Six Degrees: Jon Stewart at Hamilton College

We’d like to thank Truth, webmaster of ColbertPics.com, for this EXCLUSIVE review

Photos used by permission; photographer – Rocza

The Sacerdote Great Names at Hamilton College is an endowed speaker series that brings, well, great names like Al Gore, Nelson Mandela, and Margaret Thatcher to this tiny liberal arts college. None of these speakers quite excited students and alumni quite as much as Jon Stewart. When I read on No Fact Zone that he was coming, I quickly checked the alumni site to see whether there would be decent alumni seating–and there was, for those who reserved a place at a pre-performance reception. Sweet.

The college officially calls it a “speech” or “lecture,” but it was really a standup performance. In any case, Hamilton is a small school, and the performance was held their biggest venue. The number I’ve heard is 5,000 for the entire Field House, which sounds about right. 1,000 of the seats were for members of the public, who started lining up three or four hours before the performance. The rest were reserved for current students, alumni, and local groups who had reserved seats, such as the Town of Kirkland Democrats or (this is important) a large group from nearby Colgate University, a fellow isolated and expensive liberal arts college.

The start time was 7:30, and they opened the doors to the public at 6:30. As more bodies filled the building, it became hot and miserable. On the screens on either side of the stage, the Saturday Night Live presidential special was inexplicably playing (what, they couldn’t get the rights to show the Indecision 2004 DVD or something?). It was too loud to even hold a conversation in there, and I played a game on my iPod while my companion, K., people-watched. Around 7:00, I was engrossed in a game of Vortex when she tapped me on the shoulder.

K: What’s your mascot?
Me: A Continental. A Revolutionary War soldier.
K: Hmm. Are you sure?
Me: Yeah, why?
K: Uh, there’s a hot pink pig in a tricorner over there.
Me: There’s a WHAT?!

She pointed to an area near the stage, where there was indeed a person in a pig costume with a blue hat.

Me: WHAT was that?
K: I don’t know. Where’d it go?

We located the … thing … which had somehow moved to the back of the arena very quickly, and verified that we hadn’t hallucinated it and that it was indeed a pig in a baseball jersey and a tricorner hat. She mocked me about this for a while.

Finally, the lights went down, and the college president, who coincidentally is named Joan Stewart, introduced Jon, and he walked out in his off-camera uniform—a plain white long-sleeved t-shirt, khakis, sneakers, and a Hamilton College baseball cap.

Jon’s standup act is a combination of newer material of his own, material he’s been doing for years (old enough to have appeared in his book) and some material recycled from “The Daily Show.” He knows how to play to a college audience. The crowd greeted him with a standing ovation, and once we settled down, he thanked us and opened by saying, “First of all, where the f— am I? I can’t help feeling that this would be a wonderful place…. to dump a body. Wow.” Later, he noted that the campus looks like the setting to a murder mystery (Close) and that on the drive up, he didn’t see much he couldn’t milk.

Someone had apparently tipped him off about the joking rivalry between Hamilton and Colgate, and he played off that throughout the act. “This is the weirdest Hatfield-McCoy rivalry I’ve ever seen,” he said about halfway through the show.

Two things that nobody had tipped him off about, however, were that there would be a sign language interpreter in front of him at stage right, and the existence of our new mascot, “Al Ham” (get it?), the bright pink pig in a tricorner hat. Talking about the school, Jon happened to ask, “What’s your mascot?” and the crowd yelled back that it’s a continental. “A basket of pastries? A breakfast buffet?” he asked, and the front row explained that no, it’s a Revolutionary War soldier.

Al Ham took that as his cue to run up to the stage. His existence left Jon a bit stunned, even when he worked out the reason for the pig. (Alexander Hamilton/”Al Ham”/ham) “Oh, I get it!” he said, somewhere between sarcastic and stunned. “And here I just thought it was some kind of anti-Semitic thing… no, seriously, in 20 years of doing comedy, I can say that this is by far the craziest f—ing thing I ever saw. People, it’s a hot pink pig. In a tricorner. What, did you have to audition for that? Oh, you can’t talk, can you? …a hot pink pig. In a tricorner.”

His interaction with the interpreter was predictable but still funny, as he made a good-faith effort to learn the signs for the swear words she was translating. “Best charades ever,” he said.

He finished by assuring the audience that while most of us are very young and it feels like we’re living in the very worst of history, the economy and the world are cyclical, and things have been this bad, or worse, before.

He was on stage for about an hour and a half, and took a few questions from the audience.

Some other highlights from the chicken scratches that are my notes:

On the American public and politicians:
“All politicians pretend to trust us, but they really don’t. They’re just flattering us.”
“We got swept away by the Macarena. We don’t know s—- about s—.”

On black voters supporting Proposition 8 in California:
“What is this? ‘We shall overcome…. But not you, motherf—-er!’”

On gays in the military:
“What they’re really afraid of? One thousand gay guys with M-16s. ‘Who did you call a f-ggot?’”

At one point, someone at the front of the audience got sick, and the on-call EMTs leapt into action. Jon stopped his show until he was sure the person was okay and taken care of, saying, “I apologize, but this is clearly more important than Johnny S—-head talking here.” He turned it into a political commentary, though, saying, “See what we just witnessed here? Competence. Simple competence. That’s all we ask for from our government.”

On Dick Cheney:
“The only situation where I would trust Dick Cheney? If I found a dead hooker in my hotel room.”

On Barack Obama:
“You can tell that America wants him to take over now. We’re like, TAKE THE WHEEL! … it’s as if the room is totally destroyed, and we’ll be happy if he just makes the bed.”

On Sarah Palin:
“I loved me some Sarah Palin. Someone who can say the most horrible s— in such a sweet voice and sweet little accent.”

On race relations:
“White people are afraid of black people. … I see how you reacted there (pretends to be the audience) ‘You’re not going to bring one out, are you?’”
“Jews and blacks should get together and get whitey.”

On religion:
“The Pope is the most loved man in the world who nobody agrees with.”
“My wife is Catholic, and I’m Jewish–as for the children, we’re raising them to be sad.”

On computers:
“For all I know, there are twelve magical gerbils in there, solving all of my problems.”

Some more links about the event to check out:
http://www.uticaod.com/news/x541352006/Daily-Show-star-of-the-night-at-Hamilton-College
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MTkCiXKXnL0

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