Nerd Dreams Do Come True! Also, More Comedy 🎤
I finally got to see NPR Wait Wait... Don't Tell Me! live, at Carnegie Hall, no less.
Last night I realized a decade-long dream of mine: To attend a live taping of NPR’s Wait Wait...Don't Tell Me! I was fortunate enough to meet one of the comedian panelists, Joyelle Nicole Johnson, in NYC, through our Taiwan connections (her partner is half Taiwanese. For more on that, watch her Peacock special, Love Joy, or her Don’t Tell Comedy set on YouTube). She was on the panel with Mo Rocca, Paula Poundstone, with special guest… Well, you’ll hear her on Saturday. Or see her on Broadway this weekend. Or read her memoir.
To quote Peter Sagal, she’s a “bad m***********.”
I’ve been to many show tapings in my “funemployment” era in New York. I saw Jon Stewart host The Daily Show on the night of the Presidential Debate. I saw the West Wing cast on The View. I saw my comedy hero Ali Wong on The Kelly Clarkson Show. I saw The Late Show With Stephen Colbert the day after the Election. Aside from Wait Wait (and really, we should all support public radio with actual money), all of these tapings are free to attend, you just have to request tickets ahead of time and hope for the best.
New York might be the most expensive city in America, but if you look hard enough, there are plenty of free and awesome things to do. Most of them happen at the New York Public Library. I’ve lost count of how many of their writing workshops and lectures I’ve attended in the last couple of years. Aren’t libraries the best?
I hope I never stop marveling at New York. While I’m anxious to find a full-time writing job in the city, I know I’ll look back someday and treasure the fact that I had the time to enjoy so much of what New York has to offer.
Onto the shows!
Sunday, December 15th, I’m making my Chinese stand-up debut with Nvzizhuyi, a New York Chinese feminist open mic. I’ve been doing stand-up for 7 years, but always in English. Maybe because I’ve mostly watched English stand-up, possibly because I find a Chinese-speaking audience harder to please, and really because at this point in my bilingual life, I’m more comfortable expressing myself in English than in Mandarin Chinese. So I’m challenging myself to write and perform in Mandarin.
And later that same day, I’m hosting The Cat & Mouse Comedy Show with Women’s Comedy Collective, with an all-female line-up. Sunday’s going to be a very feminist day for me, and I’m all for it.
December 19th, I’m performing in Prickly Punchlines, another show presented by Women’s Comedy Collective, in Brooklyn.
And come January 4th, the third installment of Wang’s World Comedy will kick off the new year with some laughs at the storied Rodney’s Comedy Club in the Upper East Side.
Tickets are available on Eventbrite. Just click on the show posters, or go to my Linktree for the latest shows and updates.