Author: Chris

Look, you can get one sided facts or insights from any ol’ site about this election, but the real hard hitting stuff can only be found right here. On a comedy site that absolutely promises zero research or provable data. Enjoy. BTW this is all based off impulse and I put about five seconds of thought into it, so calm down and don’t send me hate mail.

Favorite music? I have no idea, so let’s go with impressions. Trump looks like the type that literally listens to zero music. Like a guy who drives from New Jersey to Maine with the radio off. He will say “I really love music.” “What is your favorite song?” “All of them.” Biden however does listen to music – something like Big Band era, but if you ask him he will lie and try to be cool, but miss terribly. “I love the Master PeePee song. And Vanilli Milli. Those girls are great. (Assistant whispers in his ear) Oh and MAP. That’s all I listen to these days.”

Favorite food? Obviously Trump likes Big Macs, which is mind blowing that someone with his money eats like a 13 year old boy going through puberty. Biden actually has false teeth so he probably just chugs protein shakes or Metamucil or something that gives him terrible gas.

Favorite color? Trump likes navy blue and literally zero other colors, but he will tolerate red. Hates every other color, thinks they are dumb. Biden is color blind, but acts like he isn’t and his wife is constantly stopping him from walking out of the house with mismatched clothes.

Favorite movie? Trump for sure likes Patton, but only the part where he slaps the shell shocked solider. He’s never watched the whole movie. Biden likes Porky’s, but will only say some Oscar winning movie from a super long time ago like Terms of Endearment, even though he’s never seen it, because he’s only watched Porky’s in the last four decades (although he’s seen Porky’s at least 56 times).

Favorite ice cream? Trump will literally eat ice cream for breakfast and probably loves something weird like plain vanilla or pistachio. Biden ate so much ice cream he’s now lactose intolerant and has to eat that weird almost ice cream stuff that you swear you’re going to eat to lose weight, but you throw it out because it’s just not the same.

Hobbies? Trump has golf, but only to make deals. He hates all hobbies because they waste his time. Biden has no hobbies because he seems like the type that tells stories all the time if someone is within 25 yards of him. If he’s alone, he’s absolutely calling someone and doing 84% of the the talking.

Boxers or briefs? Trump 1000% tighty whiteys. Biden 2000% boxers with the Rolling Stones lips on them.

There you go, the most important political analysis you will get all day.

Finally, the darkest hour of the pandemic hath arrived. I had to talk to TWO neighbors IN THE SAME WEEK. TWO! God give me strength.

To give you a background, I have not necessarily had the best neighbor history around. I had a sex offender and a drug dealer (two neighbors, not the same person) once at an old place and yet the sex offender managed to call the cops on me playing poker at 8:30 on a Friday. That neighbor was jobless, by the way. Once they got into it and the creep chased the dealer with a bat and I’ve never rooted so hard for two people to take each other out. It would be like watching Thanos fight Skip Bayless.

I have had pretty good luck here – my one neighbor is pretty cool and likes good bourbon (yay!) and Spanish rap (not yay!) and we get along. My other neighbor is an 88 year old lady that mows her own grass and pushes her trash out. I like her because she refuses to let anyone help her and when we took her cookies, she brought me back coffee cake and I could eat coffee cake with toenail clippings in it. Coffee cake is the best.

All that said, my first reaction when one of my neighbors tries to speak to me is to scream and throw holy water on them. About once a year, like a reverse purge, I try to be nice. I waved at the immigrant family across the street about six times when we moved in and they just stared me down. My brother in law visited once and the grandma talked to him for ten minutes. I just have that “don’t make eye contact with this psycho” look and I am completely fine with that.

My wife texted me “Call the neighbor quick, she tried me twice in a row.” She’s almost 90, so I’m thinking the worst. I called and she had an excruciating conversation with me about whether the trash was picked up that probably lasted three minutes, but should have lasted 14 seconds. Two days later, another neighbor, who has talked to me once about keeping my pit bull out of her yard, was waving me down with a flashlight. 1) I have no pit bull. 2) I have a fence that no dog on earth can jump over. This time, yard lady was yelling “What was that horrible screaming?” I was thinking “Probably you talking to yourself?” I then had to spend precious time out of my day telling her that cats fight. She’s at least 60 and I had to go in to onerous detail and then she was grilling me on if it was my cat. I almost wanted to tell her, “RUN FOR YOUR LIFE, THEY’RE COMING! OH GOD!” then drag myself in the house dramatically, but she probably would have started a whole new inquiry. Now I know why Daniel Boone once said, “If I can see chimney smoke, it’s time to move.”

