CHRIS COEN

When I was in college, sadly longer ago than I prefer to admit, I had some clashes with authority.  My fraternity got a $1000 fine for blaring speakers too loudly and I was able to whittle it down to some community service with my brilliant defense in the esteemed court of New Concord, Ohio (population 1,707).  I also battled the school, overturning an alcohol violation with an even more genius oration.  OK, two of the professors couldn’t make it and I knew the students on the judicial board, but whatever.  I’m basically Perry Mason, if Perry Mason only took cases involving binge drinking.

I had a college show this week at a small college in Columbus.  I have done the show before; it’s on the third floor of a rec center.  They usually serve beers, so I went to grab one.  I was informed that they only had them downstairs this time by the pasta cook, a young, rather effeminate fellow.  Thanks, I said, and walked down the stairs.  I got a couple beers and the young lady told me since I was doing the show, I could take them back upstairs no problem.  As soon as I walked in, my once helpful friend in the kitchen rushed out.  “You can’t drink those here!  You have to go back downstairs!”  Umm…didn’t you tell me to go downstairs and get them?  “Yes, but you have to drink them down there!  It’s against the rules!”

2000 Chris would’ve chugged the beer, smashed the bottle on the ground and kicked over the trash can, but I’m proud to say I’ve really matured.  I said, “You’ve got to be shitting me.”  Then I walked around the corner and pounded the beers in the hall leading to the stairs, refusing to walk down again.  It’s not as exciting as old me, but old me probably would’ve been cuffed and stuffed about 15 minutes later, so it’ll have to do.

When I first started comedy, all I heard from other comics is that I had to be on MySpace.  I didn’t even have the internet at home, so I was unprepared for my first foray into social media.  I soon learned about fake friend requests (wow, this girl sure is wearing a slutty outfit…who is she friends with?  77 teenage boys.  Delete request.)  I also was exposed to the MySpace page themes that constantly crashed.  HOW WILL EVERYONE KNOW HOW MUCH I LIKE BUD LIGHT?  DAMMIT PAGE THEME!

MySpace was pretty good at first, but the whole “top friends” thing was the worst.  I used to get messages from people asking why I didn’t have them in the top whatever.  I ended up changing my top to about 40 people just to get everyone to shut the hell up.  I think putting together my bottom friends would be easier.  17 game requests?  You’re the worst – congrats!

Everyone I knew took part in a mass exodus in 2008ish and I soon forgot about MySpace.  My pal Dan pointed out I still had a link to it, which was humorous to me…until I went to my old page.  Holy shit, I had about 40 minutes of comedy online and it was awful.  I watched some old sets.  I made it through five and deleted the entire account before one more person had to watch me curse every 2.3 words and chug six beers in a 17 minute set.  For anyone that came to see me in 2007, you should get a purple heart or you are a sick, sick human being and you need a lot of help.  When I overcome the shame of watching myself, maybe I’ll blog about it.

I spent the weekend in Detroit with my wife, who had to work.  This gave me some free time to explore the magical wonderland that is downtown Detroit.  What’s underrated are the restaurants.  The food here is really good and there are plenty of options.  I was impressed.  This is called the compliment sandwich.  Compliment, criticism, then I have to think of something else positive at the end.

On the way to dinner, I witnessed a drunk homeless guy being held up by another homeless guy.  He fell down twice, so on the way past, I helped him up.  He then fell down a third time.  Then another homeless guy started yelling at them and they hustled away at about three miles per hour.  As a side note, I noticed some homeless guys like to yell a lot.  Those are the ones that scare me.  Anyone can ask for change, but the ones that scream in the middle of the street are legit off kilter.  I checked my  pockets to make sure it wasn’t a ruse to rob me, then washed my exposed skin completely before eating.

I got to hit the casinos, which still allow smoking.  I forgot what a treat that is until a lady in a wheelchair with four inch long fingernails blew three Capri 100’s directly into my face for an hour at the Blackjack table.  Her pinpoint accuracy was impressive.  I spent the next hour and a half looking for Febreeze on a Friday night.  I didn’t find any, so I bought two overpriced air fresheners from a ghetto pharmacy and made my clothes smell like a lavender ashtray instead.

I then saw one street was done up in beautiful lights.  This one was my favorite.

In fairness, Detroit really has a nice theater, sports stadiums, restaurants and hotels downtown, you just may run into some guy shuffling down the street screaming at the wind.  Plus I won $15 playing Blackjack, so I’m pretty much ready to retire to my Tuscan villa soon.  Thanks, motor city!

