CHRIS COEN

After several (over a dozen) weeks, the open mike started back up at the comedy club.  Hell yeah, I would say, if I was a 1994 drunk roadie.  I had a couple ideas, improvements, and flat out rants, but without a stage, it’s just madness.  So I got one last night.

Here’s the premises – December bdays getting the horrible Christmas/birthday combo gift…Bad childhood haircuts…Why Taylor Swift is almost as bad as Kim Kardashian and Lindsay Lohan (you have 400 million dollars, shut the fuck up)…women be trippin’…and how any graduation before high school is bullpuckey, dare I say!  Surprisingly, they all went fairly well.  Here’s the roadblock – I thought of a funny story, but with no tie in or joke.  Feel free to comment and/or suggest something!  (I had to block comments on my website thanks to spam; feel free to Tweet or Facebook post).

One time I got into a car with three other guys.  My friends are such pieces of shit, we had seven DUI’s b/w us.  By logic, we made the guy with only one drive.  His reaction?  “Well, rules are rules!”  Whomever gives me a good close to this wins a free “Blah Blah Blah” t-shirt…unless you watch the Kardashians.  Then you get anthrax powder.

My show last Saturday was in Roanoke, Virginia.  It was a little rough at first, because my GPS is about three years behind the city planners apparently. I went to call the venue, but realized my phone was in my car two blocks away.  By the time we got there, the manager was busy so I was rather flustered.  Plus I barely had time to get a beer, you know, the most important part of my pre-show ritual.  The show went very well, though – that is until afterwards.

Everyone that came up was very friendly, not friendly enough to buy some damn shirts, but they shook my hand and that’s the same (sarcasm, in case it’s not dripping off your screen right now).  Then a woman came up with her husband/boyfriend/who gives a shit.  She was probably 40ish, short and rather sassy.  She looked at Steve (the headliner) and said, “You know what joke I didn’t like at all?”  Hate rose up inside me in one sentence.  After four minutes of watching potential sales roll past while she rambled on, I debated whether a jail sentence would be worth doing what I was thinking to her.

The fun continued!  Once again to Steve, “You did a joke about a threesome.  He had one in college!”  I looked at her dude and he just nodded.  Who tells a stranger that?  Who cares to know that?  I almost sarcastically high fived him and yelled, “Good shit, vag master!”  She finally made eye contact with me, unfortunately and said, “I’m going to a concert later.”  “Who’s in town tonight?”  Her: “It’s in two weeks.”  Me: “Why did you say later?”  She ignored me and said, “He doesn’t want me go because he thinks I’ll cheat on him.”  All I could think was that I hoped she cheated on him by making out with a shotgun.  I couldn’t take anymore and walked away, leaving my merchandise to the masses and forgoing potential sales.  Thankfully, when I returned from the restroom, she was gone…perhaps kidnapped by al-Qaeda or some other group I would actually have a favorable opinion of for five minutes.

My original show last Friday was cancelled, but I got a chance to feature for my pal Steve Sabo.  As a bonus, it was in southeastern Ohio – even better, because I could carpool to Virginia and it was on the way there from my place.  One small issue…I have never heard of the town before, which is weird, because I lived in the region for about twenty years.  Malaga?  As I was driving there, I realized the road was exactly like one of those car commercials, but instead of mountains the scenery was comprised of trailers, barns and broken down cars.  If there was 1/8″ of snow on the road, I wouldn’t have made it to the show.  If anyone can get from Malaga back to the interstate after ten beers, they should get a Nascar sponsorship.

The show itself went very well, especially afterwards, because I sold more in one night after the show than I had the previous seven shows, despite the fact this place had a population of less than 1,000.  My favorite part, though, was the post-show banter.  A couple of ladies approached me – “Can I tell you something?”  Sure.  “We like the other guy (Steve) too, but we want to buy your shirt…because you’re one of us.”  Well, son of bitch, my hickness is really showing these days apparently.  If I had any doubt, I met a guy who plays in a band at the Coen family reunion.  “You guys sure have a lot of kids!”  I felt I needed to apologize at that point, but I let it go.

I went to a show Wednesday night – one of the dreaded “comedy contests”, but it was near my place and I had some new(er) material to try out.  Everything was fine until just before the show a gentleman approached me.  As a kid pointed out that the building across the street was smoking and on fire, his mom kindly pointed out that was something called a chimney.  Looks like Jimmy’s no fire marshal.  Then the guy next to me said, “Smoke…hell, we can’t smoke anywhere!  Not even near the hospital!  (You’re losing me…)  They’ll pull those ambulances right up there and they give off smoke!”  Never mind they’re also full of people…that are dying.  Details, details.

Then it got good.  I made a comment about how the laws have restricted smoking everywhere, which prompted this – “Hell, the government has a cure for cancer, but they’re keeping it a secret.  Ever seen a president die of cancer?”  No, I said, but Ted Kennedy did and he was pretty high up.  Point taken?  Of course not!  “They probably killed some 19 year old kid to get Dick Cheney a new heart.”  Now I’m out for sure.  Then again, I haven’t seen Randy in a while.  Ha ha, just kidding, this guy was nuts.  I did, however, remember an important rule.  DON’T EVER TALK TO ANYONE.  Especially before a show.  Do you know how hard it was to perform with this guy staring at me?  Especially when he wasn’t laughing?

I think New Year’s resolutions are useless.  If your life sucks in July, why wait another five months to do anything about it?  That said, I fall victim to this a lot and like 99% of America, give up on the resolution by about mid February in a good year.  I’ll make a couple again, only this time to compound my shame, I’ll put them online for people to see.

I will lose at least three pounds this year.  Maybe even four.  There, that felt nice.  Of course if I don’t, I’ll just blame some outside factor.  Oh, and I need to work on some comedy stuff – as in, more joke writing and a new DVD.  It’s pretty hard to blog five days a week, then get motivated to work on jokes and reshaping my set – which I haven’t done much in the last year.  That said, I will still blog, just a little less.  I had over 17,000 hits last year, so thanks for reading.  Maybe in 2013, although less frequent, hopefully my blogs will be better than chili recipes and updates about my dog…but I’ve hit my resolutions limit.  No promises!

The last leg of my northern run was in Harris, MI, which is near Escanaba.  That does no one any good whatsoever.  The nice part was that my drive from Milwaukee was only 4 hours and the weather cleared up.  The bad news was that I was heading to the western part of the Upper Peninsula of Michigan and knew I had to drive 711 miles home on Monday.

I pulled in and saw the Island Casino, a tropical based facility, which was ironic, considering it was 14 degrees when the sun went down.  I got to my room and the door handle fell off in my hand.  Off to a good start, I see.  After the beating I took in Wisconsin, I was ready to choke someone.  Luckily, when I went to the show, about 150 people showed up.  One guy, the first one there, asked me, “Are you from down south?”  No, I replied, I’m from Columbus, OH (it’s easier than saying Zanesville when you’re 700 miles from home).  “Oh yeah, down south!”  I just stared at him with an annoyed, yet dead look until he nervously pulled out his phone and fidgeted away.

The show went great, although I only sold one DVD…I’ll blame the government.  It’s probably their fault.  Back on the road in the morning, I had a lovely 10 hour and 20 minute drive back for Christmas.  I learned a lot on my trip, mostly never book a week in the northernmost points of the United States in late December.  Actually, that’s all I learned.  See you in the summer, my viking pals up north.