CHRIS COEN

One of my biggest pet peeves is when people don’t help, but lob criticisms from the sidelines.  I volunteer for my fraternity’s alumni board.  It’s an unpaid position, there is virtually no benefit other than massaging a loyalty gene, and the fine college I graduated from has kicked out or put on probation every club but ours, so that’s probably coming.  Yet, since 2005, I have had two guys call me or email me saying they “heard” things weren’t going well at the school and I needed to step down (neither offered to join or volunteer, by the way).  One, a guy who was in our fraternity for less than a year, then transferred schools, “heard” I stole thousands of dollars from the fraternity and blew it boozing.  This guy sent an email accussing me of this and threw in – “I consider myself a good alumni, since I stay in touch with one or two guys I went to school with.”  Wow, you really stepped it up, exalted brother.  You know what, “brother”?  I would consider myself a good human if I pissed on you while you were on fire, but I wouldn’t waste the piss.  After all, I stole thousands of fake dollars when I was making it rain in college, what with my Beast Ice 12-packs and my in your face rich boy cigarette choice of “Slim Price Lights.”  Go die.

Recently, I have been organizing our 15 year high school reunion.  I made the announcement and a classmate posted something along the lines of, “It’s about time we had one, good Lord!”  Hmm, that was a not very subtle dig.  Then when I created the event online, Skippy posted “Maybe” for attending.  “Maybe” I won’t spit on your food if you make it, but I probably will.  Another fun one is the one who keeps messaging me, like “Where is this place?”  Well, it’s 1. On the event invitation, 2. You’ve lived in the town your whole life, you may want to drive around a bit and 3. If you have Facebook, that means you have Google!  Look it up!

This reinforces a lesson I should have learned years ago – Never volunteer for anything.  Ever.  I could imagine the first person who showed everyone how to use fire had rocks thrown at him by the other Cro-Magnons as they grunted and defecated on the ground they lived on.  Thus, my new strategy.  “Your free volunteer work isn’t up to my standards.”  You’re right, Neanderthal.  Guess what, in my last act as director, I name you in charge!  Oh, you don’t want to be in charge?  Then speak another word and I’ll hold you down and fart in your mouth.  Nothing?  Excellent!  Good day to all!

The sports world is abuzz right now with concussions.  Player suicides, careers cut short, dementia, etc. = bad publicity for your league.  I think they’ve come a long way…then I saw Art Schlichter’s lawyer claim he ripped off a bunch of people’s life savings because of the 15 concussions he suffered in his football career.  Ah, leave it to the lawyers to ruin whatever sympathy I was starting to have.

Concussions suck.  I have had five – falling off monkey bars (don’t land on your face), baseball to the face (that one knocked me out for three hours), helmet to helmet collison (I went to wrong team’s huddle), rugby hit (from my own teammate, thanks for tackling with your head down, stupid) and of course, drunken wrestling in college.  The doctor told me no more contact sports and for once, I listened.  As fun as it is to lay people out, I’d rather not be soiling myself at 55, assuming I live that long in the first place.  That’s not a real side effect of concussions, but either way I’d rather not be soiling myself at 55.

The only thing that annoys me to no end is that some pussy or group of angry mommies is going to someday try to ban football.  Guess what do-gooders?  People get hurt.  Cars are pretty safe now, but every once in a while there are accidents.  Should we all get horses?  People died on those too.  Let’s focus on the real problem at hand – middle school girl’s basketball.  I had to keep the clock for two years’ worth of games and I nearly died of boredom.  I actually let the clock run on timeouts to end the suffering earlier.  Someone step up and end this menace!

I was going to review the Avengers, but it’s sweet and most of you probably saw it that cared.  Recap: Super Heroes kick serious bad guy ass.  Amazingly, for so many personalities, it was well done and the dialogue was well-written.  If that’s not enough, Scarlett Johannson wears black spandex.  If that’s not your cup of tea, so does Jeremy Renner.  Enjoy.

I had a show last weekend in a small town.  The place was nice and the food was good, but when I walked into the showroom after my intro, the emcee said, “Oh, and a couple more announcements.”  I stood just behind him awkwardly, as he rattled off a few news and notes type things.  Are you ready to rock?  Ladies and Gentlemen, the Rolling Stones!  Oh, I almost forgot, there’s a blue Suzuki in row G – Hey, hold up, Mick Jagger!  There’s a car with its headlights on!

The crowd was good, but it was one of those “left/right” orientations, where I had to look completely left or completely right and I hate that shit.  Forget any facial expressions, plus no eye contact with half the room who sees your back for at least 50% of the show.  I need a Tupac hologram of myself, maybe with all the millions I make doing comedy, I’ll buy the software soon.

