Comedy on the Quad (rather, in the Student Union)
On Friday August 27 at 6:00pm, members of the Reed community filed into rows of plastic chairs to hear local Kickstand Comedy comedians entertain them in the Student Union. The event was moved to the SU from the Quad because of a latent threat of rain, but the clouds had already finished dumping on us by midafternoon. The event was sponsored by the Gray Fund team. At the entrance, there was a table of free phone cardholders and stickers advertising Gray Fund.
The moderator and timekeeper was Julia Corral, a well-known Portland-based comic who warmed up the crowd with a long series of jokes about penises, then introduced the other performers in turn. “She was talking a lot about penises like it was a new thing, and it’s like, we’ve been briefed [already],” remarked Milo Gardner-Stephens ‘25. The comedians were aware that their audience was young liberal arts college students, but their approaches to connecting with us were varied. At one point, a comedian not listed on the original bill, Delaney Malone, was doing her set, and started her crowd work by asking the audience about their sex lives. She singled out a few couples in the audience, doubling down on emphasizing the importance of some specific sex acts. According to some members of the audience, it was awkward for Malone to ask students who probably didn’t expect to discuss their sexual habits in great detail, questions like, “Do you eat ass though?”
When asked for comment, Eddie Newsom ‘27, who was singled out by the question, remarked, “Comedy is pointed, and I like when comedy is pointed at others, not me–but it was still very funny.” He didn’t feel offended as the crowd’s attention was focused on him by Malone, even when she used him as an example, and eventually, she made a final joke about getting herself into sticky situations and left the stage.
Steven Wilber started his set with “brain rot,” or, Gen Alpha slang mashed into sentences that didn’t use the slang’s intended meanings–his opening line was “What’s up, skibidi rizzlers?” Although this was kind of funny, it had little to do with the meaning of the slang, and wasn’t insightful besides perhaps poking fun at himself for being older than us Reedies. His other jokes likewise had themes of dark humor and self-deprecation. Steven is a performer and teacher with Kickstand Comedy, and it was clear that he was comfortable performing on the stage and evaluating audience reactions to each of his jokes.
Imani Denae lamented and praised her recent sex life in various funny anecdotes and observations. She also asked the audience for some interaction, but didn’t tax the audience to provide any punchlines. Her messaging about online dating and hookups was confident, and empowered the audience members with a general message prompting people to go out there and find someone who finds you beautiful.
Adam Pasi made jokes about various places he had visited. When he asked the crowd of about 80 people to raise their hands if they were from Portland, only one or two people did so. Many Reedies aren’t local to Portland, so jokes that focus a lot on Portland might not have landed well, but his diss on Voodoo Donuts –”stale cereal on a donut” – got a big laugh. Maybe the Community Safety Officer donut truck(s) gave reclusive Reedies a taste of this Portland business, or they’ve ventured off-campus to buy the popular pink boxes. Gardner-Stephens suggested that a Reed-specific comedy set could focus on the Bay Area, California, where many Reedies hail from. Pasi’s next targets, Austin, Texas, and Florida as a whole, were much easier for us to laugh about, as we did heartily. He was surprised when some of his old references landed, but he was generally such a hoot that we might have laughed at the rest of the joke about two kids in a trench coat even when we didn’t know the reference to a specific piece of media.
Overall, Kickstand Comedy brought a lighthearted event to Reed, with a more adult version of the Comedy in the Park series they did this summer at Laurelhurst Park. The jokes got students laughing and elbowing each other, and the hour-long event flew by.