June 25, 2025 • 32 mins
Your relationship with your family has a lot to do with all the other relationships in your life, platonic or romantic. If you're having issues in those relationships, you might have to go all the way back to the beginning to figure out what's wrong. That's just what today's guest, Charlene Kaye, did with her mother.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
On a scale from one to ten, How would you
rate our mother daughter relationship at the moment.
Speaker 2 (00:05):
At the moment, I mean, I think we're always a ten.
You know, I'm always gonna love you no matter what
I do. Feel like sometimes I want you to think differently,
maybe act differently, maybe do things more like me.
Speaker 1 (00:18):
Yeah, like you? Wow? Sometimes you give us a ten.
Speaker 2 (00:27):
I think we're always a ten. I think always going
to be no matter what happens, I'm going to be there.
You're going to come back, and it's going to be coming.
Speaker 1 (00:36):
Back to each other. Yes. If I were to rate
my relationship with my mother on a scale from one
to ten, i'd give it an eight. Sometimes it's an eight,
other times it's not. I've heard worse, and that's what
we're getting into this week. I'm Hopewitdard and welcome to
(00:58):
boys over a space where we're learning and unlearning all
the myths we're taught about love and relationships. If you've
been to any amount of therapy, I'm sure you're aware
(01:20):
that your relationship with your family has a lot to
do with all the other relationships in your life, platonic
or romantic, And if you're having issues in those relationships,
you might have to go all the way back to
the beginning to figure out what's wrong. Today's guest, my
friend Charlene Kay, is untangling all of that in a
(01:43):
one woman show. She's currently touring, Tiger Daughter or How
I Brought My Immigrant Mother Ultimate Shame. Charlene is a
total badass. In addition to being a comedian and actor,
she's a musician who's been in gender flipped cover band
with iconic names such as Guns and Hoses and Lavy Ahead.
(02:06):
You know, I love someone who's using their many talents
to unpack their upbringing and the way it's rippled through
their lives. So, in addition to getting into her complicated
relationship with her mom that her show hinges on, I
knew I had to talk to her about her work
and how it impacts her life. I want to talk
(02:27):
to you about your work as an artist a little.
I feel like you bring so many elements together, comedy, acting,
visual art, music, being a performer. Do you think that
helps or hurts your love life?
Speaker 3 (02:39):
Well, I'm at a point now where I am experiencing
a lot of momentum in my career, which I'm really
grateful for and I'm also noticing that my life hasn't
changed that much. If anything, It's made me understand that
no matter how much success I get, the thing that
is the most important to me are my relationships in
my community. And that's another reason that I'm grateful that
I've experienced success later in life, later meeting like in
(03:02):
my late thirties, because I understand what it's like to
feel really lonely, and I understand what it's like to
feel really burned out. And like I've I spent all
of my twenties touring. I was in relationships for some
of that time, and I was out of relationships some
of that time. And what I really want is to
have it all.
Speaker 4 (03:18):
And I think, yeah, I can have it all.
Speaker 1 (03:20):
What is it all though? I guess like success in
career and in love and in friendship, and I think
that's very doable.
Speaker 3 (03:27):
Yeah, friendship is so important to me, and in the
years that I've been single, I've really learned to have
it be a core part of my happiness, my stability.
I think friendship is very romantic. I love calling people
up and just being like, do you want to watch
a show or something like that. My friends are my family,
and I love that about being queer too. It feels
like we really rely on each other as chosen family.
(03:50):
It's just a bunch of like wayward misfits who I
feel like we walk the paths together and that's helped
me also like decenter romance totally. But it really is
that thing of like it takes twenty years to be
an overnight success because I have been doing this since
I was seventeen, and I started playing open mics when
I was in high school, played all every show that
(04:11):
I could. I went to school at University of Michigan,
and Arbor decided I wanted to move to New York
to become a waitress and think.
Speaker 4 (04:17):
About my feelings.
Speaker 3 (04:19):
I went through so many milestones where I was like,
I should be happy, but I want more and I
feel like even though I'm getting success in this way,
it's not as much as this other person's getting.
Speaker 1 (04:30):
The comparison kills me.
Speaker 3 (04:32):
Yeah, it's fine, And I think that that happens when
you don't have that sense of like, well, I'm proud
of what I did and I know that I.
Speaker 4 (04:41):
Did my best.
Speaker 1 (04:42):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (04:43):
I think in my twenties I put so much pressure
on myself to be this perfect version of myself and
have a perfect career, and when you think about it
in that way, you're never going to hit that ideal.
Speaker 1 (04:54):
It's also interesting because I feel like you said, like,
in the last couple of years, you've found a lot
of success. I'm wondering if you think sort of the
release of perfection is connected to that finding success, Like
do you feel like that resonates at all.
Speaker 3 (05:08):
On There's like I feel like being raised in an
Asian household and also just naturally feeling like I want
to be the best at everything I do creates a
sense of pressure that I put on everything, and that
includes relationships, right, wanting to heal perfectly.
Speaker 4 (05:26):
Wanting to like, wanting.
Speaker 3 (05:28):
To date perfectly, you know, perfectly.
Speaker 5 (05:31):
Yea.
Speaker 3 (05:32):
I bought a book called The Perfectionist's Guide to Losing Control,
and in my mind, I was like, so how can
I how can I lose control perfectly?
Speaker 1 (05:39):
Yeah?
Speaker 3 (05:41):
But it's real, like I want I care about other
people so much and I'm an EmPATH, and I also like,
I think that it's so easy for me to get
caught up in the like am I doing this right?
Speaker 4 (05:52):
Am I good enough?
Speaker 3 (05:53):
Because I experienced shame so much as a kid, and
I think that a lot of that is a shame
that I put on myself for like impossible standards.
Speaker 1 (06:01):
You said that you're kind of on this journey of
untangling your attachment wombs that might have formed during childhood's
like chaotic childhood, name like early days, early days. But
maybe it leads you to choose like some unavailable people. Yes,
(06:23):
can you tell me like a little bit about that.
Speaker 3 (06:25):
I feel like I'm only now unpacking why it has
been so difficult for me to be in a steady
relationship because I think that in the past, I've been
raised by a mother who always wanted me to center her. Yeah,
and so our romantic relationships echo are primary relationship right totally,
(06:46):
And so I'm learning so much about how it's so
easy for me to make myself small and like put
myself over here and just be like whatever you want,
whatever you want, And it leads to this really unhealthy
codependent in meshing, which which ironically I have a tendency
to escalate because that is the dynamic that I know,
(07:07):
and I feel that I have felt in the past
that love means not having boundaries, and completely.
Speaker 1 (07:13):
There were no boundaries between me and my mother.
Speaker 3 (07:15):
Oh my gosh, I want to hear all about that.
Speaker 1 (07:18):
I'm wondering because you said your dad passed away yeah, fifteen, Yeah,
so you immediately kind of became your mom's like primary caregiver.
Would you say or no?
Speaker 3 (07:26):
My sister was the golden child that I used the
scapegoat because I was the artist, And a big part
of my show is how she really wanted to be
a musician.
Speaker 1 (07:35):
Your sister.
Speaker 3 (07:35):
No, no, No, my mom, my mom. She's a flamboyant, outrageous character,
and the show is like exploring all the like crazy
things that have happened in our relationship. But it has
a very real core of like sometimes mothers and daughters
can be competitive with one another, and it's something that's
like very taboo to talk about in Asian culture because
(07:56):
we are supposed to completely honor our parents and there's
like such a sense of filial.
Speaker 4 (08:03):
Piety around that.
Speaker 3 (08:05):
So I feel like when I was growing up, what
was modeled for me was that I always have to
please her first, and if we ever fought, then there's
no room for my feelings.
Speaker 4 (08:16):
There's no air at all.
Speaker 3 (08:18):
It was always like she was right and I have
to change myself if I have a problem with that.
So in my romantic relationships, I've always made myself smaller
because I wanted to make the other person more comfortable.
