"Know your audience." It's one of the most important principles for a comedian to follow. If Dave Attell knows anything about UB students, it's that we are perverse, offensive and shameless.
Comedian Dave Attell, known as the "Insomniac" for his late-night Comedy Central series, came to the Center for the Arts on Friday with his signature hobo beard, working boots and brash humor.
His first half-hour was rock solid, and each delivery of tactless comedy received the house's unanimous laughter. His material was filthy and offensive, dealing with sex, strippers, masturbation and alcohol.
After telling an anecdote about the aftereffects of drinking J?_germeister, Attell claimed that J?_ger commercials should be on TV to warn users of the strange things it makes people do.
"Guy comes out of a hedge, he's covered in mud and blood, he's holding one high-heel shoe. 'Did I just eat a hooker?' " Attell said to applause. "J?_ger."
"Little girl, sitting on a swing, crying, 'Where's Daddy?' J?_ger."
In one bit, he described the complications of mixing alcohol and sex, and provided alternatives to getting the job done.
"When you drink you can't get an erection. It's kind of cool, because it's a failsafe. Now they have Viagara, but I'm old school. I'm used to flipping a girl over and f***ing her with my thumb."
Attell's self-pitying humor also struck a chord with the crowd.
"Let me ask you girls something. What's up with the vicious hand jobs nowadays? You're pulling way too hard. You're pulling like you're trying to pull a better-looking guy out of me. I didn't swallow Jared Leto, okay honey?"
In another anecdote, he shared a promiscuous tale of furniture fornication.
"I was laying on my leather couch naked. I just got out of the shower, dripping wet like a sea manatee. I rolled over, one thing led to another, and I f***ed my couch. But I didn't c** inside of it. I pulled out and shot it on the coffee table because I didn't want to impregnate the couch. I don't want a little ottoman showing up in nine months."
About halfway through the show, he busted out issues of The Spectrum and Generation. He improvised by reading and crafting jokes out of the headlines from The Spectrum and went through the personals and the "I'm Right, You're Wrong" section in Generation.
It gave the show a personal touch, but after a while the routine became chaotic and messy as hundreds of crowd members yelled out incoherent orders about what to read.
"What is this, the Iraqi Congress?" Attell asked the rambunctious crowd.
In comparison to previous UB performers from emerging comedians Dane Cook and Pablo Francisco to established comics Dave Chappelle and Jim Breuer, Attell was one of the weaker shows in what has been a first-rate annual comedy series.
His revolting material hit right on with the audience, but his improv was disorderly and sometimes just not funny, detracting from an otherwise good show.
"I like how he leveled with us. Using the newspapers and how he took that straight from what we said was really good," said freshman undecided major Michelle Sandone.
"I didn't think it was that good. I thought Pablo was much better," said junior Jenna Thumen.
This unprincipled provocateur, this poet of booze and man-juice will always be remembered by those in attendance not as a great comedian, but a sick man who is a defier of censors, deplorer of decorum, and giver of unforgettable shows.
One last wretched example may be in order.
"A lot of people spend big money on psychologists to find out if they were molested. Let me save you some time and cash. If you're sitting alone and you knock a drink over and you immediately get on all fours and start rubbing jam into your as*****, I think you were molested."
Photo: Courtesy of Matthew Messina, from the RMBERS' Instagram page
