The Three Questions with Andy Richter - Atsuko Okatsuka

Episode Date: July 21, 2020

Comedian Atsuko Okatsuka talks with Andy Richter about how her parents met on a game show, learning about her undocumented status as a kid, and building a more inclusive space with Disoriented Comedy and ‘Let’s Go Atsuko’. Plus, Atsuko sheds light on her most cherished ill-advised pipe dream.

Hi everyone, Andy Richter here. You're listening to the Three Questions with Andy Richter, and I am very, very happy to have a very funny woman on my show today. She's a comedian. She's a bon vivant. You've perhaps seen her twerking on the internet. It's Otsuka Okotsuka. Hi. Oh, Andy. Andy, I was so shy before I even came on. I just... Yeah. Well, now everyone knows you're capable of twerking on the internet. That's right. Yeah. I've never been called a Bon Vivant. And then, you know, when you started,

we have a funny woman on the show. I was like, don't give it away. Andy, they might stop listening. No, no. They're expecting... Well, now you have to be funny. That's the thing. Yeah, I have to be funny. They knew it was going to be a female. Uh-huh.

And hope you like, you know, if someone's like more like, oh, you know, I listen to Andy because he's family friendly. There he said it, trying to bring on someone who twerks. When did you start posting those dancing videos? And with your grandma, they almost always feature your and with your grandma they almost always feature your grandma yeah they almost always feature my grandma um uh because uh you know so when did i start i started gosh it was like we went on a trip together to taiwan and i had always been dancing and uh she was always your grandma taiwanese your grandma Taiwanese? My grandma is Taiwanese.

Okay. Yeah. So we went to Taiwan to do like a, it was supposed to actually be me and my husband's honeymoon trip. And you took grandma. Lo and behold. That is sexy. Word spreads, you know, and she was like, well, I haven't been to Taiwan in a while. And then we were like, oh, we were like, yeah, then you should probably come too.

And then my mom was like, well, who's going to take care of me? And then so my mom came too. And then my dad was like, you know, Taiwan's very close to where I'm at. And so my dad brought himself and his ex-girlfriend. It was like our crazy rich Asians, you know? Well, did you at least get to dump all these old people off somewhere and have an actual honeymoon or? We had like a couple of days to ourselves, but for the most part, because of discount reasons to save money. I understand. I understand. We were all in the same Airbnb for most of the time. I see. Yeah. But so that's when, you know,

I think I just needed to release the energy. I wanted to have space for my thoughts and my own process. Anyway, I started twerking and my husband started filming it. And my grandma and my mom happened to be watching the twerking. When it panned to them, they couldn't have seen more or less enthused. And people really liked that video. Because they got caught, you know, they panned to them and they weren't smiling or anything about me twerking. And then when they got caught, they started clapping. They're like, oh. And I think there was like a sincerity to that that people liked. And that's when I kind of really started posting more twerking videos. And then my grandma started dancing too. What a long answer. Sorry.

Well, that's all right. We got time. You know, I don't have anything to do. I'm supposed to, I'm supposed to re-cock my daughter's bathtub this afternoon, but that's about it. Ooh, handy, handy Andy. Yeah, unfortunately. No, actually it is fortunate. Like, yeah, there's Andy. Yeah, unfortunately. No, actually, it is fortunate. Like, yeah, there's lots of stuff that I can do myself, and then I do do it, and then I don't have, especially now, then I don't have to have somebody come into the house.

Yeah. For, you know, viral reasons. But it also, you know, but it also does mean that there's like the, if you can do things, it just means that your list of chores grows longer and longer. Yeah, it's true. It's because you let them know. You said, I know how to do that. I have a toolbox. Yes.

What's re-caulking a bathtub? Re-caulking, well, it's an old, I live in, uh i'm renting a house and it's a house that was built i think in 1950 and this bathroom is original and it's where the tile and the tub meet oh there's there's that gap and you fill that in with silicone caulk and it tends to degrade quicker than like the grout which is the stuff between the tiles. Got it. Got it. So it's a matter of waterproofing it around where the tub meets the tile is basically it. And my daughter, my daughter, because it's like coming apart and there's gaps in it.

My daughter's convinced that bugs are getting out of the wall and crawling into her tub. I mean, that's kind of what I would think, too, actually. Yeah, yeah, no. But I don't think there's bugs crawling out of. There's like an occasional flying bug will die in her tub or a crawling bug. Well, you know, you'll find a bug in the tub. Yeah, a bug in the tub. I think they get thirsty.

I don't know if they drink water. I'm just making this up. But then they go, wow, wow that's a lot of water i mean yeah a bathtub full of water is all it's finding gold if you're thirsty or even a trace of water but they get in and they can't get out that's you know but she's convinced that they're coming through the wall which i'm like i don't think the walls are like crawling with insects. You know, that's just a view into what her mind is. If you open up a wall, I'm sure she just thinks there's a hive of activity. Just partying. Yeah, yeah.

Oh, it's from A Bug's Life. I feel like you. Yes. Yeah. Or Ants. She's watching too many insect animated movies. I know. So what are you how are you coping with this? I mean, I feel like so much,

you know, this is an interview show, kind of, you know, autobiographical stuff and get people to talk about why they are the way they are. But it just, without COVID, it just seems like it's a different topic. It's, I feel like life is in a, like, just was picked up and transferred to a different context, you know? Right. But in a weird way, this pandemic has made people tap into who they really are. I think so, yeah. Right? So like the true monsters are turning into bigger monsters.

And people who are not monsters are tapping into being more lovely or or, you know, fighting for human rights and stuff, you know? Yeah. I feel like the pandemic is a great time to. Yeah, I think we're seeing a lot of people. I mean, you're spending a lot of time with yourself, right? Yeah. More than usual.

And so that could be either a good or bad thing. Yes. No, I know. So in a weird way, it's highlighting like maybe it's great for your podcast is what I'm thing. Yes. No, I know. So in a weird way, it's highlighting, like, maybe it's great for your podcast is what I'm saying. Yeah. Well, it certainly like gives me something to do. Like this gave me something to look forward to today to actually have, have a conversation with a human being, you know, even though it's, even though it's remote, but you know, cause there, I mean, there's days now, especially, you know, we're still doing the Conan show,

but there's not a lot to do. You know, I mean, it kind of, you know, he goes and tapes it, and they send me bits, and I tape them, and he and I will do stuff together on Zoom occasionally. But there's, you know, there's days that go by where I'm just sort of on my own. So I'm glad to be doing podcasts just to have something to do. Have you had any self discoveries during this time? Well, if you're talking about masturbation, yes.

Oh, yeah. A good amount. A good amount. Well, so many people back in their childhood homes just masturbating, but now it's grown adults, right? Right. It's much sexier. There's something there with like childhood trauma memories coming in while you're in your bed. That's now too small for you. Right, right, right. Exactly. That pent up energy. It's going to be the hottest little session while you know while your aging parents are like do you want chicken right you know right right from the kitchen or they're like i remember the sound that

that mattress makes when you're jerking off right right yeah yeah it's it's it's definitely a lot of that it's a lot of i think roommates seeing each other romantically and just being like, fuck it. Yeah. You're my life partner. Yeah. For now, at least. Yeah. Yeah.

Or, you know, and sometimes it can get negative, like where you start raging and then you take it out. And the only place to do it is on 4chan or something, you know. Right, right. So there's various things that this pandemic is doing for people. Has it been a strain on you and the people in your house? Because you live with your grandma, don't you? My grandma actually lives close by, 20 minutes away. Oh, okay. So people do think we live together, which in the beginning,

I was afraid to say out loud that during the pandemic, I was visiting my grandma. Right, right. Because, you know, people would be like, your grandma killer. You know, but literally she was the only person I was seeing besides my husband. Yeah. And the grocery store clerk. Right.

You know, but yeah. So, you know, strains, strains, not so much. The bummer thing has been seeing my grandma sort of start to deteriorate. But because she's just indoors all the time, she doesn't get to like take walks and exercise. So that's been a bummer and having to figure that out. Like right now, we're actually figuring out a way where she gets knee surgery during this pandemic somehow. Oh, wow. Yeah, yeah. Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Oh, that's too bad. Yeah, it's, I mean, have you been able to do any kind of work? Or is it, I mean, I imagine for doing stand-up, it stopped everything. Right. For live shows, for sure. The Zoom shows, though, I've actually been doing a bunch of the Zoom stand up shows. And I had a moment the other day where I was like, I think I think I really like these Zoom shows. And then and then I had to snap out of it. I had to slap myself and be like, let's go stop it. No, because one day this will be over. And how are you going

to transition out of screaming into a laptop while you do this? Yeah. You know, but I don't know if it was like I brainwashed myself, but I was like, I can be just a front facing comedian. And I even convinced myself sometimes the jokes work better when I do it to a laptop. Oh, really? Yeah. But I don't know if that's true.

That's just me trying to, you know, make myself feel better. Yeah. Yeah, no, I do think, and I've said this before on here, that I think that one thing that this is going to do is people are, it's going to change the way people do shows because they've already figured out, oh, we can do shows like this. We can do shows and it's cheaper and it's easier. And there are going to be people not only just like I do think.

