Our guest this week is a comic who I love. One of my favorites to watch, Ronnie Chang, comedian, correspondent for The Daily Show. We did a stand-up and vote show together at a college in 2018. He's one of the stars of the film Crazy Rich Asians. He's a riot in that.

He has an amazing special right now on Netflix called Asian Comedian Destroys America. This is Ronnie Chang. When you started doing comedy, did you start in Australia? Yeah, I started in Australia. I'm actually in Australia right now. Okay.

I started in March 2009. You're telling me you've only been doing comedy 10 years? Devastating to me. I feel like my character from Don't Think Twice, Miles, who's bitter about everyone else. You're way too good for having done comedy

for 10 years. I'm still figuring it out. I got lucky. People gave me a lot of opportunities and I think a lot of people got behind what I was saying. And, you know, I'm still figuring out

how to do this. It's an eternal puzzle. You're still figuring out your humble speech is what you're trying to figure out. Because I'm not buying it for a damn second, Ronnie. You're a natural.

Yeah, no, it's great. It was great moving to New York. I always wanted to. And then being kind of surrounded by these pros who, you know, they do so many gigs every single day and they're so good at it, it kind of forced you to lift your game, I think. I think that's true. No matter who you are, that environment in New York City,

you know, before the pandemic, man, it was living the dream. It was living the dream. We could go from gig to gig and everyone seemed happy to be there. Yeah. I remember really being so present when I was on stage in New York for, essentially the first few times I was on stage,

when I first moved there, I was so excited to be there. It was like, oh man, this is what it's all's all about you know it's just like being able to perform here and then I also remember thinking in my head like this is too good to last right and then you know I feel like yeah I feel like there's no way this is gonna last like this is way too good a thing so did you have this thing that i had so i had this pressure as a comedian to succeed fast uh because my dad was a doctor and i felt like i had to succeed at that level fast and uh did you have that with your family at all yeah i definitely

i think i had that pressure to kind of legitimize it, right? And make sure it's like, show that it's a viable living. Yeah. Very quickly. So the decisions I made, you know, who you hang out with, how you conduct yourself, all those, everything I did.

I mean, I think naturally, I'm a pretty square kind of guy anyway. But, you know, everything I did was kind of like naturally I'm a pretty square kind of guy anyway but you know everything I did was kind of like how would a professional do this you know

so the other thing is like I went to law school so I come I kind of was at a very corporate period of my life

when I was starting comedy and I gotta say like that also kind of affected it in terms of like you know being a professional interacting with other people and approaching your craft, you know.

I had the same thing. I went to Georgetown, so I was surrounded by people in law, foreign service, medicine, all these things that were very professional. And so, yeah, you have to sort of invent your own professional track because in stand-up comedy, there sort of isn't one. Yeah, yeah. I don't know if I'm exposing myself as a huge square, but I think that helps a lot in comedy because it gives you kind of a little bit of structure and guideline to your career

so that you at least can work towards something or at least you have some basic procedures like how to respond in emails or even how to act, you know, like around other people. Because the thing about comedy is like you can't do it alone, you know. Like we literally do it alone. But at some point, you're going to need someone's help to either get a gig or like someone's on a TV show. They hire you as a writer you know like sure and and so being able to like be professional is part of it you know this is what i feel like conduct

yourself in a professional manner be dependable and that's not to take anything away from what you do on stage as well you know like obviously you got to deliver on stage but i just think that the you know that that off stage how you conduct yourself offstage is just as important. It's huge. It's funny because the other thing you say in your special is that America translates in Chinese to beautiful country. And there's a lot of discussion of how America is seen by the world in its current response to corona, but do you feel like the pendulum is shifting there? Well, actually, I was going to do a bit, you know,

in the, like, work a new bit with you about this. But I definitely feel… Oh, we can get to it. We can get to it. Yeah. Sure. Yeah. But no, short answer is, yeah, the pendulum is shifting a little bit. Quite a lot. The pendulum has shifted quite a lot since before, I would say. Oh, Jesus.

Yeah, and not in a good direction either. So, if I'm getting this right, you lived in Malaysia, Australia, New York, and New Hampshire. Is that correct? I lived in Malaysia, Singapore, New Hampshire, and yeah, Australia. Yeah.

