Name: Robin Tran | This Past Weekend #89
Uploaded: 2018-04-20T03:34:58.000Z
Description: Watch the stand-up comedy video 'Robin Tran | This Past Weekend #89' from Theo Von on Comedy Buff. Published 2018-04-20. Transcript available.

Watch the stand-up comedy video 'Robin Tran | This Past Weekend #89' from Theo Von on Comedy Buff. Published 2018-04-20. Transcript available.

Robin Tran | This Past Weekend #89

what's up guys welcome to uh this past whatever today is we have a guest a
guest coming in we're
in studio today and we have a guest coming in uh robin tran and she is a
comedian and she is also
transgender and i'm not going to pretend like you know that's not part of the
reason why i want her
to come in uh because i want to i don't know just see what's cracking you know
besides her
you know sexual origination so uh so anyway we got robin tran coming in we just
shot a pilot
together down in louisiana and we got to spend some time around each other and
some of it was uh just
some of the conversation was interesting and fascinating and i thought maybe we
would capture
some of that today for you guys thank you guys for listening as always thank
you gray block pizza
1811 pico boulevard on the way to the beach gray block you know get that hit
uh thanks for being here today thanks so much for having me yeah sorry i'm do i
seem stressed out
no but now uh i can tell you that i'm stressed out are you good yeah we're both
stressed out
that's great what's causing what's causing you stress today is being alive you
know
being out of my comfort zone i mean it's almost like do you live out of your
comfort zone no man
i've i did nothing for literally like three years and then i started doing
everything oh wow so it's
like i i keep missing my bed but then when i'm in bed i'm like no i gotta get
the fuck out of here and
do something i gotta get going i'm actually like ambitious for the first time
in my life nice yeah i
quit marijuana like six months ago i think that's what happened oh that'll
change yeah one of my
best friends uh quit marijuana and says started one of the biggest clothing
companies in the world
oh my god really yeah geez so things can happen um you um you were depressed
what was causing the
depression you feel like um half my family i found out actually this year half
my family has bipolar
disorder like in vietnam even like it's it's just like a chemical imbalance and
probably i had a
really traumatic childhood you know my dad drank a lot and um my mom had
bipolar what he drank do you
remember just beer just like he'd have like 10 beers a night yeah and then uh
was he bowler or no
what's that was he a bowler like a league bowler no i don't think he knows what
bowling is even
oh wow yeah it's crazy to be drinking that much beer and not know about bowling
yeah i know um
yeah at least we would have had fun if you yeah if you knew about bowling right
yeah but my mom and
my mom would like just be gone for a while because she had to go to like a
hospital because you know
it was undiagnosed bipolar oh wow yeah she had that yeah and so at that point
it was just kind of
like willy-nilly they didn't know i mean that's probably when they were still
putting people on
valium and things like that or no yeah yeah i i well it's like not talked about
in vietnamese
culture like so they just like oh you know we don't know what's wrong with you
you know and then
it took like years for them to finally go here's some medication you're like
you're sick in the head
yeah this is real funny stuff right yeah sorry this is yeah this isn't funny
but it's interesting
is this supposed to be a funny podcast i feel bad you know no it's it's just
supposed to be
a podcast you know it's supposed to be just a conversation you know we don't
have to talk
about anything in particular i just thought you know it'd be really interesting
you and i just
worked together on a pilot right yeah in louisiana yeah and you know um and you
were like one of the
most unique people i've probably ever met because you are how do you what is
the term transgender
yeah i'm transgender vietnamese lesbian i am a lot of things and you know what
sucks is to be that
to be all that and to also be self-aware because like i wish i wasn't self-aware
you know i wish
that i didn't know what i look like all the time wow because like if i wasn't
me and i saw me i'd be
like what the fuck that's the comedian side of you yeah like like i told you
like sometimes i look in
the mirror and i like i get startled like i forgot that i'm transgender because
i was someone else for
28 years who were you for 28 years it was robert robert yeah really angry
little asian dude just
would yell at audiences for not laughing and just shit just like really overcompensating
for
something you know yeah and you don't see i mean i don't feel like you see a
lot of violent asian
really i mean that except maybe like in old movies and stuff yeah i don't know
a lot of asians i feel
like i really seem to be you know real like happy people you get the filipinos
or i think they're
even nicknamed the happy people right and then you have the japanese which are
kind of you know a
little bit kind of electronic it seems like a lot of times like they have you
know like you bust them
open a bunch of gigabytes would fly out can i tell you a secret yeah i can't
tell asians apart man you
can't no and you're asian yeah i'm a bad asian dude wow is there bad asians
yeah i'm one i think
you know i kind of broke i kind of did everything i wasn't supposed to do like
i didn't go to medical
school and i didn't i wasn't the man you know i didn't stay a dude like i didn't
do anything my
parents wanted that's true because in some asian cultures they want to they
want the boy yeah
oh and you you're like you're gonna be like i'll show them i am a boy red rover
red rover
sin of vagina right over yeah exactly yeah so when did you get um because i
mean it's just
fascinating to me and one thing that i love about you like you have this this
comedy bit and we'll
put it at the bottom of the video today and the audio a link where you were
explaining to your mother
about how you felt um and is it a woman trapped in a man's body is that how you
