The 2nd Annual Ronny Chieng Content-Prostitution Hour

Welcome to Pablo Torre Finds Out.

I am Pablo Torre, and today we're going to find out what this sound is.

Pablo S.

Torre, Mexican, Asian, or American.

Right after this ad.

You're listening to DraftKings Network.

If you're looking to add something special to your next celebration, try Remy Martin 1738 Accord Royale.

This smooth, flavorful cognac is crafted from the finest grapes and aged to perfection, giving you rich notes of oak and caramel with every sip.

Whether you're celebrating a big win or simply enjoying some cocktails with family and friends, Remy Martin 1738 is the perfect spirit to elevate any occasion.

So go ahead, treat yourself to a little luxury, and try Remy Martin 1738 Accord Royale.

Learn more at remymartin.com.

Remy Martin Cognac, Feeding Champagne, a 40% alcohol by volume, reported by Remy Control, USA, Incorporated, New York, New York, 1738, Centaur Design.

Please drink responsibly.

Oh, shit.

I was going to make fun of you for that bag, and now I see what's in it.

You can make fun of it.

Well, I want to, I was, I have, I have questions about

good to see you.

How are you feeling?

I'm good.

I haven't seen you in so long.

I know.

I only see you when you need something from me.

which is this.

Listen, this is all I am to you.

I'm not saying that

content prostitutes, but just because you did a favor to me one time on a pilot, I have to resort to booking fellow Asian people because no one else wants to come on my show.

Well, that doesn't make me want to be here.

This is charity.

This is this is this is uh

social, this is social charity.

You get you get points, um, you get your punch card of Asian podcasters, Then at the end, you get a free boba.

I hate that punch card.

I'm the most gettable

for my NL.

Don't say that.

Don't depreciate the value of that.

Juice to gettability.

I have the highest ratio of

my assist to turnover ratio.

My juice to gettability ratio is very high for Asian people.

That's right.

You have Russell Westbrook qualities.

Have we been rolling?

Yes.

Awesome.

Great.

Cut the Russell Westbrook slander, keep in everything else.

I want to reveal that I've been unhelpful in creating peace and brokering peace between you and a certain podcast host.

Oh, yeah.

Based in South Florida.

I got no beef with him.

We don't need to go into it.

I don't want people to be sure.

Yeah, I don't want people to be like, he won't let it go because I did let it go.

I know, but

I would like to

force it into your life again.

Because it amuses me.

It's okay.

We don't need to force it.

Yeah, you sure.

I think so.

I don't want to become the guy who keeps bringing it up.

I know, I know.

But would you mind if we brought former North Carolina receiver Taylor Vipoulis back onto a speedboat again?

Oh, I'm not sure.

And just talk to you over and over again.

Okay, so just real quick here, because we have lots of actual special stuff that I've been meeting to discuss all year with Ronnie Cheng, our special guest today, the actor, stand-up comic, daily show correspondent, et cetera, et cetera.

And I have been truly waiting to do this for months now.

But the thing that I do need to just get past first is Ronnie Cheng's first and only interview on the Dan Lebetard show, which was disastrous and from earlier in 2024 before the Super Bowl, when a bewildered Ronnie

was zoomed in to Dan's show, which kept trying to hijack the Taylor Swift YouTube algorithm, I am told.

by cutting away from Ronnie to producer and former North Carolina receiver Taylor Vipolis,

who is live streaming his swift football takes

while on an actual speedboat.

Hold on a second.

Hold on a second, Ronnie.

So we're bringing in our speedboat here.

We're going very fast again.

Do you have a sports question of any kind, Ronnie, that you would ask our speedboat correspondent that you would want him to give you an answer to as fast as possible?

No.

Okay, I've put you in a bad spot.

You apologized in advance.

Yes, I keep doing that and now Taylor is going slow again.

This is, I feel like it's

I feel like I'm doing the interview with the with the countdown on it.

Okay,

because I'm looking at the guy on the boat, so I'm wondering how long I have to answer.

Yeah, I would not say that Taylor's swift takes were a rousing success, but I am pretty sure that all of this was ultimately Dan Lebittard's idea.

Ronnie, I also apologize.

On the back end, though, I mean, well, we're going to have you on again and do it right and do it better without someone on a speedboat, okay?

So

if you would do us the courtesy of doing it again, because I botched the first six minutes of this.

Um,

maybe not, sure, maybe not.

Does it sound promising?

It doesn't sound promising.

It doesn't sound down.

I don't blame you if you don't, But thank you for this.

Yes, I did.

He called me to apologize the day after.

And I asked him, how did you get my number?

And it was you.

You gave him my number.

And he apologized for taking my number.

He actually did.

The funny thing about Dad is that he is...

He loves...

Levittard loves nothing more than a comedian.

Really?

It could have fooled me.

But here's the real sad part was I, when it comes in in the list of requests for me, I say no to all this crap.

I know.

I said yes to him because I was actually a fan of his.

I know.

That's what was kind of sad.

It was like, oh, damn, you know, we've done this thing.

And now you've said it in the past tense.

Oh, fans?

Oh, yeah, yeah.

Let's just say he's not my algorithm.

But you know what?

He did call me apologize, but like, it feels a little bit like...

hollow because it's like, well, you left the clip on.

So it's like, what?

Are you really sorry?

