I'm jealous of homeschooled kids,
though.
Homeschooled kids were prepared
for the pandemic, OK?
Right?
They're probably mocking us right
now.
Like, oh, you don't get to go
to prom?
I've had prom in my living room five
years in a row.
(audience laughing)
I had to ballroom dance with my dad.
Oh, you don't get to drive
your nice car to school?
I wake up I'm, at school.
I spent nine months
in my professor's stomach.
Yeah, so homeschooled kids win.
I wish I was homeschooled,
but then again, my parents hardly
know English, so I probably wouldn't
be able to be up here right now.
Like, have you seen Alexa and Siri
at my house trying to understand
my dad's accent?
Uh, it's rough, man.
Alexa just quit last week.
Apparently, phlegm is not a letter
they understand.
And every time my dad goes up
to Syria and goes, "call home,"
she calls Homeland Security.
(audience laughing)
(audience applauding)
I love that guy.
(audience laughing)
But they sent me to public school
where I learned the right form
of English.
And public school was great,
but there was a little bit
of bullying.
Like, I got bullied by this guy who
worked at Chick-fil-A, which wasn't
bad because I would just
walk into his shift
and have him be nice to me
for hours.
Drop a tray, talk to the manager.
Brandon, you didn't say,
my pleasure.
(audience laughing)
You're cooking the Lord's chicken.
Put some more sauce!
(audience laughing)
My dad tried to give me advice
on bullying.
He's like, "John, we're Christian.
"So you take him by the arm,
"put it behind their back,
"push them up against the wall,
"and say, I forgive you."
(audience laughing)
But I get why I was bullied,
though, you know.
My parents tried to raise us like we
were still in the Middle East.
While all the other kids went
to Disney World, they would take us
to the Middle East for vacation.
And looking back, it kind of
was like Disney World--
the water was murky like the Pirates
of the Caribbean ride,
there were fireworks,
but they came down,
and Princess Jasmine was
in the parade, but she was holding
an AK
and wearing a "Death to America"
t-shirt.
(audience laughing)
It's kind of the same.
Public school helped though,
because I learned how to act
in public school, and my theater was
the school nurse's office.
That's where I learned how to act,
OK?
There's a couple steps to it.
The first step is you've got
to pick, is this video game worth
the next two hours
of a brilliant performance as a kid
who is sick.
Once you got past that, you've
got to go to step two,
pick your condition-- stomach pain,
head pain.
You can't say fever because she's
got one of the best thermometers
in the game.
Third thing, you gotta
pick your walk up to the nurse's
office.
You gotta do the limp groan,
or the flailing arms, or the crawl.
Yeah, I don't have to do it.
You get it.
So once you've walked up
to the nurse's office,
you're going to want to sit there,
still act sick.
Ah, Nurse Becky, it hurts.
Just call my mom.
And then, you hear it, your standing
ovation, your mom on the other end
of the phone.
You pick it up, you go, Mom, I'm not
lying this time.
Come pick me up.
You pass all the other kids who are
being sent back to common core.
(audience laughing)
You get in your car, boom, go home,
you're an actor.
It's perfect.
And so I try to use my acting skills
at my private Christian University,
but the nurse there was like,
"oh, you're sick?
"It's just the Holy Spirit runnin'
"through ya.
(audience laughing)
"Go back to class."
And I was kind of worried
because our campus safety is just
a room of people praying.
(audience laughing)
Our campus safety officer,
he doesn't have a belt with a gun.
It's the belt of righteousness.
Yeah.
I got hit by a car in junior high,
which probably explains everything.
I got hit by an old lady
in a smart car who made
a wrong left, hit me,
and I flew back, landed
on my backpack.
Paramedic took me over to the side.
He's like, "John, count to 10."
I'm like, why?
He's like, "we've got to check
"if your head's all right."
I'm like, shouldn't we check if
the old lady's head's all right?
And I was like, OK,
also, can you tell the nurse
I'm not lying this time.
(audience laughing)