Pablo Torre Finds Out - Ronny Chieng Channels the Buddhism of Bill Belichick

Episode Date: December 7, 2023

The comic, actor, and Daily Show correspondent/president shovels out content with the best of 'em. But he also believes in bombing onstage to learn the optimum level of failure. He believes in using anger to win over an audience — or to find a new favorite team, or to find love. Ronny Chieng believes. Also: watching thousands of hours of Patriots documentaries, torrenting "Around the Horn," dialing up NBA Live, getting Covid based on your fandom... and the best foul-mouthed Bill Belichick impersonation you've ever heard.Watch on YouTube: https://youtu.be/fX5AnWhP65s Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Welcome to Pablo Torre finds out. I am Pablo Torre, and today we're going to find out what this sound is. I think Bill Belichick might be the first Asian head coach. We have our representative. That's right. It's Bill Belichick. Right after this ad. You're listening to Drap King's Network.

I love how much you fucking hate podcasts. I hate podcasting, man. Hate this shit. It's so stupid. It's the death of, media and civilization. This is the death of media and civilization right here. This desk, me and you talking to each other.

Everyone thinks they're a fucking creator now. Everyone's, oh, you just need two mics and you just need to talk and you can make $100 million. And they do. That is the rub. Yeah, what happened to production value? What happened to writing a funny article? No. What happened to

work? We're just going to Google some We don't know work anymore. We just do this. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm going to ask one of my producers to Google some stuff as we go. And by the end of it, I will have made nine figures. Is what I told my parents. Well, at least you opened your own shop. Like this, I didn't, I didn't know you...

We have a physical space. So, as much as podcasts are ruining... Civilization. Civilization, media ethics, all of it. I built... We built a physical studio. Yeah. And that feels almost a throwback

after like the last several years. Yes. Because you could be doing this in your underwear. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's right. For our podcast audience, we are naked. We are nude. Check the IG clips.

I was trying to explain, Ronnie, like, how we know each other to one of my producers. I can't remember, yeah. And I think the assumption was that... Or Asian. Exactly. Yeah, yeah. Which is actually not wrong. Okay, so the assumption here, just to spell it all out for you, is that I obviously knew

a stand-up comedian and big-time Hollywood actor and Daily Show correspondent Ronnie Chang because we're both Asian and on cable television, which, uh, you know, again, not totally wrong, I think, in terms of how we first reach out to each other over the internet, but we got dinner eventually in person. I watched his Netflix specials and I became immediately acquainted with his particular brand of holiday cheer. Every nine months in this country, that's like a congressional gridlock, right? Everyone always threatening a government shutdown. Government shutdown? You, there's no government. You, there's no government shut down with Asian people in charge?

We don't shut down for anything. Yo, we don't shut down for Christmas. Do you understand? But as for why I mean anything at all to Ronnie, there is another reason. It turns out. I actually know you from, because I used to be even more obsessed with sports

when I was living in Australia. That's when I entered my peak sports phase. And that was when, speaking of new media, that was when PTI first started sorry, pardon the interruption for people, non-sports fans who were listening to this. Yeah, around the horn, pardoning the interruption. Yeah, but they were first putting podcasts out.

And so I was living in Australia at the time, and I didn't have ESPN, like most college kids or overseas or, you know, we didn't grow up, I didn't grow up with cable, I couldn't afford it. And so the fact that they were putting out this show for free. And I couldn't understand why are they doing this for free? Just the audio. But it was great.

Because, you know, I would, like, pirate it. I would like parody it on Tor. I would torrent around the horn. For real. I was such a nerd. I would torrent around the horn just to watch it. And then, you know, the Department of Justice better never listen to this podcast. That's right.

The statute of limitations may not have run out. If everyone from the DOJ or the motion pictures listen to this, we're just joking. We don't know what torrents are. Yeah. I just love the idea of like outside this office in Manhattan, there's a van with an FBI agent being like, we got them. We got them. We got these idiots. You've been hunting them.

Who they willingly came on air and did this. But yeah, I listened to you on PTI. It was great. And I was like, man, there's an Asian dude on Around the Horn. This is the best. I'm just imagining like, okay, young Ronnie Chang. And at this point, where? You're in Singapore, Malaysia, Australia.

At this point, I was in Australia. Okay. I was in law school in Australia. Man, okay. So I imagine you just like listening on the podcast. I love that whole format. I love, you know, Tony. It was like a game show.

Yeah, but it wasn't. It wasn't. It was like. A self-aware. That format was just. genius. When I first started this crusade. Oh, that's my first started. I first started this crusade, and that's the other part of this.

The first person there has been very prominent in all of this. What did it feel like, Pablo, after seeing your one C that you picked a go down, Kansas beat Penn, but then seeing another one C in Virginia, which you didn't have it, but to see it go down. What were you feeling? You know, Tony, many great inventors don't live to see the fruit. Oh, good. Now that's good.

Stop. Stop. So when you... How can we talk about sports in a way that hasn't been done with the point system? And then you, sometimes you'll win, not often enough, quite frankly.

Thank you. You know, not representing... I do have a class action lawsuit on this very basis. You will win at the end and then it will give you the spotlight for like 30 seconds. Yes, FaceTime. FaceTime.