What I want to keep prodig at, though, is

genuine...

Is this a big thing in the sports journalism subculture?

At a company that Dan owns and operates that I work for, it's very much an inter-office.

Oh, you work at the same company?

I should say that.

Oh, I didn't know that.

You should have probably disclosed that legally.

What, Meadowlock?

That's right.

Oh, so he works for Meadowlock?

Dan, yeah, he founded it.

Oh, he founded this thing?

Well, why the f ⁇ am I here then?

I was going to say, you probably should have opened it.

You probably should have, yeah, you should have opened with that.

I thought this was like your own thing.

No, I didn't know that.

That's why you're so interested.

I see.

Yeah.

No, I didn't know that it was the same company.

But that goes to show that's how little like I hold grudges about this.

You know what I mean?

Truly, truly.

What I was going to say.

Hey, Dan, can we get a new chair?

I know this is the dude.

Dan paid for this?

Get this on camera.

This is the level.

This is where we're at.

ESPN to this.

This is peak sports podcasting.

Yeah.

I don't know if you've noticed this, but we're in a boom time for sports podcasting.

ESPN to this.

We can't even get chairs that don't wobble.

That's how far we've come.

That's how far we've come, everybody.

I genuinely did love you going on Rich Eisen's show, though.

Thanks for having me on.

It's nice to be on a sports show with a host who actually wants guests on the show

versus some other sports podcast shows I've been on.

So great.

Oh, yeah, Rich was great.

Rich was the best.

Respectful.

He was trying to get in-depth.

Meanwhile, you and me, like, we have had off-the-record dinners in which we criticize NBA players that we're afraid to say in public.

What do you mean?

I think the first time we had dinner.

Yes, we had a dinner.

This is probably over, how long ago was this?

Like, this was

this was a time, and this is how I sort of carbon date our friendship and also like the arc of our demographic.

Sure, it's at a time when we were still talking mostly about Jeremy Lynn.

Oh,

yeah.

Hey, I'm going to go see him in Taiwan.

You are?

I'm going to go see him play in Taiwan.

No, sorry.

Don't let me.

No, no, no.

Don't let it, please.

I was just saying, like, we met up, talked about,

again, your genuine love of basketball.

Yeah.

Did you know that he had been married before he announced it on Instagram?

Yeah, yeah.

Yeah.

I didn't.

But it's okay.

He's a private guy.

I know.

I know, but I thought that I was.

I was on.

I thought you were better friends with him.

I've known him since he was in college.

Yeah.

But I also was, this is my weird relationship with him, though, is that I was always also, and this is my conflict of

Harvard with him.

That's right.

And I was also like a journalist who was like writing about him.

And so I was always kind of mining him.

He was the first

dude American I turned into a content prostitute where I was like, hey, man, I needed this quote.

I need to follow you around.

Yeah,

to cover stories.

Adventure career.

Yeah.

Legitimately, I was a barnacle on his leg.

But when I saw that he had announced years after he had gotten married, and I get why, by the way, to be clear, his level of celebrity and fame, especially overseas, China, Taiwan, all that, is unthinkable.

And so when I saw it, I was like,

I was both happy and sad because he needed.

No, no, but

sad because he had to go through this whole layer of privacy protection.

No, don't be sad.

Because

the truth, I don't want to speak for him, but the truth is I think he just doesn't think it was anyone's business.

Maybe he's a very humble guy.

He probably didn't think it was a big deal, you know, And so it wasn't like he was like, oh, no, I have to hide this from the world.

He's more like,

if anything, I think it was more like he doesn't care about

letting the world know what's going on.

Do you remember?

I don't know if you remember this story.

When Hideki Matsui, again, former Yankees, slugger, one of the great stars of Japanese baseball, when he announced his engagement in America and he announced it at a press conference that he called, and instead of showing a photo of his wife,

he produced a drawing he had made.

Here we go.

It looks like he's describing who mugged him.

You know what I mean?

It's like this person.

If anyone's seen this person, they have my wallet.

Yes, it looks like that.

Have you seen that local news segment they did in like Alabama when they saw the leprechaun?

This signature sketch resembles what many of you say the leprechaun looks like.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Well, I mean, she's more beautiful than a leprechaun, but.

To be clear, for those just listening on audio, she is beautiful, and the drawing is

better rendered than I would say 99% of most baseball players would attempt to draw their own wife.

Yeah, man, if I drew my own wife, I mean, it wouldn't look anything like that.

It wouldn't look anything like that.

Yeah,

I think.

So that was a privacy thing, right?

That was a privacy thing.

But then why even do that?

That's a quirky thing.

You know what I mean?

Just be like, I married someone, don't worry about it.

But this is, but this is, I think, the obligation of celebrity that makes me sad, which is if you're Jeremy, like at some point, you got to say.

No, you don't.

I wonder actually when you sort of, what's your Goldilocks level of celebrity at this point?

Because that is like drawing a picture of your own wife is too famous.

Honestly, I don't think about it.

And I do think that people like Jeremy, who are very focused on a craft, and I'm lucky to be focused on stand-up comedy.

I don't think about getting famous.

I don't think about getting clips.

I just want to to write a funny joke.

So, you know, sorry, this is a roundabout way.

It's just the most Asian thing you could possibly say.

No, it's a craftsman thing.

I don't know if it's Asian.