After the show, the bartender, who was very cool suddenly became less so when he said, “I don’t care what your politics are, but I’m a _____.”  That goes two ways, I don’t care about yours either!  He prattled on, but I was messing with my phone like I had a text message I had to answer, which was fun, because I had no service at all.  I even made the “concerned” look, like “Hmmm.  That’s not a good text message.  I better take this outside really quickly…”  Ah, still got it after all these years.

I’ll spare everyone from a movie review because I don’t want to be a dick…yet.  No promises for Monday.  I got together with some pals and went to the release of the Avengers.  Buying movie tickets is a pain in the ass.  I went online and all the 3D was sold out, so I had to call.  I love the automatic movie lady voice.  “Say the name of the movie.”  Me: The Avengers.  “I don’t recognize that.  I’ll list the movies.  Dark Shadows?  Marvel’s the Avengers?”  Son of bitch, that’s what I said!  Give me tickets!  Five minutes later, I got the reservations…and when I got to the theater the kiosks were down.  Good timing, at least there’s only seven rooms sold out and 40 people in line.

I noticed every Avenger was represented in costume, even Nick Fury and Hawkeye, but both those costumes were worn by ladies.  I also saw a She-Hulk, but Captain America and Thor were the most popular.  Nerds.  What kind of douche wears an outfit to a movie?

The movie was great and Hulk smashed a lot of shit, which is fun.  If you don’t like it, take it up with this guy.  He fights Nazis.

 

I emceed the Columbus Funny Bone’s “Open Mike Talent Search, 2012” last night.  Usually the first round (of four) is a shit show filled with good comics and a couple newbs giving their all to an apathetic crowd who are there to see their pals.  I will shock most of you…I had a blast.

The crowd is usually tighter than the asshole of a someone sucking on lemons, but as I opened the show, they were loving my slightly above average humor.  They even loved my one-liners between comics, which is one of my trademarks.  I hate when an emcee says, “This next comic is a close, personal friend of mine” or “This next comic performs at clubs and colleges all over the USA.”  It’s never true, so why say it?  Trust me, I bomb some lines, but it’s worth a shot.

I hit tonight after a “nerd” comic went up.  I said, “I could rip this guy for being a nerd, but I’m going to the midnight showing of The Avengers tomorrow.  If you think that’s lame, I’ll bash you with my Captain America shield, hippie.”  I loved this line, because 1) I love Captain America 2) I hate hippies and 3) I love Captain America and hate hippies.  Another comic talked about graduating, so I mentioned graduations.  “You can tell someone’s life is going to suck by judging how excited their family is by their 9th grade graduation.  I went to school with a guy who raised both arms after getting his 9th grade diploma.  Hope you paid attention in chemistry, you’re going to need that when you cook meth.”

Both lines killed and I felt good doing some new stuff.  Even for one liners/three liners.  Now time to rest up, The Avengers is on at midnight!  (In all seriousness, why does Captain America, other than maybe the Hulk, need these other people?  He loves freedom, so these Asgardian monsters have no shot  Now excuse me, I have to shine my shield.)

Me and some pals went to Cleveland last weekend to watch Jim Norton’s new special taping…and to drink copious amounts of alcohol.  I didn’t know the majority of people in the group and it was interesting to say the least.  It is easier to get a mule to move than it is to get a group of people drinking moving towards a common destination.  As soon as everyone agrees to leave, someone cracks a beer then it all resets and cycle continues.

The show was interesting, because about 25% of the room looked and acted like they just got out of, or were due to return to, prison.  They announced no taping, photos, recording, etc., then booted a couple people for promptly doing just that.  We went out drinking after and one of my new buddies cut a fart so awful at an Irish bar, I legitimately saw three people leave the bar.  A woman came over from about 20 feet away and started screaming “Who farted?  I want to buy you a drink, that’s the most putrid fart I ever smelled!”  Well, that’s even stranger than the fart in the first place.  In retrospect, though, for all the times I got shot down by other factors in bars, maybe I could have softened the blow of rejection by carpet bombing half a room with mustard farts.  Actually, no, that woman was just straight up insane.

Two in group ended up vomiting, one that night – not due to drinking as much as the overwhelming smell of urine in one of the bars; the other the next morning for taking ibuprofen on an empty stomach.  Or maybe it was a remnant of that fart he caught.  If I ever find out what that guy ate, I will take up a crusade to destroy all traces of that food from the earth.  A couple more like that and Cleveland will have the population of Tombstone.