By Connor Smith
Sports Editor
The College Union Board’s (CUB) Three For Free comedy show on Thursday, Sept. 1, delivered laughter, awkward banter and a handful of generously titled “TED Talks,” all bundled together into one worthwhile, and free, package in Kendall Hall.
Sean Donnelly, Arden Myrin and Monroe Martin were the event’s featured comedians. According to CUB, Donnelly has been featured on “The Late Show with David Letterman,” “Conan” and NBC’s “Last Comic Standing.” Myrin’s claim to fame was her role on Netflix’s “Orange Is the New Black,” while Martin was featured on “Guy Code,” “The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon” and “The Jim Gaffigan Show.”
Each comic had a different performance, however, all of them worked their own appearances into their respective sets.
After CUB announced the College’s upcoming fall comedy show, featuring T.J. Miller, Donnelly was welcomed to the stage for the night’s first act. He was quick to throw jabs at his physique, which he said could be confused with that of a trucker.
“Some of you don’t even think I’m the comic that’s supposed to be up here,” Donnelly said. “You think I’m just here to fix this microphone and then the real comic comes up onstage. I can’t not look like this, okay... I have manual-labor face, that’s what it’s called.”
Once he finished poking fun at a nursing major with a similar body type, Donnelly recounted his experience ordering from Piccolo Pronto in Campus Town.
“I went to that pizza place, Piccolo? Piccolo Pete’s?” he said. “You walk in and I’m like, ‘Do you have slices?’ They’re like, ‘No, you get your own 10-inch pie.’ I’m like, ‘That’ll do. I’ll do that.’”
Donnelly then continued to question several audience members, specifically when he found a biology major interested in optometry. After his response seemed to cause confusion, Donnelly used the opportunity to poke fun at the crowd.
“Doesn’t sex get gross when you take biology classes?” Donnelly said. “Maybe I shouldn’t have said that. You know, cause you learn about the entire body, right? That’s creepy. You guys are weirdos, I guess.”
Donnelly ended with a warning that students should keep away from New York if they don’t want to become a “shittier person.”
“I saw a homeless person giving the finger to an ambulance,” Donnelly said. “I’ve lived there so long that my reaction wasn’t ‘What is that man doing? That’s an ambulance that’s trying to help somebody.’ I’ve lived in New York so long, my reaction was, ‘Yeah, fuck that ambulance.’”
Donnelly went on to introduce Myrin, whose set thrived around awkward sexual tension.
“Clearly, sex is on the mind,” she said. “I dressed up for you guys. I was like, ‘What? Back to school time? I’m gonna put on my sexiest outfit. I’m gonna wear my very sexy Forever 21 Mormon-tween dress…’ It’s like a combination between a girdle and a scuba suit that I have under my teen tunic.”
Like Donnelly, Myrin was self-inflicting and poked fun at the theater education she now deems useless.
“I’ve never been in a room with so many people that will at some point in time have college degrees,” she said. “You guys might even have jobs. Everyone I’ve met actually has a plan... I’m available, College of New Jersey.”
Myrin then flirted with several students to the point where she asked for permission to touch them. She explained that in California, even the doctors take the time to ask if they can make human contact.
“I feel like if you have to ask to touch me, there’s probably a reason,” she said.
Aside from touching the audience and asserting her “power stance,” Myrin gave unsolicited advice, which she named after the popular “TED Talks” series. Myrin said she wished she took better advantage of the talks.
“I wish I had saved myself four to nine and a half years of my life, and tens of thousands of dollars of debt, if I could have just gotten ‘TED Talks’ and downloaded an app for free so I sounded smarter at dinner parties,” she said.
Her “Talks” ranged from sexual experiences to the regret of cutting her bangs. She finished by describing the time she was tricked into leg wrestling with lesbians at a friend’s bachelorette party.
The final comic was Martin, who opened with a recount of the first time he was called the “N-word.” Martin continued to be an open book, as he pivoted to his first pregnancy scare when he was only 17 years old.
“Seventeen kind of sucked because it was the first time having sex, and I got a girl pregnant,” he said. “That’s like crashing your car during your driving exam... There’s no instructor there to watch two teens fuck up their lives.”
Martin then stopped to make note of the students in the front row, who were shaking their uncovered feet with nervous jitters.
“I don’t like all these white people shaking up front,” he said. “What’s this a flash mob? Was this something planned? ‘I’m gonna tap my feet 25 times and then when he says something, you do it.’ It’s only dudes with flip-flops on... What are you trying to fucking scare me with white toes?”
Martin’s performance turned toward drugs, which he said was a problem for his biological mother.
“I smoke weed — I don’t do drugs,” he said. “I smoke weed and eat edibles, but I want to cut back on the edibles cause edibles hit you too fucking hard. It’s like a one-night stand that follows you on all social media.”
He also described his his experience of telling his mother he smoked, but her negative reaction was ironic coming from a woman that had done crack, he said.
Martin ended the night by describing his trip to China, and he dispelled the rumor that natives are racist.
“I know the cops don’t carry guns there,” he said. “I was excited. I was kinda like ‘Get em’... Everybody was like, ‘They don’t have guns? How do they shoot their black people?’ They don’t. They just take pictures of us and call us Kobe.”