I mean, I guess Jeremy and I are both Asian, but I'm sure.

But also, just the dedication to like, I want to be good at this.

Yeah.

And I'm not here for the superficiality of it.

I actually want to meritocratically earn this.

Yeah, I got to be honest.

I'm surprised when anybody recognizes me on the street.

I'm shocked.

When someone's like, oh, I saw you on the thing.

I'm like, you watch that?

You're genuinely shocked.

I'm genuinely shocked.

You've been in a Marvel movie.

Yeah, but it was we're small roles.

Like, I genuinely am shocked when anyone's like, I saw your stand-up comedy or I saw you on the daily show.

Cause a lot of times the daily show, it feels like we're making a show for ourselves in a good way.

It's like we're making a school play.

That's what it feels like.

It feels like we're like, hey, we're just doing it for like in this building, this weird, you know, little like

comedy performance piece.

How are you with people who say stuff like that?

Is it a fun interaction?

Unfortunately, I'm not great at it because I think the humility makes people think I'm being arrogant.

Yes.

So people will come up and be like, hey, are you the guy?

I'm like, oh, no, I don't know if I'm the guy.

I don't know who you're talking about.

Like, I don't know who you mean.

Are you the crazy rich agent?

They'll be like, are you that person?

And then I'll be like, I don't know if I'm that person.

I don't know who you're thinking of.

You know, and my wife is always like, just say you're freaking.

Stop gaslighting them.

Yeah.

No, I'm not gaslighting.

They're not specific enough.

And the lawyer in me is like, well, I don't want to freaking tell you.

I don't want to assume that I'm the person that you're thinking oh maybe i'm not you know that's right so so i so what they'll be like you that guy i'm like no i don't know if i'm that guy probably not yeah yeah now i can see why your wife is like just say you're the guy just say you're the guy just say you're pablo tore

and then just say you're pablo tore that's right and then and then they'll be confused again as always like so why is the mexican guy with a chinese face talking about sports why is he on this you've never solved that issue no there's what 20 years in the game now you've never solved the why are you a chinese guy with a mexican name?

Literally, one of my books, so Google Chrome.

I used to use it in a way that was like

sort of more rigorous, and I used to have these bookmarks.

And so, bookmarks toolbar.

This is not something I prepared for you.

Look at what's floated over that.

That's a Yahoo answers.

It's the worst phrasing of that question.

The or American or American is

the best punchline to best.

So, why don't you answer it?

I'm Mexican.

If you're looking to add something special to your next celebration, try Remy Martin 1738 Accord Royale.

This smooth, flavorful cognac is crafted from the finest grapes and aged to perfection, giving you rich notes of oak and caramel.

with every sip.

Whether you're celebrating a big win or simply enjoying some cocktails with family and friends, Remy Martin 1738 is the perfect spirit to elevate any occasion.

So go ahead, treat yourself to a little luxury, and try Remy Martin 1738 Accord Royale.

Learn more at remymartin.com.

Remy Martin Cognac, Vienna Champain, afforded an alcoholic volume, reported by Remy Control, USA, Incorporated, New York, New York, 1738, Centaur design.

Please drink responsibly.

Dude, I was in a pilot that you taped.

Yes, I know.

I appreciate that.

Yes.

Can we talk about that pilot?

Or?

Yeah, I think the statue of limitations has run out on that two years ago.

Yeah, we should talk.

We never got to talk about it.

That's right.

So, when I want to, so I was trying to actually start with that because the reason that you have been genuinely frustrated, as well as artificially gassed up to be frustrated by me about this whole Levitar thing, is because you are a sports fan to the degree that you filmed a pilot in which the concept was what?

I was the general manager of

the Brooklyn Nets.

That was the pilot.

We filmed it.

We actually filmed it.

We didn't just write it.

We filmed it.

Pablo made a cameo in it as the sportscaster at the start.

You know, when you have real like sportscasters, yeah, I think ambiguous force anchors.

Yeah, and you and Jalen did it for me.

I was really appreciative because it was, it wasn't easy to get you guys.

And it came down to the wire.

And

luckily, the synergy of Disney, Hulu came together, and you guys jumped in it.

I was really appreciative.

It was really fun for me to theatrically yell about you.

Yeah, yeah.

But the premise, like the log line of Ronnie Cheng becomes Brooklyn Nets General Manager, frankly, I was in based just on that sentence.

Yeah, thank you.

Yeah, thank you.

It was a fun idea.

But also, like,

what is most sad to you about the pilot, spoiler alert, not being picked up?

We had a lot of great themes in it.

You know, it became this kind of way of addressing bigger themes in America in a very fun way.

Foreigners being asked to take over

a very American institution because they determined that we were the best at it.

Because I had won, my character won championships in the Philippines.

Oh, and so

they know that part about it.

Yeah, so the owner was good.

So now I'm even madder about this.

So the owner owned the, in the story, the owner owned the team in the Philippines and several other teams and the Nets.

And so because I won so many times in the Philippines and the Nets weren't doing so well in the pilot,

he brought me over.

So, he stuck his neck out to bring me over, even though everyone was like, this guy's not appropriate for this league because he's been, you know.

So,

that was the pilot, yeah.

I could have played so many different extras.

Yeah, you could have been the sideline.

I could have been, again, the 40th Filipino guy in the flashback.

You could also have been the annoying podcaster who's like talking about the team.