Speaker 1 (08:29):
I want to talk to you though you your mom
inspired your show, Yeah, basically, and it's called Tiger Daughter.
Tell me about that relationship.
Speaker 3 (08:36):
The irony is that the tiger mother trope doesn't exactly
apply to my mother. And it's a little bit of
a bait and switch because when you come see the show,
I think, if you don't know anything else, you might
think that it's just another tale of a really intense
mom who wanted her kids to get into Harvard. But
what you'll find is that it's so much more complicated
than that, because there's this whole element of, like, she
(08:58):
also wanted to be a star. So you have the
tropes that you might recognize, just in a way that
you might not expect.
Speaker 1 (09:04):
I want to know how you know she wanted to
be a star. Has she admitted that.
Speaker 3 (09:08):
I'll tell you because when she was fourteen, she went
downtown in Singapore, where she grew up, to this nationwide
televised competition called Talent Time. This thing was like Singapore
America's got talent it had. The person who won would
get hooked up with an agent, a manager in a
fat check, and it would be on the fast track
(09:29):
to fame.
Speaker 5 (09:29):
Wow.
Speaker 4 (09:30):
The first year my mother.
Speaker 3 (09:31):
Went, she went on television saying, Joni Mitchell's both sides now.
Speaker 1 (09:35):
So y'all are similar?
Speaker 3 (09:36):
Yes, yeah, yeah, like is exactly like that way?
Speaker 1 (09:40):
Yeah wow. And I'm also just thinking about, like, at
that time, you have to have had so that seed
in you. She'd be like, I'm gonna go tenacious.
Speaker 3 (09:49):
And it's one of the things that I adore about
her and I see in myself too. But yeah, Like,
she went back two more years after that. The first
year she went, she got third place, the second year
she got runner up. In the third year she got
runner up again. Devastating. And so my sister and I
are always like, what would have happened to mom if
she won that competition, Like maybe she.
Speaker 4 (10:08):
Would be a huge star.
Speaker 3 (10:10):
But because she just grew up in such different circumstances,
it probably stings to see her daughter become the thing
that she always dreamed of being, and to bring us
to America with all these privileges and resources, only for
me to become the thing that she wanted to be.
Speaker 1 (10:26):
Have you all unpacked that I have. I have told
her that.
Speaker 4 (10:32):
Yeah, I sadly, I totally get that.
Speaker 1 (10:38):
So you don't see her as like the stereotypical tiger mother, No,
but you call yourself a tiger daughter, so maybe you
see her also as kind of a tiger daughter.
Speaker 3 (10:49):
Yes, that she's also a tiger daughter because she Part
of why I think I grind her gears so much
is because I am to her what she was to
her own mother. She was one of eight children. She
was always the rebel. She was always the one who
wanted to get out of Singapore. She wanted she was
the one who was interested in the arts. Yeah she
fucking did.
Speaker 1 (11:07):
Wow.
Speaker 4 (11:08):
But her mother, her.
Speaker 3 (11:09):
Mother grew up in poverty and worked as a maid
for a wealthier British family because Singapore wasn't a country
yet but we're.
Speaker 4 (11:14):
Still a colony of Britain.
Speaker 1 (11:16):
Wow.
Speaker 3 (11:16):
And so you know, her mom thought that she gave
her everything too.
Speaker 1 (11:20):
And these things do just like happen, and happened like
the script kind of gets passed down, do you know
what I mean? But I kind of want to know,
like when you felt that first piece of competition with
your mom.
Speaker 4 (11:33):
Oh easy.
Speaker 3 (11:34):
It was when she asked me to record an entire
album of hers where she covered my song.
Speaker 1 (11:39):
No Way And how did that make you feel? Were
you like absolutely not? Or it was actually did you
do it?
Speaker 4 (11:46):
How you do experience?
Speaker 3 (11:47):
Because we haven't connected on much, and to be able
to be in the studio making music together was actually
really fun.
Speaker 4 (11:53):
Okay, amazing.
Speaker 3 (11:54):
She came to New York. I heard all my New
York musician friends like. I put her in the little
vocal booth. I had to auditune every single thing she's saying. Yeah, yeah,
we say a combination of my songs, Christian songs and
Michael Jackson's Heel the World four Key Changes and I
have on bandkit.
Speaker 1 (12:11):
I have to listen to it. You can.
Speaker 5 (12:14):
Some day I'm gonna rise up some day when I
make my mind up, nothing but good. It's gonna come
from my love, not until paid mind.
Speaker 6 (12:29):
Dude, tell you that some day I'm gonna wristle some
day when I make my mind up.
Speaker 5 (12:40):
Nothing but good. It's gonna come from my love, not
until love paid mine.
Speaker 1 (12:49):
I feel like competition and collaboration are always so close
to each other because when you're competitive with someone, I
always take it as a sign you want to be
closer to them, you want to like with them, you
are inspired by them. Maybe yeah, and sounds like she's
inspired by you, but maybe it doesn't come out. It's complicated.
Speaker 3 (13:09):
I know that she genuinely likes those songs, yeah, but
it's also like she wants that kind of life. She
wants she wants my success, like she's never admitted No, never,
she never will. I do know though, that you all
were in therapy together, Yes, have there been any like
big epiphanies? Has she admitted anything to you where you
were just like, she's just rock solid the dynamic I
(13:31):
mentioned before, The work has primarily come from me trying
to give her compassion based on.
Speaker 4 (13:37):
What I know about her childhood.
Speaker 1 (13:39):
Right, And you know that's very.
Speaker 3 (13:42):
Emotionally impaired, which is I've been fortunate enough to have
the tools of self actualization, education and therapy, and I've
had the privilege of growing up in America with resources
like I've always had a roof over my head. I
feel very fortunate to have always been financially stable. So
but at the same time, like it doesn't excuse a
lot of her behavior totally. So it's it's that constant
(14:04):
tiptoe of like making sure that I'm standing up for
myself and also giving her compassion for where she's at.
Speaker 1 (14:27):
The chaos of your family and the chaos of your mom.
Was there a time where you had to just be like,
I can't do this anymore, Like you had to step
away completely? Were you all not on speaking terms ever?
Speaker 4 (14:38):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (14:38):
What sort of set that off?
Speaker 3 (14:41):
That happens a lot. Actually, they're honestly.
Speaker 1 (14:44):
Saying, do you ever block your mom?
Speaker 5 (14:46):
Oh?
Speaker 1 (14:46):
No, I blocked my mom. Yeah. I blocked her this
weekend because I told her I went to a sex
party and she got really mad at me, and I
was like, yeah, I was like, because we've talked about
sex my whole life, and okay, girl, I need to
do it one day. But I had to block her
for five minutes because I know what she'll do. She'll
start blowing me up with text messages that are just
(15:06):
like ribbing me to shreds, and so I'll block her
for five minutes so that I don't get any of
the text messages because I'm like, I know what's gonna happen,
and she's gonna go off for five minutes and then
I'm gonna call her back and we're gonna be fine.
So I blocked my mom honestly, regularly, she's not blocked
on my son.
Speaker 3 (15:22):
You talk about sex, but she's upset that you went
to a sex party.
Speaker 1 (15:25):
It's we've had our relationship has developed because when she
went through a divorce when I was younger, I was
her honestly caregiver, therapist, whatever, so there were no boundaries there.
But ever since she's found like a bit more stability,
she's like reverted to a more sort of traditional mom
with boundaries. So it's like an interesting thing because we've
talked about sex my whole life and she's pretty sex positive,
(15:48):
but I think sex party specifically was a bit out
of her wheelhouse.
Speaker 3 (15:52):
Wait wait, wait Christian, She's still Christian.
Speaker 1 (15:55):
Interesting because she lives in Tennessee, so Christian nationalism is
in the water.
Speaker 6 (15:59):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (15:59):
Yeah, Like she doesn't really go to church, but she
still identifies with the values I think because everyone around
her does, you know what I mean. Yeah, But at
the same time, she's very open minded, so she's filled
with contradictions. My mom too.
