CHRIS COEN

The only thing worse than pumpkin flavored everything is people bitching about pumpkin flavored everything, but I had a profound thought last year that came back to me recently.  I’ve had a lot of head injuries, so this happens.  I remembered Blueberry Hubba Bubba last month for no reason.  Who says multiple concussions are all bad?  Oh, I did forget my wallet two days in a row, but blueberry gum, right?

As I was carving a pumpkin with an obscenity on it for the neighbor kids I decided to eat some of the pumpkin goop just to try it.  It was like eating a vegetable form of worms.  I would rather eat snot rockets that were recently smeared under kindergarten desks than this vile plant and I’m fat.  I’ll eat damn near anything mixed with cheese, beef or alcohol.  Pumpkin is indeed the new bacon.  It is everywhere.  Bacon is OK.  I like it on burgers, but let’s face it, if it’s too crisp it tastes burnt, under cooked will give you food poisoning.  Overrated, but that bacon shit is everywhere, like pumpkins or bacon just got released with the iPhone 6.  It’s fine as is, no need for chocolate covered bacon.

Sometimes stuff is popular for no reason other than it’s popular.  Like the Kardashians or Honey Boo Boo.  Food wise, I think the best example of a food popular for no good reason is grits.  Grits by themselves are like eating large grain sand off a beach.  “But Chris, they’re great with butter and cheese!”  So is everything.  Give me the butter and cheese without having to go to an oral surgeon right afterwards.

Throughout history, humankind had dreamed of flying.  Just over 100 years ago, it was achieved…and it’s awful.  I had to fly recently and had nearly forgot how awful – luckily everyone did their part to remind me!

1) Check a bag, lose something.  I think it’s a rule that if you check a bag, federal law requires that someone smash something or lose something.  Last flight, TSA rummaged through my crap and smashed a bottle of olive oil from Italy all over my clothes.  This time, they managed to lose a notebook I had in a side pocket.  It wasn’t important, it only had all the notes I had taken during my training session.

2) The airplane.  Right as we leveled off, I was waiting for the seat belt light, as my two coffees were ravaging my kidneys.  Don’t worry, I thought, there’s almost no one on the flight.  No one, except the guy with IBS that nearly knocked me over flying down the aisle.  I stood there for 20 minutes until the flight attendant looked at me and said, “Don’t go in there.”  Great, I guess I’ll just bust a kidney, piss my pants or try and go into the air sickness bag.  Some people are born under a constellation for greatness, I was born under one that meant I was damned to a life full of awkward restroom interactions.

3) Other people.  On the way down, someone across from me was staring at the same spot in front of themselves and not blinking.  I thought they were dead, but thankfully he finally moved.  I can’t imagine how long I would’ve been delayed with a dead body on the plane.

This was for a 90 minute flight.  If someone can invent a tube system for traveling like the bank has for your money, please do it quickly.  I can’t take another flight.  Unless I have drink tickets.  Then I can fly to Mars.

I spend more time at Lowe’s than half their employees these days with our house project.  I thought I wasn’t very handy, then I started looking around when I was there this past weekend, all 14 times.  I think I hate all these people.

1) Sorry lady, if you don’t have a receipt, the store doesn’t actually carry the product and you allegedly paid cash, they won’t take your product back.  Turning around and muttering about what a bitch the cashier is to me garners zero sympathy, plus your overwhelming stupidity is keeping me from returning these nails and then promptly buying the wrong ones again.

2) Dear guy wearing all black goth gear blocking my path to get spray paint.  Not only are you a goth, I can tell your entire outfit is brand new.  You’re not going to fix anything, you’re going to sniff the paint in the parking lot.  Any color will do, now get your vampiric ass out of my way.

3) This lady in front of me is clearly intoxicated.  I have no issues with this on the surface, but I can imagine no scenario where I need to get drunk, then go start a home improvement project.  Please tell me your story; I must know what dark and lonely road led to this moment.

4) Guy who is blocking the loading area with a hatchback car.  There is nothing big you can fit in that car.  The only thing heavy you could fit in there is the core of a dying star.  You’re a lazy dick.  Oops!  It appears I have rammed into your car with my lumber!  How shall live with myself?  Especially as I do it again…and again…and again.

Comedy has many terrible and ferocious foes.  Smartphones are pretty high on the list.  Nothing like someone checking into a show on Facebook, Tweeting about how much fun it is and Instagramming their drink all while completely ignoring the show.  “OMG!  THIS COMEDY SHOW IS SO MUCH FUN!  #FUN #COMEDY #LOOKATME #ICANTREPEATONETHINGTHISCOMICSAIDIMBUSYTWEETING”

Drunk people are the worst, but there is a special place in comedy hell for bachelorette parties.  I have seen five bachelorette parties at comedy clubs, one was somewhat tame, three were out and out screaming at the emcee within a minute of the show starting and the last one had a woman vomit onto the stage during the headliner’s set.  Guess that wasn’t sweet tea in the ol’ penis sippy cup.