You know, the people that sign checks, the people that make shows will be saying, well, it was so cheap when we were doing everything from home. Can't we figure out a way to kind of mix that into our regular thing where we don't have to pay space for offices for people? But I also think there's going to be people who are like, hey, I did a show and I didn't have to leave my house and that was great. You know, I got to figure out, let's do that from now on. Right, totally.

What's cool is also there's a bigger reach each comedy show is international yeah you can truly have everybody from all parts of the world tap in and watch and watch and you and there is kind of yeah there does get to be kind of like you know if you're advertising on twitter or whatever you do get to kind of like get an international audience. Right. You know, of people that can see these things. Totally.

And honestly, things are opening up in the States and there are comedy places open, comedy venues. But I mean, did you see what happened to D.L. Hughley? No. Oh, didn't he get he got COVID? I heard that. Yeah. Yeah.

So he was performing in Nashville at Zany's where I've performed before. And I was like, that stage is not that big. You're very close to the audience. What happened was he just passed out during his set. And then the crowd was like, wow, what's going on? Chaos, commotion. Yeah. And comes up to help him up. And then it and then it came out that it's because he had COVID and he was just more exhausted and tired because of it. Yeah. But didn't know until he got tested after that.

So, you know, I'm like, oh, no, it's definitely too soon to be performing live. Oh, absolutely. Yeah, no, I it's it's tempting to think like, oh, there are people that say it's OK, but it's not. It's not OK. not okay and i think we're gonna in the next few days be finding that out so yeah i know yeah how much do we love comedy andy how much do you love comedy uh not that much i mean it's been good to me you know but uh i honestly do you watch a lot of comedy in your spare time i do i love it i fill my head with it because i get so i get too emotional um it hurts me when i see some like a sad story or a tragedy or even horror you, yeah. So I fill my head with comedy, yeah.

Do you? Is that, no, I actually don't. Oh, okay. I don't. I mean, when I was younger, and I was kind of a student of it and was in it and striving and trying to make a name for myself. But now, I mean mean just left to my own

devices i find myself watching almost everything but comedy uh yeah and just like cold case murders and stuff exactly that kind of stuff or um you know good good drama series that you know involve some kind of like i'm not like not, like, I haven't watched, like, Pretty Little Lies, but I have watched, say, like, The Americans, you know, like. Oh, sure. You know what I mean? I like, I like what people call, like, dad shows or dad TV, you know, like, crime and, you know, spy stuff and, you know, boring old white man stuff like that. No, yeah, yeah yeah international crime yeah murder it's like if there's murder in something i'm like okay well at least there's some murder

in here to keep you going that's so interesting because well you know some people really like it when there's like an an apparent good guy and an apparent bad guy yeah there's something to that too where i think it's a little similar to trying to fill your head with comedy and positive things i wonder because it's nice to always know that the good guy wins in the end yeah i don't know if that's how the americans go well no they actually i think think Americans do the good guy wins in the end too much. Like it's like too much that you got to have the good guy. Because the movies that end on like a, oh no, kind of note. Right. You know, like my daughter and I, have you ever seen The Omen?

No, never seen The Omen. The movie The Omen, it's really, really a good movie. And I just watched it with my 14-year-old daughter the other day, and I hadn't seen it in years. And it's basically about Gregory Peck plays an ambassador who is in line to be president. Like, he's very popular. He's best friends with the president.

And he has the devil's baby. Like, he and his wife have the devil's baby. He and his wife have the devil's baby. And the way that that ends is in a way that makes you realize, oh no, all the good people lost and the devil won. Spoiler alert for those of you who haven't seen The Omen. No, yeah. From the cover of the film, I already knew. Again, I like to fill my head with comedy and positive things.

I was not going to touch that movie. Devil's Baby? You can't escape that. As a human, Devil's Baby, I would just take pills and go to sleep forever. If I knew I had the Devil's Baby. I don't know. Yeah, it's a good question because you you know, you're supposed to kill the devil's baby. Like, if you have the devil's baby, you're supposed to kill the devil's baby.

Right, but that's so much effort. You know, he's very strong. It's a big, broad gesture that no one's going to, like, let slide. Right. You know, they're not going to be like, oh, like oh oh wait the kid that your kid that you just killed it was the devil's baby oh well then fuck it go thank you thank you for murdering your own child yeah but you know the devil's baby is gonna put up a good fight yeah i don't have the enough energy or courage in me i would just i wouldn't be able to find the will to wake up another day

and go today i have to keep fighting this devil this baby that's mine no yeah you should probably just pack up and leave it you know yeah or put it you know drop it in front of a fire department i think you can do that without you know like fire departments are places where you can just drop off babies yeah i feel like i used to hear all these tales about babies. I think hospitals and fire departments. I think you can just drop babies. There's no reason that I have that in my mind. I mean, it's not like I got a bunch of babies I need to get rid of.

Way in the past, it was churches. Yes. Or you could just drop them right on the orphanage door. That's right. That's in a lot of movies, you know. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I want like a new, yeah, like what's the 2020 version? Like a pizzeria?

I don't know. Now, why do you think it is that you have trouble watching more difficult material? I mean, usually, especially comedians, I mean, yeah, there's laughter, but there's also kind of a darkness to lots of comedy. You know, there's kind of a morbid sense of laughing at things that are scary and, you know, diffusing a situation like that. Why do you think it is that you're so so have you ever been able to watch horror movies have you ever been able to no and andy andy you are so good i know what you're doing to me that's what that's what this show is all about right yes yes we're getting to those questions

yes yeah no it's it's it's I've always had a hard time watching things. I think because, well, I carry, I carry like a sort of general sadness with me. Yeah. Yeah. And I, you know, like, so my mom, my mom suffers from schizophrenia. And it's something that, you know, I, she was more diagnosed later in my life. So like when I was 19, but she was always displaying symptoms of it since I was a baby. And because she still suffers from it and she has epilepsy and my grandma still takes care of her, you know,

there's, there's this guilt that I carry. You know, I go visit them and I care for them and bring them things when they need. But there's kind of a guilt where out of all things, I get to do comedy while they're still in this situation, you know? Yeah. And so I don't know, but I've always had this sort of, is it a bleeding heart? No, literally, my heart truly hurts if I see scenes in a movie where someone's hurting. And it's really hard for me to even, I get really sad and it's hard for me to go to sleep. And I get really sad and it's hard for me to go to sleep.

Nighttime is the worst when I even think about that's what's happening, you know, in general in the world. And then I know that's what's happening with my mom. Her medication doesn't really work. So it was this weird thing where, you know, she gets seizures with her epilepsy and then she gets she hears voices and hallucinates with her schizophrenia. But the medication for both, they cancel each other out. So we had to choose which one to focus on. And we said, let's focus on the seizures because that's more like more immediately fatal. Yes. Right. so she still hears

voices like every day for a few for hours at a time she still gets seizures too a few few times a week so you know it's this kind i think and it's something i've more recognized recently where i i thought i was just like a really sensitive person i was like i don't know why i cry you know in every movie like in the secret life of pets even you know i don like i don't know why i cry you know in every movie like in the secret life of pets even you know i don't i don't know why i do that but then recently i've been writing about it more in my comedy and um and i think that's when i realized oh there's this underlying sadness that i feel because of that, because of my mom's situation. No, that is nothing but logical that you would be like that because you're already carrying around.

You wake up with a big bag of stress that most people don't have. So you're already carrying around more stress, probably than the average person, just because you have this kind of, you know, that kind of family, for the most part, aren't going anywhere. Illness isn't going anywhere. And when you combine those two, it's just, there's nothing to do other than just cope and if you if that means you don't get to watch the omen then that's a small price to pay sometimes i mean i wish i could be the kind of person that i can escape by watching something more horrid i feel like right some people have that yeah some people they take and in fact i think a lot of horror fans that's their they react to trauma in their life by right somehow helps them i don't know it makes them feel like well at least there's no vampires you know like like that world's full of vampires there's no vampires in my world right right and i i have a hard time doing that where

i could be like well at least i don't have the devil's baby instead i would start seeing my mom and the devil's baby or something right right right you know and i'll be like, well, at least I don't have the devil's baby. Instead, I would start seeing my mom in the devil's baby or something. Right, right, right. You know? And I'll be like, oh, yeah, this is, I can relate. It's too relatable. Well, your folks met on a game show? Did I read?

Yeah, so my parents, my mom and grandma flew out to Japan. They signed up for this, like, dating game show situation. And then they flew out to japan they signed up for this like dating game show situation and then they flew out they got they were like yes you're your application like we like it come out because they flew how old was your mom my mom was in her 30s so you know they were like oh this is her last you know chance to find someone you know back in the day yeah had she never been married she'd never been married and she never had like a partner so they were like you know what's wrong with her right she's like 32 yeah um and this is in the 80s so yeah so they flew out and then it was this weird game show.