Speaker 3 (16:14):
My mom is so sexual, she will get nude portraits
of herself commissioned. I show them in the show.
Speaker 1 (16:19):
Hold on, yeah, your mom had you wear a promise ring. Yeah,
but we'll get nude portraits made of herself. Tell me
about this.
Speaker 3 (16:28):
She's walking talking paradox like she loves herself, she loves
her own body. She makes me photoshop her face into
pictures of other people's bodies. Chinese empresses, supermodels, pop stars
all the time, all the time, onto their body.
Speaker 1 (16:43):
Yes, what is like? What's the drawl for her?
Speaker 3 (16:46):
I think that she wants to see herself in greatness? Right,
And I think that like it probably comes from this
like scarcy mindset in poverty too, because she was never
able to imagine that she could have any other life
besides the kind here here I am like explaining excusing
it again, but like still, it's not excusing.
Speaker 1 (17:04):
I do think it's understand it's it's.
Speaker 3 (17:06):
Fascinating to me, Like I can't even tell you how No,
I mean, I've spent psychoanalyzing this woman.
Speaker 1 (17:11):
Contradiction is crazy to me.
Speaker 3 (17:12):
But but it's crazy because like I am in a
band whose tagline is welcome to the jungle, and I
show my ass on stage all the time, and she
can't deal with it if I had like a cigarette
in my mouth for a promo photo and she goes,
what is the cigarette? Like, Mom, it's a rolled up
piece of printer of paper.
Speaker 4 (17:30):
Calmed down.
Speaker 3 (17:31):
I've never smoked, I don't drink. I am a sober bitch.
Speaker 5 (17:34):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (17:34):
Yeah, it's making sense to me though her anger is
based in want. It's like if she's bringing home these
nude portraits and everything, and then she sees you up
there and then the whole like Singapore's got talent of
it all. Like it makes so much sense to me.
And what a difficult thing to admit to your daughter.
(17:55):
You know, I've been asking you, like has she ever
admitted it? But like, oh, it's so hard to admit
it's something to someone when you can't really admit it
to yourself.
Speaker 4 (18:02):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (18:03):
You know, I'm curious if our moms will ever get there. Yeah,
I don't know, because my mom is in a similar boat.
Speaker 4 (18:09):
They should hang out.
Speaker 1 (18:10):
Honestly, they would be obsessed with each other. Like, honestly,
I'm like.
Speaker 4 (18:16):
They're not like so jealous of each other.
Speaker 1 (18:18):
Yeah right, no, because for me, my mom and I
were either fighting or we're laughing, having a blast, yeah,
or we're crying, Like we're just like so intense all
the time. And I love her and I hate her,
but I know that, like, there are these moments that
I treasure with her, and I love having the good
with the bad.
Speaker 3 (18:38):
It's never safe for me to be myself. It was
never safe for me to be the like unstitched, unpleasant
self because that was punished. I remember recently she was
asking about one of my ex boyfriends and she was like,
what do you call this person? And I said, I
don't think that's helpful. And then for the rest of
(18:58):
the dinner, I think I was perfectly pleased, but there
was something that I think she felt guilty about bringing
something up that could have upset me. And then after
that she was like she was upset at me, and
you know, it was her way of being like, well,
this isn't my fault. It's your fault for being upset.
Speaker 4 (19:16):
You ruined this man.
Speaker 3 (19:19):
She said, you ruined it perfectly nice dinner.
Speaker 1 (19:21):
Ah, And you're like why because I said, don't ask
me about my ex boyfriend. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (19:26):
And so I feel like that has translated into my
relationships where I have developed an anxious attachment style because
I'm constantly.
Speaker 4 (19:34):
Worried that I said the wrong thing.
Speaker 3 (19:35):
And like, if I'm dating someone and they don't respond,
even if the connection is completely stable, I'll be like.
Speaker 1 (19:42):
Oh sorry, I said the wrong thing. Like and it's fine,
It's totally fine, so fine, everything's so fine. Stakes are
so low. Yeah, Like, what was your coping mechanism for
it all? Was it art? Has it always been creating?
Speaker 3 (19:56):
I don't think I acknowledged how deep I believe my
belief system was influenced by our relationship until very recently.
Speaker 1 (20:05):
How recent I would say, like in the past year. Wow,
how old were you when you started therapy?
Speaker 3 (20:10):
I was twenty six Okay, yeah, so.
Speaker 4 (20:16):
It's been about twelve years. I would say that only in.
Speaker 3 (20:19):
The past year have I started to make some real breakthroughs.
And it sucks that it takes so long.
Speaker 1 (20:24):
Now.
Speaker 3 (20:24):
There's sometimes where my therapist is just like if I'm
coming to it myself, she goes, uh huh uh huh.
I'm like, well, why didn't you just tell me that
a year ago?
Speaker 4 (20:32):
I hated, We're gonna save so much time.
Speaker 3 (20:34):
Now, But she's she's supposed to let you figure it
out on your own. That's what makes her a good therapist.
Speaker 1 (20:38):
But doesn't it feel so good to say it?
Speaker 4 (20:40):
Yeah? When I hear myself say that, I go, yeah.
Speaker 1 (20:44):
So, what are kind of some new steps that you're
taking now that you can kind of like understand the
impact of this relationship with your mom.
Speaker 3 (20:52):
I feel like I'm really at an important critical juncture
right now.
Speaker 4 (20:59):
We understand how.
Speaker 3 (21:02):
Romance doesn't have to be this all consuming thing for me.
And I've been single for about seven years because since
my last song relationship, I have been terrified of being
subsumed by a romance because in the past, that is
what I equated with love, to be completely owned and
to be like.
Speaker 4 (21:21):
Awash in it all the time.
Speaker 3 (21:23):
And it's just not sustainable for me because I'm a
creative person. I need to be close to my art,
I need to be performing, and need to be like
with myself and in my solitude, and I just never
knew what that balance looked like. So I would lose
myself in these relationships and give everything to the other
person because all I knew was boundaryless love, where I
was rewarded for fixing or dropping my boundary to please
(21:47):
my mother. And so now I'm like actually starting to
date someone that has healthy boundaries and who I know
is thinking about me, even though we're not texting like
all the time, and it doesn't feel like it's it
feels a lot healthier and.
Speaker 1 (22:03):
You're not like I've never scared.
Speaker 3 (22:07):
I feel like.
Speaker 1 (22:07):
In those intense moments because I so resonate with you
when you said, what did you say?
Speaker 4 (22:12):
Subsumes?
Speaker 1 (22:13):
Subsumed that word like so stuck with me because I'm
like totally completely, it's like so all consuming. I'm always
so scared to lose it because it has to be constant,
yes exactly, and with the space, you can just let
yourself think about other things.
Speaker 3 (22:28):
And that's the thing about being raised by a mother
like this is that, like it's you come to know
that love and safety can be snatched away at any moments.
You're constantly afraid that if you don't engage constantly then
you'll lose somebody or but you end up losing yourself, right, Oh, and.
Speaker 1 (22:43):
We've got to hold on to ourselves. But that's not
always taught.
Speaker 4 (22:46):
No, no, no.
Speaker 1 (22:48):
How did y'all meet?
Speaker 3 (22:49):
We actually met a few years ago on Hinge, but
it didn't work out back then because I was not.
Speaker 1 (22:57):
Ready Okay, so you reconnect and what happens.
Speaker 3 (23:00):
So Like back then, I feel like I was still
going through a lot of my attachment issues and I
felt like I really self sabotaged. It was also my
first queer relationship. He's a trans guy, and so I
just didn't have like context for what I was getting
into because I had never dated anyone who wasn't assist
dude totally, and so brought up all these questions about
(23:21):
what my sexuality was. And I think that I just
needed to like take a beat to reorient myself and
to like work on myself. So you know, we're reconnecting
and it's beautiful. And also I am recognizing how fucking
secure of.
