KZSC Laugh Riot: May 28th, Santa Cruz, CA [Archive]

YoungAmerican

05-27-2004, 03:44 PM

What a Riot
KZSC benefit lures the best San Francisco comics
By Hunter Holcombe

George Bush is a moron. George Bush is an idiot. George Bush looks like a monkey. Boring. I slept with Britney Spears. Yawn. Penis jokes, sex jokes, Britney jokes, Bush jokes, they´re all exhausted comedic material. Such is the problem with the current standup comedy scene, says Jesse Thorn and Jordan Morris, hosts of KZSC´s “The Sound of Young America.”

The pair plan to provide some legitimate comic relief at the KZSC Laugh Riot, on Friday, May 28, an evening of standup comedy with some of the Bay Area´s funniest sketch and standup comics—including four-man sketch comedy troupe Kasper Hauser, standup comics W. Kamau Bell and Jasper Redd, and three UC Santa Cruz students who won five-minute slots in a campus competition last week. Thorn and Morris will also perform at Laugh Riot with their 5-man sketch group, Prank the Dean.

The Laugh Riot is a way for Santa Cruz to get a taste of smart humor, Thorn says. All proceeds from the event, which will be held at Kresge College Town Hall, go to KZSC (88.1 FM), the official station of UCSC.

It wasn´t easy for Thorn and Morris to woo the comedians of Kasper Hauser to perform. “We basically had to fawn over them,” Thorn says. “Yeah, begging. I think that had a lot to do with it.”

Kasper Hauser offers up comedy that resembles an American version of Monty Python, “or a less alienating version of Kids in the Hall,” Morris adds. The group´s work has been described as “hands down brilliant” by the San Francisco Bay Guardian and they have also been called “destined for comedic greatness” by the San Francisco Chronicle.

“These are all alternative comedians, though they would hate to be called that,” Thorn says. “Alternative just means the comedy is smarter, the performers use niche material, and it is not based on making farting sounds and telling penis jokes for a drunken crowd.”

For example, the two African-American performers, Bell and Redd, are considered alternative simply because they don´t fit into the “Black comedian” stereotype. “There is an expectation of African-American comedy these days,” Thorn says. “Everyone expects it to be like Def [Comedy] Jam.”

Close to 100 UCSC students were given a small taste of some of the laughter to come when they crammed into a small room on campus last week to watch 10 student comedians vie for three coveted five-minute slots as openers for Laugh Riot.

The young, amateur comedians were surprisingly comfortable onstage, firing off round after round of self-deprecating one-liners, playing on popular stereotypes, and successfully pulling off several unusual and daring sketches. One comedian performed a flawless Christopher Walken impersonation. Quite a riot; a laugh riot, even.

The KZSC Laugh Riot begins at 8 p.m. on Friday, May 28 at the Kresge Town Hall on the UCSC campus. Tickets are available at Streetlight Records on Pacific Avenue for $8, or at the door for $9. For more information on the performers or for directions, visit www.splangy.com/kzsc.