Irish people keep it so bottled up, you know.

Like the plan with Irish people is like, I'll keep all my emotions right here and then one day, I'll die.

Irish people don't want comfort.

Look at a sweater made in Ireland.

It's like a turtle neck made out of brillo pads.

I wanted to tell you one story.

This is the story of the best meal I've ever had in my life.

Happened when I was 11 years old in Chicago, Illinois, where I grew up.

I went to a place called the Salt and Pepper Diner with my best friend John.

We walk in to the diner one day and they had a jukebox there.

And the jukebox was three plays for a dollar.

So we put in $7 and selected 21 plays of Tom Jones' "What's New Pussycat?"

And then we ordered and waited.

Here's the thing about when What's New Pussycat plays over and over and over and over and over again.

The second time it plays, your immediate thought is not "Hey, someone's playing What's New Pussycat again?"

It's, "Hey, What's New Pussycat is a lot longer than I first thought."

The third time it plays, you're thinking maybe someone's playing What's New Pussycat again.

The fourth time it plays, you're either thinking, "Whoa, someone just played What's New Pussycat four times, or at least someone played it twice and it's a really long song."

So the fifth time is the kicker.

Now, John and I, we're watching the entire diner at this point.

Most people have gotten wind as to what's going on.

And we're staring at this one guy and he's sitting in like a booth with his stupid kids jumping around and he's like staring at his coffee cup like this and he's been on to us since the beginning.

And he's sitting there and his hand is shaking; he had this look on his face like he had just gotten his 30-day chip from anger management.

And he's staring like this and the fourth song fades out.

It's dead quiet.

Then, I don't know if you know this, but the song begins very quietly,

and he goes, "Goddamn it," and pounds on the table, and silverware flies everywhere,

and it was fantastic.

But a word about my best friend John and what a genius he was,

because when we first walked into the diner, when we first got there, and I'm punching in the What's New Pussycat?

I've punched in like seven at this point.

And then John says to me, "Hey, hey, hey, before you punch in another What's New Pussycat? Let's drop in one It's Not Unusual."

Oh, yes.

That is when the afternoon went from good to great.

After seven What's New Pussycat? in a-- it played seven times.

Suddenly... and the sigh of relief has swept through the diner.

People were so happy.

It was like the liberation of France.

For years, scientists have wondered, "Can you make grown men and women weep tears of joy by playing Tom Jones' It's Not Unusual?"

And the answer is yes, you can. Provided that it is preceded by seven What's New Pussycat?

It's true. Dead on.

And on the other hand, when we went back, holy.

It's Not Unusual fades out.

It's dead quiet.

People went insane. People went out of their minds.

No one could handle it.

No one could handle it and they were surrounded by this seemingly indifferent staff that was just like, "Yeah, same crap as always."

They unplugged the jukebox after 11 plays, and that was the best meal I've ever had.

'Cause think about it, Lucy, no one in the OJ Simpson trial won an Emmy.

From 94 to 95 there--- You didn't need to watch any TV shows.

There's a thing called the OJ Simpson trial and it was the best thing that ever happened on TV, ever.

It's a murder trial. It sounds terrible, right?

It was so goddamn entertaining.

These people delivered-- everyone in that trial delivered.

They went up and they went, "What's your name?" "I'm Kato Kaelin."

"All right. Here's the ball on the tee," and then he would knock it out of the park.

And there was a guy named Johnny Cochran and this guy does not have an Emmy.

He's dead, he died without an Emmy.

And this was the most entertaining man.

You'd love him, Lucy.

This guy would put on a knit cap and goof around with the murder evidence.

Either one of two things happened and we truly don't know.

Either. OJ Simpson murdered his wife and then like took off a glove and was like, you know, like threw it over his shoulder was like, "Done with that glove."

Either that, either he threw away his glove or a cop planted the glove. Both (are) very entertaining.

So OJ had to try on the gloves in front of the jury, Lucy.

I know you all know this, I'm telling Lucy.

And he gets up and he's like, "Oh, these are my gloves," and he tries to put them on and he goes.

He actually bit his tongue, go watch it. It's on YouTube.

I watched it, recently.

He's doing that and then he goes.

I think that the bullying that young people have to go through now in schools is really rough.

I really sympathize because I was bullied when I was a kid.

When I was in grade school, I was bullied for being Asian American.

And the biggest problem with that is that I am not Asian American.

But when I was younger and this is absolutely true, people thought that I might be Asian American.

I have pretty thin eyes.

I had very thin eyes when I was a little kid and I had straight black hair that I wore in a bowl cut.

And from the ages of 3 to 8, people thought that I might be a young Chinese person.

On the first day that he met me, the guy that is now my best friend, he met me (on) the first day of kindergarten.

He went home that night and said, "Papa, today I met a boy with no eyes."

And that was me.

Kids would make fun of me in middle school.

Kids would call me a "China man," which, of the racial slurs, has got to be the laziest.

That is just pushing two words together. No work was done there

It was very confusing to me because I'm not Chinese; none of my family is remotely Asian.

I mean, we take our shoes off when we come inside, but that was more of a carpeting thing than anything else.

Here's how bad it got though.

I remember when I was in junior high, we had this music appreciation class that we never appreciated.

And they took us to hear some classical music once at a symphony orchestra, so we go to a symphony orchestra.

In one of these classical pieces, there's a moment where they bang a gong and every time they banged the gong,

all the kids sitting in front of me would stand up, turn to me and bow like that.

