Comedian Michael Blaustein brings laughs and fun to returning students

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UC Merced hosted comedian Michael Blaustein who riled up some laughs and good times this past Saturday, August 30, as he performed at the Wallace-Dutra Amphitheatre.

Blaustein, who hails from New York, is known for his recurring role in MTV’s Punk’d. His most famous episodes include celebrities such as Miley Cyrus, Nick Cannon, and Justin Bieber. He is also a stand-up comedian and he demonstrated this excellently.

Like all comedians, Blaustein started his act by getting to know his audience. He picked on a couple of our staff members, who will remain anonymous, for many reasons. One of the most comical was Blaustein’s response to what our photographer answered when Balustein asked “So what do you major in?” Our photographer answered “an engineer.” And to that, Blaustein replied in a serious manner, “Why do you want to be an engineer? You wanna build ****?”

As the night went on, Blaustien heckled different audience members; one person for having a baby skateboard, which the owner explained was a penny board. Blaustein also made fun of one audience member’s summer fling by making this person’s girlfriend sound like a girl from the Bronx.

The rest of Blaustein’s material consisted of anecdotes that he wished went differently. For example, he talked about how he wanted to be part of the NBA when he was a kid, but then he realized it wasn’t in his genes, so he got dunked on by a young Carmelo Anthony. Blaustein explains that his mother could have easily avoided him the humiliation of getting dunked on by Melo if she had stopped him from missing layups in his driveway.

A couple of highlights from Blaustein’s performance was that he got the audience to heckle each other. This made the event more special because Blaustein used it as material; he made fun of the crowds “ooo’s” and “ahhh’s”.

The second highlight was that he ended his bit with a PSA about how men could also be picked up by strange girls. He stated that “It doesn’t happen often but it happened to me and I wouldn’t want it to happen to anyone else.” Even though his experience with that woman went completely south after she shut her house door in his face, I felt like it carried a strong message. We should all be careful who we go home with after a night of drinks.

        Overall, Blaustein was great and I hope he comes to Merced often. His brand of comedy is different and it stands out.

Adrian Toscano
Managing Editor
atoscano2@ucmerced.edu

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