Bodies by Boston 2010
By Kara Baskin
Stuff Boston Magazine, January 11th, 2010

Chris Coxen

When West Roxbury comedian Chris Coxen rips open his shirt and croons love ballads to female audience members, he wants to look good. His well-loved alter ego Barry Tattle is a suave lounge singer with a fiery libido and a sensual demeanor. "He likes to refer to his chest as the Bermuda Triangle, because it's so hairy," Coxen says. Hairy and, one would hope, muscular. Since chest-baring is on the agenda, exercise is too. Coxen refuses to label himself as a gym guy, but he loves mountain bike riding, swimming, snowshoeing, and ice skating. This fitness routine has served him well. "Physicality has definitely crept into my comedy," the 36-year-old humbly admits. We'd say so: last year, he won Jockey's "UnderWars" competition. Contestants were asked to record videos of themselves dancing in their underwear. Channeling another alter ego, "combat dancer" Danny Morsel, he stripped to his skivvies and boogied for thousands of shocked fans at Fenway Park. He submitted the footage and won $25,000. Yet another character, Ripps McCoxen, bench presses unusual objects. How does the comic stay so buff? When he's not cracking people up on stage, he's at his day job, working as a handyman. "Those granite countertops are heavy," he says. Laugh at his comedy (but not his physique) Wednesday nights at Mottley's Comedy Club or at the Comedy Studio in Harvard Square.

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