And by the way, it's kind of like a shame in my family that this happened. So I talk about it openly. But again, because like and that's a part of my guilt is like I have this like privilege where I get I do comedy. I talk about my family. I talk about these things when some of these things to them are like, God, I wish you just studied and did something else. yeah yeah now you're but but i've talked about it enough so um anyway they the what what is the what is the shame of it that she was single for so long or that that would be they met on a game show i mean what is what what are they or is it just that it's personal like is it just a general sort of distaste for airing personal facts? I guess I never asked them exactly which one it was.

It would be funny, though, if it was because she was too old. Yeah. That was the reason. I'd be like, well, then get over it. Yeah, no shit. But I wonder if it's because it was like on a game show you know yeah yeah and but i don't know again like you signed up for it yeah yeah yeah you knew it you had to you had to go to a different country i'm just trying to cope yeah yeah with the fact that i

ended up here and I'm trying every goddamn day and you made it happen because of a damn game show right exactly you were in many ways the grand prize that's right yeah I know

that's not a lot of pressure that's a lot of pressure Andy yeah exactly I'm sorry i do comedy this what did you think was gonna happen the beginning circumstances were not ideal yeah they were weird yeah so it's like the men lined up on one side and then the women lined up on the other side and um the men got to choose based on the number on the women's chest. Like they go number 13 and they ask questions. If the women answered in their liking enough times,

they would then get a date. Nobody wins on the show is more like you walk off and then we don't follow you for the rest of your romance. And I think they do updates like so-and-so and so-and-so are now married from the show um so it was very it was the 80s though they didn't know that you really need that follow through oh god do you need the b-rolls you need the follow-through you need challenges okay it's like whatever that old is it the checkoff there's some rule in the theater that if

you show a gun in the first act it's got to get fired that's an improv rule too like don't ever bring a gun into it because somebody has to get shot and it's the same thing on a game show it's like look if you're gonna hook them up we gotta see what happens we gotta you gotta give us the you know if the gun went off you gotta let us know how boring just to be like okay we're checking in on couple there they on couple number three. Here's their wedding picture. And it's like, whoa, shit. Did they hit it off, or do you think that it was just kind of,

like was your dad older, or was he younger than your mom? My dad was older, and he just went through a divorce, and he had two kids. then it was like my mom's first anything you know so yeah it was it was hard for them to see i died but at first supposedly there was a lot of lust which is my parents always tell me there's a lot of lust and i don't know what they're trying to do to me when they say that but because you know i don't want to really hear about it but they always like one time my dad told me that my mom accused him of being with her just for sex and i was like well god damn dad like you have to prep me before you tell me that you you know what i mean like yeah no you were you were with my mom for the

six yeah yeah yeah so these two hotties just yeah so because they also didn't really speak each other's language they spoke broken english to each other so it had to be it was all lust yeah it was a lot of lust it was a lot especially on your mom's part i mean that's 30 years of pent up oh yeah oh my god horny yeah i didn't think about that yeah she was just and yeah she was just like um divorcee so hot. You know what I mean? Just like extra wisdom. Yeah, yeah. Give it to me. Yeah.

This is what everyone was talking about. Yeah. This sex stuff. I see. Well, were they together? I mean, how soon did you come along? And did they get married right away? Or, I mean, how did that work? Yeah? And did they get married right away? Or, I mean, how did that work?

Yeah, I guess they went on like three dates and then they got married. And then I came. Your mom moved to Japan? My mom moved to Japan. She just picked up and said, this is the guy. Yeah. Because he asked me a few questions. Can you imagine if podcasts were around?

My mom would just marry whoever. She would have married Mark Maron. I guess she would just marry people on the streets that just asked her any questions about her. Yeah. If she was here for the census, she'd be married to the census tape. I worry about her. But, yeah, no, they got married pretty quick. And then I was there very fast, too.

I came out like a year into their marriage. And then they got a divorce right after I came out. It was short-lived, short-lived, lustful romance. Yeah. You know, and I was the product that came out of that. Yeah. Well, it was worth it. I mean, you're pretty great. Thank you so much. Thank you. Don't you think? Yeah, I do think that. But do you think that, you know, but, you know, I don't have I don't have time to ask them these questions, you know? Absolutely. Well, it's the kind that somebody asked me, like it was,

because I didn't really, I mean, I didn't care one way or the other about my dad being gay. And really, I mean, and I didn't even, I mean, he told me and my brother that that was the reason that they got divorced. Maybe when I was like, I want to say seven or eight. And my brother was, you know, 10 or 11, something like that. But I didn't, you know, I didn't like tell my friends because I grew up in a small town.

I didn't like go like, hey, guys, just found out my dad's gay. No. And I but I didn't like purposely keep it a secret or anything. But like when I started telling friends, like my friends in high school about it and people would meet my dad. Cause he, you know, he'd come for holidays. So my mom and my dad,

after initially a couple of years of, you know, after they broke up, but throughout my life, they were still, they went back to being friends, which is kind of where they had started. And especially with my aunt, the three of them were friends, you know, still they went back to being friends which is kind of where they had started and especially

with my aunt the three of them were friends you know right continuingly or continuously and that was uh it was really a nice thing you know it was nice that there wasn't like i mean there was conflict but that's because they're all crazy it's not because you know it's not because it's not because it was toxic or anything right or that that that just this general love had disappeared yeah yeah it's so great to hear that they were able to just continue being friends and it's so interesting it's like they went back to how they first met that's kind of yeah that was that's the most natural state for them you know yeah that's and they all really enjoyed each other's company they liked you know they're they were they were especially my mom or my dad and my aunt were really really funny people

and that was kind of i mean my aunt it's my aunt pat, and she actually just died May 1st after having Alzheimer's for a long time. Oh, I'm so sorry. It's okay. I mean, thank you. You know, because the thing about Alzheimer's is you get a long time to say goodbye because the person that you knew leaves gradually, not like all at once so you know when she did die there wasn't like a whole lot of who she had been still left there when you would see her talk to her sure sure but she certainly was a huge inspiration for me just in terms of being so funny and like i said i i just put something online about her and i just i went after she

passed and i just said she insisted on having fun yeah which was just like there's been very few people in my life that are like that and it's something that i i mean i'm not like a big you know like a huge personality or something or some big flamboyant parade float. But I do, you know, like I do kind of, especially like in work time situations, we got to be having fun or else what's the fucking point? Yeah. I see that in you though. Yeah, yeah, yeah. A genuine silliness, yeah.

Yeah, no, it's like, because it's fun. It's fun. It's like, you know, whispering to each other in church to try and crack each other up is like one of the best things in the world. In a world that's trying to be serious, to make somebody next to you laugh is just the best thing in the world. Yeah. I would like to see a giant parade float of you, though. Has that happened yet? Because when you said that, it just so many ideas came to mind. I'm calling my estate planner.

I'm going to put that in my will. That is a big parade float. I'll try and die. I'll try and die right around the first of the year. So the Rose Bowl parade, I can be in that. Yeah. Or just, you know, you can still be alive. Nobody said you had to die.

Oh, all right. Okay. You're alive for this float. You're not a stickler. Yeah, okay. No, because there's a huge float that's an Andy Richter, right? Sure. Maybe you're like Superman flying kind of, you know,

and then you need to be on the float too. You're the reveal. You're the reveal. The smaller Andy coming out of the float Andy. Right. Like my belly cracks open and then it's me. It's like me giving birth to me. Exactly.

The rebirth. I'm writing this down right now. It's being recorded. I don't know why I'm writing it down. It's being recorded and we've put it out into the universe. I mean, are kind of a yeah you're a giant float you're a fun boy a giant float andy well getting i i i got off track with my aunt but um when i what i was saying was that like when i was in high school and i started telling friends about my gay dad i and it never occurred to me to ask this but like friends would say well do you

feel like you shouldn't even be here you know like that if everybody had just done what they wanted to do that you wouldn't exist because you were somehow bothered by someone who wasn't really supposed to be in a relationship with a woman and i was like, I never thought about it that way. Yeah. And, and I still, and like in the point I just ended up because I did think about it, you know,

I, I'm, it never really troubled me, but I did think about it when people would ask me that. Right. And, and I just kind of felt like, well, who cares?

I'm here. Yeah. I know. I was going to say, you know, I could have been like, you know. What's up with your existential friends? A lab experiment.

I don't. Right. Super existential. They're very deep. A lot of deep kids in Yorkville, Illinois. Jesus. Yeah, just little kids being like, well, were you technically ever supposed to be here? What?

I thought, aren't we playing tag you weren't just playing you they were asking you deep questions like this yeah well but it is it it does touch on a thing of like every kid wants to know that they're they were welcomed that they you know right you know and i and i wonder if that was anything that ever kind of crept into into your existence when you were younger or as you sort of figuring out who you were as you got older. Yeah. No, I've definitely come to terms with the fact that we don't ever really come here with like a super welcome into this world, you know. Yeah, yeah. Well, first off, none of us welcome into this world you know yeah yeah well first off none of us

asked for this you know nobody it was all a surprise to all of us yeah we we come out crying as babies uh-huh because we're so surprised right yeah what is this what's nice and warm and you know you're in fluid and then all of a sudden, it's all this light and all these noises. Yeah, ugly hospital fluorescent lights. I've seen two children get born. Do they seem stoked or surprised? My son, no, they didn't. They came, like, my daughter definitely came out looking like she smelled shit.

