Adam Cozens Dot Com

Hey guys! COVID-19 is in full-swing and everyone is trapped inside, isolated looking for ways to stay busy during this freaky time of quarantine. To help make this difficult time hopefully even more boring, here is a collection of some fun, quasi-educational pieces I have written these last 8 months for fine folks at 101 Media. I hope they make your day even a little less dark. 

From The battlefield to the boulevard: A brief history of the white picket fence

People have been getting stoned for 2,500 years, according to new discovery

John Dillinger’s body to be exhumed after 85 years

Born from the ashes: Seattle, a city atop itself

Spider silk: Has science’s stickiest mystery been unraveled?

Skol! 1,100-year-old Viking beer hall unearthed in Scotland

Noah’s Ark has been found? Well, maybe

Can ugly moments from history be funny?

‘Scooby Doo’ and the assassination of Robert Kennedy

Nazi cows: Their birth, death, and resurgence

Starbucks: The rise of the world’s most powerful coffee brand

Number 1: I don’t know.

No one really does. No one knows the next hot tip on how to get ahead until it’s lifecycle has already begun and most likely, already beginning to peter out. I was working for a fledging, rutter-less start up in 2017, the one day the CEO called the creative and social teams into a room and said “I think we need to explore Instagram.” 

In 2017. 

Not only had he allowed an entire generation of social to pass him by, he communicated louder than his words could ever express how tremendously out of touch and slow to growth he was. But that was the “hot tip” he picked up from some podcast or industry journal. Internally, we’d been pressing to expand beyond the tried-and-true Facebook model for well over a year at that point, but ROI is sometimes slow with new ventures and the company would always pull out as soon as it began. Guess what the company is doing today: just using Facebook. And they are still having the issues they had back then. 

The truth is the landscape is constantly changing and that freakin’ sucks! Some people like to pretend that it’s exciting and a good thing but in truth it causes people to only dip a toe into certain platforms for fear of over-committing and having their investment of time and money left for dead. 

Look at Google+, who just contacted all users letting them know to pull their content by March 31st or else its bye-bye. If you would think anyone would have the user-data and knowhow to predict what people want in a social platform, it would be Google. But + died nearly as soon as it began and no one is scrambling to download their content in the next 11 days because no one has any content up there in the first place. 

Yesterday MySpace announced that they accidentally *wink wink* deleted millions of audio files uploaded to the service between 2005 and 2013. 10 years ago, this would have been the biggest story in the world. But instead it was a morning punchline that no one was talking about by the afternoon news cycle. MySpace hasn’t been relevant in years the idea of people panicking about lost music is laughable. 

The modern big guys are Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and YouTube. A few years ago SnapChat (now just Snap) would have been in the mix, but Instagram swiped them right out of relevancy. YouTube slowly crept back into respectability after nearly a decade of just being one of those bookmarked sites you look at for a quick giggle. Now its a major breadwinner and a destination for original content instead of its old role as merely an agguorator. Facebook, as old and lame as it is isn’t going anyway and anyone who says it isn’t cool anymore still uses it on a daily basis. Twitter sucks and is causing the decay of modern society but hundred of people use it daily, despite the aforementioned...well, end of modern society that it is leaving in its wake. 

Which brings us back to Instagram. Originally thought of as a cool place to post pictures of your food, IG (owned by Facebook and really, the major vehicle keeping Blue F respectable) is dominating social media right now and they don’t even have monetization set up yet. Once they decide that users can click-on mid-roll advertising and earn money without adding a #Ad to their copy bar, they will be set up for the next decade. 

Or, as we have learned in the last few years, maybe they won’t. Nothing is predictable anymore. If you ask me where to start posting content, I can give you some great guesses, but there is a strong chance 2 or 3 of those will be obsolete in 5 years and a total waste or energy. So it’s a crapshoot and that blows but if we have learned anything from the last decade and a half of nü media:

The shudders of winter have swung wide open in Southern California. Which most years means closed-toed shoes, a t-shirt over your tank-top and yes, longer shorts than usual. But this year, steeped in the depths of Climate Change and backed by a chyron-thirsty buzz name “Polar Vortex,” the winter in Los Angeles...kind of actually feels like winter! Who’d have thunk?

Last week some neighborhoods in and around Los Angeles got 3, maybe 4 flakes of snow. There haven’t been that many snowflakes in Santa Monica since the last Bernie Sanders rally. Los Angeles has long been a hotbed of hot, so when the cold temps roll into town, we are often left scratching our frostbitten heads. How will we go possibly go on? Here is a guide to my fellow Southlanders on how to Beat The Anti-Heat:

Shut Your Windows. I know, this sounds like sacrilege but hear me out. The window is where the cold air comes IN! Plus, most of us have central A/C at this point so if you are still clamoring for that cool evening nip, you can set the thermostat to 68 and curl up under your warm top sheet. But until that time comes, shut the windows and basque in the warmth of a neutral-temperatures living space.