In season two, I would have been radicalized.

I would have been selling crypto and supplements and hated you.

It would be really funny if every season, like you start off, because we started you off as the ESPN anchor.

Every season you just go from ESPN anchor to podcaster to just like

this guy outside, just like yelling at people.

I've clearly just gone insane.

Yeah,

I loved that concept.

Thank you.

We loved it too.

We loved it too.

We put a lot of heart and money into it.

And

we had Dennis Leary was the main antagonist.

So this is me learning this, finding out about this for the first time, like what this would have been.

I didn't know any of this.

Yeah, Dennis Leary was the main antagonist.

He was great.

He was my assistant GM.

So I got hired over him.

He got passed over.

I would love to have seen Dennis Leary here.

He was the best.

He was the best.

And not just on screen, but he was a great guy off screen as well.

He saved the pilot a little bit because we came to him quite last minute.

And he's not someone who, he's a great guy, but he's not someone to do a charity project.

So he liked the script and then he came on board and he understood what we were trying to do.

And it was great.

He loves basketball.

He was the traditional, like ex-player, became assistant GM, and I'm like this, you know, dumb young kid.

And it was, yeah, it was great.

Do you think that you would be a good front office executive?

I don't know.

You know, when I was in college, I fantasized about going into sports.

You know, whether it was, that's why I admired you so much because you were the guy who made it.

I was watching you in Australia.

Like, oh man, this guy's in the system.

He's in the ESPN around the horn.

Industrial complex.

Yeah, he's writing the thing.

I think for me, it was either going to sports journalism or maybe try to become an analyst because I had a law degree.

So I was like, hey, maybe I could become an analyst for a sports team the way

what's that baseball movie?

Moneyball.

Moneyball, yeah.

I was doing Moneyball.

Because when we were in college, analytics was just coming up.

Exactly.

So it was almost like a way for geeky guys to get into sports.

Back in my day, right, when this was like the beginning of the analytics boom in sports, I got credibility because I was Asian.

Seriously, I would be moderating these panels at the Sloan Sports Analytics Conference, basketball analytics with like these GMs.

MIT, yeah.

And they're assuming that I could like double-check their math.

And I'm just like, I.

So you, you wrote the Jeremy Lynn and analytics wave just because you are Asian?

Absolutely.

Absolutely.

What do you think is your strength then from Harvard?

I don't, I don't, I don't.

What are you good at?

That, oh, huh.

Like, what do you think?

Analogies?

Okay, analogies.

I guess that's a skill.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I mean, truly, like, what I felt my superpower was

was

writing.

If you gave me time to write something, I could create something

that could hang with the best students at the best college was my confidence.

Yeah.

So,

why

don't you use that podcasting instead of writing?

Yeah.

Now, you have become my mom.

But I've been saying this since I first stepped into this studio like three years ago.

I've been like, why are you doing this?

Have you heard about magazines and how they're dead now?

Yes.

And how people are paying former NFL players nine

money to speak into microphones.

It's not about the money, isn't it, though?

No, but this is genuinely what I want to ask.

There's not so much a dig at you, but like.

No, it's, by the way, a valid question and insecurity.

Both.

Oh, sorry.

I guess I managed to find it.

The,

I, because I, I met up with the free daco guys.

Yeah.

Because Because it turns out one of the Free Dako.

When did that happen?

Yeah, one of the Free Daco guys is married to a writer at the Daily Show.

Oh.

Sophie Zucker.

So Sophie will keep telling me, like, hey, do you like Free Daco?

I'm like, how did you know that?

Right.

So Free Daco for...

How do you explain Free Daco for people who don't know?

Free Darko was like...

Your NBA nerd credibility is off the charts right now.

Guys, this is what I want to talk about.

Don't get me on your stupid show to jump on a

on a speedboat

with some guy who doesn't like me.

You know what I mean?

Like,

let's talk about something in depth.

Anyway, I know you're going to clip that in.

So go for it.

Go for it.

I didn't even know that this was Dan Libertad's company.

Kind of like in his basement.

Yeah, I can't even believe that.

A good thing you didn't open it.

I probably wouldn't have come.

But the

Free Daco was like the first

elevated sports writing that I saw, I think that happened in American culture that kind of merged pop culture with specifically basketball.

On the internet.

With cool graphics.

So they were kind of like the precursor to Grantland in many ways.

I would say.

A bunch of the Grantland people came out of that coaching tree.

Jay Caspian Kang, another great Asian American writer who still writes, wrote for Free Dark a blog for them.

Yeah.

And so they would do,

they released a book, you know, with graphics.

They would do these really fun analogies of like,

you know, players and figures in pop culture or compare them to movies and then they would combine it with these really cool graphics.

And I've never seen anything like that before.

So now you've described something that is omnipresent.

Back then, it felt revelatory.

Again,

I think it was also on like blogger.com.

Yes, it was on blogger.com.

Yeah, one of these blog spots.

They spawned books and t-shirts.

And ultimately, I guess they never transitioned into the new social media era.

Yeah, and God bless them.

They opted out at probably the right time.

The wrong time, to be honest.

They opted out at right the wrong time if they had just kept it.

Wrong for the capitalism of it, right for the psychology of their own well.

Oh, why?

Why do you say that?

Because I think just creating content right now is a nightmare.

Like, look at us right now.