Speaker 4 (23:34):
A man he is.
Speaker 3 (23:36):
And like the other day we were talking about past
relationships and I go, yeah, when I ended my last
like long term relationship, I felt so much guilt and
shame and he was talking about another relationship because he goes, oh,
I didn't feel that.
Speaker 1 (23:49):
Uh. I was like you did, security, I'm sorry how
you feel.
Speaker 3 (23:55):
I know, And he's on his journey now I'm on
my journey. We're taking it slow. It's fine, right, But
I would never sit back. I'd be like, oh my god,
it looks so hot too. Even if I didn't.
Speaker 4 (24:04):
Feel like I wanted to do that, I'm always so
I'm learning.
Speaker 3 (24:07):
So I'm sweating right now just talking about it, like
we have boundaries.
Speaker 1 (24:10):
It's amazing, Like I'm like speaking truth.
Speaker 4 (24:14):
It's sexy.
Speaker 3 (24:15):
It's like it's teaching me so much about the way
that I have people please right and the way that
I want to make everyone feel good, even if it's
not authentic totally.
Speaker 1 (24:40):
What's one thing you've really had to unlearn about love?
Speaker 3 (24:43):
I would say, don't force yourself to make it look
like any one thing, because if you put pressure on something,
you're sort of adding control, and I think that you
might be subconsciously manipulating an outcome. My mother to bring
this back to her loves gardening, and this tree that
she just got is a persimon tree, which apparently takes
(25:06):
three years to sprout. Wow, you can't manipulate nature and
something is just going to take as long as it's
going to take. And it's frustrating because I'm an impatient person.
But I think sometimes you just have to relax and
let things unfold and reveal themselves to you, and you
have to be laid back enough to receive it instead
(25:28):
of pushing towards it. Anytime I've done that has been
the results have been more magical.
Speaker 1 (25:33):
How frequently are you challenging yourself not to do what
your mom wants you to do?
Speaker 3 (25:39):
I would say that when my mom are together, I
become a completely different version of myself. Yeah, and it's
a much more blank slate. So it's difficult to transition
in and out of that because, like I said, I
know that when I am that version of myself, I
am safe because I'm not criticized. And so I'm a
(26:00):
place now where we're actually not talking right now, which
is really which is painful. But I also feel that
I need it. I need to reclaim myself. And the
sometimes the less contact I have with her, the more
I feel like myself. And that is the that's the
heartbreaking nature of our relation.
Speaker 1 (26:17):
That's tough to hear. Like that I think is true
though for a lot of people, but.
Speaker 4 (26:21):
Damn, and I love her.
Speaker 3 (26:23):
I love her so much, and that's why it is
heartbreaking because I see her so clearly and she will
never see me.
Speaker 1 (26:28):
Oh really, stop, Like, how do we get them there?
Speaker 4 (26:33):
We can't.
Speaker 3 (26:34):
We have to find that within ourselves, right, Trust me,
I've spent a lifetime getting trying to get my mother
to love me.
Speaker 4 (26:40):
But the price is too high.
Speaker 1 (26:42):
How does she feel about your show? How does she
feel about your art, your performance?
Speaker 3 (26:46):
I think she feels kind of neutral about it, To
be honest, I think she likes the show in the
sense that it's about her, but she doesn't like I
don't think that she understands how amaze of like a
craft it is and it's okay.
Speaker 4 (27:04):
The whole crux of the.
Speaker 3 (27:06):
Show is do you need to understand someone in order
to love them? It's the last thing I say in
the show. It's the thing that I'm genuinely interested in.
I'm not asking it to the audience as a leading question.
Is something that I don't know the answer to because
I ask you. I think both ways. I think that
you kind of do, and I also think that we
have to show each other grace if we're going to
exist alongside each other at all.
Speaker 1 (27:26):
I mean, I would say yes, if you don't understand someone,
can you still love them? If you don't understand someone,
do you know them? You know?
Speaker 3 (27:35):
You also can't hate someone that you don't know, right,
Like when you know how where they've come from and
what they've been through and their vulnerabilities, it's impossible. So
that's what makes our relationships so difficult because I know
all that, and yet there's all this there's all of
this cruelty.
Speaker 1 (27:54):
Oh god, I'm like, I think our mothers and just
parents in general, because it's not just ourmae. It's like,
this is happening to everyone. That's why therapists do exist,
because everyone's fucking it.
Speaker 3 (28:05):
Up all the time, you know what I mean.
Speaker 1 (28:06):
I'm like, that's my therapist that literally, I'm like, that's
why they stay in business is because really everyone is
fucking it up.
Speaker 3 (28:15):
But you know what, like, thank god we are though,
because I think that there's something really there would be
something really boring about having it all buttoned up and
not being able to grow. And I think that I've
grown so much just from this journey of writing the show,
understanding where all these insecurities come from, and like transmuting
it into art. You're never going to have that moment again.
(28:36):
And I always want to rush ahead and see what
the final outcome is going to be. With the result
is going to be, and I'm so like goal oriented
in my Asian nests. But there's I think if I
were thinking like that all the time, I wouldn't be
enjoying this moment here with you.
Speaker 5 (28:50):
Right.
Speaker 3 (28:50):
I have that written on a post it like on
my bathroom mirror, because I have to remind myself every
day just to like, if.
Speaker 4 (28:57):
It's a shit day, it's a shit day, right, it's
a great day. Great, it's all like part of the
same soup.
Speaker 1 (29:03):
I love that. Well, thank you so much for coming
on today. This has been amazing. I have so much
still to learn and know. I'm like, and I have
to see a picture of your mom nude, Like I
absolutely have to see your mom naked, Like, I'm so sorry.
I Charlene did show me the picture, and y'all it's amazing.
(29:27):
You can see it for yourself at any one of
her shows while she's still on tour. And one more thing,
we didn't talk nearly enough about Charlene's amazing music career
in this interview, but she did serenade us in the
studio with a song inspired by her Wizard Rock days. Yes,
Wizard Rock.
Speaker 4 (29:46):
I've roped us because I have a gig tonight. But
also I was like, actually, this.
Speaker 1 (29:49):
I would love so I.
Speaker 4 (29:51):
Was part of this Harry Potter wizard rock band.
Speaker 1 (29:55):
I have to take your picture with this guitar. You see.
Long before guns and hoses and laby Ahead, Charlene was
in a music group called Team star Kid that went
viral for creating a Harry Potter parody musical who Not
That tone? Mixed together a rabid fan base and the
(30:19):
rise of Tumblr, and you've got yourself some horny teens
writing fan fiction about Charlene and her bandmates. It's pretty explicit,
So if you're trying to keep your listening PG. Thirteen,
don't say I didn't warn.
Speaker 3 (30:33):
You, okay, So let me know when you're ready and
if the guitar levels okay, gorgeous.
Speaker 7 (30:46):
I read it on her sex Tumbler on a sex
tumb the Girl sex Tumbler on a sex Time the
Girl sex Tumbler, Your Wizard Love on her sex on
her sex Tumbler. Have you ever read erotic fiction about yourself?
(31:07):
On our orny Virgins tumbler in twenty twelve. I never
knew where I was as freaky as she said I
was when I was starring in her Wizard sput it
was like his hands on Shylene's ass. Oh shit, it's Darren, Chris,
Aileen and Forward kiss but it's the Hagrid. Turns out
it's a threesome, all of us on our knees to
(31:28):
humans and a giant eating as a Centerpede on her
sex tumbler on.
Speaker 1 (31:34):
You can listen to the full song on our Instagram.
We're at boysover dot pod. Thanks for listening and we'll
talk next week. Sex boy Sover is a production of
iHeart Podcasts. I'm your host, Hope Ordered. Our executive producers
are Christina Everett and Julie Pinero. Our supervising producer is
(31:58):
Emily meronoff engineering by Bahid Fraser and mixing and mastering
by Aboo Zafar. If you liked this episode, please tell
a friend and don't forget to rate, review, and subscribe
to boy Sober on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, and
wherever you get your favorite shows.
