I started a comedy show on IUSTV a couple weeks ago. Its a sketch/fake news show that basically makes fun of college life and IU. Here are a couple more video clips from the first episode.

5 Tips for Freshman- 5 tips we think will help freshman adjust to life at IU

Changes at IU over the Summer- things that have changed, and one that’s stayed the same.

Here Is a tour of IU. It’s part of my new internet/IUSTV show The Fortnightly Show. Check it Out!

A Tour of IU with Josh Cocks

Okay guys, Its been a long time since I posted last, but I have some exciting news. The Ora L. Wildermuth building has finally changed its name!
(backstory here)

Previous Sign

New Sign

Well now that’s solved!

Here are some short jokes I wrote that might be funny. I will try to do this regularly.

• I think Its convenient to be a Muslim woman…In the winter. Because if nothing else, at least you’re warm.

• So I read on CNN.com the other day that 18 year old kid was recently arrested for killing 19 cats. If convicted he faces up to 158 years in prison. I think if you are going to get 158 years in prison, you might as well kill people. Get your money’s worth kid!

• Hey I just heard about this awesome diet that lots of people are using. Its called, “Wake Up So Late You Can’t Eat Breakfast.” College students all over the country have been hooked on it all summer.

• I want to start a civil rights group for a much underrepresented group of people, and call it the NAACBP. “The National Association for the Advancement of Color Blind People.” When will they be recognized?

• Lots of people don’t want Universal Health Care for America, and one of their main gripes is that they won’t be able to choose their doctors. I don’t know about you, but as long as my doctor can signature an Aderol prescription, he or she receives my stamp of approval.

• So I’m watching right now CNN and this random woman was just questioned about how she felt about Michael Jackson Dying. She said this verbatim while crying. “He created the moonwalk…and..and its very sad..and..he invented the moonwalk y’know”

• I think the races of people were named before secondary colors were invented.

• Is a deaf person’s entire life….an awkward silence?

I’m on Facebook and Youtube a lot, and I often stumble over some funny stuff. These are all 100 percent real.

How old and sad do you have to be to click on this?

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I’m pretty sure Rawr means, “I’m mentally ill!” in any language

Wow… my 14 year old cousin Sammy can be pretty revealing with his facebook statuses.

Yeah seriously. It would almost feel like I had friends…..
Why do I feel lonely after reading that?

I gave vgaddict93 five thumbs down just for that.

I totally didn’t believe this comment, so did nothing after reading it. Then my mom died! Don’t worry though, I posted the comment to 10 other videos, and she came back to life. phew! that was close.

I don’t think anyone likes scene girls.

So check this out. I’ve been going to comedy rooms all over Atlanta via the subway for the past week and a half trying to get on stage. A couple days a ago I went to a lounge/bar called Kat’s Cafe that supposedly had a show starting at 8 p.m. I had gotten a little lost on the way over so I jogged it 8:15 p.m., scrambled over to the bar, and asked frantically, “Am I late? Is the show still going on?.” The guy gave me this, “You dumbass”, kind of sneer and said, “The show doesn’t start till 10 p.m. Relaxxx.”

This set the tone for what was yet to happen. I ordered a water and sat at a table for like two hours with my laptop out pretending to work on material. As the crowd slowly starting to come in I realized this my not my usual target demographic. The audience was 95 percent black females between the ages of 20 to 25.

The host, Carlos, told me I was going first and then went up to start the show. As soon as I heard his his opening line, “So who here went to church yesterday?” I accepted that I was probably not going to do well. He continued on with some other stuff about how this girl at a table had big boobs, then he introduced me to the stage. He said,”I don’t even know this guy is. Maybe he’s funny. Maybe he’s not. Whatever, Here’s Ben Bizuneh”

So I step out in front of the crowd. I had devised an opening joke with a Soulja Boy reference that I thought would work on the crowd. I said, “So I had to call customer service today beca-.” Then a girl yelled out, “We Can’t Hear You!” Startled, I tried to regain composure starting out again annoyingly loud.” SO I HAD TO CALL CUSTOMER SERVICE TODAY BECAUSE THERE SEEMS TO BE SOMETHING WRONG WITH MY SWAG. I JUST CAN’T SEEM TO TURN IT ON.” Nothing. No smiles. A few mumbled groans. A white guy in the back chuckled. Immediately all of my fears from high school of being too white to be accepted by black society came flooding back.

I started my next joke about coming down south. I said, “I stopped at this Cracker Barrel in Kentucky. As I was walking inside I saw this sign that said we here at cracker barrel are proud to serve you regardless of race, color, or ethnicity. Really Cracker Barrel? Bam! there should be a laugh here … nothing again, except the Caucasian gentleman in the back. My God! This is going horrible! I kept going with the joke anyway, but the lack of laughter was just messing with my timing and I started to forget my material so I just said, “You guys don’t like this joke, I’m just gonna talk about something else.” Surprisingly that got a laugh. A pity laugh. The only laugh of the entire set.

Shortly after I started my next joke, the owner started flashing his light from the back. (the universal stand up signal for,”Get the hell off the stage!”) I was supposed to have 5 minutes, but I was doing so bad he didn’t want people to start leaving. I just stopped in the middle of the joke and said, “Ok I’m done you guys didn’t think I was funny but whatever.” I wanted to get out of there as soon as possible, and wasn’t thinking straight, so I tried to give the microphone to the DJ. He just kind of smiled at me and put up the, “Idk hands.” So I stood there awkwardly for 5 seconds while the host came up and took the mic.

