So let's jump right in.
I am a middle school
theater teacher by day.
Thank you, it's a sacrifice
I make for our society.
(audience laughing)
And I feel like I'm pretty good at it.
I've been doing it for eight years,
and last year, I was the
state's Middle School Teacher
of the Year Award winner.
(audience cheering)
Thank you, thank you.
I don't know how I won.
(audience laughing)
I've been working in public education
for eight years,
and I do not have a teaching license.
(audience laughing)
I'm not qualified for my job,
but I'm the best one at it.
You can see the confusion.
(audience laughing)
Imagine like, as an adult,
I applied for a Taco Bell.
I did not get hired at the Taco Bell.
(audience laughing)
Which meant that I was not capable
of reheating bean pouches of diarrhea.
(audience laughing)
But somehow I'm capable of teaching,
walking bean pouches of diarrhea.
It's crazy, crazy.
(audience laughing)
I love the kids,
but they're dumb, okay?
(audience laughing)
Put that out there, yes.
There are parents in the room like,
"Yes, okay."
You can love dumb things,
people liked "Twilight," okay?
(audience laughing)
See, right?
(audience cheering)
It's terrible, but it's okay.
But if I did have to be
Team Edward or Team Jacob,
Team Jacob, 100%, no questions.
Now if it was Team Jacob
or Team Cedric Diggory,
there is a healthy and
lively debate I will have.
(audience laughing)
But they're dumb and they
provide me with so much material.
One day, I asked them to
name a Caribbean island
and one girl said Rhode Island.
(audience laughing)
Okay.
A student asked me if I was married.
Before I could even respond,
another kid was like,
"Do you see Mrs. in front of his name?"
(audience laughing)
And I couldn't argue with that logic.
I was like, "Oh, you don't."
(audience laughing)
A student stopped me in the hallway
and asked me if I had an extra tampon.
(audience laughing)
It's not the fact that she asked me
for a tampon that bothered me,
it's the fact that she asked
for an extra tampon.
(audience laughing)
Like it was somehow implied
or a given that I had one.
(audience laughing)
So I gave her my last one
and now I'm out.
(audience laughing)
As a theater teacher,
I have some weird errands to go run.
I put on all the plays and one year,
I needed a wedding dress.
And I was like,
great, I'll just go rent one
at a bridal store, easy.
I walk in.
"Hi, I'm in need of a wedding dress."
And the girl looks at me and I was like,
"Oh, it's not for me,
"it's for a 14-year-old girl."
(audience laughing)
Which did not make it better.
(audience laughing)
I love a lot of things about teaching,
but there's one thing that I do hate,
besides the children,
and that is,
chaperoning a school dance.
Oh, it's the worst.
You just walk into this gym
and it just smells like
puberty and Axe body spray.
(audience laughing)
It was like an edible wall as you walk,
"Ah, ugh."
(audience laughing)
And I've categorized the boys
into three groups.
There's the boys that dance like this.
(audience laughing)
Like the alligators at feeding time
at the zoo, you know.
(audience laughing)
I call them the cool kids.
(audience laughing)
And then there's the boys who do like,
the tap routine from "Be Our Guest,"
from the spring musical.
It's like, flap shuffle step ball change,
but to Katy Perry's "Dark Horse,"
and it works and like I don't know,
those are my theater babies,
those are my children.
(audience laughing)
And then there's the
third group of children,
they play tag.
Like I don't know
what's wrong with them.
I would like to go in and help,
but my chaperone duty's the hallway,
'cause I need that fresh air,
so I can't go in there,
so I just let them suffer.
(audience laughing)
But then the slow music comes on,
and I get a little bit of PTSD,
'cause I flash back to
when I was in eighth grade,
and a girl asked me to dance
and I was not ready.
(audience laughing)
We need to understand that as a child,
I cried in public a lot,
(audience laughing)
and I've never outgrown it.
(audience laughing)
In fourth grade,
we had to write a short story,
and I wrote a 23 page short story
about the game, "Guess Who?"
(audience laughing)
I felt like every character
needed a full backstory.
(audience laughing)
So while I'm reading it
in front of my class,
my eyes dry out,
probably about page 13,
I don't know,
'cause I was staring at
the page for so long.