Like, the look on her face was like, what the fuck is going on? And that was, there was like a full minute of that, you know, because they're wiping her off and sucking you know like using a little siphon thing to suck out her mouth and she's just looking around and then the crying then just the kind of the you know the crying started which is almost a mechanical thing you know like they need to get air into their lungs so yes i heard i heard that yeah Yeah. But I always interpret it as also like, what a metaphor, you know, just. Yeah. Come out screaming. Well, let me cry this out first, you know, because I'm going to have to deal with a lot.

Yeah. There's a lot coming. There's a lot coming. So let me have my cathartic moment first because I'm going to mourn. And then I'll give you a smile. Okay, mom and dad you know well that is too i mean i've never thought about the you know as a baby that's the end of crying that is meant that has like a higher purpose other than just you getting your shit out

you know like the crying is you know there's like biological imperatives on crying and it's you know, there's like biological imperatives on crying and it's, you know, get lungs, get oxygen into those lungs. And then after that, it's like, get them fed. This kid's got a feet. This kid needs to get changed. This kid wants to be held. And, you know, now as grown up, you're just crying for your own reasons. It's like, it doesn't even, you're not signaling much to anybody else other than your own misery. And you're not signaling much to anybody else other than your own misery. Right. Yeah.

What happiness? I cry. That's true. I cry mostly out of happiness. When I do produce tears, I have a condition they call dry eyes where I don't produce tears or something. I don't know. It sounds like I'm a sociopath or something. She's incapable of making tears.

Her heart is calloused. I truly, yeah. For a while, I thought something was wrong with me because I really don't cry. But the only times I do, at least with tragic, sad stuff, I'll feel it in my heart but I don't produce tears

my next my i i don't i think it's a coping mechanism from childhood but um i cry when i see somebody who deserved to like who went through a lot and they finally triumphed or something i that's when i cry like little tears will come out yeah yeah yeah well that's good yeah cry. Like little tears will come out. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Well, that's good. Yeah. You know, at least you have a, it's a hopeful association with it. Yeah, I'm not a sociopath yet. Yeah, give it time.

Give it time. Can't you tell my love's a-growing? So after your folks divorced, is that when you came to the States? Or did you stay in Japan? Did you go back to Taiwan? I stayed in Japan until I was 10. And then my mom's hallucinations were getting really bad. She was getting suicidal. Was she getting health care in Japan?

Like, was she being treated? You know, I never thought to ask that. Because I didn't deal with that stuff, health care, bureaucratic stuff. I was 10. So I didn't really ask about that. I don't know if she had proper health care. But it was getting really bad. You know what?

I think it's because she wasn't quite diagnosed yet at that time. Oh. So she was just, it was temper tantrums, throwing things in the house. And then at one point, she threatened with a kitchen knife. And so my grandma just was like, well, you know, I have my son who lives in the United States. Maybe we need to leave Japan. Maybe it's Japan that's causing her to get crazy. Maybe it's her environment.

Yeah. So she planned all this without telling me and then arranged it with my uncle that we would be living in his garage. But only told me we were coming here to the states for a two-month vacation so um but always intending to stay always intending to stay knowing the consequences which is that we our visa our tourist visa was going to run out and that we would not have papers anymore um because and your mom your mom was a japanese citizen at this point too or no she was just a resident yeah i see even being married to a japanese citizen i guess you just i think you just get your residency i think that's how it works there i see and then uh yeah so

yeah we were they were both taiwanese citizens I was a Japanese citizen. Boom, came here, overstayed our visa after two months. And then we were undocumented. Did you, were you aware of this? Did you know that there was a technicality? Did you say like, hey, how come we're not going home? Or, you know? Yeah, I brought it up. Because you were 10, right?

I was 10, and I was enrolled. We came here during the summer, so I got enrolled in summer school. And it was like a public school, summer school situation. I made a couple of friends, you know, but I was like, all right, summer is going to have been fun, and I go back to Japan. Yeah, yeah. This is all free and easy. These people, I don't have to I go back to Japan. Yeah, yeah. This is all free and easy. These people, I don't have to keep up with these people.

Yeah, yeah. I was like, okay, I'll learn some English words, but I'm not going to learn all because I'm not going to be here in two months. Right, right. Sure, I'll learn calligraphy, Mrs. Who. I'm not going to remember your name because I'll be gone in two months. Yeah, yeah. No, no, two months passed, and then my grandma was like, hey, we're actually going to remember your name because I'll be gone in two months. Yeah, yeah. No, no, two months passed. And then my grandma was like, hey, we're actually going to stay.

We enrolled you in regular school because it's fall. And now you're going to regular school. And I just kind of went with it. And then slowly as time passed, I did ask about it. But then my grandma was always very cryptic about it, quiet about it, afraid to tell me something that would make me sad in front of my mom because she would attempt to it was it was a whole thing um yeah yeah i didn't find out till for real until i was like 17 when i wanted to drive and get a driver's

license but i couldn't because i didn't have a social security number. Wow. So many, it's a lot of like numbers and stuff. Sure, and forms and shit that you usually don't have to worry about, but they do control your life. Right, yeah. I was so bummed about that number, that social security number, that I was like, oh, it's holding me back from doing a lot of things at the time. I just wanted to like, be cool with my, like my friends, they were all getting permits and driver's licenses. And I was like, Oh yeah,

I want to do that too. And yeah. And that's when my grandma was like, okay, so here's the thing. We, we have been undocumented here for seven years. Seven years. Wow. And what's your reaction to that? Just is there any reaction other than like, oh, shit. Wow.

I was like, I kind of knew. I was like, honestly, grandma, I knew because we couldn't leave the country if we wanted to come back in, for example. So we never went back to Japan to see my dad or anything. I knew there were hints. There were hints all along. Yeah, something was weird. Like, why did we leave Tokyo? Yeah, why don't we go back to Tokyo?

It's better than living cramped in this garage. Were you still in the garage at 17 yeah oh my gosh and i was like yeah like so it must have been really bad i wasn't there for all of the fights all of the you know when i was at school who knows how my mom's uh psychosis was getting in it must have been that bad that we were willing to come here illegally. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But you know, yeah. And, and so that's, that's, that's that story. Oh, I'm going through identity theft now. Like now that I have like a social. You mean you're learning how to do it? I'm, I'm, I'm learning how to deal with it. Oh, deal with it. I thought you you were out stealing people's identities.

Oh, my God. It's very lucrative. Look, people, well, you can buy, like, driver's licenses and stuff from, like, the park and stuff. I found that out later. Mostly kids who want to go to bars do this. Yes. I don't know if you. Yeah, fake IDs.

Yeah, yeah. Did you ever have a fake ID? You just probably were able to drink, right yeah yeah did you ever have a fake idea you you just probably were able to drink right no i never had a i never had a fake id and but when i went to when i where i started college i went to university of illinois and in urbana champagne and they kind of had like these weird laws where you could get into bars in one town because they are neighboring towns they're like they're twin towns like you know like it you're on one street you go over a street and you're in the other town so got it right and in one town you could you could go to bars when you

were 18 and then in the other town you could go to bars when you're 19. So in Urbana, which was the town, it was all freshmen in the bar. And you could buy drinks, but you're always under risk of the police coming in and raiding and the bartender getting arrested and everybody getting fined or something. But it was, you know, but that would only happen occasionally. Just keep people on their toes. It's one of those sort of, you know, kind of. Just be careful. Garden variety corruption. You know, like everybody knew that the law was being broken in a big way, but people were making money from it.

Like the bar. I'm sure that the cops were getting paid off. I'm sure that every big campus bar that was serving to 85% underage kids was paying somebody off. Because that's the only way something like that can work. Wow, yeah. So no fake IDs. But now, I'm aware of children that are younger than 21 who have fake IDs. I'm not saying it's my kid. But I will say that in the last couple of years, I have found out that there is a couple that lives in the Valley who their entire job is making fake IDs for LA teenagers.

Wow. That's been their job for years, and they are good. They have to be. They are good. Well, they've kept their job for years. Yes. And their anonymity, they are good. Yes, yes.

You know? That's very difficult. I tried to order one from Dubai once, and then it just, I just, of course, it was a scam. That was it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. They just took your money and forget it. Yeah. This whole time, I could have been hitting up a couple in the valley.

You know? Yeah, you could have. You would never have had to, you know, do anything. You could have just kept being a maverick, a wild child on the other side of the law. Props. I like this. I like Props. I like this. I like these people. I like people who are, well, you know, because the law isn't fair for everyone.

Not that I'm saying kids should drink, but like 18, yeah, I mean, there's definitely a lot of backward stuff, right? Like if you, yeah, if you have to wait till 21 to drink by 18 to be able to serve in the military you know yeah yeah let's yeah 18 keep it 18 it's yeah i mean they do it in europe but i mean we're a lot dumber here and our car culture here i think makes it so it would be easier to have kids you you know, too many people drive here. That's where booze gets in the way of stuff is, you know, is that too many people drive here. So they can't let kids behind the wheel when they're drinking.

