Last Sunday night’s stand-up comedy show “Maximum
Comedy Crush” brought back fond memories of the film
“Swingers,” where comics from the East Coast try to
become stars in Los Angeles.
There was Washington, D.C., native and fourth-year theater
student Max Amini, the master of ceremonies/producer of the event,
the guy behind the guy behind the guy, and graduate of the Trent
Walker School of Schmooze, revving up the Northwest Campus
Auditorium crowd, which was surprisingly excitable on a Sunday
night.
His improvisational wisecracking ““ at least, he appeared
to be improvising ““ was less than effective, and his constant
reliance on antagonizing the crowd with “shut up” or
“f–k you” got old in a hurry. But like all
self-respecting comedians, Amini was adept at acknowledging his own
inadequacy (“let’s get someone funny out here”)
as he introduced the featured comedians.
There was a reason why Ronn Maestri came out first: so he
wouldn’t kill the show as the final act. Maestri simply
didn’t play to the UCLA crowd, failing to touch on L.A.
clubbing etiquette and dating rituals, essential subjects that made
“Swingers” so appealing.
Fortunately, Maestri was followed by Reggie Watkins, whose more
college-friendly material revolved around meeting girls at clubs,
or the inability to do so. Unfortunately, he was followed by a few
comics who joked about basically the same exact topic. It was like
listening to Jon Favreau’s character, Mike Peters, deliver
the “all the bars and all the parties, they all suck”
speech over and over and over again. It gets nauseating.
A spiel bemoaning the futility of bouncers and their trademark
question ““ “where your girls at?” ““ was
given not once but twice. Of course, jokes about the impractical
practice of buying girls drinks dominated the night.
Although the show was starting to sound like a broken record,
the comedians who had to perform after Watkins were quite
brilliant. New Yorker Adam Hunter’s neurotic and
self-deprecating humor was well-received. Ahmed Ahmed, who actually
acted in “Swingers,” had tremendous stage presence as
he unflinchingly poked fun at his Arab heritage. His witty, though
rather lengthy, rambling about being Arab in the United States and
post-Sept. 11, 2001 airport security was insanely hilarious.
Highlights of the night included Dwayne Perkins, Sebastian, and
Gary Gulman ““ three comics with vastly different styles but a
similar knack for proposing unique and even preposterous
perspectives on everyday situations.
Aside from culminating his tale about visiting Africa by
unexpectedly dancing like a tribesman, Perkins, a New York native,
suggested the outlandish idea of the government enforcing a rating
system based on people’s looks (“A seven can only talk
to an eight or a six; they don’t have the right to talk to a
nine.”)
Sebastian, who came across as somewhat of a Ben Stiller with
more aggressiveness and hatred for the world, carped about the
coffee culture and its absurd lingo, compared the clothing racks at
Ross to downtown Beirut, and threatened those who walk around
health club locker rooms naked and try to start conversations.
The show concluded with the quirky Gulman, a 6-foot-6-inch
ex-football player from Boston who analyzed the respective merits
of grapes and grapefruit (the best and worst fruit in the kingdom),
even going as far as detailing the history of grapefruit, its
ability to stink up the other fruits in a fruit salad, and how it
stole the grape’s name.
-David Chang