CHRIS COEN

I believe in charity.  Charity is good.  That said, I had a disturbing incident today I have to talk about.  I still a have a “real” job and this happened Tuesday.  A lady at a non-profit organization called me and here is our conversation, edited for time and interest.  Lady: “We need you to send this material to your customer so they can make our product, but you need to give the stuff free.” (Side note: This lady has never talked to my company before and I can’t sell to end users)  Me: “Well, I can discount it and even ship it free, but I can’t take a loss, that’s our policy b/c we get so many requests for free materials and we can’t verify the sources or afford to give the stuff away.”  Lady:  “Well, if you don’t give it to our organization for free, I will call your customers and tell them what you are doing to us and you will lose business.”  Eh?  “Ma’am, are you blackmailing our company?”  “Well, you know what you have to do.”  Click.  I got mafiosoed by a non-profit health issue based company and I feel less confident in humanity.

I hate tattletales, but I am strongly tempted to call this monster’s boss and report this, even though I am so against that act.  Imagine Girl Scouts planting sex offender fliers up in your neighborhood if you don’t buy Thin Mints.  As a comic I get asked to do benefit shows all the time, which I mostly do, if they’re worth a damn.  The only one I ever turned down was one 110 miles from my house, no gas money paid, to raise money for war protestors to go to Washington.  Use your van and your gas money morons, I’ll save the jokes for cancer bennies.  I am still debating calling this chick back, but my temper is so awful, it may not be a good plan.  I tend to overreact and break things…like office phones and the basic human spirit.  I’m like the Incredible Hulk, except less green and more saavy with a VOIP phone system.

I watched a show last night about the Amish who leave their communities.  It was really boring and interesting at the same time, much like half my blogs.  Apparently once they leave, they’re not supposed to return unless it’s full committment return.  This is pretty cold, but who wants those damn English and their cars ruining your good morals?  I did laugh, b/c no matter what, they can’t shake those wacky Amish accents.  It sounds like a Minnesota accent, only not as aggressive.  Plus, this is truly the one group I don’t worry about offending at all.  They’re not reading this, unless lumber or butter churns have internet apps now.

I was talked into going to a not-so-great gentlemen’s club Saturday night.  Apparently gentlemen drink canned beer and 40’s, wear t-shirts long enough to be summer dresses, or go alone to peruse the talent creepily, but I will move on.  I finally found something worse than doing comedy to seven apathetic strangers.  Stripping.  When did strippers not have to be hot to take off all their clothes for strangers?  If you’ve never been to a strip club, think of Hooters and how they will pretty much put anything out there these days.  If you’ve never been to a strip club or Hooters, you’re too uptight to keep reading.  Please go to another website.

One chick out of the whole lot Saturday was what I would consider “hot”, but she had more tattoos than a prison gang.  I like tattoos, hell I have one, but once you hit double digits, you’re out of control.  Plus, other than a huge tatty on the side of the neck, nothing is less attractive than ink on a titty.  How’s that going to look in a decade?  The rest of the crew was pretty OK to downright fugly.  (I have never typed that word in my life.  I don’t know how I feel about that.)  Look, I can’t understand periodic tables.  Therefore, I am not a chemist.  When you weigh 210 lbs. at 5’4″, have A cups, and can’t heft your cottage cheese leg past six inches…don’t strip.

I like strip clubs.  I like strippers.  I like lugging in my own beer and looking at naked women.  Yet bad strip clubs are like bad anything else.  Example: I love football, but I’m not going to pay to see your high school tapes of football.  St. Mary’s vs. Cedarville in 1994?  And you were a 155 lb. pulling guard?  Fascinating!  Pop in the tapes!  Plus as a side note, is there anything worse than when a sexy dancer gets you all worked up, then moves and you make eye contact with a 52 year old balding man sitting on the other side of the stage?  I say no.  You nearly have a stroke as your brain goes from sexy time mode to Oh my God, this is the gayest eye contact I have ever had.