But I understand. But when so what how did you end up getting to to where you could do like how did you go to college if you didn't have a social security number? I mean, how does all that stuff kind of happen? So I, so that year we, we've been, my grandma had been secretly applying us to the Visa Diversity Lottery Program, or it's called the Diversity, yeah, Diversity Visa Lottery Program. One of those combination of words. Yes. It's the program where you... It's a lottery.

You put in your name and then they draw 55,000 names out. And then those people get green cards. Oh, wow. She was applying every year for the seven years we were here illegally. Pretending we still lived in japan so um and you have a higher chance if you come from a country that doesn't have that many people here that's why they're it's like they're trying to keep america diverse you know so you have a big chance like if you're from norway or something sure. But who wants who from Norway wants to come here? Yeah.

Well, yeah. No, but yeah, I understand. Like it is like there's plenty of people coming here from El Salvador. Right. But there's not too many coming here from Kazakhstan. So, you know. Right. So they're trying to do that.

And then Japan, you know, where we came from, happened to have a low, pretty low amount of immigrants coming in, too. And so it just happened. Well, for seven years, she applied for us and we never got in. And on the seventh year. It took seven years. Yeah. Yeah. Our names got drawn, all three of our names.

And that's how we got the green card. How soon was this after the realization that you couldn't get a driver's license? I think just very recent, like maybe like a year. Oh, wow. And then I got my driver's license after that. Yeah. Did you go to college right out of high school or was there a gap? Yeah.

Yeah, I got to go right after high school. Everything kind of worked gap? Yeah. Yeah, I got to go right after high school. Everything kind of worked out. Yeah, some people might think I'm like a witch about it or crystal-y about it. I don't own crystals. But I always think life has a way of balancing itself out. Yeah. I'm not at all what one would call spiritual or religious or anything. But I think that that is true.

I think that sometimes there is some kind of magical alignment of things that happen when they need to happen. Totally. I mean, I hope that, you know, like, for example, my grandma just found out she's allergic to gluten. She's 85. She just found out she can't eat bread. How shitty.

You know, life is cruel. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You know? And I think about it. You know, my mom has schizophrenia and epilepsy. And that's what she has to deal with. And that's fucking shitty too. Yeah.

But thank God, you know? Thank goodness she can still eat bread, you know? And I was thinking about this and i was like yeah because there's no way can you imagine if my mom also found out she was allergic to gluten like now it's too much i would be like come on give her something yeah you know what i mean right exactly give her something and so little things like that, I always think about, you know, like if someone, if someone's like, yeah, I think life has a way of at least trying to be fair sometimes. Well, I, I look at my own life and there's just like, usually it's, it's like with, when

I was starting out as an adult and working in things, there were lots of points at which I can look back and think like, man, if that job didn't come through, I don't know what the fuck I would have done. Like I was, I had nothing. And then all of a sudden like this door opened up and,

Oh, you know, and I can do that. Yeah. So timing wise, definitely timing wise, it it it was helpful and maybe saved you yeah yeah yeah now uh you went to college at arts you went to art school right i went to art school i went to cal arts yes for uh for masters after i could have figured

undergrad i hopped around a lot I dropped out and then ended up actually getting my bachelor's out of like this special program out of a community college. But art school, yes. Art school, I got it real easy for grad school. Yeah. Well, when you're all over during your undergraduate, were you still living at home? Did you live at home the whole time? I mean, at what point do you get out from out from under yeah i moved in with my first boyfriend at the time so i was already like i'm trying to be independent i found a boy and so i was i was like living with him yeah in the valley and then going to community college out there and yeah and then the art school that i went to happened to be out there too i in santa clarita

santa clarita yeah that's where the art is, which is not a very artsy place. Santa Clarita, it's a weird place to have an art school. Yeah, I know. I feel bad for this. I think that's why that art school is notorious for its crazy parties and drugs and all that. parties and and um drugs and all that because yeah you're once you step off of campus you're you realize you're in santa clarita yes so the students have no choice but to just get on all these psychedelics and just escape and have sex with each other and yeah yeah totally and yeah yeah and make art or whatever some of the stuff was called it's like yeah it's like

such a collection of weirdos in one of the most normie norm normal towns it's such a normie town yeah yeah just like i don't know that's where i met my first karens you know it was in santa clarita i didn't know what they were. I had no idea. I didn't grow up with middle-aged white women, you know, who were conservative and asked to speak to the manager. That wasn't a part of my life. And so that was the first time I met a bunch of Karens. Yeah. Wow. What was your medium in art school i was film video and critical studies so critical studies was a fancy way of saying a creative writing yeah yeah i got in with my stand-up comedy material actually oh really so you were when did you start doing stand-up i've been doing

stand-up i started when i uh i started 10 years ago and uh but when i got into grad school i because i double majored i i took i had to i couldn't do stand-up as much so for like three years i was kind of like not able to do it as much um i i hoped that the art school would let me use my stand-up comedy there because that's what i got in with the material but once you're at art school there's just no where to really implement comedy. Comedy was something that was really missing in art school. Yeah, I can imagine. I can imagine.

My son is an artist and is in art school. And it definitely like just... He's in fashion, right? Or fashion or design. Now he's kind of like not sure what he's going to do he went his freshman year uh was at a school in new york city and he studied design but right he's he doesn't want he didn't like living in new york and he didn't like studying design and he decided so i think he's just going to go back to painting he's a very talented painter and uh and he it's just funny because i think he

was really excited about moving to new york because it's just such a sophisticated cool thing to say like i'm gonna go live in manhattan for sure i'm gonna go and then i think he was there about two months and he was like it's cold and dirty dirty and stinks. And my dorm room is tiny and I don't get any space anywhere. And he just, like he actually told me after a few months there, he's like, I miss riding in a car. So, yeah. So he's going to do something back here. He's kind of in the middle of the shuffle of what he's going to do. And I mean, and now, especially like going to art school over the internet is not optimal.

Like going to design school over Zoom does not work. So he may even take a year off depending on what happens because it's a waste of money and time to go to art school on the computer. So, but I, but getting back to your point, I, yeah, the sense of humor thing and having done a little bit of art,

like I took some art classes in college and like some photography classes. And I did see like, cause I would just kind of naturally try and do stuff that was funny. Right. And it would sometimes it was okay but other times I was almost scolded like you know because I think that they thought you know like I wrote like I took I just remember doing something because I was always struck by the overblown descriptions of of art photographs yes like just the self-seriousness and stuff

yeah so like i think i did like some very i did something that was like an assignment where you're like were you supposed to take four shots of something or it may even been in a photo booth or something but that very mundane kind of they're very mundane photographs and then i wrote like 10 pages of bullshit of like, of like really self-serving bullshit about what it all meant. And the teacher, the teacher read it and she read it. She read the whole thing in class.

And, and she said, you know, this is all very funny. And she said, but maybe you should concentrate on learning how to take photographs before you start making fun of taking photographs. Andy, wow. And I was like, okay, that's, that's, you got me. Dang, that's harsh.

But I was also kind of like, I was also like, I wasn't making fun of taking photographs. I was making fun of the self seriousness of the people that take photographs, which maybe she took offense to, you know, although she seemed pretty cool. Right. But, yeah, there was no room for funny. There was no room. The main thing I remember from that class is there was a guy, every assignment there was this, like, very quiet, mousy guy,

and he was always nude. Like, his photographs are always self-portraits and always nude showcasing his enormous penis. It's like I brought my sense of humor. That's what I have to bring to this class. How come he gets to bring his enormous penis? I know. And I have to squelch my humor.

And then you're punished if you even laugh about it. I know, I know. Because that's art, and it means more than a large penis it's not yes it's not just eggplant thursday yes he's like well and it is like okay if he does one project where he's nude but after after the fifth one it's like okay this is more about you showing off that hog than it is about your artistic vision i think there weren't enough consequences for people who were also getting it getting out of art easily as well but in this serious way does that make sense like yes in fact what you were trying to do is actually like um

there was a commentary there about like this history of like of art school and the art world, which is very elitist and very serious. And you were actually commenting on that, which is actually art in itself. Right. Meanwhile, people take the easy route of like, I mean, you know that he was just every week for the assignment, just like, I don't have an idea, naked, you know?

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'll just get nude, nude again. That's also the easy way out. It's a crowd pleaser. There was always a film or photographs of homeless people. That was like art school one-on-one. Everyone did the photos of homeless people. Film was like art school one-on-one everyone did the photos of homeless people or yeah film school was uh movies about suicide in your early film school classes like there was you know say there were like 15 kids in the class and there were so there were 15 films

eight of them would be about suicide like just yeah yeah because i went to film school the last two years of my i started out just in general liberal arts stuff and then i went moved to chicago and started at film school but yeah there's a lot of really like film school you're in there for five minutes and you realize like oh shit i'm a cliche the kid next to me is a cliche we're all cliches yeah yeah it's it's so interesting but no still no room for laughter like yeah let's at least laugh about the fact that we're cliches like yeah you know right like yeah yeah but then let's like did you see okay so during the black lives matter protest there was one in there was one in utah where a woman um a white woman uh just completely nude is shitting on a cop car did you see that photo no wow that really that is like

some that is some ballsy performance i don't know if i could perform under such such scrutiny buck naked just squatting pooping on a cop car and andy you gotta see the people around her the protesters around her they they look shocked they look upset visibly upset they're like this is not what we were talking about you know what i mean you can see the black lives matter protesters the organizers with their masks on just like don't do that yeah yeah what the hell did our movement turn into you know what i mean it turned into a movement get it a bowel movement nobody was there to say that andy yeah you could have that's the wrong kind of movement and i was upset when i saw this because i was like this is the kind of shit like this woman just like co-opting a movement

because yeah yeah you know she was just like you know i've like to do her performance art piece that was rejected by the her reject like she wants she's been wanting to do at her local community theater right right but they kept rejecting she wants, she's been wanting to do at her local community theater. Right. Right. But they kept rejecting her proposal and she was like, now this is the time. Right.

