Tai-sanity with Tai Nguyen part 1

January 20, 2022·59 min·4 clips

Tai Nguyen, born in Vietnam and in Texas for 29 years, explains why he still has a Vietnamese accent — and why he speaks 'retard Texan' in both languages.

Aaron Cheatham opens the episode by announcing that The Gray Area podcast is rebranding, explaining that the show evolved significantly after co-host Chad departed, leaving Aaron as the sole host with a different vibe than the original concept. The new name, logo, and look are set to debut on February 9th, with a sneak preview planned during the following week's board game episode where the team will play Pandemic cooperatively. Aaron reads sponsor ads for BetterHelp online therapy and Let's Get Checked at-home hormone testing before introducing his guest, comedian Tai Nguyen. The interview begins mid-conversation, with Aaron and Tai riffing on racial disparities in how authorities treat different groups, sparked by a story about a white comedian friend who hasn't filed taxes in a decade without consequence. Tai delivers his bit that being Asian is 'the next best thing to being white in America,' which Aaron extends into a soda brand hierarchy — white people as Pepsi, Asians as RC Cola, and Black people as Great Value grape soda. The two then reflect on Tai's comedic style, agreeing that roughly 90% of his material is race-based or self-deprecating, with Tai tracing this back to growing up in a diverse friend group where racial joking was common social currency. Tai reveals he was born in Vietnam and moved to Texas at age five, and has lived in the Austin area for 29 years. Aaron asks how Tai still has a Vietnamese accent after attending Pflugerville High School, and Tai explains he never received formal speech training and that Vietnamese doesn't use the same emotional voice inflections as American English. The punchline is that when Tai returned to Vietnam, locals told him he speaks Vietnamese with an accent too, leaving him linguistically between two cultures. The conversation shifts to their respective geographic upbringings — Aaron in San Antonio, where the population was predominantly Hispanic, and Tai in Austin, where Vietnamese students had their own language program at his elementary school. Aaron describes the culture shock of moving to San Antonio and finding almost no Black or white peers, and recalls that a wildlife preserve near his school occasionally had tigers escape, which kept him home on weekends. The two then launch into an extended nostalgia segment about 90s and early 2000s hip-hop fashion, covering brands including FUBU, Jabot, Ivisu, Echo, Sean John, Rocawear, Cross Colours, and Lugz. Aaron shares that he still owns a FUBU shirt and matching jacket from the 90s that both still fit and remain baggy, and that his senior photos feature a full FUBU outfit. Tai notes that vintage streetwear is now considered cool by hipsters, prompting a brief comedic exchange. Aaron recounts that his grandmother was a seamstress who made his clothes, including an African-pattern phase that got him clowned at school, and that the happiest he ever was about clothing was receiving a single pair of green Jabot jeans for Christmas. The two discuss how fashion norms have inverted — baggy clothes once signaled coolness while tight clothes implied being gay, but now tight clothes are standard and baggy clothes draw mockery. They reflect on the moment each of them stopped dressing in baggy clothes, with Tai crediting community college for showing him how adults dressed, and Aaron noting he was already doing stand-up in his mid-20s before he made the shift. The episode closes with both men recounting performing two outdoor comedy shows the day before Texas's February 2021 winter storm, including a parking lot show in Round Rock with 40 mph winds where Aaron gave Tai his beanie, and a warmer indoor show in Temple before driving home as snow began to fall.

As heard by us

A loose comedy hang built around stage anticipation, a coming rebrand, and old-school baggy-clothes jokes.

The episode plays like a loose comedy hang built around stage anticipation, with the room waiting for something to land and that tension hanging over most of it.

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Why you'd press play

For when you want stage-room tension and baggy-jeans stories in one hang.

Read the full recommendation in PlayNext →

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