felt or how did you
kind of feel i just felt like when when i actually like i got off like medicate
you know like i was
medicated for the first time in my life for antidepressants for antidepressants
and you know
for the bipolar and i was singing like this song this girly song and i just
like usually i roll up the
window and i do it quietly but i'm like no man i'm fucking happy and it's when
i did that for the
first time in my life like dude my whole life flashed before my eyes like me as
a kid wearing pink and
like wanting to play with like this pink carousel set like these little horses
you know like i remember
i kept remembering that and like wearing jewelry and like i'd be in theater art
you know drama class
and they put makeup on me and i would just leave it on like for days and just
like the yeah these
these memories came back and i was a lot of clues kind of was it like clues
yeah and then i was like
man you know if i was a woman my whole life would make sense like it wouldn't
be a good life right
but it would be a life and you know life is like life right but and then it
made sense and i just
it was like a religious experience dude like i don't know how religious people
feel but it must
be kind of like that my whole body shivered and i started crying dude i cried
for like half an hour
man and like in my car and then i had to go clock back into work oh man i was
like yeah a lot of
chicks have done that dude yeah you know that's right i mean i think at that
point you definitely
qualify yeah no but no that's fascinating to have like a moment where you're
like this did you almost
feel like you like you're who you really were like erupted out of you or
something yeah i think that's
exactly true and you know i just remembered this i i never looked at people in
the eyes until i came
out i i avoided eye contact with everyone except for my girlfriend like i would
just look down and i
never knew why i was like i think subconsciously it was like if they see me
they might know it about me
but i didn't know what it was you know what i mean so that's fascinating so you're
afraid if you were
looking at somebody if they saw that they might see the truth in you that you
didn't even know maybe
yeah that's exactly right yeah yeah that's so bizarre i mean it's it's not
bizarre that's not
the word no it's no it is i think it's so uh but i think that's so real i think
because that's a
reason why a lot of times we don't look people in the eyes because we're afraid
that they're going to
see our truth you know they're afraid that we're going to see that you know
that we're hurting or
that we are um confused or uncertain or sad or uh yeah you know that's just so
it's so what was the
song oh it was like an indie pop song probably people don't know it it was a rilo
kiley song i
don't know if you know who that is yeah it's very girly it's it's gay it is it's
like that it's raining
man song no no it's kind of it's a different kind of gay it's like celebrating
like this different
femininity not you ever hear patrice o'neill talk about it's raining men uh-uh
he says that you know
when you're a guy and you're singing karaoke you got to change the lyrics and
you're like it's raining
stuff it's raining things one of my favorite bits it's raining stuff um so it's
kind of interesting
like i was noticing some stuff and so uh i'm robin and i were working and you
were robert and now
you're robin yeah yeah and one and one thing that's so neat and i appreciate
this is like you don't make
me feel like i can't talk to you about these things you know like you don't
make me because sometimes i
get this vibe and this is just me being honest and this isn't trying to me be
like i know anything but
i get a vibe sometimes by some people that are you know are out of what would
some people would
perceive as the norm right sometimes when you try to engage with them about a
conversation they take
that as being judgmental even like asking questions and stuff or being curious
and i think it makes some
people who are curious about stuff afraid to ask you know yeah i know those
people i mean i actually
i deal with that too i think there's like infighting within the community about
how to talk to other
people and stuff um i don't know man i want to say this but i don't you know
not say man i say stuff
on here all the time it's like a lot of the white ones really really mad like
because they
they didn't have the racial discrimination before so when they transition there's
like this new like
they're being discriminated against now oh and so like it's like a fucking they're
taking it all on
at the same time but for me i'm just like oh yeah discrimination i've i've
experienced that before
i'm just adding on to it but i'm not down not downloading the entire thing you
know this is a
theory of mine i don't know if it's fucking true oh i think it's really
fascinating because you're
saying like oh well if i was black or a vietnamese um i've already experienced
some discrimination yeah
so now that i'm switching genders yeah fuck sure like yeah yeah it's it's still
hard but it's like i'm
i'm like i kind of prepared myself for it you know just by being vietnamese you're
like oh i already
you're like i beat vietnamese now i'll take on the world yeah i love that
exactly that was the plan all
long but for a white person they're just like oh fuck dude everything was great
yeah man it's just a
theory everybody i do not know no it's interesting that's a that's a really
interesting theory man it's
so funny when you when you were talking about um you know looking people in the
eyes and them seeing
did you know that what you were afraid that they might see in you was like uh
like um your sexuality or did you have any yeah i had a feeling it was like
because like i you know what i i do i do this with my hands when i'm in private
you know this is this is that's it man fuck did i do that sometimes i fucking
love doing this man
it's like my favorite thing and i think i was like you can't hear on the radio
she's showing like
a kind of a like a hanging wrist so yeah yeah you know like a yeah like a limp
wrist or like a
walking dead extra yeah exa