Author: Chris

Well, your taxes are due.  I LOVE big, overreaching, distant government so much, I made a special trip to D.C. a few years back and just had to see where the magic happens.

When you pay your taxes this year, keep in mind there was no income tax in this country until the early 20th century (making up for lost time, eh Uncle Sam?).  Oh, and you pay sales tax, property tax and after all the taxes, when you die, they nail your ass again, even though you’ve already paid taxes on all that.  Screw you, loved ones!  The government needs this more!

Lest we forget, the government does have needs for revenue – provide for the common defense, basic operational costs…oh and the following; just in case you aren’t annoyed enough.

In 2015, the feds gave $249,000 to UK to find out if cocaine changes monkey behavior.  (Yes!)  In 2011, a small gas station in Afghanistan added the option to fuel natural gas – which levied the total bill to over $42 million.  Keep in mind no one can afford a natural gas vehicle there, but hey, giving back, right?  Add $856,000 to see if mountain lions can run on treadmills (yes, they can).  $48,500 to write about Russian cigarette smokers.  My favorite, $3.1 billion for federal workers’ vacation pay – when they are on administrative leave (for things like getting hookers and one gentleman who was caught pleasing himself in view of other employees).

There’s a lot more – but that should do you just fine.  Don’t worry, Congress is on it.  The same Congress that is on a different healthcare system than everyone else, retire with millions more than they went in with and is mulling over VAT taxes, carbon taxes and consumption taxes.  Remember when we started a war over taxes on tea and the Stamp Act?  Well of course you don’t, that was a really long time ago, but you get the point.

Well, it’s time to just come out with it.  I’ll explain.  I found three white hairs in my eyebrows this week, plus another one curling straight up like a movie villain.  I can’t read without contacts or glasses – menus, my phone, any printed words.  I found a white nose hair that nearly did me in.  I can crack every single joint in my body – jaw, neck, wrist, hips…I cracked my knee today tying my shoe.  I pulled a muscle in my foot without even picking it up off the ground.

What does all this mean?  It means I’ve actually been dead for at least four years, kept alive by a voodoo shaman or thanks to all the shitty food I eat loaded with salt and preservatives, plus all the copious amounts of booze, which has kept my lifeless corpse from rotting away completely.  I was going to try and get back into shape, but either way, whether the black magic of a necromage or liquor saturation, there’s literally nothing I can do.  Guess I’ll just keep drinking and hope for the best.  (From the back of the room) “Hey, wait until you hit your forties!”  OH GOD IT GETS WORSE?!  THROW HOLY WATER ON ME UNTIL I BURN AWAY!

My pal Travis Hoewischer asked me to do one of his “comedy pop-up” shows.  Short set, but then roast a complete stranger at his own birthday party.  Of course, I said yes.  Was it glamorous?  No.  Was it fun, ridiculing a person for no reason?  Yes.

It was a complete surprise, we walked around the side of a house, Travis grabbed a mike and away we went.  Not your standard show.  A dog came on stage, a girl walked right past me to grab a Root Beer, and one comic was told not to smoke near the fence, there were fireworks set out close by.  Well, not how I planned on dying, but I am from Southeastern Ohio.

The crowd was a mix of drunks, rowdies and even included some teenage girls, so I’m sure they are scarred for life.  Of course, the roast at the end was the best part, as we told his loved ones all the secrets his wife had leaked to us beforehand.  After congratulating him on having all his teeth at 40, I then told him what a disaster and burden he was for all his work accidents and relayed to the crowd the difference between a redneck and white trash (he was the latter).  The best and oddest part?  After being destroyed in front of all his friends, he thanked us about nine times for a great time.  I am not going to count on this as a staple of comedy, but it worked for Don Rickles (RIP).  Of course he was in Vegas and I was in a backyard in Galloway.  Pretty much the same.

Over the time I’ve been doing comedy, I’ve stayed in quite a few hotels.  There were a few that were nice, most OK and a few that reminded me of the meth hotel from Breaking Bad.  The hotel is usually the last thing negotiated and usually, the venue works out a deal with a local place dying for business so they get a good rate.  In other words, mostly shitholes.

I stayed in a place built in the 1700’s, when everyone was apparently 5′ and 105 lbs.  I had to drop a deuce and the sink was so close to the toilet, I had to turn sideways and put my left arm on the sink to fit.  If I weighed ten more pounds, I’d still be there, stuck.

