Chris Strait

Personal

Strait was born in Inglewood, California, and grew up in the Ladera Heights section of Los Angeles near Baldwin Hills. He is the older of two sons, and also has a half-sister (from father's side). Strait is of predominately English and Scottish descent, although he claims to be a "European mutt" citing partial ancestry from Ireland, Scandinavia, Eastern Europe, Germany, Italy, and the Middle East.

He graduated from Culver City High School in 1994. He earned a bachelor's degree in History from California State University, Dominguez Hills in 1999. He then received his master's degree in Psychology from Antioch University in 2001. Strait had intended to be a psychotherapist, but was told by supervisors that his problem-solving style was "too aggressive".

He began his comedy career while still in graduate school, in the summer of 2000. His Masters Thesis was on the subject of humor. Early influences included George Carlin, Bill Hicks, Richard Pryor, and Louis CK. In addition to his comedy career, Strait has also been employed in real estate, finance, behavioral therapy, and journalism.

He has a daughter, Amy (born 2007), and a son, Ryan (born 2011).

Career

Strait has headlined over 50 different comedy clubs in the U.S. and Canada, and has also performed for the U.S. military in the USA, as well as in Cuba, Japan, Bahrain and Germany. "I've been to all 50 states, as well as 5 continents, and 20 countries. I've done casinos, cruises, corporates, private parties, bars, comedy clubs, colleges, and military bases. Pretty much all the categories of places one can do stand-up." He has also worked as a private auctioneer and motivational speaker.

In addition to his contributions on TRU-TV, Strait has also done commentary on E!, ESPN, and Fuel TV. He has performed stand-up comedy several times on Fox's "Laughs", Nickmom, Playboy, Bitesize.tv, and Starz. He wrote/produced/starred in a series of video sketches for YouTube and Funny or Die.

Strait has also lent his voice to video games and film trailers. He was a writer for 'National Lampoon's Sports Minute', and appeared in the National Lampoon Film, "Lost Reality 2".

He has self-released two DVD's (2006 – The White DVD / 2009 – Safe Bet), and one CD (2003 – No Point of View). His most recent and first commercially available CD, "Hitting The Wall", was shot in Indianapolis in Oct of 2011, and released on Next Round Entertainment's label, on December 13, 2011. His first commercially available DVD, "Urban Suburbanite" was released on iTunes, Hulu, and Amazon in September 2015. The special had been shot nearly 3 years earlier, in Hermosa Beach, CA but production issues delayed its release.

Strait has also written and self-released several e-books. Two books on boxing, "Strait on Boxing", and "Boxing Lists For the Die-Hard Fan", as well as a food review book, entitled "Eating Los Angeles". He has also released a book of poetry, "Free Thinker" under the pen name, Alan Kimble. In September, 2016, he released a travel essay book, entitled "40 Years, 50 States".

Boxing

Strait has worked as a live commentator and ring announcer for professional boxing shows. He has been a freelance boxing writer, blogger, and vlogger since 2000. He has written for cyberboxingzone.com, boxingcentral.com, boxingtalk.com, ropeadoperadio.com, and Boxing Digest magazine. He was the head boxing writer for convictedartist.com and Punch Drunk Sports, and has also hosted several of his own boxing podcasts.

Strait also competed as a boxer, fighting in many underground matches. He also won a USA Boxing sanctioned Los Angeles area tournament in the Super Heavyweight (over 201 lbs) division in 2001. Extremely nearsighted, he was unable to obtain a professional license.