And you would always have these great... Everyone always like, no one ever bombed FaceTime, which I always found pretty amazing because as a professional, I guess, public speaker, I don't know if I could hit every single FaceTime without writing it beforehand.

So I don't know what you guys were just off the top of your head. You guys just going off about some stupid, you know, bullshit in sports. It is my first FaceTime of 2022, which marks 10 years that I've been doing this show. And I just wanted to share with all of you, all of America, really a major development in my life. I got a Japanese toilet. Just gas bagging, just reps. Yeah, but it works. But by the way, like, I think something you appreciate as a guy who is now the senior correspondent of the Daily show.

We get hired with that position. That's a fake position. But sure, go ahead. Then you should have made a better one. Yeah. Yeah, the executive. The president of the Daily Show, that's my new title. America has a problem with food.

You guys want your food to be cheap and fast, but also to be fresh and healthy. That's too many things, okay? You can't have both. It's like racial diversity at a ski lodge. It doesn't exist. As Daily Show president, something you appreciate is just the reps.

Truly, like, these are daily shows we're talking about. And when I talk about, and when I think about show business, I'm like, you mother f***ers with your precious, like, we do something once a week or once a month. Like, we're, I just sound like we're soldiers. We're in the trenches. We're pumping out, we're shoveling content into furnaces. We're pumping out this useless content every day so meta can make some money from it.

Yeah, that's right. That's right. So tech companies can monetize us and we can never see the profits. But truly, like, the number of just sheer tonnage of shows, I would imagine that you actually do understand that in a way that few people. people can't. Yeah, well, not just from The Daily Show, but that's how stand-up comedy works. It's an iterative-based art form that you have to jump on every single night and you have to keep bombing until you get it right.

And then you have to keep trying jokes or, you know, not trying jokes that don't work, but like you have to keep working on jokes that you believe in. If a line doesn't work, you know, meaning you've performed it and something doesn't work and you still believe in a joke, you got to try something different to make the joke work or maybe abandon the joke. But the point is, you know, you know, you've done it. You got to keep jumping on and it's iterative. And you do the same stuff, you know, every night, four or five shows a night.

So that comes from stand-up, you know? One of the things I wanted to ask you about was bombing. Yeah. There is a sports aspect to it in the sense of, like, public performance and a live dimension to trying to not be humiliated. Like a high-pressure moment that goes wrong. Yes. How would you describe that for people who have not taken that degree of,

risk when it comes to speaking extemporaneously or even in a practiced way in public yeah wow that you did go to harvard that's a good question actually for once the you know i don't like to talk up myself or the stand-up comedy or anything i do as though it's the greatest thing on the plan or whatever i don't think it's the hardest thing that of course there's harder jobs uh but i do appreciate now with some perspective as well that yeah stand-up comedy does have some actual skill sets that have helped me out in real life, like, in real life. It's absurd, by the way, that we draw the line.

I know, we draw the line between comedy and real life, but like the mental toughness of overcoming, not just the fear of performing in the moment, which is the analogy of sports, but also not performing in the moment, as in failing to perform. That's how you get better. And then the more you see that that's how you get better,

the less you're worried about it because you understand that's part of the process. And I think in sports, there's this optimum level of failure that you want to reach when you're training. In addition to that is like with comedy, the stakes are actually not that high. You know, if you can overcome your own whatever in insecurities, yeah, you didn't do well. But wait, wait, hold on. I want to challenge you on that because you're sort of saying you're pointing to your head and saying, if you can overcome this.

Yeah. That's the thing that most people cannot overcome is what's happening pointing to my own head in here. Yeah, but I mean, that's why it's not for everybody, you know? And so, yeah, there is a... Well, that's the sports analogy, not to interrupt you, but like, this job is not for everybody. It's meant to be hard. Yeah. It's meant to risk genuine shame and humiliation.

And I'm just curious, do you remember, do you have like a almost physical, visceral memory of bombing? Is there something that sticks out to you? Yeah, bomb all the time. So, okay, so if you could describe just like one of those moments, one of those memories, what it feels like in your body as it's happening. Like, before you reach this- Why are you trying to make me relive this shit, man? So, worst, like, you know, I've been booed off stage

at music festivals in Australia. Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, that's beyond bombing. That's being evicted. So I'm doing my set, and someone just starts shouting, like, boring, boring, and I'm just, like, powering through it, and he won't stop saying boring.

And so I just finally say, like, hey, do you want to get thrown out of this festival? Because we'll just throw you out. And I pointed a security god. And the security god was, there was no way he was listening to me at all. I was just, I was just bluffing the whole time. And I just piled through my set. So I just...

So wait, so your decision, as this is happening, is I'm going to finish this set. Yeah, I'm just going to finish it. And so your decision there to do that, how obvious was it that was the move? It just felt like, I guess I was pissed off. I was like, I'm just going to finish this set. I'm going to make you listen to me talk. and just, you know, just bombing the whole time. I imagine, though, just I've never done stand-up.

I imagine that among all of the crowds to try to boo you off a stage, an Australian crowd in the caricature I have of Australia has to be like one of the worst ones to experience. I don't know about that. I started comedy in Australia. I lived there for 10 years. So, to be honest, most people who come to shows are nice people. You know, majority of society works because most people are nice people.