So, my question is... Oh, and New York, yeah. I mean, recently, New Hampshire, and Australia. So my question is... Oh, and New York, yeah. I mean, recently to New York. And New York, of course. Yeah, yeah, where I met where we met. Yeah. What do all of those places have in common? What do they have in common?

Yeah. Because who else has lived in all those places? This is a huge experiment in human beings. No, do you know what it is? It's just there's the same dumbasses in every country. The same idiots show up in every country. The same conspiracy theory. They think they have all the answers and they lack a ton of perspective

and they've got prejudices and those same idiots are the same in every country but it's just a different team so it'll be like team Malaysia team Singapore, team Australia, team America like you know so those idiots

the same type of idiot exists in every country and they never, unfortunately, they never meet. The only people those people, you know, I mean, they should just meet and destroy themselves. But the problem is that

they will only meet the like good people from other countries and act like dicks to them. And that's just universal, unfortunately. Well, their conspiracies are probably about each other, right? Yeah. So like the stupid Kung Flu thing that Trump says is like, there's probably the equivalent in Malaysia about America.

Yeah. I mean, you know, probably not in Malaysia, but yeah, in Asia they'll think the same thing about America. Yeah. Unbelievable. Yeah. So, but I mean, if I can give you also a flip side to that is also

the good people also exist in all the different countries you know so I always feel like too often we compare like the worst

of one country to like the best of the other country you know what I mean like sure yeah of course and we don't go like

we don't compare the dumbasses with each other because that's the more accurate comparison like these people are dumb and then those people also dumb and they you know but too often we're like look at these dumb asses we're the good people these people are dumb and you're like well you're comparing their dumb asses to our good people so obviously they look dumb they look every if you do that everyone who's not you looks like a fucking moron right?

so I guess my follow up to that would just be proportionally is it the same amount of dumbasses in all of those locations? that's a great question that's a great question that's too big a call for me to make I think if that could alienate you to the entire American audience?

oh no no I'm not scared of alienating I just don't want to be inaccurate I'll accurately but you know what I'll go by the you know the normal distribution curve if everything in nature

follows that I'm going to say like yeah I think the proportion will be the same the proportion of dumbasses are the same so this is a thing called the slow round

which is just sort of prompts. This one's called On a Loop, which is do you have a memory from childhood where it's a memory of a thing that happened, but it's not even like a story? I've got a million of those because I grew up in America and because I left America for 20 years afterwards. And I've always been trying to come back to america since then and so that period of my life when i was like three years old to seven years old it really felt like a dream you know it felt like oh interesting yeah it felt like this thing because i could never go back to it wait a minute so i just want to chart the progression yeah were you born in born in malaysia born in malaysia born in in Malaysia. And then your family moved to New Hampshire.

Yeah. Yeah. And then your family moved to Australia. No, we were like good immigrants. Like we got our education and then we went back to Singapore. Like we didn't take jobs. We left. Yeah.

We left back to Singapore. Yeah. So we moved to Singapore and then I went to Australia for college when I was 18. So. Wow, yeah. So you have all these memories from being like in New Hampshire, like three through seven, but it sort of felt like a dream because you didn't live there anymore. Yeah. You didn't live there.

And it was such a foreign world to what, you know, it's even foreign by American standards. I think, you know, Manchester, New Hampshire, you know, it's nothing like New York. So there's no way to kind of recreate that feel. So it's like, you know, all these fragments of memories. And I got to go back to New Hampshire when I moved here to do a college gig. And I was so psyched.

And I actually went there and I was like taking photos and videos of all the, you know, all the places. And I sent it back to my mom and dad to show them and they were like oh yeah that's the park that's the that's the library oh my gosh yeah it was really interesting and uh you know when i was three years old to seven years old literally the world to me was like five places it was school yeah home the park, library, one restaurant, and like the lake. And so I remember I was in like pre-kindergarten in New Hampshire. It was a preschool that was also a church.

