Technically, Yellowjacket Weekend kicked off with a stirring speech from our much beloved President Joel Seligman about the promise of a new and exciting school year here at UR.
For me, the weekend’s festivities truly began in the overcrowded and muggy Strong Auditorium where a sold out crowd (there were even people on the floor) compacted themselves together for “Mike Birbiglia’s Secret Public Tour.”
Named after Birbiglia’s Secret Public Journal that his shrink suggested he write, the “Secret Public Tour” was a peek into the mostly awkward and very funny life of its namesake.
Like any concert, the audience was first warmed up to the form and rhythm of stand-up by a less savvy pool of talent. The first act, lasting a total of approximately eight seconds and garnering enough recognition never to be mentioned on any form of media, was surprisingly bad. Suffice it to say that no one in the audience, including this reporter, cared enough to write down his name to later return to their dorms and pirate some of his material.
Luckily for me, and those fortunate enough to be in the crowd, the quality of the forthcoming acts steadily appreciated. Christian Finnegan, who must on a nightly basis enjoy following the previous performance, was a steep step up in hilarity. Even those without any knowledge of stand-up will recognize him as the crazy Caucasian in “Chappelle’s Real World.” With this pedigree, Finnegan proceeded to lampoon Rochester, lamenting how trivial a city must be if the best thing about it is a grocery store. Sadly, this got many frenzied cheers from Wegmans enthusiasts.
After a rather short and delightfully vulgar set, Finnegan vacated the stage in favor of the night’s main attraction.
With an uncommon name that Mike Birbiglia admits is easily mutated into variants “like birbigglebug and faggot,” the featured performance was, as expected, by far the best. In fact, it was one of the best shows I have ever seen.
What was not expected, however, was that Birbiglia, in contrast to most comedians, managed to not really tell any jokes. There was no obvious set up for punch lines, but rather he managed to make the entire crowd laugh at himself (and really themselves) simply for the innately awkward nature of his life.
The ingredients of his humor were atypical, but because of this, each sentence seemed less obtuse and unwieldy. He stayed away from the convenient jokes “I was an altar boy; and the answer is no” and instead displayed how he, like most of the crowd, makes an ass of himself daily.
He managed to somehow make the taunting of a blind man and indecent jokes about cancer survivors seem comical. Even though he broke the theatre into stitches for about an hour, he admitted that “Sometimes when I do a joke and it doesn’t get a lot of laughs, it feels like I’m doing jazz. That’s cool because jazz is cool, but sometimes jazz sucks… Maybe I’m the Kenny G. of comedy.” That sentiment made only funnier the constantly self-disparaging routine that has become the Birbiglia trademark.
Clearly, this was the best start to a Yellowjacket Weekend that I could have hoped for.
Burnett is a member of the class of 2010.