The hidden one is sports.  I had to do a show in Cleveland the night LeBron played in town the first time when he was with Miami.  I could have performed in the nude and not one person would have looked.  OK, bad analogy, no one would have looked for sure.  Plus they left nine TV’s on, just in case there was a chance in hell someone might not watch the game.  This Monday, Ohio State, the defending national champion, kicks off their season the moment my show is supposed to start, right smack in the middle of Columbus.  I’m either starting the show early or everyone gets 5 second sets.  Maybe both, I want to watch the damn game too.

Last year, I won 2 fantasy football leagues, so I can share with guaranteed ways to win your league and have millions of dollars (or maybe $50 if you’re in a poor person league) at your disposal.  Never mind that I was in four leagues total last year, that’s not important.

How does fantasy football work?  You get together with a bunch of people, drink beer, eat cheese products or wings, and pick individual players you think will put up huge statistics during the NFL season.  No matter what, everyone leaving is convinced they should be a GM in the NFL afterwards and much trash talk is tossed around.  Then you “play” other people head to head weekly, most points wins.  Here’s how to achieve such fame and fortune as me –

1) Have no one on your team get hurt.  This is easy, you just need to learn dark occult rituals and possibly sell your soul to Satan.  If you can’t do this, don’t worry, no one ever gets hurt in the NFL, except your first round pick.

2) Hope the majority of your draft rivals get drunk and start picking players from their favorite teams instead of good players.  I was in a league where a guy only picked Bengals, ex-Buckeyes and white wide receivers.  He got last place.  Sorry, Ed McCaffrey.

3) Pray your best players aren’t on good teams at the end of the season.  In the real NFL, the teams that are locked into the playoffs sit their good players, showing more regard for winning the Super Bowl than your fantasy football win!  The nerve!

4) Don’t draft all the same position.  I was in a league where a guy picked six quarterbacks…only one can play at a time.  He didn’t do very well.  Yes, believe it or not, a key to winning is having players that can actually play.

5) Be lucky.  There is no formula to win that beats random BS luck.  Last year, I would have lost one league in the finals, but AJ Green got hurt in the final game on Monday night and I barely pulled out a win.  I had posted on Facebook earlier that day that I would give $ to anyone that hit him with a truck.  I either have voodoo power or yet another log on my fire in hell.  Probably the latter.

Follow these simple rules, get your wife’s permission to play, and enjoy fantasy football like a man!

“Hey Chris, what’s it like being a dad?”  It’s pretty awesome, especially the six or seven minutes a day my daughter is not eating or sleeping and I get to read to her.

For any new fathers to be, here’s some tips and tricks I learned:

Babies scream for three reasons.  1) Feed me bitch.  2) Change me bitch.  3) Hold me bitch, then feed me again.  Our daughter will cry, then an eye drop of breastmilk later, she’s out like your drunk uncle on Christmas.  The change is fascinating and terrifying.

SLEEP WHEN YOU CAN.  “Gee, I think I could wash my car and…” SLEEEEEEPPPPP!!!!  “I really would like to check out the game and perhaps…” SLEEEEPPPPP!!!!  You get it.  I actually fell asleep twice typing this blog.

Remember when you used to play drinking games like Asshole and you were the beer bitch, fetching everyone’s drinks?  Dust off those skills, my friends!  Formula, bottles, grocery goods, binkies, laundry, trash, diapers – you will amazed that a nine pound baby consumes more total material than a Golden Corral full of 15 year old boys.

You actually have to wash your hands now.  Not just the ol’ flick under the running water.  Soap and hot water and the whole mess.  Not that I didn’t wash my hands before, but now everything I touch feels like it’s got more bacteria than a swamp in July.

Finally, be nice to momma.  She sleeps less than you, plus has to have her nipples whittled down like they’ve been hit by a belt sander.  Let’s face it, too – she actually knows stuff about babies.  I would be playing 80’s hair metal ballads to calm my daughter down (Skid Row can soothe the wildest beast), trying to give her chocolate milk because it’s cheaper and tastes better than Similac (I assume, never had Similac) and rotate two onesies with filthy sayings on them.  My wife wakes up if a mouse sneezes in Iowa to check on the baby.  She forgets to eat because she’s worried our daughter didn’t get that extra tenth of an ounce.  If there’s a mom of the year contest, my wife is in the running after only three weeks.