And then we were in the playground and this dog walks past. And I remember like looking at the dog and asking the teacher like, what is that on the dog and then the teacher kind of leaned in and whispered that's his balls oh my god and then i was like i didn't know what that meant i i at the time i didn't know what that meant i didn't know why she was whispering and and um only like you know 15 years later that memory comes back up in my head

and I was like oh yes she's talking about balls on a dog and she didn't want to like yell it out and you know

I don't think oh my god that makes so much sense yeah everything about that makes sense but at the time nothing made sense

why does this dog have this thing on it and yeah I have distinct memories of seeing balls on a dog and and thinking to myself especially certain types of dogs that have less fur yeah where you go like so what's that all about yeah yeah what's going on there yeah yeah you did you ever feel left out of a

group growing up that you like desperately wanted to be in that you look back on yeah i think so i mean i feel like i've been left out of every group uh up until honestly up until comedy comedy was the one where it was the first one was like yeah this all this makes sense like you can hang out with comics and you talk about stuff and everyone gets it you know everyone gets what you're saying gets where you're coming from um sometimes i feel similar i feel almost exactly the same like caught my college improv troupe was the first time where i was like oh my god this exists yeah like this thing where everybody's on the same page and like we all like have the same similar sense of humor i yeah i feel really i relate to that a lot yeah yeah and so i mean if you want to talk about the ones i didn't fit in i mean really it's been

trying i've been trying on clothing for right up till the end of college you know as as it should be so i've been trying on yeah different different friends types of friends, different potential professions. So desperately wanted to, yeah, this is nothing interesting, I guess. In high school in Singapore. No, no, that is interesting. Yeah, in Singapore, desperately wanted to be one of the cool kids, you know, dressed like the cool kids. At that time, it was like baggy clothes was in, so you would like buy your uniform a couple size bigger just so you look looks baggy oh my

gosh and um for us it was these things called skids like these big sort of like mc hammer type of pants kind of thing right right yeah that was in the 90s that was a thing yeah and then we would go to the store that had like the less expensive skids that were the generic brand skids but then people would call you out on it they'd be like that's that's generic brand skids and then it made it worse it made it worse yeah worse than not even trying yeah yeah and, it's, it's a big, uh, no, no. What is the, what's the most trouble you ever got in as a kid with your parents? Or what's the thing that you got away with doing that your parents never found out about? Oh, damn. Um, got away with doing that your parents never found out about oh damn um i got away with uh if you know me a very square kid you know never did anything like beyond the pale at all you know

very within the rules um and the the thing i got away with which they don't know about is um when when the Matrix Reloaded came out. This is already... It's already awesome. A pathetic example of doing something wrong. Yeah, yeah. When the Matrix Reloaded, applause break. Yeah, came out, applause break.

And it came out, and I was so hyped up on the Matrix. And, you know, like when the Reloaded came out, the trailer came out, we was so hyped up on The Matrix and you know like when The Reloaded came out the trailer came out we were losing our minds and you know

it was already the trailer was already making us crazy and then the premiere for Matrix Reloaded was like midnight they made it like a midnight

this is the first time you can see it in Singapore it's like you know and I've never seen a movie past 9pm outside my house before yeah and so midnight I snuck out of the house.

Oh my gosh, no. Before cell phones, before anything. So if they found out, the police would be at the home when you get back. Because they wouldn't know where you are. So snuck out of my house, went to Orchard Road in Singapore, which is like going to the city. That's hilarious. And then I bought myself a ticket.

I actually bought my ticket that afternoon at like an ATM. Like one of the first times you buy a ticket at like a non, you know, outside of the cinema, you could buy at like an ATM. I bought an ATM. I had the ticket. I went to go watch Reloaded

until like 2.30 a.m. And I'm like, man, if I get in trouble for this, it's worth it. And I went home, man, if I get in trouble for this, it's worth it. And I went home and nothing happened. I just went to sleep. I woke up and it was completely fine. Completely got away with it.

That's so funny. One time I was in a phase in high school where I was sneaking out in the summertime to hang out with friends. And there was one room in the house where I'd sneak out the window. time to hang out with friends. And there was one room in the house where I'd sneak out the window. And my mom seemed to get wise to it. And so one night, she goes, I think I'm just going to stay in here and watch TV with you. So she stays in there for like a couple hours, right? And at one

point, she opens up a backpack that I had packed that was like next to the couch. She's like, what's in this? She's like, pulls out a cowboy hat. I was literally going to wear. It was like, she's like, a cowboy hat? What were you going to wear? And I was like, that was just for tomorrow. I was just like getting stuff to get.

You know, like I had no excuse. And then eventually she falls asleep and she goes, oh, I'm going to go into my room and go to sleep. She leaves. And then I left. I stuck out the window still. Even after all that, she was completely onto me. I still stuck out.

