Comedy tour discovers on-campus talent

When comedy is so funny that people are literally falling out of their seats with laughter, it’s got to be a good show.

RooftopComedy’s National Stand-up College Competition tour came to Temple earlier this month and had people not just laughing but doubling over and wiping tears from their eyes.

The Stand-up College Competition is part of the RooftopComedy tour that visits 32 college campuses to find the funniest college students.

Though this is the second-annual competition, this was Temple’s first year participating. Twenty-four aspiring stand-up comics went onstage in the Student Center’s Underground to show off their talents.

Aaron Miller, president of the TU Comedy Club and one of the competition’s winners, helped put the event together with the assistance of the club’s co-president, Nicole Eckenroad. The two met in the summer of 2008 while in the Upright Citizens Brigade, an improvisational theater school in New York City. They soon learned they shared the same sense of humor.

With inspiration from actresses like Tina Fey and Amy Poehler and TV shows like The Office, the two aim to take their comedic dreams to bigger places.

“I would love to one day be on SNL,” Miller said.

Eckenroad also performed at the event as one of only two females. Eckenroad attributes this to the fact that stand-up comedy is mostly a male-dominated profession.

“A girl could never get away with the same jokes a guy would make,” she said.

The event was packed with more than 100 students, filling up all the seats and booths with some even sitting on the floor. With the lights dimmed and refreshments being served, the Underground looked like a real comedy club.

The host, comic David James, opened the show with a short set of his own and went on to introduce all the contestants. The contestants were each given three minutes onstage. Some played guitar and made jokes, sang songs with humorous lyrics and used one-liners and punch lines. One student even performed card tricks.

Though all the contestants put forth their best efforts, only eight could be chosen, and the audience did the judging. Each member of the audience was given a slip of paper to choose his or her three favorite comics.

The final eight were junior business major Steve D’Agostino, junior BTMM major Matthew D’Avella, junior business major Greg Forster, junior regional planning major Greg Herzog, junior film and media arts major Nathan Jaiyeola, sophomore communications Rudy Mezzy, junior advertising major Aaron Miller and undeclared freshman Stephen Sudia. They will continue on to the Regional Rivals Match, where they will compete against students from the University of Pennsylvania at Helium Comedy Club.

In a bracket similar to that used in NCAA basketball, all 32 schools will compete against each other, and four will be left at the end. Those four teams will compete in the 2009 Aspen RooftopComedy Festival.
Comedians can upload their own videos to RooftopComedy.com.

“RooftopComedy is like YouTube for stand-up comedians,” said Danielle Shingleton, coordinator of the event.

Shingleton said she believes some of the funniest comics go unnoticed because they’re in college and have no venue to perform at.

“We want to foster these young comedians,” she said. “We don’t want them just giving up.”

A chance to perform comedy onstage was all some of the contestants needed, and some looked like they had been doing stand-up for years.

Winner Stephen Sudia has only been doing stand-up for a year. While participating in his high school theater program, Sudia was usually given the funny roles in plays.

“If they needed someone to wear a dress or something, they’d get me,” Sudia said.

Miller was impressed with how many people showed but even more impressed with the quality of the show.

“I think what makes something funny is unexpected, but you won’t be able to do it unless you’re confident,” Miller said. “Having a lot of energy and confidence is important.”

Manuel Agurto can be reached at manuel.agurto@temple.edu.

Comedian Joe Rogan uses his wit like a knife

Joe Rogan is a stand-up comedian whose list of achievements is a long one. In addition to his stand-up work, he has hosted the The Man Show and commentated cageside as mixed martial artists punch, kick and elbow the sweat out of each other at the Ultimate Fighting Championships.

A brown belt in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu himself, he is well-versed in choke-holds and joint-locking techniques. But he also admits to smoking enough joints to parallel the number of animal body parts that contestants have gagged on in Fear Factor, which he hosted.

His passion, however, has always been making people laugh.

“The biggest misconception about me is probably that I’m not funny,” Rogan said. “It’s a weird thing for someone to be a cage-fighting-commentator-slash-stand-up-comedian.”

Alien encounters, psychedelic drugs and conspiracy theories are among some of Rogan’s more frequented topics. Eyes wide as he rants, he fires off punch lines and factual support like a one-two blow to the collective funny bone of his audience.

His has a zeal that few of his contemporaries possess and a skill that he has honed since he first watched Richard Pryor’s Live on the Sunset Strip when he was 15 years old.

“I emptied a strip club once. It was actually a Jack-and-Jill’s strip club where a girl would go up and dance and then a guy would go up and dance in this horrible fishing village in Rhode Island,” Rogan said. “I’ve done all sorts of weird little bars filled with hecklers, where they have comedy nights and I’m standing on a milk crate.”

Rogan has since moved to Los Angeles and learned from his experiences in hostile territory. He has a wit that rips into hecklers and drunks like an X-acto knife, but ultimately, he is professional.

“I’m telling you this because I love you – you’re being ‘that guy,’” Rogan said to a shirtless drunk in one of the videos featured on his Web site,
www.joerogan.com.

Rogan said that he tries to perform once every weekend, but only gets to the East Coast once a year, which is why he is excited to perform at Helium Comedy in Center City from April 3 to 5. This stint will mark his first time performing at Helium Comedy.

“Philly is a no-bulls— town, which is what I like. It’s very much like Boston, which is where I grew up,” he said. “I think that there’s something about East Coast weather and East Coast people being the descendants of the first immigrants who came to America that just makes them heartier people.”

The Internet has become a tool for Rogan to reach out to audiences across the globe. He operates a blog, sends out a regular newsletter via e-mail, and has begun orchestrating video chats with his fans. His Web site is sprinkled with video packages, including footage of his onstage confrontation with Carlos Mencia over Mencia’s joke-stealing antics to Web casts.

“When I write for my online blog, that also helps my stand-up comedy, because it’s all stuff that I’m interested in, and some of those things become bits. And then when I work out I do yoga or jiu-jitsu. It’s all clearing my mind for my comedy,” he said. “That’s the beautiful thing about my life at this point, it all goes together.”

Rogan said he also floats around in an isolation tank to clear his mind, because it induces a psychedelic experience in a safe environment without having to take any drugs and risk a bad trip. He recently bought a new one and is giving his old tank to a subscriber of the Rogan newsletter in June – as a sort of strange raffle.

“It would raise awareness and get more people involved with using isolation tanks,” Rogan said. “It’s an unbelievable tool for introspection and it’s a very rare and relaxing experience.”
Being Joe Rogan probably requires a lot more discipline than one would assume – he just makes it look easy because he’s having a great time. Negativity is one distraction that Rogan steers clear of during his adventures.

“The one major philosophy that I live by is to just be positive, and make sure you’re doing what you want to do and what you think you are supposed to do,” Rogan said. “If there are negative people or negative situations that you come in contact with and they cannot be [remedied], then just cut them out of your life.”

Jimmy Viola can be reached at jimmy.viola@temple.edu.

In the know:
Joe Rogan
Helium Comedy Club
2031 Sansom St.
April 4,
8 p.m. to 10 p.m.
$25