I could not afford to rent a cop car for my class. So now I'm going to use one for free. And to do it on command. I don't know. I guess that's the only thing that I was like, yeah, pretty impressive. I guess. It is. I, I, like I said, I don't know i guess that's the only thing that i was like yeah pretty impressive i guess it is i i like i said i don't think i could i don't think i could perform it just like under

that kind of pressure it's really hard to try to be funny to to then force your body like psychosomatically somehow yeah right to push out and it's a slippery surface like you know you could easily you know you need some traction when squatting. Yeah, totally. And a car hood is not the place. Yeah. Well, anyway. That's art school.

Yeah. Just, yeah, that would be a project in and of itself. Just go through all the footage of the protests and do artistic critiques of everyone's choices. Oh, that's right. Yeah. Yeah. Like, hey, black dildo, you know? Yeah.

Yeah. I endorse throwing dildos at the police. Good job. You're showing the, you know, the like impotence, you know, the rigidity yet the impotence of the patriarchy. Right, so 2020. And then you have to list the materials because that's what they do in art. So like silicone. Silicone, arm strength, aim.

Why do they do that? Why do we list the materials that the art is made out of? I don't know. Is this so that it's like a recipe is this so that you can recreate it at home i know genuine question i don't know i guess maybe it's so that for other artists to know exactly what they're looking at you know well because it's always like the things like gouache you know you know like there would be it'd be like gouache and then it's like oh there's egg in there like i don't know i guess it's just you know you know like there would be it'd be like gouache and then it's like oh there's egg

in there like i don't know i guess it's just you know right because it's not what gouache is and isn't that like some kind of painting mixed with eggs i think i guess i i always thought it was it's like a pan dish like a hot dish or no that's goulash oh see i don't know what a gouache is it's g-o-u-a-c-h-e and it some kind of, I think it's like, and it's like an ancient technique, you know, like going back to the Renaissance of some kind of paint that had, and I think it had eggs in it. Yeah. Got it. That's so interesting. And it sounds just like the other egg dish.

Yeah, goulash. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, goulash is a stew, is a spicy. Oh, stew. Central European stew. Right, right, right. Hungarian, I. Central European stew. Right, right. Hungarian, I think, with lots of paprika.

Anyway. Gouache. Sometimes, and then sometimes it's just like banana, duct tape, you know? Yeah. Found objects. Yeah. Right. So what, I mean, did you, when you were in grad school, did you finish grad school?

I did finish grad school. That I finished. And did you, and did you, I mean, what did you, were you just like, I'm going to be a standup or did you have any, were you going to use that degree for something else? Well, I was so bummed that I wasn't able to really like use my comedy in art school and that it wasn't they weren't allowing too much space for it that um and i was like oh it's been i spent three years here you know those three years of my life i could have just been doing stand-up and so i just like hit stand-up harder when i graduated um i taught uh film for one year in community college, too, like during that time when I was like getting back out with comedy.

Like filmmaking or film theory, film criticism? All they gave me was cinema, just general cinema. So I just showed movies and I would talk about it with my students. That's what I did. Oh, OK. Yeah, for a year. Yeah, yeah. And that was wearing on me too I I I was just getting hit with like realizations like I'm not meant to work like a nine-to-five I'm not that great at teaching you know but what I like was always good at was like performing and like you know arts in a performative way you know

comedy um so like being a filmmaker or writing poems that wasn't for me unless it had right unless i was able to perform it so so it was good because i learned what i was and wasn't and, you know, made a few films in the process of it, you know? Yeah. Yeah. And how long is it before you're sort of like making a living at comedy? Yeah. Yeah. They always say, what do they say?

They say about 10 years, right? They say about 10 years. Is that? 10 years is that i don't know who's they i feel like i read it also it varies i mean you know because every time you say 10 years there's somebody that it took 20 and then there's somebody that it took two weeks you know no that's very true yeah that's very true i feel like right after grad school yeah Yeah, I started getting requests to tour and doing colleges. Did you have a manager that was booking things for you at that point? No, I very much was still like solo. What happened was right before grad school, you know, me and a couple of friends were trying to figure out in the comedy world because at the time it was still like kind of

toxic you know going out as women you know to do shows and you know what year was this so i first started 2010 yeah and then even in like even during that time, like 2011, 2012. Yeah, it was, you know, it was still very male dominant. It still is, yeah. Yeah, it still is. And the shows, you know, if they book a female comic, they wouldn't want to book a second one. Because then, you know, definitely they wouldn't put you back to back in the lineup, you know, because they want to spurs out the diversity or whatever. Yeah, sure, sure. So things like that.

And then it wasn't as easy to, like, get stage time. You know, I also didn't feel safe being out so late at night waiting for stage time and then being alone and then having to drive back to Santa Clarita, you know. So at the time, me and a couple of girlfriends started an all Asian, mostly female stand up tour, the first ever one in the US called Disoriented Comedy. And it was kind of a way to, you know, create a space for people who comedy clubs weren't initially built for, you know. And so like we had the we had the talents and and the audience even you know we just weren't able to so we were but we were like let's create that

safe space for people right now um while the comedy community catches up and tries to figure this out right yeah figure figure out this misogyny and racism and homophobia as you know we can't wait for them we'll never perform right so so we started touring we started touring as a group and then it it um and then we branched out where we had um other uh other comedians of color and then queer comedians. And then so as we toured, yeah, we started doing that. And then even when I was in grad school, I was touring with them. Mostly college gigs, though, I would imagine, right?

Yeah, colleges. Yeah, because clubs aren't going to, you know, say a group of Asian women, a night of group of funny Asian asian women doing comedy i can't see a club back then going right that sounds like we'll sell drinks no no no no totally and like people would show up but for other reasons yeah yeah yeah and then um so yeah so i think right after that you know we continued for a couple of years, but it was it was hard because then we started getting requests individually as comedians to tour and and even do comedy clubs and hard to keep the band together. It was hard to keep the band together, but it was good. It's because like the comedy community was starting to like you know create more spaces for yeah folks even

comedy clubs were as people who ran them also changed or retired or you know brought in someone younger that was more uh willing to do that you know right keep lineups actually diverse you know and yeah um and so yeah so that's because of that. I think because I was part of starting something, I was able to start making whatever money out of from doing comedy faster and getting myself out there and et cetera, et cetera. So that's, you know, I don't know. That was maybe six, seven years into doing comedy. Yeah. Yeah.

And were you, are you, do you still, or I mean now, forget about COVID. I mean, before this all started, were you traveling much? Were you doing the kind of road kind of stuff? Or did you mostly kind of stay within a city or book yourself for a couple nights at a city and then go back home yeah i was more like i had shows for a few nights in a city and i would come home because a lot of me working was out of la with comedy stuff yeah yeah you know with with let's go let's go with podcasts and then the monthly show. Yeah. And then whether if, you know, sometimes I was like a creative consultant on an adult swim show and et cetera.

I would, I would, so a lot of the work was in LA. Yeah. Yeah. So I'm not like a road comic. Right. Right. Yeah. Yeah.

Cause I, yeah. Cause it, well, I can't imagine. I just, the life of a road comic to me, the little bit of the little taste of like the road with air quotes around it that I have had just makes me think like, oh my God. Yeah. I don't know if I'd be alive if I had to tour, you know. Me too. I just can't.

It's very unhealthy. It's very unhealthy. I have separation anxiety from just like home in general yeah you know i like security i like keeping my circles kind of close in that like like i don't go camping like i don't do things like that you know yeah i i haven't really like i'm open to it but i just never um was proactive about going camping or hiking even uh i i you know that's just been my life i i don't know why um i just like knowing things maybe it is because i didn't know things for a long i didn't know the status of my you know residency here for example you know maybe that's why. Yeah, I'm like, OK, I'm going to be in Kentucky for two days.

That's it. That's it. That's all I can afford. Yeah. My sense of well-being. Yeah, totally. And then I'll fly back. I've done crazy things where I fly back for a day in L.A. just to fly back out to the same region because I needed to come home for a day.