I wasn't crying because
the art was beautiful.
It was nominated for a Pulitzer,
but that's,
that's so different.
(audience laughs)
But I start crying and
then in sixth grade,
this girl drew a picture of me
on a horse and wrote,
"You are my knight in shining armor,"
and put it in my locker,
and then I opened it up,
and friends found out about it
and made fun of me
and I cried out of shame.
So now we've established I cry
because of dry eyes and shame,
back to the dance.
So I don't know what to do
with my hands, okay?
I was like, "Oh, what do I do?"
'Cause I want to put them
on the shoulders.
Anatomically, that makes the
most sense, I'm very tall.
She put hers on the waist.
But I put my hands on her hips,
as the patriarchy demands,
(audience laughing)
but I don't wanna touch her,
'cause that's gross,
so I just hove like 1/4 inch off,
(audience laughing)
and we're swaying and
I'm mouth breathing.
(audience laughing)
And I'm locked into her eyes.
I'm like, "Wow,
"they're so blue and beautiful.
"They're like Zack's from
"'Saved by the Bell.'"
(audience laughing)
And we're just swaying,
and the song is Eve 6.
♪ Here's to the night we felt alive ♪
♪ Here's to the tears we knew we'd cry
And at that moment because
of the intense staring,
(audience laughing)
one lone tear, dripped down my face.
And I went to go wipe it but en route,
I grazed the upper front,
and so I just panicked
and out of shame,
I ran to the bathroom and I cried.
- [Audience] Aww!
- And I promised that day that I
would never touch a woman again.
(audience laughing)
Thank you, thank you.
I have kept my promise.
(audience cheering)
Thank you, thank you, thank you.
(audience laughing)
My favorite thing about teaching
is the drama the kids bring me.
Mmm, I love it so much.
And so, one day, this girl was just like,
"Hunter talked to me at lunch."
And I was like, "Hold up,
"stop the lesson, what?
(audience laughing)
"He is the cutest boy in eighth grade!
"What is he doing talking to you?
(audience laughing)
"Like, I'm baffled but like,
"good for you!"
(audience laughing)
I needed to go get a
massage the other day,
so I went to the front desk,
and I said, "Hey, I need a massage."
And they were like, "Cool.
"You're in room five, dress down
"to your comfort level."
I'm like, "Easy, naked."
So, I go back in the room,
get situated, face down,
my massage therapist comes in,
and he's like, "All right,
"what can we work on?"
I was like, "You know what?
"My lower back's been killing me,
"I'm on my feet all day at work,"
and he's like,
"Okay, that's gonna require
"working into the glutes."
And I was like, "Sounds fair."
So he starts working on my back,
and he starts making
some small talk like,
"What do you do for a living?"
I'm like, "I'm a teacher."
He's like, "Where do you teach at?"
and I name my school, and he says,
"Oh, cool, I went there."
(audience laughing)
Then I was like, "How old are you?"
And he said, "19."
For those of you keeping track,
I've been teaching for eight years,
which meant that I was in a room,
naked, with a former student,
(audience laughing)
and he touched my bare butt.
(audience laughing)
And I was like,
oh, maybe he didn't take my class,
maybe he doesn't remember me.
And so halfway through,
he has me roll over,
and I was like oh, I am
not opening up my eyes.
Not like, "Oh, fancy seeing you here!"
We're not gonna do that.
(audience laughing)
I've run into students at Target
and that's fine,
because we're fully-clothed,
but this situation,
I'm not okay with.
And so at the end I was like,
"He didn't recognize me."
And then he taps me right here
on the way out and says,
"Good to see you, Mr. Erwin."
(audience laughing)
So I got up, I got dressed,
I walked out of the building,
and I lit myself on fire
and jumped off a cliff.
There is no coming back from that one.
What was I gonna do next?
Oh right, yeah.
When I chose to be gay,
(audience laughing)
thank you, that's the
appropriate response, thank you.
(audience laughing)
Yeah, there are some of you
in the room who are like,
"I thought he was,
"I wasn't sure but I'm pretty sure.
"I'm cool with it!"
And then a lot of you are like,
"Uh, how did you not know?
"He shimmied at the opening of his set.
"How was that not clear?"
