CHRIS COEN

Since it’s America’s birthday this week, I have decided to address history I constantly see wrong on Facebook.  One of my majors in college was history (it was the fun one, some of you are probably passing out reading that) and I see so much history manipulated and/or misrepresented, I thought I would try to address it, maybe with some humor.  Humor not guaranteed, it is history, after all.

NUMBER ONE – Oh and is this ever number one – the First Amendment (no pun intended, but I’ll take it).  Freedom of speech.  This relates to speech against the GOVERNMENT.  The federal government doesn’t mean your job.  It doesn’t mean on a comedy stage.  You can, in America, address the government and call them fart sniffers or whatever you want.  You can’t go into your work and tell your manager to pound it sideways and claim the first amendment.  This is how the NFL is pushing out kneeling.  You may not like it, but it’s not protected because it’s at work.  Their ratings plummet?  They institute a policy.  It also – pay attention comics – doesn’t mean someone HAS to give you stage time because you say offensive things.  That’s the call of the person running the show.  I hate when comics get banned from a venue and act like they’re modern day Patrick Henrys.  No, you’re an ass who does a lot of rape jokes and racial stereotypes and no one wants to put you on.

NUMBER TWO – I see this a lot, so it’s worth addressing.  The 3/5’s compromise.  I have no idea how to type 3/5’s correctly, so we’re rolling with it.  When the nation was forming, the southern states wanted slaves to count as full persons…for voting representation only, not in actual, you know, real life.  The other states said no and a fight ensued.  The 3/5’s compromise doesn’t mean it was entrenched law that slaves were 60% people, it was actually a method to reduce the voting power of the slave states.  Would have it been better to count slaves as people?  No, then the states with slaves would have had more influence until slavery was banned, thus leading to more restrictive laws on a federal level for slaves and ultimately human rights.  Who knows what more atrocities against slaves would have been entrenched if so.

NUMBER THREE – America is a democracy.  Actually, we are a representative republic.  The problem with a democracy is that a current event or hot button issue could lead to the tyranny of a majority imposing restrictions on protected rights or natural law.  Example – 9/11 happens and a ton of states remove all persons of the Muslim faith with a vote.  That’s a democracy.  Not as cool as it seems at first.

NUMBER FOUR – George Washington used bald eagles to win the battle of Yorktown.  This is 100% true.

Hope that helps, now you’ll know more about America as you pound beers and maim yourself with explosives this week!

When I was a kid, I loved the woods.  I had poison ivy so many times I couldn’t count.  We caught crawdads, put up rope swings, built forts and had a blast.  I realized in yet another way, I am not a child anymore.

My wife’s cat (not OUR cat) decided to bring three living chipmunks and three dead ones into the house in the last month.  I thought I preferred the dead ones until I found one stuffed in a closet.  I don’t know how long it had been there, but it wasn’t five minutes by the smell.  I nearly sanitized the room with fire.

Last night, my daughter went outside.  Every night, she likes to say good night to the lightning bugs and moon.  It’s very cute.  I opened the door and the fresh out of the butthole skunk smell hit me in the face.  We were outside ten seconds and it stuck to our clothes like glue.  I had to change clothes on both of us, while my wife lit candles and sanitize washed our clothes.  I live in Columbus, which is in the top 20 largest cities in the United States, btw.  Not Pine Holler, Louisiana.

All this combined with the mosquito bite I got on the bottom of my foot (which will literally drive me insane) has led me to one solution: time to build a vault like Fallout.  Sure, some Radroaches may slide in, but I’m also designing power armor and a baseball bat with a chainsaw attached.  I plan on drinking DDT until it emanates from my skin like a holy glow.  So goodbye, outdoors!  I’ll see you when I run out of alcohol!

 

Friday night, I was almost asleep and I saw an update from the Pantera page on my Facebook feed, which is rare, since they haven’t been a band since 2003 – Vinnie Paul, the drummer from Pantera (and later Damageplan and Hellyeah) had passed away.  It was a straight throat chop.