And then there's, you know, you get one or two of those kind of people who, I guess, I don't know, they were trolling. I don't know what they were doing on the day. But context in comedy is so important. And people don't understand how fragile it is sometimes. And I know it's not the consumer's job to care. It's the comics job to, you know, be professional and put on a good show. But that's why it's also up to the comics to sometimes say no to gigs that won't be very good. So, for example, if you do comedy in a boardroom under fluorescent lights at 9 a.m.,

I don't, you know, I don't care who you are. That's not going to be a great gig, you know. So, and people, for some reason, a producer, whoever's making the decisions is not thinking about that. They just think like, oh, throw it on and it'll be okay, you know. And what will happen, for example, music festivals is like, they just offer enough money. And all the comics are like, all right, we're just going to bomb for this for money.

We're just going to bomb for money now. Everyone's going to hate this. But people don't, it's not like music, you know. You can't just put it on and people in the background. You have to kind of buy in. a crowd for comedy. Right. You have to want to be there.

Otherwise, comedy doesn't work, you know. I know there are some comedians out there, some stand-ups who love crowd work. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And they will, it feels like in the social media economy, the stopia we live in. Like, somebody, sometimes I wonder, like, is that a plant? Oh. Because it's just like, because there is such rich potential for, like, a fun, viral interaction. Do you enjoy that opportunity or, like, get the...

I hate that shit. I hate talking to them. I didn't come here to talk to you guys. I came here to say what I want to say. I don't want to know what people think. So I don't actually there's a bigger reason why I don't talk to the crowd that much is because like I like talking to a crowd sometimes at my own shows like if I'm doing a if I'm on tour, which I'm going on tour next year. So this is the only reason why I'm here. That's right.

Do this. 2024. Ronnie Cheng.com. Right. Yeah. Ronnie with a Y. Yeah. I already hate myself.

Chang. C-H-I. E-N-G. The reason why I don't like to do a ton of crowd work is not only do I want to do my own jokes. I don't want to talk to these people. But also because when I started doing comedy. I was doing comedy for a few years and I stopped watching comedy

I was just performing it and then after four or five years in I think it was only four years in I went back to watching comedy as an audience member not performer as in I would just go to shows and watch it now

like you know small comedy shows whatever it was and I remember feeling this like you know it's corny to say but it's like this empathy for the audience because I used to my first four years of comedy I was trying to figure out

how to do it, I would basically yell at the audience a lot, like attack the crowd a lot. And that was great for like a five-minute set or ten-minute set. But you couldn't really yell at a crowd for longer than 20 minutes before it got kind of, it got kind of weird. And I acknowledged that. And I was just trying to transition away from like what was working in the short term to having this as a long-term career, you know? And watching comedy again kind of made me realize that in terms of empathy with the audience

was like, man, people had a long day, you know. You don't know what they're going through in the crowd. Like, you don't know what's happened in their life. They're just trying to get away from their problems or maybe they have some horrible thing happen to them or serious stress. So they're there to like enjoy themselves, you know. And they're there to listen to the comic, you know. And so absence any other evidence to the contrary of them being a dick,

man, you know, they're just trying to have a good time. And in that sense, the mutual respect, between the performer and the audience is, oh, let me do the stuff I worked hard and prepared it and not, like, pick on you for the sake of picking on you, you know. That's what drives a lot of my, you know, show performance, you know. Well, I should point out for people who have not seen your stand-up, and by the way, like two specials on Netflix, both really fucking funny.

Do you have any idea how meaningless the concept of Thanksgiving is to me? Fuck turkey, it's dry. Yeah, I'd rather fix health care than eat turkey. How about that? Is that someone you want in charge? Please vote for the Asians when you get a chance will work while you're eating. I would say that your use of anger

is still like a calling card for you but it's deployed in a way that is clearly like... Let's get on board on this, you know what I mean? Let's all get angry at this together. And it's trying to galvanize as opposed to like direct it at someone in the building. Yeah, yeah, it used to be very directed at the crowd and that worked as a,

I would say that worked as a gimmick when I was starting out in short, shorter sets. But then, yeah, the name of the game for me was what became like, oh, let's all get angry at this thing together instead of I'm angry at you guys. So I should point out, as we talk about public performance

and how fans, how audience members feel, and what we are passionate about, should point out that you're wearing a sweater that has the NBA logo knit onto it. Yeah. Yeah. NBA. I support the NBA. Yeah, yeah.

I even have a team. I just support the NBA. That's what I want to know. Okay, so we're back now to you torrenting around the Horton PTI and falling in love with sports in a way that is confusing to me because I'm, and this is the part of like all Asian Americans know everything about each other or all Asians I think about each other. I don't know what it was like to grow up abroad learning about sports from across the world. Yeah. How did you fall in love with any part of sports from that disqual? Yeah, if you come from Singapore and Malaysia, we watch a lot of English Premier League soccer. And I always found it also incredibly stupid. Here's your clip for Singapore about how Singaporeians will for some reason pick a English Premier League team arbitrarily based on current success or the jersey color.

