Derek Graff

Stand Up Comedian. Engineer. Aggressively Midwestern. Good with adults. Show dates: Merch:

[Derek Graff @derekwgraff]

Rule #1:
Don't talk to me before I've had my coffee.
Rule #2:
Don't talk to me after I've had my coffee.

[Derek Graff @derekwgraff]

BEST HOME RUN DERBY EVER!!!! Jordan Walker!!!! What a story, what a performance!

[Derek Graff @derekwgraff]

Conor McGregor is now just a 37 year old who hurt himself trying to jump, and I hate how relatable that makes him.

[Derek Graff @derekwgraff]

If you know a good frame guy, let me know

[Derek Graff @derekwgraff]

Go to The Kerryman when you get back to Chicago to watch the semis/finals. Up The Kingdom!

[whitesoxdave @barstoolWSD]

Just saw Mayo beat the shit out of Cork. This sport is 100x better than soccer

[Derek Graff @derekwgraff]

I feel so sorry for all the conflicted fans this year that will want to support their schools while also wanting to boycott the tournament to send a message to the league.

[Missouri Valley Conference @MVCsports]

One Week.
One City.
One Championship Celebration.

Arch Madness is growing in 2027! 🏀

Read More: https://t.co/NtRyeCn1EL

#ArchMadness // #ItBeginsHere

[Derek Graff @derekwgraff]

@TomFornelli Just here cause I’m a fellow Illinois fan with a Richmond Flying Squirrels hat.

[Patrick #bIm @patrickdiomedes]

Oh look an excuse to post the greatest scene ever

[NyanChuu🔮🇯🇵🍭 @tanpukunokami]

USA. A BBQ restaurant. The ribs had not yet been defeated, and the white cup was already watching me.

Coleslaw. Cold. Quiet. Suspiciously calm.

I stopped my friend. “Why is there a small bowl of snow next to the meat?”

He laughed. “That’s coleslaw, man.”

Coleslaw. In my land, cabbage knows its role. It stays with tonkatsu. It supports fried food with quiet dignity. It does not sit next to a mountain of ribs like a tiny cold monk trying to stop a war.

Here, America placed cabbage beside smoke, sugar, sauce, and meat.

This is not a side dish. This is a peacekeeping force.

I ate the ribs with the gravity the moment deserved. My fingers became evidence. My mouth became a battlefield. The sauce had entered negotiations without permission.

And then — I must report this calmly — I ate the coleslaw.

Cold.

Crunchy.

Calm.

For three seconds, the war stopped.

“See?” my friend said. “It balances it out.”

Balances it out. The ribs were attacking from the front, the sauce was climbing my hands, and this little white cup was holding the line.

My friend warned me. “Don’t ignore the slaw.”

Too late. I had already judged it as decoration. Honor demanded an apology. A man who underestimates cabbage has already lost once.

By the time the plate was empty, I understood.

I was not clean. I was not elegant. But I had survived.

BBQ is not just meat. BBQ is conflict management.

I know the rule now. I have made my peace with coleslaw. When the ribs shout, the cabbage listens.

Who am I deceiving. I came for the meat, but I still remember the little cold monk.

[NOBUNAGA🇯🇵🏯_夏樹蒼依 @japan_nobunaga]

USA. A breakfast counter. The waitress recommended the biscuits and gravy, and when the plate arrived, I thought something had gone wrong in the kitchen.

I say this with shame. The dish looked like a construction site after rain. Pale mounds. Gray ladle-fall. Speckles I could not identify.

In my land, the eye eats first. A meal is arranged like a garden. This meal was arranged like weather.

"Is it… finished?" I asked, carefully.

"Honey, that's what it looks like."

The man beside me was already eating his. He did not look up. "Just try it."

I am a man who has charged hillsides at dawn. I raised the fork. I tried it.

I must now formally apologize to the biscuits, the gravy, the waitress, the kitchen, and the entire breakfast tradition of the American South.

It was magnificent. Warm. Peppered. The biscuit drank the gravy the way a field drinks rain — THAT is why it is shaped like that, you fool — and every mound I had insulted was a soft fold of comfort that my homeland, in eight hundred years, never once thought to invent.

"Well?" the waitress asked.

"I judged it," I confessed. "By its appearance. I am ashamed."

"Everybody does, hon."

Everybody does. A national dish that forgives you for doubting it. It expects the doubt. It waits for you on the other side of it.

Do not judge the gravy by its face. Judge yourself, for hesitating.

I order it every Saturday now. I no longer see the construction site. I see only the garden.

It was a garden the whole time. The eye must be trained.

[Derek Graff @derekwgraff]

🤣🤣🤣

[ᗩᑎT ᗯᖇIGᕼT @itsAntWright]

It’d be 5v4 but cmon

[Henry Winkler @hwinkler4real]

Hunger

[Derek Graff @derekwgraff]

Being both a Cardinals and White Sox fan, this season has been truly unbelievable so far.

[Derek Graff @derekwgraff]

Double duty right now @whitesox @UIC_Baseball

[J-Hood @xjhoodespn]

.@UIC_Baseball Couldn’t be happier for the Flames! They are bringing home a @MVCsports Tournament championship to Chicago! We are dancing to the tournament! #fireupflames

[Derek Graff @derekwgraff]

I love loving this team again!

[Mike @ChiSoxFanMike]

EDGAR QUERO WALK-OFF HOME RUN

WHITE SOX WIN. UNBELIEVABLE.

[MLB @MLB]

“Thanks for everything” 🥹

Throwback to when Lars Nootbaar’s mom surprised him on #MothersDay ❤️

[Mike Beauvais @MikeBeauvais]

Powerful stuff here and a reminder to never give up.

After nearly 50 years in comedy, Bill Maher got his first laugh.

[Derek Graff @derekwgraff]

Kerry advance to the Munster championship final!

[Derek Graff @derekwgraff]

Nothing like trying to put on a suit you haven’t worn in 6 months to really make you hate yourself.

[Derek Graff @derekwgraff]

My wife’s family is from RURAL Ireland.