'Blasian' comedian Michael Yo finds humor in family stories
Jun. 25—Many a stand-up comedian's career has been launched on a youthful dare, often issued while alcohol flows, inhibitions recede and friends start challenging each other.
Many a stand-up comedian's career has been launched on a youthful dare, often issued while alcohol flows, inhibitions recede and friends start challenging each other.
But Michael Yo got his dare on national TV, from none other than comedian Chelsea Handler, during her TV show "Chelsea Lately."
"On the show, I go, 'Stand-up comedy doesn't look hard, ' and that kind of insulted all the stand-up comedians that were on the show, " said Yo, who at the time was known as a pop culture commentator on radio and TV. "She goes, 'Well, you go up, and I'll bet you can't do it.'"
A bit later in Miami, Yo took up the challenge and made his mark. "My first time I did it, I fell in love with it and did good, " he said. "And the second night, the owner of the club didn't believe it was my first time ever and had me open for the Wayans brothers my second night ever. It was Marlon and Shawn Wayans. I'll never forget it."
The experience launched Yo, who appears Thursday at Blue Note Hawaii for two sets, into a successful, still-developing career in stand-up. He's released two comedy specials, reached the quarterfinal round of "America's Got Talent " and had a comedy podcast with Hawaii favorite Jo Koy in 2013. When not on tour, he performs regularly at the Comedy Cellar in Las Vegas, where he now lives.
His comedy is based on his own life—his first special, 2018's "Blasian, " was an autobiographical riff on his upbringing in a Black /Asian household, and his second, "I Never Thought, " released last year, is a harrowing, yet ultimately uplifting bit based on his experience as Houston's first COVID-19 patient to need intensive care. The specials are available on YouTube.
His family also figures prominently in his comedy, particularly his parents. They met while his father, a native of Louisiana, was serving with the Army in South Korea and eventually wound up running a deli in Houston before retiring a few years ago.
It's rich territory that he mines for funny stories, even if means playing off a few stereotypes. In his special "Blasian, " he displays a photo of his father, saying "This Black man has a Ph.D. in nuclear physics, " to audience cheers. Then he adds : "I hear the Asian people : 'Oh, OK. Black man plus Ph.D. equal white man."
His father's intellect apparently didn't rub off on the son. Yo said he was such a poor student that his father told him to drop out of college.
"He goes 'You're just not smart. You're just not good at school, '" Yo said. "'And it doesn't mean you're not going to be good at life, you're just not good at school, and you need to get into what you want to do, and do that.' ... It crushed my mom, being an Asian mom, like 'My son not smart.' I remember back in the day my mom, all her friends, used to brag about how their kids were on the honor roll, and I never was. But now my mom is like, 'Look, my son on TV.'"
His parents don't mind people getting a few laughs at their expense. Yo regularly features them on his YouTube videos, and they all needle each other in the way you would expect from a close-knit family.
"When I first started, my mom didn't want me to make jokes about her, " Yo said. "And now, she'll still say that, but if I do a show and don't say a joke about her, she'll go, 'Why didn't you tell the joke about me ?'"
Yo credits Koy for helping him develop his comedic voice. The two have toured together, and Koy has appeared on Yo's current podcast, "The Yo Show " on Apple Podcasts.
"He saw a lot of me in him, " Yo said. "He goes, 'We're both storytellers. We like to talk about our families. You have a different dynamic with your dad, and we both got the same kind of mom.' ... He told me, 'If you sit down and write a story, that's where you want to be. You do not want to sit down and write a joke. We are storytellers.'"
Since it's such an integral part of his comedy, Yo doesn't mind talking about what it's been like to be Black and Asian. He's 48 and seen a lot.
"It's changed, " he said. "When I was growing up, it was trying to figure out who you were, because I grew up in a predominantly white area, and I was the only one of me around. And my parents were the only interracial couple I remember seeing as a child in our whole area.
"What I love now is that you can't turn on the TV without seeing an interracial couple. It's changed a lot where for the first time, about three, four years ago, it became normalized to see an interracial couple. They tried it on a Cheerios commercial (in 2008 ) and people lost their minds. So it feels good that I'm seeing it in my lifetime and that my children are seeing it."------Michael Yo performs at Blue Note Hawaii at 6 :30 and 9 p.m. on Thursday. $25-$35. Visit for information.