Yeah, I know.

This is a just like praying we get aggregated by

butt crack sports.

Oh, man.

That's what it's come down to now.

I mean, you're off social media.

We used to be, I'm off it, yeah.

We used to be Grantland, you know,

who's that guy who wrote Breaks of the Game?

David Halberstam, David Halberstam, and now we're trying to get aggregated on butt cracks.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, MBA Centel.

We want to get aggregated by the scammer accounts that imitate the real aggregator accounts.

We are three levels beyond actual content creation, we're just eating people's regurgitated vomit.

I know, so why don't you elevate this by like making a um

you know, revitalizing that that Grantland McSweeney for spring.

Ronnie, I have to say, um, without tooting my own horn in a not self-deprecating way, please.

Um, when you're not on this show, the show is kind of doing that.

We all work for tech companies.

Yes.

You draw, you connect the dots back far enough and you will either soon be working for one, some conglomerate, or we are competing with them, which makes media companies behave like them.

And I imagine for you, this is something that you also have contemplated slash had to grapple with.

Yeah, yes, very much so.

And I'm someone who

I grew up loving American institutions from afar.

So for me, the NBA was an institution.

The Daily Show was an institution, ESPN was an institution.

And so for me, I guess there's a certain nostalgia factor for that, where I respect the institution so much.

Maybe I'm romanticizing it, but.

Well, I look,

that's a bit of a stump speech that I would vote for, frankly.

It does feel, I say this, I get asked to talk to journalism students.

Oh, no.

I know, no.

And so what I always have to catch myself

from being is like third-level nihilistic about everything

where I go immediately they're like they're like no, they're like so how do you what should I do the future?

I'm like well, we're all OnlyFans creators now working for these soulless tech companies and so I don't know what

and so I'm like yeah you want me to show some ankle What do you want me to do like

I know it's very sad.

I love how you're at level three three level I had to research what three level

In basketball meant oh sure 2k like a level three facilitator like Scotty Pippin is a three level it means that you can three level score Yeah, you can score at the basket, mid-range, and three-point.

That's right.

So you're like a three-level nilist.

You can be a nilist.

Yeah, I can depress a journalism student in a myriad of ways.

I love how we're talking about this because this won't make you any money right now.

But I love talking about this.

Here's the other factor is that like for me, I'm lucky with comedy.

I feel like you...

Don't worry about what people are doing.

Do the comedy you want to see and don't chase the algorithm or the trends.

That's oftentimes oftentimes when the best comedy comes out.

So, in your case, it's like forget what the landscape is,

be the change you want to see.

And I just got back into reading like a year and a half ago after eight, seven years out of the game, which is, I can't believe how long I went without reading properly.

Dude, reading is the perfect antidote to social media.

If you feel like social media is doing you damage, just reading a book or reading a news article, a long-form, form

well-written uh essay or article it it's the perfect antidote to it so i think that it's actually a matter of of uh national prerogative like imperative yes yes for mental health and just you know for civilization that you start writing come on yeah it is if you don't write this is if you don't do it this is it's just a race to the bottom with this

metallark media colon a race to the bottom bottom.

Erase to the bottom.

I can't believe the name was so inoculated, Meadowlark.

It makes it sound so, you know, like cheerful.

Metal arch is a bird.

This is John Skipper's, by the way, John Skipper from President of VSPN.

Yes.

His whole thing was like the Meadowlark is the bird whose song heralds the beginning of a new morning.

What a dressy way to hide the destruction of civilization through clip content.

This is the new morning, then someone should shoot that bird

because

if it's if this is what it's heralding

we don't need this

you quoted inadvertently or not uh Gandhi when

the change you want to see in the world

apocryphally at least tributed to Gandhi yeah is Gandhi Asian

is Gandhi Asian he's Indian yeah

I don't know if he's I don't know if he's he'll be considered classically Asian when you see Gandhi do you think Asian or do you think Indian

this is why I ask

yeah This is why I ask.

I'm now trying to poke holes in the coalition.

I've gone from solidarity building to not trying to undermine us.

Yeah.

I would argue that Gandhi himself would reject the term Asian because that's a colonial term to try to reference all of one continent as one people, you know, whereas even in India, that's separate people.

So I would say.

You just managed to make the Indian caste system woke.

I guess so.

I guess.

The caste system was original.

That's right.

They actually understood the complexity of humanity.

The reason I am attempting to segue back to something relating to our ethnicity is because Interior Chinatown is something that I watched and enjoyed.

Oh, thank you.

I chose not to.

I was not proud of that.

I chose not to read a book.

Instead, I watched this new show on Hulu.

Well, in that case, then that's good.

Absolutely.

It was excellent.

It was ambitious.

It was complicated.

It was funny.

It was meaningful.

And your character, I just want to point this out.

Your character has some of you in it, but in other ways, I'm like,

this does not seem like Ronnie in real life.

Oh, thank you.

I was trying to do my best to act.

Well, your character is a stoner in the show, and I don't think of you as

a weed guy.

No, I'm not a weed guy.

Yeah, I grew up in Singapore.

We don't do weed in Singapore.

So, and I know you don't do weed because you call it doing weed.

Yeah,

I don't do it.

I just don't.

So, yeah, I had to pretend to be a guy who does weed.

I'm not saying I want someone to die.

So what are you saying?

