Post by allenchaney on Nov 2, 2022 21:06:52 GMT -5
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“I'm glad I'm a comedian. Otherwise, my life would just be a series of undocumented low points.”
-Kyle Kinane
He’s taking deep breaths in and out like his therapist told him. First tip he was given to try and get ahead of a panic attack.
“Ladies and Gentlemen give it up for Kansas City’s favorite fighting Stand-up: Allen Chaney!”
Which was a good plan because he was about to do untested material about something he had been terrified of talking about for months now.
One last deep breath, and then he’s through the curtain and in front of the spotlight.
One mic and a stool.
One of the two places he felt in his element.
The crowd dies down.
And it’s time to put in the work.
“Look at you all…undressing me with your eyes.” Allen says as his opener and the laughter begins. Nothing wrong with a little self-deprecation.
We cut to footage from that morning of Allen drinking his coffee in his Kansas City apartment and making direct unblinking eye contact with his cat, Bill who is seated peacefully.
“I have to talk about it at some point, right?” Allen says.
Bill says nothing because he is a cat and it would be weird if he responded. Allen sips his coffee, his other hand squeezing a stress ball.
“I can just be blunt about it. Bluntness can be funny. Like the shock of it. Just let it hang for a bit and then poke fun at it.” Allen says. It’s at this point Bill realizes his human is kinda freaking out so he gets up and goes over to him before curling up in his lap and pressing his head into his hand until Allen relents and pets him.
“Start with it. End wit the tested material so everyone goes home happy. That’s really the only way to do it, huh?” Allen says. Bill responds by saying…. No, just kidding. Still a cat.
Back on stage in KC.
“For years I’ve been saying ‘I’m not an alcoholic I’m just good at drinking’ and it always got a polite little chuckle but I believed it every time I said. So a few months ago someone close to me told me I had a drinking problem and I was an alcoholic and I said ‘oh yeah?’ all cocky-like and bet them I could not have a drink for two days just to show them how wrong they were and uh…”
A pause. It’s quiet. Quiet can be terrifying in a comedy club.
“A day and a half later I had the DT’s so bad that I had a seizure.”
The quiet is different now as the crowd realizes Allen isn’t joking.
“And as an EMT was using suction to try and clear out my airway of vomit so they could get a tube down my throat I thought… ‘Man, really showed that guy, huh?’ Who wins?! This guy! This is what a winner looks like! Take a picture! WOO!”
The laughter starts out as uncomfortable but gives way to genuine amusement at this mental image.
“Mister Doctor I’d get up and do a victory lap if there wasn’t so much stuff attached to me right now and if I didn’t poop myself a little once things started gettin’ all twitchy.”
We cut to Allen earlier that day going for a long jog.
“Gonna take more than that, fatass.” someone says as Allen passes by.
“Got enough stamina to fuck your mother.” Allen says without breaking his stride. The concept of ‘Midwest Nice’ is a lie. People are assholes everywhere. There’s also nice people everywhere. Except Nebraska. Nebraska can find and kiss the fattest part of Allen's ass so far as he cared.
As soon as he gets around the corner and out of the line of sight of the dude who insulted him, he stops jogging so he can take a break and a few deep breaths.
Never show the hecklers the struggle until they’ve seen you succeed.
And once Allen has his wind back he is back on the move.
Meanwhile, back to the future at the club.
“Sobriety has brought me clarity on one specific thing that I want us all to accept. I know that what I’m about to say will be VERY difficult for you to come to terms with but I PROMISE it’s true.” Allen says. He takes a deep breath before he gets into the REALLY deep and heavy topic. Something that has been weighing heavily on the soul of The Comedian.
“...Waffle House is great when you’re sober.”
Huge laugh from the crowd that cuts through all of the tension.
“You think you need to be piss drunk to enjoy a chocolate chip waffle and hash browns with literally fucking whatever you want on it? Smothered, covered, topped, fondled, spanked….whatever the fuck. They have a whole hashbrown CODE. Occasionally I just ask them for random adjectives and see what the hell they give me. I asked them for my hashbrowns to be flanked and bedazzled and they gave me an actual ruby. I think there’s a genie in the back or something. Waffle. House. Fucking. RULES” Allen says, pounding the base of his mic stand on the stage with each of those last 4 words for emphasis. The crowd is very welcoming of this change in tone, laughing along.
“There’s always the jokes about how if you’re drunk in a Waffle House you’ll get into a fight… but if you’re sober? You just get to WATCH the fight. It’s AMAZING. I’ve got a plate of potatoes and waffles and all sorts of sweaty diner meat and I’m watching a fucking BRAWL. That’s the closest I will ever get to feeling like a Roman Emperor. SERVANT, FETCH ME MORE AMBROSIA AND TOSS THE METH HEAD A KNIFE. I WISH TO SEE MY GLADIATORS BLEED. BLOOD FOR THE BLOOD GODS.”
