American Eagle "winner" checks in

by Brian McKim & Traci Skene on March 31st, 2007

Just got the following email from Billy Horrigan, the

Hi, i was just sent a link to your article from February 26th about the winner of the American Eagle comedy contest being sent to his/her doom. Spot on. The only way it could have gone worse is if one of the 500 meatheads present got on stage and put a corona in my ass. Granted that I wasn’t even funny, they didn’t make it much easier. I was praying for the Coors Light train to show up and fucking mow everyone down. I would have been content dying.

Readers will recall the post that Horrigan refers to, in which we said the following:

And they’re encouraging a boatload of college-aged faux comics (Shall we call them “Faux-Coms?”) to enter an online contest, the winner of which gets to “perform live at Spring Break with American Eagle!” Gulp! It’s not so much a prize as it is a punishment! There are seasoned comedians who want to slash their wrists (or, at the very least, throttle their agent and drop out of the business) after performing for a Spring Break audience!

(Horrigan assures one and all that he as no beef with the folks at American Eagle– who couldn’t have been nicer– but with the rowdy spring breakers who turned his triumph into a hellish nightmare.)

We note that, judging from his email, Horrigan displays the proper attitude, gallows sense of humor and perspective that may just enable him to stay in the standup game.