the funny formula
DESCRIPTION
Review of Funny or Die's traveling comedy tour, the Oddball Festival.TRANSCRIPT
Writing about comedy festivals is easy. Funny or Die’s Oddball Comedy and Curiosity Festival began at 5 p.m. on a side stage in
USANA Amphitheatere, a view of the Wasatch Moun-tains in front and the Oquirrhs behind. It ended at 11 p.m.— but the parking lot was so crowded, I was stuck there until well after midnight.
During that time, the comedians described almost everything that went on for me.
Wanna hear about the weather? Here’s Hannibal Buress: “It’s hard to do comedy with a beautiful breeze like this. I wanna chill, drink a beer, forget about work ... what do you mean I have to talk for 20 minutes? This sucks.”
That was at 8, before the wind and rain merci-lessly shorted out wedge speakers and a projector during Louis C.K.’s set. We knew it would happen — the screens had been swaying the entire perfor-mance. Only a few dozen people left.
How about the crowd? Demetri Martin has the scoop. “Everyone here is white. Just different shades of white — white to very white. It’s OK. I’m white. But we’re very close to being a rally, so keep it cool.”
The crowd was also sweaty and drunk, salty and drunker by dark. The rain washed us off.
What did the comics think of Salt Lake City? Chris Hardwick said, “Everyone kept saying LDS,” when he performed in SLC last June. “I had no idea what they meant — I thought there was a gang lord called El Diaz terrorizing the town.”
Quoting comedians is easy. You hear quips about the city, the weather and the people at every comedy show. But here it was incessant — comics punched in local references everywhere and busted my gut every time. That’s all because of the venue.
Here’s a reductive formula for comedy: Set up an expectation, then do something different. Relate, then subvert. It’s like lying to your relatives — say you do one thing, then do another, and all of you can laugh about it once it’s over.
Problem is, it’s much harder to lie when you have 20,000 relatives sitting outside. So, to make it easier to connect, you talk about what’s common.
Take Sarah Silverman. She’s a year out from her last stand-up special, “We Are Miracles,” and she was working on new material during the set. How do you make up for half-completed (but still funny) jokes? You interview a guy named Jesus in the front row while sitting on his lap.
Hannibal Buress is a pretty calm comic — he was much louder and much more animated here. Chris Hardwick ran into the audience. Jeff Ross roasted volunteers. Whitney Cummings used polished material from her last stand-up special.
The ploy worked every time. Each comedian kept 20,000 people interested.But local references and audience interaction are easy pickings for comics. What’s harder is speaking honestly. Everyone tried to be honest, of course. Nobody was telling innocuous jokes without politics or zest. But Aziz Ansari did it the best. His mate-
rial was tight and poignant, in preparation for a sold-out show in Madison Square Garden. Most of his set was about creepy dudes — how constantly and consistently women have to avoid them and the lack of creepy women
fondling or flashing or scaring men. At one point, he asked the women in the crowd to raise their hands if they had seen a man masturbate to them in public. Hundreds raised their hands.
Hundreds of women shared a traumatizing experience with a gesture — and Aziz got everyone to laugh about it. To see how absurd the society or gender roles or whatever it is that caused this really is. That’s what comedy’s good for.
[email protected]@chronyarts
Standing by the front door of the City Library down-town is a giant “forget-
me-knot.”It stands about six and a half
feet tall, with wisps of purple ribbon tied to a wire frame. Each ribbon holds the name of an individual who has suffered from Alzheimer’s disease.
Kate Nederostek, program director for the Utah chapter of the Alzheimer’s Association, said the disease is an “im-portant issue throughout the country.” That’s why Nederostek planned the “You Are Not Alone: Join the Fight Against Al-zheimer’s” event last Thursday, co-hosted by KUED-7 and the City Library, to raise awareness.
“There are over five mil-lion Americans living with the disease,” Nederostek said. “It’s extremely important in Utah be-cause our numbers are growing.”
According to the Alzheimer’s Association national statistics, there are 32,000 reported cases of Alzheimer’s in Utah, and of those cases, nearly half of the patients are under the age of 85.
Rachelle Anderson, commu-nity and outreach coordinator for KUED-7, said Utah women older than 55 are more likely to develop Alzheimer’s than breast cancer.
“To me, that’s very eye-open-ing,” she said.
The Alzheimer’s Association is one of the largest resources for anyone affected by the disease or dementia. The association is also the largest nonprofit funder of related research, providing support groups and educational programs on a national level.
“Our goal is to eradicate the disease,” Nederostek said. “Everything we do is to raise awareness of how many people are affected by Alzheimer’s and how the disease progresses.”
Anderson added, “It’s not just the person it affects but the support group around that
person. The life of their spouses, their family and their friends. I think people need to know more about this issue — not just from the diagnosis of the individual but how it affects everyone around them.”
The “You Are Not Alone” event was structured around three main components: the interac-tive “forget-me-knot” display, a free film screening of “POV: The Genius of Marian” and a discus-sion led by Richard King from the Center for Alzheimer’s Care.
King said Utah is “very un-derserved” in Alzheimer’s care and hopes the event highlight-ed the deficiency.