The laughter carries on for a bit and dies down until suddenly we are in a garage earlier in the day.
“Allen, this thing looks terrible.” Jennie Fenix says, bent over to look under the hood of Allen’s terrible car.
“I mean, it looks pretty damn good to me.” Allen says, focused more on Jennie than the car. No one edited a laugh track into this but you can almost hear it. Allen starred in a sitcom that was canceled and as such had a moral distaste for sitcom logic in the real world but has chosen to ignore this recently so he may live the sitcom trope of ‘amazingly hot woman dates slobby fat guy’ life. Having morals is overrated sometimes if the alternative is having a really cool and really hot girlfriend who will offer to do stuff like fix your PT Cruiser.
“How much did you pay for this, if I’m being generous, piece of crap?” Jennie asks.
“Nothing. I did a standup show at Zanies in Chicago and the guy running the show couldn’t pay me so he gave me this PT Cruiser. It was 10 years old in 2011 when I got it and it barely ran then. HE told me a guy died in this thing but I can’t confirm or deny if that actually happened but there is a weird stain that won’t go away in one of the seats and sometimes I think maybe that’s where he-you know what nevermind” Allen says, cutting off that real downer of a story.
“Umm…” Jennie gets onto her tip-toes while leaning further under the hood, “I’m surprised it’s still running! If I’m being honest here. But I think I can–” she grunts while fiddling with something inside, “–I think I can fix ‘er up!”
“Really? I assumed you were gonna suggest setting it on fire.”
“It would probably be cheaper…”
“It’d be hard to let Doris go. I traveled to so many early comedy and wrestling gigs in this thing. I lost my virginity in this car which, I mean that was terrible and painful in that small backseat but still. Memories and stuff.” Allen says as he looks at ‘Doris’.
Jennie comes out from under the hood momentarily with her hands covered in a little bit of dust and grease, and some smudged on her nose; she looks at Allen for a couple of longing seconds before finally shrugging off her own thoughts of letting the car go to the impound, “Then I can do what I can to fix Doris up, but you’re going to have to tell me more details on some of these stories! And maybe…” she goes back under the hood, “We can improve some of those stories!” she can’t hide the suggestive tone in her voice.
Allen makes several sounds. The sounds all have consonants and vowels but none of them really register as what we know as ‘words’. Jennie raises her head, “Are you okay back there?”
“I…Yup. I’m great. Never been better, actually.”
Back on stage.
“The real bullshit of it all is you can’t just be ‘done’ being an alcoholic. I’ve been sober a few months now and haven’t really had a huge temptation to take another sip after that seizure but also my life has been going really well. Eventually my life will NOT be going really well and I will be acutely aware that there is nothing legally stopping me from walking into one of the, I dunno, 5,000 liquor stores within spitting distance of my apartment and immediately purchasing magical sad-go-away potion from one of the many booze wizards. Don’t even have to slay a dragon or anything.” Allen says. He briefly looks at his feet before looking back out at the audience.
“I haven’t talked about this openly before because like… it’s complicated. There’s this Midwestern urge to not burden anyone else with your troubles but it’s also like… if anyone asked how I’m doing I could either say ‘Well, I’m constantly standing on a trap door. No matter where I go or how long I go without falling I know it’s there and it could open at literally any moment. Sometimes I feel it kinda shift and maybe start to open a little bit and it feels like a hand is reaching into my chest and very briefly squeezing my heart and I jolt like I feel the sensation of falling while I’m just standing there and the clarity I have now that I cherish so much also means I overanalyze things exactly like right now and now I’m having a panic attack fuck fuck fuck okay no don’t touch me I just…I’ve gotta lay down here on here on the ground now. Okay….okay…’” Allen says, actually laying down on the stage.
A pause.
“.....see I either say that or I just say ‘I’m fine’ and that just saves everyone involved a lot of time.” Allen adds as he stands. The laughter is both genuine and a little uncomfortable. Good. That’s what he was going for.
“There’s dick jokes coming, I promise.”
Allen goes into his tested material and ends the night on applause. He doesn’t stick around long after the show and heads back to his place. He feeds his cat and sits at his desk, taking out the now-familiar beaten up notebook and tsrts taking notes about his set. What worked, what didn;t. How he could improve it. It was good but definitely a work in progress.
But aren’t we all?
Tomorrow he’d be back in PWE now that his doctor had cleared him… he could see it now.
One last deep breath, and then he’s through the curtain and in front of the spotlight.
A wrestling ring.
One of the two places he felt in his element.