And I think the moral of that story is high school kids will do anything. Yeah, I think so. But did she find out? No, she never found out. Oh, wow. You got away with it, man. But she sort of knew. She sort of knew with the cowboy hat.

I went through like a cowboy hat phase in high school, which I'm so embarrassed about. But what? As in like the way hipsters in Brooklyn wear cowboy hats now yes just like that that's fine not like reenacting

the west no no no there's nothing to it that was I wasn't doing a play or maybe your mom saw the hat

and she was like you know what this kid isn't there's no way he's getting into any trouble with this hat there's no way

no one's gonna let him into a club or anything with that so it'll be fine we would literally do nothing we would walk around the town and we would smoke cigars we wouldn't even smoke pot we'd just smoke cigars

man sneaking being out at night as a high schooler was like intoxicating it like intoxicating it was like it was intoxicating you're like out there like what

I'm out like it's night time like what yeah that that was enough yeah it was enough it was

it was crazy before you find before you find drugs and alcohol the night time is enough. I'm trying to work on this bit about how when I was a kid, America was a no-brainer to go to. No matter how, like, whatever, where you sat on the social,

like, economic ladder in other countries you know you could be rich you could be poor it was like yeah go to America like no brainer

like yeah of course go like it's it's awesome like you there'll be opportunities there you can it'll be a better life you can kind of

there's more freedom there's more TV you know and then now like it's there's more movies at midnight more movies at midnight um um and then now it's like i talked to my mom and by the way so i'm the only one of my family who moved to america like i'm alone you know it's me and my wife so i've got no other family there and um now i talk to my family members, my mom, and it's like so hard to justify why I'm going back there.

They literally are like, don't go back. Oh my gosh. Like why? You know, like I have to, you know, mom, I'll probably be back there for work soon. And she's like, why? Don't go. Have you seen the news? Oh my gosh.

You got to be kidding me. Yeah. And they're like, don't go. They're like, don't go. It's crazy there right now. It's, you know, between the pandemic and the riots and the president and it just looks like the whole thing's on fire.

They literally look at me like, why are you trying to go there? Like, it's like a crazy proposition, you know? That is wild. Yeah, I'm trying to write a bit. It might just be part of the hour in terms of a lesson learned, you know. I guess that like where you can go with that bit

is like how do you respond? Because I can tell dick jokes for a lot of money there. Which makes the problem even worse because they're like, what? Right, that's not that good of a reason. That's not that great a reason. Well, I can tell dick jokes on TV and hide it behind satire.

So it makes me sound more sophisticated and people pay me money for it. Wait, I have a question. Do you speak Mandarin? I do. I speak Mandarin. But to my mom, I've always spoken English to my mom. Oh, okay. I speak speak I actually

so can you perform stand up in Mandarin and is that like a big market I've done it but I'm not great at stand up in Mandarin

I assume it's a great market as everyone in the freaking in the movie industry in the entertainment industry things everyone

in the video game market everyone who doesn't do stand up has told me that stand up in Chinese is a great is a big market but my dad used to tell me that as well

I think there's a decent bit there which is like the endless amount of people who tell you like you know where you'd make some money is China a amount of people who tell you, like, you know where you'd make some money is China. You know, China, a lot of people. You're like, right.

No, no, no. I'm aware. I'm aware of how many people are in China. Yeah. And it goes back to, you know, like, we do this. I like to think we do this because of self-expression and obviously maybe at the start it was you know we need money and you know and profile helps us

make money from this profession so we kind of you know we kind of go after profile sometimes we try to build our profiles but ultimately

we're kind of in this for self-expression right and this idea of like oh yeah just go there and do it there

like no no my whole thing was to come here and do it here. Like, it's not… Yes. If I was trying to make a bunch of money, I'd go do something else. Because this makes no financial sense at all.

If you did stand-up in Mandarin, like, would there be restrictions on what you could say? Yeah, yeah. And I've done it. I've done it in stand-up. And Des Bishop has done it way more than me. Actually, if anyone's listened to this, go Des Bishop, Irish comedian who… He's very funny.

We work with him at The Cellar all the time. Yeah, and he's a very famous Irish comedian. You know, in Ireland, everybody knows him. And he did this thing where he moved to China and learned Chinese from scratch for two years. And he… With the goal of doing a stand-up show in Chinese. And it's a documentary.

You can go watch it. You know, Des Bishop. I think it's made in China, I think. And he does it very successfully. And his stand-up in Chinese is really funny. And like what you just said, he can't do anything political. He can't do anything dirty, really.