And then support their stupid colonial team so powerful. that they'll get angry, like genuinely angry at other Singaporeans who supported the rival team. So I get the love. I never got the hate of it, you know, that tribalism. So for me, how I started joining was just to troll my friends. I would pick the team everyone hated. And I'm like, yeah, I support these guys. And so at the time it was Chelsea because they got bought over and they had a ton of money. Yes.

And they were winning. And I was like, yeah, I support Chelsea. So I go around, Singaporeans, Liverpool, everyone's a man-new supporter because they've got. grew up in the 90s in Singapore, everyone became a Manchester Yeah, the equivalent of being like a Cowboys or a Bulls fan in the 90s. Yeah, but this is worse because this is Manchester United supporters who've never been to England and if

they went to Manchester, we'll get their ass kicked by Manchester people. Because that's how they roll there. And also, I think this is an important point that I want to clarify, Singapore, British colony once upon a time, there is also the backdrop of literally rooting for the empire that

put its boot on your throat. Yeah, I never got that. So I just saw Chelsea or troll people and then it became kind of like a genuine love of Chelsea. I'm noticing a recurring theme here of your use of hatred transforming into love. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I like to, that's my transmutation. I like to, that's my alchemy. I turn hatred into love.

So yeah, I support Chelsea and love telling people I support Chelsea and seeing how angry it would get. They'll be like, why the fuck do you support Chelsea? I'm like, I support Chelsea for the same fucking reason. You support, man, you or Liverpool. or the stupid Arsenal or whatever you By the way Arsenal doesn't even It's not even a location in London There's nowhere called Arsenal

When you support Arsenal as a Singaporean What are you supporting? That was your gateway drug Was was trolling EPL fans in Singapore That's how I got And then also Thank you You know Michael Jordan

They would show Michael Jordan Ronnie just pointed to the sky To thank Michael Jordan That's how high How tall he is when I stand next to it But by the way So again, we're talking about what year roughly? This is 94.

So you were rooting for Chelsea and the Bulls and Michael Jordan. Well, I'm not from America. Well, I used to live in Manchester, New Hampshire. But I didn't have, like, I'm not, I couldn't claim a U.S. team, you know, because I never really, I felt it was like false tribalism to try to claim it. So for that reason, I never supported NBA team. I just love basketball. So, in fact, if anything, I always, whenever two teams played, I was always like, oh, who's the underdog, you know.

So actually, I was following the Knicks a lot, 94, 95. Yeah, as they lost a lot to Michael Jordan. Bring win for Michael Jordan, 55 points. Yeah, they lost a lot of Michael Jordan. They also won a lot, by the way. They went to the finals twice, I think. They played the spurs in the finals, lost to the spurs in the finals. Yes.

That team was Chris Charles, Charlie Ward, who was a Heinzman winning quarterback and tennis prodigy and starting NBA point guard. underrated athlete, Charlie Ward. And they're lots of the Rockies, as you say, as well as finals. So, but this team, by the way, Chris Childs, punch Kobe Ryan in the neck. Oh, yeah, great.

Another reason why he's a good guy. And then Marcus Camby, who took on David Robinson and Tim Duncan by himself because Patrick Even was injured and somehow didn't break his spine. Obviously, Spreewell, Allen Houston. And that was like a fun team to root for. I would use them in NBA, NBA 96.

I was like a Knicks specialist Houston, yeah, it was great. I was doing the same thing in New York City at this time, I'm realizing. What do you mean? I was born and raised in Manhattan. I was rooting for the Knicks against Michael Jordan and the Bulls.

I was also playing as them in video games trying to live a life that they would not deliver winning a title. Did you ever manage to get online and play online games with NBA? I wasn't playing online. Sorry, it wasn't 2K, it was NBA live. Wait, so you were playing multiplayer online.

Okay, what is young Ronnie Chang like on a gamer headset in like 90? What are you talking about? We didn't have headsets. Oh, shit. Yeah, this is like late 90s. We used the dial-up modem. So, first of all, you have to actually know the person in real life. There was no lobby.

You would have to like join you. Man, you're right. Of course. Yeah, you would have to go. Of course. You would have to tell your friend in class, hey, let's play right now. Are you ready to play? Ready to play?

Okay, the hang up phone. The modem would go through the phone. Oh my fuck, it sounds so old now Like your modem would scream at you The modem would scream at If you pick up the phone Moten be like shut the fuck Put me back

Yeah And you had to hang up And then you probably Ficked up your internet Yeah If your mom picked up your phone Yeah Your game was over

Yeah You would hear all the porn And it'll be over Of course I was gonna ask Were you on America online But of course you weren't Because you were You were fucking in

You only heard about that In you've got mail The movie Right We all like What is this? What is this? Like why is that internet

it's so weird. Why do you do everything so weird? Why is it like feet instead of meters? Why is it like Fahrenheit Celsius? Why is it like QBR ratings like an arbitrary? What is the QBR rating? 91.5623. It's like pie or something like making a hundred. I love how you're dancing around sports with me, but you don't want to ask me the hardcore sports thing, man. Oh. I'm an encyclopedia up here about sports, but we're not talking about sports at all. You want me to test you? Test me.

All right. Yeah. So let me clarify your your expertise. Sure. So you know the NBA. 90s NBA. Okay. I've read every Patriot book.

