My Life. My Blog.

The only thing more shocking than the truth
are the lies people tell to cover it up.

I am a strong believer in owning and embracing everything that has happened to you. Your experiences are your own, and you should be able to mold them into stories that belong to you. I think there is real strength in owning something horrible that has happened, in going from hiding a shameful secret to being able to say, “This is my truth. I got through it, and I’m okay.” I don’t think I’m quite there yet in terms of declaration, but at the end of the day, you are allowed to own the hurt you’ve experienced. You’re allowed to take back what you feel like people have taken away from you. I’ve decided I will not let this ruin me.

If that resonates, check out my blog, where I rant about whatever pops into my head—from TV shows to deep thoughts, personal stories (which may not be as funny as when I tell them, but still a good read), my art, and my memoir Stripped, a wild ride through a year and a half of my life.

Welcome to my page… The Straight T!

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In his debut full-length memoir, Stripped, Erik Mario Austin unravels his chaotic return to Los Angeles, where what begins as a simple swipe on a dating app in search of love, sex, and connection spirals into a nightmare he never saw coming. Labeled an addict on the run from rehab after a staged intervention, Erik’s life rapidly collapses as rumors spread, loyalties fracture, and those who claim to be helping push him closer to destruction.

A raw, twisting memoir that reads like fiction, Stripped chronicles Erik’s dramatic fall into homelessness as he spirals through some of Los Angeles’s most dangerous neighborhoods. Pulled into a modern-day Dickensian underworld, he becomes ensnared in a ruthless network of homeless con artists who survive by seducing, stealing, and scheming beneath the city’s glittering façade. In their desperate hunt for drugs and shelter, they prey on the wealthy and surrender their stolen rewards to a manipulative kingpin, a twisted modern-day Fagin who keeps them loyal with just enough to survive. Forced deep into the city’s underbelly, Erik learns that trust is a currency no one can afford and that every choice comes with a price that may not be paid in money.

Told with the urgency of a psychological thriller and the intimacy of a whispered confession, Stripped is part porn, part dark comedy and entirely unflinching. With sharp humor, fearless honesty, and theatrical flair, Austin tears the mask off society’s prettiest lies and exposes what happens when survival becomes the only script left to follow. At its core, Stripped is a raw and revealing story of queer identity, addiction, betrayal, and the art of surviving your own destruction—when life goes off-script and you’re forced to improvise.

Sometimes, survival is the greatest performance of all.

Reschedule

I need to reschedule my psychiatrist appointment because I specifically wanted to do it in person and I’m still in SLO. The funny thing is I’m not even sure how much I care about the appointment anymore. Part of the reason I wanted it was because I felt this need to prove everybody wrong about the bipolar diagnosis, like I was preparing for a courtroom drama where I would dramatically slam a folder onto a desk and yell, “EXHIBIT A!” But at this point, who cares? Maybe I go, m

38 minutes ago

Kitty

I had one of those strange little full circle theater moments at Matilda. An actress named Kitty Balay from PCPA came up to me and asked, “Are you Erik Austin?” I said yes while my brain immediately started searching its filing cabinets trying to figure out what was happening. The funny part is that I actually took classes from Kitty when I was in high school, which was approximately a zillion years ago, so the idea that she would recognize me now was definitely not on my bin

1 day ago

Ouch

My stomach has been absolutely killing me, and I’m pretty sure stress has officially moved in, unpacked its bags and changed its mailing address to somewhere directly below my rib cage. It needs to stop. Most of it is still coming from all the financial stuff surrounding Oliver! and trying to figure out money while also navigating friendships, which is a combination I highly recommend to absolutely no one. Then throw the whole SeaWorld situation on top of it and apparently my

2 days ago

Mikado

My solution to recovering from producing Oliver! is apparently to immediately start designing another enormous show. Welcome to The Mikado. Today my world became cherry blossoms, giant fans, rock walls, bridges, platforms, fountains and a twelve foot red gate. There is also a fifty foot wide scenic border because apparently subtlety has left the building. I have spent an alarming amount of time thinking about the proper proportions of decorative fans, which is a sentence I ne

3 days ago

Matilda

Today I jumped in the car at 7:00 in the morning and drove five hours to SLO to see some friends in Matilda, because apparently that seemed like a perfectly reasonable Sunday morning activity. My friend Jon was playing Miss Trunchbull, and Sherry could not understand why Trunchbull was being played by a man. I knew it was a tradition with the show, but then she kept asking why, and suddenly I realized I didn’t actually know why. So of course I had to look it up and explain th

5 days ago

Casino

Well, I couldn’t stand it. I went back to the casino. Remember that lovely little story where I went, won big, came home happy and said the smartest thing I could possibly do was NOT go back and lose it all? Apparently I don’t take advice from myself. I went back and managed to lose almost all of my winnings. Almost. At least I bought myself a few gifts before I decided to personally return my winnings to the casino. I guess technically it was free money anyway, so I’m not re

6 days ago

Angelfish

We interrupt the theater portion of this blog for Murder, She Wrote: Aquarium Edition. I recently bought some new fish from Petco and put them into my 40 gallon freshwater tank. Then the new fish died. Not good. Then one of my old fish died. Really not good. Suddenly I am standing in front of the aquarium staring at the survivors like Jessica Fletcher arriving at a suspiciously crowded dinner party. Was it the water? Ammonia? Disease? Stress? Did the new fish bring something

7 days ago

Why?

Just when Oliver! finances weren’t providing enough drama, SeaWorld said, “Hold my Shamu.” I had already heard from several employees that I wasn’t being brought back, which would have been interesting information to receive from, oh I don’t know, SeaWorld. Eventually the form letter arrived and I decided I wanted an actual answer. I showed up, never called out, worked beyond my job description, painted, built, worked in the heat, helped reinvent the Bayou maze and eventually

Aug 6

$

Still doing Oliver! numbers. I have now stared at spreadsheets for so long that I am starting to believe Excel is a personality disorder. The bigger conversation is how you divide the profits between three people when three people didn’t necessarily do the same amount of work. Nobody wants money to become an issue between friends, especially after we just accomplished something pretty extraordinary together, but I also don’t want to minimize how much of myself I poured into t

Aug 5

Accounting

Apparently producing a musical doesn’t end when the curtain comes down. It ends when every receipt, reimbursement, royalty, theater charge, deposit, ticket fee. So today I continued my exciting new career as an accountant. The deeper I get into it, the more I realize how much of my old Kelrik life went into making this new company and this production happen. The relationships, costumes, scenery, trades, people, discounts, experience and twenty years of knowing who to call wh

Aug 4

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