Speaker 1: It's an amazing place to hang out. Aero dot net
a r r oe dot net because it's all about
having a podcasting choice. It's not just one, it's twenty
different podcasts. All Level Sports is one of them. In fact,
just the other day I spend time with the writers
and producers of professional wrestling. That is a story because
we can all relate every generation. Where is it All
Level Sports on aero dot Net a R r oe
dot Net. Enjoy your exploration. Good morning, Jesse, how are
you doing today?
Speaker 2: I'm doing great. How are you doing well?
Speaker 1: I'm very excited to share a conversation with you because
you really do answer a lot of questions for me,
especially in the way of everybody used to say, well,
if in the country of the United States or any
other part of the world, when a joke is shared,
give it twenty five to thirty minutes, it'll be clear
across to the other, to the other ocean. And and
what I love about your book as you're going, yeah,
it'll get there, but you know what, it's not. It's
gonna be funnier in China, you know it's it's not
gonna prove the same exact way in every part of
the nation.
Speaker 2: Yeah, definitely.
Speaker 3: I mean, like it's it's kind of an interesting thing
to think about, Like, you know, just like the comedy
is going to be different in Boston versus you know whatever,
Charlotte versus New York. You know, you go to China,
it's a whole different thing. So the same joke, you know,
done in different ways. Sometimes it's hilarious. Sometimes people don't
even get it at all.
Speaker 1: Well, it kind of upset me when I came down
from Montana into nineteen eighty five. We used to tell
North Dakota jokes up there. You can't tell them North
Dakotin joke down here in the South.
Speaker 3: It must be just like burning in your soul, that right.
They're like they don't get it. They don't get it,
and that's their problem.
Speaker 2: That's so funny. What is what are the what are
the South Dakota jokes? Oh?
Speaker 1: My god, North Kodin jokes would be you know, it'd
be one of those how many North Kotin you know
does it take to do you know, to change a
light bulb? Or North Dakota is Northakodin net And the
funniest thing about it is when you sit down with
a North Dakotin. They're telling Montana jokes, and it's like
and it's that little region up there where we're bashing
the hell out of each other like radio people. We
smile about it and move on.
Speaker 2: That's so funny. That's and that's the way it is
in China too.
Speaker 3: They have like Honan people jokes, like the joke about
the people from Hunan provinces apparently they steal the sewer
greats and then melt them down for pig iron Like who, Like,
who knew?
Speaker 2: I didn't know. I had to learn this.
Speaker 3: I had to Like I had to go and do
a bunch of gigs in a club and they mentioned
about these like you know, this comedian would go on
and do fifteen minutes, and then the host would come
up and then say like you know, like yo, thanks
for Seldy for coming on the stage. Hey give us
back our sewer grat And then everybody would laugh and
then I'm like what.
Speaker 1: Yeah, right, speaking of that culture, you actually write in
here that that comedy writers sleep in a heart shaped bed. Well,
now I I had a round bed in Montana, but
I didn't have a heart shaped bed. That would have
been difficult.
Speaker 2: That was so fun.
Speaker 3: So this portion of the book is really funny. I
was a writer on the Chinese version of Saturday Night Live.
Basically week we had a new celebrity guest and everything,
and you know, first table read, second table read, props, rehearsal,
blah blah blah, you know, cameras live. And the only
place that this that the comedy company could find for
all of the comedians to live together in close company
in Shanghai was in a love hotel.
Speaker 2: And so there was.
Speaker 3: So it was like we were like, I remember one
of the other comedians, we went to his room to
write together and he had this heart shaped bed and
purple lights, and I was like, dude, like you know,
one of them had like you know, they had like
basically a post that you could put like chains or
ropes or stuff like that. And I'm like, dude, you
just like live here, like sleep in this bed all
the time.
Speaker 2: If you fall off. He was like, nah, it's fine,
Like my god, that place hilarious.
Speaker 1: I'm so jealous of what your eyes have digested because
you have seen so much and you've i mean, you've
got enough content inside that imagination to last more than
one lifetime.
Speaker 2: I hope, So I got it. You know, it's funny.
Speaker 3: It's like the A lot of stuff is really funny
when it's there, and then you kind of tell the
story here and it's hard to get across. And then
sometimes stuff that didn't even see that funny in the moment,
you try to explain it here and people are.
Speaker 2: Like, that's that's amazing, that's hilarious.
Speaker 3: In the time when I was doing that show, and
you know, he had the heart shaped bed, you know,
my place also had some purple, funky mood lights, and like,
in hindsight, it's really really funny. In the moment, I
was like, you know, I just got to get to
my bed and I click the lights and you know,
I don't.
