When I first moved to LA, my friend and I drove down the Sunset Strip and all I could think was..I am far away from the land of greasy cheesesteaks, Rita’s water ice, and people that pronounce water as ‘wuh-dah’. Fast forward a few years, many crappy jobs and fruitless auditions later, and here I am, performing stand up comedy at the Belly Room at the Comedy Store. And I was scared for sure. Not the typical kind of fear though…its a fear of, “Wait, am I really doing this?” “Am I crazy?” “Why did I not become a brain surgeon/lawyer/doctor?” Answer: I suck at math/science.
So, I did my set and added a couple of new jokes, and more importantly, I got up there and just got comfortable being me. Onstage. I have no idea why its a lot easier for me to perform for random strangers onstage, than it is for me to mingle at parties. I. am. weird.

We met. We wrote. We laughed. We made lots of jokes. Good ones. Bad ones. Really bad ones. Funny ones. We know more about each other’s issues than our closest friends and family members. Love these guys. And GERRY KATZMAN…you are amazing!
Just me and Robbie K..doing a little Godzira

The gals…Laurenne Sala of HUMANS ARE FUNNY and the hilarious Carly Murphy

JAE…is that YOU?! We’re the only Asians. Ya heard?
Our pimp class. Jann, Robbie K, J “Asian fetish” Norton, Gerry, Ian Kelk, Jae Yoo, Laurenne!

Kerri B…hilarious spitfire. Just kidding. Don’t kill me Kerri!
We’re trying to be Asian.

For the past 3.5 months, I’ve been in a stand up class taught by the very witty and amazing Gerry Katzman. Its a writing workshop stand up comedy class where we take the funny, painful, bad, strange, weird, and odd aspects and stories of our lives and learn how to make them into premises and act-outs. And our showcase is next week. Freaking A! Is it weird that I’m more comfortable onstage than in social settings? Probably.

And here’s a clip from my favorite stand up comedian ever. Chris Rock. This bit about ‘rap music’ is so true. I think I’m one of those girls who he’s referring to that do not care what the lyrics are. FROM THE WINDOWS TO THE WALL… Sue me

When I was growing up, I’d always hear the following..”You’re funny…funny looking.” Which was true. I was definitely funny looking and depending on who you ask, I probably still am. Anyway, I’ve been going through this therapy session called stand up comedy class for the past two months and all this crap has been unearthed inside me. You know…all the sad stuff, the pain, the repression, all the stuff that the world tells us to keep inside because no one actually cares about you and your problems.

Well, a friend of mine and fellow classmate, the uber-talented Laurenne of HUMANS ARE FUNNY, wrote a poignant post about her Dad and coming to terms with her past and her relationship with him. It made me realize how all of us are still searching for the answers, how to come to terms with the past pain of family issues, relationship issues, money struggles, being alone, feeling like you’re not of value.

I grew up for most of my life being super repressed and “doing the right thing,” meaning doing what my parents, my teachers, society, and all the mean girls of my high school told me to be. I never fit into the “Abercrombie and Fitch” mold of my Philly suburb high school and at the same time, didn’t fit into the groups of the “Korean kids who only hang out with Korean kids.” Instead of liking the parts of myself that were unique, strange, different and cool, I would try to be as vanilla as possible just to fit in. Which I never did.

But comedy is sort of changing that for me. It was weird actually…I told a good friend of mine that I was doing this and he said to me,

“You’re gonna suck. Crickets, Kat. No one will laugh and you will suck.”

Do you see why I have to keep all my endeavors under wraps? LOL. Trust me, I don’t see myself becoming the next Chris Rock or anything. All I know is that being in comedy class is helping me find this voice that I never thought I had. I mean, you can take all the pain, all the shit that made you cry and hate yourself and figure out how to turn it around into comedy.

If I could go back into time and talk to my teenage self, I’d tell that awkward, pimply-faced girl who couldn’t get a date, had a stuttering problem and always kept her head down, that life gets better. I’d tell her that there will always be people who try to take advantage of your kindness, people that try to bring you down, people that hate you because you’re doing something they’re not…but you know what? You don’t have to let them win. You don’t have a give a crap what these people think. In fact, there is a whole world of kick-ass people out there, positive people who want to help you out. People who want to be good to you.

My whole life I wished I could be someone else. Now, I’m sort of starting to be cool with who I am. Took long enough. Ya heard?

Getting a call-back is always cool. Especially if its for a guest-starring/recurring role on an MTV scripted pilot called “That Girl,” created by Lauren Iungerich, who also wrote/produced/directed the web series “My Two Fans,” as well as written for “10 Things I Hate About You.” Unfortunately, I didn’t book the role, but I will say that this script (what I’ve read of it) is really smart and funny. Can’t wait to see when it airs.

Check out her interview about “My Two Fans” below!

This kid, Nigahiga, who has millions of views on his youtube channel, gives a pretty hilarious impersonation of what happens in Asian dramas. I grew up watching these and they never make any sense and contain the following:

1) The gorgeous but extremely poor Farm girl who goes to the big city to become a model/designer/fashion star/movie star
2) The Evil stepmother- Self-explanatory and this woman usually is decked out with Louis Vuitton. What is it with my fellow Asians/Asian-Americans and designer clothing/bags? I don’t think I could ever justify paying 3 grand for a bag.
3) The hot, perfect man- Okay, okay. This is in every movie/drama, but you can always dream right?

I shot this random video in Santa Monica a few months back. This dude originally wanted me to pay him, and I was like..um…no. He eventually agreed and asked him all these questions about him and his snake that he walks around with. SCARY! There are a few things in the world that freak me out.
1) Hair in clogs/drains. Frightening and gross. And scary
2) Horror Films. I have a crazy imagination and can’t go near any type of horror film or I’ll start screaming
3) Snakes.
Check out the vid:

Dude with a Snake from girlatastartup on Vimeo.

This is one of the funniest ads I’ve seen in a long times. Two Scottish Koreans just chillin’ in a Starburst ad. HAHA! Check it out.

Uh, not me folks. I’m talking about Right Said Fred. On a recent karaoke excursion, I saw this dude perform this fantastic song as he rocked out the stage. OMG! There are no words to describe how funny it was. Gotta love karaoke. But you guys know I’m obsessed by now.

Oh yeah, and didn’t you know…“He’s too sexy for his hat…too sexy for his hat…Whatchu think about that?” (Quite possibly the best lyric ever!)

TGIF!

OMG. This is an old SNL Digital Short, but it’s still one of my all-time faves. Andy Samberg and Chris Parnell in “Lazy Sunday.” This makes Chris Parnell look hot! He has the mad rapping skills, yo.
Chronic. What. Cles of Narnia!

And this link was sent to me by this cool, funny dude I know… Mr. T Facts Page. LOL. I remember being a kid and watching “The A Team,” on Saturdays along with my brother. My grandma would try to make us watch Korean dramas and we were like, “PLEASE GRANDMA… WE NEED TO WATCH HANNIBAL AND MR. T.”

This is the BEST Mr. T fact:
There was a time when Mr. T didn’t pity fools. That time was called never.
Holla!