(audience laughing)
If I could give any advice
to some of you
as you start a new job,
is when you go in,
you find the two huskiest ladies,
and you befriend them immediately.
This is a very pro-husky
lady set, everybody,
I love husky ladies.
Would never marry one,
but I love 'em.
(audience laughing)
If you ever, some people smoke
a pack a day,
they eat a Snack Pack a day.
If you ever need tapioca,
Stacy's got some, we're good.
(audience laughing)
And then the other day,
they added me to the,
sorry, the other day, they...
The other day, they added me
to the husky ladies group chat.
(audience laughing)
(audience cheering)
Sorry, um...
Sorry...
(audience laughing)
One day at lunch,
I knew I belonged when
one of my coworkers was like,
"Ryan, you can't have
"two Twixes for lunch."
And then one of these fierce, strong,
beautiful husky ladies was just like,
"Hey, never judge a woman
"by what she eats."
And I knew...
(audience laughing)
All my life, I've wanted
a place to belong,
and when I came out,
I didn't find that,
but with these women,
(audience laughing)
with the same mustache as me, like...
(audience laughing)
(sniffles)
Sorry, sorry.
(audience laughing)
What centers me is thinking
about me being famous,
so like, oh, look at that,
I'm already happy, look at that.
(audience laughing)
Ah, I just wanna be famous.
(audience laughing)
The other day I was on a walk,
and this guy almost hit me.
And I am kind of hard to miss, okay?
So he almost hits me and I say,
"Hey, watch where you're driving."
Well I didn't say it like that,
it was more like this, like,
"Hey, watch where you're driving!"
(audience laughing)
I know, so like...
The vertical claps were necessary.
(audience laughing)
But then, about two hours later,
I get a message on Instagram,
being like, "Hey, I believe we had
"an incident in the crosswalk today."
And I was like, "What?"
He's like, "I recognize you
"from the local comedy club.
"You're very funny."
I was like, "Thank you."
But then he was like,
"Sorry I almost hit you, I'm sorry."
And I was like, "Wow.
"I was almost murdered today,
"but because of my level of fame,
"I was spared."
And I was like, "Oh my gosh,
"I think I'm on the right track."
(audience laughing)
Ah, thank goodness I started standup,
or I would've been dead.
Very, very happy about that.
(audience laughing)
My sister had me babysit my nieces
and nephews a few weeks ago,
terrible decision on her part.
(audience laughing)
But I was lulled into this
false sense of security.
From the get-go,
I made them lunch, frozen burritos.
My nephew's like,
"Wow, did you go to cooking school?
"This tastes amazing."
And I was like,
"Wow, these kids are easy to please.
"Also, what does my sister feed them?
(audience laughing)
"This is literal garbage, okay?"
(audience laughing)
And then I saw the park
was playing "Lego Batman,"
and I love "Lego Batman,"
it's a cinematic masterpiece.
And so I was like,
"Okay, if we clean the house,
"and eat all our dinner, we're gonna go
"to the park and watch 'Lego Batman.'"
I was very excited.
And then they didn't clean the house,
and they didn't eat their dinner,
which shocked me to my core,
and I was very disappointed
I couldn't go see "Lego Batman."
So I told the kids,
"We can't go see 'Lego Batman.'"
And they were crying and screaming,
and I was like, "Wow, I did it.
(audience laughing)
"I've successfully parented.
(audience laughing)
"It's not that hard.
"It's crazy."
So to reward myself
for my good parenting,
we went to the park
to watch "Lego Batman."
(audience laughing)
(audience cheering)
Thank you, thank you.
Thank you.
It's amazing.
(audience cheering)
I decided to weigh myself
the other day.
No reason, I was bored,
I don't know, it was terrible.
It's like, "Hey, punch me in the larynx."
I don't know,
that's kind of the emotional equivalent.
But I found out that I weighed
over 300 pounds.
And at first I was sad.
But then I looked in the mirror
and I was like,
"You have to be thinnest-looking
"300 pound man ever."
How am I winning at everything,
it's crazy.
(audience laughing)
So I just thought, you know,
"Maybe I should go on a walk
"to get more healthy."
So I was on a walk one day,
and this girl was ahead of me,
and we walked past this
homeless man, a common sight,
and he was screaming.