On a scale from one to ten, How would you
rate our mother daughter relationship at the moment.
Speaker 2 (00:05):
At the moment, I mean, I think we're always a ten.
You know, I'm always gonna love you no matter what
I do. Feel like sometimes I want you to think differently,
maybe act differently, maybe do things more like me.
Speaker 1 (00:18):
Yeah, like you? Wow? Sometimes you give us a ten.
Speaker 2 (00:27):
I think we're always a ten. I think always going
to be no matter what happens, I'm going to be there.
You're going to come back, and it's going to be coming.
Speaker 1 (00:36):
Back to each other. Yes. If I were to rate
my relationship with my mother on a scale from one
to ten, i'd give it an eight. Sometimes it's an eight,
other times it's not. I've heard worse, and that's what
we're getting into this week. I'm Hopewitdard and welcome to
(00:58):
boys over a space where we're learning and unlearning all
the myths we're taught about love and relationships. If you've
been to any amount of therapy, I'm sure you're aware
(01:20):
that your relationship with your family has a lot to
do with all the other relationships in your life, platonic
or romantic, And if you're having issues in those relationships,
you might have to go all the way back to
the beginning to figure out what's wrong. Today's guest, my
friend Charlene Kay, is untangling all of that in a
(01:43):
one woman show. She's currently touring, Tiger Daughter or How
I Brought My Immigrant Mother Ultimate Shame. Charlene is a
total badass. In addition to being a comedian and actor,
she's a musician who's been in gender flipped cover band
with iconic names such as Guns and Hoses and Lavy Ahead.
(02:06):
You know, I love someone who's using their many talents
to unpack their upbringing and the way it's rippled through
their lives. So, in addition to getting into her complicated
relationship with her mom that her show hinges on, I
knew I had to talk to her about her work
and how it impacts her life. I want to talk
(02:27):
to you about your work as an artist a little.
I feel like you bring so many elements together, comedy, acting,
visual art, music, being a performer. Do you think that
helps or hurts your love life?
Speaker 3 (02:39):
Well, I'm at a point now where I am experiencing
a lot of momentum in my career, which I'm really
grateful for and I'm also noticing that my life hasn't
changed that much. If anything, It's made me understand that
no matter how much success I get, the thing that
is the most important to me are my relationships in
my community. And that's another reason that I'm grateful that
I've experienced success later in life, later meeting like in
(03:02):
my late thirties, because I understand what it's like to
feel really lonely, and I understand what it's like to
feel really burned out. And like I've I spent all
of my twenties touring. I was in relationships for some
of that time, and I was out of relationships some
of that time. And what I really want is to
have it all.
Speaker 4 (03:18):
And I think, yeah, I can have it all.
Speaker 1 (03:20):
What is it all though? I guess like success in
career and in love and in friendship, and I think
that's very doable.
Speaker 3 (03:27):
Yeah, friendship is so important to me, and in the
years that I've been single, I've really learned to have
it be a core part of my happiness, my stability.
I think friendship is very romantic. I love calling people
up and just being like, do you want to watch
a show or something like that. My friends are my family,
and I love that about being queer too. It feels
like we really rely on each other as chosen family.
(03:50):
It's just a bunch of like wayward misfits who I
feel like we walk the paths together and that's helped
me also like decenter romance totally. But it really is
that thing of like it takes twenty years to be
an overnight success because I have been doing this since
I was seventeen, and I started playing open mics when
I was in high school, played all every show that
(04:11):
I could. I went to school at University of Michigan,
and Arbor decided I wanted to move to New York
to become a waitress and think.
Speaker 4 (04:17):
About my feelings.
Speaker 3 (04:19):
I went through so many milestones where I was like,
I should be happy, but I want more and I
feel like even though I'm getting success in this way,
it's not as much as this other person's getting.
Speaker 1 (04:30):
The comparison kills me.
Speaker 3 (04:32):
Yeah, it's fine, And I think that that happens when
you don't have that sense of like, well, I'm proud
of what I did and I know that I.
Speaker 4 (04:41):
Did my best.
Speaker 1 (04:42):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (04:43):
I think in my twenties I put so much pressure
on myself to be this perfect version of myself and
have a perfect career, and when you think about it
in that way, you're never going to hit that ideal.
Speaker 1 (04:54):
It's also interesting because I feel like you said, like,
in the last couple of years, you've found a lot
of success. I'm wondering if you think sort of the
release of perfection is connected to that finding success, Like
do you feel like that resonates at all.
Speaker 3 (05:08):
On There's like I feel like being raised in an
Asian household and also just naturally feeling like I want
to be the best at everything I do creates a
sense of pressure that I put on everything, and that
includes relationships, right, wanting to heal perfectly.
Speaker 4 (05:26):
Wanting to like, wanting.
Speaker 3 (05:28):
To date perfectly, you know, perfectly.
Speaker 5 (05:31):
Yea.
Speaker 3 (05:32):
I bought a book called The Perfectionist's Guide to Losing Control,
and in my mind, I was like, so how can
I how can I lose control perfectly?
Speaker 1 (05:39):
Yeah?
Speaker 3 (05:41):
But it's real, like I want I care about other
people so much and I'm an EmPATH, and I also like,
I think that it's so easy for me to get
caught up in the like am I doing this right?
Speaker 4 (05:52):
Am I good enough?
Speaker 3 (05:53):
Because I experienced shame so much as a kid, and
I think that a lot of that is a shame
that I put on myself for like impossible standards.
Speaker 1 (06:01):
You said that you're kind of on this journey of
untangling your attachment wombs that might have formed during childhood's
like chaotic childhood, name like early days, early days. But
maybe it leads you to choose like some unavailable people. Yes,
(06:23):
can you tell me like a little bit about that.
Speaker 3 (06:25):
I feel like I'm only now unpacking why it has
been so difficult for me to be in a steady
relationship because I think that in the past, I've been
raised by a mother who always wanted me to center her. Yeah,
and so our romantic relationships echo are primary relationship right totally,
(06:46):
And so I'm learning so much about how it's so
easy for me to make myself small and like put
myself over here and just be like whatever you want,
whatever you want, And it leads to this really unhealthy
codependent in meshing, which which ironically I have a tendency
to escalate because that is the dynamic that I know,
(07:07):
and I feel that I have felt in the past
that love means not having boundaries, and completely.
Speaker 1 (07:13):
There were no boundaries between me and my mother.
Speaker 3 (07:15):
Oh my gosh, I want to hear all about that.
Speaker 1 (07:18):
I'm wondering because you said your dad passed away yeah, fifteen, Yeah,
so you immediately kind of became your mom's like primary caregiver.
Would you say or no?
Speaker 3 (07:26):
My sister was the golden child that I used the
scapegoat because I was the artist, And a big part
of my show is how she really wanted to be
a musician.
Speaker 1 (07:35):
Your sister.
Speaker 3 (07:35):
No, no, No, my mom, my mom. She's a flamboyant, outrageous character,
and the show is like exploring all the like crazy
things that have happened in our relationship. But it has
a very real core of like sometimes mothers and daughters
can be competitive with one another, and it's something that's
like very taboo to talk about in Asian culture because
(07:56):
we are supposed to completely honor our parents and there's
like such a sense of filial.
Speaker 4 (08:03):
Piety around that.
Speaker 3 (08:05):
So I feel like when I was growing up, what
was modeled for me was that I always have to
please her first, and if we ever fought, then there's
no room for my feelings.
Speaker 4 (08:16):
There's no air at all.
Speaker 3 (08:18):
It was always like she was right and I have
to change myself if I have a problem with that.
So in my romantic relationships, I've always made myself smaller
because I wanted to make the other person more comfortable.
Speaker 1 (08:29):
I want to talk to you though you your mom
inspired your show, Yeah, basically, and it's called Tiger Daughter.