Yeah, yeah. Yeah. to come home for a day yeah yeah yeah well now you brought it up uh let's go let's go your uh your game show which is called a japanese a woke japanese game show yeah uh tell me how that because that's kind of that made a name for you more so than i think just doing stand-up am i incorrect in saying that or i mean did that kind of i think that kind of opened you to a bigger audience did it not for sure yeah let's go let's go woke japanese game show yeah various things it's so funny what opens people up these days you know like i've consistently been doing stand-up but like that you know exactly that a lot of people have consistently been doing stand-up so sometimes

it's you know like like a creation of a show or you know and for me it was let's go let's go and also around the same time no i guess this was just last year but i did a i was doing a comedy set when an earthquake hit that yes the video yeah that that went viral because well i mean it was really funny and you really handled it great. Sometimes. If this were text, I would put a link to it because it's really funny. And anybody, you know, if you look up Otzko earthquake, you'll probably find the clip. Yeah.

Yeah. So that was, but I guess that came after Let's Go Otzko. But it's just funny what, you know, the things that happen. Yeah, yeah. That people, whatever, recognize you for or whatnot. Yeah. Well, how did the idea for the game show come about? I mean, were you kind of like, like to do a Japanese game show,

A, knowing that your parents met on it, were you aware of that, met on a Japanese game show? Were you aware of kind of the sort of how fraught with meaning that was? You know, that you were like taking such a chapter from your own personal history, even prenatal history? For sure, yeah. It was an homage a little bit. And, you know, I was also looking around and thinking, you know, what can I do? What can I provide? Right. The audiences, consumers that they don't already have out there on the market, that they don't already have out there on the market, you know? God, this is maybe such gross, boring talk.

But I was like, what can I provide? What's very, what's me? What's personal to me that I would love to share with people? You know, that's not just like a regular talk show or something, because that already exists. Bless you. Thank you. Sorry. No, no problem.

I sneeze all the time. I have allergies now. No, I was just saying that, you know, there's already like a lot of talk shows and, you know, and people love them, the ones that are out there. And so I was like, what can I bring? That's me, you know. Yeah. That's not just a regular talk show, you know? Right.

And so I was like, well, so I just started brainstorming. I was like, well, my parents met on a Japanese game show. I am Japanese and I grew up in Japan. You know, people love Japanese game shows. But what can I do to put my spin on it, you know? So it was like a marriage of like Japanese humor and American humor where the kind of humor I like is more words and cerebral and wordplay. That's why I do stand-up and not clowning or something. You know what I mean?

Right, right. Because I like words. I really like words and the play of words. I love a classic great joke. And so that's how the show was, you know, birthed, was me brainstorming those things, yeah. And then the game part, I had to figure out, we had to figure out the actual game show.

We're like, well, what tells a lot about a person, you know? The things they love, the things they fear, and the things they desire. And so that's what we asked for from our contestants. Yeah, it was a really fun night. I really enjoyed it. I was a contestant on it. Well, a contestant?

Do I count as a contestant or a panelist? I guess it is. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, you were a contestant. You almost won. Nicole Byer won by just barely any points. That's fine. I'm over it.

I'm very much over it. Andy, the answers you gave, though, for that night were like we had to really figure out a workaround. Because we asked you what you loved, what you feared, and what you desired. And for love, you said said fishing which was very like oh it's so lovely you know and then fear you said mental illness getting a mental and so we're like i know that's hard to put into a game show we're like how do we make this still comedy and so that's why we decided not to use that and um we used your desire of wanting to live by the ocean yeah yeah yeah but yeah oh and i also too if i'd known more about

your history i probably wouldn't have said mental illness because i would have been like oh i shouldn't make it you know i shouldn't no make that fodder for our game no it's a genuine uh answer like that that's my fear too i don't want a mental illness i think most oh it terrifies me it terrifies and i mean in like you know now that i mean because it's a mental but physical illness like alzheimer the notion of alzheimer's you know and how many people in my family have had it but also just like having dealt with emotional psychological emotional issues my whole life. And then seeing people that are not in control. Right, right. Of their psychological, emotional issues.

And knowing that, that could happen. Yeah. You know, that could happen. Genuine fear. Yeah. Because it's like, yeah, it's around. You know, I'm surrounded by it. I've seen it.

And holy shit i hope that that doesn't happen i hope that i don't just like you know the thought of like losing control and you know and i don't mean it because you're dealing with it with your mom losing control of your own brain is just yeah it's a tragedy it's such a handicap. And so. Right. And it's the one thing you can't, like, you can't put a splint on your brain. You can't put a Band-Aid on your brain. You can't.

Yeah, I know. Take antibiotics, you know. It just. Yeah, it's not like, you know, finding a bread substitute, if you will. Yeah, exactly. I'm going to avoid cheese now. Like, no, you can't, you know, you can't avoid feelings now like no you can't you know you can't avoid feelings you can't avoid you know yeah yeah that's you know what we should have kept it and gamified it next time we can do it next time i'll come back oh no there was crazy ideas. Like we were going to maybe while you were doing the challenge have voices start playing.

But we're like, wait, this is fucked up. That's an insult to. No. We really tried, Andy. I could have done it. I would have, you know, I'll go with it. That's my yes and improv training. I know.

But yeah, we really tried. And you challenged me, Andy. That's what I like about you you challenge me excellent you now you you did a pilot for the game show right and i imagine that all came to a screeching halt because of this fucking virus stuff that's right yeah we did a pilot for quibi and then uh they were like we need to figure out how filming will even be a thing for the series. Yeah. Oh, really? Yeah.

Yeah. You mean once the virus happened? Yeah, once the virus happened. Yeah, it did. Now, is it just on pause? Will you, like when this all clears up, is Quibi ready to go back into production? Well, so they were. I don't know if i'm allowed to talk about

it but then we just found out we got canceled like two days ago yeah so they they greenlit you know i'm just gonna say it because i don't i don't have an nda sign i don't know i don't know how this and also if there's no reason to keep the fact that you're canceled quiet i know what i mean yeah that's why I'm telling you. You're the first person I've told, actually, really, like, on anything. Because, yeah, I was like, I'm not going to just... So, anyway, we were greenlit, and we were going to shoot this series.

We wrote out the episodes, and we were excited. We had the games, we had the monologues, and we were kind of getting ready for pre-production and uh because even during pandemic they were like we can figure out ways to shoot you know filming uh has already resumed in la right with some projects have started back up i think michael bay's making a movie about another virus. I don't know if you saw that.

I haven't. It's about a virus that keeps mutating and it's a worldwide pandemic. That's what the movie's about. I think it's a little soon, but whatever. Yeah. It doesn't seem fun. It doesn't sound fun. I'm not Michael Bay.

It doesn't sound escapist. No, because it's like an impossible virus or something like they're having a hard time i think some of the descriptions said they're having a hard time finding finding a cure for it and yeah but you know wow that sounds awfully familiar you know what i mean yeah yeah um yeah so so we were trying to figure out ways to shoot and then they were like oh we need to figure out what's going on with pandemic and how much funds we still have and you know quibi we're quibi you know yeah and then they were like they came back and they were like we have to cancel the show we have to cancel a bunch of shows, actually. Yeah, yeah.

Yeah. It's got to be, I mean, Quibi, Quibi, you know, it's like Quibi's in the same boat that your show is. They were sort of fledgling, just getting started, just getting traction, just getting attention,

and then everybody has to stay home. You know, nobody can shoot anything, and that sucks. No, totally. But we're going're gonna we're trying to find a new home for it so i'm gonna um bring it back out you know we we just we just work so hard on it and it's it's something it's a show that i love and i love to share with people and so i was like yeah let's see if we could find a new home you know this is absolutely it's fun and it's

different and it is really sort of it is it you know it's unique it's its own thing and i you know i had a lot of fun doing it and i i hope you do yeah but besides that what what's next for you i mean what what's your sort of is there a dream is there like a dream sort of and it doesn't even have to be work, you know? I mean, it could be like, you know, you want to start your own alpaca farm or something. Oh, gosh. Is that, you said that so, like, is that your dream? For a second, I believed it was yours because it just slips off your tongue so easily in the folder of um pie in the sky uh ill ill advised uh ventures alpaca farming is just in there as a trope in my own little in the file in my brain

of cliches when you're looking for pipe dream ill--advised pipe dream, alpaca farm. Yeah, because I feel like you have to be in specific regions to start that. You don't, actually. Oh, you don't? It also used to be a thing on TV. There were commercials that would say, are you looking for an investment opportunity? Try alpaca farming. Are you looking for an investment opportunity?

Try alpaca farming. Because apparently I think like you could like sell the wool, you know, like you can work like sheep. Yeah. Perhaps there's some sort of milking that could happen. I don't know. Yeah. And then if you want to get grim and real, the meat, you know, that's. Yeah.

I wonder if you sell alpaca meat. Or just it to survive right right sure sure just go out there yeah if an alpaca gets wise with you too just let it know there's always the chance you can end up on the table right so watch your step alpaca oh you really know this stuff and you know about this alpaca farm. I know a lot of boring, stupid shit that does me no good at all. But anyway, what's your ill-advised pipe dream? Yeah, I mean, nobody ever asked me that. So I'm trying to think. So is there anything or is it just kind of? Yeah, my ill-advised pipe dream.

