Spring Break
Q & A with Bobby Lee
Candice Ruud
Issue date: 4/8/08 Section: News
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Before the show, he sat down with an intimate group of reporters in the LaSells Stewart Center backstage lounge and discussed crowds, inspiration, leaving MADtv and what it’s like to be an Asian-American comedian.
Why are you leaving MAD?
“I got too comfortable. I show up and people are afraid of me there now. I’m not growing. They say I have to be there at 11, I show up at noon and they wait for me. I don’t get in trouble. If you get to that point on anything you’re like, ‘I have to get scared again.’ I feel like I have to get hungry again. I need to reinvent myself.”
Is that why you do stand up?
“Yeah, I’m kind of at a crossroads. I guess I could continue to do what I’m doing but to get to that Chappelle, Chris Rock level, you have to do what Chris did, which is he kind of went on SNL, didn’t do that well, people knew about him, but with ‘Bring the Pain,’ he went through a metamorphosis and changed everybody’s opinion of him. He wasn’t the greatest actor or comic at one point, but he just became one through hard work.”
Who inspires you?
“I don’t get inspired by dudes that are big. Those dudes don’t inspire me. There was a time a year ago where L.A. was getting an influx of New York comics and that in itself kind of changed me. They have a work ethic over there that we don’t have in L.A. We don’t go up as much, we have our five minute TV-friendly show cases. Those guys do comedy for real. They really love doing it. They don’t feel good if they don’t try something new. They’ll say, ‘Why do you care if you get laughs? You care so much, you’re so needy. Who gives a s***? You don’t need punch lines. Go up on stage and tell them how you feel and if they don’t like it, f*** it.’”
Who is your main audience?
“My demographic is young ethnics. I do well in multicultural cities like San Diego because I’m from there and San Francisco. I’m good at Houston, Dallas, New York. It gets tricky when it comes to smaller towns. Sometimes I surprise myself. I’ll do a town in Indiana and draw 1,000 people, or I’ll play another town like Tulsa, Okla., and get 20 people. Last year I played Jacksonville, Fla., and I’ll never do it again. I had like six people in the audience. Sometimes you do well and sometimes you don’t.”
Do you feel like you get more laughs doing Asian jokes?
“That’s an interesting question because people are like, ‘Why do you talk about it?’ It’s my American life experience that being Asian is just completely woven into who I am. It’s not me that did it, it’s the way people look at and perceive me and the way I perceive the world. It’s always been an issue so I’m going to talk about it. I’m going to talk about my family and the way things are.”
When did you figure out that comedy was for you?
“It’s not like that, it’s really simple. It’s a primitive thing where it’s like ‘How am I going to make it in this world, in any way? How am I going to survive in any way and how am I going to get girls? How am I going to make a living?’ It’s all those primitive essential things that human beings feel. It’s not like ‘Ohhh I love the craft.’ It’s more like ‘Whoa, people get paid for this? It’s so easy! I can go write some things down and talk in front of a group of people?’ You become a lot more thick-skinned [doing comedy]. I used to not be able to look people in the eyes, you know, authority figures, but now I feel that I almost have a disdain for them. It changed my confidence. All of a sudden I was able to ask girls on a date… it changed everything. It changed my life.”
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