If there's one joke that defines my guest on today's show, it has to be this one.

So as you can imagine, it was a little weird growing up in the Midwest with this face and that family.

I mean, I literally knew I was gay before I knew I was Asian.

This is the Last Laugh.

I'm Matt Wilstein from The Daily Beast,

and I could not be more excited to be kicking off Pride Month with the hilarious Joel Kim booster.

In addition to being one of the funniest stand-up comics working right now,

Joel has also written for some of my all-time favorite shows,

including Billy on the Street, Big Mouth, and The Other Two.

More recently, he has gotten in on the podcast game,

co-hosting Ur urgent care with his friend and

fellow comedian Mitra Juhari, and tackling the downfall of American Apparel on Spotify's

Flameout series. Joel likes to play the, quote, hot idiot on stage, but as you will

quickly learn from this conversation, he is actually incredibly insightful.

So let's get to it now. Here's me with Joel Kim Booster.

So yeah, have you been able to do much stand-up in recent weeks, months?

You know, it's only starting to come back for me now. I've done a couple of outdoor shows over the last month or so. And it's been good. I mean, it's been wild. I feel a little bit bad for the audiences. I feel like they're paying money to watch me learn how to do this again. But I think everybody's just happy to be at a show in general. So it works out for both people.

But I'm headlining at the Irvine Improv for the first time.

It'll be my first headlining set in over a year, well over a year at this point.

And so I'm excited and I'm very nervous about that.

Yeah.

I mean, it's crazy just how upended stand-up has been, you know, because I think most stand-ups who I talk to, it's like, you know, you have to do it on such a consistent basis to stay good. So how have you, what has it been like in these, you know, first outdoor shows trying to get back to it?

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