Ditch The Iced Coffee. Something I have learned in my years of traveling this country is ice rarely keeps your hands warm! I love my trente (which is Spanish for...I dunno, 80?) ounce cup of iced coffee with 4 pumps of Vanilla (no original sweetener, please) and a splash of half-and-half as much as the rest of you, but walking down Colorado Blvd clutching one of those bad boys is going to leave your fingies feeling frosty! And it's very hard to hold onto a condensating plastic cup wearing a pair of mittens. So for the next few weeks, stick to hot cups, preferably ones with handles and those weird cardboard sleeves. It might not be your cup of tea (or coffee) but it’ll get you from A to B without blue fingers. Unless you’re into that sort of thing.

Consider A Hat. DID YOU KNOW: heat escapes from the head! This is a fact most of us do not need to think about on a daily basis but according to nerds, it’s true. When your body needs to release heat, it doesn’t escape through your freshly-shorn legs, it climbs out your head. So to trap the heat in, say goodbye to your fresh blowout and where a hat! Unless it says “Make America Great Again.” Then you can feel free to stay cold.

Maybe...Don’t Go Outside? This probably sounds like a no-brainer for those in more inclement climates (pretty sure those words are not supposed to go back to back) but its hard to keep us in doors out here! I just came back from a long walk myself, shivering the whole time. So, for the next few weeks, perhaps the solution is to stay inside and just vegetate. We will make up the missed jogs to land our summer beach bods in no time. But for now, curl up on your sectional couch and fade away into fat happiness.

Well, my goal to write one blog a week has definitely not worked out. I have been keeping other goals, but this one alludes me. I have been writing everyday in the form of 10-30 monologue-style jokes, but the “blog” post just doesn’t reach out and grab me nearly as well. I’d like to write long-form more often, but the inspiration hasn’t been there. 

Life hasn’t been too easy for me these last couple of weeks. A few life-changing disappointments have drastically affected my general worldview. I have been low. I have been sad. I have been isolating and overall “bummed.” I am thankful to have felt many of these feelings in the past and have the knowledge base to recognize that they don’t stick around for years and years. But when they are here, they are quite difficult to overcome. Anyway, here are some of those jokes I referenced earlier!

A woman has been reunited with a message in a bottle that she tossed into the sea years ago. The woman initially forgot what the message said but was disheartened to find “Buy Google Stock!”

A European court has ordered Italy to pay $20,800 in damages to Amanda Knox. “Thank goodness,” said Knox. “Now we are finally even.”

Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz has announced he’s running for president. He is excited to finally get his chance of moving The White House to Oklahoma City.

A student in France called in a bomb threat to his parents flight so they wouldn’t visit him. He must have REALLY needed to do his laundry.

Trump Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross says that federal workers should take out loans during the shutdown. Although admittedly, it was hard to make out what he was saying with all of that Metamucil in his mouth.

Costco Now Sells A 27-Pound Tub Of Macaroni And Cheese That Lasts 20 Years. Trump is very excited to serve it to whoever wins the Super Bowl.

Last night at a town hall, a heckler called Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz an “egotistical billionaire asshole.” They left out, delusional.

This week Chicago is going to be colder than parts of Antarctica. The weather is so cold, meteorologists have officially broken out the “Witches Tit” unit of measurement.

The FBI has arrested longtime Trump confident Roger Stone.  This news is really going to paint men with Nixon tattoos in a bad light.

See? Some of those are fun. Some -- aren’t. What is really important is that I did them. I feel nice writing this post today. It’s Monday. Maybe that is my new routine. Monday blogging. Start my week on a high note. Treat it like a column with a deadline. Who cares about the work they actually pay me for!

A few more rambling musings and then I’ll be off - 

I don’t have anything on my desk at work. Like, anything. My desk is so empty, that when when new people get hired and my boss tells them “just grab any emty desk,” at least twice they have chosen mine. They don’t even know that anyone works there. They just sit down. I show up and have to say “Excuse me, you’re at my desk” and just pray they don’t ask me to prove it. Because I have no proof. Some people around me have tons of personal effects and momentos and toys and posters and bobble-heads and mugs with pictures of their families. Not me. I treat my job like Robert DeNiro in the movie HEAT. I’m always ready to take off in 30 seconds if I hear HR coming around the corner. No questions, no relationships. Just - gone!

And I have no regrets about it. Have you ever seen one of those people get laid off? It’s humiliating. Just boxes and boxes of schlock, ciotches and/or priceless family heirlooms. This one guy had an entire kitchenette. Had to take multiple trips down to the car and back, hauling his desk’s contents. Do you know how embarrassing that is? To walk BACK into the room you had just been fired from, where everyone was talking about you. As your weeping? And for what? To grab your Captain Lou Albano action figure?