What does that mean? About the New England Patriots. Really? Yes, I've read every single one about Bill Belichick and Tom Brady everyone. Patriot Rain. Why? Yeah, the one. What you mean?

I mean, of course, I find it interesting. I find these books interesting. Bill Simmons, I read all his books. I read the books that Bill Simmons recommended, the one that got breaks of the game. Yeah, yeah, yeah. About the Trailblazers? Trailblazers.

Yeah. Bill Walton, the better version of Jokic, probably. Bill Wong, right? But we don't have enough clips about him so we can't. Well, his feet. Yeah, his feet broke. First of all, but I'm just saying in the style, playstyle, point center. Let me ask you an NBA nerd question about passing big men.

Sure. Who is the passing big man, not from America, that everybody thinks would have been one of the great passing big men? Oh, Sabonis. Yeah. Yeah, of course. Sabonis, an excellent passer. You got to really watch you. Look at that behind the back.

They feel it can make the shot. He doesn't have a great talent. You are a genuine NBA. I'm the guy, man. I'm not wearing this for no reason. I'm representing the NBA on this podcast. It is a deeply Asian fucking thing to come into a podcast studio being like,

do you have a test for me? Bring it. I'm trying to establish my sports bona fides on this thing. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So... Wait, so the Patriots, though, okay. Yeah, Patriots. What about that is intriguing to you

as somebody who literally cannot claim to be an American patriot in that way? I kind of was like, okay, well, I used to live in New Hampshire, so I guess that's... You got to explain that. Oh, okay. My parents went to college very late in life. They went to college in Manchester, New Hampshire, and they went to college after they had two kids. So I moved to America when I was three years old from Malaysia, and then they did their undergrad and postgrad, and then they went back to Malaysia.

So I left after that. So I was in America from three to seven. But we were good immigrants. we didn't take any jobs, we left. And so that's how, that's my memory of America was 89 to 94, Manchester, New Hampshire. That was like, my whole life was that. So you actually do have some sort of affection for the region.

Yeah, I got huge affection. Every time I go back there, I talk about, every time I perform in Boston, Boston was our Chinatown. I want to call you out on the hypocrisy of your love, though, because you said before you that you love underdogs and who are fetishizing the New England Patriots. Well, I'll tell you, the only thing I love more than an underdog is a great system. Wow.

And, you know, the idea, you know, their philosophy of like always onto the next game, just do your job. Don't care about the hype. Focus on what didn't go right versus what did go right. I think Bill Belichick might be the first Asian head coach. We have our representative. That's right. It's Bill Belichick. That's right.

Well, on the sideline, he does. does have his son there, and it's very clear that he does not approve. I don't know about that. Of how good he is at his son, Steve Belichick, at his job. Yeah, but, but yeah, I don't know if he doesn't... I think he loves his family a lot, actually, based on the 2,000 hours of Patriot documentaries, obviously. I think he actually loves his family a lot. He loves his dad a lot.

That's right. He loves his dad, so I'm sure he, you know, I don't pretend to know him, but I'm sure he passes that on to his son, that same relationship he wants to have his family. Family being very important to Bilalcheck also quite a variation. He's got us, you know, I was just enamored by the whole idea of the team before yourself and ignore the noise. Ignoring the noise is something that I think in comedy you have to do that, you know, because you have to ignore the haters and just focus on your jokes, which is part of what we were talking about earlier about bombing. Yeah. Overcoming adversity and bombing is like you got to ignore a lot of the noise. And then also, you have to like focus on the present, which is very Buddhist. He's very focused on the present.

It's always the present. You think having a 37-year-old... We're on to Cincinnati. It's nothing about the past, nothing about the future. Right now, we're preparing for Cincinnati. Do you feel like the talent you have here is good? We're getting ready for Cincinnati. He's the first Asian head coach, man.

I'm telling you, it's like, there's no tomorrow. There's no next... It's right now this game. And then after the game, it's like, the past doesn't exist. It's just now. We only live in the now. You know, and the success that they have at the time was, like, put the team above the individual,

which don't you think that's a very un-American approach to anything? Yeah, I mean, look, when the Patriots ran out at that Super Bowl at the same time as a team, that was not a thing

that we had seen before. Now, ladies and gentlemen, choosing to be introduced as a team, here are the American Football Conference champions, the New England Patriots. No, I remember that, yeah. And so, but here's, here's, Here's where it is now, though, right?

Is that the Patriots are ass. They're struggling. Yeah, but it's, look at the, look at the data points. Look at the overall picture. You're picking one outlier data point. And this NFL is always about overreacting. Everyone is overreacting, which is why ignore the noise, is actually more prescient than people understand.

Because how many times NFL, week one? Ah! Or like, we're going to win the champions. Oh, we're gonna, it's over. Blow it up. After we blow it up. Blow it up. It's over.

And it's like, guys, everyone just calm down. If you watch Tom Brady, as I have for thousands of hours on Facebook watch, Tom, Tom versus Time. He talks about like, it's like every year is different. Every season. Every team is different. That's what he says. And that he says, like, you build. You build like, you have preseason to figure out your hypothesis of what the team could be.