The crowd dies down.
And it’s time to put in the work.
“I'm glad I'm a comedian. Otherwise, my life would just be a series of undocumented low points.”
-Kyle Kinane
He’s taking deep breaths in and out like his therapist told him. First tip he was given to try and get ahead of a panic attack.
“Ladies and Gentlemen give it up for Kansas City’s favorite fighting Stand-up: Allen Chaney!”
Which was a good plan because he was about to do untested material about something he had been terrified of talking about for months now.
One last deep breath, and then he’s through the curtain and in front of the spotlight.
One mic and a stool.
One of the two places he felt in his element.
The crowd dies down.
And it’s time to put in the work.
“Look at you all…undressing me with your eyes.” Allen says as his opener and the laughter begins. Nothing wrong with a little self-deprecation.
We cut to footage from that morning of Allen drinking his coffee in his Kansas City apartment and making direct unblinking eye contact with his cat, Bill who is seated peacefully.
“I have to talk about it at some point, right?” Allen says.
Bill says nothing because he is a cat and it would be weird if he responded. Allen sips his coffee, his other hand squeezing a stress ball.
“I can just be blunt about it. Bluntness can be funny. Like the shock of it. Just let it hang for a bit and then poke fun at it.” Allen says. It’s at this point Bill realizes his human is kinda freaking out so he gets up and goes over to him before curling up in his lap and pressing his head into his hand until Allen relents and pets him.
“Start with it. End wit the tested material so everyone goes home happy. That’s really the only way to do it, huh?” Allen says. Bill responds by saying…. No, just kidding. Still a cat.
Back on stage in KC.
“For years I’ve been saying ‘I’m not an alcoholic I’m just good at drinking’ and it always got a polite little chuckle but I believed it every time I said. So a few months ago someone close to me told me I had a drinking problem and I was an alcoholic and I said ‘oh yeah?’ all cocky-like and bet them I could not have a drink for two days just to show them how wrong they were and uh…”
A pause. It’s quiet. Quiet can be terrifying in a comedy club.
“A day and a half later I had the DT’s so bad that I had a seizure.”
The quiet is different now as the crowd realizes Allen isn’t joking.
“And as an EMT was using suction to try and clear out my airway of vomit so they could get a tube down my throat I thought… ‘Man, really showed that guy, huh?’ Who wins?! This guy! This is what a winner looks like! Take a picture! WOO!”
The laughter starts out as uncomfortable but gives way to genuine amusement at this mental image.
“Mister Doctor I’d get up and do a victory lap if there wasn’t so much stuff attached to me right now and if I didn’t poop myself a little once things started gettin’ all twitchy.”
We cut to Allen earlier that day going for a long jog.
“Gonna take more than that, fatass.” someone says as Allen passes by.
“Got enough stamina to fuck your mother.” Allen says without breaking his stride. The concept of ‘Midwest Nice’ is a lie. People are assholes everywhere. There’s also nice people everywhere. Except Nebraska. Nebraska can find and kiss the fattest part of Allen's ass so far as he cared.
As soon as he gets around the corner and out of the line of sight of the dude who insulted him, he stops jogging so he can take a break and a few deep breaths.
Never show the hecklers the struggle until they’ve seen you succeed.
And once Allen has his wind back he is back on the move.
Meanwhile, back to the future at the club.
“Sobriety has brought me clarity on one specific thing that I want us all to accept. I know that what I’m about to say will be VERY difficult for you to come to terms with but I PROMISE it’s true.” Allen says. He takes a deep breath before he gets into the REALLY deep and heavy topic. Something that has been weighing heavily on the soul of The Comedian.
“...Waffle House is great when you’re sober.”
Huge laugh from the crowd that cuts through all of the tension.
“You think you need to be piss drunk to enjoy a chocolate chip waffle and hash browns with literally fucking whatever you want on it? Smothered, covered, topped, fondled, spanked….whatever the fuck. They have a whole hashbrown CODE. Occasionally I just ask them for random adjectives and see what the hell they give me. I asked them for my hashbrowns to be flanked and bedazzled and they gave me an actual ruby. I think there’s a genie in the back or something. Waffle. House. Fucking. RULES” Allen says, pounding the base of his mic stand on the stage with each of those last 4 words for emphasis. The crowd is very welcoming of this change in tone, laughing along.
“There’s always the jokes about how if you’re drunk in a Waffle House you’ll get into a fight… but if you’re sober? You just get to WATCH the fight. It’s AMAZING. I’ve got a plate of potatoes and waffles and all sorts of sweaty diner meat and I’m watching a fucking BRAWL. That’s the closest I will ever get to feeling like a Roman Emperor. SERVANT, FETCH ME MORE AMBROSIA AND TOSS THE METH HEAD A KNIFE. I WISH TO SEE MY GLADIATORS BLEED. BLOOD FOR THE BLOOD GODS.”
