I've had a lot of jobs in my life
before I started doing comedy.
When I was 16 years old,
my very first job
was at Mann movie theaters,
which was ironic because
I was the only man who worked there.
(audience laughing)
I show up and there's
13 girls on the crew,
so I'm thinking jackpot!
I asked one of them out.
She goes, "Oh no Paul,
"I don't date boys."
I go, well, you're in luck
because I'm a man.
(audience laughing)
Well, I'm doing the
working in the theater.
I was getting my degree in teaching
and so when I got the degree,
I made the next logical step
and I got a job at Costco.
(audience laughing)
I had three bosses named Greg,
which means at Costco,
even the management comes in bulk.
(audience laughing)
Finally, I got a teaching career going
and I got to tell you,
being a teacher is
very, very, very hard.
Surrounded all day by a
bunch of self-righteous
know it all complainers
and then there's the students.
(audience laughing)
and I ended up—I got out,
it was just too much for me.
I got out and
I got a job at Nickelodeon
and the first rule of Nickelodeon is
you don't talk about Nickelodeon,
so let's talk about Nickelodeon.
(audience laughing)
I worked on a couple of shows.
You may have seen called
Zoey 101 and iCarly,
anyone ever heard of them?
(audience cheers)
Yeah! That means we either
have a nice young audience
or kind of a creepy older one
(audience laughing)
and there's an episode where
the principal hijacks the show
and plays the bagpipes and
they put a green screen behind her
and they're going to put
funny images and someone
in the office said,
"Hey, funny images,
"Paul's a funny image."
(audience laughing)
So they filmed me eating a salad,
jumping up and down
and that's why I don't eat salad.
It's like a Vietnam flashback.
Every time for me.
Took an hour to film.
We filmed it on a Monday
the show aired on the Sunday
and I'm walking around
the supermarket
the next Monday and this little boy
and his mother are walking up
the aisle and the boy goes,
"Mommy,
"that man was on TV last night."
(audience laughing)
And the mom goes,
"No, sweetie, they don't put
"guys like him on TV."
(audience laughing)
I said, wait a second, yes they do.
People like me, Lena Dunham,
Seth Rogen,
Rosie O'Donnell,
(audience laughing)
Amy Schumer.
(audience laughing)
Lots of people like me.
The writers' strike took my job
and so I decided to get
a master's in English.
I already had a bachelor's in English.
I figured let's double down
on something
that ain't working,
(audience laughing)
so once I completed it,
I ended up taking
the next logical step
and got a job at ITT Tech.
(audience laughing)
Rest in peace.
(audience laughing)
It was never a real school.
They didn't even
pay me in real money.
They paid me in ITT bucks.
(audience laughing)
The cafeteria was a vending machine.
They gave me
a tour of the campus and
they walked me to this room.
They go,
"This is where the children learn
"electronical training."
It was a bunch of broken ham radios.
They go,
"That's why it's very important.
"You never use the words
"top of the line equipment.
"We use industry standard."
What industry?
The broken ham radio industry?
VCR repair?
Caveman?
So I had to leave too.
I went back into teaching
because I needed
better health insurance.
ITT Tech's version of health insurance
was the DVD collection
of Grey's Anatomy
(audience laughing)
and a bottle of Robitussin.
That was it
so I went back into teaching and—
and it was going well,
it was going okay
and then in our school,
it's a private Christian school
like many private Christian schools
got a little obsessed with football
and that started to become
a political school in that way.
In fact,
we took down the sign that said
"Christian character is what counts"
and we put up a sign that said
"Jesus wants you
"to make the playoffs".
(audience laughing)
It makes sense though,
that all these Christian schools
over the nations are
obsessed with football.
It's all over the Bible.
Right? Right
before Jesus left, he was like, go out
into all the world to make
running backs of all men.
(audience laughing)
Blessed are the quarterbacks
for they shall inherit
financial aid.
(audience laughing)
Maybe this is why Jesus
had 12 disciples.
Just coach an
11 man football program.
Judas was the kicker
(audience laughing)
so I got out of that,
and I
decided to pursue comedy
a little bit more full time.
And I'm now pursuing
my lifelong dream
of poverty
(audience cheers)