When I set out to write blog posts once a week this year, I figured there would be those weeks when nothing really exciting or “worth writing” would come to mind. 

I just didn’t expect it to happen this quickly. 

I mean, last week I was writing about the increase in hot water in my condo. And now I’m tapping my fingers on the desktop looking for inspiration. 

I did a show last night in Orange County, CA. Well, it was an open mic. But it was a BOOKED open mic. You couldn’t just walk in and get on stage. Either way, I didn’t realize that is what it was, hence me driving an hour to do 6 minutes (it was a 4-5 minute mic, but oh yea...I ran long). You hear these stories about hungry young comics driving 3 hours from po-dunksville to The Big City to do open mics and I used to be like them, except I always lived around where the action was. I would drive ridiculously far from practically no money, however. 

Back when I was green as can be, I got booked for my first “Feature” spot at a REAL comedy club. It was The Funny Farm in Gloversville, NY. Gloversville is nestled right against the butthole of Adiorondack Park and I was thirsty for stage time. I think they were offering me 20 minutes and $75 cash for the set. I had to get there. Except: it was over 4 hours driving from NYC and I did not have a car. 

Thankfully, my friend and the first man to ever pay me money to open for him Andy Pitz DID have a car. And he didn’t need it that weekend. Well, he didn’t need it on the night I did (Saturday). Andy was headlining Wise Crackers comedy club in Allentown, PA that weekend and said if I rode to the show with him, I could borrow it for the night, just so long as I could get back to Allentown by Sunday morning. SOUNDS LIKE A PLAN!

So on Sunday night, Andy and I drive 3 hours to Allentown, PA. We show up to find out that the club had been broken into the weekend prior and the speakers and amp were gone and they just realized it as we showed up and they didn’t know if they would have any shows this weekend. We had driven too far to hear that so we hit up the yellow pages and found a local DJ who didn’t have any gigs booked for the weekend. We drove to his house and Andy lend the DJ his electric guitar as collateral in exchange for renting his speakers. We then take them back to the club (which was a hotel banquet hall) and do our first show of the weekend. 

The next day, Andy and I get up eat a couple of Wendy’s salads and go bowling before it was time for me to hit the road. I hop in Andy’s car and drive what should have been 5 hours (but really ended up being closer to 7) to Gloversville, getting lost a handful of times and after getting nervous from watching his GPS’s estimated time of arrival ticker climb closer and closer to showtime, sped my brains out and got knocked with a $350 speeding ticket. That didn’t gain me any time. 

I make it to the show and I surpassingly have time to sit and eat a comped meal before it was time to go on. The show was nothing amazing but I remember doing well. I didn’t have a lot of time to soak it up because I was already exhausted and I still had 5 hours of driving ahead of me. I ended up leaving before the headliner (an impressionist named Cal Verduchi) finished up his set. I made the 5 hours drive back to Allentown issue free, returned the car to Andy and he and I woke up the next morning and drove the 3 hours home. It was on the day he learned his friend Greg Giraldo had died. Today, another comedian Kevin Barnett died. I didn’t know Kevin very well, but whenever a comedian dies, you feel it. It affects us all. Kevin was a great writer and a very funny comic. He will be missed. 

Overall, I made $75, but filled up Andy’s car 2 or 3 times and got a $350 speeding ticket. So in total, I lost $375 on that gig. But at least I got to 20 minutes to the fine folks of Gloversville. 

Last week our hot water heater broke. Is HOT water HEATER redundant? I’ve been saying it for years, but it does seem to be repeating the same thing twice. Which, is also a redundant sentence. Repeating the same thing TWICE? What is with me today?

We have been in our condo (I sometimes refer to it as a townhouse, but NEVER an “apartment”) for 2 and a half years now and have been blessed by very moderate temperature water that ranged from ice-cold all the way to nearly warm. When we needed very hot water, we made peace with the fact that none would be coming anytime soon and to make due with what we were provided with. When washing hands, we could Liz Warren the handle (aka pull it ALL the way to the left) with no scalding hands our melting skin flaps. But not anymore. 

This new water heater is beyond anything I have ever encountered. Have you ever boiled a pot of water for tea and then poured it directly into your eyeholes? That is about what the feels like when even a tiny drop ricochets off a spoon and onto your bare naked belly. Yes, I do the dishes without a shirt on. Don’t you? And don’t get me started on the shower! Poor genitals. 

Well, we did it. 

It is 2019. Never thought that it would happen, did you? I certainly didn’t. I was certain that by now, we would have all broken off and fallen into the ocean. But alas, I was incorrect. And contrary to popular belief, that is not a bad thing. 

It’s good to be alive. There is a saying that goes “Life is for the living.” And while that expression totally stinks, there is a point to it.

