00:00I always remembered him holding the big tank, and it was just constantly just blowing out of his nose.
00:05So I remember that sound and him talking, so I was trying to get that at the same time.
00:12I waited my whole life to watch this game, and I'm not going to leave.
00:23He was a huge Dodgers fan.
00:25The one thing that he never got to do was get to go to a Dodgers game,
00:29and we didn't have the money.
00:31And finally, I had the money.
00:34People would always say, well, you're a comedian when I was a kid,
00:37and I didn't know what a comedian was.
00:39And then my friend brought over a Richard Pryor tape.
00:41He took it from his dad, and I was listening to it.
00:43I couldn't stop listening to it.
00:44I was like, oh, this is what a comedian is.
00:46And then Eddie Murphy Delirious came out, and I couldn't stop watching.
00:49I'm like, oh, this is what I got to be.
00:51I got to be Eddie Murphy.
00:52I got to get a red leather outfit right out of high school.
00:55That's the first thing I did was get on stage, joined a competition.
00:59at the Tropicana.
01:00It's like 500 people.
01:02And yeah, I bombed hard.
01:11For some reason, when I get on stage, it just comes out naturally.
01:16The premise is there.
01:17The setup is there.
01:18The punchline is there.
01:20There's a tag.
01:21There's a callback.
01:22They just come.
01:23So I learned through the years to just get on stage and freestyle and see where it takes you.
01:30I find when you write it down, it starts to sound structured.
01:35When you just do it on stage, it becomes more conversational.
01:38I got one of the best fucking tickets.
01:40Four rows from the dugout.
01:42And I called him.
01:43I was like, Fred, we're going.
01:44I'm taking you.
01:46It's going to be your first time.
01:47I remember I was in West Virginia, which is where he's from.
01:51And that's where, like, all the Fred stories were coming out.
01:55Like, I was just on stage for, like, 30 minutes just talking about Fred.
01:59And this is a while ago, but he was already a little sick.
02:02You know, whatever it was that was in Agent Orange or whatever, it fucked his lungs up.
02:07I don't know what it is.
02:08It's just, like, the more I do it, the more I just start trusting my gut more.
02:12You know what I mean?
02:12The more I get more comfortable.
02:14And then you just start thinking about the little details.
02:16You know what I mean?
02:17Like, you know, his whole oxygen.
02:20He was like, you know, I have to.
02:27If you would have ever met Fred, he was such a military soldier from West Virginia, just
02:36tough as nails.
02:38And that's the Fred I met, you know, when he got older.
02:40And he was just, he was frail.
02:42You know what I mean?
02:43He had the oxygen.
02:44But he was still funny.
02:45So, you know, when I grabbed that cord and put that on his nose, like, it was literally
02:51just me, like, reliving that memory of how he used to talk to me.
02:55Yeah, that's how that whole process happened with Fred, man.
02:58Like, I always wanted him to see it.
02:59I never got it into a special.
03:01And this is the one where I finally had that opportunity to get it in.
03:05But by that time, he already passed.
03:07He passed a couple years ago.
03:09So it sucks.
03:10You know what I mean?
03:11But it'll forever live on.
03:14I can't go to the game with you, I would.
03:16You go ahead and enjoy that game without me.
03:18But I'll watch it on TV.
03:22I'll watch it on TV.
03:28I took him to the game.
03:29Remember, we had the best seats.
03:31He had the ramp right here.
03:35He's just sitting there four rows.
03:37It's not even a joke.
03:38It's literally verbatim what happened that day.
03:41So it started off with me just telling everybody what happened that day.
03:44And then inserting just little tiny jokes, I guess you could say.
03:53I've always been a fan of the act out.
03:57You know what I mean?
03:57I love it when a comic takes it to that character.
04:01Now I can see the whole world.
04:03Seeing those descriptions on stage, I fell in love with it.
04:07And so when I get on stage, that's always been my style.
04:11I'm not going to just talk about my mom.
04:13I'm going to bring my mom to life on stage.
04:16I'm not going to just talk about Fred.
04:17I'm going to bring Fred to life.
04:19And you're going to see exactly what I saw when I was a kid.
04:23And yeah, you're going to come into my world.
04:28That's exactly what I thought it would look like.
04:32And I was like, like the bottom of a hat.
04:37This is beautiful, Bubba.
04:38I don't know how I did it, honestly.
04:41I never practiced it.
04:42You know, I have severe sleep apnea, right?
04:44So like I do this whole thing about my sleep apnea.
04:46So it's kind of like the same sound.
04:49So I was literally doing that sound with the cord and talking.
04:54So I think that's all it was.
04:56But I always remembered him with that.
05:00I always remembered him holding the, you know,
05:03he had the big tank before I bought him the small tank.
05:06And it was just constantly just blowing out of his nose
05:09while he was talking.
05:10So I remember that sound and him talking.
05:14So I was trying to get that at the same time.
05:17And then it turned into whatever it is I did on stage.
05:19He served two tours in Vietnam,
05:21and he's going to die in a fucking Dodgers game.
05:23I just stumbled on that.
05:25And I said it when I was talking about
05:27when it went into extra innings.
05:29And I was just trying to find, you know,
05:32things to say while every inning passed.
05:35And it was so funny because my mom kept texting us.
05:38That's the real joke is her texting me going,
05:41hey, come home.
05:42Hey, it's too late.
05:44Like she kept saying things.