And so we walked by and
she keeps looking back,
I'm like, "Don't make eye contact,
"that's how they get ya."
And so, four times she looks back,
and finally I go,
"Well I gotta see what this is about."
And I take out my headphone
just in time to hear
the homeless man say,
"I'm not talkin' to you lady,
"I'm talkin' to tubby."
- [Audience] Aww.
- I am husky, not tubby, okay?
But then I was like,
"What'd I do to you, sir?"
And then I was like,
"Oh no, I engaged!"
And for three blocks, he followed me
while eating potato salad
and yelling at me.
And then he left me and
I was left feeling very conflicted.
'Cause on the one hand,
he was mean, he called me tubby.
But on the other hand,
this is the most attention a man
has show to me in a while,
so I was like, "Mmm, I dunno.
"Two blocks, that's flirting, right?
"It's clearly flirting."
(audience laughing)
Yeah, we have our
second date next week.
(audience laughing)
But you know,
I can't believe he called me tubby.
Do I look tubby?
- [Audience] No!
- I do think I'm tubby because,
(audience laughing)
the whole time he was yelling at me,
I was like,
"Wow, that potato salad looks good."
I was like, "Mmm."
There's a problem.
So now let's talk about my deaf parents.
So both my parents are deaf,
which means I'm a coda,
I'm a child of deaf adults,
so I grew up having to sign everything.
There were some difficulties,
having deaf parents.
For example, one time in the car,
me and my brother like to play a game
where we would roll down the windows,
and my mom hated it
when the windows
were rolled down with the AC on,
so she would roll them up
from the front seat,
and we would play chicken,
(audience laughing)
and whoever flinched first
was the loser.
Well one day, neither of us flinched.
(audience laughing)
And so we were stuck.
(audience laughing)
And we were trying to
get our mom's attention,
so I kicked the seat,
where she's in front of me,
and she's like,
"Hey, don't kick my seat."
Because I'm a good son, I stopped.
But we needed to get
out of this predicament,
so my brother fearlessly
kicked my mom in the face,
(audience laughing)
to get her attention.
You know, a valuable lesson
was learned that day.
(audience laughing)
My mom never rolled up
the windows again.
She knows better now.
So, I'm gonna sign,
let's do this.
So both my parents are deaf,
which means growing up, I cried a lot.
(audience laughing)
It takes some time for some of you.
(audience laughing)
It's okay, you can laugh at that,
my parents won't hear.
They won't, they won't.
My mom's favorite movie bothers me.
It shouldn't but it does,
because it doesn't make any sense.
Her favorite movie's
"The Sound of Music."
(audience laughing)
Like, the title is teasing her.
That's not right.
(audience laughing)
You all thought the talk was awkward
with your parents.
(audience laughing)
(audience cheering)
A few words
made you guys uncomfortable?
Yeah, mine use hand gestures, okay?
(audience laughing)
My parents are serious about prayer,
so at Thanksgiving,
we were sitting around the table,
and my dad volunteers
to say the prayer,
so we have to close our eyes.
(audience laughing)
And we play telephone
Helen Keller-style.
(audience laughing)
And we're passing the prayer around
like a bowl of mashed potatoes.
(audience laughing)
I'm next to my dad,
so when I get to amen,
I open up my eyes,
all the food is gone.
I was like, "Okay.
(audience laughing)
"There has got to be a better way."
(audience laughing)
My favorite is,
I usually close my show
with these jokes,
and one time a lady was like,
"Hey, my sister's deaf.
"Those jokes were offensive."
And I was like,
"Well, the jokes weren't
"about your sister.
"So unless Jeanine knows
"Mark and Kathy,
"I don't see why you find
"any of this offensive."
And I was like,
"If anything, I'm being inclusive.
"I'm signing,
"I'm letting them in on the joke.
"I'm so great."
(audience laughing)
And also, my parents love these jokes.
I told them these over dinner
at a restaurant one time.
My mom still doesn't understand
why "The Sound of Music"
one is funny.
(audience laughing)
She doesn't.
But my dad was laughing so hard,
it was like, "Dad, you're being too loud,
"you need to be more quiet."
I didn't say it like that, I was like,
"Dad, you need to be more quiet!"
Thank you guys!