CHRIS COEN

Well, it was a Thursday just like any other.  Suddenly, I got the most amazing Facebook update.  No, it wasn’t an invitation to play Candy Crush Saga.  (I’m starting to think these aren’t exclusive invites…and why is every one a saga?  That sounds epic.  Also, if you’re going to invite me to play a game on Facebook, it better have sword murdering or superheroes for me to even consider it.  Someone invited me to play @HUGS.  There is a better chance of me joining a drum circle than playing a game called @HUGS.  Who can hug the most people?  I can!  YAAAAAYYYY!!!!  HUGS!!!!  I love strangers!  I win!  Some people don’t know me at all.  I digress.)

Back to my blog.  A comic named Chelsea I met a few years back tagged me – she found my shirt in a store near Put-In-Bay.  Suck it, Miley Cyrus and whatever K. Kardashian is plugging some slut gear at Whores R Us, my comedy shirt is being sold in all corners of the state!  Then I realized it was a Goodwill.  This means someone bought my shirt in drunken stupor after a show, then woke up and said, “Who in the blue hell is this turd?” and promptly tossed it next to their bellbottoms, silk button ups and bib shorts in the Goodwill bag.  Or even better, they wore it, read my blog, got offended my the content or lack of humor, and gave threw it away.  Then a homeless guy dug it out of the rubbish, wiped his ass with it, then gave it to Goodwill to sell for a buck.

I run an open mike every Monday at the Rehab Tavern in Columbus.  I have had some really good comics come by and some open mikers that I’ve never seen before (or again).  The good thing about new comics is that they usually bring a lot of pals, which is always encouraged.  Doing a great set for small crowds is probably the hardest part of comedy.  Example – if there are five people, and you make one laugh, that’s 20% of the crowd and it sounds like you’re being mocked.  Now take that same percentage and put 100 people in a room.  Sounds like you’re killing, but not really…but it sounds better.  Plus laughter is contagious.  Sadly, so is silence.

The great thing with new comics bringing people is that they are usually pretty weak, so it balances out the newness and it helps the other comics as well.  The downside is that new comics (especially males) usually do way too many body fluid and sexual assault jokes that make their non-friends cringe.  One new guy this week talked about eating pico de gallo after being smeared on a dead person’s leg.  Sigh.

The show went well and afterwards, a greenhorn approached.  He had a solid set and asked me a few questions.  “Do you ever perform anywhere else, like for money?”  That could have been offensive, but it’s an honest question, I guess.  I told him yes and gave a few  examples.  Then came the fun question.  “Where can I get paid?”  I asked, How many times have you done comedy?  “This was the second time.”  Nowhere.  Come see me in about 100 more times.  If you want to get paid any kind of real money, you need at least 20 minutes.  He stared at me, then said he had to talk to a buddy and left.  To give an example, he hit a baseball off a tee, then asked if the Yankees had a tryout.  OK, never mind.  I guess I was supposed to say if you have one good five minute set, you get a Comedy Central special and a 100 grand.  If that’s true, I’d be worth about a half a million by now.

One of the least fun parts of comedy for me is promoting shows.  “Hey, support me!  I’m funny!”  It’s awkward for me, much like human contact.  I was thinking about it because the workshop the Columbus Funny Bone has before each open mike was going over topics and this came up.  I figured I would relay what little experience I have with this and list the things to do and not to do.

Do create Facebook events, feel free to invite people and post on your wall.  Don’t privately message every single person until they block you.  I know this because some guy asked me if I would like his band then proceeded to privately message me every f’n time they played in the city.

Do use social media.  Don’t tweet so much you forget to write jokes.  If you have three solid minutes of comedy, don’t worry about tweeting seventy times a day to build up your followers.  That said, I have about ten twitter followers, so what do I know?

Do get a head shot.  Don’t take one yourself wearing a funny t-shirt, smoking a cigarette, trying to look funny or cool.  Wearing a funny t-shirt is the worst sin in comedy – if your shirt is funnier than you, you stink.  I know this rule thanks to this, from 2007.

That’s about all I have for promotion.  Oh, you can blog on a website.  That helps, I think.

 

I was standing in the tent behind the club around a rectangular table with nine other comics, staring a young man, perhaps an intern, when I was told to do my best 30-60 seconds.  I’ve had short sets in my career, but I can tell you 30 seconds is about two one liners unless you talk like a teenage girl discussing how cool prom is going to be, then maybe four.

I don’t even remember what I did, but I think it was something normal and something inappropriate, probably jokes about basketball and sexual misconduct.  Between my pals, two of us got our release forms moved into one pile, and the other guy got moved to a smaller pile.  We were told we would be contacted by 1 pm if we moved on.  Then we walked out and realized we had to stick around, since we were in two different piles of release forms – one of us had to make it, right?  We went to Applebee’s down the road and began drinking, which is my solution to about any quandry.  One pm arrived…no one was called!  The ol’ paper shuffle was a ruse.  You got us, NBC, you old this and that!