I partook in the Great Debate again this year, which is a great fundraiser run by the Rotary Club in Hilliard, Ohio.  Four pro-Michigan debaters battle four Buckeye debaters to see who can win the argument before “the Game.”  Since it’s in the greater Columbus area, guess who always wins.  This year, I was asked to take on the role of closer for the Michigan Wolverines.  I duct taped a vomit bag to my chin and began writing.

It’s a task beyond the fact I like Ohio State – Michigan is 5-6 right now.  They’ve lost a player due to domestic violence, their athletic director got canned, and if their coach doesn’t get fired, I’ll shave a block M in my ass if he makes it through the year.  I thought of some really good jokes about useless the team is this year, then I remembered I’m on that team in the debate.  However, from doing comedy, I have learned to enjoy being hated by the crowd at times and it’s a fun challenge, so I was happy to do it and will be doing it again next year also.

Here’s the audio link – hopefully video is coming soon, but this is what I did this year.

Here’s the link for next year’s event.  https://www.localevelevents.com/events/details/694

Comedians are supposed to relate to everyone or bring up points that people wish they had thought of – as long as they get laughs.  Current events often bring a slew of jokes to open mikes, clubs, bars and the like, but the more serious the event, the riskier the joke attempt.  I hate to blog about serious stuff anymore, because after all, my website lamely says “comedy” in the  URL, but the Ferguson business has made it impossible for me to blog about anything else today.

Some of my friends have pumped my social media feeds with things about how vile cops are.  I have noticed that most of my friends (in fairness, mostly white) who don’t like cops are probably doing something illegal.  Example – “These cops keep pulling me over when I drink!”  They’re supposed to, dumbass.  I know, because I was that guy when I was younger, complaining that I was being harrassed.  What a tool I was.  Cops put their lives on the line to protect us.  Granted, there are dick cops and they are very poisonous as they can strip your freedom away…but so can scummy politicians, judges, lawyers, government officials, powerful business leaders…you get it.  Can we stop with the all cops are Satan posts?  A lot of cops get killed in the line of duty – just roll down a highway sometime and realize the name of that lonely stretch of road named after a trooper or cop is a human.

Calm down, those on the other side of the issue – if you think the fact that Michael Brown stole some Swisher Sweets makes him a justifiable homicide, you’re useless.  Does it help his perception after this tragedy?  Nope.  Does it justify it?  No way, and I’m exhausted with people thinking it does.  If he assaulted the cop, that’s straight up crazy (if that’s what happened), but yet again, doesn’t ease the blow for his mom.  Something to think about – a man died, whatever the chain of events.

Finally, I’ll wager about 99.9% of the douches that foul social media with incendiary posts about how blacks are violent by nature or white cops are out to kill minorities didn’t sit on the grand jury, take any legal courses, hear the eyewitness accounts, or even care about the facts.  I will bet most made up their minds before the facts even came up.  Sad.

Whatever happens, I won’t be touching this one at all.  It sounds like a mother lost a son and a cop that decided to tell a guy to get out of the street will have a target on his head forever, while the media rakes in the ratings and the commentators and shit stirrers rake in the cash watching the town burn.  Last I checked, no matter what your politics or race, we are all just trying to pay our bills, enjoy the company of family and friends and perhaps drink a cold beer at the end of the day.  Perhaps we should cut out the horseshit, flip off the 24 hour newstream and quit being dicks to groups of people we’ve never met.  Well, that was sanctimonious and now I’m the pretentious POS.  Oh well.

One of life’s biggest deceivers is memory.  I fondly remember TV shows from my youth, like Alf.  It was basically a shitty Rodney Dangerfield knock off, but in alien form and he tried to eat the cat all the time.  When it came on TV Land when I was college, it was so bad my roommate called his dad and apologized for making him watch it on the one family television.

It was a terrible TV night the other night so I busted out the Wii and went through old games.  I found Excitebite and eagerly purchased it.  I drove through three boards and there was no excitement to be had.  I tried Ninja Gaiden and couldn’t get past the second board.  Finally, I went over Super Mario and had a game over in about 16 minutes.  I realized while I’m doing this, I have a Playstation 3 in the basement shaking its virtual head.

OK, so maybe those weren’t as fun as I remember or I have lost the patience and skill I had as a ten year old.  The more I thought on it, I remembered that I used to have about 28 hours of video game free time on an average weekend in the late 80’s.  I was probably much worse back then, but it was either keep plugging away at video games or read my sister’s copy of Ramona and Beezus for the eighth time.  No wonder I was better.  I even beat Bible Adventures about six times.  It was a game where you ran around as Noah and picked up cows and tossed them in an ark.  I haven’t brushed up on Genesis for a minute, but I’m pretty sure Noah wasn’t military pressing livestock while jumping over a snake pit.