So he has to do these very clean kind of bits. But still still you know because he's such an experienced comic he makes them very sophisticated bits and it's it's amazing to watch i've done chinese shows with him in new york we actually did one at the cellar just for kicks we did like a show in chinese and we forgot to say that it was in china it didn't get advertised so people showed up and there was like half the crowd were Chinese people expecting it to be in Chinese

and half the crowd were just people. And so, me and Des Bisho were doing this on stage and we were like, we also had other New York comics

from China actually. That's a surprising number of like white comedians who moved from China to America and can do it in Chinese. It's actually, that's why we, yeah, that's why we,

yeah, that's why we did the show. But shout out to all the white guys who, honestly, man, they, yeah.

Come on, come on. Give it up. There's got to be a moment for white guys who speak Mandarin. Give it up for the white guys who,

it's about time. Man, like, we had enough to do a show. Like, everyone came on and did 10 Minutes in Chinese. You know,

me and Des hosted it. And, you know, for me, I think in English. So, when I do it in Chinese, I'm like translating on the fly and, you know, jokes don't work. Yeah, it doesn't work. I'm not great at it, you know.

I spoke to Eddie Izzard once and he does it, you know, Eddie Izzard's like a crazy man. He does it in like Italian, Spanish. I know, it's unbelievable. Yeah, you know, so. He does French. French. does it in like Italian, Spanish. It's unbelievable. Yeah, so. He does French.

French. It's unbelievable. He'll learn German and then do it in German like the next week. You know, like it's, so.

He'll run, no, and beyond that, he'll run like 60 marathons in a row. For some reason. Eddie is a superhuman. Yeah,

he's a superhuman. So I'm talking to him about it and like, he's, you know, I'm like, ah man, I don't even know if I can do it.

I can barely do this in English much less do it in Chinese. And then he like, he's, you know, I'm like, ah man, I don't even know if I can do it. I can barely do this in English much less do it in Chinese. Yeah. And then he's like, oh, you know, just trust that you're funny. What's funny is funny universal

and you can figure it out. Yeah. But man, the language differences is, yeah, it's pretty crazy. But yeah, so I've done it in Chinese

and it's tough. It's definitely tough. And I kind of, when, you know, my Chinese among non-Chinese speakers is freaking awesome. My Chinese among Chinese speakers, people are like, shut the fuck up. Like you, yeah. So. I think that's a good bit too, by the way. Yeah.

I mean, I think that's really funny. Yeah, I did that in Chinese. I said that in Chinese. good bit too by the way yeah i mean i think that's really funny yeah i did that in china i said that in chinese my my chinese five minutes has a bit about how like every time in china when i was in china which by the way i've you know i've been to china once i'm like third generation chinese malaysian so i you know i got very little to do with actual china so i went there for the first time and people in china were like oh man you speak chinese really well like your chinese is really good and i was like well, your Chinese is really good.

And I was like, well, if my Chinese was really good, you wouldn't even say that my Chinese is good. So by saying that my Chinese is good, you actually mean that my Chinese is really bad. Well, I've been working on this thing about, so last year, my wife and I finally bought a place in New York after, you know, I just turned 42. It's like, I'm 42 years old. We finally buy something, which is, it's just too late in life to buy. It assumes that we're going to live as long as the mortgage and it might not happen. And then I start looking at the origin of the word mortgage, and it literally means death pledge, which really makes buying an apartment feel a little less fun. Like Citibank doesn't market these things as the death pledge.

Great deals on the death pledge. Never a better time for a death pledge. Lowest rates ever on the death pledge. Never a better time for a death pledge. Lowest rates ever on the death pledge. And the apartment building is very old. It's like a 120-year-old building that has leaks and holes and rats and mold and all this stuff we don't know anything about. So we've been renovating it for like two and a half years. And I feel like I'm only going to live until I'm like 60.