Luckily, I had a pal in town who let us crash on his couches, which was nice, since between the three of us, we had four hours’ sleep total.  Upon awakening, we went to the worst restaurant in Nashville, where the appetizer was a cheese cube tray and all the meat looked like it was covered in the fat they stole on Fight Club.  The next day, we drove the three state trek back.  Upon further review, I had no business trying out for the show after one year, perhaps none now after seven plus years and they were right to pass on my very raw new comic self.  That said, I think I’ll still punch the guy with the ponytail for the two stacks of release forms if I ever see him…which I won’t…and if I do, I won’t recognize him…and it probably wasn’t his idea…  OK, I’ll just punch him in my imagination world, where I’m already a world famous and very wealthy comedian and terrorist fighter, where the rivers are made of beer and the wind blowing sounds like 80’s hair metal.

It was 2008, I had made the cut, not to get on the show, but to tryout.  I looked back at a bunch of poor souls who slept in the street all night just to get booted.  Bill Bellamy, the host, was going around and interviewing comics.  Then I noticed something sad – most of the people interviewed weren’t even comics, they were just costume wearing douchebags.  I watched as a guy wearing a Lincoln outfit and another guy wearing a stuffed gorilla on his back got five minute interviews.  Real comics?  No time!  There’s a guy dressed like Charlie Chaplin over there!  (There actually was and I hated his guts.)

A young man with a ponytail handed me a waiver form.  This is awesome.  I’m going to get to tryout on camera!  Then a limo pulled up.  Roy Wood Jr., a touring comedian, got out and walked in the club.  The rest of us were told our tryout would be…behind the club.  What?  Just before we walked around back, I told Camp he had a huge pimple on his face, which freaked him out.  I’m a dick.

Around back, there was a tent with four tables.  They divvied up the 40 in my group and told us ten to a table.  Then the long hair that handed me my clipboard earlier suddenly was my judge.  “Go ahead and give me your best 30-60 seconds!”  I realized, slowly, that I had a very small chance to advance.  I thought back to the times the staff told us to act excited for the cameras and how a nationally touring comic got right in, while us cattle were herded out back.  All fodder for ratings shots.  Then I remembered the last show I did for money about six people were there, so I had better suck it up and give skinny Fabio my best half minute, there, in the tent flapping so loud I could barely hear, with no microphone, no stage, no judges and no cameras.  Hope is a cruel lover, no pun intended to my current fiancee.

I think I’ve blogged about this before, but it’s been awhile and the show is on, so why not?  I had been doing comedy for exactly one year in late Spring 2008 when I caught wind that the last tryout for Last Comic Standing was going down in Nashville.  Of course, because comics are largely the dregs of society, we didn’t plan it until about four days before.  Sadly, I had the most reliable car of the group with a 1993 Mercury Grand Marquis.  My pal Camp had a 1962 Falcon that couldn’t go over 45 mph and my other buddy Baxter had no car.  Looks like my sweet ride is going!

There were many tales of booze, fights and comedy on the way down, but nothing out of the ordinary.  We arrive around six pm on Sunday, the tryouts were the next day.  We parked up the street from Zanies Comedy Club and realized there were already about 65 comics sitting on the street.  Cops showed up and told us the rules; no peeing on the street and no drinking (which usually leads to peeing in the street).  So we sat out all night, taking turns trying to sleep in the car.  I slept about an hour in the car, the rest of the time I sat on washerboards and played Euchre with a couple of other comics we ran into from Columbus, Malone and Burgstrom.

The sun finally rose, which meant we now had a place to piss and/or eat other than the gas station, which had run out of TP several hours earlier and closed the bathroom.  That, or the bathroom went on strike after dozens of comics shit in it all night.  When the light shone on the mass of degenerates, almost 2/3’s of the comedians were wearing the comedian outfit.  What is that, you ask?  Graphic tee, suit coat, jeans, Chuck Taylor shoes.  A few were wearing stupid hats or black rimmed glasses, but the hipster movement was still in its infancy.  Once everyone was awake, about 175 (the numbers had swelled) comedians were trying to one up each other, very loudly and obnoxiously.  I prayed for death, but death would not come.

Finally, Bill Bellamy, formerly from MTV (and for some reason, on every single guest list for every party my fraternity threw in college), walked out in a cowboy hat and began interviewing the comics at the front of the line.  A couple of assholes from Atlanta jumped in front of me and got a stream of obscenities hurled at them, but it was of no use.  The temperature rose rapidly, sweat rolled down my already sweaty face.  My level of annoyance was high enough to form a blood clot, but thankfully, I made the cut.  They took the first 100 comics in line, so I was in the clear.  So you’re saying there’s a chance!  That was the high point, it would go down rapidly after that.  (To be continued)