00:00Basically, we were broke, both of us.
00:03And I started phoning around looking for a gig for us to play,
00:07and I found the Red Fox Club.
00:10Cheeks and Chai.
00:13We hadn't figured out what to do when we first walked out.
00:17There was no routine. He talked, I talked, we overlapped each other.
00:21So very quickly we figured out that I would disappear
00:24and get ready for the first character that I was going to do.
00:27And Tommy would start to develop this stand-up routine.
00:30Here was a club that we could play every night,
00:33work on our act every night.
00:35It was like going to the gym.
00:36The more you went to the gym, the stronger you got.
00:39Any Chicanos here tonight around there?
00:41They smuggling you?
00:43Anyways, it's really hip being Chicano nowadays.
00:46I'm really glad it came around.
00:47I was really having a tough time faking being Filipino.
00:51Didn't have a gold tooth and it was all over.
00:57I used to get nervous before I went on stage in the early days,
01:01and Tommy didn't make it any easier when he would announce
01:04that I was dodging the draft we wanted by the FBI.
01:07He thought it was funny.
01:08I didn't think it was so funny.
01:12Comedians back in the day, they were treated like dirt.
01:15They weren't respected.
01:16They respected the stripper that brought in the people,
01:19but they never had no respect for a guy
01:21that was trying to make everybody laugh.
01:24When you first start off with comedy, you write a set.
01:28Six months later, you need a new set, and it never stops.
01:33It just keeps digging and digging and digging.
01:35It's like working in a coal mine.
01:36We outweigh it.
01:38Get it.
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