So I feel like I'm building going to live until I'm like 60. So I feel like I'm building my own coffin slowly. That's a little bit in the same universe as the first joke. It's almost like, you probably find this with jokes. It's almost like sometimes you go into, you have two jokes there, right? You have the joke about the death pledge and then you have the building my own coffin slowly and you go like, oh, death funnier you get the bigger laugh there and then you're like the building my own coffin slowly is pretty funny but it's not as big of a laugh and you're like well maybe when when we get back on stage i'll try to flip-flop those so that one builds up up to the next one when you're doing a one-hour show, you can kind of get away with

a tag that means more to you than, you know, so you say it because that's a beautiful way to end it, right? It's like a structural,

even in that short little bit, I mean, ultimately I have no idea how it will fit into the bigger show, but structurally as a story,

that makes sense to kind of use it as a tag to go on to the next point. The whole show is actually, this new show I'm writing is called the YMCA Pool. It's about how in middle age I'm returning to swim at the YMCA

Pool, which I never wanted to. Yeah, which I went as a child. I swore I would never return. And here I am in the YMCA Pool and it's sort of a metaphor for life and how we sort of realize our limitations and my limitations right now are the YMCA pool. And in some ways, the apartment, buying an apartment after all these years is sort of a metaphor for that also. Right. I think there's a bit about maybe refinancing the death pledge.

You know, that could be a yes yes um that's pretty funny to look at the death death pledges interest rates um yeah what the cash out refinancing yeah and this guy's got a cheaper death pledge so we're gonna go with him and and then i got um i got so we move into this new apartment and it's me in my wife's bedroom and then there's our daughter's bedroom. She's five. And my wife and daughter sleep in my daughter's bedroom

because sometimes parents sleep with their kids and the other parent is like, okay, and then doesn't say anything about it because what are you going to say? Don't do that. You're showing her too much love so that's what it is and so at a certain point the building developed a mold and mildew problem in the basement that's seeping through the floor into our daughter's bedroom and it made jen cough

because she's allergic to mildew uh so we swapped bedrooms and now I sleep in my daughter's bed alone because I don't mind the smell of mildew because I grew up in Massachusetts and the whole state smells like mildew. And so now I'm the hero of our home because I don't mind the smell of mildew. Literally, my wife and daughter call me Mildew Man. might literally, my wife and daughter, call me Mildew Man. And Mildew Man's superpowers include not minding the smell of mildew, and that's it. And so if there's ever a citywide crisis, Superman will show up and blow out all of the fires in the buildings with his super breath,

and Batman will fly on top of a subway and make sure it doesn't fly off the tracks. And Mildew Man will not mind the smell of mildew. That's all I have on that. Very touching. Very touching. I'm trying to work on this bit about how like the conspiracy theorists are always trying to like solve

a puzzle like the Da Vinci Code. And they're just never... You know what I mean? Like everything to them is like this escape room that they're trying to escape from. They're constantly trying to like connect the dots and like... Yes. Like solve something. Like they're trying to solve this connect the dots and like yes like um solve

something like they're trying to solve this puzzle and the worst part about it is that they they're just you can see that they're they're not even going in the name of truth they're just like ultimate contrarians because yes one of the one of the themes of this pandemic is that like um you know the government is just trying to trick everyone to stay at home it's not real because everyone's reporting on it they must be lying it's not real this pandemic isn't real

and then you go like well what if the reverse happened what if the government actually did that what if the government actually was like you know what the pandemic isn't real don't worry about it it's actually fake you know we can handle it don't worry and then like you know the same. You know, we can handle it. Don't worry. And then, like, you know, the same conspiracy theorists

will be in the hospitals videoing people dying of it and going like, the government isn't telling you about this. This isn't a normal flu. This is a, you know, people are dying from this.

They're trying to kill off and then there'll be some conspiracy about how the rich people are trying to kill off the poor people. They're not letting us, they're not letting us know about this pandemic because they want us all to die. You know what I mean? Yes.

Maybe going into the hospital, people dying part is a bit morbid for the joke. But the point of the bit is like, these conspiracy theories would be conspiring either way. Yes. I mean, the conspiracy theories in america are just straight up racist i mean they're just i mean they're like just straight up racist and and then the president like fans the flame of the racism and it's if i have to say it just feels so fucking upside down. Yeah. To a point where, like, you just, you throw up your hands,

you go, I don't even know what to say. Because I was going to build on that and maybe, like, maybe, like, there's a bit about, like, what's weird about having the president be a conspiracy theorist is that you're kind of like, hey, man, the conspiracies were supposed to be about you. That's really good. Stay in your lane. Yeah, it was supposed to be about you.

If you are also like trying to figure out the conspiracies, like if you can't figure it out... If you, with the federal government, you have Area 51, and you, you know... Yes! You can't figure out...

