Open Mic

[Allen and Ollie and Raccoon]

'THE COMEDIAN' ALLEN CHANEY
Open Mic

“I'm glad I'm a comedian. Otherwise, my life would just be a series of undocumented low points.”

-Kyle Kinane

Setting up a tripod to film yourself never doesn’t feel sad. He goes over his schedule for the day in his head. Film this. Pick up Jennie from the airport. Barcade.

Allen thinks the word ‘Barcade’ and immediately tries to remember if his AA chip is on him, like if he goes without it he’s just gonna do 20 Jagerbombs because he forgot his magic coin. They’ve got good grub and good classic arcade cabinets and less money spent on drinks for himself is more money to spend on stuff for Jennie who is the best. Barcade, then dinner so you can prove to Jen that KC Barbecue is the best then back to his place to cuddle up and watch a movie and y’know…maybe other stuff that’s none of your goddamn business.

Allen sets up the shot for a few more moments and checks sound by saying the word ‘Ladle’ at varying volumes a few times before he sits

Allen spends so much of his days thinking in detail about how the rest of the day should play out so he doesn’t fuck anything up. Then he thinks of how to handle fuckups that haven;t even happened yet. But now it was time to clear his head of all of that. The only time his mind knew peace was when he was in a wrestling ring or when he had a microphone in his hands/a camera in his face. That is when HE has control.

So let’s go to work.



We open on a sight that may be unfamiliar to fans of Imperial Wrestling Federation (Imps? I’m gonna call them Imps.). It’s a fella on the chubbier side sitting in an empty comedy club. This was the newly opened ‘Hackbreakers’, a brand new comedy club opened up in Kansas City by the aforementioned chubby guy. Said chubby guy is sitting on the stage atop a stool and making notes into an open notebook which has all manner of post-its and taped-in bar napkins sticking out of it. A mic stand is in front of him. The sides and back of the stage have ‘ring ropes’ and there is a ‘ring apron’ on the front of the stage. Theming!

ALLEN CHANEY: Whenever I go somewhere new I tend to talk about ‘Setups’ and ‘Punchlines’ just to drive home what I’m all about. The idea of joke structure being applied to combat sports. I probably spend way too long on it. It’s a simple enough concept to grasp if you aren’t dumber than your average twitter discourse on any given day so here’s a pretty basic way to understand it…

A pause. The Comedian takes a moment to clear his throat.

ALLEN CHANEY: The Setup is the Comedian saying “More than anything I just want to be taken seriously here in this new company.”

A pause as Allen stands up from the stool he’s sitting on and sets his notebook down on it.

ALLEN CHANEY: The Punchline is ‘John Blade in the Opening Match.’

Allen claps both of his hands and gives us jazz hands to emphasize the joke.

ALLEN CHANEY: This is actually exactly what I wanted, to be honest. When PWE closed shop for the second time I was promised main event spots and Title matches in more than a few companies and I chose to sign with the place that for the most part knew me as ‘Jennie’s Boyfriend’. I like the idea of staying humble and trust me there is no more humbling an experience than having to see John Blade speak broken sentences about you like he just popped into existence with a loose understanding of how his mouth works twelve minutes before filming when he’s been doing this for over a decade. Seriously, the man is basically a cryptid. The name ‘John Blade’ should be spoken in the same breath as ‘Bigfoot’ and ‘Mothman’ because if you put his name on a wrestling card and set a backstage interviewer in a random hallway he will pop out of a broom closet and say a bunch of nonsense and then wait there three or four days until his match starts. My trainer Johnny Maverick was booked in a match against him once like a decade ago and someone sent him a video of what looked like Blade at the arena for their match a week before it was supposed to happen fishing day old giant soft pretzels out of the trash and muttering ‘You Are Unable To See Me’. You tell me that’s not a fucking cryptid. Anyway…

Allen steps up to the microphone.

ALLEN CHANEY: This is kinda how it’s supposed to work, honestly. You perform in Kansas City for a few years to the point you’re headlining then you head somewhere else and… well you gotta start over and show what you’re made of. If you’re good enough you’re back on top in no time and if you’re not… well, there’s always Branson. The saddest happy place in the world. They have sad theme parks, sad live shows, and the one time I was asked to perform there they said in the same breath ‘Please don’t do any inappropriate material or use any swear words’ and ‘Is it okay if we pay you in cocaine?’. Branson is the vacation spot of families that call Wal-Mart ‘The Fancy Store’. What was I talking about?

A pause. Allen has been known to get lost in tangents on occasion. He stands and takes the microphone off of the stand to talk into it.

ALLEN CHANEY: Right. Okay. So when you go to a new town unannounced and without a lot of people to vouch for you…no matter how big you are in your old town you’re probably gonna have to do an open mic or two to get things moving. That’s what this match is. An open mic. They’re gonna get me up there and make sure I don’t piss myself on day one just to make sure. I get that. That’s how it’s supposed to work and why I’m honestly in a pretty good mood about this. I mean there’s a level of disrespect I don’t tolerate but when it comes to where my spot should be? I could sit here and tell you how goddamn good at this I am but I think it’d be much more fun to show you. With dick jokes and violence.

A ‘Dick Jokes and Violence, copyright of Allen Chaney’. Appears at the bottom of the screen. It is unknown whether or not Allen owns this copyright or if this is part of a bit. Either of those is equally possible.

ALLEN CHANEY: I look at this company and I see fevered egos and a fair amount of people who think they are the Protagonist of this company or wrestling in general. I hate that shit. Thinking you’re the main character is a mental illness and I think that needs to be talked about a little more. That’s not my deal. My deal is that this is my job. I like my job and I also like to think I’m pretty good at it and as much as I appreciate the people who tell me I inspire them or whatever… I do this to live in relative comfort and because I like hurting folks for reasons my shrink is still trying to get to the bottom of.

Allen shrugs.

ALLEN CHANEY: So here’s how I see this all going in the near future. The Setup is going to be all of you that think you have all of this figured out. You’ve got the look, you’ve got the skills, you can talk a crowd into a building, you’ve got a huge list of a hundred title belts you’ve won in 30 separate companies you’ve worked in in the past six months and you’ve got some kinda flashy nickname like THE ALPHA APEX MASTER OF REALITY or some shit and people eat that up. The Punchline is when you have all of that…and you still get beat by the funny fat fuck. Tryst me….when that happens? That crowd isn't laughing with you… they’ll be laughing at you. This is all the warning you guys get. Setup. Punchline.

Allen reaches out like he’s going to drop the mic then stops himself.

ALLEN CHANEY: I actually just paid for this mic so uh… I’ll just have to remember to cut this part ou-