Speaker 2: The lights don't go on.
Speaker 3: It's all strobing, and I'm like, oh, I gotta be
up tomorrow.
Speaker 2: Like you know it was, it wasn't funny in the moment.
Sometimes and then I go back, I'm like, that was wacky.
That was wacko.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, But don't you enjoy it though, when and
when something does bomb and your mind instantly reacts. And
the reason why I bring that up is because I'll
take a pot shot at Tom Brady and if you're
not a football fan, you will never understand what I
just said. And man, I mean it's a total belly flop,
and I'm going to shit. I gotta get out of this,
you know, it gets yeah of it quickly.
Speaker 3: Yeah, No, I mean that was one of the things
I think I always had to challenge myself to make
sure that I bombed something in the beginning.
Speaker 2: Now, And I don't say that in an erga way.
Speaker 3: I'm just saying in the beginning, I know bits, yeah,
and then once five minutes, ten minutes, fifteen minutes, you know,
because I was American everywhere I went, ironically, I had
a lot of jokes that just came with me and
my experience. And you know, I go on stage, I'm
the only American at all these shows.
Speaker 2: You know, I have a lot of jokes I can do.
Speaker 3: And so once I had fifteen minutes, I had the
option if I wanted to, of having a good show
that night. But if you just do the same jokes
over and over and over and over and over and
over over again, you know you're not growing. And so
even to this day, I really you know, it's not
a bad sign to bomb some jokes. It means that
you're actually trying to write new stuff and you're trying
to expand beyond what you know how to do. And
so that was that was something that my my my
comedy master who I apprenticed to, that we talk about
in the book. You know, he was always trying to
make me learn new routines and routines that you know,
I didn't know how to make funny, and so sometimes
we would have to really try to figure out, how
do I do this joke, how do I do this
in a way that that is going to be unique?
Speaker 2: And it was. It was a hell of a journey.
Speaker 1: I got to ask you, I am so glad that
you brought up your comedy master. And the reason why
I'm blessed with the opportunity to talk with a lot
of y A authors are just authors in general who
write these books that have comedy in it, and I
will ask them about crafting a joke and they have
no frickin idea what I'm talking about. And yet I'm
blessed with an opportunity to talk to people like yourself,
Jesse and you guys, Boss. But until that thing is
finally in tune, Yeah, I.
Speaker 3: Think that like people get this impression like either you're
funnier or not, and if you tell a joke, it's
good or it's not. And if you're a writer, well,
the good news you get to rewrite and you get
to try stuff, and you get to try it out
and see if people laugh, and if they laugh, you
can see where they laugh. I think that the there
are definitely some people that are like funnier and more
skilled than others. Some people just go up and they
can just do it, but even for them to be
able to do it professionally, you need to learn how
to break down what's working and why why was that
joke funny? Was it the topic was really interesting? And
really you could go on that topic for five minutes
and anything you say is going to be funny? Was
it an observation? And you know, if you change two
or three words here, all of a sudden, the whole
joke doesn't work. And I always really liked, you know,
breaking it down and trying to say.
Speaker 2: Like why did that work?
Speaker 3: And and and if you're gonna perform for people who
are outside of your culture, whether that's for another country
or whether it's like, hey, you're the ya author and
now all of a sudden, you're you're talking to like,
you know, fancy novelist room or something like that. You
got to be able to put yourself in their shoes
and say, what would they think is funny? And that
skill is I think a really useful skill in life,
just to be able to put yourself in someone else's
shoes and see the world from their perspective. And then,
you know, try to use that for constructive purposes, or
if not constructive, at least fun you know, let's try
to make everybody laugh.
Speaker 1: Please do not move. There's more with Jesse Appel coming
up next. Even the name of the book is funny.
This was funnier in China. We are back with comedian
Jesse Appel. Are Americans using too many words? Because when
you're up there and you're sharing things of you know
they're gonna make people laugh in China? Are you using
fewer words? Because I mean here in the stage, you
know what, we'll sit here and we'll create a word
and say, yeah, that's it, that's the way we're going.
That's the new word I'm leaning.
Speaker 3: On, I think for for me, you know, because all
the comedy was in Mandarin, so if I'm up on stage.
Speaker 2: You know, you don't go in shore and I'm up
on stage.
Speaker 3: Sometimes I would find that I would look up a
word in the dictionary the day before, being like, Okay,
I want to do this work. I want to do
this joke about object permanence, and so I have to
look up in Chinese how do you say object? And
then I would go and do it on stage, and
almost always it would bomb. And because the reality was
at that time, like I lived in China for like
you know, by I've been in and out for fifteen years.
Speaker 2: I lived there full time for nine years. Ten years.