Tell me about that relationship.
Speaker 3 (08:36):
The irony is that the tiger mother trope doesn't exactly
apply to my mother. And it's a little bit of
a bait and switch because when you come see the show,
I think, if you don't know anything else, you might
think that it's just another tale of a really intense
mom who wanted her kids to get into Harvard. But
what you'll find is that it's so much more complicated
than that, because there's this whole element of, like, she
(08:58):
also wanted to be a star. So you have the
tropes that you might recognize, just in a way that
you might not expect.
Speaker 1 (09:04):
I want to know how you know she wanted to
be a star. Has she admitted that.
Speaker 3 (09:08):
I'll tell you because when she was fourteen, she went
downtown in Singapore, where she grew up, to this nationwide
televised competition called Talent Time. This thing was like Singapore
America's got talent it had. The person who won would
get hooked up with an agent, a manager in a
fat check, and it would be on the fast track
(09:29):
to fame.
Speaker 5 (09:29):
Wow.
Speaker 4 (09:30):
The first year my mother.
Speaker 3 (09:31):
Went, she went on television saying, Joni Mitchell's both sides now.
Speaker 1 (09:35):
So y'all are similar?
Speaker 3 (09:36):
Yes, yeah, yeah, like is exactly like that way?
Speaker 1 (09:40):
Yeah wow. And I'm also just thinking about, like, at
that time, you have to have had so that seed
in you. She'd be like, I'm gonna go tenacious.
Speaker 3 (09:49):
And it's one of the things that I adore about
her and I see in myself too. But yeah, Like,
she went back two more years after that. The first
year she went, she got third place, the second year
she got runner up. In the third year she got
runner up again. Devastating. And so my sister and I
are always like, what would have happened to mom if
she won that competition, Like maybe she.
Speaker 4 (10:08):
Would be a huge star.
Speaker 3 (10:10):
But because she just grew up in such different circumstances,
it probably stings to see her daughter become the thing
that she always dreamed of being, and to bring us
to America with all these privileges and resources, only for
me to become the thing that she wanted to be.
Speaker 1 (10:26):
Have you all unpacked that I have. I have told
her that.
Speaker 4 (10:32):
Yeah, I sadly, I totally get that.
Speaker 1 (10:38):
So you don't see her as like the stereotypical tiger mother, No,
but you call yourself a tiger daughter, so maybe you
see her also as kind of a tiger daughter.
Speaker 3 (10:49):
Yes, that she's also a tiger daughter because she Part
of why I think I grind her gears so much
is because I am to her what she was to
her own mother. She was one of eight children. She
was always the rebel. She was always the one who
wanted to get out of Singapore. She wanted she was
the one who was interested in the arts. Yeah she
fucking did.
Speaker 1 (11:07):
Wow.
Speaker 4 (11:08):
But her mother, her.
Speaker 3 (11:09):
Mother grew up in poverty and worked as a maid
for a wealthier British family because Singapore wasn't a country
yet but we're.
Speaker 4 (11:14):
Still a colony of Britain.
Speaker 1 (11:16):
Wow.
Speaker 3 (11:16):
And so you know, her mom thought that she gave
her everything too.
Speaker 1 (11:20):
And these things do just like happen, and happened like
the script kind of gets passed down, do you know
what I mean? But I kind of want to know,
like when you felt that first piece of competition with
your mom.
Speaker 4 (11:33):
Oh easy.
Speaker 3 (11:34):
It was when she asked me to record an entire
album of hers where she covered my song.
Speaker 1 (11:39):
No Way And how did that make you feel? Were
you like absolutely not? Or it was actually did you
do it?
Speaker 4 (11:46):
How you do experience?
Speaker 3 (11:47):
Because we haven't connected on much, and to be able
to be in the studio making music together was actually
really fun.
Speaker 4 (11:53):
Okay, amazing.
Speaker 3 (11:54):
She came to New York. I heard all my New
York musician friends like. I put her in the little
vocal booth. I had to auditune every single thing she's saying. Yeah, yeah,
we say a combination of my songs, Christian songs and
Michael Jackson's Heel the World four Key Changes and I
have on bandkit.
Speaker 1 (12:11):
I have to listen to it. You can.
Speaker 5 (12:14):
Some day I'm gonna rise up some day when I
make my mind up, nothing but good. It's gonna come
from my love, not until paid mind.
Speaker 6 (12:29):
Dude, tell you that some day I'm gonna wristle some
day when I make my mind up.
Speaker 5 (12:40):
Nothing but good. It's gonna come from my love, not
until love paid mine.
Speaker 1 (12:49):
I feel like competition and collaboration are always so close
to each other because when you're competitive with someone, I
always take it as a sign you want to be
closer to them, you want to like with them, you
are inspired by them. Maybe yeah, and sounds like she's
inspired by you, but maybe it doesn't come out. It's complicated.
Speaker 3 (13:09):
I know that she genuinely likes those songs, yeah, but
it's also like she wants that kind of life. She
wants she wants my success, like she's never admitted No, never,
she never will. I do know though, that you all
were in therapy together, Yes, have there been any like
big epiphanies? Has she admitted anything to you where you
were just like, she's just rock solid the dynamic I
(13:31):
mentioned before, The work has primarily come from me trying
to give her compassion based on.
Speaker 4 (13:37):
What I know about her childhood.
Speaker 1 (13:39):
Right, And you know that's very.
Speaker 3 (13:42):
Emotionally impaired, which is I've been fortunate enough to have
the tools of self actualization, education and therapy, and I've
had the privilege of growing up in America with resources
like I've always had a roof over my head. I
feel very fortunate to have always been financially stable. So
but at the same time, like it doesn't excuse a
lot of her behavior totally. So it's it's that constant
(14:04):
tiptoe of like making sure that I'm standing up for
myself and also giving her compassion for where she's at.
Speaker 1 (14:27):
The chaos of your family and the chaos of your mom.
Was there a time where you had to just be like,
I can't do this anymore, Like you had to step
away completely? Were you all not on speaking terms ever?
Speaker 4 (14:38):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (14:38):
What sort of set that off?
Speaker 3 (14:41):
That happens a lot. Actually, they're honestly.
Speaker 1 (14:44):
Saying, do you ever block your mom?
Speaker 5 (14:46):
Oh?
Speaker 1 (14:46):
No, I blocked my mom. Yeah. I blocked her this
weekend because I told her I went to a sex
party and she got really mad at me, and I
was like, yeah, I was like, because we've talked about
sex my whole life, and okay, girl, I need to
do it one day. But I had to block her
for five minutes because I know what she'll do. She'll
start blowing me up with text messages that are just
(15:06):
like ribbing me to shreds, and so I'll block her
for five minutes so that I don't get any of
the text messages because I'm like, I know what's gonna happen,
and she's gonna go off for five minutes and then
I'm gonna call her back and we're gonna be fine.
So I blocked my mom honestly, regularly, she's not blocked
on my son.
Speaker 3 (15:22):
You talk about sex, but she's upset that you went
to a sex party.
Speaker 1 (15:25):
It's we've had our relationship has developed because when she
went through a divorce when I was younger, I was
her honestly caregiver, therapist, whatever, so there were no boundaries there.
But ever since she's found like a bit more stability,
she's like reverted to a more sort of traditional mom
with boundaries. So it's like an interesting thing because we've
talked about sex my whole life and she's pretty sex positive,
(15:48):
but I think sex party specifically was a bit out
of her wheelhouse.
Speaker 3 (15:52):
Wait wait, wait Christian, She's still Christian.
Speaker 1 (15:55):
Interesting because she lives in Tennessee, so Christian nationalism is
in the water.
Speaker 6 (15:59):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (15:59):
Yeah, Like she doesn't really go to church, but she
still identifies with the values I think because everyone around
her does, you know what I mean. Yeah, But at
the same time, she's very open minded, so she's filled
with contradictions. My mom too.