And then you test it. Right? And then you build from there. So it's like. I did not. anticipate that you would be this much of a New England Patriots fetishist. I want to

turn this a little bit because the idea of being the star. Yeah. I am fascinated by how you have also, in your own career, grown into the role of a person

who is in fucking Marvel movies and in giant movies like crazy rich Asians and all of this stuff. Like, stardom for you, and I know you're again in keeping with your Belichikian Buddhist philosophies, you're naturally deflecting and self-deprecating.

But what is the biggest difference? Just from a day-to-day perspective, when it comes to like response from being in one of the biggest movie franchises, like Shang-Chi in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, versus being a stand-up. How much has that been

a thing you've had to adjust to? Not that much. Again, it's the Bill Belmont. Elecichick thing. It's like, well, on to the next. It's very Buddhist. It's like, oh, okay, you know, you don't believe your own hype, you know, like you just do the work. And I don't know, I have a lot of gratitude when I do my work. So I'm like, oh, I'm very lucky to be part of these things. And then I don't take it as the beyond end all. And I don't think I'm, you know, whatever. Like it, because you got prove yourself the next show, by the way. I have to do stand-up. You're only as good as your next show or your last show, sorry. So I got another. a stand-up gig. So who cares I was in Shang-Chi? I'm about to bomb in front of this barful of drunk people in Lower Manhattan right now who don't care about that. You know what I mean? So there's always the next thing to do. So, um, it, I don't know. I guess I never...

Your life has to have changed in some way, though. Um, I think more people recognize me and I'm able to sell tickets to comedy shows, which I'm very grateful for. So that's changed. Yeah. But other than that, I'm still like... Yeah, you do martial arts. in your stand-up now. Everybody should know that you are now doing very sophisticated, like, almost CGI-worthy martial arts routines.

Yeah, yeah, that's right. That's what they want now. Yeah, yeah, that's what I'm doing. I have rings that fly off my arms in the show. We got Taylor Swift's the production designer to figure out how to... No, you know, stand-up's just you and a microphone and then you have to bring it.

Who is the person who radicalizes you into wanting to do stand-up? Who, from afar across the world, you were watching, realizing, like, Oh, this is a thing that people like. Yeah, there was a few, I guess for me, Russell Peters was blowing up when I was in university. And he was probably the one who got me thinking about

because his special was one of the first to be on the internet, probably illegally, to be honest. And it's funny when you watch white Canadian people talk, especially white Canadian guys, they have this funny-ass way of talking. They talk, the way they speak, they make everything sound like it's the most matter-of-fact thing you've ever heard in your life.

and when they talk to you, it looks like they can't control their head. It looks like they're part bobblehead when they say stuff to you. Because they'll come up to you and they'll go, Jesus Christ. They were spreading around the internet. It was like wildfire. His first special was going great.

Like, I remember walking to Melbourne law school into the lobby and white people were quoting his routines, not to me, just among themselves. And I was like, damn, this is really crossing boundaries here in a really cool, And so that was the first time I thought like, oh, there could be a way to talk about a non-white experience in a way that could be mainstream. Yeah. You know, that's not super niche.

And then I started getting to stand up a bit more academically in terms of like look watching, you know, trying to find, just like the way you would try to find a band, like finding comics that maybe people didn't know about. And then I got into, thanks to the Amazon, again, American tech coming through. At that time even, this was like mid-2000s. The Amazon algorithm was pretty strong with their recommendations, cultural recommendations. So I would put in some comment. I can't remember who I put in, but I managed to come across Bill Burr.

Why would you listen to another human being tell you where you're going to go when you died? It's just like, dude, have you ever been dead? No, great. So wouldn't it be safe to assume that you wouldn't have the slightest fucking idea what you're talking about? It blew me away.

That first special blew me away. I was instantly a fan. And then years, later, Bill Burr would contact me on Facebook out of nowhere. And I couldn't believe it was him. He saw one of my sets on Just for Last and his Facebook is like his profile picture is a car. So you don't know if it's him. And he was like, I just want to say, love your stuff and hopefully you can work together someday.

And I was like, man, this is incredible. I was such a huge fan of his. And I told him like, well, I live in Australia. So I don't know if I ever see you. But if you do come here, it'll be great. And he's like, oh, yeah, I'm doing Australia next year. Meet up. And I'm like, oh, okay.

And then he asked me open for him. Australia. And until I walked into the green room and saw him, I still didn't I thought it was being prank. Catfished. Yeah, I thought it was being catfished. And he's been a cool kind of mentor to me. Well, he EP'd one of your specials, right? He's all my specials, yeah. Wow. Yeah, he's great, you know. So he's kind of

like my comedy hero in many ways and he's always been very supportive. And at that time, he wasn't he wasn't household name famous. Right. He was great though. And so that kind of... Yeah, he's like a comics comic. Right. Right. Right. Well, In my brain, it's that young person's thing of like, oh, you just because you're not world famous doesn't mean you're not one of the greatest of all time. And so that led me to pursue comedy as a craft instead of fame. I do love the idea of people who take giant risks in pursuit of what they are obsessed with, not just love, but are obsessed with.

And you just sort of like dropped in casually that you were at Melbourne Law School. Yeah, yeah. And it makes me think of one of my favorite. I think, I don't know if this was a job. joke you put in one of your specials, but I remember you saying it. One of the most common questions I get asked other than how do you stay so down to earth while being so famous.

