Reunions: Alumni comedians address University, careers

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The beer order for Reunions is the largest in the country, second only to this weekend’s Indianapolis 500 race, according to University lore. According to Matt Iseman ’93, the University ought to change its unofficial motto to fit.

“The University changes its motto from ‘In the Nation’s Service’ to ‘Serving the Nation Beer in Cheap Plastic Cups,’ ” he said. “Our endowment is $8 billion, I think we can afford something better than a plastic cup,” he added. The University’s endowment is in fact closer to $14 billion.

Iseman was one of a half dozen alumni comedians who performed at “Funny Princeton LIVE,” a showcase of University comedians that highlighted the often harrowing stories of their college years and beyond, held in Richardson Auditorium on Friday as part of Reunions programming.

Iseman, who graduated from medical school before becoming a stand-up comic, is now the host of "Sports Soup" on the Versus network and performs for U.S. soldiers around the world on United Service Organizations tours.

He recalled that his first experience in Richardson was his initial lecture at the University, featuring professor emeritus Toni Morrison. Morrison was discussing her then-recently-published book, “Beloved.”

“As would be the case during most of my academic career, I didn’t read the book,” he said. “If she lectured on beer I would’ve been prepared.”

Iseman also discussed his own self-reflection, saying he often thinks back to the accomplishments of graduates such as F. Scott Fitzgerald ’17 and Woodrow Wilson, Class of 1879, and feels fairly unaccomplished.

“I think they learned more when they were at Princeton because, when they were here, there were no women,” he said. “What choice did they have but to study? I don’t know why anybody went to Princeton before 1969,” he said.

Following Iseman was Joe Hernandez-Kolski ’96, a hip-hop artist, actor and performer on HBO’s “Russell Simmons Presents Def Poetry.” With Beyonce’s “Single Ladies” in the background, Hernandez-Kolski asked all the single women in the audience to, as the song asks, put their hands up.

After performing a short dance routine, Hernandez-Kelly leapt off the stage and approached Frances Robertson, who was sitting in the front row. He told her “let’s go,” and Robertson followed him on stage — “I didn’t really know what ‘let’s go’ meant,” she admitted after the show — where Hernandez-Kelly began serenading her with a Spanish love song.

Robertson, who is not an alumna but is the parent and grandparent of graduates, was finally allowed off the stage, but not without a bit of theatrics by Hernandez-Kolski.

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“I’m only recently learning to appreciate my inner Latin lover,” he told the audience.

Adam Ruben ’01, a molecular biologist and author of a humor column in the journal Science, began his routine by explaining that science is not all that it is made out to be.

“It’s not awesome,” he said. “You’ve been lied to. I move small amounts of liquid from one place to another.”

Ruben, a science consultant on the Food Network’s show "Food Detectives," described himself as the “nation’s foremost expert on the five-second rule of dropping food on the floor.”

“Spoiler alert: if you haven’t seen [the show], don’t eat food off the floor,” he added.

Ruben also discussed the challenging feat for University graduates of answering the question, “Where did you go to college?”

Ruben explained that he usually just responds with “New Jersey.” If pressed, he said, he will explain that he attended Butler College, a small school of less than 1,000 students that competes with another small school called Forbes College.

Jeff Kreisler ’95 followed Ruben, beginning his segment with a prayer: “Almighty God of comedy, giver of George W. Bush, creator of the Kardashians, let not your blessings cease. Let there be hatred and stupidity and Scientology.”

Kreisler, the author of “Get Rich Cheating” and a writer for Comedy Central, also poked fun at the event’s sponsor, Princeton Alumni Weekly, which, he said, is relentless in its efforts to convince alumni to subscribe to the magazine.

“They are incredible. They will track you down. You cannot run from the Alumni Weekly,” he said. “I swear, if Osama bin Laden went to Princeton ... we would have caught him September 12.”

Kreisler also talked about politics and described what he called the pervasiveness of greed in American society.

“There’s been cheating since God created heaven and earth [in] six days, then submitted an invoice for seven,” he said.

Peter Wicks GS ’02, a postdoctoral research associate with the James Madison Program, tried to explain his career as a philosopher.

“If you want to get a handle on what philosophy really is, you don’t have to go to graduate school. Just go to Wal-Mart,” he said, noting the philosophical difficulty of deciding whether “a box of matches is more like a shotgun or a child’s bicycle.”

Wicks also cautioned alumni, despite the nostalgia of coming back to campus, not to tell graduating seniors their college years will be the best in their lives.

“What you’ve just done is take a 22-year-old you don’t know and tell him his life is about to enter universal decline,” he said.

Wicks also tackled drinking on campus. “Would it be a fair assumption on my part that some of you plan on doing some drinking this weekend?” he asked, to whistles from the audience. And while he does not like the dancing that comes with drinking, he added, “there are people who like dancing, I know. I have a name for these people. I call them women."

“Frankly, ladies,” he continued, “if you decided you didn’t want to dance anymore, we would be fine with that.”

Jason Gilbert ’09, a writer for College Humor, The Huffington Post and Funny or Die, said that being the son of two economists had an interesting influence on his childhood.

“I was born at the intersection point of my father’s supply and my mother’s demand,” he said.

He continued to discuss his family dynamics, explaining, “I love my parents and they love my sister.”

“My sister is on a never-ending quest to to make me look like a lousy sibling,” he said. “She has everything that I don’t have — a fiance, a well-paying job.”

Gilbert also discussed the childhood trauma of having a dentist named Dr. Stephen King. “Was Dr. Frankenstein Baby-Killer not taking new patients?” he asked.

The event was moderated by Joel Achenbach ’82, a writer for the Washington Post who recently published a book about the Deepwater Horizon oil rig disaster.