Speaker 3 (16:14):
My mom is so sexual, she will get nude portraits
of herself commissioned. I show them in the show.
Speaker 1 (16:19):
Hold on, yeah, your mom had you wear a promise ring. Yeah,
but we'll get nude portraits made of herself. Tell me
about this.
Speaker 3 (16:28):
She's walking talking paradox like she loves herself, she loves
her own body. She makes me photoshop her face into
pictures of other people's bodies. Chinese empresses, supermodels, pop stars
all the time, all the time, onto their body.
Speaker 1 (16:43):
Yes, what is like? What's the drawl for her?
Speaker 3 (16:46):
I think that she wants to see herself in greatness? Right,
And I think that like it probably comes from this
like scarcy mindset in poverty too, because she was never
able to imagine that she could have any other life
besides the kind here here I am like explaining excusing
it again, but like still, it's not excusing.
Speaker 1 (17:04):
I do think it's understand it's it's.
Speaker 3 (17:06):
Fascinating to me, Like I can't even tell you how No,
I mean, I've spent psychoanalyzing this woman.
Speaker 1 (17:11):
Contradiction is crazy to me.
Speaker 3 (17:12):
But but it's crazy because like I am in a
band whose tagline is welcome to the jungle, and I
show my ass on stage all the time, and she
can't deal with it if I had like a cigarette
in my mouth for a promo photo and she goes,
what is the cigarette? Like, Mom, it's a rolled up
piece of printer of paper.
Speaker 4 (17:30):
Calmed down.
Speaker 3 (17:31):
I've never smoked, I don't drink. I am a sober bitch.
Speaker 5 (17:34):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (17:34):
Yeah, it's making sense to me though her anger is
based in want. It's like if she's bringing home these
nude portraits and everything, and then she sees you up
there and then the whole like Singapore's got talent of
it all. Like it makes so much sense to me.
And what a difficult thing to admit to your daughter.
(17:55):
You know, I've been asking you, like has she ever
admitted it? But like, oh, it's so hard to admit
it's something to someone when you can't really admit it
to yourself.
Speaker 4 (18:02):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (18:03):
You know, I'm curious if our moms will ever get there. Yeah,
I don't know, because my mom is in a similar boat.
Speaker 4 (18:09):
They should hang out.
Speaker 1 (18:10):
Honestly, they would be obsessed with each other. Like, honestly,
I'm like.
Speaker 4 (18:16):
They're not like so jealous of each other.
Speaker 1 (18:18):
Yeah right, no, because for me, my mom and I
were either fighting or we're laughing, having a blast, yeah,
or we're crying, Like we're just like so intense all
the time. And I love her and I hate her,
but I know that, like, there are these moments that
I treasure with her, and I love having the good
with the bad.
Speaker 3 (18:38):
It's never safe for me to be myself. It was
never safe for me to be the like unstitched, unpleasant
self because that was punished. I remember recently she was
asking about one of my ex boyfriends and she was like,
what do you call this person? And I said, I
don't think that's helpful. And then for the rest of
(18:58):
the dinner, I think I was perfectly pleased, but there
was something that I think she felt guilty about bringing
something up that could have upset me. And then after
that she was like she was upset at me, and
you know, it was her way of being like, well,
this isn't my fault. It's your fault for being upset.
Speaker 4 (19:16):
You ruined this man.
Speaker 3 (19:19):
She said, you ruined it perfectly nice dinner.
Speaker 1 (19:21):
Ah, And you're like why because I said, don't ask
me about my ex boyfriend. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (19:26):
And so I feel like that has translated into my
relationships where I have developed an anxious attachment style because
I'm constantly.
Speaker 4 (19:34):
Worried that I said the wrong thing.
Speaker 3 (19:35):
And like, if I'm dating someone and they don't respond,
even if the connection is completely stable, I'll be like.
Speaker 1 (19:42):
Oh sorry, I said the wrong thing. Like and it's fine,
It's totally fine, so fine, everything's so fine. Stakes are
so low. Yeah, Like, what was your coping mechanism for
it all? Was it art? Has it always been creating?
Speaker 3 (19:56):
I don't think I acknowledged how deep I believe my
belief system was influenced by our relationship until very recently.
Speaker 1 (20:05):
How recent I would say, like in the past year. Wow,
how old were you when you started therapy?
Speaker 3 (20:10):
I was twenty six Okay, yeah, so.
Speaker 4 (20:16):
It's been about twelve years. I would say that only in.
Speaker 3 (20:19):
The past year have I started to make some real breakthroughs.
And it sucks that it takes so long.
Speaker 1 (20:24):
Now.
Speaker 3 (20:24):
There's sometimes where my therapist is just like if I'm
coming to it myself, she goes, uh huh uh huh.
I'm like, well, why didn't you just tell me that
a year ago?
Speaker 4 (20:32):
I hated, We're gonna save so much time.
Speaker 3 (20:34):
Now, But she's she's supposed to let you figure it
out on your own. That's what makes her a good therapist.
Speaker 1 (20:38):
But doesn't it feel so good to say it?
Speaker 4 (20:40):
Yeah? When I hear myself say that, I go, yeah.
Speaker 1 (20:44):
So, what are kind of some new steps that you're
taking now that you can kind of like understand the
impact of this relationship with your mom.
Speaker 3 (20:52):
I feel like I'm really at an important critical juncture
right now.
Speaker 4 (20:59):
We understand how.
Speaker 3 (21:02):
Romance doesn't have to be this all consuming thing for me.
And I've been single for about seven years because since
my last song relationship, I have been terrified of being
subsumed by a romance because in the past, that is
what I equated with love, to be completely owned and
to be like.
Speaker 4 (21:21):
Awash in it all the time.
Speaker 3 (21:23):
And it's just not sustainable for me because I'm a
creative person. I need to be close to my art,
I need to be performing, and need to be like
with myself and in my solitude, and I just never
knew what that balance looked like. So I would lose
myself in these relationships and give everything to the other
person because all I knew was boundaryless love, where I
was rewarded for fixing or dropping my boundary to please
(21:47):
my mother. And so now I'm like actually starting to
date someone that has healthy boundaries and who I know
is thinking about me, even though we're not texting like
all the time, and it doesn't feel like it's it
feels a lot healthier and.
Speaker 1 (22:03):
You're not like I've never scared.
Speaker 3 (22:07):
I feel like.
Speaker 1 (22:07):
In those intense moments because I so resonate with you
when you said, what did you say?
Speaker 4 (22:12):
Subsumes?
Speaker 1 (22:13):
Subsumed that word like so stuck with me because I'm
like totally completely, it's like so all consuming. I'm always
so scared to lose it because it has to be constant,
yes exactly, and with the space, you can just let
yourself think about other things.
Speaker 3 (22:28):
And that's the thing about being raised by a mother
like this is that, like it's you come to know
that love and safety can be snatched away at any moments.
You're constantly afraid that if you don't engage constantly then
you'll lose somebody or but you end up losing yourself, right, Oh, and.
Speaker 1 (22:43):
We've got to hold on to ourselves. But that's not
always taught.
Speaker 4 (22:46):
No, no, no.
Speaker 1 (22:48):
How did y'all meet?
Speaker 3 (22:49):
We actually met a few years ago on Hinge, but
it didn't work out back then because I was not.
Speaker 1 (22:57):
Ready Okay, so you reconnect and what happens.
Speaker 3 (23:00):
So Like back then, I feel like I was still
going through a lot of my attachment issues and I
felt like I really self sabotaged. It was also my
first queer relationship. He's a trans guy, and so I
just didn't have like context for what I was getting
into because I had never dated anyone who wasn't assist
dude totally, and so brought up all these questions about
(23:21):
what my sexuality was. And I think that I just
needed to like take a beat to reorient myself and
to like work on myself. So you know, we're reconnecting
and it's beautiful. And also I am recognizing how fucking
secure of.
Speaker 4 (23:34):
A man he is.