The second most common question I get asked is Hey Ronnie, hey Ronnie, what do your parents think about this? Hey Ronnie, what do your parents think about what you do? Are your parents okay with you doing stand-up comedy? You're only asking me that because I'm Asian. You would never ask these other white comedians that question

because you know that parents don't give a fuck about them. And I also, I should say, was planning to be a lawyer before I got into this bullshit. Oh, yeah, yeah. You were going to be a lawyer, and of course, you stopped. Yeah. And I just wonder if you reflect on the alternate life that you might have lived, if you had stuck with the thing that you had gone to school to actually do. Yeah, I look at my friends, and I hate all of them.

All my friends from law school, I'm like, yeah, this is terrible. Like, I, you know, I'm so glad I managed to get out of this griff. And if you want one inspiring thing to put in black and white With slow-mo and then you put the subtiles over it I think is this is like if you think about Specifically comedy It was it seemed and it was extremely risky at the time Compared to law school

But in the long term If you can make it in comedy You can't fire yourself You can get fired from a law firm Very easily So in the long term, it was actually less risky. I hadn't thought about the creative, whatever, broadly speaking, the creative pursuit as being more future-proofed.

Man, you should be talking to me about sports. All your prepared questions were not sports related, but you didn't do any sports. Okay, so what are your takes at the end here? What are your sports takes? Oh, sports takes? I love sports. Great take. That's my hot take.

Sports is fun. By the way, when you say that, though, you do have all of your sports. opinions have been so deeply genuine. Yeah, but how else is this? You mean you guys don't mean what you say? No, never that, never that, never that, but a little bit, a little bit that. Wow, these heart takes. Sometimes I see you sports guys talk about sports and I'm like, you guys are just pushing buttons right now.

Like, it's so obvious. How dare you? So obvious when people are yelling at each other. It's like, guys, okay, do you really care as much about this, this bouncing ball that, you know? I just, I'm sorry. I didn't realize the Daily Show was the church of pure ideological commentary.

Yeah, when we yell, but we're just doing yuck yucks. We don't, you know. By the way, that is my favorite. By the way, as someone who reveres the institution of the Daily Show, it is, you guys have it both ways in a way that's just beautiful.

Yeah, it's like we are defending democracy, but also yuck yucks. Yeah, we're just doing jokes. We're not supposed to... Why are we... If we're defending democracy, Oh my God that means democracy

is already over You know RIP democracy If the daily show is the Bullwark Bullwork Sorry No it's

Yeah We're just saying We're just Pointing Even John Stewart himself Said like Can the Daily Show Change the world

And he was like No He said All you can hope to do As a daily show Is coming at the right moment After

thousands of people Have done 99% of the work Hard backbreaking Organizing And Advocating and actual doing something good,

the Daily Show can come in to help out that last 1% even then there's no guarantee that will help out. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh, by the way, I relate to that on the level of... We just talked at length about the greatest coach maybe in all sports of all time. Belichick, yeah, Phil Jackson's up there too.

Yeah, arguably, yeah, Lombardi, sure. But I come in at the end, I'm just like, that dude sucks now. Who? Spellichick. Does he suck now? Oh, God. We're going to...

Does he suck now? I don't... I, again, I don't buy this overreaction to NFL. First, you want to talk about Belichetcher? Okay, well, first of all, who are you going to get to replace him? These guys don't grow on trees, on coaching trees, by the way. His coaching tree specifically... Yeah, they don't.

They don't come around. No one has replicated him. Yeah. Which is... But maybe... It's also in some way, like, the Asian immigrant nightmare. What? Is both things, right?

Like, is that Belichek embodies all of these principles. has tried to teach this, but no one is as good as him. I don't know if he tried to teach it, you know? I'm not sure if you try to teach it. Like, from his book, he was just like, he would give people, the lower people tasks, and the people who just did the task well, he'd promote, and then you get promoted. So I don't know if he taught almost by iteration, almost, like, like, for example, they would give this job where the lowest guy in the coaching staff would have to,

label. I can't remember what he was labeling. Oh, he was labeling. Illegally taped footage. That's right. That's overblown, by the way. But let's go into the whatever.

Okay, so, so, I mean, would you call, okay, is it illegal to? Oh, no, no, no. Sorry, I know what it was. It was the illegally deflated football. We'll get into that. I got to get the right to respond to that. But some kid would like label something in the locker room. So he was assigned a job to label.

And because it was labeling, he was like, oh, who cares? He just wrote on the tape and just taped it, whatever. And then the guy above him saw what he was doing, and the guy would re-tape it neatly and write in good font. And that was kind of like the lesson of like, man, if you can't even tape this, you're not going to learn the next thing. So I don't know how much you're like, I don't think he's gathering people around and be like, this is how you win at football.

I think he's just like, you know, all right, we're going to come out here and just do our job. and we need to cover the seams and if we don't cover these f***ing seams, we're going to lose this fucking game all right, make it happen. I don't think he's like teaching a Harvard course on how to...

