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January 21st, 2004 -
Perhaps the greatest moment in Cringe Humor history occurred.
Long time site visitors know the HATRED CH has towards Dat Phan.
He is the antichrist of the Cringe style of comedy.
We all came to
loathe Dat after he eliminated Dave Mordal from Last Comic
Standing. It was utterly disgusting how the crowd chose Dat
the winner, and sent home a great & talented comic like
Mordal. Next week, the crowd once again sided with the terrible
Phan as he ousted Geoff Brown. His ethnic material and excessive
use of an Asian accent raised the ire of us all. Dat also
was never funny around the house, something Rich Vos & Dave
Mordal embraced so well. He also is an obsessive perfectionist.
We all watched with our mouths agape as he revealed the insane
charts & graphs he keeps for his act.
The unthinkable
happened when it came down to the final 5. After doing the same
bullshit material we watched the prior 2 weeks live on NBC,
America let us all down. Somehow Dat was voted the Last Comic
Standing by a landslide. That proved once in for all that
American loves a hack.
Four months later,
this site decided on having it's first ever achievement awards
in which you lovely visitors would vote for the best & worst
in the world of comedy. CH nominated Dat as "Hack Of The
Year", and he also received a double nomination in the
"Worst Moment of 2003".
Phan once again was
voted a winner, but this time it was to honor how truly terrible
a comedian he is. Dat won Hack Of The Year by a landslide, and
also won Worst Moment for when he was voted the winner of LCS.
Fast forward one
month. It's January 2004, and NBC is holding open auditions for
season 2 of LCS all over the country. Beloved CH comedian Robert
Kelly decided to give it a shot at the NY qualifier. The event
was to be held at the terrible Comic Strip Live club.
It's now Wednesday
the 21st. I didn't plan on attending the show at all, but Cellar
Dwellers & CH contributors Kristen & Gina were going to
support Robert. After a long day of scrubbing toilets at a job I
hate, Kristen sends me this email (click to enlarge):
Kristen put together
this beautiful sign & printed it out on a cool vinyl banner
(click to enlarge):
Kristen then IM'd
Robert Kelly with the idea, and he challenged her to do it:
Kristen: Dat Phan is hosting the stupid thing
tonight. Uggggggghhhhhh
Robert: were did you find that out
Kristen: www.comicstriplive.com
Kristen: on the schedule.
Kristen: I'm thinking it would be fun to print out the graphics
from the cringies that says "HACK OF THE YEAR" and
present them to him.
Robert: no you will get kicked out you ass. but if you did that
it would go down in history
Kristen: Well I'd do it after the show, tardface. I'm sure his
ego will have him hanging around a little bit.
Robert: lol thats so fucking funny
Robert: I hope you do it fag
Kristen: I want to stop by a Korean grocer and buy some tomatoes
to throw in his dumb asian face. that would be some sweet irony
there
Kristen: 'K.
Robert: nice
And now the plan is
going into motion. In all honesty, I was seriously mulling over
whether or not I should do it. I was doubting myself - I didn't
think I would have the balls to actually go up to him and
sarcastically let him know what a fucking hack we all think he
is. If I didn't go, Kristen & Gina would have gone &
done it. I would have looked like a huge pussy sending them. I
sit on my fat, awful ass (which you can see in Robert's CD) and
trash these shitty comedians behind the safety of a keyboard.
I'm not a comedian by any means. It is hypocritical how I trash
someone in a profession I'll never succeed in. I guess you can
compare it to a sports writer who never ever put on a jockstrap,
yet he writes about how bad a certain athlete is. I'm just a fan
of comedy. One with strong opinions on what I think sucks, or
kicks ass in the scene. I had to show the site has balls by
confronting the biggest hack of them all...
And his name is Dat
Phan.
After asking several
site visitors if I should do it, I garnered up enough courage
and told Kristen to meet me on the 7:50 pm train to Penn
Station. I also asked La Mott (from Ask
La Mott fame) to join us, as he is a wonderful amateur
photographer. La Mott planned on attending the show anyways, but
now he had extra incentive.
Seventy minutes on
the train, and a short cab ride later, we are standing in front
of Comic Strip Live. One the way there, Kristen & I decided
that she should get a picture with Dat before I present him with
the award. This was to mainly lure him into thinking we are fans
of his. La Mott would shoot pictures throughout the
presentation, while Gina videotaped the event on my digital
camera. I brought along my MiniDisc recorder with hopes of
getting top notch audio of me talking to Dat. The recorder was
to be placed in my jacket, close to my rotten toothed mouth.
Everyone had a task, as the scheme of the heist seemed perfect
on paper.
Kristen (the
evil mastermind) with the actual award
Yours truly
holding the holy hack grail
It's 8:30 pm, and
the show begins. Dat is introduced and he plows through the same
old boring shit we've all seen on NBC. The crowd is game though,
and they laugh like the good sheep that they are. All 4 of us
sat in silence with a disgusted look on our faces.
Ten minutes of pure
hell later, the contestants are ready to try out in front of the
very feminine talent scouts NBC dispatched. You can read the
blow-by-blow results of each contestant's performance by clicking
here. After all 25 comedians did their thing, the scouts
& producers in attendance needed 10 minutes to assess their
notes & whatnot. They would then come out & announce who
would advance to the next round. To fill the 10 minutes, they
decided to have Dat come up and do more of his routine. As soon
as Dat hit the stage, the waitresses handed out the INSANELY
overpriced bills and everyone began reaching into their pockets.