Well, I'm saying if someone's already dead, I would like to be the person who'll find the body.

That's weird, man.

Okay, you know how in cop shows there's usually a cold open.

Cold open.

The first scene before the main title.

Right.

Okay, so for a couple of minutes, you're following this random character who you've never met, who's not one of leads.

And part of you is thinking, why am I even watching this guy why are you watching this guy you're watching because either he's about to get killed or

or

you seriously never seen a cop show

how is that even possible video games and weed okay at what point your character declares that koreans are the most fun asians oh yeah no i

yeah do i

that's what i wrote down but i was stoned when i was watching it so maybe it's you know not quite accurate maybe that's why the writing hasn't happened because of the drugs.

The drugs did develop kind of concurrently with the decline

of the writing.

The writing, now that I think about it, uh, I, yeah, I probably did say that.

I definitely said that in my standout special.

So, do you have a hierarchy of fun Asians?

Yeah, yeah, I,

yeah, watch my standout special.

I describe the hierarchy.

Yeah, we can play this game.

Yeah, I'll push, I'll push people to my

and then I'll use your to my what I remember.

Filipinos were not number one and that is criminal.

Oh most fun?

Yeah, no but in my standout special they were like second not good enough.

That's not good enough.

No.

Oh well.

All right.

Well we sing, we dance.

I mean put on masks and become jabber walkies.

Filipinos are like up there with the most fun.

So the only reason I didn't give them the most fun right now is because I was arguing, my argument in my special was that Koreans right now are dominating

Western media with music, movies, and

TV shows, parasite, BTS.

So, so that's the only reason why, but I think Filipinos were a close second in my.

I ran into somebody that you know, Daniel DeKam.

I saw Yellowface on Broadway.

Yeah, me too.

Excellent.

I'm also cultured.

Yes, that's right.

We love theater and books and reading.

Yes.

And Daniel DeKam, noted Korean.

Dude is 56.

Yeah.

Ageless.

I'm like, I am used to the trope of Asian people looking young.

I have been carted at a bar in the last two years.

That guy,

it's ridiculous.

Yeah.

Like,

we will show a photo of Daniel Day Kim.

Like, he should be studied

by science.

Yes.

Him and Tom Brady.

Well, Tom Brady, I mean, your favorite,

your demigod.

That guy had just intense plastic surgery, though.

You know that.

Oh, Tom Brady had plastic surgery?

I didn't know.

You don't think so?

No, I don't know.

Oh, Ronnie.

Well, now we got to go down this hole.

Wait, let's talk away from Deoday Kim first.

Yeah, yeah.

Deal Day Kim.

Yes.

Super fit.

Looks young.

Has two 20-year-old kids.

It's crazy.

Also, also a big football fan.

Oh, yes.

He used to play quarterback.

What?

You should get him in to talk about football.

I didn't know he played quarterback.

Yeah, he ran a lot of wishbone.

I got, okay.

All right.

Thank you for feeding my content.

Yeah, yeah.

My content furnace.

Just showing

all the time.

Yeah, he used to be a quarterback at his high school in Philadelphia.

That's great.

It's crazy.

Asian quarterback.

I love it.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I love it.

But Tom Brady definitely, I mean, you can see that.

He had plastic surgery?

Yeah.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I mean, allegedly, I guess I should say legally speaking, but I'm just going to Google

Tom Brady face transformation.

Yeah, but that's just because he stopped eating sugar.

You attribute that to the TB12 diet?

Yes.

You think this is the TB12 diet?

Yeah.

I mean, his jawline is

carved out of marble on the right.

And on the left,

I'm just saying, look, none of us should be so confident as to insult old Tom Brady, but come on.

No, but that's a kid coming out of college versus grown up.

That's baby fat.

Yeah.

Yeah, yeah.

He just, he, the TB12 diet, you know, and then

what do you, what do they call it?

Pliability.

Pliability.

Pliability with no nightshades, all that stuff.

This does provide me with a convenient segue, though, because Tom Brady, the trauma visited upon him recently, of course, I'm not making light of this.

I just want to point out that his ex-wife fell in love with her jiu-jitsu instructor.

Oh, yeah, yeah.

And behind you, you walk in, and I'm like, Ronnie, what the f is this?

What are you bringing in here?

I gotta go.

What do you have?

What do you have in that bag?

I'm going straight to jujitsu and you can use that function.

Can you show us the bag?

Oh, okay.

Oh, actually,

I picked up this gi at random, but you'll love this one.

This is, again, as always with Ronnie, like, I have no idea what this is.

It's unplanned.

Look at that.

That is.

It's that Neon Nick's gi.

Roddy Chang whipping out a jujitsu gi festooned with Nick's logos.

Yeah.

I have this.

Albino and I should shout out Albino and Prito.

Was this custom made for you?

No, no.

They sold this.

They had a partnership.

They did a collab.

with uh with uh the the the nba so there's a few you see there's official logo okay this is all legit.

It's ridiculous.

I didn't realize that when I pulled it out.

I just pulled it out.

I love that the last thing you might see, or the last thing your opponent might see as they lose consciousness, is

a logo that reminds them of like Carl Anthony Towns.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And to be honest, it's biggest on the back.

So it's enormous on the back.

If they see this,

if my opponent's looking at this, that means I'm going out.

This is the last thing they see before they choke me out.

