Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
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Today we bring to the table a very funny comedian, Fumi Abe. He's very funny, very talented. I'm very excited to introduce you all to him if you don't know him already. I'm very much looking forward to recollecting the time that he opened for me in Hawaii.
I won't tell you what happened, but I'm very excited to break that open because I think he was a little surprised at what happened there, and I was, and I want to get to the bottom of it. He's a very smart, very conscientious comedian. He's really funny. You're going to enjoy this conversation very much.
And I think it's really great when you get to see people who you see for the first time and you think are really funny and then a year goes by and it's like, no, everybody's starting to think that this person is very funny. It's not an unusual thing, but it's a great thing when you see people who love comedy And pour everything into it. And the comedy just keeps getting better.
And he's going to be one to watch for sure. So enjoy my conversation with Fumi Abe. It's breaking bread. Thanks for being here. Thanks for having me. Yeah. I made you some bread. This is real. This is real. That's your bread now. I didn't know. It's no longer mine. It is yours now. That's how bread works. Yeah. Thank you. Thank you so much. That's the process of bread. What kind of bread?
Is it sourdough? It is sourdough. A country loaf. It's beautiful. Right? Beautiful, beautiful. Yeah. Well, it's yours now.
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Chapter 2: What unique perspective does Fumi Abe bring to crowd work in comedy?
Do you, what is, do I eat it now or do I, do we look at it and do we?
Like I said, it's out of my hands. Most people take it home. We have a bag for you. I'm going to do that. Yeah. I'm going to do that. And let us know how you like it.
Well, thank you for making it. I was just like listening to like an episode of yours just to get the vibe of the show.
Yeah.
Yeah.
you were interviewing Nick Swartz and you're like I just got home from the road and I didn't want to make bread and you didn't like make it or like he couldn't eat it but then you were like oh he let me off the hook but also you were like I couldn't have made it anyways because I was on the road I was really concerned like usually the timing because you got to feed the starter a couple days before you bake it and it's a whole thing and I didn't get it done and then he texted me from the road and said just so you know I don't eat bread
Yeah, but this is, I mean, the time you put into this is amazing.
Yeah.
And I don't even, I feel like I don't even know you that well. This is like.
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Chapter 3: How has Fumi Abe's experience shaped his views on the comedy scene?
You can say. Well, we went to, so I had brought some friends to that show from college. And after we did dinner, they live in Hawaii. They moved there during COVID. And so they made a lot of friends. Honolulu is very small. Everybody kind of know each other. It's also a very transit city. So people come in and out. They knew some people who like owned some bars.
So we like went there and like drank for free. And then they were also investors in this like strip club or something, which I didn't even know they had that in Hawaii. So I just went with your tour manager to the strip club. What? I never heard that. It was crazy. It wasn't just me and her. It was like a bunch of other people, but.
All right, so this confirms the vibe at dinner, which was like, we could be here eating, listening to Tom's story about his kids, or we could be at a strip club with people who are younger than his kids. But I'm not that young.
I'm not that young.
How old are you?
I'm 36, man.
36? Oh, you're getting old.
Yeah, I'm up there.
How long have you been doing stand-up? I started when I was 24. Oh, nice. Like 12 years. Nice. I was just thinking about it. It's a third of my life, which is a big... I almost don't even count the first third. It's like zero to 12.
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Chapter 4: What challenges do comedians face in the current landscape?
I'm never envious of people who blew up online. I'm envious of people who can write a lot really fast. Good stuff. And I always go, I want to do that. And that seems to me more of like a pure sense of, not jealousy, but more like aspiration. That seems more pure to me than being bitter about like, oh, so-and-so's clip about like this guy saying something racist went viral.
It's like, I can't manufacture that. Sorry that my audience isn't like yelling, yelling like racial slurs at my shows. It was like, doesn't happen that often.
Yeah, exactly. Yeah. I was talking to an owner of a club, of a really good club, and I've known him for a long time. And he was talking about this, about how it's so different from when he started. And he's had all the great acts that we know have gone through there. And he said, you know, it was, you would watch somebody and be like, oh, they've got stuff.
And they'd come back and their act would be better. And they'd have better jokes. And it just kind of grew. And it was like this...
conversation with the audience and he said now a majority of the people who are selling tickets in his own club are people from crowd work fame yeah where they posted a lot of crowd work and they just go up and they just kind of shoot the shit and it's it's a kind of a crazy audience it's like very they're not like a unified like fan of fumi it's a it's a just fans of instagram and
Yeah, yeah, yeah. And he said it could tell he was a little crestfallen. Oh, wow. Because the art that he loved and the reason he started the club isn't happening in his own showroom right now.
I don't know if it was because of theater, but you don't really do crowd work. Or I guess you can't in that setting because it's too big.
Well, that was a question I had was how can the ā I mean, he was ā the kid was selling five shows. Like theaters and stuff? No, in this club. In this club, yeah. And it's a big club. It's like 300 each show. And he sold out like five, six shows. Wow. And, yeah, they were adding shows. And, but I was thinking he could go to a theater, but can you go to a theater?
I mean, Matt Rife does it on like this big way with like big screens and stuff. But if you're in like an 800 seat theater, 1,000 seat theater, like I feel like when I do talk to the audience for whatever reason, you know, just to break things up, I can feel the boredom in the back. They don't see the guy you're talking to. They don't hear the guy you're talking to. So there's that disconnect.
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Chapter 5: How does Fumi Abe view the impact of AI on comedy and creativity?
Grizzly Pear?
Yeah, and the Lantern, which is called something else, so I forget.
Yeah.