I dislike happy hour.  Nothing is worse than having a few right after work, then going home at 8.  You will accomplish nothing other than dumb Facebook updates.  I need to unwind before I unwind or I am salty.  Of course, dollar beers are hard to beat, but my pet peeve is guys at the bar who wear work clothes…especially at 9 pm, when they walk into the bar in a suit when you know they got off at 5.  Ooohhh, that guy has a suit on.  He must be a millionaire.

Since “retiring” (read: quitting) college football, I have this lingering moronic desire to continue sports.  I have played basketball (I never scored a point in two years in elementary school), dodgeball (sorest I have ever been in my life other than the motorcycle wreck I had), bowling (two time Big Wazoo champions, but not really a sport), and softball.  We went tonight and the other team no showed, so we won.  At the bar, we got a call – the league commish sent their team the wrong schedule, so now I have a doubleheader later.  Boo.  Adult sports = injuries.  I have torn my hamstring, my buddy broke his leg, and another one tore his elbow tendon.  For what, you ask?  A $10 engraved trophy that sits in a bar in Hilliard, Ohio – 2006 runners-up, Field 4.  Yes, Field 4, where the worst of the worst relive little league memories under the influence of booze and false hopes.

On a side note, how do so many people with minimum wage jobs have arm sleeve tattoos and Harleys?  I went to college for free, drink Busch Light, eat Kroger brand ravioli four times a week and live in a part of town two miles from the Hilltop; which looks like Snake Pliskin is about to try and escape from any day now.  Seriously, they found a human torso in a pond a mile from my front door in 2010.  What have I done with my life?  Oh yes, it’s the run ins with the law, the gambling trips while drunk, and of course, the motorcycle I bought for $5000, then totaled after less than a quarter mile.  I went from a DMX video to a Jackass: the Movie outtake in one half minute.

When I first started doing comedy and was absolutely awful, people came up to me and said, “When are you going to Houston?”  Everyone’s experience is different, but here’s how comedy works for most people.  You start, you do time, you bomb for at least a year, then you start to slowly figure out how to be funny.  Clubs spit on your face – why?  So many awful comics came before and blew it so bad, no one will give you a chance.  I heard a story about a comic that got his first show w/ a booking agency and he smashed up the hotel room.  Fired.  The key to getting work is to get in front of bookers.  These are mostly comics with some business accumen that go to small towns in your geographic region and convince bar owners that they can provide an assemblance of humor for a fee.  Most of these are one nighters that eat up your profits in gas, but if you do them, you get 25-35 minutes as a feature act to polish your act to a shiny turd.  When you start, that much time is worth a financial loss.  Trust me.  Some bookers are great – Steve Sabo w/ Inside Joke Productions gave me my first tryout in Bowling Green, OH after seeing me MC in Lancaster.  I have been working for him for three years now.  Steve rocks and got me in with another booker later this year that I have been begging for work for two years from.  Others are less than desirable.  I may have three shows next week…but I don’t know if it’s confirmed, or where they’re at (may not even be in Ohio), or any other random details.  Why?  I can’t get a return email or call.  If I am booked and no show, I’ll get banned forever from working for this agency.  If I can’t get the time off work?  Done.  If I can?  Same treatment – suck it, Coen.  You are my puppet.  Be funny.  Imagine getting a job – you start Monday.  Where?  I’ll get back to you, but if you no show…you’re fired.  When someone told me in 2007 it took 7 years to make enough to pay your bills doing comedy, I waved them off as a loser.  Now I think 7 years is perfect…if you live at home, drive a Geo Metro circa 1996, and eat ramen noodles on your birthday.  That said, I will conquer you, comedy.  I am funny and I am an American.  No one tells me no unless you want a bloody lip.  I will fuck up at 180 miles an hour.  I am too stubborn to quit and too stupid to know when I should.  See you at the top, one small town at a time.  Your ass is next, Houston…