I did a show recently on short notice. Usually, when you promote a show, or someone else is pumping up your short and miserable resume, they ask for some things. Here’s how that breaks down –
Head shot. I hate smiling for photos…or in general. Maybe it’s my crooked tooth, but probably it’s my dark, dark soul. I got my head shots the morning after a show w/ no hotel room. The headliner got into a fight onstage with a drunk, the pay took forever and on the way home a train broke down. My head shot is one of five salvaged pics from the 100 she took that don’t show the bags from four hours’ sleep.
Bio. Every comic has to flop their head into their own lap and write a bio. It stinks and you feel dirty afterwards putting such a self serving description on paper in third person. “Chris loves to make people laugh!” See? I feel like a douche, and that was me joking around about writing a bio.
Then you get the weird stuff. The booker the other night asked me to describe my act in one sentence. My DVD is called American Drunk…how about that? “No, more descriptive!” We went back and forth, he asked me what jokes I told, where I was from and then he said something and the call dropped. By the time I got back to him, I was known as Chris Coen, the Appalachian Sensation. Motherfucker. Someday I won’t have to put up with this shit.