A&E
Boeh and Blanchard ’17 entertain with clean comedy
By Kyandreia Jones ’19
February 4, 2016
Tags a+e
This Saturday’s performance began with Hamilton’s own Tommy Blanchard ’17 opening for Tyler Boeh. Blanchard warmed up the crowd by divulging, “In my town, people only get really excited about pumpkin spice lattes and yelling at minorities.”
Blanchard treated the audience with the confidence of a veteran comedian. He spoke to the audience as if we were his buddies. By letting us in on his daily musings, thoughts and observations, he built a rapport that would hold until the end of his set. After he got the audience’s attention, he continued, “Some of you might be worried that I’m going to be a little edgy, that I might say some things that are not PC or may be offensive but I want you guys to know that I’m just trying to have fun up here, I’m just trying to make y’all laugh. I’m going to shy away from topics that might be offensive.”
Blanchard then proceeded to talk about religion. “I would never bash religion,” he promised with a smile, “I really don’t need to—it kind of bashes itself.” Although he spoke about a sensitive topic, the way in which he wove religion into his set made the audience want to see his jokes through to their punchlines.“I know Jesus supposedly said to eat his body and drink his blood but that is disgusting!” exclaimed Blanchard. Addressing an inconsistency in religion, he joked, “Also if you eat him you’re saved for an eternity, but if you eat anyone else you ‘must leave this Wendy’s immediately.’ It doesn’t add up to me.”
Moreover, Blanchard admitted that he goes “to the big events to support Jesus,” saying, “I approach religion in kind of the way I approach sports: I’m a bandwagoner.”
At the end of his set about religion, Blanchard qualified, “Religion can be a positive thing in a lot of people’s lives but I also think that some people use religion as kind of a mask for their own insecurities.”
After his segment on religion, Blanchard mentioned, “Baggy clothes are my God.” He told the audience that he used loose fitting clothes to hide his figure, or “situation” as he called it.
Next, he voiced his concerns with employees, the miracle that is southern hospitality and his memories from being abroad. Then he showed his limited piano talents.
Before recounting his experience with Moe’s (“that false Chipotle” as he aptly phrased it), he noted, “employees make it really clear that they just hate their job and it’s depressing honestly.”
On his northern reaction to southern hospitality, “We have less racism so that’s probably better.”
Abroad in New Zealand, New Zealanders would ask Blanchard whether he was American or Canadian? to which he replied, “The worse one,” and went on to add, “Canadians are only really better than us at two things: hockey and being good people.”
In addition to the aforementioned topics, Blanchard spoke about his love life from back when he was five years old to now. Blanchard shared a story about the first girl who asked him out. Poor young Blanchard was excited to have been asked to go on a date, only to realize that Becky had been dared to ask him out. Cue the crowds “Aw’s.” However, to get even with Becky, Blanchard said, “I pranked her back, I ended up killing her parents. Got ya Becky.”
Toward the latter part of his set, Blanchard played three chords on the piano and sung about his limited expertise with piano and then he gave chair massage Tuesday a nice shout out.
Blanchard reacted to his audience. His comfort on stage was not only visible but refreshing. He was more than worthy to share the stage with Tyler Boeh. In fact he could have easily been a main event himself.
However, Tyler Boeh was more than just a comedian. The audience realized, upon hearing Boeh’s set, that it was not merely a comedy show they had attended but a cross between a comedy show and an a capella concert.
As soon as Boeh entered the stage, he complimented the Events Barn as well as the attendees. He began to speak about his journey to Hamilton. The comic called attention to the Monster energy drink that was placed on the stool behind him. He explained that he used energy drinks to get through his day. However, the comic was not disillusioned by energy drinks as a product. “People always tell me how bad that stuff tastes,” said Boeh. “I’m like, ‘Yeah I know it tastes like Skittles and pennies, like Sweet Tarts and hose water, it’s weird’.”
Boeh went on to talk about other energy drinks such as Red Bull and Five Hour Energy shots. He realized that the math of Five Hour Energy “doesn’t add up.” About taking two Five Hour Energy shots to obtain ten hours of energy, “You don’t get ten hours of energy. You get forty-five minutes of AHHHHHHHH!”
Wrapping up the topic of energy drinks, Boeh mentioned an experience that many members of the audience had gone through themselves. He shared how a man in the Philadelphia airport ruined his day. Boeh, mimicking the man, said, “ Are you feeling okay?” Assuming the role of himself, Boeh responded, “ Yeah, why?” To which the man answered, “It looks like you’re getting sick or something.”