Speaker 3 (23:36):
And like the other day we were talking about past
relationships and I go, yeah, when I ended my last
like long term relationship, I felt so much guilt and
shame and he was talking about another relationship because he goes, oh,
I didn't feel that.
Speaker 1 (23:49):
Uh. I was like you did, security, I'm sorry how
you feel.
Speaker 3 (23:55):
I know, And he's on his journey now I'm on
my journey. We're taking it slow. It's fine, right, But
I would never sit back. I'd be like, oh my god,
it looks so hot too. Even if I didn't.
Speaker 4 (24:04):
Feel like I wanted to do that, I'm always so
I'm learning.
Speaker 3 (24:07):
So I'm sweating right now just talking about it, like
we have boundaries.
Speaker 1 (24:10):
It's amazing, Like I'm like speaking truth.
Speaker 4 (24:14):
It's sexy.
Speaker 3 (24:15):
It's like it's teaching me so much about the way
that I have people please right and the way that
I want to make everyone feel good, even if it's
not authentic totally.
Speaker 1 (24:40):
What's one thing you've really had to unlearn about love?
Speaker 3 (24:43):
I would say, don't force yourself to make it look
like any one thing, because if you put pressure on something,
you're sort of adding control, and I think that you
might be subconsciously manipulating an outcome. My mother to bring
this back to her loves gardening, and this tree that
she just got is a persimon tree, which apparently takes
(25:06):
three years to sprout. Wow, you can't manipulate nature and
something is just going to take as long as it's
going to take. And it's frustrating because I'm an impatient person.
But I think sometimes you just have to relax and
let things unfold and reveal themselves to you, and you
have to be laid back enough to receive it instead
(25:28):
of pushing towards it. Anytime I've done that has been
the results have been more magical.
Speaker 1 (25:33):
How frequently are you challenging yourself not to do what
your mom wants you to do?
Speaker 3 (25:39):
I would say that when my mom are together, I
become a completely different version of myself. Yeah, and it's
a much more blank slate. So it's difficult to transition
in and out of that because, like I said, I
know that when I am that version of myself, I
am safe because I'm not criticized. And so I'm a
(26:00):
place now where we're actually not talking right now, which
is really which is painful. But I also feel that
I need it. I need to reclaim myself. And the
sometimes the less contact I have with her, the more
I feel like myself. And that is the that's the
heartbreaking nature of our relation.
Speaker 1 (26:17):
That's tough to hear. Like that I think is true
though for a lot of people, but.
Speaker 4 (26:21):
Damn, and I love her.
Speaker 3 (26:23):
I love her so much, and that's why it is
heartbreaking because I see her so clearly and she will
never see me.
Speaker 1 (26:28):
Oh really, stop, Like, how do we get them there?
Speaker 4 (26:33):
We can't.
Speaker 3 (26:34):
We have to find that within ourselves, right, Trust me,
I've spent a lifetime getting trying to get my mother
to love me.
Speaker 4 (26:40):
But the price is too high.
Speaker 1 (26:42):
How does she feel about your show? How does she
feel about your art, your performance?
Speaker 3 (26:46):
I think she feels kind of neutral about it, To
be honest, I think she likes the show in the
sense that it's about her, but she doesn't like I
don't think that she understands how amaze of like a
craft it is and it's okay.
Speaker 4 (27:04):
The whole crux of the.
Speaker 3 (27:06):
Show is do you need to understand someone in order
to love them? It's the last thing I say in
the show. It's the thing that I'm genuinely interested in.
I'm not asking it to the audience as a leading question.
Is something that I don't know the answer to because
I ask you. I think both ways. I think that
you kind of do, and I also think that we
have to show each other grace if we're going to
exist alongside each other at all.
Speaker 1 (27:26):
I mean, I would say yes, if you don't understand someone,
can you still love them? If you don't understand someone,
do you know them? You know?
Speaker 3 (27:35):
You also can't hate someone that you don't know, right,
Like when you know how where they've come from and
what they've been through and their vulnerabilities, it's impossible. So
that's what makes our relationships so difficult because I know
all that, and yet there's all this there's all of
this cruelty.
Speaker 1 (27:54):
Oh god, I'm like, I think our mothers and just
parents in general, because it's not just ourmae. It's like,
this is happening to everyone. That's why therapists do exist,
because everyone's fucking it.
Speaker 3 (28:05):
Up all the time, you know what I mean.
Speaker 1 (28:06):
I'm like, that's my therapist that literally, I'm like, that's
why they stay in business is because really everyone is
fucking it up.
Speaker 3 (28:15):
But you know what, like, thank god we are though,
because I think that there's something really there would be
something really boring about having it all buttoned up and
not being able to grow. And I think that I've
grown so much just from this journey of writing the show,
understanding where all these insecurities come from, and like transmuting
it into art. You're never going to have that moment again.
(28:36):
And I always want to rush ahead and see what
the final outcome is going to be. With the result
is going to be, and I'm so like goal oriented
in my Asian nests. But there's I think if I
were thinking like that all the time, I wouldn't be
enjoying this moment here with you.
Speaker 5 (28:50):
Right.
Speaker 3 (28:50):
I have that written on a post it like on
my bathroom mirror, because I have to remind myself every
day just to like, if.
Speaker 4 (28:57):
It's a shit day, it's a shit day, right, it's
a great day. Great, it's all like part of the
same soup.
Speaker 1 (29:03):
I love that. Well, thank you so much for coming
on today. This has been amazing. I have so much
still to learn and know. I'm like, and I have
to see a picture of your mom nude, Like I
absolutely have to see your mom naked, Like, I'm so sorry.
I Charlene did show me the picture, and y'all it's amazing.
(29:27):
You can see it for yourself at any one of
her shows while she's still on tour. And one more thing,
we didn't talk nearly enough about Charlene's amazing music career
in this interview, but she did serenade us in the
studio with a song inspired by her Wizard Rock days. Yes,
Wizard Rock.
Speaker 4 (29:46):
I've roped us because I have a gig tonight. But
also I was like, actually, this.
Speaker 1 (29:49):
I would love so I.
Speaker 4 (29:51):
Was part of this Harry Potter wizard rock band.
Speaker 1 (29:55):
I have to take your picture with this guitar. You see.
Long before guns and hoses and laby Ahead, Charlene was
in a music group called Team star Kid that went
viral for creating a Harry Potter parody musical who Not
That tone? Mixed together a rabid fan base and the
(30:19):
rise of Tumblr, and you've got yourself some horny teens
writing fan fiction about Charlene and her bandmates. It's pretty explicit,
So if you're trying to keep your listening PG. Thirteen,
don't say I didn't warn.
Speaker 3 (30:33):
You, okay, So let me know when you're ready and
if the guitar levels okay, gorgeous.
Speaker 7 (30:46):
I read it on her sex Tumbler on a sex
tumb the Girl sex Tumbler on a sex Time the
Girl sex Tumbler, Your Wizard Love on her sex on
her sex Tumbler. Have you ever read erotic fiction about yourself?
(31:07):
On our orny Virgins tumbler in twenty twelve. I never
knew where I was as freaky as she said I
was when I was starring in her Wizard sput it
was like his hands on Shylene's ass. Oh shit, it's Darren, Chris,
Aileen and Forward kiss but it's the Hagrid. Turns out
it's a threesome, all of us on our knees to
(31:28):
humans and a giant eating as a Centerpede on her
sex tumbler on.
Speaker 1 (31:34):
You can listen to the full song on our Instagram.
We're at boysover dot pod. Thanks for listening and we'll
talk next week. Sex boy Sover is a production of
iHeart Podcasts. I'm your host, Hope Ordered. Our executive producers
are Christina Everett and Julie Pinero. Our supervising producer is
(31:58):
Emily meronoff engineering by Bahid Fraser and mixing and mastering
by Aboo Zafar. If you liked this episode, please tell
a friend and don't forget to rate, review, and subscribe
to boy Sober on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, and
wherever you get your favorite shows.
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