Dat took the stage & everyone in the club started talking!
NO ONE was paying attention to Phan while he did his tiresome
routine. It was simply beautiful to watch as he started sweating
and mumbling under his breath. Dat is such a pussy, he did not
once tell anyone to shut up. He kept going back to a stool where
he had papers full of new material he decided now would be a
good time to test out.
We were all fucking
loving it. It was poetic justice at it's finest. Half way into
his performance I decided to pull out my recorder and give an
audio commentary on what's going on. I wanted to share this
beautiful moment with each & every site visitor. Here is the
link for the audio clip:
- Dat
Phan Bombing (.mp3) about 4 MB in size
I apologize to
everyone for my fat mush mouth. I was so excited and thrilled
this was happening before my very eyes. In that clip you can
hear cel phones ringing while Dat stood motionless with his
hands inside his pockets. Dat acknowledges he's bombing and we
applaud him with sarcastic laughter which he thanked us for from
the stage.
Gina was keeping a
tally throughout the night of how many times Dat did an Asian
accent. The result was a whopping 35 instances.
The pain finally
ended. NBC producer Peter Engle (Saved By The Bell) got up on
the mic and asked us to give it up for Dat's performance. The
half-assed applause was beautiful. The 25 comedians all returned
to the stage and the qualifiers were then announced.
The 12 winners were
announced and everyone slowly started filing out the door. Gina
decided that she had to use the bathroom and this prolonged the
agony. I stood with La Mott & Kristen for what seemed an
eternity waiting for Gina to return. Kristen decided to go &
fetch her and I though to myself "Oh great they fucking
bailed on us!" After swearing up & down, and giving a
La Mott an earful, the ladies luckily returned. I handed Gina my
camera. La Mott set up his. I pressed record on my MD and placed
it in my jacket chest pocket. Kristen handed me her cam as we
stood a mere 2 feet away from Dat.
Dat was talking with
the hunky Jason Steinberg, and once that conversation ended, he
turned around & greeted us with a big "hello!."
Kristen like the trooper that she is, enthusiastically asked Dat
for a picture. Phan replied with an equally enthusiastic
"of course, always!" I then took over Kristen's camera
as both parties began to pose. Kristen tried sneaking in the
finger, and Dat looked down to see what she was doing. "I
wasn't sure what you were doing with your hand", he
muttered as he quickly posed for a 2nd shot. The first pic was
ruined by him looking down to see what was up.
*alternate
angle taken by La Mott*
I then handed the
camera back to Kristen while Dat asked her not to judge him on
that last horrible performance. I began shaking inside, as my
nerves started getting to me. It was now time step up.
I interjected with
"Hey I'm Patrick, I run CringeHumor.net." Dat had a
puzzled look on his face and replied with an "oh ok"
while my mouth started running a mile a minute. "I would
like to present you uh....you won 2 awards...we had voting"
I nervously mumbled while he seemed genuinely thrilled to be
honored.
Before he could read
& comprehend the sign, I asked him if he would mind taking a
picture with it. "Yeah, of course!"
Now I present
to you the greatest moment in Cringe Humor History:
I'm still not sure
at the time if he actually read the sign or not, so I played it
off by saying "I know we give you a hard time & all on
the site..." in which he then states he will put the sign
in his room. Dat then stretches it out and begins to read what
it says.
"Wait I don't
get it...oooh ok I see." The look in Dat's eyes is
priceless:
"Are you guys
the ones that are sending me emails?...because I got some hate
mail and I was wondering who was doing it." I replied that
we don't encourage that on CH, which is the truth. You guys have
an entire forum to trash him on (which you do, and I love you
all because of that.)
Dat then gives me
this "you're a fucking asshole" look and sarcastically
thanks me. He realizes he's been had, and there I am with a big
dopey smile on my face while my partners in crime giggle in the
background. He then wishes us all a safe & happy New Year.
If you don't believe
any of the words you just read, here is the link to the audio of
the entire presentation:
-
Dat Phan Presentation (.mp3) about 2 MB in size
I head towards the
exit and I can't bring myself to look back at him. I was
literally cringing just thinking about the thoughts going
through his head right then & there. We slowly work our way
out into the lobby where we meet Robert Kelly. We congratulate
him on advancing and go on to tell him about the cringe worthy
events that just took place.
We all hopped into a
cab where we giddily laughed & recollected our own point of
views of the entire event. We swing by the Comedy Cellar where
we proceeded to celebrate by downing some hard liquor and
mozzarella sticks. Gina then called Annie (aka BlueFlame from
the forum) to tell her the great news. Annie has dealt with to
much shit on Dat's forum at the hands of the irrational Asians
that inhabit it. She was there with us in spirit.
Summing things up, I
actually felt bad. We tricked Dat into thinking he won a legit
& flattering award. It was an ambush by us onto him. Then I
began thinking further about it. Thinking about what a good
natured pussy he is. Thinking about how the term "cringehumor"
is banned at his forum. Thinking about how his moderators berate
his nay-sayers when not deleting their posts. Thinking about how
he tries to block out all of the negativity directed towards by
other comedians who don't respect him. Thinking about all the
other truly funny comics who deserve to be in his place...
Dat Phan, YOU JUST
GOT SERVED, BITCH.
-Patrick
*note: the video
of the event did not come out due to my shitty digital camera.
The room was way too dark. Many special thanks to Gina for
shooting it though
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