BOY PEOPLE ARE KINDA MEAN TO EACH OTHER, strangely, every four years more than normal.

Hitler will be referenced more in the six months leading up to an election than in a History Channel week of World War II shows.

People really do believe sexual assault accusers…for the person they don’t want to vote for.

Holy hell, the conventions are overrated. I think they should cancel 90% of the speeches and let some NPR type voice read the actual platforms/agendas so people actually heard what the party leadership believes in.

I think debates should be Lincoln/Douglas style debates – long form and cover five topics a debate in depth versus five minutes back and forths where they just insult each other for 2/3 the time allotted. OK, maybe not in 2020, but every election afterwards.

The Democrats nomination process this past year. “OK, we hate Trump with every fiber of our soul. He’s a walking gaffe machine, an old white guy who represents the status quo with questionable statements in his past. Now, let’s go out an nominate the closest person to him that exists in our party.”

The RNC will feature Trump speaking every night because he’s more camera friendly than Mitch McConnell. I do hope the My Pillow guy speaks though, because I bet his story about hitting rock bottom on crack is something I would watch on Netflix.

I would vote for anyone that outlaws mosquitoes. Can we target mosquitoes with nukes? I mean, they’re just sitting around doing nothing right now. Maybe I shouldn’t be president, sure, but think outside the box, people.

Lastly, I hate to tell people, you’re not changing many minds at this point other than getting people to vote or not vote. Unless Biden or Trump is flinging their own poop at people while they are pushing buttons in the booth, most people aren’t changing. A lot, however, are going to stay home with the pandemic.

Since comedy is done, possibly for a long time like forever, I am turning this into an expose. Like a political opportunist, this is my big book deal now that I’m out of the game forever or another week or whenever.

Here’s the secret, a lot of things suck doing entertainment, stand-up in particular. I will focus on one that I was reminded of recently. When you do stand-up, you are typically being paid a fee for the length of your set and your level – aka emcee, feature or headliner. It’s usually not an insane amount of money, so you learn early that a way to supplement your income is to sell merchandise. It’s my least favorite part of comedy. “Hey, was I funny? Hope so, cause now I’m awkwardly starting at you by the exit as you walk out!”

Not only is it already humiliating, the interactions range from uncomfortable eye contact followed by a head nod, straight up being ignored or people that treat you like a yard sale and want to haggle over the 1-3 items you sell. One of my last shows before the great unfunnying known as COVID-19, a couple approached me. “How much is your book?” “$15.” They drew back like vampires exposed to a cross. “How much are the coozies?” “$5.” Again, this time with garlic and sunlight. The lady in the group asked to see my book. Keep in mind, I had just done 45 minutes of stand-up. “Tell ya what, I’ll do both for $15.” She stepped back, whispered with her male companion for about 20 seconds, then melted away into the background without a word.

Let’s break this down. I wrote the book over the course of six or seven years, it’s well over 100 pages and I just did a 45 minute interview for you. Should I have sold it for $2? Made an audio version? I’m already offering it a such a small profit, it is barely worth lugging up the stairs, but apparently not good enough. Do you own any other books that the author did an in depth tap dance for you beforehand or do you just steal them from the library?

As annoying as that was, the more serious offender after a show is the person who doesn’t buy, yet wants to talk after the show while you’re trying to sell. It’s also never good conversation. I headlined a loaded room and this drunk idiot made a beeline for me. Shirt? Book? Coozie? No, just a 27 minute “conversation” where he told me he loved the Trailer Park Boys. How many times he had seen them, where, when…nothing at all other than that. I dropped body language tips for naught, even at one point stepping around him and moving my table. He didn’t stop. I sold almost nothing to a room of 200 people because somebody decided since I did stand-up, I needed to hear about some other group or comic was better than me. I’m sure if I had said to go pound sand, social media posts calling me rude would have been all over the place or he would’ve told the venue, but me losing $50-$100? Meh, no worries.