The deep state! You have the deep state! Get your shit together with the deep state! Call them! So this is a continuation of Mildew Man. So the other night, Mildew Man is sleeping in his daughter's bed, but not in a creepy way. And I hear scratching in the wall next to my head. This is completely true.

And it was loud scratching. Like it was like I was like scared. And I thought like, I think there might be a person in the wall. And I say, I swear to God, I was alone. I go, hello? To the wall. And then I realize it's probably not a person. It's probably a rat.

So I say, hello, rat? And then I realize the rat doesn't speak English. So I say, hola, rat. And then I realize it doesn't speak Spanish. So I say, ciao, rat. And then it occurs to me, this rat might not speak any human language. And so I go, and the rat goes. And since I speak rat, I knew that the rat was saying, hey, Mike, I really enjoy living in your wall. So before you go to bed, can you leave out some of those dried apricots on the floor upstairs? I don't mind climbing up the walls to get them on the counter, but it would save me a hike. So now we have mold and mildew and rats but fortunately we own it so so so we own the rats we don't rent the rats we own the mold we don't rent the mold

and that's really what being an adult is all about it's owning a piece of this hell we call earth that's the end it might be too dark at the end. No, no. It's good. Honestly, when I wrote the beginning of it, I think it was before all this went down.

And now, the hell that we call Earth feels a little too close to home. Right. The rats and the thing. Something about maybe they don't... I mean, you mentioned it, but they're not paying rent. Oh, right.

Yes. Or maybe they are paying rent to somebody we don't know. Yeah. They're not contributing to the mortgage. Maybe they have a mortgage. Maybe where there are rats. Yes. Right.

Or maybe they own the inside of the wall. Yeah, yeah. Own the inside of the wall. Have you ever had a rat? No. Man, rat, you know, I've been lucky. Every country I've lived in has been rat free until New York City. It's the first time I saw a mouse in my house was New York City.

So that was... New York has a lot. Yeah. I wonder how they're all doing in this turbulent time someone did a study that the uptown rats are genetically different

to the downtown rats so there's that is that true? they did a genetic study. And then my brother Joe was pointing out the pizza rat is very famous. Pizza rat is very famous. Yeah. Yeah.

I just saw a video of, which speaks to 2020, of a seagull eating a rat. So that's. Oh my gosh, no. Yeah. So that's where it's come. That's the evolution of pizza rat is. I feel like that's one of the strangest things about being a comedian in modern times is that we're competing against videos of a seagull eating a rat.

Yeah, it's hard to compete. I mean, I saw a video of, and this is BBC Planet Earth 2, so it's high quality. It's a fish eating a bird. And these fish eat birds on the regular like that they've evolved to eat birds it's not one time like the seagull eating the rat is like you know one off this guy's been trying something new like maybe he's sick of fries he wanted to go something else but this you're gonna be kidding me but this fish eating the bird just google fish eating a bird.

And when I saw this video of this fish leaping like an Olympic athlete out of the water and eating a bird, I was like, wow. You can't compete with…

My five-minute bit that takes three minutes to set up is not going to… But you should do that as a bit. Just literally talking about that as a setup is phenomenal. The fish eating a bird. Because to me, that is

the perfect metaphor for climate change. The fish eating a bird. The fish are eating the goddamn birds i mean when are people gonna start believing in climate change yeah i mean the the way to tie into comedy for me because i've been ruminating about this bit as well is about how some people don't know that like different types of comedy. Like they, because like what you said, we've kind of been growing up in like meme comedy. Yes.

So people who have never seen stand-up comedy before, or at least have never seen a show live, they look at this meme on their phone, which they spend one second scrolling past and they laugh at that. And it's legitimately funny. And then they watch a stand-up clip and they're like,

what the fuck is this thing? No, I know. This guy talking for three minutes isn't anywhere as funny as this meme of this, you know, this one image meme of this guy. This meme made me laugh way more. Therefore, all comedians suck. But it will bring me full circle, and we can end on this, to how good your Netflix special is.

I have watched it twice. Thank you so much. And it is just joke after joke after joke, and it feels so authentic and human and relatable, and you're just crushing. Oh, thanks so much, man. So I put that head-to-head with fish eating a bird any day of the week, Ronnie. Thank you so much.