Once the venue forgot to book a room and I had to share a bed with another comic.  I built a pillow fort in the middle of the bed and stayed awake until 3 am staring at the ceiling, thinking I should have learned to juggle or mime instead of telling jokes.

Another time I stayed in a room where there were still makeup stains on the pillowcase from the previous guest, or the previous guest’s prostitute, who knows?  I complained and the not American hotel owner yelled at me for complaining.  I shoved the soiled linens in his face and screamed back, “Does that look clean?”  He gave me a “clean” pillowcase like I took his last beer from the fridge.  I slept on top of the blankets with the heat cranked to 78 degrees to avoid whatever biohazard festered beneath me.

I once had a room so small I could lie in bed and touch both walls at the same time.  I’ve seen prison cells with more room.  At least I couldn’t fall out of bed!

The all time worst though was a bed and breakfast.  I didn’t realize that meant a person’s house.  I walked in and the father wasn’t expecting anyone.  He went around the corner and yelled at the mom that no one let him know and now they couldn’t go to dinner with the kids.  I stood in silence for ten minutes as they argued and then was shown to the room.  Surprise! their five year son was hiding in the room.  He busted out right when I sat on the bed.  I then realized the bathroom was down the hall next to their room, so I had to take my entire suitcase with me to shower.  I checked my email and they switched hotels without telling me until about an hour before I got there.  I pulled out and they almost backed into me because they were in such a hurry.  I cut my car too soon and wiped out half a pine tree, but I just gunned it while the rage dad stared holes into my soul.

There’s a weird societal experiment we call social media that’s been going on for a while now.  When the internet first got rolling, it was a slow, lumbering sideshow.  You used to get booted off when your buddy’s little brother picked up the phone.  The first thing I remember was a text based game me and my high school buddies played where you went from planet to planet (via text) to mine ore and get stronger defenses from rivals.  Of course, there was some dick that had played so long every four days he would find you on planet 932 (planets were all 0-999) and wipe out every living thing.  There were trolls in 1995, everyone, before you could even order stuff online.

Of course, it’s much better now right?  Sort of.  Facebook has become one of the most steadfast foundations in people’s lives over the last decade – it’s where people share photos, get in touch with long, lost friends and family and make ALL NEW friends…who you will likely soon be annoyed by!  Here’s how to get unfriended on Facebook, and possibly in the real life too!

– Mash your politics in everyone’s face.  We all have different life experiences, right?  NOPE I GOT THIS ALL FIGURED OUT AND YOU’RE GOING TO HEAR ABOUT IT, PERSON I WENT TO HIGH SCHOOL WITH FOR TWO YEARS.  I’M A GENIUS ON ECONOMICS EVEN THOUGH I DON’T HAVE $100 IN ALL MY ACCOUNTS COMBINED.  Seriously, though.  If you post seven political posts a day, start a website.

– Chain letter posts.  If I see the ol’ “if you don’t share this post, _________ will die or you hate America or Santa won’t give any homeless orphans presents” you’re off the list.  Share a donation page or list an actual charity – no one is being saved by your chain letter post.

– Be racist.  Gone.  I actually unfriended the same person twice for this (thankfully the only one).  I remember seeing them in my friend request list, clicked accept, saw one post and thought, “Oh, yes, that’s why I deleted them years ago.  Thanks for the reminder.”

– Lastly, people that just in general are sticks in the mud.  I had one person recently that was constantly overusing big words to sound smart and complaining about the “system” and how unfair everyone was.  I saw a post where this person said, “People will probably unfriend me for speaking the truth!”  Well, they were half right.  If you exhaust me, I’ll waste my time reading something more useful, like bathroom limericks.

One question I get rather frequently from people that find out I do comedy is “Do you make fun of the crowd?”  About 5% of comics do, I don’t, unless they’re in the next category.  Hecklers.  It doesn’t happen often, but it’s interesting when it does.  Here’s the worst/best of that crew.