“This event brings public awareness and gives people the opportunities to become aware and start a dialogue,” King said. “Alzheimer’s disease is a devas-tating disease. People who have it lose their ability to talk and reason, and eventually they lose themselves within the disease.”
In hopes of combating the disease, King and Nederostek advise concerned citizens to talk to local representatives and initi-ate awareness with the local and federal government.
September is known as World Alzheimer’s Awareness Month. The Utah Chapter of the Alzheimer’s Association will host a “Walk to End Alzheim-er’s” every weekend in Septem-ber to raise awareness.
Each August, it’s ‘dorm sweet dorm’ for many U students.Rebecca Lewis, a freshman in biomedical engineering,
said she enjoys living in the residence halls. “I love having a community up here on campus,” Lewis said. The residence halls at the U are situated on the upper east side of
campus with names such as Shoreline Ridge, Chapel Glen, Sage Point and Donna Garff Marriott Honors Residential Scholars Community.
Some say the biggest adjustment in dorm life comes for fresh-man students moving away from home for the first time. Resident Advisors, who monitor the residence halls, try to foster a sense of community for these students by hosting events and leaving their doors open.
Cassidy Klein, a sophomore in exercise and sports science, lived on campus last year. While she didn’t choose to live there again this year, she said she continues to be friends with those she met in Chapel Glen, even living with one of her dorm neighbors in a house this year.
“Having everyone so close by was the greatest perk of living in the dorms,” Klein said.
Jessica Switzer, an undeclared freshman, said the biggest dif-ference between life at home and living in the residence halls is living in close proximity to people she doesn’t know.
“I’m from Salt Lake City, but I didn’t know my roommates,” she said. “It’s been great though. They’re all really nice, and I like it. It’s not bad at all.”
For Isabella Kearns, a freshman in pre-nursing, the biggest chal-lenge to living on campus is travel.
“I hate walking everywhere, especially uphill after classes,” she said. “I miss my car.”
The U has a bus system to transport students from the Peterson Heritage Center to lower campus, which fills up quickly every morning. If students opt out of taking the bus, it’s about a 20-minute walk to most classes.
Kearns has two roommates this year, a fellow swim team member and a foreign exchange student from Australia.“It’s the best of both worlds,” she said. “I have a teammate, and I can learn all about a different area.”
10 t h e c h r o n y 11
Home Away From Home Remembering those with Alzheimer’s
The Funny Formula
THE DAILY UTAH CHRONICLE FILE PHOTO
PHOTOS BY CHRIS SAMUELS
BY JULIANNE SKRIVAN/STAFF WRITERBY CYNTHIA LUU/STAFF WRITER
BY TAYLOR ALMOND/STAFF WRITER
The Salt Palace was the place to be last weekend for all kinds of nerds. The second annual Salt Lake Comic Con was a celebration of much more
than just comic books.Cosplayers came dressed as characters from
movies of various genres. There were Stormtroopers and Jedi Knights from “Star Wars,” as well as King Arthur and his knights from “Monty Python and the Holy Grail.” There was Walter and The Dude from “The Big Lebowski,” and there was David Bowie from “Labyrinth.” There was even Lone Starr and Barf from “Spaceballs.”
Characters from anime series, video games, fantasy and sci-fi novels, TV series, children’s cartoons and, of course, comic books came to life.
There were also rows and rows of booths selling swag. Charles Prows, owner of The Nerd Store in West Valley, said Salt Lake’s first Comic Con in Sept. 2013 was what enabled him to start his business. “If it wasn’t for last year’s Comic Con,” Prows said, “I wouldn’t have a store here.”
Prows’ store sells comics, collectibles, “random stuff” and “whatever you want.” Prows attended San Diego Comic-Con for the last four years, but this year was his first as a retailer. When asked what he thought about the lawsuit over the use of the name Comic Con, he said he heard the people behind the San Diego Comic-Con need more space and want to expand to other locations. “They’re trying to get the name so they can get out of San Diego,” Prows said.
It’s not just businesses that are benefiting from the large quantity of nerds in Salt Lake. Artists and authors have found a great place to showcase their work.
James Pilcher, a graffiti artist selling paintings he made on old vinyl records, said he watched other graffiti artists get into trouble and decided to “move to the more legit side of graffiti art.” This was his first year at Comic Con, but he was at Fan-X earlier this year, and his art made it to Fantasy Con.
Pilcher said he was experimenting with different mediums for canvases when some friends brought by some records that had been painted. He uses a com-bination of stencils and freehand, and his best pieces take advantage of being painted on a circle. His Death Star, for example, looks almost three-dimensional.
Attendance exceeded expectations at the first Salt Lake Comic Con last year, as well as FanXperience in April and this past weekend’s Comic Con. Over 100,000 people attended this year’s event. Many at-tendees were frustrated by a perceived lack of organi-zation, and organizers promise to do better next year.
This is good news for Prows and Pilcher, who both plan on coming back, whether it’s organized better or not.
[email protected]@ChronyArts
Con attracts nerds,
artists alikeBY TAYLOR STOCKING/STAFF WRITER