Essentially the man had told Boeh that he “looks like garbage.” If that experience was not enough to ruin Boeh’s day, another person asked him, “Hey man you know where I can get crack?” Offended that he had graduated from looking “sick or something” to resembling a crack head, Boeh told the audience, “I don’t even know how to order crack.”
The aforementioned line became evidence for Boeh’s assertion, “I don’t know about drugs, I’m sorry.” Although, he did mention, “I drink alcohol occasionally.”
Holding those two ideas constant, Boeh asked the crowd, “Have you ever heard this saying that women are crazy and men are stupid?” It was a brave comment for a crowd full of both men and women. The comic went on to say, “I’d rather hang out with a bunch of guys than a bunch of girls.” Before delving into his joke, Boeh qualified, “First of all, girls, I love you, I like you. I don’t hate women. But I like you in like a one-on-one setting.” Then, he added, “I don’t mean that, like, in a sexy way.”
Next, the comedian observed, “If you never thought about this: every alcohol is a guy. You go out for a night of drinking, who are you hanging out with? Gin, Jack, José, Captain Hook, Sam Adams—it’s all guys.” Bringing in the female aspect of his connection, he continued, “Now you go to a party and they got hard drugs, who’s here? Crystal, Lucy, Molly, Mary Jane... Yeah that’s a crazy ladies’ night right there.”
Continuing to explain his preference for alcohol, “I don’t even know what’s going on in there. Lucy is staring off into nowhere. Mary’s got the munchies. Molly’s grinding against the wall. Crystal is in the corner scratching her face off. Forget that, I’ll be back at the bar with the fellas having a good time.”
Following his hilarious and insightful “Say No to Drugs” themed spiel, Boeh began to talk about his drug of choice, a drug many individuals struggle to avoid: coffee.
“People try to say caffeine is not a drug. I know it’s a drug because I used to think coffee tasted like hot dirt water and I still do. Now I just need it.” said Boeh. “I hate it but I wake up in the morning and brew a pot of it and I just get it down because I need it.”
The Oregon native gave a shout out to his opener Tommy Blanchard. Like Blanchard, Boeh was part of an a capella group in college. Boeh joked that A Capella groups, when translated from “latin,” meant, “without girlfriends.” This is when the comedy show began to become something bigger unto itself as Boeh showcased his phenomenal skills as a vocal percussionist.
He shared the time he was at a concert and another vocal percussionist challenged him to “a beat off.” Dissatisfied with what the challenge’s title implied, Boeh declined, saying that the other percussionist could have the title “hands down.”
Other parts of Boeh’s act, such as “Techno Church,” evinced his love of all forms of music (derived from his a capella experience) and his interest in the part of a song where the music “drops.” A “drop” refers to the moment in a song when the beat interrupts the general flow or melody of a song.
As the night went on, Boeh showed the audience his signature dance move (one fist pumping the air while his hips swung from side to side), observed that dubstep incorporated weird noises in their beats such as the sound of a dial up computer, relived the horrors of wearing a “singlet” in high school wrestling and spoke about how he started out as math major in college and then became a history major, a degree he saw the irony in since it became “history.”
I wish I could capture Boeh’s musical brilliance but his talent surpassed words. Moreover, what he did with his talents, both comedically and musically, was even more awe-inspiring. He used his platform to discuss many important issues.
He spoke about Americans’ ignorance and arrogance of naming countries whatever we want instead of calling countries by the names the people who live in those countries call them, as well as how cyberbullying demonstrates that “technology leaves etiquette behind.”
One of the comic’s most endearing comments was about individuality and genuineness being more important than trying to get people to like you. “What I realized is that the opposite of cool isn’t ‘dorky,’ isn’t ‘nerdy,’ the opposite of cool isn’t ‘uncool,’” said Boeh. “The opposite of cool is fake,” Boeh said. He continued,“The coolest people you know are just genuine… You ever hear that bees and dogs can smell fear? Human beings can spot fake from, like, a mile away.”
Many times in the night, Boeh said, “I should probably wrap up” before starting another joke. His reluctance to leave the stage mirrored the audience’s reluctance to see him go. Completely unprepared for the comic’s beatboxing skills and humor, the crowd often watched him quietly after a punchline or story as if to ready themselves for whatever he did next. “You guys are awesome but you get very quiet,” said the comedian in response to the audience’s moments of silence. However, we were only quiet because we wanted to take a second to marvel at all the talent that was standing before us.