There is something bizarre about the loss of a favorite entertainer – I never met him and haven’t played drums in my life other than the time in college I got drunk and jumped on a set on the band’s break at a bar (they didn’t like it, btw).  Yet it felt like a personal loss and I think most people feel that way in similar scenarios.

I have always liked hard rock and heavy metal, but when I was younger I didn’t have much access to hearing it.  My buddy Kevin’s older brother had a ton of tapes and CD’s and one time I finally heard Pantera.  It was like nothing I had ever heard before.  I was hooked.  Later in high school, my buddy Honk and I had a math class that the teacher didn’t show up for, due to a double scheduling error, so we left and drove around listening to Vulgar Display of Power.  The intensity and talent was a perfect balance.  I had every CD, a flag, posters and multiple shirts.  It took all I had not to ruin every college party by sliding Cowboys from Hell in the mix.

My first huge concert was Ozzfest 1997 and my first (and only mosh pit) was when Pantera hit the stage.  I got elbowed in the mouth and chipped a small piece of tooth off.  Some dick threw dirt in my face from outside the pit, so I waited until he got one foot in and punched him in the head.  I had three guys high five me for blasting the dirt throwing guy wearing a fake security shirt.  It was awesome, especially when all the bands came back and started playing Ozzy and Black Sabbath tunes together…because Ozzy was sick and the mob lit the fence on fire in response.  (It was the big Ozzy/Sabbath reunion, first since the split).  It was worth it.  I saw them again, but rumors about the band not getting along had started to leak out on this new thing called the internet; they finally called it quits in 2003.

In 2004, I was very bitter about Pantera splitting up, but found out Dimebag Darrell and Vinnie Paul formed a new band Damageplan.  They were playing in Columbus.  I wanted to go, but I had two buddies back out, plus I had to close on my first house the next morning at 8 am, so I chose not to go.  When I woke up, I got a call from a pal asking if I was OK.  I found out then that a schizophrenic fan blamed Dimebag for breaking up the band and shot him onstage at Alrosa Villa that December night just seconds into their first song.  Murdered right on a stage.  I was supposed to have been there.

Vinnie had to take time off, I read story after story about how he and his brother Dime never fought in all the years together – syncing up guitar and drums into their signature “Texas groove” metal.  When I found out Vinnie passed this weekend, I texted my pal Honk early Saturday.  “Man we’re old” was his first response.  I figured out right there why these things hurt you in the gut.  Not only robbed of all the great music left to make, when an icon like Vinnie goes, a lot else goes with him.  A little piece of that time of your life gets that much farther away from you.  I’ll never be able to get back in that Chevy Celebrity with the factory speakers and blare “Mouth for War” or jump in a mosh pit to “Five Minutes Alone”, but hearing that triggers that tiny memory.  Vinnie’s passing takes me even farther down the trail.

He and Dime were continually mentioned as great guys off the stage, generous with their time and money (and drinks) to complete strangers.  They were known for picking up bar tabs for fans, jumping onstage at small bars in towns after their shows for free, and I read where Vinnie found out a toddler was air drumming to a Pantera song and bought the family an entire drumset.  It’s rare that some of your favorite celebrities turn out to be cool people, but I could tell from the DVD’s I had that they were down to earth and immensely talented.  The loss to music is crushing also.  We all lose out when a great talent leaves this earth.

I know 90% of the people reading this don’t care or will never listen to metal, but I heard a call in on the Liquid Metal Sirius/XM channel and it was nice to hear so many people paying tribute.  He will be missed.  “Under the lights where we stand tall, nobody touches us at all.”

Since my last blog was very popular, I figured I would let everyone (mostly men, I’m guessing) know how the back hair shaver works.  NOT TO LEAVE WOMEN OUT – all you female lycanthropes or Italian girls can enjoy also.  Here goes!

First, the guy on the box clearly represents a man with no hair on his body before this process started, so the marketing team is already on my bad side.

I was going to read the instructions, but instructions are for pussies, right?!  Yeah!  I actually have one problem area – my lower back.  My upper back has some invaders that have decided to settle in their new land, but by and large, not a serious problem yet.  I did have to use a machete to open, they packaged this thing like it needed to survive Fallout 4.