Which is some racist ass bullshit.

But also incredibly well coordinated for a group of 13-year-olds.

13-year-olds are the meanest people in the world. They terrify me to this day.

If I'm on the street on like a Friday at 3 p.m, and I see a group of eighth graders on one side of the street, I will cross to the other side of the street,

because eighth graders will make fun of you but in an accurate way.

They will get to the thing that you don't like about you.

They don't even need to look at you for long.

They'll just be like, "Ha ha ha ha, ha, ha ha, ha ha ha. Hey, look at that high-waisted man. He got feminine hips."

And I'm like, "No, that's the thing I'm sensitive about."

When I was a boy, I was also confused with a woman sometimes over the phone because before I went through puberty, I had a voice like a little flute.

I was once on the telephone with Blockbuster Video, which is a very old-fashioned sentence.

And it is, I was on the telephone with Blockbuster Video.

That's like when your grandma would be like, "We'd all go play jacks down at the soda fountain."

You're like, "No one knows what you're talking about. You idiot."

You know how you talk to your grandma.

So I was on the phone with Blockbuster.

I'd called them a couple of times in one day to ask about a movie.

And I called for a third time, I said, "Hey, yeah. I was just calling to see if you had Addams Family Values yet."

And the guy at Blockbuster went, "Hey lady, I'll tell you when we get Adam's family values."

But look, I wasn't offended as a boy being confused with a lady,

I was offended as a lady who is getting pushed around by this chauvinist asshole that works at Blockbuster Video, talking to me like I'm some floozy.

I am a proud Asian American woman and you will treat me with respect.

I am a tiger mom.

I've lived in this city now. I love it.

I've lived here for a few years now.

And so I have this new phenomenon in my life where like late at night on the street, women will see me as a threat.

That is funny. Yeah, that is silly.

That is silly.

It's kind of flattering in its own way, but at the same time, it's weird because like, I'm still afraid of being kidnapped, honestly.

But I'll give you the best example of this.

A few months ago, I was at a subway station at two o'clock in the morning.

And at this station, I'm changing trains and you have to walk down this long hallway in order to change trains.

So it's two o'clock in the morning, it's just me and this woman.

And we're walking along and she's walking a few yards ahead of me, but she keeps giving me like the over the shoulder, like that.

And then, she starts to pick up the pace, she starts to walk a lot faster.

So I think, "Oh, she must hear the train coming."

Well, you know, maybe she feels it in her feet like a native American.

So I start to, I start to sprint down the hallway at her and she looks back and she's like, "Ahh."

And then she gives chase, right?

So now we're booking it down the corridor at two o'clock in the morning and I'm gaining on her.

I'm gaining on her and we're getting to the end of the hallway and she starts to go into that like dead end to shuffle, you know, that women do when you chase them.

And I'm almost at her.

I'm almost at her and then it dawns on me, "Oh, she's running from me."

Because in her eyes, I'm an adult, and adults rape each other.

Kind of a lot.

So I wanted to go up to her and be like, "Hey. Whoa. No, no, I'm not like a..."

"I'm not a man, I'm some stupid punk, you know."

But I think that that would be equally creepy because if you were in a subway station at two o'clock in the morning,

and I chased you down, grabbed you and said, "I'm not gonna rape you. I'm a little boy."

I actually just quit drinking a couple of months ago because...

Oh, I'm not exactly slap-happy about it myself. Boo me.

But I had a problem because I was blacking out all the time.

And I went and I talked to my doctor and he said it's not that you drink too much.

It's just that after a couple of major blackouts, you black out easier and easier after that.

So I would just have like a couple of drinks in my brain would be like, "Ok, I see where this is heading."

We're just going to power down now and get restarted sometime tomorrow morning.

The morning after a blackout that was so strange because I always feel like this detective,

trying to solve the mystery of how I got home the night before.

It's the case of the empty wallet and the, for some reason, bleeding knee.

And luckily, I can get right on the case because I'm still fully clothed from the night before.

It's not good. Bad, bad.

It was always weird when I go out with like some money and black out and wake up with no money.

But it was a lot weirder when I go out with some money, black out and wake up with more money.

That meant that I had earned money.

That meant that I had traded goods and or services and blacked out.

It's not anything wholesome.

It's not like I was temping at a real estate office.

I saw this woman on the news, she started drinking when she was eight years old when she was eight.

I don't even know what I'd be like drunk at eight years old.

My dad just come home from work and be like, "So, John, what did you do today?"

"Colored."

"You did what now?" "Colored, you know, like with a cram."

"Well, what did you color?"

"Brontosaurus rex."

"You mean tyrannosaurus rex?"

"I said what I said."

"Come here. Come down to my level."

"You don't know me. I got secrets."

"You know how you and mom said I'm not allowed to watch Night Court?"

"I watch it. When you're out of the room, I watch it and I get it."

"The one lawyer has a lot of sex, I get it."

"Were you at O'Halligan's tonight?"

"It was nickel shot night."

"I got this many."

I always wanted to live in New York when I was a kid.

I'm so excited that I get to live in New York.

I saw New York City in a movie when I was a kid.

It was called Home Alone 2: Lost in New York.

It is a sequel.

Yeah.

How about that movie?

It was a sequel to the movie Home Alone.

I remember in that movie all the kid in Home Alone Two, he gets into a stretch limousine on Fifth Avenue with a large cheese pizza and I thought this is the height of luxury.

Now, I live in New York and I'm psyched, but that is a stupid movie title.