We all have a chance to slink our way through life doing the bare minimum or just enough to get by. And there is a time and place for that. just this last week my wife, daughter and I were all sick at the same time. It sucked! We certainly weren’t going above and beyond. It was auto-mode. And we have no regrets about doing that. But that should be the exception more than the rule. 

At a former company I worked for, I was managed by an absurd amount of people. And it wasn’t because I was the office “bad-boy” and needed constant supervision, it was more due to a lack of any corporate structure. Needless to say, that company isn’t doing well. 

ANYWAY, the point of this is to say that two of the people overseeing my day-to-day operations had very different ideas when it came to goal setting.

Manager A (I’ll call him BIAN) liked to set goals that you could never hit. Because if you hit them mid-month...what would keep you motivated moving forward? Unattainable goals (that still, technically were IN RANGE of being hit, just unlikely) were a strong motivation factor to never rest up.

Manager B (who I shall mockingly called FOSH) liked to set goals that you could hit. He was a perfectionist (despite the fact that he sucked at pretty much everything) and felt like people needed to see victories in order to motivate them for the next task. 

In a perfect world, I think a mix of both is valid. I like to check wins off my list, but I also like having goals to continue to aim for. In 2019, I am setting some high goals, and a few that I know with focus I could achieve everyday. The determining factor will be in my desire to achieve them. 

I’ll let you know if I do.

Good morning! 

I was asked by the fun folks at former NBA MVP Kevin Durant’s financial planning start-up ACORNS to write another humorous piece on tips for saving money! So, Laura and I threw a dinner party for 6...for under $50! Yep! ALL IN! 

Give it a read and maybe, you know, share it! 

Hey guys! Sorry, it’s been awhile. 

My new one hour stand up comedy special “Anyway...Here’s Adam Cozens” is now available. Recorded in Provo, UT and released by Dry Bar Comedy. It’s funny! Or at least, thats the goal.

You can buy it, or just rent it for $1. You see those last few words? That’s a link. Click it. 

Here is a short clip to (hopefully) pique your interest. Enjoy! Or, use it as a place to leave nasty comments. I’m fine with either. 

But yes it was the end of an era. I had resigned from my day-job editing videos of children kicking their dad in the testicles a few weeks back and Friday was my last day in house and the dick-kickery. My last 10 minute drive to the train station, where I rode from Pasadena 30 minutes all the way to Union Station, then transferring and walking many flights of stairs underground to get aboard the red (or purple) line and taking it for 8 minutes to 7th Street Metro Center, then hopping aboard the Expo Line for 45 minutes and getting off at the Expo/Bundy station. Last Friday morning was my last ride. Actually, I guess it was the evening after work. I needed to get home, somehow.

While the proverbial journey to get “home” is something that truly lives inside each and every one of us, it’s all about how one gets there. By plane, car, jalopy or bus. Trains are as good of  way to go as any. Well, not as good as Hyperloop. Do you think we are going to get the Hyperloop? Maybe if I write Hyperloop enough times, all of the people who Google for info on the Hyperloop will stumble upon this rambling pseudo-blog. 

Good morning friends. Or afternoon. Heck, it might be evening whenever and wherever you are reading this. It’s all relative. Because what is time, anyway? Just an arbitrary subjection of numbers used to de-mark whenever we wake up and go to sleep and get to work. Based on some ancient equations that people WHO NEVER EVEN HAD SMARTPHONES used in conjunction with a the freakin’ sun?!? It’s all nonsense. A cat and mouse game made up to keep us on our toes and in line. I blame the government! If you don’t believe me, try to show up “late” to work tomorrow. Doesn’t seem so fake now, does it? Seems VERY important!

People hold the idea and concepts of time to be incredibly important. But in all actuality, it really should not matter what “time” you arrive anywhere or what “time” you leave or how much “time” you spend sitting on the toilet staring at Instagram. Are you getting your work done? Are you on top of your projects? Great. You are a winner no matter WHAT time it is. Or isn’t. 

But that’s not the way the world works. It causes people to wake up earlier than they would like, slog it out in traffic alongside thousands of other disgruntled and uphappy people, getting increasingly anxious and nervous that they will be “late” and then when you get wherever it is that you are going, you just started the morning on the wrong side of the bed and you are suddenly having “one of those days.” My wife and I refer to them as ‘Alexander’ days based on the children’s book “Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day.” Those days when nothing seems to go right and everyone is gunning for your neck. What a nightmare.

So, have YOU ever had one of those days? When you feel like you are just a wet bag in the wind getting whipped and thrown every which way? When the world comes crashing down upon you and you have no respite from the storm? One of those days when time and space just want to open up and suck you down leaving you no chance to hold grasp of a lifeline before perilously falling into a wormhole of agony and destruction? Have you? HAVE YOU?!?