I did a show the first year I was in comedy at a punk rock bar that was dirtier than a pig’s ass.  We were opening for the Murder Junkies, a famous punk band (you’ve never heard of them, probably, thus the punk status) who were, surprise!  very late.  I walked “onstage” (where the mike was, floor level) and before I said a word a punk rock girl yelled “YOU SUCK!”  I looked up and saw she had, not one, but two bright green mohawks.  I said, “Oh, let me guess.  You hate your mom or your mom hates you.  With that hair, it’s probably your mom that hates you.”  She left.  Everyone hated me.  I learned lesson one about hecklers – make sure you ignore them first because until the crowd really knows it’s their fault the show is running off rails, you have a mic so you’re the jerk.  I still regret nothing, by the way.

The worst one not coming after me was at a show near Lake Erie.  A VERY drunk man in a Philadelphia Eagles jacket went after the headliner at a three man show I was doing.  The headliner, who was notorious for going short, decided to engage the drunk (see lesson one above!) and the show imploded.  He and the drunk had a verbal wrestling match forever and a day long.  It was awful and he went over his time by 35 minutes.  Of course, as fate would have it, I had a photo shoot for my headshots the next morning at 11 am and on the way home a train broke down and blocked the tracks.  I got home at 4 am, so my head shots were awful – I was able to salvage three from over 100.  THANKS DRUNK GUY AND STUPID HEADLINER THAT DOESN’T KNOW DRUNKS ARE IMPERVIOUS TO LOGIC AND INSULTS.

The last one was the worst of all.  I did a show at a bar in Morgantown, West Virginia on a Thursday.  The show was supposed to start at 9, a few WVU students were doing five minutes each, then I closed for 45 and went home.  I had a new real job and no vacation days, so that meant I had to drive four hours to the show, perform, drive four more hours home, get up on short rest and work until 5 pm.  I got there and the show was not ready.  The owner was nowhere to be found and it actually started at 10:45.  Bad start.  The emcee was one of those assclowns that did five or more minutes between everyone and was terrible, plus not a few, but rather nine students showed up to time.  A drunk girl was shouting insults at every comic there, calling them dumb, unfunny, terrible, etc.  I pulled the emcee aside and told him to cut out the five minutes between everyone and told a few of the comics to shut that harpy up.  He didn’t quit doing time and no one took her on.  Then it got weird.

The drunk girl was…on the show.  She was performing, last of course, right before me.  She mentioned she was a theater major that was doing it for the “experience”, then ripped the crowd for not being as cool as her.  Never mind she should have respect for other performers and the crowd with her background.  She was so bad, she walked 40% of the crowd in five minutes (there were almost 50 people at one point).  I hit the stage, very, very. very testy at 12:15 am.  I was throwing down material like I was throwing punches.  About four jokes in, she came after me.  I didn’t have to wait as the whole room hated her and not one comic had the balls to spar with her.  “What’s your name?”  “Stephanie.”  “Well Stephanie, you may have had your way with these pussies, but I’m no open miker and this shit show started almost 2 hours late.  I have to drive four hours to get home so if you think I’m going to put up with any lip from you, you’re wrong.”  “What are you going to do?”  I remember her mouth being open and wet, her half opened eyes staring at me with disrespect and obliviousness to anyone else’s feelings in the whole world.  “You are so awful and unlikeable you walked almost half the room and this has been a horrible excuse for comedy tonight.  Johnny Headliner over there wouldn’t get off the stage, no one has any balls and you’re completely unaware of how much everyone on Earth hates you.”  I said more, mostly suggestions about suicide, but you get the point.

The crowd was silent and she ran outside.  “Anyone else have anything to say, or are we ready for jokes?”  A few claps, not many.  I did a few more jokes and the show began to creep to acceptable.  I closed it out and went to the bar.  “I need paid, NOW.”  Stephanie approached me.  “I’m really sorry.”  “No you’re not.”  “I just thought I was helping.”  “You viciously attacked your fellow performers.  You ruined the show and everyone’s good time.  You’re not sorry, you’re an idiot or an asshole or both.  You’re too far gone to be sorry.”  “How can make it up to everyone?  Will you accept my apology?”  “Nope, I’ll never see you again and shove your apology.”  I grabbed my money and drove home.  I was so exhausted I had to pull over and sleep an hour on my parents’ couch before I could even make it back, then home to let my dog out and shower, then a full shift.  I did all this for I think $100.  When I got home, I slept from 6 pm to 3 am and my weekend was ruined.  Long story short, I hope hecklers take a long walk off a short pier!*

*Burst into flames.