You know, I, yeah, and I won't make it about career. Well, it only has to be about career because I want to be able to financially have a situation where my mom and grandma have like a koi pond. And because, you know, koi pond, I think, signifies that you've really, you've really, really made it. You've really made it, yeah. And is that a signification that is a pan-Asian kind of thing? Like it means the same thing to Taiwanese people as it does to Japanese people? You know, I feel like it's an American thing.

It's more like an American thing to own a Koi pond as success, you know? Yes. Because every, every sort of Benihana or Benihana wannabe has a Koi pond. Yeah. And it's, they're very hard to upkeep and they, they, there's a ton, a ton of money involved. I think each Koi is like five grand or something. They're ridiculous. It's like crazy. And like people steal koi. You know, you hear about that kind of thing. It's so easy to. It's not like the security system really on ponds.

Right. And so koi pond, which is a metaphor for, you know, getting them the adequate things they need for their health, like masseuse that comes over every week or maybe every other day for my mom and grandma, someone to help me when I do have to change their diapers and stuff. You know, is this a pipe dream or is this like just boring, practical? No, that's like, listen, that's. certainly when I was younger, most of my showbiz ambition was tied up in coming from a place where not, yeah, not having enough money.

Like, you know, we grew, it was like a feast or famine childhood for me. Like we'd have really good years and then really bad years. And so, but i definitely early on learned like when when you pick up the phone and say hello and somebody on the other line speaks i like at about 16 could tell oh that's a bill collector yeah like you know and then like uh you got the wrong number or so you know know, my mom's not home or whatever.

So definitely there were years where I wasn't thinking like, what's my what am I trying to say with my work? I was thinking, how can I make some fucking money? And I mean, you know, and I have some artistic integrity, integrity. But, you know, there's like some stuff i won't do but but it's like when you're an actor and you're in show business and you're you know like the notion of say like doing a commercial for a product sure i kind of feel like come on i'm not fucking you know daniel day lewis i can sell toothpaste who gives a fuck um fuck? No, there's stuff I wouldn't do. And, well, it's because I don't – I feel silly talking about, like,

career aspirations, and that's why I'm also avoiding talking about that. But, like, I do know – like, I do have dreams, of course, with where I want to be, like, and what I want to do with my comedy. be like with what i want to do with my comedy but um so but the outcome would be you know like a yeah the things i named the nice masseuse the the the koi pond you know um yeah yeah and you know maybe a yeah yeah things like that it's an uncomfortable question for me to answer as you can see nobody because people don't really ask that but people haven't asked me yeah yeah well it's one of the three questions of this thing the where are you going so i i'm forced to no i have an obligation to the podcast company

way to take it off your shoulders yeah no it's not my fault it's not my fault that i need to ask these prime questions i knew you were need to ask these prying questions. I knew you were going to ask, but, you know, I was going to maybe interpret it more literally, where am I going? But then you made it about what my dreams are. And I almost did cry, but then I was like, no, you can hold it. Yeah, wait till we're done. Don't make this a bummer.

Come on, Otsuka, don't do that. Yeah, you're right. Yeah. I know. I already I already I knew that. That's why I didn't do it. Yeah. Good. Yeah. Good. I got your back. All right. Are you going to cry when I ask you what you've learned? Because that's the third question. cry when I ask you what you've learned? Because that's the third question. Yeah, no, I won't cry at that. Oh, because I barely learned.

I barely learned. I learned just a tiny bit, I feel like, every year. Just so tiny. And what have I learned? I learned a lot already from just this one sitting down with you for this episode. I learned a lot.

You know, I mean, there's facts like alpaca farming and stuff but there... You know, but even that Twin City thing where on one side of the town you're 18 to drink,

the other side is 19 to drink. I think I'm learning that i'm still um maybe scared to talk about like the things that do super make me sad but But that, yeah, the healing process is really not that hard to get to. Like, it's not that far. And does this make sense? Andy, are you frozen? I thought I... No, I'm listening. Oh, I thought you froze.

No, when you said, does this make sense listening. No, no, I'm listening. I thought you froze. Oh, I thought you were going to say, no, when you said, does this make sense? Like, yeah, that all makes sense. I thought you were going to say something else. I thought I bored you to death and your Wi-Fi froze and I was like, oh God. No, I'm listening. I'm letting you go.

Yeah, I think it's that the healing process isn't as like impossible seeming or that far away than you think. Because I'm dealing with it now, even being able to talk about my mom's schizophrenia and, you know, and not feeling guilt about it when I do talk about it. Or, you know, because I don't feel the shame. I don't feel embarrassed at all. It's yeah, I want to normalize it. And I a lot of people suffer from, you know, mental illness and I want to normalize that. But for me to feel guilty about what am I doing about it? You know, I think talking about it first off because it kind of has helped me. It's, again, a very recent thing for me to even talk about it.

And then I've been able to even like like write some jokes around it. That's when I know I'm really healing, actually. And so that's great. Yeah, maybe that's what I learned. And I definitely appreciate you being as frank as you have been, you know, because I mean, it's just a goddamn podcast. It's not like, you know, it's not like I'm a therapist or anything. And, uh, and I, but I mean, I'm very, it's, it's great of you to,

to share that because I do think, and then it's, this is an habit. We met, we touched on it before, but your mom has schizophrenia. If your mom was a diabetic and you had had to cope with growing up with someone that was diabetic, or if she had MS, multiple sclerosis or something like that, there would be no shame in saying, my mom's a diabetic. My mom has MS. She has an illness but it's because it is like it's a mental thing we are not evolved enough yet to look at it in the same kind of

right on on on prejudiced kind of way because right you know so much mental illness just starts out as what we think is bad behavior yeah that's what you know and then you just think well that she's just not a good person or he's he's a bad you know he's bad at being alive because he's such a mess all the time right but it's like no it's it's a disease and i mean and it is the heart it's it's really really hard yeah to to even normalize i feel like yeah yeah well and it because the hopelessness of it too feels so you know it's one thing if somebody can't walk but if you if they if their personality is compromised by yeah it's really tough right right because that's what sets you apart from anything else

it's like it's the what you have left of you yeah if you don't have your legs or your limbs or you know your your ability to control your muscles like all you have is your personality left. Yeah. So that is, yeah. Yeah. It's,

it's hard, but you know, in all this, the silver lining, what is the silver lining? Is that, um, you're not making me find a silver lining.

I just went for it because you go ahead, you go right ahead. You find what you need to find. Well, you know, I, I'm not going to have kids. Well, you know, I'm not going to have kids. My husband and I decided we're not going to have kids. So the lineage, that suffering, this stuff here, that's dark, but, you know, whatever. Yeah, yeah.

Yeah. Well, you have, you know, you have your husband as a support structure and, you know, you obviously, I think your grandma's a support structure of all this. You know, you obviously, I think your grandma is a support structure of all this. I mean, in some ways, I bet your mom is even kind of support as much as, you know, as it's allowed. Right. For sure. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. It's a family, like, unit at everything we do. Even if it's, like, we're talking about one person and how to figure out how to support one person. That person also has to be a part of the network. And, you know, so, yeah, definitely support coming out of my mom, too, for sure. That's good. Yeah. Yeah.

Well, we've talked for a long time. No, I know. It's been great. It's been great. I'm sorry to keep you so long. No, I thought maybe like Kevin was going to just be like, hey, get off. Shut up. No, no, no.

Kevin. Yeah, Kevin's a producer who's eavesdropping on this. Right. No, we just, you know, I don't know. I'm probably just avoiding working on the tub. I'm just trying to, you know, no offense. That goddamn tub right well because you seem to not believe there are bugs behind that wall but i know it's purely an aesthetic thing at this point

and i'm just doing it for her sake i'd leave it alone if it were me but whatever yeah you know you're a good dad you're a good thank you that what I've been waiting. That's why we talk so long. Tell me I'm a good dad. You're a good dad and she would be happy if you got to it quicker. Yeah. Well, Otsuko, thank you so much for spending time with us and for sharing and being so open. I really do appreciate it. Thank you so much,y and i appreciate how

funny you are and uh and and what you're trying to do with your career and just with your time on this earth um so um good for you thanks andy always sounds like a brush-off, but I mean, seriously, good for you. Good for you, too. Yeah. You tell your daughter you didn't have to do that bathtub thing, but good for you, Andy. You decided to. You made the choice to do it. Well, you haven't done it yet. No, I haven't done it yet.

But I will. I will keep out the imaginary bugs from my daughter. All right, well, Otsuka Okotsuka, thank you so much. Thanks, Andy. Thank you so much. And thank you all at home for listening or wherever you are. I don't know if you're at home. It's none of my business where you are.

But we will be back next time with another episode of The Three Questions. Thank you. Bye. I've got a big, big love for you. The three questions with Andy Richter is a team Coco and earwolf production. It's produced by me, Kevin Bartelt, executive produced by Adam Sachs and Jeff Ross at team Coco and Chris Bannon

and Colin Anderson at earwolf. Our supervising producer is Aaron Blair associate produced by Jen samples and Galitza Hayek and engineered by Will Becton. And if you haven't already, make sure to rate and review The Three Questions with Andy Richter on Apple Podcasts. This has been a Team Coco production in association with Earwolf.