The apex was a run of shows I did in Illinois, Wisconsin and Minnesota. It was a five day run and a ton of windshield time. I woke up on a Thursday in Illinois and realized I was sick. Full blown sore throat, losing voice, sweating and so exhausted I had trouble sitting up. I loaded up on gas station over the counter pills and meds and drove five hours to the next show. I slept until 30 minutes before the show and crashed after in what was the smallest hotel room I have ever seen in real life. I spent the next two days on the road and then performing in a comedy club, sweating out disease and hiding in a downtown hotel where I had to pay $20 to park. Finally, after three days of barely being able to perform (I had throat drops in my mouth while I did a 30 minute set), I felt normal for the last show. The room was sold out and the crowd was hot. I could finally sell some merch and hopefully get the parking fee back and some gas money. A couple approached as soon as the crowds let out. “Can you take a picture?” Grrr. Fine. At least they enjoyed my set and want a picture with me. I stepped towards them. “No, we meant take a picture. Of us.” You mean you walked all the way over here, in front of 200 people, staring at me standing at a table full of terrible shirts and coozies and a forced smile and you thought I was the only person in the whole club to take your picture? While blocking the exit? I took a terrible picture on purpose and by the time all this was done, over 60% of the crowd had left. Literally like $12, gone forever from my life. To not rock the boat, I didn’t say anything, but knowing how my comedy “career” has gone since and realizing I will literally never perform there again in my life, I wish I had lit them on fire and then snapped the picture.

Since I have no comedy in the age of the pandemic, I have decided to turn this into a fitness blog. Please don’t look at any recent pictures of me before reading. I have been doing early morning group workouts when children and my body permit and trying to watch what I eat. Here’s what I have learned.

Any time I hear someone in their 20’s opine about how hard it is to get into shape, I want to set them on fire.

I have been neglecting my abs as much as my liver, which is saying something.

I feel pretty good after I workout. The next morning, however, my hamstrings and groin feel like I did a medieval confession on a rack.

My weight loss has slowed down, so I just assume that means I’ve been adding pure muscle. SHUT UP SCALE, IT’S MUSCLE.

My biggest obstacles to getting into better shape are my complete lack of willpower around baked goods, my children’s sleeping habits that are somewhere between a college student and a rooster, and my old, shitty body.

My biggest advantages to getting back into shape are that I’m not technically dead yet, I actually do enjoy running and lifting and I have a phone app that guilt shames me.

Stay tuned for my new series of workout videos; the first one is my ankles and joints popping and cracking for the first ten minutes I walk around in the morning.

I have been asked this a few times, so here goes with a few reasons.

1. When I first started, I put about 45 minutes of the lowest quality combination in history of jokes and videos. I used to record on a standard camera that had no businesses recording anything with zero ability to change sound or lighting or video quality. Then I would set the camera on a bar table and hope for the best. I then used the unedited clips with the free software to upload to MySpace. I went back in 2011, mortified, and deleted every single one.
2. I tried to record a DVD for over a year on a real camera. Once, a wait staff member bumped my camera and I lost the whole thing. Another time the tripod wasn’t tight and the camera fell backwards and recorded the ceiling. Yet another time, everything was perfect except I bombed horribly. I finally got the set right but I watched it recently and I hate it more than if the camera recorded the ceiling, so I don’t promote it.
3. I was planning on doing a new DVD this year and the pandemic hit, so who knows when I will get to.
4. When I used to put free stuff out there, I got zero money for it and a dozen, “When’s the next clip coming online?” That got old real fast.
5. Rooftop Comedy recorded and posted my winning sets from Go Bananas in Cincinnati. Then Amazon bought the site and took down all my clips and I never backed them up. I am an idiot.
6. The only other video evidence is from when I was on Fox TV’s comedy show that came on after SNL on local Columbus TV. I was not exactly clean, so they spliced three sets into one. I’m wearing different clothes and it comes off very odd, plus my set stinks.
7. You can only imagine how fun it is to prepare for a 30 minute set, lug a camera and willing person to record, hope the lighting is good, count on the crowd being large enough to give a good laugh background but not be too rowdy and lastly, actually tell good jokes. There’s a lot of “screw it, maybe next time” in that process.

In other words, I am usually funny, please take my word for it.