I just need a remark upon how shockingly good that Bill Belichick impression from Rodney Chang was. Yeah, and I have a weird accent and I still manage to pull up a Belichick's. I don't know what that means. But like, back to the thing

is, okay, is this illegal? I'm genuinely asking. Is this bad ethics in football? So one thing as a non-football watcher, I didn't grow up with it, new to the sport of football, when I watched it, I was like,

how do you keep track? There's so many rules in it. Make use of the confusion of rules. But everyone else is like, I guess it's like, what, baseball rules where there's all these unwritten rules like, no, you don't do that, man.

You don't do that. But it's like, why not? Is that evil to do that? But you're saying that what you like, and I appreciate this as a systems appreciator myself on some level. Yeah. You like the idea of,

trying to exploit and push every marginal advantage until someone else says you actually need to stop this. Yes. Like, they need to catch up with my creativity as opposed to you catering to the, the dumber people in the sport. Yeah, exactly. That's exactly it. You did go to Hobbit.

This is where I get your sports takes in a concentrated, dangerous way. You are wearing a sweater with the NBA logo on it? NBA for life. If you are the commissioner of the NBA I don't care what anyone says I support the NBA There's a dangerous subtext there that is braver than anybody realizes

for Roddy Chang to support the NBA International Asian celebrity What are you doing as commissioner of the NBA Ronnie Chang? What am I doing? Yeah, what are you doing? Adam Silver says, you know what? I'm done here

I am appointing Ronnie Chang and Ronnie Chang's first order of business I think they'll run very well I'm not just saying that because I support the NBA I cannot stress enough how much he is popping his sweater to show this logo

I can't think of anything I think they're doing a great job I think they respond to let me put it this way like during during the pandemic during COVID which major American sport

do you think you would attend a game and be least likely get COVID. Like, it's so funny, if you could tell how likely you are going to get COVID by what sport you watch. If you're an MMA fan, oh, you definitely getting cold. If you're an NFL fan, COVID for sure. Baseball fan, it's 50-50.

NBA, you're not getting cold at the NBA thing. Everyone's going to wear a mask, you know, you know, like, it's run. The vibes are, that's how we run it, you know, at the NBA. I'm... Yeah, that's right. But I can't think of anything that they're doing wrong. I mean, they're trying new stuff, you know? Like the in-season tournament, you know, criticize whatever, the court making you blind.

At least they're trying new stuff. You know? They always mix up the all-star game. I would say, okay, I want... Commissioner, I do the one-on-one. All-star game, one-on-one games. That would be killer. That would be great.

One-on-one instead of the dunk tournament, probably. I think you need to let it sit for a bit, even though it has historical value, but people get so angry at it. Or do the dunk thing without the crowd. Just... Why? It's just too much pressure. It's just, you know, like, don't give them that much, you know. What?

You want a safe space for dunkers? Yeah, just let them dunk in a safe space. Because we want to see a cool dunk. We don't want to see a failed dunk. So let them do it multiple times until they get it. That's what I'm trying to say. You know, it's like, you have 30 seconds to do this impossible feat of human flight without jet packs.

Let them do it like 10, 20 times. So don't do it for all... You know what I mean? Like, let them do it. and film it and then we just release it because we look at dunks on Instagram we're like these are killer why don't you do that

and it's like yeah well they did it 20 fucking times before they posted it on Instagram like let them let these super humans have more than three tries at doing something that's physically impossible that breaks a loss of physics

how about that? Can we let the super humans try more than three times to break the loss of physics? I'm no psychotherapist but it does seem to me Like you'd like these superhuman performers who get on to this metaphorical stage to not be booed off of it by an Australian crowd

Yeah Give them the time to work out their material I'm saying let them do it on their own time Let them do it on their own time And the one-on-one tournament I think would be cool Ronnie Chang Thank you for coming here And thank you for

You know Your viewership albeit illegally From about 15 years ago You've been great It was great to watch you on ESPN talking sports, and I love all your takes and everything you do, very classy. You bring this intellectualism to sports journalism that I really appreciate.

And Asians. That's right. Asians. Put that in giant letters on the screen at the end. Asians. Do it now. Period. Asians.

What I am about to tell you is something that I should have brought up in my conversation with Ronnie, as he was declaring Bill Belichick, the first Asian head coach in NFL history. And I didn't bring it up then because I was distracted, I think. I was distracted by how terrible Ronnie's Patriots are. They've lost five in a row now. They have scored one touchdown in three games. They do not have a quarterback of any meaningful sort. I am actually contemplating whether I should say it here at the end of the show,

because the revelation I have been sitting on is that there is an Asian head coach in the NFL right now. Ron Rivera. That's right. Ron Rivera has Filipino ancestry. He said this to the Washington commander's own team website, which I, of course, filed away in my dossier of Filipinos across the world that I keep in my computer. He said that his grandfather on his mother's side was born in the Philippines before migrating to the Salinas Valley in California. That counts. So Ron Rivera, I apologize for erasing you.

And I found out today that, yes, potentially soon to be fired, head coach of the Washington commanders, Ron Rivera, who is atop various top five lists of coaches most likely to be fired soon. Unfortunately, I've been Googling this. That's true. He is more Asian than Bill Balliuchick. And now the world finally knows. This has been Pablo Torre finds out. a Metal Arc Media production, and I'll talk to you next time.