Yeah, I did all that. I remember, like, running into my coworkers on, like, Friday nights. I was, like, embarrassed because I used to work in advertising. Oh, you did? Yeah, and then I was, like, you know, where people made, like, regular salaries and stuff, and it's, like, a Friday, so everybody's, like, dressed up going to the bar, and I'm, like, selling tickets in my hoodie.
It was, like, so mortifying, you know?
That always seems like really hard work.
yeah i did nobody wants to talk to you and then and then when you say it to the comedy seller comedians who are walking by the worst by mistake because you don't recognize them and you're like you want to go see a show they're like dude i'm a comedian yeah yeah yeah it's the worst it's absolutely the worst yeah but you know i think when you're new like it was the only stage time i was getting with like real people was it fun
It was fun. And it's interesting because you know when to quit when you're the funniest guy on the show. Because those shows aren't run by like amazing comedians, right? If the fact that they have to get barkers means like the people on the bill are like they're trading for spots or whatever. And they're very nice people.
But like you do get to a point you're like, oh, I'm the funniest person on the show and I'm the guy selling tickets. So it's like I got to go.
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Chapter 6: What are the differences between performing in New York and LA?
You did. Okay, cool, cool, cool. But that's everybody's favorite part about New York is just a different audience. And you can go to Harlem if you want to. You can go to a black room if you want to. Yeah. Yeah, I did all that. Where are you living now? I'm in West Hollywood.
How do you like this scene out here now?
It's cool. I mean, I think obviously like not as accessible as New York, I think.
Yeah.
I mean, unless you're in at like the comedy store or something. But, you know, I think, you know, even the way things are run in the scene is like so reflective of like New York versus L.A.
Yeah.
Like New York, it's like. You want to audition with a seller? Have somebody there refer you. It's that easy. Have somebody at the trust refer you. She'll give you five minutes. If it's good, it's good. If not, come back again later. Very straightforward. It's like, are you good? But I think in LA, it's not that straightforward. It's a little bit different. I'm not saying it's just good or bad.
It's just different. And so it's been interesting to kind of like... I've had a lot of like, you know, people talk about like, I don't know if you're like a basketball fan, but you know, people talk about the welcome to the NBA moment. You know what that is?
It's when somebody goes from college to the NBA and no matter how good they were in college, they have a welcome to the NBA moment because the NBA players are so good. And they've been playing, some people have been playing 20 years. Like you have to play LeBron now. You know, he may be 40, but he just knows the game better than you because you're 19. Yeah.
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Chapter 7: How does Fumi Abe balance personal life and a career in comedy?
All the rest of it will kind of take care of itself. And so it lessens the anxiety because it's not that you're doing something wrong, that you still feel like, am I doing enough? Am I working hard enough? Am I writing enough? Am I going up enough? Those things are present because it's the engine that makes you create.
Right, right, right, right. I've definitely seen this happen. And it's kind of crazy as, like, anybody who's under, like, 10 years, I would still kind of consider new-ish, you know? And, like, I remember, like, Ronnie Chang took me to, like, some, like, MTV Awards thing because he was in LA. And he was there with, like, Roy. And I just was listening to them talk, just eavesdropping.
And I remember, like, Roy Wood is, like, one of my favorite comedians. I think he's so smart. And I think, like, what he's doing is... I aspire to that kind of style sometimes where he is being goofy but also serious. And he could do that because he's a dad and he's older and all these things. But anyways, to me, he's a success.
And I just heard him say something to Ronnie and be like, man, I got to get like you. I got to be in the movies. Having the conversations that I would with my friends. I got to post more like that but elevated. And I was like, Oh, like it never ends. Like this guy's on, it's not enough that he's on the daily show. Like it's not, it's not about that.
It's just, it just same problem, different level.
Yeah. Yeah, exactly. And yeah, there's no, there's no like kickback and be like, because I think creative people, I don't think you have that. I don't think. And I also think, especially as comics, um, If you ever get to the point of, all right, I did it. I'm solid now. I'll just tour with this hour forever. You're going to just rot. Everyone's going to... You're going to be less relevant.
You're not going to be talking about things that people are interested in. You're not going to have a little sparkle in your eyes of wanting to... that people want to listen to, you know what I mean? It's like, if you don't care, how are they going to care? Yeah.
Yeah.
Right.
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Chapter 8: What lessons has Fumi learned from his early career in stand-up?
Like I don't do restaurants. I do clubs. I just do. I only know the comedy clubs and the food that's provided there.
They have good food there.
So yeah, it's really improved. Uh,
where do you where do you um where you came out here to write right that was like yeah i was writing for uh the lately show with james corden right like a little over a year yeah how was that it was fun it was like my first big boy writing job how'd you get it just submitted a packet really yup it was during covid my first four or five months was like remote i was still living in new york oh wow i was very hesitant to move here
but I did, I met some great people. I learned a lot. I feel like late night is like comedy grad school. So I learned like a lot. And there's also like, you know, like writing for another person is also another skill. That's what I realized.
I will be happy to admit I'm maybe not even be the best at that like unless like our voices kind of overlap you know there's some I met writers who are not stand-ups who are like mercenaries like I don't know if you've seen Game of Thrones but you know those people who like you know that guy that doesn't have a penis like what's his name the Mormon guy he like fights for whoever has the thing uh-huh
there's a lot of writers like that who like, I can just write jokes and they're like neutral jokes. So you can paint them however you'd like in your voice. You know? I think it's standups. Like I just, my whole mission coming up was like, who are you? Who are you? Who are you? What's your voice? And so it's like for yourself.
Yes.
And so like, I think if you, like if our voices are similar, then like I could be of great service. But if you're like different than like, I think award show writing, if it's somebody I like, if we vibe, I think it's cool. But I don't think I could write for some random guy. There's a lot of writers who can write for a random guy. And I saw that, and I was very impressed.
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