As some of you know and many of you don’t care, there will be a roast of Devin Monaghan (!) Monday, December 17th, 2012 at the Red Room. First let me say that the Red Room is my favorite place to perform comedy in Portland, and I’m thrilled they’re hosting a roast for me.
But why roast me? We all know there’s limitless material on how deplorable I am, but why bother? What have I done to deserve such special attention? Well, in this case, it’s not what I’ve done as much as what I’m doing.
In January, I’ll be moving to Vietnam to teach English. You’re welcome.
This may shock some, but remember that it’s always been my dream to talk for a living. Indeed, the Vietnamese are desperate for native English speakers to teach how to speak English without an accent, and somehow Americans qualify as native English speakers. I’ll be teaching advanced students only, so I won’t need to know any Vietnamese in order to convert them away from their heathen gibberish.
Before I continue, I’d like to urge all my atheist friends to convert to Christianity. No? That didn’t work? Well God, I tried.
A little education is in order. Vietnam is considered part of the “developing world” because unlike the US, Vietnam is still developing. I’ll live in Saigon, a city of nine million people and the commercial capital of Vietnam, where so many parents want their children to learn English that language schools of every repute dot the city, many of which will accept walk-in native English speakers to teach. Enter the Devin. Further, the pay for such jobs combined with the low cost of living means that this move will be financially sustainable, unlike my medium-term future here in the US.
But I’m as much moving to Vietnam as I am leaving America. The question isn’t why should I leave, but why would I stay? I’m a community college dropout trying to make it as a stand-up comedian. What odds would you give me? One-out-of-never? Plus, if I got a “real” job here, I’d be taking it away from someone who needs it more than me, and I’d still be making less money than I would in Vietnam. I could go back to school, but I loathe college, and completing my degree would just give me a diploma to stare at while I’m unemployed or underpaid.
And let’s face it, a college degree won’t fix what’s wrong with me. I have room to grow, and that won’t come in a classroom. Living abroad in a developing country will push me past my limited experiences, and might even cure some of my pompous narcism. At the very least, I’ll stop taking what I have for granted once I see so many who have so little.
So there it is: I’m getting roasted because I’m leaving, and many fine comics want to get their shots in before I’m out of range. I know many of you will miss me, but worry not! Thanks to Facebook, most of you reading this will hardly notice my absence, since our relationship won’t change in the slightest.
I’m not sure how long this adventure will last, but rest assured I won’t be able to stay away from stand-up comedy forever. And when I come back, I’ll have a treasure trove of material and hopefully an Asian accent: simply put, I’ll be unstoppable, like Shaq if he could shoot three pointers and free throws.
Besides my family, I’ll miss stand-up comedy the most. When I started performing in earnest, I was angry and scared. I took the stage barely three months after my Mom transitioned to whatever’s next. Ever since then, stand-up comedy has transformed me in ways that I couldn’t predict and still have trouble understanding. Besides changing the way I write, comedy has blessed me with a formula to turn piss into wine. When something bad happens to me, I’m giddy with excitement to make others laugh about it. Comedy didn’t save my life, it just gave me direction.
I’ll miss Portland Comedy more than Portland Comedy will miss me, and it frustrates me that I’m leaving just when I feel our scene capitalizing on incredible momentum. I look forward to not recognizing Portland Comedy when I return, and I doubly look forward to Portland Comedy not recognizing me upon my return.
That’s why it is an undue privilege for me to be sent out by the jokes of other comedians. I hope everyone reading this can make it to my roast, and those who show up will be remembered and held in my heart forever.
In closing, I love you all so much, and you each have more potential than you can possibly understand. Now please send me your money.