I do want to talk about this insurer of Chinatown thing real quick because I feel like I haven't done a great job of

selling it to you.

Of explaining what it is?

It's kind of hard to explain, but just imagine it's guys.

It's two,

well, it's a bunch of people who are in a

TV show and they're unaware that they're on a TV show.

Right.

Like law and order

is like the analog for what the show is.

Yes.

Police procedural.

Police procedural, law and order, and we're background characters in it, but we don't know we're in a TV show.

Right.

You're the guys working at the Chinese restaurant in the police procedural, who it turns out have a vast universe that they are inhabiting themselves.

Yes.

But they're,

what's hard to do.

Constantly in the background.

And what's hard to explain, though, is the shift in perspectives.

Yes.

In like the, wait a minute.

So is this real?

Who's aware of this?

Are the characters, are the cops aware of what they're thinking?

In that way, it becomes both gripping and also hard to summarize.

Yeah, it's hard to summarize, but I think that's what's cool about it.

It's that it's weird and ambitious.

We're not spoon feeding you.

Like when you watch Twin Peaks, are you like, well,

I vividly remember the first time I saw Twin Peaks.

Oh, yeah, yeah.

It was on VHS.

I was doing a Christian service trip to Ecuador because I'm a good person.

Wait, what?

This is in high school.

This is in high school.

Wait, you're Christian?

You do service?

I was raised Catholic.

I went to a Catholic all-boys high school.

Okay.

And we went to on a Christian service trip to Ecuador.

Oh, my God.

Which, again, confusing because not Hispanic.

But there I was.

And there was a TV with a bunch of old VHS tapes.

And one of them was Twin Peaks.

And I had no idea what this was.

We put it on one day.

And I just remember being almost scarred.

Haunted, actually.

Right, haunted.

But it's the highest compliment to compare anything to David Lynch is my point.

Sure.

I mean, surrealistic,

but it aspires to a surrealism.

Yeah.

That is,

it's the whole thing about like working for any tech company now, it's like, what is this show like?

Yes.

And we are making comparisons to things that are elevated,

which is a compliment because that's not what you would do if you're just trying to maximize the simplicity of the elevator.

1000%.

So how cool is it that we got to make this thing

with Asian guys?

And I mean, it's making a broader point as well.

It's this idea that why are we background characters in the story all the time?

You know, what does that mean?

We're always on the background of culture in America, right?

So like, how do we navigate that?

Yes.

What is that waiter in the background scene of this Law and Order episode thinking?

Right.

It's just a very funny premise.

And then you, the thing that makes it work though, to me

as a viewer was, but there is an actual mystery that's unfolding.

It's not merely beating the same drum of this is a clever premise.

Yes, and there is a social good to come out of this.

It's like you're actually trying to figure out what is happening.

Yes, what is happening?

All the characters are slowly trying to figure out what's happening and it gets weirder and weirder.

Right.

Why is Ronnie Chang, spoiler alert, getting thrown into a vat of hot sauce?

No, that's not me.

That's not me.

That was someone, that's Jimmy.

Hey, guys, I'm here with my main man, Detective Willis Wu.

And when Willis wants something with a kick,

he reaches for Chinese suffering.

How's the spice level?

Is spice enough for you?

You throw Jimmy into that.

You all look like that.

That's okay.

Yeah, that's okay.

I understand.

I understand coming from a Mexican guy.

Tell us apart.

So, okay, so the jiu-jitsu thing, though.

Yeah.

You're not on Twitter or X or whatever, but on Instagram, I see, I see the proof of the body transformation.

But more than that, the martial art transformation that you've been undergoing for how long now?

Oh, I've been doing martial arts since 2004.

So, I mean, not jiu-jitsu, but other martial arts.

So, I used to do Eskrima, which is the Philippine.

Oh, my God.

Yeah, I've been doing it for a while.

It's fun.

It's not even about fighting.

It's just good mental health.

And in a weird way, Jiu-Jitsu, this could be an article for your never-to-be-created

long form magazine.

Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu has been

totally embraced by America, middle America.

We did an episode early, early on with Jay Caspian Kang, actually.

Okay.

About why Mark Zuckerberg is so into jiu-jitsu.

I joke about that in my special as well.

Please watch Netflix December 17th.

I unfortunately do recommend that they do that.

Thank you.

But there is a sort of cognitive

logic, an intellectualism to jiu-jitsu in terms of strategy

that I certainly never appreciated because I only know about it because, oh, yeah, it's like MMA stuff now, BJJ, Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu is very popular.

There seems to be, it's a thinking man's martial art is the way that it was described to us.

Yeah, it is.

I think so.

I think because you can do uncooperative sparring every class.

So that's...

What does that mean?

It means that

when you spar in jiu-jitsu, you traditionally spa at the end of every single class.

And

it's not like you're both trying to win.

So it becomes an actual competitive...

game.

Right.

Practice feels like the real thing.

Yeah.

And

because of that, you get like the strategy because you're not just drilling mindlessly.

You're both trying to win.

So then it becomes like chess a little bit.

And because you're not striking, so you don't get any long-term brain issues.

Well, except for all the consciousness that you lose.

Well, no, but

you should be tapping out before that.

So, yeah.

So

in that sense, it's a real kind of gentleman's martial art.

And yeah, but my broader point, we could talk about jiu-jitsu forever, but like my broader point is that for some reason, Middle America

loves it.