The laughter carries on for a bit and dies down until suddenly we are in a garage earlier in the day.
“Allen, this thing looks terrible.” Jennie Fenix says, bent over to look under the hood of Allen’s terrible car.
“I mean, it looks pretty damn good to me.” Allen says, focused more on Jennie than the car. No one edited a laugh track into this but you can almost hear it. Allen starred in a sitcom that was canceled and as such had a moral distaste for sitcom logic in the real world but has chosen to ignore this recently so he may live the sitcom trope of ‘amazingly hot woman dates slobby fat guy’ life. Having morals is overrated sometimes if the alternative is having a really cool and really hot girlfriend who will offer to do stuff like fix your PT Cruiser.
“How much did you pay for this, if I’m being generous, piece of crap?” Jennie asks.
“Nothing. I did a standup show at Zanies in Chicago and the guy running the show couldn’t pay me so he gave me this PT Cruiser. It was 10 years old in 2011 when I got it and it barely ran then. HE told me a guy died in this thing but I can’t confirm or deny if that actually happened but there is a weird stain that won’t go away in one of the seats and sometimes I think maybe that’s where he-you know what nevermind” Allen says, cutting off that real downer of a story.
“Umm…” Jennie gets onto her tip-toes while leaning further under the hood, “I’m surprised it’s still running! If I’m being honest here. But I think I can–” she grunts while fiddling with something inside, “–I think I can fix ‘er up!”
“Really? I assumed you were gonna suggest setting it on fire.”
“It would probably be cheaper…”
“It’d be hard to let Doris go. I traveled to so many early comedy and wrestling gigs in this thing. I lost my virginity in this car which, I mean that was terrible and painful in that small backseat but still. Memories and stuff.” Allen says as he looks at ‘Doris’.
Jennie comes out from under the hood momentarily with her hands covered in a little bit of dust and grease, and some smudged on her nose; she looks at Allen for a couple of longing seconds before finally shrugging off her own thoughts of letting the car go to the impound, “Then I can do what I can to fix Doris up, but you’re going to have to tell me more details on some of these stories! And maybe…” she goes back under the hood, “We can improve some of those stories!” she can’t hide the suggestive tone in her voice.
Allen makes several sounds. The sounds all have consonants and vowels but none of them really register as what we know as ‘words’. Jennie raises her head, “Are you okay back there?”
“I…Yup. I’m great. Never been better, actually.”
Back on stage.
“The real bullshit of it all is you can’t just be ‘done’ being an alcoholic. I’ve been sober a few months now and haven’t really had a huge temptation to take another sip after that seizure but also my life has been going really well. Eventually my life will NOT be going really well and I will be acutely aware that there is nothing legally stopping me from walking into one of the, I dunno, 5,000 liquor stores within spitting distance of my apartment and immediately purchasing magical sad-go-away potion from one of the many booze wizards. Don’t even have to slay a dragon or anything.” Allen says. He briefly looks at his feet before looking back out at the audience.
“I haven’t talked about this openly before because like… it’s complicated. There’s this Midwestern urge to not burden anyone else with your troubles but it’s also like… if anyone asked how I’m doing I could either say ‘Well, I’m constantly standing on a trap door. No matter where I go or how long I go without falling I know it’s there and it could open at literally any moment. Sometimes I feel it kinda shift and maybe start to open a little bit and it feels like a hand is reaching into my chest and very briefly squeezing my heart and I jolt like I feel the sensation of falling while I’m just standing there and the clarity I have now that I cherish so much also means I overanalyze things exactly like right now and now I’m having a panic attack fuck fuck fuck okay no don’t touch me I just…I’ve gotta lay down here on here on the ground now. Okay….okay…’” Allen says, actually laying down on the stage.
A pause.
“.....see I either say that or I just say ‘I’m fine’ and that just saves everyone involved a lot of time.” Allen adds as he stands. The laughter is both genuine and a little uncomfortable. Good. That’s what he was going for.
“There’s dick jokes coming, I promise.”
Allen goes into his tested material and ends the night on applause. He doesn’t stick around long after the show and heads back to his place. He feeds his cat and sits at his desk, taking out the now-familiar beaten up notebook and tsrts taking notes about his set. What worked, what didn;t. How he could improve it. It was good but definitely a work in progress.
But aren’t we all?
Tomorrow he’d be back in PWE now that his doctor had cleared him… he could see it now.
One last deep breath, and then he’s through the curtain and in front of the spotlight.
A wrestling ring.
One of the two places he felt in his element.
The crowd dies down.
And it’s time to put in the work.