Speaker 3: If i'd been there nine years, and I don't know
how to say it, people don't say it that.
Speaker 2: Way, you know.
Speaker 3: And as a comedian, you know, you never want to
be like you know, it's very different, I think from
being an author. There are words that you can put
in a book and it sounds like the right word,
And there are words that you say that same word in,
you know, in a comedy bit and you sound like
you're writing a novel. And now all of a sudden
people are completely taken out of the comedy. And so
I found that if you could find a way to
say it with fewer words and simpler words that tends
to be funnier, and then leave the one special word
that really shines. If you can, if you can figure
out a way to balance these things, and then.
Speaker 2: It works really well.
Speaker 3: I had to figure out how to do that in Chinese,
which are the normal words, which are the unusual words.
Speaker 2: The language is also tonal, so if you the word
with the wrong tone, you might be saying.
Speaker 3: Something completely unexpected that you didn't expect, you know. The
the I had a bit on this where I, you know,
the word for panda is sing mal and the word
for chest hair is chill mal, and they're basically the
and so I, you know, would be calling up a
travel agent saying like, oh, I want to go to Chungdu.
Speaker 2: I want to see the chest hair and she's like.
Speaker 3: Like, you know, you're famous for your chest hair in
such problem, you know, where are they? And they're like
she's like, sir, we don't have that. I'm like, what
do you mean? No, what like they're somewhere, you know,
so but like, you know, the it's very easy to
mess up a joke like that, or even just to
put the accent on.
Speaker 2: The wrong salable and now this isn't funny anymore.
Speaker 3: So it was it was this weird tightro act of
it has to all feel natural. But at the same time,
you know, it's the second language. It's like you got
to figure out a way to make it work. And
and you know, different audiences have different takes on it.
Speaker 1: Well, you are very clear with that when when it
comes to mastering that because one of the things that
you that you kind of share it as a teacher
as well as somebody who just wants to ed a
need a fan, and that is is that when you
hear it, you don't forget it. So therefore, as you're
up there performing, you you're locked in on what you're sharing, then,
aren't you.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean you have to know what you're going
to be doing. I think you know. It was in
many ways a good exercise because I like grew up
as a comedian doing improv comedy, so I was used
to unscripted. You go up, you'd make it, just try
something out. Three minutes later, if it doesn't work, whoosh,
the scene is wiped. You know. But if I'm doing
traditional Chinese comedy and I'm up on stage with the
master comedian and there's a script. You know, you gotta
do it right, but you also can't freeze up. That
was the problem in the beginning is I would memorize
the script every word was.
Speaker 2: Perfect, and that's not funny at all.
Speaker 3: So it was this weird balance of you know, you
need to you know, it's a second language, it's a
new art form. It's like you know, it's it's a
completely different thing, and yet the audience needs to feel
like you're just up there, like you know, you're you're
up there and you're doing a show. And if you
can't get the audience comfortable, it doesn't matter how many
words you memorized, you know. So I think that the
finding a way to balance that and to be comfortable
knowing that, you know, hey, the jokes might not work today,
but I'm going to go up and try to have
fun and at the worst case scenario, I'm going to
have a good time up there.
Speaker 1: So let me ask you this question, though, I mean,
when when you're up on that stage and it's a
new audience and basically you're in a completely different country,
do you do what I do, which is I have
to look for the dick the dork and the deer
out there in the audience, and they, in their own way,
will become a part of what I'm talking about. So
I have somebody to kind of lean on when I
need to go in a different direction.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean that's a good that's a good technique.
Speaker 3: I would I would adopt a thing of you know,
cause I did a lot of shows in the early
days of my career at like you know, company parties
and stuff like that, like people are talking and like
you know, you're in a ballroom and there's full lights
on and you know there or you know, like not
good stages for comedy, you know, I did. I did
a show once for a birthday party. I got called
in to do a birthday party, and they didn't tell
me that the birthday girl.
Speaker 2: Was a seven year old.
Speaker 3: And they they also didn't tell me that the birthday
party was just in the restaurant. They were just one
table in a restaurant. There was no stage, there was
no anything, There was no one else knew there was
a show going on, and so I just like came
into this restaurant and did ten minutes of comedy for
this seven year old. So like, you know, you gotta
look at the audience. You gotta see who's there. You
gotta you know, play with the people that are actually
in the room. And so I would adopt this. I
would adopt the chance to just have some eye contact
if if the if the show is chaos, look at
the audience, establish some eye contact, you know, play to
the people who are listening. And then, you know, ironically,
as you get better at comedy and you do bigger
and bigger stages, I think it gets these like, you know,
if you're in a theater and there's three hundred people
and there's lights and people that paid ticket money and
they're ready for the show, that's easier than doing a
bar with seven people and three of them are on
their phone. And so the good thing about the lower
levels of comedy as it trains you to be able
to do the bigger stuff.
