Angela Kimmel is Feeling “So Effin Lucky”

Mixed Asian Media - May 26, 2023

By Jalen Jones

Before she had any idea she would become a comedian herself, Angela Kimmel would make her way into video stores to pick up VHS tapes of stand-up comics and laugh all her worries away. “It would make me laugh so hard!” We sat down together for lunch while I interviewed her; she reminisced as we waited for our hefty order of Korean-fusion dishes. “When you’re laughing, you can’t think of your troubles… Before, I never thought [comedy] was something I could do.” With just days before her first comedy special taping, Kimmel has clearly come a long way.

Angela Kimmel had never been a stranger to putting on a show. As a half-Korean, half-white daughter who grew up in largely Korean-dominant spaces, Kimmel says she was often told to put on talent shows for the adults in her life. “Sing a song,” they would chant to her, between comments about how cute she was because of her mixedness. (She attributes these scenes to the well-honored tradition of noraebang in Korean and Korean American circles.) But despite these pushes to the mic, it wasn’t until Kimmel’s adult life — after she had moved from New York to Atlanta — that she considered telling jokes for a living. After her move, she would go to open mics in search of community and laughter. Her first few times at the stand, she admits she was more focused on her shock factor than she should’ve been. “I didn’t know what I was doing,” she laughs, before weaving in her trademark reenactments as she tells her stories. “I was like, ‘OK, I guess I’ll just say outrageous stuff.’ And sure I had some funny jokes, but I was just traumatizing the audience! It got to a point where the host came up to me after a show and said ‘w-wow… th-that was disturbing!’”

Kimmel doesn’t regret those early routines, however. “It was great for me to practice. Stand-up comedy really is just a lot of practice. You gotta know what work makes you happy, how the work makes other people think or feel at certain moments, and how you can take them in the directions you want.” The fruits of her labor really began to shine when she had done a stand-up routine at a charity event, which a fellow mixed-Korean friend of hers was hosting. The charity was raising funds for Korean adoptees, and it was during that performance that it dawned on Kimmel: “‘Oh, I get it now. This is my niche.’ It just makes me so happy to make people laugh.”

It makes sense that Kimmel found her spark at an event that was geared toward giving back. When asked what drives her toward being a comic, she remembers her younger days, poised in front of the television searching for hope between the laughs and VHS tapes. “I really wanna give back what I got out of stand-up comedy when I was young. It gave me — no matter how short that period of time was — that joy… Living is hard enough. If we could all get together and just relax, you can’t be upset when you’re laughing. Humor really binds us all.”

Her words clearly ring true. I already feel like a friend as hot stone pots of gochujang marinated pork and jalapeno cheese curry katsu line our table, while Kimmel tells me about the home she’s found in her community of comedians. “It’s funny because we’re all in the same scene. Especially if you’re staying in one city for a while, you get to know people and kind of sync up with those that you feel match your vibe. Two comics from Georgia are openers for me, and I’ll be flying them out here for the show.” She lovingly gushes over Georgia-based comics Britt Ammons and Kahleal White, who will be hosting and featured respectively for So Effin Lucky, Kimmel’s first comedy special taping. Performing on May 26 and 27 in the world-famous El Portal Theater, the show is described as spotlighting “mental whiplash at its finest,” with hilarity that will keep audiences engaged, entertained, and “wondering who’s the ‘effin lucky one’.”

It’s immediately apparent that one of Kimmel's greatest strengths is her ability to laugh at herself. And her perspective is truly one-of-a-kind: She tells me a story about how as a child — before New York, when she lived with her grandparents in the Korean countryside — she had wet her bed. When her grandmother found out, Kimmel was told to walk around the town with a Korean winnowing basket over her head and ask neighbors for salt. “I didn't know what that meant, so I went house to house asking for that salt. They kept denying me, and I was like, ‘Man, my Grandma's gonna be so upset, I gotta bring back salt.’ Finally I came over to this one house, and another grandma came and filled my basket with salt! I was happy until as I was walking out, she got her broom and started spanking my bum!” The salt walk of shame post-bedwetting is apparently an old Korean tradition, which Kimmel has since found the humor in. “I never wet the bed again,” she says with foreboding, before breaking into a chuckle.

On the note of family and tradition, I ask how her single, Korean immigrant mother felt about her breaking into the world of stand-up comedy. “She always wanted to push that creativeness a little bit. Of course she brought up being a doctor or lawyer sometimes, but now as I get older and tell her, ‘Oh I’m gonna be a comic,’ she tells me, ‘You’re gonna do so good, because you get your talent from me.’... But she keeps showing me real estate listings for New York penthouses. I’m like, ‘Mom, I don’t make that kind of money.’” 

With over a decade of experience as an underdog stand-up comedian, Kimmel has maintained an inspiring philosophy for her life’s work. “You know, people always ask me what I want out of life, and as I get older I realize it’s the things that money can’t buy.” I think about the stories and laughs Kimmel had given me in just our one conversation, and already feel so effin lucky.

Follow Angela Kimmel on Intsagram @angelathecomic. You can catch her first comedy special, So Effin Lucky, live at the El Portal Theatre on May 26 and 27. Tickets are available here.