Surprisingly I didn’t leave. I just stood in the back and listened to the host make fun of me. It was horrifying to bomb like that, but surprisingly refreshing.

I emailed my comedic Idol Aziz Ansari afterwards with this. Not really expecting a reply, but he did.

So I went to a club 2 days later. Started off with the same exact material, and killed it. One my better sets ever. Here’s the kicker: The crowd was 95 percent white. I have no idea what this means. I Guess my dreams of getting BET Comic View are over.

So I decided to ask the question, “What if Jesus had twitter back in the 10’s and 20’s? And what if he provided vague, infrequent updates all throughout his life?”  The following link is the result of this question.
Jesus’ Twitter

So I know all you non-existent readers are dying to know what I have been up to all summer. Well the truth is not really anything…until now!
My brother has this condo in Atlanta that he can’t rent so he’s letting me stay in it and chase my stand-up comedy dreams all around the city.

Here are some random observations I have made so far-

Well let me just start off by saying wow, I have never seen so many rich, affluent black people. Now that I think about it, I have never seen so many poor, begging black people either. Actually I’ve just ever seen this many black people.

This Guy, (click here)
Rapper Shawty Lo lives in the same Condo that I’m in, and I saw him leaving yesterday driving one of these

When you are a black guy in Atlanta who dresses like me (form fitting clothing), everyone just assumes you’re gay.

It is scary walking home at night in a bad part of Atlanta with a laptop in your backpack. I saw like 4 crackheads. The whole time I was doing the whole “pretending to talk to someone on the phone so I don’t get jumped..or raped” thing. It was successful.

So I just asked out this girl I’ve been kind of talking to on a date. She said no. Either I’m really bad at interpreting signals, or this girl is just really bad at sending them out!

It’s happened to me many times before. I start talking to some girl that I meet randomly in class or at some club. I ask to her to eat lunch or some shit a couple times. Get to know each other. Then quickly, before I fall into friend territory, I up the ante. Ask them if they would like to eat with me somewhere that isn’t a dining hall. And too many times I hear the same, “Umm I don’t really like you like that, but I still want to hang out!”

Great. Yeah, I wanna hang out with you too. Even though the only reason I was hanging out with you in the first place is so that we could escalate “hanging out” into more fun territory. Now I have yet another really hot “friend” who tells me of her escapades with other guys who aren’t me. And our friendship is always awkward at best because we both know I would still jump at a chance to be with her. I can’t wait till wait till she shows me her Facebook message correspondence with some guy who is “Sooo hot!”

It kind of feels good to be rejected though because it takes all the stigma and dramatization away from it. After its done you’re all like, “Hey, that wasn’t so bad! I can do this repeatedly for weeks on end until it works!” I think doing stand up definitely is parallel with putting yourself out there for a girl to reject you. The crowd is the girl and your jokes are your attempts at flirting with her. Your jokes get no laughs from the crowd sometimes, but that just means you have to try your stuff out in a different way or to different crowds. Get the analogy! So basically doing stand-up should theoretically turn you into a pimp.

But it hasn’t….

I like Christians…not the people who worship Christ. I mean they’re cool too, but I’m talking about guys who are named Christian. The ones I have known have been decent, honest, trustworthy friends. Having that name must be awkward in certain situations though…such as If you aren’t a Christian.

According to the government’s Social Security Association website, the use of the name Christian in America has risen steadily from being the 101st most popular baby name in 1983, all the way to 22nd most popular in 2007. Someone reading this right now is probably named Christian.

What does this increase in use say about America? Are we becoming more religious? Do people just like the way the name rolls off the tongue? I don’t know the answer to any of those questions, but I do know there must be a lot of Atheists named Christian. How are these people supposed to respond to the question, “Are you Christian?”

I say it’s not fair to name your child a belief system. It’s kind of a cheap way to gain an automatic member. I don’t see others religions doing it. When’s the last time you met someone named Muslim or Jew. Never. Even Tom Cruise had enough sense not to name his son Scientologist, even though he probably thought about it.

Naming your child a follower of a religion is kind of like naming your child Burger King lover…with no Idea if they are going to grow up to like Burger King or not. They could totally grow up to hate BK, The Whopper, Chicken Tenders all that, and be extremely faithful to McDonalds. Regardless of that, their name would always be associated with the place and food of their hatred. People would walk up to them and say things like, “Hey dude, you like to have it your way? Your child would have to angrily respond,  “Naw man, I’m lovin’ it! You just assume I like Burger King, because my name is Burger King lover?” The sad fact is that yes, most will assume they do

I don’t want my child to have to deal with any of this confusion, so I have already devised some non-denominational names for him or her. If I have a boy his name will be Noah Filliation Bizuneh. If it’s a girl, she will be named Agnes Tic Bizuneh. That way they will have no pressure at all on them, and can select whatever religion or lack of religion that they like.

Though I can think of one benefit to being named Christian. Say you have this name, and you die tomorrow. In this hypothetical scenario heaven exists, and you are standing at the pearly gates waiting to be judged. You would be able to walk up to the bouncer to heaven look up and say, “I’m a devout Christian,” and you would not be lying at all.