Speaker 1: Dude, you've got a merchandise diamond here on your hands.
And I would do this on a T shirt or
a hat and a heartbeat in the way that you
use LP Hartley's quote. The past is a foreign country.
They do things differently there. My god, that's everyday life,
and anybody anywhere in the world can say that's my life.
That is my life.
Speaker 3: Yeah, And it's like I think nowadays in the States,
you know, coming back from living so many years abroad,
it's like, you know, America in some ways is almost
a foreign country to itself, Like we do things differently
now than we used to. And I actually, I don't
necessarily think that's a bad thing. I think that when
when you recognize that, you know, even your own country
can change and does change, you know, you live a
little bit closer to reality. And comedy comes from reality,
You've got. It comes from truth, and it comes from
people like you know, trying to explain this crazy world
around them. And you know, the past is a foreign country,
and you know it's so when you go to a
place like even like China, you're dealing not only with
modern China, but you're dealing with the past of China.
So like, you know, you know, I apprenticed to a
master Master Dingwong Chen. His master was a man named Hobalin,
who is like the Chinese. They called him the Chinese
Charlie Chaplin. He was the first He's comedy movie star.
And you know, Master Hose style is in Master Ding style.
Master Ding style is in is in me and now
I'm doing you know, radio interviews in English in America,
trying to bring some of that comedy style onto the.
Speaker 2: Stage in my country.
Speaker 3: So you know, these things kind of live on in
ways that you don't expect. And uh, but one thing
that is common is that everybody wants to laugh. And
so in every era, in every country, in every situation,
people generally would rather be laughing than fighting. And so
I think it's it's important to remember that.
Speaker 1: I want every writer, I don't care if they're a
journal writer or writing for a newspaper or a website,
I want them to go into your chapter here, and
I'm gonna pronounce this wrong zing angshank because I mean you,
oh my god, you gave us the secret. Dude, you
sold your soul when you were sharing this that style.
I mean, that's amazing. I can't take my eye off
that chapter.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean it was a lot of fun.
Speaker 3: Like this traditional comedy style has been passed down master
to student, master to student, mastered to student for eight generations.
Speaker 2: Now it's a it's a two man bit.
Speaker 3: So they go, you know, Joko straight Man, back and forth,
back and forth, back and forth, lots of puns, lots
of wordplay, lots of character in character acting. So a
lot of times, yeah, I know, you'll be like, hey,
like you know, you know those people who are like
trying to sell gym advertisements on the street, You be
the gym advertisement guy, and I'll be you know, like
what And now all of a sudden, the joker is
playing the straight man, and the straight man is playing
a guy selling like you know, putting leaflets out on
the street. And you know, it's very meta, and you know,
the audience is involved.
Speaker 2: So it's it's a really fun comedy style.
Speaker 3: And if you go to Beijing and you sit in
a cab, this is what the cab drivers are listening
to all day long. They just listened to this comedy.
And that's actually how I first heard of it. I
was in a cab and people were laughing and I
was asking, you know, I asked.
Speaker 2: A driver, I'm like, what is this.
Speaker 3: He's like, oh, this is Yamchung, this is this is
the comedy. And I was like, oh, it never occurred
to me. Of course, Chinese people have comedy. I hadn't
thought about it, but of course, you know, so it
was it was really fun to be able to learn it.
Speaker 1: God, where can people go to find out more about
this book? And please tell me you're going to do
an American tour because I would love to come and
just watch you speak Chinese. I would pay money just
to watch you speak that.
Speaker 2: That would be great.
Speaker 3: Well, I mean, I wish there were one hundred thousand
people like you that.
Speaker 2: Would be willing to pay if they don't understand the show.
Speaker 3: But I do perform shows in Mandarin all over the country,
usually in Chinese communities. I do English shows. I'm gonna
be doing more tour shows hopefully in the future. I
just finished a tour on.
Speaker 2: The East Coast.
Speaker 3: But the show, but the shows are The book is
available online. Just search this was Funnier in China, or
go to your local bookstore and support them. I also
have an audiobook out that I read myself over three days,
so so go check out the audiobook.
Speaker 1: Well, please come back to this show anytime in the future.
The door is always going to be open for you.
Speaker 2: Thank you appreciate it.
Speaker 1: Oh oh dude, if you're going to show me that leaf,
that means I'm gonna live it with you. I know
exactly what you just did there, and that you're right
from my heart to your hearts. Thank you so much, sir,
Thank you appreciate it.