I exclaimed to my wife, “It has a suction cup to hang in the shower!”  She was not a fan of that feature.  “Let’s not display that thing.”  Almost like the time I saw a douchebag in a relative’s shower as a kid.  Probably put that in the drawer.  I did see it said “wet or dry!” also.

I had about three minutes until I had time to leave for work, so I let it rip.  Oh man, did it ever work.  Huge wide blades carved the hair off like a knife through hot butter.  In about seven swipes, I got the whole area, although it is larger and wider than I remembered…NOT COOL BACK, NOT COOL.  The only thing is that thanks to the Coen gene, I don’t really do anything with finesse, so dry shaving too fast left me with enormous razor burn where I pressed too hard.  You think I would know better, my toothbrushes are all flat after 2 months.

Well, I’m here to say it really works and is a great tool for self-shearing.

I will say if you get any ideas about going south with this guy, you better have a sack made of steel wool or the size of a birthday party ballon – it’s pretty large.  Now you too, can be as hairless as a 12 year old boy, just like the ladies like!  Good job, Bakblade 2.0!

Father’s Day is a day our country honors the dads out there.  I can guarantee it came after Mother’s Day on when it was celebrated and it should, but since I’m a dad now I got some stuff from my wife and kids, who at both under 3 years of age, probably had tremendous input.  I know my daughter didn’t pick the gifts, because it wasn’t play-doh or my son, because it wasn’t drool.

So I got a workout shirt that’s designed to keep you cool and the first time I tried it was the weekend, where it was 92 degrees with 683% humidity.  I also got a t-shirt, an embossed wallet with a picture of me and my kids that’s really cool and lastly, this thing.

And such is life.  Sometimes you get what you want, sometimes you get what you and possibly the greater good of society needs.  Not that I’m rocking it shirtless a ton these days.  Now if next year I can get a fat shaver, I’m all set.

I have a few pet peeves.  One is the phrase pet peeve.  Another is people who get on the internet, read one article and act like they are smart.  My mom went to the Lincoln Museum recently and was telling her neighbor about it.  “Why did you go there, he was a racist!,” said the brain dead lump of worthless known as her neighbor.  She asked me why someone would say that.  This is what I saw in my head.

Ah, one of THOSE people.  They read one article from a whack job online and they’re off and running.  I was going to delve in deep and talk about people that apply modern standards to historical figures, possibly address his writing about separate state options that had some support at the time or look up the argument myself, but she told me his foundation was that the Emancipation Proclamation didn’t actually free the slaves.  There it is, now to pee in this guy’s Wheaties, metaphorically, of course.  Yes, the Emancipation Proclamation didn’t free the slaves BECAUSE THE WAR WAS STILL GOING ON STUPID.  But why Chris, why didn’t he just grab a laser cannon and vaporize the Army of Northern Virginia and end the war instantly?  Why didn’t people in a rebelling group of states actively at full blown war with the Union listen to his proclamation because he clearly should have used his mind control like Professor X?

Yes, it didn’t affect the border states, because if Lincoln pissed them off, they could have lost four more states at the time, and in 1863, it wasn’t going too hot for the north.  Oh and one of those states, Maryland, would have completely surrounded the US Capital.  Never mind the document was revolutionary and started the momentum that led to the permanent eradication of slavery in the United States just over two years and 600,000 casualties later.  Plus, I said this, “Tell this dummy Lincoln took a bullet in the back of the head from Booth directly because he ended slavery.  Ask this jackass what he’s done for race relations?”  I then decided I can tell him myself next time if I ever see him.

I have decided, thanks to this and other really dumb internet things, I will occasionally use this blog to address inaccuracies I see.  Hopefully with humor and probably with venom.  DON’T MESS WITH MY ROLL DOG LINCOLN, RANDOM NEIGHBOR OF MY MOM.  I WILL SMACK YOU DOWN ON A BLOG YOU’LL PROBABLY NEVER READ.