I have to
admit that I didn't see every speaker over Meliora Weekend,
but I'm still pretty sure that there was only one who called
Rochester an "enormous shit-hole city" as soon as he got on
stage. That guy was Jon Stewart — and the audience ate
it up.
The host
of Comedy Central's "The Daily Show with Jon Stewart" showed
up in some old clothes that he had been painting in, but no
one cared. Both sold-out crowds were so excited to see him that
his job was made easy.
Stewart
relied heavily on material that sounded familiar, but it didn't
matter. His delivery made it funny and his interactions with
the crowd brought freshness to everything.
During
the 7 p.m. show, he shouted back and forth with a few members
of the audience. When he asked if there was anything bad about
Rochester, someone shouted "No girls." Stewart replied, "For
you."
Another
thing the 7 p.m. audience informed him of was the cat incident.
He actually had a little conversation with someone in the front
row for a few moments, trying to make sense of the things that
people were shouting about dead cats.
He finally
put it all together, saying, "So let me get this straight. A
couple of people showed up to the anti-war protest [outside
of Hillary Clinton's speech], but everyone knows about the cat?"
The audience
loved it, so he kept going with the cats: "Here's the thing
about cats — they're free. Whosever cat it was I'm sure
there were a lot of others."
Stewart
didn't just talk about UR politics — he went into more
universal topics as well.
He offered
his feelings on President Bush and his policies — "Here's
a guy who drank 'til he was 40, then woke up and went, 'I'm
gonna go be President.' . . . How many people here would know
that Kabul is the capital of Afghanistan unless we'd bombed
it? You're welcome."
His political
statements were generally very popular. He talked about everything
from "Don't Ask Don't Tell" — "You know what the Army's
afraid of? Thousands of guys with M16's going,'Who'd you call
a faggot?'" — to the Pope — "The guy's a hat choice
away from being the Grand Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan."
He made
a nice public service announcement to both audiences as well.
"I encourage you not to do heroin. That's fucking retarded.
I'll fuck with death, I'll do it from around the corner, but
I won't run up behind him, give him a wedgie and punch him in
the face."
Towards
the end of the 9:30 show, I think he was getting tired. He started
to look to the audience more for things to talk about and began
asking what time it was.
But outside
of that loss of energy at the very end, both shows were entertaining
to watch. Jon Stewart is a smart guy, which makes his humor
that much better.
I think
a lot of the laughs might have come from the contrast between
the guy on the "Daily Show," who isn't really allowed to swear
or talk about pot, and the guy on the stage, who obviously got
a kick out of the fact that UR invited him for Parents' Weekend.
He capped
off the second show by telling the audience about a poem he
was writing for his wife. If you think of something that rhymes
with "sweet pussy," let him know.