You know, coming from you, that's a huge honor. Thank you so much for watching so many times and liking it. And we'll cut that part out where you compliment me back. times and liking it. And we'll cut that part out where you compliment me back. This is a section of the show that we call Working It Out for a Cause. Is there any organization or site or anything that you think is doing a particularly good job right now? I've been trying to pick a charity and there's so many people in need now. It was actually... Oh, I know. No, no. It's an unwieldy ask to try to narrow it down right now so all we can do is say support all of your local non-profits and the people doing great work out there yeah but but maybe today we'll

just shine a light on one specific sure yeah um if you today, I really appreciate if you guys could check out Trump's re-election campaign and maybe consider giving a few bucks to that. So there's these guys. There's these guys. Welcome to Chinatown.com and kind of based in New York City, Chinatown. And over the last winter,

I had a chance to film this short film in Chinatown. Pure love of the game, wasn't for money. I got to meet a lot of the Chinatown people and get to, you know, I would go to Chinatown to eat almost every week. And even then, for the last five years I've been going, but even then I got to see parts of Chinatown making this movie that I haven't seen before.

You know, there was all these cool restaurants and these figures who've, these community leaders and people who've been there since they were children, you know, and they're very much

a part of the fabric of New York City, you know, and these, including these authentic shops and part of the joy for me in New York City was the small businesses.

You know, the small businesses was what makes New York fun. It's not the chains. We're not going to, you know, Applebee's. We're going to freaking... We're not there for Chevys. We're there for the cool

kind of authentic New York spots, you know, and I feel, I can't help but feel like the small businesses are probably the hardest hit in all this because they've got high overheads. And so, anyway, welcometochinatown.com is a charity that these people set up and it seems pretty legit um i'm willing to say that and they they at first they were kind of awesome i'm actually i'm on i'm looking at it on my phone this is fast this is really fascinating yeah it means that it's it's you know it shows It shows you different restaurants. Yeah. So they started off kind of as a charity to buy food from Chinese restaurants

which are struggling and give it to frontline workers. So it was very logical. Very little waste in that exchange, I think. Money going directly to businesses and helping people who need food. That's great. And then I think they've kind of pivoted now to small business grants. So they're trying to give out grants to people.

So I think they're a worthy cause. You know, if you like the fabric of New York City and Chinatown and, you know, these people, I don't think I need to explain why, you know, the troubles they've been facing, both in terms of business and in terms of racial prejudices lately. So, yeah.

Certainly, yeah. If you guys could put a few bucks there that would be cool um or even just go just go and you know buy food from them you know if you if you don't want to donate you know absolutely the point of this is to keep all these businesses going i think that's right that's right um it's welcome to chinatown.com and uh ronnie chang it is an honor to have you on working it out. And I feel like we have some new good bits. I think so. I feel like it. I like yours.

I love yours. We'll do it again. Then we'll do it again. Please. Yeah. Working it out because it's not done. Working it out because there's no. That's going to do it for another We're working it out, because there's no hope. That's going to do it for another episode of Working It Out.

That's Ronnie Chang. Holy cow. Ronnie is so funny. He's got great new bits. You should watch that special of his on Netflix. It is so funny. It is great for an hour of laughs. Our producers of Working It Out are Peter Salamone and Joseph Birbiglia,

consulting producer Seth Barish, sound mix by Kate Balinski, assistant editor Mabel Lewis, thanks to my consigliere Mike Berkowitz, as well as Marissa Hurwitz. Special thanks to Jack Antonoff for our music. As always, a very special thanks to my wife, J. Hope Stein. Our book, which is called The New One, that has her poems and my comedy in and it is curbside at your local bookseller. We're doing some local bookstore events called Jokes and Poems at McNally Jackson in New York, Books Are Magic in Brooklyn, Powell's in Portland, and Greenlight in Brooklyn. All of that is on burbiggs.com.

I'm also doing a virtual stand-up comedy event. It is a Working It out live virtual event. It's on Tuesday. It's sold out. We kept a limited amount so it can be like an interactive, intimate, interactive thing. I'm going to announce a few more of them soon. You're the only people who know. The only way you can find out is signing up on my mailing list at burviggs.com. As always, a special thanks to my daughter Una, who is five years old and created a radio fort.

And my thanks to Sam Adams, who's presenting the restaurant Strong Fund, supporting restaurant workers. You can join them at samueladams.com. Thanks to you most of all for listening. Tell your friends. Tell your enemies. We're working it out!