I don't know.

There's something about Brazilian jiu-jitsu and like that American something that they just go like that, you know?

It's a real

it has been startling to me as somebody whose dad,

again, Filipino guy, did martial arts in the Philippines.

Oh.

And put me into karate classes and taekwondo classes and stuff.

What did your dad do?

He did a little Escrima.

He did karate

in the Philippines.

I think she used like a brown belt, which is the second lowest.

Your dad could kick some bud.

I mean,

as every Asian father must.

Right.

Wow.

Must be crazy if you're trying to fight your dad.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Wow, but you never did it, eh?

I tapped out

at white belt every time.

Wow.

As impressive as you are as a person, Harvard and ESPN, pioneering Asian American journalists, your dad is like some way better.

LeBron James of Filipino Urologist is what I always call him.

Crazy.

This is making me feel both better and worse.

Everything I've accomplished.

But

the point being that jujitsu clearly is just cool and sort of like, and obviously there's the MMA part of it.

There's the UFC.

There's the Joe Rogan.

It's just hard to disentangle it from all of it.

American culture.

But it's so popular right now that it is a remarkable and unthinkable thing for, again, an Asian American to be like, oh, middle America just loves this weird Asian art now.

Yeah, jiu-jitsu.

I mean,

and I think it has something for left people, left and right.

Yes.

I think the left, if you're on the left, then you do jiu-jitsu, you kind of toughen up a little bit.

You learn some self-reliance and you kind of learn that no one can help you.

You got to help yourself.

It's one-on-one.

And then if you're on the right, you learn the opposite.

You actually learn that, oh, there are people, you can't just be a, you have to look after other people in the class.

For you to have a good training session, everyone needs to be okay.

You know what I mean?

And so you learn kind of putting other people before yourself, you know, not

going for the kill every single time because that's not what creates a good atmosphere.

And when you talk about jiu-jitsu, it becomes above politics.

You could be left or right-wing.

And if you talk about jiu-jitsu, you bond over jiu-jitsu.

It's like a common culture.

Have you been workshopping this take?

No, no, I haven't.

I mean, but the idea of like, I like the idea of like the Democratic Party, actually, the DNC.

Doing jiu-jitsu.

It's the all-take jiu-jitsu.

Yeah, because I think it might be the answer to you know solving the divide in america is that we all sort of culminate instead of an election in a martial arts tournament yeah no

no not fight it out it's just jiu-jitsu might be the only common thread that could connect left and right you know what are you like as a competitor though in jiu-jitsu i'm bad i'm bad at jiu-jitsu i tap early i don't my whole thing is don't get injured um yeah don't mess with the money maker yeah don't mess with the money maker uh tap early i got no ego with tapping.

Women, children, white belts.

Everyone taps me out.

I have no problem with that whatsoever.

I'm just my goal is mental health.

Do not get injured.

Do not injure anyone else.

That's my main goal.

In Interior Chinatown, there are fight scenes.

Ever since I was a boy, I've dreamt of this moment.

Practicing, waiting to step

into the light.

I wonder when you were doing those fight scenes, was your jiu-jitsu training helpful?

Or no, were you actually throttling what you knew because you weren't a guy who was a jiu-jitsu student i mean jiu-jitsu helped insofar as body control but we were doing i was like throwing a phone at someone's face like um you know jimmy was like like yeah jimmy oyang crescent yeah yeah jimmy oyang's in it crescent kicking there's no kicks in jiu-jitsu um but uh uh it definitely helped with body control and like knowing how to move and uh it was and most of the fight scenes was the stunt guys making us look good so shout out to the stunt guys but uh yeah i think it's it's a very cool show and very ambitious.

And I hope people check it out and they like it.

Cause

it's rare to make something original IEP like that.

That's just ambitious.

It's based on a best-selling book.

Based on best-selling books.

So it's free market tested.

Books.

Yeah, books.

If there's anything that we've learned on today's episode of Pablo Fictory Finds Out, it's that we should prioritize books.

Yeah.

I seriously doubt anyone watching this clip on Instagram has read a book in the last five years.

I'm happy to be proven wrong.

Write in the comments the books that you read.

Yeah, sound off in the comments.

The last book you read.

I will never see any of those comments, but it will help the video make some money, which is the point of this.

Yeah, I guess.

Ronnie, thank you for

a session of uncooperative sparring.

No problem.

Oh, yeah, there you go.

See?

And

thanks for having me on again.

Always great to see you.

I'm a huge fan, remain a huge fan.

I've been a fan of yours since college.

It's so surreal to actually meet and talk to you sometimes and see you face to face.

And I love your writing.

I hope you can get back to yourself.

Okay, that's enough, though.

I think

the point's been made.

Yes, I'm beating a dead horseman.

But yes, I love everything you do, except for this.

Yeah.

The feelings are mutual, except I love this.

Pablo Torre finds out is produced by Walter Aberoma, Ryan Cortez, Sam Dawig, Juan Galindo, Patrick Kim, Neely Lohman, Rob McRae, Rachel Miller-Howard, Carl Scott, Matt Sullivan, Claire Taylor, Chris Tumanello, and Juliet Warren.

Our studio engineering by RG Systems, our sound design by NGW Post, our theme song, as always, is by John Bravo.

We will talk to you next time.