05:45And Fred was like, no, don't, don't listen to your mama.
05:47Don't, we stay, we stay.
05:49Like, so that's where that was.
05:51So I was, instead of doing that,
05:52I was just kind of like keeping it between him and I.
05:55So I was just like, it was like my inner voice.
05:58Like, can someone hit the fucking ball?
06:01Let's go.
06:02This man's dying.
06:03Let's go.
06:04So that's where that all came from.
06:06But like the whole, this man served two tours of Vietnam
06:11and he's going to die in a fucking Dodgers game was just,
06:14that was so funny, man.
06:15I was so, I was proud of myself when I said that.
06:18Yeah.
06:28I stopped doing that bit too.
06:30That's the crazy thing.
06:31Like I literally stopped it because I knew I had it.
06:33When I was going to shoot it, I wanted it to be like not memorized.
06:37I was like, no, when I do the special,
06:39it's going to be like right here at that moment.
06:42So whatever I say at this moment is going to be just the natural version of,
06:48what I'm trying to say.
06:54Stockton.
06:58Well, Stockton is just very historic,
07:01especially when it comes to Filipinos.
07:03It's the first place we landed.
07:04And there was a lot of racial tension
07:06and a lot of bad things that happened in Stockton 100 years ago.
07:10And I didn't want to start the special off doing that.
07:13But the fact that I'm on stage
07:15and I got the Filipino son behind me
07:18and here we are as a community.
07:22We had white people in there.
07:23We had black people in there, Latinos, Filipinos, Asians.
07:27We had everybody in there.
07:28Like right there alone was enough to say like,
07:31yo, we've come far already.
07:32You know,
07:33I wanted to go to Stockton for that moment
07:35and for that reason.
07:36And I'm glad I did choose it.
07:44When I was a kid,
07:45I used to love going to like the record store
07:48and instead of buying the Jackson 5,
07:52it would be the Jackson 5 live.
07:53Like I love the live album of anything.
07:57You know what I mean?
07:57Like Richard Pryor live,
07:59Eddie Murphy live.
08:00I just always thought that was cool.
08:01It's like, oh, this is different.
08:03That was always my thing.
08:04So every time I had a special,
08:05I love to call it live,
08:08live from Stockton,
08:09live from LA,
08:09live from Brooklyn.
08:11But this one was just kind of special
08:14because well, one,
08:15Netflix wanted me to name it something.
08:17And then two,
08:19I really never landed on that joke
08:21until we had to turn it in.
08:23When we turned in the special,
08:24I was like blue in the face.
08:27Like it has so many like meanings.
08:29Laugh till you're blue in the face.
08:30But like if you watch it all the way to the end,
08:32you see what I'm getting at.
08:33It's something that actually happened to Fred
08:35during the game.
08:36So that's what that was all about.
08:38Now his hat was up here.
08:40Face is just blue
08:41and he was conserving every breath.
08:43Just like.
08:48My director, Shannon Michelle,
08:49chose blue,
08:50which was like crazy
08:52because teal and turquoise
08:53is just not on my pie chart.
08:55Like I like dark colors,
08:57dark blue,
08:58even dark purple, black,
08:59like the harder tones,
09:01but like the teal when,
09:02when she showed me the teal,
09:03I was like,
09:04oh no,
09:05that's a bit much.
09:06And then when she showed me
09:07what it looked like on camera,
09:08I'm like,
09:09oh, that's beautiful.
09:11You know,
09:11I was like,
09:11that's,
09:12that's gorgeous.
09:13It wasn't something I've seen before.
09:15So it took a lot of convincing,
09:17but once I finally saw it on camera,
09:19I'm like,
09:19yeah,
09:20let's go with the blue.
09:21We plug his machine in
09:23and he was like,
09:23I knew they go in.
09:25I swear to God.
09:27I swear to God,
09:28if he would've took me out that game,
09:29I would've killed all three of you
09:31motherfuckers.
09:31I swear to God.
09:33You just know when it's,
09:34when it's special.
09:35That's the whole key to the word special.
09:37It's like what I'm saying is special
09:38and different
09:39and not like the other,
09:42you know,
09:42what's separating me from,
09:44from the other specials.
09:46And that's,
09:47that's what it is.
09:48So when you can find that one story
09:50or that one joke where you're like,
09:52okay,
09:53yeah,
09:53this is,
09:53this is a special,
09:55this is a special story here.
09:56I gotta,
09:57I gotta save this for the special.
10:03Without skipping a beat,
10:04he just looked at us and went,
10:06I was Dodger blue in the face.
10:12I love you,
10:13Stockton.
10:14Thank you so much,
10:14man.
10:15I knew on Stockton,
10:16I was going to end with Fred.
10:17I always had that in my back pocket,
10:19but getting to Fred,
10:20like I started building on that.
10:22And there was another story that connected Fred
10:24that I took out of the special
10:25because I didn't,
10:27I was like,
10:27nah,
10:27it doesn't need that.
10:28Like I talk about,
10:29you know,
10:31keep your circle tight
10:31or whatever it is,
10:32like get a dog,
10:34you know,
10:34find the right people in your life
10:35that,
10:36that support you.
10:37And that's,
10:37that's the whole through line.
10:39And I wanted to get to Fred
10:40because I really,
10:42what I needed him most,
10:43he was there for me.
10:44That was the whole point of that.
10:46Like,
10:46how do I get to Fred?
